Exodus 14:19-31 | Dry Ground Means No Mud

Hey, so when I was in fifth grade, I went to school at a in

Margate, which is a little suburb or subdivision in South

Florida. And the Lord moved us from

Florida to Texas, God's country. And I wish I could say that with

an honest face, but let's say I've been to South Florida.

But I remember our fifth grade trip, we went to a place called

Busch Gardens. Abby Busch Gardens is like the T

move version of Six Flags. Six Flags is way better.

But our fifth grade trip, we all went to Busch Gardens as a

class. And my friend Ralph, his dad was

the chaperone for our group. And it was all boys.

And Ralph and his dad are from New York.

So the swag's a little bit different and so is the

confrontation. And Ralph's dad would take us

and as we're going through Busch Gardens, he tells all of us he's

like we're going to ride Kumba. Kumba is the brand new roller

coaster. It has 6 loops.

I've never been on a roller coaster before, so I am

terrified. And I'm wondering in my mind,

can I tell this guy no? But the thing with Ralph's dad

is that he was so aggressive about it and he's like, we're

all riding Kumba. That's the first thing we're

going to do when we get there. So we're all riding.

We're all so you was like, all right, we're going.

And I am freaking out as we get closer and closer to Kumba

because I'm looking at the, you know, you see the the big drop

and you see the loops everywhere.

I've never been on a roller coaster.

So as we get closer, we're waiting in line.

He is hyping this thing up. He's like, yeah, we're man.

We're going on Kumba. We're going to do this together.

And I'm like, can I just leave? And I'm trying to think of an

escape plan because I don't want to go on this thing.

Then we finally get to the line where everybody sits down and

they strap you in. And one of the guys in the

group, and I remember his name was Jared because he was the one

talking the most trash. He ends up raising his hand and

he gets out and I'm like, oh, maybe I could do that.

And then Ralph's dad let's everybody know how much of A

punk Jared is. And he's like, Jared, you're,

you're dividing the group. We're all supposed to do this as

men. And he goes on and on.

And I was like, no, I'm not getting out.

So the ride starts. And the whole entire ride, as

we're going up, I am clinching this thing.

Like everything in my body is clinched.

I have my eyes closed like this. And the ride begins and the

whole entire ride, I have my eyes closed.

And then when the ride finally stops, I open my eyes and I'm

like, I'm not dead. And then we all get out and

every. And then Ralph's dad is like,

yeah, and he's high fiving all the guys.

And then I'm like, yeah, that was great.

And I'm so glad we did this. You know, like, just trying to

like, lie about terrified me. And I think sometimes when we

talk about the Christian life, when we talk about following

Jesus, there's times where we go to things and God's calling us

to things where we're like, I don't know if I want to do this.

Like this is terrifying. And then we get there and we

just clinch onto him as tight as possible and the next thing you

know it, you've completed it and you're like, oh, I didn't die.

I'm OK. It's actually not that bad.

This is actually pretty good. Let's do it again.

I mean, like that's kind of, I didn't say that, but that's kind

of how sometimes we feel. And I think sometimes following

God could be scary. Like, let's just be honest

because we are surrendering our plans, our lives, our dreams to

him. And we're like God.

I don't know if if what you're calling me to do, if this is how

it's going to work. OK.

Now what we're doing is we're we're wrapping up these next

couple of weeks, the whole series of Exodus.

Now, if you remember from last week, the Israelites get freed.

They are going, God leads them to the Red Sea.

They're kind of stuck between a rock and A and an ocean.

They turn around. They almost look like sitting

ducks to the Egyptians. Pharaoh changes his mind.

He's like, hold on, why don't we let them go?

Which Pharaoh's just being Pharaoh.

And then Pharaoh decides to get 600 of his Chariots strapping

and let's go get our guys. Let's go get our people back.

So now the Israelites are there. They're thinking that they're

free. They see Pharaoh and all his

peeps coming down marching toward them.

And they're like, like Moses? What?

Like, what's going on? Like we, you brought us out here

to die. And then they start rehearsing

the speech. Like what?

