God, and so He lets them go. So let's begin reading in verse
14 of Exodus chapter 13. And it shall be, when thy son
asks thee in time to come, saying, What is this? That thou shalt
say unto him, By strength of the hand of the Lord, brought
us out of Egypt from the house of bondage. And it came to pass,
when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all
the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of
man and the firstborn of beast. And therefore I sacrifice to
the Lord all that openeth the matrix, being males, but all
the firstborn of my children I redeem." And it shall be for
a token upon thy hand, and for thy frontlets between thine eyes,
for by strength of the hand of the Lord brought us forth out
of Egypt. 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, 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. And
Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had straightly
sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit
you, and you shall carry up my bones away from hence with you."
And they took their journey from Sukkoth and encamped in Etham
in the end of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them
by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them in 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." Now there's a verse in here that I've, to be honest
with you, I've never seen. So this is exciting for me because
it's like it again shows how faithful our God is. And I need
daily tokens of His grace. So, what's going on here is these
Israelites, after all that they've gone through, the Lord is bringing
them out. He says it numerous times. And so, the Passover, and they're
sacrificing to the Lord, and the Lord says, when your people
ask, when your children ask, when your children ask, why do
we come to church? You tell them. You tell them
to come because we come here to shut out the world. The world
has no business here. That's why we don't do any worldly
business here. We simply preach and sing and
pray of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We promote Him. We promote Him. But this is interesting
in verse 17. It says, And it came to pass
when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through
the way of the Philistines, though that was near. Now, I guess if
you have maps in your Bible, you could turn there if you want
to. I've looked at this last night, but it would be good to
look at it. When they came out, From Egypt, there were two ways
to go. There was the most direct route,
and from what scholars have said, and I just got out my little,
the maps in the back have a key, so it's less than 80 miles direct. to Canaan. That's what the Lord
had promised the people, I will bring you forth and give you
a land that flows with milk and honey. That's the promise. So
that's what they're thinking. So they get out of Egypt and
all they had to do is just go straight. And they would have
been there, I think the scholars said, with as many people as
they had, four days. Four days. Four to six, if you
got some scragglers, whatever you wanna say. But they were
in the wilderness for 40 years. So they didn't go straight, if
you look at the map, they didn't go straight to Canaan, they went
by the south, they crossed over the Red Sea, and then they just
kinda went. And then they finally got there.
So there's two paths. The path to Canaan, the way that
they took was the long way. But like I said, there were two
paths, two ways. The direct route was very close. But we have to remember, it says
numerous times in our passage, the Lord led them. The Lord led them. Oh, but man's got free will.
No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. Had they gone
the way that they humanly, the most socio-economic logical way,
the cloudy pillar wouldn't have followed them, nor the fire by
night. They'd have been walking in their
own wisdom, which we'll look and see what that's all about. We know good and well, born in
sin, Our way is not God's ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
So they went, not the short way, not the 5 to 7, 3 to 5 days or
whatever. They went the long way, but they
were led by sovereign providence by the Almighty God who was in
their midst. I have one point. Why? Why? In 2021, Why are things so difficult in
this country right now? Why is my health not what it
used to be? Why is this virus thing floating
around? Oh, the virus came from China. No, the virus came from God. He's sovereign over every single
thing. Why? Did these people go the
long way? Well, in our text, there are
several answers in our text. Look at what it says in verse
17. It came past, Pharaoh let the people go, that God let them
not through the way of the land of the Philistines. Now when
you look at that map in the Bible, you see that direct route, it
goes through almost entirely the land of the Philistines.
Who are the Philistines? They are a mean warring people. They are skilled warriors in
the ways of warfare. Death. Now, you tell me. We think we know what's right
for ourselves. You tell me. You've been a slave. You've got no weapons. How well are you prepared to
fight? You're a slave. You're doing what you're told.
You've got all these people that come out No, you're no match. We're no match. So, logically,
God took care of His people that way. There's things that God
does for us that we are unaware of. We're unaware of. To thank Him, what does lamentation
say? His mercies are new every morning. Are you thankful every morning?
