Leftovers - Exodus 14

Happy Monday. I'm Pastor Matt back with the RC

Leftovers podcast with you all, Pastor Chris Speed treat.

Is also. Here today.

We're just we're, that's where we're starting.

We're just. We're just.

You've done weeks two weeks in a row on Sundays that have like

new nickname for you. I came out all y'all were

hanging out after church last week long time.

It was fun. People were just couldn't get

you to leave the building weren't trying to get you to

leave the building, but people were hanging out fellowship and

conversing. I was solo dating it this

weekend. Emily was up at the women's

retreat at I point with the group of ladies that went up

there. And so my kids are just all

y'all cared for my kids really well.

Sunday morning they were just kind of everywhere.

And I see them running out of your office with Rice Krispie

treats at, like, 11:00, 11/30, whatever.

And I asked them because sometimes, like, students just

go in there and just, like, pilfer your snacks.

Did Pastor Chris give these things?

Yeah, of course. He gave them to us.

Oh, oh, did he now? And I think it was Derek that

said. All right.

So yeah, Pastor Crispy treat. Pastor crispy treat.

Right crispy treat. Yeah.

OK, so here's the thing. I have become the resident,

like, you know, what's the word, what's the phrase Funko, fun

uncle. I have become the resident Funko

for a lot of the kids around this church.

If nothing else, simply because my maturity level is similar to

theirs and I tend to give away a lot of food and sugary items.

I have snacks now. It did get, it did get to the

point where like I have to like lock up the snacks now because

like, God bless them, the kids, they're so comfortable with me

at this point that they're just like I do, that's my office as

much as it's Pastor Chris's. So like, I'll just go in there

and take what I want. So I have, I have started

locking them up. So kids are aware of that.

And so now that they know that they're not just super readily

available when I hand them out like I did yesterday to your

dear, sweet little children, there's some element of surprise

again. And that's kind of fun.

But but yeah, Chris Pastor crispy treats.

Yep, that's fine. I I can, I can live with that.

That that's that's. Better than theology, man.

I think, well I think it makes for a more fun visual if nothing

else, so that could that could be fun.

All right, I'll get I'll get the AI going.

Get the AI going. By the way.

Why? Why do all, every version like

AI version of me looks like Steve Carell and I had a baby.

You know, the actor Steve Carell, right?

Like like it's this weird combination of the two of us.

And that's that's what I feel like AI generates for me is like

me and Steve Carell I. Mean I I used like a picture of

you that I thought I don't know fairly academic.

So I mean it's I don't I don't know it's how AI thinks you look

in like what's the what's the cartoonage man?

The people at the malls who just draw the.

Oh yeah, the caricatures. Caricature.

Yeah, AAI just thinks OK, your caricature.

I think Steve Carell is a character of me.

That's what I think. That's a hot take.

Yeah. Steve Carell, if you're out

there listening to this Iowa church's podcast, you, Sir, are

a caricature of me. Wow.

Just know that bolt. Feel that bolt.

There you go. All right, Steve.

Carell, we're off. We're off to a hot start as

usual on the Leftovers podcast. If you missed church yesterday,

encourage you to go back and listen to it.

We're making a big deal of the month of October here.

We're going to have a baptism event and your, if you haven't

been baptized or want to have your kids baptized or whatever

it is, please reach out to us. And we're going to do as many

baptisms as we can. Got a couple families already

involved in that and we're, we're going to do that in the

month of October, October 19th is our budget meeting, which

sounds a little boring. That sounds very boring

actually, but we want you to know, we want you to be involved

in in the gifts you're giving. First off, we're we're grateful

or thankful for the gifts that you are giving to further the

Kingdom of God through the ministry at Emmaus Rd.

Church. But also we kind of want you to

own it. We want you to care and know how

our elder board, how, how we as as leaders and and shepherds

feel that God's calling us to to use these gifts.

What, what the vision and mission behind these gifts.

Yeah, some of them go to just keeping the lights on honestly

and, and having a place to gather and worship week in and

week out. But we also, we send a portion

of the budget out. We send that money on mission as

as kind of a tithe of our, of our budget as well.

And then yeah, the other, other various ministries and things

that we fund and support and just, hey, it, it takes money to

do life and ministry and, and things.

So encourage you to come out that's just right after the

service on October 19th. Just stay and know and, and

learn and hear where these dollars are going towards.

And then October 26th, Vision Sunday, you've talked about us

having a, or we've talked about annual meeting.

We have one every year in October.

We're going to bring it to Sunday morning now and kind of

use this as a jumping off point of of where God has us moving

next in this next season, especially this next ministry

year. But what we feel called to next

as a church and want to invite you into that want you to be a

part of that, but an expectant excited, engaged part of that as

well. So be here October 26th worship

still at 9:30 and we'll have lunch afterwards.

We'll, we'll have a lunch and fellowship time together

afterwards in the in the gymnasium and it'll be great.

But we need to do it together. We need you.

We want you to do it together with us.

Come on out and be a part of that.

Yeah, I mean, if if anybody can sell a budget meeting, I'm now

convinced it's you. Wow, OK.

So there you go. That is.

That is maybe the best compliment you'll hear today.

Good job Matt. Way to sell the budget meeting.

You're killing it. I actually mean that with some

level of sincerity, because some levels are great.

OK. Yeah, No, I think you're right,

though. Like, man, we should, we should

want to know, you know, if if we're if we're giving to this

ministry, we should want to know specifically, you know, what

that looks like and where it's going.

And I think those are good things to know and good things

to be a part of. So thanks for doing that.

You bet, man. Glad.

Glad. God gave me the words of the

moment. Yeah, there you go.

