The Wilderness Experience

Good Morning Rock Family!

Bibles out….

EXODUS 15:22-17:16.

Who likes Camping ?

Spent the last few days out in the wilderness…(kind of lol)

We were in a little cabin so we had heat and a roof over our heads…

But we had fires and we cooked over the campfire…

we went out adventuring…seeing the Lords creation is great…

We hiked…we sat out under the stars…

It was a great time yall…

Great family weekend…

And it got a little warmer than we expected this weekend so we made sure to bring water…

And whats camping without some good campfire meals…

So we made sure to bring smores stuff…hot dogs

We brought everything we needed…

We had water when we were thirsty…

We had food when we were hungry…

As I sat out under the stars Friday night, everyone had went to bed…

I had a belly full of grub, a cold drink next to me…

and I was prepping to preach this text to you all today…

And I opened up to 15:22 and read it…READ 15:22

God leads Israel after the Red Sea crossing to the wilderness…to Shur (3 days no water)

And I looked out across the area we were at and though i was “camping”…Where i was…was hardly a wilderness…

There was a Walmart 15 minutes up the road…

But the bible says that the LORD took Isreal to a true wilderness…

One apparently with no water…

A desolate land…

And this isn't uncommon of the Lord…

All throughout the bible the Lord takes His children to the wilderness…

And He takes them there to prepare them…

A lot of theologians call this going to Wilderness University…

Moses, the Israelites, Elijah, John the Baptist, even Jesus…

All go to the wilderness…

God takes His people out to the wilderness…strips them of all control…

Into an element that only He controls…

And strengthens their faith and OBEDIENCE and dependence on Him…

He strips them of everything …and HE PROVIDES in the wilderness!!!

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS IN THE BIBLE COMES TRUST in the Lord…

This is not a fun trip yall…

The wilderness experience is hard!!!

And if you look biblically, every man that went to the wilderness fails a bunch while they are there…besides Jesus…(we will get to that later)

Why??

As your about to see…man is stubborn and full of self idoloatry…

Luckily though, The Lord is faithful and full of grace…

Even in the wilderness…

The Lord is going to take Israel into the “wilderness experience”

To strengthen their faith in Him and obedience to Him…

And that is what we are going to see in the text today…

As we pick back up in chapter 15 verse 22…

We are going to see 4 ways God handles us while He leads us through the wilderness experience…

The first thing we see is this…

God Instructs in the Wilderness

READ 15:22-27

The people GRUMBLE to Moses…

Moses CRIES to the Lord…

God provides…

We will see this pattern repeat through the next 2 chapters as well…

What we must see here first is God’s reason for taking Israel into the wilderness…

Just 3 days ago they watched the Lord destroy the most powerful army…

NOW…they are concerned that they will die of thirst…

3 days without water…they come to a place called Marah…where there was plenty of water…

But it was bitter…

Now they are whining and grumbling like children….

Now this seems ridiculous right???

After what they have just experienced…

What we need to see here is that the Lord is using this first 3 days in the wilderness to instruct His people…

Moses cries out to God…the Lord directs Moses…

Throws a tree in the water and it becomes sweet...

The Lord has provided in the wilderness!!!

What happens next is most important…

READ v25-26 again

What the Lord is saying is this…

OBEY ME!!!!

The Egyptians were an example for Israel…

This is what happens when you disobey the great I AM...

Hear my words…and do them…

And I will keep my righteous wrath from you…

This is the central reason for the Israelites being in the wilderness…

TO LEARN TO OBEY GODS WORDS…

How many of us have been or are in a wilderness experience????

