Good morning, good to see everyone.
You would be turning in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 14. Exodus 14, we're going to look
at a story that's probably familiar to all of you. It's a great story
from the Old Testament about the parting of the Red Sea. And I won't read all of Exodus
14, but I would encourage you to do so on your own when time
permits. It's a fascinating story and
it doesn't hurt to be refreshed with all the facts, especially
since these This temporal deliverance of the nation Israel across the
Red Sea has such a spiritual significance as it is a type
of the eternal deliverance, salvation of spiritual Israel, God's elect. And we'll be looking at that
just to refresh your memory. The Israelites, as you know,
were in bondage in Egypt and they, by God's miraculous working,
And under Moses' leadership, he led them free out of Egypt
through the bringing on of several plagues. You'll remember they
put blood over the post, the Passover, and actually eventually
led Pharaoh to let the people go. And so they had left Egypt,
they had gone out into the wilderness, and God told Moses, go camp by
the Red Sea. And so they did. And as they
were camped there, God, it says, hardened Pharaoh's heart, caused
him to regret that he had allowed the Israelites who were their
slaves there in Egypt to go free. And so Pharaoh amassed his army,
his horses, chariots, and they took off after the Israelites.
And it says there around verse 10 in chapter 14 that they looked
up and they saw the army coming, the chariots, the horses, and
they were sore afraid is what the scripture says. They were
very afraid and they started murmuring against Moses and saying,
why did you bring us out here in the wilderness to die? We'd
rather have just stayed a slave back in Egypt. And in our text
for today, if you'll look there in verse 13 of Exodus 14, as
they murmured, 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 ye have
seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you,
and ye shall hold your peace." And as you go through the rest
of the chapter, God told Moses to lift up his rod and to hold
his hand out over the sea and it said that the Lord brought
an east wind all that night and in the morning there was a wall
of water on the right and a wall of water on the left and completely
dry ground for the Israelites to walk across to the other side.
And as they got to the other side Pharaoh and his army made
pursuit across that same dry ground. And it says that the
Lord troubled them. He caused the wheels on their
chariots to fall off. It was such a troubling and such
a miraculous thing that the Egyptians themselves said, their Lord,
the Lord is fighting for them. And they started to flee. But
before they could escape, God told Moses to lift his hand up.
He collapsed the sea back upon the Egyptians and they were all
drowned. So that's that's the brief version
of the story in a nutshell. When I whenever I think of this
story, I'm reminded of this cute little joke that I'm sure most
of you've heard. Little Johnny, he went off to
Sunday school. And when he heard this very story, when he got
home, his mom said, Johnny, what did you learn today? And he said,
well, mom, you see, there were these Israelites and these bad
Egyptians were chasing them. They got them trapped there by
the Red Sea. And their leader, Moses, got his walkie talkie
out. He radioed for the Army Corps of Engineers, spoke with
the chief engineer and said, listen, get me a pontoon bridge
built across the sea here because they're in hot pursuit. And so
sure enough, they quickly assembled a bridge. Israelites crossed
and said they got to the other side mom and then the Egyptian
army they come running across the bridge after them he said
so Moses got back on his walkie-talkie and he called the chief engineer
up and he said blow up the bridge so they sent the demolition team
out set the charges and they blew up the bridge and all the
Egyptians fell in the sea and drowned mom said now little Johnny
did she really tell you the story that way and he hung her head
and he said nah but you'd never believe it if I told it the way
she did And you know, as incredulous as that was to little Johnny,
we find that there are many who know this is God's word. They
believe it to be the inspired word of God, that it's true.