Now you get up, put your clothes on, go to work. every morning, his mercies to
his people, to his people, to his church, to his sheep, to
his bride. He wasn't merciful to the Egyptians. Okay, that's
the second thing. The first thing was the Philistines.
He says that although that was near. The second thing is that
Israel was a slave nation. They were just released. As I
said, they had no weapons. They were weak in the ways of
warfare and they were unproved. The next thing is that God has
to reveal himself to us in the gospel. When he does that, when
he reveals himself through the preaching of the gospel, and
that's how he does it, through the preaching, the Lord's gonna
cross your path with the truth. Not with what somebody thinks
the truth is, not what a pamphlet of somebody thinks the truth,
he's gonna cross you with the truth. And when he does that,
look it, For God said, lest peradventure
the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt. If you're one of God's sheep,
if you're one of God's elect, if you're His bride, He will
not lose you. He will not lose you. Why would
they repent? Because of fear. Counting the cost. Well, I don't
know, this Christian thing is just too tough. Well, we're looking
at it through our trials. We're not looking above. We're
looking, as that writer said, I've quoted so many times, we're
looking horizontally, we're not looking vertically. He says, those who are godly
in Christ Jesus are going to suffer persecution. We're going
to suffer ailments and discouragements like every other human being.
But in that, We have the fact and we have the truth of the
word that He says, I will never, never, never forsake you. So
once God has redeemed His people, you can't go back. Now, would
they, less peradventure, the people repent when they see war
and they return? That's us again. You can't tell
me, and I can't tell you standing up here, since I've been a Christian,
I've never wanted to go back into the world. I've never wanted
to just dabble my toes in the market. I've never wanted to
go to a bar, any of these kind of things that people preach
against today. In this world, the Scripture says, but we're
not of the world. And that line gets blurred because we're sinners. We're still sinners. We still
have that old nature. Though we're new creatures in
Christ and they have given us a new heart that beats and pants
after His righteousness, the old nature is never going to
die until it's dead. So there's always that tugging.
There's always going to be that... He knows us. He made us. He knows
our frame and we're but dust, says the Scripture. He knows
us better than we know ourselves. And if we were left to our own,
we would seek self-aggrandizement, we would seek money, we would
seek all the things that the world seeks. But He has a people
whom He's going to redeem. And they got out. And it wasn't
too far when they got out and they were starving and so, would
to God, we were back in Egypt, where the leeks and garlic. I don't know what tomorrow brings.
I know tomorrow's, it's, to worry about it, the evil, sufficient
is the evil thereof. We're not to, we're not to take
any thought for tomorrow. Now I know, first thing you think
of, well I got this and I gotta get to work. Yes, you do that,
but to be anxious about tomorrow, to be anxious about what's going
on in Washington, to be anxious about any of this stuff that's
going on, is unbelief. It's unbelief. And I'm like you. I'm not preaching at you. I'm preaching with you. And the
Lord has crawled all over me, stepped all over my toes before
I got up here. I'm constantly aware of my flesh.
I'm constantly aware, unfortunately not too aware. But why? So these are the reasons given
in verse 17. But there are other reasons in
the Scriptures. The people went, led, followed the way the Lord
chose. Turn to Proverbs chapter 16.
We're just going to look at a few of these. Proverbs chapter 16
and verse 33. Why? Because God prescribed it. Proverbs chapter 16 and verse
33. Now this is the God of the Bible,
He's not the God of the Old Testament and He's different today. A stalwart characteristic or attribute
of God is His immutability. That means He doesn't change.
He changes not. I am the Lord God, I change not.
Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. That is a stalwart
characteristic of him. Proverbs 16, verse 33. The lot
is cast into the lap. Live your life. Go to work. You put on your pant legs one
leg at a time. You do these things. But remember,
the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Isn't that comforting? To the child of God it is. If we walk by faith and not by
fear, oh, what a marvelous thing! And that was one of the main
accusations against the disciples. Oh, ye of little faith! Oh, ye
of little faith! How long am I going to be with
you? Christ would say. How many miracles are you going
to have to see before you believe that I am Him of whom it was
spoken of in the Old Testament? The Scriptures speak of Me. Isaiah
42. Turn to Isaiah 42. Because God said it and it shall
come to pass. Isaiah 42 and verse 16. And I
will bring the blind, that's us, by the way they knew not.
We're not born seeking God, we're born hating God. That's what
the scripture says. We're in enmity. We are enmity
and that word is war. with God. I will lead them in
the paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light
before them and crooked things straight. These things will I
do unto them and not forsake them. Salvation is by divine
revelation. It's not by your will or my will. It's not by your good deeds or
my good deeds. It's not by walking an aisle
and accepting a little baby Jesus on a manger. It's none of these
things. Salvation is by divine revelation by God and God alone
and He will use the preaching of the foolishness to save them
that believe. Now they think it's foolishness
but God never indicates that His preaching is foolishness.
Isaiah 55. Why were these people led the
way they were led? Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9. God says, For my thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the
Lord. For as the heaven is higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts. We're born in sin, and because
we're depraved, we think we know God from birth, or we have a
way that we think we know Him. And it's never His way. It's
always our way. It's always got man's attainments
and man's smear all over it. God is purerized, says the Scripture,
than to behold iniquity. His ways are not our ways. Our ways is a direct route. We
get a map out, we look at it, and we say, point A, point B. This is the way I need to go.
But God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways
not your ways. I'm gonna lead you this way.
Another obvious point which I didn't bring out, if they would have
went the direct route, they probably would have been annihilated by
the Philistines, or they would have been annihilated by Pharaoh,
because remember he took his whole army and followed them.
So they have to go through the Red Sea, so his people, who are
scared to death, They're sitting there, and there's the sea, and
they're up against the back, and here comes these Egyptians,
and Moses parts the Red Sea. They go through it, and they
get to watch the strongest army with the most chariots, the most
spears, the most men of warfare. They get to watch that whole
army annihilated right before their eyes. That's the God they
serve. That's the God we serve. And
there's a day coming, a final day, that he's gonna separate. The right hand and the left.
I thought he died for everybody. Why is there a separation? He's
gonna separate his sheep on one side and the goats on the other
side. I never knew you. Depart from me you that work
iniquity. The believer sees everything
that this whole world sees. The believer reads in the newspaper
everything that everybody else is reading, in the magazine.
But the believer reads it with the eyes of faith and says, God's
on the throne. Come what may, God's on the throne. He says he raises kingdoms and
puts them down. And we may be going down to tubes.
I don't want that, but that's not for me to decide. For me
to decide is like Jacob, is just to hang on to the Lord and not
let go until he blesses me. Even if he hurts me and I can't
walk the same way for the rest of my life, that's okay. David,
it's better to be a servant in the house of the Lord than to
not be where there's no gospel, where there's no vision, there's
no truth, no gospel. The people perish. And that's
why, as small or as long as we've been here, it doesn't matter.
If God has given us the truth of the Gospel, we're just going
to keep preaching it. Jeremiah chapter 10. Jeremiah chapter
10. Doesn't it say in the New Testament,
these things were written aforetime for us, for our learning and
admonition and comfort? You better believe it. And now,
today is more a need for comfort as far as
I can see, Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 23. Oh Lord, I know that the way
of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps. Now that just flies in the face
of Norman Vincent Peale. You can do it. Be positive thinking.
You can do anything you want to be. You can do anything and
go anywhere you want to do. Or go anywhere you want. I don't
know. Can you? I know. This is the Bible. This is the errorless Word of
God. Inspired by God. It's not men. Holy men wrote it as they were
inspired, God breathed by man, by God. I know that the way of
man is not in himself. It's never been in himself. You
can never save yourself. You can never help yourself,
pull yourself up by the bootstraps. That's our problem. The first,
we get into trouble, the first thing we'll look for our wallet.
