The River Milk & Honey Falls - Glenn Conjurske

The River Milk & Honey Falls

by Glenn Conjurske

In Leviticus 20:24 we read, “But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey.”

The Lord says here, as he says repeatedly elsewhere, that he will give this land to his people Israel. This is grace, and perhaps a glance or two at the land that flowed with milk and honey might serve to correct some modern false notions concerning grace. We suppose that if ancient Israel had entered the land of Canaan with the modern notions of grace in their heads, they would have gone immediately on a tour of exploration to discover the River Milk and Honey Falls. Did they not have the word of the Lord, many times repeated, that this good land flowed with milk and honey? And did not the Lord repeatedly promise to give it to them? We know that what is given is a gift, and our modern preachers know also that we cannot work to obtain a gift. We cannot do anything to acquire a gift, except only to receive it. On this basis our modern theologians must know, since God repeatedly promised to give the land of Canaan to Israel, that Israel did not have to fight to obtain it, nor to put forth any effort to drive out the Canaanites. Then grace would be no more grace, and the land no more a gift. And if I tell a poor beggar that I will give him his supper, if he will come to my door at supper time, he might with perfect reason and justice scorn my gift and my grace, which would require him to walk to my house to receive it. If I knew anything at all of the nature of grace, I would carry his supper to the curb or the park bench where I found him. We suppose there may have been some excuse for the old Israelites, if they had had such notions of grace, but there can hardly be any excuse in our day, since the Lord has bid us labor for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give us.

But to return to the milk and honey, God has said repeatedly that the good land which he gave to Israel flowed with milk and honey. What was the nature of that flowing? Where in the land of Canaan might they find the River Milk, or Honey Falls? Where the upper springs or the nether springs of milk or honey? The fact is, they might find water flowing after that fashion, but milk or honey never. And yet God repeatedly said that the land flowed with milk and honey. He never called it “a land that floweth with water.”

We believe that the land flowed with milk and honey indeed, and believe also that all this was the gift of God’s grace. And yet it is perfectly plain that Israel must labor to possess the land itself, and labor again to possess the milk and honey with which it flowed.

Whatever milk the land of Canaan contained was to be gotten from the udder of a goat or cow, and it was to be gotten by work. Perhaps most of my readers have never milked a cow, nor ever watched anyone else do so, but I have done so, and I can assure them that it is work—-and not always pleasant work, either, for sometimes the cow kicks the bucket, or puts her foot in it, or steps on the foot of the milker, or swats him in the face with her tail. But even if the placid animal stands as still as a statue, it is work to milk her. The milk “floweth” from her one squirt at a time, in a quantity which might fill a couple of thimbles, and every squirt to be obtained by human exertion, for it is perfectly plain to me that God never invented a milking machine, and it must be plain to all my readers that ancient Israel never possessed one. They had no network of pipes through which the milk flowed from the cow’s udder to a refrigerated stainless steel tank. Yet God told them that the land flowed with milk.

I milked cows as a boy on my grandfather’s farm, but he then had milking machines. We only “stripped,” or finished them, by hand. There was little work in this. But when I began to preach in Colorado, a third of a century ago, I sometimes helped the ranchers who lived next door. They raised cattle for beef, but milked two or three cows, and always by hand. I have never been anything but a country boy in heart, but at that time I had lived three years in the city, attending Bible school, and was certainly not very muscular. When I went to work to milk one of those cows, filling a bucket one squirt at a time, every squirt obtained by means of manual squeezing, certain muscles in my hands and arms were very soon very weary, and very sore. They ached with every squeeze, and yet squeeze I must, or the milk would cease to “flow.” I was too proud to quit, or to let anybody know I was in pain, so I milked my cow as though it were easy, and thus the land flowed with milk. And no otherwise than this did the land of Canaan ever flow with milk.

And so it was also with the honey. Honey was to be found, evidently in abundance, in the land of Canaan, in the clefts of the rock, in hollow trees, or wherever else the bees chose to put it. But all that abundance of honey was carefully guarded by abundance of bees. And the proverb tells us, “Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.” The bees in the land that flowed with honey no doubt stung also, so that it was not labor only, but danger also, to obtain that honey. Yet honey there was, and abundance of it too, for those who were hardy and diligent enough to procure it.

We suppose some Hebrew scholars may be at hand to inform us that we make too much of the word “flow”—-that “flow” does not mean “flow” after all. We cannot pretend to be very learned in that department, only this much we know, that whatever the lexicons and commentaries and concordances may tell us, common sense tells us that when the Lord used this word “flow,” he meant to indicate an abundance of milk and honey. If he had meant anything less than this, there had been no purpose for him to speak at all. To tell us that the land flows with milk and honey is to tell us that it abounds with milk and honey, and yet this is such abundance as could be of no use to any but the industrious and the diligent. As it was with the manna in the wilderness, so with the milk and honey in the land. And as it was with the material abundance of grace which God gave to his earthly people, so it is also with the spiritual riches of grace which he has given to us. All comes to us bit by bit, squeeze by squeeze, squirt by squirt, drop by drop, and never without diligence and exertion on our part. The God who has promised all the riches of his grace has bid us also to strive, to fight, to run, and to labor, and it is no faith whatsoever, but only presumption, to think to obtain those riches in any other manner.

All this was understood by the good divines of yesteryear, before men had learned those modern notions of cheap and easy grace which prevail today. John Bunyan wrote of “The Strait Gate: or, The Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven,” “And, more particularly, this word strive is expressed by several other terms: as, 1. It is expressed by that word, ‘So run that you may obtain.’ 2. It is expressed by that word, ‘Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life.’ 3. It is expressed by that word, ‘Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat that endureth to everlasting life.’ 4. It is expressed by that word, ‘We wrestle with principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world.’ Therefore, when he saith, strive, it is as much as to say, Run for heaven, fight for heaven, labour for heaven, wrestle for heaven, or you are like to go without it.”

The River Milk and Honey Falls no more exist today than they did when Israel entered the land of promise. “So run,” therefore, so strive, so labor, “that ye may obtain.”

Glenn Conjurske

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