When I was a child, my widowed mother had to work to support her family of four children.
Being the oldest, I was responsible while she was gone for my two brothers and sister.
To this very moment, I can remember the sense of fear that came over me when my mother was
late coming home from work.
I knew her hours and I knew what time she should be home, being a ten minute drive from
the little town where she worked in the grocery store and then later in the post office.
It might be that she was picking up groceries after work or perhaps was detained at her
place of employment, but if she was late, if she was overdue, there was fear that mounted
in my heart.
I can remember on one occasion calling the operator on the telephone to find out where
my mother was, as if she knew.
We had one of those old telephones that you crank.
How many of you remember those?
Yes, you know, little house in the prairie kind.
Our number was 3021, which meant that we were on line 30 and to get our place, the operator
would ring too long and one short, 3021.
So when you would hear the telephone ring two long rings and one short ring, you would
pick it up and answer it.
When it rang anything, you just picked it up and listened.
That's the way they worked.
On this particular day, I rang the operator and asked her if she knew where my mother
was.
She talked to us for about five minutes, as they had time to do back in those days.
Until my mother finally got home and was a little bit put out at me and a little bit
embarrassed about it, I can remember climbing up into the tallest tree on our farm, looking
toward the town where she worked, because there was a sloping valley down toward the
Delaware River.
And you could see cars coming for two and three miles away at various parts of the road.
So I would look for that 51 Blue Plymouth that she was driving, or I would get up on
top of the barn and would look out to see if I could see her coming, particularly if
she was overdue.
Nobody likes to be left alone.
That's a fear I guess that all of us have.
I think even mothers of preschoolers probably, if left alone long enough, would find it undesirable,
even though being left alone sometimes for them seems very desirable.
When Israel, God's redeemed people, left Egypt, you have to remember that they were
going to a place that they had never been before.
Four hundred and thirty years had come and gone since their ancestors had come down to
Egypt.
The stories of Canaan, where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived seemed remote and like fairy
tales.
It might have been a frightening thing for them, you know, to leave Egypt, because that
was the only security they had known for generations.
Even a prison cell or the chains on a slave provide some sense of identity and security.
Now the nation was leaving behind everything they had known for centuries and was moving
out into a wilderness.
And though there were two million of them, how do they know as they step out that they're
not going to be left alone?
Well God, their Redeemer, was faithful to them.
He knew that pilgrims need certain things.
They need encouragement.
And so God gave them His promises to encourage them.
He said, I'm going to take you to a land that flows with milk and honey.
And whatever is between here and there, remember you're not alone, that I'm with you and that
I'm taking you to that place.
So that when they faced discouragement, they had the promises of God to rely upon.
And then pilgrims need protection.
So God gave them His protection from their enemies.
In fact, He led them the long way.
He took them on what seemed like a detour that they might avoid the border guards and
warfare which would have surely discouraged their hearts and caused them to turn around.
God protected His people from being overwhelmed by trials by their enemies.
Today as we come to Exodus chapter 13, we want to see some more that God has provided
for His people as they begin their pilgrimage toward the promised land.
I'm thinking particularly of verses 21 and 22 of Exodus 13 where we read,
And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way,
in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by
night.
He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night from before
the people.
Here I believe that we see God showing His presence to guide them.
Pilgrims need to have some guidance.
They've not been this way before.
They're aliens where they are.
That's why they're called pilgrims.
And so God here showed them His presence in this miraculous way so that He might guide
them through the wilderness.
God's presence was represented by this pillar of cloud as it was at daytime and a pillar
of fire as it became at night.
This symbol of the presence of the Lord is symbolic to us, I believe, of the Holy Spirit
of God.
It seems to me that in this story of the redemption of Israel we see the triune God acting.
We see God the Father as Jehovah hearing the cries of His desperate people, remembering
them in their suffering, and then taking action to deliver them.
Those are the actions of the Father on behalf of His own.
Then we see the Son of God represented by the Lamb, the Passover Lamb, which paid the
price of redemption for the people of Israel.
Now we see in this symbol, I believe, the Holy Spirit, the guiding presence of God with
His own as they walk in their pilgrimage.
Beloved, we today have the guiding presence of the Lord in the person of the Holy Spirit.
