Themes of the Bible: Cross Over (Exodus 14)

 

Themes of the Bible: Cross Over - Exodus 14

When you read Exodus 14, the account of the Israelites leaving Egypt by way of God parting the Red Sea so that they could pass on dry land, can you imagine being an Israelite and seeing all of that unfold? It's one thing to read it, but if you had to ask me, ‘what is the one miracle that you think would be the most memorable to live through?’ it has to be that. Of course, it would have been amazing to see Jesus raise someone from the dead, it would have been amazing to see him walk across water, or to turn water into wine. Any miracle is going to be amazing to watch, but, if you had to pick one that was the most awe-inspiring to sit there that just makes you want to drop to your knees you're in awe at the power of God being demonstrated, surely it's the crossing of the Red Sea. I’ve always thought it would be interesting to be an Israelite, or maybe to talk to an Israelite that was there. One of the things I want to do when I get to heaven, among many, is talk to some random Israelite who was there, and ask them what was going through their head? They're walking through the sea on dry ground and there's these two huge walls of water that are held up by nothing but the grace of God. Think about if you were in their shoes. You've done nothing, you're not putting on your floaties, you're not building a boat, you're not doing anything to contribute, God's done everything, and you're walking through these giant walls of water. What must that have been like? Well, the British theologian, Alec Motyer, attempts to describe and imagine what it’d be like, saying, “I was in a foreign land under the sentence of death and in bondage, but I took shelter under the blood of the lamb and blood that was painted over the door posts. And our deliverer, Moses, led us out and we crossed over the Red Sea. Now, we're on our way to the promised land, though we're not there yet. But God has given us His law to make us a community and He's given us a tabernacle because we must live by grace and forgiveness, and He is present in our midst, and He will stay with us until we arrive home.” Do you pick up on anything there? The author of that is demonstrating the parallels between the exodus and the Christian walk.

Let’s look at Exodus chapter 14 verses 5-7. “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 chariot 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.”

Ok, so we know what’s about to happen, it’s a big army going to attack a bunch of poor slaves in the desert. Real quick, let’s jump to verses 10 through 12. Verse 10, “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.” Ok, that’s a good attitude to have. You’re in peril, so the natural thing for the believer should be to turn to God for deliverance. You know what their attitude should have been, and you know this because you read about the plagues, you know God is on their side, when they see the pharaoh and the chariots coming after them, their attitude should have been, “what? Are you serious? You guys are back for more of this? You saw what you got before, so do you want God to do all of it over again?” That should have been their attitude, but it's not. Let’s keep reading, verses 11 and 12. “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.’” Do you know how annoying that must have been for Moses? Because, that isn't at all what they said to Moses in Egypt. Here they are saying, ‘didn't we tell you let us just serve the Egyptians? We are happy serving the Egyptians.’ That's not at all what they had said. Go back to Exodus 4, when Moses tells them that God has sent him to deliver them from their bondage, that God has heard their cry. Doesn’t that just sound like contentment?

Here's what happened, Exodus 4:29-31, “Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel; and Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. He then performed the signs in the sight of the people. So, the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed low and worshiped.” See, they were on board completely. They never said anything about, “no, no, we kind of like it here, serving the pharaoh. We're kind of really happy about making bricks without straw. It's actually a lot of fun.” That’s not exactly how they portrayed it in this situation, but what they were saying to Moses was all driven by fear. They were fearful of what they've been delivered from. And, by the way, they're going to do it again. These Israelites do it again, later in Exodus 16, “The whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The sons of Israel said to them, ‘Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Now that they've been delivered, they're whining about how much better it would have been to be back there. It's a slap in the face. It's a slap in the face to Moses, and more importantly, it's a slap in the face to God as the one who had delivered them from all of this. But as soon as I’m tempted to get angry at them for this, this is what I keep coming back to. Because this is a parallel for us.

So, before you get too angry at the Israelites, keep in mind that you're really getting angry at the testimony of our own lives. Are the Israelites not a picture of us through this entire account? They were delivered from their bondage, but there are two things about these Israelites. Number one: their slave masters didn't give up. They said they've been set free from them, but the slave masters were still after them. And secondly, their objective freedom, the fact that they were free, it did not impact or at least it hadn't yet impacted the way they felt about themselves and their lives. They may be free, but they didn't act free. They didn't live that way. They lacked the free mindset that Moses found. So, in this case, “you can take people out of slavery, but you can't take slavery out of the people.” It was ingrained in them, and it became who they were.

