Well, it's good to see everybody
out this evening. Remember those who requested prayer. Remember
Fred, he's got a bleeder. I don't know where it's at yet. Hopefully the GI doctor will
be able to find something tomorrow. Could be the lymphoma that's
causing it. Could be the chemotherapy that's
causing it. And the doctor over in Knoxville said it might be
the diverticulitis causing it. So we don't know. But that's
an awful lot. He's lost three pints, which is a pretty sizable
bleed. So remember him in your prayers.
Seek the Lord's help for him. Remember Julie as she's going
in for a hip replacement on Friday at Memorial. In Asheville. Pray for her. That's a pretty
serious operation. And she's going to be in rehab
for some time. I expect probably six weeks,
maybe. Somewhere in there. I guess you're going to have
to teach me how to put the title on those. She'll go from there. Oh, OK. She did it last year.
OK. Not only is she'll be up to it
by Sunday. Maybe not Sunday. Yeah. Maybe she can do it Friday
morning. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Dee Parks' situation is still
the same. He seems to be doing pretty well,
though. So continue to remember him in
your prayers and the others who've requested prayer also. Put Linda
Husky down on the thread. Who? Linda Husky. Thank you,
Chief. I had cancer. She was with me yesterday. They think it might be cancer?
Then I might check them too, you never can tell. Lymph nodes. Lymph nodes. How old is she? Oh, she's about
my age. Forty-five. Forty-five, forty-six
years old. A whole lot of lying going on
in church tonight. Hymn number 255. ? Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
? Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine ? Heir of salvation, Purchase
of God of his spirit washed in his blood. This is my story,
this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my
song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, perfect delight
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight Angels descending
bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love This is my story,
this is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. This is my story, this is my
song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. Perfect submission, all is at
rest I in my Savior am happy and blessed Watching and waiting,
looking above Filled with His goodness, lost in His love This
is my story, this is my song ? Praising my Savior all the
day long ? This is my story, this is my song ? Praising my
Savior all the day long Hymn number 40, Great is Thy Faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness, O
God my Father. There is no shadow of turning
with thee. As Thou hast been Thou forever
will be Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning
by morning new mercies I see All I have need Radiant sign faithfulness, Lord
unto me. Summer and winter and springtime
and harvest, Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above, join
with all nature in manifold bliss. ? Great is thy faithfulness ? Mercy
and love ? Great is thy faithfulness ? Great is thy faithfulness ?
Morning by morning new mercies I see ? All I have needed I have
received Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Pardon for sin and a peace that
endureth. Thine own dear presence to cheer
and to guide. ? Strength for today and great
hope for tomorrow ? Blessings of mine with 10,000 beside ?
Great is thy faithfulness ? Great is thy faithfulness ? Morning
by morning new mercies I see ? All I have needed thy hand hath
provided ? Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me If you have your Bibles, turn with me
to the 14th chapter of Exodus. Exodus 14. We are going to read
the first 14 verses. The title of my message tonight
is Boxed In. Verse 1, The Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they
turn, and encamp at Piraeth, between Migdal and the Sea, over
against Baal Zephon. before it shall you camp by the
sea 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 that he shall follow after them and I will
be honored upon Pharaoh and 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 was turned against the people. And they said, Why
have we done this? We've 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. The Lord hardened the heart of
Pharaoh the king, and he pursued after the children of Israel.
The children of Israel went out with a 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
Pyhahiroth before Baal Zephon. 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. The
children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said
unto Moses, Because there was 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 we should die in the wilderness.
