If He'll Take You to It, He'll Take You Through It

Introduction

Before we get into Exodus 14, I want us to take a few minutes and understand how we got here.

Because if we just open the Bible at the Red Sea, we can miss something important.

Israel did not just happen to end up here.

Moses did not get lost.

They did not make a wrong turn.

God brought them here.

And to really appreciate that, we have to go back for a moment.

When we started this series, Moses was standing before a burning bush in Exodus 3.

God told him:

“I have surely seen the affliction of my people…”

God had heard their cries.

God knew their suffering.

And God told Moses that He was going to bring His people out of Egypt.

Moses had his questions.

Moses had his fears.

Moses had his insecurities.

But eventually Moses went back.

And when Moses returned to Egypt, he went with a message from God:

“Let my people go.”

But Pharaoh refused.

And what followed was not simply a battle between Moses and Pharaoh.

It was a demonstration of the power of God.

God turned the Nile to blood.

Frogs covered the land.

Lice came upon the people.

Flies invaded Egypt.

Livestock died.

Boils broke out.

Hail fell from heaven.

Locusts consumed the land.

Darkness covered Egypt.

And every plague was making one thing clear:

Pharaoh was not in control. God was.

Pharaoh had asked in Exodus 5:

“Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice?”

By the time God was finished, Pharaoh was going to know exactly who the LORD was.

Then we come to the final plague.

God tells Israel to take a lamb.

Kill it.

Put the blood on the doorposts.

And when judgment came through Egypt, God said:

“When I see the blood, I will pass over you.”

And that night the firstborn of Egypt died.

Pharaoh finally called for Moses and Aaron and told them:

“Rise up, and get you forth from among my people…”

After generations of slavery…

They were free.

Think about what that must have felt like.

They had prayed for this.

Their fathers had prayed for this.

Their grandfathers had died waiting for this.

And now, finally, they were walking out of Egypt.

But there is something we need to understand.

When Israel left Egypt, God did not simply tell them:

“Good luck. I’ll see you when you get there.”

Exodus 13 tells us that God Himself led them.

By day, there was a pillar of cloud.

By night, there was a pillar of fire.

That means Israel was not guessing about the direction.

They were following God.

And that becomes extremely important when we get to chapter 14.

Because chapter 13 even tells us that God did not take them by the shortest route.

There was a more direct way.

There was an easier way.

But God intentionally led them another way.

Why?

Because God knew what Israel could not handle yet.

God knew that if they encountered war too soon, they might turn around and run back to Egypt.

So God led them toward the wilderness.

And then we arrive at Exodus chapter 14.

Look at what God tells Moses in verses 1 and 2.

He gives Moses specific instructions about where Israel should camp.

God tells them where to go.

God tells them where to stop.

And when they stop, they find themselves in a seemingly terrible position.

The Red Sea is in front of them.

Pharaoh is behind them.

And there appears to be nowhere to go.

Now church, don't miss this!!!

They are exactly where God told them to be.

They are not trapped because they disobeyed God.

They are trapped while obeying God.

They are not at the sea because they left the path.

The path led them to the sea.

And that's important because sometimes we have this idea that if we are following God, everything ought to make sense.

If I'm doing what God wants me to do, there should not be opposition.

If God opened the door, the road should be easy.

If God is with me, I should not find myself in impossible situations.

But Exodus 14 teaches us something different.

Sometimes God will lead you to a place where you do not have the answer.

Sometimes God will lead you to a place where your resources are not enough.

Sometimes God will lead you to a place where there is no visible way forward.

Not because He has abandoned you.

But because He is about to show you something about Himself that you could not have learned on an easy road.

And here's what makes the situation even more interesting.

God tells us why He led them there.

Look at verse 4.

God says He is going to be honored through Pharaoh.

In other words, the Red Sea was not an interruption in God's plan.

It was part of the plan.

Pharaoh thinks Israel is trapped.

Israel thinks they are trapped.

But God knows exactly what He is doing.

And that's where I want us to begin this morning.

Because some of us are standing in front of situations we never expected to face.

And maybe you've asked:

“God, how did I end up here?”

“God, I thought I was following You.”

“God, I thought You were leading me.”

“Why would You bring me to something I cannot get through?”

And I believe Exodus 14 gives us the answer.

If God will take you to it, best believe He will take you through it.

The sea may be bigger than you.

The enemy may be stronger than you.

The situation may be beyond you.

But none of it is beyond God.

So let's look at what happens when God's people arrive at a place only God can get them through.

I would not make Point 1 “God may lead you into difficult places,” because your introduction already established that thoroughly. Move the sermon forward into verses 10–12.

I. Don’t Let What You See Make You Forget What God Has Done

Exodus 14:10–12

Now Israel is exactly where God told them to be.

But verse 10 says:

“And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid…”

Notice what happens.