Alright, let's look at this one first. Their slave masters didn't give up on them. We know that the pharaoh is chasing after them even though he'd set them free. He’s changed his mind, he's after them, so where's the parallel for us? Who are our slave masters? Well, there's different things that we could say to that, but certainly one of them would be our idols. The idols that we had in this world before we came to Christ, those would be our slave masters. Do they give up on us simply because we convert to Christianity? Whatever it is in your life that you place more significance on, or you find more security in than your relationship with God, that's an idol to you. And, for different people, it's going to be different things. But John tells us in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Now, who's John writing to in this letter? He's writing to Christians. He's writing to followers of Christ and he's saying to them, ‘do not love things of this world.’ But wait a minute, we've been delivered from the things of this world, so aren't they gone out of the picture now? No, that's the point. Just like the pharaoh was chasing after the Israelites, simply being delivered from the things of this world doesn't mean that those things of the world are not going to be chasing after your heart and your mind and your attention. This warning is to us because our idols do not stop pursuing us even after we've been delivered from them. They speak to us as a master, as a pharaoh, and they say to us, ‘Serve me. You need me. Serve me or die.” That's what the pharaoh said and is what our idols will say to us. Pharaoh was no longer master of the Israelites, he told them to go, and the Israelites went. But then, he changed his mind said, ‘I want you back’ and chased after them. And this happens to all of us with our idols.

Let me give you an example. The saddest part of camp for me isn’t when we end camp and everyone leaves, it’s the emotional outpouring on our final night hike together, rather its breakfast the last morning. It’s the saddest, most draining part of the entire experience for me, because I have to give Satan back the weapons to undo so much of the work that the Lord has done sanctifying the hearts of these young Christians. What I’m talking about, is giving them back their cell phones. We tell them not to bring them, but most do, so we store them for them and return them on the last morning, and this happens every year without exception, the phones turn on, the screens start glowing, the conversations, the fellowship, the spiritual truth that’s been spoken for a week weakens and heads bow down to stare at a screen that doesn’t even have cell service. Its heartbreaking. After all the work we did, all the prayers, all the experiences we’ve shared with our campers, I’m placing the tools in their hands that Satan is going to use to fuel cyber bullying, eating disorders, pornography addictions, spending addictions, and the list goes one. You would be amazed how quickly a cell phone can destroy the work of ministry the Lord does as camp. The phone is, of course, just a phone. But many of us are still slaves to that tiny pocket-sized master.    

A Christian should know better. All we need to feel fulfilled is the recognition of what Christ has done for us that gives me more self-worth than anything that I could ever do with my own hands. Even ministry can become an idol when it’s done for the wrong reasons. Yes, God can still work in spite of you, if not through you, but this was becoming an idol in my life, and the largest part of what was driving it was pride. How many people did I preach to today, how many churches want me to speak, just look at all the nice things I did for those people, I did all that for camp by myself. Yeah, you could say, ‘well, you were serving, you were preaching the word of God’ and, yes, that's true. But I wasn't content simply preaching the Word of God. I needed to preach big and I needed a bunch of people to approve of me. Now, I am preaching at a rural church, and traveling to other rural churches speaking to anyone who will show up, and I have never been more content in my entire life.

What makes life valuable is investing in a community of believers and using your God-given gifts with one another. Now, are there still times that I get this feeling of inadequacy or that I'm falling short, or that I need to do something bigger than what I’m doing? Yes, absolutely. It's there, and those are the old masters that are coming back. They're the pharaoh chasing me down, saying, ‘You are not good enough. You are inadequate, you haven't fulfilled what you need to fulfill, you need me in order to live a successful life.’ It's an old master and it does that for all of us, and that's the whole point.

Go back to Exodus 14 and you can see a slavish spirit that is still present in the heart of the Israelites. What they thought they were free from shows up again, and the moment it shows up, did they have a spirit of liberation and freedom where they know they have been delivered? No! They see their old enemy and they panic. They don't feel free in their heart.

Martin Lloyd Jones, a Welsh Protestant minister gave the perfect analogy to this, he said, “imagine you were a slave in the southern United States before the emancipation proclamation, before the 13th amendment. You were a slave in the south, which means you couldn't vote, you had no power, and somebody could beat you up and probably kill you if they wanted. You didn't have rights, so if you were in town and some white person told you to do this or that and was abusive to you, you were very frightened and did almost anything that they said. Now fast forward 10 years, the emancipation proclamation has been issued, the civil rights amendments 13, 14, and 15 have all been enacted. You have rights, but you walk into town and a white person starts to yell at you the way they did 10 years ago, even though you know with your head, ‘hey I've got some rights here, the 13th amendment prohibits involuntary servitude, the 14th amendment gives me equal protection under the law, the 15th amendment means I have as much right to vote as anyone.’ You know in your head that you have some rights, but you are still scared and you act like a slave.” This was reality for a lot of former slaves. They were now free, legally, and in their minds they knew it, but the conduct of their life was still that of the beaten down, enslaved mindset because it's all they'd ever known. It's all they'd ever experienced, and that's the condition of every Christian. We know in our heads, but so often we don't know in our lives and in our spirits. We know that we've been saved from the slavery of sin, we know that we have been set free to its power, but if we really knew that in our hearts then we would not be fearful of those things of this world that chase us down, things that the writer of Hebrews say so easily ensnare us. We would not be fearful of the idols that are saying, ‘you need me in order to achieve whatever it is if we knew in our spirits and our hearts that God has made us free.

