Sermon Notes: Exodus 14:15-31 – The Lord will fight for you.

Exodus 14:15-31 The Lord will fight for you.

The ultimate issue at stake in our salvation is trust. I’m not talking about the mechanics of how the Lord atones for our sin. I’m talking about the viral infection of distrust passed on in the lies of the Serpent Dragon. 

Trust in the Lord with secure relational attachment was replaced with distrust and disorganized, anxious, and avoidant rupture in our relationship with the Lord in Genesis 3. 

Since then, mankind has been at war with God and under the influence of the Serpent Dragon, distrusting him from the heart, and displaying our distrust in rebellion against the good and right way of God. 

The Lord intends to bring glory to his name by crushing the head of the Serpent and saving a people from the Dragon for Himself. The Lord will bring his people back to relational security and make them the missionary arm of the Lord’s glory among all nations. 

The Lord is glorified when people see him, are rescued by him, marvel at him, believe him, love him, learn to TRUST him, and obey him from the heart all the way out to their actions. 

The Lord fights for his people and he intends for us to see him fight for us so that our trust in him will grow. 

Let’s read about it! Exodus 14:15-31

What can we observe from the text as we see the Lord fight for his people?

The Exodus through the Red Sea is more than a metaphor for life challenges. 

1. The New Testament describes Jesus’ saving work with the Exodus. It’s all over the New Testament.
   1. After Jesus was born, according to the Lord’s instructions, Joseph took his family to Egypt to escape the murderous intent of Roman leaders. 
   2. As Matthew’s gospel tells us their return from Egypt would fulfill Hosea’s prophecy about the Messiah, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Matt. 2:15 quotes Hosea 11:1).
      1. Hosea was referring to the Exodus, and Israel as God’s son. 
      2. Matthew’s application is huge because he connects the Exodus under Moses’ leadership with what is happening in Jesus.
         1. Thus, the New Testament tells us that Jesus is the faithful Israel, the faithful Son of God.
         2. The Lord Jesus himself affirms this when he refers to his death on the cross as an “Exodus”.
            1. Jesus literally called his death an “Exodus” in Luke 9:31 showing his saving work as the ultimate fulfillment of the Exodus and identifying himself as the greater Moses who is worthy of more glory (Hebrews 3:3). 
         3. What should we take away from this?
2. At this point in most Exodus sermons…“preachers would invite their congregations to identity their own ‘Red Sea’ experiences and trust God to bring them through…However, this misses the point. Israel’s passage through the sea is not primarily intended to teach us what to do when we are in spiritual trouble, any more than it serves as a how-to lesson on what to do when we come to a large body of water. Rather, it is meant to teach us about coming to God for salvation. What happened at the Red Sea ought to help us clarify our relationship to Christ. The only ‘Red Sea Experience’ that really matters is the one that Jesus had when he passed through the walls of death and came out victorious on the other side. This means that baptized Christians have already had their exodus experience. We had it a Calvary and in the garden tomb, because when Jesus died and rose again, he did it for us. We were included in these saving events when we were baptized into him (through repentance and faith), and now we are safe on the other side.” – Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus, p. 366.
   1. Therefore, we are to see in the Exodus the saving work of Jesus Christ who alone does the work of salvation and invites us to receive the fruit of his suffering in our place for our sin. 
3. Because the Exodus through the Red Sea is more than life challenges and points us to the redeeming work of Jesus, it is also not less than life challenges either.
   1. Because the Lord worked salvation in time and space, he is still redeeming creation and our sustained presence in it as agents of its healing.
      1. Therefore, when life in the kingdom demands that we disrupt evil and evil systems and those providentially orchestrated conflicts bring us to hemmed-in places, we can and must trust the Lord to act on our behalf in all means at his disposal. 
4. Let’s see some of this from the text. 

The Lord sends Israel a way and to a place where they are hemmed in and Pharaoh is lured to pursue them. 14:1-3

