HIStory: the story of a God who ... guides his people through the desert
Exodus 13.17 - 14.31
Milford Baptist Church, 7 July 2002

It was November 2000. Lorraine and I were in Los Angeles. And we were setting off on a short trip to Disneyland in my brother's car, a Porsche. We had a set of written instructions printed off the Internet, and the road was marked with signs all along the way. How difficult could the trip be? Pretty difficult. At a critical juncture we missed a vital turn off. And, not having a map, the trip quickly took a disastrous turn. I was driving along a massive eight-lane highway on what seemed to be the wrong side of the road trying desperately to avoid crashing my brother's flash car. Lorraine was sitting next to me trying desperately to navigate without a map. I was almost yelling. She was almost crying... We needed a map. A guide.

We all need a map, a guide, for our journey through life. People know it. Look at the proliferation in recent years of personal life-coaches, guidance counsellors, clairvoyant services... Everyone is on a journey. Everyone faces intersections, life-changing decisions. We all need a map, or better still, a guide.

The people of God are going on a trip. A trip they've been looking forward to for four hundred years. At last, Egypt is in their rear-view mirror. They are going from slavery to freedom. They are going home. How difficult could the journey be? Once they'd left Egypt, all they have to do is cross the Sinai Peninsula. Three hundred kilometres: they could do it in a couple of weeks. The only problem is that they don't have a map. And none of them have been to the Promised Land before. But they don't have to worry. They have a guide. There is a pillar of cloud and fire in front of them. The fire that had burned in a bush for Moses - the symbol of God's presence - is now burning for them all. They will all be guided by God.

The pillar starts to move and the journey begins. But the people notice that something is wrong. The pillar is directionally challenged. It is going the wrong way. The Promised Land is somewhere northeast. The pillar is heading due south, towards the Red Sea, towards the desert. The desert is not the direction they want to go. The desert is not a place flowing with milk and honey. It's a dry and barren place, a hard place. Do you know the desert road across the central plateau? It's scenic, but it's long. You wouldn't want to break down there, spend too much time there.

But God leads his people on the desert road. A roundabout journey through the desert. And for Israel this is not just a minor detour. They are going to spend forty years in the desert. Like Moses. He spent forty years in the desert. Elijah spent time in the desert. Even Jesus spent time in the desert. Anyone who follows God is going to log some time in the desert. We all will know times when our heart aches with hurt or loss. Times when our mind struggles with fear or confusion or doubt. Times when faith is hard. We pour out our heart in prayer to God, but there seems to be no response, no sense of his nearness. We read the Bible for comfort but there are no answers to our questions. We all know times when our soul is dry. We're in the desert, and the desert is in us.

But God, even at those times, is guiding us. His Spirit, like a pillar or a tongue of fire, is in us, leading us. So what is his purpose in taking us into the desert? We're there for a reason. Why? Three reasons.

The desert is a place of strengthening.

Why does God take Israel on the long road, the desert road? The story says that God knows if they go the direct route - a heavily fortified route - and face opposition, they may change their minds and return to Egypt (13.17-18). Although God is perfectly capable of delivering them from the Philistines, they don't believe it - not yet. And so God takes them into the desert, to strengthen their faith. In the desert, for forty years, he will faithfully feed them every morning with bread from heaven, guide them every night with a pillar of fire, protect them every day from the threat of their enemies. In the desert he will teach them to trust him.

I remember my first two-wheeler bike. An old clunky hand-me-down. But it was a two-wheeler. I'd ridden bikes with training wheels, but this didn't have any. So dad would hold the back of the bike with his hand to support me. One day he let go. I careered across the front lawn and crashed heavily into mum's carefully cultivated garden, to the muted applause of my whole family, who had all gathered to watch. Dad let me fall. But he hadn't abandoned me. He was teaching me how to ride a bike. There was no other way to learn. And he didn't want me using training wheels at the age of thirty-one. When you first ride on your own, unsupported, it feels like you're failing. But the fact is you're growing. You just don't know it.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that in the first days of the Christian life God often gives us freedom from temptation and the desire to pray. He is making it easy for us, supporting the bike. Lewis went on to say:

"But God never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their obvious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more then during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature he wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please him best."

