July 6, 2023: Psalm 139:5 - God Surrounds and Protects His Own

“You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.” - Psalm 139:5

How many of us have felt trapped, with nowhere to go, with no way of escaping the situation we are in? Though we ourselves have tried repeatedly to fix what was broken, we finally realized something: we can’t fix it. How many of us then realized we are a sinner in need of the Savior and that only He can fix what is broken and cried out to Him, finally surrendering to Him, giving it all to Him?

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but He does want us to trust in Him, in both the comfortable and happy times and in the dark and dreary times. He wants us to trust Him in times of good health and in times when we can barely get out of bed to face another day when we are so weak and weary. He wants us to trust in Him; His word even tells us that:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh [body], and strength to your bones.” (Proverbs 3:5-8)

“And the LORD, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:8)

“Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” (Psalm 37:5-6)

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you.” (Psalm 32:8-9)

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.” (Psalm 118:8-9)

“He is not afraid of evil tidings [news]; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.” (Psalm 112:7)

The Scriptures above about trusting in the Lord are just several of probably hundreds or more that are in the Bible. Why did God put so many verses about trusting in Him in the Bible? I believe it is because it is the last thing most people do, myself included, when times get rough, when we are faced with a challenge so big in our lives that we fight against it. When it seems that the problem in our lives we are facing is as big as Mt. Everest, we decide for ourselves that we can take down that mountain. That is our pride in trusting in ourselves and not in our Lord. It is like taking a pick axe and striking it against the huge mountain, trying to take it down. This truly is a mission impossible and all it does is wear us out, frustrating us because that mountain hasn’t moved, it hasn’t come down, and we want it down - NOW! What we should have done was to trust in the Lord to bring down that mountain with His power and might, by His way, and most importantly, in His perfect timing. Further, we don’t know what good will come out of seeing that mountain come down by trusting in the Lord as He brings it down, not only in our own lives but perhaps in other people’s lives who see us trusting in the Lord.

Let us remember the nation of Israel when God sent Moses to deliver His people - the nation of Israel - out of their 430 years of bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt. The Bible tells us:

“Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and acknowledged them.” (Exodus 2:23-25)

God heard their cries. What did He do? Did He decide to leave them there? No, He set about His plan He had made long before their forefathers had even come to Egypt. He started the action of taking them out of Egypt and bringing them into the land He had promised them long ago when He made His unconditional covenant with Abraham. Everything that had happened to Israel during their 430 years in captivity had been prophesied by God to Abraham, whose name was “Abram” before God changed it to “Abraham”:

“Then He said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.’” (Genesis 15:13-14)

“On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates - the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.’” (Genesis 15:18-21)

God’s people went through 430 years of bondage before He would bring them into the land that He had given them in the unconditional covenant He had made with Abram. They had to go through many years of suffering before their future generations would see God’s blessing.

Moses and his brother Aaron went to Pharaoh, telling him, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.” (Exodus 5:1). However, Pharaoh said to them, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2). Moses and Aaron tried again but Pharaoh refused to let Israel go and instead made it harder for them to do the work he was having them do by causing them to make bricks without providing them straw. Consequently, God then sent nine different plagues upon Pharaoh and Egypt to show Pharaoh that he must release His people, but Pharaoh hardened his heart and determined not to free them. I think there is a lesson to us in this, that when we refuse to listen to God and want to do things our way, our hearts become hardened against Him, as Pharaoh did. I know this is true in my case. As God sent things that were like plagues to me in my own difficult situations, instead of turning to God and yielding everything to Him, I dug my feet even further in my own resistance, and as I did, I felt like God didn’t care about me, even questioning that He even loved me.

Finally, God sent the tenth plague which was the most difficult but the only one that would cause Pharaoh to heed God’s command to let His people go. God ordered the death of all the firstborn in Egypt, both man and beast, but He would protect His people and gave them specific instructions on what to do. To protect their firstborns, they must slaughter a lamb no more than one-year old and without blemish, and then take some hyssop, dip it in the blood, and put the blood on the doorposts and lentil so that when the destroyer came that night and saw the blood on the doorposts and lentil, it would passover that house and protect all within it. This was when God instituted the Passover with His people. This was a foreshadow of the sinless Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who would come to earth, be crucified, die, and resurrect three days later, to take away the sins of the world by His precious blood for all who put their trust in Him for deliverance of sins.