We didn't want to come out here. Moses made us come out here

Pharaoh and all of this is going down and and and as I'm reading

the story, I'm like, I can't imagine what it's like for the

Israelites to leave bondage. See all the things of God times

following God could get a little bit crazy like we don't under

God LED them to this place. And I was like 5 little

observations I want to give us as we, as we get close to the

end of this journey. And what I want us to know is

point number one, I'll put on the screen.

We're just going to start right off the bat.

Don't miss the place because of the path.

Don't miss the place that that God is trying to lead us just

because the path is not the path that we thought it was going to

look like the Israelites got freed from Egypt.

And instead of going in a specific direction to get to the

promised land, which is Canaan, which God didn't want to take

them that way because of the Philistines, God takes them in a

way different path, almost like he's dangling a carrot in front

of Pharaoh saying, come get your people.

So the Israelites end up in this place where they're like, God,

you let us here to kill us. Like, how's this going to work?

But remember also we talked about God's Providence and God's

sovereign decrees and God's omnipresence and who he is.

God has picked this path for the Israelites to make sure that His

perfect will is executed and His perfect will is not freeing the

Israelites. His perfect will is pointing

everything to the Savior who's Jesus and the Red Sea in this

departing of the Red Sea. And the way the Israelites get

freed through the Red Sea is, is a big beautiful picture of what

the gospel looks like. So God uses a different type of

path for the people of Israel in order to get them to the place

that he has purposefully picked for them.

And I think sometimes for some of us is like we're following

God and we want to, we want to do what he's asked to, but the

path is not the path that we would have chosen.

And God is going to take you to a path that's going to not test

your faith, but strengthen your faith.

And He's going to use that path to mold you.

And He's going to use that path to build the bigger story and

the bigger picture of His will. So we want to align our lives

with His will. We have to follow where He takes

us. And what ends up happening is

many believers bail out because the path is not what they

expect. So they miss out on the place.

I would even say they miss out on the purpose and the person of

Jesus just because it's not what I thought.

So God is moving the Israelites and this is where I want to pick

up. Look at verse 19 and Exodus

Exodus 14 · chapter mention

chapter 14. And this is what the word of the

Lord says. Then the Angel of God, who had

been travelling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went

behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved

from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies

of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night, the cloud

brought darkness to one side and light to the other side.

So neither went near the other all night long.

Man, those are some powerful verses right there.

And what we see here, what I, what I thought was interesting

in verse 19, it says that the Angel of the Lord went from

behind to back, but then it says that the pillar, the cloud move

from the front to the back, but it says that it stood behind

them. How in the world does a cloud

stand in language that's called personification.

It's like saying, man, the sun watched us all day.

How in the world but but but the author uses the word stood that

which is a military term, like he stood in defense of that

means it stood watching to make sure that you're going to be OK.

And what we see here is that this is what we call a

Christophany. Many scholars believe that this

is Christ. And what I want us to understand

too is that Jesus, God, doesn't only guide us, but God also

defends us. So that means that if God is

guiding you to a place, if God is taking you somewhere, he's

also going to be defending you as you go to that place.

If God is our defender, if God is going to guide us, why do we

worry? We need to point #2 what do we

see about our God? The Lord guides, but also He

defends His people. And think about this, if that's

true, if God is our defender, if God is the defender of his

people. Now understand what I just said.

His people, those who belong to him, all of us are made in the

image of God. But only those who put their

faith in Christ belong to him. He's talking about those who put

their faith in Him. So if God is our defender and

we're going through some difficult times, imagine

everything that He's been blocking you from.

What if He lifted his hand and just let everything come at you,

man? The Lord is our shield, our

rock. The Lord is in our defense.

And what God does here is so cool because He creates A

boundary between Israel and His people.

So the Egyptian army, who is bum rushing the Israelites, he's

putting protection on them. Imagine if the Egyptians all if

they would have just said, Oh, the Lord is in here, we're going

to bow and we're going to go ahead and and just repent.

It would have been a different story for them, but they didn't.

And then how else do we see that?

This is a picture of Christ, John 1.

If you want to look it up in your Bibles we're going to read

John 1 verses one through 5 if not open on the screen.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and

the Word was God. He was with God in the

beginning. Through Him all things were

made. Without Him nothing was made

that has been made. In Him was life and that life

was the what lights of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not

overcome it. Listen, when Jesus shows up, the

darkness has to run. Jesus is the light of the world

and there is nothing that the that the darkness can overcome.

