Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Topic: The empty tomb 82
Reading: Matthew 27:57-66, 28:1-15
Scripture: He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. (Luke 24:6)
Note: Stiff-necked and rebellious Israel had been spared their blushes and the embarrassment that they brought to Moses during the transition in the wilderness. Other nations without a binding covenant between God and them would have been severely punished with the possibility of loss of their territorial sovereignty.
Israel survived this severe punishment not because of their compliance in obeying God’s commands or the laws but simply because God was protecting the covenant that He made to their fathers; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to bring them to the promised land. The unparalleled wickedness of the nations occupying the promised land made the decision by God to destroy them a justifiable one.
Israel on their own merit didn’t deserve the honour and privilege of being rewarded with the promised land based on their own righteousness. Israel had reached the banks of the Jordan river that served as the barrier separating them from their dream land. The land was good and met all their expectations of the promised land. The only snag was that it was occupied by the Anakims, the giants.
Evicting these giants was going to take something more than the military might of the Israelites. It was going to take the grace of God to achieve that. Moses, was quick to remind the ungrateful Israelites that all the glory must be ascribed to God and not to themselves because they had not done anything of merit to deserve what’s about to be offered them on a silver platter. This confirms the truth that salvation is by grace through faith and that not of ourselves. It’s the gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast (Eph.2:8-9).
Food for thought: God is no respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of covenants, full of grace.
Declaration: Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess the land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deut 9:5)
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