It is not in a cloudy pillar or a fiery pillar that we see with our physical eyes, but we
have a very real guide, the very presence of Yahweh is with us in the Holy Spirit.
Arthur Pink, who is rather famous for his gleaning of types in the Old Testament, sometimes
going a little too far, I think, suggests the following parallels that I would agree
with regarding this cloud and the Holy Spirit.
In the first place, there was no cloud present at all until after the Passover.
It was then, after the Passover, after the redemption, that the cloud appeared to guide
them.
And so, by parallel and by way of application, we learn from the New Testament that there
is no indwelling of the Holy Spirit until after redemption.
The Spirit of God works in the heart of the lost person, bringing conviction of sin upon
that person.
But He does not indwell an individual until after redemption.
Remember that Romans 5.5, which speaks about the Holy Spirit being given to us, follows
Romans 5.1, which says that we are justified by faith.
And so, the Holy Spirit does not indwell us until after redemption.
Then I notice here that the cloud was a gift from the Lord, graciously given, as is the
Holy Spirit.
A number of times in the New Testament epistles, we read about the Holy Spirit being given
to us as a gracious gift from God.
Then notice that the cloud was a guide to them by day and by night.
And so, the Holy Spirit is our guide.
Romans 8.14 says, For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of
God.
And so, just as the cloud guided those pilgrims through their wilderness to the promised land,
so the Holy Spirit guides us today as pilgrims to the land, the city, indeed, that God has
promised to us.
And then the cloud provided light.
At night, there was a supernatural street light that God provided for this camp of two
million people.
And that light was this cloud that turned to fire in the evening.
And so, the Holy Spirit also provides illumination for the believer.
As to the things of Christ, teaches us of the things of God.
That's why we sing as we do in that hymn, Spirit of God, my Teacher be, showing the
things of Christ to me.
And then the cloud provided a covering for the people, as we will see, particularly as
they were at the Red Sea.
A covering to protect them from the Egyptians, but also during the daytime, a covering to
protect them from the bright sunlight of the desert.
And so, the Holy Spirit provides protection for the children of God in this age.
The Holy Spirit is the seal of our salvation.
Unto the day of redemption, says the Apostle Paul, Ephesians 4.30, until that day that
we are fully body, soul, and spirit redeemed, the Holy Spirit is a seal protecting us in
our salvation.
And then God spoke from that cloud according to Psalm 99, 7, Numbers 12, 5, and other places
in the Bible.
God is said to have spoken to His people from that cloud.
And so, the Holy Spirit is the one who oversaw God's voice to us in this revelation that
we have in our hands this morning.
Just as He spoke audibly to those people in that day, so He has spoken propositionally
to us today in this age.
We have a book that we study, which we call The Word of God.
And it says about itself that it was written by men who were moved by the Holy Spirit.
That is, they were born along or carried along by the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit is the one who has inspired this word from God to us.
And He is the one who then brings it by way of application into our lives as we learn
to study it.
The cloud that provided light for the Israelites was darkness to the Egyptians.
Again, we will see this next week as we continue our study into Exodus chapter 14.
But the Holy Spirit likewise reveals the things of God to those who are the Lord's.
The natural man cannot receive those things.
They are dark to him.
First Corinthians 2, 14.
A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.
Jesus said, the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it does not behold Him or
know Him.
John 14, 17.
And so the same Spirit of God that illuminates and enlightens the heart of the believer is
darkness to the world.
The world is blinded.
It cannot perceive the things of the God and of the Spirit of God.
Then we read later that this same cloud came to rest upon the tabernacle.
That whenever Moses would go into that holy place to speak with God, in the sight of all
of the nation, the cloud would come down and cover the tabernacle.
And the people would bow low at their tent doors and worship as Moses communed with God
on behalf of them.
The cloud rested upon the tabernacle.
Just as the cloud rested upon that tabernacle.
So the cloud of God today indwells the believer so that our bodies now have become the temple
of God.
1 Corinthians 6, 19.
Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you
have of God, that you are not your own?
You are bought with a price.
So just as the cloud in that day came upon the tabernacle, so today the Holy Spirit comes
into the believer and makes the believer's body the tabernacle of the Lord.
And finally, I note regarding this cloud in the Old Testament that it did not depart from
the Israelites in the wilderness.
It was with them throughout the forty years that they were there in that land until they
came into the land that God had promised them, Canaan.
