The Old Testament reading is Exodus chapter 17, verses 8 through 16, and this is God’s infallible and inerrant word. Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, the Lord is my banner, saying, a hand upon the throne of the Lord. The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

You can keep your place there at Exodus and turn to Ephesians chapter six, verses 10 through 20 for our New Testament reading. Ephesians six, 10 through 20. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You may turn back to Exodus chapter 17, As we have been making our way through Exodus, it wasn’t too long ago that the Israelites were still in Egypt. They were still there in their bondage and in their misery. But at that time, God made a promise to them that he would lead them to the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And we have seen, again, as we have gone through Exodus, how God has begun to make good on that promise. He has brought his people out of Egypt by signs and wonders, by his almighty power. But God never promised the Israelites that they would arrive to the promised land without a struggle. There would be, on their way to Canaan, many adversities, many difficulties and struggles. We’ve already seen how the Israelites, as they are being led in the wilderness, were led to a place without water and a place without food. And now in our passage this morning that we are considering, the Israelites face another kind of trial, and that is they are attacked by another nation, the Amalekites. And so the Israelites would have to struggle. They would have to fight on their way to the promised land. And the same is true for us today. For the Church of Jesus Christ today, God has promised us in His grace that He will lead us to our promised land in glory in the life to come. But on the way there, we can anticipate that we also will have to struggle. We will have to fight. The way to our promised land will not be easy either. And just as God never promised the Israelites a smooth and easy journey to Canaan, so God does not promise us a smooth and easy journey to heaven. Rather, the Bible tells us the exact opposite of that. In Acts 14.22, it says, through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

So with that in mind then, let’s take a look at our passage and there are three things that I want us to notice in this passage. The first thing is this, that Israel was engaged in spiritual warfare. It is a physical battle to be sure, but it is at heart spiritual warfare. So Moses says this in verse 8, then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. Moses doesn’t tell us why the Amalekites attacked Israel. On the surface, at least, it would seem that perhaps attacking other nations for plunder was probably a practice of the Amalekites, as it was for many other nations at that time, and as it has been for many nations ever since that time. No doubt the Amalekites saw that the Israelites were not well armed and therefore they looked to be a soft target. In Deuteronomy, Moses gives us a fuller description of this attack on the Israelites by the Amalekites. In Deuteronomy 25 verses 17 through 18, Moses says, remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. The way that Moses describes it for us is that this was a very cowardly attack on the part of the Amalekites. They attacked the weakest part of the people of Israel. The people of Israel as a whole were not a formidable force. They were vulnerable. They were innocent. They had not attacked the Amalekites. But again, this is the kind of thing that has happened throughout human history. The real reason why Amalek attacked Israel was deeper. It was spiritual. And that is Amalek was used of Satan to try to destroy this newly liberated people before they could reach the promised land. Whether the Amalekites realized it or not, I’m sure they did not realize it, but it was because the Israelites were the chosen people of God. Because they were God’s people, it was for that reason that they attacked them. It’s the same reason why Pharaoh and the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites while they were in Egypt. Because they were the people of God and behind those nations there was the evil one and he was using them for his own evil purposes. And this sort of conflict between Israel as the people of God and other nations of the world is exactly what the Lord said would happen way back in Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis chapter 315 the Lord said this to the serpent who had tempted Eve and caused Eve and Adam to sin the Lord said to Eve that he will put enmity between or he said to the serpent rather I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel of course the woman was Eve and the serpent is the devil, the evil one. Those who are of the seed of the woman, or the offspring of the woman, these are those who belong to God, who belong to Christ. They are the people of God. And those who are the offspring of the seed of the serpent are those who do not belong to God. They continue to rebel against God. They do not belong to Christ. And therefore, however unwittingly it may be, those who are of the seed of the serpent have the devil as their father, and they do his will. And from that point on in Genesis chapter 3 until the end of history, there would be and there still continues to be a fundamental conflict and struggle between the people who belong to God and to Christ and those who are not his people. And this conflict that takes place on earth, this is just the stage for a far greater cosmic conflict that is taking place between God and His hosts, that is the angels who belong to Him, and the devil and his hosts, that is his demons. And therefore, when Israel, here in our passage, Israel who is the offspring of the woman, when they were attacked by the Amalekites, the offspring of the serpents, it was part of this greater spiritual warfare between Christ and Satan, between good and evil, between light and darkness. There was in the wilderness that day in Rephidim a real physical battle. Nevertheless, the deeper struggle, the true struggle was spiritual. And for the people of God today, for us who belong to Christ, for the church, we are engaged in the same spiritual warfare. We read from Ephesians chapter 6, let me read verse 12 again. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. In the verse before that, in verse 11, we are told who is the chief of our spiritual enemies and it is the devil, it is Satan. Verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. First Peter 5 8 tells us, be sober minded, be watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And so, just as we observe here in Exodus 17 that the Amalekites were used by Satan to oppose, to try to destroy the people of God then, so today Satan is very active. His purpose is to oppose, to try to destroy, if he can, the Church of Jesus Christ today. And very often his attacks do come in the form of the kind of oppression or opposition or persecution that We have witnessed throughout church history that’s taking place very much in different parts of the world today, but Satan has other weapons at his disposal. He has other tools that he uses. They may be more subtle, but they are no less devastating. When he attacks the church, he uses various temptations to lead the people of God into sin. He seeks to seduce us through different kinds of idolatry. He tempts believers to doubt the truth of God’s word and promises. This is what Satan did to Eve. Hath God really said? And so the devil will use any means he can to try to separate us, if he can, from our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And because we have a powerful enemy, an evil enemy, who devotes all his might, all his resources to destroy our faith in Christ and to hinder our faithfulness to God, as believers in Jesus Christ, you and I are called to be fully engaged in this spiritual warfare. We must fight. We must fight against temptation. We are called to put to death the sin that is within us. We must hold fast to the word of God. We must stand upon the truth of God. And so the Christian life, while we can characterize it in many ways, one way that is very true of the Christian life is it is a life of struggle, of striving, of fighting. We have true enemies. We have real opponents who seek to destroy our souls. Again, we strive against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. A shorthand way of saying all of this is to say that we are in a continual battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And we could even put this in an even more shorthand way, and that is to say, as a Christian, you fight against sin. You fight against sin, the sin of unbelief, the sin of disobedience.

Well, the good news is we know what the outcome will be of this spiritual warfare. In his death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation, he has already dealt the death blow to the devil, to all the powers of evil and hell that oppose us. And so while we may in this battle in which we are engaged in this warfare, we may lose a skirmish here or there. Sin may get the upper hand from time to time, but nevertheless, as one who belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, as one who has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, you can know with absolute certainty that the final outcome of this battle will be victory. It will be your victory, your conquest. Romans 8 37 says that in Christ we are more than conquerors through him who loved us and Romans 8 also tells us that there is nothing there is nothing in all creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and so the victory is ours however however having said that notice here in this passage that the Israelites were called to fight It was not the Lord’s purpose to simply destroy the Amalekites by raining fire down from heaven. No, He called them to fight and it was through the fighting of the Israelites that the Amalekites would be destroyed. And in the very same way, for you and me, although we give all praise and glory and credit for our salvation, for our ultimate triumph over sin and death and the powers of hell, we give all credit to the Lord Jesus Christ for that. Nevertheless, in this life, we are called to be fully engaged in this fight, in this spiritual battle. We are called to fight the good fights of the faith. and so this battle then between Amalek and Israel at heart it was a spiritual warfare the very same kind of warfare that you and I are engaged in as believers in Christ and the reason why the Israelites were victorious that day against the Amalekites was because of the intercession of Moses and this is the second thing that I want us to take from this passage or notice in this passage Israel depended on the intercession of Moses for their victory After the initial attack of the Amalekites against the people of Israel, Moses had a plan on how Israel would counterattack, and no doubt it was a plan that was given to him by the Lord. First of all, he told Joshua to choose a fighting man to go out the next day to fight against Amalek. Most likely, Joshua chose the best of the fighting men, such as they were. As for Moses, he would go up to the top of a nearby hill, with the staff of God in his hand. He would raise it above his head in order to call for the help and the power of God to fight for his people. And the plan worked marvelously. That is, until Moses became tired and his arms drooped and the staff of God dropped and he couldn’t hold up the staff anymore. And then the Amalekites would begin to prevail. And so this passage tells us that as long as Moses was able to hold up that staff, the Israelites prevailed, but as soon as he lowered the staff, because he got tired, the Amalekites prevailed over the Israelites. Well, thankfully, Moses’ brother Aaron was with him, and there was another assistant with Moses that day, Hurr, and they helped Moses by giving him a place to sit, and then they held up his arms for him. and so with their help he was able to hold up the staff of God all the way until sundown and by that time the Israelites had completely routed the Amalekites. Verse 13 says, and Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. So this is how the Israelites won their first battle, their first engagement with an enemy nation. They’re off to a good start. They’re 1-0. They’ve defeated the Amalekites, but of course Their victory, although they fought, their victory was entirely due to the power of God. Joshua led the armies of Israel, but it wasn’t his leadership that won the battle. It certainly wasn’t the strength of the Israelite army. Remember, these were a people who just months before were in abject poverty. They were enslaved. They were simply trying to survive. The only skill they had was making bricks, certainly not warfare, fighting. Who knows what kind of weapons they were able to cobble together. And so if we think of this in sports terms. The Amalekites would have been the overwhelming favorites. No one would have bet against them. But the Israelites, they had the Lord. They had the Lord on their side. The almighty power of God. And that power of God, the power of God for his people, God’s purpose, his will to fight for his people, this was signified in this staff that Moses held up above his head. And it was by his divine power that God won the victory for his people. But he only accomplished that victory as a means or as a result of using the means of the intercession of Moses as Moses held up the staff of God.

Now the historic And I believe correct way of understanding this passage, the way that most commentators have interpreted this passage is to say this, that Moses here, he was interceding by prayer. This is Moses praying for the people of Israel and so have been some commentators, they have been a little too fastidious in interpreting this text by arguing that because it doesn’t actually say that Moses was praying, we cannot say that Moses is praying here. He was merely holding up the staff of God, that’s all it says. But if you were at a restaurant and you saw across the room a family, and when their dishes were served, they bowed their heads, they folded their hands, And you told me, now technically, I don’t know if they were actually praying to God or not because I could not hear the words that they were saying. You would sound like you were splitting hairs. Here in this passage, Moses clearly is in a posture of prayer. His hands were raised up to God. He was appealing to the Lord for help. Clearly he was directing his heart heavenward. He was interceding on behalf of the Israelites for the help of God. In other words, he was praying. He was praying. And although the Hebrew of verse 16 is hard to interpret, it may be saying, as the English Standard Version interprets it, as saying, a hand upon the throne of the Lord. The hand was Moses’ hand. His hand was upon the throne of God as he prayed, as he interceded for the people of Israel. This is not just a picture of prayer, but this is a picture of persevering prayer. Moses kept praying this way all the way to sundown, until the Amalekites were defeated, and that’s how we are to pray as well. We are to pray with persistence, with patience, with perseverance. And another lesson to learn from this prayer of Moses is that we are to pray together. We are to pray together. And I believe that this is the meaning of Moses being helped by Aaron and Hur. Some people have been very creative in their understanding, their explanation of what it means that Aaron was on one side of Moses, Hur was on the other side of Moses. They were holding up his hands and helping him to pray. Some people have said that Aaron and Hur represent the Old and the New Testaments and that our prayers must rest on both Testaments of the Bible. Others have said that this was a symbol of the Calvary of Jesus on the cross where his arms are outstretched and he had on one side of him a man who was being crucified and on the other side of him another man who was being crucified. So those are certainly interesting but that kind of fanciful allegorical interpretation is not nearly as persuasive as the interpretation that this is a picture here of corporate prayer, of the people of God praying together, of God’s people helping one another in praying to the Lord together. And an obvious implication of this truth is that we should not only be faithful in praying individually, we should not only, as Christians, have a private prayer life, but we also ought to seek times to pray together with our fellow Christians, with fellow members of the body of Christ. We all have priorities in our lives. We all have things that we believe are more important than other things, things that we could be giving our time and attention to. And as Christians, one major priority that every believer ought to have is that we ought to make time for and take advantage of occasions for us to pray for and with one another together. Consider this passage here. What would have happened if Aaron and Hur decided it was more important for them to go down to the battlefield and to fight alongside of Joshua than it was for them to be up on top of the hill with Moses helping him pray? Well clearly we know what would have happened. Israel would have been defeated. The Amalekites would have won. We read in Acts chapter 2 verse 42 that the very first Christians, they devoted themselves to certain things. They made certain things a priority. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. and if you read Acts 242 you’ll notice it doesn’t just say and praying or prayers but it says and the prayers the prayers and that definite article suggests and I believe it means that this is referring to set times of praying together that were there were appointed times in which the first Christians would meet together to pray together and the question that we need to ask ourselves is this Are you devoted to the same things that the first Christians were devoted to? Are your priorities the same as the priorities of these first Christians? That is to make time, to meet with other believers, to pray together, to unite in prayer for the church, for one another, for God’s glory. The commentator Phil Reichen says, Both individually and corporately, the neglect of prayer means the loss of spiritual warfare. Even if we fight like Joshua, we will not win the battle unless we pray like Moses. And I would add, unless we pray like Moses and Aaron and Hur, at times praying together. But even more important than the example that Moses gives us here of prayer is the picture that Moses gives us here as the leader of God’s people, interceding for his people. And in this picture, we have here a shadow, a type of the greater leader of the people of God, the ultimate leader of God’s people. That is Jesus Christ. And just as Moses made intercession for the people of Israel then, so our Lord Jesus, our leader, our captain, He makes intercession for us daily, continually, always. Hebrews 7.25 tells this about Jesus. He always lives to make intercession for them. What a marvelous truth this is, that if you belong to Jesus Christ by faith, that if He is your Savior, that you have come to Him in faith and repentance, and He is your Lord and your Savior, that you have one who, first of all, interceded for you upon the cross, that he interceded for you by taking upon himself your guilt, your sin, so that the wrath of God, the judgment of God that belonged to you and to me was poured out upon Christ. And he said on the cross, it is finished. And so, one time, once for all, Jesus made intercession for you so that you may receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life that you may be saved. But you also have a Savior whose intercession did not stop there, but who continues to intercede for you before the Father on the basis of His death and resurrection. He always lives to make intercession for you and me. And because, unlike Moses, Jesus is perfect, because he is perfect in strength, perfect in holiness, perfect in faithfulness. Unlike Moses, he never tires, he never fails, his arms do not droop, but he always prays before the Father for you and for me. And so we have a better intercessor than Moses. And by his intercession, we know that we have the victory. that the ultimate triumph is ours in Jesus Christ.

The third thing to take from this passage is Israel’s victory shows God’s purpose to defeat evil forever. Verse 14 says this, then the Lord said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Notice that Moses was not only to write this down in a book, but that he was specifically to recite this promise to Joshua. And he was to do so because Joshua, of course, would be the next leader of Israel, and he needed to know that it was the Lord’s will, his purpose, that he would destroy this perennial enemy of Israel, the Amalekites. And when we read on in the New Testament, or the Old Testament, we see that God made good on this promise. David, in 1 Samuel chapter 30, he defeats the Amalekites once and for all. Now, as the people of God today, unlike the people of Israel in the days of the Exodus and the days of Moses, we belong to a purely spiritual kingdom, not an earthly kingdom. And so is the church today. We are no longer called, like the Israelites were then, to engage in physical, actual battle or warfare against the peoples or the nations of this world. In the same way, we do not defend the kingdom of God. We do not advance the kingdom of God with guns and bullets and bombs. The 2 Corinthians 10.4 says, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. And so, rather than calling us, as the Church, to go out into the world to wage war against peoples and nations, as the Church, God sent us out into the world with quite a different mission, and that is to declare the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to sinners who are dying and perishing in their sin. To proclaim the good news that God has sent His Son into the world. that he was crucified for sinners, that he was raised to new life, and that all who come to him in faith are saved, will be saved from the judgment that is to come. That is how God is at work in the world today advancing his kingdom. It is through the preaching of the gospel. It is by the power, again, not of earthly weapons, but by the power of the word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit as he imparts new life and gives faith and repentance to sinners. And so in this gospel age, God overcomes his enemies, Christ triumphs over his enemies by the power of his divine grace and love and by the power of the gospel. But just as the Lord promised Moses, that he would utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. So it is the will of God one day to bring those who are his enemies, who remain his enemies, one day he will bring them to complete destruction forever. God will bring eternal ruin and destruction to all his enemies on the day of judgment when Christ returns with his angels and the glory of his father and judges all who have ever lived for what they have done. The day is coming, but it is still not yet here. And in the meantime, praise the Lord. Christ has many, many of those who are his enemies today, but who will be redeemed by his grace, who will become his servants and worshipers. And also in the meantime, as long as we are in this world, we are again engaged in spiritual warfare. And as we are, we must look to the banner of Christ. the banner of Christ. After the Lord defeated Amalek Moses built an altar and he called it the Lord is my banner. The word that’s translated banner here could have been a flag like we think of as a banner. It may have also been a pole but it was something that the armies of Israel would have looked to to encourage them in their fighting. It was a military thing and so the Lord is my banner means here for Moses and for the Israelites is this that we will look to the Lord when we are engaged in battle when we are fighting our enemies we will look to the Lord to his banner because he is the one who brings victory not by our strength, not by our might but by the power of God we have hope of victory and until God brings in that total defeat of evil and sin in the world Until that day when all his enemies shall be cast out of the new heavens and new earth forever and ever, as the people of God, our banner is Christ. Our banner is Christ. And we might even be more specific. We might even say our banner is the empty tomb, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because that really was the victory of God over all his enemies, over all our enemies, sin and evil, They did their worst when Jesus perished on the cross. They seem to have won the day. The Son of God was destroyed. He bore the curse of death. He was buried in the grave. But then God raised Jesus from the dead. And it was the ultimate proclamation from heaven to all creation that the enemies of Christ, the enemies of God, that they were defeated, they were broken, they would rise no more. And so our savior is victorious over all his and our enemies. And in Christ, your victory over sin and death is assured. And so when you are in the heat of the battle, in this life, in this struggle against sin and temptation and evil, when you feel like you are struggling to walk by faith, when you feel weak in your fight against temptation and sin, when your enemy seems so strong and invincible, Don’t get discouraged. Don’t lose heart. Keep fighting the good fight of faith. Keep praying. Keep worshiping. Keep holding fast to the Word of God and look to the banner of Christ. Look to the empty tomb. Look to the exalted Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, your Savior, the one who has triumphed for you. And know that as one who belongs to Jesus Christ in whatever battle you are experiencing now, in whatever struggles you may have in this life, you are on the winning side. You are on the winning side because Christ, because Christ is your Lord, He is your Savior, and His victory is yours. Let’s pray.

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Our Old Testament reading is Exodus chapter 17 verses 1 through 7, Exodus 17, 1 through 7, and this is the inerrant and infallible word of our God. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the commandment of the Lord and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water. And the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying, is the Lord among us or not?

Keep your place there in Exodus and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 for the New Testament reading. 1 Corinthians 10. I’ll read verses one through five. 1 Corinthians 10, one through five. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You may turn back to Exodus chapter 17. This is our sermon text for today.

When I was growing up, one of the many places where we lived as a family was in a little town in the middle of the Texas Panhandle, a town by the name of Canyon, Canyon, Texas, just south of Amarillo, if you’re familiar with that part of Texas. And further south from us was another little town, even smaller than ours. And the name of that town was ‘Happy’. And the motto that the people of Happy gave to their town was, ‘The town without a frown’. And surprisingly, Happy didn’t grow much. It remained a small town. You would think that a town with a name like that would be bursting at the seams. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place called Happy? Or, closer to where we live, there’s the city of Pleasanton, California. That’s another place where you’d think people would be moving to in droves. Everyone wants to live in a place that’s happy or pleasant.

As we turn to our passage this morning in Exodus, the Israelites are continuing their journey through the wilderness. And so far, we’ve seen one place where they stayed in their journey, where they left their mark by giving that place a name. But the name of that place was not appealing as happy or pleasant, rather it was Mara, which means bitterness. Imagine working for the Visitors Bureau for a town called Bitterness and trying to convince people that that’s where they need to go to spend their vacation. And in our passage today, we read of another place in the wilderness that had the honor, or perhaps we should say the dishonor, of having two names given to it thanks to the Israelites. And neither one of those names is even, or is any more appealing than Marah. One of those names is Masah, which means testing, and the other is Meribah, which means quarreling. And thanks to these two names, this place in the wilderness would forever be a memorial to the great sin that the Israelites committed there. at Massa or Meribah, the people of God, they both quarreled with their leader Moses and they tested the Lord.

And today, as we look at this passage, first we’ll consider how the Israelites sinned there, how they sinned in quarreling with Moses and in testing the Lord. And second, we’ll consider what is really the far greater story in this passage, and that is how God responded to the sins of his people. He did not respond with righteous judgments, but he responded with mercy. His mercy was in the water that he caused to flow from the rock. And so first, we’ll consider the Israelites’ sin, and then secondly, God’s merciful response.

The first way the Israelites sinned was by quarreling with Moses, and it came about this way. The Israelites, they’re in the wilderness of sin, and they go to a place that had a name already. It was called Rephidim. And like the place they went to earlier in the wilderness, there was no water there. and predictably the Israelites did not do what they should have done they did not trust in the Lord that he would provide water for them somehow neither did they pray for his provision but rather they did what they have already done and what they will continue to do in the wilderness they grumbled, they complained about the lack of provision, the lack of water there and specifically the text says that they quarreled with Moses They quarreled with him. That means they complained bitterly, angrily, even violently, or at least almost violently against Moses.

And by this time you would think that they would have learned the lesson that God will provide for them, but they were slow to learn. And so when they come to this new place with no water, they burst out in this complaining and quarreling with Moses. But if we’re honest, we have to admit that we are slow learners as well. Despite the fact that we can look back on our lives and see how the Lord has marvelously provided for us at all times, nevertheless, when we come into a situation where provision is uncertain, we become anxious, fretful, we begin to murmur and grumble in our hearts against God.

Now not only did the Israelites quarrel with Moses, but they again accused him so slanderously, so falsely, they accused Moses of leading them out into the wilderness so that he could kill them or so that they would perish there. And according to what Moses tells the Lord, the people were so carried away by their sinful anger against him that they threatened to stone him. And this was not just a panicked exaggeration on the part of Moses, but this was really what the people of God were prepared to do. And so often in the scriptures, whenever there is, like the people of Israel here, an unbelieving people, people with evil in their hearts, and they are led by a godly righteous man or instructed by a prophet, so often the time comes when that people are ready to stone the one who is speaking or who represents God to them. And oftentimes they want to kill their leader by stoning. David, he was nearly stoned at one point. Some of the prophets after him were stoned. Stephen in the New Testament was stoned. Paul was stoned, incredibly he survived that but he was stoned at one point and of course Jesus himself was nearly stoned more than once. And so here the people are so violently enraged against their leader Moses because he has led them to this place where there is no water that they are ready to put him to death by stoning.

But we also learn in this passage that Moses wasn’t the true object of their anger. Yes, they directed their anger towards Moses, but their anger, their rage was against another. When Moses asked the people in verse two, why do you quarrel with me? What he meant was, what he was telling the people of Israel was, your quarrel is really with the Lord. Moses was telling the people, you know, who led you here was not me, it was God. He is leading us by the pillar of cloud and fire. You know that He is the one who can provide for you water to drink and food to eat. You know I am just a servant. And so you people, the one whom you would really like to stone and put to death, and you would if you could, is God Himself. So the people of Israel were enraged against God and ready to put Him to death. And so because Moses represented the Lord to the people, he became the lightning rod for their anger against God. And this is not an experience that is foreign to us or unfamiliar to us as Christians today in this world. Perhaps you have had this experience when you have been the object of someone’s anger or even hatred when you knew that ultimately it was God that they were raging against, but because as a believer in Christ you represent God, you stand for Him in the world, you become the lightning rod, the object of that unbeliever’s rage against the Lord. And that will be the case from time to time, as long as we live in a world in which there are people in unbelief who rage against God.

Now as if the shaking of their fist at God and nearly stoning Moses to death was not bad enough, we also learn here that the Israelites tested the Lord. In verse 2 Moses says, why do you test the Lord? And to test the Lord means to withhold your belief in Him, your trust in Him, to withhold your submission or obedience to the Lord until He meets some demand or requirement that you lay upon Him. Look at verse 7. It says, They tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not? Now it’s not as though the Israelites were literally questioning the presence of God with them. There was no doubt that that was true because of the pillar of cloud and fire. Nobody could deny that God truly was with the people of Israel. But what they were saying with that question, is the Lord among us or not, or what they were expressing was a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that God was their Lord, that therefore He had rightful rule and mastery over them. For the Israelites here, until God met their demand that they put before Him for water, until He did what they wanted Him to do, they would not render to Him that submission, that honor, that obedience, that reverence that they owed to Him as their Lord, as their God. And that is how they tested the Lord. And so God, until He satisfied their demands, as far as they were concerned, He wasn’t even there among them. He wasn’t with them. It’s the Lord among us or not.

And the heart of the problem for the Israelite people here was that in their hearts there was unbelief. The author of the book of Hebrews in chapter 3, when he writes about this incident, he describes the hearts of the Israelites as evil and unbelieving. And a person with an unbelieving heart, this is exactly what he will do. He will test the Lord. He will test the Lord. And this attitude of putting God to the test, this is very characteristic of the unbelief of our modern age. This is one very typical way that the unbelief of our world today expresses itself, to put God to the test, to put Him on trial. And if He is acceptable to our preconceived notions of what God should be, if He conforms to what we think God should be like, then He passes the test. If not, We refuse to acknowledge him as God or serve him as God.

C.S. Lewis put it this way, The ancient man approached God as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed. He is the judge, that is, man. Man is the judge. God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge. If God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty, and disease, He is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal, but the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock. And for the Israelites, God was in the dock. He was the one being judged. He was the one being tested. Is he among us or not? Will he prove worthy and qualified to be our God or not? And God is in the dark for the unbelieving world today as well. I will not believe in a God who allows this to happen. I will not serve or acknowledge a God who calls evil and sinful that which I call good. And of course, that is the attitude, the stance of the unbeliever towards God.

