Major Texts of The Bible: The Lord is My Strength | Exodus 15 | Pastor William Hixson

Uh we are doing uh something different,

aren't we? Uh as much as I love book

studies, that's my passion.

But I've decided after many many years

of book studies, we primarily we need a

break from that. So we're doing a

section on great text in the Bible. And

uh we hopefully these are picked not

just because they're the only texts that

we ought to preach there in each book,

but one that really sticks out that we

really need to know uh for our Christian

walk. And it's kind of hard to know

which ones to pick. That's what we're

doing. And um

so may the Lord help us as as we do do

that.

Let's have a word of prayer. Father,

help us as we come before you today.

Direct our thoughts in your perfect will

in Jesus name. Amen.

So, we took a text from Genesis.

Hope you remember the text. I hope you

remember the verse. It was extremely

it's an extremely important verse in the

whole Bible. Our text this morning comes

from Exodus 15. So, we're moving on to

Exodus,

the second book in the Bible.

And when we're in Exodus 15, we have an

event that precedes it in chapter 14.

And that's where the Jewish nation, two

million people,

uh, escaped slavery and the pursuing

armies of Egypt

by God parting the waters of the Red Sea

and uh, drowning

the armies of Pharaoh

when they tried to go across.

It's an important story.

And in chapter 15,

we have

the Jewish people

on the other side of the Red Sea

worshiping.

Worshiping.

This is called the song

of the redeemed

or better put

the song of Moses.

Now, there's two songs of Moses. One is

in Deuteronomy. It's a completely

different song, but the one here is I

like to refer to it as the song of

Moses, and so does the New Testament.

So, I'm just going to go uh to uh the

first couple of verses here. I'm not

even going to read the whole chapter

because this is not a chapter study.

This is not a verse by verse study. It's

assumed that you will go back and work

on this yourself this week.

Then sang Moses and the children of

Israel this song

unto the Lord

and spoke, saying, I will sing to the

Lord, for he's triumphed gloriously, the

horse and his rider hath he thrown into

the sea.

So it was not just their deliverance. It

was the defeat of the Egyptian Pharaoh

and his armies and his 600 choice

chariots

plus the other regular chariots and an

army of men on horses and on foot

drowned.

So the Egyptians drowned

and the Israelites were delivered

and two million Jews escaped slavery

by God's act of Old Testament

redemption.

And they're singing to their redeemer.

They're singing about their national

redemption from slavery.

They're rejoicing

in God.

And they say in verse two, which is our

text,

the Lord is my strength

and my song and is become my salvation.

Two million people singing that.

He is my God and I'll prepare him.

He is my God and I'll prepare him a

habitation. My father's God and I'll

exalt him.

Father, help me to speak, help each of

us to hear your truth this day in Jesus

name. Amen.

Biblical literacy

in America is probably at an all-time

low.

When I was a child growing up, even

non-Christians knew the Bible stories.

They even taught the Ten Commandments in

school. People knew that.

So unregenerate, unsaved people had some

knowledge of the Bible and some

knowledge of the scriptures. It's almost

totally absent in America today.

The biblical illit illiteracy is at an

all-time high in our country.

I read about um

the wife of one of our former

presidents. She was bragging on her

husband.

He's read through the Bible twice.

Nobody does.

She unknowingly dis unknowingly

in her bragging about her husband's

efforts to read the Bible through twice

a former president of the United States

how blatantly

ignorant they were of God's word.

Every Christian should be reading the

Bible. And I confess as an early

Christian I wasn't biblically literate.

I thought I knew enough.

My senior year at OU, I made it a goal

to read through the Bible because I'd

never done it.

My grandfather had done it several

times. He had a Bible right there, but I

never it never occurred to me that I

should be doing I always thought I'll do

it someday

and even tried a couple of times and

wore myself out.

But in America, in America in the 1700s,

the founding fathers, even

non-Christians were biblically literate

in a way that many churchgoers are not.

Now, they some of them were churchgoers,

some of them were not,

but they had a knowledge of the Bible

that people don't even have.

I have something in my hand. You

probably got one of these in your wallet

or your purse.

If you want to pull one of them out,

pull a $1 bill out and look at it. I

didn't say put it in the plate. I said

pull it out and look at it. And look at

the back of the $1 bill. Do you see that

per pyramid with a allseeing eye on it?