And it is indeed a remarkable, remarkable miracle of the Old
Testament. The greatness of it, though,
is seen beyond its temporal meaning and its spiritual meaning. Here,
in this miracle, many perceive of the awesome power of God and
his sovereignty to deliver a people according to promise. He had
promised these very Israelites, their father Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, that he would give them a promised land. And here, men
who call themselves Christians, men of the Jewish faith who believe
the Old Testament account here, they have no problem, unlike
little Johnny, believing that God did indeed miraculously deliver
the nation Israel by dividing the sea. And indeed, they should. They're right to do so. And yet,
the greatness of the miracle is truly seen in the spiritual
significance of it. the deliverance of God's elect
spiritual Israel, that is, of every tribe, kindred, tongue,
and nation, but those who were chosen unto salvation, not this
temporal nation, for to keep them together, to bring them
the law, to point them to Christ, and to bring the Messiah through,
but a nation who was chosen unto eternal salvation to be delivered
from their enemy, from their bondage, from the bondage of
sin and Satan. And yet, so many who have no
problem with this miracle as recorded here in the historical
fact, like little Johnny, when it comes to the spiritual significance
of it, They find themselves unable and unwilling to stop, to stand
still and see that their eternal salvation, likewise, is miraculously
all of the Lord. And that's where I hope to point
you this morning. I've taken my title from verse
13. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. You know, whenever we take a
story, a historical story from the Bible, and we say, I'm going
to show you how it illustrates a spiritual truth. We have to
be careful, because that's how men often rest the scriptures,
to concoct something that's consistent with their own belief, what they
think about how the gospel, how God saves sinners. And so to
take care this morning How do we know whether or not, if someone
says this represents this, how do we know whether or not that's
of their own devising? How many times have you heard
people say, well, that's just what you say it means. Well, today we're
going to look in the New Testament at a doctrinal passage that actually
sets forth the gospel of how God saves sinners so as to stay
true to the spiritual significance that I hope you can see in this
miraculous miracle in the parting and deliverance, the salvation
of that nation from their enemy, the Egyptians. There are three
aspects I want you to see. So we're going to be looking
over, if you want to go ahead and turn there, we're going to
be bouncing back and forth between Exodus 14 and Romans chapter
3. And there are three things I want you to see about this
deliverance, this temporal salvation of the nation Israel as they
were there at the Red Sea. One is there's a stopping that
must take place. Two is there's a standing still. And three, there's a seeing,
a seeing the salvation of the Lord. First, let's talk about
this stopping. If you look back in verse 9 of
Exodus 14 now, it says, But the Egyptians pursued after them
all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh and his horsemen and
his army, and they overtook them in camping by the sea beside
Pihahiroth before Baal-zevon. Now, when I was studying this,
these places that are described there, it described them as,
on one side, a range of boulders that were totally impassable,
and on the other, garrisons or forts, presumably of the Egyptian
army. And here they were at the Red
Sea. They had nowhere to turn but up. And then who put them
there? We'll look back at verse 1 of
chapter 14. It says, And the Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, Speaking to the children of Israel, that they
turn, and encamp where? Same place, before Pi-hahiroth,
between Migdal and the sea, over against Baal-ziphon. Before it,
this is God speaking, it shall ye encamp by the sea. God put them there. And look
at verse 3. For Pharaoh will say of the children
of Israel, they are entangled in the land. The wilderness hath
what? Shut them in. They were shut
in. They had nowhere to go. There's
a stopping sea that must take place. Verses 5 through 9 goes
on and talks about the strength or leads us to see the strength
of the army of the Egyptians as the Israelites saw it. It
said they came with chariots and horses And the reason it
says in verse 10, they were so afraid is this enemy was far
too powerful for them. They were unarmed and on foot
and shut in. They had nowhere to turn. And
so how did they react? Well, in verses 10 and 11, it
says they murmured to God. They murmured. I don't think
it used the word murmur there, but basically they started saying,
wait a minute, we don't like this. Here we are, Moses, did
you bring us out here in the wilderness to die? And look at
verse 12. He says, is not this the word
that we did tell thee in Egypt? Didn't we tell you this back
when we were in Egypt? Now they're telling this, keep
in mind, after having seen the miraculous plagues that God brought
upon the Egyptians to deliver them out of their slavery in
Egypt, working in the brick kilns, making brick, He says, isn't
this what we told you back in Egypt, Moses? 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.
They're showing contempt for their circumstances. It's a place
people don't like to be put, to be shut in, with their destiny
no longer in their hand because there's nothing they can do.
