You want to turn in your Bibles
to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. I want to
pick up our next section there. We're working our way through
the book of Hebrews and we've been following in Hebrews 11
all of those saints of old recorded in the Old Testament and to the
surprise of the Old Testament, the people
who held to salvation by works and were still clinging to the
Old Testament rituals to the surprise of them, and to our
delight, God tells us now that the just live by faith. That means those God sees as
righteous, they live their lives by faith. They're not righteous
because they believe, they're righteous because Christ obeyed
for them. But faith enables them to see
that and to live upon him. The apostle Paul, if you recall,
in Galatians 2.20 said, I am crucified with Christ. That was
not something he did, that was something God did. God joined
all of his people to his son from eternity so that when the
Lord Jesus Christ came into the world and took our nature, they
were one with him then. And he lived, and he obeyed,
and he suffered, he prayed, he owned our sins and confessed
them as his. And he suffered for them. He
suffered reproach. He suffered at God's hand and
he suffered unjustly at man's hand. Men hated him because he
became honorable and he stole their honor, at least that's
what they thought, and so they thought to rob it back by asserting
themselves and stealing the throne and holding to their self-righteousness. and holding to their wisdom and
strength and their riches as we read in Jeremiah 9, 23 and
24. But the Lord Jesus Christ came
and did all for his people and now we live upon him by faith.
We trust that God has received us as the result of having provided
Christ and received Christ for us. And that's what Hebrews 11
is about, faith. Faith is all we have now, tangibly,
spiritually, that we can say this is obviously God's work. God operated in me. He gave me
this confidence in Christ and hope in Christ to live my life
in this world without any visual, without any evidential, anything
substantive except faith. God's given us faith. So we're
constantly fleeing to Christ and we're taking comfort in Him
and finding our all in Him before God from God's Word, trusting
that what God has said is the way things are. And that's what
faith does. But in many ways, as we saw in
Hebrews 11, beginning at the very first part of the chapter,
we understand by faith, we understand the worlds we're framed by the
Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear. Things all that we see now was
made out of nothing. God did it by the power of his
word. We can trust that God, that his word is true. And faith
was how Enoch, I'm sorry, Abel came to God through the sacrifice
of the lamb. He took what God had done for
his father, Adam, And his mother Eve, how he clothed, he offered
a sacrifice and clothed them in the skins of that sacrifice.
And Abel said, that's the way God has designed for me to come
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he took a lamb, God gave the
lamb, made him a shepherd over his flock. And he took one of
those that God gave him, offered it up, pointed to Christ, the
lamb of God. And all through here, we're seeing
these people. Enoch lived by faith and was
taken. God took him. He pleased God
because he trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed God's
word. He walked with him. Noah prepared an ark to the saving
of his house, just like the Lord Jesus Christ was God's chosen,
who prepared an ark for our salvation. And he saw that, and he understood
that. Abraham left his family and his home in Mesopotamia when
God called him to go out. And Isaac and Jacob lived with
Abraham, their father and grandfather in tents. And Sarah also received
strength to conceive seed when she was past age, because she
judged him faithful who had promised. And all these lived in faith.
They died not having received the promises, but having seen
them by faith afar off. They were persuaded of them and
they embraced them. They trusted with glad trust
that all that God said was true and they relied upon, they expected,
they anticipated the fulfillment of God's promises because he
received Christ for them and God therefore rewarded them in
proportion to Christ's obedience as a consequence of his sacrifice.
That was all that they did. They lived their lives this way.
And we go on and on. Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and now
we're here in verse 29 of Hebrews chapter 11. Last week we didn't spend sufficient
time on verse 28, so let me read verse 28 and verse 29, Hebrews
11, verse 28. Through faith he, meaning Moses,
kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed
the firstborn should touch them." Moses told the people, this is
what God has said to do. He told Pharaoh, this was the
last plague. The plague before this was darkness.
