sermon: The Wilderness Trek and Judgment Begins


John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 26-Jun-21; Sermon #1604; 65 minutes

Description: (show)

Scott Lively in his article "The Walking Disaster Formerly Known as Bruce Jenner," declares that "there comes a time in every season of moral decline when 'slippery slope' arguments become moot, because all of the terrible things you predicted on the long downward slide have come true and you find yourself in the stinking swamp at the bottom of the hill, covered in mud and surrounded by rats and snakes." The chicanery in the takeover of the Democratic party is given cover and aid by RINOs (Republican in Name Only), a group of so-called "conservatives" who are in fact politicians just a short ten paces behind their counterparts, the liberals. Conservatism has lost its way and is now ineffective against the acceptance of sin and lawlessness, a situation which gives the nations of Israel perhaps a mere five years of survival. God's people, learning from their prototypes on the Sinai, must learn to trust Him for their survival, remembering that the eating of Unleavened Bread was a perpetual reminder that only God has the power to rescue them from sin and death. The physical Israelites of old and the Israel of God mark their freedom by annually consuming unleavened bread for seven days, representing God's strong hand of deliverance and not their own puny efforts at overcoming. God's called-out ones have been personally selected by Him, turned over to Jesus Christ for a rigorous sanctification process, including a spiritual trek, micromanaged by God. It is never an aimless wandering for God's people, either anciently or today. Like our forebears on the Sinai (who numbered more than 3,000,000 pilgrims), God's people must learn to follow the Shekinah Glory (God's Holy spirit) just as assiduously as ancient Israel followed the pillar of cloud and fire, continuing the spiritual journey as resident aliens to the promised land begun b




As I began my previous sermon, I gave a few comments regarding how God seems to be waking up some fairly well known people (of a conservative bent, let me put it that way) in order to write articles that somehow feed into us so that we are able to have a little bit more information than we otherwise would have. The one that I was quoting the last time was David Horowitz who wrote, Dark Agenda, and that book is making its rounds. He writes for Newsmax.

Well, today's author is Scott Lively. He writes for WorldNetDaily and the title of the article that I am going to be quoting from is "The Walking Political Disaster Formerly Known as Bruce Jenner." The emphasis is on a political issue and most of us quickly identify with the name Bruce Jenner. He has become a transgender and now calls himself (herself, whatever you want it to be), Caitlyn Jenner. Lively's article is just one man's opinion, but it is a thoughtful regarding of this question. How much further do we have yet to fall into the immorality abyss regarding what is happening in California politically? So, what is happening in California that is somewhat unusual?

California is America's most populous state and also very likely its most liberal regarding morals as well, and the years have shown that what happens there is often very persuasive to citizens in other states beyond California's borders to adopt what is going on there. Lively begins (I am not going to read the whole article or anything to you.):

There comes a time in every season of moral decline when the slippery slope arguments become moot. That is, they no longer matter because all of the terrible things you predicted on the downward slide have come true and you find yourself in a stinking swamp at the bottom of the hill covered in mud and surrounded by rats and snakes.

Now, he does not intend that be taken literally of course, but he is using highly figurative language. Has Lively given up? Not really. Lively asked this, "Are you aware [just to remind you] that the man who used to be Bruce Jenner was a gold-medal-winning athlete in the decathlon event in the worldwide Olympics? And as a part of all that male and female competition the Olympics displayed, the decathlon is generally considered the most severe athletic challenge regarding endurance?"

Lively is inferring that Jenner was a man's man. However, he has, through transgenderism, become female. Now, however, he/she is seeking to extend his/her influence. The person who used to be known as Bruce Jenner is running as a Republican now known as Caitlyn Jenner to become governor of California. Now, I interject this comment. That what Lively is saying here is this: This is yet another assault on a Republican to grasp what is happening here in California. Mr. Lively's concern is, what are the supposedly conservative Republicans going to do regarding their votes in California? Can they accept what is happening?

