Why Return to Egypt?

Good afternoon, everyone. Again, very nice special music. I appreciate that. I don't think I've ever heard that piece before. It was very, very nice. Thank you, Mr. Williams, for doing that for us. It's good to be with all of you again here. It's hard to believe a week has gone by since we were first with you in Orlando last week, and we got into the first part of the Holy Days and passed over and died to be much observed. We've visited both congregations in Orlando and Jacksonville, and those of you that are here from Ocala today, we looked forward to being with you for the weekend and for this camp out here in Umatilla. Is it Umatilla? Umatilla. I've got to see downtown Umatilla before I leave. I can't believe I've lived 62 years and I've never seen Umatilla, but I want to see it.

There's got to be a whole lot to it. It's a very nice facility here. When Mr. Shady asked us to come down for the Orlando camp out, I said, well, we really don't do camp outs too much anymore. They explain things that you can camp, and you have chalets, and then you have kind of a Holiday Inn Express type premise that's camping out for me at my point in life.

So we're glad to be here with you and get acquainted with you through the weekend as we wind down the days of unloving bread. I'm going to take my watch off. I was up in Jacksonville, and you have the watch at the clock on the back wall behind, and that tells you when I should shut up. And Orlando, I think it was on the wall there, so yeah, I knew when to…and you don't have anything here, so I'm going to take my watch off so I know when to stop. When I was growing up at a church, the old story was that there was a joke going around. When the minister would get up, he'd take his watch off and kind of set it up there before every sermon.

And one of the small kids turned to his dad, and then, sitting in the pew there, said, Dad, what's it mean when Mr. Smith takes his watch off and sets it up there? His dad turned to his son and said, nothing, son. Nothing at all. So we'll try…but you've got the food out back there, so we've all been whipping and sniffing the food, so I know I've got to shut up and sit down at a certain point, because they'll probably go back there and really crank it up and get the aroma going through the place here, so that'll be nice. Why did Israel want to return to Egypt?

Have you ever pondered that question, as you read through the story of the Exodus, their book of Numbers, and all their grumblings and complainings that they went through, kept wanting to go back to Egypt? Why did they want to go back to making mud bricks? Why did they want to go back to being slaves? Why did they want to give up whatever potential freedom they would have? Why would they want to go back? It's a good question. It's a deep question. We'll try to answer that today.

And as we try to answer it, keep in the back of your mind, what is it that you or I might want to go back to in our own lives? Is there an Egypt of our past? Is there something that we've walked away from through the years in our calling, in our years in the church that we might like to go back to?

The older you get, the more nostalgic you get about family, the old home place, wherever, whatever. A lot of people do. I know some don't, but I know a lot of people do. And class reunions, family reunions. My mark is like a 40th or 50th years of whatever. Kind of bring up things, and sometimes we might think about that. What would our lives have been had we not been in the church of God?

I've already met some of you here that have been around for a long time, as long as my wife and I, which is over 50 years in this church, in this way of life. Why would we want to go back? Why would what we read in the book of Exodus, chapter 14, ever cross a person's mind? And why in the world did it cross the mind of the Israelites? Let's turn over and read Exodus, chapter 14. This is as after the Passover, after they had spoiled the Egyptians, were on their way out.

Before they crossed the Red Sea, Pharaoh mustered his courage again, giving chase to the Israelites. Verse 10, when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.

And they said to Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt? They were between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

That's where the phrase comes from. The Devil was Pharaoh, the deep blue sea in this case was the Red Sea, and they saw no way out. Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt? They said in verse 12, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. Why? Why do they want to go back? Let me tell you about something that I like to do. If there's one sport that I really tend to get into and escape to, it's baseball.

For me, the opening day of baseball season is proof there is a God. I like football, and I do follow football, but I love baseball. What I tend to do with football is, Sunday afternoons I'll get into a game, and I'm doing some work, getting ahead classes prepared or other things for the week, and shuffling papers, keeping an eye on the games. For the last 15-16 years, I really followed Peyton Manning. I lived many years in Indianapolis.

Peyton Manning has been a quarterback there until he went to Denver. I still follow Peyton Manning, but I'm having some thoughts about, just not Peyton Manning, but about football after the first play of the Super Bowl this year, where he dropped the ball. I knew then it was all over, and it was. Seattle won. But I really like baseball. Now, let me explain something about baseball.

It's green grass. It can be a nice afternoon to go to a game or an evening. It can be hot. But for me, it's just relaxing. I like the game. I like the way things are laid out. Baseball is laid out in an interesting way. You've got right angles. You've got right field line down first base. You've got the left field line down the third base line, all coming out of home plate. And you've got the fences in the outfield. You run to first base, you make a hard left. Sharp left turn, you go to second base, another sharp left, third base, and another sharp left, in your home.

Right angles, well laid out, clearly defined. Ball is foul is foul. Base hits a base hit. There's not a whole lot left to doubt in baseball. Now, they're towing with the game this year. They have introduced this thing called instant replay. I'm not quite sure how that's going to impact the game. I don't like it. It's fine for football. It's fine for basketball, but baseball is sacred. Decisions are decisions. They should stand and you go on and you play the game.