And so the Holy Spirit today abides with the believer, not to leave us or to depart from
us.
Now he did depart from believers in the Old Testament because in that time, before Calvary,
before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon certain believers, not all, just certain ones,
to empower them for the ministry, the service that they had.
That is why David prayed as he did in Psalm 51, Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
He was not concerned about no longer being a child of God.
His prayer there meant, Don't take your Spirit from me who is strengthening me for my service
as king.
In this age, however, the Holy Spirit comes upon every child of God and He comes to remain
there throughout this life.
In times of obedience and disobedience, the Spirit of God is there to perform His ministry
in the child of God.
And He does not leave us until that day that we arrive safely home to that place that God
has promised to us at the end of our pilgrimage.
Ephesians 1, 14 says, He is given as a pledge of our inheritance.
It further says, He abides with you, Jesus says this, He abides with you and shall be
in you the remaining presence of the Spirit of God.
So you and I today, just as the Israelites of old, have the very presence of God to guide
us and to encourage us in our pilgrimage.
We do not have to fear being left alone.
Even though there are times we may think we are alone and we wonder where God has gone,
we must remind ourselves that God is here with us.
And the more that we seem to feel His absence, the closer His presence actually is.
God gave to the Israelites in their pilgrimage His presence to guide them, just as He gives
the Holy Spirit today to guide us.
And finally, as we look at this chapter, God gave to the Israelites practices to remind
them of their redemption.
You see, pilgrims are like everybody else.
They have memories that are good.
The only problem is they don't always function.
Pilgrims forget things that they ought to remember, and they remember things they ought
to forget.
God gave to the Israelites two practices that are mentioned in chapter 13 to remind them
of His great work of redemption in Egypt.
He gave them these because God knows the human tendency to forget and to take for granted
our blessings.
And so, in verses 5 through 10, we see God establishing again the feast of unleavened
bread.
This is not the first time the feast has been mentioned.
It is a repeat.
But God says to them, and it shall be when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite,
the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He swore to your fathers
to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall observe this right in
this month.
For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast
to the Lord.
Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days, and nothing leavened shall
be seen among you, nor shall any leaven be seen among you in all your borders.
And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, It is because of what the Lord did for me
when I came out of Egypt.
And it shall serve as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead that
the law of the Lord may be in your mouth.
For with a powerful hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt.
Therefore, you shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year.
And so on this first month of every year from then on, generation after generation, they
were to observe not only the Passover, but the feast of unleavened bread on the seven
days following the Passover.
And the purpose of that was to continually remind the people of Israel what God had done
for them.
To us today this feast of unleavened bread represents something significant.
It is the fact that you and I are to live separated and holy lives, free from sin, which
is what leaven represents.
And as we do so, we are to feed upon Christ and gain spiritual nourishment and strength
from Him.
It is not merely a seven-day feast for us.
It is a lifelong spiritual feast that God wants us to enjoy.
So when you think about the unleavened bread, remember that it represents to us today, symbolically,
our feeding on Christ and our living of separated and holy lives that are free from sin.
Now we recognize that we will not be absolutely sinless in this world, but brothers and sisters,
we ought to sin less.
The older we get, the more mature we get.
And that is God's plan.
It is a continual process of separating us from our sinful desires, from the sinful conformity
to the world.
It is a process of separating us from all of that unto God Himself for His special purpose.
That is the feast of unleavened bread.
To the Jews, it was a rite lasting for seven days and it was a reminder to them.
And then I notice in verses 11 through 16 another rite.
It is called the redemption of the firstborn.
Now it shall come about when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite as He swore
to you and to your fathers and gives it to you.
You shall devote to the Lord the first offspring of every womb and the first offspring of every
beast that you own.
The males belong to the Lord.
But every first offspring of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb.
But if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck.
And every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.
And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come saying, What is this?
Then you shall say to him, With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from
the house of slavery.
And it came about when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go that the Lord killed every
firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast.
Therefore I sacrificed to the Lord the males the first offspring of every womb, but every
firstborn of my sons I redeemed.
So it shall serve as a sign on your hand and as phylacteries on your forehead.
For with a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.
And so the redemption of the firstborn was set in place in Israel.
Whether of beast or of humans, there was some act to be carried out symbolizing, reminding
them of the death of the firstborn in Egypt.
