Israel's Need - and God's Mercy # 1

(another sermon that is so important!)

Israel's Need - and God's Mercy # 1

Life is but a journey - a journey from the present fleeting world, to the eternal world.

"By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people." (Exodus 13:21-22).

In the books of Moses were now for the first time put into our hands with what deep interest would we read them, and what a powerful impression would their contents make upon our minds. To sit down and read, how God fitted up the world for our reception, how He created our first parents, how they fell by sin, and how graciously God opened a door of hope before them. To go through the history of the long-lived ante-diluvians, the history of the patriarchs, and above all, God's wonderful dealings with His people. Surely we would be absorbed in the subject, and filled with admiration at the book.

But we have been familiar with these things from our childhood, and therefore they have lost the charm of novelty. Still we cannot read these books carefully and with prayer, especially when we bear in mind that the past was typical of the present - without interest, instruction, and profit.

Israel had been brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand; they were about to cross the sea, enter the wilderness, and travel to the promised land. Moses was their leader - but they needed one wiser, more patient, and more powerful than Moses.

Just so with ourselves; the Lord has brought us out of the Egypt of our natural state; we have crossed the sea, which forever forbids our return to it; we are strangers and pilgrims on earth; and are traveling to a country which the Lord has promised to give us for an inheritance. There is, therefore, a similarity between Israel's circumstances - and our own; and we will keep this in view while we meditate on this portion of the Lord's
Word. Here we see -

First - Israel's need. They needed a GUIDE.

They had a long journey before them, which would take them forty years.

They had to travel by a strange path, on which they had never trodden before.

Numerous foes would endeavor to obstruct their progress.

Many dangers lined the way. And they had mistrustful and deceiving hearts.

Fellow-Christians - is it not even so with us? We are going on a journey to a country of which the Lord our God has told us.

The journey is long and trying. It takes some twenty, some forty, and some sixty years to travel from earth to Heaven.

It is a strange path. A path which no one knows - a path we have never trodden before. A path which by nature we could never find, and from which we are prone to turn aside.

We are surrounded by numerous foes, visible and invisible.

The WORLD frowning as a determined persecutor, or fawning as a base deceiver - is our foe. Now by sneers, sarcasms, or sword; and then by its gilded vanities, flesh-pleasing baits, and blandishments - it endeavors to turn us aside from the right ways of the Lord.

satan and his hosts - crafty, cunning, cruel, united, persevering and determined - set themselves to terrify and drive us back, or to allure us from the way.

And worst of all, in our own natures, we have a determined foe who is ever present, ever vigilant, ever powerful.

Yes, the FLESH lusts against the Spirit. We find a law in our members warring against the law of our minds.

The world, the flesh, and the devil all combine to oppose our progress, hinder us in our march, and, if possible, to destroy us in the wilderness!

Then there are so many dangers: the towering rocks of presumption, the quagmires of doubt and fear, the pitfalls of error, the ravines of willful sin, the fiery-flying serpent of temptation, the scorpion of indulged lust, the sunshine - and the shade; the barren sands - and the verdant valleys; the granite rocks - and the flowing streams - all of them have dangers concealed in them! Nor can we be trusted alone for one moment - if we are to be safe. Worst of all, there are our distrustful and deceitful hearts!

~James Smith~

(continued with # 2)