The Horrible Truth — Hell: Part 4 "Israel as a Picture"

The Horrible Truth — Hell: Part 4"Israel as a Picture" What if one of the clearest pictures of the Christian journey in the Bible was given to us thousands of years before Christ ever walked the earth? Israel’s exodus from Egypt is more than an ancient historical account. The New Testament tells us these things were written for our examples—and the parallels are remarkably difficult to ignore. Israel was redeemed from Egypt. They passed through the blood. They crossed the Red Sea. They were baptized unto Moses. They ate manna from heaven. They drank water from the rock—and Paul tells us plainly: “That Rock was Christ.” They were God’s people. They had been delivered. And yet many of those same people never entered the inheritance God had promised them. Why? Because redemption from Egypt did not guarantee entrance into Canaan. And that is where the picture becomes uncomfortable for the Christian. The blood on the doorposts points toward Christ and His crucifixion. The Red Sea gives us a picture of baptism and identification with God’s deliverance. The manna and water from the rock point toward Christ and the spiritual provision God gives His people. And then comes the rebellion. The golden calf. The murmuring. The testing of God. Finally, the spies return from Canaan with a report about giants—and the people refuse to believe God can give them the inheritance He promised. They had been delivered from Egypt. But they would not enter the land. That distinction is at the heart of this series. Could Israel’s wilderness experience picture the Christian who has genuinely received God’s salvation, yet through rebellion, disobedience, or unbelief suffers loss of inheritance and exclusion from the coming kingdom? Paul certainly thought the story was relevant to Christians. In 1 Corinthians 10, he reminds believers that these things happened to Israel “for ensamples” and warns Christians not to fall after the same example of disobedience. And perhaps the most startling example is Moses. Moses led Israel out of Egypt. He witnessed the Red Sea, received God’s law, spoke with God, and led the people through the wilderness. Yet Moses himself was not permitted to enter the Promised Land. He saw it. He stood upon the mountain. But he did not cross the Jordan. If Moses could experience exclusion from the inheritance while remaining God’s servant, perhaps we need to rethink what Scripture means when it warns God’s people about judgment, discipline, reward, and kingdom entrance. Because the story doesn’t end in the wilderness. The Jordan is still ahead. The wilderness generation provides the negative example—the believer who fails to reach the inheritance because of unbelief and disobedience. But Joshua leads the faithful across the Jordan and into the land. And that gives us the other side of the picture: There is an inheritance. There is a kingdom. There is an entrance. And there is something worth being faithful for. As we bring this four-part examination of Hell to a close, we’ll follow Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Jordan and ask what this picture teaches us about our own journey as believers. The blood. The baptism. The wilderness provision. The Rock. The rebellion. The unbelief. The giants. Moses outside the land. And finally— the faithful entering in. Perhaps the most horrible truth about Hell isn’t that God has made salvation uncertain. Perhaps it is that salvation and inheritance are not the same thing—and that a child of God can be eternally secure while still suffering devastating consequences for unfaithfulness. The wilderness generation stands as God’s warning to us: “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” The journey from Egypt to Canaan was real. The wilderness was real. The consequences were real. And the inheritance was real. The question is: Will we cross the Jordan?