OUR HEAVENLY INHERITANCE

G. A. Brown

Deuteronomy 3: 23–27; 8: 7–10; 34: 1–6; Ephesians 3: 14–21

It is very remarkable that Moses knew so much about the land of Canaan without ever having been there. He was born as we know in Egypt, and in principle I suppose you could say he was baptised there. He grew up for forty years in Egypt, which is a figure of the world around us, the world system set up in independence of God. Moses was given every opportunity to make progress in Egypt, not only was he some kind of prince but he was adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. But a time came when he was true to his baptism, “choosing rather to suffer affliction along with the people of God than to have the temporary pleasure of sin; esteeming the reproach of the Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect to the recompense”, Hebrews 11: 25, 26. So he left Egypt; he spent the next forty years of his life in obscurity, but in that time he learned a lot; he learned about the presence of God at the burning bush; he learned the holiness of God. He also learned to sit by the well, he learned what was in his own heart when he had to put his hand into his bosom and it came out leprous, he learned how to control the serpent, and he acquired a wife as well. How much entered into those years! He learned to keep sheep, to care for them, all preparation for the great work that lay before him in taking the people of God out of Egypt and leading them and nursing them through the wilderness. What experiences entered into the wilderness. We cannot go into all that now, but here he is at the very end of the wilderness journey, longing to go over the Jordan into this land, and Jehovah said ‘No’. There was a reason for that, and we can leave it for the moment, but Jehovah said, “Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes”.

Now, I want to make an application of this scripture and view Moses here as a man in flesh and blood such as we are; he was not in the land, but I think we could say that the land was in Moses. It certainly was in his heart. You can easily see that by the way he speaks of it, “the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon”. That was God’s promised land; what God had in mind was a place of blessing for His people. It refers in type to what is heavenly and Moses had all that in his heart. So Jehovah says to him, “Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward”; that is remarkable; he has to look in four directions, four points of the compass. I do not want to be imaginative but I think we can take the suggestion from it that he must have been right in the centre. He never was physically in the land, but he was in spirit there already. That is our privilege dear brethren. We are still here in flesh and blood, we are not in heaven yet, but we can enjoy heavenly things. I trust that heaven is in our hearts, the place where we really find our life. It is very interesting that Jehovah says, “lift up thine eyes westward”, westward comes first. We quite often associate west with decline, but I am inclined to think that here it points to the ingathering of the nations, because if Moses had looked westward he would have seen the great sea, the Mediterranean, leading to Europe—the route that Paul took to Philippi and ultimately to Rome. What wonderful ingathering there has been from the west, from Europe, and its outgoings. The west comes first here, then the north and south—that is the extent of the land. It was long and narrow, and north and south were the extreme points of it, so the whole scope of the heavenly land, the heavenly inheritance, was visible to him. We cannot say too much about the east, but coming last it may just point to a day of coming blessing for the east.

When we come to chapter 8, Moses is really warming to his subject and his description of the land would almost seem like he had been living in it. So he had, in a certain sense. The first thing that strikes you about it is the abundance of water, it is “a good land, a land of water-brooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills”, this heavenly land is so permeated by the Holy Spirit of God. We sometimes sing that, ‘By the Spirit all pervading’ (Hymn 14). These deep waters “gush forth in the valleys and hills”, there is such energy in it, the power of the Spirit operating in such a way as to motivate and energise the saints, so that we are “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3: 16); it is that kind of gushing forth of the power of the Spirit. Then there is the land of wheat and barley, which is another interesting thing because usually the barley comes first. This suggests to me that as the saints are in the enjoyment of their heavenly inheritance, Christ becomes increasingly glorious to them—as “firstborn from among the dead” (Colossians 1: 18); that is the barley. “Vines”, that is joy; “fig-trees”, that is sweetness. The fig-tree says in Jotham’s parable, “Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruit …?” (Judges 9: 11); how rich all this is! “Pomegranates”—do you know what pomegranates are? They speak of brethren dwelling together in unity. What an enjoyable land this is—this heavenly land; brethren all enjoying the same precious fruits, breathing the atmosphere of heaven itself. Then we have “olive-trees and honey”. Now, olive-trees also speak of the Holy Spirit, but this is a more mature thought, because the olive has to be taken and pressed and made into oil; oil for the light, oil for the anointing. These things are all available to us in this good land. “Honey”, you only get honey from where there are bees. I read just recently that there are about 30,000 bees in a hive, all active, all operating to one end to produce what is sweet. What a picture it is of brethren dwelling together in unity in the light of their heavenly calling.

