Well, believe me, the honor's
mine. The Lord said, where two or three
are gathered together in my name, I'm in the midst of you. If I didn't mean this, I wouldn't
say it. I believe he's here. I believe
he's here. And for that, I'm very thankful.
I thank the Lord for you. I thank the Lord for your pastor.
And I pray that God bless you. I'm so thankful for what is evident. And I pray that the Lord leads
you, directs you. It's been a wonderful, wonderful
experience to be able to behold what is taking place. So I thank
God for you. Let's take our Bibles and turn
back to the book of Exodus. I do plan to be in that 14th
chapter. The Lord sent, raised up and
sent a man named Moses to tell Pharaoh to let his people go. And the Lord allowed Pharaoh
to do what Pharaoh wanted to do. He wanted to keep the people
in Egypt, and God allowed him to do that. God hardened his
heart, left him to himself. Nine plagues the Lord sent, and
Pharaoh would not let the people go. God left him to himself to
do that. And the Lord told Moses, I'm
going to send one more plague. And when I send this plague,
he's going to let the people go. And the Passover was instituted. The Lord told Moses to tell the
people, you take a lamb and you kill it. And you take the blood
and you apply it to the two side post in the upper door post. You take the lamb, take it, roast
it, go inside, behind the door and eat it. And I'm going to
come through. And when I see the blood, I'm
going to pass over. And God came through the land
of Egypt that night. And in every house there was
death. Some left to themselves, and
their firstborn died. But to those that God had chosen
to show mercy, in that glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that lamb that was slain, substitution was seen. And God Almighty had
mercy on a people of His choosing. He chose to show mercy. Show
me your glory. I will have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy. The Lord told the people. He
said, you eat it. You have your staff in your hand.
You have your shoes on. You get ready because you're
coming out. And the Scripture says that that
next day they did that very thing. Pharaoh came to Moses and Aaron
told him, he said, get out. Get out of the land. And so the
Scripture says, and I'm going to read the last three verses
of chapter 13 of Exodus. The Scripture says, and they
took their journey from Succoth and encamped in Etham in the
edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them
by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way and by night
in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of
the cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night from before
the people. What I'd like for us to consider
tonight for just a few moments is the glorious deliverance of
God's people out of the bondage of sin, which coming out of Egypt,
that's what was pictured. God's people, there was the lamb
slain, there's the blood, God saw the blood. Almighty God delivering
His people out of the darkness and death, sin, its penalty,
and bringing them to the promised land. Canaan, glorious picture
and type of glory, of heaven. And that's the promise. You know,
the Lord's going to tell His sheep on the right side, and
that day He's going to divide the sheep and the goats. He says,
to the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Almighty God has promised He's going to bring His people unto
Himself. But while we're on this earth,
we're going through the way that the Lord has purposed for us
to go. And I want us to consider just
for a few minutes this glorious deliverance out of the bondage
of sin, regeneration, the giving of life. But we're still here,
aren't we? We're still in this world. And
while we're in this world, the Lord has something for us in
this blessed chapter. Now, I'm gonna try to illustrate,
just kind of talk to you a little bit, and I'm gonna kind of draw
a map I'm going to draw the map where you're looking at it. The
way you're looking at it, the people of Israel were in Egypt
up here, the very top part of Africa. And as Canaan was going
to be, if you go by the way of the Philistines, you'd just leave
Egypt and just follow the coastline through the land of the Philistines,
and then you'll come to Canaan right over here. Well, the scripture
says in verse 20 of Exodus 13, they took their journey from
Sukkoth and encamped in Etham in the edge of the wilderness.
Now, here's the way it goes. If you take, if you look at the
Red Sea, here they are, they're up here in Egypt, and down here's
the Red Sea, and it's kind of a long, tall sea. It's thin and, you know, long,
north and south. Then right up at the top, it's
got two two little legs that stick out of a part of the sea. Here's the sea, and here's the
sea, and here's the sea. And right down here is a kind
of a triangle looking piece of land that sticks down between
these two. And they're coming through, they're
coming through, and Succoth and Etham is in that little triangle. It's down here in the bottom
part. And so you would think that they would have gone from
Egypt and go by way of the Philistines, but the Lord sent them south.
