As children born of the Spirit
of God, we ask our Heavenly Father to lead us. Don't you want that? You want your Father to lead
you. The psalmist said, hold up my goings in thy paths that
my footsteps slip not. Order my steps in thy Word and
let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Oh, that's what I want. I want the Lord to lead me. Our
Heavenly Father promises His children with this gracious,
most soul-assuring word. He says, I will instruct thee
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee
with mine eye. He says, He will not suffer thy
foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. He also says, He'll keep the
feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness.
For by strength, for by strength shall no man prevail. We want the Father to lead us.
We want the Father to protect us. We ask the Father to lead
us. And yet, we find ourselves sometimes in a fix, between a rock and
a hard place. And that just ain't exactly what
we had in mind when we asked the Father to lead us. But the Father leads us, teaching
us in our trials After that, He has converted us and called
us by His grace. He teaches us the same things
in these trials that He taught us when He brought us to believe
on Him in the first place. The believer finds ourselves
going through sort of a conversion over and over again. Remember,
that's what the Lord called what Peter was going through. He said,
I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. Peter was a believer. He was going through this trial
to be taught, and the Lord said, when you're converted, strengthen
your brethren. That's what you're learning here.
Well, this chapter, Exodus 14, deals with an example, it's an
illustration of what a sinner experiences when first saved
by the power of God's grace and brought to obedience in Christ.
Paul used it. I read 1 Corinthians 10 to you. Paul used this as an illustration. that how they were under the
cloud and they passed through the sea, were baptized unto Moses
in the cloud and the sea. This is an illustration of faith
and obedience. And we see in this how the Lord
brings us, brings a believer to faith in Christ. Now, when
we look at this and we look at it in that light, I want you
to think of this as we look at this and what the Lord did here
with the children of Israel. And you think right now, in whatever
trial you're in, if the Lord is not doing the same exact thing
and teaching the same exact lesson that He taught us in the beginning,
in the very beginning. Let's see, what does God do when
He saves a sinner? What does He do when He calls
you by His grace? Well, the first thing He did
was He took us out of our way, the way we were going, and He
brought us to behold our complete and total inability to save ourselves. Did God do that to you? He did
that to me. did that to me. Folks say, you
grew up in a church that preached the gospel. Well, I did, but
I, I grew up enmity against God. And I hated every word of it.
And then I accepted the doctrine and could argue five points with
you. And then God called me and saved
me. Exodus 14 one. The Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that
they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdal and the sea, over
against Baal-ziphon, before it shall you 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 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 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 six hundred chosen
chariots, chosen 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. But the Egyptians pursued after
them. All the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen,
and his army overtook them in camping by the sea beside Pi-hi-roth
before Baal-zevon." Now, the Lord used Moses to bring
them to this place. Moses throughout the scripture
is a type of the law. The law was given by Moses. The
law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ that we might be
justified by faith. Moses brought them here. We thought
we could hop on top of the law like a Shetland pony and ride
it all the way to glory. We didn't find out that the laws
of magnificent steed too many hands high for me to mount ride
to glory no matter how I try. They were at Pi-Ha-Hi-Roth. It's a valley, a big valley between
two great mountain ranges on each side. When we come to be
brought to the place where God makes our sin real to us, when
He makes the commandment alive to us, speaks into our hearts,
we find ourselves in a deep valley surrounded by mountains of a
broken law and offended justice that we can in no way go over
and free ourselves. And this is where they were.
They were stuck there in between these two mountains, literally
stuck there. In front of them was the Red
Sea, and the only way that sea is going to be parted and they
go across is if the rod That rod that God gave to Moses, that's
a picture of God's rod, the rod of divine justice. Unless that
rod, that same rod that was used to smite the rock from which
the water flowed out, a picture of Christ being smitten from
whom the water of life flows, this same rod was going to have
to be used and held out over that sea that that sea might
part, that they might go across it. But until that was done,
until justice is satisfied, There's no way of crossing that sea.
