The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, [2] "Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders), [3] your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin alongside Edom, and your southern border shall run from the end of the Salt Sea on the east. [4] And your border shall turn south of the ascent of Akrabbim, and cross to Zin, and its limit shall be south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it shall go on to Hazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon. [5] And the border shall turn from Azmon to the Brook of Egypt, and its limit shall be at the sea. [6] "For the western border, you shall have the Great Sea and its coast. This shall be your western border. [7] "This shall be your northern border: from the Great Sea you shall draw a line to Mount Hor. [8] From Mount Hor you shall draw a line to Lebo-hamath, and the limit of the border shall be at Zedad. [9] Then the border shall extend to Ziphron, and its limit shall be at Hazar-enan. This shall be your northern border. [10] "You shall draw a line for your eastern border from Hazar-enan to Shepham. [11] And the border shall go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain. And the border shall go down and reach to the shoulder of the Sea of Chinnereth on the east. [12] And the border shall go down to the Jordan, and its limit shall be at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land as defined by its borders all around."
The land of Canaan as defined by its borders. In this passage, God gives Israel instructions to draw borders south, west, north and east when they enter in the land of Canaan to conquer it. God says in verse 2, "this is the land that shall fall to you for inheritance", saying this is lot that has fallen on all of Israel to inherit. It must be noted here that God did not say to Israel 'You can draw the borders as you wish. You can conquer all nearby lands and have all the land that you want'. There was a limit to what Israel could have.
Likewise God gives the Christian a limit to the things that he can have in this world. God does not say to us 'You can have as much as you want'. But He says instead, 'This is the lot that has fallen to you'. And usually it is not a large amount that God gives the Christian in this world. The land that God was giving to Israel was not a lot. But Israel was not to be like Roman or the Babylonian empire, expanding its borders continuously until it had consumed the whole world. It was to be a holy, priesthood nation, who would teach God's wisdom and His laws to the nations of the world, until Christ comes, through whom would come the Kingdom of God would come upon the earth. And the Gospel would be preached forth from Israel throughout all the nations, expanding the borders of the spiritual Kingdom of God.
Likewise, Christians are not given a lot in a worldly sense, but it is enough for us, for we are here to expand the borders of the Kingdom of God, not our own kingdoms. The little that God gives us is enough for us to use to be influential in this world, to shine the light of God's truth, to be an anti-decaying salt to this world corrupt with lusts. Jesus Christ had only little while He walked on this earth. He was born and raised in poor town and in a poor family, did not have a great job, nor did He have a house or money. But this Man, with His disciples, turned the whole world upside down, though they had little in material riches.
We ought to be warned against covetousness. We ought to be content with the borders that God has given for us to live in. It is lust to want more than what God has given us. If God wills, we will do this or that, but if He does not will, we are not to push the borders and to desire more than He gave. It was this kind of attitude that led David to sin against the Lord by committing adultery with Bathsheba. Hear what God says to him:
2 Samuel 12:7-9 (ESV)
Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ''I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. [8] And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. [9] Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
God is saying to Him: 'I gave you all these good things, and if you asked me, I would have given you more than these'. David sinned against God by wanting more than God had given him, and desiring to get what he wanted without God's approval. See how this led to great sins. David had crossed the borders given by God.
Borders are given to us for our own benefit. It is not that God is restricting our freedom, but for preserving souls from destruction. God gives us His commandments which are like borders for us to not cross. We do well to not take these borders lightly. These borders are what separates us from the world. The commandments are what keeps us from being like the lawless Gentiles who are outside the Kingdom of God. To the wind with Christian freedom! True freedom is freedom from sin. Being slaves to righteousness is what being Christian is about. We are not saved by keeping these boundaries, by no means. But it is the fact that God has given us these boundaries that proves that we have been born again.
Read how God keeps clear bounds of what is inside and outside the Kingdom of God:
Revelation 21:25-27 (ESV)
and its gates will never be shut by day-and there will be no night there. [26] They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. [27] But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Revelation 22:14-15 (ESV)
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. [15] Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
There will be nothing unclean, detestable and false in the Kingdom of God, but only what is pure, beautiful and true. Outside will be the sexually immoral, murderers, and idolators, but inside will only be people who were faithful, who loved people and worshipped the one true God. We likewise do well to stay within the Kingdom of God while we are on this earth. We are to abide in the love of God, by keeping the commandments of God. We are to abide in Christ, by loving Him, worshipping Him and believing in Him, because Christ is the Kingdom of God. We do well to not dare venture outside the Kingdom of God, into the dark wilderness of the lusts of the world, lest the love of the Father abides not in us. And we must also guard our hearts like the Kingdom of God. We must keep the gates open, that Jesus Christ the King of Glory may come in at any time, but we must keep watch, lest anything evil enters in. We must keep sin and wickedness outside, and build the walls of our hearts around diligently as Nehemiah built the walls of Jerusalem. Let us practice to discern what is good and evil in God's eyes, and learn to cast the evil outside and to keep to good within us. When we keep our hearts like the Kingdom of God in this world, we will prove ourselves as worthy heirs of the next. Let us do as Paul commanded:
Romans 12:2 (ESV)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
And the border shall go down and reach to the shoulder of the Sea of Chinnereth on the east. And the border shall go down to the Jordan, and its limit shall be at the Salt Sea. Sea of Chinnereth is the Sea of Galilee of the future. From Galilee the River Jordan streams all the way down to the Salt Sea, which is the Dead Sea. One can see that this eastern border is what separated the 2 tribes and a half that inherited on the other side of the Jordan from the other tribes. What can we learn from this? Firstly, that though the 2 and half tribes were separated from the 9 and half tribes by this River Jordan, it did not mean that they were not all brothers. Christians are likewise divided by the thin borders of nationality, denomination, ethnicity, but it does not mean that they are not all brethren in Christ. The same Holy Spirit, and the same blood of Jesus Christ runs through our veins, though we may be divided by such borders.