covered the whole land of Egypt. There was darkness so dark that
it could be felt. Pharaoh sent for Moses and called
him in and he said, Pharaoh was fit to be tied. He was so tired
of these plagues. He was so tired of Moses telling
him on the authority of God's word, let my people go, that
they may serve me. And this is the gospel, isn't
it? Christ comes to all of our enemies and he says, let them
go. And in our liberty, we serve Christ. This is the gospel. All of our deliverance is seen
in the deliverance of God's people from Egypt. And so Moses tells
Pharaoh, okay, I know you're really angry at me. You don't
wanna see me anymore. You're gonna kill me if you see
me again. What you've said, that's good. That's exactly what's gonna
happen. I'm not gonna see your face anymore. And there's gonna be one more
plague. God is going to destroy all the firstborn in Egypt, from
the firstborn of the maid behind the mill to the firstborn of
the king who sits on the throne. And Pharaoh heard those words,
and Moses went out in a rage. He was mad. And he tells the
children of Israel, now you, God's gonna destroy all the firstborn,
but you, you sprinkle the blood, you take the lamb and you kill
it and you take the blood of that lamb and you sprinkle it
on the door post and on the top of the door post and then you
go inside that house and you roast that lamb and you eat it
with your shoes on, unleavened bread, no leaven. Don't you dare
eat leaven when you eat with this roasted lamb. And leaven,
according to the New Testament, represents the hypocrisy of works
religion. In Galatians chapter 5, it says,
a little leaven leavens the whole lump. We're saved entirely by
God's grace, but a little works added to what God has said Christ
has done makes the whole lump works. It means we have to be
saved by our works and not by God's grace. And God won't have
a mixture of grace and works. We're either saved by Christ
or we're not saved, we're lost. And so faith comes to God and
partakes of Christ's offering that he made of himself to God
for us. And that's all that faith looks
to. We don't add anything to it. And so all those in the house,
when the angel visited, the destroying angel visited the land of Egypt,
God saw the blood and he passed over them. And Moses by faith
kept that because Moses was a sinner like us. He needed that same
salvation that we do. He hid himself. He hid in Christ
by faith. God hid us in him, but he hid
in him by faith. He also fled to Christ by faith. And so what happened in all of
Egypt? From the king on down, even the
animals and the firstborn of Egypt were all destroyed. And
that's what it's speaking about here, the Passover. And all these
things, when Moses was sent by God to Pharaoh, God met Moses
and he held in his hand this rod, remember? Moses grew up
in Pharaoh's house. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter. And so as such, he was a prince
in Egypt, and he was trained up in all the wisdom of Egypt,
and he knew that God had sent him, had raised him up to deliver
his people. His people wouldn't hear him.
He left Egypt being pursued by the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, and
he went out in 40 years, he spent 40 years in the wilderness as
a shepherd. And he ended up with his rod in his hand. He went
everywhere with his rod. And when God called him, he showed
him miracles to do with that rod. He said, cast it down, it
became a serpent. And another thing, he said, take
the rod and do this with it. He smite the water, it became
blood. Hold the rod in this way. Do everything he did with the
rod of God, remember? And so the rod that Moses held
became very significant. Again, all of these things point
us to the one picture. Everything in scripture points
us to the one picture, which is what? The glory of God in
the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified for his people, again, to magnify
God's righteousness and his justice and to deliver us from our enemies. And so the rod that Moses held
looked forward to the gospel, the rod of Christ's strength,
the power of God unto salvation, which would be both a savor of
death to death to the unbelieving, reprobate world, but a savor
of life to life to the people of God, redeemed by Christ's
blood, chosen by God, the rod of God. In fact, I want you to
see this in Romans chapter 8, If you look at Romans chapter
8, you'll see this. I just want to pass by this somewhat
quickly about this rod, but it's very significant. I've already
quoted to you from Romans 1.16. Romans 1.16 says, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel. The Apostle Paul says, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God. How could
I possibly be ashamed of the power of God? No, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Gentile, the Greek. But therein, this is why, in
the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith. God reveals it to us through
the preaching of the word of God and he gives us his spirit
that we might believe him. The faith of the truth of it
to the faith of us believing it. Here he says in Romans chapter
eight and verse one. Now listen, hold in your mind
the view of Moses coming to Pharaoh with his rod. With the authority
of God, he comes to the king. He comes to the king of Egypt
and he speaks to the king of Egypt, Moses did, as a king. God said, I'm going to make you
a god to Pharaoh. And he has the rod of God in
his hand. This is our Lord Jesus Christ, the power of his gospel.
Listen, there is therefore now no condemnation. to them which
are in Christ Jesus. In all of Israel, in all of the
plagues, God never visited one plague on all the Israelites.
When it was dark in Egypt, it was light in Israel. When the
cattle of the Egyptians were all killed, none of the cattle
of the Israelites were even sick. In everything, when there were
frogs in Egypt, there were no frogs in Israel. Because the
gospel divides. The Gospel comes to God's people
and it divides and it pronounces that in the Lord Jesus Christ
there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus
who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. That means
we're trusting not in our sinful flesh to save us, we're trusting
in what God has said. concerning Christ. That's the
witness of God's spirit. What God has said in the gospel.
Notice, he goes on, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus, that's the strength, that's the power of God, the law, the
rule, the power, the rod of God's strength through the gospel,
he says here, The Law of the Spirit of Life is the Spirit
of God taking the truth of Christ in the Gospel and applying it
to us in life-giving power. In Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death. The rod of Moses was the way
God showed his deliverance to Israel. And so God shows us Christ
and we're set free from the law of sin and death. For what the
law could not do in that it was weak throughout my flesh in yours. God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the
flesh. That's the declaration of God
in the Gospel. That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. We have no confidence in the
flesh. We repudiate, we forsake, we abandon all confidence and
hope in what we can do We don't trust anything of ourselves. We don't take confidence in our
confidence. We don't pray that God would
hear our prayers. We pray that God would hear Christ's
prayers and hear us for his sake. When we read through the Psalms,
as we've been doing in our Bible studies, we see over and over
again the fact that these are the confessions, these are the
supplications, these are the tears and the cries of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I want God to hear My surety
for me, don't you? When I stand before God in judgment,
when I stand before Him in my conscience now, what do I want?