Where God strips everything from you…

He brings you out into the wilderness…

Some of you may be here now…

a spiritual wilderness…

You may feel lost, hopeless, scared, anxious…

The Lord brings you outside of your own control…

And the first thing He does is give you this exact instruction…

OBEY MY WORD…

AND I WILL KEEP YOU…

John 15:7 “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

As chapter 15 ends…the Lord leads Isreal to Elim where there is an abundance of water and shade…

This is wilderness instruction 101…

keep my commands and I will keep you…

Lets see how Isreal does moving forward…

READ 16:1-16

God Tests in the Wilderness

Move from Shur to the wilderness of Sin…

They happen to be out of food it appears…

So how do the people react…

AGAIN…

The people GRUMBLE/ WHINE to Moses…

God provides…

The Lord says that He will provide meat in the evening and bread in the morning…

BUT He says in v4 “that I may test them…that they may walk in my law or not”

This is the first test in Wilderness U.

He gave them specific instructions…

1- Gather only what you can eat in a day…an omer (2 quarts)

He is saying don’t save any for the next day…

Whats God saying…TRUST THAT I WILL PROVIDE…

DON’T STORE UP!!!

2- He tells them only on the 6th day to gather double and save it for the seventh day which is a ay of rest and they will eat on it then…

The Lords going to test the people…

Will they OBEY???

Will they TRUST in Him to provide day in and day out in the wilderness???

READ 16:17-36

So in the morning they went out and gathered…

Some gathered a lot and some less...

But it didn’t matter…Because when they measured it…No matter how much they gathered it came out to be an omer…

Church God’s provision is perfectly sufficient…

1- They were told not to save any over…to eat what they gathered and leave none of it to the next day…

DID THEY LISTEN??? NO!!!!

They saved and it rotted…and was filled with worms and stank…

They disobeyed…

Not only here but again on the seventh day…

Instructed to gather double on the 6th day…rest on the 7th day…

God says He will NOT let the manna they save from the 6th day into the 7th day rot …to provide for them a day of rest…

v27-28 READ

They disobey again…

TEST FAILED…

NO OBEDIENCE…NO TRUST IN THE LORD

As you walk through the wilderness church the Lord will test you…

When you are stripped of all control…who will you trust in???

In what way will you live???

In whose words will you abide???

Right now, would you pass this test???

Would you trust in the Lord with everything…

Trust that He will sustain you in the wilderness???

Ask yourself that question this morning…

(PAUSE)

BUT one thing I want to draw our eyes to…

Though they are disobedient…

GOD CONTINUED TO PROVIDE…

As He tests them… and they fail…He continues to provide manna for them…

For 40 years!!!!

And He continues to do so…

In fact He tells them to put some Manna in a jar to remember Gods faithfulness…

As we continue on the Lord continues to show His faithfulness and…

God Provides in the Wilderness

READ 17:1-7

Same pattern…

They are thirsty again…

The people GRUMBLE to Moses…

Moses CRIES to the Lord…

God provides…

By now you would think they would cry out to the Lord themselves right???

Skip the middle man…

By now you would think they would trust right???

BUT instead they:

DEMAND provision

TEST the Lord

QUESTION the Lords presence with them

The people respond with doubt and panic in the wilderness…

BUT how does God respond???

FAITHFULLY!!!

Take the elders to the rock in Horeb…

I WILL STAND BEFORE YOU ON THE ROCK…

You will strike it and and water will come out…

Again God faithfully provides for His people….

They fail to trust…HE PROVIDES…

They question…HE PROVIDES…

HE IS FULL OF GRACE!!!

AND HE IS FAITHFUL TO HIS PEOPLE…

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN FOR US TODAY CHURCH????

What are we supposed to take from this???

Here is what the Lord wants us to see…

The Lord has taken the Israelites into the wilderness to SANCTIFY THEM…

He is showing them how He desires for them to live…

A LIFE DEDICATED TO OBEDIENCE TO HIS WORD…NO MATTER WHAT SITUATION THEY ARE IN…

And He draws them back to their salvation from slavery in Egypt to influence their obedience…

Look back at what the bible says in…

Exodus 16:6 “So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,”

Notice that their salvation from Egypt came first…

And the call to be obedient came directly after…

Salvation was a free gift…

God saved them…

THEN immediately called for them to be obedient to and trust in His word

Obedience didn’t bring salvation…

The BIG IDEA of the text is that:

Our salvation through the Lord should produce our obedience to Him.