So what we see here is a beautiful picture of the people

of God, how God is shining His light on them, and the Egyptians

are kept in the dark of everything that God is doing.

I like to see, I like how Paul puts it, the gospel is

foolishness to everyone who's perishing.

So what God is doing is like when Jesus shows up, I'm light

to my people. Darkness has to flee, Darkness

stays where darkness belongs. But when Jesus shows up, the

darkness has to go. So he came in between the camp

of the Egyptians and the Israelites.

They didn't know it, but God's presence was separating both

sides of the great picture of the glory of God and the work of

God, which can be light, and then also our sinful nature,

which is dark. There is a separation because

God is holy and righteous. Jesus is the light of the world,

and sin is the darkness. Man, it's a beautiful picture of

what we're seeing here. Now let's keep tracking.

Look at verse 21. So what happens?

A lot of us have seen the movies, but there's a few

details. I think that the movies missed

verse 21, that Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and

all that night the Lord drove back to sea with a strong E wind

and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided and the

Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of

water on their right and on their left.

So I know when we see the story, it's Moses holds out his his

staff and the water's like and then Charlton Heston walks right

through it. But understand what this is

saying. He said when Moses held his hand

up because God told him and it says that a strong E wind, the

wind came in blue and the waters opened up a translation, a

better translation is, is the breath of God the rock, what we

see in Genesis 1, how it filled the earth.

So this wind comes and it's and then the word divided in verse

21 means like it cut it in half. It's like taking a sword and

slicing something. So that means like when when

Moses put his hand up, it was almost immediately the water

just went. And then there's a detail here

that many of us must pay attention to.

I would say all of us should. It says that they walked on what

dry ground? Now, I don't know how all I

like. I've taken science before

anything with water. There might be some after

effects even after it rains and it's a beautiful day outside.

There's still some a little bit of water here and there, but not

in the sea. What we know about the Red Sea

is in Hebrew, it's called Yamshoff, which means the read

sea. And when you study the text and

when you look at the geography of it, the Reed Sea, they were

saying that it was probably about 10 to 15 feet deep of the

water. But then we also see in Psalms

Psalms 77 · chapter mention

chapter 77, David the psalmist gives an even crazier

description of what happened. I'll read it for us.

Psalm 77, verse 16. The water saw you, God, the

Psalms 77:16

water saw you, and they rise. The very depths were convulsed,

The clouds poured down water. The heavens sat resounded with

Thunder. Your arrows flashback and forth.

Your Thunder was heard, and the whirlwind we are lightning lit

up the world. Your path LED through the sea,

your way through the mighty waters, through your footprint.

Though their footprints were not seen.

You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

What is the the author saying in Psalms?

He's giving a description of what that day looked like.

So it wasn't just a, a wind boom.

And it opened up. He's saying like there was

Thunder, there was lightning, there might have been some rain.

And I'm reading this. And then at the end of Psalms,

it even says, hey, but they walked on dry land.

How there's there's water on each side and yet they're dry

land. Which leads me to point #3 dry

land means no mud. Why is that so important?

Because the thing with mud is that mud leads prints.

When Elena and Livie play outside, you know, we're 90s

parents. So we let our kids roll around

in dirt, play in the rain, play in the snow.

But when they come inside, you see these perfect little tracks

all the way to the bathroom of Muddy Feet.

You see what happens is that mud leaves tracks.

And what tracks point to is that tracks point to your past,

tracks point to what you just came out of.

And why is this so important? Because the Red Sea is a symbol

of the Gospel. And if the Israelites are going

to make it across the Red Sea, they're not going to be able to

look back and see where they came from because God has taken

them to a new place. He's taken them to the promised

land. Guys, it's the same thing with

us. When Jesus heals us, when Jesus

forgives our sins, there is no track of our sin.

Do you understand that the Bible says that God throws us as far

as the east is from the West to the depths of the ocean.

So when my sin is forgiven, I don't go to God and be like,

well, God, you remember what I did three years ago.

God's been like, what are you talking about?