They lifted up their eyes and saw Pharaoh coming.

They saw the horses.

They saw the chariots.

They saw the army.

They saw an enemy they knew they could not defeat.

And immediately, the Bible says:

“They were sore afraid.”

Church, the problem was not that what they saw wasn’t real.

Pharaoh really was behind them.

The sea really was in front of them.

The danger was real.

The problem was that they allowed what they saw in that moment to become bigger than everything they had already seen God do.

Think about that.

These are the same people who watched God turn water into blood.

They saw frogs cover Egypt.

They saw darkness fall over the land while they still had light in Goshen.

They watched God distinguish between Egypt and Israel over and over again.

They had just experienced Passover.

They had walked out of Egypt after generations of bondage.

And even while Pharaoh was coming toward them, the pillar of cloud was still there!

God had not disappeared.

God had not stopped leading.

But fear made them forget.

And that is one of the dangers of fear:

Fear can make one present problem erase the memory of a lifetime of God’s faithfulness.

God can bring you through ten things...

And number eleven will have you acting like He has never done anything for you.

God can open door after door...

And one closed door will have you questioning whether He is still with you.

God can provide again and again...

And one difficult season will have you wondering whether He has forgotten your name.

Church, sometimes we have short spiritual memories.

We remember how big the problem is...

But forget how big our God is.

Fear Changed How They Saw Their Past

And watch what fear does next.

They say to Moses:

“Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?”

Then verse 12:

“For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.”

Wait a minute.

Better?

Better to be slaves?

Better to make bricks for Pharaoh?

Better to have your sons thrown into the Nile?

Better to cry out under Egyptian bondage?

They spent years asking God to deliver them from Egypt.

Now, after getting out, fear has them talking like Egypt was the good old days.

That is what fear can do.

Fear will romanticize what God delivered you from.

When the road forward becomes difficult, the past can suddenly start looking better than it really was.

That is dangerous.

Because sometimes when following God gets hard, we start looking backward.

“I was better off before I started trying to do right.”

“My life was easier before I got serious about God.”

“I didn’t have these problems when I was living the way I wanted.....

Be careful.

Ease does not equal freedom.

And difficulty does not mean you made the wrong decision.

Egypt may have been familiar...

But it was still bondage.

Church, never allow the difficulty of where God is taking you to make you desire the bondage He already brought you out of.

Some things are behind you for a reason.

Some habits belong in Egypt.

Some relationships belong in Egypt.

Some ways of thinking belong in Egypt.

Some versions of you belong in Egypt.

Don't run backward just because forward became difficult.....

Fear Also Made Them Misinterpret Moses

Notice who they blame.

Moses.

“Hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?”

But Moses did not choose this location.

God did.

They are blaming Moses for a situation God intentionally allowed.

That's another thing fear does.

When we cannot understand what God is doing, we start looking for somebody to blame.

Sometimes the person trying to lead you forward becomes the target simply because the road became difficult.

And Moses is learning something here about being a servant.

God has called him to lead people who will not always understand where God is taking them.

People who will celebrate one day and complain the next.

People who will follow when the road is easy and question his leadership when the road becomes hard.

And if Moses is going to become the servant God needs him to be, he cannot allow the fear of the people to become his fear.

He has to see something they cannot see yet.

That is leadership.

Not pretending the problem isn't real.

Not ignoring the sea.

Not denying Pharaoh is coming.

But being able to look at the same problem everybody else sees...

And still remember what God has said.

Application

Church, when trouble comes, be careful what you allow the moment to make you forget.

Before you say:

“God has abandoned me...”

Remember what He has already brought you through.

Before you say:

“God is not working...”

Remember the doors He has already opened.

Before you say:

“I’m not going to make it...”

Remember the times you thought that before and you're still here.

Before you run back to Egypt...

Remember why you prayed to get out.

David understood this.

When everybody else saw Goliath, David remembered the lion and the bear.

In 1 Samuel 17:37 he said:

“The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me…”

David used yesterday’s faithfulness as evidence for today’s confidence.

And that's what Israel should have done at the Red Sea.

They should have looked at Pharaoh and said:

“The God who brought us out of Egypt did not bring us out here to abandon us.”

“The God who defeated Egypt before ,can defeat Egypt again.”

“The God who got us to this sea can get us through this sea.”

And somebody needs that mindset right now.

Do not allow what is in front of you to erase what God has already done behind you.

Because the same God who was faithful then...

is still God now.

You may not know how you're getting through.

Israel didn't either.

You may not see the road.

Israel couldn't.

You may be looking at something bigger than your ability.

They were too.

But remember the title of this lesson:

If He'll take you to it, He'll take you through it.

And sometimes the first step toward getting through it is remembering who brought you there in the first place.

Point 1 dealt with what fear does to our memory. Point 2 should answer the question: What do you do when you are facing something you genuinely cannot fix?