And yet, even as believers in Christ, we can be infected with the same kind of thinking, the same kind of attitude of putting God to the test. And we do this whenever we confuse our desires with God’s promises. When God doesn’t fulfill our desires, when he doesn’t answer the prayers in the way that we want him to answer them, then you and I become tempted to complain, to grumble, to doubt God’s goodness or his promises. Where’s the good health that I asked for? I’ve been praying for healing for so long. Why, God, are you not answering? Why haven’t you provided me with a spouse yet? Why doesn’t God take away my suffering? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers for this person? And when we ask those questions from a spirit of complaining or grumbling or doubting the goodness of God, we’re really betraying then that there is within our hearts the same testing of the Lord that the Israelites did here in the wilderness. Is God with me or not? Oh God, if you do what I want you to do, then I know you are with me, but if not, then I begin to doubt your promises. I question that you are truly with me.

I once talked to a man who desired a particular blessing from God, and it was not a bad thing that he desired, it was a good thing that he desired, a true blessing, but for whatever reason, in the providence of God, that blessing was withheld from him. God did not give it to him. And this man said to me, why is God punishing me in this way? In other words, he didn’t say this, but what his question was saying was, I’ve put God to the test and he’s failed to deliver. And so obviously he’s rejected me. He’s not on my side. He’s punishing me. But that is the voice of unbelief. That is the same attitude essentially as the Israelites were displaying here in the wilderness.

God calls us to faith, to believe in His promises, to trust that in all things He is truly with us and He is working out our good and that He gives us what we need in His way and in His timing. And He does not withhold anything from us that He deems to be good and necessary for us. And so faith humbly acknowledges that it is God who does the testing. Faith recognizes that God is not in the dock, it is not God who is being tested by us, but we are being tested by God. That the adversity, the suffering, the withholding of the blessings that we desire, that these are means by which we are being tested, we are being tried. That God is working out His good purposes in us and for us. Faith believes that God is worthy and must be worshipped and obeyed even when he withholds some good thing that we desire of him. Faith says with Job, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And faith trusts that God will give you what he knows that you need. Earlier in Exodus, when the Israelites were at Marah, The Lord knew that they needed water, and He provided for them. Later, the Lord knew that the Israelites needed food, and He provided for them, first quail and then the manna. And even before all of that, even while the Israelites were still in Egypt, the Lord knew His people. He knew what they needed, and He provided for them. And God will give you what you need. He will provide for you, but here’s the rub. It is God who determines what you need, not us. It is God who gets to say exactly what you truly, truly need. And faith believes this. Faith trusts in the Lord for this, that He knows what is best for us and He will do what is best for us. And so faith rests in God’s goodness and His promise of provision even when at least for a time God in His perfectly and infinitely wise and good purposes for us may withhold from us whatever blessing, whatever good thing it is that we desire of Him and pray to Him for. Faith believes that God will give us in His timing what we truly need, what is for our good.

So the Israelites lacked faith. They were unbelieving and as a result they sinned. They sinned both in quarreling with Moses and in testing the Lord. And in the process, that place where they were, Rephidim, it lost its perfectly respectable name and from that point on it lived in infamy as Massa and Meribah, testing and quarreling.

Now Moses, he did do the right thing in this passage in crying out to the Lord. After the Israelites quarreled with him, he cried out to God for help. In verse 4 it says, So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. So Moses, we can commend him for doing what he should have done, crying out to the Lord. But when you hear his question, you hear some exasperation in his voice, perhaps even a bit of complaining himself. What shall I do with this people? You could almost hear Moses saying, perhaps he didn’t say it, but he probably thought it. Lord, don’t you remember at the burning bush, I told you I was not the man to lead this people. Look what’s happened. Complaining is like a virus. It’s very contagious. And even Moses is infected with it a little bit.

But God was merciful to both Moses and to the people of Israel. To say he was merciful is a huge understatement. He was amazingly merciful, wonderfully merciful. Once again, he did not deal with the Israelites as they deserved. God was within his rights to respond to their sinful quarreling with Moses, their complaining against the Lord. He was within his rights to strike them down, to destroy them there, but instead he gave them water. gave them water, and he did so in the most unusual and spectacular fashion. He led Moses and the elders of Israel to the foot of Horeb, which is another name for Mount Sinai. And Mount Sinai, as you know, will figure prominently as we go on in Exodus. Then the Lord appeared before them. Most likely he appeared in that pillar of cloud and fire. And we we learned that he was on the rock in some way the Lord himself was either on the rock or near the rock depending on how you translate the Hebrew and then by the Lord’s command Moses lifted up the staff of God and he struck the rock and as soon as he struck the rock water started gushing out of it.

Now thankfully for us as readers of the Old Testament thankfully for preachers we have an inspired and infallible interpretation commentary on this passage, and that’s in the New Testament, that’s in the passage that we read from 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 10, verses 3 and 4. Paul is speaking about the Israelites and their wilderness wanderings and he says all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ the rock was Christ and so in this passage here is Christ he is the rock and what does it mean that the rock was Christ.

Well, it means that the rock and the water that flowed from it had a sacramental quality. And what I mean by that is that just as in our sacraments, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the sacrament of baptism, in those sacraments there is a spiritual reality that is united with the physical elements. So here too, with the rock and the water, there is a spiritual reality that is united to those elements for the blessing for the good of the people of Israel and that is this that just as the water itself gave physical life physical sustenance to the people of Israel so it is the Lord it is the Lord who gives spiritual life who gives spiritual sustenance to his people and God gives us the spiritual life through his son Jesus Christ He is the promised Messiah. He is the one whom the Israelites were looking forward to. He is the one who was to come, who would bring salvation and eternal life to the people of God. But even before his coming into the world, even before the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his work of salvation, he was to the Israelites in the wilderness. He was to them the fountain of living waters, the source of eternal life. He was present there with them in this rock and the water that flowed from it.

And since the rock is Christ, it is very significant that the rock was struck by the staff of Moses, because in this way the Lord was teaching his people that the Christ would be the source to them of life-giving water, but only after he was struck, only after he would be struck by the staff of the judgment of God. And that is what took place, of course, at the cross. Jesus was struck down by the wrath of God. As we sing in our hymn, He was smitten, stricken, and afflicted. He was struck down for us sinners. And by His death, He gives us the forgiveness of sins, eternal life to all who believe in Him. He was struck so that He would be to us a fountain of living water. And after He died upon the cross, still hanging there, His dead body was pierced by the Roman soldier’s spear, and blood and water came flowing out of his side. And once again, the life-giving water flowed from the rock who was Christ.

And the water that flowed from the rock that Moses struck in the wilderness that day, this was not just a small trickle that barely sufficed to meet the needs of the Israelites. Don’t think of just a small stream kind of trickling out from this rock, but rather it was more like the gushing torrent of a swollen mountain stream in springtime. And we know it was like this because Psalm 78 tells us that. In Psalm 78 verses 15 and 16 we read, He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers. And so the picture that is given to us, the image that is given to us is that as soon as Moses hit this rock with his staff, it was like the bursting of a great dam. Suddenly gushing out of the rock was a torrent of cool, clear water that began to flow across the dry ground and all the Israelites could drink all that they wanted of it.

If the rock is Christ and the life that flows from Christ to you and me is not a small trickle of water, it’s not a few drops of water, but it is rivers of living water. Christ pours out his blessings on you, the blessings of joy and life and peace, not in small measure, but in abundance, in super abundance, in overflowing measure. As David says in Psalm 23, my cup overfloweth. and there is fullness of life in Christ. There is a super abundance of life and blessedness and every spiritual blessing that we could possibly desire in Jesus Christ because of who Jesus is. He is the incarnation of God himself. He is the one who is infinite in being and therefore he is the infinite inexhaustible source of life and blessedness. Colossians 2, 9 and 10 says, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. And so Christ is to us an inexhaustible supply of every spiritual blessing. Have you sinned? Are you guilty of sin? The blood of Christ is more than sufficient for you and for your sin and guilt. In fact, the blood of Christ is not only sufficient to take away your sin, it is sufficient to take away, if it were God’s will, the sins of the whole world, And not only that, but we’re at the will of God, the blood of Jesus that was shed upon the cross because He is the incarnate Son of God. That blood is of such inestimable value and worth that it would cover the sins of a million worlds of a fallen people. And so can the blood of Christ cover your sin? Is there forgiveness for you? Well, it is more than sufficient to cleanse and to purify you from all unrighteousness.

Are you fearful or anxious? The peace of God that is yours in Christ is a peace that surpasses understanding. Are you hopeless? Are you despairing? Every promise that God makes to you in Christ is yes and amen. Do you feel that you are unloved? If you have Jesus Christ by faith, you are not unloved, but the breadth, the length, the height, the depth of the love of God that he has for you in Jesus Christ surpasses knowledge. It cannot be measured. Just as Jesus himself cannot be measured, just as he himself is infinite and divine, so the love that he has for you is infinite and divine. In whatever way you are at need, you are like a thirsty person who comes to God and holds out an empty cup to God, hoping for just a few drops of water to wet your mouth, but instead of filling your cup, God leads you to the base of Niagara Falls and he says, here is the water that you need. Will this be enough for you now? Because if not, this is just a droplet of the fullness that I will give to you.

If you ask how can I come to experience this all-surpassing fullness of life in Christ, the answer is by faith. It is by faith, it is by coming to Jesus Christ as who He is, the Son of God who became man, entrusting yourself to Him, believing that He and He alone is the one and true source of eternal life by resting in Him as your Savior. And this is exactly what the Israelites failed to do. What a tragedy for these Israelites. Because God had been so good to them. He had made himself known to them. These Israelites were delivered from their bondage to Pharaoh and their bondage to Egypt. And after their deliverance, they received blessing after blessing from the Lord. He provided for them this flowing water. He provided for them the manna day after day. These Israelites witnessed and benefited from His miracles in the desert, and yet so many of them died in their unbelief. What a tragedy that they should then die because they failed to believe in the Lord. And what a tragedy it would be for you and me, for any one of us, to have Christ so near to us throughout our lives and yet never come to Him by faith and so to perish without Him. What a tragedy it would be for you and me to have heard the gospel week after week, to know the truth, to know that Christ is there, that He is our Savior if we but come to Him and yet fail to come to Him because of our unbelieving hearts.

Christ offers himself to you. He offers the fullness of life to you in the good news of the gospel. Hear the words of the psalmist, Psalm 95. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as at Meribah, as on the day at Massa in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. Do not be unbelieving as the Israelites were. but put your trust and your hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and be filled with his life-giving waters. And don’t be satisfied with just a few drops of that life-giving water, but ask the Lord that he would give you a great thirst, a great thirst for Christ. Ask him for a thirst for Christ like the thirst that is described for us in Psalm 42 of the deer who pants for the stream. Psalm 42, 1 and 2, is a deer pants for flowing streams. So pants my soul for you, O God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Many years ago, I went on a week-long backpacking trip in the mountains and to help us carry all of our gear, we took along with us two or three llamas. And if you’re not familiar with a llama, it’s kind of a strange-looking creature. They must be related to camels in some way because they kind of look like camels, and they have this amazing ability to need very little water. And so after hiking uphill for hours and hours in the summer heat, we had our gear on our backs, but we also put a lot of gear and weight on the backs of the llamas, we’d come to a mountain stream flowing with ice-cold, crystal-clear water and You’d think that these animals would plunge their heads into the water and just drink and lap up as much as they could possibly drink, but instead they put their heads down to the water and they’d take one or two tiny little sips of water and they were good to go. That’s all they needed. They definitely weren’t thirsty. They were not the deer who pants for flowing streams.

But why should you and I be like that? Why should you and I settle for a few paltry sips, a few droplets of the life-giving water that flows from Christ? He offers us flowing rivers of living water. And make the delight, the treasure, the joy of your hearts. Make that the abounding spiritual life that Christ gives. Ask God for that thirst for Christ, a thirst that you just cannot quench, but you continually go to Him for more and more and more and want to be filled more with His life. And Jesus gives you this promise. If you seek Him, if you seek that living water that flows from Him, This is the same promise he gave to the woman at the well in John 4. Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. Let’s pray.

The post The Rock Was Christ appeared first on Mt. Rose OPC.

The Old Testament reading is Exodus, chapter 16, verses 1 through 36. So this is the whole chapter. And this is God’s holy, his inspired, infallible word. Let’s hear the word of God.

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month, after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pot and ate bread to the fool.

For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.

On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, at evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. And for what are we that you grumble against us?

And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat, and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling, that you grumble against him, what are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.

And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, at twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, your God.

In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp. And in the morning, dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was.

And Moses said to them, it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has gather of it. Each of you as much as he can eat. You shall take each an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.

And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, let no one leave any of it over till the morning.

But they did not listen to Moses. And some left part of it till the morning. And it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning, they gathered it, each as much as he could eat. But when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, this is what the Lord has. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will, bake, and boil what you will boil. And all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.

So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them. And it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it. But on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.

On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day, he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.

Now the house of Israel called its name ‘manna’. It was like coriander seed, white. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, this is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And Moses said to Aaron, take a jar and put an omer of manna in it and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations, as the Lord commanded Moses. So Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. The people of Israel ate the manna 40 years till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. And Omer is the tenth part of an ephah.

And the New Testament reading is John 6:41, 51 and this is part of the Lord’s interaction with the Jews after the feeding of the 5,000 in which he instructs them concerning the true bread from heaven, which of course is himself. So John 6:41,51 so the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know how does he now say, I have come down from heaven?

Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

We are continuing our look at the book of Exodus, and last Sunday we saw what happens when the Israelites were led to a place where there was no water or there was water there, but it was undrinkable because it was bitter. And what happened was that the Israelites complained. They grumbled. Verse 24 says the people grumbled against Moses, saying, what shall we drink now, in this passage which we read here a few minutes ago, beginning in chapter 16, verse 1, this was probably several weeks after what took place last week.

But we see in this passage at the beginning what happens when the Israelites are led to a place with no food and surprise, surprise, their response is to complain, to grumble. And so we are told in verse two. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. You can’t accuse the Israelites of being inconsistent. They were predictable. They were consistent. No matter what sort of adversity came their way, you could rely on it. Their first response was to grumble, to complain.

And as we go along in the book of Exodus, we’ll see that this pattern does not stop, but they continue to complain along the way. But what I want to focus on with you today is not the grumbling of the Israelites, but the response of God to the Israelites, how He responded to their complaining and grumbling. And that is, he responded by giving them food to eat. First, he gave them quail in the evening, and then in the morning. And for the next 40 years, he gave them manna to eat as their daily bread.

First of all, the fact that God didn’t simply destroy the Israelites for their unbelief, for their sinful complaining against them, is a testimony to the grace of God, the mercy of God. And no doubt this demonstration of God’s patience, His forbearance, was one reason why the Lord gave the manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, to show them that he does not deal with them as their sins deserve. But as we read on in this chapter, and as we consider what other parts of Scripture say about this manna, we learn that there were other reasons why the Lord gave the Israelites this manna in the wilderness. And we’ll consider two of those reasons today. There are two reasons why God gave His people manna in the wilderness beyond, simply to provide for them so that they could live.

And the first reason is this. The Lord gave manna to his people in the wilderness in order to test them, to see if they would obey. The chapter, chapter 16 begins with the people of Israel leaving the place called Elam. And if you remember from last week, Elam was almost like a little paradise on earth. There was a lot of water there, 12 springs of water. Presumably there was plenty of, plenty of food there of some sort. If there wasn’t, we would have read about the Israelites complaining about that.

However, it was the Lord’s will for the people of Israel not to remain in Elam, where there was food and water and life was relatively easy. But it was his will that they would go through the wilderness. It was God’s purpose for them that in order for them to be brought into the promised Land, they would have to get there by going through the adversity, the affliction of the wilderness. And so they leave Elim and they come to a place called the Wilderness of Sin. And by the way, in case you’ve ever wondered about the name of that place, even though the Hebrews did a lot of sinning in that place, the name of the wilderness of sin has nothing to do with sin as we know it. It just so happens that that Hebrew word is the. Is pronounced sin. So it has nothing to do with sin as we understand it, but it is just the wilderness of sin. It’s just the name of it.

But sometime after they arrived to this place, the Israelites, they complained against Moses because they complained against Aaron as well. But they complained because there was no food to be had there. Verse 3, chapter 16. Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

All of a sudden, all of those years, centuries of backbreaking toil, of abject misery, being under the bondage, the tyranny of Pharaoh, all of a sudden, to the Israelites, those were the good old days. Every day was like an all you can eat buffet. Life was wonderful. But you, Moses and Aaron, you had to go and ruin all of it by bringing us out into this desert in order to kill us. You really have to wonder how well their memory was at this point of what their life was like in Egypt. But of course, a person or people, in this case with the complaining spirits, will say almost anything in order to give vent to their grumbling.

As Moses and Aaron later point out to the Israelites, their complaining, their grumbling was not really against them, but it was against the lord himself. Verse 8. They tell them, your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord. And how true that is for us as well. When we find ourselves murmuring in our hearts or complaining. So often, we direct our complaints to this person or that person. But when we examine our hearts, what we find is that really our complaint is against God.

It is God who has brought us into these circumstances. It is God who is sovereign over the situation. And we don’t like it. And instead of complaining directly to him, we complain to those that we can blame for bringing us there. And that’s exactly what the Israelites were doing. Moses and Aaron were the targets of their unhappiness, their grumbling, but really their complaint was with God.

Now, at this point, you would expect that the Lord would respond to all of this ungratefulness, this complaining spirit on the behalf of the Israelites, with righteous indignation, with his judgment, with his wrath. But instead of raining down fire and brimstone upon the people of Israel as they deserved. He tells Moses that he is going to do something quite different. He is going to rain bread down from heaven upon his people, and so he will not deal with them as they deserve, but he will be merciful. He not only gives them bread in the morning, but the night before. He gives them quail as a kind of hors d’ oeuvre to tide them over until the morning.

But here’s an illustration of what is true of God in all of his dealings with us as Christians. Psalm 103 says, he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. And how thankful you and I should be that this is true of God, that though he is righteous, though he is holy, though he is in his rights to deal with us according to the terms of strict justice, he does not do that. But he is merciful, he is gracious, and in Jesus Christ he has shown us mercy. He is not given us that judgment that we deserve.

If we were to cry out for fairness, we wouldn’t want that from God. But he is merciful, and his purpose for us, his loving purpose for us in Christ is to redeem us, to sanctify us. And that was his purpose for his people, his people, Israel in the wilderness as well. And one way that he would show forth his loving, gracious purpose to them was to give them bread to feed them, even in spite of their grumbling and complaining.

The Lord provided for them, and he gave them this, or gave them their daily bread in the form of manna. The manna in the morning would appear on the ground as the dew evaporated. Moses tells us in verse 15 that when the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For? They did not know what it was. And the question that they asked, what is it that became the name for this mysterious heavenly food? The Hebrew word for what is mon. And so mana or manna comes from the word for what? What is it? Well, that’s its name. But maybe you’ve wondered the same thing that the Israelites did.

What was this manna exactly? What did it look like? What did it taste like? Well, Moses gives us some description of it in verse 14. He says, and when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake like thing, fine as frost on the ground. And then he says in verse 31, now the house of Israel called its name Manna. It was like Coriander seed white. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

And so it was a fine substance, it was flaky, it was white, like coriander seed, which, to be honest, I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but if you do, it looked like that it tasted like wafers made with honey. And the fact that it tasted like honey, that it was sweet, probably meant that it was quite a delicacy for the people of Israel. It’s not hard to imagine that, unlike us today, we love our sweet things. We have an abundance of sugary snacks to eat, but not so for the people of Israel.

So for them, it would have been a delicacy, quite a special treat, at least at first, because eventually, as you know, the Israelites will begin to complain because of all the manna that they have to eat every day. But this manna was from the Lord. It was for their good. It was a blessing. It was good to eat. And this wasn’t some kind of naturally occurring substance. Some people have tried to argue, just like with the parting of the Red Sea, there’s natural explanations that can account for what happened. That’s not the case with the manna. It wasn’t the case with the Red Sea.

You’re not going to go to the Sinai Peninsula today and find on the ground a line there, a manna, like they did in the days of the wilderness wanderings. But this was God’s supernatural, miraculous provision for his people during their 40 years in the wilderness. You notice that when those 40 years were up, the manna stopped. So this was God’s supernatural provision that they may eat and live in the wilderness. It was truly, as it is called in this passage, bread from heaven. It was a heaven sent food for his people.

Now, when the Lord said to Moses that he was going to give the Israelites this manna, he said that he would give it to them as a test. It would be a test. Look at verse four. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day that I may test them them whether they will walk in my law or not.

So this was the test. Would the Israelites obey the commandments of God? Would they walk in his law? Would they do what he commanded them to do? And a big part of this test of obedience was that the Israelites were commanded to do something that would have been contrary to their common sense. The people of Israel, they were an agricultural people. So naturally they knew that there was wisdom in storing up food for the future so that if the crops didn’t come in next year, you would have food on hand to survive.

However, the Lord here commands the Israelites to do the very opposite of anything like that. They were only to gather enough manna for that day. This was not supposed to be a trip to Costco where you load up, you know, it was six months of food, food, but only for that day. They were to gather as much manna as they needed. Verse 4 says, the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day.

Specifically, they are to gather about an omer each. Apparently an omer is about two quarts. And this would have been enough food to sustain the average Israelite for the day. I don’t know if this would be enough food to for the average American today, but it was enough for the Israelites back then. And the only day that they were to gather more than one omer was on the sixth day, when they had to gather enough for two days. And the reason for that was because the seventh day was the Sabbath day. And on the Sabbath day, they were to rest.

They were to rest for their usual labors, which included going out and gathering manna in the morning. And so on the night of the sixth day, the Lord would miraculously preserve this manna from going bad. It wouldn’t get rotten overnight as it would on the other days of the week. And so the Israelites were commanded to gather only enough manna that they needed for that day for each person. That was the test.

Well, how did they do? Did they pass the test? Well, many of them did. In fact, probably most of them did. However, some we learn failed miserably. Verse 20 says, but they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and the bread, worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. And then later, not only that, but on the seventh day, when the Israelites were commanded that they were not to go out and gather manna that morning, some of the people went out anyway looking for manna on the ground. And so the Lord says to Moses in verse 28, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?

Of course, Moses himself is not the one who was guilty of breaking God’s commandments. But the Lord is addressing the people of Israel through Moses. And so his verdict was that the Israelites failed the test. They did not obey his commandments, they were not faithful. They broke his laws concerning this manna.

Of course, if you and I Had been there, if we had been part of the Israelite people in the wilderness, we would have passed with flying colors, right? We would have kept God’s word to the T. We would not have tried to gather any more than that. We need that day. We certainly would not have gone out on the Sabbath morning to seek for manna.

Well, let me ask you this. Have you ever worried about how you’re going to pay your bills next month? Have you ever been anxious about your future income? Have you ever felt a kind of fear or anxiety about some possibility of a financial disaster? If you have said yes to those questions, and I think that’s true for all of us, that you and I have been guilty of the same kind of thinking, the same kind of reasoning that led some of these Israelites to try to hoard some of the manna for the days ahead.

The Israelites thinking would be very familiar to us. They would reason something like this, sure, the manna was there this morning, but how do I know that it will be there tomorrow morning? It may not be there. And if I wake, what happens if I wake up sick and I can’t go out and gather any? I have mouths to feed, I have kids in the house. I’ll feel much better, I’ll feel much more secure if I simply go out and just gather a little bit more, just to set it aside for the next day, just in case.

And that was their thinking, which really was the fruit of, of distrust. It was their anxiety, their fear, their worry because they had failed to trust in the Lord. And we can all understand that. We have all been there. We fail to trust in the promises of God to provide for us. And so out of that we sinfully in one way or the other, we act in a way that’s not pleasing to him.

But really at the heart of the matter, the test of obedience was a test of trust. Would the Israelites believe God? Would they believe him when he promised that he provide manna for the next day? Would they entrust themselves and their welfare into the Lord’s hand? That is the test that the Lord gives us, or that is what we face in our day to day lives in this world.

Whenever we are anxious, whenever we are worried, whenever we are fretful about how we will make ends meet, what will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear, and so on, we are succumbing to that same kind of anxiety and worry that led the Israelites to break God’s commandments. Jesus teaches us to pray, give us this day Our daily bread. There’s a promise implied in that prayer. The promise is that the Lord will give us our daily bread, just as he supplied, literally, the daily bread for the Israelites with this daily manna on the ground.

Do you really trust in God’s promise that he will provide for your needs? Jesus commanded us to, therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Are you anxious about tomorrow? Are you worried about the months ahead, the years ahead? Or are you resting in the promise of God that you need not be anxious for tomorrow? Tomorrow will be anxious for itself. And so God’s will for you and me is that we believe his promise. Trust in him that he will provide the daily bread that we need.

Consider the Israelites. We’re just considering now in this chapter how the Lord provided manna for them. But we learn later in the Old Testament that the Lord not only provided their daily bread, but he gave them clothes and that they did not wear out. He gave them shoes that did not wear out. They were not in need. They did not go naked and hungry. But the Lord provided provided for them. Of course, he did not give them a gourmet meal every day. He did not provide them with designer shoes and a fancy wardrobe. But the Lord provided what they needed according to God’s definition of what their needs truly were.

And if the Heavenly Father took such good care of his people, then he will certainly take care of you and me today. He loves us in His Son, Jesus Christ, just as he loved his people, then he is still he is the one who promises to provide for you. The One who provided for his people in the wilderness says he will provide for you and me.

And so the first reason why God gave His people manna in the wilderness was to test their obedience. 

The second reason God gave Israelites the manna was to show them what their deepest need really was. It wasn’t manna, but something deeper. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 3, Moses says this to the people of Israel. This is Deuteronomy 8:3. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Now, when the Bible tells us here that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God, it is telling us something that is very, very important. Concerning what it means to be human. What does it mean to be a human being? What is man? This is perhaps the most pressing question that we face today. What is man? What does it mean to be a human being?

And there are basically two possible answers to that question. We can distill all the various answers to that question to basically two answers. The first would be the answer that is given by the prevailing worldview of today. That is the worldview, the philosophy of naturalism and materialism. This is a philosophy that denies the truth of God, that he is the creator of all things. It denies the truth of creation, that we were made by God. According to this worldview or philosophy. As a human being, what you are is purely a physical being. You are nothing more than the evolutionary result of chemical reactions, of random mutations. And therefore, you are completely of this material, natural world, this physical world.

