Crossing the Red Sea

The crossing of the Red Sea is a very familiar story. We've seen it in movies. We've heard about it in Sunday school. We've read the story on many occasions. Rah. The prostitute had heard about it in Joshua chapter 2. She relayed to the spies the story about the crossing of the Red Sea, so she knew. Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 51 would refer to the story about the crossing of the Red Sea. The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 29, says that by faith By faith, this nation, Israel, crossed the sea on dry land.

So it's a very familiar story. But the familiarity of that story. Has sometimes caused us to miss some of the most important lessons that you and I can learn about everyday living as we see ourselves in the life of the Israelites, as we see ourselves in the life of Moses. What took place that day. I want to read to you the narrative, Exodus 14, then we'll make some comments. Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Peh. between Mig and the sea, and you shall camp in front of Baal Z, opposite by the sea.

For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, They are wandering aimlessly in the land, the wilderness has shut them in. Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart. and he will chase after them, and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, and they did so. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart toward the people. And they said, What is this we have done? that we have let Israel go from serving us.

So he made his chariots ready, and took his people with him. And he took six hundred select chariots. and all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he chased after the sons of Israel. as the sons of Israel were going out boldly. Then the Egyptians chased after them with all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and they overtook them camping. by the sea beside Pi, in front of And as Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened.

So the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD. Then they said to Moses, Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. But Moses said to the people, Do not fear. Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today.

For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. And as for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. And as for me, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, so that they will go in after them, and I will be honored through Pharaoh, and all his army, through his chariots, and his horsemen.

Then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I am honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots, and his horsemen. And the angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them, and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night thus the one did not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land.

So the waters were divided. And the sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Then the Egyptians took up the pursuit, and all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen went in after them into the midst of the sea. And it came about at the morning watch that the Lord looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire. Cloud and brought the army of Egyptians into confusion.

They caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and he made them drive with difficulty. So the Egyptians said, Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord. Is fighting for them against the Egyptians. Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the waters may come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots and their horsemen. So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal state at daybreak while the Egyptians were fleeing right into it. Then the LORD over the Egyptians in the midst of the sea, and the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, even Pharaoh's entire army, that had gone into the sea after them.

Not even one of them remained. But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seash. And when Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord, and in his servant Moses. Quite a story. It's all true. None of it's made up.

That's exactly the way it happened. There are many critics of the story. Some say, well, they just went through the shallow part. And they were able to cross through on dry land. The problem with that is that how can a shallow sea drown a great Egyptian army like Pharaoh's? I mean, that's ridiculous. So the more the critics come out with their objections, the more foolish they They appear. The truth is that what we just read in Exodus 14 is exactly what took place. Let's begin by looking at God's directions.

First of all, his orders. And then his objective. God gave the orders to Israel. He would speak through the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, to Moses and to Aaron. They would hear the word of the Lord and then they would know exactly what they should tell the people so they would know where to go. God gave the orders. They left from Ramesses to Su. They went to Etham and there they chang directions. And instead of continuing down the east side of the Red Sea, they would backtrack and begin to go down the west side of the Red Sea.

Now if you think about that, that takes them a different direction than Canaan. It takes them to Africa. And if God had promised that they were going to the wilderness, to Mount Horeb. To the land of Canaan, why then would he send them on another route? Why then would he send them another direction? It would have to be perplexing to Moses as to what God was doing. What is God doing? You know, when God gives directions, sometimes, most of the time, we don't understand them. We like to trust in ourselves.

But you see, the life of the Christian is a life that trusts in what God has said. And that's the life of faith. And a lot of times God leads us in directions that we don't understand. He leads us to places that we don't even think we should be. He leads us directions that we don't even agree with. And yet. God has an objective. Never forget that. God's got a master plan. God doesn't make mistakes. He's going to lead you down a path that's going to cause you to develop your faith and belief in him.

And that's what he was doing with Israel. Because he had an objective. Let me give three of them to you.

Number one was an exam. There was going to be an exam for Moses and the multitude. The pillar of cloud would lead them. It's always great when the clouds go in the direction that's the most convenient direction. But as soon as the cloud changes direction and goes another way that seems awfully perplexing, we begin to question God's direction. We begin to question God's will. We begin to question God's sovereignty. It's easy to preach on the sovereignty of Awfully hard to live the sovereignty of God.

And so here are these people following this pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, and God giving them directions to backtrack and go down the western side of the sea. Why? It was an exam to test them, to see whether or not they would fully believe in what God had said. You know There was another objective, and that was the enticement of Pharaoh. He was going to get Pharaoh out of his little comfort zone to pursue Israel. Because God's plan was to destroy that man, his army, so Israel would be completely free from any distractions that would come out of Egypt.

