Imprisoned By Illusions
Exodus 16:1-5
Illusions are tricky. Sometimes illusions are an erroneous. In the reading this week the children of Israel are crossing the Red Sea and entering into the wilderness and headed toward Sinai. Millions are following Moses toward a promise that was made to Abraham hundreds of years before. They are leaving slavery behind. Yet there are challenges that lay ahead for the Israelites. The barriers are no longer Pharaohs chariots, but their unbelief.
Illusions are powerful. Even in our Christian lives. Illusions imprison us at different times. They imprison us in such a way that they are so powerful when those provisions that we’re hanging on to begin to fail. That’s where children of Israel where. They had been in slavery and now set free by the hand of God. It’s amazing that in just a few chapters before their backs are to the Red Sea and they see the Egyptians coming for them and they’re so terrified “how are we going to get out of this?” But then God provides a way out by parting the sea and allowing the people to cross over on dry land. And then they went to the other side and God allows the winds to stop and the sea crashes in on Pharaoh’s army. They’re watching this. As a matter of fact, Moses begins to sing. Miriam begins to sing. There’s jubilation because of what God done. But illusions become so powerful when they begin to lack provisions. It’s almost like a test.
Israel begins to grumble against Moses and against Aaron. They began to see themselves hungry so they started to complain because there is no food. And they began to look back. They focused on Egypt and said “when we where there, we where sitting around a fire and we where eating food and our bellies where full.” “ Don’t you remember where you where? Remember the slavery you where in? Have you forgotten all those terrible things that where going on in your lives?”
But you see that’s what happens when we are disillusioned in thinking that maybe we should have been somewhere else in the past. Living in the past. That’s where we get the phrase “I wish we could go back to the good old days” Yeah! Let’s go back to the good old days. Lets take all the plumbing out of the house and let’s put another little house out back with a trail. Then when we get this urge at night, we can get up with the thermometer at 27 degrees and make our way to the outhouse. Or if we don’t want to do that we can put this pan under our bed. Kids you think you have it bad by being responsible for taking out the garbage, well when I was with my grandparents before there was indoor plumbing, there was this little pan that goes under the bed. They called it a bedpan. So when you got the urge and Mother Nature called, they pull out this little pan and do whatever and then slide the pan back under the bed. Guess whose job it was to take out the pan every morning? ME! I’ll take out the garbage any day! Yeah, let’s get back to the good old days! I just don’t know about that. Sometimes the world overwhelms us with all of the technology. Everybody says, “Let’s get back to the good old days”.
That’s where the children of Israel were. The good old days really weren’t that good but they thought they were. Their bellies were full and they thought that everything was ok. But it wasn’t. Jesus comes into our lives and washed our sins away. We’ve been liberated from the spiritual bondage that we were in. But sometimes in our Christian lives we think, “I just can’t take this Christian life. I just can’t walk this Christian walk. So I’m going to go back and just do the things I was doing with my pals or my girlfriend/boyfriend. And I’ll just be better off.” What are you thinking?! Remember where you were, because you put on Christ because you wanted to get away from those kinds of things in your life, the miserable, lonely, hurting life. But sometimes, illusions are so powerful when there is something lacking in our life. In 1 Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul uses the twin of this event. 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the facts, brothers, that our forefathers were all under that cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses, in the cloud, and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank from the same spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” God had blessed them in delivering them from the Egyptians. But in verse 5 “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them: their bodies were scattered over the desert.” Paul goes on to use them as an illustration or as an example. Look at who they were. God had brought them so powerfully out of slavery and put them in route to the promise that He had made Abraham. But somehow or another, just because they had gotten hungry, they wanted to go back to where they were. God had so much more planned for them.
