27th May 2024

27th May 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 13:17-14:14 focus 13:20-21)


Message (Alan Burke) 


As a wain there were many a times that I was told how to do something and when I didn’t do it the way I was told, sometimes there was a reason give and it was explained to me why I should listen and do it that way, while other times I was just given a clip round the ear. There is a reason why we are told, instructed, directed, taught the way we are and most of the time it’s for our best. The highway code tells us lots of things, tells us how we should cross the road and what side of the road to drive, what speed we should be doing and lots of other practical things that believe it or believe it nor are for the best of everyone on the road. Here as we come to the Lord leading the people out of Egypt he takes them on a round about way or that’s what it would have seemed to his people but ultimately his ways are the best ways, he was doing it for their own good and we are told in v17 part of the reason why, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”


If the Lord had taken them through the Philistine country it would have only taken them around two weeks to get to the promised land rather than the forty years it actually took them but it wasn’t God’s way for it was the best way for his people. I want you to notice here what the Lord was doing, it is something that we may not expect the Lord to do but the Lord was in effect sending his people up the garden path by sending them towards the Red Sea, he was purposely giving them a wrong turn, a wrong turn maybe in their minds but he knew it was the best way for his people. The Lord was sending his people forward to have their back against the sea, hemmed in by the Egyptians all because he knew it was for their own good no matter how hard it was for them to understand. 


The Lord God was putting his people on the long path, in harms way you could say but it was the best way. God puts us in places that we might prefer we weren’t but he does it for his glory. Now this might be hard for us to wrap our heads around that the Lord purposely puts us in places that are difficult for us, that he puts trials and tribulations in our path, but that is often because we fail to understand that God uses these things for our benefit. Not only do we learn how the Lord’s ways are the best ways there is something wonderful we are reminded of in verse 19 now the Lord keeps his promises. We are told how Moses took the bones of Jospeh with him, because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear an oath.
Jospeh at the end of his life was looking to the promises of God that were given to his father, Grandfather Isaac, and his great grandfather Abraham, Jospeh was one who as Hebrews 11 reminds us “By faith when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones” (Heb 11:22). Nearly 400 years after the request was made by Faith the people of God left Egypt, Jospeh’s bones were taken by Moses because God’s ways are best, he keeps his promises. Joseph like at the Old Testament Saints were looking to the hope that was promised by God of one who would come to crush the head of the serpent, they had faith in Christ. And Joseph’s bones for all those years of slavery in Egypt acted as a testimony to the hope that he had in Christ, even when he was long dead Jospeh, his bones testified to the promises of God. God’s ways are the best ways and we can have confident hope in what God has done through Christ that he will lead us not to the promised land but a eternal home where we will dwell with our God forever (Rev 21).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q49 Which is the second commandment?
The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thy self to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exod. 20:4–6)
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