Now, of course, you are a complicated physical being. You have certain other needs that other animals don’t. You have needs that are emotional and relational and so on. But nevertheless, in essence, you are material. You are the stuff of this world. You are physical, and that’s all you are. And based on this understanding of what it means to be man, we would have to say that, yes, man does live by bread alone. As long as our needs are met by the things of this world. Food, water, shelter, safety, relationships, maybe a few other basics. As long as you have these things, then you have all that you need for life. Why? Because you are just a physical being. Therefore, what more could you possibly want?

And yet, some of the most miserable people in this world are those who lack none of these things, who have all of their felt needs met and abundantly met. And yet there is within them a profound emptiness, profound joylessness. This materialistic view of man just doesn’t square with reality. We sense that life has to be more. There must be more to life than what this world offers. Even the abundance of all that we can gain from this world. Food, drink, wealth, friendships, and so on. And yet we have a sense that there’s got to be more. I need more than this. We’re more than just physical beings.

So the second possible answer to the question of what is man? What is a human being, the biblical answer, the true answer, is this. That, yes, we are, in part, physical beings. But more fundamentally, you and I are spiritual. We are spiritual creatures. Of all that God created, including the angels themselves. Of all that God made in all creation, Only one part of his creation was made in his likeness, his image. And that is you. It is me. Man, humanity. And this is where a correct view of man must begin. That at heart, though we are physical, we have bodies, we have physical needs, and so on. At heart you are a spiritual creature. And therefore, because God created you, and because God created you to have life in communion with Him, God has given you an inbuilt longing to have that life in knowing him as your Creator, as your God.

And for that reason, because we are created by God in His image, because we are spiritual in essence, you and I cannot be truly satisfied with only the stuff of this material physical world. And yet, in our sin and unbelief, we seek our life in this world, in our unbelief, we try to feed our souls with the bread, with the things of this world. And yet it doesn’t truly satisfy. Man does not live by bread alone.

Earlier we heard from the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, Our Lord said this. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh, the manna. Yes, it sustained the life of the Israelites for 40 years through the wilderness. And yet they died.

It did not give them everlasting life, it could not give them eternal life. But the very same Lord who reigned manna down from heaven upon his people Israel, in the fullness of time, He Himself, in His incarnation, he came into our world, this very same God in the person of Jesus Christ. And he came to us in order that we might know him as true bread, true life. He came to die for us, to be raised again in order to give us what is truly bread from heaven. And you can only receive this bread of life, this true bread from heaven. You can only receive it as you come to Jesus Christ by faith.

And until a person puts their trust in Jesus Christ, until a person comes to him by faith believing that he is Lord, believing that he is the Savior of His sins, or the Savior from His sins, until then, Jesus cannot truly, while we cannot truly enjoy him or know him or his life giving bread, we must come to him by faith. Until we come to know Christ, his word. All that the Scripture reveals will only be so much religious talk. All that takes place in worship, the sacrament, all this will be so much religious ritual, empty of any meaning, until we come to Know the Son of God by faith, apart from faith and the words of the psalmist, a person cannot taste and see that the Lord is good.

In his final book of the Chronicles of Narnia series, CS Lewis and the book is the Last Battle, he describes the scene in which there is a group of dwarves. The dwarves find themselves in what they think, and to them it truly was this dark and filthy stable for donkeys. And because of their spiritual blindness, that’s where they were. But there were others who were physically with him, standing with him, but they were standing in a place that was like a paradise. And no matter how many times the others who were standing in what was like a paradise tried to make the dwarves understand that they were not standing in a dirty donkey stable, they would not listen. And as long as they would not listen, they remained in that stable.

And then Lewis describes how Aslan, the king of that world, who of course is Christ, he appears and he makes for the dwarves a feast of fine food. And this is what the book says. Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the dwarf’s knees. Pies and tongs and pigeons and trifles and ices. And each dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand, but it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly.

They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay, and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip. And a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said, ugh, fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough. Never thought we’d come to this.

The problem with the doors is that they were spiritually blind. And until the Lord takes away that blindness, we can have no taste for the life giving bread that Christ came to give us. And I think the question for us is, do we have such a taste for Christ? Do we have a hunger and a thirst for the spiritual food that only Christ can give us?

In John chapter six, we’re told how the Jews followed Jesus after he fed them with the bread. When he fed the 5,000 the bread and the fish, they followed Jesus, but they only followed him for what he could give them, for the bread that he gave them. They failed to see that he himself was the true bread of heaven. Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say, to you. You are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

What do you seek for in Jesus? Why would you follow Jesus? What are you seeking for? Some people, they seek Jesus because of some advantage or benefit that they desire to receive from Him. Some people would profess at least to follow Jesus in order to make perhaps their family happy, their parents happy. Some would follow Jesus at least externally. They would seek Jesus only for the advantage that he might give to them, that they might enhance the reputation of being churchgoing Christian people. There are some people, sad to say, who seek Jesus only because they have this false hope that Jesus will provide for them the earthly riches that they desire. There’s only one reason to seek Christ, and that is for the eternal life that he gives for Jesus himself.

Don’t follow Jesus for some other reason besides Jesus, but follow him for him. That you may know him. That you may know the love of God that comes to you from him. That you may know the joy, the peace, the hope that only comes with a true communion with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. He Himself is the true bread from heaven. Yes, he is the source of every good gift and every perfect gift, every blessing that he gives to us in this world. But that’s not why we seek Him. We seek him for himself, because he is life. He is the only one who can fill your heart with the everlasting life that nothing in this world can give. He is the bread of life. Feast on him.

And so God gave His people manna to show them their true need, that is for the bread from heaven. In verse 32, the Lord commands Moses. This he says, or this is what Moses says. This is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer of it, that is the manna, be kept throughout your generation so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.

According to the Book of Hebrews, this manna that had been set aside, eventually it was placed in some kind of golden urn. And eventually, after the ark was built, it was placed into the Ark of the Covenant, along with the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and also with Aaron’s staff that budded it. Presumably, though the Bible doesn’t say so, but presumably from time to time, the high priest or someone would take out the jar of manna to remind the Israelites of why the Lord gave their fathers the manna in the wilderness. That was in order to test them, to see if they would obey. But also to show them that their true need was not the manna itself, but the word of God or the life that God gives.

Now, of course, today we no longer have this jar of manna to behold, to look at. We no longer have the ark of God and everything that was in it. But we have something far better than that. We have the promises that God gives to us in the Scripture. And if you ever begin to question God’s provision, if you ever begin to worry about whether or not you will have what you need for life in this world, if you ever begin to worry that somehow the Lord is going to withhold something needful for you or good for you, you go to the promise of God in the Scriptures.

Go to Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for his all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” The Israelites grumbled and complained in the wilderness, and yet the Lord graciously gave them manna to eat. And despite your sin, despite my sin, our Father in heaven, out of his love for us, he graciously gives us His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior from sin. And he promises that if he has given us His Son, how will he not also with him give us all things that we need?

And so God, because He has given you Christ, he will most certainly freely give you all that is truly needful in this life. And he promises to give you all that you need for the fullness, the perfection of life and joy and peace in the world to come. Let’s pray.

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The Old Testament reading is Exodus 15: 22-27, and this is God’s infallible, His inerrant word.

Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. Therefore, it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?

And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water. 

Our New Testament reading is John 4:7-26. John 4, 7 through 26. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?

Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am he. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

You can turn back to Exodus chapter 15. This is our sermon text for this morning. Last week, as we looked at the first part of chapter 15, saw how the Israelites sang a wonderful praise song of Thanksgiving to the Lord. They sang God’s praises out of gratitude to Him for the salvation that He had just worked for them. He brought them across the Red Sea on dry land. He destroyed all their enemies, the Egyptians. And in our passage this morning, we learn what takes place over the next few days or several days after that deliverance at the Red Sea. After they left the shores of the Red Sea, it began their journey in the wilderness. And if the Israelites at that time, if they had wanted to keep singing, and if they had had a hymn book at the time, The hymn that they should have chosen to sing after they left the Red Sea is the hymn, Trust and Obey. Trust and Obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but trust and obey. Those words from that hymn really summarize the lesson that the Lord was teaching the people of Israel in this passage here and really a lesson that the Lord continued to teach the people of Israel throughout their time in the wilderness. The Lord was showing them their need for them to trust in Him, to believe in Him, to entrust themselves to His word, to His promises, to His care, and at the same time He was calling them to obedience, obedience to His word and commandments.

And as Christians as the Lord directs our lives, as he guides us in this world, this world which is to us a wilderness just as the wilderness of the Israelites was the place they were at until they came into the promised land. So in this world we are pilgrims, we are sojourners looking forward to that eternal promised land of heaven that God holds out for us. but the Lord also impresses upon us he wants to teach us this lesson as well over and over again we must learn this lesson over and again and that is trust and obey there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey and so we’ll consider that this morning as we look at this passage, there are three parts of this passage that we will consider.

First, the Lord tested the Israelites. Secondly, the Lord promised to bless the obedience of the Israelites. And thirdly, the Lord showed the Israelites the greatness of His provision for them. So we’ll consider each of those three parts of the passage. 

First of all, the Lord tested the Israelites. Verse 22 says this, Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness ashore. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Somewhat like the Israelites, we here in Reno, we live in a desert environment and it wouldn’t be hard for us to imagine that if we took a three-day journey eastward that we could easily find ourselves in a place where there was no water.

That’s what happened to the Israelites. They left the Red Sea. They are in this wilderness, ashore. The wording of verse 22 isn’t super clear. Either the Israelites went three whole days without water, or else after three days of traveling in the wilderness, they ran out of water. But either way, they were in need of water. Probably in dire need of water. No doubt that they were suffering by now from a searing thirst. And a person can live quite a long time without food, but a person cannot live very long without water, maybe three to five days.

And so the Israelites, here they are in a desert with no water. They are in a very dangerous situation. These are very distressing circumstances. But what made it even worse is that they thought at last they had found water when they came to this place called Marah. But of course they were severely disappointed. They had been marching in the desert wilderness, their canteens were empty, their animals were staggering with exhaustion, their children were crying uncontrollably because of their thirst, and then suddenly the Israelites see this pool or spring of water in the distance.

The sun is causing the surface of the water to shimmer in the rays of the sun. They see the water. They drop their sacks. They run towards it. They’re almost delirious with joy and relief that at last they can quench their searing thirst. But when they stoop down to fill their mouths with that refreshing, cool water, they spit it out in disgust. As soon as it hits their tongues, the water was no good. It was bitter. It was totally undrinkable. Probably it was bitter because of dissolved mineral spirits that for one reason or another had permeated the water.

And so there they were, the Israelites in the wilderness, completely now demoralized, despairing. They are standing next to this spring or pool of water, but they could not drink a drop of it. And how do they respond to this situation? How do the Israelites deal with this very trying circumstance when their lives seemingly are in danger? They’re completely demoralized now that this water turns out to be bitter. What does the passage say? What does the text say? Does it say, And the people remembered all the wondrous works that God had done for them, how he had spared the Israelites from the plague, how he brought them out on the night of the Exodus, and how he parted the Red Sea.

The people remembered God’s promise to bring them into the Promised Land. and they patiently and cheerfully waited upon the Lord to give them all that they needed. If your Bible says that, you’ve got a bad version of the Bible. That’s not what our Bibles say. Instead, it says in verse 24, the people grumbled, they murmured, they complained, they grumbled against Moses. They were overcome with anger, with frustration, with despair, and so they complained. You might even say they became a bunch of whiners. The same congregation who filled the air by the Red Sea with their praises, their worship of God just three days ago. Now they are filling the desert air with their voices, their sounds of complaining and grumbling against the Lord and against Moses. Have you ever praised God on Sunday and then complained on Monday? You don’t have to raise your hand or answer that question. I think we’ve all experienced that. 

So the people grumbled. And in the time-honored tradition of godly people everywhere, they complained to their pastor. They spoke against Moses. They directed their anger towards him. But really, their complaints, although directed towards Moses, their human leader, they were expressing, they were venting their resentments, their anger against the Lord. The only thing that was more bitter there at Marah than the waters was the bitterness that filled the hearts of the people of Israel. And as we’ll see as we go on in Exodus, this is not a one-off event. This is not some kind of isolated incident in which the people were overcome with frustration and they complain and they grumble to the Lord and to Moses, but no, they’ll go on again and again throughout Exodus to complain.

At heart, they were so often an ungrateful, a discontent people, unbelieving, forgetting all that the Lord had done for them, all that he had promised them. And by their complaining here in this passage, what they reveal in their complaining is a fundamental spiritual failure on their part, and that is that they failed to entrust themselves to the Lord. They failed to believe in God. They failed to trust that God would provide for them. That is the reason why the Lord led His people to this specific place in the first place.

He led them to these bitter waters in order to test them, to see if they would trust Him in the midst of adversity. And we know how they performed on that test. They failed miserably. They got an F-. They failed to trust in God. And they failed in many ways. First of all, they failed to trust in God’s provision. It was not so long ago, the night of the Passover, when the Israelites left Egypt, they took their unleavened dough with them. They left with the clothing and the valuables of the Egyptians. In fact, they left Egypt with all that they needed for life. That should have taught them that the Lord would continue to provide for them, that he was not going to let them die of thirst and starvation in the wilderness. Secondly, they failed to trust in God’s promises. God had promised them, the reason why he had brought them out of the land of Egypt was to bring them into the land of Canaan. He had promised the patriarchs that their people would inhabit that land. That was God’s promise, that they would be brought into Canaan.

And yet they’re acting like they’re about to die here in the wilderness as though God had never promised that at all. Thirdly, they failed to trust in God’s wisdom. And from a purely human perspective, as we consider this, it seems very foolish. Why in the world would the Lord lead over one million thirsty people through a dry wilderness for three days only to bring them to a place where the water was undrinkable? And so when they’re murmuring, they’re grumbling against Moses, against the Lord, they are calling into question, they are doubting the wisdom of God.

They didn’t think he knew what he was doing. And as we read about the Israelites, as we hear how they responded to this situation, it’s very easy for us today to look back on them and say, how could they possibly be so foolish? How could they be so forgetful? How could they fail to trust in the Lord? It was not so long ago that God showed them the power of His might in delivering them from Egypt. The plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptians, the way He provided for them on the way out of Egypt.

How could they fail to trust in God, whose very presence was with them in the pillar of cloud and fire? How could they fail to trust in Him when these miracles, these acts of God on their behalf were so fresh on their minds? But we would be no different because we betray as well a basic mistrust, a failure to believe in God and in his promises to us. We fail to trust in God’s provision. It’s called worry, anxiety, fear. The Israelites expressed their anxiety over what they would drink, they say in verse 24, what shall we drink? What shall we drink? 

Many, many centuries later, the very Lord who heard these unbelieving words expressed by the Israelites in the person of his son, Jesus Christ, that very same Lord, he said to his disciples, therefore, do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Those are words that Jesus speaks to you and me.

That’s the promise that God gives to us through His Son. Do not worry, do not be anxious. You will be provided for, and yet, how often have you worried? How will I pay the bills? How will I make ends meet? How will I make enough money to provide for my family? And when you worry, you are anxious. When you are anxious, you forget that you are a child of God, a child of your Heavenly Father. He knows what you need. He knows your needs even before you become aware of them. And He promises that He will give you all that you need for life in this world.

Like the Israelites, we also fail to trust in the promises of God. And the one promise of God, the overarching promise that should be most precious to us in times of fear or times that are distressing, is the one promise we forget, and that is this, that God promises that He will work out all things for our good. And so, so often you and I find ourselves in circumstances that are painful, that are distressing and we think to ourselves, or we cry out perhaps, why Lord? Why am I going through this? Why are you allowing me to suffer in this way? Why do you not take this affliction from me? Why am I dealing with this? Oh Lord, you are powerful, you can take away this suffering. But in every situation no matter how grievous, no matter how painful, no matter how stressful, no matter how frightening, God promises you, as one who belongs to Jesus Christ, His Son, that He is at work in those circumstances, in those particular circumstances, He is at work for your good, for your everlasting good, for your eternal happiness.

And this promise of God is similar, we could relate to the fact that God was with his people in this great pillar of cloud or this pillar of fire. It was a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. All the Israelites had to do was to look up in the sky and see that the Lord was with them. The presence of God was there. And they would be assured that God has their good in mind. He is there with them. He brought them to this place. And all you and I have to do is to remember that promise.

That promise is with us wherever we go, even in a place of bitterness, a place of suffering. I am working on this too. I’m working in these circumstances, even these circumstances for your good, to do you good, to bless you. And so no matter where you are right now, no matter what the circumstances of your life are right now, no matter how difficult they are, no matter how far from ideal they are, perhaps you are in a place that is called Mara. You are in a place where there is much bitterness, much distress, but no matter, the Lord and His promise is there with you.

He is working out His loving and gracious and holy purposes for you in your circumstances where you are today. And like the Israelites, we also fail to trust in the wisdom of God. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that just don’t make any sense. They are perplexing. Bewildering. Why is this happening to me? I don’t understand. Perhaps the Lord closes the door to a job that would have been perfect for you. Or maybe you’ve saved enough money for that $3,000 car repair, and then the next day you go to the dentist and find out you need $4,000 worth of dental work.

And you think, why, Lord? Why is this happening to me? It makes no sense. And of course, we feel that all the more intensely when a far worse tragedy strikes us. When a loved one dies, a loved one dies unexpectedly. It seems so inexplicable. Why? Why now? Why her? 

One of the saddest news stories I ever remember reading was about a young soldier who had just returned to his base up in Alaska. And he had just finished serving a tour of duty. I forget if it was Afghanistan or Iraq, but someplace where there was war. And he had survived that. And he got back to the base. And just a few days or weeks after returning back to the safety of the base, his car hit a moose. And he was killed. And it’s hard to imagine trying to process that. It makes some sense that a soldier would be killed in a combat zone. But to be killed by a moose when you come back to the base? Surely his family was asking, God, why? Why would you allow this? Why would you bring him safely through a war zone only to have him die in this way?

But God is infinite in wisdom. He is perfect in wisdom. And He always chooses the very best means to achieve the very best ends. Our good, His glory. And so, the circumstances that we find ourselves in, the things that happen to us, all the affairs of life, this is all the outworking of God’s perfect purpose, His plan for us. A plan that is perfect in every way. God had a reason for bringing the Israelites to Marah. It seems so illogical, so inexplicable, but God had a reason for it.

And He has a reason for everything. that he brings into your life, for every place where he leads you, for all the difficult, bewildering situations that he brings you in at times, he has a purpose for that. The Israelites show us what distrust and unbelief look like, but Moses, he is a bright, shining example in this passage of what faith and trust look like. First of all, unlike the Israelites, he doesn’t murmur, he doesn’t complain and grumble, but he prays. He prays. One author said, Moses’ one prayer of faith accomplished more than all the complaining of the Israelites. And he didn’t question God’s wisdom. After he prayed, the Lord showed him a log, or perhaps a tree, and he told him to throw it into the water. Moses didn’t say, Why should I do that? What will the log do? How will this help the water? But he obeyed God’s command. And once the log hit the water, the water became sweet. It was no longer bitter. The Israelites could drink of it. Truly that log became a tree of life to the Israelites that day. 

But as we read this passage, and we consider it and consider our lives in the light of it, we see that this passage is a little too much like a mirror that reflects our own failure to believe and to trust. We see here an all too clear reflection of our own failure to trust in God. But the good news is that there is a savior for those who fail to trust in God as we should. Part of the good news of the gospel is not just that Jesus died for our sins, of course that is the heart of the gospel that God, that Jesus died for us, but part of the gospel is that Jesus also lived for us. He lived the perfect life that you and I have failed to live. And his life was a life of perfect obedience to the will of God, beginning with perfect trust.

And His Heavenly Father in all circumstances. Jesus never once failed to commit Himself wholly to the care of His Father. He was never worried. He was never fretful. He never gave up hope. He never once questioned the wisdom of God. And the Gospel tells us that by faith in Jesus Christ, this perfect obedience on the part of Christ, His perfect trust in God, this is counted as your very own and as though you yourself have trusted in the Lord at all times. And at the same time, there is forgiveness for you and for me when we are like the Israelites, when we fail to trust in the Lord.

So after the Lord tested the Israelites, he promised to bless their obedience. After the Lord made the water sweet and drinkable with this log that Moses threw into it, we read this in verse 26, and this is the Lord’s words to Israel. If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord your healer. 

And so the issue here in this verse is a question of obedience. Will the Israelites, will they obey the commandments of the Lord? Will they do what he commanded them to do? Will they be blessed in that? Or will they disobey and forfeit that blessing? We have to read further on in the Old Testament to find out what the answer to that is, but I know that you know the answer already. 

The history of Israel in the Old Testament is a history of unbelief, of disobedience, of failing to keep the commandments of the Lord. But the Lord calls them to obedience here, and the obedience that He calls them to has everything to do with the trust that the Israelites just failed to demonstrate in the Lord. Because the obedience that God calls His people to is an obedience that begins with trust, it begins with faith, it begins with entrusting ourselves to Him as our God. The Lord says that they are to diligently listen to the voice of God. They are to give ear to His commandments. That is an act of faith. Believing that these are from the Lord. That He knows that they are good for us. That I trust in His Word and then obey out of that trust. And so, you and I, we must exercise trust in the Lord and in His Word in order to render Him that obedience that He requires of us.

And so that same distrust that led the Israelites to grumble and complain against the Lord, it would also lead them to disobey God’s commandments. And so that’s why God calls for their obedience right after He tests their trust in Him. And if they would obey God, God promises them that they would not be afflicted with the same plagues that He afflicted the Egyptians with. And the reason was because the Lord was their healer. If the God or if the Israelites would obey the word of the Lord, they would obey his commandments, he would bless them by sparing them the plagues and the diseases that he placed on the Egyptians that otherwise the Israelites would deserve as well.

And so God promises the Israelites here that he would bless their obedience and the same is true for us. God makes the same promise to us today. He promises to bless obedience. Now that doesn’t mean that the obedience that you and I render to God by His grace, that this somehow earns or merits His favor or blessing. It’s not as though we put God in our debt by obedience, but what this passage is saying is that God graciously blesses those who seek to obey Him, not on the basis of merit or grace, or not on the basis of merit or works, but on the basis of grace.

This is a covenant promise of covenant blessing to his covenant people for obedience to his covenant demands. And that covenant is a covenant of grace. It is a covenant of grace. It was by grace that the Israelites were in this covenant with God in the first place. And it was only by the grace of God that they could render to God that obedience that he requires of them. and the same is true for you and me and Jesus Christ the obedience that God requires of us this is a fruit of his grace and God is gracious and blessing that obedience nevertheless what God says is obey me and I will bless you you will be blessed in that and what is that blessing that God promises for obedience to his commandments by faith in Christ it is not a promise similar to the promise that God made to the Israelites here God does not promise that he will spare us from disease or from sickness or from suffering but the blessing of God is spiritual the blessing that God promises to give us as we by his grace walk in obedience to his commandments is the blessing of the enjoyment of his goodness and grace and favor having his face shine upon us knowing that we are his and that he is ours Our catechism speaks of these spiritual blessings that God pours out upon us as we walk in obedience to his commands by his grace, the assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, grace and perseverance therein to the end.

And so we are justified by the grace of God, by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from works, apart from obedience, but having been brought to Christ, having been adopted as the children of God, God calls us to obey Him, He gives us the grace and the will to do so, and He promises, I will bless that obedience. And so the Lord promised to bless the obedience of the Israelites. Thirdly, the Lord showed them the greatness of His provision for them. So look at verse 27. It says, Then they came to Elim, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

So it was God’s will to bring them to a better place. Even though the water was made sweet, Mara was still in some way a place of bitterness for the Israelites, but God had a better place in mind for them. And he leads them to this place called Elim. And we are told very specifically that there were 12 palm trees, or I’m sorry, 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees. Now, why is that detail included? Why is it important for us to know exactly how many springs of water, how many palm trees were there? Well, I believe that there were literally 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees there, but these numbers are symbolic. They are representative of a spiritual truth, and that is this. that God is a God who gives in abundance. He gives in fullness. Twelve and seventy are numbers that communicate the idea of abundance. And so the point of these numbers is that there was more than enough water to provide for the Israelites in their number. The place there was more than sufficient to sustain them for as many days as they would camp there.

There was an abundance of water there. and that gets us to an even greater significance of Elim in this passage, and that is this, that this place represents the super abundance, the overflowing greatness of the blessing of God, of the grace of God, of the life of God that he gives to his people. We might use the words of Psalm 23 at Elim, “the cup of the Israelites runneth over”. It was not just full, it was running over. Or in the words of Jesus, Elim was their good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, that was put into their lap.

And it is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who promises to give us not just life, but abundant life – super abundant life. He says in John 7:38, “Whoever believes in me”, as the scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”. And this is the true water that God gives to us as his people. The water that alone can quench the thirst of our souls, the life, the joy, the peace that our hearts long for that can only be found in the Son of God in Jesus Christ. And, it’s just just as the Israelites found that in Elim there was not just a trickle of water there was not even just sufficient water but there was an abundance of water twelve springs of water so those who are led by the grace of God to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ find in him rivers rivers of living water not a cup or two the flowing water abundant water to satisfy our thirst and more.

And that living water is there for you now to satisfy your soul’s thirst. Because just like the Israelites then, we are a people who are pilgrims in this world. We are making our journey to the promised lands. And like the Israelites then, we often encounter places in this life that we could call Mara, places of bitterness and distress. There is so much in this sad and fallen world that is bitter. All the evil things that men and women do. The sorrow and pain of disease and death. The grief of broken relationships. We live in a world where at times it seems the forces of ungodliness and unrighteousness triumph. But even in this bitter and fallen world, Jesus is an oasis where you can go to be filled with life-giving waters. And there is no other source of this abundant life, these flowing rivers of life, than in the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why we read from John chapter 4, that passage where Jesus speaks with this Samaritan woman at the well. He offered this woman this very same life-giving water. He even calls it living water. He says in verse 14 of John 4, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life”. 

Jesus knew this woman. He knew that her heart was thirsty for this water of life that she was seeking for, looking for, seeking to quench her thirst with the things of this world. And she had been seeking that life in men, but her heart’s thirst was never satisfied. She had had five husbands, and now she had another man who was not her husband. And perhaps she thought to herself at some point, this last relationship, this fifth husband that I’ve had, this has left me empty, but maybe things will be different with this new one, with this new man. Maybe this is the man who will finally fulfill the longing of my heart. But of course, just like before, because she sought to fill her heart’s desire in a creature, in a man, she sought that which only Christ could give her.