The blood of Christ covered you. I, I don't know what, what sin

you're talking about. So if God does not remind us of

our sin, then why do we do that? Guys, we have been forgiven and

cleared. We need to stop looking back at

our Prince. Wait a second.

But if it's a representation of the gospel, there are no prints.

So where does that come from? So we're looking back, thinking

about the past, but there's no evidence because the blood of

Christ has cleaned us. That means that we are to look

forward to Him. We always to go to Him.

Mud means no dry ground. Mud leaves tracks behind.

Also, mud stain, even after you wash your clothes, there's still

stains that stay on it. But also, dry ground means

supernatural work from God. There was absolutely nothing

that the Israelites could do to save themselves from bondage.

Only God can do that. And it's the same thing with our

sin. Listen, there's nothing you and

I can do in order for us to become right with God and in

order for us to be forgiven of our sin.

Jesus does all that. So our role is we put our faith

in Christ, we trust him and we and we ask for the forgiveness

of our sins. And because Jesus died on the

cross and rose again on the third day, he is mighty to save.

I am cleansed. No more tracks, no more looking

back, no more pointing to my past.

Everything now is pointing toward him.

So if some of us need to let it go, cut it.

And we're going to see how God cuts it because it's actually

pretty interesting. Look at verse 23.

So all the Egyptians are moving, right?

Like the cloud, like Jesus standing there and all his

glory. He's shining his light.

I mean, a lot of scholars say it probably took like 10 hours for

all of the Israelites to cross the sea.

In verse 23, the Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh's

horses and Chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea.

That's not a good idea. But they were like, let's go get

him. During the last watch of the

night, the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at

the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion.

The cloud represents the presence of God, and God is

there and he's watching everything go down.

Because God is our defender, not just our guide and the way God

works because we think. Defense needs to look a certain

way is that God allowed the Egyptians to come all the way

into the ocean. So the Israelites are freaking

out right now. How does He confuse them?

Look at verse 25. He jammed their wheels.

He jammed the wheels of their Chariots so that they had

difficulty driving. You see the Egyptians, they use

their Chariots as weapons. I mean, these were like tanks.

If you look at any type of warfare in that time, man,

Chariots were used as the the main weapon of warfare,

especially they were built from metal.

But you see, what God did was God disarm their weapon because

no weapon formed against you will proper.

Even when you see people come at you, you continue to trust the

Lord. It might look like man, they're

getting kind of close. Things are getting a little

hard, but what God does is he throws it into confusion and now

there's jammed, they're stuck, they can't move, they're having

difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said let's get

away from the Israelites. The Lord is fighting for them

against Egypt. When something normal becomes

very difficult, something as normal as riding a chariot

becomes extremely difficult and God's not in something, or when

God is fighting something, something that should be normal

becomes extremely difficult. It doesn't make sense.

Because God's Providence and His sovereign decrees, we got to

learn to trust His promises. Now all this is happening.

The morning watch is between 2:00 and 6:00 AM.

So that means that the Israelites, all the Israelites

cross the Red Sea by about 6:00 AM sunrise on the third day.

When you look at the calendar of this, it all lines up of when

they were able to make it. And in verse 26 and the Lord

said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea so that the

waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their Chariots and

horsemen. God told Moses to do something

with his hand connected to the motion of of the sea.

We know it's not the power of Moses.

We know that it was God working through Moses to close the sea

on the Egyptians. Moses stretched out his hand

over the sea, and at Daybreak the sea went back to its place.

The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept

them into the sea. The water flowed back and

covered the Chariots and horsemen, the entire army of

Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea, and no

one, not one of them, survived. Which leads me to point #4

listen, when when we allow the Lord to work, the oppressor is

no more. No more oppressor.

That means that the oppressor no longer has power over the

Egyptians. Why did God have to do this?

A lot of like man, Why did God have to take out the whole army?

Why did God have to do all this? Because the truth is, oppressed

people are slow to believe that they're free while their

oppressors are still alive. You can look all through

history. If I know that the person who

oppressed me is still alive, that means that in my mind

there's still a little bit of a chance that they're going to

come and bring me back to that time and place.

But God wanted Israel to know that their oppressors are dead.

That means that they are completely free.

