Backed into a Corner
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Backed Into a Corner
January 30, 2011
by Rev. William “Buck” Day
Let’s start with a word of prayer, shall we?
Lord God we do need your grace and we need it in a bad way. So Lord we ask that your grace would know no bounds today as we come before you and we once again look at your word. So Lord with that we ask that you would quicken our hearts to hear what your spirit is saying to each of us. We ask that because you are Lord over all. Amen.
Well, a few years ago you probably heard that there was some significant forest fires in Yellowstone National Park that burned thousands of acres. It was a real disaster. And as part of that, one of the national magazines sent out a young photographer to go and cover the story. The goal for him was to go and catch the firefighters on the front line doing their work, and their heroic efforts. So he gathered his equipment and he got out to Yellowstone and, as soon as he got there, he realized he had a problem. The problem was that the kind of pictures he was looking for he couldn’t get from the ground because the smoke was so thick and so dark. So he called the magazine and he said, “You know what? I need to charter and airplane to get out and get the aerial views that I needed from up front.” So the magazine made the arrangements and called back and said, “There is a plane waiting for you, ready to go, at the airport. So just get down there.” So he hustled down to the little airport there and there was a little plane right on the taxi way ready to go, fueled up and running. So he gathered up his gear and he threw it in the back of the plane and he closed the door and he said, “Let’s take off.” The young pilot said, “O.K.” So they begin to taxi up out to the runway. They take off and it was a pretty rough take off, actually. As they were taking off he noticed that the pilot was just a little nervous. He thought: well, maybe there was something going on here. So as they take off and they finally get airborne, and the photographer goes, “You know what? What we need to do is to head toward the fires and you have to get me close down close to the fire so that I can get what I need.” The pilot kind of looked at him and goes “Why?” He goes, “Well, I am a photographer and I am on assignment for a magazine and I have to get some pictures up close.” And there was silence on the part of the pilot. He said, “I thought you were the flight instructor.”
Did you ever have one of those kinds of moments? Where you go “Oh my gosh! What have I got myself into? How am I ever going to get out of this?” Lots of times we find ourselves in that kind of situation where all of a sudden we are backed up against a wall and we are not sure what is going to happen next. I think we all have kind of experienced that in our lives, maybe in one way or another. So I want to invite you to take a look. I am going to show you a clip from Toy Story 3 about an example of when they get backed into a corner. So take a look. See if this rings any bells for you in your life.
(video)
Look who’s back? Have you ever been in those kinds of situations where you have been up against a wall wondering what am I going to do; not sure what is next? I think we have all been in those kinds of situations in our lives and if we haven’t, count your blessings, because you will be at some point. When we are in those situations, we kind of begin to panic unsure of what our next step is for the “toys” in our lives, not sure of the next way out. The reality is that might be how some of us are feeling about Faith Church right now, too. A lot of uncertainty, wondering what is next? Where are we going? What is going to happen? How is everything going to turn out?
Well, I think Scripture has a lot to say about when people face times of difficulties or uncertainties in their lives. So we are going to begin a series here that I am calling “Up against the Wall”. When we are up against the wall, what do we do? I recently was reading a book called The Red Sea Rules and it got me thinking about this notion of the Israelites and the parting of the Red Sea, and how might there be some parallels maybe for us in terms of how we go through this next period of life together as a church. So we are going to begin to take the next four weeks and we are going to work through Exodus, Chapter 14. We are going to do that, and before we get to the text, I want to do a little background just to get us up to speed on that, as well.
At this point in the Exodus, God has already freed the Israelites from Pharaoh and from Egypt. He has done that through a series of plagues that accumulated with the killing of the first born of everything in Egypt, animals and humans, with the exception of those who took the blood of a sacrificed lamb and put it on the doorposts of their door. The angel of death would pass over those houses and that is how we get the holiday of Passover. The result of that act there is that Pharaoh released the Israelites and they began to follow Moses into the wilderness and now they have come to the Red Sea. So with that, I want to take a look at our scripture today, and read that for us. (Exodus 14:1-10)
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. 3 Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ 4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So the Israelites did this.
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. 8 The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. 9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.
10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD.
So what we have here is we have the Israelites in a tough spot. They have just slid down the garbage shoot and they realize that the big bad teddy bear is waiting right there for them. (reference to the video clip). They are backed up against the Red Sea at is point and Pharaoh is hot on their heels. As you can see the result, they were terrified; they were panicked; they weren’t sure what they were going to do at this point. And what we want to do is take a look at this passage and say, what might it teach us when we go through difficult situations, when we go through times of uncertainty in our lives.