That comes from the great seal of the

United States of America.

Do you know in the 1700s what was

proposed by Benjamin Franklin a deist

not a Christian

and promoted by Thomas Jefferson

a deist at best and not a Christian.

They promoted and proposed

originally

the story of the Red Sea with Moses and

the drowning of the Egyptians.

They promoted what we have here in Acts

or excuse me in Exodus 15

and they promoted this statement.

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience

to God.

That's how they defined what the

American Revolution was.

And Pen Franklin really wanted that on

the seal. He didn't get it. They It

didn't win out,

but he proposed it.

Some think he originated it, but he at

least proposed it. We don't know where

it originated from.

And Thomas Jefferson

uh promoted it.

He tried it in the Virginia legislature.

He tried he put it on all kinds of stuff

that really rang true with him.

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience

to God. And they had that concept. Where

did they get the concept Exodus?

The Exodus of the Jews

out of Egyptian slavery.

and God involved in leading them out and

giving them the victory.

>> [clears throat]

>> Now

what we have here is them worshiping

on the other shore

a choir

of two million escaped

slaves

who've been redeemed

out of national slavery. They even use

the word redeemed later on in this song.

So they are it's a song of the redeemed.

We call it the song of Moses.

And it's very important in Bible study

to focus on this whole this whole song

that goes several verses. But we're just

taking this this little snidbit of it.

The statement in verse

two,

how important is public worship?

Can't we just worship privately? Yes, we

can. Yes, we should.

And I'm not but I'm not talking about

what we ought to do in private

or at home with our families. I'm

talking about public worship. How

important is it? That was public worship

on the shores of the Red Sea.

Is public worship essential or optional?

Is public worship crucial or

discretionary? Is it negligible or is it

non-negotiable?

Is public worship something we should

take very seriously or very casually?

What is the biblical expectation? What

are the biblical examples? What's the

biblical model?

In Exodus 15, the people weren't left to

just, well, if you feel like thanking

God, thank God. You know, we're taken

off here to the promised land.

There was an organized public display of

thanksgiving

and celebration to God.

And the question all of us have to ask

is as Christians, does my practice match

the New Testament norm?

Because the New Testament Christians

were not Robinson Cruso Christians. You

know what I'm talking about? The guy on

the island with nobody there himself.

The New Testament example, the New

Testament model is something that we

should reflect in our own lives.

The New Testament assumes that

Christians will not just worship

individually and believe individually,

but they'll get together publicly

to worship and fellowship and minister

in some kind of public setting.

It assumes that and it it records that

Christians get together. That's not

difficult to document.

Let me quote a few verses. Not even the

whole verse, but just the part about

gathering together and worship.

You see, it's something that's assumed.

It's an assumption

that Christians won't just be Christians

by themselves, but they will get

together whenever they can.

1 Corinthians 14:26. What shall we say

1 Corinthians 14:26

then, brothers? When you come together,

underline,

when you come together. 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 11:17

11:17. In the following directives, I

have no praise for you, for your

meetings do more harm than good,

or your gathering together does more

harm than good. in the first place when

I hear you come together as a church

underlined. So they had meetings, they

came together.

Verse 20 of 1 Corinthians 11, when you

come together. Verse 33, so my brethren,

when you come together, so when you meet

together, it's presupposed that they're

meeting

that they wouldn't think of just being

by themselves.

It's assumed. It's so self-evident. It's

so prevalent.

It's like saying, "Rain is wet, the sky

is blue, and the grass is green. Those

are assumed things.

1 Thessalonians 5:11, "Comfort

1 Thessalonians 5:11

yourselves together." Luke 24:14, "They

Luke 24:14

talked together of all these things."

Acts 1:15, "The number of names together

Acts 1:15

were," what was it? 110 120 something

like that. Second, uh, Acts 2:44, "All

Acts 2:44

that believed were together."

The New Testament epistles assume a

public gathering to which the scriptures

are read.

Colossians 4:16. After this letter has

Colossians 4:16

been read to you, see that it's also

read of the church of Laosans and that

you in turn read the letter from Laosia.

So there was public reading of scripture

in in the churches if you wanted to hear

this. Most people didn't have a Bible in

the first century. If you wanted to know

the Bible, you came out publicly and

heard it read.

They were expensive.

