In Part 1 of God's Road Map For Our Lives,
we saw how God can lead us to places we weren't
planning to go. He prepares us for His work,
this is one way in which He accomplishes this.
We saw what happened to 17
year-old Joseph. There he sat. Not only was he
in prison, but in the darkest, dampest, nastiest
place – the pit. Some say he was there for 17
years. What a detour he took! And, for something
he did right. God knows everything, He
understands all. We don't want to do a thing out
of His time.
God knew the Children of Israel would have
to fight. Nothing that is worthwhile doesn't
have a fight involved in it. God wants to show
Himself through us. If we have God, who can be
against us? Christianity itself is a
fight. The enemy hates our guts. Lucifer hates
us with the passion of hell.
We know the end of the story of Joseph.
But he wasn't ready, so a detour came. God took
the Children of Israel through His “boot camp”.
God shows us how to walk every moment, how to
trust Him every moment. That is what we learn
when we see and experience these detours.
The detours are necessary in order for us
to be prepared to do what it is that God wants
us to do. God is never in a hurry. He will bring
us to the edge of ourselves to wait and see if
we trust Him. When we have a detour, even if we
have a GPS, after we leave the main road, we
have to look for signs. If we miss them we will
end up somewhere we aren't supposed to be. God
keeps us vigilant so that we are desperate to
get back onto the "main road." We must
trust Him and not the world, not ourselves....it
might not be what we want but we must continue.
God doesn't care when we receive His
promises. We care, he doesn't. He cares HOW we
receive His promises. Our job is to focus on
Jesus. We are to follow Him where ever He takes
us. All divine detours will always get us back
to the main road.
When God led the Children of Israel, He
lead them through detours. But, also he led them
to a dead end.
Exodus 14:8 “And
the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of
Egypt, and he pursued after
the children of
Israel: and the children of
Israel
went out with an high hand.”
“And the Lord hardened the heart of
Pharaoh...” these words are in this account for
a reason. The Egyptian army marched after them.
They cried unto the Lord... (Ex 14:10-11)
“...why have you done this? Let us alone
that we may serve the Egyptians.” They said, “...for
it had been better for us to serve the
Egyptians, than that we should die in the
wilderness.” Exodus 14:12
Moses had taken them to a
place called Pihahiroth which is just outside of
Cairo, beside the
Red sea. Exodus 14:2, God
instructed Moses where to go: “Speak
unto the children of Israel, that
they turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between
Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon:
before it shall ye encamp by the sea...”
This exact account of where the Children
of Israel were at the time is very important.
The word "Pi-Hahiroth" means "mouth of water".
The present day geographic "mouth like looking"
isthmus of "Pi-hahiroth” is at the intersection
between the two Gulfs, just south of the Straits
of Tiran. The second geographic marker about Pi-Hahiroth
is that "Pi-Hahiroth faces Baal-Zephon". Pi-Hahiroth
was the mouth of water which faces
Mt. Tiran which is Baal-Zephon. So,
there they were, between two mountains at the
rocky edge of the Red sea.
Behind them, a mighty army, commanded by the
Pharoah of Egypt himself chasing after them. The
word, Baal Zephron means “the hard spot.”
You know the place, I know the place; we
have been there many times before. And so the
Children of Israel were literally in between a
“rock and a hard spot.” They had nowhere to
turn. They were definitely at a dead-end. A
decision had to be made; they had one of two
choices to make, but remember God was still
leading them. In our lives, dead-ends are much
larger than detours. At a dead-end, a choice
must be made. But remember, God is there. He led
them to that place then and He leads us, as
well.
Exodus 13:20-22 tells
us “And they took their journey from Succoth,
and encomaped 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 by night.” He took not
away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the
pillar of fire by night, from before the
people.”
So we see the complete picture here. They
are in between a rock and a hard place, but
there is the Shekinah Glory of God leading the
way both day and night. The
Red sea
is directly in front of them. They have no help,
no hope, a decision must be made. When we get to
dead-ends, one of two things must happen:
retreat and wait (until God opens up a highway)
or retreat! We must wait on God. We have to lean
on Him. We have to trust in Him.
There is not an option in Christianity.
When we trust God, when we worship Him, when we
believe He is the answer for everything;
He will show us the way, just as He did the
Children of Israel. Exodus 14:13 “And
Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand
still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which
He will shew to you to-day: for the Egyptians
whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them
again no more for ever.” Here Moses is
telling them to take one last good look because
God is guiding them to safety. They are being
told to have no fear, wait upon the Lord.
When we find ourselves at a dead-end, all
we have to do is to stand and wait upon
God. We will see the salvation of the Lord. Take
one last look because we will see the problems,
the obstacles, the enemies no more if we trust
Him and follow Him and Wait for Him to lead
us....have faith.
God was teaching them something ;Genesis
14:15 “And the Lord said
unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak
unto the children of
Israel, that
they go forward.” Pretty strange, God said
“go forward”. Some might say, but
the Read sea opened....at this point, the
Red sea had NOT opened! This
required obedience and a step of faith,
literally. So what did they do? They stepped
forward and once that step was taken, God told
Moses to hold his rod over the sea and divide it
so that they would have safe and dry passage to
the other side.