One of things we can do… I want to start by taking a look at verses 1 and 2. I want to take a look at it and one of the things we can say right out of the gate from the first couple of verses is that when we face difficulties, God may have us there for a reason. God may have us where we are in those difficult situations for a reason. God had Moses and the Israelites take a path that said to Pharaoh, “They are confused. They don’t know what they are doing.” So what they have done is they camped along the waters and they have kind of boxed themselves in into a cul-de-sac kind of setting. In fact, one commentator says, “The Sea was before them. Pharaoh’s host was behind them; the mountains around them; and all of this was observed, permitted, and ordered by God.” In other words, God was allowing them to be cornered. He was planning all of this. God is involved in the details of our lives. Even in the midst of difficult circumstances, God is involved in those details. He knows the little things; he is involved in them. That is one of the things that amazes me about God, is that God can hold the universe in his hand—we think of the universe as being big but it is not big to God—and yet in the midst of that God is involved in the details of our lives. God wants to be involved in the details of our lives. That is a significant thing, I think, for us to understand. Even in the midst of those difficult circumstances, God is involved in those, as well. And God has a reason for everything. God has a reason for everything, even when it seems unclear to us.
In Ephesians and Romans it says, that God is at work in us for his good pleasure and his purpose. I think that is good for us to remember, that God may be up to something in the midst of difficult time, amidst difficult circumstances. But many times what happens when we get in the midst of difficult circumstances? What happens? Isn’t it we kind of go to the why question? Don’t we? We go, “Why would God do that?” Why would God do that?
Why would he do that? And I think that is our next learning, it comes from verses 3 and 4. The next learning is that in difficult situations we need to ask the right questions. We need to ask the right questions because our natural reaction is to ask the why question, right? “Why is this going on God? Why would you let that happen to me? I am trying to follow you, what’s the deal? Why?” Why? Why? Why? We go down that road every time, don’t we? And the truth is that sometimes God puts us in those situations, realistically, to test us. There will be other times where he is trying to teach us wisdom. He may put us in those kinds of situations to correct us or discipline us, at times. There may be times that that why question gets answered after the fact when we can only see it in hindsight why God brought us through that time. The truth be told, there will be other times when we will never know why. We will never know why God has us in that situation; but we can rest assured that God has a reason for that. And by getting stuck on the why question, we may never get to what God may be trying to say to us in the midst of that situation.
Darlene Deibler and her husband, Russell, in 1938 went to New Guinea to start a ministry in the jungles. Not long after that the Japanese invaded and they were separated and Russell went to one war camp and Darlene went to the other. Not long after that, Russell actually died in one of the labor camps. Darlene struggled to stay alive in the midst of mere starvation conditions and fighting the jungle diseases that were so prevalent there. At one point in her time as she was struggling to just stay alive, she was singled out for execution. So she was removed from the camp and she was taken to a death camp. She was put into a cell that had the words above it, in Japanese: This person must die. As she was put into the cell the door was closed and locked behind her, she could feel her body shaking in terror. In the midst of that she found herself singing a song, singing a song that she had learned as a child in Sunday school in Iowa. The song was “Fear not, little flock, whatever your lot. He enters all rooms, ‘the doors being shut,’ He never forsakes; He never is gone, so count on his presence, in darkness and in dawn.” She knew she was in an impossible spot and she also began to realize that God does impossible feats. She knew at that point that she was in God’s will as difficult and as heart wrenching as that was. She was in God’s will and that she would never be in a place where God’s presence would not be with her to sustain her.
So, the why question is not always the right question to ask. The right question is a question I think will help us change our perspective in the midst of difficult circumstances. And the right question I think comes from this part where it says “but I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh.” God was setting up Pharaoh so that God would be glorified. God alone is the one who is worthy of glory. He is the one we are to give all of our glory to. I think in the midst of difficult times sometimes, we take our eyes off of him because of the situation we are in; maybe because we are overwhelmed by it, that we look too much of ourselves and out of that comes the why question. So in difficult circumstances I think it is to be thinking about, we need to make sure, that God gets the glory more than us being concerned about the situation itself. So the right question when we are in difficult circumstances is not necessarily why but rather how. How can I give God glory in this situation knowing that if God leads us in, God will lead us out as well. So we need to ask the right question when we are in difficult circumstances, as well.
Then from verses 5 through 9, I think we also have to learn that we have a target on our back. We have a target on our back. Have you ever thought about that? The Israelites were traveling through the desert and they kind of took a route that said to Pharaoh, “Come on.” God used it bait Pharaoh to come after them and he does, doesn’t he? He comes with all the strength of the Egyptian army right after them. The Israelites were being pursued by their enemy, Pharaoh. You know what folks? We are also being pursued. We are also being pursued by an enemy, as well. Do you ever think about that? The enemy we are being pursued by has a name, as well. His name is Satan. I know we don’t like to talk about that a lot, but sometimes we have to just acknowledge that because Paul, at the end of Ephesians, says that “we do not fight against a physical enemy. We fight against a spiritual enemy that has unseen power in the dark corners of the world and has agents doing his work that come from the very headquarters of evil,” is basically the translation from the end of Ephesians. When you think about that, think about the parallels between Pharaoh and Satan, in this situation here. Both have unyielding armies that are coveting God’s power for themselves, that’s one. Both have been plundered by God and are enraged beyond compare. Three, they have vast armies that are bent on the destruction of God’s people. And four, they don’t realize, they don’t realize that they have utterly been defeated from who they were and who they are. In other words, Pharaoh has already been defeated and the truth is that Satan has already been defeated, as well.
