So once again, Exodus chapter
14 and we're going to read from verse 1 and we'll read down to
verse 22. Exodus chapter 14, verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and
encamp before Pehaheroth between Migdal and the sea, over against
Balzephon before it shall ye encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh
will say of the children of Israel, they are entangled in the land,
the wilderness hath shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh's
heart that he shall follow after them, and I will be honoured
upon Pharaoh and upon all his host, 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 of his servants 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 600 chosen chariots
and all the chariots of Egypt and captains over every one of
them. 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 an high hand. But the Egyptians pursued
after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his
horsemen, and his army, and overtook them in camping by the sea beside
Pahahurath before Balzithon. 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. And they said
unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou
taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus
with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word
that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we
may serve the Egyptians? 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, stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord, which he shall show to you today. For the Egyptians, whom ye have
seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you,
and ye shall hold your peace. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Wherefore criest thou unto me, Speak unto the children of Israel,
that they go forward. Lift thou up thy rod, and stretch
out thine hand over the sea, and divide it. and the children
of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
And I behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and
they shall follow them. And I will get me honour upon
Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his
horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know
that I am the Lord, when I have gotten me honour upon Pharaoh,
upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. And the angel of the
Lord which went before the camp of Israel removed and went behind
them. And the pillar of the cloud went
from before their face and stood behind them. And it came between
the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. And it was
a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to
these, so that the one came not near the other all the night.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused
the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and
made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the
children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the
dry ground, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right
hand and on their left. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The children of Israel were now
in the borders of Egypt and had marched into the wilderness. And here the Lord again spoke
to Moses and he speaks to him this time concerning the route
and the places where the children of Israel were to camp. He was speaking about the route
that the people should take in the wilderness And he also told
Moses what he was about to do to complete the overthrow of
Pharaoh and the power of Egypt. Pharaoh, as we have learned over
the weeks, had set himself against God. And he had dealt very harshly
and brutally with the people of God, the children of Israel. And God had set himself against
Pharaoh. and he was going to degrade and
destroy Egypt's power. This destruction was not yet
complete, and God told Moses that it would be completed in
this night at the Red Sea. Let's just remember, while this
is a real and an historical event, We are not just reading history
when we read these stories. We're not just reading about
events that took place thousands of years ago and have no real
relevance to us. Let us remember, this was indeed
a real event, but it also provides us with a pattern and with a
picture of God's deliverance of his people in all ages. Because this is what we see when
God delivers his people spiritually as well. He delivers us spiritually
from captivity. You might say, well, I'm not
a captive. I don't live in a captive country. I don't live in an enslaved situation. But we do as far as sin is concerned,
that's how the Bible teaches us with respect to sin, that
we are all slaves to sin until the Lord liberates us and delivers
us and redeems us out from that captivity. And this is a picture
that we have in this narrative. And here we see the Lord destroying
the enemy of his people. So God promises his people peace
and rest. He did it with the land of Canaan
to which they were going and he does it with the promise of
heaven and everlasting life to those who are sinners. And that
is why this narrative has a continuing value to us. In verse two, we're
told about several places and place names are given to us. But I just wanted to pause here
really for a second and remind us, if we don't already know,
that it's not always possible for us to identify these places
today. Now, that's not to say that there
may not be places called after these names, but we're never
sure that it's the same place. Nor indeed do we know for sure
the actual route that the children of Israel took out of the land
of Egypt as they went into the wilderness. We know what they
were told not to take, which was the coastal route up through
the land of the Philistines, but we don't know the exact way
that they went into the wilderness. And I want to say that because
sometimes people become very excited about these great events
in the history of the Bible, and they think that it would
be wonderful to be able to prove certain things and provide evidence
for this event or that event. Maybe by way of archaeology,
they would like to find some of these Egyptian chariots in
the sand at the Red Sea, I don't know, maybe evidence of Noah's
Ark or some great battle that took place in a certain location. But the Lord hasn't given us
these things. Sometimes he has, to an extent
he has. There's evidence, usually later
in scriptural times, to do with things like the cities of Jerusalem
and Jericho and some other cities, the land of the Philistines,
whatever it might be. But we, ought to realize that
it's not always possible to find evidential proof of these place
names and these times. And while it can be interesting,
we need to know that place names change and even physical landmarks
alter over time, so that we're not able to say for certain that
we know where these particular places that are mentioned are
today. But that said, it is clear that
while the people probably wished to be moving on as quickly as
possible, especially when they saw the Egyptians following them,
the Lord had another plan. And that included the death of
Pharaoh and the destruction of his army and his chariots, his
military power. And to achieve that, the Lord
once again hardened Pharaoh's heart that he would pursue Moses
and the people. Pharaoh learned that the children
of Israel had turned off the main path and had become entangled,
as he thought, amongst the mountains and the valleys of the wilderness. And it seems that indeed the
people had become stuck between two mountain ranges. They had mountains to the left,
they had mountains to the right, they had the Red Sea before them,
and Pharaoh was coming behind them. Without a way of escape,
Pharaoh thought that he had them. He pursued them with the idea
of bringing them back into captivity. When the children of Israel had
left Egypt, we were told that they left with a high hand. They left with great excitement
and anticipation that now they were free and they were going
to their own country. They were waving and they were
cheering. That's what it means with a high hand. But then as they realized that
Pharaoh was pursuing them, fear and dread gripped their hearts. Verses 11 and 12 were told that
some people regretted ever having left Egypt and they accused Moses
of bringing them into the wilderness to die because there were not
enough graves in Egypt. I wonder if you ever feel like
that. Things are going well for you and you've got a high hand.