Baseball isn't a very exact game. It is so exact that they keep statistics on everything. I think there's more minutia on statistics in baseball than any other game that is played. You watch a game long enough, you'll hear them come out. In terms of the number of hits, this particular batter has had his career against the left-handed pitcher with an itch on his nose.

Stolen bases, base hits, bases advanced, balls, and box. Everything is exact. Even down to the third decimal point, the way they figure the average in the ERA of the players, the earned-run average of the pitcher and the batting average of the ballplayers are down to the third decimal point. Statistics are rain within baseball. For me, it's a form of escape. One of the reasons I like to keep cable television, besides the fact that my wife won't let me get rid of it, is because I got this thing called Fox Sports Ohio and I get to watch the Cincinnati Reds every night that they're on, every game.

I follow the Reds, I like the Reds. At heart, I think I'm going back to my roots as a St. Louis Cardinals fan. I grew up watching the Cardinals, but they've got a Dodger baseball network now, so you can watch the Dodgers play so I can catch the Cardinals when they play the Reds or the Dodgers. I try to watch them when they come into town and play the Reds up there. I can sit down at night and turn on the ballgame and catch a few innings of it.

To me, it is very relaxing. It is kind of a place for me to escape into. When I leave the ballpark and when I turn the television off, the ballgame off, I have to go back into my normal world, real life, people, my life, my aches and pains, normal life. For 41 years, as I've worked with people and people's lives, as a minister, teacher, I have learned that in working with people and in living my own life and the way my life has gone with my family and siblings that I grew up with, children that I've raised, what I've learned in working with people and in life is that things are not exact.

Things are not always straight down the left field line or straight down the right field line. It's not always to the third decimal point in exactness. With baseball, there are 9 innings, 12 innings, but you play until somebody wins. There's no time limit with baseball. Eventually, somebody is going to win and someone is going to lose. You make a determination in the game. The only time in my memory that that's never happened was an all-star game a few years ago. It kept going and going and going and because it was the all-star game and it didn't really count, the commissioner called it like it's 3 o'clock in the morning and it was still tied.

Nobody won. That's unheard of in baseball. Somebody wins, somebody loses. It's that exact. Life isn't always that exact. You work with people and as we all know, I know that I can teach God's way of life. I can turn and explain the commandments. I can explain passages of the Scripture that talk about forgiving your brother, about overcoming sin, putting it out of your life. I can talk about a well-laid-out passage that talks about how to love your wife from Ephesians. It's so simple. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands. Pretty clear. But then the phone call comes.

I'm divorcing my husband. I'm leaving. I can't get along with this person. And so you spend hours and hours and hours counseling and working and trying to salvage a relationship because things are not exact. That's the real life, isn't it? That's the real world. And that's what happens with us. Life is not a science. Sometimes it's an art. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's good art. Sometimes it's sloppy art. It's kind of like what Solomon explained and described over here in Ecclesiastes chapter 2.

If you will turn over to Ecclesiastes. I heard Greg is going to talk about chapter 3. I won't go there. But by your leave, I'll take chapter 2 here of Ecclesiastes. Chapter 2. Love Ecclesiastes. It's a book I try to read every year through.

To be reminded of a number of things, it's one of my favorite books. But in chapter 2, beginning in verse 12, Solomon at this point says, Then I turned to myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly. Wisdom, madness, and folly. For what can the man do who succeeds the king? Only what he has already done.

I saw that wisdom excels folly. It's better to have wisdom than to live by foolishness. As light excels darkness, better to have the light. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all. It happens to the fool as to the wise man. They're both going to die. The wise man can have something come at him pretty fast called life and hit him and disable him, set him back. The fool just stumbles on.

Government picks him up. He seems to come out of a mess and may be doing better. And a wise man? Maybe not. The same event happens to them all. So I said in my heart, in verse 15, as it happens to the fool, it also happens to me. And why was I then more wise? And I said to my heart, this is vanity. This is empty. What's the use? Knock your head out, do the right things. You don't get ahead. Or you don't even sometimes keep your head above water. Someone else that just, you know, you're either born to it or they just look into it or whatever, sails on in life. Verse 16, for there is no more remembrance of the wise man or the fool forever than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does the wise man die? As a fool. He will die in his bed, God willing, just as a fool will.

Death is that leveler. And, you know, as the older we get, the more we realize what really does count and that we are moving, you know, everyone ages and life happens. Certain things are going to happen to everybody, no matter how wise or rich, no matter how foolish or poor they may be. Solomon's conclusion at this point is he describes his journey through life. And please ask, he really is a book about a journey. When he sums it all up, he says, fear God and keep the commandments.

But from the first verse to that last verse, he kind of weaves in and out. And at this particular point, whenever he had concluded at this point, he said, I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me for all his vanity or empty and grasping for the wind.

Now, he goes on explaining, as I said, a winding road in life.

And that's what I really like about Ecclesiastes, because it's real.

It explains why things happen the way they do with people in life. It explains at times the futility of life as well as the wisdom of life. But it's real. It doesn't paint just a happy mug ending, and everybody lives happily ever after. Ecclesiastes is not a Hollywood script.

