Psalm 46:10
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In Exodus 14, God delivers the Hebrew people from Egypt, by taking them the long way to the Red Sea. Pharaoh has one last change of heart and pursues the Israelites. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What’s the date today?
-The 29th,
-The last week in January
-That’s exciting
-You want to know why I’m excited?
-My wife an I have a Gym membership at the YMCA in scottsbluff
-we love to go work out, lift weights, run on the treadmill all of that stuff
-And we’ve for the most part, been working out consistently for the better part of a year
-quite a while
-But these last couple of weeks
-what do you think we have been experiencing at the gym?
-Why?>
-Everyone is making their New Year’s resolutions
-I’ve always found new years resolutions to be a little bit silly
-I’ve always thought that you should have the attitude that
-If you want to do something better with your life
-you should just do it now
-you don’t have to wait until January
-But that said I don’t disparage anyone who’s trying to better their life
-they’re just trying to get in shape and lose weight, and all of those things
-And I understand that, and I admire it
-But why am I excited,
-or maybe relieved is a better word
-why am I happy that It’s January 31st?
-Because I know that next week it’s gonna be a little bit less busy
-and the week after that, it’ll be a little bit less
-And by the end of february
-Man that gym is a ghost town.
-there ain’t nobody working out by the end of February
-And so even though it makes me a little sad that these people are giving up
-I know that it’s just normal course of things
-they’ll be back next year
-But I got to thinking about, why is it that we quit things so easily?
-it’s not like this whole phenomenon with the gym is new
-IT’s like that every year
-Some of you might have started a Bible in a year plan
-and that’s good I want to encourage you on that
-If you have and started on the first of the year
-You probably just barely got finished with Genesis
-That’s great
-I want to warn you
-you’re going to get to a point some time in the next month or so
-Usually it’s right around the book of Leviticus
-Where that excitement starts to wear off a little bit
-You’re gonna miss a couple of days
-maybe you already have
-If you made a choice this year to better yourself
-in any way this year
-More likely than not
-right about now is when that’s going to start slipping
-And right now you’re probably thinking
-Josh why are you being such a downer?
-Why are you telling me that I’m going to fail?
-And the reason is, first and foremost I want you to succeed
-I want you to grow in your faith
-I want you to make better choices
-I want you to become more and more like Jesus every single day
-But if we don’t look at the reasons we fail
-if we don’t get to the bottom of why it is that we fall short
-well then we’re doing ourselves a disservice
-We’re in the Book of Exodus
-today we’re going to gonna be reading the end of chapter 13
-and all of chapter 14
-it’s been a couple of weeks
-at this point in the story
-Moses went to pharaoh and asked him to let the isrealites go and sacrifice to the Lord
-Pharaoh said no
-God displayed His power and authority over Egypt
-until Pharoh finally relented and let the people Go
-And in chapter 13 we saw how God was giving them a fresh start
-in fact if you remember, back in chapter 12, God even said
“This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.
-This was their new year
-God changed the Jewish calendar to revolve around this exact moment
-So that every year this would be a fresh start for them
-And so I want us to pick up in chapter 13 verse 17 and see how this fresh start goes
When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”
-So if you picture a map of egypt
-In fact if your bible has a map in the back of it
-turn to that little page with the maps
-if it doesn’t that’s ok, I’ll describe it
-The hebrew people are in the northern part of Egypt
-and isreal, the promised land
-is north east of them
-and there’s a straight shot path where if they go staight east
-they can just follow the coast line and end up in Isreal
-But since that’s the easiest way to get from Egypt to isreal
-That’s also where the Philistines live
-and that’s the route where they’re most likely to encounter the Philistine army
-And God knew that if they took the short route
-they were going to come across the philistine army
-and god knew that if that happened
-the isrealites were going to get scared, retreat, and run straight back to egypt
-And God knew that they were not ready for battle
-So he took them on the senic routte
So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.
-Now wait a minute
-didn’t I just tell you that they weren’t ready for battle?
-The the bible Just imply that they weren’t ready for battle?
-But here in verse 18 it says they are ready for battle
-If they went up to the red sea and the Bible tells us they were ready for battle.
-then why wouldn’t God just let them take the short cut?