They show contempt for it, and what do they say? They prefer
bondage, slavery, to the freedom that they have now that they're
boxed in. And who put them there? Well,
God did. Well, there's a spiritual application
also that we see for spiritual Israel. in that they, too, in
each successive generation, are brought to a point where they're
stopped. There's a hemming in that takes place. And to see
that, I want you to go to Romans chapter 3 now, and just keep
a marker there in Exodus 14. In Romans 3, Paul's describing sinners,
all of us by nature. He had said back in verses 10,
as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. You skip
down verse 16, it says, "...destruction and misery are in their ways,
and the way of peace have they not known?" There's no fear of
God before their eyes. There's no reverential respect
for the honor of God's character. So we're looking at this from
man's frame of reference. They're murmuring there, to use
the example of the Egyptians and the Israelites, they're murmuring,
they're sitting there going, Why couldn't it be this way?
We wished we had stayed in Egypt. You see, they're still looking
at everything from man's perspective as they're hemmed in there by
the sea. And God's chosen people, though,
will be stopped and they're going to be hemmed in And yet, initially,
we're all born in this world just like this, verse 18, no
fear of God. We just don't look at it. We're
not interested in how God could accept me, a sinner. Instead,
we're wondering, well, what do I have to do? We talk about us
accepting Him. You see, it's just two completely
opposite frames of reference here. And then in verse 19, he
says this, now, we know that whatsoever things the law saith,
the law that sets forth the requirements, the conditions, it saith to them
who are under the law, that's every person who walks on this
earth, they're under the law, subject to obeying God's revealed
will by way of command, that what? That every, this is what
the law's purpose was for, that every mouth may be stopped. There's a stopping that must
take place. And this stopping is characterized
by what? And all the world may become
guilty before God. You see, this stopping of God's
chosen people, this hemming in, is one that causes us to see
our guilt before God. We have to be hemmed in by God's
providential hand and become troubled, confronted with the
fact of who we are, sinners, helpless sinners, nowhere to
turn, and who God is, holy, who requires a perfect righteousness,
perfection. Christ said, Be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven. And so that's
to be hemmed in. It's to be right where those
Israelites were, between literally a rock, a boulder of rocks that
they couldn't pass over, and a hard place, a garrison. And
that's where God puts his people. And he hymns us in there so that
we discover that there's nothing we can do to deliver ourselves.
And he puts us there. Now, how does God put us there,
his people? He does it by putting them under
the sound of the gospel. That is the good news of how
he saves sinners so that they will see his salvation. He tells
us in the Scripture through the foolishness of preaching. In
the gospel, when it's preached or right, it exposes to us the
impossibility of salvation, conditioned on our meeting any requirement. You see, that's what the law
says. The law says to us, guilty, based upon your deeds, your efforts.
Now, so if you imagine, like I once did, that you've, thank
goodness, and you're thinking in your mind, thank goodness,
you know, God brought me to that place and hemmed me in. And I
thought that when I was a ten-year-old little boy, that He, because
I felt something in my heart, I became convicted. And I thought
I was hemmed in. And I said, oh, I'm going to
now go make my free will decision to accept Jesus so that I can
get God's salvation. I can procure it. Well, that's
not the description of Romans 3. That's not one who's been
brought in guilty, you see. Because I imagine that my act
could procure something by my hand. Now, those Israelites,
just like those Israelites, there's nowhere to turn. There's nothing
they could do for themselves. And as the story unfolds, you
see, there was nothing they did do for themselves. You see, one
who's been convinced by God of his gospel, they see what Paul
described back there in Romans 3 when he said, there's none
righteous, no, not one. And the law says righteousness
is required. Acts 17 says, I'm going to judge
the world in righteousness. And in whose righteousness? He
said, by that man whom he hath ordained in Jesus Christ, in
that he raised him from the dead. And he gives us assurance that
that's real salvation. There's salvation there and in
no other, you see, because he got the job done, he said, in
that he raised him from the dead. Because righteousness demands
life. Sin demands death. Well, like Israel, you see, we
are prone to cling to the bondage of sin. We prefer servitude naturally. So often when one comes under
the sound of the gospel, they'll say, well, if what you're saying
is true, Randy, I can't do anything. I just won't do nothing. And
really what they're saying is, no, I'm going to cling back to
here. I had one man tell me one time
that he actually saw And hearing the same gospel message of how
God saves sinners based upon a righteousness that we can't
produce, but that Christ produced, he said, I see it's another gospel,
but I'm still going to cling to the fact that back here when
I didn't know a thing about that righteousness that was required,
I didn't understand what the law said. That back there, I
made a decision for Jesus, and that's the same Jesus, and I'll
go to the grave trusting that I was actually delivered in my
mind back then. You see, and that's what we'll
all do. All but spiritual Israel. All
but those who God gave to Christ who came and purchased for them
eternal life and spiritual life. so that they could see something
they couldn't naturally see. We'll all do that. We prefer
servitude, and here's how we prefer it. You see, we're sinners. And we imagine that salvation's
in some way, to some degree, conditioned on us. Sin. Okay? So here we are, imagining
we're going to be delivered from sin by something that happens
in us, done by us, or done through us that's sin-tainted. We're
saying, here's the options, okay? God commands us to trust in Christ
based on a perfect righteousness He produced. That means His perfect
obedience, even unto death, where the law's precepts are fulfilled,
perfectly obeyed, and the penalties extracted, the penalty that had
to be of a value so valuable that it could pay the travesty
against justice before a holy God, an infinitely holy God.