You feel a sense of joy and elation. And then when things go against
us or things don't go as we plan, we become fearful and maybe even
tearful and maybe even bitter and blaming against God like
these people did. The problem with these people
is that they had forgotten to trust the Lord. And we need to
learn to trust the Lord through good times and bad times. Through times when we feel as
if things are going well for us, and times when we see challenges
coming against us that cause us to worry. To turn those things
to the Lord is a great gift and a great blessing to His people.
And our circumstances may change, but God does not change, and
God's will does not change. And we should listen to Moses
as well, and we should heed Moses' words as well. He told the people,
fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,
which he will show you, he will show to you today. Moses was
to move the people forward to the edge of the Red Sea. And
there he was to lift up his staff, the same staff that had been
used to bring the plagues and the miracles of Egypt. And then
the people were to wait and watch as the Lord again delivered them. We're told that the pillar of
cloud that went before the people now went behind. It hid the people
by giving light to them and darkness to the Egyptians. So that that
same cloud was light and darkness. The groups did not come near
one another all that time. The gospel is a little bit like
that. The gospel is light and life
to some and it is darkness and death to others. The Apostle
Paul calls it a two-edged sword and the same message both brings
life and freedom and judgment and death. Let us hear the gospel
and let us pray that the Lord will give us ears to believe
it. As the children of Israel reached
the edge of the sea, Moses stretched out his hand and the Lord caused
a strong wind to blow, which separated the waters from each
other and caused them to stand up as walls on either side. The whole nation of Israel marched
through the Red Sea on dry land. Here's a few lessons that I just
want to leave with you, just a couple of paragraphs to give
us a few applications from these words and these wonderful images
that are set before us by Moses. Here's the first one, and it's
just worth remembering this, that we don't always see what
God's plans are. The people of Israel became anxious
when they saw the Egyptians, and the Lord told Moses what
he was going to do, but sometimes we don't get told. We don't know,
we can't see into the future and we can't be sure of what
God is going to do in our lives and when he might do it. And
some of the children of Israel here became very frightened because
they had no faith in God. They hadn't learned to trust
the Lord's word and his promises. And when the Lord said, turn
here, wait here, go and camp here, Some thought, no, no, we
need to get out of here. We need to get out of here as
quickly as we can. And they began to panic, not
realising that it was God's plan to deliver his people and to
destroy the Egyptians who were their enemies and forever to
get honour to his own name as the deliverer of his people.
they would see the Egyptians no more. And this is something
to remember. Our world might look very confusing
at any particular time. It might appear as if there are
mountains all around about us, that there's an impossible sea
before us, and that we've got enemies behind us, and we become
fearful, and we become full of doubt, Let us ask God to increase
our faith, faith to trust him, both for eternal life and for
our daily needs. And then, like the children of
Israel, we will see the glory of God. Here's another little
point. Moses told the people that they
were to fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the
Lord. And this reminds us that salvation
comes from the Lord. It comes from God. The people
of Israel did not save themselves. All they were able to do was
go by the way of salvation that the Lord provided for them. They did not have the strength
to defeat the Egyptians themselves. Their enemies were much stronger.
God it was who saved them and the Lord gave them His salvation. We can't save ourselves from
sin because we are too weak. Our enemies, the world, the flesh
and the devil are too strong. But the Lord Jesus Christ saved
his people when he got the victory at the cross, when he died for
us and shed his blood for the cleansing and remission of our
sins. The Lord Jesus Christ is God's
way of salvation. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the way. The Bible says, this is the way,
walk ye in it. The way of life, the way of salvation. If the Lord has made a way of
escape and salvation and tells us to stop trying to save ourselves
and just to stand and look and wait and see, then that's good
news. That's the gospel. May the Lord
give us grace to do exactly that. Verse 14 says, the Lord shall
fight for you, and ye shall hold, or that is, ye shall possess
your peace. And finally, just one last wee
thought. The angel of God is mentioned
in verse 19, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's sometimes
called an angel when he acts to protect his people. And he
goes between those that he loves in order to protect them from
their enemies. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
go-betweener. He is our mediator. The Lord Jesus Christ stood between
us in our helplessness and God's justice. Lord Jesus Christ bared
his own soul to God's broken law and carried the penalty of
our sin. He took all our guilt, all our
judgment, all our punishment onto himself that we might go
free. May the God of grace, show us
his mercy and love and give us faith to trust in all that the
Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished at the cross for our salvation. Amen.