-As you read your Bible, these are the kinds of questions I want you to be asking
-I want you to be paying close enough attention
-that you start noticing these things
-that you start having questions
-In verse 18 it says that they went up “ready for battle”
-But the word there is a little bit confusing
-the ESV has it translated as “equipped for battle”
-The new american standard says that they were in a “martial array”
-some translations say that they were “in battle formation”
-And it’s a tricky phrase to get right in English
-but it’s a phrase that gives us the idea that physically
-they looked like an army
-They were standing in battle formation
-they were equipped with weapons
-but that’s a different thing than saying they were “ready” for battle
-Let me try and say that another way
-I don’t know what everyones opinions here are on firearms
-I personally own several handguns and rifles and shotguns
-I enjoy going out and target practicing
-And if that makes you uncomfortable we can have a personal conversation about that because I’m trying to have a discussion about whether or not someone believes in owning guns, that’s neither here nor there
-But nonetheless when I go to a gun shop to buy ammo or to look at a new gun
-I have lost track of how many times this has happened
-I’ll be in line at the counter
-and there’s a couple in front of me
-a husband and a wife
-and the husband is helping the wife pick out a handgun for self defense
and either the husband, or sometimes even the salesmen will say something like
-Here’s a nice little revolver
-it’s easy to use
-there’s not safety to fiddle with
-it doesn’t have a magazine
-it’s just point and shoot
-you don’t even have to get training on how to use it because it’s so simple, anybody can do it
-you can just put it in your purse and forget about it
-And I start to get visibly upset every time I see this happen
-because you know what’s going to happen if this young lady ever finds herself in a situation where she has to use that weapon?
-sure she’s equipped
-she has the gun she has the bullets
-she has everything she needs to defend herself
-but she’s not ready
-She hasn’t been trained on how to use that weapon
-she hasn’t mentally and spiritually prepared herself on how us use that weapon
-she’s equipped
-but she’s not ready
-As Christians we equip ourselves with all the tools we need
-we read our bible
-we go to church
-we pray
-We have the weapons we need
-but are ready to face temptation?
-are we spiritually trained for battle?
-or are we just like the isrealites standing around in battle formation holding weapons
-but not actually knowing how to use them?
-So God takes them the long way because he know’s they’re not ready
Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.”
-Homework time
-if you want to go back this week
-RE-READ the last several chapters of Genesis, it talks about this
After leaving Sukkoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
-Take your pen our highlighter or whatever you have and circle that verse
-we’re gonna come back to that
Exodus 14:1-7
Exodus 14:1-7
Then the Lord said to Moses, “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. Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ 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.
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!” So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them.
-Pharaoh changes his mind yet again
-by this point we shouldn’t be surprised by this
-but this time he’s not messing around
600 of his best chariots
-ususally in normal operations you would send out a team of 150 chariots
-that was considered standard
-Pharaoh sends 600 of the best chariots
-plus all of the other chariots that he had
-with officers over all of them
-Pharoah is sending not only his best equpment
-but also he’s his elite soldiers
-when Satan attacks us with temptation
-you can bet that he is going to throw everything he can at you
-he’s not gonna send a little delegation with a couple hundred chariots
-he’s going to send the entire cavalry at you
-so again I have to ask, are you spiritually ready? or are you merely equipped?
Exodus 14:8-12
Exodus 14:8-12
The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly.
-they seemed to think they were ready
-they were marching boldly
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.
As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.
-Doesn’t sound like they were ready, does it?
-Listen to what they tell Moses
They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
-The Isrealites were, what I like to call “comfortably oppressed”
-what do I mean by that ?
-they had to do backbreaking labor
-they had to build up all of pharohs store-cities and shrines and whatever else he had them do
-they were beaten and abused
-Pharaoh even had all of their babies thrown into the Nile river
-but they had three meals a day
-they had a place to sleep
-they had a roof over their heads
-They were so unwilling to take care of themsleves that they would have rather lived their lives in oppression
-they were comfortably oppressed
-This is the second reason why we fail at things
-we get comfortable
-I haven’t seen any studies on it, so I have no proof to back this up
-but I believe that pillows somehow become just a little bit softer on Sunday mornings
-I think that blankets some how just get a little bit warmer on Sunday mornings
-Again I have no proof
-But I’ve experienced it
-before I became a minister
-my bed was always so warm and so comfortable on Sunday morning
-and I would think to myself
-you know it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if I just skip church today
-after all this bed is so comfortable
-comfortably oppressed
-Let’s look at what Moses says in response
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.
-Verse 13 has always bothered me a little bit
-Moses has to tell them that they will see God’s deliverence
-they will see that God is in control of everything
-and if I only read chapter 14 all by itself it probably woudn’t bother me as much
-It’s only when you put chapter 14 in context the rest of the story that it starts to seem a little ridiculous
-Moses says you will see the deliverence of the Lord
-you will see that God is in control of everything
-Didn’t we just spend 7 chapters seeing that already?