But also, there was another objective, and that was the exaltation of God. See, the ultimate plan in all of this was that God would be glorified. He told Moses, listen, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart so all of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. Everybody's going to know that I am the Lord. Because in the back of God's mind was Rahab. The prostitute in the book of Joshua, who needed to come to saving faith. And so he was going to do this big orchestration there in the Red Sea to kill this whole company of army so that this one woman called Rah.

would give her life to Christ. Now that's not the only reason, but that's one reason, because God's going to be glorified. He's going to be honored. It's all about His glory. It's all about His exaltation. It's all about Him being put on display. So that's God's directions. The next thing I want you to notice is Pharaoh's decision.

He changes his mind, and then he chases the multitude. He changes his mind. The text says: when the king of Egypt, verse number 5, was told that the people had fled. Pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart toward the people. And they said, What is this we have done? That we have let Israel grow from serving us? Wait a minute here. What did we do? Now, remember.

How quickly you forget. They had forgotten about the ten plagues. It's so easy to go back to the way you were, isn't it? The pain had been removed. The immediacy of that pain was gone. And now they had to reflect back on what they didn't have and what they could have had. They become blind to the truth. So they changed their heart, they changed their mind, and they began to chase after the multitudes. And the Bible says that in verse 7, he took 600 select chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt.

With officers over all of them. He took the best of what he had, he took all of what he had because he was going to completely annihilate those people who rebelled against him and hopefully bring back. The rest had survived. So he could continue on doing what he had been doing for years. But notice the latter part of verse number 8.

Said the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart verse number 8, king of Egypt, chased after the sons of Israel. As the sons of Israel were going out boldly, courageously. But that's a lesson all of us need to learn. That amidst our exhilaration, amidst our triumph, on the heels of that victory, come Satan's efforts to destroy your life. You know, you can't stay on the mountaintop forever. And as soon as there's been a great victory in your life, think about this in your own personal experiences. It doesn't last forever, does it?

Because someone comes along and tries to bring you down again. And that's what was going on in Israel's life. There'd be another test, another exam that would come. And so we move from God's directions to Pharaoh's decision. Number three, to Israel's distress.

Israel's distress. Pharaoh drew near. Verse 10. The sons of Israel looked, and beheld the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very Frightened. So the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord, which was the right thing to do. Let's give them some credit. But it didn't last long. They immediately turned on who? Moses, the leader. They got to blame somebody. You're not that great a leader, Moses. I don't know who called you, but we didn't call you. And so they began to criticize. I want you to notice something about criticism, okay?

Criticism is when Satan gets us to look at our pres d. And forget about our past deliverance and our future destination. In other words, you get so consumed with what's happening right now that what God has done. And is going to do means absolutely nothing to you, so you can't trust him to do in the present. Does that make sense? That's why people are critical. That's why they criticize. If you come across someone who's very critical, very negative, you can bank on two things: they have forgotten their past deliverance.

And they have forgotten their future destination. And because God was involved and is involved in both of those, He's also involved in This present distress. And so they don't, but they don't want to admit that, see? So they turn to somebody they can blame, and Moses was the guy. Moses, it's your fault. And so, the fourth thing I want you to see is Moses' determination. Remember, we've told you that if you forget, you will fail and you will fall. But if you remember, you will rely and rejoice in your Redeemer.

And that's the difference between the critical person and the one who trusts in his God. And so we come to Moses' determination. And Moses, God loved that man. I want you to notice his command and his confidence.

What does he say? But Moses said to the people, Do not fear. Fear not. There it is again. Whatever the Bible finds those in distress, the command is always: don't do that. Don't do he had confidence that God would do something. You want to know why he had confidence? The bones. The bone. Remember the bones, Joseph's bones? Look back in verse number 13, verse number 19. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, and he had made this that he had, for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, What?

God will surely. Take care of you, and you shall carry my bones from here with you. Joseph made them promise back in Genesis 50. God's going to take care of you. Moses' confidence was in the fact that God told Joseph that he would take care of his people. Moses believed that. So somehow God was going to take care of him. How? He didn't know, but he had confidence in what God had said. Remember.

Faith is believing what? In what God has already said. Moses didn't say, well, I guess we should go through the Red Sea. Let's just take it by faith and let's just jump out into the sea, see what happens. That's not faith, that's foolishness. The only reason he did that is because God said to do that. Stretch out your staff, Moses. This is what you're going to do. So, Moses followed what God said. He didn't take a leap of faith and say, wow, man, maybe this is what God wants us to do. Let's try this.

