Services/Sermon in Longview 13.01.2019

Let us join together this morning in opening prayer and thanksgiving. Dear Heavenly Father, Thou Creator of the world, we thank You this morning hour that You have again preserved us, Your children, in Your kingdom here on earth. We thank You that You have given us all that we need every day for this body and life and our journey of faith. And we thank You also for giving us our dear travel escorts, our families and friends to help us in this journey here on earth.

And we enclose all, dear Father, in that prayer that Your Son has taught us. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

For a text this morning, I'll read a text appointed for this Sunday, the second Sunday after Epiphany. And the words, the text is Exodus 17, verses 1-6. And the words in Jesus' name are as follows. And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink.

Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water. And the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this, that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us, and our children, and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? They be almost ready to stone me.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go before the people, and take with thee the elders of Israel, and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river. Take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb. And thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. Amen.

Before I jump into this text this morning, I have to say that this duty that I've been given has been very difficult for me. That I have struggled with my understanding, my knowledge, and especially struggled with trusting that God would provide understanding and knowledge to me. I need to be reassured this morning. Can I hear that gospel? Can I hear that gospel? On the line of turning it through yourges and life, the word of Israel.

And we remember how it all started there in Egypt with the story of Joseph when he was sold by his brothers to slave traders and became a slave in Egypt and over time became a very powerful man in Egypt, became a governor to the Pharaoh or maybe the second most powerful person in the land at that time. And due to the famine there in Israel, Joseph made it possible for his family to come then to Egypt and to live and thrive.

And over time, those believers in Egypt, this was all predicted by God so many years prior to Abraham that this period of time, I don't know if it's called the Egyptian captivity, because it became a captivity of God's people there. And years before, God told Abraham in a dream, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out with a great substance.

And so, this story now today occurred 430 years after Joseph went to Egypt. And the believers in Egypt, the offspring of Joseph and his brothers as believers thrived in Egypt. And several hundred years after Joseph died, there was a new Pharaoh who didn't know the history of the believers. And we don't know exactly how they lived there in Egypt, but he saw these outsiders. There had to be something different. They were believers. And they were distinct in that society there.

Because the Pharaoh noticed that their numbers were great. And they threatened. He felt threatened with their presence. And so, he set them to work with taskmasters. And over time, they became slaves in that country of Egypt. And their lives became very difficult. And the Pharaoh fearing that they would continue to become more and more powerful, set a law in place that all firstborn sons need to be killed.

And we then know the story of Moses, how he was spared in that land and grew up in the very palace of the Pharaoh in Egypt. And then years later, God called Moses. And you kids remember these stories from Sunday school, how the Pharaoh would not let them go. That God hardened his heart and the Pharaoh became even more upset with those believers that were living there in Egypt. Those Israelite believers.

And at one point, he not only told Moses, I won't let you go, but he took the raw material away from them to make their daily work, their bricks, clay bricks made of clay and straw. He took away the straw and he said, you still have to make just as many bricks every day with just as much straw. And he was very evil to those believers who then had to go gather stubble from the field to make their bricks, their daily allotment of bricks.

And so time in Egypt became more and more difficult, more and more challenging for those believers before the Pharaoh let them go. And you kids also remember those stories from Sunday school where God sent plagues to Egypt. He turned the river to blood. He sent down frogs and lice and all kinds of unpleasant things for those Egyptians to experience. And yet the Pharaoh wouldn't let them go.

But once God sent this plague of the Passover that all the believing sons would be spared, firstborn, would be spared with sprinkling of a sacrificial lamb on their house. But all the Egyptians lost their firstborn, their firstborn son, and even their firstborn animals, all in one night. And they woke up to that disaster and the Pharaoh said, go.

And so that was the start of the wilderness journey. That was the start of the journey of God's children from this period in Egypt to that promised land, what was known as Canaan, what was also called the land of milk and honey, and is today called Israel. And so Moses led the believers out of Egypt. And there was not a small number of people. I don't know that anybody knows exactly how many there were, but there was between 600,000 and 700,000 men of fighting age.

And so I think if we approximate the same number of women plus children, we come to a number, a very large number, maybe near 2 million people traveling from one country to the next. And their journey, we know and have heard numerous times how their journey went. That it was even though their life in Egypt was so difficult, they were many generations since Joseph and his brothers. They had never seen this land of Canaan. They heard of it. They believed through faith that they would receive it. But they had never themselves seen this land that they then journeyed towards.

So, every step on that journey was a journey of faith. That they believed in their heart that this was God's promise to them. That this was the journey that would lead them to the promised land. And we understand those challenges that they confronted there at the shore of the Red Sea within a few days of departing. They turned around and who did they see on the horizon but the oncoming Egyptian army. And they feared and doubted at that moment why did we leave.

But God was able to deliver them from entrapment there at the shore of the sea. And what did he do? He parted the waters and they walked through on dry land straight across the sea. And the Egyptian army then drowned. And their life did not become real easy after that. They didn't take the most direct route to Canaan. Which as I understand walking in those days would have taken 11 days or so.

Instead God guided them on a different path. God guided them. He feared if they went straight through the land of the Philistines to Canaan that there would be war and they would turn back. God guided that group of believers a different path. And they still had difficulties. They came to a well and the water was bitter. And God told Moses to put a branch in the water and it was sweet. They ran out of food. And then God sent manna from heaven to take care of them on their journey.

