Please sing it. May God help us to live it. Turn
to Exodus chapter 14. Exodus chapter 14. I titled this message Fear not, stand still, go forward. Fear not, stand still, go forward. Now, which of these do you want
me to do? All of them. All of them. If God be for us, who can be
against us? That should cast out all of our
fears. It should cast them out. It should enable us to not run
when trouble comes, but to go forward in faith, looking
unto the Lord Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. It says in verse 1, And the Lord
spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel,
that they turn, and encamp before Pihairoth, between Migdol and
the sea, over against Baal-ziphon. Before it shall ye encamp by
the sea. For Pharaoh will say, and I love
this because God knows the thoughts. He knows the thoughts of not
only our hearts, but the hearts of our enemies. The hearts of
every human being on this earth. Notice here what God says. He
says here, for Pharaoh will say. He's going to tell them exactly
what he's going to say. of the children of Israel, they
are entangled in the land. The wilderness has shut them
in." You see, on one side, I think it was Pi-Hei-Hi-Roth, it was
a place of deep pits and slime, and then Belzefon was one of
the craggy rocks and cliffs, and then they had the Red Sea.
Old Sun Tzu of the Art of War would have said, that was a bad
strategy. He'd say that was a bad strategy,
not if God's in control, not if God's the leader, not if God's
the commander. And so the Lord purposely brings
them to this point where they have absolutely no way out except
God, except God save them. He led them into this position,
he brought them into this position where they have to trust him." And then he says here, I will
harden Pharaoh's heart. The heart of the king is in the
hands of the Lord. I'll harden his heart. That he shall follow
after them. And I will be honored upon Pharaoh. You see, Pharaoh in the beginning
said, who's the Lord that I should trust, that I should obey him?
Who is he? I don't know him. Well, you're
going to. every woman is going to know
who the Lord is. Sooner or later, you're going
to know it. And upon all his host, that the
Egyptians may know that I am the Lord, and they did so, exactly
as God said. And it was told the king of Egypt
that the people fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants
was turned against his people. They hated him anyway. You know,
Pharaoh actually was doing just what he wanted to do. He wanted
to go after those Israelites and kill them. He hated them. He hated God's people. And I
want you to notice this. Let me read this again. And it
was told the king of Egypt that the people fled, and the heart
of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people.
And they said, why have we done this? that we have let Israel
go from serving us, what were we thinking? I mean, can you
see them now looking at each other and saying, why did we
do that? Why did we make a decision to let Israel go? What were we
thinking? We let the free laborer go. Why
does a lot of things happen? God providentially brings about
His purpose. And he uses means, and in using
means he uses men and women. Have you ever done anything and
said, why did I do that? I can assure you this, in some
way, in some fashion, God's purpose is accomplished. And you may
never know why you did what you did. or why men do what they
do, or why the president makes the decisions he makes. They
said, why did we do this? Because God is going to get honor
and glory out of this, and His people are going to see His power. They are going to see the salvation
of the Lord. They are going to see it. And He made ready His chariot,
took His people with Him, He's putting together a massive army
here. He took 600 chosen chariots and
all the chariots of Egypt and captains over every one of them.
Here comes this massive army. It's like my massive sins coming
after me. He's going to put them away though. You know, when you first really
begin to understand God gives light. You begin to see sin as
sin. And you begin to see who and
what you are by nature. And all you see is corruption.
All you see is sin. Well, we have to see that. But
that's not all we're going to see. We're going to see how God
put them away. 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. God's in control. Now he's in
control of all this. But the Egyptians pursued after
them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh and his horsemen and
his army, and overtook them, encamping by the sea beside Pi-hei-hi-roth
before Bel-ziphon. They were trapped. You know Pharaoh thought, what
a leader. He thought, man Moses, didn't
you learn anything in Egypt? Didn't you learn anything about
leadership? I mean, you've got the Red Sea. You've got these
craggy rocks and high hills. And on this side, you've got
these slime pits. And he's thinking, man, doesn't
even have a clue that God had brought him to the slaughter. Israel is going to be saved through
that Red Sea. It's not named Red Sea by accident.