The hope for living water became for her bitterness. And that is true for whatever it is in this world – that a person might look to satisfy their heart’s thirst for living water. It could be like the woman at the well, a relationship, or it could be our idea of success, or it could be simply pleasure or wealth. And from a distance, just like the waters of Mara seem to the Israelites to be pools of refreshing, cool water, so these things to us seem to be like life-giving sources.

I will fill my hearts with joy and contentment only after I make so much money, or if I have this perfect relationship, or if I can only experience these things in this world. But then after we’ve drunk from these things, seeking to quench the thirst of our hearts, we’re left instead, not with fulfillment, but with emptiness, perhaps even disappointment and bitterness. And maybe your own heart today is thirsting for the living water that only Christ can give. 

Maybe you have been drinking deeply from the wells of the waters of this world, and they have become so unsatisfying to you. They have become even bitterness to you. will come to Jesus, put your hope in Him, come to the one who is the source of true life, true waters, and He will give you that water that becomes a spring of water, welling up within to eternal life. And if Jesus is the source of living waters in this life, how much more will He be that for you and me in the life to come? because now we drink of these waters by faith in Christ and it satisfies, but how much more will your heart be satisfied when on that day of glory you are in the presence of Jesus himself?

How much sweeter will your communion with Christ be then when you have no more sin? When you are raised up in a body that is immortal and incorruptible, how much greater will the love of Jesus flood your hearts when you see his face, when you hear his voice speaking to you. I imagine to the Israelites that after they left Marah and came to Elim, Elim must have seemed like a paradise to them compared to that place of bitterness. Well, the glory that Jesus is preparing for you and me will be filled with such life, such joy, such peace, such unspeakable blessedness that even the most blessed moments and times in this life will seem like bitterness in comparison to what is in store. And keep this hope before you. Trust in the Lord. Trust in Him and all of His dealings with you because He is leading you. He is guiding you. Your final destination is not in this world. It’s not in a better life in this world, but your final destination is in that glory that He is preparing for you. In this world, there are so many places that we could call “mara”, bitterness that the Lord is preparing for us a glory that will far outweigh all the blessings and joys that we may experience in this life. It will make all the experiences of bitterness and suffering seem like light momentary afflictions. And there in the presence of Christ, we will never be thirsty again forever. Let’s pray.

The post Living Water appeared first on Mt. Rose OPC.

The Old Testament reading is Exodus 15 verses 1-21 and this is the inerrant and infallible word of our God. Let’s hear God’s word. Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. This 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 chariot and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them. They went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. You send out your fury. It consumes them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up. The flood stood up in a heap, the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My desire shall have its fill of 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 was like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders. You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. The peoples have heard, they tremble. Payings have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed. Trembling seizes the leaders of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.

Terror and dread fall upon them. Because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone. Till your people, O Lord, pass by. To the people passed by whom you have purchased, you will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever. For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them, sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

And now let’s turn to Revelation chapter 15. According to this passage in Revelation, this song that was sung by the people of Israel continues to be sung. In heaven, the song of Moses, as the saints glorified, sing praise to the Lord in heaven. Revelation 15 verses 1 through 4. Revelation 15, 1 through 4. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire, and also those who had conquered the beast and its image, and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. You may turn back to Exodus chapter 15.

This is our sermon text for this morning. Our passage this morning tells us what happened. Immediately after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. And if you recall from a few weeks ago, just before the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, Moses told the people of God this. He said in chapter 14, verse 14, the Lord will fight for you. You have only to be silent. And did the Lord ever fight for his people? He not only parted the waters of the Red Sea in a miraculous way so that the people of Israel could cross on dry land, but he caused those two towering walls of water to come crashing down on the mighty army of Pharaoh so that all of his horsemen and soldiers and chariots were drowned in the water. And what role did the Israelites play in that great deliverance? Well, basically, none at all. Just as Moses had told them, they were silent. They had only to be silent to witness the almighty power of God as he brought them salvation. All they had to do was to step out in faith and to trust in the Lord and in his saving might. It was God who fought for them. It was God who accomplished their salvation.

But once they were across the sea, once their deliverance was complete, the Egyptians had been destroyed, they are safely on the far side of the Red Sea, now is the time for the Israelites to be no longer silent. Now was the time for them to rejoice, to make a joyful sound, to sing to the Lord Praises for this great redemption that he worked for them and that is what they do. No sooner are they on the other side of the shore that we read in verse 1 of chapter 15 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord. This is the first thing that they do on the other side of the sea. They don’t keep marching on, they don’t sit down to have breakfast, but they sang, they sang. And can you imagine what a sound, what a glorious sound that must have been. Remember there were probably over a million Israelites gathered there, perhaps even two million Israelites, and all their voices in unison rang out together the praises of God on the seashore. wonderful sound that must have been and then Moses later in chapter 15 tells us that his sister Miriam she took up the chorus and began leading the women singing the same song playing tambourines dancing for joy so that the Lord was glorified not only in the whole choir of Israel singing his praises but in these hundreds of thousands of women’s voices singing his praises as well and that too must have been an amazing sound to hear as well.

Well there’s a lot for us in this passage to learn as Christians because our response to the grace that God has given us is the same response as the Israelites to the grace God gave them and that is we are to praise God with our song. We are to sing his praises And so as we look at this song of Moses that he sang and that the people of Israel sang, we’re going to consider what does it teach us as the people of God today, as Christians, what does it teach us about our singing to the Lord? And the first thing that I want us to see here is the most obvious thing, and that is simply this, that the Israelites sang to the Lord. This was their response of gratitude and thanksgiving. They sang to Him their praises. And this is a pattern that we find over and over repeated in scripture. Whenever God does some great work of deliverance for his people, his people respond by singing his praises. For example, in the book of Judges, after the Lord defeats Jabin and the Canaanites, we read that Deborah, who was judging Israel at the time, and the general Barak, that they sing a song of praise for the salvation of the Lord. Or in 2 Samuel 22, after the Lord saved David and Israel from the Philistines, David sang a psalm of deliverance. He gave thanks to the Lord in song. Isaiah 51 11 looks forward to the day when the people of God will be restored from their time in exile and they will be brought back into the promised land. And they will not go back to the promised land with their mouths shut in silence, but they will go back singing the praises of God. Isaiah 51 11, And the ransom of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. And so when God does His works of salvation, they are followed by the praises of God’s people as they sing to Him His praise and His worship.

That same pattern is repeated in the New Testament Luke’s Gospel tells us that after Jesus the Savior was conceived even before he was born, that Mary, his mother, sang a praise, a song of praise to the Lord, the very Lord who was incarnate in her womb. She praised him with song. And then after the birth of Jesus, of course, we know that the angels of heaven formed this glorious heavenly choir and lifted up their worship and praise to God who had brought his son into the world. And so in our worship as Christians, we sing. This is what we do as the people of God, as those who have been saved by His grace. We sing. We sing His praises. We must sing. It’s almost impossible to conceive of anything that could go by the name of Christian worship that would exclude singing the praises of God. Christians have always sung, and we always will sing praise to God. because this is our proper, this is our God-glorifying response to the mercy, to the grace that we have received from God in His Son Jesus. When you read the book of Revelation and when you see John’s vision of heaven, the glorified saints there, the angelic hosts, the heavenly beings, how they are singing to the Lord, praising Him, worshiping Him with song. It’s clear that we will continue to sing beyond this world, beyond this life, and the life to come. Worshiping God will consist of this, our singing His praises, thanking Him, worshiping Him with song. One day our voices will join with that great heavenly chorus that sings forever and ever the praises of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Now one feature that we should take note of as we consider the song that the people of Israel sang here at the Red Sea is that they sang as a congregation. They sang together. This was not a musical performance for their entertainment. This wasn’t a concert. This was not an occasion to showcase the virtuoso talents of a few gifted musicians. But this was their united corporate expression of thanksgiving and praise in the form of song. This was their collective worship. They sang praises to God as one people, one body. And that’s how we are to sing our praises to God. We are to worship Him as one people, one body, one voice. Now that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for a choir or perhaps special music in Christian worship, but it does mean that nothing should replace or diminish the corporate singing of the people of God as one body. Romans 15, 6 says that we are together with one voice to glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Israelites, this is the first lesson, They sing the praises of the Lord together as they rejoiced in that deliverance that God had worked for them at the Red Sea.

The second thing that I want us to observe about their singing is this. They sing to praise God for who He is. They simply worship the Lord for who He is as God. The great musician Johann Sebastian Bach, perhaps the greatest musician ever, he often inscribed the initials SDG on his compositions. And SDG stands for Soli Deo Gloria, and that’s a Latin phrase that means for the glory of God alone. And you could say that SDG, for the glory of God alone, is inscribed across this entire song that the people of Israel sing. This song is all about God and his glory. God, who he is, as the creator, as the redeemer of the people of Israel. It’s a song of thanksgiving and praise for who God is, as the one true and living God. And there are so many wonderful truths about God that we could examine In every verse of the song, we don’t have time to do that, but let’s just look at some of the ways that the Israelites praise the Lord simply for who He is. Verse three, the Lord is a man of war. In other words, the Lord fights for his people. Verse six, your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power. All power belongs to God. He is omnipotent. He can do all things, and he does all things according to his righteous will. No one can stay his hand. No one can frustrate or hinder his purposes. He is almighty in power. Verse 7 speaks of the greatness of his majesty God is majestic he is infinitely greater than anything that he has created he is infinitely greater than we are he is majestic in holiness in verse 11 says who is like you oh Lord among the gods who is like you majestic in holiness awesome in glory in glorious deeds doing wonders there is no God but the one God of creation, the God of Israel, the God of the Bible. All the gods of Egypt, all the idols of Egypt, they prove themselves to be nothing in the face of the mighty, the true God. And that is true for all the false gods, all the idols of other religions, all the idols of the world, all the idols of our own hearts. They are nothing before the true and the living God. verse 13 speaks of the steadfast love of God that is that God will always show his love and his mercy to his people whom he has made his own by his covenant of grace and in verse 18 we read that the Lord will reign forever and ever This God who saved the Israelites from the Egyptians on that day at the Red Sea. He is the Lord who reigned from everlasting, from all eternity. He is the Lord whose rule will extend to everlasting, to all eternity.

And as Christians, we must also praise God in our singing, as we sing our praises to Him for these very same reasons, because He is God. He is worthy to be praised. He is worthy of our singing, our worship. He is still a man of war who fights for us. He is almighty in power. He is majestic. He is the only true God. He is a God who has shown us and continues to show us love and mercy. And He reigns as Lord. And as Christians, we know that all of these truths about God, everything that is true about God is most supremely revealed in the person of his son, Jesus Christ, because his son is God in the flesh. And so we sing our praises to worship God, to glorify him as we sing them in the name of Jesus and to Jesus. It is Jesus who is the man of war who fights for his people. It is the risen and exalted Jesus who is almighty in power. He is majestic in holiness. He is love and he reigns as Lord and will reign as Lord forever and ever. And so we glorify Jesus by singing his praises. And when we sing our hymns and songs of praise to God to bring him glory as we sing the praise of Christ, the incarnate Lord. We do so primarily in order to glorify God. That’s what we’re all about, to worship Him. But God uses that worship of Him to build us up in our faith and in our love and devotion to Him.

Several years ago, I read a very helpful book on worship by an author named Marva Dawn. The book has a catchy title. We’re reaching out without dumbing down, a theology of worship for this urgent time. And one point that the author makes in the book is this, that one function, one purpose of our worship, obviously overall it’s to glorify God, but one other purpose for our worship in the songs that we sing to God is to form the character of the people of God. And she says this in the book, when God comes to us in all the fullness of who God is, our character will be transformed. Consequently, if our worship practices accord God the proper place and scope, who we are and what we are becoming as Christians will be rightly developed. And so the goal of our singing, the goal of our music in church and our worship, is first of all to glorify God, but In addition to that, it is to build up and to edify the people of God. It is to help develop in us, to form in us a Christ-like godly character. And only music and words that are centered upon and communicate the truth about the character, the greatness of God and Christ will do this. And so the songs that we sing really do matter. They really matter how we sing to God, what we sing to God, the words that we use to praise God. They matter most of all because God’s honor is at stake, but they matter because these songs are forming us as the people of God into a kind of people, a kind of people that God would have us to be. What kind of character do we want to see formed in us? What kind of character do we want to see formed in our children? Well, we want to be people for whom God is great. We want to be people who are deeply impressed with the majesty, the holiness, the glory, the weightiness of God. We want to be people who come before Him with reverence, with awe, with joy. One way to see that is to ensure that the hymns and the songs that we sing, that they truly do magnify, they glorify God, that they are theocentric, God-centered, that they are giving glory to Christ as well.

The New Testament recognizes this function of music and singing, that it is meant as well. And so these Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs that we are to sing as the people of God they are of course to praise God but also in praising God we are teaching, we are admonishing one another we are administering to one another, we are building up one another even in our singing praises to God and that’s what the people of Israel here were doing even as they gave glory and praise and thanks to God they were teaching, they were admonishing one another They were growing together in this way, in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. And we do the same. And so this song of Moses sets the standard for what singing in worship should be. It is one way in which we worship God, glorify Him, but also in singing God’s praises in worship, we build up one another, we are built up in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, His Son. So that’s the second lesson. They praise the Lord for who He is.

Thirdly, the Israelites sang praise to God for what He had done for them. And so they praised God not only for who He is, but for what He had done for them. When Moses led the people of Israel in this song of praise to the Lord, it wasn’t as though he had spent the past few days meditating on all the attributes of God and filling his heart with the truth of God’s glory. And then this song was the result of his meditations. That’s a good thing to do, of course, but that wasn’t the case here. Rather, Moses led the people of Israel to praise the Lord because they had just experienced this most amazing deliverance. Remember, the Israelites are standing on the far shore of the Red Sea. The bodies of the dead Egyptians are washing up on the shore. And they sing this praise. It almost appears to be spontaneous. Of course, it’s inspired by the Spirit, but it’s this immediate response of praise and worship and thanksgiving on the part of the Israelites for the salvation that the Lord had just accomplished for them. And so the song exalts all that the Lord had just done for the Israelites. Moses begins the song by singing, I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The song goes on to describe in various ways how the Lord triumphed marvelously, gloriously over his enemies and the enemies of the people of Israel.

And one of the most remarkable things that the scripture tells us about this song of Moses is that this was not the first and last time that it was sung, but it is still being sung in heaven. By the saints and angels in glory, we saw that passage from John’s Revelation, or John’s vision in Revelation. He sees those who have conquered the beast with harps of God in their hands, and he says, and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord, the God Almighty. And notice where John how John describes their situation. He says that they are standing by a sea of glass mingled with fire. And so just as the Israelites were standing by the Red Sea as they sang their song of praise to the Lord, so now in heaven John gives us his vision of the glorified saints, the angelic host, praising the Lord as they stand by this heavenly sea. And John tells us it’s not just the song of Moses that they are singing in heaven. but it’s also the Song of the Lamb. And so if the Israelites were praising God for the mighty deliverance that the Lord had worked for them, bringing them through the Red Sea, destroying their enemies, the Egyptians, so we praise the same God, not only with the Song of Moses, but with the Song of the Lamb. We give Him praise for the salvation He has worked for us through Jesus Christ, His Son. that Jesus came into the world, sent by the Father to lay down His life for our sins, that He was raised from the dead on the third day, that He came to deliver us from our bondage to sin and death, to bring the forgiveness of sins, to give us eternal life, to give us the promise of everlasting life and glory with Him forever. And if Jesus Christ is your Savior, if today your faith and trust and hope are in the Lord Jesus Christ, then the Song of Moses is yours, the Song of the Lamb is yours. The Song of the Lamb, the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world. And so we sing in response to what God has done for us.

And just like with this Song of Moses, and the Song of Moses and of the Lamb that we hear in Revelation, songs of joy that we sing to the Lord. Now, when we take all of Scripture into consideration, we know that there are other states of mind or emotions that we may express to God in our singing to Him. We sing of the cross. We have hymns that sing of the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong later. Many of those hymns are in a minor key. God has given us the psalms as songs to express every emotion or state of mind that we may experience as God’s people. When you read the psalms, you see the psalmist giving vent to the state of his heart. It could be grief, it could be sorrow, it could be suffering, longing for God. We may sing to the Lord as an expression of different kinds of emotions or the state of our mind, but having said that, the predominant note, the prevailing theme in our hymns is joy. That is the note that is the recurring theme of our singing. This is the predominant theme, joy, rejoicing, thanking the Lord, for his salvation. And that’s because, above all else, as Christians, we have received God’s grace in his Son, Jesus Christ. We are a redeemed people. We are a saved people. We are a forgiven people. We are a heaven-bound people. And therefore, for most of our singing, the prevailing theme of our songs will be joy, rejoicing, thanksgiving, and gratitude for the grace that we have received in Christ. And that’s what music does. Music really is an expression, or it gives expression to our emotions, our feelings. You know that from your own experience, just not even thinking about singing in church or sacred music, but you listen to the kind of music you’re in the mood for. If you’re in a sad mood, you might listen to the blues. If your dog gets run over by a train, you might listen to country music. Very fitting for that. When you are happy, you want to hear a song that is as light-hearted as the feeling that you have in that happiness. But music goes even deeper than that. Music really is a vehicle for expression of the state of the soul, the state of the heart, the state of the person before God.

I once had a memorable and even somewhat jarring experience that brought home to me just how powerfully music can communicate the spiritual condition of those who make it and perform it. I was living in Japan at the time and one night this small village in which I lived they were putting on their annual festival and it was a festival of the date of Japanese religion which is Shinto and part of what they did as part of this festival was to parade up and down the streets of the village, playing what was the traditional music of that festival, which was, again, it was all tied to the Shinto religion. And if I could describe the music, there was sort of this dark, low beat of the taiko drums. And then there were other instruments. I don’t know what they were, but they made a kind of wailing or crying sound. And it just so happened that night when that was passing by my street on which I lived, with that kind of music, I just happened to be reading the famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And if you have read that sermon by Edwards, you know that in it he gives some extremely powerful and vivid descriptions of God’s judgment in hell. And as I read the sermon and I heard this plaintive and woeful music in the background. It was almost as though I was hearing the sounds of the lost in hell, the hopeless, the sad wailing and screaming. And that kind of music is fitting for a religion in which there is no good news. What is there to rejoice in? That music gives expression to a soul that is cut off from God. There is no redemption. There is no joy. in that religion. So why should their music be joyful? But that is not the case with the people of Israel by the Red Sea. It is not the case for us as the people of God. We sing songs that express the joy that God has given us and the salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ. God has given us joy and therefore we sing songs filled with joy. And when we do sing, we must sing from the heart. The joy must be genuine and must be singing with our whole heart to the Lord. We’re commanded to do so. Psalm 81 says, sing aloud to God our strength. Shout for joy to the God of Jacob. In Ephesians 519, we are told that we are to be singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. So here’s a reminder to us that when we come to church on Sundays, God’s will for us is that we are to sing from the heart. We are to sing with joy, with gratitude. If we are merely mouthing the words of the hymn, not thinking about them, if our hearts are far removed from what we’re singing, if we are detached from the words and the music, If we’re just going through the motions in a rote kind of way, that is not worship. We are not worshiping the Lord. The words may be impeccable in their orthodoxy, but if we are not singing from the heart with joy, we might as well not be singing at all. And so God wants you and me, like the Israelites here, to sing his praises with joy and gratitude from the heart for all that he has done for us as our God and Savior.

Now, when the Israelites sang this song, they were singing a song, as we know from the lyrics, that specifically gave thanks to the Lord for this particular redemption, this act of salvation, and bringing them across the Red Sea. Did the Israelites have any music before this? Did they already have written hymns that they sang to God? We don’t know. But one thing is clear, they did not dust off an old song for this occasion. Rather, they sang a song that specifically praised the Lord for this new work of salvation, for this latest act of deliverance that the Lord had worked for His people. And in doing so, the Israelites followed what is a biblical principle, and that is, in response to the new mercies of God, in response to the new saving acts of God, the people of God are to respond with a new song. with a new song. Psalm 98.1 says, O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. And we sing a new song. We stand on the other side of the cross from the perspective of Moses and these old covenant saints. We sing a new song. We sing praise to God for what he has done for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gift of his son, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the new life that he gives us. We sing a new song. When Moses and the Israelites sang the song by the Red Sea, they said this in their song, they said, the Lord is his name. The Lord is his name. With the coming of Christ, the Lord has revealed to us a new name. God has a new name. His name is Jesus. And so it is right, it is biblical for us to sing the new name of the Lord in a new song. Jesus is the name that is above every name and therefore his name is most worthy to be praised in our singing. And so they sang praise to God for what he had done for them.

Finally, they sang praise to God for what he had promised them. If you look at verses 14 through 16, the song of Moses speaks of the terror and the dread that came upon the Edomites, the Moabites, the Canaanites when they heard what God had done for Israel. You’ll notice that grammatically, it’s in the past tense. However, this is actually a prophetic word of what God will do in the future. He will bring this dread and terror upon the enemies of God when Israel will be brought into the promised land. So this is a promise and the Lord did this very thing, but it’s in the past tense because it is certain as if it had already taken place. And so these promises are spoken of in the past tense and yet they are future promises. And then the song goes on to sing about how the Lord will lead the Israelites into the promised land. He will plant them on His holy mountain. There He will make His dwelling among them in His sanctuary, His abode. And so the song, here’s another prophecy, is looking forward to the time when the Israelites will be in the promised land, when God will set apart Mount Zion as the place of His dwelling. Here is a prophecy of the building of the temple, because it was there that the Lord would dwell with His people. And so the Israelites praise God, not only for what he did for them, but for what he would do for them, for his promises. And as we, as Christians, look back, we see that all of these promises, the Lord has fulfilled for his people, but he still makes promises to us in his word. As believers in Christ, we still look forward to future blessings. The promises that God makes to us is that when we die, we will go to be with Christ in glory. When Jesus returns, you and I will be raised from death to everlasting life in the body that is immortal and incorruptible and will live forever. That on the day of judgment, when Christ returns, you and I, by faith in Jesus Christ, we will be acquitted on the day of judgment. We will be made happy and holy forever. And we will live in a new heaven to a new earth forever and ever, where there will be no more sin, no more sickness, no more death or grief or sorrow. But the greatest promise of all that God makes to us is this, that He will be with us forever, that we will be in His gracious, loving, glorious presence for all eternity. And really, this was the same hope that the Israelites expressed in their song, that God would dwell in their midst. And we know that is our hope. That is our greatest promise that God has given to us, that we shall be with Him forever. And what the song does for us is it gives us hope because if God was faithful to all of the promises that he made to them in the song, he will most certainly be faithful to the promises that he makes to you and me in Christ. And so as we sing the praises of God with our songs, we praise him for who he is. He is the Lord. He is worthy to be praised. We praise him for the salvation that he has worked for us. and we praise Him for His promises, for all the ways in which God will yet show to you and me His goodness, His favor, His love to us in Christ. Let’s pray.

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The Old Testament reading is Exodus Chapter 14, verses 15 through 31. And this is the inerrant, the infallible word of God.

The Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward, 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. 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 and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh his chariots and his horsemen 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 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. 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. 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. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 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, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, let us flee from before the Lord, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen. 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. 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. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 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.

Let’s turn now to Hebrews chapter 11 verses 23 through 29 for our New Testament reading. We’ll turn back to Exodus for the sermon. Hebrews 11, 23 through 29. This chapter testifies to the faith of the saints under the old covenants and the various ways that they demonstrated their faith. And this passage in particular speaks of the faith of Moses, but it also speaks of the faith of the people of Israel who, by faith, crossed the Red Sea on dry land. So Hebrews 11, 23 through 29. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer, the firstborn, might not touch them. By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You may turn back to Exodus chapter 14. And today, in our study of Exodus, as we are going through this book, we come to one of the outstanding passages in all the book of Exodus. And in fact, this is one of the outstanding passages in all of scripture. And that is the parting of the Red Sea. Even people who know very little about the contents of the Bible know this story about God parting the Red Sea. Everybody knows that Moses, when he lifted up his staff, the Lord caused the Red Sea to part so that the Israelites could walk through on dry land. Everybody knows that the Lord then caused the Red Sea to come crashing down upon the Egyptians and they drowned in the ocean. Of course, everybody knows that Moses looked a lot like Charlton Heston, looked in the movie about this. And so this is a very well-known passage. But long before the parting of the Red Sea was the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters, it was, and of course it still is, a part of the Word of God. and as such because it is part of scripture it is given to us to teach us the truth about God about his saving work for us And as we read this story, we read it as Christians, as those who belong to God by faith in Christ. We are his people. So this is our story. The story belongs to us. This is a story of how God redeemed his people under the old covenant, but it also teaches as much about God’s salvation for us in Christ. So this morning as we take a closer look at this passage together, I want to see what this means for us as those who belong to Christ.

As we’ve seen as we’ve been going through the book of Exodus, the book of Exodus tells us in the first part of the book about how the Lord brought His people Israel out of their bondage and misery in Egypt, how the Lord brought them into the wilderness, of course we’re just getting to that part now, but The Lord brought his people into the wilderness where they would be free to serve and to worship him as their God. And of course, out of Egypt, they would be well on their way to the promised land, to Canaan. That was their destination. We’ve seen how God demonstrated his fearsome power, his almighty works of judgment in bringing these 10 plagues upon the people of Egypt. We saw how he spared Israel, the bulk of that suffering, how he brought his people into the safety of the wilderness on the night of the Passover. But it turns out that the wilderness was not such a safe place after all. Despite all that the Egyptians and Pharaoh had suffered as a result of the ten plagues, despite all the misery that was brought upon them by the Lord, nevertheless, Pharaoh was determined, he was wickedly, irrationally determined to capture his escaped slaves. He was not going to let the people of Israel go even after he let them go. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing all that free labor, I suppose. Who else is going to make him all of his bricks?