II. Some Battles Are Too Big for You, But Never Too Big for God

Exodus 14:13–14

Israel is panicking.

Pharaoh is coming.

The sea is in front of them.

The people are blaming Moses.

And in the middle of all of that noise, Moses says:

“Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day…”

And then verse 14:

“The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”

Church, I need you to understand how impossible this situation really was.

Israel had no military strategy.

They had no army capable of defeating Pharaoh.

They had no boats to cross the sea.

They had nowhere to run.

There was no human solution to this problem.

And that's exactly why God brought them there.

Because there are some victories God wants to give you that He does not want you taking credit for.

Had Israel defeated Pharaoh with their own army, they could have talked about their strength.

Had Moses engineered some clever escape route, they could have talked about his leadership.

Had they found another way around the sea, they could have talked about their ingenuity.

But God puts them in a situation where, when they come out on the other side, there can only be one explanation:

God did it.

And sometimes God will allow you to face something bigger than your ability so you can discover that His ability has never been limited by yours.

“Stand Still”

Moses tells them:

“Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD…”

Now don't misunderstand the text.

Moses is not teaching that every time we have a problem, we should sit down and do nothing.

In fact, just a few verses later, God will tell them:

“Go forward.”

So “stand still” does not mean become passive.

It means:

Stop panicking long enough to watch God work.

Stop trying to run back to Egypt.

Stop talking like everything is over.

Stop allowing fear to dictate your next move.

Stop acting as though your deliverance depends entirely on you.

There are moments when faith does not look like doing more.

Sometimes faith looks like trusting God when you have done everything He has required and there is nothing else within your power to do.

Psalm 46:10 says:

“Be still, and know that I am God…”

Sometimes we become so busy trying to fix everything that we never leave room in our hearts to trust the One who actually has the power to change it.

We worry.

We calculate.

We manipulate.

We call everybody.

We replay every possibility.

We lose sleep trying to figure out how we're going to make a way.

And God is saying:

“Stand still.”

Not because the problem isn't serious.

But because the problem is not sovereign.

Pharaoh had power.

But Pharaoh was not God.

The sea was an obstacle.

But the sea was not God.

Israel could not control either one.

But both were under the authority of God.

Moses says...

“The LORD Shall Fight for You”

And this is where the text gets powerful.

Moses does not say:

“Israel, you better fight harder.”

He says:

“The LORD shall fight for you.”

This is not the first time Scripture teaches this principle.

When David stood before Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:47, he said:

“The battle is the LORD’S…”

When Jehoshaphat faced an army that Judah could not defeat, God told them in 2 Chronicles 20:15:

“The battle is not yours, but God’s.”

And later:

“Stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD…” —2 Chronicles 20:17

There are battles where God expects us to act.

There are responsibilities we cannot pray our way around.

There are commands we must obey.

But there are also things that no amount of human strength can accomplish.

You cannot force somebody's heart to change.

You cannot control every outcome.

You cannot undo yesterday.

You cannot guarantee tomorrow.

You cannot carry every burden.

You cannot make every person understand you.

And some of us are exhausted because we are trying to fight battles that require God's strength, not ours.

Church, you have to learn the difference between your responsibility and God's responsibility.

Israel's responsibility was to trust and obey.

Opening the sea was God's responsibility.

Israel's responsibility was to walk when God said walk.

Defeating Pharaoh was God's responsibility.

And whenever you try to take responsibility for what only God can do, you will eventually wear yourself out.

Don't Confuse Trust With Control

This is where faith gets difficult.

We like trusting God when we can see how He is going to work it out.

But Israel cannot see a solution yet.

When Moses says:

“Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD…”

The sea has not opened.

Pharaoh has not turned around.

The danger is still present.

God is asking them to trust Him before anything changes.

That's faith.

Hebrews 11:1 says:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Anybody can praise God after the sea opens.

Faith trusts God while the water is still in front of you.

Anybody can testify after Pharaoh is dead.

Faith says God is faithful while Pharaoh is still approaching.

Anybody can believe when the answer is visible.

But faith says:

“I don't know how God is going to do it, but I know who God is.”

And that's where some of us struggle.

We don't just want God's promise.

We want God's plan.

“God, tell me how You're going to fix it.”

“Tell me when You're going to fix it.”

“Tell me who You're going to use.”

“Tell me what the next six months are going to look like.”

And God does not always give us those answers.

Sometimes all He gives us is:

“Trust Me.”

Application

Some of you have a Red Sea in front of you right now.

And you've been wearing yourself out trying to figure out how to part it.

Maybe it's your family.

Maybe it's your finances.

Maybe it's something on your job.

Maybe it's a relationship.

Maybe you're carrying something you have prayed about repeatedly, and you still don't see the answer.

Hear the text.

God is not telling you to neglect your responsibility.

Do what He has told you to do.

