Gates of the City

Numbers 14:34 – After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know My breach of promise.

Few “believers” give the necessary consideration to the words spoken by God here to His people when He states, “and now you shall know My breech of promise.”

A “Breach of Promise” is most commonly connected with marriage, and is often called “Breach of Promise to Marry.” (Don’t get confused with the different spellings, “breech” is simply the archaic KJV spelling, “breach” the modern.) There is also the term “Breach of Contract,” which refers to one party of a contract failing to uphold their end the contract. Such failure legally allows the other party to “breach” the contract as well.

Therefore, God’s people should give serious heed to these words spoken by God to His people. For He had surely swore unto them that He would give them the “Promise Land,” yet here He states He is going breach, or break His promise unto them. Yet not with out cause, for God had longsuffered with their complaining and disbelief while continuing to provide miraculously their food and water and being a constant visible presence of defense for them; a cloud by day and a cloud of fire by night that they would be protected from the heat of day and the cold of night.

Yet here upon getting His people to the threshold of The Promised Land, except for those who had grievously rebelled against Him and thereby perished in their sins prior hereto, God was now ready to fulfill His word to them. Even so, after all God had done and showed Himself both capable and faith to keep His word, they failed to believe Him when the time of their inheritance was at hand.

Do not think this is just some Old Testament accounting of an angry God before the “dispensation of grace.” No, for we see volumes of grace and mercy with God hearing the cries of His people and bringing them out of their captivity with a mighty hand. Those who fail to see it are surely spiritually blind. For we the Church of God today, believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the very members of His Body, are given a very stern warning in the New Testament in the Book of Hebrews to which we must give heed.

4:1 – 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. 2 For unto us was the gospel preached, AS WELL AS UNTO THEM: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

Faith is a necessity on their part of the Covenant God has with His people; for with out faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is not mere belief, for one can believe and fail to respond or trust; but true God-pleasing-faith works by love and trust. Faith must have equal parts of belief, trust, and love, if it is to please God and compel Him to open wide the provisions of heaven and shower His blessings upon His people.

But though it is a grand thing to be called such, we are not just “The people of the Living God.” No, for as the Apostle Paul states, we have been “espoused,” or entered into an engagement of marriage with Christ, and are therefore expected to be a “chaste virgin to Christ.” We are not just the people of God; we are those who are to be living with earnest expectation of His coming for His Bride and preparing ourselves for the day of the “Marriage of the Lamb.”

What historically grieved the heart of God over and over? Those, who were called by His name, who lived seeking to satisfy their lust, love the world, and were basically self-centered. For this was the constant gateway for idolatry to creep into their impure hearts. Such is why friendship with the world places us at enmity, or war with God. If we look to, and love, and live in the realm of the flesh and earthly things, we are breaching our part of the Covenant. For God is a Spirit, and He is Holy, and He has commanded us to be holy. For the time has come, and now is, when the true worshipers of God must worship Him in spirit and truth, and not in some vain believe-ism with empty and dead religious traditions.

1 John 3:2 – Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.

1 John 4:17 – Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love Him, because He first loved us.

So please, do not be foolish virgins, but purchase now the oil needed for your lamps as we wait for the marriage day at hand. And “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them this promise of “rest” 40 years later by leading them in the conquest of the Promise Land, then King David many, many years afterward would not have prophesied of yet “another day;” the marriage day.

See then that there still remains “a rest” for the people of God to be entered into. For whoever has entered into his rest, he must also have ceased from his own works, as God did from His; meaning he has COMPLETED THE WORKS given him by God to do, for we all must accomplish “through faith” our own works which are assigned unto us by God. This is what the Apostle Paul referred to as “Working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Therefore, let us labor to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of unbelief and thereby likewise come to experience God’s “breech of promise.”

Consider Paul’s words of confidence in 2 Timothy 4:6-8, “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. For I Have Fought A Good Fight, I Have Finished My Course, I Have Kept The Faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.

Such is why Paul prayed for the church, stating, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named; That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. And that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that being rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and fully know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge; That You Might Be Filled With All The Fullness Of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Trust, Love, and Obey.
Live for the resurrected King of Glory!!