No way of crossing it. And then they were over against
a place called Baal Ziphon, which was Baal, meaning it was named
after Baal. And this was an idol god. This
was a god of man's imagination, a god set up, a place where a
god was set up that was believed that would keep all the slaves
where they were supposed to be and keep them in Egyptian bondage
and not let anybody escape. And it was a dumb idol. It was
a dumb idol. And when God brings a sinner
to see that Christ is all, He's going to bring us to behold that
everything we imagined about God, everything we thought we
understood about God, everything that we thought we had figured
out about God, It's just not who God is. We find out we meet
God. And I don't mean that maybe we
might have some right doctrine and things of that nature, but
when we meet God, I mean meet God, I mean meet God, that's
when them idols are going to, that's when that vain imagination
is going to be cleansed. And that's when that those corrupt
gods are going to be made to be just dumb, ignorant idols
before us. And Pharaoh and his army was
barreling down on them with everything they had with the finest chariots
in Egypt. There they are, sitting between
these two mountain ranges, before this false Baal Zivan, this place
of a false god, before a Red Sea that's raging that they cannot
cross, with Pharaoh and his whole army coming after them, saying,
why in the world do we ever give up our yoke off of them? We'll bring them right back here
and put them in bondage. Was it grace for God to bring
them there? Was it grace for God to bring
them to that place and put them in that fix where there is absolutely
nothing they can do to save themselves and they are brought to see there
is absolutely no ability, no power, nothing in their hand
that they can do? Was it grace? Was it grace when God shut you
up to Christ and made you see the same? Is it grace now? Is it grace
now? For the believer that's in a
trial, it's grace now. Well, what else did God do when
He saved you? He brought us to this place in
order to cause us to cry out to God in absolute helplessness. Verse 10. 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. When is it
that we'll truly call upon God to save us? When is it that we'll
cry out for God in desperate need for God to do all the work? when we absolutely see we can
do none. Absolutely see we can do none.
God won't accept us. God won't use us. God won't do
anything with us till he brings us to understand that. We can get it in theory. We can
get it in a textbook. God's gonna see to it we get
it in the heart by experience. That's right. The apostles in
the ship, they were there and they had been walking with the
Lord all the time. They were with Him constantly. And when
those waves began to pour over that ship and that ship began
to be tossed and rocked to and fro, they ran to the Lord and
they woke Him up and they said, Help us, Lord! Save us! We perish! They had a need. Well, the cry here that they
cried out was a desperation, a cry of desperation at first,
and it had a lot of confusion and a lot of unbelief in it.
Let's look at verse 11. They looked up, first verse 10
says, when they looked up, they saw those Egyptians marching
toward them. Now you think of what they saw,
a giant army of Egyptians coming, blazing down on them, blazing
down on them. If the Lord would have taken
them straight across when He took them out of there, they
would have been in the desert, and there's no way that those chariots would
have even been able to follow them through the desert. But
He took them down a path, down a road, to this place. And now the chariots don't have
any problems coming right after them. Right after them. And they
looked up and saw those coming after them. And they were sore
afraid. Sore afraid. And this is what
they said, Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt?
Verse 12. I'm sorry, verse 11. 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 we should die in this wilderness.
Look back over at Exodus 5, I want you to see something. When Moses
and Aaron delivered the word to them, just as we saw last week in Isaiah,
when the Lord sent Moses and Aaron with the word to them,
the Lord also hardened Pharaoh's heart on purpose so that Pharaoh
wouldn't hear what they sent him to hear. And it angered Pharaoh. And so every time the children
of Israel appeared to be listening to Moses and Aaron and obeying
the word that God had delivered, Pharaoh made their life harder
and made their life worse with bricks and mortar and hard bondage.
You know why he did it? To get them to stop listening
to Moses and Aaron. Look at Exodus 5.21. And they
said unto them, The Lord look upon you. Let's
see. I think I got, let me see here.