And given that fact, given the fact that Pharaoh and his chariots and horsemen are out pursuing the people of Israel, they’ve left Egypt, they’re in the wilderness, they’re going after their slaves, you would expect that the Lord would have led his people as far from Egypt as possible and as quickly as possible. But we read last week at the beginning of chapter 14 that the Lord commanded the Israelites not to flee away from Egypt, but to backtrack, to head the opposite direction, and to actually go more towards in the direction of Egypt so that they ended up in what was, humanly speaking, an impossible situation. And so the Israelites, in the place where we pick up in chapter 14 this morning, They’re in this place where they are trapped. On the one side of them is the wilderness. In fact, they’re surrounded by wilderness. But coming from Egypt is Pharaoh with all of his mighty chariots and horsemen and soldiers. And Pharaoh is determined to capture his people, to bring them back to Egypt. And on the other side is, of course, the Red Sea. And unlike the British soldiers who were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk during World War II, there was no armada of ships on the other side of the sea to come and rescue the Israelites. They were in a desperate, desperate situation. If the Israelites fought the Egyptians, they would certainly die. They were not armed. They were not ready for war. If they surrendered to the Egyptians, they would be enslaved again. They would be made Pharaoh’s slaves. And of course, that was no better than a living death. And if they fled into the sea, of course, they would die. The Israelites, they could have, quoted Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians, had those words been written, we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. And so at this point, the Israelites, it must have seemed that they had received the sentence of death. At this point, it seems from all that they can tell, it is all over. The game is up. They will soon But of course, you know how the story ends. By His almighty power, the Lord who can do the impossible, He did the impossible. He caused the waters of the Red Sea to part so that the Israelites could cross over the dry land to the other side of the sea and then So that’s the basic story of the parting of the Red Sea, but let’s take a closer look at some of the details in this passage.

And as we do so, the first thing that we want to say is this, that in order to really understand this passage of scripture as God would have us to understand it, to truly understand the mind of God in this passage, we need to receive these words for what they are. They are the very words of God. They are infallible. They are true. They are an accurate and true description of all that they describe for us. Therefore, the parting of the Red Sea, this is not just a legend, a fable, a greatly exaggerated episode from Israel’s history, but this actually took place, and it took place exactly as the scriptures describe it for us. I say that because this is one of the most famous passages in the Bible. It has been subjected to all kinds of scrutiny and has been given all kinds of explanations as to what allegedly really took place. One theory is that the water parting and returning, this was just a natural movement of the water as the result of the tide rising and lowering and somehow over time the Israelites interpreted this as a supernatural parting of the Red Sea Another theory is that the wind that blew that day was not a supernatural wind from God that caused the waters to part, but it was just a normal wind, perhaps an extra strong wind that caused the waters to move to the side somehow so that the Israelites could cross over. But of course the problem with these theories and of any other theory that seeks a naturalistic explanation of what took place here, the problem with those theories is that they have nothing to do with what the passage actually says.

The passage tells us that this was accomplished by the power of God. That the Creator, the Lord of all, the One who brought all things into being, who has sovereign power over all that He created, He exercised that sovereign power to part the Red Sea so that his people could be saved. And as Christians, this is a reminder to us that we must take the word of God for what it says. We must believe that because God is God, because he is the creator, the Lord of all, he is fully capable of using his supernatural divine power to divide the waters of an ocean. Because if we can’t believe that God did that or that God can do that, then what hope do we have as sinners? That is the real question. If God cannot divide the waters of the ocean in order to deliver his people in a supernatural way as he did, then he certainly could not raise his son Jesus from the grave. And if God has not raised Jesus from the grave, then you and I are still in our sins. We have no hope for the forgiveness of sins. We have no hope for the life to come. But thanks be to God, he is the one who has done what he has said that he has done in his word. By the same power by which he separated the waters of the Red Sea, he raised his son Jesus Christ from the dead. And so we do have true hope. We can trust and believe that God is able and that He did the things that He testifies to in His Word. And so we’re going to take this passage of Scripture as we ought to take all Scripture at face value, receiving it for what it is, the Word of God describing for us the things that have taken place.

Now I want you to imagine, I want you to think, to imagine yourself as one of the Israelites on that day that is described for us here in chapter 14. Put yourself in their shoes, if you will. First of all, how are you feeling? Well, you are terrified. You are filled with dread. In your panic, in your fear, you’ve been crying out to the Lord. Now, normally, crying out to God is a good thing, but here, your cry for help has been really a lack of faith on your part. That’s why the Lord says to Moses in verse 15, why do you cry out to me? Now the Lord wasn’t speaking to Moses as though he himself were crying out to the Lord in panic and in fear, but because Moses represented the people of Israel, Moses was really, or the Lord was really saying to Moses, why are your people, why are the Israelites crying out to me? Why are they doing so in this unbelieving way? And so the Lord, he rebukes your fear and panic when he addresses Moses in that way. But humanly speaking, again, as an Israelite in this situation, you have good reasons to be afraid. First of all, you’re terrified of the Egyptians. Pharaoh has unleashed all the violent power of his chariots and soldiers and horsemen. They’re coming on you fast, you’re unarmed. He has state-of-the-art military technology and he’s ready to use it. And you are afraid because you have been led to this place where there’s no escape. You are surrounded by the desert, except behind you is an entire ocean, the Red Sea. You’re an Israelite. You’ve spent your whole life making bricks. No one has taught you how to swim. You’re a top-notch brick maker, but if you are to go into the sea, you will drown. You will sink, just like one of the bricks you have made for Pharaoh. And then your leader Moses, he says something that only adds to your fear. It’s a dreadfully, well, it seems to you, a dreadful thing to say, confusing as well. He says, go forward. And you’re thinking, go forward? Go forward where? Go forward into the jaws of Pharaoh and his army? Go forward and drown in the Red Sea? Where can we go forward without being destroyed? But before you have time to think too much about that, something extraordinary takes place, a reminder to you that you are not alone in the deserts by the Red Sea. It has to do with that pillar of cloud and fire that has been leading you on your journey so far. That pillar that has become a comfort to you because it is in that pillar that the Lord himself, he is with you. His presence is in that pillar of cloud and fire. And that pillar goes from being in front of you, and it moves behind you. That is, it comes between you and the Egyptian army. And the cloud gives light throughout the night for you and your fellow Israelites, while it keeps the Egyptians in the dark. And then you witness the most wonderful thing of all. You see Moses, your leader, with the staff of God in his hand. He stretches out his arm. He’s facing the sea. And a mighty wind from the east begins to blow. And as soon as the waters begin to part, you can see the ocean floor below. Verse 22 describes the waters as being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The word for wall there is the same word that is used to describe the giant walls that surrounded the ancient cities of that time. And so the water isn’t just piled up a few feet high, but the Lord creates this giant canyon in which on either side of this path through the Red Sea, there are two giant towering walls of water looking over the seabed.

Now once the waters are parted you begin your walk across the ocean floor. Now the ground is as dry as the desert sand. And of course you realize on your way through the Red Sea that if the ground is dry enough for you to walk over, it is also dry enough for the Egyptian army to cross over. And indeed the Egyptians have begun their pursuits across the dry ground of the Red Sea. They are behind you, but then Something goes terribly wrong with the Egyptians. The wheels of their chariots start to malfunction. The text isn’t very clear as to exactly what happened, but somehow the wheels figuratively, and perhaps even literally, begin to fall off for the Egyptians. The Lord caused the dry ground to become mud, perhaps, which clogged the wheels, or perhaps He just supernaturally caused the chariot wheels to fall off. But in any case, whatever it was, that caused these battle-hardened soldiers, these fierce Egyptian warriors, it caused them to fall into a panic. They realized through their horror that they are not just fighting against the Israelites, but they realize at that point that they are fighting against the God of the Israelites. And if you could hear their shouts, you would hear them shouting, let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians. You would see the entire army frantically trying to run back to the safety of the shore. And then, once you’re on the other side of the sea, once you’ve crossed through that channel that the Lord created, you see Moses stretch out his hand again. And those two towering walls of water come crashing down into the channel of dry land. And the thunderous sounds of the rushing water soon dry out the anguished cries of horses and men as they are drowning. And then there is quiet. There is quiet. No more cries. No more rushing water. the surface of the calm or the surface of the sea is calm except the occasional chariot wheel bobbing to the surface and then you notice one by one the bodies of dead men beginning to wash ashore and then you realize at that point all the Egyptians are dead every last one of them has perished in the sea all those fierce warriors that caused you so much dread and panic they’re all dead, drowned in the sea.

Now if you had been there, and if you had experienced all that, what do you think would be going through your mind and your heart at that moment? Of course, one emotion that would overcome you is one of pure joy. You would be exultant that you have been saved from the Egyptians. And in fact, that’s how the Israelites responded because in chapter 15, as we’ll see soon, they sing this song of praise to the Lord for this great deliverance. But another feeling would soon overcome you, and that is fear. But this would be a different kind of fear, no longer a fear of the Egyptians, no longer a fear of the Red Sea, but a fear of God because of what you have just witnessed. When the Israelites saw the way in which the Lord caused the waters of the Red Sea to come crashing upon the Egyptians, to engulf them, to destroy them, and as they stood on the far side of the Red Sea and as they watched the corpses of the Egyptians washing up on the shore, Moses tells us in verse 31, the people feared the Lord. And they feared the Lord because not only were they saved, but because they had front row seats to witness the terrifying judgments of God, of a holy God against an evil people. And I wonder how many of those Israelites at that time thought to themselves, but for the grace of God go I. I could be an Egyptian, that could be me, but the Lord has been merciful to me. But what an awful judgment that they just witnessed.

In this passage, this account that the Lord gives us of the parting of the Red Sea, this is as much about the judgment of God against his enemies as it is about the salvation of God for his people. In this passage, when the Lord spoke about what he was going to do to the Egyptians in parting the Red Sea, he spoke as much about the destruction of the people of Egypt as he did about the salvation of the Israelites. Look at verses 17 and 18 when the Lord is speaking to Moses. He says, 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. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen. And so, this was an act of God’s judgment, as much as it was a wonderful act of His salvation. Many, many centuries later, the Lord Jesus, He took Peter and John and James with Him up to the top of a mountain. And as Jesus prayed, He was transfigured before these disciples so that they beheld the divine glory that belonged to Jesus, they saw it revealed on top of that mountain. And when Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus, Luke tells us in his gospel that, and this is Luke 9.31, they spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now the Greek word in that verse that is translated departure is literally exodus. it is the word for exodus and so Jesus was about to accomplish an exodus, a new exodus, a greater exodus in his death and resurrection that would take place in Jerusalem and just like the exodus out of Egypt including the parting of the Red Sea, the exodus of Jesus it also was both an act of God’s judgment as well as an act of his salvation and for Jesus It wasn’t salvation. For Jesus, it was judgment. Jesus was not saved at the cross, but he was in the place of the Egyptians. It was at the cross that Jesus was engulfed and overcome by the waters of God’s divine wrath and judgments, just as the Egyptians were engulfed by the waters of God’s wrath in the first exodus. And so for Jesus, his exodus was a judgment, but for you, who belong to Christ by faith, that judgment that He endured, that has become for you salvation. Because Jesus endured the judgment that was yours, His death on the cross, that judgment for Him has become for you redemption, salvation.

And that brings us to the first of two lessons from this passage about the parting of the Red Sea. So we’ll take two lessons from this passage. The first lesson is this. Salvation is found in Christ alone, and it is yours by faith alone. Salvation is found in Christ alone, and it is yours by faith alone. In order for us to truly understand the meaning of what takes place here in the parting of the Red Sea, what takes place in the whole exodus of God’s redeeming his people, delivering his people from the Egyptians. The first thing that we need to understand is this, we need to grasp this fundamental truth and that is this, that the Israelites’ bondage to slavery, this is a type or a picture of the spiritual bondage that you and I are born into the spiritual tyranny of sin over us that is ours by nature. As a sinner, just as the Israelites were helpless to free themselves, just as they were helplessly enthralled to Pharaoh, so you are helpless to free yourself from the power of sin over you. and therefore salvation, salvation is a salvation from the dominion of sin, the power of sin, the enslaving tyranny of sin over you. That is what we are by nature. We are slaves to sin. Now you might think to yourself, true, I have sinned, but I’m not in bondage to sin. I’m not a slave to sin. I’m not like those people who have made a wreck of their lives because of their addiction to drugs or alcohol. I’m not like those criminals who have thrown away their lives by the crimes that they have committed and now are languishing in prison. But those are only the most obvious ways in which sin can enslave a person. The truth is, apart from Christ, And again, I’m speaking of us as we are apart from Christ, by nature, by birth. No matter how upright, no matter how decent, no matter how moral we may be, we are in bondage to the power of sin. Jesus said, Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. We can be in bondage to all kinds of sin in different ways. We can be in bondage to our own pride. We can be in bondage to the sin of self-righteousness. We can be in bondage to our idols that we worship, the sin of worshiping money or possessions or the pursuit of pleasure. We can be enslaved to our need to manipulate, to dominate, to control others. What Jesus meant when he said that everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin is the fact that we sin demonstrates or proves the truth that we are by nature in bondage to sin. In other words, because we are slaves to sin, we sin. Because we are sinners by birth, by nature, we commit sins. The truth is, if you are not trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, you are in bondage to sin. If you are outside of Christ, if you are not in Him, you are under the tyranny of sin. No matter how nice and decent and moral you may be, no matter how even religious you may be, apart from freedom in Christ, there is only slavery to sin. And therefore, as a sinner, what you need most of all, your greatest need is to be set free from the power of sin over you.

The Israelites were in helpless slavery to Pharaoh. They were helplessly in bondage to him. The only thing that could free them from their slavery to Pharaoh was the almighty power of God interceding for them. And in the same way, only Jesus Christ and what he has done for you can free you from the enslaving bondage to sin. Jesus put it this way, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. There is no other way to be free indeed, to be free truly from the power sin, than for the Son, the Son of God to set you free from that sin. And so you are saved by Christ alone, and that salvation is yours by faith alone. Moses tells us that the Israelites, that after their deliverance, they had faith. The last verse in the chapter in verse 31 says this, they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses. At some point, the Israelites, at some point here, they stopped panicking and they took to heart the words that Moses had said to them before the Lord parted the Red Sea. Back in verse 13, Moses said, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. We read from a passage from Hebrews chapter 11. And according to Hebrews, when the people of Israel, when they crossed the Red Sea, that was an act of faith. They were literally walking by faith. They literally stepped out in faith. Hebrews 11, 29, by faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. They were saved by faith, by faith alone, in the power of the Lord to save them. Verse 14 in chapter 14 says, the Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. The Lord will fight for you, Moses told the Israelites. Commit yourself to the Lord and trust yourself to Him and to His promises. He will deliver you. He will fight for you. He will save you.

Imagine if the Lord, rather than parting the waters of the Red Sea and allowing His people to cross over, imagine if He had dropped from heaven all the materials that the Israelites needed to build a bridge. All the concrete and steel and whatever else they need. They could build a bridge across the Red Sea. Then we might say that the Israelites were saved by faith plus works. But no, the Lord did it all. They only watched. They only saw with their eyes what the Lord was doing for them. And by faith, they stepped out and they crossed the ocean. And this is the faith that saves you. by trusting in the finished, complete work of Jesus Christ. You bring no good works to your salvation. You bring no merit of your own or any righteousness or morality of your own to God because you have none to bring. You only bring your need, your sin, and by the grace of God, your faith. Trust that Jesus Christ can do what you cannot do, that he can bring you salvation. The Lord will fight for you. You have only to be silent. Is that your faith and hope today? Are you trusting wholly in the person of Jesus Christ and the work of Jesus Christ to deliver you from the power of sin? So the first lesson is that salvation is found in Christ alone and it is yours by faith alone.

The second lesson is this, in Christ you have complete victory over sin and death. In Christ you have victory over sin and death. It’s not surprising that movies have been made about this about this account in Exodus of the parting of the Red Sea. It’s such a wonderful dramatic story that is told in the scripture. If I were to make a movie of the parting of the Red Sea the last scene of my movie would be of the bodies of the Egyptians washing up on the shore And so I can picture my movie as it comes to an end. I’d first cue the dramatic music. And then the camera would zero in on one Egyptian body as it is lying on the shore. Then I’d slowly widen the angle of the camera so that you could see that for hundreds of yards of beach, there are thousands and thousands of Egyptian corpses washing up on the shore. And then I’d show the Israelites standing beside them, staring with a mixture of joy and fear at all of these Egyptians who are now dead, who are washing up on the beach one by one. And then they’d start to sing the song that they sing in chapter 15. And right then I’d have the credits roll, the movie would be over. And I finished my movie that way because I believe in that way, it would make the point that the passage is making for us that the spirit of God wants us to take from this passage. And that is this, that the enemies of Israel were dead. Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. These were their enemies, and now they were not just a defeated foe, but they were destroyed, they were annihilated. They were not just weakened, they were lifeless, they were powerless. No more would they terrorize the Israelites. No more would they rule over them as their slave drivers. Moses even makes a point of telling us of the complete, the total destruction of the Egyptian army. He says, not one of them remained. Not one. They were all dead. They all perished.

And just as the Israelites gained a complete victory over their enemies, the Egyptians, so in Christ, you have in the same way a complete, total victory over sin and death. Now to be sure, The enemies of Christ and of his people are still active in the world. They’re still active in opposing the people of God. In different times and places, even attacking the people of God. Satan is still alive and well in all his hosts. Those who do Satan’s will in this world are still active. But as far as the enemies of God can do any lasting harm to you or me, as far as the enemies of God can possibly separate us from the grace of God, from the salvation that we have in God, they are as good as dead. They are as good as dead. They cannot bring us back into bondage, to sin, to death. They cannot take away from us the salvation that we have in Christ. They cannot separate us from the love that God has for us in Christ. They are powerless. They are lifeless. They are dead. In the death that Jesus died on the cross, he put to death forever the power of death over us. It was by his death that we now have victory over death. By his death and resurrection, we have now complete and total victory over death. and over Satan, over the powers of hell, over the bondage and dominion of sin, your spiritual enemies, and you do have spiritual enemies, but they are just as powerless to enslave you, to rule over you, to separate you from the grace of Christ as the corpses that washed up on the shore of the Egyptians were powerless to do anything to the Israelites.

This is the truth that you and I, we need to hear this over and over again. Because no matter how many times we hear it, we are prone to forget it. And we rob ourselves of forgetting this truth that we have victory in Christ over Satan, sin, and death. Because we forget this, we rob ourselves of the joy and the peace that should be ours in abundance in Jesus Christ. and that’s It’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s astounding that they would have been worried at all as they stood there with their backs against the Red Sea, the Egyptian army bearing down on them. It’s astounding that they would have been fearful that they would be destroyed or captured by the Egyptians after all that they had seen what the Lord had done for them. After all the ways in which the Lord supernaturally delivered his people. Did they forget that the Lord had brought disaster upon disaster upon the Egyptian people? Did they forget how on the night of the Passover, the angel passed through the land and destroyed all the firstborn of Egypt? Did they forget how the Lord set them apart so that they would be spared from those plagues? Did they not remember just a little while ago how the Lord destroyed the firstborn and spared them? How could they forget what the Lord had done for them? How could they be so filled with fear? Well, the question you and I need to ask is, how can I forget what Christ has done for me? Why am I so filled with fear in the face of death, knowing what Christ has done for me? Why do you allow yourself to be crippled by the remembrance of past sins, by the guilt of past sins? Why does that paralyze you? Why do you allow the fear of death to upset you when you know that because of the death and resurrection of Christ, death is for you an entrance into glory? Or why do you forget the promises of God that he will provide for you, that he will work out all things for your good? Why are you anxious about what you will eat or wear or drink? When Jesus has promised that you have a heavenly father, who knows what you need, who will give you what you need in his good timing, Why do you fear? Why are you anxious? Why are you worried about the future when all your days are already planned and arranged by a sovereign God who loves you and has determined and promised that he will dispose all things for your eternal joy and blessedness? The saving work of God in the Old Testament for his people, his parting of the Red Sea and destroying the enemies of Israel, let this remind you of the salvation that you have in Christ. that your victory in Christ is not just a possible victory over a defeated or weakened foe, or a probable victory over your enemies, but in Christ you have an assured victory, a complete victory over a defeated, utterly defeated foe. The Lord has fought for you. He has won the victory for you in His Son Jesus Christ and His victory for you over sin and death. This is your victory today. It is your victory forever and ever.

Let’s pray.

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The Old Testament reading is Exodus chapter 13 verse 17 through chapter 14, 14. And this is the inerrant, the infallible word of God.

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.

And they moved on from Sukkoth and encamped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-Hahiroth between Migdol and the sea in front of Baal-zaphon. You shall encamp facing it by the sea.

For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, they are wandering in the land. The wilderness has shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so.

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people. And they said, what is this we have done? That we have let Israel go from serving us. So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him and took 600 chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them and encamped at the sea by Pi-Ahirath in front of Baal-Zaphon.

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. 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 in bringing us out of Egypt? 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.

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. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. You can keep your place there in the Bible. We are continuing our series of sermons through Exodus, so we will return to that passage.

But let’s go to John’s Gospel for our New Testament reading, John chapter 10, verses 27 through 30. John 10, 27 through 30. The subject that we are considering this morning is the Lord’s guidance of his people. And in these verses, these words of Jesus, we hear that one way in which the Lord guides us is through his word, through his word, and specifically through the voice of our good shepherd, through Jesus, as he speaks to us through the scripture.

So John chapter 10 verses 27 through 30. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father’s hand. I and the father are one. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

A few years ago, as a congregation, in our Sunday school class, we worked our way through the classic book, The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan. Many of you were not here at that time. That was about four or almost five years ago. And one lesson above all else that that book impresses upon our hearts and it’s obvious from the title of the book is that the Christian life can be characterized as a journey pilgrimage there are many ways to think about our lives as Christians but this is one primary way that the scripture gives us this home is not our world we are exiles here we are sojourners here and we are on a pilgrimage and of course just like The hero of the book, Christian, you are also on a pilgrimage to a better world. For Christian, it was the Celestial City, which of course is a way of describing heaven. We are on a journey through this world to our heavenly destination.

And though your journey as a Christian may seem lonely at times, the good news is that as a believer in Christ, you can know that you are never truly alone. But God has promised to be with you throughout this life and to guide you, to direct you throughout your pilgrimage through this world. In our passage this morning from Exodus, it gives us a picture of how the Lord guides and directs his people in our earthly sojourning, our pilgrimage.

We are at the point now in the story of Exodus when the Israelites have just escaped from Egypt. You’ll remember from the passage that we looked at last Sunday on the night of the Passover, the Lord went through the land of Egypt and he killed all the firstborn of all the families of the Egyptians and even of their livestock. And Pharaoh, the wicked, the hard-hearted king of Egypt, who refused to let the people go despite all the destruction that the Lord had brought upon the nation of Egypt in the first nine plagues, finally, after the tenth plague, after the Lord killed the firstborn in every home, finally, Pharaoh relented, and he let the people of Israel go, that they may serve the Lord.

And now that the Israelites are out of Egypt, now that they have fled from the land, they are out from under the tyranny, the grip of Pharaoh, the very first thing that Moses tells us is that they were being led by God. He says in verses 17 and 18 in chapter 13, and I’m paraphrasing, but Moses tells us that God did not lead the people in this particular direction, rather he led them in this other direction. And that’s a way of saying that the most fundamental reality, the thing that was most true or most important of the Israelite people at this time, as they are escaping from Egypt, is that God was leading them. The Lord was directing their paths. They knew that their destination that the Lord would lead them to ultimately would be the land of Canaan, the land that had been promised to them, to their forefathers, the patriarchs, a land flowing with milk and honey. And yet God did not drop them a map from heaven that they might find their own way to the promised land, but it was His will that He would guide them there, that He would lead them there. He led them each step and every day along the way.

And as we look at this passage today from Exodus, as we consider the Lord’s leading the people of Israel, there are four truths that are demonstrated or illustrated here concerning how God guides us as his people today. As Christians, how does the Lord direct our paths? And we’ll consider four ways that we can learn from this chapter how the Lord guides us. And the first is this, that God guides us according to his perfect wisdom. God’s guidance is always in accordance with what is wise and good according to his perfect understanding and knowledge.

On the night of the Passover, as the Israelites were leaving Egypt, fleeing from Pharaoh, if Moses had had a smartphone at the time and he opened up his Google Maps app and he typed in Canaan, the way that he would have been told to go would have been northeast through the land of the Philistines. That would have been the quickest, the most direct route. If they had gone that way, they would have been in the Promised Land in a matter of a couple of weeks. But, he had a much better GPS. He had the Lord’s guidance and the Lord led them in a different direction. In verse 18, we are told that God led them around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And God had a reason and a purpose for that, we are told. If the Israelites had gone on that direct route through the land of the Philistines, They would have encountered not only the Egyptian military who had a presence there, but they would have also ran into the Philistines, and both of these were peoples who were experienced in war and prepared for war. The Israelites were not yet prepared for war.

You’ll notice in verse 18 it does say that the Israelites were equipped for battle, but that means that they were organized into military-like units. It doesn’t mean that they were really ready to wage war. And so the Lord knew that if the Israelites went that way, they faced the Egyptians, they faced the Philistines, they saw war, that they immediately would have made a U-turn and headed right back into Egypt.

And we can safely say that according to the Israelites’ understanding and wisdom, such as it was, that going that roundabout way to the Promised Land, going south instead of north, probably, most certainly made no sense to them. They probably thought to themselves, why would God bring us into the wilderness when obviously there is a much quicker way to go into Canaan? We do know for sure that the Israelites were second-guessing the Lord’s guidance later in our passage. They were not happy about the way that the Lord was leading them.

Beginning in chapter 14, after the Israelites have already gone south toward the wilderness, the Lord tells them that they are to turn around, they are to head back north, and go, kind of backtrack, and go in the direction that they came from. And the place, according to chapter 14, where the Lord was leading them was, according to human wisdom, the very last place that they wanted to be. They were in the wilderness. They ended up in a place where they were surrounded by wilderness, except right behind them was the Red Sea, the ocean. And so if you were to choose for Israel the one place where they would be the most vulnerable to defeat by Pharaoh’s armies, it was right there where the Lord led them. They were like sitting ducks surrounded by the wilderness with the water of the Red Sea behind them. There was no way, humanly speaking, there was no way that they could escape from Pharaoh there.

And not surprisingly, once the Israelites saw the Egyptians bearing down on them, after Pharaoh changed his mind again and decided that he didn’t want his slaves to leave Egypt after all, he sent his chariots, his armies after the Israelites. And once the Israelites saw them coming towards them, they let Moses know just how absurd it was, how foolish it was that he led them there. He said, they say to Moses in verse 11, chapter 14, what have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Moses, what in the world are you doing? Why have you led us here to this place where we will certainly die? And of course, they are complaining against Moses, but really, in their hearts, they were complaining against the Lord. So they say, Moses, Were there no graves in Egypt to bury us in? There was plenty of cemetery space there. Why did you lead us into the wilderness for us to die out here?