It's like we are saved through the blood of Christ. They're
going to go through that Red Sea, and they're going to go
through on dry ground. And those Egyptians trying to do the same
thing, but they're doing it in unbelief. They're going to do
it in unbelief, and God's going to kill them. But the Egyptians
pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh and his
horsemen and his army. And they went to the, and they found Israel
at Phi, at Hieroth and Belsaphon. 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. They were frightened out of their
wits. They saw them. And it says, they
were sore afraid. But now really, what did they
have to be afraid of? What do we have to be afraid
of? Absolutely nothing. Not in this life, not concerning
men and the things of this life. We truly now, and I know that
it's a part of us, it happened in the fall. The first answer
Adam gave to God, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was
what? Afraid. And he said over there in that
psalm, what times I am afraid, I will trust in thee. And here
they were sore afraid, frightened out of their minds. And the children
of Israel cried unto the Lord, listen. And they said unto Moses, Because there was no graves in
Egypt? Has God taken us away to die in the wilderness? Well,
which would you rather die, a free man or a slave? And what they
are saying, we'd rather stay in bondage and die that way than
out here free, be led by the Lord. Oh, it's much better to
die being led by Christ and free in Christ than to die in bondage. They said, you led us away to
dying wellness, wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry
us forth out of Egypt? There's a scripture that says,
the fear of man bringeth a snare. It brings a snare. If we began
to fear these things, if we began to fear men instead of God, then
everything else will also scare us to death. Everything else
will scare us to death. But if we learn, if we learn
to fear God, nothing else will scare us. Nothing else will cause
us to fear if we can ever come to that place. And here in verse
11, they show their unbelief. And I tell you what, there's
a whole lot of that still remains in us. Is not this the word that we
did tell thee in Egypt, saying, and oh boy. This is a description of the
human race. This is a description of us by
nature, for the Lord has saved us. Let us alone. You better hope. Pray that God
never leaves you alone. He said to his disciples concerning
the Pharisees, leave them alone. You don't want God to leave you
alone. You want God to trouble your heart. You want God to show
you your sins. You want God to reveal those
things to you. You want a truth. You want a
truth. Conviction of sin, no matter
how painful it is. Don't leave me alone. Let us alone that we may serve
the, listen to this, we may serve the Egyptians. They used a whip
on them. I mean, these people were, back
on the early part of Exodus here, they said they were under rigor,
rigorous labor. They said, it was better that
we serve the Egyptians. Oh, how dead we are. How dead
we are by nature. It would have been better for
us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.
Why? You're going to die anyway. What, are you going to try to
live a couple of weeks longer? That's going to be better? Really? It's going to be better to live
a few weeks longer and end up perishing? I would rather go
only by the grace of God. You would rather go, like I said,
into the wilderness, be led by God, free in Christ, than to
die in Egypt in bondage. I don't want to die in bondage.
I want to be set free in Christ. I want to die in Christ. I don't
want to die either in the wilderness or in Egypt. I want to die in
Christ. And then Moses said unto the
people, Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the
Lord. God's going to save you, but it's going to be Him doing
the saving, not you. You're not even going to fight this battle,
which He will show to you today. For the Egyptians whom you have
seen today, you shall see them again no more forever." Forever. And the Lord shall fight
for you and you shall hold your peace. And the Lord said to Moses,
now listen to this, Wherefore cryest thou unto me? Why are
you calling upon me, Moses? Why are you praying unto me?
Go forward. Like we're going to change God's
mind? We're going to gang up on God? Are we going to tell
God he made a mistake? He led us the wrong way? Therefore
Christ, thou unto me, speak to the children of Israel that they
go forward. But the first thing he tells
them is this, fear not. Fear not. There is a good fear
and there is a bad fear, and there is a fear not. The good fear is that fear of
God born by the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. When
we began to give unto God the glory, the honor, the respect
due unto his name, when we recognized God for who he is, The fear of
the Lord, the scripture says, is the beginning of, listen,
it's the beginning of wisdom. So, if we do not fear the Lord, that
means we have absolutely no wisdom. No spiritual wisdom. But the
fear of the Lord, you know this, you who believe the gospel, you
know it's wise. You know it's wise to fear Him.