It took nothing less than the blood of Christ, and yet, by
nature, we all dare approach God for acceptance based upon
our procurement of some idea of a blessing in Christ. That
is, based on my believing, because I walked an aisle, because I
said a prayer, because I go to church, because I did something. Here, God tells us, trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. That means based solely
upon what He accomplished. And you know what we do? We say,
no, I prefer servitude back in Egypt. I hear what you're saying,
but I still can't let go of the fact that my eternal... You can't
tell me that I can't do something to acquire a blessing from God
to gain my eternal blessing. So just don't take that destiny
out of my hand. But this stopping that takes
place, see, it shuts you into that. That's a scary place to
be, isn't it? To find out that it's totally
out of your hand. So like Israel, we naturally
prefer bondage. You see, like the Egyptian army,
our enemy, though, is too great. We heard much of that back here
in the 10 o'clock hour. You see, it's too great and powerful
for us to deliver ourselves. Our sins are innumerable, the
scripture says. We have Adam's sin, our representative,
imputed to us, charged to our account. We're born into this
life with his evil nature imparted. The Bible tells us we're an enmity
of God. We read it in Romans 3 there.
There's none that understand it. We've all gone out of the
way. The way that seems right to a man is a way that ends in
death. And Paul said in Romans 5, though, that the law entered
that what the offense might abound. You see, that we might see, as
he said in Romans 7, our exceeding sinfulness. Sin, guilt, defilement,
the curse of sin, death. It's a great army and it will
pursue us all the way unto death. And we're helpless within ourselves
to defeat or overcome it. So if we imagine that something
we do, if we can refrain from sin, if we can clean up our life,
reform our life as well we should, but if we believe that that has
any kind of causal role, any hand in our deliverance, in our
salvation, then I'm telling you, you haven't been hemmed in yet.
You haven't seen the strict justice of God and you haven't seen the
enemy that will ultimately consume you unless and until God hems
you into this place. shut you in to this place of
self-hopelessness. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 147,
He, God, delighteth not in the strength of the horse, he taketh
not pleasure in the legs of a man, in what we can do. The Lord taketh
pleasure in them that fear him. See, his whole frame of reference
has changed so that they, looking at the honor of God's character,
how can a holy God accept me, a sinner? Not what must me, the
sinner, do in order to gain my own acceptance. The Lord taketh
pleasure in them that fear Him and those that hope in what?
In His mercy. You see, so many of us, all of
us I suspect, once believed that God would show us mercy, but
it's not mercy if it's just there for you to cut your end of the
deal. to strike your bargain. That's
not mercy. You don't need mercy. See, you
can just save yourself when you get ready to do whatever your
prescribed religion tells you is needed. Walk some aisles,
say some prayer, do something in the quietness of your own
home where you invite Him into your life, and you imagine that
that gets the job done. That's not mercy. No, mercy is
to be shut in where there is no hope anywhere. but in something
that God does all by himself for you. So I pray that somebody
of you who hears this message, whether here today or by tape
or CD, that God will stop you in your tracks and helm you in
to perceive your condition, the reality of your sin, to expose
what the Bible calls the deceivableness of unrighteousness. You see,
none of us are different. We were all, we come into this
world deceived because we come into this world spiritually dead,
without spiritual faculties, the scripture says. If you don't
believe that, you just can't, you don't believe God's word.