I want Him to hear the answer of His Son, the sacrifice of
His Son, the prayers of His Son, the obedience of His Son, the
righteousness, the tears, all the wisdom that He has, not mine. I don't know what to pray. But
the Spirit of God, who knows the will of God, searches the
hearts, and He knows the mind of God, and Christ intercedes
for us according to that mind and that will. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is all of our salvation, all of our hope, and that's what
the Gospel says. And so in Exodus, when we see Moses going into
Pharaoh, and Pharaoh says, I don't know the Lord. Who's the Lord?
Why would I obey him? You're just telling the truth
here. You're just echoing the facts. God's revealing it. You
don't know God. And then Moses said, you need
to let my people go. He said, no way. I am not going
to let them go. Who is the Lord? And so we see
this over and over. In fact, you know what happened
when Moses came in to Pharaoh and told him, you need to let
my people go. Because he was a cruel taskmaster,
what did he do? He required them to build these
treasure cities for him. It says so in Exodus. These places
in Egypt you see today. Those were the labors of the
children of Israel as slaves under the cruel taskmaster. And
so when Moses came in and told them, you have to let my people
go, the Lord said, you know what Pharaoh said? He said, no, you're
idle. You need to do more work. In
fact, I'm gonna take away all the helps and I'm gonna require
more of you. You see, in all these things
we see in Egypt and the king of Egypt, we see a picture of
false religion. We see a picture of man's free
will works religion. Because what does that religion
do to the poor sinner who is already afflicted because of
his sin? It adds affliction. What does it do to the one who
is helpless? It takes away his help and says,
you've been doing a lot. You need to do more. It keeps
adding affliction. And so we see this in Revelation
chapter 11. It compares the doctrine of the
Jews and Jerusalem on earth with Egypt and Sodom. This is idolatry. This is the perversity of man's
religion. And the king of Egypt represents
Satan and his kingdom and the doctrine of the false gospels
of man's free will works religion. Always demanding from God's people,
never relenting, cruelly and mercilessly holding them under
and not letting them go, trying to prevent Christ from freeing
them that they might serve and worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, we find this struggle even in ourselves, in our old
sinful nature. But Moses comes, he points Pharaoh
to God's requirements, he holds out the rod of God, and what
happens? The first thing that happens,
he casts his rod down, it becomes a serpent, and Pharaoh says,
hmm, my magicians can do that. They cast their rods down, their
rods become a serpent. And what happens to Pharaoh's
heart? It becomes hardened. He sees, look, in my religion,
we can mimic what Christ does. We can do the same things. We
have the power to. Yeah, he's a little more refined.
He's a little more polished, but it's the same thing. It doesn't
matter. I mean, you know, science and
evolution and it doesn't matter. All those things, they fit right
in with our worldview. No, it's either Christ or nothing. It's all Christ or nothing. There's
no salvation anywhere except Christ. There's no truth except
in the Gospel, the Word of God. So we stand on that. We stand
on that. And so you see these things throughout
the Exodus, and I encourage you to
read through there, you'll be delighted to see these things. So let's look now at Exodus chapter
14, which is where the verse in Hebrews, we just, well actually
we haven't read it, let me read it to you. Hebrews chapter 11
verse 29, Hebrews 11. After the Passover, what happened?
Well, the Egyptians woke up in the middle of the night and all
their firstborn were dead. And Pharaoh called for Moses
and he said, you know, the Egyptians said, we're all dead men. And
Pharaoh called for Moses, you get out. And I want you to take
everything. You take all your people, all
your stuff, all your animals and get out. And the Egyptians
said, oh, here, take some gold, take some of our silver, take
everything. They enriched them with what they had. They had
been treating them as slaves for over 400 years, and now they're
dumping treasures on them because of the blood of the lamb. The
world is ours. Death is ours. Life is ours.
All things are yours because you are Christ's, and Christ
is God's. and you've been purchased, you've
been bought with a price, you're His, and He has everything, He's
the heir of all things, and now all things are yours in Him.
And you, the church, the redeemed of the Lord, are the fullness
of Him who fills all things, Ephesians chapter one, verse
22 and 23. The body of Christ is the fullness
of Christ. This is why He came, to free
them from sin and Satan, and death in the grave, and to subdue
their enemies and silence their enemies through his blood, and
that's why they came out. Now, what happened here in Hebrews
11, 29, it says, next, by faith they passed through the Red Sea
as by dry land, which the Egyptians, a saying to do, were drowned.