Handwritten, handcopied.

Some people had it wasn't easy.

And the New Testament says in Hebrews

24:25, "Forsake not the assembling of

yourselves together as the manner of

some is." Yeah, there's some people that

do it, but that is definitely the

exception, not the rule. And that exe

that definitely is not an exception that

is legitimate. Now, of course, if you're

sick or if you're in prison or you're

traveling on some legitimate business,

obviously you can't always be in a

public worship setting.

You can worship God by yourself. You

should worship God by yourself. You

should sing to the Lord by yourself. You

should read the Bible by yourself.

But Christianity is a team sport.

But everybody agreed that American

football is a team sport.

Yes, you could practice kicking. I'm

sure Michael Benson did a lot of

practice by himself,

field goals,

but football is a team sport.

And uh

if you really want to play football, you

need a team.

And so it's important for us. There is

private worship, but there's public

worship. And in any sport, there's

practice and preparation for the team

effort.

Our private devotions, our prayer life,

our individual ministries are part of

wherever we are in our family or

neighborhood or whatever is to prepare

us for the public gathering.

And a large part of public worship is a

collective singing of praises to Christ.

Colossians chapter 3 verse 15 and 16.

Colossians 3:15

We we collectively sing and praise the

Lord.

Now,

this morning,

I'm going to look at some public

gatherings of God's people in the Bible

to publicly worship.

And in each one of them, they use the

same song, the same refrain. The Lord is

our strength,

our song,

and has become our salvation.

In fact, it says my the Lord is my

strength, my song, and has become my

salvation. Each person individually,

it's singing collectively.

It's personal.

Now, what we're reading about here in

Exodus chapter 15 took place almost

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

3,500 years ago, more like 3,450

approximately.

But it was as public as you can get.

And these two million people had a lot

to praise God for. You and I got more.

They had a national redemption. We have

a personal redemption.

that national redemption is simply in

the Bible to prepare us for

understanding personal redemption.

If you go back to chapter 14 and verse

29, it says, "The children of Israel

walked upon dry land in the midst of the

sea, and the waters were a wall to them

on the right and on the left. Thus the

Lord saved Israel that day out of the

hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw

the Egyptian dead upon the seashore.

Israel saw the great work which the Lord

did on the Egyptians. And the people

feared the Lord and believed the Lord

and his servant Moses.

So they believe what God said and they

believe what God said through Moses.

They feared the Lord. They had a fresh

reverence. They put their trust in the

Lord. They had a fresh faith

and they had a newfound faith in the

prophet Moses.

Wow. The 10 plagues were great, but this

tops them all.

This is really confirmation

beyond anything else we've seen.

So, there's celebration and rehearsal

and recognition of what's happened. And

they use the word redeem in verse 13.

Thou in 15:13, thou in mercy has led

forth the people whom you've redeemed

that you've guided them in your strength

in into your holy habitation.

That's a national redemption out of

slavery.

Now, this was a supernatural phenomena.

And 40 years later,

the harlot Rahab gave testimony

to the deliverance at the Red Sea.

She wasn't there.

She lived in Jericho.

But all the way up to Jericho in the

pagan nations, they heard about it. They

knew all about it. They knew everything.

That story circulated

and probably if you think about Rahab

the harlot

and you think about the book of Exodus

and how it connects with Joshua 40 years

in the in wilderness. This event

probably took place before Rahab was

born.

How do you know that? Well, not too many

harlots over 40.

I mean, that's a crude way to put it,

but

she was still

able to earn her money that way.

But when she met the pro two men, the

spies, she put her faith in the Lord. It

became not just intellectual but

personal.

And she has entered into Hebrews 11 as

one who put her personal faith in the

Lord.

And she became an ancestor of Jesus

marrying someone of who would become in

the line of the Messiah.

Now what these people experienced so

long ago, you and I are slaves to our

sin. We're not free.

You think you're free? You're not free.

That freedom is an illusion.

We're slaves to sin till we're redeemed

by Christ and delivered from that

slavery. The Ten Commandments had not

given him salvation. God didn't even

give him the Ten Commandments. Remember

in the book of Exodus, the people are

redeemed first

through the blood of the Passover lamb.

They're the ten commandments are given

to a people who are already redeemed.

