Entering Caanan: Our Heavenly Inheritance

Last night, as I was on my way to the gathering of the brethren to inquire into the scriptures, I was listening to Johnny Cash on the car stereo. The album was 'My Mother's Hymn Book'. I was listening and singing along as I've often done with that particular CD. As I was singing and thinking about the words, I kept noticing references to "the shore" cropping up, and I racked my brain to think of what that was referring to in scripture. Where was heaven shown figuratively as another shore?

It was until I was on my way home again that I realised. It was when I heard these words

"On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie."

that the penny dropped. The shore is, of course, a reference to the banks of the Jordan, and the doctrine in so many Christian songs and sermons which is so deeply, tragically flawed. So many of these songs about the Jordan and Caanan perpetuate that utterly false idea, namely that we do not come into the heavenly inheritance until our bodies die, until we're taken to be with the Lord, and that there's no present enjoyment of eternal life!

It's truly awful to think that there will be many saved souls, many believers, who maintain that their position is as persons trapped on the wrong side of the Jordan, gazing wistfully at the blessings and joys of divine things, but not being able to enjoy them. This notion is totally and utterly refuted by the teaching of the Book of Joshua - blessedly, wonderfully so!

If any believer is in any doubt at all as to the fact that they have died (as is shown in the figure of our baptism, and the type of the Jordan) and, as Colossians 3:1 tells us, they've been raised with the Christ, and that they're to enjoy heavenly things now (a foretaste of what we'll be fully occupied with in the eternal day!), then they should study the wonderful Book of Joshua. They should take up the exercises of the children of Israel, enter into the spiritual conflict which is necessary if we're really to possess and enjoy divine things now in an adverse scene. Let's not be like the children of Gad and Reuben, saying, "Bring us not over the Jordan" (Numbers 32:5).

Let's not be ignorant of the truth, like the song-writers of centuries ago who wrote so longingly about Caanan, while not expecting to see it unless they died a bodily death first. Let's not be apathetic about our inheritance, and let's not be so attached to the things of the world that we're prevented from going in for divine things here and now.

Note the words of the children of Gad and Reuben:

"We will build sheep-folds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones; but we ourselves will go with diligence armed before the children of Israel, until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones shall dwell in the strong cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited each one his inheritance. For we will not inherit with them on yonder side the Jordan, and further, because our inheritance is fallen to us on this side the Jordan eastwards." (Numbers 32:16-19).

What a tragic, heart-rending story! They would go over and fight with the children of Israel - they would share in the conflict of the people of God - but they wouldn't take up the blessed results of that conflict. They would fill out the responsibilities, but they wouldn't go in for the privileges. They feared the inhabitants of the land, they trusted in their strong cities for their little ones - they considered their own domestic arrangements to be a safer place than among the people of God.

Going in for the inheritance requires conflict and exercise. There are many Jerichos, many strongholds which the enemy would like to raise in the way of the believer who goes in for the things of God. But, those walls will come down! "For the arms of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds; overthrowing reasonings and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ..." (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Coming away from that happy time with the brethren, I was blessedly conscious of having enjoyed eternal life - life of an eternal, heavenly character. This is enjoyed where divine principles are cherished and upheld, where there are holy conditions, where the Spirit of God is free in the assembly. We cannot take any of these things for granted, and we have to guard them, because the enemy hates these conditions and would try to interrupt them whenever possible. Yet, if we cast ourselves in complete dependence on the strong arm of the Lord, then there's no danger of failure.
 
It would also be worth noting that the children of Israel did no work of God till they crossed Jordan/
The servant of Elijah did no work of God till he crossed Jordan.
and in very truth ,Jesus did no work of God till he crossed Jordan either.


and crossing Jordan which means descending or death .
Has much to do with "being more than a conqueror"
For what is MORE than a conqueror?