And the Lord, verse 21, went before them by day in a pillar
and cloud to lead them the way. There's the comfort. They weren't
going there by mistake. They were going there exactly
the way the Lord the Shepherd was leading them. He said, I'm
the shepherd, you're the sheep. So the shepherd is leading his
people in the wilderness and he's causing them to go in a
way that you wouldn't think that they would have gone. Now, again,
let us consider. This is a picture and type of
all God's people. This is the way all of us go. There's many times that we're
finding ourselves and we know where the Lord has promised.
But the way that we're going is not always the way that we
would have thought would have been the way to go. They started
going south. And we know that He's ordering
our steps. That's what he said. The steps
of a good manner are ordered by the Lord. So here he is directing
his people, the ones that he's promised, I'm never gonna leave
you. I'm not gonna forsake you. But let me ask you this. They're
going south when they should have been going, in their minds,
northeast. How often do we question? Lord's
good providence in the way that we're going. And the Scripture
says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, chapter 14, verse 1, Speak
unto the children of Israel, that they turn, and encamp before
Pi-hahiroth, between Migdal and the sea, over against Beelzephon.
Before it shall ye camp by the sea. Or Pharaoh will say of the
children of Israel, they're entangled in the land, the wilderness has
shut them in. I will harden Pharaoh's heart
and he shall follow after them and I will be honored upon Pharaoh,
upon all his host that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord.
And they did so. Now, while they're going south,
now they have come down here, here they are and they've come
down to this part in this triangle. And they're coming down here,
and down in the very bottom part of that land down here, down
at the point of it, there is this pi-hi-hi-roth. Actually,
that word means the mouth. And it's a, that part of that
triangle coming down. If you got right down the bottom,
there's a little, it looks like a mouth down here. And this mouth
is part of the little part comes down. He said, I want you to
come down here. They've come all the way down
to the bottom. And whenever he says, I want
you to tell him to turn, verse two, turn or return. That word is return. What it
is, I want you to go down to the very part down before Pi-hahiroth. And I want you to face that that
open. Now this is part of the sea. This is part of this little lake.
This is the sea right here. And they're camping right here. And I want you to tell them to
come before that. I want you to face it. Face that
open water right here. And the way I want you to be
looking, I want you to be, to look, you know, let them turn
and camp before Pi-Hi-Hi-Rot, between Migdal and the sea, over
against Beelzefon. Now, here's the leg coming down,
and they're camping right here, looking at it. I want you to
face it. and they're looking at this water
right here, and all the way across this water, here's Beelzebub. It's the land over on the other
side of this, you know. He said, now that's where I want
you to go. They have been going around from Beelzebub, from Pi-Hi-Hi-Roth,
Etham, Sukkoth, and they're just kind of They're going around.
They're leading, the Lord's leading them and guiding them and they're
directing them in all these places. And so here, Pharaoh gets word. They're down in the bottom. Down
around Pyhahiroth. And they're entangled, verse
3. They're entangled in the land. They're perplexed. They're all
mixed up. They don't know where they're
going. I've got them. I've got them hemmed in. How
often we don't know what the Lord's doing. I was talking to
Brother Don Fortner the other day and he was getting ready. The Lord was going to allow him
to come out of that hospital in Cleveland. And he told me,
he said, Marvin, he said, I'm going to tell you something I
think I'm seeing. He said, we don't know what the Lord's doing.
He said, I never thought I'd have been here. Never thought
he was going to get out. He just, he said, we don't know.
We don't know what the Lord's doing. I think every one of us
here tonight, every one of us can consider something like this
is going on. And we look at our lives and
we think, well, I thought if we would have done this, if we'd
have just gone this way, it would have been, it seemed like to
me, it would have been a whole lot easier and much quicker,
safer. But that's not the way the Lord's
leading us. That's not the way the Lord's directing us. So Pharaoh
looks and he sees the people, they're not where they're supposed
to be. I've got them. And so he said, we'll get them. The Lord hardened his heart.