They're not a way to earn salvation. And

God says, "Oh no, got saved in the Old

Testament by keeping the Ten

Commandments, but I changed my mind. Now

it's going to be good again." That's not

the picture. The Ten Commandments was a

rule of life for Old Testament saints in

the kingdom era,

but they were given after they came out

of Egypt, not before. And it's very

definite in Exodus 19 that that's the

fact God reminds them brought you out in

eagle's name you like a eagle swept in

and taken care of you.

So these were a redeemed people redeemed

by the blood of the Passover lamb which

is a picture of Jesus's blood redeemed

by the power of God. They had a

redemption that was by blood through

blood and by power. And that is just a

foreshadowing

of the ultimate redemption

through the cross of Calvary.

It's pictured there by Jesus's blood and

his resurrection by God's power. And

that is just a picture of future

redemption

that is tied to that first redemption

at the cross

when we will experience

the new heavens and new earth with our

Lord.

Now so we we this verse I want it to

ring in your head. The Lord is my

strength, my song and has become my

salvation. Now, of those three thoughts,

the Lord is my strength, my song, and

has become my salvation.

If you had to pick among the three great

statements,

which one do you think the drowning of

the Egyptians in the sea of the Red Sea

pictures? The Lord's my strength.

I mean, they're all three true because

he was their strength. He was their song

and their salvation. But obviously

this was an incredible display of God's

omnipotence.

He takes out a whole army of of of uh

Egyptian nation which was a major player

at that time.

So the Lord is my strength and because

he's my strength, we don't have strength

to get out here. and we didn't have

strength to get out of Egypt on oursel.

We're there 400 years. The Lord's my

strength and because he's my strength.

He's my song and he's become my

salvation.

Now, let's look at Psalm 118.

Some of you have done this with me

before in times past.

Psalm 118.

And again, I would love to teach Psalm

188 Psalm Psalm 118. I've taught it

before, but I just want to look at verse

14 in a psalm.

Guess what?

This psalm

sung in the Jewish temple

many years after the Exodus event

many many years afterwards

goes back and looks at that event and

refers to it in verse 14. The Lord is my

strength and my song

has become my salvation.

That's interesting.

Now the emphasis here

we is very clear and if we had time we

would go through it. This particular

hymn, Psalm 118, the whole psalm is led

by a Davidic king, not necessarily

David, but some Davidic king is the song

leader leading the whole nation to sing

this national hymn.

This is a national hymn.

And you go back to verse 10. All nations

compassed about me, but in the name of

the Lord, I'll destroy them. They

compassed about me. Yay, they compassed

about me, but in the name of the Lord,

I'll destroy them. Verse 11, they

compassed about me like bees. They're

quenched. They qu They They are quenched

like fire of thorns. In the name of the

Lord, I'll destroy them. Thou hast

thrust hard at me that I might fall. But

the Lord help me.

And the Lord is my strength. My song has

become my salvation.

So there's been some national military

victory where the nation that God

started was defended

and it's celebrating God's deliverance

from the nation that attacked them. A

national thanksgiving, a joyful

procession to the temple. We can't go

into all the details. led by the unnamed

Davidic king.

We're not at the seashore now with this

psalm. We're at the temple. We're at

public worship of the nation

celebrating a military victory again.

G. Hassel Bulock, the wonderful psalm

scholar of our present day, said the big

idea. Here's the big idea.

You always you should always be

preaching the big idea.

It is in our weakness, not our strength,

that we learn how strong God is to say.

The big idea is it is in our weakness,

not our strength, that we learn how

strong God is to say.

When God gets us out of a situation

that if he didn't get us out, we

wouldn't be out.

Pearl Harbor put a pretty big debt in

America, didn't

think about that.

God was merciful to our nation

in allowing us to win.

I believe the battle of Midway was a big

battle. We would have really been in

trouble. we hadn't got that uh

intelligence and be able to fight that

battle and win, things could be

different.

We should be thankful. [clears throat]

But here the Jewish people were

thankful. And HC Leopold, a Hebrew

conservative Lutheran Old Testament

scholar said of Psalm 115, "The sequence

of terms in this quotation have been

faulted. Strength, song, salvation. The

propriety of this sequence in the

present setting can be easily

demonstrated. The prime issue under

discussion is where did the nation get

its strength in the trying times just

described. The Lord was their strength.

