Exodus chapter 14 and we'll read verse 30 and 31 and then we'll read chapter
15 verses 1 and 2. This will be our text. The title of the message is The
Salvation and the Song of Israel. the salvation and the song of
Israel. First of all, here's their salvation,
verse 30. Thus the Lord saved Israel that
day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians
dead upon the seashore. And Israel saw that great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared and believed
the Lord and His servant Moses. Then what happened? Then, and
only after that, They sang, sang Moses and the children of Israel
this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto
the Lord. Here's the cause. For he had
triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider hath
he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my
song and has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare
him an habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt Him." Now,
here in Exodus 14 and verse 30, we find the fulfillment of God's
purpose, His promise. You remember He promised that
Israel should be delivered from the Egyptians, told this to Abraham. He said, Thy children, thy seed
shall be 400 years. in captivity, in bondage. And
now the 400 years had come and God, in grace, having chose His
people, He sent Moses to preach deliverance. And you remember
after God offered the Passover lamb, that they were loosed from
the grip of Pharaoh. But soon Pharaoh's heart was
hardened, And He pursued after them. And you remember God put
His people in that position where the sea was before them. A hole
was to their left. The desert was to their right.
Pharaoh was behind them. They were hemmed in. They were trapped. But you see that
God delivered them by power. What great power. that God parted
the Red Sea and they walked through on dry ground. And Pharaoh is
saying to do the same, was drowned by the same power. The same power
that opened the sea is the same power that closed the sea. And
now then the bodies of these Egyptians had washed up on the
shore. And what is the end result? Thus the Lord saved Israel that
day. out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the dead Egyptians
upon the seashore. And what is the result of this?
They believed. Look at that, the end of the
verse there. People feared the Lord and believed the Lord and
His servant Moses. Now, then, Only then, after they
were saved, they sang this song unto God. Now this historical
event that I just described to you, it is a great display of
God's power, isn't it? God's power to destroy such a
mighty army as the Egyptians. But what's more striking is this
deliverance of Israel according to a covenant. That's what's
more important here. It's not necessarily the death
of this Egyptian. God could have destroyed them
in a million different ways. God could have rained that big
old pillar of fire. He could have consumed them with
that. So it doesn't matter. God's power to destroy is not
as great as His power to deliver Israel according to a covenant.
That's why this song here is, that's why it says the Lord.
Remember when you see this word Lord, it's all capitalized, that's
Jehovah, Jehovah. And when we hear the name Jehovah,
we are to think of a covenant God, about God's covenant between
His people and Himself, the covenant of God. And so then, this is
my intention this morning, by the grace and power of the Holy
Spirit, It is my intent to show you a two-fold event. A two-fold event. The first one is that all these
events that God displayed His power to save national Israel
are intended of the Holy Spirit to show forth His greatest work. His greatest display of power. And what is that? That is the
salvation of spiritual Israel. That's what I want you to see
first, is the salvation of Israel. The salvation of Israel is the
display of God's work. And the second thing is the purpose,
the response of those who are saved. They sang unto the Lord. They exalted the Lord. They praised
the Lord. This is the response of everyone
who is saved by the Lord. Everyone who is named in the
covenant of grace. Everyone who is redeemed by the
blood of the Son. Everyone who is called to life
and faith by the Holy Spirit. This is our response. Praise.
Praise. To who? Self? No. The Lord. They sang unto the Lord. So that's
my two points. So first of all, let's see this.
The salvation, the greatest act of God's power and grace in His
covenant is the salvation of Israel. Look at that in verse
30. Thus the Lord saved Israel. The Lord. And this tells us surely that
this salvation was purposed. This salvation of Israel is a
purposed salvation. It was God who chose Israel and
it was God who purposed to give them the land of Canaan hundreds
of years, hundreds of years before they ever entered in. God purposed
to give it to them. Even so, Jehovah has chosen spiritual
Israel. God in grace has elected a people
before the foundation of the world. You'd be hard-pressed
to get rid of that from scripture, wouldn't you? According as He
hath chosen us in Christ. When? Before the foundation of
the world. Those whose names are written
in the Lamb's Book of Life were written when? Before the foundation
of the world. You would be hard-pressed to
get rid of that. And who would want to? Who would want to, if
you actually were saved by this grace? If you're named in this
covenant, you know that this is the only hope for you, is
that God wrote your name, that God chose you. "'Tis not that
I did choose thee, Lord, that could not be. For this heart
would still refuse thee, had thou not chosen me." We know
this to be true. The Father in the covenant of
free grace, not based on our merit, or works purposed and
decreed to give us a heavenly Canaan, a heavenly Jerusalem. Scripture calls us sons of God,
isn't that right? We who are chosen of God, we
are sons of God, adopted sons of God. And Paul said, if sons, then
what? Heirs. Heirs. Join heirs with Jesus
Christ. Of what? Heavenly Canaan. Heavenly Jerusalem. A place,
a promised land where there is no sin, no death, no warfare. In this city God dwells with
His people and they worship Him without, listen, without interruption. You got that? Without interruption.