And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, stand still, and see
the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you today. For the
Egyptians whom you have seen today, ye shall see them again
no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you,
and ye shall hold your peace. Let us pray. We rejoice to read this story
that has been rehearsed in our ears for so many years. Ever
since the first Bible was opened unto us, even in false religion,
this story was told again and again. We are thankful, Father,
that we can read it with understanding, that we can read it through faith,
that we can see in it the glories of the salvation desires through
Jesus Christ the Lord. we praise you we praise you for
for you goodness your mercy for us all things and we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God to
them who are the called according to his purpose we know moreover
whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of Christ that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren or over whom he did predestinate them, he also
called and justified and glorified. And we are in wonder of these
things. We praise you. We praise you and thank you for
it. We pray for those of our company who are sick. Pray for
Miss Husky, as she might be having this cancer. We pray that you'd
be with her and be with those doctors that give them great
skill to understand. Pray for Brother Fred. She's
suffering this bleeder. We ask Lord you'd be with those
doctors again. They might be able to find out
what his issue is. We pray for Julie as she prepares
for this operation. We pray that you'd be with her.
Give her strength and comfort in Jesus Christ. We pray that
it'll go well on the surgical table. Pray for the others who've
requested prayer. We pray for Dee Parks, for Sandy
and Moose. C.J. and the Morales as they
minister today and as he ministers to them. We pray for ourselves
tonight as we've gathered here that you might be pleased to
open up your word and teach us the truth. Cause us to walk in
your statutes. Cause us to love you more every
day and love each other too. Help us, Father. We need your
help. We're nothing without you. Cause
us now to worship you. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Now the defining theme and purpose
and reason why all this recorded history concerning Egypt and
Israel is found in a phrase in verse 4. The Lord declares, He
says, I will be honored upon Pharaoh and upon all his hosts
that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. This is what Paul
talked about in Romans chapter 9. God says, I'm going to be
honored upon Pharaoh, and this is the sovereignly predestinated
destiny of all things that exist to bring honor and glory to the
name of God, whether they be animate or inanimate. God will
be honored. He will be honored. in that last
day the whole host of heaven and earth will sing glory to
god in the highest they will sing glory to god our great god
omnipotent reigneth this is the song of the child of god and
this will be the subject of our next message next week uh... this matter of god getting honor
on pharaoh but in this hour we want us to consider how the trials
of the children of god are of absolute necessity Now the Lord
in verses one through three lays out to Moses precisely what is
about to take place. First he gives directions for
the people's journey. He directs that they are to venture
to a place where they will be, according to the words of Pharaoh,
shut in. Shut in. Where he sends his people
results in only one direction of movement. Where they're at
at this time, to one side is a mountain range which they cannot
climb. On the other side is the Philistines' Horde, which they
will not venture to fight with. And before them is the Red Sea.
So they are boxed in. Naturally speaking, the only
direction they could go is back to Egypt. And at that moment,
such a thought was not an option. It came later, however. Free
and happy is this people, laden with supplies and wealth. They've
left, it's said, their slavery behind. Says in verse eight,
they left with a high hand. Everything's going well for them. Then with the dust stirred up
from the wheels of the Egyptian chariots, they find themselves
entirely boxed in. Mountains to the left, Philistine
to the right, the Red Sea in front of them, and Egypt behind
them, closing in on them fast. The Lord has mapped out their
journey. He has brought them to this place. They are here
by divine direction. Now He completely shuts the door
because He hardens Pharaoh's heart once again to pursue these
people who have no visible means of escape. the people of Egypt
who have given up wealth and lost the service of their former
slaves they want them back that's what it says in verse five we
would like to have them back why do we give up on these people
they served us I can imagine that they're having to wash their
own dishes and tend their own laundry and having to take care
of their own beasts and maybe they had to watch their own children
or maybe have to give birth to their own children without the
help of the handmaids of Egypt. They want them back. Now they
were glad for them to go. They wanted them to go and gave
them jewels and crowns and such to leave and gave all the supplies
they needed. But they want them back. How
quickly these Egyptians have forgotten the plagues and even
the loss of their firstborn and are now plagued with having to
do for themselves and don't have servants to take care of them.
Israel at this time is fenced in to Pharaoh. They are fruit
ready for the picking, fish in a barrel to be shot. Believers
often speak of being shut up to grace. This is a reasonable
destination of every trial, every trial that the child of God is
ordained to endure. And if you have a trial, It does
not come by happenstance. It is not by chance. If a trial
comes your way as a child of God, it is because the Lord has
mapped it out for you and brought you to a place where you cannot
go nowhere else. You are shut in. You are boxed
in by God. My brother Billy often said that
the best place a child of God could be was at the end of his
rope, and it is a strange thing, this spiritual dichotomy. that
the only place for hope for the believer is a place of hopelessness
in himself. The only place for hope for a
believer is a place of hopelessness in himself. And the people's
response to the sound and sight of the approaching army is a
rehearsal of the contrary display of the flesh and the spirit.