So we're all deceived and he calls it the deceivableness of
unrighteousness. That is not righteousness. Something
other than or in addition to the one righteousness. that's
necessary to satisfy the holy law and justice of God. Now,
this is a troubled place. Those Israelites, when they were
up against that Red Sea, they were upset. God had stopped them
right there. He put them there. But there's
great news, spiritually speaking, for any who are brought to this
place. It doesn't seem like there would
be, does it? But not one single solitary soul out of prideful
fallen humanity will ever naturally gravitate to such a place so
as to perceive of our own utter helplessness and total inability
to save ourselves. You see, this was God's chosen
people. And so it is with God's chosen
people spiritually as we run to salvation. God will hem them
in and he will put them in just such a place. Don't you marvel
at how as rare and scarce as the gospel is that God puts you
under it? It's amazing. And he'll cause
them to stand still and see his salvation. He doesn't leave the
center in this place of hopelessness no more than a single one of
those Israelites were left to be slaughtered by Pharaoh's army. The second aspect that I want
you to see of Israel's deliverance is there is a standing still. Moses said, fear not and stand
still. Fear not the Egyptians. Stop
your murmuring. There's good news. There's a
way out. There's a victory. There's a
peace. But to see it, there's got to be a standing still. There
has to be a ceasing of your own labor and efforts. Stand still
and see God's deliverance. See salvation that is of the
Lord. So they have to cease from this
preoccupation they have with their natural tendency to imagine
what could have been. I wish I were back in Egypt. What I might do and their whole
perspective has to change. They have to start thinking in
terms of how can God accept me a sinner? Not what must I do
to be saved, but how does God save sinners? And of course,
that's what the gospel reveals. So as we look at the spiritual
application, turn back to Romans 3 and look there in verse 20.
He had told us that the law's purpose was to stop us, that
every mouth might be stopped and we might be brought in guilty.
And then in verse 20, he said, therefore, by the deeds of the
law, That is, by your meeting a requirement or a condition,
there shall no flesh be justified. That means declared righteous
and not guilty before God's bar of justice. No flesh shall be
justified in whose sight? In His sight. You see, that's
the frame of reference that matters. God must put within us this fear,
this reverential respect for how He saves sinners. See, what
matters is How God, God's gospel, not what we imagine it to be.
No flesh shall be justified in his sight, for by the law is
the knowledge of sin. You must cease from the efforts
of your own hand. Stand still. See, by the deeds
of the law, your efforts to meet a condition, he's telling us
no flesh shall be justified. There's a risk that you must
enter into. So all attempts at our works
at establishing a righteousness of our own, that's what Paul
said it was. If you're not submitted to or
ignorant of God's righteousness in Christ, he said Christ was
the end of the law. He was the fulfillment of it
in Romans 10. So he says that to be ignorant
of that is to, by default, be going about to establish your
own. That's the work of your hand. You haven't stood still
if you imagine some condition that you can meet some requirement.
Listen, not necessarily, you may think of it like this. Oh,
no, no, I know Jesus has to save me, but I've got to procure it.
See, that's what I imagined, is I imagined that Christ died
for all men without exception, so therefore, what made the difference? Oh, well, I had to believe. Listen, at that point, God hadn't
hemmed me in, and He hadn't caused me to stand still and see that
salvation was all of the Lord. As we studied just a few weeks
back, Paul was talking about election and all that we're elected
unto. He's talking about spiritual
Israel, God's chosen people. And he said, all that we're elected
unto, That is, the redemption that's in Christ Jesus and even
our spiritual life. He said, it's not of him that
willeth. It's not of your choice. Not of him that runneth. God
doesn't take pleasure in the legs of a man. But of God that
what? Showeth mercy. You know, psychological
studies have shown that in a time of stress, when the adrenal gland
kicks in and you start getting a lot of adrenaline running in
your body, that there's basically two natural responses. And they
call them fight or flight. And isn't it amazing, you see,
that contrary to our nature in salvation, when God brings his
gospel, his righteousness near in the preaching of the gospel,
he causes his people to act totally contrary to their nature, to
cease, to stop, to stand still from any idea that they could
remedy their condition and gain some victory over their enemy.