How many thoughts have come into your mind when you try to worship
God right now? How many have vain and empty thoughts that
just flood your mind? They do it all the time. But
there will be no interruption. There will be no separation,
not one thought separate from Him. This is what we have promised
to us. I promise to all that this is
the purpose of God. Now then, what must take place
before we receive this heavenly Jerusalem? Something must take
place. It was ours by eternal divine
purpose in eternity. Yet before we possess it, there
must be something. Just like Israel, they must have
experienced what? Deliverance. before they were
able to enter into the promised land. So it is with spiritual
Israel. We must first be delivered before
we can ever enter into that land. Don't think you're gonna go to
heaven except by this way. You won't. Except God deliver you, you shall
not enter into this land. You must be born again. or you shall not see the kingdom
of heaven." All of us must be brought out
of Egypt, out of bondage. And this Egyptian bondage is
a picture of sin and Satan. of death and hell, of the judgment
and righteousness of God. We must be delivered from the
justice of God, the bondage of sin. You see, we all by nature are sons
of Adam's fallen race, which means we're completely
ruined. Friends, if you've never been
completely ruined, you have no idea what I'm talking about.
You have no part, you have no hope except you understand this
about yourself. Except God expose you and reveal
His holiness and your depravity, you will never know what it is
to be free. Modern religion says the fall
is nothing more than a moral corruption, that man is just
morally corrupt. And if he can change his morals,
then he can change his destiny. That's the same lie Satan entered
in with. He said, in the day you eat,
God knows in the day you eat this fruit, you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. In other
words, being able to choose. You shall be as gods and have
sovereign choice between good and evil. But soon they learned that that
was a lie. Soon they learned when sin entered,
the lie was exposed and they in their fallen nature perceived
that their works could cover their nakedness. You see, they knew good and evil,
but they had lost all ability to do good. Satan lied. They didn't become
as gods. They became dead in trespasses
and sins. We were at that moment sold under
sin, under the just condemnation and bound to this evil and corrupt
nature and by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified
in God's sight. Yet still today men boast to
be gods. Now I want you to understand
free will works religion. They're boasting to be gods as though
they have the sovereign will to choose. As though God must be subject
to their will. Man indeed does have a will,
but I tell you it is not free. It is just as bound as the Israelites
in Egypt. It was bound to sin and follows
the course of its own nature. We are all as an unclean thing.
And do fate is a leaf and all our righteousnesses are what?
As filthy rags. From the crown of the head to
the sole of the foot there is what? Nothing but wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores. There is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that
understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. I don't know how that sounds to you,
but it sounds to me like bondage. And that's exactly how Paul described
himself, his nature sold under sin. If any man supposes his
nature to be good, his deeds to be righteous, his will to
be capable of freeing himself, I tell you, that man is ignorant
of the righteousness of God. You hear that? I want you to
understand, he's ignorant. Of what? He may be knowledgeable,
he may be a brain surgeon. I don't care. He may have great
knowledge of the things of this world, but one thing he's ignorant
about is the righteousness of God. How did Paul describe his
brethren? He said, they're ignorant of
the righteousness of God. Well, how do you know, Paul?
They go about to establish their own righteousness. Look now and see that God is
perfect and absolute. He is holy and just. He is solitary,
and that God alone was happy, purpose, and in Himself, He was
content within Himself from eternity. He's happy, He's holy, He's perfect,
He's eternal. He doesn't move or change. Behold,
I am God. I change not. He's eternal. And I'll tell you
this, God is sovereign in everything, over everything. Our God is in the heavens and
done what? Whatsoever he hath pleased. Isaiah
tells this the Lord through the prophet Isaiah says I am the
Lord and there is none else Declaring the end from the beginning from
ancient times the things that were not yet done saying what?
My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure and that's
important any God that's not eternal any God that is not holy
any God that is not self-sufficient and alone God and is not sovereign
is not God and I can call that chair God, but
it ain't God. You call yourself God, but you
ain't God. You fit none of those categories.
Only God fits into those attributes. And I tell you what his purpose
was. I'm so glad God doesn't leave us to guess what His purpose
is. If God's going to do what God's going to do, and that's
what's going to be done, I want to know what that is. And God
doesn't leave us to guess. This is it! To save Israel. That's His purpose. That's His
covenant that doesn't change. His immutable counsel that He
will do. His purpose and decree from eternity
was to save Israel, to save His chosen people, to free them from
the bondage of sin and Satan and their nature. But how? How
should He do it? He doesn't leave us to guess
at this either. Not by the grounds of their merits, not by the grounds
of their works, or their righteousness, or their own power, or their
own will. But according to His own power and grace, He has purpose
to save spiritual Israel from the bondage and corruption of
their nature. And behold, the greatest, the greatness of God, behold,
the greatness of God's perfection is expressed in His law as this,
be ye holy even as I am holy. You see the standard here. You
see the standard of freedom. The standard of freedom is perfection.