Obey what Scripture requires.

Make the decision you need to make.

Take the step that belongs to you.

But after you have done what God requires...

Stop trying to be God.

Israel's weakness is about to become the stage for God's strength.

Their inability is about to reveal His ability.

Their dead end is about to become God's highway.

So when you come to something you cannot handle...

Don't immediately assume God brought you there to destroy you.

Maybe He brought you there so you could finally stop depending on yourself.

Maybe He brought you there so you could see what only He can do.

Maybe He brought you there because there is a side of His power you would have never seen if the road had stayed easy.

Remember what Moses said:

“The LORD shall fight for you.”

And here is what I want you to hold onto:

If God brought you to a battle that your strength cannot win, then your weakness does not mean the battle is lost.

Because your limitation has never been God's limitation.

The sea may still be in front of you.

Pharaoh may still be behind you.

And you may not see a way out yet.

But before the sea ever opened, Moses could already say:

“Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD.”

Because if He'll take you to it...

He'll take you through it.

Church, somewhere along the way, we've got to learn how to stand still.

Moses said:

“Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD.”

And Paul says in Ephesians 6:13:

“And having done all, to stand.”

In other words, there comes a point when you've done what God has given you to do.

You've prayed.

You've obeyed.

You've made the call.

You've had the conversation.

You've taken the step.

You've done everything that is within your responsibility.

And when you've done all you can do...

Stand.

Stand still when you're afraid.

Stand still when you're unsure.

Stand still when you're hurting.

Stand still when you're sick and don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.

Stand still when your family is going through trouble.

Stand still when your money gets a little funny.

Stand still when people walk away from you.

Stand still when you've prayed and the answer hasn't come yet.

Stand still when you can't figure out what God is doing.

Stand still when everything around you seems to be falling apart.

Not because you don't care.

Not because you're giving up.

Not because the problem isn't real.

But because you've learned that there are some things only God can do.

And when you've done what God told you to do...

You don't have to panic.

You don't have to manipulate.

You don't have to force the outcome.

You don't have to go running back to Egypt.

Just stand.

Because while you're standing...

God is still working.

While you're waiting...

God is still working.

While you can't see a way...

God is still working.

And Moses says:

“The LORD shall fight for you.”

Church, sometimes the strongest expression of faith is being able to stand in front of a sea you cannot cross, with an enemy you cannot defeat, and still say:

“I don't know how He's going to do it... but I know my God brought me here, and if He'll take me to it, He'll take me through it.”

Yes. This is much closer to the invitation your sermon needs. I would keep the Red Sea imagery all the way through and make the transition to salvation clean. One important biblical precision: in 1 Corinthians 10:1–2, Paul says Israel was “baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” He is drawing a typological connection, not saying their crossing was Christian baptism. That actually gives you a strong bridge to your invitation.

Invitation

Maybe you're here this morning, and you feel trapped.

Egypt is behind you.

The Red Sea is in front of you.

You can't go back.

You don't know how to go forward.

And you've done everything you know how to do.

Church, maybe this is the moment when you need to get out of the driver's seat and let God do His work.

You've been trying to figure it out.

You've been trying to control the outcome.

You've been trying to make a way where you cannot make one.

But remember what Moses said:

“The LORD shall fight for you.”

There are some situations you cannot get through by your own strength.

You need an all-powerful God.

And if you're not a Christian this morning, understand that your greatest problem is not what is happening around you.

Your greatest problem is sin.

Sin has you trapped in a bondage you cannot free yourself from.

And just as Israel needed God to make a way out of Egypt, you need God to make a way out of sin.

And God has already made that way through Jesus Christ.

Interestingly enough, when Paul looks back at the Red Sea crossing in 1 Corinthians 10:1–2, he says that Israel:

“were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”

Think about the picture.

They stood between bondage and freedom.

Egypt was behind them.

A new life was ahead of them.

And they had to follow God through the water.

And if you're outside of Christ this morning, you're standing at a decision too.

You can remain in the bondage of sin...

Or you can follow God's way to salvation.

Hear the Word of God.

Believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Repent of your sins.

Confess your faith in Christ.

And be baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins.

Romans 6 says that in baptism we are buried with Christ and raised to:

“walk in newness of life.”

You don't have to stay in Egypt.

You don't have to remain enslaved to sin.

God has made a way out.

And if you're already a Christian this morning, I don't know what your Red Sea is.

I don't know what is behind you.

I don't know what is standing in front of you.

I don't know what has you afraid.

But I know this:

If God will take you to it, He will take you through it.

So don't go back to Egypt.

Don't abandon your faith.

Don't let fear make the decision for you.

Stand.

Trust God.

And when He says move, move.

Whatever you need this morning, whether you need salvation, restoration, prayer, or simply the strength to keep standing...

Won't you come, as together we stand and sing?