You see, by nature, we cannot stand still. We must work our
way into God's favor because of sinful pride. If you get serious
about eternal manners, you say, like everybody says, what do
I have to do? You see, it's just natural for
us. But God comes along and he gives spiritual life. That's
why it takes a new birth. With newborn faculty, see, of
spiritual life, he says he gives eyes to see something we couldn't
see, ears to hear what we couldn't see to hear, and hearts and minds
to comprehend and embrace that which we would not have. We see
something that we otherwise would never see, and that is our helplessness. We stand still. Stand still means
to rest, Hebrews 4. says there remaineth therefore
a rest, describing salvation now, a rest to the people of
God. For he that entered into his
rest, he hath also ceased from his own works, as God did from
his. God, when he created the world,
on the seventh day he rested. Did God get tired? God doesn't
get tired. He was satisfied, that's what
that means, with what he had done. The scripture says he saw
that it was good. And then Christ, who it speaks
of here in Hebrews 4, when He hung on that cross and He said,
It is finished. What happened? God said, Satisfaction
has been made. Righteousness demands life. And
so He arose from the grave. And what did He do? He sat down.
He rested. He rested because God, Christ,
they were satisfied with the work that had been completed.
It was done. And it says here, All of God's
people shall, in God's timing, come under the gospel so that
they stand still. And what do we do? We enter into
that rest. You see, all our hope then is
not based upon something that we do, something done in us or
by us or through us, but it's based on a righteousness that
resides at the right hand of the Father where satisfaction
is totally made. He's rested. We enter into that
rest. Christ, who is our Sabbath, our
rest. Well, the third aspect that I
want you to see of Israel's deliverance is seeing. He said, fear not,
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Salvation, see,
is of the Lord and it's from the Lord. He's telling them,
don't look at the Egyptian army, as massive as they are heading
toward us. Don't look to yourselves. Don't look to your difficulties.
See the salvation of the Lord. At the end of verse 13, he said,
the Egyptians that you see today, you will see them no more forever. In other words, it's going to
be a complete victory. There's not going to be another one of
them left to battle with you another day. Something's going
to be completely taken care of. And you watch and you see. And
so they did. They watched as Moses lifted
up his rod in command, in obedience to God. And he held out his hand
over the sea. And God parted the waters and
they walked across on dry ground. In verse 14, before doing that,
he told them, he said, the Lord shall fight for you and ye shall
hold your peace. Don't lift a hand. But then in
verse 15, you'll notice he said, go forward. He told them, go
forward on this dry ground. In other words, you're going
to walk. You're going to walk, but you're going to walk in a
way that I provided, that I opened up for you, that I delivered
you in. And so they walked, and they
crossed. Notice God didn't wait for them
to respond. He didn't say, now, if you'll do this, I'll part
the sea. He just told Moses, go on and
do it. In fact, if you look at verse 15 there, he says, why
are you crying out to me, Moses? Lift up your rod, hold out your
hand, and part the sea. And so they were to see something
that God had already taken care of. They were to see that salvation
was not of their hand but of the Lord. And we'll look at that
in just a moment in closing. We'll turn back to Romans 3 and
we'll see the spiritual application to spiritual Israel. There must
be a seeing that takes place. He told us in verse 19 There's
a stopping. Every mouth will be stopped and
all the world brought in guilty. In verse 20 he told us, so stand
still, because by your deeds, by deeds of the law shall no
flesh be justified, declared not guilty before God. And then
in verse 21 he says, but now, here's some good news, the righteousness
of God without the law, without your obedience to it, is manifested. You see, it's seen. being witnessed
by the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament Scriptures.