I don't know if I got the right place. Oh, look at Exodus 6,
9. Moses spake so unto the children
of Israel, but they hearken not unto Moses for anguish of spirit
and for cruel bondage. And the reason was is Moses had
Pharaoh had put all this bondage upon them. He had put all this
upon them to make their life bitter and make it harder and
make it worse upon them. And they were anguished with
this bitterness and this bondage. And they went to Moses and they
said, we don't want to hear you anymore, Moses. Don't preach
this to us anymore. It's better for us just to serve
where we were in bondage than to have to deal with this. Well,
when they were brought to this place, they were brought to in
this trial, what they began to find out, what they began to
say was those same things they said back there. And they said,
wouldn't it have been better if we, this is what we said when
we were back there in Egypt. It'd have been better if we'd
have just stayed there and served where we were than to come out
here and die this way. That's exactly what Satan wants
the believer to think and what he wants the believer to entertain
in his mind and question in his mind so that he'll cease from
hearing the truth of God and return to Egyptian bondage. Exactly. You see, serving Christ and following
Christ means that not everybody is going to agree with you. It
means folks are going to turn on you and they're going to rail
on you, and it means that there's going to be times when things
appear like everything's broken down all around you and everything's
going to hell in a handbasket. But the walk that God puts us
in is to stand with Christ, come what may. Stand with Christ,
come what may. Here I stand. Here I stand. Here I stand. under His wings, under His protection,
under His power, under His leadership, under His yoke, robed in His
righteousness, trusting in Him alone, sent forth to declare
Christ in Him alone, in the work of grace He performs in the hearts
of His people, bringing them into obedience through faith
that's in Him. Here I stand. Come what may,
but how often? You say, well, these folks turned
out to be idolaters. That's what Paul was telling
us. Yes, they did. But let's don't judge them too
harshly, brethren. Because how many times do you
have doubts? And how many times do you become
filled with fears and unbelief? And how many times do you panic
just like they did? David came to a point at one
time where he said, if I stay here where Saul is, I'm going
to surely die. The only thing for me to do is flee out to the
wilderness. And he took off and went to the wilderness. And God
killed Saul. He said, now come back there. That's right. Nothing blinds us to God's glory
like a high opinion of ourselves. That's why we've got to be brought
here. Verse 12, 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.
Is that true? Is that true? Would it be better for them to
stay in Egypt and serve the Egyptians? Would it be better for a sinner
not to be where the truth is and serve in hard bondage and
rigor and bondage? Would that be better? No, it
wouldn't be better. It wouldn't be better. It wasn't
God's purpose to leave them there. It's God's purpose to bring His
children out of bondage, to redeem His people out of bondage. Brethren, this is the promise of the Heavenly
Father. He'll be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy
cry. When He shall hear it, He'll answer thee. And Nehemiah said,
He saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard us
there cry by the Red Sea. There's much unbelief here. There
was much unbelief in where He brought them to. But He's showing
us a picture of how He brings a sinner to trust Him and what
He does when He brings a sinner to trust Him. And the psalmist
said, Nevertheless, He saved them for His name's sake that
He might make His mighty power known. That's what we're looking
at here today, His mighty power. Well, what's the Lord going to
do when He saves us? Though we might deny Him in unbelief,
though we may waver, He will not deny them that are His. He
will make His children effectually hear this Word in the heart and
submit to Him. He just will. Verse 13, And Moses
said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation
of the Lord which he will show to you today. For the Egyptians
whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more
forever. The Lord shall fight for you and you 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. This is what God works in the
heart and this is such a contradiction to a natural man, to a natural
religious man. This is a contradiction in terms
right here. But this is what he, this is
what God speaks in the heart of his people. This is the four
actions, four actions for every trial. Here's the first one,
fear not, fear not, fear not. Here's the second one, stand
still. Stand still. As opposed to murmuring
and panic and thinking that you've got to take matters into your
own hand. Just stop, stop, stop. Stand still. See. Watch the salvation of the Lord,
which He'll show to you today. For the Egyptians whom you've
seen today, you'll see them no more again forever. These Egyptians
represent all the condemning sins, all the bondage, all that
kept us from our God. He says, I'm going to put your
sin away as far as to east is from the west and I'll remember
it no more. And that's what He's done in Christ Jesus. And He
brings us to the place where He says, stop! Stop fearing,
stop and see the salvation of the Lord. and He commands this
affectionately in the heart, at the same time, go forward. Go forward. How can I stand still
and go forward? It's called walking by faith. Walking by faith. When God commands
faith, we'll go forward in faith. You know why? Here's why. This
is what He's going to affectionately make us to understand in this
heart. Listen to this, verse 14. Read this now, read this,
read this. The Lord shall fight for you
and ye shall hold your peace. What's going to solve my fear? What's going to chase away my
fear? The Lord shall fight for you. What's going to make me to stand
still and not be panicked? The Lord shall fight for you. What's going to make me see the
salvation of the Lord? The Lord shall fight for you. What's going to make me go forward?