Then it goes on to say, “a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness”. Moses had come through the wilderness, he had known what it was to be fed day by day and the water as well; the wilderness is a dry place and they received water from the rock which followed them, a spiritual rock—that Rock was the Christ. They gathered the manna every day and they received just as much as they needed for that day and that, of course, is one of the valuable lessons of the wilderness. Have you learned to depend on God day by day? But when you come into the heavenly land “thou shalt eat bread without scarceness”, there is abundance. Surely everybody would wish to be in the enjoyment of this land. When you walk through the wilderness there are five or six days of the week, and you do begin to feel the emptiness and dryness and barrenness of the place, but amongst the saints you can enjoy heavenly things without scarceness you can eat bread to the full, you can have as much of Christ as you want. That has been said before but it is true; there is no limit; you can have as much as you want.

It also says, “thou shalt lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose mountains thou wilt dig copper”. That seems to me to suggest that iron is the inflexible character of God’s purpose for us, and the copper, which is the same word as brass, takes your mind, does it not, to the brazen altar, that altar where Christ suffered. We know that the fire consumed these offerings in the past, but at Calvary’s altar there came a point when the fire went out because God’s claims had been fully met. God was satisfied and the judgment was over. How wonderful that everything that we have in the way of blessing has been secured on the basis of the precious work of our Lord Jesus. It is all secured in perfect righteousness and God is fully satisfied.

Every time the camp moved, they were moving nearer the land, every time the altar had to be cleansed of the ashes. The ashes meant that the fire had gone out; it had burned with a ferocity which we can never grasp—the judgment of God on all that was offensive to Him.

What was released was the fragrance of that precious offering, but now the fire has gone out; the altar is cleansed of its ashes and the people move forward, a day’s march nearer home toward their heavenly inheritance.

In chapter 34 we have still another view. It is not here westward, northward, southward and eastward. “And Jehovah shewed him the whole land, Gilead to Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the hindmost sea”. This is the land populated, it is full of people. It has been so beautifully put by another, ‘heaven with the saints in it’ (J. Taylor, Vol. 17, p.144). What a thought! We sang at the beginning, ‘Where the saints in glory thronging,

Where they feed on life’s blest Tree—

There is stilled each earnest longing,

Satisfied our souls shall be’. (Hymn 206)

‘Stilled each earnest longing’, you are able to eat bread without scarceness here; no want, no thirst, no trials, no difficulties; just the unmingled enjoyment of heavenly things. So, he saw it all and then he died. It pleased Jehovah to take him by way of death. Now, as I have said, giving it an application to ourselves, we are here in wilderness conditions, in flesh and blood conditions, yet enjoying what is heavenly. It may be that the Lord might take us by way of death as He did Moses, but what we look for is for Him to take us right over the Jordan Himself, into the enjoyment of our eternal portion. I know that there are different ways you can apply these scriptures, and I am just giving it this application that what lies ahead of us, dear brethren, in heavenly glory is to be enjoyed now,

‘In spirit there already,

Soon we ourselves shall be

In soul and body perfect,

All glorified, with Thee’. (Hymn 56)

What a thought it was! God buried Moses, but I think that Moses is over the Jordan now in the true sense of the word, because we read of him along with Elias on the mount of transfiguration; it says, ‘appearing with Him in glory’. I think he is in the enjoyment of that which he was so zealous for, and so desirous to enjoy in the condition of flesh and blood.

That now on the other side of death it is open to us all, dear brethren. One day soon, the Lord will come and we will be there in actuality. Not limited any more by the restrictions of flesh and blood, but able to enjoy our heavenly portion fully in actuality.

I read the passage in Ephesians and I cannot say very much more about it; there has been so much said about it before, but you are actually there. I almost read in Revelation 21 about the city in the millennial setting, where it says, “the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal” (Revelation 21: 16), that is to say it is a very large cube. The dimensions are, of course, symbolic, but just to give an idea, I believe it has been worked out that it would stretch from here down to North Africa and halfway across the Atlantic and the same upwards. So it is very substantial, breadth and length and height, that is for display; the wondering universe will see it because of the substantiality of it.

When you come to Ephesians, there is another dimension. There is a fourth dimension which means it is spiritual. Material things are all three dimensional, but in

spiritual things you have four dimensions. You started with west, north, south, east, and it is wonderful to be in the middle, but then you have this wonderful, great city: breadth and length and height, how substantial it is. But in Ephesians you have breadth and length and depth and height. You are in a sphere now that is vast, yet finite. There is a point beyond which the creature cannot go, and it must relate to the created sphere, but how vast it is, “breadth and length and depth and height”. We can never forget the depth. The Lord Jesus plumbed the depths to secure all this for God’s eternal pleasure and for our eternal blessing and here we are right in the centre. You can look up, you can look down, you can look in every direction, “breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”. That is something that exists outside of the created sphere, “the love of the Christ”, that could never be measured; you could never put dimensions on “the love of the Christ”, because it surpasses knowledge. Dear brethren, that is where we are, right at the centre in the enjoyment of the unclouded love of Christ, and the enjoyment of all the great thoughts of God in blessing for His people. This is our heavenly inheritance. Dear brethren, let us go in for it and be in the full enjoyment of what our eternal portion will be, but enjoy it now. May the Lord bless the word.

Address at Dundee
15 November 2008