To respect and honor and glorify Him. That's the only right. To
fear the Lord is to recognize who God is. It's a recognition
of who God is. And listen, a fear of the Lord,
a true fear of God always accompanies true worship. You cannot worship
God without a proper fear of God. Can't do it. And then there's a bad fear,
which comes from unbelief. And that's where it comes from. Unbelief is the root of every
sin. It's the root, it's the mother
of every sin. Not to believe God. And it always brings a snare.
And listen, it is disgraceful for the king's children to fear
other men or anything else. It's disgraceful. And then it causes suspicion.
It causes suspicion. We are to fear God, listen, we
are to fear God and fear not. Over in Ecclesiastes, it says
this. Ecclesiastes chapter 12. Now, Solomon has gone through
all these He's experienced a lot, done
a lot, you know, written a lot. But in verse 13 of chapter 12,
he said, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Let us conclude
this whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man. Fear God and keep his commandments. If you fear God, Then fear not. Fear not. Turn over to Isaiah
41. In Isaiah 41, here's the reason we are to fear
not. If we fear Him, we fear not. Let me see if I wrote the
right one down. Oh, that's Ezekiel, I mean. Isaiah 41, look in verse 10. Here's the reasons why we fear
not. Fear thou not, for I am with thee. He was with them in
the cloud and in the fire. It was always with them, always
to lead and guide them. Be not dismayed, be not confused. You think they were? You think
they were standing there with their backs against the Red Sea,
and no way to the left, no way to the right out, and they couldn't
go back to Egypt? There was Pharaoh ready to kill
them. Don't be dismayed. Don't be confused. I am thy God. I'm in control. I'm doing this.
I will strengthen thee. Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I
will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Behold,
all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded.
They shall be as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall
perish, though thou seek them, and shall not find them. Even
then they are contended with thee. That war against thee shall
be as nothing, and as a thing of naught." There's a reason
to fear not. I'm with thee. I'm with thee. And then he says here, stand
still. What's the first thing you want
to do when you become afraid? Run. Fight or flight. In Ireland, 99% of the time it's
flight. It's run. It's run. That's the first thing we want
to do. Now listen, salvation, the salvation of the Lord, involves
first of all us standing still. Standing still, ceasing from
our own efforts, our own works, our own labors, and totally,
completely relying on the Lord Jesus Christ to save us. Stand still and see. You're going to see the salvation
of the Lord. It's like, you know, you're telling
your kids, quit fidgeting. You're trying to get them dressed
in the morning. Quit fidgeting. Just stand still. It's not until we come to that
point. The Lord must bring us to that point where we can do
absolutely nothing but stand still and watch and see. That word see there is actually
translated look. Look upon the salvation of the
Lord. And the salvation of the Lord
is who? It's not a what, it's who. It's
Christ. Jesus Christ is the salvation of the Lord. Look unto me and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth for I am God and there
is none else. Look to me. Christ is the salvation
of the Lord. What can you do? What honestly
can you do to help? Can you satisfy justice? That
strict justice, can you satisfy? Can you please God? Can a worm
of the dust, can a sinful wretch please a holy God? The Scripture
says it must be perfect to be accepted. Can you come up with
perfection? Can I come up with perfection?
Absolutely not. What could Jonah do to save himself? If he climbed out of the whale's
belly, he would drown before he got to the top. So what could
he do? He could do nothing except one
thing. He prayed. He could pray. Seek the Lord. Stand still. Hardest thing in
the world for a sinner to do is to absolutely stand still
and do nothing in this matter of salvation. You see, the world calls that
foolishness. They hear that and they say, that's foolish. We've
got to do something. We got ourselves into this mess.
We've got to do something to help get ourselves out. Can't
do it. There's only one man that can
get us out. That's the man Christ Jesus. That's God's man. That jailer said, what must I
do to be saved? He was looking for something
to do. And they said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Another time they said,
what must we do to do the works of God? And our Lord said, this
is the work of God, that you believe on him whom God has sent. It's God's work. It's God's work. Stand still, just believe. You
think that's easy? Just do it. Do it. The old nature wants to do something
besides stand still. The more I try to do, listen,
the more I try to do in the energy of this flesh, the more I offend
God's law, the more I offend His justice, the more I try to
do. I just mess it up. I just mess it up. Turn over
to Psalm 46. Psalm 46, in verse 10. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. I will
be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.