The fact that he made the weak strong

put a song on their lips. But strength

is oftenimes exerted to the uttermost

without achieving the hope for result.

It was not so in this case. Deliverance

here called salvation resulted. But

again, it was granted through him who

came to mean much to his people. No

quotation could have been a more apt

summary of what was really involved. So

hundreds of years after, centuries after

the Red Sea,

we got people not at the shore of the

Red Sea, but in the Jewish temple in

another public worship setting basically

saying, "God's done it again.

He delivered us again."

The one who was our strength at the

Exodus is our strength again. The one

who's our song at the Exodus is our song

again. He He uh he the one who saved us

then saved us again. Isn't that you? How

I know there's a one-time salvation

where we're born again, but even after

we're saved, God saves us from oursel

how many times?

Like the himmwriter says, "Oh, to be

saved from myself, oh Lord."

So what a precious thought that is.

So in Exodus 15, obviously my strength

gets a slight emphasis over the others.

How about in Psalm 818? I would put it

on song because it's in the book of

songs, public worship in the temple.

If God is your strength, he should be

your song.

How can he be your strength and not be

your soul? How is that even possible?

If God delivered you from your sins, if

God delivered you from your ignorance,

if God delivered you from your

rebellion, even if you still have

problems today with all of those things,

you know, I'm not what I should be, but

I'm not what I was being, what I used to

be. Excuse me, not what I used to be.

I'm inventing new language forms here.

>> [clears throat]

>> Now, let's look at another group in

another time. Go with me to Isaiah 12.

Isaiah 12.

I dearly love the book of Isaiah.

We're teaching Jeremiah on Sunday night.

Can't tell you how much I would love to

teach through the book of Isaiah again

if the Lord would ever give me

opportunity.

If you've never pondered this book,

spend a lot of time here.

Isaiah chapter 12.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

And in that day,

underline in that day.

Underline that in your mind. In that

day, and that goes back to chapter 11.

If you have any questions about what

that

in that day you shall say, Oh Lord, I'll

praise thee. Though thou was angry with

me, thine anger is turned away, and thou

comfortest me. Behold, God is my

salvation. I will trust and not be

afraid. For the Lord, even the Lord is

my strength and my song. He also is

become

my salvation.

Therefore, with joy shall we draw water

out of the wells of salvation. There's

that word salvation. And in that day

shall you say, "Praise the Lord. Call

upon his name. Declare his doing among

the people. Make mention of his name

that his name is exalted. Sing to the

Lord for he's done excellent things.

This is known in all the earth. Cry and

shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for

great is the Holy One of Israel in the

midst of it. What is this scene? Go back

to chapter 11.

It's very clear what it is. This is a

future scene. This hasn't happened yet.

This is a millennial kingdom se scene.

I'm not And that's chapter 11. Chapter

11 is clearly a millennium. Lions laying

down with the lamb and all that stuff.

Chapter 12 is the coming kingdom. Gleon,

Old Testament scholar Gleon Archer

entitles this the millennium, the song

of the millennial believers.

We're not in the millennium yet.

Millennium's coming. Al Martin, not the

reformed Al Martin, the dispensational

Martin. There's two old There's two

Bible teachers, Al Martin. Both are

great teachers, but this is another Al

Martin. This lovely song expresses the

praise and thanksgiving of the godly

remnant of Israel in the coming day of

salvation. And he underlines that day.

Word that day is here twice in this

section. Harry Bolta, another Old

Testament writer says it says uh in the

first part, restored Israel gives thanks

for the great deliverance and in the

second part it calls on the whole earth

to sing praise to the Lord.

And he said like Thomas,

speaking of the Jewish people, like

Thomas, they've seen

and believe.

That's Zechariah 12.

So as we look at this, it's rather

fascinating.

In Exodus 15, the emphasis on the Lord

is my song and or my excuse me, on my

strength. In Psalm 18, it's the Lord is

my song. In Isaiah 12, the Lord's my

salvation.

But they're all all three are true in

every context, but one the emphasis

comes on each one of each one of them a

little different. Jeffrey Groen in his

writings on Isaiah said, "This cannot be

restricted to the return from Babylon,

but must embrace the final acts and the

drama of God's dealings with his

people." The truth is that the Exodus,

very special as it was to Israel as both

the initial and the supreme act of God

on her behalf, revealing the power of

his arm, will be eclipsed by an even

greater deliverance of God's power.