Not only are illusions powerful, but also they are also painful. Illusions are painful when reality sets in. When we begin to feel the pain of what goes on in our lives and we forget very easily. Think again about Egypt. If they are hungry and the pain in their belly makes them desire the past, think about it, wasn’t it Egypt that killed their babies? Wasn’t it Egypt that, day in and day out, they were beaten and driven by slave drivers? How far must you be removed from the past to get beyond those things? It wasn’t very long for Israel at all. Maybe we find ourselves in pain and want to get back to that relationship that caused us pain in the beginning. Or maybe we want to get back into a situation that we really didn’t need because we’re missing something here or feeling pain here so we want to go back there. God has so much more ready for us in our lives. God has so much more to offer us in being able to remove ourselves from the past, to bring us into the present, and to look forward to the future. All of us that have lived life at all have felt pain, you have felt anguish, you have felt fear, you have felt enslaved, have been abused, all of us who have experienced life. But God doesn’t desire any of those things in our lives. He has offered us a promise. That promise is His Son. We’ve always got to look forward. We’ve always got to focus on Him, to keep our eyes open and to see Jesus working. The past brings so much pain at different times. You may be struggling through a situation and think, “If I just do what’s right, then all of the things in the past are going to be gone.” That may not be so. There may still be pain in your life but we don’t go back. We don’t fall back. Paul had a lot of difficulties in his life, changing religions. He began to see who Christ was. There was so much offered besides the old law. There was the new covenant in Christ. So Paul says ‘There is one thing I want to do. That is to forget what is behind and begin to start looking to what is ahead. I press on to the goal.’ (Philippians 3:13-14) There is a reason he did that. He wanted to win the prize that God had called him heavenly in Christ Jesus. That’s what Paul wanted in his life. He wanted Christ involved in his life. So we need to press on. Look to your neighbor, both right and left, and say, “I want to press on”.
I WANT TO PRESS ON! Keep that thought. I want to keep moving forward. I don’t want to go back. The writer to the Hebrews tells them, “You don’t want to go back”. You need to keep your eyes focused on Jesus because it was with joy that He went to the cross for you. (Hebrews 12:1-3) ‘Oh man, I’m going to go to the cross today! Thank goodness!’ No, it’s not that kind of joy, but the kind of joy that He knew that you could have in Him. He pressed on to the cross. Do you want to press on? In Mark chapter 2 there were some fellows that wanted to help a friend. Now, they couldn’t get to Jesus because of all the people that were around him. The King James Version says there was the press, a crowd. That wasn’t going to stop them. They were going to press on. They went and cut a place in the roof and they let the friend down to Jesus so that Jesus could touch him. They pressed on!
In Mark chapter 5, there was this woman and she was sick and bleeding and had been for a long time. She just wanted to make her life whole. She wanted to be something and somebody and not a cast off. She wanted to be a part of the crowd, so she was in the crowd. She pressed on until she was able to get to Jesus. She reached out and touched His garment and she was healed. She pressed on for what she needed in her life and that was Jesus.
In Luke chapter 19, there was a short fellow. I don’t know how short he was but he couldn’t see Jesus. Everybody was standing around and he was jumping up to see but couldn’t. So he runs down the street to the corner and climbs up into a sycamore-fig tree. Jesus comes right up to him and says, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” Salvation has come to your house. The King James Version said that Zacchaeus pressed. He was pressed because of the crowd so he went and did something about it. He wanted to see Jesus and so he did something about it until he got to see Jesus.
Don’t be disillusioned by the past. The past is not where you want to be. There is a place where you lived and you want to be there again. But you don’t want to be there again. You want to be right here. You want to be in Jesus. You want Jesus to change you so that you can live in today and have hope for tomorrow. I WANT TO PRESS ON! The Church of Christ wants to press on. Paul says I want to press on. I want to press on to the goal that’s Heavenly. Everybody wants to move on. Don’t you want to move on? Don’t you want to be like those friends helping friends, like the woman, like Zacchaeus? Don’t you just want to move forward from today and be somebody different? Don’t be like the children of Israel. Don’t’ be disillusioned in thinking that just because you don’t have bread today that God doesn’t care. Just because you’re hurt today, don’t think that God doesn’t care. He does. He wants you to press on. He wants you to reach that heavenly prize, the goal to be with Him forever. Do something about your life this morning with faith to know that God can change you.