Now be still. Stand still. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is of the Lord. Stand still and you're going
to see. That is, look. You're going to
look upon Christ. You're going to see God incarnate.
You're going to see substitution. Christ taking our place. You're
going to see God. He has seen this, seen the Father. You stand still. You're going
to see. You're going to look upon God's
salvation. And that salvation is Christ.
And then he says here, after saying that, he says, well, first
he says in verse 14, he says here in verse 14, the Lord shall
fight for you. Oh, did he ever? Did he ever? He walked upon this earth. He did battle with Satan. And
defeated him on every corner. The Lord shall fight for you.
He shall defend you. He shall keep you. It's not the
Lord and me fighting the battle. It's the Lord fighting this battle
of salvation. He's the one. He's the Savior. He's the Savior. And you shall
hold your peace. Peter, he said, Lord, I'll die. When our Lord was talking about
His crucifixion, what was going to happen, He said, be it far
from you, I'll die first. I'll die. What happened? He denied
Him. He said, no, you're not going
to fight for me. You're going to deny me. No, you just hold your peace.
You stand still and you look upon, you behold God's salvation,
God's redemption. That's what you do. The battle
is the Lord's. And the Lord said to Moses, why
are you crying to me? Speak to the children of Israel
so that they go forward. Which way was forward? Do you know which way was forward
for them? Across that Red Sea. And you know at that time when
the Lord said that to Moses, Moses is looking at that Red
Sea. Now you tell them, Go forward. Go forward in faith. Go forward
in faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. Go forward in love. Go forward in confidence. Go
forward in the Spirit. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Therefore, go forward. You know
when Job lost a lot, didn't he? I mean, as far as just earthly
things. In chapter 38, let me see if
that's it. Let me see. I think it's chapter
38. If not, it's close to it. Now
Job had lost all of these things, his friends. have been miserable
comforters. He said, you're physicians of
no value. He's sitting there scraping boils.
And then God speaks. God speaks to Job. What's He say? Job, I'm so sorry.
I had to put you through this, but I had to prove something
to Satan here. After all this that Job went
through, the sorrow, the sickness, And it says, Then the Lord answered
Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkens
counsel by word without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a
man, and quit crying, and stand up. For I will demand of thee, and you
ask from me. Job, I'm in control of this.
I'm doing this. I'm running this. This is of
me. Now gird your loins up like the
man I made you to be. And you go forward. You go forward. That's what he's telling them.
Go forward. Go forward in faith and love
and confidence. Go forward in the Spirit. And
he says over here to Moses, Lift thou up thy rod. That rod that
ate the serpents. that rod that turned the water
into blood will now prove to be a blessing to Israel." He's
going to part the Red Sea with it. Christ is that rod of blessing.
He's that rod of blessing that God is going to bless us with
and that God blesses us with now. He's the one that is used to
handle all our troubles. He said, Lift up now thy rod,
and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it, and the
children of Israel shall go on dry ground." When I read that,
my first thought was this, Christ is dry ground. He's dry ground. I don't know
if I can remember the story or not, but I remember Henry telling
this story, and I know you'll remember. I know you'll remember
when I start to try to tell it, so I won't get bits and pieces
of it. He's talking about a wagon train.
That was going out west. And they saw a fire, a prairie
fire. And so the master of the wagons,
he had them to burn out a big spot. He had them to burn out
a big spot. Then he had them to circle the
wagons on that burnt ground. And then there was a child sitting
there by the wagon master and he said, the fire is coming,
the fire is coming. He says, Son, don't worry. You're
standing on burnt ground. Christ is burnt ground. Where
the fire burned once, it will not burn again. Christ is burnt
ground. Christ is dry ground. You're
going to go forth into the Canaan land on dry ground. That's how
you're going to do it. You're not going to trudge through
the muck and the mud and try to get there. No, it's going
to be dry ground. And I beheld, and I behold, I
will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and not just Pharaoh,
but the Egyptians also. They're all in his hand. And
they shall follow them, and I will give me honor upon Pharaoh, and
upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. And the
Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten me
honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen."