So, yeah, other than that, we had just, we, and we said it

last week, we know the the House of God is packed out on Sundays

just where changes are coming and we're not quite ready to

talk about them yet. And so close, so close to what

those plans are and how we're going to do it.

But for the time being, while we are still at 1930 gathering, if

you're comfortable sitting out in the atrium and taking in the

service out there, more than welcome to use that as an

overflow. We know the sanctuary is very

full for the next few weeks. That's just kind of the path we

have to go down as, as we accommodate and plan volunteers

to make Sunday services happen too.

We've got a lot of people serving on Sundays.

And in order to in order to expand and grow that and and

grow to more times, we just got to make sure we have people in

place to care for the people that are coming because there's

also a lot of new people coming. If you haven't noticed, if you

haven't been here in the month of September, there's new

families coming, people are coming back to church.

The revival that you maybe see on social media or in other

places is happening here too. We, we have an influx of people

that are searching out God and searching out Jesus and, and

coming back to church. And we want to react and also

act on, on the momentum that God's bringing back to church

here in the season. So yeah.

He's busy, he's doing things. And because he's doing things,

we get to do things with him in his mission.

And a number of you already do that stuff with us too.

And so if you're somebody who volunteers for any of the, any

of the ERC, you know things, gosh, I'm losing my words.

If you are a volunteer at all at ERC, thank you for doing what

you do because we cannot do ministry the way we do without

you. And so we are just so thankful

to partner with you and we're excited for what God's going to

continue to do and then through ERC.

Yep, all parts of one body we need.

We need it all. And it's cool to see how that's

coming together in our church community, our Ask me anything

questions sort of icebreaker. As we get into the show today,

we'll talk about we're going to talk about Exodus 14 and the

message and some of the extra stuff in the crossing of the Red

Sea. But before we get there, ask me

anything this week is can a person truly just confess their

sins to the Lord, turn away from that behavior and be forgiven?

I. Mean yes, short answer.

Short answer is yes and yes it it is that simple.

It's the repentance is supposed to be that simple.

Leave, leave this life behind. Romans 10/9 and 10 does simply

state Paul tells the church if you confess with your mouth that

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him

from the dead, you will be saved first.

John 19 if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and

we'll forgive our sins and purify us from all

unrighteousness At the heart of this question.

I think there's still a lingering yeah, but what do I

do? Can a person truly just confess

their sins to the Lord and turn away from that behavior and be

forgiven. The the only part I guess that

there is still to to do quote UN quote.

I'm making the air quotes that you can't see because this is

still just an audio only podcast.

But the only to do, I guess, would be that ongoing like

turning from that behavior, not going back to that sin thing

kind of that we that we talked about yesterday.

Now we can get into the theological workings of

sanctification of the power of the Holy Spirit in changing that

life and making a new creation. And there's there's that there

too. But as far as the doing, not

falling to temptation, not going back to that habit, I think

that's really the only like ongoing action that that we even

have in there because, and I only say that because yes, it is

that simple. There's not something that you

bring to God confessing your sin, asking for forgiveness.

And he's not going to come back and be like, but OK, go take

care of XYZ and then come back for your scoop of forgiveness.

Sorry, I don't know why. I just like jumped into like

cafeteria line with that metaphor.

But right, so it's already done. What I'm saying is it's already

done. The forgiveness is there, the

righteousness in Christ is there.

He he he died on the cross. He rose from the grave.

All of that is done. It's just you, prodigal son,

prodigal daughter, running back to the blessing that's already

prepared for you, right? I think one of the reasons why

this question even gets asked and, and I don't know who asked

it and I don't I don't know kind of what the harp was behind it,

I guess, but I would if I could venture a guess.

The harp behind this is we are told, either subtly or overtly

our entire lives that if it sounds too good to be true, it.

Probably is. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I, I grew up my my mom gave me that phrase because her

dad gave her that phrase. And, you know, it's just kind of

like a be on your guard thing because like, you know, these

crafty salesman and, you know, these snake oil salesman who are

trying to get you involved in something.

Like it sounds way too good to be true.

Like, you know, and sometimes like I, I think I've said it

from stage, like I'm not a salesman.

Like I'm not trying to get you in on a timeshare.

Like this thing that sounds too good to be true is in fact still

true, right. So when we first, yeah, when we

read first John 1, you know, 8 through 10 or whatever.

And it just says, hey, confess your sins, believe, you know,

repent all these things and you're, you're forgiven.

Like you're like, yeah, but what else?

Where's, where's the, yeah, where's the catch?

Where's the fine print? Where's all the things?

And it's like, no, man like you, you clearly don't understand.

There is no catch. There is no fine print.

Like God loves you that much. And more specifically, Jesus's

sacrifice, his taking on. And and I think part of this

question comes from the fact that we don't fully grasp the

gravity of Jesus dying on the cross.

OK, so we hear the story and we're like, Yep, he was whipped,

he was beaten, he was mocked, he was bruised, he was all this

kind of stuff. And he eventually died, gave us

up his spirit. I think we can still ask this

question sometimes because we don't understand the gravity of

God turning his back on his Son and saying, you know what?

Every sin ever is on your shoulders like you are going to

you are going to experience the fires of hell in a way that

nobody else ever will. So the more we can wrap our

heads around that, I think the easier it is to, you know, feel

like, yes, it is just confession.

It is just turning away from my sin because Jesus did all of

that. And so if we can understand the

gravity of the moment of the cross, then this question, it

probably isn't a question anymore.

And that's not a knock on whoever asked it because there

are certainly times where I know in my faith walk, I have not

taken the cross seriously enough because you hear it all the

time. You're like, oh, just died for

my sins. You died for my sins.

OK, great. But what does that really mean?

Well, that really means that, like, God forsook his own son.