Well, you know, because you know the story of Exodus, and I know, that the Lord knew exactly what he was doing in leading the Israelites to that very spot. He was preparing for their deliverance. He was preparing for the destruction of the Egyptians in the most spectacular fashion in a way that would bring him the most glory in causing the Red Sea to part and then to come crashing down on top of the Egyptians. And so we know that the back and forth movements of their march as they came out of Egypt, these were a ruse to get Pharaoh to think that they were confused and helpless in the wilderness. And that of course encouraged Pharaoh to try to go out to recapture his slaves but ultimately it was the Lord’s will that the Egyptians would be put to death and the Israelites, his people, he would save them. And so the Lord was leading his people according, not to human wisdom, not according to what we think would have been best, but according to his own purposes, his redemptive, his saving purposes for his people. It was inexplicable to the Israelites why they should be led to this place next to the Red Sea, surrounded by wilderness, where they were so vulnerable to the Egyptians. But the Lord, of course, knew exactly what he was doing.

And so often, in our own lives, the circumstances, the events, the places where the Lord and his providence brings us seem to us to be inexplicable. They don’t always make sense, do they? Why has God brought me into this place where I’m struggling so much? Where I’m suffering? Why has God allowed my child to be afflicted with this sickness or this disease? Why has God not opened the door of employment for me? I’ve been praying to Him for this open door and it has not appeared. Why did God permit my husband or wife or my brother or sister to die so young when they should have had so many more years of life to live?

Well, there was a reason why the Lord had the Israelites backtrack and put themselves in an apparently hopeless and impossible situation. And there is a reason why God guides you and leads you in the way that he does. Even when he leads you, through seasons of pain, suffering, and circumstances that are perplexing, confusing. God has reasons for leading you the way that He does. And His reasons, although He does not reveal them to us, we know that His reasons are perfectly wise, they are infinitely good, they are even loving. What to you and me is inexplicable, confusing, is to God all part of his perfect, his well-ordered plan for all things, which includes preparing us for that heavenly destination that he has for us, an eternity of joy in his presence. He is causing all things to work towards that for our good.

And there are times when, with the benefit of hindsight, Things begin to make more sense. There are times when you can look back on your life and see how the Lord brought you through a season or through circumstances that at the time seemed so confusing and yet it seems to make a little more sense. That was certainly the case with the Israelites. At this point in the story, their backs are against the Red Sea. They are completely baffled why the Lord would lead them there. They were easy prey for Pharaoh’s chariots. If Psalm 23 had been written at the time, I doubt they would have found much comfort in it. He leads me beside still waters. That was not the verse that would have encouraged them at that time. But on the other side of the water, when they saw the Egyptian armies drowned in the Red Sea, it all made perfect sense. God had led them there not to destroy them, but to destroy their enemies and to deliver them all in a way that would bring him glory and praise.

And when it comes to the confusing and sometimes seemingly senseless circumstances that God leads you and me through, he may or may not make things clearer with the passing of time. But when Christ returns in his glory, when he brings his kingdom and fullness, when you and I have entered into that heavenly glory that he has promised us, when we are enjoying the fullness of life and joy in the presence of Christ, I believe that in some way we will have perfect hindsight then. We’ll be able to see what we do not see now, that God in all the circumstances of our lives, even the most painful circumstances. He was there. He guided us there and he led us through that in order to fulfill his purposes for us, which again are good and loving and wise. In the meantime, though, he calls us to walk by faith. And part of that means yielding to the will of God, accepting that these circumstances, I don’t like them, they are difficult, nevertheless, it is God’s will that I should be here. He led me here. We yield ourselves to the providence of God, to His divine guidance, His sovereign work over us and over our circumstances.

This is why we read responsibly Psalm 25, verse 10 says, All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep His covenant and His testimonies. All the paths of the Lord, not just the good paths, not just the enjoyable paths, but all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.

So God guides us by His perfect wisdom. The second truth is this, God guides you and me with his presence, with his presence. In chapter 13 verses 21 and 22, Moses describes how the Lord led the people of Israel with this pillar of cloud and fire. And let’s listen to those verses again. Verses 21 and 22 of chapter 13. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Now this wasn’t two separate pillars, this was one pillar. And by day it appeared as a towering pillar of cloud in the sky, and by night it was a pillar of fire, so it lit up the sky. And it was by this pillar of cloud and fire, or we could put it this way, it was by the presence of the Lord Himself, as He was present in that pillar, that He led the people of Israel throughout their entire wilderness wanderings.

Now there is one way in which there is a huge difference between how the Lord led the people of God then and how the Lord leads us today as Christians. And there is one way, when we consider this pillar of cloud and fire, in which there is a great similarity in how the Lord led the people of Israel then and how he leads us today.

First, let’s consider the difference. Unlike with the Israelites in the days of Exodus, the Lord does not lead you and me today with such a visible sign that makes it obvious the direction that we are to go, that gives clear and unmistakable guidance in all the decisions that you face in the course of this life. The Israelites didn’t have to discern somehow the direction that God would have them to go or whether they were to simply remain camped where they were, but the pillar of cloud and fire told them or at least led them and indicated them explicitly what they were to do. And not only that, but this kind of direct guidance from the Lord, this direct revelation from God continued for the people of Israel. God often provided guidance for the nation or for even individuals through the prophets who spoke the word of the Lord. Sometimes they received guidance from the Urim and the Thummim. Once God gave guidance to one individual through a dew-soaked fleece.

And as Christians, when we Read the Old Testament, and even parts of the New Testament, but when we read about how the Lord led his people in this way, with direct revelation, explicit guidance and direction, we are tempted to become a little jealous, aren’t we? Wouldn’t it be great if God were to guide us with specific answers to our specific questions? Knowing his will for us, the direction we should go, wouldn’t that be so much easier?

Some of you, when you were little, perhaps, you may have had, or perhaps one of your friends had, a toy called a Magic 8 Ball. I’m not approving of this toy, by the way. Don’t buy one. Don’t buy one for your kids. There’s actually some real pagan ideas mixed up with this. But anyway, the Magic 8 Ball, I had one. But the reason you buy one is supposedly it tells you what you should do. And so you ask it a question. And you might say, for example, shall I eat at McDonald’s today? And you shake the Magic 8 Ball, and you look into this little window on it, and an answer would pop up. It would say something like, yes, definitely. or my reply is no.

And when you face a difficult decision and you just don’t know what is the right direction to go, what is the right way to choose, that’s when you think, I wish God would give us something like a magic eight ball where I could ask him a question and receive a definite answer. Lord, shall I major in engineering? The answer, outlook not so good. Lord, shall I ask this young lady to marry me? Answer, as I see it, yes. Lord, if I move to another state, will you provide a job for me? Answer, you may rely on it. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But that’s not the way that the Lord guides and directs us today. Rather, he leads us in a different way. He leads us by giving us His Word, by giving us the Scripture, by giving us His Spirit, and by His Word, by His Spirit, He gives us wisdom and enables us to make decisions that are in accordance with what He wills. And as part of that, He calls you and me to pray for our decisions. Part of that involves going to the Scriptures, learning His Word. Is there any guidance? Has God revealed anything in the Scriptures that bears upon this decision that I need to make? We are to seek godly counsel and advice from others. In a multitude of counselors, there is safety. We are to carefully weigh options. We are to consider how this direction or that direction may be a better use of our abilities or resources or gifts in order to serve Christ and His Kingdom. And these are the ways in which we are to seek guidance from God. Again, He doesn’t give us an explicit, direct answer. But when we seek His guidance in this way, prayerfully, going to His Word, using the wisdom that He has given us, God gives us the assurance that when we do so, He will guide us. He will bless us in that. Proverbs 16.3 says, commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established.

You can put it this way. The difference between how God led his people then and how he leads us now as Christians is the same difference between how a child is led and how an adult guides his way. When you were a child, you were led by your parents. Literally, they led you by the hand. They made your decisions for you. But when you became an adult, you had to make your own decisions. You had to use the discernment, the wisdom, the judgment that hopefully you have gained over the years. Here in Exodus, under the Old Covenant, God led the Israelites by the hand, as it were, with this pillar of cloud and fire. But now He directs you in a different way. He enables you to use, by His Spirit, by His grace, to use that discernment and wisdom that He gives to you through His Word in order to direct your paths.

That’s the difference between then and now, but there is one way in which the Lord’s guidance is very much the same when we consider the Israelites and when we consider our situation, and that is this. Just as the Lord was truly with the Israelites, just as his presence was there in that pillar of cloud and fire, just as God Almighty was with his people in all the ways in which they went, so the Lord is with us today. Christ is with us. And with the coming of Christ into the world, with the exaltation of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, with His ascension to the right hand of the Father, with His pouring out His Holy Spirit on His church, there is an even more glorious way that the Lord is with us today, more glorious than the way in which He was with His people then. And that is this, that Christ Himself, He dwells in us. He is no longer merely above us or next to us in this pillar of cloud and fire, but he says he dwells within us. He and the Father make their home in us by the Spirit. The Lord dwells within, within our hearts. And what this means is that no matter where God guides you, no matter how arduous and difficult the path may be, down which he calls you to walk in this world, no matter how isolated or lonely you may feel at times, you can know with certainty that Jesus is there with you. He is with you every step of the way because, as he promises, he will never leave you, nor forsake you, and he has made his home within you. within your hearts.

And so God guides us with his presence. The third truth we see here in this passage concerning how God leads us is this, God guides us for his own glory. In chapter 14 verse 4, the Lord says this, And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. and they did so.

Notice how according to this verse that one of the purposes of the Lord in directing and guiding his people in the way that he did was that the Egyptians might know that he is the Lord. Of course the Egyptians would not come to know him as the Lord in a saving way they came to know him as the Lord, as their judge, their destroyer But they would acknowledge that the Lord is the true God. They would have no choice but to confess, to acknowledge, even if not with their lips, with their hearts. Pharaoh is not God. The gods of the Egyptians are no gods, but the Lord alone is God. They would come to know him. They would give him glory in that way, and that’s how the Lord would give glory over Pharaoh.

When I was a brand new Christian, and some of you may have had a similar experience, but when I was brought to saving faith in Christ out of a real unbelieving, out of unbelief and a kind of agnosticism, it’s not atheism, I made this wonderful discovery by the grace of God that I, me, that I was known to God. that the God who created all things, the sovereign Lord, almighty God who upholds and sustains all things, that he knew me, that he knew me, that he loved me, that at least in part for me, he sent his son into the world to die, to take away my sin and guilt. That was a remarkable, life-changing discovery.

But it wasn’t long after that that, by the grace of God, I made an equally wonderful discovery, and that is this. That although, yes, I was known by God, although God did send His Son to die for me, for my sin, that that did not make me the center of the universe. That God, God was the true center of the universe. And therefore, the most important thing for God, the thing that was His goal, The object of His will and His purpose and all that He did in the world was not my salvation or the salvation of anyone for that matter, but His glory. And think about that. God has brought you to salvation in Christ for something greater than your salvation. For something greater than that you can enjoy the glories of heaven and escape the terrors of hell. But God has saved you for an even greater purpose than that, and that is to bring him glory, to bring him the glory, the praise of all creation, that he would be known as God and worshipped as God.

In addition to Pilgrim’s Progress, many of you are familiar with another book about a person who goes on a long journey, and that is The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Pretty sure all of you, if not all of you, most of you know the story of the Hobbit, but in case you don’t, the hero of the Hobbit is a small, humble, man-like creature called a Hobbit. His name is Bilbo Baggins. And in the story, Bilbo is taken on this incredible adventure. He plays a key part in defeating a terrifying dragon, winning a great battle against the enemies, the forces of evil against the enemies of all that was good. And at the end of the book, Bilbo Baggins, he learns that all that took place in his adventure was actually in fulfillment of certain prophecies that had been written, ancient prophecies. and he asks his friend Gandalf about these prophecies if they have really come true in the things that he participated in. And this is what Gandalf says to him. He says, of course. And why should they not prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself. You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck for your sole benefit? You are a fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you, but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.

And as a Christian, in the providence of God in your life, in all the circumstances that he has ordained and fashioned for you, in all the ways in which the Lord leads you in this life, it is not all for your soul benefits, but it is all for his glory. As a Christian, God has been merciful to you. He loved you. He gave you his son. But like Bilbo Baggins, you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all. The real story of God’s guidance is how he will receive the praise, the adoration, the glory that is due to him. And he will receive that for what he has done for you. So God guides us for the sake of His own glory.

Now having said that, the wonderful thing about all of that is that what glorifies God for us as believers, what glorifies God is what is good for us. And the salvation that He works for you and for all His people, that is what brings God’s glory. And that’s the fourth and final truth that we’ll consider this morning. God guides you for your salvation.

After the Israelites vented all their frustration and anger against Moses, saying that they should have just stayed in Egypt, why did Moses have to lead them into the wilderness to die there? Weren’t there plenty of graves in Egypt that they could have been buried in? After hearing all of that, Moses doesn’t do and say what we would have done and said. We would have said to the Israelites, okay, Okay, you bunch of whiners and losers. If that’s the way you feel, then go find a leader to take you back into Egypt. I quit. I’m out of here.

But instead, Moses says this in verses 13 and 14. He says, 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. The Lord will fight for you and you have only to be silent. and you know the rest of the story. And we’ll look at the rest of the story, Lord willing, next week. But the Lord parted the Red Sea, he led his people through on dry land, and then he destroyed all the Egyptians as they attempted to go through the Red Sea. So he led them to their salvation. And the Lord leads you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, for your salvation.

First, he guides you to the cross of Jesus Christ. Anyone whom the Lord is truly leading and guiding, anyone who is following the Lord, the very first place where He guides is to the cross of Jesus Christ. Because it was at the cross that the Son of God laid down His life for you and me, for sinners who were guilty of sin and deserving of that wrath that He endured for us. If your hope and trust is in Christ, His death means for you the forgiveness of sins, eternal life.

And there’s something that Moses says here at the very end of our passage that was true for the Israelites then as they were helpless before their enemies. It is true for you and me today. In verse 14, Moses says, the Lord will fight for you and you have only to be silent. Your salvation is not the result of your fighting, your doing, your acting. but it is by resting, it is by trusting, it is by faith and trusting yourself to the Son of God, to the Savior who fought for you, who died for you, who by His work, by His actions, you have been saved. You only have to be silent, rest in Christ, And that is how we come to receive the forgiveness of sins, eternal life.

And if you have not yet entrusted yourself to Jesus Christ and have not rested in Him, if you are relying somehow upon your own doing, your own working, come to Jesus, entrust yourself to Him, and you will receive that salvation, eternal life, the forgiveness of sins that we cannot attain by ourselves.

And once God in His grace leads us to the cross for our salvation, He leads us throughout our lives, again, throughout this earthly pilgrimage, throughout our sojourning, He leads us to that final salvation, our promised land, not Canaan, but heaven, that glory that He has promised and He has prepared for us. And so as a Christian then, the lesson that we can take from this passage is that it is the Lord who leads us, who guides us. Even your circumstances now, he has brought you into them, and he will direct and guide your path from here and forevermore. But all the ways and the paths that the Lord leads us down, both the pleasant and the painful, they are for your eternal good, for your salvation.

Let’s pray.

The post He Leadeth Me appeared first on Mt. Rose OPC.

The Old Testament reading is Exodus 12, 29 through 42, in chapter 13, verses 1 and 2, 11 through 16. So first, Exodus 12, verses 29 through 42. And this is the word of God.

At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also. The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we shall all be dead. So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls before, or being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Sukkoth, about 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.

The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt. So this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.

And then going down to chapter 13, verses one and two. The Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine. And then beginning at chapter, verse 11 of chapter 13.

When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord’s. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redee2m. And when, in time to come, your son asks you, what does this mean, you shall say to him, by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first opened the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. It shall be as a mark on your hand, or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.

And now let’s turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 18 through 20 for our New Testament reading. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 18 through 20. And the Apostle Paul here declares a truth that is also very much evident in the passages that we read from the Old Testament, and that is that as those who have been saved by the Lord, saved by Christ, we belong to Him. We are not our own, but we belong to Christ.

So 1 Corinthians 6, verses 18 through 20. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You may turn back to Exodus chapter 12 for our text this morning. If you are visiting this morning, we are working our way through the book of Exodus. And last Sunday, as we looked at the 10th and final plague, that the Lord brought upon the people of Egypt and that is the plague in which he killed all the firstborn of every Egyptian family and even the firstborn of the livestock and as we considered the Passover lamb whose blood saved the Israelites from that terrible plague the main lesson that we took from all of that was that as Christians our salvation is specifically a salvation from the judgment of God that we deserve because of our sin and guilt and we are delivered from that judgment by not the blood of a lamb smeared upon doorposts but we are delivered from that judgment by the blood of Jesus that was shed for us upon the cross.

So that was the lesson that we took from the Exodus last Lord’s Day and this morning as we continue to look at the Exodus and specifically the events of that final plague, the Passover, the killing of the firstborn, The main lesson that I want us to take from our passage today is this, that we have been saved by Christ. We have been delivered by Christ in order to belong to Christ, that we may be his, that we may no longer belong to ourselves, but that we may belong to him. And so we are not our own as Christians. We are not our own, but we belong to the Lord.

And we’ll proceed this morning by going through this passage and considering the details of what each section in this passage describes for us, and then we’ll give some thought to our overall lesson, which is that as Christians, we belong to Christ as our Savior and Lord. So first of all, in chapter 12, verses 29 through 32, we read about that terrible plague of killing the firstborn that the Lord brought upon the people of Egypt. and just as he promised that he would do, at midnight the Lord passed through the land of Egypt and he struck down all the firstborn of the families of Egypt. There were no exceptions. All the families of Egypt, all the way from the royal family of Pharaoh down to the family of the prisoner languishing in a dungeon, every single family was stricken with this most grievous judgment, and that is at midnight the firstborn in that family was killed, was struck down.

And the scene that Moses describes for us as we hear how he paints this picture, it’s a picture of utter sorrow and grief and misery In verse 30, he says, there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. What an awful judgment that the Lord brought upon the nation of Egypt, one by one, as each family woke up that night to discover that their father or son or mother or sister was dead. The anguished cries of one family joined to the cries and the wailing of all their neighbors until the whole land of Egypt was filled with the sound of pain and grief as they mourned the loss of these firstborn.

Several years ago, Robin and I had to go to the emergency room. I don’t even remember what it was for at this time, but we were being checked in by the admitting nurse, and while she was checking us in, she got a call on her phone, and she looked very concerned and said something like, What do you mean? What kind of complication? What’s the matter? And she abruptly left us and then about a minute later we could hear the sound of a grown man sobbing very loudly in a couple rooms from us. And of course we didn’t need to be told what happened. His sobbing told the story. Death had come to his family that night in the hospital. Imagine that sad scene multiplied by thousands and thousands as every family and an entire nation experienced the sudden death of at least one person in their home. Who could even bear to hear that sound, that wailing? What an awful tragedy.

And finally after this 10th plague, after this most terrible plague of all, finally Pharaoh gives in. He finally breaks. He can no longer refuse the Lord’s demand that he let the people of Israel go, that they can leave the land of Egypt. In fact, Pharaoh does not just let the people go, but he He urges them to go. He commands them to go. He says to Moses and Aaron in verse 31, up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, and go, serve the Lord as you have said. And then rather pathetically, at the very end, Pharaoh says to Moses and Aaron, he begs them to bless him. His last words to them in verse 32 are, and bless me also.

What a different Pharaoh than the Pharaoh we were first introduced to earlier in Exodus. That Pharaoh was proud, he was arrogant, he was defiant against the Lord. I do not know the Lord, he said. And now here he is, desperately begging the servants of the Lord that he might be blessed. And so here is that arrogant king of Egypt, suddenly reduced to nothing, begging Moses and Aaron to leave, begging him, begging them to take the people of Israel out of his nation, and to please bless me on the way out.

I would like to say that this brokenness on Pharaoh’s part was representative of a real change of heart. that he was a different man, that this was the fruit of a man who was genuinely repentant, but sadly we know that that is not the case. His heart was too hardened for that. As we’ll see, no sooner did the Israelites leave Egypt than Pharaoh changes his mind and he sets out after them with his army and chariots. He doesn’t want the people to leave after all. They’re too valuable. He wants his slaves back. Even the most painful Severus’ personal tragedy would not truly break his heart and draw him to the Lord. For some people, that’s true of them as well. Not even a tragedy as awful as what Pharaoh experienced will bring them to God, to consider the truth that they are accountable to Him, that they must respond by faith in Him.

But here’s a picture in the heart of Pharaoh of the dreadful power of sin over the human heart, what the heart is capable of that is hardened, that is not overcome by the grace of God. It will remain defiant and in rebellion against God even in the face of the most tragic circumstances. And as we consider the bigger picture here, this picture of wailing and sorrow, here is a picture of the grief, the pain, the endless sorrow that will overtake every person who refused to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in this life, and who therefore will be condemned and lost on the day of judgment when Christ comes to judge the worlds.

And just to remind ourselves of the lesson that we learned last week, that this judgment upon the Egyptians, it is a picture of that final judgment that will take place when Christ returns. And we see in the Exodus what our only hope of salvation is. The only thing that saved the Israelites from that judgment was the blood of the Lamb that was smeared on the doorposts and the lentils of their houses. And in the same way, the only thing that will save you and me from the judgment that is to come is the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus that was shed upon the cross. and that blood is yours. You are covered in that blood if your faith is in Christ, if you are resting in him by faith as your savior from sin and death.

In verses 33 and 36, moving down in chapter 12, after Moses describes the 10th plague, he goes on to tell us in those verses, 33 through 36, he tells us what happened when the Israelites finally left Egypt. He says in verse 33, the Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we shall all be dead. The Egyptians were urgent. They were forcing the people to leave. And so the Israelites had no time to prepare their bread in the usual way. They did not leaven their bread. They took the unleavened dough as it was, they slung their kneading bowls and bags across their backs, and they hurried on their way out of Egypt. However, they did have time to plunder the Egyptians of their silver and gold and clothing. And so again, this was in fulfillment of what the Lord had promised. The Egyptians willingly gave their treasures over to the Israelites. This was not theft, this was not robbery, but the Lord put it on the hearts of the Egyptians to give them these things. Perhaps the Egyptians were hoping to avert even worse calamities by giving these kind of peace offerings to the Israelites. Maybe this was the Lord’s way of finally forcing the Egyptians to pay for all this free slave labor that they’ve had all this time. But in any case, in this way, the Lord was providing for his people. He was providing for them for the wilderness years that lay ahead. And he was also providing for the people of Israel the materials, in part at least, that they would need in order to build the tabernacle of the wilderness.

And then moving on in our passage in verses 37 to 39, Moses tells us about the Exodus itself. He tells us that 600,000 Israelite men started out on their journey to the promised land. And this does not include the Israelite women and children. and it does not include what Moses calls a mixed multitude of people who went with them. These were people of other nations, people of other races, perhaps they were also slaves with the Israelites in Egypt. But in any case, the total number of people who escaped from Egypt that night was probably somewhere closer to two million people. And finally now, the Israelites are seen the fulfillment of all that they hoped for, the deliverance of God from Egypt. They had been there for 430 years. Just as the Lord had promised, the day of their salvation had come. They were leaving Egypt for freedom. Freedom from Pharaoh’s tyranny and freedom to serve and to worship the Lord as his people.

And so in the Exodus, the Lord was not only freeing his people, but he was taking them to himself. He was becoming the Lord, the master of his people in the fullest sense. He was freeing them from being slaves to Pharaoh in order that they would be his servants and worship him and serve him.

And that brings us to chapter 13 verses 1 and 2. And in these verses the Lord tells Moses that the Israelites were to consecrate all their firstborn both of man and beast to the Lord because they belong to the Lord. So look at verses 1 and 2 of chapter 13. The Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine. To consecrate means to set apart and to devote to the Lord. And so the Israelites were to devote their firstborn child, specifically their firstborn son, to God. And we have a famous example of this in the New Testament when Mary and Joseph, when they travel to Jerusalem with their firstborn son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they present him to the Lord there. When they did so, they were doing so according to this commandment in chapter 13.

And then Moses goes on to give more instructions about this consecration of the firstborn in verses 11 through 16. First, in verse 12, Moses says that all the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord. So all the firstborn of the animals that belong to the Israelites they belong to God. And so they were to give them to God through sacrifice. And we know it was by sacrifice that they were given to the Lord because in verse 15, the Israelite father says to his son, I sacrifice to the Lord, all the males that first opened the womb.

But you’ll notice that there was a different rule for the donkey. The donkey was not a clean animal, and therefore, being unclean, a donkey could not be sacrificed to God. It either had to have its neck broken, or it could be redeemed with a lamb. And so that means that if the owner of this firstborn donkey wanted it to live and to serve him, he had to sacrifice a lamb in the place of the donkey. And by this redemption, by the price that was paid in the blood of the lamb, the donkey was spared death and it became the property of the Israelite who then owned it and used it.

And you’ll notice that not only an unclean animal like a donkey needed to be redeemed, but so did every firstborn of the Israelites. Every firstborn son of the Israelites was to be redeemed. and it had to be redeemed rather than sacrifice or the baby had to be redeemed instead of sacrifice because according to God, child sacrifice, sacrificing a child to the Lord was an abomination. That was the evil practice that the pagan nations around the people of Israel engaged in for their gods, but the people of Israel were never to sacrificed their children to the Lord. Nevertheless, despite that, God still demanded that the Israelites acknowledge that this firstborn son was not theirs, but he belonged to God. He was the Lord’s. And the way that the Israelites acknowledged that was by redeeming their firstborn sons. And so when a firstborn son was born, The parents would redeem that son with money in order to acknowledge that the son belonged to God. But it was also a reminder of a far greater redemption. This individual redemption of the firstborn son was meant to remind the Israelites of the far greater redemption that took place on the night of the Exodus. The entire Exodus event was one great redemption. Back in chapter six in Exodus, the Lord told Moses that he was going to redeem his people out of Egypt. He used that word specifically, redeem. And so we think of Exodus in terms of deliverance or liberation. The people of Israel are set free from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and that’s what it was, of course. But it’s important to see that it was more than a mere deliverance. It was more than a mere liberation from their captors, but it was a redemption. a price had to be paid for the lives of the Israelites so that they could belong to God, be brought to Him and become His. And the price that was paid for the Israelites was the blood of the Lamb that was slain. That blood that was smeared on the doorposts that saved them from the plague of the death of the firstborn.