This is not the way you want to know God. This is not justice. You know what God said? I'm going
to get me honor. Now, whether God saves me or you or we perish,
he's going to be honored. And this is not the way. I want
to know God. I want to know him in Christ.
I want to know him in mercy. I want to know him in grace. And the
angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and
went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went from before
their face and stood behind them, and it came between the camp
of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. I wrote out from that
verse, Who maketh thee to differ? And listen, it was a cloud and
darkness to them, to the Egyptians. It was nothing but darkness to
them. Just like standing here preaching the gospel, it's darkness
to the unbeliever. It's darkness to the religious
lost man. It's darkness. But it gave light by night to
these. Do you see? Do you understand the gospel?
Do you really? Do you see it? Do you understand
it? Do you love it? That's because
it's light to you. God has illuminated you. He hasn't
done that for everybody. God is a sovereign God. He can
harden Pharaoh's heart and He can soften yours. And that's alright, isn't it?
That's His royal prerogative. He can choose one and pass by
another. That's His royal prerogative. God rejoices. I've been reading
a book on Lincoln's melancholy. He had great depression. And
the writer of that book, I was reading it the other night, attributed
some of that depression to his upbringing under Calvinism. And
he said that God, you know, Lincoln was brought up under this, that
God chose a few, and the rest he's going to perish. Now let
me tell you this. Depression. I don't care whatever
mental illness I have, Whatever physical sickness I have comes
from sin, not truth. It doesn't come from truth. My
soul, if you believe me, would be the happiest man in the world.
I'm not saying you wouldn't have trouble, but all of our ailments,
all of our problems come from sin, not truth. That man, when he was writing
about this, he was saying, that's so depressing. Well, if you didn't
hate God, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be. Verse 21, and Moses stretched
out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go
back by a strong east wind all that night, and He 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.
See, before, back over in verse 11, it was unbelief. Now here
in verse 22, It's faith. Children of Israel went into
the midst of the sea upon the dry ground, and the waters were,
listen, a wall. Can you imagine this now? Listen.
They're going through on dry ground, and of course there's
over a million people here, so it's not a little path like that
road out there. This is going to be a wide, a
wide stretch across that sea on dry ground. And here they
go. And that water is walled up.
I mean, it's high. How high, I don't know, but it's
high. And they are going through there, and you know what they
see? As they walk on that dry ground and they enter into that
walled up water, they see the power of God and the will of
God in their salvation. That wall of water standing there.
And they're just going across. They're just ahead of the cross.
"...and were walled unto them on their right hand and on their
left. And Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst
of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his
horsemen." They went in, but they were going in for another
reason. They were going in to do some destruction. came to
pass, and in the morning watched the Lord looked unto the host
of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud. He troubled the host of the Egyptians.
He took off their chariot wheels, that they draved them heavily,
so that the Egyptians said, Now, here's no faith. Let us flee. Let us flee from the face of
Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians." Well, that's a little bit late
now. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come
again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their
horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea,
and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared, and
the Egyptians fled against it, and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians
in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and
covered the chariots, the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that
came into the sea after them, there remained not so much as
one of them. That can be said of all our sins. Not so much as one of them is
left, put away by the blood of the
Lamb of God. There remained not so much as
one of them. all gone. But the children of
Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea, and the
waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their
left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day."
Now listen, when you read the Scriptures, when you read of
Calvary, Christ hanging on the cross, you can say, thus the
Lord saved Israel that day. God saved His Israel that day.
Out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians
dead upon the seashore, conquered. Conquered. And Israel saw that great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. Have you seen it? Have you seen
that great work that was accomplished at Calvary? Have you seen it? And the people, if you have,
this is what's going to happen. And the people feared the Lord
and believed. and the Lord and His servant,
Moses. You believe God's message, His
messenger, you fear the Lord and you believe Him, if you see
that great work that He did at Calvary.