Castaway Camp Conquest

Exodus, Joshua

Last time our 5^th ‘C’ was the Call of Abraham.  Tonite we look at #’s 6-8 in a bird’s eye view. 

God called Abram to found the great nation of Israel.  He kept His promises and gave them a great start.  But sin takes its toll and Abram’s great grandkids have issues.  Joseph is sold into Egypt, and eventually all his family is there.  For several hundred years they multiply there as Castaways.

Exodus 1:8
Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

Now they are in slavery—Prisoners in Paradise.

Sin is a place.  It’s a place you can go.  It’s not just an action or an occurrence, it is a conscious journey you make and it doesn’t take long to arrive at the place of sin.  It often becomes a place of slavery.  Thank goodness the lockdown can be lifted, the chains can be broken, and thank God that the place of sin is also a place that you can leave!

Ill.--The prodigal son went off to a far country.  For him, sin was a place.  He wallowed in the mud a good while before he came to himself and decided to leave that place.

Egypt in the Bible is a picture of the world...the place of sin.  The Bible talks about people ‘sojourning’ into Egypt.  This is just a temporary visit.  Abraham left God’s Promised Land and sojourned into Egypt when famine came.  He didn’t plan on staying.  But while in the place of sin he lied about his wife and got into trouble.

They came to know the bondage, the burden, and the bitterness of sin.

Now in bondage as slaves, the people of God need a deliverer.  Speaking of delivery, their midwives now have been instructed by Pharaoh to kill all male babies born to the Jews.  But they valued life.  They continued making ‘special deliveries,’ and one of them was to be a special ‘deliverer’!

Moses is God’s man for the job.  God reveals Himself at the burning bush.  Moses goes before Pharaoh and it takes the 10 plagues to get his people free.  The final plague was a fatal one and we learned about the Passover lamb and the importance of the blood.

At this point in the story he has led God’s people from slavery to freedom, and all 2-3 million of them are marching toward the Promised Land.  It’s the Exodus from Egypt!  “Out of Africa!”  Free at last for the first time in over 400 years.  The NT confirms this is a picture of our salvation from sin.  Now they are camping, and it’s a long trip.

Now they are in the wilderness, not a long trek to the Promised land, but it takes 40 years.  From bitter waters to stricken rocks, manna and quail...it’s a long time before they ever taste the milk and honey and chomp on giant grapes at Eschol.

They have time to think, learn, and grow.  Time for the 10 Commandments.  They become really good at breaking them and they come to realize their need for God.  They build the Tabernacle and learn about Jesus in every single article.

God actually wants to dwell among them, and they learn what it takes to be saved, to come into His presence, and experience His glory.  A pillar of fire by night and cloud by day leads them on their journey to the Promised Land.

We jump to the Joshua story and he is God’s man to lead them into that land.  From the Jordan to Jericho and Ai, the conquest begins.  But they never have absolute and complete victory.  And I never seem to either.

It’s all a journey and they are ever learning, ever failing, in a great cycle of 1. Sin. 2. Suffering. 3. Supplication. 4. Salvation ... over and again.  And we’re just like them!

Turn to Psalm 78…

vv. 34-42         And the rest of the chapter reminisces of the mighty plagues in Egypt, and how mightily God delivered them, and how they treated Him in return, spitting in His face by not fully following Him.

And truly for us to do anything less than give Him 100% of who we are is an insult, and will lead to a wilderness-like Christianity that goes in circles and accomplishes very little for our generation!

v. 41 says they ‘limited God.’  But can the creature actually limit the Creator?  How could this be?  He’s all powerful! 

First of all, God in His essence cannot be limited.  He plays by no one’s rules but His own…but one of His rules He goes by is that He will not use a dirty vessel to put His glory into.  He will not put His hand into a dirty glove to do His work. 

The balance:  truly, anything God does thru us is in spite of who we are as sinful mankind…but He can do so much more than we allow Him to…we limit Him by not selling out and becoming 100% dedicated to the greatest life any Christian could ever hope to live, the life of building the church of the living God!

To do less is unthinkable, and limits God.

It’s time the people of God realize they are limiting the Father’s work here in the church.  It’s time we stop praying, ‘God, use me’, and start praying, ‘God, make me usable’.  This happens when we realize that He wants to do greater works than we can imagine, and He wants this place to become a soul saving station like no other in the area, full and overflowing!

That’s why He left us here…it’s why He led you here…you can do it, you can reach others w/ God’s help, if you’ll commit to the task, and take responsibility in your generation, and just believe it’s possible…to do less would be to limit God!

I don’t like what I see in Israel.  And often when we don’t like someone, it’s because they remind us of ourselves!  Personality conflicts come when we butt heads w/ someone much like us!  And so, we could point our fingers at Israel and ask them why they made such an easy task, such a short journey, into such a long, drawn out, impossible feat…but rather than do that, we should look in the mirror and say, how can I avoid doing the same thing.

The Bible says that the “dog returns to his vomit, and the pig to wallowing in the mud”

We need to stop the cycle of going in circles…constantly returning to the same sins over and over again, and get victory and go forward, doing greater things for God than we ever even considered we could do!

Hebrews 12:1

    …let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

We take God’s grace so lightly, and return to the same sins over and again. 

Ill.—pet sins—they keep coming back because of how we stroke them and feed them and care for them!

        You know, you can’t keep stray dogs from coming into your yard, but you don’t have to pet them and feed them…or they’ll never leave!

        Well, it’s time we teach the devil it’s not gonna work anymore!

Here’s 3 quick things Israel did wrong:

1.     Lacked faith.  They didn’t take God at His Word.

v. 22        Oh, they believed enough to leave Egypt [to get saved] but not enough to ever arrive at the promised land [victorious life].  I marvel at Christians who believe God for something as huge as salvation, but don’t believe they could ever personally win a soul to Christ, or don’t believe He could do great things w/ their life!

2.     Lacked obedience.  They didn’t hearken to God’s voice.

vv. 9-10           God told them they would win if they would go forward and enter the promised land, but they saw giants and were afraid, and turned back.

3.     Lacked purity.  They didn’t progress in holiness.

Praise God He doesn’t expect sinless perfection, for none of us could meet that challenge.  But He does expect us to ‘sin less’!

vv. 56-61 detail this.

God wants us to go forward as Christians, and as a church, and the best progress comes by walking, not by wandering.

2 Peter 3:18

    But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

That’s baby steps, but it’s still going forward…that’s progressing in holiness!

Col. 2:6

    As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

…that’s progressing in holiness!

James 4:8

    Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

…that’s progressing in holiness!

Proverbs 24:16

    For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.

…that’s progressing in holiness!

Proverbs 28:13

    He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

At best, most Christians just confess…knowing it’s not the last time they will do that sin!  Well, that confession may be good for the soul, but forsaking is what God is looking for, or we limit Him in our generation!

Because they never fully attain sin takes hold and follows a new course downward again.  Next in the series is the time of the Kings [Crown] and then they are led into Captivity.  Jerusalem is destroyed and it looks as if all hope is lost.  But there is a Construction yet to come in our OT, and then we get to the NT ‘Cs’ like the cross, and on to the end of the world, when, by the way, Israel will finally have the full achieving success God has promised all along.