He looked at his son and said, it's all on you and I, I'm not

going to protect you. And that for as a as a dad,

that's crazy to me. Yeah, like.

You talked about that last week, too in the sermon, too.

Yeah, the Abraham Isaac scenario.

How could you? How could you?

How could you do it? So you know, all of that to say,

understanding the gravity of what Jesus actually endured on

the cross, Then all of a sudden this the the answer, which is

simple and easy, makes a lot of sense.

And I think the other part kind of looming in this question is

the the inherent hypocrisy maybe here that because I think we

also understand the the intensity with which we first

entered into the fit. Like when it when it makes

sense, When, when, when, when you realize when your salvation

is real and your faith is young and and vibrant.

But then still sin still like has we, we live in this already

not yet sort of sort of tension, right?

We're we're sins still present and we are still actively on

guard against sin. I think that's also part of the

part of the question here. Confess and turn away from that

behavior and be forgiven because it doesn't feel that simple,

because there's still the tension of temptation.

There's there's still is sin that we're wrestling through and

and possibly even like we talked about yesterday, like be

literally being chased down by and and trying to drag us back

into that old life. So the short answer is yes, it

can be this simple and should be this simple.

We're still imperfect even in how we act out our faith and

Paul exhausted to act to work out your faith with fear and

trembling, right. I think that's where we fall

short too much. We still we get an air of

confidence back that like that we that we figured it out.

We don't often dwell long enough in that state of I am nothing,

I, I I contribute nothing to myself.

We think ourselves very good Christians sometimes like too,

too good of good, like, yeah, I've got this, I've got this

figured out. And then sin is lurking to to

pounce in those moments. So I think that I think that's

part of the question, like is it really that simple?

Because we don't always see that lived out.

We still, we still see struggle and that's kind of what I talked

about yesterday too, of like, OK, yeah.

The affliction of, of depression or, or, or mental illness, the

affliction of whatever UN unplanned financial burdens or,

or health complications or, or things like that.

Like when it comes down to it, those are all products of sin

and they're all things designed to beat down and discourage you

trusting in a good and great God.

So, and it's not, it's not punishment from God.

Like, yes, we're, we're refined through fire and, and, and

transgressions. What, what is the word I'm

thinking of in James? It's not transgressions.

Trials. That's a simpler word than

trials are meant for the, the endurance and persevering of our

faith, right? God's not just up there like

throwing lava bombs, just to like make sure we're on our toes

necessarily. But there are those moments of

what I said yesterday when in crisis where you run to where

your Christ is. Do you run back to him, or do

you figure out how to get out of it yourself?

Amen, man. I, I just, I'm, I'm just

listening. And yeah, I mean, absolutely.

So. I concur, Sir, I concur.

Pastor Chris Petri concur, concurs.

All right, so All in all, yes, it it can and should be that

simple act it out there. There's ongoing picking up your

cross daily sort of work to be done to actually live that out

in reality, to turn daily from that behavior and walk in

forgiveness and freedom daily. That takes a good measure of

intentionality and it and it takes a good measure of

humility, dying to yourself daily to pursue the things of

God. So yeah, it should be that

simple, but it's also kind of complicated because we got to,

we got to walk in faith with it. Right, and Martin Luther going

back to our good friend he, he would put it this way, he would

tell people and remind people the old self which is nailed to

the cross with Christ, it slips on down that cross every single

day. It needs to be re nailed back to

the cross. So, yeah, I mean, the old self

is always lurking, always saying, you know what would be

better for you? Satan is always around the

corner looking to sift us, you might say.

And so yeah, there's there's always that tension there, but

there should be no tension. There should just be absolute

assurance that when we bring our confession to God, he it's

always a yes and it's always a for.

It's always forgiveness there. Jesus Christ has done the work.

It's always a yes. It's always yes, I love you,

yes, I forgive you. Every single time we confess

there, there is no air of change.

There's no shadow of change to that whatsoever.

Because if there was any shadow of change to that answer, then

Jesus Christ would somehow not be enough.

And that's not true, right? Yep.

Well said. Well said.

All right, we are jumping back into Exodus 14.

I covered about 25 verses yesterday.

Verse 5 to through 3031 I think. It's a big text.

It was a lot, but I wanted, I wanted the whole picture of the

narrative of this crossing the Red Sea.

There's a lot that we didn't get to and probably a lot of

different ways you could have, you could have landed with this.

So I left some of the things out, but let's just kind of work

through where we went, starting with God hardening Pharaoh's

heart and and kind of ending up with the people of Israel

landing on the the final concluding thought of that the

people feared the Lord and believed and and that and that

sort of that right, righteous, holy fear of God is what is what

fuels belief. So verse five, we'll pick it up

there in chapter 14. Now it was told the king of

Egypt that the people had fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his

servants was turned against the people.

And they said, why have we done this, that we have let Israel go

from serving us. So he made ready his Chariots

and took his people with him, took 600 choice Chariots and all

the Chariots of Egypt with captains over every one of them.

And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and

he pursued the children of Israel.

It was brought up at my life group yesterday.

Like what's the what's the timeline?

We get kind of the 40 years of most leaving Egypt, walking in

the wilderness, coming back. You can from what I can discern

and decipher from the scholarly sources that I have and look and

looked into this all happens pretty quick.

The journey from Midian to Egypt, somewhere in the

neighbor, a few 100 miles, some somewhere between the three 500

mile range, depending on where exactly he was when he we don't

know if he went, where was he with the sheep?

Did he have to go back home and then come back?

And so like we don't have all the specifics of that, but took

him a few weeks probably to get back from Midian to Egypt.

But once he was there, like the plagues kind of happen unfold.

