Sermon Cloud

6/8/2008

Garfield Community Church

So You Want To Go Back To Egypt

Exodus 15 & 16

Do you ever long for the “Good ol' days”? Remember back when kids minded adults? Remember back when everyone put in an honest day's work without having to be supervised the whole time? Remember back when the government actually served the people instead of the people serving the government? Remember back when we sang 3 hymns out of the hymnal copyrighted in 1858 every week in church? Remember back when gas was only 26 cents a gallon? Ahhhhhh, the good ol' days. When a natural disaster would come along but no one knew about it because we didn't have the communications capabilities we have now. The good ol' days when a diagnosis of cancer was a certain death sentence. The good ol' days where teen girls didn't have babies, their mom's all of a sudden had another baby after the teen disappeared for 7 or 8 months.

The good ol' days don't sound so peachy when we look at the whole picture, do they. Why do we long for the good ol' days then? Why do we enjoy the feeling of nostalgia? Why do we prefer to be in familiar surroundings with no surprises. It's comfortable. The Lord doesn't want us to look back. What is behind us is behind us. We need to continue to move forward.

Let's look at some scripture.

Genesis 19

15 When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” 16 And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”

23 The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. 24 Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
26 But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Lot's wife looked back. She knew Sodom. It had been her home. It was a wicked place but they were comfortable there. They knew how to get around. They knew where to shop. They knew to be in doors before night fell and the real wickedness started. She was comfortable with that. By moving, especially so quickly, she was being taken out of her comfort zone. She was having to learn knew things, make new friends, and set up a new home. That's uncomfortable. That's stretching.

Let's look at another passage of scripture.

Exodus 15

22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 25 So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, 26 and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.

Exodus 16

1 And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. 5 And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.”

It didn't take long for the children if Israel to start complaining. It didn't take long for them to want to go back to Egypt. They wanted to go back where it was comfortable. Forget God's deliverance. Forget, God's provision and promise. They wanted to go back to slavery. They wanted to go back to working for Pharaoh so that their own selfish desires were met. They wanted regular meals. Who cares what the cost was. They wanted to know they had a house. Who cares what the cost was. They wanted to go and build pyramids. They wanted to go and die as slaves, so that they could be comfortable. God had so much more for them. God had a plan for their lives, if they would only trust Him and follow Him.

Luke 9

57 Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”
58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”
But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
61 And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”
62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

“No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” That says it plain as day. Jesus is telling us by this passage that the only thing that matters is moving forward in Him. Going where He leads us. Doing what He asks us to. Looking back is a waste of time. Resting in past accomplishments does nothing for the kingdom of God. What are you doing right now? Where are you going in the Lord tomorrow? How are you about to minister? Who cares what you did last month, or last year, or at your last job. Are you wanting to go back to where it's comfortable, or step out and follow Jesus Christ in all of His majesty?

It's natural to have feelings of nostalgia, and it's wonderful to remember back when. What we can not do is to live back when. We must continue to press on, as Paul says, toward the prize. We need to continue to move forward in Jesus Christ or the world will run us over like a runaway freight train.