In Christ
gerald
 
It would also be worth noting that the children of Israel did no work of God till they crossed Jordan/
The servant of Elijah did no work of God till he crossed Jordan.
and in very truth ,Jesus did no work of God till he crossed Jordan either.


and crossing Jordan which means descending or death .
Has much to do with "being more than a conqueror"
For what is MORE than a conqueror?

In Christ
gerald
Just so! We might well have been saved through the Red Sea, but crossing the Jordan is another matter. What would you say is involved in being more than a conqueror?
 
Just so! We might well have been saved through the Red Sea, but crossing the Jordan is another matter. What would you say is involved in being more than a conqueror?

The question I asked was first what IS more than a conqueror? Answer that question and that will go to answering yours.

The river Jordan speaks of death.
The baptism of Moses was also a death and separation from Egypt which is a type of the world and of Pharoh one of the devil.
We are saved FROM Egypt or the law of sin and death.
Jordan is a baptism of consecration to God and the work of God.

"Moses by faith REFUSED to be called the son of Josephs daughter........." and by faith CHOOSING rather to suffer aff.liction with Gods people than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" Hebrew 11
Sin has pleasure in it ,but only for a season.

To be BORNagain is to be saved FROM and is not by the will of man .But by the grace of God.
The Bride must be willing for no groom will marry an unwilling wife.
Baptism while it cannot and does not save any one no matter how many times people claim it can or does .
For the children of Israel were not saved by the baptism of Moses even as they are not saved by Jordan .
For they were delivered from Bondage by the Word of God (to Abraham) by the Power of God and by the blood of a lamb.
The Baptism of Jordan also need a willing ob"edience to the gospel . Which is more than being BORNagain .
The good news of Jordan was "Go in and possess the land for I have given it to you"
The good news before was to believe in the blood of the lamb as it were .
They went into the wilderness as freed slaves .They came out of the wilderness "terrible as an army with banners ,leaning upon the beloved"
They were supposed to be ready in Gods eyes after 40 DAYS for that is all it took them to go from Egypt to the promised land.
It was not a wrong expectation for there were two who were ready.
But where as God had got ALL out of Egypt not all allowed God to get Egypt out of them and replace it with another kingdom.
God was then justified to think as it were they should have been ready.
By the two who were ready.
The generation then that believed the wrong message said those giants will eat our cbildren for breakfast as it were.
Those very self same children became more than conquerors and it was the "giants" there were made bread to them.,

Some have said we are not a prodigal church. I would disagree entirely in that matter .
For the church has made a 40 years wandering in the wilderness as the NORM of a christian life. and so it is .
But that norm I would suggest in the light of scripture is not Gods .
We are then in the light of Hebrews as to what faith "IS" not yet more than conquerors . Yet God still calls us to be so.
For that faith as prescribed in Hebrews and what it IS capable of doing is not the norm at all today.
Baptism as prescribed by Paul is being BURIED with Christ.
and we willingly willing to be baptised or in the words of Paul , buried WITH Christ.
I would argue that the baptism of Moses ;crossing the red sea was more "moved with fear" That compelled or drove them across for fear of that army the size of which was capable of slaughtering two and a half million people by the edge fo the sword.
That was GODS work alone that delivered them for it was the Lord alone "who trod the wine press alone"
Crossing Jordan was the people of God working WITH God.
But no man is buried unless they are dead.
The great problem is that the flesh desires to live! and the great struggles we have or have had is not so much we are trying to die its because we are still trying as it were to live .
How can you know "the power of his resurection" unless you are made "conformable to his death"?
If then "we are CRUCIFIED with Christ" we are 'saved' but then needs must also be" BURIED with Christ" and thus we will or then can be resurrected with Christ"
To be baptised then does not save us as in being BORNagain.
It is in a sense our first righteous act by a righteous man or oen that is counted righteous for Christ sake .
It is the foundation of "presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice to God which is our reasonable service ......"