Again, here we see the distinguishing grace of God. What happened to
Israel? They came to this Red Sea. God said, I'm not going
to send them out to Canaan through the Philistines land because
they won't be able to hold up when they face war. They're going
to turn back to Egypt. So I'm going to go around this
way. In fact, God did it this way also to incite Pharaoh's
anger and pride against Israel because he saw them tangled up
there at the sea and he said, what are we doing? We let all
these slaves go. Let's go after them. They're
caught here at the sea and we'll get them. And so in the book
of Exodus, you'll see that he gathers together all of his armies.
his choice captains, his choice chariots, all of the armies of
Egypt, and Pharaoh himself, whose son had just been destroyed by
God in the Passover. Now he himself also, he and his
son and all of his armies, all of the armies of Egypt are poised
and charging ahead with their strongest weapons, their chariots
and their horses and their choicest men. And it's God's trap. He's finally going to take this
man who represents, as I say, Satan and his kingdom and all
false religion, and he's going to capture him and he's going
to destroy him in the sea. But he's going to save Israel
through it. And so the drama is going to unfold for us in
Exodus 14, but what it says here is that by faith, the Israelites
pass through the Red Sea. Now hold that thought because
when we get to Exodus 14, we're gonna see a picture that seems
different. It doesn't seem they do it by
faith. In fact, it seems like they have anything but faith.
They feel like they have only unbelief when you look back here
at Exodus 14. And there's a reason for that.
There's a lesson here in that. First of all, when the Old Testament
gives us the account of God's people, we see it with all of
their unbelief. And we see it with all their
sins. But in the New Testament account, what we see is the testimony
of God concerning the spirit. In the Old Testament, it seems
like what we see is the evidence or the manifestation of their
flesh. But in the New Testament, what we see is God's record concerning
the spirit, the spiritual things. So in the Old Testament, we're
going to see a lot of unbelief. But in the New Testament, God
says they passed through the Red Sea by faith. Because God's
accounting is concerning Christ. And he gives us his spirit because
of Christ. It's not for anything we did.
Not because we repented did God give us His Spirit. Not because
we acted in faith toward God. But because of what God received
from Christ, He gave His Spirit to His church, His people, through
the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, when I ascend and I'm
seated at the right hand of God, then I'm going to shed abroad
this. the Spirit of God, so that you might know the power of the
gospel will come to you and give you life, and you'll see your
life is in my righteousness and by my blood, and you'll live
that way. But now, in Exodus 14, what we're
going to see is the display of the weakness of this nation. But in that, what we see is this
great comfort. And here's the principle. No
matter how much we believe Christ, at this time, or tomorrow, or
the rest of our lives, our faith, the faith of God's people, is
always mixed with unbelief. In fact, it's so much so that
sometimes we wonder if we even have faith. Because we want to
believe, we might even try to believe, but we find ourselves
helpless to believe, and the troubles of our lives I mean,
you know what it's like. I remember riding my bicycle
to work, and I'm facing the fact that my boss is expecting me
to do something I don't feel capable of doing. Customers are
demanding something from me that I can't give, and I don't have
time to give. The people that work for me are in discord. I
don't understand the technology. And I'm only going to be there
a few hours, and I've got to turn back around and go home. And
then my kids, they're having trouble. They're not believing what I'm
telling them, or they're not doing what I'm telling them.
It seems like I don't have control of anything. And you kind of
wonder, it's a little overwhelming, isn't it? Life is overwhelming. Circumstances of life seem completely
crushing, and you're constantly crying out, Lord, I don't know
what to do. I don't have any strength. But
here we find God drawing the eyes of his people to himself. And that's the answer. Look at
Exodus 14 with me. We're just gonna go through this
pretty quickly. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and
encamp before Pi-Hiroth, between Migdal and the sea, over against
Baal-Zaphon. Before it shall you encamp by
the sea. So God is leading them. He's
putting them between the devil and the deep blue sea. Right? Between Pharaoh and the Red Sea. My dad used to say that. And he says, And notice, this
is not, we take this tongue in cheek, but this is God putting
his people in a circumstance that leaves them absolutely helpless
against their enemies and vulnerable to destruction. There's two lessons
God always teaches his people, and he teaches them throughout
life. And I think these are the two lessons that we're given
to learn. And I remember Spurgeon saying
this too, and I've heard many people say this. John Newton,
or that poor man who picked up that song when he was in his
business. He heard that lady singing it
and he picked it up. He said, that's the truth. I'm
a poor sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all
in all. And he went on. He went back
to church and they said, brother, whatever his name was,
I can't remember his name right now. He said, what's your confession? What's your hope? Well, I'm a
poor sinner. Nothing at all. That Jesus Christ
is my all in all. Don't you have anything more?
What about your evidences? What evidence? I'm a poor sinner
and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. These two lessons are always
taught to us and God is the one who brings us into the circumstances
that leave us helpless, without wisdom, without strength, without
riches, without any resources of our own, with no righteousness.
