God Led the People About

let us turn again to God's word and turning to the book of Exodus but now chapter 13 and I'll read at the end of that chapter Exodus chapter 13 and reading from verse 17 through to the end of the chapter Exodus 13 17 and he came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines although that was near for God said lest peradventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt but God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had straightly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.

And they took their journey from Sukkoth and encamped in Etham in the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people. Early in the week, last week, we were of course some of us away in the Netherlands at the wedding of our friend Hendrik, Hendrik van der Poel, and It was a privilege to be there and to celebrate his wedding day with his new bride and with the family and other friends who'd gone across from England and we didn't return till Thursday.

I had no idea what I might try to take for subject matter today but I was much struck when we attended the religious ceremony there in the Netherlands and the minister actually addressed the young couple from this portion that I've just read so that was a portion very much on my own mind we had someone present to interpret as the sermon of about 40 odd minutes was being preached so we could understand much of what was being said and as I say it was on my mind subsequently even as we return and so I thought it might be profitable for us to look at such a portion today and I want this morning really to concentrate on those words that we have in verses 17 and more particularly verse 18 and it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines although that was near for God said let's put an end to the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt but God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt But to be even more specific with regards to the text, it's the opening words in verse 18 that I would take for the text, or really the theme that I want to deal with this morning, but God led the people about. The theme then is God led the people about.

The verb that we have here to lead about, literally means to go round and round in circles. It's the same word that's found in Joshua chapter 6 when it's rendered compassed or encompassed. You remember the history there, the fall of Jericho and how the children of Israel were to compass to go round the city once each day for six days and then on the seventh day they were to encompass it, they were to go round and round seven times and then when the trumpeters blew the trumpets the walls of the city fell flat and the children of Israel were able to go in and to take that city of the Canaanites and God gave them a remarkable victory. But we're more interested in the fact that the world that we have there, them encompassing, going round and round the city. It's the same word that we have here in the text this morning.

God led the people about. God led them round and round. And God is leading them, of course, into the into the wilderness. They're on the edge of the wilderness.

We're told in Deuteronomy chapter 1 and the second verse that if they'd have gone the direct route coming out of Egypt to the land that God had promised them, going the direct way, the journey would have taken them 11 days. But God did not take them that route through the land of the Philistines. as we're told here in verse 17, that was the near one. But there was a reason God would preserve them from those warlike people, the Philistines, but God is leading them the way of the wilderness. And of course in their subsequent history, when they do eventually, by this circuitous way, arrive at the borders of the promised land and they send in the spies but they're full of unbelief and the ten of the spies come back with a sad tale they're not going to be able to take this country because the people are giants and there's walled cities throughout the country and it's just those two men Joshua and Caleb who would encourage them to trust in the Lord but they believe the evil the report of those other spies and God punishes them they've been searching out the land for some 40 days those men and they come back with some of the luscious fruit of the land but God says to them because of their unbelief they're going to wander some 40 years and 40 years they were wandering there in the wilderness and yet All of this is, in a sense, serving the great purpose of God.

God is in these things, even in their unbeliefs, strangely, because in all those wonderings, what is the Lord God doing? Well, Moses makes mention of God's purpose in his song that we have at the end of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 32, 10. Concerning Israel, Moses says he found him, the Lord God found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness and led him about and instructed him and kept him as the apple of his eye. Oh the Lord was in all of these things even as the Lord is dealing with his people in a strange way and leading them as it were round and about and that's then the subject really that I want to take up for a while this morning and as we look at these words But God led the people about. God led them round about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.

I want to deal with two headings really. Say something with regards to God's trustworthiness. He's a faithful God as we see. But also to say something with regards to God's tenderness. He's a God who is good. Psalm 119. They are good and they do us good. and how good he is to his people, how kind and gentle are the ways of the Lord. But first of all to say something with regards to God's trustworthiness. God of course is true to his word.

They must go the way of the wilderness.