The Lord shall fight for you. And that makes a sinner saved
by grace. to be more willing to hold His
peace and do as the Lord has commanded than to do anything
else. Well, when the Lord has settled
us in our hearts, then the Lord reveals Christ the way. Look at verse 16. But lift up
thou thy rod. There's that rod. Lift up thy
rod. This is that rod that smoked
the rock. This is that rod that ate up
all of the serpents' rods. This is that rod that God gave.
Stretch out thine hand over the sea with this rod and divide
it. And the children of Israel shall
go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. Look down at
verse 21. 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." This is God's rod of law, His
rod of holy justice. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Christ Jesus. It says He bore our sins. He
bore our sin. He was made a curse. He was inflicted
for our transgressions. It says these things about Him. And when He bore those sins in
His own body on the tree, God Almighty justly, because this
innocent one had been made the guilty one, And God will by no
means clear the guilty and will by no means punish the innocent.
And because He wouldn't clear those who were guilty that He
gave to Christ before the world began, He had to make Christ
guilty in their room instead. And so that God could be just
in pouring out the judgment upon Him that was due to them. So
now that same rod of divine judgment has opened up that raging sea
through His blood, and it has made it so that every child for
whom He died can go across on dry ground, dry ground, because
that same justice that demanded that He remade sin for His people.
Demands that because He has finished the work, His people must be
brought to an understanding and faith in Him and be saved from
their sins through Him. The same justice that was my
enemy is now my friend. It's my friend. That rod that
lifted up there over that Red Sea is my friend. because it
parted the sea and allowed me to go across on dry ground. And He affectionately gives His
children light and protection. Not just talks about it and it's
some mystical thing. He does this in the heart and
He does it from that day on. He's been doing it. He just makes
us understand He's doing it. Look now at verse 19. The angel of God, which went
before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them. And the
pillar of the cloud went from before their faces and stood
behind them. And it came between the camp
of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. And it was a cloud
and a darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these.
It was a cloud and darkness to the Egyptians, but it was light
by night to Israel. So that the one came not near
the other all night. You know what he does? He separates. That's what He does. Christ our
Lord is the angel of God who through the Spirit of God's grace,
the Holy Spirit separates His children and keeps His children
and protects His children and leads His children and will not
let His children go because The Lord shall fight for you. That's why he won't. This work
is a sovereign, effectual work. This is what he did when he saved
you, believer. The Spirit of God then makes
his children obey and follow the Lord. Okay, let's just stop
here a minute. Think about this. If you were
just there that day, You know, we have to, because of the infirmity
of our flesh, we have to just pause for a minute and step back
from what is the true reality, which is the spiritual work God
does, and then just look at things in the natural realm so we can
kind of enter into what happened and kind of get an understanding.