You say, Well this became costly, did it not?
When the firstborn of their beasts had to be redeemed or slain, and when they had to
offer up sacrifices of various sorts for the firstborn of their children, wasn't that
costly to them?
Yes.
It was costly financially, economically.
But you see, God wanted them to be reminded that it cost something to redeem them.
Therefore the first and the best went to the Lord.
These practices, year after year after year, were intended to remind them and their children
in future generations of their inheritance and their blessings.
Why?
Because they were forgetful.
I want to say to you today that you and I need reminders too.
Because so easily we forget the price that was paid for our redemption.
So easily do we forget the blessings that God has given to us freely through Christ,
which cost Him the death of His own Son.
Say what kind of reminders do we have?
Well we have the reminder of this book.
The apostles wrote to their readers and they said, In writing this we are bringing to your
remembrance.
Or they would say, We are stirring up your minds by way of remembrance, though you knew
this already.
You see, even then as they were penning the Word of God, they were trying to remind their
readers of the things they had already learned.
Is it not a sad fact that most of us have forgotten more than we know today about the
Bible?
We have to constantly remind ourselves.
Part of God's plan for reminding us is this book.
That we might be reminded of what God has done for us and what our inheritance is.
A second reminder that God gives to us today is this day, Sunday.
To remind us of Christ's death and His resurrection on the first day of the week, God changed
the whole day of worship from the Sabbath to the first day to Sunday, as we call it.
Now the purpose of that is so that we might be reminded every Sunday that Jesus Christ
rose from the dead.
We remember that at Easter, don't we?
But every Sunday is resurrection Sunday because it is a reminder right in our calendar, right
in the weekly process of our lives and our worship that Christ has risen from the dead.
Then God has given to us ordinances.
To the church in this age, He has commanded two practices.
One of them is the Lord's Supper.
As I said a few weeks ago, the Lord's Supper is not an option for us to think about.
It is a command for us to observe.
When the Lord's Supper is offered, it is offered as a reminder of what Jesus Christ
did for us in His broken body and His shed blood.
And we need that reminder.
We must be careful not to neglect the Lord's table when it's offered to us.
Likewise, baptism is commanded in this age.
It too represents the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is clear in the book of Acts that they carefully followed the practice of baptizing
all of their converts.
Baptism is not an option for us to consider.
It is a command to obey.
It is a reminder to us.
I know there are people who have problems with it.
Sometimes it's frankly because of ego.
They don't want to get up in front of people and go through this for a variety of reasons
related to ego.
My friend, baptism is intended to humble us and to make us realize that we are the humble
recipients of grace.
That salvation is what God has done for us, not what we try to do to please God.
Baptism is a reminder to us.
Now I believe there's another reminder, and that is the offerings that we take.
This is tied together in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, where the apostle Paul commands those believers
in Corinth to bring together out of the freedom of their hearts, out of the joy of Christ
within them, to bring together a gift to provide for the needs of the ministry to the saints.
Then he closes that chapter where he commands that offerings be taken.
He says, thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.
You see, every time that you and I put something in the offering plate, it is a costly reminder
to us that our salvation was not free to God.
It was free to us, but not free to Him.
And just as the Israelites of old had to do something tangible to remind themselves, they
had to pay a price to remind themselves, so part of the purpose of giving an offering
to God is that you and I might pay a price, that we might be reminded of the cost that
was involved to God in giving to us His Son for our redemption.
We need reminders today, too.
One of the most serious, dangerous spiritual conditions that we can encounter in our pilgrimage
is that of being, coming accustomed to what God has provided, and then becoming ungrateful
for it, and then beginning to assume that blessing and take it for granted.
Take it for granted.
When we do that, our hearts become hardened to the things of God.
You say, how do you know that?
Because I've experienced that.
Just as most of you would confess that you've experienced that.
And what happened to Israel in the Old Testament is written for our learning, our example,
and it happened to them.
How quickly their hearts became hardened toward the God who had so powerfully redeemed them.
How we need to be aware of ourselves becoming accustomed to the blessings of God, taking
them for granted, becoming ungrateful.
Our need, as was the need of those Israelites, is for continual brokenness.
It is for us to be reminded that we are the blessed recipients of so much so that we can
appreciate and appropriate our blessings.
