How many times have you found yourself in this spot? A spot commonly referred to as, between a rock and a hard place? Here God had freed His children from Egypt using Moses as the messenger and deliverer. He brought them out of Egypt and into the path of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army hot on their heels. They had to go forward and the only way to go was the direction of the Red Sea. So God parted the sea and allowed His children to pass through it on dry ground, then immediately closed it back up swallowing the Egyptian Army. Here we learned of how God made the impossible possible and protected His children from certain death by the hands of the Egyptians.
What is your rock and hard place? No matter what it is, God has the answer. He did not have your soul bought and paid for just so you could die. He bought and paid for your soul so you may have eternal life. Now is the time to get focused on the promised land not on the past. No matter where you have been and no matter what you have done, He is waiting for you. You have to make the choice to follow Him and to allow Him to lead you to the promise land. He has a plan for each one of us, however, just like the Children of Israel, we seem to continue to wander in the wilderness.
In the wilderness God provided food, shelter and water for the Children of Israel. Why wouldn’t He provide for you today? I can tell you from experience, He has always provided for me. Because of the choices I made, I took 18 years of wandering before I came back to Him and started to realize His promises. You see He rescued the Children of Israel from Egypt in spite of the choices they made but allowed them to wander for forty years eating manna before they reached Canaan. I was lucky, I only wandered 18 years before coming to Canaan. Let me share with you how He provided for me, even though I was not willing to acknowledge His care for me.
In December of 1998, I was sitting in a jail cell, under lock down, classified a fugitive from justice. I heard that the bond was going to be $80,000 and I was going to go in front of a judge. I had no family in Memphis and no prospect of coming up with $8,000 to get a bail bondsman to post bond. I cried out to God, I prayed and I went in front of a judge. The judge lowered the bond to $25,000 and the $2,500 was provided for me. The money was my "manna". God provided the money for me to get bonded out of jail and I went about my merry little way. I was still in the wilderness but starting toward Canaan and getting a little closer.
Then in January of 1999 I received a phone call from Phoenix, Arizona and was informed my Dad had just died. I had no money and no way of getting back to Phoenix for the funeral. By the next morning, I received an advance on my paycheck and was on a plane. Again God provided "manna" and I just kept going on my own way. I was then provided the funds to return to Memphis and life started back up again. I was working and we had a home and were doing okay. Then in March I was again arrested. After 29 days in jail I was transported back to Phoenix on a Governor’s warrant. Again I prayed and the bond was lowered from $80,000 to $1,600 and again God provided the money (manna) through my Mother.
I kept getting in the spot of a rock and a hard place and God kept providing. I, however, resisted giving Him total control and He continued to allow me to wander in that wilderness. Finally, I came to the Red Sea and I either needed to cross or die. I cried out to God and surrendered my all. He parted the Red Sea and I passed reaching the other side a stronger person than I had been before. I finally started to see the edge of Canaan and life began to move forward. There have been so many times in my life that God provided and I did not even acknowledge this. I am sure you have been there.
I often tend to gravitate towards the stories in the Bible of ordinary men doing extraordinary things. I can relate because I am an ordinary man who, without the full power of the blood, would surely have been dead by now. Moses was an ordinary man, by all accounts, yet God chose him to go to Pharaoh and to lead the Israelites out of captivity. This was not an easy task by any means. Moses had to work on the Pharaoh and God continued to harden the heart of the ruler. Yet this ordinary man, through faith, continued to follow God’s commands and was granted victory.
I have come before you today an ordinary man who faces the same temptations everyday that anyone else faces. Even though temptation is ever present, it is never more than the next person faces and there is always an answer provided.
1 Cor 13: 13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
No matter what temptation you are facing, there is an escape. We must also understand that God is concerned with our soul not our body. He is not concerned with what can kill the body but rather what can kill the soul. You see the killing of the body cannot separate us from God only the killing of the soul can do that. So what is your wilderness? Drugs? Alcohol? porn? abuse? crime? hate?.....ETC
God doesn’t care where you are coming from, He only cares that you follow Him back to the promised land. He will guide you and strengthen you. He will grant you a full pardon and never leave you nor forsake you. It is only us that forsakes Him. He doesn’t leave us. Here in Exodus God did not leave the Israelites in Egypt to die nor did he allow the Egyptian Army to kill them at the Red Sea. He continued with them and, even though they kept turning back to their sinful ways, He provided for them all they needed to sustain life and to live in the wilderness until they finally decided it was time to take God at His Word and surrender there all to Him.
Let me add a little here for clarification. I rededicated my life to God in December of 1998. I, however, failed to give Him complete control. I failed to surrender my all to Him. I was going through the motions and I was studying His Word again. I was praying and I was seeking His answers. However, like so many, I was still doubting what He could do for me. My faith was still weak and my ability to truly advance into the promised land was hindered. I still was in that stage of the unbelief. I would shout out and ask for guidane every time I got up against a "Red Sea". I, however, would allow my own clouded judgment to prevent me from hearing and entering into the promised land or to move forward. You see often, even today, I find myself thinking I know better than God. I think, "It is my life and He doesn’t truly understand how I feel." I still, at times, find myself doubting a little. But I go to the Word and I seek the answers. I will never be free from sin. I, however, am forgiven and given a clean slate each time I come in repentance before Him. I may not always make the right choice but at least I know that after I make the wrong choice and fall flat, God is there to welcome me with open arms. It is not God’s intentention for me to be in the wilderness, it is by my choices that I find myself out in the wilderness.