So let's do that. Let's stop just a minute. Think
about this. If you were standing there that day, And your heart is just fainted
all of a sudden. And you look up and here comes
this mighty giant army down on you. You look to your left, there's
mountains. You look to your right, there's
mountains. You look over here, there's an idol of God standing
here. That can't help you. You turn
around and there is a sea right in front of you. And you begin
to rail on Moses and say, Moses, We should have just stayed back
there where we were. Why? Why did you bring us out
here? We're fixing to die. And Moses would have said to
you, fear not, stand still. Come on Moses, at least there's
some rocks around here. Let me at least pick up some
rocks and start slinging them. Just stand still and see the
salvation of the Lord. The Lord's gonna fight for you
today. The Lord's told me to take this rod right here. And
he picks up this staff, this just piece of wood. And he says
he told me to hold this out over this sea, and he's fixing to
park this sea right here for us. We're gonna go across on
dry ground. Moses has flipped his lid. Y'all, have y'all heard what
happened to Moses? Somewhere along down here, on the way down
here, he drank some water that wasn't good. Something, he's
lost it. And yet these are the same people,
the same people that had seen Him do all those miraculous judgments
in Egypt. Seen Him bring them out by the
death of a lamb and spare all their firstborn to that lamb.
But yet here and there again, they're just frantic and thinking,
this can't... Now imagine what you'd think
there. That's what the Gospel's telling us, brethren. The Gospel
is telling us right here, right now, in everything about our
lives, spiritual and temporal. If it's fanatical, it's no less
fanatical than it was when Moses said, the Lord told me to take
this rod and hold it up. He's going to go between the
clouds fixing to go behind us and go between them and us and
separate us and keep us separated. The same light that's going to
give us light is going to make darkness to them. And we're going
to go across on dry ground. That's my gospel. It's been the
gospel I preached to you from the first day I preached out
of Haggai chapter 1 to you. And this is a type of baptism.
And baptism is an illustration of obedience. It's a public avowal
saying that we're committed, we believe, we trust, we're consecrated
to Jesus Christ the Lord. That's what Paul said. They were
baptized in the cloud and in the sea and they followed Moses
across this ground. Look at verse 22. 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. That's faith. That's faith. That's trusting
God. Confessing, I am totally consecrated to my God. I believe
Him. I trust Him. That's what baptism
is, a picture. Look over at Romans 6. Have you been baptized? Have
you confessed that this is your Lord? If He is, this is what
baptism is declaring. Look at verse 4. Therefore we
are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been
planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also
in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead
is freed from sin." You see, the Lord freed him. When he did
all this work for him, opened up the way and showed them the
way and made them cease trying to fight and calm their hearts
to follow after Him. He delivered them, Joe. He took
them. He took them. And they believed Him and followed
Him and followed Him. And as He promised, the Lord
destroyed the enemy. Look at verse 23. And the Egyptians
pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even
all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, his horsemen. And it came to
pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host
of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud,
and troubled the host of the Egyptians. The Lord did this,
and took off their chariot wheels, that they draved them heavily,
so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel,
for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians. He said
he would, he made the Egyptians even know it. And the Lord said
unto Moses, stretch out thine hand over the sea that same rod
now that demanded his children go across on dry ground, demanded
those who were not trusting him who were the enemy fleeing and
rebelling against him, demanded they die. The same rod. The Lord
said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that
the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots,
and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his
hand, over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when
the morning appeared, and the Egyptians fled against it. And
the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea, and
the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen
and all the hosts of Pharaoh that came into the sea after
them. There remained not so much as one of them." But the children
of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea, and
the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their
left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore."
And you know what the effectual result was when that happened? They stopped looking to their
own hand. They stopped looking for something to rejoice in about
their own works, and they started singing about God's works. Look
at verse 31. Israel saw that great work which
the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord
and believed the Lord and His servant Moses. Then sang Moses
and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake,
saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously,
the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. And you
go on home tonight and read the rest of that song, and it's just
all about his works, and his goodness, and his greatness.