You know, some movies in Hollywood that they actually will... most of them, through the years, they preview them to a select audience to get people's reactions. And if people don't like the ending, if it's a bad ending, they'll go back and redo the movie's ending and make it upbeat if it's a downer. Because American audiences especially, they want everything tied up really neat.

Everybody gets back together. Life goes on happy, happy, happy. And if they don't... if they end it kind of on a discordant note, then people aren't going to go. The movie's not going to be successful. They've actually re-filmed endings of certain movies because of initial reactions from audiences.

Ecclesiastes isn't like that. It shows it all. And life, as we know, can sometimes have an unhappy ending that can be tragic, untimely.

And that's what he shows here. But he explains that a winding road through life can be chaotic, can be unfair, can be happy, can be bewildering, complex, simple. And at times, Solomon describes the life that is full of faith and righteousness and goodness, while at other times he seems to be a downer. But as I said, he does come to the end and he died. And this is the way I think that it went with Solomon. For all of his mistakes, at the end of his life, he got it all together. And he said, fear God and keep the commandments. That's how I read Solomon's life. But how does this deal with the question that I posed at the beginning of why Israel wanted to go back to Egypt and baseball and life? Go back to the Israelites there on the cusp of the Red Sea. They wanted to go back to Egypt. Why? Why go back to what they had? You know, this is the time of year during the Holy Days we always kind of focus on Egypt, type of sin, Israel coming out. And I've given many sermons through the years kind of focusing on Egypt. And at times I may skip the subject altogether.

One way or the other, we usually turn to Exodus 12 and the Passover service and draw lessons from the Exodus. And there are many that fit at this time of year. We kind of focus on Egypt and what it was historically. Egypt in the ancient world in the time of Moses was a very ordered life. And in the Bible, Egypt represents bondage and slavery. The bondage and slavery of sin. That's the big spiritual lesson that we always draw as we go through the days of Unleavened Bread from the experience that Israel had in Egypt. Sin, bondage. God sent Moses to deliver them, the type of Christ to deliver them from their physical bondage. Christ delivers us from spiritual bondage and from spiritual sin. We don't want to go back to Egypt.

In the Israelites, we shouldn't have wanted to go back to Egypt. God was giving them a promised land. We've got the promised land of the Kingdom of God ahead of us. The lessons, the analogies are plentiful from Egypt. Egypt in the Bible is a fascinating study. And ancient Egypt itself is a fascinating study. Egypt was a place where the people of God were at various times.

And it seemed at times where people went for kind of an escape. If you go back to the story of Abraham, in chapter 12 of Abraham, when he first gets into the land, God says, I'll get out and I'll show you this new land. He gets there and then in Genesis 12 and verse 10, there's a famine in the land. And what does Abraham do? He escapes. Where does he go? South to Egypt. And what happens when he goes to Egypt? You know the story. He tells Sarah, now you're a good-looking woman.

And when you get there, they're going to pass their eyes on you, and there's a chance they're going to snatch you away. So tell them that you're my sister, not my wife. Here's a man of faith, Abraham. Father is a faithful, righteous Abraham, telling his wife to lie.

That's what happens when you go to Egypt.

You get into lies. Well, you know what happened. They lied. Pharaoh took Sarah, and God, you know, struck him down with a plague. The guy, Pharaoh, comes back to Abraham and says, why did you lie to me? I don't know. And so he says, take her back. But that's what happens when you go to Egypt. You compromise. You get tired of living by faith. And Abraham had a momentary pause. God didn't tell him to go to Egypt. He told him, get to the land that I will show you. And now that is the land I'm going to give to you and your descendants. He didn't tell him to go down to Egypt just because it got tough because he missed a meal or two.

Abraham stopped living by faith, and he went down to Egypt. And he got into trouble.

Look at Solomon. We've just been reading Ecclesiastes.

You read the story of Solomon in the book of Kings. He created an alliance with Egypt by doing what?

The marrying a daughter of Pharaoh. What was one of the cardinal things that God told Israelites not to do? Don't take a wife from someone who's not an Israelite. Why? She'll turn your head away from me and you'll lose faith. Solomon, among other problems that he had, married a daughter of Pharaoh to seek security. That's not faith. But that's the human element that he moved to. Instead, he got confusion. He got false religion and a compromised faith, which again is part of the story of Ecclesiastes. You read the story of Jeremiah after Jerusalem was burned by Nebuchadnezzar.

Jeremiah was with this little ragtag group of leftover Jews, and they truly were the leftovers because all the cream of the crop had gone to Babylon, starting with Daniel. And then by the time it was all over, they'd taken the best and they left behind the old weak and infirmed. And where did they want to go? They wanted to go down to Egypt. Jeremiah said, God says, don't go down there. But they went anyway. They went anyway. So, Egypt always plays into this story of Israel, God's people. It was a place they wanted to escape to when they had doubts, when they didn't know what to do, when they didn't want to listen to God, when they didn't want to walk by faith. Now, of course, we'll go back to the story of Israel at the time of Moses.

And let's think about that for a moment again. Why did they want to go back?

Think about Egypt. How many of you have ever been to Egypt in this room? Any of you?

Four of us. My wife and I and the Shabbos. We've been to Egypt. Okay. I've read a lot about Egypt.

