Exodus 14:3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.
My dad has often told the story of a time when as a little boy he was not doing what was right. He wasn’t guilty of anything that was a punishable offense per se, but of little things like poor attitudes and so on. He was just asking for trouble. One day his father came to him and said, “Bill, you have not been doing right. You know it and I know it. There’s nothing I can put a finger on, but when you trip up you are going to be punished for that offense and for everything you’ve been doing this week.” “Well,” my dad says, “That never happened. I straightened up. I never gave my dad a reason to punish me.”
Sometimes a wise father will set his children up. I don’t mean he will tempt them, but he will allow them to bring to a head the things that are in their heart so that he can correct that. Likewise, God will not tempt you with evil, but God does, on occasion and for our own good, allow us to step into a trap of our own making.
In Exodus 14, Egypt was pursuing a fleeing Israel, and God did a remarkable thing that is easy for us to miss unless we know the geography. Basically, as Israel was coming out of Egypt, God told them to take a ninety degree turn and go down toward the Red Sea.
The Red Sea was not on their path out of Egypt. It was not necessary. But by design God led them down to a spot that was between a rock and a hard place, between the ocean and the pursuing army of Pharaoh. In short, this was a trap. Israel knew it. They said, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” God knew it. He designed this trap. Egypt also knew it. They just didn’t know it was a trap for them.
Exodus 14:23 says, “And the Egyptians pursued [into the midst of the sea],” and verse 27 says, “And the Egyptians fled.” They went in pursuing Israel, and they tried to come out fleeing the wrath of God. In other words, this was a trap, not for Israel, but for Egypt. God let Pharaoh go his own way to the conclusion of his own evil heart. His heart was hardened. The Bible says he had a hard heart and a high hand. He was arrogant and ignorant.
The point is that you and I should know where we are in relationship to God. Pharaoh did not know. He did not know that this was a trap of his own making, that his own hard heart was driving him to the destruction that each step hitherto had brought him.
We need to know where we are in relationship to our passions. For Pharaoh it was greed and revenge. His pursuit of Israel was delayed by the mourning of Egypt’s dead, but it was driven by rage and revenge. Sometimes we don’t know the passions that are driving us, and we need to know where we are in relationship to our passions.
We need to know where we are in relationship to people. Pharaoh was pursuing. Relationships are never static, and if you want to know where you are heading observe others on the same path with you. If you want to know where you are with God, consider your relationship to the people around you, parents, coworkers, your church, your pastor, and so on.
In short, God never baits the hook. God does not tempt us with evil, but God will hook the bait. If we are dead set on pursuing the wrong course, God will oftentimes bring things to a conclusion so that we can be honest about where we are in relationship to life, to others, and to God. In short, it is a wise person who knows where he is in relationship to God.