There are certain patterns in the Bible that repeat themselves enough that they should establish themselves with a certain degree of firmness in our minds. One of these patterns is the way in which God, His people and the enemy interact with the promises God makes. There are recurring themes with regard to God’s promises, but it seems we are surprised every time we observe them or get caught in their cycle.

The First Promise

The first promise God made was in Genesis 3:15 in which we see the promise of a Redeemer Who would crush the head of the serpent. Not too far down the road in Scripture, we see the interplay between God, His people and the enemy as a result of this promise. The enemy got busy with an audacious move, apparently trying to get ahead of God to forestall the fulfillment of His promise. It seems he did this by trying to corrupt human DNA by having the sons of God, or angels, mingle with the daughters of men. The result was the giants or Nephilim we read of in Genesis 6 who were a strange hybrid of fallen angels and humans. If this would have kept up for long enough, God wouldn’t have had a full-blooded human woman left through which to fulfill the promise of a Redeemer. 

The Intervention

God intervened through Noah, and promised to preserve Noah and his family out of all the families of the earth. In Genesis 5:28 Lamech, father of Noah had said this of Noah: “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our works and from the painful toil of our hands.” It seems there was an expectation for Noah to be the promised Redeemer, but he at least provided the lineage through which the Redeemer would come.  

There was a waiting period while the ark was being built before the promise of deliverance for Noah and his family was realized. There aren’t a lot of details given for this period of time, but we can infer that there were times when the work was stalled, when Noah doubted God’s Word and that there was opposition from a world as evil as the one in which Noah and his family found themselves.

The Land Of Canaan

In this story we see the emergence of a pattern that reoccurs multiple times in Scripture. I’ll use a few more examples. God had a plan for certain of Abraham’s descendants to occupy Canaan and serve Him as a set-apart people in that land. God made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in accordance with this plan. Before the fulfillment of this plan, which was hundreds of years after it was given, the enemy once more moved in and fortified peoples of his own in this land against the time of which the Lord had in mind. 

Canaan was the promised land of God to the children of Israel. But there was built-in opposition that needed to be overcome before the Israelites would be able to claim the promised land. For starters, their work-load was greatly increased immediately after they received the promise of deliverance from their slavery to Egypt. Then, there was the grand show-down between the Egyptian gods and the God of the Hebrews. This was the result of the promise of God for immediate deliverance through Moses and Aaron. 

The Exodus

A little later we see when they start the Exodus that there were long-established enemies in place strategically as obstacles to them as a result of the more ancient promise for the possession of Canaan. But, God didn’t throw them into conflict right away. In Exodus 13:17-18 we read: ¹⁷ Now it happened that when Pharaoh had let the people go, God did not guide them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was near; for God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.” ¹⁸ Hence God turned the people to the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea; and the sons of Israel went up in battle array from the land of Egypt. – LSB 

The Israelites weren’t ready for battle so soon after the slavery of Egypt. God sent them by way of the wilderness. The wilderness was a place of training and preparation for the conflict as well as for the promised land. There was bondage, conflict, short-term promise-fulfillment, wilderness, conflict and then long-term promise fulfillment. There is a lot we can draw from this in the micro (our own lives) and in the macro (God’s over-arching plan) but I’ll get into that a little more in a bit. First I’ll lay out another example yet to be fulfilled: The return of the Lord. 

The Return Of Jesus

The return of the Lord is an ancient promise that is part of the Genesis 3:15 promise just as much as the first coming of Jesus—and is reiterated many times by the prophets. It is the ultimate promise. It is the fulfillment of all things God has in mind to do. So, all the smaller promises we see at play in the interim present small steps toward this—and they present small versions of the cycle I’m describing. We see in Scripture that Jesus’ return is going to be the ultimate show-down. Once more we see the enemy moving in ahead of God, trying to thwart His plans for the ultimate restoration of what the enemy has hijacked. We see this in the Anti-Christ and his system, dominance, deception and violence. In the meantime, God’s people are corporately in a wilderness preparation phase—being shaped and molded for the conflict and the promise of His return.

But, even in this, we see, according to Scripture, that God is the ultimate victor, to the benefit of all who love Him. God is not concerned about the road-blocks the enemy sets up against His plans, whether that be His grand plan for His Kingdom, His people and the world—or in our individual lives. 

Conclusion

So, whether we are dealing with and participating in large-scale promise-fulfillment, or just walking toward promises God gave to us personally, let’s take heart in observing the pattern we see in Scripture. We can expect to walk through the wilderness as we wait and as the Lord prepares us to walk in the promises and to deal with the conflict we can expect before we receive the fullness of any given promise. Remember, the wilderness is a safeguard against our return to the bondage of Egypt, should we see the battle for the promise too soon. This includes our calling. God doesn’t give us a clear calling to walk in when we are first born into His family. He might give us the promise of a specific calling, but we will likely see some wilderness and some battles before we actually start walking in our calling. 

We see this precedent all through the Bible. Let’s expect it and walk in it with faith and confidence as much as we can. But, let’s moreover expect to ultimately see God’s triumph over any wilderness we walk in or any giants or enemies we face. He is faithful to the end.