Our prayers seem empty. We don't know what to say. and
we don't have the right attitude, and we find ourselves crying
out to God, and the Lord's gonna teach us here, in that situation,
yes, you are full of sin in yourself, but without sin in Christ. Therefore
God has blessed you out of his grace for nothing of your own
but for what he has received and provided for you in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The gospel again, the power of
God to salvation comes to our rescue. But the circumstances
and of our lives too Our internal warfare, our attitudes, all these
things are driving us to learn this lesson. Christ is a great
Savior because I'm a great sinner, right? That's what John Newton
said. The one thing he learned at the end of his life, I'm a
great sinner, but Christ is a great Savior. And we'll come to heaven,
we'll come to glory with all of our doubting, with all of
our disobediences, and we'll come there and we'll realize
the exceeding riches of the kindness of God towards us in Christ Jesus,
that in spite of us, he saved us. It wasn't for our works. Faith teaches this to us. This
is what it means in Hebrews. We walk by faith, we live by
faith. We live upon the faith of the Son of God, don't we?
Who loved us and gave himself for us. It's his trusting. His
understanding of God's precepts and the fulfillment of them and
doing them. His understanding of God's justice and rendering
satisfaction to it in the sacrifice of himself for us. He understood
what love is, love that caused him to lay down his life for
his friends and those who had adulterated themselves in idolatry. He rescued us. Exodus 14, again,
verse there, so they're trapped before the sea, verse three,
for Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, they are entangled
in the land, the wilderness has shut them in, and I will harden
Pharaoh's heart. God's gonna harden his heart.
Now, the fact of the matter is, if God turns us over to what's
in our heart, we're going to serve Satan. We are, until God
saves us, we are in the kingdom of darkness, and all is dark. What happens when the gospel
comes to us? You know what it is? We never
knew it before, and it's wonderful news. We never loved it before. We thought God was only an austere,
demanding, strict, We could never satisfy Him because
we looked at God through our own perspective. We saw ourselves
in Him. That's our problem. We think
God is like us. That's the way I would treat
people. That's the way I treat myself. I'm always doing something
in order to get a reward or to avoid the punishment. That's
not the way the Lord works. He knows that we're deserving
of punishment. He knows we're sinful. Our only
hope is if he himself magnifies his own law by his righteousness
and makes satisfaction and gives that satisfaction to his own
justice and thereby reconciles us to himself who had offended
him, you see. And so Pharaoh hardens his heart
And God hardens it because all he does is turn him over to his
own lust. Just go ahead. Do what's in your heart. You
have suppressed the truth you know. You have chosen the vain
imaginations of your idolatry. And you do not like to retain
God in your knowledge. Go ahead. Think what you want
to think. Come to God the way you want
to come. God hardened his heart. And that's the way we are unless
the Lord does what he says in 2 Timothy 2.25, unless he turns
us who oppose ourselves, unless he grants us repentance unto
the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness. That's
what the Lord does. He gives us a change of heart
and mind so that we look at things through His eyes and not our
own. And we see, yes, I am a sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus
Christ is my all in all. And I'll serve Him my whole life
because I have nothing else in this life whom have I in heaven
but Thee, O Lord. And so Pharaoh is not that way.
He sees them tangled up, and his heart is hardened. God hardens
it according to his will. He gives this man over, and he
does that to Satan. He lets Satan think, I'm going
to somehow be successful. He spends all his years spinning
around, just performing God's will. inciting those men to crucify
Christ, and they looked upon his weakness, they looked upon
his helplessness, they looked upon his shame, and they thought,
we've got him, we've got him right where we want him, but
it was out of God's weakness that he made known his power
and saved his people from their sins. The weakness of God was
the strength in the Lord Jesus Christ. So here we have it. And
so it says, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart, he will follow
after them, and I will be honored upon Pharaoh, upon all his hosts,
that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord, and they did so. And it was told the king of Egypt
that the people fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants,
not just Pharaoh, but his servants too, all the kingdom of Satan
is in accord. was turned against the people,
and they said, why have we done this, that we have let Israel
go from serving us? And he made ready his chariot,
and took his people with him. And he took six hundred chosen
chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every
one of them. And the Lord hardened the heart
of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children
of Israel. And the children of Israel went
out with a high hand, because God had delivered them through
the Passover. But the Egyptians pursued after them all the horses,
and the chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army,
and overtook them in camping by the sea beside Pahairoth before
Baal Zephon." The entire army of the kingdom of Satan is poised
against Christ and his people. Who's going to win? How are they
going to win? It says in verse 10, and when
Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes,
and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore
afraid. And the children of Israel cried
out unto the Lord. Notice, they are crying to the
Lord, the children of Israel are. And they said to Moses,
because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us
away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt with
us to carry us forth out of Egypt? That's unbelief, isn't it? We're
gonna die. What's better? To serve Satan
or die in God's hand? Which is better? Remember David?