And then the scripture says in verse five, 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? That we've let Israel go from
serving us, the enemies of God. They have one nature. There's
an old man, and all God's people, we got that same nature, but
there's a new nature, a new man that follows after and loves
the Lord. But that old nature, his heart
of Pharaoh, he hated God's people. God's people, the Lord promised, you'll be
hated of all men for my sake. God's people are not hated because
they're good neighbors. We need, ought to be, we need
to be kind and compassionate to our neighbors. Brother Henry,
I heard, Bob, I know you've heard him say this many times. Be as
kind as you can to an unbeliever. This is the best they're ever
gonna have. This is it. Why is it that God's people are
hated? They hate the God that we serve. They hate the God of this Bible. They hate the God that rules
and reigns in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth. And they hate the people that love Him. It's just
a nature in this old man that despises God and His authority. Verse 6, And He made ready His
chariot, and He took His people with Him. He took 600 chosen
chariots, and all and 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. The children of Israel went out
triumphant, triumphant, never dreaming that Pharaoh was going
to come at them, that Pharaoh had told them to go out. And
here they are in the wilderness, following the Lord, following
the pillar, the pillar of a cloud by day, the pillar of fire by
night. And here the people of Israel
are in a place, they don't know what's going on. They're going
to Canaan, they know that. And the scripture says, now Pharaoh
was after them, verse 9, 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 Pi-ha-hi-roth
before Baal-zephon. Now Israel has remained where
they are. They know where they are. They
know something of geography. They know where they are. But
the Lord has not allowed them to move. Why are we at times, seemingly
to us, in a place where it appears that all is against us? And it
doesn't seem to be moving like it should be. It's not going
the way we thought it was going. I thought we had all of our ducks
in a row. But this that has come our way
by God's good providence seems to have caused some problems. And now, here we are, we're down
here, we're stuck. There's only one way to get out
of this part down here, it's north. And here comes the Egyptians. They're there, and the scripture
says in verse 10, and when Pharaoh drew nigh, The children of Israel
lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them,
and they were sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried
out unto the Lord, 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? We realize that the situation,
humanly speaking, at times seems hopeless. It seems that every
time we turn, there's another kink. There's something else. This is the Lord. The Lord led
us here. We're convinced that the Lord
has led us to this place. How is it that if things are
to be directed by God, surely they wouldn't be like this at
times? Really? Why? The Lord often leads us in places
that appears to be so hopeless, so dark, so questioning. And the people of Israel, they
cried out, the scripture says, unto the Lord. And they looked
at the man that was leading them and asked him, why have you led
us to this place? Why did you bring us here? Moses was the spokesman of the
Lord. The Lord told Moses to go. God
graciously sent Moses to bring the people out. The people, they
cried unto the Lord, but obviously not in a spirit of humility,
but with a spirit of complaint and unbelief. And we're all like
this. No one is exempt. No one is free
of this. This old man that's here with
us that causes that doubt, that fear. Look at 2 Corinthians 4.
2 Corinthians 4, 8 to 10. 2 Corinthians 4. We're troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. We're persecuted, but not forsaken.
Cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in us. Brethren, the Lord has promised
In this life, we're going to have tribulation. This is the
way to Canaan. This is the way. This is the
way home. We're going to walk the rest
of our lives struggling. Having to trust God. And the way we're going is the
best way. He led us here. He led us here. Every step that we take, in our
old man's mind, we're always going to say, it's going to get
better. Next week's going to get better. It's going to be
better. We're going to have tribulation
all the way that the Lord might be honored. We will cry unto
Him when we're in the bottom, when we're facing Pi-Hi-Hi-Roth,
And whenever the Egyptians are coming, that's the safest place
for us to be. You talk about an elimination,
fighting against this old man right here, against the ease
of this lie of thinking that it's going to get easier and
easier now. Look at 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 that we should die in the wilderness.
Let me ask you this. Would any of us want to go back? Would you want to go back to
where the Lord brought us out of? Would you want to go back
to bondage? They said, well, it would be
better for us if we went back there. Is there anyone here that
would want to trade and go back? No, I don't think. There's always
doubts. There's always harassments without,
and fears within, and doubtings, and troubling. God's people truly
though desire to follow Him. I can't go back. Lord, direct
us. You promised. You promised. We're going to knock. This is
what we're going to do. We're going to ask and we're going
to seek. And He promised. You knock and
it's going to be open to you. You seek and you're going to
find. Ask. It's going to be given. He gave my natural son, the Lord
said this, if a son asked for an egg, would you give him a
serpent? Would you give him a scorpion?
If I had it in my power, if he asked for anything, if he asked
me for anything, and I had it in my power to give it to him,
I believe I'd give it to him. I believe I would. I believe
I would, Obey. I think I would. How much more
will your Heavenly Father give you the spirit Here they are,
they're hemmed up, and they're in trouble. Verse 13 and 14,
And Moses said unto the people, Oh, how I thank God that God
would raise up a pastor. You know, a pastor. And listen
to this word of encouragement. Fear ye not, stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show To you today,
to 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. Is that not the most glorious
promise? I mean, this is what we need. Tell me one more time how the
Lord's not going to leave us to ourselves. Tell me one more
time. I've heard that before. But I need to hear it again.
