MOSES
(Exodus 14:10-31)
1.
This will be our fourth and final session on the life of
Moses. To this point we have explored:
·
The unusual circumstances of his birth and being reared in
the court of the Egyptian Pharaoh in Exodus 1-2a
·
His early years, including his killing of an Egyptian
slave master, fleeing to the land of Midian, rescuing the daughters of Jethro
(also known as Reuel – Ex.2:18), the priest of Midian, and his eventually
marrying one of those daughters, Zipporah. (Exodus 2b)
·
His encounter with God in the burning bush, his call to
lead the Israelites from Egypt, and his initial hesitancy to accept that
mission (Exodus 3-4)
In Exodus 5 Moses and his brother, Aaron, go to the
Pharaoh asking for the release of the Israelites from their slavery in
Egypt. The Pharaoh refuses, and an epic
battle between Pharaoh and God occurs.
Through the course of this conflict, God sends a series on 9 plagues
upon Egypt with increasing severity to convince the Pharaoh to let the
Israelites leave Egypt:
1)
Water is turned to blook (Ex.7)
2)
A swarm of frogs (Ex.8)
3)
A swarm of gnats (Ex. 8)
4)
Death of Egyptian livestock (Ex. 9)
5)
A plague of boils (Ex. 9)
6)
A severe hailstorm (Ex. 9)
7)
A plague of locusts (Ex. 10)
8)
Darkness over the land (Ex. 10)
9)
Death of the firstborn (Ex. 11)
The evening of the last plague God gave the Israelites
specific instructions on how to avoid the death angel (Ex. 12:21-32) and these
instructions became the basis of the annual Passover celebration.
2.
When the death angel moved across Egypt, taking the
first-born of every unprotected family, the Pharaoh decided to let the Hebrews
leave Egypt and go back to the land of Canaan.
However, after they left, Pharaoh changed his mind, assembled a great
army and began to pursue the Israelites.
I want us to pick up the story in Exodus 14:10-16.
3.
The crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites is the
greatest miracle in the OT. It is the
event by which all other OT miracles are measured. Bible scholars point out that this miracle occupies
in the OT a similar place to the resurrection of Jesus in the NT.
4.
The danger we face when dealing with this event is tend
get bogged down in trying to figure out exactly where event took place (some
texts say Red Sea and others say Sea of Reeds) and exactly how God did it. Much has been written about such things as
tides and winds in an attempt to explain how the miracle took place. And while it may be interesting to speculate
about such things, to place our focus there can cause us to miss the main
lesson of this event for our lives today.
5.
Oscar Eliason was a Swedish-American Assemblies of God
pastor/evangelist who wrote about 50 hymns.
His most famous lyrics are the words to the chorus:
Got
any rivers you think are uncrossable
Got any mountains you can't tunnel through
God specializes in things thought impossible
He does the things others cannot do.
Got any mountains you can't tunnel through
God specializes in things thought impossible
He does the things others cannot do.
In our lives there are times when we come to an obstacle,
a barrier which we may think is insurmountable.
We may face some situation from which we can see no way out, and we may
feel as trapped as the Israelites felt between the powerful Egyptian army and
the sea. What kind of faith does it take
to see us through times like that in our lives?
That's what we can learn from this event in the life of Moses.
T.S. – There is a clear contrast in this passage between faith of the
Israelites which crumbled in the face of an obstacle and the faith of Moses which
overcame the obstacle. From this event, I
want point out to you couple of things about faith that overcomes obstacles.
I.Faith
that overcomes obstacles looks forward in confidence not around in fear
1. It's clear from Exodus 14 that the Israelites
and Moses saw the situation through different eyes...
2. V.10 says that when the Israelites looked
back and saw the Egyptians coming after them they became paralyzed with fear
...they expressed that fear in two ways...
·
First, last part of v.10 says they "cried out
to the Lord"...while on surface would appear to be admirable thing
to do, obvious from the verses that follow their's was not a cry of faith and
hope...it was a cry of complaint and despair...
·
Second, they attacked their leader...in effect they said
it was Moses' fault they were all about to die...