It is very interesting to note that each of the ten plagues that God sent upon Pharaoh and Egypt were all direct judgments against the false gods that Pharaoh and Egypt worshipped instead of the One true God, the God of Israel. There is an excellent article on gotquestions.org that describes this. (See: https://www.gotquestions.org/ten-plagues-Egypt.html) How many of us, myself included, have put our faith and trust in the false gods of this world, including the false god of self, instead of trusting in the Lord to deliver us out of a crisis situation we are in? With Pharaoh and Egypt, God used the same false gods they worshipped to afflict them. The sixth plague of boils that broke out in sores is one example that applies to us today. This sixth plague, per gotquestions.org: “…was a judgment against several gods over health and disease (Sekhmet, Sunu, and Isis). This time, the Bible says that [Pharaoh’s] magicians ‘could not stand before Moses because of the boils.’ Clearly, these religious leaders were powerless against the God of Israel.” Think of the recent plague that was put upon our world recently and in whom or what did we put our trust: was it in God, or was it in man, or something else? How many plagues must God send to us to show us we must not worship any other God but Him, the one true God? How many times do we not hear Him say to something to us as He said to Pharaoh before He sent the seventh plague of hail in all the land of Egypt:

“…for at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth. Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth. As yet you exalt yourself against My people in that you will not let them go.” (Exodus 9:14-17)

How many times have we hardened our own heart and exalted ourselves instead of God, ignoring His commands and His warnings and followed our own direction, only to make matters worse? How many of us have refused to believe and trust in the unmatched power of God?

At midnight of the tenth plague, when Pharaoh’s firstborn son died, he finally relented and called for Moses and Aaron by night and told them, “Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel. And go, serve the LORD as you have said.” (Exodus 12:31) As God foretold to Abram in Genesis 15:13-14, before leaving, the children of Israel asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and clothing, and the Egyptians gave it to them. Israel prepared food for their journey, and after 430 years of bondage, Israel - men, women, and children - with their livestock, began her exodus out of Egypt. However, it wasn’t long before Pharaoh regretted his decision and decided to pursue them. God, who is all-knowing, knew all along that Pharaoh would harden his heart during the ten plagues, and God knew Pharaoh would harden his heart again and would want to recapture those he just set free. Pharaoh readied himself and his army to pursue God’s people. The Bible tells us several times that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh had reached a point where he rejected God’s commands so many times that God said, okay, I’m giving you over to your foolishness in trusting in your false gods and I am hardening your heart. As Pharaoh was preparing to hunt down God’s people, this was one of those times that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and God did it for a reason, as He told Moses:

“‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and camp before Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal Zephon; you shall camp before it by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, “They are bewildered by the land; the wilderness has closed them in.” Then I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that he will pursue them, and I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD.’ And they did so.” (Exodus 14:2-4)

Moses did as God commanded, and the Bible tells us:

“And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel; and the children of Israel went out with boldness.” (Exodus 14:8)

The children of Israel were encamped by the sea of Pi Hahiroth, before Baal Zephon and they saw the mighty Egyptian army pursuing them with many chariots and became very afraid and cried out to the Lord. Then they hurled accusations against Moses, blaming him for bringing them out of Egypt, saying to him:

“Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:12)

In their fear, they felt it would have been better to die in their bondage and slavery to Pharaoh than to die free in the Lord. They were fearing what man could to do them instead of fearing God, the one who has the power not only over our earthly bodies but our eternal souls. This is what fear does to us, it causes us to make poor choices. Even when it is oh so difficult, we must trust in the Lord and lean not on our own understanding, as the Bible tells us, because we do not know what God is up to in our lives, we don’t know the work that He is doing. We don’t have to know it, but we must trust in Him in all situations, even when we are boxed in, just as the children of Israel were, with nowhere to go, with only the sea around them and their enemy hot on their heels.

Moses then said to them:

“Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation [deliverance] of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace [be quiet]. (Exodus 14:13-14)

Notice that Moses said to them “stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD.” He didn’t want them cowering in fear of their enemy but to stand in confidence in their Lord and to know that He will fight for them. He didn’t want them yelling and screaming in fear, but to be quiet and to let God do His work through them and to reveal His glory through Pharaoh. This calls to mind the Scripture verse:

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah” (Psalm 46:10-11)

How many of us are willing to stand still and have confidence in our Lord, Almighty God, and face our fears with courage and boldness through our knowledge of Him, that He is for us and not against us, that He is with us and He is our refuge? How many of us can do this when we have nowhere else to turn because we are surrounded on all sides by our enemy or because of the trial that we are going through? How many of us have not looked at the challenges we are facing and how big they may seem to us but instead have looked up to see what an amazing God we serve and put our trust in Him and in Him alone to win this battle for us? If we have not, then we should ask ourselves why.

