God's Protection System (GPS)

Exodus 13:17-22

Gladys West, born in 1930 in Virginia on a farm. Growing up she knew that an education would be her ticket to freedom. She walked 3 miles through woods and over streams to attend school. Her parents were not financially able to send her to college but she heard that the state was giving away a scholarship to the top two students. She knew this was her only way to gain her freedom by winning this educational scholarship. She won and attended an HBCU (Virginia State University). She became a teacher and paid her way through graduate school. Afterwards, she is hired to work at a Naval base in Virginia. She worked hard and rose through the ranks and is then hired to work at NASA. She helps to invent what we now call the Global Positioning System or GPS. Her story was depict in the movie Hidden Figures.

When using a GPS, you have to input your destination, and then the system will guide you turn by turn. Israel knows its destination is the Promise Land and God will lead them turn by turn. Sometimes in life you may wander off the path and you may feel lost. Just look up and call on Jesus. He is one call away!!!

Exodus 13:17 “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought, “If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.””

When you are released from what has you bond in life, then like the Israelites, you have to allow God to lead the way for your life. John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you take any other direction in life and God is not leading you then you are headed to a dead end.

The journey from Egypt to Canaan was an 8 to 10 day march. Instead it took them 40 years to arrive to the Promise Land. Why would God not guide them the short distance?

Sometimes God needs to build character in you. When life is always easy for you, then we have a tendency not to lean on the Lord for strength.

God has a greater purpose in your life besides moving you from Point A to Point B. God knows that you will be tempted on this journey and you need to be able to endure and perverse the wiles of satan. Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

Also there would be enemies taking the short route, and Israel was not trained for battle yet. Even though God is our protection system, how can He fight your battle and you are not looking for the blessing.

In fact in Numbers 14:4 “So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.”” Once they reached the Promise Land and saw how big their enemies were, they said, “Let us choose a captain and go back to Egypt.

Exodus 13:18 “So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle.”

God leads them toward the Red Sea. At this time, their belief in God was fragile. Our faith must be strengthen and exercised

Israel went up and prepared for battle: they are formed for battle or look like they are ready for battle but they are not trained for battle. In the KJV, went up harnessed out of the land… this means girded, equipped for a long journey.

Thus this scripture is illustrating that the battle they are prepared to fight was not another nation but a fight against themselves. The journey that God is taking them on is to strengthen themselves for the battles in the future. Saying, “the hardest battle you will fight is who you are and who you want to be.”

You are at times your worse enemy.

James 1:2–4 “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”

James 4:7 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” When you are being led by God then you must be submissive to His will.

Moses is also showing us in scripture that Israel was God’s Army. Lessons learned from the military that will help you in life:

Discipline - the practice of training someone or something in a certain way.

Loyalty - giving constants support to someone or an institution.

Team work - you learn to have each other back.

Exodus 13:19 “And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph who had required a solemn oath of the Israelites, saying, “God will surely take notice of you, and then you must carry my bones with you from here.””

God blessed Joseph to live 110 years. 93 of them in Egypt and 80 years as a ruler.

On his death bed, Joseph tells his brothers that God would surely visit them

And that God would indeed keep his promise of bringing the descendants up from Egypt to the land He promised Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.

Joseph dies and was embalmed (One of only two people in the Bible to be embalmed, Jacob was the other {Gen.50:2}).

Embalmed: means the process of preserving bodies from decay.

Purpose of embalming: Egyptians regarded the body as receptacle for the soul, necessary for the soul to have contact with the living. They believed this would allow the soul to survive in eternity.

According to Exodus 12:40 “The time that the Israelites had lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.” Israel dwelt in Egypt for 430 years before the Lord delivered them.

I would suggest this is a great example why families should pray with each other.

Exodus 13:20 “They set out from Succoth, and camped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness.”

On the edge means that they are at the point of leaving the land of Egypt.

Their life is really about to change. Your life too when you are at the edge.

Exodus 13:21 “The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.”

In verses 17,18, the writer says that God led the people. Now he explains how He is leading them.

The position of Israel is that they had to look up. Psalm 121:1 “I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?”

Cloud by day protected them from the hot sun and God would send rain

Fire by night protected them from getting too cold.

When it moved, they moved; when it stopped, they stopped; they encamped where every it went, they followed.

Exodus 13:22 “Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”

God shows that he guides you and I in life too, if we would only look up.

God will never leave you or forsake you

God’s Power, Protection, & Provision is what you and I need each moment from God