And the only time period that we get like after the final plague

of the first born being killed, that's as much as the timeline

that we get that like once Pharaoh heard that the people

had fled, how long do we really think that took?

Like this isn't a matter of weeks.

If it took more than like a day, that would be kind of weird

that. Well, yeah, and, and I mean, you

just go back to the Passover meal.

God preps them ahead of time and says, you're going to eat this

meal with your sandals on your belt, right?

Boom, boom, boom. You're when when the whales

start coming from the city because all these parents have

lost their children, Yep, you're going to want to get out real

quick because it's it's going to get nasty in there.

And so I mean, like, yeah, we we have to assume a pretty quick

turn around on this now as far as how long does it take Pharaoh

to actually like, huh, I just lost my free workforce.

I'm what do I do? I'm sad more than sad that my

first born son is gone and the entire, you know, community

feels all of that because most of them are experiencing that.

But I'm also pretty angry. I'm pretty angry that I lost my

like cash cow. I'm pretty angry because I lost

my son and I lost my workforce. Like I'm going to lose both in

the same day. Like I think there's some level

of level of pride involved here. Like, OK, OK, this God, you may

have taken my son, but I'm going to take your people back and

it's going to hurt and I'm going to, I'm going to make get worse

than it's ever been because how dare you do this to me.

I am Pharaoh, I am great. You can't do this to me.

So I assume that there's and I'm I'm, I'm projecting a little bit

here. That's not in the text, but it

makes sense in my head when you're like, hey, man, like he's

hurt. He's he's upset, he's angry, his

pride has just been set on fire, all of these things.

So yeah, I'm assuming we're not talking about a real long time

frame here, but for sure they got a decent head start.

Yeah, Yep. And so the the Egyptians

probably had scouts or centuries or whatever kind of keeping tabs

on where they were wandering in the in the relative wilderness

and in the land near them. But to your point about the, the

level of pride, I think you're right.

It's not in the text, but absolutely like we're coming off

of these great demonstrations of God's power in the plagues, even

in the, the severity of taking the first born and all of a

sudden Pharaoh's high on his horse again, like, Ah, no, I've

seen all this, but like, I can still take down this God.

I, I, I can still win this. And that more parallels there to

again, how, how Satan pursues us and and chases us down.

He's, he's fighting a battle of futility, right?

Like if you, if you truly believe that, I mean the songs

we sing or the battle belongs to you, God or, or you've already

won. Like if we truly believe cross

happened, the grave is empty and and it's already it's finished

and it is done. That means Satan is fighting a

battle of futility, which is what Pharaoh is attesting to

here. That's that's what he's entering

into a battle that is already lost.

And of course, at the end of the chapter, we see the battle lost.

But so I think you're right. It's, it's that pride thing.

And there and there are parallels even there between

Pharaoh and Satan chasing down the people of God, Satan chasing

down us as as the people of God still.

Well, and sometimes you know it, and I'm sure we could all say

this, like sometimes bad things happen, whether it's our fault

or somebody else's fault or just basic circumstances, bad things

happen. And we think that you know what,

it really can't get much worse. And so we're like, whatever, it

can't get worse, I'm just going to go whatever.

Like it's already as bad as it's going to get.

What, what can you do to me now? And I'm sure Pharaoh and maybe

even those in the army who had a son who died overnight, they're

like, you know what? You already took the most

important thing out of my life. What are you going to do to me

now? Like, again, I'm, I'm injecting

some narrative in into this. But like, as just a human, like,

yeah, you, you take my child and you take my workforce and you

take all these things. It's like, what else are you

going to do to me, man? Like you've, you've already hit

me over the head, like you can't make this worse.

I cannot imagine a way that you can make this worse.

But you know what I can do? I can drag your people back by

their hair and I can make their lives a living hell.

And so like, I'm just again, some injection there.

But like, that's the attitude that I would have if I were him.

The a little little word vocabulary sort of thing here as

we as we are relating Scripture to Scripture in this little

cluster of five through 9, Pharaoh pursued the children of

Israel. The children of Israel went out

with boldness. This this word that we heard so

often in Acts that they preach the gospel with great boldness.

Still here, still apparent. It an essential element

characteristic attribute of those following God right Those

called his children and the idea behind this this Hebrew word for

boldness run yad, which I guess we get with boldness from that

includes the idea of rebellion against authority.

Now this is this is the good kind of rebellion against

authority because it's authority.

Yes, we're, we're subject to earthly rulers and those that

God put in place, but when those rulers are in defiance of God's

will, right then, then we are actually called to rebel and to

stand up for God's precepts and and God's ways, right.

So this is the good side of a rebellious nature.

However, sometimes if if you're familiar with the Old Testament

at all that same rebellious nature, Israel was sometimes

rebelling against God and rebelling wrongly.

But that that's I I was struck by how that same idea here kind

of the the the people of Israel, God's people breaking free as we

had just talked through Acts and the and the boldness necessary

in the early church too. Scripture, like what you said

before, God stays the same. The the attributes of his people

are also similar in both those facets.

So. So fun, fun thing we are just

we've been. If you've never been to the

Sunday morning Bible study that starts at 8:00 AM, by the way,

I'm going to give a. Quick, I usually have.

A you're a little bit busy, but let me give a quick plug for

that because we'd go basically verse by verse through the Bible

and right now we're in Daniel chapter 3 and you were talking

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

about boldness in the face of Daniel chapter 3.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they're like, you know what

throw us in the fire. Go ahead because our God is able

to save us from the fire and even if he doesn't, you know

what that's all right too, because we're going to go from

life to life. So good luck bud.

And you know, if if you haven't read the book of Daniel and you

don't know how that turns out, I don't want to spoil it for you,

but maybe come to Bible study next Sunday and we'll talk about

it. Spoiler alert, God wins.