Exodus was great. I mean, really great,

but nothing to what's coming.

So, the Lord is my strength. The Lord is

my song. The Lord is my salvation. Can

we say that? Can you say that

personally, individually?

And I want to say the enemies of Israel,

I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm talking natural

Israel now.

They're fighting a battle they cannot

win.

Egypt couldn't.

The present enemies

will not.

God has sovereignly elected that nation.

They have a national privilege.

Not all of them are personally elected

to salvation, but they have a national

privilege.

Genesis 12 says, "In you, all nations of

the earth will be blessed." People want

to stop that program. You're not going

to stop the program.

We don't get to choose what the program

is.

And Muslims say, "We got the program."

I'm sorry. That's not the program.

I enjoy Muslim people. I like talking to

them. I like being with them. But that's

not the program.

Abraham said, "Oh, that is might live in

your sight." That's not the program,

Abraham.

in Isaac will your seed be called.

And and um you might fight God. It's not

going to work. You're fighting God.

He's got the program.

Remember Isaac tried to make, "Oh, I

want Esau. He's my man. If you can't do

it, no one can." Well, no.

No, Isaac. That's not it.

Ishmamail's not it. Esau's not it.

Jacob's it.

And Jacob's son said, "Oh, we don't like

Joseph ruling over us. We're going to

stop that one. We're going to kill him.

Good luck with that.

Were they successful?

They failed gloriously,

embarrassingly.

And you think the enemies of Israel

today are going to do any better?

Waste of time, waste of life,

waste of energy.

It's a false hope. You're fighting God.

And I'm not saying the Jewish people are

better than the Arab people. I'm not

saying that. I don't believe that.

That's not the question at all.

We should love them all and we shouldn't

make unregenerate Israel better than

they are, messed up or unsaved.

that God's got a program and he's

working the program

and no amount of fighting the program is

going to work. It didn't work with

Pharaoh. It's never going to work. It's

not going to work with the Antichrist

and the armies of the world. You think

they're going to do better?

Read the book of Revelation.

You can't fight God and win.

Maybe you've been fighting God

over one thing or the other. Even

Christians sometimes, we fight God. We

We want something or we're upset that

God didn't give us something and we we

fight God. There's no fighting God

successfully. Just say, "The Lord is my

strength and my soul. Become my

salvation.

I'm thankful for whatever he gives me. I

don't deserve any of it."

Turn with me to Revelation 15.

This is kind of a surprise.

We're coming to the seven bold

judgments. Of course, this has not

happened yet.

This precedes the return of Jesus to the

earth with his church to rule and reign

and the seven bold judgments falling on

an unbelieving Christrejecting

God-hating world.

And I saw another sign in heaven, great

and marvelous, seven angels having the

seven last plagues, for in them is

filled up the wrath of God.

And I saw as it were a sea of glass

mingled with fire

over them that had gotten the victory

over the beast and over his image and

over the mark his mark and over the

number of his name standing on the sea

of glass having harps of God.

And they sing the song of Moses.

They What are they saying? They're

singing the song of Moses,

the servant of God and

the song of the lamb.

Whereas what's now we know what the song

of Moses was. That's Exodus 15. all

everything that Miriam joined in on that

leading the women. It was an antipital

song. The men are singing one thing, the

women are another. They got the

tambourines out. All that stuff. We know

what the song of Moses is.

But now in addition to the song of Moses

is the song of the lamb. Where's that?

That's Revelation 5.

Worthy is the lamb that was slain to

receive glory, honor, and power. For

he's redeemed us to God by his blood out

of every kindred, tongue and people and

nation.

And so here these two songs are brought

together

in this beautiful scene.

And I I confess I didn't catch this

myself,

but uh reading uh the writings of

another

uh in his writings on Revelation, Pastor

Ray Steedman,

he said of Exodus 15, the song of Moses

there and Revelation 15, these are the

first and last songs reported in

scripture

and both are songs of God's 's

deliverance of his people by divine

power and by the blood of redemption.

Now that's significant.

Now you had poetry before Exodus 15 that

was poetry of an descendants of Cain.

That wasn't too good when he was so but

first song in scripture is Exodus 15.