He doesn't just drown them in the ocean or in the water.

He doesn't just close the sea on them.

The Bible then says that when the Israelites saw the hand of

the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the

Lord and they put their trust in him and and in Moses his

servant. That means they saw the

Egyptians lying dead on the shore.

Israelites looked out and all the the Egyptians that were

chasing them are now in the water and now their bodies are

washing up. It's funny that in the beginning

of this whole story, Pharaoh started by throwing babies in

denial, and God uses the same judgment to destroy his army,

and the evidence of all that now is washing up on shore in front

of Pharaoh. Guys, the oppressor is now gone.

So even when the enemy comes to remind you of your sin, you no

longer have to be a slave to that sin because God has wiped

it. He's even showing you like man,

look, that thing has no power or hold over you ever again because

of the blood of Christ. So you can just say in Jesus

name, stop and it stops. So you don't have to walk around

in life thinking like, I'm always going to be a slave to

this sin. There's no way.

Listen, God wants you to be healed.

He wants you to be well. We talked about this at our

men's retreat, but it's up to us to trust Him and listen.

Moses with everything that God did, is showing the people

evidence that there is no more pressors in their life.

And in verse 31, and when the Israelites saw the mighty hand

of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared

the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

The last thing I'll say is this true freedom.

If the Israelites would have been freed and the Egyptians not

dealt with, Pharaoh was never going to leave them alone.

Pharaoh was always going to come back to the Israelites.

They were never going to experience true freedom knowing

that the thing that oppressed them was still out there.

So what God had to do was God had to take him in a different

path because He had a greater purpose.

And that purpose was to do a supernatural work to eliminate

the very thing that oppressed the Israelites, to drive them to

the promised land. And in order for them to

experience true freedom, they had to see that the oppressor

was dealt with. How do we know that we

experience true freedom? It says in verse 31, how do I

know that I've been truly forgiven?

I fear the Lord. I trust him, and then I also

trust in his servant Moses. But you see, the Bible says that

the Messiah Jesus is the greater Moses.

So I don't just trust the Lord, I trust the Son of God who is

Christ. When you become free, you walk

in a way that you fear the Lord, like he's powerful, he's holy

and he's righteous and I'm not. So I'm going to fear the Lord.

I'm not sure forgiveness. I'm going to, I'm going to keep

his commands. I'm going to follow him.

My, I'm not going to be perfect, nobody here is, but I'm going to

fear it and I'm going to trust him because I know that he has

what's best for me. And then I'm going to follow

Christ came down and set me free.

Guys, the Red Sea is a picture of the gospel.

You had to go through dry ground, no tracks.

Same way that I've been forgiven of my sin.

The oppressor is no more. The sin that has held me in

bondage is no more. It's over, has no more power

over my life. And because I'm truly free, I'm

going to trust him. I'm going to do what he says,

fear the Lord, and I'm going to look to Christ because Christ is

the only one who saves us. Last thing I'll say about this.

You know what's interesting about this text?

Pharaoh was left with nothing. Pharaoh stood there and watched

the power of the Lord take out his army.

God gave Pharaoh exactly what he wanted because Pharaoh thought

he was one of the little gods. Pharaoh was left with nothing.

Egypt is a disaster zone. His first born died, so it means

his legacy is gone. All his slaves that he thought

were his gone, all his army, everything gone.

And I could imagine Pharaoh in his heart and heart watching

this whole thing take place, probably feeling and the God of

the Israelites, he's got to be real.

Listen, when you refuse to follow the Lord, when you refuse

to say yes to Christ, what God does is God gives you exactly

what you want and it is a life without him.

We say heaven is not a place for good people and hell is not a

place for bad people. Heaven is a place for people who

want Jesus, and hell is a place for people who don't want him.

If I want Jesus, I want to give my life to him.

I'm going to trust him. I'm going to follow him.

If I don't want Christ, if I don't want nothing to do with

God, he's going to let that happen.

It's going to give you over to your sin.

That's Romans one. But here's what's going to

happen. You're going to get to a place

where you hit rock bottom and you're going to look up and

you're going to need a savior like fair.

You're going to look around and you're just going to see God

working all around you and you're going to have to make a

decision. Do I follow the one true God?