You have two. And of course, you've seen the Ten Commandments, so you know all there is to know about Egypt through what Cecil B. DeMille tells us. But it's a fascinating place to study, especially ancient Egypt. It's a fascinating place to visit. I really wouldn't want to go today.

We were there about 10 years ago before it really got the revolution turned everything upside down. I'd think three times about going today. But you read about ancient Egypt and that great... it was a great civilization. It was a massive culture. It was a draw for anyone, Solomon, Abraham, Jeremiah's people, to go down there. And Israel is always doing this. And they did.

When you look and you study about Egypt in the ancient world, you learn certain points. Number one, Egypt was very clear geographically. If you look on a map, there's one dominating feature on a map about Egypt. You know what it is?

The Nile. Yeah. So the Nile River runs from the mountains somewhere beginning in either today in Kenya or Tanzania, and it flows north and empties out into the Mediterranean. But the Nile River defined Egypt. If you look on Google, look on one of the satellite maps, you've got the river. And on both sides, you've got patches of green. And beyond that, after a few miles, you've got nothing but arid desert. To this day, the Nile, when it would overflow, would give life through the water and through the soil for the growth season. When that Nile would not overflow, there was famine. But it's still there today, still defining that. You go there today, and for a few miles on either side of the Nile, it's green, and then you go into desert.

It is very clear geographically, and every bit of life was ordered around the rise and the fall of the Nile River. Egypt was very clear architecturally as well at the time of Moses.

You had pyramids, and you had the great temples. The pyramids were old in the days of Moses. Think about that. Go back to Moses. That's roughly 3,000 years ago. They were old then. When the Israelites marched past the pyramids going out, they were old. They were ancient monuments in their day, and they're still there. And the temple, especially the Temple of Karnak, upriver from Cairo today, massive complex of pillars, and it was the residents of the kings, the burial places of the kings, as they crossed the river from the temple. The Temple of Karnak is this massive complex that is still awesome and takes your breath away today just to look at it. You're walking around a forest of pillars that you can't even wrap your arms around.

On those pillars, I've described all the events to the kings and the people who lived at that time of Moses and that ancient period, and the hieroglyphics and the symbols and the pictures that are still there, tells their story. It was a very clear architecture. The pyramids were well laid out. The temples were laid out according to the rise and fall of the sun and the stars. Astronomically, they were very correct, and they were mathematically exact. And people today still try to figure out why they built them, where they did it, and how they did it, and even the reasons for the pyramids beyond that of expensive crypts for the pharaohs. But they were imposing, and they were meant to control people, and they did. Thirdly, Egypt was very clear theologically. In ancient Egypt, the unseen spirit world was translated into things you could see.

The spirit world that you couldn't see was translated into things that you could see.

All the gods had images to represent them. Every god that they worshipped had an image. Maybe it was a cat, maybe it was a hawk, maybe it was a bull, a hyena, an ibis. And reality came alive in the carved stone. And it was a religion of absolute control. Absolute control by the priests.

In fact, there's one of the things that I learned, one of the tour guides we had the year I was there, talked about the fact that only the priests could write because it was thought that in that that was a magical power. And they kept that within the priestly caste system, which was amazing when Moses began to write the law upon the stones.

And even as Moses taught and began to write things into the book of the law, and talked about that as you read in Exodus and Numbers, that even in itself for an Israelite or in the average Egyptian of the day was a revolutionary idea. They didn't write because the knowledge of writing was considered something that of God. It was a power of the gods.

And to write was to be able to express the knowledge of the gods.

So it was a religion of absolute control there. Fourthly, Egypt was very clear socially.

Everyone had a well-defined place, and they never got out of that place within the caste order of Egypt. They had a hierarchy. Pharaoh was at the top. And then they had serfs and slaves at the bottom. Israelites were among the slaves. Everyone else fell in between. And people didn't move socially in that world like we do today. You know, by hard work, by education, people can move through an economic strata into a different one. We can move socially today.

America especially is given that historically as an embedded part, I should say, of our American way is that you could become President of the United States and rise from humble beginnings, which many of them have done. And it can happen. Or you can advance yourself socially, economically, through hard work, through education. You couldn't do that in Egypt, the ancient Egypt of the time of Moses. Everyone was defined at a particular point where they were born.

And that was it. And that created for them probably an easiness. There was not a complicated life. There wasn't a lot of choices. And in many cases, there weren't a lot of consequences as a result of that. They may have been spared some of the problems that would come with unexpected wealth or moving into a strata of society that one wasn't fully comfortable or familiar with.

And so it may have been a whole lot simpler. But that was life in Egypt. Well-defined, right angles, fair spaces and foul spaces. You knew where you went and where you played the game. You knew where you didn't play the game. And it was all laid out down to the third decimal, kind of like baseball today. Egypt was the field of dreams of the ancient world. It was the wriggly field of the ancient world. Clean boundaries. Clear separation of players. You knew who they were. They had their names on the church or their numbers, and you knew everyone. You knew who the spectators were. You knew who the players were. And everything was governed. Straight lines, sharp angles.

Let's talk for a minute about the life of faith. But the Israelites were called to live.