Now the confusion exists, because the bulk of Mr. Lively's article is a decade-by-decade revelation listing, beginning in the 1950s, of morality issues being brought to a public vote in which in each and every case conservatives lost. And as Lively believes, really did not even challenge the Left. This is from the 1950s! They have lost every time. That is hard for him to get over. He points out, issue-by-issue, how conservatives have failed to rise regarding one morality issue after another and have allowed the Leftists to win by seeming to not really caring about the results.

I interject again that it is right at this point though that Lively, I feel, has the best advice for us to take and use over the next five years or so. He places a great deal of those voting losses on the RINOS. Do you know what RINO stands for? Republican In Name Only. He claims they are not really conservative in their heart of hearts. "Conservatism has always been a loser's game for those who forget what it is we are supposed to be conserving."

He really said a mouthful there. I will say that again. "Conservatism has always been a loser's game." Why? Because people like liberality in regard to morals. Conservatism has always been a loser's game for those who forget" (and this is the part that is important to us), "what it is that we are supposed to be conserving." Those loser conservatives think their job is just to conserve the status quo, whatever that happens to be at the moment. But as the status quo gets more liberal, so do the RINOS. That is the problem. He says that "RINOS are the conservative movement's version of useful idiots." Pretty strong. "They always move leftward at the same rate of speed as the liberals," (I want you to listen carefully here because he comes up with what, in his article anyway, I think was his best piece of advice) "but just 10 paces behind." He said a mouthful there.

I want you to compare this with what God expects of us. I am thinking of this article in regard to the five years that I have been talking about, that the next five years are going to be a time of testing for us because things are going to continue to get more and more liberal. Now, brethren, our responsibility as a witness for God over these next five years is not to merely conserve, nor is it to believe that we are acceptable because everybody else is so horribly behaved. Our striving must be for perfection regardless of what everybody else is doing. Did Jesus Christ ever let down from His very pinnacle of perfect behavior? He did not. Are we not supposed to walk in His footsteps?

Now I want us to notice what God commanded in His Word, but before I go any further would you like to make I guess at who God made this statement to? I am going to tell you. It was Abraham. But I want you to turn to Genesis 17 and verse 1. Listen to what God said to Abram.

Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be perfect."

It does not say that in modern translations. It says "be blameless." I did a little study on that word. The Hebrew word is translated blameless in my Bible here but it was translated perfect in the 1611 version of the King James. It is the Hebrew word tamim, phonetically it is spelled tah-meem and it is as close to the English version of perfect as you can get and still be in a different language. Most modern translations have changed that Hebrew term into blameless. Now that may be an unwarranted softening of what God intended. Tamim can also be translated as "without blemish." That is pretty pure, is it not? Complete, undefiled, without spot, and upright. The Living Bible translates it as, "do as you should." That leaves things pretty wide open, does it not?

So did Jesus ever turn from His perfection?

The Amplified translates it as, "I am God Almighty; walk habitually before Me with integrity [Do you know what integrity means? It means wholeness. That is one of the definitions of tamim, to be whole], knowing that you are always in My presence and be blameless and complete in obedience to Me." They did everything but say the word.

Our Father in heaven has high standards for us to live up to over this next five years that might be pretty rough.

Now, Lively states towards the end of his article,

The former Bruce Jenner is no more a female than the character Worf was a Klingon in Star Trek [listen to what Lively says] and to hold otherwise is to reject reality because it sets aside the form in which God created us male and female because becoming something else other than male or female sets aside the purpose for which God created us as male and female, and that is to create a family.

That is a putting down of our Creator if there ever was one. He made us to procreate as male and female. All that Caitlyn Jenner is making available to your Republican voter in California is just another opportunity to set aside the purpose for voting.

My sermon begins now. (I could not pass that up. I felt it was good advice.)