Lord, don't deliver me to my enemies. Don't deliver me to
the hand of man. Let me fall into your hand for
with the Lord there's mercy. You see, the believer understands
that to live is Christ, but to die is gain. I would rather die
in God's hand, knowing Christ is my all, than to serve this
world, trying to grasp for, retain my life. Verse 12. Is not this the word, they're
saying to Moses, is not this the word that we did tell thee
in Egypt, saying, let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?
Of course you did. You were happy and content to
serve Satan until the Lord showed you Christ. For it had been better
for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the
wilderness. And Moses said unto the people, fear ye not. That's exactly what they were
doing. It was the fear of mistrust. The fear of unbelief. Unbelief
and mistrust in God causes us to fear. We think he's like us.
He's gonna fail. He's not gonna keep his word.
He's gonna see our sins. He's gonna turn us over to our
enemies. He can't do it. All these things that come up.
We think about our own abilities. We don't find enough. I'm not
able to do this job. I can't be a father. I can't
be an employee. I can't be a pastor. I can't
teach my children. Of course you can't. You can't. The Lord is all you have. He who created us has to sustain
us and he most of all has to save us. And Moses said to the
people, fear ye not. whether it's the past, who I'm
afraid of my sins, they're gonna come and condemn me, or it's
the present, my sinful nature, or it's the future standing before
God in judgment, or it's the circumstances of my life, it's
my financial failure, it's the loss of my property, or my reputation,
or my hypocrisy's gonna be uncovered. When you look at yourself, you're
gonna find nothing. You're a great sinner, nothing
at all. But Jesus Christ, fear ye not.
That's the command. What's the basis of such a command?
Notice what he says. Fear ye not. Stand still. Stand still. You're running around. You're wondering what to do.
What are we going to do? Are we going to fight the Egyptians? No. We can't get around
the sea. We can't go under it. It's too
far to go around it. They'll catch us. All of the
armies of the enemy. They have the power. We have
nothing. We're out here with our little gold we've taken from
the Egyptians. We brought our knitting troughs.
We got our shoes on our feet. We're slaves. And Moses said to the people,
fear ye not. Stand still. Don't work. Don't work. And see the salvation of the
Lord, which He will show you today. There's God's pronouncement
to us. That's what the gospel does.
You find yourself absolutely helpless before your sins, and
your sinful nature is constantly on your back. The world makes
demands of you, you cannot satisfy them. You're afraid of men, you're
afraid of failure, you're afraid of shame, you're afraid of everything.
You're afraid most of all of yourself and mostly of God's
wrath and God's displeasure. What are you gonna do? I can't
find faith, I can't find prayers, I can't find commitment, I can't
find anything in myself. Good, stand still. And now you
look and you see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show
you this day. Look at Psalm chapter 65, just
a couple of verses to confirm that we're not making this up.
This is the way God sees it. Psalm 65 and verse three. Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. My iniquities, my transgressions
rise up against me and accuse me before God in the court of
heaven, in my conscience, and they will also at judgment day.
What am I going to do? Iniquities, he tells the Lord,
prevail against me. They have power over me. They're
constantly battering the walls of my soul. But as for our transgressions,
thou shalt purge them. What's he talking about? He's
talking about the atoning sacrifice of Christ. When were our transgressions
purged? when Christ as our high priest
confessed our sins over his own head and offered himself to God
for us. Look at Micah, the book of Micah. It's after the book of Daniel.
If you keep going past Daniel and Hosea, which follows Daniel,
then Joel and Amos and so on, you'll eventually get to, past
Obadiah and Jonah, Micah. The book of Micah, look at chapter
7 and verse 7. He says, therefore I will look
unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my
salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I have sinned against him until, what? He plead
my cause. Last night I was thinking about
all the things for some reason at 3 a.m. in the morning and
I didn't sleep until just before I had to get up. And you know
how you get in there, your body gets sore, your head gets sore,
everything starts to give you problems because you're laying
there hoping you can go back to sleep but you keep turning
back and forth. But then you realize that all
the things you can't control or that seem big when you're
sleeping and they're nothing when you're awake again, whatever
they are, if the Lord plead for us, if he fight for us, what
else do we need? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son.
but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. And who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. Yea, rather, who is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession
for us. There's nothing that can separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
We are more than conquerors through him that loved us. These are
the words of scripture. And he says, I will bear the
indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against him until
the Lord plead for me. And what is he going to plead?
We know what justice is like in our land, somewhat. It's distorted,
but we know something about it. There's an executive branch,
a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. And in the judicial branch,
whenever there's any conflict in the land, although it didn't
used to be this way in history, but when there's a conflict between
these things, then the judicial branch steps in and says, let
me consider the case. That's called the Supreme Court.
And the same system works that whatever they finally decide,
you can't go anywhere else. The court's cast its decision.
A few of those guys said one thing, a few more said another
thing. That's the way it is. We're gonna
have to live by it. And all the laws fall in place
and everyone's held accountable to whatever the decision is.