All right, now I want to give you three things real quickly,
briefly. Three things to remember when
in our trials. Every trial we come into, the
Lord is teaching us this very same thing that He showed us
right here, that He taught us the first hour, He brought us
to believe on Him. First thing is this, the trial is the best way to
reveal the power of God's love and God's grace. We're in the best place we can
be in when we see we can't save ourselves. When we realize it. Best place we can be in. That's
when we're brought down. That's when we cry out to God
to save us. That's when God's Word, His promises, become really
precious. Really precious. It wasn't, well,
a little while after they got on the other side, And you'd
say, well, how in the world could a people like this get on the
other side and in a very little while start murmuring against
God because everything didn't suit them just right? Well, they're
a picture of whatever believer is still in his flesh. And that's
what we do. But the trial is the best place
to bring us back down to see what Christ has done for us and
to trust Him. The second thing I want you to
see is the Lord rules the trial. He rules the trial, even the
enemy in the trial. The Lord said beforehand what
Pharaoh was going to do, what he was going to think when he
saw them. Pharaoh looked up and there they go. And he gets word. You never believe this, Pharaoh.
They turned south and went south with their backs
to the land they were headed to. And came down into that place
between those rocks in the sea. They're sitting ducks. They're
fishing a barrel. But the Lord hardened His heart
to make Him go after them. Why did He do that? Why did He
do that? Turn with me to Romans. Romans
chapter 9. Real quick. Romans chapter 9.
Why'd he do that? He said, I'm going to get glory
to my name. He said, I will be honored upon
Pharaoh, upon all his hosts. He said, even the Egyptians are
going to know, at least in sheer power, that I'm the Lord. Look
here at Romans 9. But why does he do this for his
people? Verse 17, it says, For the Scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised
thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name
might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he harden.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who
hath resisted his will? If he's turning the hearts of
everybody, then who really is resisting his will? And here's
the answer to that. Who are you? Who are you? That's a proud, obstinate, arrogant
heart that'll say something like that. Who are you? Who are you? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? But look down,
I want you to see this. This is why I did it. Verse 23,
that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels
of mercy which He had aforeprepared unto glory. That's why He does
things the way He does it. He rules in the trial to make
you see you're a vessel of mercy. And I've done everything I've
done to show you my glory. That's what the trial's about.
If we could just remember, if we could just remember how it
was that first hour we began to behold God's glory in the
face of Christ Jesus, and in spite of all that we had to suffer,
and all that we had to go through for Him to shut our mouths and
bring us to that place, how the joy filled our hearts and made
us rejoice to behold Him. If we could just remember that
when we come into this trial now, He's done it for the same
exact reason. This is the peaceable fruit it
yields afterwards. He's beholding this glory of
Christ. This is the way that He makes
for us to escape it. I don't care if you're a wife
suffering in an awful situation, if you're a husband without a
job, if you have an employer who makes you wish you didn't
have a job, if you had friends that make you wish you didn't
have enemies or whatever it is. This is the reason God brings
us into the trial, is to show us His glory. Here's the last thing. Remember
these four things and pursue them in every child. Fear not. Stand still. See the salvation
of the Lord. And go forward. Whatever the race the Lord has
set before you today, run it. Just run it. Get up and do what
God's given you to do today. Not looking to what you're doing
in that, running it in your heart, looking at Christ. Thinking on
Christ. Trying to behold more of His
face. One scripture, Isaiah 41. I want you to read this and we'll
close. Isaiah 41. We have so much to be thankful for. Now
listen to this word. Isaiah 41 verse 10. Fear thou
not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ashamed and confounded, they shall be
as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish. And thou
shalt seek them and shalt not find them, even them that contended
with thee. They that were against thee shall
be as nothing and as a thing of naught." Not just people now. We're talking about sin. We're
talking about doubts. We're talking about fears. We're
talking about those things that make us think we're not a child
of God. He said, I'm going to deliver you from them. Everything
else too. For I, the Lord thy God, will
hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm, Jacob. That's
all yours, a worm. But you're a man of Israel, a
redeemed, chosen, everlastingly loved child of God. I will help
thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.