When the Lord was baptised he confessed by his actions he was somebody elses son.
and in that confession His Father confessed or rather bore witness "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased"
Even by this argument it should be understood we have not yet crossed Jordan . But have simply laid in a little measure the foundations of being more than a conqueror.
As always we have to look to Christ to see what he did when he walked this earth after his baptism to see the manner of what our walk should be like . For he most certainly was more than a conqueror.
What did he says ? What I see the father doing that do I "
"Then as the father sent me so send I you" What then we see the Son do we are also called to "go and do likewise"
Paul shows in some measure what is possible. Yet he said he still wanted to be made conformable to the Lords death.
and in an other "might know the power of his resurection"!
Then I say by that what the church perceives to be the christian life is not what the scriptures envisage or teach.
That by some to eb BORNagain is the be all and end all .
To others the be BAPTISED is the be all and end all of our salvation.
To others it is to be SANCTIFIED is the be all and end all of our salvation .
To others to be filled with the Spirit is the be all and end all of our salvation.

Are they not but the milk of the word?
The childrens bread?
The whole of creation groaneth and is in travail waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.
The church that the Lord is building is one that the gates of hell will not prevail against it .
The whole world trembled when they heard what God had done in Egypt for the children of Israel.

When Jesus was baptised from that moment on and after " his will was to do the will of Him that sent Him"
He denied his flesh ,He denied Mary his mother had any power or authority over him and stated so when he answered his mother with the words "Woman what hast thou to do with me? seeign that mine hour is not yet come"and later said his true brethren and indeed mother were they "who did the will of God"
I am dead with Christ yet........." I live ,yet not I but Christ that liveth in me"
Who then lives?
and who then is more than a conqueror?
if not in whom it is said and manifested "greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world"?
For it is now God who worketh within us BOTH to WILL and to DO of His good pleasure.
No man can crucify himself .
The Lord was crucified by the Word of God , the Will of God and the Spirit of God.
and while wicked men took him at their will they did but fullfill the scriptures .
"Sin must come ,but woe unto them by whom it comes "
I fear then that in the eyes of many the God of the church is a very small God.
and the power of His ressurection but a feeble thing .
Some say we will only know the power of His resurection when we die .
But did not Jesus say "I Am the resurecction and the life"?
Is God only alive when we are as it were 'dead'?
If by what i said before that may well be the case.
But according to Ephesians Paul was praying for christians the people of God that THEY with ALL the saints may know..................."
 
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Hello

Enjoyment of our spiritual blessings, in Christ, is a present reality, in spirit, now.
We have 'life' in Christ Jesus now. Yet resurrection life is yet to come.
When mortality will put on immortality.

Praise God!

In Christ Jesus
Chris
 
Hello

Enjoyment of our spiritual blessings, in Christ, is a present reality, in spirit, now.
We have 'life' in Christ Jesus now. Yet resurrection life is yet to come.
When mortality will put on immortality.

Praise God!

In Christ Jesus
Chris

"That the eyes of your understanding maybe opened that you may see and comprehend what is the exceeding greatness of His power that is TOWARDS us who believe even the same might power that raised up Jesus From the dead"
Spiritual blessings is by that then quite different from the power of "His ressurection" Thats in Ephesians.

For we have been CHOSEN in Christ.
Blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ,
Adopted in Christ.
Accepted in Christ
Forgiven in Christ
Sealed in Christ

But if "the body is dead because of sin" How then are you then quickened if not by the same Spirit and power of God that also quickened HIS mortal body from the dead?
The body then is dead because of sin. But" if the same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell IN you he shall also quicken your moral bodies "
Then it is not I who says it but God by His word by the Holy apostle Paul who says it and that his most earnest prayer was and as it were is that you, I and "with all the saints" might in very truth know that power of God now .not when we are dead alone.
For in very truth even as we are saved now and will be saved at the resurection through our faith in Christ.
So then we are to know the power of his resurrection now as we will also at the resurection.
Mary said she believed that the Lord would raise up Lazerus in the last day or on the day of resurection.
Jesus replied to her "I AM thew resurrection and the life"

in Christ
gerald
 
Last night, as I was on my way to the gathering of the brethren to inquire into the scriptures, I was listening to Johnny Cash on the car stereo. The album was 'My Mother's Hymn Book'. I was listening and singing along as I've often done with that particular CD. As I was singing and thinking about the words, I kept noticing references to "the shore" cropping up, and I racked my brain to think of what that was referring to in scripture. Where was heaven shown figuratively as another shore?

