Exodus - Part 9- "Fear Not The Obstacles In Your Path" Series

Exodus – The story of God’s presence

Part 9

“Fear not the ob-stacles in your path”

Exodus 15:22-27

I love the movie Oh Brother where art thou and quote it often

In my opinion it is one of the funniest movies ever made

Early on in the movie

Everett- Pete and Delmar chained together wearing stripped pajamas

Hitch a ride on a hand car on the rail road

The old blind man who is pumping the hand car

Tells them ‘that they----

He tells them

Well let me quote it as best I can

“You seek a great fortune

And you will find the fortune

But’ it will not be the fortune that you seek

First you must travel

A long and difficult road

A road fraught with peril

You shall see things to wonderful to tell------

I cannot tell you how long this road may be

But fear not the obstacles in your path

It never ceases to amaze me that when we look for God

When we seek his face

We find in him in all sorts of places

In movies and songs

In the good times and on the rough roads

When I think of rough roads

I think of my time in Zambia

Where we traveled a really rough road for hours to get to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been

Only to have to leave a few days later and travel the rough road again

Many people in this world want you to believe that when you become a Christian

Life will be a bed of roses

No more problems

No times of despair

No trials

No testing

No temptations

Nothing but easy sailing

I need to tell you

If you have been told this

You have been lied to

The Christian life is often hard

It is made up of rough roads with occasional rest

And the roads we must travel are often filled with obstacles

But

So is everyone’s road

The world is a rough place

But

We when we know Jesus

We do not need to fear the obstacles in our path

Because we know we will end up at a place of beauty one day

But for now we must endure the obstacles

And try to learn from them to continue our spiritual growth

Today we are picking back up in our study of Exodus

Last week

God’s people ---the Israelites

Had finally gained their freedom

God had miraculously

Delivered them from bondage

He had split the sea in a great show of his power

And the People had raised their voices in praise and worship to God

Yahweh

The God of Abraham

The God of Isaac

The God of Jacob

The one who had rescued them just as he had promised

And now

2 million free people

Set off

Following God

As he led them

On a road

Not a smooth road

Not an Easy road

Not even a well traveled road

But a road that was difficult and one that contained many obstacles

Let’s read Exodus 15:22

Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the desert of Shur. They traveled in this desert for three days without finding any water.

If you were in round pen last week you have heard some of this

But

I do not believe we can hear God’s word too much or too often

The Hebrews were headed for the Promised Land

I have no doubt that they thought God would take them straight there

From Point A to point B as we discussed a couple of weeks back with no detours or layovers

But now

Here

They were traveling through the desert

And they were getting thirsty

I can see Augustus McRae in my mind saying

What if it’s all like this?

No water

No grass

No nothing

Guys

The desert does not have much to offer

No water

Little shade

Just sand and heat

Barely enough to feed a little old lizard

Definitely not the land flowing with milk and honey that they were expecting

But remember God always has a plan

And his plan for his people often contains hardships and obstacles

God needed the people to trust in him and him alone

He needed them to stop looking to themselves

He needed them to stop looking back to Egypt

Stop looking to the desert for their needs and just Trust in him

Even when trusting him went against common sense

This is what he needs us to do as well

Look to him

Trust in him

Unfortunately they did just the opposite

They grumbled and complained

Don’t we often follow their lead as well?

Let’s pick back up in Exodus 15:23

23 When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink. So they called the place Marah (which means “bitter”).