A completely different life than Moses was leading them to.

It was going to be a life of opportunity. There were freedoms, liberty, and that's a great theme of the Exodus. But you know, with liberty and freedom come choices. And with choices come consequences, good or bad, depending upon the choices that you make.

When you have to fend for yourself, and there's not someone telling you, you were born here, you stay here. This is how you will live and die. In this village, in this profession, in this job, you will not do anything else. The Israelites now were going to be given a land of flowing with milk and honey, and they would have a mule and 40 acres.

And opportunity. They would not be slaves to any pharaoh. And they could learn.

And it was a new life that they were going to have choices to make.

God called Israel out of Egypt, and God has called you and I out of this world into the church.

And both callings is to a life of faith. That's the point. It is to a life of faith.

Now, that faith has much clarity to it. It's not a muddled life. I talked about Ecclesiastes and Solomon's meanderings and despair and joy and sullenness and realistic approach, but a life of faith that God has called us to has its clarity.

God says, I set before you life and death. So I said to Israel before they went into the Promised Land, choose therefore life that you may live. The law of God is very, very clear. There are ten cardinal points of the Ten Commandments that define a way of life.

They're not complicated. They're not hard to really understand.

But every one of them, we have to make a choice about whether or not we will live by it.

And that takes faith. To make that choice the second time, the third time, for a lifetime requires faith and confidence in the God who has called us. We have holy days.

We're in the midst of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the first set of them.

They lay out a very clear plan of salvation, of how God is working to bring about many sons to glory. There are many points of God's law, God's way of life, a life of faith that are very, very clear to us. And a life of faith has very deep meaning. When we come to understand the purpose for our lives, that's very important. That's deeply meaningful.

Whatever your story is, if I were to have you sit down and tell me your story, I would bet that at some point in it, the great aha moment was when you began to understand why you were born. And why you were created, and what you could become, and why all of this world, this life, and that would be the aha moment of our life for so many of us. The truth that God has given us are deep, and they are expressed in ways that create wonderful experiences in our lives.

The great truths that lead to a deep faith come as well from personal experience.

When you begin to keep the Sabbath, you may do it because you read, thou shalt remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

And if you're like me, your mother taught you that when you were 12 years old. And she said, you will not play football in the streets on Saturday afternoon.

You will go with me to church.

Okay. As I was lead kicking and screaming in that direction. Okay.

And then instead of staying on the high school football team in the fall, she said, you will come with me to a place called Big Sandy, and you will keep the Feast of Tabard Achilles.

And I said, but mom, I've got the team made. I'm one of the quarterbacks.

No, you'll come with me. When I got back from the Feast, my name was off the list in the locker room and did my football career. That's why I only like football. I don't love football.

I told you anymore, I'd have to lay on the couch and you'd have to have a notebook and start taking notes on it, but we won't go there. Okay.

Baseball, I played that a whole lot longer and enjoyed it. I got my knees to this day, so I guess I got a pretty good trade-off on that, and my head's not all scrambled eggs either.

But you know, in time, I learned to appreciate the Sabbath. When I began to hear the sermons at the Feast of Tabard Achilles that first year and for every year thereafter, and I had things explained about what the Feast of Tabard Achilles and the last great day was all about, and those holy days, and I began to put it all together and heard sermons on history and prophecy and doctrine and teaching. It all began to make sense to me in my young mind. Now, it took me a while to finally make a deep faith commitment, but it made sense. And then, as I began to keep it and began to learn about it, I began to love it. I've been doing it all these years.

The lessons, the great truths may start out as an academic exercise for us, but if they don't move to a very deep faith experience because we not only keep them year by year, but we learn to love them year by year, and we would not think of any other way of life beyond that. That's the deep faith experience that helps us to move from legalism to faith.

About a year or two ago, I was visiting a congregation, and I had a conversation with a friend I've had since college days about my age. He's been in the church for the same period of time through all the experiences of the church that we've all been through.

We had a wonderful conversation. He was telling me about how he looks upon the Sabbath.

And he loves the Sabbath. He's had his conflicts on the job through the years, but every one of them has always worked out. He said, when I tell him I'm a boss, I'm not going to work on the Sabbath, there's no hint of ever compromising.

The job's not important. He said, I love the Sabbath.

And I love to see that son go down on Friday night, he was telling me. It was a very meaningful conversation, the kind that we should have about any point of God's law. Because we come, as David said, to love thy law. Oh, how love I thy law, David said. One of the hymns that we have. Oh, how love I thy law. Oh, not how I dread it. Not again. Got to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, Jekyll Island. We do it because we know what it means, and it has translated into a deep experience of faith. Faith defines a life within this world that we have, which is often a muddled and unclear world. But God keeps us in the world. He doesn't take us out of the world. In John 17, Christ made that prayer on the night before He died, and He said, Keep them, Father. I've overcome the world, but they're going to remain in the world. And He said, Keep them in Your name. And He said to the disciples, The world's going to hate you, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. The world and life in this world can become quite, quite muddled for us at times, even as we move through it in faith.

But if we have faith that God is there and that He is with us, that's the key.

The key is to see Him and to not see Pharaoh. The key is to see God and banish fear.