Well, that. It's one of the stickers on my

laptop. I found that it's the green.

It's the green one. Oh, yeah, I see.

OK, Yeah. If you haven't stopped at the.

I put stickers on my laptop case because I I like it and I think

they're fun, but Kristen has a basket in fun Little God

stickers at the connection center next time you're at

church if you haven't checked those out.

Yeah, spoiler God wins. So God.

Wins, it's true. Anyway, moving on verses 10

through 12, here Pharaoh's mustering up the the Chariots

and the soldiers, when Pharaoh drew near, the children of

Israel lifted their eyes and behold, the Egyptians marched

after them. So they were very afraid, and

the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.

Then they said to Moses, and they make this objection to

Moses, is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you've

taken us away to die in the wilderness?

I love, I love the response. So.

So they're, they're protesting against God.

They accuse Moses like, hey man, we told you so.

Moses empowered by God, speaking his truth, says do not be

afraid. Stand firm and see the salvation

of the Lord, which he will accomplish to you today.

This the the the tone in this in the Hebrew phrase here in the

response from Moses. And then the next few verses,

the response from God is, is that they're the children of

Israel. And I'm going to say the

children of Israel, because that's what they're being in

this moment. They they are being whiny, non

understanding children. It's kind of those moments of

like, I don't want to explain myself.

Just do it like that, that that's almost the response.

And and there's and there's a be quiet, sit down and watch me

work like that. That's you're, you're not

bringing up anything that's. Helpful.

You're, you're just complaining. You're not acting in faith.

Sit down. Get out of the way.

Let me fix this right? Yeah, I you know what?

This, this whole scenario, these several verses right here

towards the beginning of this chapter, I, I can't help but

kind of like smile and giggle when I read them because but,

but I don't, I don't know that I, I can't say I would have been

any different if I were in their shoes.

Because yeah, sure, you saw these 10 plagues RIP their way

through Egypt. But then again, there's the very

reality that like you got an army and hundreds of Chariots,

like, you know, not far away from you, close enough that you

can see them on the horizon. And that has to be one of the

scariest things you have ever seen in your life because they

are absolutely out for blood. They are not.

I mean, if they leave you alive, it's only to drag you back to

Egypt and make your life worse than it was before.

Like what good can possibly come out of this?

And so you know what, I again, to the extent that like, we

don't want to put God to the test, but like, I feel like we

end up doing that a lot because we're like, I know you did that

and I know you did that and I know you did that, but this

feels worse. This feels bigger.

Are, are, are you still capable? Are you still able?

Do you see, do you still see me? Do you still care?

You know, and so I, I absolutely believe that they've got to be

feeling some of that right now. But Moses's response and God's

response is, it's, it's the stuff that should like give

goosebumps. Like it's just awesome the way

they respond and it leaves no room for for doubt.

It just leaves no room for doubt.

Which is the next kind of interesting part that I have

here, verse 15. The Lord asked Moses, why do you

cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to

go forward. There's, there's this kind of

unseen dynamic here. Like, yes, we, we, we want to be

a praying people. We, we believe in the power of

prayer. But part of this question, why

do you cry to me? God's asked why, why are you

pausing? Why, why are you waiting and

asking for guidance? I've shown it.

It's it's time to move now. Now is not the time for like

quiet reflection and prayer. It's time for action.

I've, I've given you a directive.

We have a there's a, there's a thought from Charles Spurgeon.

There's a time for praying, but there's also a time for holy

activity. Prayer is adapted for almost

every season, yet not prayer alone.

For there comes every now and then a time when even prayer

must take a secondary place. We're still called to to do,

right? And if and if the Israelis had

just sat around praying, waiting for God to move, they would have

been trampled right like that, like he needed them to move

themselves across the sea. I I made a way.

But you can't just sit here being like God.

We're praying for a way. No, that's the way.

Go right. There's there's a level of

participation that comes with God's movement, right?

So you know, and, and the modern church is no different.

If we are praying for God's will to be done and for his Kingdom

to grow through more people coming into this church or that

church and just coming into faith, man, if we just pray all

day and all night and we never go and engage our city, I

wonder, you know, and again, like salvation isn't 99.999% God

and .0001 US. No, it's 100% him, 0% us.

But God is calling us to be active a part of what he's

doing. And so this is God essentially

saying, I want you to be active. I want you to walk forward in

confidence because look what I'm doing.

But I, I need you to participate.

I need you to get off your get off your butts, you know, get on

your feet and get moving. You know, I'm going to do

something. I told you I'm going to do it.

I didn't bring you out here to kill you because then all of

that, all of the glory which is coming to me, which I have all

the judgement that I've exercised on Pharaoh and his God

so-called all that's for not if I don't make sure that you make

it out of this alive. Of course you're going to make

it. But like I need you to move.

Right. And in some ways, this is

another biblical answer to the question that we kind of started

with. Is it that simple to just

confess sinned and and come to God for forgiveness and, and,

and living a life of repentance? Yeah, but you got to walk in the

light of that repentance. Like, like you do need to live

out your workout, your faith with fear and trembling.

Live a life that's worthy of the gospel of, of Jesus Christ for a

couple New New Testament references and passages.

They're like, yeah, there's the I've I've delivered you from

Egypt. I've I've made a way now walk in

the way of my salvation, right? Yeah.

So then we get to he commands Moses, lift up your rod and

stretch out your hand. We see we've got this big

obvious picture. Of course, this is the tool that

Moses was using shepherding sheep in the wilderness.

It's it's the same staff that he was using.

The God executed the the plagues and and powers through and it's

and it's here again. And it's so appropriate.

