If you would you wish to follow
along turn to Exodus chapter 14 Exodus chapter 14 The passage I want to deal with
is Exodus 14 verses 15 through 31 and Lord willing, I will read the
text as we actually engage the text itself. It's a little lengthy,
so I'll not take the time to read through it at the beginning
because we will, Lord willing, read every verse as we go through
it. And I will give you a title a little later, but I pray that
as I go through this, God will enable us to see what the subject
is before I ever give you any title. What I want to try to
do this morning, I will try to be brief with this. I want to
touch on four great facets of messianic truth that's found
in our text. That is Exodus 14, 15 through
31. And as we look at these four
great facets of messianic truth, we're then going to be faced
with a question. But the question is clearly answered
in the text itself. Four things. First of all, God
said, go forward. You see it, verse 15 and 16.
And the Lord said unto Moses, wherefore cryest thou unto me,
speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. But lift
thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea,
and divide it. And the children of Israel shall
go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. Now recall
from last week, Moses had just said, stand still. stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. And then it's as though God immediately,
though this was a proper command from Moses, but it's almost immediately,
wherefore criest thou unto me, speak unto the children of Israel
that they go forward. That seems a juxtaposition of
two absolute opposite things, does it not? Stand still. Go
forward. But here's the point. When led
by God Almighty, when God's man says stand still and watch God
work, then stand still and watch God work. But if God immediately
says go forward, then go forward. Those who preach free reigning
grace are often accused of being against action, being against
doing. being against good works. We
are against none of these things when God commands them. But here's
the point in verse 15 and 16. Go forward, but never go forward
unless God acts first. You see it? He said go forward,
but first, wait a minute Moses, but you stretch out your rod. and make the way open. So you
see it? I know that's so simplistic, but it's the truth of the gospel
we preach. We're often accused of saying that God put us on
a stool of do nothing. Well, if God puts me on that
stool to do nothing, then God willing, I do nothing. But if
God says, get up off that stool and start moving, God helped
me to get off that stool and start moving. There's the second
thing. God battles and God consumes
the enemy. 17 and 18, and I, behold I, this
is what God said. I'm not even gonna try to explain
it. I found myself years ago trying to explain God to men
and women and it does not work. And I, behold I, will harden
the hearts of the Egyptians. They shall follow them. And I
will get me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his
chariots, upon his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know
that I am the Lord, but in a different way than the Israelites ever
would. When I have gotten me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his
chariots, and upon his horsemen. You see, God Almighty is the
only one who can battle and consume our enemy. We cannot do it. Whether it be sin, whether it
be self, whether it be Satan, or whether it be society. And
I tried to put it that way, maybe that'll stick in your head. Whether
it be sin, self, Satan or society God is the one who must battle
and consume The enemy we may battle the enemy But we will
fail And I'll sum this second point up briefly in this way
God Has ordained it this way so that God gets all the glory
He could have enabled us to battle and consume the enemy But that's
not his purpose. His purpose is to get all the
glory. And Paul tells us why in 1 Corinthians
1, the last few verses, that no flesh should glory in his
presence. We may glory from the pulpit.
We may glory from the pew. But we will not glory in God's
presence. Number three. Now hear what I'm saying. God
help us to get hold of this. Christ is our true difference. We see that in 19 and 20. And
the angel of God, note that phrase, and the angel of God which went
before the camp of Israel, went, or removed, and went behind them. And the pillar of the cloud went
from before their face and stood behind them. And it came to pass,
or came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.
And then notice this amazing statement. This cloud, this fire,
was the same cloud and the same fire that came in between two
totally separate groups of people. but it was absolutely different
for the two people. And it says, and it was a cloud
of darkness to them, that is the Egyptians, but it gave light
by night to these so that the one came not near the other all
the night. Christ is our difference. And this is not a type of Christ.