The last

it's a song of Moses. The last is

Revelation 15,

song of or excuse me, Revelation 5, the

song of the lamb.

And they're singing both. So, Old

Testament and New Testament coming

together.

How important is public worship?

Dale Ralph Davis, a fine Presbyterian

scholar.

I'm sure we probably differ on prophecy,

but he he made this quotation of Martin

Lloyd Jones and again I know I differ

with Martin Lloyd Jones or I respect him

a lot, quote him a lot, love him a lot.

He said, "I think that of that woman in

Aubber Avon, Wales, where Martin Lloyd

Jones was serving in his first pastor

before Martin Lloyd Jones came to London

and took over from G. Campbell Morgan.

He he pastored a he left medicine. One

of the he was one of the great doctors

in England. Left medicine although he

was a top doctor trained by the top

doctors for the pastor

to minister to coal miners in a Welsh

mining town.

He tells this story of something that

happened in his first pastor

um about a woman. He said she was a

spirit medium and collected a good fee

for leading a spirit spiritist meeting

on Sunday evening.

Now, here's a woman dominated by demons.

She's a spiritist. You say, "Oh, I don't

I don't know about demons." Yeah. Yeah.

You ever try to deal with a spiritist?

I had a spiritist try to take my head

off with a a whiskey bottle.

Actually swung at me. he was saying

many years ago.

There's a definite satanic antagonism

to the gospel.

So this woman was a spirit medium and

she collected a good fee for leading a

spiritist meeting on Sunday evenings.

But one Sunday night she was ill. She

couldn't go out to the rendevous and

couldn't help but notice the numbers of

folks passing her house on the way to

the chapel.

They seemed to have a sort of

anticipation written on them and she

therefore determined to attend the

service herself.

You never know who's going to walk

through the door, right?

Well, she did that and came to Christ

and walked on on in a consistent life.

And what is so fascinating was part of

her testimony.

This is what the woman said. The moment

I entered your chapel and sat down on a

seat among the people, I was conscious

of a supernatural power.

I was conscious of the same sort of

supernatural power as I was accustomed

to in our spiritist meeting.

But there was one big difference.

I had the feeling that the power in your

chapel was a clean

power.

What an interesting observation.

I was conscious of a supernatural power,

a clean power.

And um

interesting interesting Dale Ralph Davis

says, "Would that I had more of a

feelingness of the triune God's presence

among his people. By that I don't mean

having some soggy emotional sensation,

but a far more distinct realization that

the Holy One of Israel is once more

there among his Israel.

It brings the same wonder and thrill as

when one reads criticism of Jesus by his

Jewish peers that rejected him. This man

welcomes sinners and eats with them.

You remember 1 Corinthians 14 where a

man comes into the worship service and

it's wellorded and it's spiritual and he

says God is up to you.

That's the verse I think.

When we come together to minister and be

ministered together by one another, we

also come to meet the God of the Bible,

the great redeemer who is our strength

and our song and has become our

salvation.

Adrien Rogers, the Baptist, Adrien

Rogers said, "The church is a society of

sinners who finally admitted it."

That's all we are. Sinners saved by

grace.

And you say, "I admitted. I failed. I

blew it. I I can't serve God. I can't

keep ten commandments. I can't do any of

that. I need a savior. I need a savior.

And you say now I believe it.

The Lord is my I want the Lord as my

strength and my song. It's be to come my

salvation.

A British evangelist said something very

powerful. He said, "The tragedy of the

of of late

is that we have too many dead men in the

pulpits giving out too many dead sermons

to too many dead people.

spiritually dead can't help these

physically dead or the spiritually.

But the gospel is the power of God to

salvation

to everyone that believes it

to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

What a wonderful thing, a true thing.

That doesn't mean our lives are always

going to be easy.

Sometimes

it might be extremely hard.

Have you ever heard of a man I'm going

to I'm winding down now.

Coming in for a landing, but not quite.

Have you ever heard of a man by the name

of Charles Waggle?

We ei

Charles Wiggle,

he wrote the song, gospel song, No One

Ever Cared for Me

Like Jesus.

You know the story behind that song.

Charles Weaguer was an itinerate

evangelist. Not an easy life. Wasn't a

pastor. He was an itinerate evangelist.