And here now in this text that we read today another month or two later into their journey they ran out of water. They were thirsty. Sometimes when we leave the church here we pick up our kids who have been playing in the parking lot. And sometimes it takes a while to find them they're playing and enjoying their time here after church. And by the time they get in the car they sit down and we turn the corner onto Wool Road and they say dad I'm thirsty. And I say well why didn't you get a drink?

And sometimes as parents we consider this and maybe stop at Wendy's on the way home and get water and a frosty and maybe another treat for the kids and other times we drive home straight home even though they're thirsty. And what do we hear? We may hear some comments as parents. We may hear things that maybe parents shouldn't hear that you're so mean. Why can't you just quickly stop and let me buy water? Why can't we?

Now we've all experienced this. Maybe you've been hiking and your water supply begins to run out. This can be a real challenging situation. We may even become very desperate because we're so thirsty. And these believers here in the middle of this journey, this long journey to the promised land, we may also ask, well, why didn't they bring their own water? But they had all of their possessions on their back. True, they didn't need to bring food. They gathered manna every day. And maybe they had some sort of skin sacks to hold water in those days. But they also had the rest of their possessions that they were carrying. And maybe they had carried water and they just ran out.

So now, in our story, this believing group of Israelites traveling through the desert are desperately thirsty. And they began, as it says, began to chide Moses. As it says here in Numbers 20, And the people chided Moses and spoke saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord? And why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed or figs or vines or pomegranates. Neither is there any water to drink.

And so we see here that these believing travelers on their journey to the promised land began to lose faith. And when they began to lose faith, they became angry, they became bitter, and they began to doubt. And we also, in our own life, have experienced this as well, that when we have certain obstacles, difficulties, here on earth in our heavenly journey, we also doubt. We begin to question, perhaps, what is my purpose here on earth? Why is God's kingdom such a small kingdom? How can it be that to stay in faith is so difficult that I have to continually battle day in and day out this threefold enemy that I have to battle?

And we experience this regularly, that we may even become bitter, we may become angry, and we may doubt that is this the right kingdom? Is this truly God's kingdom? And what did God here do for Moses? He followed and listened to God. He followed the instructions of God. And there those believers were given water.

So, we may ask then that what is faith? Here we see an example of those travelers on a journey to a promised land lose their faith in Moses and in God. They who set off with such hopes of this promised land there in that point in time with no water began to lose their faith.

And we can read from Hebrews chapter 11 what faith is. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So, what in this case of our story was hoped for? What was this item? It was the promised land. And what was the evidence that these travelers had of the promised land? They grew up in Egypt. They were born and worked in Egypt their whole life. Maybe one or two had seen the promised land. We don't know that. But most of them had, or all of them, had never seen this promised land. Their only evidence of the place that they journeyed towards was their faith that God had promised this land to them.

And God guided their journey. He guided their journey in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. We understand and have been told without faith, it is impossible to please God. And we might say without faith, it was impossible for those travelers then to continue their travel to the promised land. It even says in the sixth chapter of Hebrews, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

So through faith, we are instructed here to believe that God is, that God exists, that he is real, and secondly, that God is a rewarder of one who diligently seeks him. This we travelers today also need to hear, that we can doubt even in this manner ourselves. We live in such an ever darkening world, that even as when Moses asked Pharaoh, can I leave with my people? We need to worship God. Pharaoh said, who is God? I don't know God.

And we also see this in the world here today in our own lives, that there are many today that also don't know God. And we are also instructed that we must believe that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. That we know we are faulty. We know our travel is full of failures and sin. But again, time and time again, we are given the opportunity to hear that gospel message, to come and renew our promises and diligently endeavor in our life of faith.

Our journey here can be difficult. But we also can be comforted with the understanding that throughout time, journeys of faith were difficult. The lives of many were not easy here on earth, as in our example here of these Israelite believers who were traveling for 40 years from Egypt to the promised land, at times endeavoring through many difficulties.

But also many other stories, how Abraham himself was instructed to leave his hometown and travel to a strange country. And he, believing in God, was obedient to that order. And also, Moses himself, who was retrieved from the Nile River by the daughter of the Pharaoh and brought up in the Pharaoh's household, and could have lived a life of luxury in that palace there in Egypt. But chose instead to suffer the afflictions of the believers, and chose instead to travel as a believer.

It says here in Hebrews 13, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. So that is the same with us today. We don't achieve or we are not given heaven here in earth. Nor were they. But they were given that promise that they would one day meet that reward. And through faith, through their belief that this would indeed come true. That is what saved them. They died in faith, having seen them afar off.

And we also, knowing that God, the creator of the world, knows each and every one of us. He understands each of our difficulties, our challenges. He understands that we may struggle with the understanding that we may fall into the same sin time and time again. He knows our trials, and he has promised to care for us and to not give us a trial too difficult for us to manage. And he has even brought us here this morning hour in faith.

And you again, dear brothers and sisters, can uplift your hearts even this morning to believe your sins and doubts forgiven. In Jesus' name, and precious blood. God has promised to guide us and care for us each step of the way on our journey here, and has promised to bring us to that heavenly home one day. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Let us join together in the Lord's benediction. The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious unto us. The Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.