The key is to stay with Him and to stay with this way of life and to keep moving toward the Promised Land and not want to go back like the Israelites wanted to go back. We're called to a life of faith. And faith is an art. It's not a science. Frankly, faith is not a baseball game.

That's why I label it as an escapism for me. I know exactly what it is for me.

It's like all sport. The recreation might be whatever your favorite is. It's a diversion.

It's a harmless diversion. When I watch baseball, I'm not sinning. Maybe spending a few extra dollars. If I go to Big League Ballpark today, certainly my time. I know what it is. I get into it. I enjoy it. When it's over, you know, it's not my whole life. It doesn't define my whole life.

No sport does. No other is a diversion that I might have in my life. It can't because life isn't like that. And I have to be able to distinguish the two.

When you look at the story of Israel, the book of Exodus and Numbers, they met many challenges. And it seems like every time they did, they wanted to return to the well-ordered life of Egypt.

They began to complain. And when you look carefully at what they complained about, they complained about life. Turn back to Exodus 16.

I think we're at the 20-minute mark. Mark, here, so I better get you to do something.

Exodus 16.

Here's one of those points of complaint. Verse 2.

Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. This is repeated over and over again.

The children of Israel said, "...all that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat." Longhorn steakhouse. Outback, whatever it might be.

And when we ate bread to the full, we had to just watch it get moldy, get hard. We had so much of it.

For you brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

What were they complaining about?

Life.

Life. A little bit of discomfort. A little bit of hunger. A little bit of thirst.

They wanted an easy life.

They didn't want to return to slavery and bondage. That's not why they wanted to go back.

They wanted meat and bread. They wanted security. They wanted to be free from fear.

They didn't want anybody chasing them down. They didn't... They knew where their meat and bread was going to come from because Pharaoh provided it for them, as long as they made those bricks.

Punch that clock. Nine to five. 40 hours. In their case, they didn't get overtime. 30 and out. Big pension waiting. Not too big.

Life was what they were complaining about. They didn't want to go back to bondage. What they wanted to go... What they really wanted, at this point in the story, was this. They wanted bottled water. Cold bottled water. They wanted catered meals. Big buffets. Can't you see a golden corral?

And they wanted a luxury bus tour onto the Promised Land. Air-conditioned.

That's what they wanted. They wanted what your friends who are over there in Israel right now, from this congregation. The Wents and everyone else that are on this Israel tour, you know.

You know what they're doing? They're seeing Israel. They're seeing the sights. But you know what?

They're in a nice air-conditioned bus.

They got a tour guide. They're tinted windows. And at the front of that bus, the tour guide has a little insulated compartment. And you know what he's got in that insulated compartment? Bottled water. It's ice cold. A dollar each. At least that's what it was when I was on that bus. He knows how to make a dime. And you know what they're eating? When they go back to their nice, comfortable four or five-star hotels on the Lake of Galilee or in Jerusalem, catered meals. Big buffets. I've been down those feeding troughs. All you can eat.

For the tourist trade, they put it all out for the people over there. They've got a luxury bus tour with bottled water and catered meals. They're seeing the Holy Land, Israel, in style.

That's not how Israel in the Bible was gearing up to go into the land.

But that's what they wanted. And let's be honest, you want to go to Israel today? That's the tour you want. Unless you're adventurous and you want to go out on your own and you eat cheese and bread and take your chances with the water and drive around and take your chances with the terrorists and other places. Because those tour buses have guards with them. Armed guards. But that's kind of like Texas. Everybody in Israel is packing, folks. I had dinner with somebody that we met over there one of the trips a few years ago. The guy gets up to go to the restroom halfway through the meal and his flap of his jacket goes up as he stands up. He's got a gun tucked in back there. You go into a Burger King in Jerusalem, you go through a metal detector. And you see soldiers everywhere and quite frankly, probably 80% of the people on the streets are packing.

I feel safer over there than I do in downtown Cincinnati.

That's the way that it is over there. When the Israelites got to the Promised Land, what they wanted then were big homes on big lots with swimming pools and Viking ranges.

In other words, they wanted what we want.

They wanted what we want in our life. We want comfort.

We want good jobs. We want health care. We want unemployment benefits. We want fully funded 401ks.

We also want perfect in-laws.

Smart kids. We want good neighbors that don't play blaring music till all hours of the night.

We want a good boss. We want to be treated fair. That's what we want.

We don't always get that, do we?

We don't like it when we have upset, turmoil, stress, and difficulty. When the children don't obey us, when they do things that turn our lives upside down, which often happens, when they may curse you because you raised them in this way of life and they didn't become the next NBA star because they had to keep the Sabbath, or when a job might be lost, or when other things might happen, stress and difficulty, that's what happens.

Life can get muddled because life is not always straight lines and sharp angles.

It doesn't always end fairly, and it doesn't always end conclusively.

Sometimes it ends or it just kind of moves on through with certain hopes not achieved, certain dreams not realized for any and all of us. We don't get what we perhaps dreamed of having, hoped we might have, and it's sometimes like that, and we have to deal with it.