The decision of the court has been made. Our case was brought
into heaven's court, the judge of all, the supreme court of
heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ entered his plea. He offered
His blood. He appeared in the presence of
God for us. Our surety took our obligations
and all of our responsibilities to God. He owned our sins. He
paid our debt. He fulfilled God's justice, satisfied
it, and fulfilled our righteousness in His obedience. His prayers
were heard, and God said, justified and raised him from
the dead and with him raised all of his people with him. That's
the power of God unto salvation. The court's decision has been
passed down. And guess what? It was in favor
of our Savior and against our enemies. And so the Lord says
to the people of Israel, through Moses, he's, stand still. See
the salvation of the Lord, which he will perform this day. Oh,
back in Micah, let me read this to you. The conclusion in Micah
chapter seven. He says it in verse 18. We saw how he says, the Lord
will plead my cause. But look at this in verse 18.
Who is a God, like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity? Because
of what Christ has done. He pardons our sin. And he passes
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retains not
His anger forever because He delights in mercy. He will turn
again. He will have compassion upon
us. Notice, He will subdue our iniquities and will cast all
their sins into the depths of the sea. The depths of the sea? We're about to read what happened
to Egyptian armies and Pharaoh himself. Notice verse 20. Thou wilt perform the truth to
Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our
fathers from days of old. And in Luke chapter one, Zacharias,
the father of John the Baptist, repeats these words and applies
them to Christ. We know this is the way things
are. God designed all of scripture and history and from eternity
designated Christ to bear the case of his people before him
and answer God's justice and fulfill our righteousness. And
so in Exodus chapter 14, reading on, Moses said to the people,
fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,
which he will show you today. For the Egyptians whom you have
seen today, You shall see them again no more forever. What Christ
did at the cross absolutely obliterated the kingdom of Satan. He bore
our sins in the supreme court of heaven and God judged our
enemies because our sins were answered for. The only thing
our enemy had to hold against us was our sin. And he held us
under the law of God, as it were, saying, you must kill, you must
stone this adulterous woman. And the law of God was satisfied
when our Savior stooped down and wrote in the ground. And
he himself bore our sins. And he says to that woman, I
don't condemn you. Go and sin no more. Remember,
it's all the work of Christ for us. It rests all on him. Stand still, fear not, stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord. We didn't know it,
we couldn't see it until Christ performed it, but now the gospel
comes. That's the rod of God, the power of God speaking to
us concerning our Savior. And so he says here, the Lord
shall fight for you, you shall hold your peace. I'm not gonna
say a word. My advocate's there, he's speaking
for me. He himself is the propitiation,
the satisfaction and appeasement of God's wrath. And so the Lord said to Moses
in verse 15 of Exodus 14, the Lord said to Moses, wherefore
cryest thou to me? Why are you crying? He said,
speak to the children of Israel that they go forward. The sea
is in front of us. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. The Lord is going to fight for you. He did it.
He purged our sins. He subdued our iniquities. He
cast our sins into the depths of the sea. Our enemies have
no tool. Their teeth have been knocked
out. Their sword's taken from them. The wheels of their chariots
have been taken off in the sea. The wall of the water, like this,
and Israel's walking through, and it's dry. Amazing, how did
this happen? Christ answered. That's it. He answered God's justice. And
he answered and he received a sentence for our liberty, for our justification
against our enemies, and all of those who oppose Christ are
destroyed in that work. It's a saver of life to life
to us and of death to death. who all oppose Christ. By his
weakness, God showed his strength. Amazing. Power of God into salvation. All right, we're going to have
the Lord's Supper now in celebration of this. When the children of
Israel ate the Passover, they were to remember They were to
take part by faith, they were to eat that roasted lamb, and
they were to remember that when God saw the blood, He would pass
over them. It's what God sees, that's what
makes the difference. It's what God says, that's the
truth of the way things are. And all of our weaknesses, we're
just discovering what God already knows. We're hard-headed, He
has to teach us that we're nothing, sinners, nothing at all. Christ
is our all. and gives us His faith, and we
rejoice in Him. We suddenly have peace. We suddenly
know something about God we never knew before. He's good. He is holy. He is just and righteous
and true. His truth can't fail, but He's
also gracious and merciful on the grounds of our Savior's sacrifice
of Himself. So that when the New Testament,
when the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the Passover, He offered Himself,
the Passover Lamb for His people, Then that observance, by taking
the lamb and roasting it and eating it, wasn't called for
anymore because the lamb was already roasted. And we now eat
him by faith. So he instituted this. Instead,
the Lord's Supper. My broken body, he said, which
is broken for you. and my blood which is shed for
you to fulfill the New Testament, all the conditions so that God's
eternal promises in Christ could just flow to his people like
a river and we can drink of his salvation now as much as we want. The Lord Jesus Christ loves to
see us take and eat and drink as much as we want. This salvation
is abundant, grace abundant. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. So that's what we're gonna do
now. We're gonna partake of the Lord's Supper. Tom and Brad,
would you help me? And then the natural question
is, well then, who is it that takes of this? Who took part
of the Passover? Who takes part of the Lord's
Supper? Well, let me read to this to you in 1 Corinthians
11. While they're passing out the
elements, 1 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul, he says this. Let a man examine himself, and
so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he
that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to
himself, not discerning the Lord's body. Only those who believe
Christ are to eat and drink. There were many in Israel who
were in the house of the, I mean, there were many people who were
saved out of Egypt that went through the Red Sea. Many people
who went through the Red Sea. But in 1 Corinthians chapter
10, the apostle Paul says that there were, all those who went
through the Red Sea were baptized into Moses. But they didn't all, not all
of them went into Canaan. Many perished in the wilderness.