This is an actual messianic claim of the pre-incarnate Christ of
God. This angel of the Lord is not
one of that great created host of angelic creatures that we
commonly call angels. This is none other than Christ
himself. This angel is God. It is the
Lord. Look at verse 24. And it came
to pass that in the morning watch, the Lord looked unto the host
of the Egyptians, where? Through the pillar of fire and
the cloud. You see it? This, the angel of
God, is none other than Jesus Christ. Even God had promised
him in his abiding presence, and we see this in chapter 23
if you wanna turn there. We'll just read, I'll make a
couple statements. Christ is promised to Israel
in His abiding presence, but there is with this His sovereign
right to be obeyed. Did you hear what I'm saying?
His sovereign right to be obeyed. This is that angel of the Lord.
The cloud and the pillar of fire was in front of the Israelites,
leading them where they were going. They stopped at the Red
Sea. God says, move forward. But first,
Moses, you open up the Red Sea. And the cloud moves. And the
angel of the Lord is in this cloud. And this angel of the
Lord is said not only to be God Almighty. Now listen to what
it says, Exodus 23 verse 20. Behold, I send an angel before
thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place
which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice. Provoke him not for he will not
pardon your transgressions for my name is in him But if thou
shalt indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak Then I will
be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary and to that
adversaries for mine Angel shall go before thee and bring thee
and I will paraphrase into the land Paul is clear When we come
to Luke's account in the book of the Acts of the Apostle, Paul
was in the midst of a great storm called Heraclodon. Paul had told
the sailors, we ought to stay in Crete. Something bad's coming
down the pike. And it says, I think it's verse
21 or 22 of Acts 27, it says, after a long absence, Paul came forth, and I know what
Paul was doing. He was seeking God's face. Paul
did not know yet what was going to happen other than great calamity
was coming to the boat, to the ship, to all the cargo. But he
said, you be of good cheer, because there stood before me this night
the angel of God. That's a reference to right here
of who Moses wrote. The angel of God, and this is
not that one, it's not even one of that great horde of created
hosts. This is none other than Christ
himself. For Paul went on to say, whose I am and whom I serve. Paul the apostle did not serve
created angelic hosts. He served Jesus Christ the Lord. As a matter of fact, you've heard
people speak of the Shekinah glory of God. That word's not
actually found in the scripture, but it means God's presence,
God's abiding place, and the only way you and I will ever
see God is in the face of Jesus Christ. And here's an amazing
thing. Turn to Exodus 40, and listen to what it says about
this. I want Moses recording. Exodus chapter 40, and look at,
just glance later on sometime, maybe at verse 30, 31, 32, 33.
They had erected the actual place of the sacrifice. and the outer court, and they
had rinsed themselves, they had washed themselves in the laver.
And then in verse 34 it says, Then a cloud covered the tent
of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter
into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon,
and the glory of the Lord filled And when the cloud was taken
up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward
in all their journeys. But if the cloud were not taken
up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up.
For the cloud, now look how it says it, the cloud of the Lord. This was no ordinary cloud. For the cloud of the Lord was
upon the tabernacle by day, And fire was on it by night in the
sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
Now to consider this briefly, here's this mass horde of people,
slaves, who've just been delivered from Egyptian bondage. And these
priests are walking about with this no doubt heavy article called
the Ark of the Covenant. And they had to carry it everywhere.
It could not be pulled by beast or cart. And when that cloud
lifts up, what do they do? They pack all of this tabernacle
stuff up, cover it with its appropriate coverings, and then march out
behind the cloud. But when the cloud stopped, you
know what the Levites did? Less erect the tabernacle. So Mason had to go and set it
all back up again. And it may last a week. It may
last a day. Now when God says go forward,
what do you do? You follow Christ wherever He
takes you. Christ is the Shekinah glory.
I read a couple Bible dictionaries, and of course it has the word
Shekinah in it. And they said, both of them that I read, said
that our text here, and when it talks about this cloud and
pillar of fire, is the first mention of this in the Bible.