What was God's words to Moses when Moses received his call to be the one who was to be the deliverer of the children of Israel? We have the record here in the third chapter and Moses of course has fled Egypt and is now keeping the flocks of Jephthah, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian and we're told there in the opening verse of that third chapter He led the flock to the back side of the desert and came to the mansion of God even to Horeb and God calls Him and God tells Him there in verse 12 God says certainly I will be with thee and this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt ye shall serve God upon this mountain ye shall serve God upon this mountain they must go then to Horeb they must go the way of the wilderness of Sinai because this was the Word of God and this is a message that Moses is to take to Pharaoh we see there in that third chapter at verse 18 he tells him does the Lord God this is God speaking to Moses with regard to Israel they shall hearken to thy voice and thou shalt come thou and the elders of Israel unto the king of Egypt and ye shall say unto him the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us and now let us go we beseech thee three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God." He was to take them then was Moses to the wilderness of Sinai that they might worship the Lord their God there the Lord God would deal with them and there the Lord God would enter into covenant with them at Mount Sinai and Moses therefore was one who was faithful he was faithful to that charge and we see in the previous chapters where we have the record of the plagues the ten plagues time and again we have Moses going before Pharaoh the king in the beginning of chapter 5 Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh thus hath the Lord God of Israel let my people go that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness they must go into the wilderness Moses is faithful he is true to his word and so also we see that Joseph's words must be fulfilled must be accomplished.

What did Joseph said to his people at the end of the book of Genesis almost the last words there in Genesis 50-25 Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel saying God will surely visit you and ye shall carry up my bones from hence and so it was Here at verse 19, in this 13th chapter of Exodus, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him. For he had straightly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.

These men bear that mark of being those who are the true servants of the Lord they are true prophets, they speak words that must have their accomplishments and we are reminded there in Deuteronomy 18 of the test of the true prophet the end of that 18th chapter.

If thou say in thine heart as shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if a thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is a thing which the Lord hath not spoken. But the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously. Thou shalt not be afraid of him. Joseph and Moses, they were true prophets, true spokesmen for the Lord God.

They spoke the words of God and so it was. that they must be brought into this wilderness of Sinai because God is true to his words and God will honor therefore those his servants who only desire to speak forth that truth of his word. And what does God do when he brings them there? God enters into covenant with him. That is the whole point and purpose of it. He's going to make them his own peculiar people. In the 19th chapter, all the preparations before God comes down upon Mount Sinai and speaks the 10 words, the 10 commandments. There in chapter 19 at verse 4, you have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, God says.

How I bare you on eagles' wings and brought you unto myself. Now therefore ye will Obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant. Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people, for all the earth is Mine. And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.

These are the words which thou, that is Moses, shalt speak unto the children of Israel." God is entering into covenant with His people. And how does he begin those commandments? He declares himself, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The first of the ten commandments.

Oh, what a generation is this. This is the people who God has brought out. He's bringing them to himself. Ultimately, he'll bring them into the promised land. It won't be that generation. Alas, then, the sin of unbelief did so easily beset them there on the borders of the land when they received the reports of the spies.

That generation that followed, those who went out as little children, You know, was it 600,000 we read went out. But those were men armed. There were probably 2 million plus of them. All the little children as well as all those men who were armed. There's an army they went for.

But all those little children, would be adults of course after 40 years of wilderness wandering. And that's the generation that the Lord God speaks of through Jeremiah. There was never a generation like that again in all Israel's history. What does the Lord say?

Jeremiah 2.2, I remember them.

The kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sold.

God is bringing his people into the wilderness for a purpose. he's going to work in them, he's going to make them his people never such a generation again as those who came through the wilderness wanderings and entered into the land of promise and we have it also later in the prophecy of Hosea those lovely words in the second chapter of Hosea chapter 2 and verse 14 therefore behold says God I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her and then later verse 19 I will betroth thee unto me forever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in loving kindness and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness and thou shalt know the Lord thou shalt know the Lord this is how God brings his people to himself and this has an application to us remember how the apostle Paul there in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 in the opening verses he is relating something of this history that we have in the book of Exodus he speaks of how God brought them out of Egypt and brought them through the Red Sea and brought them to himself and then what does he say there at verse 11 all these things happened unto them for ensamples for types that's what it says in the margin all these things were types the word is tupos all these things happen unto them for example and they are written for our learning upon whom the ends of the world are come the gospel died, the ends of the world, all these things belong unto us and how does God deal with his people to die? when he brings them to himself does he not bring them into the wilderness? those who were in that wilderness that was the church of the Old Testament In Acts chapter 7 where we find Stephen giving his great defense before his martyrdom. Remember how there at verse 38 in that 7th chapter he speaks of the church in the wilderness.