For Paul said in Galatians, the flesh and the spirit are always
contrary to one another. you can't do what they wouldn't
and there's not ever a moment when you can accomplish something
in the flesh by the spirit or accomplish something in the spirit
by the use of the flesh these two are never together they're
always against one another and we see these two set forth very
clearly here in verse ten the people upon seeing the egyptian
army pursue them cry out unto the lord they cry out unto the
Lord. This is reasonable and right,
but it seems by what follows a very temporal exercise in spirituality. After the minuscule prayer meeting
they have, they turn on Moses. They turned to God and cried,
then they turned around and turned on Moses. Because generally speaking,
when troubles get bad enough, our nature, our old man, tries
to find somebody to blame. and now they're blaming Moses
in verse 11 and 12 and they said to Moses because there are no
graves in Egypt this is sarcasm because there are no graves in
Egypt has thou taken us to die in the wilderness wherefore hast
thou dealt 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
there's no record of that they said let us alone that we may
serve the Egyptians I don't remember them saying that for it had been
better for us to serve the Egyptians than we should die in the wilderness."
First they employ the stinging sarcasm saying, now there were
plenty of places to be buried in Egypt and instead you're bringing
us out here to be buried in the wilderness. Thanks for nothing
is what they're saying. Thanks for nothing. They call
on God and then they blame Moses for the present dilemma. Then
they employ the I told you so accusation in verse 12. They
believe They are about to die and suddenly to live in slavery
is preferable to dying as free people. That's what they believe. How quickly have they forgotten
that they were delivered by the blood of the Lamb with the promise
of glory and instead rather opt for unbelief. Unbelief. is the ever-present malady of
the believer. Ever-present malady. There's
no problem with unbelief when we're lost, because that's all
we have. But once God gives us faith,
then there's a struggle that goes on between the flesh and
the spirit that never ends. Sometimes when we know the end
of the story, we know about the dividing of
the Red Sea, We develop a kind of righteous indignation against
the blatant display of lack of faith in these people, and we
forget our own when we're in trials. We must not be hasty
in our negative assessment of how they react. We who have suffered
in our suffering trials and tribulations are yet prone to apply to the
flesh for relief, even though we are, by faith, sure of a favorable
outcome. We know how it's going to end.
We know it's going to be good. But if the trial is strong enough,
it might make us turn to anger. If pain and anguish at the trial
is strong enough, the anxiety can turn to anger because there's
nothing we can do. And that's what I hear, and that's
what my own complaint has been so often. I remember when Sarah
was going through her cancer, and Deb was out there with her. And she was struggling day by
day. I would get angry because there
was nothing I could do. And I'd want to do something.
Well, what was that? That was this flesh wanting to
do something, wanting to come up with some plan rather than
just falling down and falling on Jesus Christ. But that's the
nature that's in all of us. It's the old man. It's the old
man. We don't care for such circumstances
and one man said we interpret God by the presence of the difficulty
rather than interpreting the difficulty by the presence of
God. And that's the truth. Sadly we will put our hand to
it and royally foul it up. The scriptures record some times
when men of God were at the end of their wits and took matters
into their own hands. Great men of God, David. David
said this, Saul is going to kill me. Now David had the promise
of sitting on the throne of Israel from God. David had experience
with God. David had written books. David
had slain Goliath. David was a great soldier and
a great warrior, but Saul was after him and he ran. And where
did he run? He says, I think I'll go to the
Philistines. I'll go to Ziklag. I'll go over
there and I'll find peace there. How did that work out? the way
God said it would. Saul ended up slain and dead,
and David ended up on the throne. That never changed. Though David
changed in his trial, that outcome never changed. Where are you
going to end up if you're a child of God? You're going to end up
in glory, robed in pristine righteousness, worshiping Christ forever with
all your brothers and sisters. That's where you're going to
end up. That's the end of the story. You know that's the end
of the story, and I do too. But let the trial get bad enough.