I made the decision to not continue the original theme of my previous two sermons because I was merely going to continue something that showed even more overwhelmingly the proofs that I believe were already clearly shown, at least enough for this present time. And that is that the Israelites' rousing faith and overcoming did not free them from their Egyptian bondage because they did not have a rousing faith until they were granted liberty following God's taking the lives of the Egyptian firstborn. They indeed left with a high hand, but their hand was not held high until they left. Except for a few persons like Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Caleb, and perhaps their families and a small number of unnamed others, the Israelites showed only the barest essentials of a believing faith until very near the end of their stay in Egypt.

Without faith, according to Hebrews 11:6, it is impossible please God. But God was somewhat pleased by the faith of some and generous and merciful in His judgment of others. By far, I believe that the overwhelming number of Israelites simply wanted to get out from under the constraints of their bondage. And who can blame them for that? I know this, I certainly do not. It most certainly was not a pleasant life under the harsh rule of the Pharaoh and his subjects, in addition to having to endure it in a foreign land.

But it does seem as though they were virtually forced by God to accept that He, God, was indeed working in and through Moses in conjunction with the plagues. And even when they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them by Moses and by Aaron as it applied to them in their circumstance and time of this portion of God's purpose being worked out, they most certainly did not earn their way free by doing good works. A few days later, right at the Red Sea, some we are still fearfully rejecting God's offer, claiming instead that they were chosen to die and be buried in Egypt. Their liberty to walk free following God was entirely the gift of God.

Now remember that because God was continuing a portion of His pattern established of old. So mark this especially in your mind. I want you to turn to Exodus the 13th chapter and we are going to read verses 3-10.

Exodus 13:3-8 And Moses said to the people: "Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. On this day you are going out in the month Abib. And it shall be, when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you in all your quarters. And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, 'This is done [What is done? Eating unleavened bread.]. . .

Now, I want you to see this. This is why we eat unleavened bread. Unleavened bread has also been applied to many things besides this, but this is why we eat it. This is done because of what the Lord did for me. It was God who released them. It was God who carried the load the whole time. And He overlooked their sinfulness to get them out there. I am emphasizing this because He has used the same thing, the same rule for us.

Exodus 13:7-8 Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen in all your quarters. And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, 'This is done because of what the Lord did for me when I came up from Egypt.'

This does not mean that it was not wrong for the Jews and others to apply unleavened bread to other things because those applications are true. But this is the reason why God instituted it. It was because of what He did.

Exodus 13:9-10 "And it shall be a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord's law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year."

I did not count them, but I know that in that couple of paragraphs, He said, "What I did," "What I did," "What I did" at least three times is why we eat unleavened bread. That is pretty clear. And I am not saying that the other applications of it are not wrong, but if we go right back to the beginning, this is where it started. It is because of what God did in getting Israel out of Egypt.

So the Israelites were to mark this gifting by God, that is, liberty, by eating unleavened bread during the Passover and Unleavened Bread period and this factual gift of God, ordered by command of God Himself through Moses, was first established on this occasion and Israel indeed followed through.

I believe that the indication from this overwhelming evidence that I was going to give on these examples and more, including some New Testament scriptures, that our calling and our salvation too is God's operation from beginning to end. The Father and the Son are the Creators, so says Jesus Christ. Recall from Ephesians 1 and John 6 that those called even to this day are sent from the Father to the Son. That is what He says in John 6:44. God is following the same pattern with our callings as well.

Now I have decided that at this stage we are going to begin the next step in this series of sermons that I believe will help you to make the most out of the next five years or so in the church by means of lessons based within God's records of His experiences with Israel in bondage, their release from their bondage, and their journey on to the Promised Land.

In the first two messages, I have used the sign God Himself gave to the Israelites to aid in guiding their and our memories of those events and to use it as a teaching tool to pass on to the following generations of Abraham and Sarah's descendants. In other words, the church. We use that same sign that God gave to the Israelites to this very day. However, unleavened bread has been used to picture other things, but not do not get yourself hung up on them.

