Sermon Tone Analysis

Pyramids

In Exodus 14, God delivers the Hebrew people from Egypt, by taking them the long way to the Red Sea.

Pharaoh has one last change of heart and pursues the Israelites.

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What’s the date today?

-The 29th,

-The last week in January

-That’s exciting

-You want to know why I’m excited?

-My wife an I have a Gym membership at the YMCA in scottsbluff

-we love to go work out, lift weights, run on the treadmill all of that stuff

-And we’ve for the most part, been working out consistently for the better part of a year

-quite a while

-But these last couple of weeks

-what do you think we have been experiencing at the gym?

-Why?>

-Everyone is making their New Year’s resolutions

-I’ve always found new years resolutions to be a little bit silly

-I’ve always thought that you should have the attitude that

-If you want to do something better with your life

-you should just do it now

-you don’t have to wait until January

-But that said I don’t disparage anyone who’s trying to better their life

-they’re just trying to get in shape and lose weight, and all of those things

-And I understand that, and I admire it

-But why am I excited,

-or maybe relieved is a better word

-why am I happy that It’s January 31st?

-Because I know that next week it’s gonna be a little bit less busy

-and the week after that, it’ll be a little bit less

-And by the end of february

-Man that gym is a ghost town.

-there ain’t nobody working out by the end of February

-And so even though it makes me a little sad that these people are giving up

-I know that it’s just normal course of things

-they’ll be back next year

-But I got to thinking about, why is it that we quit things so easily?

-it’s not like this whole phenomenon with the gym is new

-IT’s like that every year

-Some of you might have started a Bible in a year plan

-and that’s good I want to encourage you on that

-If you have and started on the first of the year

-You probably just barely got finished with Genesis

-That’s great

-I want to warn you

-you’re going to get to a point some time in the next month or so

-Usually it’s right around the book of Leviticus

-Where that excitement starts to wear off a little bit

-You’re gonna miss a couple of days

-maybe you already have

-If you made a choice this year to better yourself

-in any way this year

-More likely than not

-right about now is when that’s going to start slipping

-And right now you’re probably thinking

-Josh why are you being such a downer?

-Why are you telling me that I’m going to fail?

-And the reason is, first and foremost I want you to succeed

-I want you to grow in your faith

-I want you to make better choices

-I want you to become more and more like Jesus every single day

-But if we don’t look at the reasons we fail

-if we don’t get to the bottom of why it is that we fall short

-well then we’re doing ourselves a disservice

-We’re in the Book of Exodus

-today we’re going to gonna be reading the end of chapter 13

-and all of chapter 14

-it’s been a couple of weeks

-at this point in the story

-Moses went to pharaoh and asked him to let the isrealites go and sacrifice to the Lord

-Pharaoh said no

-God displayed His power and authority over Egypt

-until Pharoh finally relented and let the people Go

-And in chapter 13 we saw how God was giving them a fresh start

-in fact if you remember, back in chapter 12, God even said

-This was their new year

-God changed the Jewish calendar to revolve around this exact moment

-So that every year this would be a fresh start for them

-And so I want us to pick up in chapter 13 verse 17 and see how this fresh start goes

-So if you picture a map of egypt

-In fact if your bible has a map in the back of it

-turn to that little page with the maps

-if it doesn’t that’s ok, I’ll describe it

-The hebrew people are in the northern part of Egypt

-and isreal, the promised land

-is north east of them

-and there’s a straight shot path where if they go staight east

-they can just follow the coast line and end up in Isreal

-But since that’s the easiest way to get from Egypt to isreal

-That’s also where the Philistines live

-and that’s the route where they’re most likely to encounter the Philistine army

-And God knew that if they took the short route

-they were going to come across the philistine army

-and god knew that if that happened

-the isrealites were going to get scared, retreat, and run straight back to egypt

-And God knew that they were not ready for battle

-So he took them on the senic routte

-Now wait a minute

-didn’t I just tell you that they weren’t ready for battle?

-The the bible Just imply that they weren’t ready for battle?

-But here in verse 18 it says they are ready for battle