Its the same today!!!

In the NT…the Lord is constantly reminding us of the Gospel to bring daily obedience to the Lord!!!!

Paul, Peter, James, John…

All the NT writers…

Over and over again tell you REMEMBER THE GOSPEL!!!!

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE LORD IS DOING HERE IN EXODUS 16-17.

TELLING THE PEOPLE…REMEMBER IT WAS I WHO DELIVERED YOU!!!

Let that strengthen your faith, trust, and obedience!!!!

REMEMBER MY WORKS…

AND do you want to see something AMAZING…

Here in Exodus… The 2nd book in the bible the Lord is pointing us to the Gospel of Jesus!!!

-The waters of Marah were bitter right??

God has Moses throw a tree in the water and it instantly becomes sweet…

It was on the tree…on the cross that Jesus transformed death for us from bitter to sweet…

“His chastisement brought us peace”

-The people of Isreal were in need of bread to sustain them in the wilderness of Sin…

God provided bread from heaven to sustain the people…

Jesus tells us in…

John 6:47–51 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.””

-In Rephidim they thirsted again…

God said “I will stand before you on the rock and you will strike it and water will come from it to sustain you”

1 Corinthians 10:1–4 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

John 19:34 “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.”

He gave us LIVING WATER TO DRINK!!!!

CHURCH as you read through these chapters today…

Our natural reaction is this…

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT A PEOPLE WHO WATCHED GOD DESTROY THE MOST POWERFUL ARMY ON EARTH…

WHO SAW GOD IN A PILLAR OF FIRE…

WHO HAVE SEEN HIS MIGHTY WRATH…

NOT trust in Him and be obedient to Him???

As I read this this week I was soo irritated at the people of Israel…

BUT then realized that I can be just like them…

The Lord has shown me His power…

The Lord has given me His entire revelation in His word…

IVE SEEN HIM WORK IN ME IN THE PEOPLE AROUND ME…

I hear His truth…I believe in the gospel and yet still I disobey…

BUT GOD IS FAITHFUL…

HE IS MERCIFUL…

HE CONTINUES TO INSTRUCT…TO TEST…TO PROVIDE…

TO SHOW US THE GOSPEL AND CALL FOR OUR OBEDIENCE TO HIM THROUGH HIS FINISHED WORK ON THE CROSS…

CHURCH…

This is how we are to walk day in and day out…

Always remembering the Gospel…

And always abiding in the word of God…

Maybe your not in the wilderness right now…

Life is good…

Great…

REMEMBER THE GOSPEL ALWAYS...

LET THAT PROMPT YOU TO WALK IN OBEDIENCE…

Maybe you are in a wilderness season right now…

Your struggling…

You don’t know what direction to go…

What your calling is…

Why things are not getting better…

you have no control…

what do you do???

REMEMBER THE GOSPEL…

LET IT PUSH YOU TO ABIDE IN CHRIST…

KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS…

DIE TO YOURSELF…

AND LIVE FOR CHRIST…

there is one last thing we need to see in the text this morning before we wrap up…

READ 17:8-16

God Protects in the Wilderness

Israel comes upon an enemy…

God Protects His people…

As they are at their most vulnerable in the wilderness…

He provides protection…

Satan see’s your wilderness experience as a prime opportunity to tempt you…

ITS A REALITY…

Satan waited till Jesus was hungry and thirsty in the wilderness before He tempted Him…

Thats when he comes…when your at your weakness…

BUT though Israel failed many times in the wilderness…

And we too will fail…

JESUS WENT TO THE WILDERNESS 40 DAYS…

AND HE DID NOT FAIL…

HE COMPLETED THE PERFECT WILDERNESS JOURNEY FOR YOU!!!

HE FULFILLED IT FOR YOU…

He is with you…He dwells in you!!!

He protects you…

HE HAS THE VICTORY!!!

LETS PRAY!