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.

The post Through the Red Sea appeared first on Mt. Rose OPC.