The only ones who are free are perfect. The only ones who are
free are as holy as God is. Do you see how much infinitely
higher this standard is than any of us could ever attain? Do you see that cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law
to do them, that by the deeds of the law that no flesh shall
be justified? Do you see that? but God, who is rich in mercy." You know
what? My whole soul hinges on those
two words, but God. I hang my helpless soul on those
two words, but God. If it were not for God's purpose,
I surely would be doomed. If God had not chosen me, I never
would have chosen Him. But God, who is rich in mercy,
has purposed, decreed, and an eternal covenant promised to
save Israel, just as He promised to save those Israelites in Egypt. Did He do it? Did He do it? Yes. He did it because He promised
He would do it. What is my hope that He should
deliver this Israelite? Because He promised to do it. He swore. When God could swear
by none greater, what did He do? He swore by Himself that He would save us. Second
thing is this, the work of Jehovah in the literal salvation. the accomplishment of that salvation. Now, he purposed it. Now then,
see how he accomplished it. He accomplished it by one word,
redemption. Redemption. As I was reading
about redemption, I thought this was good because it's necessary
for us to understand redemption is a two-fold process. It's not
just one word, but it has two things about redemption that
must be accomplished. First, a ransom must be paid. In order to redeem, you must
first pay the ransom. And the second part of redemption
is deliverance. Those who have been ransomed
must, of necessity, be delivered. And so then I pose that question,
what good is a ransom paid if the captive has never experienced
deliverance? It wouldn't be a ransom, wouldn't
it? It wouldn't be a good enough payment if the person is never
delivered. Hosea expresses this, and you
can write this down and read it later. I'll read it to you
now, but you can study it later. He mentions both of these parts
in his word, Hosea 13 and verse 14. He said, I will ransom them. from the power of the grave.
I will pay the debt so that they should be delivered
from the power of the grave. And then he said the second clause,
I will redeem them from the grave. Not only will I pay the ransom,
but I will experimentally deliver them from the grave. Now we know this. It was the
blood of the Passover that delivered Israel from the Egyptian. It
was the ransom paid by which they were let go. And when they
came to the Red Sea, they were fully delivered by the power
of God through the sea. They were experimentally delivered
when all of their enemies were crushed in the sea. Even so it
is with the redemption the greater redemption of spiritual Israel. Our redemption, our ransom price
was paid by what? The blood of Jesus Christ. The blood of Christ paid our
ransom. And it was by the power of the
Holy Spirit that we experienced it, the deliverance by which
we were redeemed. and see that God who chose us
in spiritual Israel also purposed that we should behold Him blameless.
And by the redemption of Jesus Christ, He said, I will ransom
them. I will pay the ransom from the
power of the grave, which He did at Calvary. Now friends,
death is the just sentence of sin, isn't it? It's the just
sentence. The soul that sinneth, it shall
surely die. So then as a representative,
our Lord Jesus Christ came to pay a ransom. On our behalf,
he came to pay a ransom, which ransom price was his own life. His blood was the price for our
deliverance from the grave, from death. And so you who are ruined, I tell you to look to who paid
the ransom. Stop looking to yourself. You
can never pay the ransom. I'm telling you of one that's
already paid the ransom. One that's already been accepted
of God, Jesus Christ. He came in the flesh to do the
will of God and give His life a ransom for many. To ransom Israel from the power
of death. And God laid all the iniquity
of Israel upon Christ, our Passover Lamb, and you listen, He actually
paid the debt. He really paid the debt. For who? Many. Many. All that God had given Him, all
that were listed in the covenant of eternal grace, all those that
he became surety for, he literally, as our Passover, paid the debt
owed to the justice of God. Yet those who are ransomed knew nothing of this ransom until
we were delivered. until we were delivered. It was
not until God comes in the power of the Holy Spirit that we experience
the fullness of his ransom. Now look at the journey of Israel
and see our journey. It's the same. It's the same
journey. As God led them So He leads us and protects us
all the days until our deliverance. And at God's appointed time of
grace, He, like Israel, locks us in. See, He paid the ransom. He delivered us from Egypt long
before we ever realized it. He led us through this life until
the appointed time. And at the appointed time of
grace, what did He do? He hemmed us in. There was a
whole of our religion to our left hand, which could not save
us. The desert of this world was
to our right hand. The justice of God was before
us. Satan was behind us, pursuing
us to death. And what did we hear? Stand still. Stop working. And see. Not participate. Isn't that right? He'd say, let's participate.