But its initial use was to mark what God did in freeing the Israelites from their bondage and that is how we should remember it. That is what it was for right off the bat. We refresh our memories of those events, knowing for a certainty that the Israelites did not free themselves through overcoming. Israel's release was entirely a gift of God—and so is ours. And it was God who called them as He began fulfilling His promise to Abraham and Sarah and it was He who forced the Egyptians to submit to Him and thus freed the Israelites by means of the effects of the ten plagues.

One of the major steps we learned from this is that this is the same pattern God uses for each and every one that He calls into His church, His family, and the salvation as Jesus so clearly teaches in John the sixth chapter, verse 44. It is a tremendous honor to know that if we are truly called, it is by selection of the Father Himself! Let that sink in.

Let us continue by laying some additional ground work. Remember we are going to go on this journey with the Israelites and we are going to take some lessons from this that I hope will be of benefit to us over these next five years.

When did Israel really begin following God? They began following God most explicitly in following the Passover meal instructions in Exodus 12:1. We are going to turn to Exodus 12 and we are going to go the verse 10 and we are going to read great deal of this because we are laying the groundwork for actually journeying for those 40 years.

Exodus 12:10-12 [we are breaking into his thought and what he is teaching here] "You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. [that was the lamb] And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. [I want you to see how explicit these instructions are.] It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land . . .

That word "through" is interesting. It appears in the Bible only a few times. That is not passed over. He definitely said pass through. It is applied in the Hebrew language as though a person is walking through a stream. God is saying that He personally will pass through.

Exodus 12:12-20 . . . the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over [different word altogether, not pass through, pass over] you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. [Again, notice how detailed this is.] So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast of the Lord throughout your generations.

You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats unleavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. [That means put the death. They will be cut off from Israel. Strict, is it not?] On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you.

So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.'"

Some of you may not realize it but way back in the early 90s they were beginning to teach that unleavened bread (this in Worldwide) could be eaten if you felt like eating it. That was one of the reasons Evelyn and I left. That is pretty plain to me.

Exodus 12:25-28 "It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. [He is making clear they understand when they get into the land they are going to be keeping these days.] And it shall be when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' that you shall say, 'It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.'" So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

You see, they were really, really, really beginning to follow. There were others who were following as well, but now the Israelites pretty much as a whole were beginning to do it with Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Exodus 13:1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Consecrate to Me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both man and beast; it is Mine."

God claimed whatever opened the womb of man and beast, more or less partly as a replacement and a reminder to the Israelites—that belongs to Him. Consecrate means to set it apart. It comes to Me.

Exodus 13:2-3 And Moses said to the people, "Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread [again!] shall be eaten."

How many times does he have to say that before we get the point? Now, I know that you get the point, but I am just talking about mankind generally.

Exodus 13:14-16 "So it shall be, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is this?' that you shall say to him, 'By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all males that open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.' It shall be as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes, for by strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt."

I did not think of it until sometime today, and then I forgot about it again, and then I remembered, and then I forgot, I was going to count how many times God said, "I did it." "I did it. I got you out of there."

I want you to note how exceedingly clear that God is doing the releasing of Israel's freedom. Over and over, again and again, He repeats it. I was really impressed by how many times He repeated this one disclosure. And if it was good to do this for the Israelites, it must be needful for us too. That is why He is doing things pretty much exactly the same way for us as He did for them. Because He chooses who He wants to be in His Family. I will tell you, that is really something to know: that the God of heaven and earth, the Creator God, was the one who selected us. That is a big deal, brethren. That is no little thing! So, if it was good to do this before the Israelites, it must be needful for us too.

How quickly we must overlook things of this nature by merely accepting rather than deeply and thoughtfully considering this reality. It is exceedingly clear that God is doing the releasing from their place of bondage in Egypt and He wants this really drilled into our minds. They were merely following orders, which for them was exceedingly good. Now we can pretty closely set the time that the Israelites began literally following God while marching and while still in the metropolitan area of Egypt.