Life is not a baseball game. We're clearly defined innings, conclusions. We don't always see around every curve that comes toward us. As the commercials used to say, life comes at you fast, and not even all state can protect you from everything that comes our way, can it? All state can buy the insurance to fix the roof after a tornado or hurricane damage, but all state can't fix her family. All state can't fix sometimes what might be aching and hurting right in here. Only God can, and that's where faith comes in.

But, you know, Numbers 14, Israel, got right up to the point of entering the land, and they saw these things.

Chapter 14 in verse 1, after the spies came back from the reconnoitering the land, and they reported they were giants over there.

They were big people with guns or clubs or spears.

And they're just not going to roll over and let us come in.

It's going to be a challenge. And so in verse 1, the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation, saying, if only we had died to the land of Egypt, if you just left us there, if only we had died in this wilderness, why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword that our wives and children should become victims?

Would it not have been better for us to return to Egypt? They said to one another, let's select a leader and let's return to Egypt. You see, they always wanted to go back to Egypt.

They didn't want to face their giants.

You and I have to face our giants. We have to learn to trust God and not ourselves.

And we either face our giants or we're doomed to walk around in circles in our own wilderness year after year. And at some point in our life, we have to recognize that we've got to stand up, be a man, be an adult, take responsibility for our life.

We can't blame someone, something, some body of the past, and we have to get up, go out of that cave and go kill an animal and drag the meat back in because nobody's going to do it for us. And move on with life and take responsibility. And the sooner you learn that lesson, the easier it is. I keep telling some of the kids at ABC and some of the pointers I try to give them here and there through the classes about life. I usually do a little three or five minute segment at times I call notes on the journey. Try to pass on a little bit of wisdom. It has nothing to do with the book of Acts or the doctrine that I might be covering that day, but it's just a little bit of a point of wisdom to help them to grow up and recognize there are certain things you've got to do about life. Because anymore, so many of our younger people are just drifting through their, especially their 20s without getting on with life and getting a real job, getting a real relationship, called a husband or a wife, and getting real about life because of many different things. That's the way society large is. And it's what I see. I see many of our kids, not all, but some, they come to ABC and they are wanting to come for ostensibly the right reasons, but you get to know them and you find out many of them are at a crossroads in life. And so part of the experience that I at least try to inject into it at ABC is to, hey, you've got to deal with these things, and here's what you need to do, and this is what I've learned, and here's what others have learned, and show up, know your lines, or other things that I try to help them understand. But it's a matter of taking responsibility and then moving into life as an adult. That needs to be done.

I was thrown into challenges in my early 20s that we had to deal with, that you just had to learn on the job and move through, and many of you did the same way, on your own, preparing, you know, paying the bills and taking care of a family at a very, very young age.

That's what life is, and the sooner we stand up to all of those in a responsible, godly, right way, the better off we will be, even when we meet challenges and things don't always happen. There's going to be giants in our lives, and we've got to move through them in faith on an ongoing basis. That's what God expects. We either have to face our giants, or we're doomed to walk around in circles in our own wilderness year after year after year. This is what the Israelites couldn't do as they came up to the land. They said, oh, there's a giant! Whoa! Let's go back to Egypt, where it's safe, where we know where we sit, where there's meat and bread. We know who's in charge, and it's a little bit more comfortable. It's a comfort zone. We have a lot of giants that we have to deal with. Anger may be won. Envy. Pride. Don't trust anyone. You come to a point in your life where you just don't trust because of failed experiences, people that have let you down. Maybe even the churches let you down. We all have giants that we have to deal with in faith, spiritually, physically, in our life. That's the life we've called to live. That's what faith is all about. Israel was moving forward to a new life, just as you and I have been for all of these years.

I'm in my over 50 years of this, sixth or seventh decade, however you want to figure it, of living this way of life. I'm still learning, and I'm still figuring it out in many ways. Still going deeper and deeper into things. I've reflected back on my years and learned my lessons, but you keep moving forward. We're all in that way. No matter what the obstacle is, it's called life, and we meet it with faith. We meet it with God's help. God promises us the kingdom of God and eternal life, and He promises us a measure of peace and contentment in a way of life that does work, but we are never promised a thorn-free life, one without trials. That is not in God's promise. And life can be a model. Life can at times be a wilderness, but faith invades the wilderness. Faith moves through the wilderness. That's what faith is. The evidence of things not seen, the things hoped for. Faith takes us on a path through the wilderness.

Faith is a light at our feet that shows us each step, but not always what lies a few steps ahead of us. I'm trying to flashlight on a really, really dark night, and all you're going to see is right is what is in front of you if you just put it down on your footpath. And that's kind of like faith at times. It shows us the path of our feet, but it doesn't promise to show us everything that lies ahead. We have to take that a step at a time. In Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, verse 1, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

We don't always see what lies ahead, but we must see God. When it talks about Abraham down in verse 8, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he dwelt in the land of promises in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. The heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And by faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed as she bore a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised.

Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and the multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. And all these examples are told of people and women and men who lived by faith. And all that they did was by faith. Verse 23 talks about Moses and by faith he was hit as a child. By faith, verse 24, he became of age and refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, staining the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he looked to the reward. By faith he kept a Passover with a sprinkling of blood. The lusty who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. And by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. All by faith. We may not always see the path ahead, but God does. And faith is our confidence that He is leading us at every stage of our life, helping us to move forward in confidence and in hope. We have to keep moving forward in this life, in this calling, in the church, this way of life that we've been called. One of the things that Jesus said is that He is the way.