So we battle against a spiritual enemy that has more strength that you and I will ever have in our lifetime and we need to acknowledge that. We need to understand that, but we also don’t need to be paralyzed by the fear of that, as well, because God protects his people. God protects his people. So we are to acknowledge our enemy but keep our eyes focused on the Lord. That is that idea of we have a target on our back, but keep your eyes on the Lord.
When Les and I were first married, one of the things we would do, we lived in South Minneapolis, we would walk around Lake Harriet and we would push the stroller with our son, John, in it. We had several blocks to get to the lake and several blocks to get back afterwards. So one day as we were walking home going pass some houses, all of a sudden, this dog comes out of our periphery, just growling and barking. It was just ready to tear our heads off and I’m like, “Whoaaaa.” As we stood back and we realized, you know what, there was a fence, a chain link fence, between us and the dog. I think that is a great metaphor for what we have in God; because we are in a spiritual battle, but God surrounds us and protects us with his grace. Satan is going to snarl at us, he’s going to growl at us; but ultimately, and this is the important part, ultimately he cannot hurt us. Remember the words of Jesus, “Don’t worry about those who can hurt your body, rather worry about the one who can send your soul to hell.” So, know that we have a target on our back but keep our eyes focused on the Lord.
And then verse 10. Verse 10 tells us to pray. It tells us to pray. Now the text says that “they cried out to the Lord.” It doesn’t say how they cried out. It didn’t say what they said. It just said that “they cried out.” When hard times hit, we can either worry, we can fret, or we can pray. Listen to the words of Psalm 107. Psalm 107 verses 28 and 29 say “28 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. 29 He made the storm be still; the waves of the sea were hushed.” When we pray during times of trouble, or times of difficult situations, we are not talking about little kind of popcorn prayers, you know what those are? Popcorn prayers, maybe you are just driving down the street and you think about something and you say “O.K. God, I am praying about so and so.” O.K. Or it is not devotional prayers. When we are in hard times the kind of prayer we are talking about is a crying out to God kind of prayer. I like the way one translation puts it in Ephesians 6, it says, “We are to pray long and pray hard.” That is what we need to do, folks, when we are in tough times, is to pray long and pray hard. If we are going to pray for God to “make a way where there is no way,” then it is going to require us to pray consistently, deliberately, and believe it or not, together. We need to pray together; because when we gather together in prayer with others, it intensifies that prayer, it magnifies the prayer. That is what Jesus tells us in Matthew 18, verse 19, it says, “Truly I tell you, if two agree on anything on earth about what you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” And then James 5:16, “Prayers of the righteous are effective and powerful.”
Dr. Paul White was a doctor in East Africa and at one point a school teacher from a neighboring village was brought in on a stretcher to him. They asked, “Can you help this man?” So he looked at the school teacher on the stretcher and he saw that his feet were swollen to about twice their normal size because of parasite infestation. The doctor said “Yes I can help him but it is going to require amputation.” At that point you could see the school teacher’s confidence just kind of drop, and he said, “Doctor you don’t understand. In my village there is no use for a man who can’t walk. How am I going to tend my garden? How am I going to shepherd my cattle? What am I going to do?” Then he pulled out an old bible that he had and he opened it to James 5:16—the prayers of the righteous. He had the doctor read that. Then he said, “Do you believe that?” The doctor said, “I do. I am a Christian.” To which the school teacher said, “Do you believe it enough to stake my life on it?” At that point the doctor had to step back for a moment and think. Then what he said was, “I do, but it is going to require both of us,” and then he quoted that Matthew passage “where two agree on anything, then it will be done for you.”
So at that point then, the men prayed and made a covenant together to pray for healing for this man’s feet. Over the coming months there were lots of prayers, there were lots of hot baths, there were lots of injections and therapies, and it began to make some progress. After seven months they looked at this feet and they continued to pray over them and he was making progress but he still couldn’t walk. So they prayed and they asked God to continue to bring healing to the school teacher. Well, a little bit later the doctor walked into the ward in the hospital and he saw the school teacher kind of hobbling on his feet with a giant grin on his face. He was up and walking, putting weight on his feet again. Within a year, he was able to go back to his village with no pain in his feet at all.
That’s the power of prayer, folks, the power of prayer. We are all going to face difficult situations in our lives, individually and as a church community. But, having the proper perspective, asking the right questions, giving God the glory in the midst of it and understanding kind of the world we live in, our praying hard begins to make a difference. And that is the road that I am asking all of us to begin to get on together because that is what it is going to require folks. It is going to require that kind of commitment to God and to each other in that process. So I invite you to join me as we face our own Red Sea together.
Let’s pray.
Mighty and holy God, thank you. Thank you that you are the one who can make a way where there is no way. You are the one who can move mountains simply by asking the mountains to get up and move and you give that power to us. Lord may we be a people who lean on you, who give you the glory because you deserve it. And may we do the hard work of praying that you might open the doors for us as a church and in our own lives as well. We ask these things because we have a Lord who has called us his own, Jesus.