It's so powerful that it's it's this staff, it's this shepherd's

rod. Moses as an earthly leader, but

God also as as the Good Shepherd, as as the great

shepherd, still leading his people through this just common

device. Shepherd's hook, get it?

Getting them back in line, making them away with this

thing. We see it over and over again in

Exodus and just, yeah, I didn't bring that out so much

yesterday, but just something to highlight.

It's it's just cool, the consistency in that imagery.

Well, and The thing is, again, put yourself there as if you

were actually there. And there have been a number of

movies and TV shows and all these other kind of things that

have shown that moment. And The thing is, it almost

becomes like a little cliche, like if you Google, you know,

Moses and the Red Sea and you're going to see this image probably

for of, you know, this Moses figure from behind and the rods

in the air and the hands in the air.

And you know, like, again, sometimes we can almost, I don't

know if you'd say we can become overexposed to those kind of

images and it just looks very fantastic and it just looks like

a fairy tale. But no, like, put yourself there

'cause this is a part of human history.

And if you have one of the study guides, by the way, I am

referencing in that guide, like there is good scientific

evidence in archaeological evidence to prove that this

event happened in real time with real humans.

And so if you have one of those study guides, you can you can

check that out and you can even do some of this research on your

own. And I encourage that kind of

behavior because hey, man, ask the question, get the answer.

So I just think like always repositioning ourselves and

especially in these kind of big miracle level moments, like

reposition yourself to make sure that you're not hearing this as

like a fairy tale, but you're hearing that is this as part of

human history and part of God's story as to how he is saving his

people. Yeah, yeah.

And how he is saving his people is is is also a testimony to who

he is both for the people, it's support for the people, but also

to his enemies. It he he says here, then the

Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord Pharaoh back in chapter

5. What when when Moses comes back

to him asks him who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to

let Israel go 10 chapters later here here we are in this answer

God is not only reaffirming his support and faith for his

people. What we talked about.

Maybe I feel like justice is something that we in our sinful

selves a little bit. We want to see justice for our

enemies, for for those that would stand against the Lord and

and God's glorified in this. He he is by his might glorified

in defeating, in defeating his enemies and setting his people

free, his enemies, knowing his power, his might, that he is the

Lord, is, is righteous justice. You know it goes well it knowing

Jesus making him known well. How does God make himself known?

Well, he wants. He wins.

All I do is. Win, win, win, win, no matter

what. It's like that ridiculous thing.

What's the name of the game I win?

I win. I win.

That's the name of the game I win.

But that makes total sense when you think about this is the

creator of the heavens and the earth, and he sustains

everything and literally nothing exists without him and his will

and his love and his power. So yeah, he wins.

But I do think it's important to to recognize that one of the

ways that God is going to prove himself, you know, it is the

power and the grandeur of miracles like this.

But simultaneously, it's also the humility of becoming a man.

It is the humility of allowing himself to be killed.

It is the humility of allowing himself to just take on all of

our sins. You know, so God is sometimes we

want to put God in a box or we say, well, it's this or this or

it's this. No, like God is both and he is

both all powerful and he also exercises perfect humility

simultaneously. And so let's not put him in one

box or the other. Again, when I think we've talked

about the fact that sometimes we see the Old Testament is God is

big and powerful and judgmental and he's angry and blah, blah.

And then comes along hippie Jesus and he loves everybody and

everything is great, you know, and, but he, gosh, I don't like

either of those things. But if you're going to say

anything about those things, he's both and you know, he is

hippie Jesus who loves everybody and he is also all powerful

judgmental God who will judge the right, you know, the

righteous and, and separate the goats from the lamb and all that

kind of stuff. So.

A big sort of kind of semantics thing, but but also powerful in

how God works and moves was in. I skipped over it yesterday, but

in verses 19 and 20, the the pillar of cloud and the pillar

of smoke that that sort of guided them through the

wilderness, a fire by night and and smoke by day.

It was asked, it was brought up at our life group.

What again, what's, what's the timeline?

What's the sequence here? How do you have you have

hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of Israelites at at

this point. It takes a long time to walk and

and this was a few miles across the Red Sea that they would have

been doing. Obviously the Egyptians have

already caught up to them to the point where they can see them

after they've been wandering for various number of days.

So how in the world did they like actually get away?

Well, verses 19 and 20, the Angel of God who went before the

camp of Israel moved and went behind them and the pillar of

cloud went from before them and stood behind them.

So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of

Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness

to the one and it gave a light by night to the other so that

the one did not come near the other all that night.

So we get a couple of things here.

There's, there's kind of this, this fog, this cloud on, on the

Egyptian side, right? And then, and then the fire is

on the other side of that lightning the way for the

Israelites. But both of these, so that the

Israelites, unlike the fireside and the Egyptians are on the

cloud side, right? Egyptians can't see what's going

on. It's dark.

It's dark the way is lit for the Israelites to go though and and

we don't get like the total period of time.

We just know that they're crossing the sea at night and

this is kind of the barrier buffer, a stalling kind of of

the Egyptian army as God parts the Red Sea and as the Egyptian

or as the Israelites walk across it.

Again, our our best guesstimates would be a few miles that

they're actually walking across the seabed and again, hundreds

of thousands, million upper upper, maybe 2 million people.

Yeah, somewhere in that ballpark, because we, we had

600,000 men. And so, I mean, if every man.

Yeah. So I mean, we're we're yeah,

we're probably right in that 2 million person ballpark.

And if you're walking across the sea at night and all, you're

being led by not all, but you're being led by God.

Fire God. No, it's just a fire God.

No big deal. Just floating around like I

know. Yeah.

Dang it. That was theology.

Man, I think so. Many personas.

Anyway, so many, but yeah, if you're being LED that way with,

you know, upwards of 2 million people, like it's going to, it's

going to be a bit. And it's not just you.