In John 14 and verse 6, Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He is the way. Which another way to understand that is that He is the one who gets us through this life along the way. It is by Christ. It is by His life in us through the Holy Spirit, a life that we can have. And these days help us to picture as we eat the unleavened bread, pictures a sinless life that does picture Christ's life within us.

That's how we get through. As I said, He mentioned that we would have trials. John 16 and verse 33.

These things He said, I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation, trials, testing of our faith.

Things won't always be clear. They will not always be fair or foul, sharp, well-defined right angles by which we play the game of life.

So exact down to the third decimal point that we know just how we're doing at minutae level. It's not always done that way. We can't put an average to our faith level and our faith index. We really should be batting a thousand when it comes to faith. We don't always do that, but that's how it works. He said, Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.

And as we recognize that it is Christ that is our way through this world, then we have our eyes focused on Him in the right way.

And we're not going to want to return to Egypt and be like the Israelites, who wanted to go back to an ordered, defined, comfortable field of dreams, and to escape from the reality of a life that had giants, challenges, and obstacles.

We have to keep moving forward and not want to return.

We must stay committed to a way of life. One of the problems about Egypt, one of the problems about any past life that you and I think we might be better going back to, or should have stayed in. The problem with it all is its legalism. It's another form of legalism. You may not have ever thought about it that way.

Legalism can be, you know, a very, very strict, unbending, unmerciful application of the letter of the law, or a feeling added to that by obeying the law, we merit grace, we merit salvation, we can earn our way into the kingdom of God. That's legalism.

That if we just become perfect, humanly and physically, and keep the Sabbath without any breaking of the law, get every last crumb out of our house, and eat unleavened bread every day, all day, whole truckload of matzos, we'll earn our way into the kingdom. No, it's not. That's legalism. You got your homes clean this week before sundown on Monday night? Great. You know what you earned? Zero. Didn't earn any merit badges with God. You didn't earn salvation, another step along the rung. It was a physical ritual that we go through to teach us a deep spiritual lesson. And yes, God tells us to do it, and we do it. I do it. We should do it.

I've done it all these decades. I plan to do it till the day I die. But I know why I do it. I do it because I love to do it. I love to obey God, but I do it also because of what it does teach me. And I know that I'm physical, and I still have to be reminded of certain things every year.

But legalism is a thinking that, boy, you eat that unleavened bread every single day, or you've not kept them. But we should eat it every day because God does say to do it. But when we eat it, know why you eat it. There's a spiritual lesson there.

I see they've got matzos at the back, so I'm going to enjoy my matzos tonight.

And hopefully you will as well. But going back to Egypt, going back to any life we think we missed out on is a form of legalism.

And you know, the funny thing about legalism and the physical things, it lasts about as long as whatever it is. The last meeting, the last counseling session.

How many counseling sessions does a person need to make change?

To see the problem and to take the correction and to take steps to correct it. How many? If you go pay $80, $140 an hour to some therapist or some professional to work you through an issue, there may be a time and a place for that. But a good one is going to, at some point, tell you that they've done all they can for you and they'll stop taking your money.

A bad one will keep you coming back.

Now, I recognize there are some disorders that are long-term, and I understand that too.

But I'm making a general point here that if we're looking to a person or a process, necessarily, strictly and by itself, be careful that you're not looking to legalism, to kind of somebody or something to get you to where you need to go.

Legalism is only as good as the next conversation, sometimes even the next sermon or the next tie.

Take the sermon, take the sermonette, take the study, take the instruction, but then act on it and let it help you move along in faith.

If we rely on people as a crutch and they let us down, we can lose trust and we can become bitter, we could become angry. I've been there.

Part of growing up, part of emotional maturity is to recognize that people will let you down.

And you have to learn how to deal with that so that it doesn't destroy your faith, leave you bitter, perpetually angry, hopefully wiser, hopefully more mature, but you move on in faith and you don't let it become a giant that kills you. Legalism is letting physical things be such an attraction to us that we lose sight of God as our pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire by night and our cloud by day, leading us to the kingdom of God and learning to walk in faith. So when we learn to walk in those paths, that we understand truly what this life is all about. Faith is the ability to muddle along in the wilderness with a clear vision of God and His guiding hand. One scripture, one final scripture to conclude with.

To Exodus 14, let's go back there again where we began. And look at verse 13 where we left off.

When they complained, should we die in this wilderness? Why have we left? Why have you taken us out? Verse 13, Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace.

That's faith. That's what Moses pointed them to. And that's what we should be always keeping our eyes upon. And that's God. Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. He is the way and He will get us through this life as we rely upon Him in faith and in confidence and get us to the Kingdom, that glorious eternal Kingdom of God, our Promised Land.

Israel wanted to go home, go back to Egypt, because it was safe and it was comfortable and it offered them false assurance. We can't be like the Israelites. We have to move forward in confidence and in faith. And let's take that lesson with us from these days and let's keep moving forward toward God's Kingdom.