We'll make sure we got enough money, or we got enough friends,
or we got, no. Quickly, earnestly, seek the
Lord's face. He's your only protection. He
is our refuge. I could give you several examples
of this. The way of man is not in himself. The Israelites, they
wanted a king. Oh, we want a king. Everybody
around us has got a king. We want a king. So what did the
Lord do? He gave them a king after their own heart, Saul.
Didn't work out so good. They wanted a king. Golden calf. Oh, we've seen this
miracle. The Red Sea. We've seen all this.
We're going to worship the Lord from now on. Moses goes up to
the mountain. I've got things I've got to do.
Where's he at? I know what. We'll make some gold. We'll do
some things. We'll worship. Yeah. Nehemiah, remember the leper
Nehemiah? I use this illustration often. He went to the prophet's
house. The prophet didn't even go out
and meet him. He sent his, he sent Gehazi. He sent him to go
meet him. He got mad because he was somebody, he was, he was
the chief of the captain of the Assyrians. So he gets mad. And he goes, well, I thought...
He'd come out and I thought he'd clap his hands and make a big...
I thought, I thought, I thought. This is what he should do. Because
I'm somebody. He doesn't even come out and meet me. He tells
me to go wash myself in this puny river. We've got better
rivers in our native land. I thought, there is a way that seemeth right
to us. but the end thereof are the ways
of death, not life. Perhaps our time seems long and
full of trial, harm, and loss, yet the Lord's timing as in our
text and His way is best, always. We as believers must learn to
follow Christ and to wait upon Him day and night. Lamentations
chapter 3. You don't have to turn around
and read it to you. Lamentations chapter 3 and verse
26. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. We
are so conditioned to a fast food society. Fast food, fast
religion. God's gonna work in his time,
and he knows what's best. He cannot err, he cannot be incorrect,
and he is all wise. Our Father cares too much for
his dear children to err, and he's too loving to eternally
harm his bride. We just need to be reminded of
that. That's why we're here. That's why I'm here. There is
a day coming when we shall, I got this quote from John McDuff,
Scottish preacher. There is a day coming when we
shall own the wisdom of every earthly lesson. We don't know
now, but there's a day coming when we shall see Him as He is.
That we will own the wisdom of every earthly thing that happened.
We'll confess that He was all wise, all gracious, and just
like with our children, they do things and we pop them, Because
we love them. If we're not being chastised,
we're not sons and daughters. We don't understand that. I don't
want to take the painful road. I don't want to take the long
road. I want to go direct. But if I go direct, I'm going
to have a whole lot more trouble than I will by going the other
way. Follow the cloudy pillar. or the fire. The cloudy pillar
could be likened to Christ's protection over us. And the flame
is His revelation of His Word to direct us. We're safe there. We sing that song, Safe in the
Shepherd's Fold. It may not make sense to us right
now, to the weak sinful eyes or ears or thoughts, but God
knows best and He does best for His sheep. And He cannot do wrong. He cannot do wrong. We don't instantly expect results
when we sow garden seed. Do we? I mean, we get out in
a couple of months, January, February, March, we put the radishes
and onions and cole crops. We don't expect instantaneous
results. Why do we think, God, we need
to see what's going on right now? is the evil thereof. We don't
take any thought for tomorrow. And that doesn't mean we just
blindly, you know, don't go to work. Okay, we said, you know,
be foolish enough, well, I've got to wait for God to talk to
me. He doesn't talk to you. He's
spoken to us through His Son. He says Hebrews through the Word.
But we don't instantly expect results when we sow a garden
seed. And we don't instantly expect results when we prune
back the shrub or a vine or a grapevine or whatever. I'll never forget
when I worked for the city of Cape, The bandshell has got those,
there's junipers on each side of it. I don't know if they're
still there or not, but there was like 15 that way and 15 that
way, so the sound and everything. And they were way too tall. And
they were like, we need to trim them back. And I mean, we trimmed
them back. They were 12 or 15 foot tall. We trimmed them back to six foot.