You've, you're carrying all your stuff.

Like if you had to move out of your house in a hurry and you've

got three or four, well, they don't have duffel bags, but you

know, you've got several duffel bags, luggage, all that kind of

stuff. Whatever.

Yeah. You're not moving quick.

And there's children with you, and there's babies and there's,

you know, you know, all these kinds of things.

And so is this is not a quick movement.

And therefore those people needed God to show up in a very

real way. And he does, through the cloud,

through the fire, through the pillar, you know, all these ways

he is showing up and he is doing something ridiculous, something

not possible to keep his people safe and ultimately save them.

God is doing extraordinary things that we cannot like, OK,

yeah, there's there's a scientific method that they have

used to prove that a wind from this direction going this fast

could part that sea. OK, that's, again, that's kind

of in the study guide. But what you can't, what you

can't prove through science is this pillar of fire that kept

them separate. Like, how are you going to do

that? That is God alone.

The same way that we can't set a Bush on fire and be like, all

right, Bush, you better last like forever.

We can't replicate who God is. He just is who he is.

He is the great I am. He is the to be.

He's all these things. And so, yeah, those are the

things that we can't replicate, but they're the things that give

us detail in the story, that show us that God will go to any

length to save his people. And we get a little more detail.

I didn't I didn't reference this yesterday, but that's why we do

this podcast. You got to know all the extra

things. Psalm 77 actually gives us a

little more description of this event.

Psalm 7716 through 20 The waters saw you, oh God, the waters saw

you, and they were afraid. The depths also tremble.

The clouds poured out water. The skies sent out a sound.

Your Your arrows also flashed about lightning, the arrows of

God. The voice of your Thunder was in

the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world.

The earth trembled and shook. And your way was in the sea,

your path in the great waters. And your footsteps were not

known. You led your people like a flock

by the hand of Moses and Aaron. So we get some more of just kind

of the, the imagery, the trembling, the IT wasn't, it

wasn't just, it wasn't like creation.

It wasn't like God spoken like it was just there, there.

There was like natural. Yeah, supernatural process here.

It was. It was like a natural disaster

almost that that was the the wind of God making away in the

waters. And of course it was stormy and

tempesty and and and all these things.

But at the midst of it is, is still that sense of sit down, be

still and watch me work, right? And, and that, and that's the

calm in the middle. That's that's the path through

it, right? Yeah, I love that you just said

that because actually that drags us.

We were talking about this before the podcast, but it drags

us back to something that I thought I was, I was personally

entertained by, which if you go back to 14, the Lord will fight

for you and you only have to be silent.

Shut up and watch me work. Like, this is going to be great.

You're going to see some crazy stuff, man.

But I need you to shut your mouth and just like, watch me do

what I'm about to do. And I'm it's maybe I'm glad.

See, that probably would have came out yesterday if I was up

on stage. I'm really, I loved your sermon

yesterday. So just in general, but like,

I'm part of me was glad I wasn't up there 'cause I would have

been like, yeah, God tells you, shut up.

Watch, I'm going to do something really awesome.

Like, no, it's probably not what our people wanted to hear, but.

It's now they're hearing it on the podcast.

Yeah, it's where it's where my brain goes.

God's just like, come on, man, I got this.

So anyway, but yeah, the pillar, the pillars and, and actually

the, and that Psalm you just highlighted God's footprint as

like a literal footprint doesn't show up.

That's interesting because guess what he is going to do later on

in history when he saves his people once and for all, his

footprints will be all over the earth.

And so like, again, we see this, this thing that God is all

powerful and he's willing and able to save his people by any

means, even ridiculous miraculous means of pillars of

fire. And he's also willing to just

like, walk in our shoes. He's both.

And that's incredible to me. And there's not another religion

on the planet that would even attempt to make a claim like

that, that God is all powerful but also willing to walk with

us. So, and this is this is a

curveball that I should have caught you up on before now, but

I I didn't use this. There were so many things I left

out of the sermon yesterday and not in the moment, just things,

things that I decided not to go on to.

But there's a, there's a poem I can't, I think of the writer

right now, but it's called Footprints in the sand.

And, and I, I almost brought that out.

The, the gist of it, you can look up the poem, but the gist

of it is the, the writer looking back on their life and as, as a

picture of footprints in the sand.

There's basically footprints in the sand that are a picture of

their life. And they look back to stress to

see that in the hardest times, though, God had promised to walk

with them. So for a lot of their life,

there's two sets of footprints. But in the hardest times that

they look back at, there's only one set of footprints in the

sand. God, where were you in the

hardest moments? And the response from God is in

those hardest moments, I was carrying you.

It's his set of footprints in in the sand.

Yeah. So I didn't share that

yesterday, but that's also in that Psalm.

His his footsteps are are the way like that.

That's what's in Psalm 77 there and him, him carrying his people

through this adversity. So.

It's funny you brought that up. I didn't grow up in a Christian

home, but I've been aware of that poem since I was a child.

Yeah. I don't know if I don't know

why. I've just always known that one.

Yeah. So it's great.

That's why we have this space to bring up all the all the extra

things and thoughts. So, yeah, verses 23 and and

onward, as we kind of close out the chapter here, really, really

interesting as again, this life, this enemy is chasing down the

people of God. The Lord looked down upon the

army of Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and he

troubled the army of the Egyptians.

He took off their chariot wheels so that they drove them with

difficulty. And in it's in this moment, the

Egyptians said, let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord

fights for them against the Egyptians as he said they would

know that I am God. And it's in this moment that

they realize it's hopeless. We we cannot win this.

God is real and he's on the other team.

So we don't stand a chance. What is that?

