Page 33 - Evidence of Things Unseen

God does require faith from those who would enter into their promised inheritance.
We see then, that when the people under Joshua entered the land God promised to
Abraham, that God did not part the waters of the Jordan and then invite them to pass
through as He had done at the Red Sea. No! He required that they take the first step,
demonstrating faith before He would manifest His provision.

Joshua 3:13
"It shall come about when the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of
Yahweh, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the
Jordan will be cut off, and the waters which are flowing down from above will stand
in one heap."

God may allow murmuring Christians, filled with doubts and unbelief, to go as far as
the wilderness where their hearts are proven, but He will not allow these same doubters to
enter into the land of promise. Only those who walk by faith, and who demonstrate
confidence in their Savior, can enter there. God will only reveal His way into the land to
those who step forth in faith. In the wilderness the saints learn to no longer live by sight,
and to no longer lean on the arm of the flesh. Here they learn to receive their daily provision
from God’s hand, and they learn to lean completely upon Him. When they learn the lessons
of trusting God well enough, then they are led up out of the wilderness and into their
inheritance.

Song of Solomon 8:5
"Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved?"

All those who come up out of the wilderness must be leaning solidly upon Christ. This
knowledge that faith was necessary in order to go on with the Lord began to dawn on me
while I was a member of this Southern Baptist church where the message of grace was
preached so vigorously. I observed many profound things while there. I saw many who
grasped a message of salvation by grace through faith who became confident that they were
saved from wrath and were children of God. Continuing the type from Egypt, they applied
the blood of the Lamb to their lives, and felt secure from the death angel. Yet few
demonstrated a practical faith that would have an observable impact upon their daily lives.
They trusted God with their eternal salvation, but they did not trust God for their present
needs. They were wilderness wanderers, and they were all dying in this land of unbelief.
I began to understand that God would test all of His children in the wilderness, to
know what was in their hearts. Those who had faith in their hearts would be brought into
their inheritance, while those who did not would perish in the wilderness. What is the
means of this testing? It is the same as that experienced by the Israelites in the wilderness.
God will test us in the physical circumstances of our lives. We can confess loudly and
fervently that we trust God for our salvation, and for eternal life in heaven, but God wants
to know if we will trust Him now by placing our lives firmly into His care.
It was while we were among these Christians that God first began to challenge our
family to trust Him for things that men often look to others to provide. One early challenge
He gave us was to trust Him for our security. We moved to a town near the church. My wife
had told me she would never move to this town, for she had heard that there was much
crime there. There was a security system in the house, and when we moved in my wife asked