I don't agree with that. I believe that cloud and pillar
of fire came before Abram when he had offered sacrifice to God
and put it on an altar and he cut some of the beasts in part
and the birds he didn't cut apart and he laid them upon that altar
and you know what I said, a deep sleep passed upon Abraham. And
then it says that this furnace and cloud moved between the pieces. That was Jesus Christ. And I
heard a pastor say this years ago, and I think it's absolute
truth. God put Abraham to sleep. So
when it come to the sacrifice, the only thing Abraham had to
do with it was the killing of it. And when Christ died on that
cross, we killed him. That's all we did. God Almighty does
all the work of redemption for his people. I want to give you
one, and I thought about this for some time. I want to give
you one distinguishing proof of who is actually the Messiah. For instance, men say, well,
his virgin birth proved he was the Messiah. That's true. That
is true. And there are no doubt thousands
who teach he was virgin born, but they're still not teaching
the Christ of God. There is one distinguishing proof
of the Christ of God. Any man who does not preach this
one distinguishing proof is not preaching the Christ of God.
And we find it in Isaiah 42. I'll just read the first part
of the verse. Isaiah 42, verse four. This is
speaking of the Christ. Look back at the context. The
New Testament even, as a matter of fact, Christ even quoted this
and said, this is about me. Chapter 42 of Isaiah verse 4
says, he shall not fail or be discouraged. And I do not think
I am doing damage to the context of the text when I say he shall
not fail at anything. anything. I don't care whether
it be regeneration, whether it be conversion, whether it be
redemption, whether it be justification, whether it be sanctification,
He came to do the will of the Father. Here's the question,
did He do it or did He not? Did he do it or did he not? If
he is the Christ, if Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, he accomplished
everything the Father sent him to do. And he did not fail, nor
was he ever discouraged. Number four, number four. God
both abates and creates obstacles. He abates obstacles for his people,
he creates obstacles for the enemy. God abates obstacles,
but God again consumes the enemy. Verses 21 through 29. And Moses
stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord calls. Now,
notice he told Moses in the beginning, stretch out your hand and divide
the sea, but now we're told who really did the job. You see what
I'm saying? And Moses stretched out his hand
over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong
east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the
waters were divided. And the children of Israel went
into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground, and the waters
were a wall unto them on the right hand and on the left. And
the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of
the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and 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 and took
off their chariot wheels. Do you see that? I mean, he pulled
the nuts loose. And the chariot wheels fell off.
And he took off their chariot wheels so that they draved them
heavily. I can just picture this in my
mind. Here's this mighty army of Pharaoh,
and I don't think they're probably just trotting along. They're
probably at full gallop. And all of a sudden the wheels
start coming off all of these great chariots. Look, so that
the Egyptians said, let us flee from the face of Israel, for
the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians. Now, shouldn't
that have been enough? Then just let them flee. Right? Wouldn't that be the compassionate
thing to do? Not if you're a holy God. and
you plan on getting yourself honor through the actual destruction,
the consuming of the enemy. These men now realize we can't
win this fight. And they're turning tail. They
are in retreat. Do you see it? Look. And the
Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thy hand over the sea, that
the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots,
upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his
hand over the sea, and the sea turned 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
host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them that remain
not so much as one of them. As I said last week, that is
our God. That is our God. Now, here's a question. This begs the question, who did
all this? Who gets the glory for both the
consuming of the enemy and the salvation of God's people? Who
gets the honor? Who gets the glory? Here's my
title. Who does the saving? I ask anybody. I ask anybody who may ever hear
this on TV or wherever. Whatever venue you may hear it
in. Who actually does the saving? Here's what our text says. Chapter
14, verse 30 and 31, 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. God always does
the saving. Read through the whole Old Testament. You're never, ever, anywhere
going to find out where Israel ever saved themselves. You don't ever find it saying
that Israel helped God save themselves. God always gets the glory, because
God's the one actually doing all the work. Father, may these
stammering words be used for your name's honor and glory. May Jesus Christ be magnified
in all things. May his person and work be that
which is the meat and drink of our very souls. I thank you in
his name. Amen.