Because even though they passed through the Red Sea, some of
them did not pass through by faith. So we are to only partake
of the Lord's Supper if we're trusting Christ. And when we
partake of the Lord's Supper, he says, you do show forth the
Lord's death till he come. As often as you do this, you
do, in verse 26 of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, as often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you do preach or show forth the
Lord's death till he come. Our only boast is Christ. We
fellowship on this. When we meet together, you know
what I delight in? I delight in hearing you tell
me about how you trust Christ. How you find no strength, no
goodness in yourself, but you're confident that God has found
all of your goodness and strength in Christ. The Lord is my strength. We say this week by week. We're
continually learning this, aren't we? I did not realize how bad
things were for me. But the Lord showed me again
that Christ is my all. I was down in the depths of despair
and the Lord showed me again. It doesn't matter what you feel.
God's word is what's true. I haven't had the experience that
my brethren have had. I don't have the same understanding.
I read scripture and it seems I don't understand it. Well,
have you seen Christ in it? Have you heard of him? Has God's
word convinced you that you're nothing at all and Christ is
your all? You see, that's the faith that God gives us. So let
a man examine himself to see if he's in the faith. Are you
trusting Christ? If you are, there's no condemnation.
You need to eat. This is what God said. Don't
look for making yourself better someday so that you can somehow
get yourself to the point where you're worthy to take the Lord's
Supper. No, in taking it, you're confessing, I am unworthy of
any of God's blessings, but God has given it to me as a sinner. God has saved me for Christ's
sake. That's what you're confessing. Never look for worthiness in
yourselves. Never look for anything as a
basis for which God would give you anything in yourself. You
have to go to the Creator. Go to the Redeemer. Go to the
One who upholds all things by the word of His power. And so
he says here in 1 Corinthians 11, I've received of the Lord
that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the
same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. This is 1 Corinthians
11, verse 24. And when he had given thanks,
he break it. He gave thanks. Isn't that amazing? It never
ceases to amaze me. Christ thanked his father that
he could die for his people. He was happy. He ran the race
set before him for the joy that was set before him. When he had
given thanks, he'd break it, and he said, take, eat, this
is my body. which is broken for you, and
this do in remembrance of me." We don't look for a salvation
yet to come in this sense. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ
who has accomplished our salvation. So take the bread and eat it. God help us remember Christ when
we do so, and to trust him throughout our lives. And though our faith
is mixed with unbelief, God helped us to find the one we believe
is the one who makes the difference, not the strength of our faith.
In verse 25, in the same manner also, he took the cup, the cup
that had wine in it. And where does wine come from?
Grapes. How do you get it out of the grapes? You squeeze them.
What happened to Christ? He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. God crushed him. He delivered him up. poured out
his wrath upon him, not for his sins. He didn't commit any sin. There was no sin in him, but
for ours made his that he owned and confessed. And the Lord poured
out upon him. He counted him among the transgressors.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him. And the blood that he shed
that was poured out was a willing offering of himself. But God
accepted it. God delivered him up. The offering
was to God, and when God sees the blood, then he passes over. God had to be satisfied. His
law had to be magnified. We didn't do it. We failed. God
did it in his son. And all the conditions of the
New Testament of eternal life and eternal glory are fulfilled
in the blood. Hebrews 13 verse 20, now, Let me read it to you, Hebrews
13 and verse 20. He says this, before we take
this, I'll read this. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. The New Testament
in his blood. Let's drink it. My answer, my glory, my all is
in Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you. As the Lord Jesus
Christ said, thank you that you've given us his broken body. Thank
you that he was pleased to be broken for us. Thank you that
he willingly offered himself. He became a servant, he took
our nature, made himself of no reputation, and fulfilled all
things for us. If this is not so, then we have
no hope. But we believe it because you
said it, and we ask you, Lord, to have mercy upon us in the
salvation you've shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Savior. All of our enemies, completely silenced, we overcome by the
blood of the Lamb. even overcoming the kingdom of
Satan and Satan himself, not by our strength, but by the blood
of the Lamb. Thank you, Lord, for Christ.
In His name we pray. Amen.