Perhaps you're at a place where you don't feel the gracious hand of God. You may not have felt it for some time. Or you're wondering if what you believe about Jesus isn't just a mirage in the desert. You're tempted to give up. But the truth is you have a chance to learn how to ride. The desert is a place of strengthening.

But there's another reason why God leads his people into the desert.

The desert is a place of glory

God says, when he explains why he's leading his people there, "Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord" (14.3-4).

It's in the desert that we have the best opportunity to bring glory to God. When the climate becomes dry and life becomes hard, the natural temptation is to forget about other people and to focus on your own comfort, your own survival. And so, in a worsening economic climate, executives instruct their accountants to fiddle the figures, disguise the debts, to serve their own interests at the expense of others. But when we're in the desert, when our comfort or interests are threatened, people have their binoculars trained on us to see if we are any different, to see if we really believe in a God whose leading us. It's then that we get a chance to show what God is really like - if we'll take the way of the cross, and put others first.

You may have heard the story about the elderly couple lying in bed. She isn't satisfied with the distance between them. So she reminds him, "When we were young, you used to hold my hand in bed." He hesitates, but slowly a wrinkled hand snakes across the bed and grasps hers. But she isn't satisfied. "When we were young, you used to cuddle right up next to me." More serious hesitation now. But eventually, with a few groans, he turns his body and gives her a cuddle as best he can. Still she isn't satisfied. "When we were young, you used to nibble on my ear." There's a loud sigh. He throws the covers back and bolts out of bed. "Where are you going?" "To get my teeth." It's one thing to love someone when loving is easy. But when the springs of romance run dry, when you have to get your teeth first, when love becomes hard ... will you follow the pillar then?

Perhaps you're in a relationship that has become dry and difficult. Maybe it's a sister or a son or a spouse that's causing you pain. The well has run dry, and you're ready to give up. Will you follow the pillar again today? Will you keep loving them one day at a time? Will you put their needs before your own? Perhaps work has become a dry and hard place. Will you follow the pillar again this week? Will you graciously serve your unfair boss, your unkind co-workers? Perhaps you're wrestling over and over with the same sin? You've confessed it, prayed about it, tried to bury it, but nothing seems to work and you're secretly ready to resign yourself to never overcoming it. Will you follow the pillar again today? Will you keep trusting God?

The desert is a place of strengthening. It's also a place of glory. But there's one other reason why God leads his people on the roundabout way through the desert. He's leading them home.

The desert is place of hope.

How do you think the people of Israel must have felt when they found themselves lost in the desert, pursued by their past, trapped next to the sea? They must have thought that the desert road had turned out to be just a cul-de-sac, a dead end. But, despite their complaining, despite their lack of faith, despite all appearances, God was in control, and he provides a way for them through the sea to the other side. He delivers them at last from the power of the Egyptians. And the story says that "when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant" (14.31). The people of God realise that this God who has delivered them from slavery and death, is leading them through the desert, and will bring them to the Promised Land.

The Apostle Paul draws an interesting analogy between what happened to the Israelites in the sea and what happens to Christians when they are baptised. He says that when we are baptised we pass through that sea. We are giving expression to the fact that we are leaving behind an old way of life - a life of selfishness and slavery and death - and we're entering a new way of life - a life with God's people, under Jesus' leadership, a life that will take us home. Is God calling you to cross over from a life of selfishness and slavery, to a new life with God's people under Jesus' leadership on the journey home?

I remember once driving a rental care through the deserts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada. I had just been to see the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, all in the space of a day. I was tired and desperate to get back home to where I was staying. I had a map, and to save time I decided to take a short cut along a desert road. I quickly realised that it wasn't going to be a short cut, and so I tried to turn around. But as I did, I got the car trapped in the mud on the side of the road. The tires had no traction. I was stuck on a lonely desert road. Night was falling. And it started to snow. A handful of cars went past, none of them stopping. I was just about to give up hope, when a big Ute pulled over. The guy got out, chained my car up to his, and pulled me out. And then in the cold evening, with the snow falling so heavily that I couldn't see the road to drive, he said, "Follow me. I know the way. I'll get you home." And through the snow, through the desert, that man was my guide - a pillar of fire - guiding me home.

The One who has delivered us from the slippery life of sin, the One who walked the desert road, died on the cross for every single one of us, he knows the way for each one of us - and for us a church - and he will guide us home.