Earlier the Lord told Moses that he was to say these words to Pharaoh In Exodus chapter 4, we read this, verses 22 and 23, And so Israel was God’s firstborn son, and therefore the Exodus was God’s act of redemption redeeming his firstborn son from Egypt with the ransom or the redemption price of the blood of the Lamb and so again when the Israelites redeemed their firstborn sons they were reminded of this truth that they were all God’s firstborn son the entire nation was the firstborn son of Israel or the firstborn son of God whom the Lord redeemed from Egypt In Exodus chapter 13 verses 14 and 15 when his son asked his father what was the meaning of this redemption of the firstborn the father would explain that when the Israelites were rescued out of Egypt the Lord killed all the firstborn of Egypt and in the same way he laid claim to all the firstborn of the people of Israel in fact he laid claim to the entire nation they are my firstborn and for that reason the Israelites were to redeem their firstborn sons.

Let’s put this together and let’s draw from it the main lesson that I want us to take from all of this and that is this that in the Exodus, God was redeeming His people with the blood of the Lamb in order that they would be His, that they would belong to Him, that they would be the people who are the Lord’s, that they might worship Him, that they might serve Him in the land that He promised to give them. Again, their salvation from Egypt was not mere freedom in order that they could do whatever they want or serve whoever they will. but it was freedom from Egypt in order that they would serve the Lord, that they would worship Him, that they would be His servants.

And as Christians, the Bible tells us that our salvation is just the same. Your salvation as a believer in Christ is also a redemption. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Of course, as a believer in Christ, you have been redeemed by something far more precious, far more valuable than the blood of a lamb. You have been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Peter calls the precious blood of Christ. Can there be any conceivable price more costly, more valuable than the blood of the incarnate Son of God the blood of Jesus Christ of course there cannot be this is the most costly most precious thing imaginable that the son of God the son whom God loved from all eternity that he became man and his blood was shed his life was laid down in order that we might be redeemed that was the price that God paid for our redemption and it testifies to the unfathomable depths of the love of God for us as his people, that he did not withhold his only Son, he did not shrink back from the shedding of the blood of his dear beloved Son for us, for our salvation. He gave him up as a ransom for us all.

And because you have been redeemed by Christ, Because you have been purchased with nothing less than the blood of Jesus Christ, then therefore, as a Christian, you are not free to live however you will. You have not been set free in order to be your own person, to follow your own desires, but you have been set free in order to belong to Christ, to serve and to worship Him. And so as a believer in Jesus Christ, you belong to him, not only because he is the one who has created you, and that in itself is enough for you to worship and serve the Lord, but you belong to Christ because also he has redeemed you. He has made you his own by his death.

And that is the main truth and the lesson that I want us to take from this passage, that as a Christian, you are not your own. In fact, the entire lesson of the Exodus can be summed up in the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 14, seven and eight. For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

This is not the message that we hear from the world around us. The world around us proclaims to us in so many different ways a message that is opposite of what the message of the scriptures is, and that is this. You are your own. You belong to yourself. You are the captain of your soul, you are the sovereign lord of your life, and therefore you do live to yourself. And since you do live to yourself, since you belong to yourself, it is foolish and wrong for you to deny any desire that you might have to pursue. For example, this idea, this lie, lies at the very heart of our society’s wrong and false ideas about human sexuality. The world says your body belongs to you and you have a right to do with it what you will with whom you will. No one has the right to tell you what you can do with your body. And that idea that I have personal sovereignty over my body, that is the justification for so much sexual sin that has caused so much pain, misery, and destruction in our world today. In fact, it is with that particularly in view that the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6, he is speaking especially with sexual sin in view that he says that we are not our own. And so what the Bible is saying is the very first thing that we need to understand when it comes to our sexuality is this, that our bodies belong to Christ. They are not our own. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Your bodies belong to Christ because you have been purchased by the blood of Christ. So glorify God in your body.

But we can take this truth beyond that one aspect, this idea that we are sovereign over our lives, this becomes justification to living an entire life in every aspect merely to please myself. And this is the heart, This is the cry of the heart of the one who claims this autonomy, this sovereignty over self. I can live my life as I please. It is my life. No one can tell me what to do. If I want to devote my life to making money, then that’s my business and you have no right to tell me not to. If I want to live my life to satisfy my desires, that is my business. It’s my life. I will live it how I please. And for many people, The idea of a successful life is that they are able to come to the end of their life and to be able to say with Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. No one told me what to do. I forged my own path. I was my own Lord. I did it my way. That’s a powerfully seductive message. Our hearts respond. We’re attracted to that message. Be who you want to be. Live your life according to your desires. But like all of Satan’s lies, to believe it, to live a life according to that idea is to walk down the path that leads only to eternal death and destruction.

And as Christians, it may be easier for us to see among the unbelieving world how this idea that we belong to ourselves, that we are sovereign over ourselves, leads to such evil and sin. But let’s bring this closer to home. As Christians, we know that we belong to Christ, that we are his servants, but does your life reflect that truth? Are you devoting yourself entirely, every part of your life, to the service, to the worship of Christ? Do you live in such a way that you acknowledge that there is no compartment, no part of your life that does not belong to Jesus Christ, over which he is sovereign? or do you have some secret part that you are keeping for yourself, some area in your life that you are withholding from Christ, that you are sovereign over that little section of your life because you do not want to submit to His reign in that. As a Christian, that cannot be. The truth that you have been redeemed by the blood of Christ means that all that you are, all that you have belong to God. Everything, your body, your time, your money, your relationships, your online activity, your very life is not your own, but belongs to the Lord who redeemed you by his blood.

One Christian in history who lived his life as one who knew that he belonged to Christ was the great reformer John Calvin. And when you consider the amount, the intensity of the work that he did as a servant of Christ, it’s extraordinary. He was utterly devoted to serving the Lord with all the abilities and talents that God had given him. He was, of course, the pastor, the leader of the church in Geneva. He often preached daily throughout the week and twice on Sundays. He wrote commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. He wrote, of course, major theological works. He carried on correspondence with other reformers throughout Europe. The sheer volume of his labor is mind-boggling. When I compare myself to him, I’m 55 years old. I’ve already lived one year longer than John Calvin, but when I look at my own life, all I can say is I’ve dabbled in the ministry. I’ve served God rather half-heartedly. You look at someone who was devoted to Christ like he was. He did the work of three or four lifetimes of men. And of course Calvin did all this not because he was some kind of sick workaholic, but he did all that he did out of his devotion to Christ. And that devotion to his Savior is illustrated by his personal seal and motto. And that seal was a hand that was holding a heart. And the words next to the hand that was holding the heart in Latin said this, promptly and sincerely in the work of God. In other words, Lord, here is my heart. I give it to you promptly and sincerely. I devote, I consecrate myself to you entirely. And that should be the model, not just of some reformer from the 16th century. That should be the model of every believer. Every Christian should live by these words. Lord, here’s my life. Here are my abilities. Here are my gifts. Here is the strength, the energy, the time, the opportunities that you give them. I devote them all to you. I commit myself entirely to you, promptly and sincerely for your service, for obedience, for worship. You may do your good work in me and through me.

So the lesson of the Exodus, one lesson at least, is that we have been saved by Christ that we would belong to Him. We are His to serve Him. We are to consecrate ourselves to Him. But there’s also another truth that is here as well in that we belong to Christ and that is this. There is tremendous comfort. There is unspeakable comfort and encouragement knowing that we are the Lord’s, that we are God’s. and because we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, because we have been purchased by Him, we are His and nothing will ever separate us from the love that He has for us. Nothing will ever snatch us away from the hands of Christ in whom we dwell securely.

One of the great catechisms of the Reformation, the Heidelberg Catechism, the question and answer number one of the Heidelberg Catechism could almost be a commentary on what we’ve seen in the Exodus, on the spiritual significance of the redemption of the people of Israel. And I’ll just read the first question and answer, and as we prepare to come to the Lord’s table, I’ll conclude with that. So this is question one. What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins, with his precious blood a3nd has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my Heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him. Let’s pray.

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The Old Testament reading is Exodus chapter 12, verses 1 through 28. And this is God’s inerrant and infallible word. Exodus 12, 1 through 28. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month shall be for you the beginning of months.

It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father’s houses A lamb for a household, and if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons. According to what each can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire.

With unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.

In this manner you shall eat it, with your belt fastened your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in haste for it is the Lord’s Passover for I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments I am the Lord the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are and when I see the blood I will pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt this day shall be for you a memorial day and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations as a statute forever you shall keep it as a feast seven days you shall eat unleavened bread on the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses for if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days, but what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statute forever.

In the first month, From the 14th day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at evening. For seven days, no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native in the land. You shall eat nothing leavened.

In all your dwelling places, you shall eat unleavened bread. Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.

For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this right as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service?

You shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover. For he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses. and the people bowed their heads and worshipped. Then the people of Israel went and did so.

As the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

You can keep your place there and turn with me to the New Testament for our New Testament reading, 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 8. 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 8. The best Old Testament commentary is the New Testament.

And in this passage, the inspired Apostle Paul tells us the significance of the Passover lamb, that it was a type of the coming Christ who would be sacrificed for us. So 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 6 through 8. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You may turn back to Exodus chapter 12, the last Lord’s Day, In our look at the book of Exodus, we consider the 10 plagues as a whole or a unit. And this morning and next Sunday, Lord willing, we’ll give our attention, we’ll zero in on this 10th and final plague. Of course, this was the plague of the death of the firstborn in the land of Egypt. And so today and next week, we’ll focus on all the events surrounding this 10th and final plague.

And this morning our focus will be on the Passover, the Passover. So the word Passover actually refers to a couple of different things in this passage. First of all, it refers to the Lord’s going through the land of Egypt on that night and killing all the firstborn of the families of the Egyptians and killing all the firstborn of the livestock of the Egyptians. Of course, that is the tenth plague and instead of killing the firstborn of the Israelite families, when the Lord saw that there was the blood of the Lamb smeared on the doorposts and the lentils of their houses, he passed over that house and the destroying angel did not kill the firstborn in that home. And so the Passover refers both to that judgment against the Egyptians and to the salvation of the Israelite firstborn by the blood of the Lamb. But the Passover also refers to the celebration of that event, the ritual celebration that the Israelites were to have every single year. It was an annual commemoration of what God had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

And so in our passage in chapter 12, we see a description of both aspects of the Passover. both the actual event itself, when the Lord passed through the land of Egypt, but Passover, the Israelite homes, and the institution of that annual celebration, that ritual meal that the Israelites were to have each year. So the night of the first Passover, this was the great work of God’s salvation for His people in the Old Testament. Someone has described the Exodus event as the gospel of the Old Testament.

This is what the Israelites looked to when they praised God for their salvation. In particular, this last plague, this Passover, when the Lord destroyed the firstborn of the Egyptians and brought his people safely out of the land of Egypt. That was the night when they were truly set free from the bondage to Pharaoh. And as we look at the details of this passage, both of what it tells us about that Passover event itself and the ritual meal that the Lord describes for us in this passage, we’ll see that this passage sheds light upon the far greater salvation, the far greater work of redemption that God has done for us in His Son Jesus Christ.

And so as we look at this passage, we’ll see what light it sheds for understanding that that greater work of deliverance that God has accomplished for us. And as we proceed this morning, we’ll consider three major parts of the Passover. We won’t be able to explore all of the rich symbolism of everything that’s described for us in this passage, but we’ll consider three parts of the passage or the Passover.

First, the lamb. Secondly, the shed blood of the lamb. And thirdly, the holy meal. And so first, let’s consider the lamb, the lamb that was to be sacrificed.

After the ninth plague, which was the plague of darkness, the Lord said to Moses that there was yet one more plague. And he said that this final plague would be the one that would at last force Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go. In chapter 11, verse 1, the Lord says, when he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. And so this will be the plague that will finally break the back of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

This will be the one that is too much. Not only will they let the people go, but they will force them from the land. They will drive them away. And what is it that made this plague, unlike the earlier ones, so awful, so terrible, that Pharaoh would finally let the people go?

It was in this, that this plague, unlike the previous ones, this plague would bring death, would bring death on a large scale to the people of Egypt. In chapter 11 verses 4 through 6, Moses says to the people, thus says the Lord, about midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.

And so this plague will bring such devastation, such sorrow, such destruction upon the people of Egypt that finally they will let the people go. Every single firstborn will be destroyed. They’ll all be struck down dead in one night. Think of all the people you know who are firstborn.

They would all be dead. I myself, I would be dead. Robin’s not a firstborn, so you would still have her, so you have that consolation. But think about it.

Every family has someone in it who was the firstborn, and they would be struck down. And just like some of the earlier plagues, this final plague would strike only the Egyptians. The Israelites would be spared. However, unlike the earlier plagues in which the Lord spared the people of Israel from that plague.

In this particular plague, the Israelites would have to do something. The Lord calls them to take part, in a sense, in what He is doing in order that they may do something that He commands them in order to be saved from this plague. And what they would do is that they would sacrifice a lamb, they would smear the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and the lentils of their houses. The lintel, in case you’re not familiar with that term, that’s the frame that’s above the doorway.

And so the three parts of the frame of the doorway would be smeared with blood, the two doorposts and the lintel. And so when the Lord went out through the land of Egypt, he would see the lamb’s blood on the lintel and the doorposts of a house, and he would not allow the destroyer, probably an angel in the Lord’s service or perhaps the Lord himself, But the Lord would not strike down the firstborn in that home. And at the beginning of chapter 12, the Lord gives detailed instructions to Moses and Aaron about the lamb that they are to sacrifice and how they are to go about sacrificing this lamb.

And the most outstanding feature, the most significant feature of this lamb that was to be sacrificed was that it was to be a perfect specimen. There was to be no blemish on it, it was to have no defect. Chapter 12, verse 5, your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

And of course we know, as we have already heard from God’s own inspired commentary from 1 Corinthians, that this Passover lamb was a type, it was a picture of the coming Messiah, the coming Christ, who would be sacrificed for our salvation. John the Baptist, of course, understood this because when he saw Jesus, he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And just as the Passover Lamb had to be without blemish, had to be perfect, so too Christ, the Lamb of God, had to be without sin. And so he was.

Jesus was true man and yet by virtue of the fact that he was true God he was the incarnation of the Son of God by virtue of that and by virtue of the fact that Jesus as man was conceived not by man but by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary because of those things unlike every other human being who has ever lived Jesus was throughout his life entirely free from sin. He was morally pure. He was perfectly righteous.

Without even so much as a hint or shadow of imperfection, morally or spiritually, he was perfectly righteous. I mean, think about that. That’s something that’s almost impossible for our minds to truly grasp because in our own experience We have lived with sin in ourselves, we live with others who are sinners, this is all that we know from experience and yet here was a man, here was a human being whose every word, whose every action, whose every desire of his heart, whose every inclination of his heart was nothing but perfectly righteous and pure and holy.

He was truly a lamb without blemish. And part of the wonder of the gospel is that when God looks upon you as one who belongs to Christ by faith, because God has given you that righteousness of Jesus as your very own, when he looks at you As you are covered with Christ, He does not see your sin, your guilt, your impurity, and moral blemishes, but what He sees is the perfect righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. He sees you as you are in Christ, without blemish, holy, undefiled, innocent, unstained, morally, spiritually pure, even as Jesus is pure.

That Passover lamb without blemish was not only a picture of Jesus who would be without blemish, but also it was showing us that we in Christ would be without blemish as well. And so that is the lamb.

Let’s consider secondly, the blood of the lamb, the lamb’s blood that was shed. Once the Israelites had their lambs chosen on the night of the Passover, they were to slaughter the lamb and they The blood would be collected in a basin, and they were to take a bunch of hyssop.

A hyssop was a kind of shrub, and they would dip the hyssop into the blood in the basin, and then they would smear that blood on the doorposts and the lintels of their house. And so when the Lord went through the land of Egypt that night, He would see the blood of the lambs smeared on the doorposts of the Israelites’ houses, and He would pass over their homes. And the point of the blood was not because it was not that because blood is a bright red color that it would enable the Lord to see the blood on the house and to identify it as the house of an Israelite. The Lord didn’t need a visible mark to know that this particular house belonged to the Israelites.

But the point of the blood was to show that a death was necessary in order for the Israelites to be saved from this coming judgment of God. There had to be a death if they were to be spared the judgment of the death of their firstborn. And so the blood of the Lamb then in this way was indicating to the Israelites that their sin, their guilt could only be atoned for, they could only be forgiven, they could only escape the righteous judgment of God by the loss of life, by the shedding of blood. There had to be a life that was destroyed if they were to be saved.

Hebrews 9.22 says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And in this way, the Holy Spirit was indicating to the Israelites, and we see it clearly now in the light of the New Testament, that the Holy Spirit was showing forth by these types and shadows that the coming Messiah would bring them salvation. He would bring them salvation from the judgment of God by the shedding of blood, by the shedding of the blood of Christ himself. And of course, that’s just what Christ did when he came into the world.

He died for us. He died for sinners, for us. His blood was shed. And that’s why Paul calls Christ our Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for us.

And notice that the only thing that saved the people of Israel from the destroyer who from the destroyer who brought death to the firstborn of every house of the Egyptians. The only thing that saved them was the blood of the lamb that was smeared on their doorposts. The Lord didn’t pass over the houses of the Israelites and then think, oh this house belongs to an Israelite family, I will pass over it simply because they are Israelites. No, the blood had to be there.

It wasn’t because the Israelites had better morals than the Egyptians, or that they were somehow less prone to idolatry. It wasn’t because they were inherently more righteous than the Egyptians. There was no reason in the Israelite people themselves, not even the fact that they were Israelites. that caused the Lord to pass over their homes on that night of the Passover.

But it was the blood. It was the blood that was shed by the Lamb and smeared on their doorposts. That was what caused the Lord to pass over their homes and spare them that judgment. And the same is true For you and me, as believers in Jesus Christ, what separates you and me from the world that is perishing in their sin is not anything that is inherently in us, such as our own superior morality or our righteousness or that we are wiser than others or better than others or even that we have grown up in a Christian family or grew up going to church.

The Bible is clear that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is only one thing that separates you from the world that is perishing in sin. There is only one thing that saves you from your sin and guilt before God and that is the blood of Christ shed for you.

You are covered by His blood. That is the only thing by which we are saved. And so the blood of the Lamb taught the Israelites that if they are to be saved from the judgment of God, the blood had to be shed and they had to be covered with that blood. And so they were.

The third part of the Passover we’ll consider is this meal, the Passover meal, the Holy Meal. As you know, this week is the 4th of July. It’s coming up. And for our nation, the 4th of July is our Independence Day.

We celebrate as Americans the day that we proclaimed our independence from the tyranny of the King of England. And of course, we celebrate our Independence Day with fireworks. That’s our national tradition. People of Israel had their own Independence Day as well.

It was the night that they were set free at last from the tyranny of the king of Egypt. And God not only gave them salvation that day, but God also gave them the specific way in which they were to commemorate that salvation, the way in which they were to celebrate that salvation. It wasn’t with fireworks, but he gave them a holy meal, a meal that they were to repeat year after year after year to remember and give thanks to God for their deliverance. And every part of the meal would remind the Israelites of their experience in Egypt, their suffering, and of the salvation that the Lord worked for them.

The lamb of the blood would remind them of the blood that they smeared on their doorpost. The unleavened bread would remind them that they left Egypt in a great hurry that night. The bitter herbs would remind the Israelites of the bitterness of their suffering as slaves under Pharaoh. And so the Passover meal testified to the Israelites of what the Lord had done for them, what he had rescued them from in Egypt.

And the Lord wanted the Israelites to remember that year after year after year. That’s one thing that’s impressed upon us as we read this chapter, as we read this passage that God intended the Passover event and the whole exodus along with it to be remembered, to be celebrated, and to be remembered by his people from that time forth and far, far into the future. In knowing that, then, this explains kind of a curious feature about this passage.

And that is this, that right here, in the middle of the ten plagues, the exodus and all of that, right here in the midst of God’s dealings with Pharaoh and the Egyptians, He gives Moses, he gives the Israelites these detailed instructions about the yearly observance of the Passover. Starting in verse 14, the Lord gives instructions on how the Passover was to be prepared. He gives instructions about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that week-long feast that followed the Passover, how it was to be observed year after year. And when you read it, it seems kind of out of place.

Later in Exodus, we’ll read about all kinds of ceremonial laws that the Lord gave to Moses, and of course, later in the Old Testament. There’s all kinds of ceremonial ritual laws that the Lord gave to Moses. But here are these instructions right in the middle, right at the peak of the Israelites about to be, you know, all that they’re experiencing in the ten plagues, and they’re about to be delivered from Egypt, and yet he gives them these instructions right here. We can almost imagine Moses saying something like, Can’t all these instructions wait until later?

We have our plate full right now. We just want to get out of here alive. But the Lord wanted to impress on his people in the strongest, strongest possible way that the salvation that he was about to accomplish for them that night, that they were to remember it as a people, that they were to commemorate it, that they were not to fail to celebrate the Passover with this Holy meal year after year after year.

And so the Lord instituted this ritual meal. So year after year, decade after decade, century after century, the people of God would celebrate the Passover just as it was dictated to them by the Lord through Moses. But the Passover meal was never meant to continue to the end of time. And that’s because it was not only a commemoration of what God did for his people in bringing them out of Egypt, but the Passover was also anticipatory.

It was looking forward to the greater work of salvation that the Lord had always planned to accomplish for his people through the coming Messiah, the Christ. And for that reason, then, it was at the Passover meal, when Jesus, on the last night, on this earth before his crucifixion. He was having that last supper, the Passover meal with his disciples. And he says to his disciples, after he picks up the cup, he says, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood, the new covenant in my blood.

From that point on, the saving grace of God for his people would no longer be mediated or shown forth through the blood of a lamb but from that point on there would be a greater sacrifice there would be greater blood that would be shed for the people of God by which God would bring salvation to his people there would be a greater covenant that God would enter into with his people and that is through his son Jesus Christ from that point on it would be the blood of Jesus the blood, the only blood that can truly take away our sin and our guilt forever. And so God, from that point on, with the coming of Christ, has entered into a greater covenant with us by the blood of his son Jesus.

And so as Christians then, as those who have been saved by the blood of Christ, as those who belong to this new covenant, we don’t celebrate the Passover meal. but we have entered into the reality of everything that that meal was pointing forward to with the coming of Christ but we do celebrate a ritual meal we do have a sacred meal that God has given to us and that is the Lord’s Supper that is the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ that saves us from our sins that we are to remember to celebrate as the people of God today one of the functions of the yearly remembrance of the Passover was that it was meant by God to confirm the Israelites in their identity as God’s people, to sustain them in that, that they were truly the people of God.

They were God’s chosen, beloved people. They were not like all the nations around them, but they were special. They belonged to the Lord. and this Passover ceremony even had built into itself a way in which this identity as the people of God would be passed on to future generations.

Moses instructed the people at this Passover meal in verses 26 and 27, When your children say to you, What do you mean by this service? You shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover. For He passed over the houses of the people of Israel and Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians, but spared our houses. And so God gave the Israelites this yearly Passover feast, this holy meal, to shape them in their identity as the people of God, to confirm that they belong to the Lord, that they were saved by His grace, and to pass along that identity to future generations.

And the Lord’s Supper serves a similar purpose for us as the people of God today. It is a means, or one means, that God has given to us to remind us, to confirm to us who we are as believers in Christ, that we belong to Christ, that we are saved by the death of Christ, that we are the Lord’s, that we are not of this world, but that we belong to our Savior Jesus. And so God gives us the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to confirm to us, to remind to us over and over and over again who we are, that we are the chosen, the beloved people of God whom he has saved through his son Jesus.

Another lesson that the Passover meal teaches us is about the nature of faith, of true saving faith in the Lord. The Israelites, they were saved from their bondage to Pharaoh by believing in the Lord, by entrusting themselves to Him, by believing His promises, we could say that they were saved by faith apart from works. That is very true. However, they demonstrated the genuineness of their faith and hope in the Lord by their obedience to His commandments.

Again, with this plague, The Lord gave the Israelites something that he required them to do. They were to kill this lamb, to smear the blood on their doorposts. And so they did this by faith. By faith they sacrificed the lamb, by faith they smeared the blood on their homes.

Hebrews 11.28 speaks of this faith. It speaks of Moses saying, by faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer, the firstborn, might not touch them. The Israelites were given very detailed instructions that they were to obey regarding the Passover meal, right down to the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs that they were to eat with the lamb. And Moses tells us that the Israelites were obedient.

They did what the Lord commanded them. In verse 28 we read, Then the people of Israel went and did so. As the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. They went and did so, and that was by faith, by trusting in the Lord they went and did what the Lord commanded.

And so, again, the Israelites were saved entirely by the grace of God, but they received that salvation by a faith that was shown or a faith that produced or resulted in the fruits of obedience. Think of what would have happened had the Israelites presumed upon the grace of God, had they failed to do what the Lord told them to do. If they did not kill the Passover lamb, if they did not smear its blood on their doorposts, what would have happened? The Lord would have passed over Egypt, or passed through Egypt, and he would have destroyed the firstborn of the Israelites as well.

They would have suffered the same judgment of God that the Egyptians did. and in the very same way as a believer in Jesus Christ, your salvation is entirely by the grace of God. You have been saved by the sovereign work of Christ and his shedding his blood for you that you might be redeemed. And that salvation is yours as you put your faith, your trust, your hope in the Lord Jesus Christ as you rest in him as your savior.

But that faith in Christ that saves you is a faith by which you will also seek to obey the Word of God. And there are so many ways that God calls us to obey Him. He calls us to hear His Word, to hear the preaching of His Word, to take part in His worship with the people of God, to pray, to repent of sin. God gives us His holy commandments that we are to obey.

The faith of the Israelites was proved by their obedience to God’s Word, and by that faith they were saved, and your faith as well in Christ. You are justified by faith apart from works, but that faith is demonstrated, it is shown forth in obedience to the Word of God. Not perfect obedience, but a sincere obedience from the heart. And that is the nature of the faith that saves us, the faith in Christ that brings us salvation.