Went from place to place.

and uh

he was engaged in that for many many

years

and profitably engaged. And he said in

all this I thought I had the support of

my wife

but somewhere along the way she began to

be influenced by relatives who cared not

about the things of the Lord nor

understood the calling of God.

One day, I found a note waiting for me.

It said, "Charlie, I've been a fool.

I've done without a lot of things long

enough. From here on out, I'm getting

all I can of what the world owes me. I

know you'll continue to be a fool for

Jesus, but for me, it's goodbye."

She left it.

If you continue on and know that story,

she died five years later.

What a hardship it was for Charlie Wel

because he loved his wife. He said, "The

bottom of my world seemed to fall out at

that moment. For I love my wife very

much. I found her and tried to reason

with her and pleaded with her not to go

through with her plans, but it was to no

avail.

One day, as I sat on the porch of a

cottage in Florida overlooking a lake, I

felt so depressed and forsaken. I

thought I might end it all.

Your work's finished. No one cares

whether you're alive or dead. Why not

walk off the pier?

But through the appalling gloom of that

moment, there seemed to be a flash, a

voice in my soul that says, "Charlie, I

haven't forgotten you. Charlie, I care

for you. Let not your heart be troubled.

I threw myself down beside the chair and

asked the Lord to forgive me for not

fully trusting him and promised that

come what may, from here on, I would

never let such a thought cross my mind.

Out of that pain,

out of all that experience,

he wrote,

"No one ever cared

for me."

Jesus.

God uses the troubles of our life to

enable us

to mature ourselves,

but also to minister to others in need.

Maybe you've had maybe you're going

through great troubles or you've been

you're you got more troubles coming.

But our troubles tell us something

because they some we have nowhere else

to go. The Lord

will surely show us no one ever cared

for me like Jesus.

That hymn

very much describes

what our Lord is to us.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus.

There's no other friend so kind as he.

No one else could take the sin and

darkness from me. Oh, how much

he cared.

I hope that we can take our text and

apply it to our lives and the lives of

those we love.

Fellow Grant Reichen in his writings on

Exodus. It's a collection of sermons

gave this application that I thought was

quite good.

He said in 1792 a group of settlers

traveled to Africa.

There were more than a thousand of them,

all of African descent.

Some had worked as slaves on American

trans plantations. Others had served as

soldiers in the British army and then

moved north to live in Canada. Together,

they planned to resettle what is now

Sierra Leon on land purchased as a

province of freedom. The settlers were

all professing Christians.

When they reached Africa, they marched

to shore singing a hymn by William

Hammond.

The song, Awake and Sing the Song. And

this is what they sang as they got a new

start. Awake and sing the song of Moses

and the Lamb.

Wake every heart and every tongue to

praise the Savior's name. Sing on your

heavenly way, you ransom sinners. Sing,

sing on, rejoicing every day in Christ

the eternal king.

Those Christians knew how to apply our

text

to their lives.

Do we know how to apply it to our lives?

Someday

all who are saved are going to join the

choir of heaven

and we're going to sing the song of the

lamb

and we're going to sing

millions of us.

The two million choir at the Red Sea

will be dwarfed by the choir of heaven.

And we're going to have the privilege of

joining that choir

singing the song of Moses

and the song

of the lamb.

And you remember the song of Moses is

the first song in the Bible and the

last.

What is that saying? It's saying

anything the Bible teaches about worship

and singing

is going to be our portion.

When we meet Jesus,

everything the psalm writers have

experienced, everything the Old

Testament saints and New Testament

saints experience, everything we've

experienced is going to be thrown into

that song

in that worship.

May God work in your life and mine to

praise him a new. And what we're going

to do to end this service

is indicative of what we're thinking

about today.

Let's close and praise the Lord. Thank

you, Father, for the opportunity to be

here today. We pray your blessing on

each of the ones who are out here today.

We thank you

for our savior.

We long to be with the choirs of heaven.

That's not all we're going to do when we

sing. We'll have other responsibilities

in the coming kingdom, but

everything will be worshiped

with an intensity

and an amazement and joy that we can not

even imagine. Now,

we'll be singing worthy is the lamb that

was slain.

receive glory, power, and majesty and

strength. And we'll be singing, "The

Lord

is my strength.

Become my salvation."

For those who know him not, may they

begin to realize even today

what they're missing out

and come to Christ by your grace in

Jesus name.

Stand turn of page 43.