Alright, that was point one. For number two, notice that it goes hand in hand. The objective freedom that the Israelites had, they'd been freed, but it did not affect the way that they lived.

I don't know if you've ever spent time around a dying person, but in the limited exposure I’ve had to people who are dying tells me there exist regrets. There are regrets in the life of everyone, including believers. We look back on our life and wish we would have done things differently. One of these people actually said to me the words, “I hope God accepts me. I should have lived better.” They were a faithful Christian, they knew that they're not accepted on the basis of what they did. They understand intellectually what grace was, but notice what is present in our spirit, this idea works-based righteousness. I have to do this in order to please God. I have to do this in order to actually be free. The very thing and the very mindset that Christ freed us from, it's still there. It still haunts us.

We know what Romans 8 says, verse 1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We know that Romans 6 tells us, verse 14, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Intellectually we know that to be the case, that there is no longer any condemnation, we can be reminded that God accepts us in Christ, but our nature will always take us back to our old masters. The old master of works-based righteousness. The feeling of, “I have to do better, I need to do this otherwise I'm going to fall short. . .” In other words, we are objectively free, but subjectively in our hearts and minds so often we don't live like it. We're fearful of things we shouldn't be fearful of and we're controlled by things we shouldn't be controlled by. Just like the Israelites, God has freed us from our sins and yet we still enslave ourselves to them.

Ok, it’s time for the New Testament parallel. Look at what Paul writes in Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. . .” That's what grace is. Do you see a parallel here? “The one who does not work. . .” In Exodus 14:13-14, “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.’” Moses says to the people, don't work, stand still, watch what God will do. It's exactly what Paul is saying in the New Testament. Don't work, stand still, and watch what God has done for you.

Becoming a Christian is not just a process, it's a change in status. There is no ‘Christian in training’ you're either a Christian or you're not a Christian. So, while God sanctifies us throughout our whole lives, you are redeemed at the moment of conversion. It's a change in status, you're either a Christ-follower or not.

Every other religion in the world which is preaching works based righteousness; you do this and you’ll earn God’s favor. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, in all of the religions of the world, what you are doing is trying to build these pylons across this giant chasm in the hopes that one day you'll be able to build the bridge and walk across to where God is. That's works-based righteousness. And what do we find when we try that? We find that our bridge never makes it there, and in all honesty, most of us, if we're being honest with ourselves would also know we don't get many too many pylons built before they all start collapsing on themselves. So, what we are learning here, what the Israelites were supposed to learn is that we're standing here on this side of the Red Sea, we need to be over there on that side of the Red Sea and what does god say? Stand still, don't work, I’m going to take care of you and I’m going to place you over here. I’m changing your status from here to there.

It’s nothing you did, He’s done it all for us. He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of light, he loves us, he’s changed our status, made us sons and daughters, His heirs. You were out of God's family in the land of ur and now you are in God's family. You were dead in your sin, now you are alive in Christ. You were under the wrath of God but now you are justified and you are free! The question is, are we living that way? Has it impacted our feelings and our mindset?

The prophet Isaiah marveled over the Red Sea crossing when he wrote in chapter 51 verse 10, saying, “Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of the sea a pathway for the redeemed to cross over?” He's referencing the Old Testament account, but he is also prophesying about something greater that's coming in the New Testament. No other religious text in the world offers anything close to this miracle of grace. Jesus said it himself, John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” Are you seeing something there? It’s exactly what the Israelites experienced. We have crossed over from death to life and there is no greater miracle that you will ever find than that.

I don't know what you're haunted by, I don't know what idol is stalking you, I don't know what it is that you are slavishly still feeling devoted to, but, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have crossed over. God has dealt with your sin and your death, which is a far greater miracle than the parting of the Red Sea. You have been saved from death to life you have been delivered for a new life in Him where you have the privilege of making your will obedient to his. So, why are we standing still? The seas have been parted for us to move forward in confidence.

Let’s pray.