Oh God brings his church into the wilderness and if you would bring us into an experience of what it means to be in that church.

Of course the Lord knoweth them that are his from all eternity. He has made choice of them. But he has to bring his people to himself. How does he bring his people to himself? He takes them in a sense into the wilderness to some degree. They are made to feel what they are in themselves.

They are barrenness. They are complete impotence. They are unable to do anything for themselves. They are lost, they are dead in trespasses and sins. and yet God by bringing his people to that place brings them to the end of themselves as Moses says in Psalm 90 they'll turn us men to destruction oh that's the wilderness a land not sown what can these people do to help themselves to save themselves they're learning the awful truth of the doctrine of their total depravity. They are dead in trespasses and sins and they can do nothing. The Lord must have mercy upon them. Moses says, turn us, man, to destruction and sire us return. Return, you children of man.

Oh, the word of the Lord. It's the word of a king, it's an all-powerful and yet in his dealings how God is so gracious really as he draws his people unto himself. Yes there's a sense in which in some measure they must know that ministry of the law, that ministry of condemnation and death. Before faith came Paul says we're kept under the law.

Shut up! to the faith which would after would be revealed all but when God is pleased to cause his people to see that way of salvation those words that we read there in Hosea 2.14 Behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortable words friendly words it says in the march or the Lord is given by Moses but grace and truth it comes by the Lord Jesus Christ the Psalmist speaking of these things that we have in the historic account of Exodus Psalm 78 and verse 52 He guided them in the wilderness like a flock and led them unsafely so that they feared not in all these wanderings, all the mystery of the Lord's ways, all this going round and about in circles, and maybe sometimes when we think back over our lives and the beginnings, how strange the ways of the Lord with us are, but not just at the beginning. All of the Lord's dealings with us are a mystery whilst we're in the wilderness of this world.

But God is of course preparing his people for another world. We are those who, by the grace of faith, are to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is another rest remaining. And God will wean his people from the ways of the world. But here is our comfort. We know that his words is truth.

What God said is what God did. they were to be brought out of Egypt but initially they must go into the wilderness and there in the wilderness they would have a feast to the Lord their God. But let us turn in the second place to say a little with regards to the tenderness of the Lord's ways in all these dealings. What do we read there at the seventh verse? where we have the reason why they must go into the wilderness. God let them not, it says, through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that land was near.

For God said, lest peradventure the people repent. In other words, repent in the sense of going back, they will want to return to Egypt. When they see war, they will They'll fail. They've been in bondage for 450 years. What sort of a people are these?

But God, you see, is a faithful God, and also a gracious God, and tender in all his dealings, like as a father pitcheth his children, so the Lord pitcheth them that fear him. He loveth affraying. He remembers what we've done. So what does God do? He makes sure that they're not going to be tempted. They're not going to be tempted.

We have that word, don't we, in 1 Corinthians 10.13?

There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. that God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above your able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. I like the remarks of that good bishop of Norwich back in the 17th century, Joseph Hall. That lovely book of his, Contemplations on the Historic Books of the Old Testament. his contemplations, and this is what the good bishop says, how carefully does he choose their way, not the nearer, but the safer. In all the Lord's dealings, you see, his people are the apple of his eye. He's not going to take them the nearest way, he's going to take them the safest way, he's going to take them the best way. After so many years in bondage, they're hardly fit to fight.

As I've already intimated, there's a sense in which they do go forward as an armlet. We read of them being harnessed, don't we? In the end of the 18th verse, the children of Israel went up, harnessed, out of the land of Egypt. The marching says, by five in a rank. They're marching out.

They're a victorious people. because the Lord himself has gained a great victory for them. They, in a sense, just stood by and the Lord did it. He visited his terrible judgements upon their enemies, the Egyptians. And again there in Psalm 107 and verse 7, The psalmist says he led them forth by the right way. The right way, the best way. He kept them as the apple of his eye.