The River Jordan also signifies death. There are brethren who have crossed the Jordan River of death, and are with the Lord now. But there are also brethren that are with us on this side of Jordan. Wherever we are, whether we are on earth or in heaven, we are the Lord's. By dying on the cross, and being raised from the dead, Jesus Christ became the Lord of both the dead and the living, so that whether we are dead or alive, we may be the Lord's:
Romans 14:8-9 (ESV)
For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. [9] For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
But on the western side, Israel had the Great Sea and its coasts as border (Verse 6). This, unlike the thin border of River Jordan signifies the impassable distance that is fixed the believer and the world:
Luke 16:24-26 (ESV)
And he called out, ''Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'' [25] But Abraham said, ''Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. [26] And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.''
As those in heaven have no fellowship at all with those burning in hell, there is a gap between the believer and the unbeliever that cannot be crossed. Just as light cannot dwell with darkness, children of God cannot really mix with the children of Satan. There is, as it were, a great chasm fixed between Christians and the people of the world. They may be friends, on the surface, but in their core, they have differences they can never reconcile. And this difference is GOD, as it is written:
2 Corinthians 6:16-18 (ESV)
What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [17] Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord,and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, [18] and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me,says the Lord Almighty."
Because God lives in the Christian, he is different from the unbeliever. And because of this they have world-views that are different as day is from night. They have completely different views of morality, on truth, on love and on the meaning of life. The things that the Christian holds dear are like foolishness to the unbeliever, and the things that the unbeliever loves are an abomination to the Christian's sight. The unbeliever's centre of the universe is himself, but the believer's centre is Jesus Christ and the glory of God. The unbeliever cannot understand the Christian, and thinks that the Christian is gullible, obsessed or mad, while the believer also cannot comprehend the depths of the hard-heartedness and the blind rebellion of the unbeliever. How then can the two be reconciled, unless the unbeliever comes to see the truth, or the believer becomes a total apostate? The distance between them is not like the distance between believers, which is only a river that may be passed with the Covenant of Christ that is same between us. But Christ has no meaning to the unbeliever, because we have no common Covenant, therefore we cannot pass to him, nor him to us, in true fellowship.
Let us not be like Lot, who, though he was righteous, and though his righteous soul was tormented by Sodom's evil sins, did not depart the cursed land because of his unbelief. He knew that Sodom was exceedingly sinful before God, but he thought that he would make some business from it. But we know how in the end his trust in the world burnt up in flames and became pillars of salt. Let us then, as the above scriptures says, go out from the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah. Let us not touch any unclean thing in this world, lest we partake in the God's wrath that is coming upon the world. Unless it is for the goal rescuing the unbelievers from the pits of hell, let us not have any compromising communion with them, lest we learn their sins and become our Father's own enemies. Let us be separate from among them and their practices, and be holy, and the love of the Father will dwell in us. Amen.
For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. [9] For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
But on the western side, Israel had the Great Sea and its coasts as border (Verse 6). This, unlike the thin border of River Jordan signifies the impassable distance that is fixed the believer and the world:
Luke 16:24-26 (ESV)
And he called out, ''Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'' [25] But Abraham said, ''Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. [26] And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.''
As those in heaven have no fellowship at all with those burning in hell, there is a gap between the believer and the unbeliever that cannot be crossed. Just as light cannot dwell with darkness, children of God cannot really mix with the children of Satan. There is, as it were, a great chasm fixed between Christians and the people of the world. They may be friends, on the surface, but in their core, they have differences they can never reconcile. And this difference is GOD, as it is written:
2 Corinthians 6:16-18 (ESV)
What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [17] Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord,and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, [18] and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me,says the Lord Almighty."
Because God lives in the Christian, he is different from the unbeliever. And because of this they have world-views that are different as day is from night. They have completely different views of morality, on truth, on love and on the meaning of life. The things that the Christian holds dear are like foolishness to the unbeliever, and the things that the unbeliever loves are an abomination to the Christian's sight. The unbeliever's centre of the universe is himself, but the believer's centre is Jesus Christ and the glory of God. The unbeliever cannot understand the Christian, and thinks that the Christian is gullible, obsessed or mad, while the believer also cannot comprehend the depths of the hard-heartedness and the blind rebellion of the unbeliever. How then can the two be reconciled, unless the unbeliever comes to see the truth, or the believer becomes a total apostate? The distance between them is not like the distance between believers, which is only a river that may be passed with the Covenant of Christ that is same between us. But Christ has no meaning to the unbeliever, because we have no common Covenant, therefore we cannot pass to him, nor him to us, in true fellowship.
Let us not be like Lot, who, though he was righteous, and though his righteous soul was tormented by Sodom's evil sins, did not depart the cursed land because of his unbelief. He knew that Sodom was exceedingly sinful before God, but he thought that he would make some business from it. But we know how in the end his trust in the world burnt up in flames and became pillars of salt. Let us then, as the above scriptures says, go out from the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah. Let us not touch any unclean thing in this world, lest we partake in the God's wrath that is coming upon the world. Unless it is for the goal rescuing the unbelievers from the pits of hell, let us not have any compromising communion with them, lest we learn their sins and become our Father's own enemies. Let us be separate from among them and their practices, and be holy, and the love of the Father will dwell in us. Amen.
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