Now forget that and say, well, I think I'm going to live with
the Philistines and see how that works out. That's what he did. You
remember Elijah? Elijah and Jezebel said, I'm
gonna kill you. Scared him to death. He run up
on a mountain, got in a cave, and was all tore up about it. He feared that woman. In fact,
he actually said, I wish I was dead rather than face her. Well, how'd that turn out? Just
like God said it would, Jezebel was slaughtered. And Elijah went
to glory on a chariot of fire. We know how the story is going
to end, but let the trial come and we're pretty sure, I'm pretty
sure, we'll try to put our hands to it and try to fix it. At the
end of every hopeless situation, at the end of every hopeless
situation, the believer will be delivered. That's the promise
of God. I will never leave you and never
forsake you and the trials will be because I send them your way.
Why? To bring you back to where you
belong. But first of all, you've got
to be shut down. You've got to be boxed in. Look
over at Job 37. Job chapter 37. Verse 70 says, He sealeth up
the hand of every man. Why? He sealeth up the hand of
every man that all men may know his work. The only way you're
going to know God's work is if you're shut up and shut down
and boxed in. He sealeth up the hand of every
man that all men might know his worth. As the people trembled,
full of anxiety, considering the return to Egypt, because
that's what they were thinking about. They said, you know, been
better off with servants still. They didn't think that when they
were crying out to the Lord to be relieved in all their slavery. Moses cried out, fear not, stand
still. What is he saying? Stop struggling.
My brother wrote a book one time called From Struggle to Submission. Stop struggling, say uncle, and
see the salvation of the Lord. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. Sometimes the four hardest words
in the English language are these, wait on the Lord. That's hard, ain't it? It ain't
easy. Because our nature fights that
completely. Our nature says do something
and do something right now and do it quickly. This is the bailiwick
of faith. Wait on the Lord. And it's the
bane of the flesh. The flesh cannot be still and
faith cannot do otherwise. The flesh cannot but fear and
faith cannot but believe. Nature must do something, must
insert itself in the matter. Faith must stand still until
otherwise directed. Unbelief exacerbates the difficulty. Faith rolls it over on God. To
stand still, what does that mean? Don't do anything. Do nothing. Do nothing. Oh, how beautiful
this picture is, the salvation of our souls. We do nothing.
because there's nothing we can do. We've been boxed in and shut
up and our hands have been tied. Our hands have been closed. We
have no works to offer God. We have no righteousness to offer
God. We have nothing to offer God.
We can't improve God's condition. We can't help God. There's nothing
we can do. What are you going to do in a
situation like that? Nothing. Stand still. Stand still. We do nothing because
there is nothing we can do. Nothing we can do. And as we
stand still, abide immobile, we see the salvation of the Lord.
We see His salvation. And it is His salvation. It's
salvesi, the salvation of the Lord. It is His salvation. His doing and He will abide.
He will not abide in any interference. or suffer anyone to assist in
its doing. In fact, it's already done. And
purpose has been done since the foundation of the world, for
Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
What the elect see when the Lord boxes them in and shuts them
down, what they see is the Lord saving them by Himself, by Himself. We are told to see the salvation
of the Lord and that would not be possible if that salvation
had not already been accomplished. You cannot see a thing that does
not exist. We are not told to involve ourselves therein or
to view a process wherein we are involved. A thing that is
finished is what we see by faith and that through the preaching
of the gospel. People are also told that the Lord's salvation
is by revelation. Stand still! see the salvation
of the Lord which He will show you today. He will show you today. This trial will end this day
because the Lord will fight the battle for us and destroy the
enemy so they will not be seen anymore. This is what trials
are for. So the next time you're boxed
in, wrapped up, shut down, your hands are closed so you can't
do any work, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
Father, bless us to understand and pray in Christ's name.