This week, we’re going to look at how God uses separation as a means to demonstrate two things: first, we’re going to see how God stretches your character by separating you from everybody else. Which will lead to question and ask, why have you been trying to live like everybody else when God made you distinctly you. Secondly, we’re going to see how God stretches us by separating us from where we were and where we’re going by not separating himself from us ever. I know it sounds simple and easy, but I had to summarize it that way so that I can break this down for you and so that you can roll it back up in your minds what we’re about to do because this is a psychological endeavor into ourselves. Let’s not waste any more time, we’re going to go to Exodus 14.
Exodus 14 is a very well-known chapter in the Bible. It was made famous by every single story you know about Moses. We’re not going to read the whole thing, so let me fill you in on what happens through verse 10 in a quick paraphrase and then we’re going to meet at verse 10.
Egypt finally allows the Israelites free. The final straw was the very last plague where God strikes down every first born in Egypt whose door is not marked by the blood of the lamb and is not passed over. Pharaoh in such great grief says having slaves are not worth it, and tells them to leave the country right away and tells his people to give them jewelry and prized possessions. So the Israelites leave the country free and with new possessions.
Then Pharaoh realizes that he made a mistake. So the Bible says he took his army and “600 chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt” which essentially means that Pharaoh took his royal guard that had 600 chariots plus the regular chariots of war from the general army. The army of Egypt some historians say at the time numbered 1 million. While it is doubtful that there were a million soldiers in pursuit, I’m going to say that there were far more than 600. Let’s just say there were enough of an Egyptian army presence that when the Israelites look around, they were feeling trapped against the sea and an army about to overcome them. There were about 2 million Israelites, so you do the imagining. Verse 10, let’s go.
10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 13 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
15 The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 16 Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. 17 And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.” (Exodus 14:10-18)
Can we stop right here and see this? God stretches us first and foremost by putting adversity around us. The Israelites were fearful of what was marching up against them. How many of us are sometimes just so fearful of what is marching up behind us? Isn’t it true that we become stretched out as people when we do as Moses tells the Israelites to do and “fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today?” I love that line. The most practical way God stretches us is by allowing an enemy to pursue us. Yes, it is a horrible way to be stretched, but sometimes we need something chasing us so that we realize that God is for us. I’ve noticed in life that without adversity we would not grow. I’m sure you’ve noticed this too.
I’m not saying this to simply state the obvious or repeat empty sayings. I’m telling you this because we, instead of allowing God to stretch us in these stressful situations only moan about it. We become like these Israelites who say things like, “are there no graves in Egypt?” Of course there are graves in Egypt, but guess what, this adversity you’re facing, whatever that adversity is, whoever this adversity is, is not meant for you to cower, it is meant to light a fire underneath you to move forward. Look at verse 15.
God tells Moses, “why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.” Have you realized that instead of facing your adversity and allowing God to stretch you, we spend so much time complaining to anybody who will listen, and then we turn around and use those complaints on God. God’s answer is simple though: go forward. Stop complaining because you need to move forward. I won’t say that God won’t listen to your complaints, but I will say your complaints are worthless so keep it to yourself and move forward. I know some of the more emotionally inclined will balk at that statement, but its here in the Bible for a reason and that reason is simple: not all adversity, trouble and pain is meant for your complaining. Sometimes God allows those things in your life so that you can be stretched and move forward with your life. Let’s go to verse 19 because I know you’re asking, “how do we move forward?”
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. (Exodus 14:19-22)
You move forward by allowing God to separate you from the adversity around you. God always separates you from everybody else in adversity. Say that with me because I want you to believe it so you never complain about why your life is so hard; about why it seems like you’re always fighting an uphill battle; why being stretched by God is so difficult. “God always separates you from everybody else in adversity.
When you trust God to stretch you, He will cause separation. The angel of God came in between Egypt and the Israelites. Have you noticed that the one thing that is supposed to separate you from the rest of the world is your faith in God? Has anyone ever asked you why you were doing something differently than everyone else? In those situations, how do you explain your faith to people? Like people ask me all the time why do I go to church and believe in what I believe in, why do I sacrifice most of my weekend for church and church work. I want to tell them, shut up because I don’t want to explain it to you. But really the answer is simple: God created separation between me and you so I can do what I do on the weekend.
But you don’t see any separation between you and anybody else. In fact, you feel like the separation you have that is different than everybody else is really negative. But I will tell you that God gave you a life that is different from the people around you and he’s put a cloud around your life and preserved you so that you can follow him forward in a direction only he can take you. God took the Israelites to the edge of the sea and that was not by accident. He wanted to stretch their faith, and the only way to do that was to cause separation when adversity came chasing them.
You may not see your life as God causing separation, but He is, you are different and distinct and it’s because of that you have been called and chosen to go in a direction nobody else can follow you in. Look at verse 21. The Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Talk about separation. The sea was separated. It is the distinctions about who you are, what you do, what you know, what you have experienced, the adversity that you faced that gives you the ability, when you trust in God to go forward and walk where it is impossible to walk. In fact, only you can walk it.
Your life with God in adversity is the road towards our destiny. God is teaching us; He is showing us what it is to separate from the world so that we would never be separated from Him. This is why God stretches us with adversity chasing us with no rest or relief behind us. When we look at Romans 8:31-39, the Apostle Paul writes about this:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
If verse 38 and 39 is not underlined in your Bible and/or memorized, I want you to do so right now. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let that resonate with you. God separated Jesus apart from the world so that God can separate us from the world. As a result, we will never be separated from the love of God.
I want to go back to Exodus 14 because I know that you want to know how this ends because there is still a lot to learn.
23 The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 24 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, 25 clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” 27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. 29 But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses. (Exodus 14:23-31)
I only saw this recently and never before, but in verse 26 God tells Moses to stretch out your hand. This is the second time God tells Moses to do this. The first time is to create a path forward. God tells us to have faith and go forward where there seems to be no path except the path only you can take. The second time, here, God has an entirely different reason for Moses to stretch out his hand, that is to have faith in Him—it’s because God can’t drown your adversity if the water is still separated. Here’s what that means for us: being stretched by God means that we have faith to allow God to close the path we took to get where we are going. There is no going back. We need to close that door in faith. The way to close that path we don’t want to go back to is by looking to see how we can commit to following God.
God stretches us by separating us from the rest of the world and giving us a perspective uniquely designed to take us on our journey with him to the promise land. He separates us from where we came from and pushes us forward to where we need to go but all of that means we will never be separated from the love of Jesus. What are we doing with that? In this season of life, what new way can you commit to serving God? Are you currently volunteering at church? Who can you invite to church? How can you be more generous with your time or money? Have you ever considered separating yourself from where you are now to go forge a brand new path? Let’s pray.
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