Oh, they were ugly. And I thought, well, we're gonna
get fired. And KFES or the news is going to come and take a picture
and say, what are we paying these idiots for? Well, before the
season started where the music played, they filled out full
and lush and green. Luke chapter 2 says we need to,
well, let me just read it. I've been looking to use this
verse for about six months. And here it is. It popped right
up. Luke chapter 2, verse 17 through 19. And when they had
seen it, they made known abroad saying what was told them concerning
this child. No, I'm in the wrong place. No,
Luke 21. I can't read my own writing.
Sorry about that. Luke chapter 21, verses 17, 18,
and 19. You shall be hated of all men
for My namesake. Ah, but we want to be liked by
everybody. I want to be liked by everybody. But if you know
the Gospel, you tell them the truth. You tell them that they're
blind, and the blind is leading the blind, and both of them are
going to fall in a ditch unless they hear the truth. And a lot of
people say they have the truth, but there's not. Most people
are charlatans. Most people are hirelings. They
don't care for the sheep. You shall be hated of all men
for my namesake, but there shall not a hair of your head perish.
Well, there's a promise right there. In your patience, possess
your souls. Why can't we be patient? Because
it's so hard. We are a society, and especially
in this country, we are a society of instant baked potatoes, instant
microwave, instant, instant, instant. That is not how God
works. How long have we, and don't answer
this, I don't need to know, how long have we been praying for
our children's salvation? How long have we been praying
for our neighbor's salvation? How long have we been praying
for this country that a revival would happen again like in the
days of the Great Awakening with George Whitefield? These men early on came over
to preach the truth, the gospel to these folks here. No. In patience, we need to possess
our souls. Come what may, we will trust,
worship, adore, and love the Savior. Why do we love Him? Well,
John says, 1 John says, because He first loved us. We had no
inclination of loving Him. He had to love us first. That's
how horrible we are. That's how vile we are. That's
how corrupt we are. And as Luther said many years
ago, herein we stand. We can do no other. I pray by
God's grace, as long as I'm here, as long as I'm your pastor, that
I would speak the truth. Would not try to spare your feelings,
but I would speak the truth in love. Because that's the only
thing that's gonna do us any good. That's the only thing that's
gonna equip us to go out in this world, as vile and corrupt and
self-serving as it is, is to be able to stand. And you know
what, when somebody stands for the gospel, they're going to
take a lot of heat, but there may be one elect out there, there
may be one of the God's sheep, and he says, I want to know what's
going on with that guy. I want to talk to that woman.
I want to... Why? Why? And we say, God led
us, not we ourselves. we had anything to do with it.
Let us therefore, in closing, let us submit to His caring and
parental ways. He will never leave us. He put
His only begotten Son through so much. He's not going to lose
one of His sheep. That 99, He's going to go get
that one sheep. He's going to get that one prodigal.
He's going to bring that prodigal home. He put His Son And his
son voluntarily submitted to all that mockery, spitting, the
planting of the crown of thorns, all this he did because he said
that the joy, the joy that was set before him, he had a people
to die for and he was going to do it. Let us be like those of
old. Here and I stand. Send me. Lord, here am I. Send me. And
the end is, it's the same. The end is always the same for
the believer. Closing Psalm 47. Here's the
end. The first part, Psalm 47, the
first part of verse 4. This is what the believer wants.
This is the same for every child of God. He, that is God, in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, shall choose our inheritance for us. We would not want it any other
way because we've seen how we would muddle it up. We would
muddy the water. We would try to take control
or try to take credit. But God will not share His glory
with another. The believer for this, though
contrary to our nature, the believer is forever thankful that he has
chosen. Everybody gets all worked up
about election. That's all it is, is choosing, selecting. He selected for us because he
knows us better than we know ourselves. The end is always
the same for every believer. He has chosen our inheritance
for us, and to that we say amen. And thank you, Father, because
if left to ourselves, we would be wanderers far, far astray. Bruce, would you close this,
please?