Let's just trust God to accomplish a great work. No. You only trust what God has already said about what to do. And that's faith. And Moses had confidence. Don't move. But see, we't like to do that, do we? We've got to do something. There's got to be somebody we can call. There's got to be someplace we can go. There's got to be something we can do. And Mos Fear not, stand still, so you can see the salvation of the Lord. Meaning that if you are actively involved in pursuing your avenue, you're not going to see the salvation of the Lord.

You need to see what God's going to do. Wait for Him to work. And that's what Moses was trying to get the people to do because he was determined that God was going to act. Do not. Fear. Stand still. God wants to act. The flesh wants to work. The flesh wants to do something. But Moses says, stand still. God will fight for you. God's going to fight for you. You know, a lot of times we don't get victory in our daily battles because we're too busy fighting and not letting God fight for us. Instead of resting in what God has said and trusting Him to fulfill His promises in our lives, we begin to act and forget about what God has said, thinking that somehow we can better the outcome of the event.

It's not the way it works. The last thing I want you to see is God's deliverance. That's the last half of the chapter. And three things I want you to see about God's deliverance. Number one was the reaction of the person of God.

God's reaction. Listen to what God says to Moses. Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying? Out to me. Moses, what are you doing? Know what that means? Simply this: when you pray and you know what to do, stop praying and start doing. You know, we use prayer as an excuse a lot of times to keep us from doing what God has said. Stop crying out to me and tell the sons of Israel. To go forward. To move. To move where? To move into the sea. And as for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.

And the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. Tell the nation of Israel to go forward. Go forward. Don't retreat. Don't give up. Don't surrender. Now think about that. How many times has God told us to do something and it seems absolutely impossible? Many times. And you know, I don't know what God's asking you to do today that seems completely illogical to your human reasoning. But yet, if God says, go forward, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin, James 4:1.

If you know the right thing to do and you don do it, sin. So you've got to do it. And so we see the reaction of the person of God. This is what you to do. Moses, stop crying. Stop praying. Stop talking to me and start doing what you need to do. Number two: the revelation of the power of God.

God does all this. It says in verse number 21, the Lord swept back the sea. Verse number 24, the Lord looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of the fire and cloud and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion. Verse number 25, the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians. Verse 26: Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots and their horsemen. Verse number 27 at the end, the Lord overthrew the Egyptians.

This is a revelation of the power of God and how he would orchestrate the events of that day to bring about his glory. And then God just had the waters come right back down on the Egyptian army, and they were destroyed. Notice what it says.

Verse number 25. And he caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and he made them drive with difficulty. So the Egyptians said, Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians. It's the Lord. They should have learned that back in plague number one.

They didn't get it back in plague number one. Now you got almost like plague number 11 here. It's too late. And God says, hey, Moses, just stretch out your stats one more time, because I'm going to cause the waters to come down upon the Egyptians.

So Moses did. And they all drowned. They all died. And the Bible tells us that Israel was able to see the dead Egyptians on the seashore. Now, you think about that. Think about how God would bring those waters back down upon those Egyptians, hundreds of them, thousands of them, and they would be destroyed. In just a matter of seconds, they were destroyed because this was the power of Almighty God. Their future was fatal, but their future was fitting. For 80 years earlier, how is it the male babies were killed?

They were drowned, right? What does God do? Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. What a man sows, that shall he also reap. What a fitting judgment upon those who rejected the power and person of God. Did Pharaoh die? Yes, he did. Pharaoh would have led the nation into battle. Psalm 136, verse number 15. But he overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the sea. Pharaoh died. He would have had to have died, or he would have gone back and he would have reorganized and taken as much time as he needed to make sure he got his army together.

And pursued Israel again. God had to completely wipe them all out so that it would never happen again. And lastly, let me show you the response of the people of God.

Verse 30 and 31. Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. And when Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people what? Feared the Lord. Go back to verse number 10. What's it say? And as Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very fright. What is more frightening than the Egyptians wanting to destroy you? Is the eternal God wanting to defend you?

See that? There's one thing more frightening than the Egyptians or in your case whoever the enemy is who wants to destroy you and that is the eternal God who defends you They realized that. So great fear came upon them, and they believed in the Lord. Listen, what's the next phrase? And in his servant Moses. The reason people criticize the leader is because of their unbelief in the Lord. When they believe the Lord, they can support the Lord's servants. See that? So the response of God's people, number one, they trembled.

Number two, they trusted their God. Folks, that's what God wants from us. To this man, will I look? to him who is broken and of a contrite heart, and who trembles at my word. That's the kind of person God's looking for. Are you that kind of person? There is forgiveness with thee, Psalm 130, verse number 4, that thou mayest be feared. When you understand God, His character, His nature, His power, His attributes, you fear Him. You believe Him. You trust Him. And you follow Him with a committed heart.

Let's pray together.