This marching behind Him is a further extension of the theme of learning to follow orders. The story flow begins to show some growth in faith from what the Israelites began with when He sent Moses there. And that is, they were still within the borders of boundaries of Egypt, still boundaries that Egypt maintained control over, but really did not live within. For instance, they did not live, apparently, in Goshen. There were other parts of Egypt that they did not live within either, and now they are going to go to another area. However, the very nation that held them in bondage could still use forceful pressure and be brought to bear against the Israelites by the Egyptian army should the Egyptians choose to use it. They did choose to use it when they were by the Red Sea.

Now recall the flow of events from this point on. The Israelites observe Passover in their own homes in Goshen at the very same time as the Lord systematically was killing the Egyptian firstborn. The next morning, the Israelites rose from their beds, gathered what meager belongings they still possessed and could carry as they walked to collect themselves with other Israelites in the city of Rameses. (This just passed through my mind. The Israelites were there for 430 years. What did they have to leave behind? They had to walk away from their belongings with virtually nothing by comparison to what they had. But God was requiring that.)

On that very day, they aligned themselves as they were commanded by fellow Israelites and then walked from Rameses to Succoth, which was apparently a little bit further east and south of Rameses. Now remember, everything is being done in order. The leadership was pretty much treating the Israelites like they were army. Now I say apparently regarding Succoth because nobody now knows for sure where Succoth was located because it has disappeared from view through the ages. I believe, though, that literally following the cloud and the fire during this initial part of their trek (they were doing it then), God was in the pillar of fire at night and the cloud by day because the journey to the Promised Land had officially begun as soon as Passover was over.

They had seven days to get ready to make the crossing. And that also would have been when they were getting ready to cross the Red Sea in the last day of Unleavened Bread. Please turn to Exodus 40. My Bible has a notation there that says "The Cloud and the Glory."

Exodus 40:34-38 Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day, and the fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

It was there for 40 years.

In verse 38 there is another element to help us complete our preparation for traveling with the Israelites. This element fulfills these preparations somewhat more forcibly. It is this: most people out in the world have no idea how large of an operation this wilderness operation was. I believe, as with much attached to God, that the general thought out in the world is toward diminishing it as being simply nothing more than a rather minor local rebellion of a small group of discontented religious firebrands. Localized it was in Egypt, but Egypt was no piddling nation at this time, as one can determine from the engineering of the structures the Egyptians built and remain to this day. Egypt's influence spread all over the ancient Middle East. Egypt was a nation that other nations dared not treat disrespectfully.

It has also helped to remember, in order to get a bit more constructive handle on who Egypt was in the world, that each Israelite who departed from there under the cloud and the fire represented 430 years representing Israel in Egypt.

Let us put 430 years into America's timeframe of existence. It would take Americans all the way back to the settling of Virginia in 1607 and Massachusetts in 1620. Brethren, that would take us back to the landing and settling of the pilgrims Plymouth Rock. It is interesting that those people there were termed as pilgrims. We will get around to that eventually. Now, is 430 years a long enough time to build a sizeable group population of forcibly-held people as slaves to their masters? Would it not? If you read Exodus lately, you know that the Israelites were having babies so fast that the Pharaoh was getting alarmed.

Now, here is a possibility in regards to what I will call a factoid. Nobody knows for sure, but extrapolating the possible size of the group gives us a fairly certain ballpark figure. How many people was Moses, under God, leading across that expanse? Well, I do know that God, when dealing with His people, as He calls them, does not normally think little, but I also want to alert you that the figures that I am going to give you are actually quite conservative.

Exodus 12:35-38 Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children.

We are going to start extrapolating this out. Considering the actual numbers we have to work with, we can estimate conservatively, also using advice from people who work with this sort of estimating crowds. Thus, we can add to the solid source figures estimates from sources who are frequently asked questions of this nature.