Get some buckets. Help God out. We need to part
this sea. No. Stand still. Shh. Be quiet. And watch. Look and live. Look to Jesus now and live. And everyone, that sea parted
and they walked through on what? Dry ground. Dry ground. Immediately. And so it is with
everyone who believes. We walk through this world on
solid ground. You know what the grounds of
my standing before God is? Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
He is the rock, the foundation laid before the foundation of
the world and from Him we shall not be moved. Why? Because we
are in union with Him and that water represents the justice
of God and not one drop of justice shall fall on our head seeing
it all fell on Him. And we walk through this world
and we shall, like Israel, reach Canaan's side We shall be delivered
because of the redemption of Jesus Christ. Behold this glorious truth, our
Lord and Savior. The scripture says the Lord saved
Israel that day. You know what, the day you believed
you were saved. Now you were purposed to be saved,
your ransom was already paid, but you didn't experience it
until that day. And they didn't experience full deliverance until
they saw the Egyptians floating on the seashore. What is that?
You won't experience it until you see your sins dead in the
water. Your sins are gone. Your enemy
is crushed. The seed of the woman shall crush
the head. With what? His bruised heel.
Crushed his head. All of our enemies, all of our
foes, why? The scripture says, as far as
the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions
from us. And what's the proof of this?
What's our proof that this is done? Their proof was the bodies
washing up on the shore. What's our proof? Our proof is
the empty tomb. Jesus Christ is risen from the
dead because death could not hold Him. Sin had been removed. So then when God looks for our
sin, He finds no sin in His people. Now you look and you find a lot
of sin. That's because there's still
this old nature is around. It's still wrapped around us
like a cork. But I tell you this, God sees
no sin because He sees us in His Son. He sees us in His Son. The hymn writer rightfully said,
With thy holy garments on, I am as righteous, am as holy as the
Holy One. If the Son shall set you free,
you shall be free indeed. Doesn't this separate the gospel
from modern religion? Always trying to shackle you,
bind you. You can't bind a free man. Free to what? Worship God. Free
to approach God. Free to cry to my God. Free to
love my God. Free to believe on Christ. That's freedom. That's something
a natural man cannot do. He can try, but he can't do it. And how can we do it? Because
we've been delivered. I don't have much time, but I
want you to see the response of this is this song. All who
are saved, Notice what happens first. In verse 31, they saw
the work. By faith we see the work. And
what do we do? We fear the Lord and believe
the Lord. Look, you can't sing unto the
Lord really until you believe. You children, I understand that
you don't enjoy this. And I know why. You've not been
freed to enjoy this. If God ever frees you, you'll
enjoy this. You'll see. You can see yourself
here. You see the salvation of the
Lord and the greatness of it, the glory of it, the beauty of
it, the power of it. You experience these things and
they're real and they're alive. And what do we do? Then, and
only then, Moses and the children of Israel sang, to whom? Unto
the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord. Isn't that who we sing to? Jehovah, the covenant God. And what do we sing? What's the
motive of our songs? Oh, how I love Jesus. Is that
our song? Jesus is waiting, waiting for
you to come to him. That's one of those Armenian
songs. I don't know the words because
it's not worth singing. No, we sing for, look at this,
because he had triumphed, glory. We sing because the work is done. We sing because there's no more
battle to fight. It's done. The Lord has triumphed. The Lord has triumphed. through the horse and the rider
in the sea. The Lord is my song and become
my salvation." Now look, He was always my salvation but now I
know He's my salvation. He's become my salvation. This is always the response of
those saved. They believe. Believe on who? The Lord saved them. That's what
we believe. The Lord saved me. He purposed
to save me. He saved me at Calvary and He
saved me when He delivered me by the power of the Holy Spirit. And not only that, He is still
saving me. He is still saving me. And just as these Israelites
did reach Canaan's shore, even so shall we, too, reach Canaan's
shore. This is our song. The Lord. Triumph gloriously, the Lord
has become my strength. You know that's written in Revelation.
I have many, many other things to say about this song, but We'll
save that for another time. But do you realize that this
song is the one sung in heaven? I believe it's Revelation chapter
14 or 15. Then sang they the song of Moses. You know it's the first recorded
song in scripture? That's the first recorded song.
I'm sure saints sang other songs before. It's the first one the
Holy Spirit penned, and it's the last one we'll ever sing.
The Lord triumph gloriously. The Lord is become my salvation. Isn't He become my salvation
every day? and eternity what we've seen he's become my salvation
you'd become it eternally singing this song and i'll visit will
exalt world exalts man why he's all ourselves The Lord saved Israel. Israel sang unto the Lord and
exalted Him. That's what we do. May God give
us strength to do that, faith to do that, love to do that,
all of the graces necessary to sing unto our God. Not with just
this. Yes. Our hearts. He's worthy, is He not? May God
bless us to you. Stand and be dismissed in prayer.