-it’s not like the isrealites were just in their houses completely oblivious to the fact that the water was turning to blood and there were frogs and flies and locusts everywhere and all the cows were dying and the egyptians were getting boils and plagues
-they had already seen it
-They had all of the evidence that they needed
-This is a very important point
-I want you to pay attention
-there are very few people who can think their way into a relationship with God
-very few
-there are very few people who can come to trust God solely based on logic and evidence alone
-in fact I can count the number of people I know who are like that one one hand
-and every single one of them were either extremely intelligent
-I’m talking genius level IQ
-Or they were on the Autism spectrum
-and god had designed their brains completely differently than ours
-By the way god is pretty amazing that way that some people have that gift
-I don’t have it
-and I’m guessing that most of the people you interact with don’t either
-and yet
-if you go buy a book about how to bring somebody to Christ
-all of the books are about how to logically convince someone to believe in God
-how to show them the evidence, how to argue with them
-how to get them to reason their way to God
-and that’s just not how people work
-The isrealites had all the evidence they needed
-they had all the proof they needed
-and yet they were still afraid
-they still had to be told “you will see”
-even though they had already seen
-and here Moses gives the best advice you can possibly give someone who is afraid
-Maybe you’re at a point in your life where you thought you had everything planned out
-and it’s been upended and you’re terrified because you have no idea what your next move is supposed to be
-Maybe the relationships that you always thought were standing on a firm foundation are starting to crumble around the edges
-and you have no idea how to fix things
-maybe you’re dealing with guilt because you know that you let that person down and you could have done more
-but you didn’t and it just eats you up inside
-Maybe you just feel like you’re failing again and again, and you’re starting to wonder if you’ll ever gonna get it right
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
[pause]
-That’s it
-all the rest of it
-equipping yourself
-preparing yourself
-stepping outside of your comfort zone
-keeping yourself from being comfortably oppressed
-all of that’s great
-but none of it matters if you don’t understand that
-God will fight for you, you need only to be still.
-Stop
-you don’t have to fight the egyptians on your own
-God doesn’t expect you to
-In fact he knows that you can’t fight them on your own
-That’s why he lead you the long way to the place you are today
-you don’t think he had a plan for you to experience exactly this problem in exactly this place at exactly this time for exactly this reason?
-Because he knew that once you were pinned in against the sea with nowhere else to run
-that you would be left with no other choice but to be still, and allow him to fight for you.
Exodus 14:15-20
Exodus 14:15-20
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”
Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
-Remember that verse I told you to circle?
-Let’s read that one more time
-Exodus 13:21
By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.
and then in chapter 14 after the hebrews are backed up against the sea we read the the Angel of God withdrew and went behind them
-He stood directly in between them and the Egyptians
-a pillar of fire
-and it shined light on the isrealites and darkness on the egyptians
-Full disclosure, this is my understanding of what we’re reading
-and I could be completely wrong
-but it seems to me that this pillar of fire is the presence of the Holy Spirit
-We talked about this when we looked at the fire of the burning bush
-the same holy spirit that descended on the disciples inthe book of Acts
-like tongues of fire
-That fire, that spirit
-lives inside of you.
-Why do we fail at things?
-we fail because even though we’re equipped with the right tools
-we are not spiritually ready for battle
-we fail because we fall into complacency and we don’t expect that satan is gonna send his best chariots lead by teams of trained officers
-we fail because we get comfortable in our sin
-we fail because we spend too much time trying to think our way to God
-and not enough time just being still and allowing God to do the fighting for us
-How do we win?
-we win when we allow the spirit of God to lead us
-when we allow the spirit of god stand between us and evil and fight for us
-to illuminate our lives
-and cast our sin and our temptations and our greed and our pride into darkness
-If you’re a Christian you have that spirit within you
-That fire lives within you
-stoke that fire
-Spend personal time every day with God
-Spend time praying over not just your loved ones, but your enemies
-devote yourself to service in God’s kingdom
-When you see that person and you get that little gut feeling
-that says you know I think that person needs encouragement
-I feel like I need to go over and pray with that person
-I feel like I need to go introduce myself to them
-That’s the spirit trying to use you
-listen to it.
-All of these things can stoke that fire
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
-Whatever sea you’re backed up against
-whatever Armies you’re facing,
-God is big enough to handle it, if you let him
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
-God made a way for them to escape evil through though the water
-and if you’re keeping track of fingerprints
-I see baptism all over this passage
The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea.
-don’t think that because you are a Christian
-don’t think that just because you are on God’s team
-that satan is going to all of a sudden stop chasing after you
-in fact it’s the exact opposite
-when you enlist in God’s army
-Satan is even more likely to want to take you out
-Pharaoh had plenty of other people still back in egypt as slaves
-he wasn’t sending armies after them
Exodus 14:24-30
Exodus 14:24-30
During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.
-In this instance the Israelites escaped because they had enough faith to rely on God to hold back the waters
-and to jam the wheels of their enemies
-This week I want you to think about the Egyptians in your life
-I want you to think about the armies you are facing
-no matter how small it is
-If right now you’re just trying to improve yourself and read your Bible more often
-I want you to rely on God to help you cross that sea
-IF you’re facing stress and anxiety and guilt
-I want you to rely on God to help you cross that sea .
-If you’re afraid of failure
-I want you to know that those armies coming at you all that stresss
-God can handle that
-if you just step out in Faith
-and put your trust in him
-and let him hold back the water for you.