Tell me one more time how the Lord has put away my debt. Tell
me one more time how God has been pleased to have mercy and
compassion to this sinner. Tell me one more time. Tell me
of electing grace. Tell me how I was Adopted. A child of promise. Before the foundation were to
stand still. Fear not. Stand still and see. Let not our hearts sink or stagger
through unbelief. Lord you're going to have to
help me. Lord I believe. Help my unbelief. Stand still. You're not going to contribute
anything to the victory. I'm going to tell you right now.
All the cunning and all the ability and all the skill. We're not going to have one ounce
of the glory. We're going to stand back, if
God's pleased, to build the house. Unless the Lord builds the house,
they that labor, labor in vain. You know who's going to get the
glory for everything that's done, not only in Kingsport, but in
Fairmont and every place? You know who's going to get the
glory? The Lord's going to get the glory. Not us. No, we're
going to look back as we have now and we shall by the grace
of God. And we're going to say, if the
Lord hadn't built this, it wouldn't have gotten built. Unless God
would have done so. It's not by our deeds and our
words and our cunning thoughts. The battle and the victory is
the Lord's. Look at Isaiah 26, 3 and 4. Isaiah
26. 3 and 4. Now listen. Everything that we're going through
in this world, He's promised. As I said before, it's going
to be tribulation, trials, chastisement, trouble, the whole way. Listen, Isaiah 26.3, Thou will
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because
he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever,
for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. You know when that
promise is most precious? I can tell you just a little
bit, maybe for me in one sentence. I'll tell you when I seem to
wake up at night. Have you ever woken up at night,
got to thinking about something? It's always worse at night. It
is for me. I don't know, it's just something
about the dark. And you get to thinking about
something. And how needful are we to be reminded, thou will
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. Lord,
would you help me get my eye off of your means and draw my
eye to you and let me behold you. I see you. Back in Exodus 14, verse 15 to
18. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Wherefore criest thou unto me? Obviously Moses was praying.
He was asking the Lord. You know, nobody saw it, but
the Lord saw it. The Lord heard it. Why are you
crying to me? Speak before the people of Israel
that they go forward. Now let me tell you where they
were again. They're down here in Pi-Ha-Hi-Roth. And here's
the water. And the Lord said, I want you
to bring them down here and let them stand before. That means
face it. Now they're facing Pyhahiroth. And the Lord says in verse 15,
And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me,
speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. Into the
water? Into that? Into the water? Forward is only one way. Forward. And they're standing before the
water, before the sea. And the Lord told Moses, you
tell the people to go into the sea. Verse 16, lift 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,
they shall follow them. I will get me honor upon Pharaoh,
upon all his host, upon his chariots, upon his horsemen. And the Egyptians
shall know that I am the Lord when I've gotten me honor upon
Pharaoh, upon his chariots, upon his horsemen. According to the
word of the Lord, the Lord instructed His people to do something that
in their minds was virtually impossible. It's impossible. But God's people were going to
be delivered and the enemies of God's people were going to
know it. They were going to acknowledge it and God's power was going
to be beheld and the Lord was going to bring His own sovereignly
in a way that they never could. They never could have accomplished
this. Verse 19, And the angel of God, the messenger of the covenant
himself, 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. Now he who had been
leading them, now is standing between them and the Egyptians. and came between the camp of
the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. And it was a cloud and
a darkness to them, but He gave light by night to these, so that
the one came not near the other all night." The same light that
enlightens God's people is said to be darkness to the unbeliever. God's people see by faith. The Lord said, The Lord said. Yeah, but the old man will say,
you can't do that. You cannot do that. Look at 2
Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2 verse 15. For we are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. To the
one we're a saver of death unto death, the other a saver of life
unto life. Who's sufficient for these things? While the Lord is leading and
directing His people in the light of His glorious leadership and
counsel, what they're doing is total darkness to men that don't
know the Lord. It makes no sense whatsoever.