God provided Manna (Ex 16:35) to the Israelites for forty years as they wandered. Now look at this again. These were not non believers, in fact they were the Children of God and he delivered them out of Egypt. He did not deliver them out to die. No, He delivered them out to live. He, once again, had to show the Israelites that He was their God and thus their Protector. He used Moses to part the Red Sea. And after the winds came, and the sea was parted, they passed and the Egyptians were swallowed up and all drowned. Just as in the wilderness when God’s children continued to go off on their own little tangents and He provided, whenever I went off on my own little tangents He would provide for me too. I will never be free from sin nor from temptation. I, however, will always seek God’s manna when I am in need. He never allows temptation beyond what we cannot handle, yet we tend to try to handle it ourselves.
Again, I must tell to you, God has no cares of where you are, where you have been or what you have done. He is waiting with open arms to welcome you back to His home. He is waiting to pardon you and give you eternal life. Your soul was bought and paid for in full, not for a time, but for eternity. God doesn’t intend for the Red Sea to swallow you up. He doesn’t intend for the Egyptian army to kill you. His plan is for you to reach the promise land. Again I will ask, what is your wall? What is your hard spot? What is keeping you in the wilderness? God has the answers, you must seek them out. Let me try to help you find those answers. I have told you a little about myself and some of the walls I faced. This by no means is all the times I faced the grim reality of crossing the Red Sea or dying. It is only a few of them. Let’s take a look at how we can know God’s direction for us.
Read Romans 7:14-25
It is not our will many times that causes us to do bad. It is the lust of the flesh that keeps getting ahold of us and causing the bad to come out. God understands this and, as Paul writes here in Romans, Paul also understood this. Paul who was by this time frustrated because, though he was trying to do good, it seems the bad kept coming up. You have to understand that God was using another ordinary man, Paul, to do extraordinary things. Here is a man who was imprisoned in a Roman prison yet continued his preaching of God and the saving power of the blood of Christ. Here is a man who even sitting in a prison cell never stopped trusting and never stopped serving, yet he understood that even himself would be overcome from time to time from the lust of the flesh. What is your lust? Is it drugs or alcohol? Sex? theft? Relationships? Family? You see, it really doesn’t matter because God knows that it is the lust of the flesh that has caused these issues and that you could give them to Him. He is ready to take them from you. He is ready for you to be a new creation and for you to put your old ways behind you. If he can do this for me, He can do this for you.
We have to try to get away from allowing the lust of the flesh to guide us and begin to allow God to guide. We have to stop listening to our desires and begin to realize God’s desire for us. Again, He did not lead us into the wilderness for us to be there to stay, He is leading us to the promised land. It is important for us to understand that, even though the lust of the flesh gets the better of us at times, God has not left us nor forsaken us. He is not separated from us (Rom 8:38-39), we have separated ourselves from Him. We separate ourselves from Him and go back to the wilderness. Look at for a moment at the story in Exodus 32 where God led His people out of the Egyptian captivity. Even after He parted the Red Sea and allowed them to pass on dry ground, as soon as they were left alone, they began to worship idols and party and forgot about God. Then Moses came back down the mountain and saw these things. God could have just left them there to die, could have stopped providing manna and water, yet He chose to continue to provide for them. He, again, did not leave them there to die. No, He allowed for forgiveness and He allowed them to continue to the promised land. He never left them, He never forsakes them.
Do you think He has left you? I can tell you that you are 100% wrong. God has not left you, rather you left Him. I can honestly tell you that as I sat in a jail cell, locked away for twenty three hours a day, He was there with me. He was guiding me and providing for me. I can honestly say that it was not His choice for me to be there, it was through the lust of the flesh that I committed a crime. However, since my choices landed me in jail, He took control and provided. He offered me comfort and even provided the way out. He parted the "Red Sea", so to speak, by providing the funds to get me released. And when I was sent back to Arizona, He provided comfort and the means of release. So even though I was being led by the lust of the flesh, He kept providing for me. He kept comforting me and He stayed with me even when I would depart from Him. I come to you today with a message of hope. It is a message of true justice and true forgiveness. I come with the promise of eternal life in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ. He went to prepare a place for you. There are many rooms and one is waiting for you. All you have to do is decide to follow Christ and to surrender unto Him. We must surrender our all to Him in order to receive the promised land. We must stop allowing the lust of the flesh to get the better of us. We must stop letting things of this world hinder our journey to the promised land. We must stop storing up our treasures here because the treasures in heaven are far greater than we could ever get here or imagine.
Again, I will tell you, no matter where you are today or what you have done, you too can experience true peace and comfort here on earth. You can receive a full pardon and look forward to an eternal life of great riches and glory. It is never too late, look at the criminal upon the cross. Jesus did not forsake him. No, instead He forgave him and promised that he would be in His Father’s house with Him. So it is not too late. You can also be given a full pardon and have the promise of eternal life today and then you will also reach your promised land.
Pastor David Azbell
08/12/04