It was until I was on my way home again that I realised. It was when I heard these words

"On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie."

that the penny dropped. The shore is, of course, a reference to the banks of the Jordan, and the doctrine in so many Christian songs and sermons which is so deeply, tragically flawed. So many of these songs about the Jordan and Caanan perpetuate that utterly false idea, namely that we do not come into the heavenly inheritance until our bodies die, until we're taken to be with the Lord, and that there's no present enjoyment of eternal life!

It's truly awful to think that there will be many saved souls, many believers, who maintain that their position is as persons trapped on the wrong side of the Jordan, gazing wistfully at the blessings and joys of divine things, but not being able to enjoy them. This notion is totally and utterly refuted by the teaching of the Book of Joshua - blessedly, wonderfully so!

If any believer is in any doubt at all as to the fact that they have died (as is shown in the figure of our baptism, and the type of the Jordan) and, as Colossians 3:1 tells us, they've been raised with the Christ, and that they're to enjoy heavenly things now (a foretaste of what we'll be fully occupied with in the eternal day!), then they should study the wonderful Book of Joshua. They should take up the exercises of the children of Israel, enter into the spiritual conflict which is necessary if we're really to possess and enjoy divine things now in an adverse scene. Let's not be like the children of Gad and Reuben, saying, "Bring us not over the Jordan" (Numbers 32:5).

Let's not be ignorant of the truth, like the song-writers of centuries ago who wrote so longingly about Caanan, while not expecting to see it unless they died a bodily death first. Let's not be apathetic about our inheritance, and let's not be so attached to the things of the world that we're prevented from going in for divine things here and now.

Note the words of the children of Gad and Reuben:

"We will build sheep-folds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones; but we ourselves will go with diligence armed before the children of Israel, until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones shall dwell in the strong cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited each one his inheritance. For we will not inherit with them on yonder side the Jordan, and further, because our inheritance is fallen to us on this side the Jordan eastwards." (Numbers 32:16-19).

What a tragic, heart-rending story! They would go over and fight with the children of Israel - they would share in the conflict of the people of God - but they wouldn't take up the blessed results of that conflict. They would fill out the responsibilities, but they wouldn't go in for the privileges. They feared the inhabitants of the land, they trusted in their strong cities for their little ones - they considered their own domestic arrangements to be a safer place than among the people of God.

Going in for the inheritance requires conflict and exercise. There are many Jerichos, many strongholds which the enemy would like to raise in the way of the believer who goes in for the things of God. But, those walls will come down! "For the arms of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds; overthrowing reasonings and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ..." (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Coming away from that happy time with the brethren, I was blessedly conscious of having enjoyed eternal life - life of an eternal, heavenly character. This is enjoyed where divine principles are cherished and upheld, where there are holy conditions, where the Spirit of God is free in the assembly. We cannot take any of these things for granted, and we have to guard them, because the enemy hates these conditions and would try to interrupt them whenever possible. Yet, if we cast ourselves in complete dependence on the strong arm of the Lord, then there's no danger of failure.

Brother, are you in Christ? If you are then were is Christ right now? He is dwelling in two places, (1) He is living inside you. (2) He is sitting on the right hand of God in Heaven with you inside him. Do you believe this? Did not God "enable" us to be partakers of our inheritance?

Col 1:12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet (enable) to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
 
The blessing of the Lord maketh me rich and adds no sorrow to it.
Figure out how to walk in His Blessings.......and you can live in your own garden.
 
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