Christ said, they speak of me, and that's why we use these examples
to see Christ. Even the righteousness of God
which is by faith, that is, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,
unto all, and preached unto all, and upon all, imputed to, charged
to their account, all that believe, that is, there's going to be
a seeing They shall see, they shall hear. For there is no difference. It's put upon them, see? They
don't believe in order to get it. It's put upon them because
there's no difference. For all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God, being justified, declared not guilty, how? Freely,
by His grace, through your beliefs. No, through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation. That word means to appease God's
wrath by way of satisfaction. The word mercy is the same word
in other places in scripture. It means unmerited favor of God
toward the object of mercy, but it was a mercy, this propitiation,
it was merited. There's a satisfaction that had
to be made before God's law and justice, propitiation through
faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission,
the payment of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God, speaking of the Old Testament saints, to declare, I say at
this time, what? His righteousness. That he might
be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Oh, well, I believed. Am I going to boast in that?
No. He says, where is boasting then? No, it's excluded. See, I'm looking to believing
in Jesus and what He accomplished. And what do we do? We gain a
fear of God before our eyes. He gives us that fear of God.
And we behold Him. We see how God can be just. He
doesn't have to pretend like He didn't sin. and say, well,
I'm going to dispense with my justice in order to show mercy
and grace to you. No, we see where God can be true
to who God is and still save me, a sinner. Just and justifier
based upon the just satisfaction made by our substitute, the Lord
Jesus Christ. In Exodus 14, when he says, the
Egyptians, you shall see them no more forever, forever. It speaks of a final deliverance,
eternal life that was accomplished. God having accomplished that
in Christ and him crucified. And in verse 14, he said, The
Lord shall fight with you. The Lord shall fight beside you.
The Lord shall assist you. He didn't say any of that, did
he? He said, The Lord shall fight for you. That's speaking of substitution. That means He did it all. He'll
do battle with sin and with Satan, with the curse and death, and
ye shall hold your peace. That's what happens with spiritual
Israel. Under the sound of God's gospel, when? In the day of His
power, when God's pleased. Just as Moses lifted up that
rod, Christ had to be lifted up on the cross to free spiritual
Israel from their bondage, the bondage of their sin. And listen,
all of that deliverance by them, all of it was before we were
even born. So until we see Christ and that
which was accomplished when He was lifted up on the cross, we
don't walk in faith. We don't go on dry ground forward. You see, we only really go forward
in faith When God has been pleased to hem us in, to stop us, to
cause us to stand still and see that salvation is totally of
the Lord. That is based upon that propitiatory
work we just read about in Romans 3. The righteousness of God in
Christ by the satisfaction that he made. So all spiritual Israel
will walk. They'll go forward in faith.
And what will they be doing? They'll be holding God's salvation
in Christ. You see, to walk in Christ, is
to be surrounded, so to speak, covered by those walls, hedged
in by that Red Sea, but not to be drowned in it. Because the
Red Sea, the blood of Christ, is our life. The Egyptians, they
drowned. If you read in verse 28 of Exodus
14, there the last phrase of that verse says, There remained not so much as
one of them. Not one of them. Likewise, in
eternal salvation, all the sins of God's elect, all those whose
sins were imputed to Christ. They are all taken away. They
are drowned forever. We still have the presence of
sin, but its condemning power is gone. There is salvation,
eternal salvation there, and they are gone and taken away
forever in the Red Sea of His blood. The psalmist said, as
far as the East is from the West, so far have He removed our transgressions
from us. How? John the Baptist said, Behold
the Lamb of God that what taketh away the sins of the world? Well,
in summary, look at verses 30 and 31 of Exodus 14. And here we see the results of
God's salvation, the Lord's deliverance. It says in 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. They
were no more a threat. And just as spiritual Israel
sees that their sin can no longer condemn them. For to be free
in Christ is to be free indeed. For you see, their Redeemer has
bore them away. In verse 31 it says, And Israel
saw, there's a seeing, and what did they see? That great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people feared the Lord
and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. They feared him.
They had a respect, see, for the honor of God and how he delivered
them, how he saved sinners. That they behold him as a just
God and a Savior. And they believed. Now, did they
believe in order to have the Red Sea Party? No, not in order
to be redeemed, to be saved, to be delivered from their enemy. But they believed because they
saw they already were. And so it is. You know, as Moses
told his people there in verse 13, I think he said, this day,
he said, see what God would do. And I pray likewise this morning,
you'll hear God. Stop. Fear not.