The total figure added to those was actually 603,550 men—not women—ages 20 to 50. Virtually all researchers report that this comprised Israel's army. They were all men up to age 50. That is right in the Scriptures incidentally. Now, that raises another question: why did Israel need an army since God was leading and the tenth commandment says "you shall not kill"? Well, it is because at this point in His purpose, Israel was going to be a nation of this world, and rounded off, one has to estimate one woman for each of the 603,550 men. So that brings us to a total right now of 1,200,000 men and women all 50 and other.

Get your eraser out. It was also highly probable that there are also equal numbers of men and women of the same age groupings, age 50 and above. That is men and women above 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, and so forth. They lived pretty long lives then. Moses lived to be 120 years old, Aaron lived to be 120 years old, Joshua lived to be 110 years old. Now do we want to stretch those age limits out?

In order to be conservative, I have that total number of men and women in the 20 to 50 age group, but that still amounts to 603,000 men and women who are still functioning within the culture but are over age 50. We now have a population out on Saudi Arabia of 1,800,000 men and women. My total is still increasing and we have not even counted the children yet. If that figure was held to only ten percent of those married couples between ages 20 and 50, and I believe brethren, that is a ridiculously low percentage of the number of children that they had, it would still nonetheless add another 600,000 children.

Now, I have not counted the Gentiles yet, the mixed multitude who was also with them. I believe that that figure was probably really conservative, but already we are talking at least two million people and I believe that those figures are on the very, very conservative side. And one reason why I am so positive is because my New King James study Bible sets the figure based on that 603,000 figure indicates a journey population of three million when they began. Remember they were there 430 years. That is a lot of years to build up a population. That journey population is larger than the population of Mecklenburg County (of which Charlotte, NC is a part). This was no small operation as they moved into the wilderness.

Now there is another factor that is very much tied to this journey. But somehow for some reason, people not with the true church have frequently gotten into the habit of calling what the Israelites were doing in the wilderness as a "wandering." Brethren, that term is simply a distraction intended to diminish what was being accomplished within and through these people out there with God leading and helping to produce the activity that continues the progress during the trip right up to that time.

Exodus 13:17-22 Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, "Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt." So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the children of Israel under [Joseph did this] solemn oath, saying, "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry my bones from here with you." So they took their journey from Succoth and camped in Etham at the edge of the wilderness. And Lord went before them by day with a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night by a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people.

When I get to my next speaking assignment I am going to be skipping through this narrative leading up to the crossing between the water and onto the safety that God provided.

But I want you to take note of how purposefully and orderly everything was done. God chose the route because God was certain that He would lose a huge number of people along the way that they would choose. Who knows, He might have lost all of them or almost all of them. The Egyptian border was heavily fortified in order to protect Egypt from other nations. It is entirely possible the Israelites might have had been forced into war with the Egyptians, even as they were just getting underway on their journey. But God dividing the sea eliminated that threat.

Also, God did not allow the Israelites to go in a northeasterly direction to Canaan because the possibility of warfare, precipitated by Israelites invading Philistia on their journey, by the Philistines was also highly possible. And so God intervened to save their lives and change their path.

Brethren, the Israelites journey was not a wandering. This is where we are going to begin the next time. The Israelites journeying was very purposeful with God leading it. These people were carnal, as carnal as could be, but with God leading them they were very, very definitely headed somewhere. They also needed to learn a great deal as they were moving, even as we too need to learn from our journey.

Christians are twice in the New Testament called pilgrims, but that Greek term used in those two places is somewhat misleadingly translated into English. That specific Greek term is actually closer in literal meaning to the English term "resident alien" than it is a pilgrim. But that does not really matter in this case because beginning with Abraham, brethren, who else could it possibly be? Those worshipping the true God quickly became noted as people on a spiritual journey to a kingdom—the Kingdom of God—despite not literally going anywhere earthly. This is where we will begin the next time and I think that you will find this next section really interesting.

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