He wanted them to understand and to have
faith in Him and trust Him. Once they took that
step, God made a way where there had been none.
Daniel 3:12-17 tells us “certain Jews
had been set over the affairs of
Babylon.” These were
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It also
happens that these three were asked to bow
before a golden image, but they refused. They
were warned of punishment if they continued to
refuse but they did not do as was commanded. The
king was enraged. He commanded that the furnace
be heated 7 times hotter than required. Those
who took these men to the furnace to die were
themselves killed by the heat. But not the three
faithful men.
Daniel 3:23 “And
these three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,
fell down into the midst of the burning fiery
furnace.” V24
“ Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was
astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and
said unto his counselors, Did not we cast three
men bound into the midst of the fire? They
answered and said unto the king, True, O King.”
V25 “He
answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose,
walking in the midst of the fire, and they have
no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the
Son of God.” Might I suggest
that at the dead-ends, in the fiery furnaces we
sometimes find ourselves in, that Jesus, our
Savior will never leave us or forsake us. He is
always right there with us. We can stand and see
the salvation of our God, it doesn't matter
where we are, He is there...
When we trust God, and when we have faith,
He will always lead us to the place we are
to be. We must go beyond "religion". None of us
are guaranteed tomorrow. Ask yourself what
you've done for God.
The places of desolation always become
places of desperation, demonstration,
declaration. Joseph, Moses, the Israelites all
stood and waited. They had faith, and look at
how God used each of them! If we find ourselves
in these predicaments, we must have faith to
say, watch God take me out of this!
God opened a highway for the Children of
Israel. He knows a way that we can't see. His
ways are beyond us. If we could work out our own
problems we wouldn't need God. God specializes
in Impossibilities. He wants glory. We should
want to give Him the glory for all we see Him
do. Not for our glory but for His.
Isaiah: 49:8 "Thus
saith the Lord, In an acceptable time, I have
heard thee and in a day of
salvation have I helped thee: and I
will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant
of the people, to establish the earth, to cause
to inherit the desolate heritages;”
Isaiah 49:9-10 “That thou mayest say
to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in
darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in
the ways, and their pastures shall be in all
high places. They shall not hunger nor thirst;
neither shall the heat nor the sun smite them:
for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them,
even by the springs of water shall he guide
them.”
God specializes in the impossibilities.
The places in our lives where we believe we have
nowhere to turn, God knows the way.
Exodus 15:22 teaches us "So Moses brought
Israel from the
Red sea, and they went out into the
wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in
the wilderness, and found no water.” Exodus
15:23- “And when they came to Marah, they
could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they
were bitter; therefore the name of it was called
Marah. And the people murmured [grumbled]
against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?”
Here they are, thirsty. But look at what God
has done for them in three days! But God is
still leading them. They must have wondered, we
have come all of this way, through all of these
problems and here we face yet another one. They
were bone weary and thirsty. But, God had
a purpose. He wasn't mad and Moses wasn't a bad
leader. We can apply these teachings to
our lives. If we follow God, we will see these
in our lives: in the dead-ends and even in the
detours. We will also see the power of God in
our lives if we have faith and let him lead us.
Would God have brought them on a detour
that took them out of harm's way, just to let
them die of dehydration? Would He save us,
lead us, to let us die from no water? If He does
all that for us, why can't we trust Him for
daily minor things? There are times when we lose
hope, we feel useless. Did we get where we are
and is it possible that God made some
mistake? Be faithful. God never forsakes
us, he prepares us. Every future move of God has
a purpose.
Exodus 15:25 gives us
a shadow & type of the cross, “And he
cried unto the Lord; and the Lord shewed him a
tree, which when he had cast into the waters,
the waters were made sweet; there he made for
them a statute and an ordinance, and there he
proved them.” God didn't have Moses just
take them to another place for water,
he made the bitter
water sweet with a tree. That is salvation, the
cross of Jesus Christ. The redemption that was
made possible by the work at
Calvary.
Paul understood these things. In II
Corinthians 12:9 “And he said unto me, My
grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is
made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore
will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the
power of Christ may rest upon me. “The word
“sufficient” in Greek means to lift up, to
remove barriers, to ward off. When we get
discouraged, we must determine if it is a
“dead-end” or is it God giving us another
direction? Is He preparing us for something He
needs us to do? We must have faith in Him.
People are losing hope today. The economy is
headed south.
America
depended on its economy before it depended upon
God.
“I am the Lord thy God
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt;
open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.”
Psalm
81:10
King Solomon had a practice or tradition
that whenever a visiting dignitary came, he
would have the King [or dignitary] blindfolded
and would have them kneel down. If they would
not kneel down, King Solomon would not give them
audience. If they complied, he had them open
their mouth wide and he would put in gems,
diamonds, sweet meets; he would fill them with
these things. Sometimes we must bow down to
Jesus and open our mouth wide and let God fill
us.
Open your mouth wide to the Lord today and
let Him fill it. Things sometimes don't happen
when we want them to happen. But if we face
detours, Jesus will lead us, He is with us.
Worship Him & give Him the glory.