FBC Morning Light – February 1, 2023

The Lord’s Providential Detours in Exodus 13

Well, good Wednesday morning. We are in the middle of the week, and I hope you're following along in the Bible reading plan. If you are, then today we're in the book of Exodus. I want to focus on chapter 14, also reading in Matthew 23 and Psalm 23, probably the most familiar Psalm of all, the 23rd Psalm.

But I want to focus on a couple of verses in Exodus 13, reading Exodus 13 and 14. But do you do this? Almost everybody nowadays has some kind of GPS navigation system when they travel, either built into the car—I have that in our car—or they use Google Maps or something like that, so they have to get to a place.

Maybe you're not familiar with it, maybe you are, but you type in the address and you hit the directions and then start, and the map service gives you the most efficient route to get to your destination.

Sometimes I put that in just to keep an idea of how long until I reach my destination, even though I know right where it is. Oftentimes when I'm on my way home from somewhere, I'll just hit the navigation and say home, and then I can see what time I'm supposed to get home, according to the navigation.

The reason we do that is because we know where the destination is, but we don't always know the most direct route to get there. Typically, most of us are in enough of a hurry that we want to take the most direct route.

Oftentimes I don't do that. Oftentimes the most direct route will take me on the interstate, the toll road, or whatever, get to point B from point A. But what I often do is just take the back roads, not in that much of a hurry, don't want to spend the money on the tolls or whatever, but I just enjoy driving in those back roads, lower speed, take in a little more of the scenery, sometimes, but not always.

Usually I'm wanting to get to where I need to go, so I type in the address, punch it in, and I get the most efficient route there. I think that's the natural penchant for us, isn't it? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and I want to take that straight line.

We have this interesting couple of verses in Exodus 13, where the Lord deliberately did not do that for his people. Now, let's remember what the Lord has promised his people. The Lord has promised the Israelites, the Hebrew people, that he would give them the land of Canaan.

They have been in the land of Egypt. He has brought them out of the land of Egypt as a people, an entire nation of people, and he's leading them to this promised land. If you're the people, you're saying, man, I want to get there.

This is a land flowing with milk and honey, it's a land with everything we need, it's a wonderful place to go and be and live and dwell, let's get there. But we read in verse 17 of chapter 13, it says, 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.

Although that was near. In other words, that was the most direct route. God didn't lead them by the way of the Philistines, although that was near. It says instead in verse 18, that God led the people round by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea, and the children went up in orderly ranks.

In other words, there was a much more direct route to get from the land of Goshen to the land of Canaan, the promised land, than the route the Lord took them. Why did he do that? The Lord had a reason for it.

He says in the end of verse 17, God said I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to take the most direct route by way of the land of the Philistines, because the people will change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.

They would be discouraged, they would feel defeated, they would think we can't do this, we can't go, the enemy is too great, so let's turn around and run back to Egypt. The Lord knew the heart of the people, so he led them along the long way, and led them down by the Red Sea, and led them through the wilderness in that way, so they wouldn't be discouraged by facing war.

God’s Guidance Through the Long Way in Life

The application of all this has nothing to do with GPSs and Google Maps and all that kind of stuff. This is what it has to do with. Oftentimes, the Lord has a destination point for us in our journey of life.

We have certain goals, we have certain objectives, I think the Lord would have me to do this, I think he would have me to get here. We experience this often when we're younger, and I can remember this as a young man in college.

I'm preparing for the ministry, and a lot of my colleagues in those days, preparing for the ministry, Bible majors, pastoral studies majors, whatever, they're wanting to go in the ministry, and they're thinking, man, I can't wait to get out of college so I can get right into the ministry, and I don't want to go to grad school, I don't want to go to seminary, I just want to get right into the ministry.

I had some of that mentality too, but came along the way in junior, senior year of college, and realized graduate school is a good thing. I need to get more education, I need to keep going in this education route, and pursued it.

The point is that there could have been a faster track to getting some kind of a ministry position, but the Lord took me the long way. The Lord will do that to all of us. He will do that to all of us.

You may feel right now like you're in some kind of a diversionary path. You have a point B out there that you want to get to, and you really believe that's where the Lord wants you to be, in that point B path.

A destination. But here you are, way off the beaten path, if you will, off the direct route, and it's not your fault. The Lord has brought providential circumstances in your life that have led you way over here.

How are you ever going to get over here? The Lord will lead you in His time, and you may not know why. You may not understand why. I don't think the Israelites understood why they weren't going through the land of the Philistines, because that was the most direct route.

I don't think they understood that they would face all kinds of war, and that would discourage them and make them want to run back to Egypt. They didn't get that. They didn't know that. The Lord gave Moses the interpretation of the long way.

We don't always get that interpretation, especially right away, and sometimes we don't get it even when we get to point B. But the Lord has His reason for His providential direction. So if you're off the direct route a little bit, don't panic.

Don't fret. Trust. Trust. So our Father and our God, we thank you for your providential care for your people, and that you direct us in the way we should go for our greatest benefit and for your ultimate glory.

May we trust in you to that end, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, have a good first day of February. May the Lord bless you in it. Good day.