And so the Israelites in the Passover show us the true nature and character of the faith that brings salvation to us. It responds to the word of God with belief and obedience. Now at this time, if you happen to be in Egypt at this time, and if you asked a typical Israelite who was about to be saved from Egypt, if you were to ask him, what is it that you need to be saved from? That Israelite would look at you, probably, like you were asking the dumbest question in the world, and he would say, what do I need to be saved from?

Isn’t it obvious? We are in this miserable condition as slaves to Pharaoh. He is a despot. He is a tyrant.

He has murdered our children. He has made our lives intolerable. We need to be saved from Pharaoh and from this terrible situation that we’re in. And of course, mostly, he would be correct.

But when you think about it, the Israelites’ plight as slaves doesn’t really explain the Passover. If slavery was their biggest problem, then why the blood of the lamb? Why the killing of the lamb, the shedding of its blood? Why smearing the blood on the doorposts for the Lord to see?

In all of these things in the Passover were meant to teach the Israelites this lesson that though yes the Lord was about to deliver them from their bondage to Pharaoh, he was about to rescue them from their miserable slavery, he was going to show them good in doing that. However, their greatest problem, the greatest problem that the Israelites had was not their slavery to Pharaoh, but their slavery to sin. They needed redemption above all else, from sin, from guilt, from the judgment of God that was coming.

And this is the main lesson I want to leave with you today from this passage of Exodus. And that is, as a Christian, to be saved is to be saved from sin and death. As Christians, we naturally speak of salvation. I have been saved.

The Lord has saved me. Sometimes we need to ask, from what? From what have we been saved? And the answer is, we have been saved from the judgment of God that is ours by nature because of our sin.

And we need to hear that because just like the Israelites at that time, when we think about our lives and what we want salvation from, the first thing that often comes to our mind is that we want to be saved from whatever suffering or affliction or hardship or maybe even inconvenience that we are struggling with in this world. But just as the Israelites’ slavery and misery was awful and as horrible as it was, it was not the thing from which they needed salvation most of all. So what you and I need to be saved from above all else is not whatever affliction or hardship or suffering we might endure in this life, but our greatest and most urgent need is to be delivered from the tyranny of sin, to be saved from the judgment of God that comes as a result of sin.

We need to be made right with God, to be brought to God, to be delivered from the power of sin, from the guilt of sin. And when you come to see that, when you come to see that salvation that Christ came into the world to accomplish for us, You really see then the truth of the gospel and the wonder of the gospel and the glory of the gospel. And you see more clearly that it is good news.

It is the best news that we could possibly hear. That Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that he gave himself up for us all, that he willingly offered his body upon the cross to be broken, his blood to be shed, that our sin might be taken away, that we might be forgiven, that God in His wrath and His judgment might pass over us, that we might be covered by His blood. And this is the salvation that Christ came to give us.

This is why we praise God for His love, His mercy, His compassion, because He has forgiven our sins. He’s given us new life. and he has done this because he has given us the true Lamb of God, the true Passover Lamb, the one who takes away the sins of the world. Let’s pray.

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Our first passage from Exodus is Exodus, Chapter 7, verses 14 through 25. Let’s give our attention now to the reading of God’s holy and inerrant word.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. But so far you have not obeyed.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord. Behold, with the staff that is in my hand, I will strike the water that is in the Nile and it shall turn into blood. The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink. And the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.'”

And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their canals and their ponds and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood. And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.'”

Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile. And all the water in the Nile turned into blood. And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house. And he did not take even this to heart. And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile. Seven full days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile.

And now turn to chapter 11, verses 1 through 10. Chapter 11, verses 1 through 10. The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor for silver and gold jewelry.”

And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt and in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of his people. So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘About midnight, I will go out in the midst of Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill. And all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, and such as there has never been nor ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast. That you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.”

And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh. And the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

And now let’s turn to the New Testament for our New Testament reading. This is Second Thessalonians, chapter 1, verses 5 through 12. Second Thessalonians 1, 5, 12. As we’ll see, the ten plagues are a picture of the day of judgment that will take place when Jesus returns. It will be a day of judgment for those who have not repented and come to faith in Christ, but a day of salvation for those who belong to Christ. And our chapter or our passage from First Thessalonians describes that to us. So, First Thessalonians or Second, I’m sorry, Second Thessalonians, chapter 5. Second Thessalonians, chapter 1, verses 5 through 12. Second Thessalonians, Chapter 1, verses 5 through 12.

“This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering. Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted, as well as to us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed. Because our testimony to you was believed to this end. We always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Let’s turn back to Exodus, Exodus, chapter seven. This will be the main passage that we’ll focus on this morning.

When I was a kid, one of the constant jokes that I heard, a joke that I got tired of really fast, was that some kid would come up to me and he would say, “Beam me up, Scotty.” And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, probably you’re under the age of 40 or so. But “beam me up, Scotty” was a phrase from the old TV show Star Trek. When somebody from the crew of the spaceship USS Enterprise was out visiting a planet or some other place and he needed to get back to the spaceship, he would open up his little radio transmitter and he would say to the spaceship’s engineer, whose name was Scotty, he would say, “Beam me up, Scotty.” And that person would be instantly transported from wherever he was back to the spaceship.

Now, God is all powerful and he can do anything that he wills. And we might wonder why, instead of these ten plagues, God simply didn’t beam up his people or beam them away into the wilderness, or perhaps even beam them straight into the promised land. That certainly would have caused or would have saved the Israelites a lot of trouble. It would have saved the Egyptians a lot of misery. And God certainly could have done that. God is omnipotent. That would have been no problem for him at all.

But the Lord has an infinitely wise and a holy and good purpose for all that he does and for the way he does what he does. And we know what his purpose was in delivering his people from the land of Egypt through this means, through these 10 terrible plagues that he inflicted on the Egyptians. We know what God’s purpose was in doing this. Because throughout this passage, or throughout the account of the ten plagues, the Lord declares over and over again what his purpose is. And that is that the Egyptians would come to know that he is the Lord, that He will make Himself known in this way.

For example, in chapter 7, verse 5, the Lord says this: “The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel, Israel among them, that they will know that he is the Lord.” Back in chapter five, verse two, Pharaoh said to Moses and Aaron, he said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. And moreover, I will not let him go.”

And so Moses at first, or rather Pharaoh at first, he declares that he does not know the Lord. But by the end of the 10 plagues, Pharaoh receives quite an education in the knowledge of God. And he comes to know the Lord. Sadly for him, not in a way that brings salvation, but in a way that forced him to acknowledge that the Lord, that he is the true God of heaven and earth, and he is the true king and ruler over the Egyptians and over all people. The Israelites as well would come to know the Lord better as a result of the 10 plagues. They would come to know the Lord as their powerful and gracious savior. And God’s will in the 10 plagues was not just that the Pharaoh and the Egyptians then, and the Israelites then, that they would come to know the Lord, but his purpose was that all people at all times and all places would know that the Lord, the God of Israel, that he is the true God. He is the maker of, and ruler and judge of heaven and earth.

And so God was making himself known to all people through these 10 plagues. And you see that purpose of God in the words that the Lord spoke to Moses in chapter nine, verse 16. I’ll read that verse. The Lord says, “But for this purpose, I’ve raised you up.” He’s speaking to Pharaoh. “But for this purpose, I’ve raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

In other words, the Lord is declaring, here, I have raised up Pharaoh. I have hardened his heart so that I would bring all of these terrible plagues upon him and his people. So that, so that all the earth from this time forth and forevermore may know my name, that I am the Lord. And so these plagues are recorded for us here in Scripture. That you and I today may know better the character, the purposes, who God is.

And in particular, there are three truths concerning God that are revealed to us in these ten plagues. One, the Lord alone is God of heaven and earth. Secondly, two, the Lord will judge sin and unbelief. And three, the Lord will save his people. So we’ll consider those three truths about God, how he reveals those to us in these 10 plagues. But before we get to these three truths, let’s summarize what happens during the 10 plagues. Let’s just look at what happens here as an overview to see, to understand the context of these truths that the Lord reveals to us.

So let’s first set the stage. We’ve been going through Exodus, so you’re familiar with what’s happening here. But at this point in the history of God’s people, the people of Israel, they have been in Egypt about 400 years. They are in abject slavery to the Egyptians. They are suffering intensely. And the current king of Egypt, Pharaoh, he has made their life even more miserable because he was afraid that the people of Israel would continue to multiply and that they would even become a threat to the Egyptians. Probably his main concern, that they would become a threat to his own rule. For that reason, Pharaoh decided to institute a policy that by which he would decrease the number of the Israelites, and that would be by murdering the baby boys that were born to the Hebrews. Of course, this proved to be a vain effort. The people kept multiplying.

Later, Pharaoh laid on the Israelites an impossible burden. He would no longer give them straw to make bricks, but they had to continue to make the same number of bricks as they were always forced to make. But now they had to go out and get their own straw. And inevitably, when they failed to meet their daily quota of bricks, Pharaoh’s taskmasters would mercilessly beat the Israelite foreman. And so the suffering of the Israelites was extremely severe under this Pharaoh.

In the meantime, God had spoken to Moses. He had commissioned Moses and his brother Aaron to be the leaders who would bring the people of Israel out of Egypt. They were to lead God’s people out of Egypt, and ultimately they would be led into the promised land, into Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. And there they would worship and serve the Lord as a free people. And at the time that Moses or that God first spoke to Moses at the burning bush about this deliverance, that he would work for his people. The Lord declared to Moses that he would force Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go only after he had done his wonders in the land of Egypt. And so the Lord said to Moses in Exodus 3:20, “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. After that, he will let you go.” And so these wonders are what we call the ten plagues. And so it had been God’s purpose. It had been his will this whole time to bring his people Israel out of Egypt as a result of these 10 plagues or these wonders that he would inflict upon the Egyptians.

Perhaps some of you have memorized the 10 plagues. I don’t know if anyone here has ever done that. Perhaps you still remember what they are, but if not, I’ll refresh your memory. First of all, there was the first plague. The Nile was turned to blood, and we’ll consider that a little bit this morning. Secondly, the second plague. Frogs covered the land. They were in the houses, the bedrooms, even the beds of the people. If I was an Egyptian, that’s about the time I would have started to pack my bags after that plague. But there was more. The third plague was gnats. The fourth was flies. The fifth plague was death upon the livestock of the Egyptians. God sent a plague upon them so that they died. With the sixth plague, the Lord now touches the bodies of the Egyptians. They are afflicted with painful boils that break out on their bodies. And also they also afflict the remaining livestock in Egypt. The seventh plague was hail. I suppose if you’ve ever lived in Texas or Oklahoma, the thought of a plague of hail would cause you to tremble. The eighth plague were locusts. And here is a plague that we’ve seen, in a sense, repeated throughout history at different times. Sometimes you hear about in some place in Africa or somewhere where massive numbers of locusts will descend upon some area. They’ll eat every green thing in sight, then they’ll fly away. And almost invariably, the word that’s used to describe that is biblical because it conjures up this image of this plague of locusts that destroyed Egypt. The tenth plague, or the ninth plague rather, was three days of absolute darkness, a darkness that can be felt. The Bible describes it to us. And then finally, the 10th plague, the worst plague. This is when the Lord brings death to the people of Egypt. Every firstborn and every family of Egypt, every firstborn of all the animals of Egypt is struck down when the Lord or the angel of the Lord passes over Egypt.

Now, the Bible uses different words to describe these plagues. In fact, the word plague is just one of the words that it uses. But the most important thing about these plagues is that they are referred to as wonders, as we’ve seen, or signs and wonders. And that indicates that these were plagues that were brought about directly by the hand of God upon the people of Egypt. So some people have denied that. Some people have read the 10 plagues in the Bible, and they have attempted to come up with natural explanations for the 10 plagues, natural events that they say were interpreted by the Israelites as a supernatural work of God. For example, with the first plague, the Nile turning into blood, they say there was sediment in the Nile river. And the Israelites, when it turned red, the Israelites mistook that for blood. But the only way that a person could believe that sort of naturalistic explanation is to deny what the scriptures plainly declare to us about each one of these plagues. And that is this, that it is God who brings them. It is God who caused them to come to the land of Egypt. He did it by his supernatural, by his divine power.

And really that’s the whole point, that’s the message, or at least one of the points, that the Lord is communicating through these plagues. And that is this, that he is God. He is the one who contains the power, the might to inflict these plagues upon the Egyptians. He can do whatever he wills with his creation because he is the Creator and the Lord of all. And that truth leads us, or that leads us to the first truth that the Lord reveals concerning himself through these plagues. And that is this, that the Lord alone, God alone, is the God of heaven and earth.

One of the most important things to understand about the 10 plagues, to really understand what is going on here, is this, that these were not just disasters that God inflicted upon the people of Egypt in order to cause them suffering and misery, which they did, of course. But these plagues were specifically designed by God to impress upon the Israelites and the Egyptians that the God of Israel, that he was infinitely superior to and more powerful than the so called various gods of the Egyptians. In other words, God was not just defeating the Egyptians through these 10 plagues, but he was bringing to nothing the gods of Egypt, the gods who truly were nothing because they were false gods.

This is the Bible’s own interpretation of the ten plagues. In Numbers 33, 4 we read this, “The Egyptians were burying all their firstborn whom the Lord had struck down among them on their gods. Also the Lord executed judgments.” So this was a judgment not only against the people of Egypt, but against their gods. And he was demonstrating through these plagues just how empty, how powerless, how vain were all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon. And at the same time, just how powerful, how almighty was the one true God, the God of Israel, the Lord.

It appears that even the magicians of Egypt came to recognize this truth despite themselves. After the third plague, the plague of gnats, the Egyptians were not able to reproduce that plague with their secret demonic arts. And they said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” We recognize. This is the work of the true God.

Now, in this first plague, this plague that the Lord turned, where he turned the waters of the Nile into blood. The fish died, the water became undrinkable. The water stank because of the rotting corpses of the fish. In this plague, God was declaring his superiority over the gods of the Nile that the Egyptians worshiped. The Egyptians, of course, depended upon the Nile for their livelihood, for their existence. And so they ascribed the powers of the Nile river to give them life. They ascribed that to certain gods of the Nile. And one God in particular was the God Hapi. And they considered him to be the one who somehow produced the Nile river for them. And of course, when God made the Nile river turn into blood, he was demonstrating, not Hapi, but I, the Lord and the true God of the Nile.

In the second plague, when the Lord brings millions of frogs into the land and then he takes them away, he was demonstrating his power over a particular goddess that the Egyptians worshiped, the goddess Heqet. H. E. Q. E. T. She was a fertility goddess. She was portrayed in the form of a frog. And so with the second plague, the Lord was showing his power over this goddess. The plague of darkness was a defeat of the Egyptian sun God, Ra or Re. And more examples could be given of all of the various gods that the Egyptians worshiped. That each one of these plagues, plagues, one way or the other, was showing the Egyptians that these gods are powerless to do what you claim that they can do.

After the Exodus, when the Lord gave his ten commandments to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai in the wilderness, the very first commandment that he declared to the people was, “You shall have no other gods before me.” And all of the people that heard the voice of the Lord say that from the mountain, they could have said amen. Because they saw with their very eyes that the gods of the Egyptians, the idols, that they were no gods, that only God the Lord was worthy to be worshiped, that there should be no other gods before him. And so the God not only brought destruction to the Egyptians, but he, humiliated, he brought to nothing their gods when he brought his people out of Egypt.

And one lesson that the 10 plagues has for us today, with all of that in view, is that the one true God who had made himself known in these plagues to the Egyptians and Israelites, that he has made himself known in one way today, that is, through his son, Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ, he as the Son of God, as God himself, He is the Lord. He is the true God. And a day will come when Christ will openly bring to nothing all the false gods of the various religions and worldviews of our world today.

The 10 plagues, they show just how false the notion is that every religion or every worldview is equally valid. And that there is no particular religion or God or worldview that can claim an absolute, that can claim to be absolute and true for all people. That’s a popular idea today. But that notion should have been put to rest forever in Egypt with the 10 plagues, because the Lord showed that he was the one who was truly God, not the gods of the Egyptians. And today, Jesus Christ, he is the one true and living God. He may not be confessed and acknowledged by atheists or Muslims or Jews or Hindus, but just as the Lord was the God who ruled over Egypt despite all of their gods that they worshiped and served, just as it was the Lord who was the true God over Egypt, so Christ is the Lord. He is the true God who rules over all people, whether they are atheists or Muslims or Jews or Hindus. He is truly God. And this will be acknowledged to all one day when the the Lord Jesus Christ returns from heaven to be the judge of all people, he will make it known that he is truly the Lord.

But there’s a way in which he makes this known to us even today. A way that is very different from the judgment that is to come. And that is that Christ, he alone gives life and peace and joy to all who come to him in faith. And only Christ can do this. There is no God, the God of our own making, the God of a false religion. There is no idol. There is no worldview. There is no philosophy that can bring us everlasting joy, peace in life. There is no other way that our sins can be forgiven except through Christ. There is no other way for us to attain eternal life except through Christ. And only Jesus can do this, because only Jesus is the true God. Only he is the Lord.

And so the same Lord who revealed himself to the Egyptians through these 10 plagues as the one who is God over all. We see him now, today, by faith in Jesus Christ. He is the true God of all. And he is the only God who can forgive our sins and give us eternal life. And so the Lord reveals himself as the true God of heaven and earth in these plagues. And the next truth that the Lord shows himself in these, that the Lord reveals in these plagues is that He Will judge sin and unbelief.

One of the themes that runs throughout these 10 plagues is the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart. And we, we considered that Last Lord’s Day. So we won’t spend a lot of time on that this morning. I’ll just say a few words about it. You’ll remember from Last Lord’s day that it was the Lord who hardened Pharaoh’s hearts. But at the same time, when we read through the account of the ten plagues, the Lord hardened his own hearts. And the plagues were an increasingly severe judgment against Pharaoh and against the Egyptians for their continued hardness of heart. In other words, Pharaoh and the Egyptians, they, they were guilty for hardening their own hearts. And as they responded in unbelief to these plagues, their hearts became hardened. They became more guilty of their unbelief. And so the Lord, through Moses and Aaron, he would demonstrate his power. He would testify to the truth of who he was through each successive plague. But without fail, Pharaoh would refuse to let the people go. He would not bend, he would not soften his heart. He would not accept the truth.

Sometimes he would say in the midst of the plague that yes, he will let the people go. At one point at least, and maybe more, he even admits that he had sinned. But then, as soon as the plague stops, he changes his mind and he continues in his stubborn ways. And so each plague was a judgment against Pharaoh for his hardness of heart, for continuing in his unbelief, despite the testimony that he was receiving from God of the truth of God.

And what is so tragic today is that you see this very same thing repeated. You see it on a national level. A nation, a people, will be struck with a great calamity or tragedy. And rather than turning to God with repentance and belief and father faith in Christ, they will continue in their sin, they continue in their unbelief. And until God in his mercy brings true repentance, that sin and unbelief will only increase until the final judgment comes. This dynamic is true on an individual level as well. An unbeliever, one who has not embrace the truth of the gospel. He is struck with a terrible sickness or personal tragedy, and yet he refuses to turn to Christ. In humility and repentance he hardens his heart.

Some of you will remember the atheist Christopher Hitchens. He died of cancer. But he said in the course of that cancer, he said that if he became a Christian, then we would know for sure that the cancer had spread to his brain. At that point he, as far as we know, he never repented, softened his heart toward the gospel. But sadly, that is the attitude of many who suffer. They will not allow their suffering to bring them to a place where they acknowledge that they are but creatures, God, that they are accountable to him, that they must repent of their sin and come to Christ in faith. But rather they harden their hearts, they become proud. Some who have faced death have rallied their hearts with a poem by William Ernest Henley, a poem called Invictus. Part of how the poem goes is, “It matters not how straight the gates, how charged the punishments, the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.”

At the final judgments when there is no more possibility of repentance, when the day has passed for someone to turn to Christ, they will discover to their horror, as Pharaoh did, that they are not the master of their faith, they are not the captain of their souls. And that is one of the key lessons that we must learn from the ten plagues. And this is the truth that we must communicate to the world. Speaking the truth in love, but speaking the truth that God will bring unrepentant sinners into judgment. There is truly a terrifying and awful and an eternal consequence for sin and unbelief, and that is that the one who dies in his sin will suffer God’s wrath forever, what Second Thessalonians calls the punishments of eternal destruction. That is a truth that we as Christians, as the Church, have come to believe. And that is a truth that as the Church, we must communicate to a world perishing apart from Christ.

One of the hallmarks of unbelief is to deny that reality, to deny the reality of a coming judgment that God will bring into judgment every person who has ever lived, and that the outcome of that judgment will be heaven or hell. And I believe that one reason why biblical Christianity is not real popular in our day and age, in our cultural time, is because we have convinced ourselves as a people that there is no coming judgment. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that that is just a fiction, that there is no judgment to come. Or perhaps we have simply distracted ourselves sufficiently so that we do not think about it or reckon with it. But whatever the reason, we are not moved by the prospect that one day there will be a judgment for each one of us. And for someone who has denied that reality, for someone who refuses to accept that truth, their thinking is, if there is no judgment, then why do I need a savior? And sadly for many people, that is the way that they think.

But the 10 plagues are a reminder to us that there is a judgment to come. And as the church with that in view, our message to the world is not just that sin is wrong. Of course that is true. Sin is wrong. It disbelieves pleases God. But our message is not just that this particular activity or that particular activity is sinful. Of course we communicate that. But the whole message is this, that our sin is not just wrong, but it brings upon us the judgment of a holy and righteous God. That our sin will bring down upon us the wrath of God if we do not repent and turn to Christ. In other words, the problem of sin is not just that it is immoral, it is but sin is self destructive because the result of sin is judgment, eternal death. And we have to view the gospel terms of that reality as well.

The Gospel is not the good news that God has given up on judging sinners, because God cannot do that. The Gospel is not good news that God now simply looks the other way and does not consider our sin to be worthy of condemnation. But the Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that He took upon himself this judgment that you and I deserve because of our sin. In the 10 plagues we get this unforgettable picture of the wrath of God. The wrath of God poured out upon a people because of their sin and wickedness and unbelief. And it is that wrath that Jesus himself bore upon the cross. He died the cursed death of the cross. He received in himself that judgment of God, not because of his sin, because he was sinless, but for the sin of all who come to him in faith and put their trust in him. And this is the good news for you as a Christian, that if your trust is in Jesus Christ, it is not that your sin has not been dealt with, but the good news is that your sin has been dealt with. Your guilt has been judged and condemned. But Jesus took it for you. And that God gives you the righteousness, the innocence, the purity of Jesus as your very own.

One of the great things about the biblical account of the 10 plagues is the that even as God was bringing down his judgment upon Pharaoh in Egypt with these disasters, that along the way he tempered his judgments. He tempered his judgments with mercy and patience. And you see this in the way that the plagues gradually increase in intensity. The first plague, to be sure, it would not have been a picnic. The Nile river is turned to blood. All the water in Egypt has turned to blood. But you’ll notice that the people did find water by digging into the ground near the Nile. So God showed his mercy in that it was not an absolute plague that destroyed them. But gradually the plagues became worse. The first plague we might consider to be a major inconvenience, but it’s followed by plagues that are much worse. Misery of having frogs crawl all over the land, and then gnats and flies. The fifth plague, the livestock is killed. The sixth plague, the Egyptians are struck with boils. And then finally, worst of all, the 10th plague. Every single family experiences the death of the firstborn.

And after every plague, there was a pause. There was a pause in which Pharaoh could have repented. The Egyptians could have repented. And because God is just and righteous, had Pharaoh repented and turned from his evil ways, he would have relented, the plagues would have stopped. But there’s a lesson here for us in this, and that is when God in his providence, when he brings about a great tragedy in the world, a tragedy such as a tsunami or an earthquake that brings death and destruction, the thousands of people, that is a picture in time of the coming judgment of God. But at the very same time, it is God graciously sending a message to the world. And that is this. Be warned, world, be warned by this that a greater judgment is coming. You haven’t perished. And while you live and have breath, there is still time for you to repent, to come to God by faith in Christ. Jesus taught this. He taught about the tower of Siloam that fell on 18 people and killed them. And Jesus said, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” And so, even in a horrific calamity that the Lord in his providence brings into the world, there is still a stream of mercy and grace that goes alongside of that. For those who are not destroyed by it, God has a purpose, a message in it. And it is this. There is still time. Repent. A greater judgment is coming. You yet one more plague is coming. But there is still time to come to me. And so the 10 plagues teach us that the Lord will judge sin and unbelief.

And the third truth that the Lord reveals here in these plagues is that the Lord will save his people. And so we have been focusing on the judgment, the plagues that the Lord brought upon the people of Egypt. But that’s only part of the story. The other part of the story is a story of redemption that the Lord worked through these plagues to Bring the people out of Egypt, his people, and ultimately into the promised land. About halfway through the plague, starting with the fourth plague, the plague of flies, the Lord begins doing something different. He makes a distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians. And so that only the Egyptians are afflicted with the plague, and the Israelites are not afflicted at all. They’re untouched. And by doing that, the Lord was declaring that his people were different, that the people of Israel were His beloved people, his chosen people, and that his purposes for Israel were not destruction, but salvation. And so the very plagues that destroyed Pharaoh and the Egyptians would be the means by which God would bring deliverance to his people.

And the remarkable thing about that is this, that the Israelites in themselves, inherently, they were no more righteous, they were no more morally pure or holy than the Egyptians. They were sinners, too. Joshua, later on in the Scripture, he would say to the Israelites, “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” So it wasn’t just the Egyptians who were serving idols in Egypt. It was the Israelites as well. But God set them apart. He was merciful to them. He set them apart to be his beloved, beloved people. And therefore he saved them from his judgments. And so the Lord made Himself known to the Israelites as their gracious Savior. And in the gospel of Jesus Christ, God has made Himself known to you and me as our gracious savior from sin and death.

As much as the Lord is glorified in these works of judgment, the ten plagues, his righteousness is glorified, his power is glorified, and all of that is true. But the works that God has done in salvation, his works of mercy, his grace, his compassion, this brings God all the more glory because it reveals God to be a God of love, of grace, a God who saves. And he has shown you his love and grace in Christ, not only that you may know him and in knowing him, have life, but that you may give to him both in this life and the life that is to come, the adoration, the worship that belongs to him. Because he is the true God who is worthy of your worship and your praise. Let’s pray.

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