I'd like to close this morning by turning to one more passage, and I'd like you to
turn there with me to 2 Peter chapter 1.
For Peter has some strong words to say here to pilgrims.
He commands of us that we ought to grow up spiritually and mature, fully develop.
He explains to us in verses 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of chapter 1, 2 Peter, what that means.
He says, add all of these qualities to your lives.
And then he says, beginning in verse 8, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing,
they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice that he says, if these qualities are in us and are increasing, we are not useless
or unfruitful.
The implication being that if these qualities are not in us and are not increasing, we are
useless and fruitless in the things of God.
He goes on to say in verse 9, for he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted,
having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
What does that mean?
From before his conversion.
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing
you.
We're going to talk about that concept some more tonight in the message.
He goes on to say, for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
will be abundantly supplied to you.
Notice that he points to the end of the pilgrimage.
That is the kingdom, the eternal kingdom of Christ.
And he says, pilgrims, if you want to have an abundant entrance home, then see to it
be diligent that these qualities are in your lives.
Make sure that you are maturing, that you are filling out, so that you will not be useless
or fruitless in the world.
Rather he says, add these things.
Be sure about your salvation by adding these things.
What does that mean?
Does that mean that by adding these things, I'm somehow adding to my salvation?
Of course not.
We can't add anything to the completed work of Jesus Christ.
His work on the cross of Calvary is sufficient for our sins and nothing else needs to be
done.
But what it does add to us is a greater confidence and a greater assurance about our salvation
when these qualities are present in our lives.
There are some pilgrims today who are both useless and fruitless, and they've gotten
to the point of doubting their salvation.
And that's exactly what Peter is warning about.
He says, that which gives us confidence and assurance that in fact we have been called
of God and chosen by God is the fact that these qualities are present in our lives and
not only so, they're increasing.
Peter does not give much credence to the idea that one can have assurance about his salvation
merely by looking back to a decision date sometime in the past.
There isn't much assurance merely in that.
The assurance of salvation comes when there is progress, when there is hope.
There is growth, when there is development, when there is increasing holiness in the life.
And that's what Peter is saying.
And he is saying that you and I have a responsibility for that.
He says, if you have been called of God and chosen of God, then give diligence to add
these qualities to your life.
He says, you have the beginning of it, now let it develop fully in your life so that
you may have every confidence that you truly belong to Him.
And, so that when you get to the end of your pilgrimage and you enter into that eternal
kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, your entrance may be an abundant one.
If your entrance into that eternal kingdom were today, what kind of an entrance would
you have?
I doubt that there are many of us here who would be able to say, well, I'm really satisfied
with the entrance I would have.
But hopefully, none of us would have to say, if I were called into the presence of the
Lord today, I would be totally ashamed of my life.
Because if that is our response, then we have to take a hard look at what Peter is saying
here.
And our need is to repent, and it is to turn around and begin following Jesus Christ.
O Pilgrim, you do not know which day will bring that entrance, nor do I.
And so I exhort you to live as one who will enter that kingdom perhaps today.
But if it be tomorrow, rejoice that God has given you another day to be His pilgrim in
this world.
And while you're here, be useful and fruitful in the things of God.
Let us bow together.
Do those two words describe your spiritual life this week?
Useful to Jesus Christ?
Fruitful in the knowledge of Christ?
Or as you look back through the week, do you have to honestly say, I've been blind and
short-sighted and I've forgotten my purification, my salvation?
Would you today say to the Lord Jesus, would that be the case?
Jesus, make me diligent.
I set my heart to be diligent, to make certain about my calling and choosing.
Deliver me from my stumbling and cause me to walk firmly as a pilgrim and to enter your
kingdom abundantly.
O child of God, may that be your prayer today.
For our Savior has saved us that we might be both useful and fruitful to Him in this
world, that when we get to heaven He might have the joy of rewarding us.
Lord Jesus, so easily we forget and take for granted the blessings, and then our hearts
become accustomed and cold, and our lives become careless and we stray.
I pray that we will each one who is a pilgrim today walk faithfully with you.
And Father, if there be some friend here who has never trusted the Savior, oh, may that
one today trust Him.
Become a part of the family of God and begin moving toward the destiny of heaven and the
kingdom rather than the present destiny of hell forever.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.