Isn’t it amazing how quickly they forgot
how God had delivered them from Egypt...how God had sent plague after plague on
the land...and how God had protected them from the death angel...(there's whole
sermon in that one thought...aren't we often just like the Israelites?...don't
we often forget in the face of some obstacle or difficulty or disappointment or
crisis how God has been faithful to us and cared for us in days gone by?)
3. Moses saw things completely differently...instead
of looking back at the Egyptians, he looked forward to the deliverance of
God...in v. 13 he told the Israelites to stop being afraid and to stand back
and see what God was going to do...now those were statements of faith because
when Moses spoke those words God had not yet revealed to Him how he was going
to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians...
4. And then in v.15 God gave Moses significant
command...said, "Tell the sons of Israel to go forward."...and
as they did the sea opened up providing them a way of escape...
1. Important lesson in that for us...the way to
overcome obstacles is not to stop and fret about the obstacle or to look back
to past times when we didn't face the obstacle...the way to overcome obstacles
is to keep moving forward in faith doing what God wants us to do...
2. I
remembering reading or hearing somewhere that the Australian coat of arms has
two animals on it -- an emu and a kangaroo...these animals were selected for
the coat of arms not merely because they are indigenous to Australia but
because they have a common characteristic...neither of them can move
backward...if an emu with its large, three toed feet tries to back up, it falls
over...and the kangaroo is kept from going backward by its large tail...as a
result, they were chosen to portray the spirit of Australia -- only going
forward...
3. And that should be the spirit of God's people
as well...our goal, our task as Christians is to become more like Jesus each
day...we should be moving toward Christlikeness...and if we keep that goal in
sight and keep moving toward it, then every obstacle, barrier, set-back can be
viewed as nothing more than stepping stones to move us toward the goal...
4. Faith that overcomes obstacles looks forward
in confidence not around in fear...
II.Faith
that overcomes obstacles grows out of intimate relationship with God
1. The basic difference between the Israelites
who panicked in the face of an obstacle and Moses who led them to overcome the
obstacle was in their relationship with God...the Israelites looked at the situation
from a human viewpoint only...humanly speaking, there was no logical way
out...on one side there was the sea and on the other side there was the
powerful Egyptian army...Moses viewed the situation from the standpoint of God
...made all the difference in the world in what he saw...as one writer put
it: "The great difference
between faith and unbelief is that one brings in God, the other shuts Him
out. With God all things are
possible. Bring in God and supernatural
displays of power are to be expected ... Unbelief creates or magnifies
difficulties ... and prevents us from seeing God's salvation ... Faith, on the
contrary, raises the soul above the difficulty, straight to God Himself, and
enables one to stand..." [Pink, p.107 & p.110]
2. It's important to understand that Moses
didn't wait until he was faced with some obstacle to develop his relationship
with God.
·
For years he had been walking with God...
·
For years his life had been characterized by obedience to
God, however reluctant that obedience sometime was...
·
For years he had lived in intimate fellowship with God…
And when the
moment of crisis came, the most natural thing in world for Moses to do was draw
strength and direction from God...
1.
William
Barclay writes that Napoleon had a rather unusual ritual he would go through on
the eve of a major battle...he would stand in his tent alone and one by one he
would summon his commanders to come to him...as each commander would enter the
tent, without speaking Napoleon would look him in the eyes and shake his hand...and
without a word being spoken the officer would leave the tent full of courage
and prepared to die for the general he loved...[Barclay, p.181]
1. And the more time we spend in face to face
communion with God...the more time we spend in deepening our relationship with
God...the more time we spend in prayer and Bible study and in fellowship with
God's people, the more we will develop the
kind of faith that overcomes obstacles...
2. One person said it well when he wrote: "Moses had the faith he had because
he knew God in the way he did. When we
come to any task straight from the presence of God, no task can ever defeat us
... The secret of victorious living is to face God before we face
[obstacles]." [Barclay, p.181]
CONCLUSION
1. Remember the question of songwriter Oscar
Eliason?..."Got any rivers you think are uncrossable? Got any mountains you can't tunnel
through?"...if you don't now, can be sure the day will come in your life when you do...
2. And when that day comes, drawing from your
relationship with God and moving forward with confidence will help see you
through...that's the kind of faith that overcomes obstacles...