I mean, what that is simultaneously, I think like a

really awesome moment for them because they're meeting God in

such a way that they are no longer denying him.

So it's almost they're, they're saying, you know what, forget

this. It's almost an act of

repentance. And so you would see the

Egyptians here saying, you know what, enough's enough, God wins.

Let me literally turn away from his people and run the opposite

direction because this is not going to work out for me.

So you see this seeming not not necessarily faith, not love, not

belief, but you see repentance happening and you know, when

people repent, at least for the larger biblical narrative is and

that comes back to the question we talked about when, when

people confess and repent, God Forgives.

Yet in this one particular case, when people are like, you know

what, I'm literally going to turn around and run away, it

still doesn't work out for. Him Nope hardened hearts and on

the there there will be a day that it's that it's too late to

to come to that realization. Philippians 2 though at the name

of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven on earth and under the

earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory

of God the Father. Even even those on the wrong

side, even those in unbelief are gonna know.

They're gonna know who God is on on that last day.

That's again kind of the picture with the the Egyptians are are

hopeless. They're in a state of rebellion.

God hardened their hearts because they chose the things

that were not of Him. Yep, and that's a big topic that

I think we'd spent, you know, a good amount of time on during

our revelation series. But there, there is a there is a

time. And This is why, like, you know,

it's, it's not like just a, a, an emotional plea, like no, like

when the Bible says, if God's Spirit is moving within you

today, go to him today. Don't turn your back on him.

Don't say maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next year, when

like my life is in a different place, I'll, I'll, I'll start

coming back to God. Like, no, if God's straining

your heart today, you come to him today because we just,

again, I'm not trying to be dark, but like, we have no

guarantees. There are no guarantees.

And so, man, as God moves, move with him.

Because if you're not moving with him, I suspect you might be

moving against him, and that's never going to work.

Out no, that's not going to be good.

No would you were in the final verses here and I definitely

touched on these in the message yesterday.

So you can go back and watch that on the live stream or even

tune into this podcast feed to we post just the just the sermon

part from yesterday too. But kind of three great

takeaways. I think in in deliverance, the

salvation that that the Lord saved Israel that day out of the

hand of Israel. So what happens out of out of

that the Israel saw the Egyptians dead.

And I, I challenged yesterday kind of in the message that you

can replace Egypt or Egyptians with with sin or fear.

So I, I say to you, Christian, one walking, one walking with

Christ, one walking with God. Look back on if if you are

changed, if you are a new creation.

We have this imagery here of people of God seeing their sin,

their fear dead on the seashore. God has, God has defeated it.

What do they do out of that? They saw the great work that the

Lord had done and they feared the Lord.

They believed the Lord and the one that He sent.

So in that moment, yes, the Israelites knew who God was.

They believed truly who He was and they believed in Moses

because there were obviously 20 verses ago, there were still

some of them. Moses, what are you doing should

have left us to die in Egypt. That would have been better.

That tune has changed and it also points ahead to Jesus,

which we have. We have the same parallels,

right, of of the people who did not believe who, who questioned

him to the very end of of who he was and who the one was who sent

him and he and he ends up in this same place.

The ones who truly follow Him believe God, know God, and

believe in Him. Yeah, you'll often, well, if you

dig into some stuff like you'll hear Moses is a quote UN quote

type of Christ the same way Adam is a type or some of these other

huge biblical heroes. They're all a type.

They're not the real thing, but they are a foreshadowing of like

God's one and true son who's going to come and really finish

the work. But Moses as a type is awfully,

awfully impressive. And he's not sinless.

And we're going to see that come out in some very real ways.

And we've already seen that. But the other funny thing, and I

don't mean to like squash the party here, but like the

Israelites, we're going to, we're going to be on this roller

coaster with them for a few more weeks of like, hey, God did this

really cool thing. And then they're like, yeah,

but. We have better ideas.

We have better ideas. Hey Aaron, we've we've got all

this gold. You want to throw it in fire and

see what happens. That's a preview of stuff

coming. But yeah, so just so just know

that like if there is any part of you that has been

experiencing, you might say like a spiritual revival, even within

yourself, just know that like if something falls off or if you

fall back into a sin habit and you know, we don't want those

things, but those things are they're, they're going to come

up because we live in a sinful, broken world and we ourselves,

until we are with the Lord, are still in the flesh.

And so just know that like when those things come up, God's not

mad at you, God's not disappointed with you.

He knew this was coming. Confess your sins, be free again

and get back on the path. You know, God's not surprised by

these things. So just just, and, and again,

the Israelites are going to be awesome examples of that like,

you know, in the coming weeks, but also next week we get to

like we get to like party a little bit with the Israelites.

They're going to sing this great song and it's it's just a lot of

fun. Yeah, no, that's a good word,

man. We're going to leave it there

for this week. It's been fun working through

Exodus with you and even just kind of the continuation.

We were in the early church in Acts and now we're seeing the

early people of God and, and the parallels there.

And even I, I hope it's a comfort, not that you, not that

you want to live in your backtracking or, or, or kind of

doubts. And, but I mean, God literally

parted the Red Sea and made a way for these people to escape

out of slavery. And they still struggled and

they still had setbacks in in their faith and belief in God.

So doesn't make you a bad Christian does not make you

hopeless. There's that what we are.

We do need to constantly daily return to God and fix our eyes

on on his ways and the things of him.

And that's that's what we're here to do.

That's what we're here to help you do in the hope of reaching

one more. So I hope you're in prayer about

that this week too. Who who your one more is that

you can bring to church and and come to know Jesus, get involved

in our in our life groups in the way that we're stocking

community here at ERC and just really grateful for all of you,

all of you all who are a part of it.

So God bless, have a great week.