And I know I've said that this verb that we have at the beginning of verse 18 to to compass, to go round and round in circles as it were It's interesting because those words in Deuteronomy 32.10, which I read earlier, with regards to Israel in the wilderness, he led him about. The margin, you might say, gives another rendering. He compassed them about.

Not so much that God is leading them around in circles, but God is himself continually encircling them. If you look at Deuteronomy 32 and verse 10, you'll see the alternative reading in the margin, the fullness of the word of God. It's not just simply that he's leading them around all over the place, round and round in ever-decreasing circles, we might say, but God is encompassing them about.

He's about them all the time, all through their wilderness wanderings. He leads them, doesn't he, by a pillar of fire in the night and a pillar of cloud during the day, we're told at the end of the chapter. But subsequently in the next chapter we see that that fiery cloudy pillar goes from before them and comes behind them.

So that the pursuing Egyptians cannot reach them or attack them in any sense. God is there to protect them all the time. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem. So the Lord is about them that fear him. He's about his people forever. Well here is God you see, in all his tender dealings he will keep his people, he'll preserve them from temptation.

He doesn't want them to be tempted to return into Egypt. Temptations are nothing to do with God, are they? James says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. The strange thing is that though God preserves them from temptations, yet in another sense, in all these wanderings, God is testing them and trying them, and God does do that.

God tries his people and God's people are thankful for the time. Now that prayer, don't we, of David at the end of Psalm 139, Search me, O God, know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there'll be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. We want to be sure that what we have is real faith. We're fearful, maybe we're like those spoken of in Hebrews 6 or Hebrews 10 who have a faith, but it's not the genuine article. Even David, you see, the man after God's own heart.

He wanted the Lord to try him and test him, to search him out. and what does the Lord do in all his dealings with his people there in all those wilderness wanderings he is testing them again Deuteronomy 32.10 in the waste howling wilderness it says he led him about he instructed him that's how the Lord teaches his people that's how the Lord shows them the right way and of course we have those lovely portions earlier in Deuteronomy in chapter 8 of course Deuteronomy are on the very verges now of the promised land they are about to enter in after the 40 years of the wanderings and what does it say there in chapter 8 and verses 15 and 16 who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought where there was no water who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint who fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end and that you remember this earlier there at the second verse in that chapter thou shalt remember all the why which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no and he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not neither did thy fathers know that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only that by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

All the ways of the Lord, you see. He will deal with his people. Yes, he might trouble them and try them and afflict them. And we sometimes sing that lovely hymn of Joseph Hart concerning afflictions. Afflictions make us so. What else would escape our sight?

How very foul and dim are we in God, how pure and bright. we have to learn the truth continually about ourselves and what we are as poor sinners to thank God by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we're justified sinners we're justified sinners we see what our God is in comparison to what we are oh God you see in all of these dealings with these people has a good and a gracious end in view And we have it there, just read it, the end of that 16th verse in Deuteronomy 8, to do thee good at thy latter end. To do thee good at thy latter end. And we come to our last years, I suppose, I can feel it in some measure now, 80 years old, and you think of a life gone and how little done such a pathetic life really but God does good in our latter end that's a wonderful promise and we have it again don't we in Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 8 better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof we ought to make a good end but we look to God. He says to the children of Israel, doesn't he, through Jeremiah, I know the thoughts that I think towards the thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a blessed end.

He leads his people then, he leads them around and about. There's that mystery in all his dealings and yet ultimately he will bring his people to himself. he'll teach them all their dependence upon himself the guy in that song of Moses at the end of his days Deuteronomy 32 12 the Lord alone did lead him the Lord alone did lead him and there was no strange God with him all we have to come to that there's only one living and true God and all our Our idols fail us at the end. That's what they proved. There was no strange God with them. How He leads them.

It came to pass when Pharaoh would let the people go that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, let's put revenge on the people, repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about. through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.

Oh, this is the way. And this is the way where we have to live by the promises of God. And all those promises in our Lord Jesus Christ, yea and amen, to the glory of God, but it's by us. It's by us that God proves himself to be that one who is a faithful God. the trustworthiness of His words here in Holy Scripture, His promises, His precepts, but all the graciousness of His ways, how kind, how tender, how compassionate in all His dealings with us, for that we might then know that this God is our God and our God forever. The Lord bless His word to us. Amen.

God Led the People About

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God Led the People About

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