And the Lord is directing and leading. And then he says in
verse 21, 22, 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
dry ground and the waters were a wall under them on their right
hand and on their left. I've heard so many things. I heard someone say one time
that actually what happened is that where they crossed over,
it was just really just kind of a marshy area, is basically
all it was. And it was kind of a dry season,
and it was just a dry part, the Red Sea. I did a little bit of
research on what I'm about to tell you. And where they went
across, it was very specific where they were standing. Pajahiro,
Beelzebon, and so I could look at it, and I tried to do a little
bit of geography here, where they were going to cross over
from Pihahiroth over to Beelzefon. It was between 9 and 10 miles
across that part of that Red Sea. And the average depth is
300 feet. 300 feet. Now the scriptures
say that God caused a strong east wind and it divided that.
In that division of that Red Sea, there's a glorious picture
of the shed, the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ opened
up. This is my body that's broken
for you. In safe passage across that Red
Sea, there's a picture of God's people led, guided through the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Physically, this actually happened.
But the glorious picture of what was shown there in that deliverance,
they went across on dry ground. That sea was opened up and there
we beheld the Savior. And the scripture says in verse
23, 25, the Egyptians pursued. Isn't man by nature, isn't he
presumptuous? Man by nature. He's so presumptuous,
he thinks that all these blessings in this word's for him too. This
book is written to God's people and God provided a way for his
people, safe passage for his people. And here the scripture
says, the Egyptians pursued and went in after in the midst of
the sea, even all of Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen
that came to pass in the morning watched, the Lord looked. under
the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud,
and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their
chariot wheels. 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." Now let
me tell you what's happening right here. The Lord divided
that Red Sea by a strong east wind. Average depth, it says,
300 feet deep. And God's people are walking
across, and it says that it was a wall on their left side and
on their right side, 300 feet, a football field. And God's holding this water
back. And they're walking. And I mean just the thought of
walking through. These people are walking by faith
as God's people walk by faith now. Oh, as we walk by faith,
they're not the doubts and fears and that battle that's going
on inside. Can you only imagine? While they're
there in the midst of that, they got nine to 10 miles to walk,
and that water is really there. And they're thinking, if God
doesn't sustain us, we're not gonna make it. We're not gonna
make it. This is more than I can handle.
I'm so thankful. That the battle is the Lord's.
And that I don't have my hand in it. What am I going to do?
What am I going to do? If God doesn't sustain us in
the midst of this battle right here. In the midst of what we're
going through right now. If God doesn't sustain us. You
know what's going to happen? We ain't going to make it. We're not going to be sustained.
The scripture declares that these Egyptians ran in after them.
They made it, so we will too. Scripture declares in Romans
3.18, there's no fear of God before their eyes. Never even
thought that they wouldn't make it. A believer hears the word
of the Lord and his heart bows in humility and respect unto
God's word. Pharaoh sees a sea opened up
and he never considered God opened this up for them. and I'm gonna perish. Never entered
his mind that Almighty God was getting ready to pour out judgment.
Verse 26 to the end. And the Lord said unto Moses
after they'd made it to the other side, stretch out thine hand
over the sea that the waters may come again unto the Egyptians
upon their chariots, 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, the horsemen, and
all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them. And there remained not so much
as one of them, but the children of Israel walked upon dry ground
in the midst of the sea, and the waters were wall unto them
on their right hand 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 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. You know, just
as the Lord destroyed Pharaoh and his army, his chariots. There's a day of reckoning come. All men are going to stand before
God. The Lord will divide them as
we said a moment ago. Sheep on the right and the goats
on the left. And he's going to say to those
on his right hand, enter in, enter in. God took and brought
his people, his elect. Many of them died in the wilderness.
They're not all of Israel that are of Israel. But God's got
an elect. He's got a people. And I'm going
to tell you that all God's people are going to Canaan, heavenly
Canaan. And they're going to make it.
He's promised they would. He said, where I am there, I
go to prepare a place for you. That where I am there, you may
be also. And while we're going through this life, Almighty God
is directing and guiding. And I can promise you according
to the Word of God, the Lord never promised that it was going
to be an easy street. No, He promised that we were
going to have tribulation. He promised that. But in the
midst of this tribulation, we have this promise again. I will
never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Whenever
we behold our Pi-Hi-Hi-Roth, whenever we
come to the Red Sea, and the Lord says, go forward. I'm telling you, according to
these scriptures, the Lord will provide. He will provide. I pray God teach us again that
tonight, Cody, for Christ's sake and our good. Amen.