What happened next to Moses and the Israelites? “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.”’ (Exodus 14:15) God wanted them to “go forward.” Stop crying and move forward. Take courage in Him, be bold, knowing that He had their back, just as He has the backs of all of us who put our faith and trust in Him. When it seems we are boxed in on all sides, He makes a way, a way that no one else could make but Him, but, we must trust in Him to do it and we must go forward in faith. And then God, He did make a way. He told Moses to take his rod and stretch it out over the sea and it would be divided, providing dry ground for His people, the children of Israel, to go across it. We must absolutely remember that God’s ways are not our ways because He is all knowing, all present, and all powerful. He can do things we could never even fathom, and that is exactly what He did when He took Israel out of Egypt by bringing them through the Red Sea on dry land. The Bible also tells us:

“And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.” (Exodus 14:19-22)

God had put the Angel of God and the pillar of cloud behind them, separating them from Pharaoh and his army so that they could not overcome them as they pursued the children of Israel as they walked through the Red Sea. Next, God took off the wheels of the Egyptians’ chariots, making it harder for them to pursue Israel. The Egyptians then cried out, “Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.” (Exodus 14:25) With all of the children of Israel having safely reached the other side, God then told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea in order to bring the waters back and upon the Egyptians, their chariots, and their horsemen, and Moses did as God commanded him. The waters swallowed them all up, eliminating the threat to His children, who had crossed safely through the Red Sea.

“Thus Israel saw the great work which the LORD had done in Egypt; so the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD and His servant Moses.” (Exodus 14:31)

Israel didn’t have to go through the Red Sea, trusting in God that He would ensure they would arrive on the other end safely. No, they could have doubted in Him and turned back and ran the other way, back to Pharaoh and the Egyptians who kept them in bondage for 430 years and asked him to forgive them, but they didn’t. Though they must have been fearful, they trusted in God to go forward, just as we must trust in Him and go forward when He tells us to, knowing that He surrounds and protects His own, including us. Are you willing to have this level of faith in Him? I pray you do, for He is good and He is God.

For those of us, including myself, who see an increasingly wicked world that is turning against all who have put their faith and trust in His Son Jesus Christ for our salvation, as we feel more and more boxed in by the wicked forces who seek to persecute us and even kill us, as is being done now in some countries, let us remember Israel’s Red Sea moment and know with absolute certainty that God has not forgotten His children, and we too will have our Red Sea moment, and as He did with Pharaoh and his army, so He will do with them:

“He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in HIs deep displeasure; ‘yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.’” (Psalm 2:4-6)

Let us read the words of the Song of Moses that he and the children of Israel sang to the Lord for what He had done for them and what He would do next as He would bring them into the Promised Land. May we too, as believers in Christ, praise the Lord God for all He has done for us and will do for us when He leads us out of this life and into our eternity, when our true life begins!

“I will sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea! The LORD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him. The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is HIs name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea; His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them; they sank to the bottom like a stone.

“Your right hand, O LORD, has become glorious in power; Your right hand, O LORD has dashed the enemy into pieces. And in the greatness of Your excellence You have overthrown those who rose against You; You sent forth Your wrath; it consumed them like stubble. And with the blast of Your nostrils the waters were gathered together; the floods stood upright like a heap; the depths congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’ You blew with Your wind, the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

“Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? You stretched out Your right hand; the earth swallowed them. You in Your mercy have led forth the people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation.

“The people will hear and be afraid; sorrow will take hold of the inhabitants of Philistia. Then the chiefs of Edom will be dismayed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling will take hold of them; all the inhabitants of Canaan will melt away. Fear and dread will fall on them; by the greatness of Your arm they will be as still as a stone, till Your people pass over, O LORD, till the people pass over whom You have purchased. You will bring them in and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, in the place, O LORD, which You have made for Your own dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established."

“The LORD shall reign forever and ever.” (Exodus 15:1-18) ✝️