1. John Calvin makes a case in translating the names of the locations the Lord was instructing Israel to go to as a place that leaves Israel with no options but the Lord’s rescue, and at the same time causing Pharaoh to be enticed to chase after them.
   1. Calvin is right. 
   2. The Lord led them to a place where their only option was to trust the Lord to rescue them. The Lord was working deep and unfathomable purposes that neither Mose nor Israel could see. He does that in our lives as well.
      1. “Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.” – William Cowper
      2. Exodus 14:14 “The Lord will fight for you, and you must be quiet.”
         1. “Quiet” is literally “at peace” or “hold your tongue”. 
         2. The Lord led them to a place where self-rescue was not an option, and their only option was to be quiet and wait.
            1. If you are a red-blooded American like me, this makes you very uncomfortable.
               1. My very first response is to come up with all the ways that planning and action must become necessary. 
               2. That is not a wrong response at the correct time.
                  1. But that it is my first response to this situation the Lord puts them in shows how I truly wrestle with trusting the Lord. 
                  2. Trusting the Lord requires action, and yet it also requires waiting to hear from the Lord what the action should be.  
         3. There is a time to be quiet, a time to pray, and a time to act.
            1. Trust in the Lord to know him, knowing how he operates, developing hearing to hear the Holy Spirit, and readiness to obey are vital parts of discipleship.
               1. The Lord has been teaching Moses and the people this through the plagues, and now it’s time to display trust in the Lord.
2. The Lord sets them free and then hems them into a murder box with the ocean on one side and a hardened combat force on the other.
   1. Then he says to them to be quiet.
      1. Trust. 
      2. Surrender. 
      3. Wait. 
   2. The Exodus is their initiation to salvation and the life of faith. 
3. The sin of distrust put us in a place where we were unable to save ourselves, and the Lord Jesus is the only means by which we can escape the just judgment of God.
   1. When we see this and call on him he opens the way of salvation and we enter.
      1. Then he calls us to a life of mission lived by faith without which it is impossible to please God. (See Hebrews 11:6)
         1. This life of faith requires us to live relationally with the Lord to know when to be still and listen, when to stop striving and let the Lord fight, or when to take action. 
         2. There is no blueprint for this. 
         3. There is life in the Spirit with the Bible as our framework of thinking and acting, and then the mission where we have to make real-time applications. 

There is a time to cry out to the Lord, a time to be quiet and wait, and a time to act. V. 15-18

1. These necessary applications (cry out to the Lord, be quiet and wait, act) of a rich theologically robust Christian worldview are mashed up right here, and they will mash up in our lives also. 
2. There is an interesting dynamic here as the Lord addresses Moses singularly in verse 15 like Moses is or has been crying out to the Lord, but there is no record of Moses doing that.
   1. Moses serves as Israel’s mediator, and therefore, the Lord is addressing the people’s fearful crying out through Moses.
      1. Apparently, the people are still crying out to the Lord, and they have not taken advantage of the gift of peace to just watch and wait, and now it’s time to act.
         1. Through Moses, the Lord tells the people with a rhetorical question to stop crying out and to get ready to move. 
3. How are they and how are we supposed to know what to do?
   1. They should have obeyed. But they didn’t. So now, they have to hear and respond rightly.
      Many times, the only answer to that question is that we have to cultivate a deep, secure, and trusting relationship with the Lord informed by his word and practiced in experience through trial and error while on mission disrupting systems and preaching Jesus and his kingdom while in fellowship with others who are on mission with us.

The Lord Jesus himself defends his people. V. 19-20

1. We have already put in the work to show you in our Genesis study and now in Exodus, the Trinitarian reality that Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, is Creator, Judge, Messenger, and Savior with the Father and the Spirit. One God. Three distinct persons. Same essence.
   1. Jesus was in the burning bush speaking as Yhwh.
      1. Here Jesus is defending his people. 
      2. Listen to Paul’s interpretation of these verses:
         1. 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 (CSB) 1 Now I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
      3. The Lord Jesus is flexing his muscles to protect his people.
         1. Notice that he comes between the Egyptian army and his people to keep his enemy from advancing toward his people. 
   2. We get a glimpse of what the protection of the Lord Jesus is like for those who follow him by faith.
      1. Israel gets to know the Lord as Savior and Protector.
         1. The Lord protects them from Egyptian advance but notice that the protection is in the middle of being pursued by Egypt that he brought about for deep and glorious purposes.
            1. The Lord never promises he won’t allow suffering. 
            2. He does promise to keep us from allowing evil to win the day over us. 
         2. Listen to how Jesus said it:
            1. Luke 21:12-19 (ESV) 12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17 You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.
2. The Lord protects us from ultimate loss and yet calls us to lose it all for the sake of gaining it all.
   1. Proverbs 18:10 (CSB) 10 The name of Yahweh is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are protected.
3. Settle it in your mind that those discipled in the faith will suffer, but we will not lose.
   1. The cross and resurrection is (intentionally poor subject/verb agreement) the only discipleship pathway. 

The Lord worked miraculously to save his people. V. 21-22

1. The Lord manipulated creation for his people’s salvation.
2. All of the goofy naturalistic explanations for how Israel crossed this portion of the Red Sea or Reed Sea are post-Darwin and Descartes attempts to de-supernaturalize the Christian worldview.
   1. We owe zero natural explanations for the supernatural accounts of the Bible.
      1. People either need to believe or face the Lord on the last day and give account. 
      2. It’s not our job to remove the need for faith from people by offering weird and non-plausible natural explanations.
         1. It’s more plausible that the Lord parted the sea through Moses than some wind storm or some shallow part of the sea that, by the way, the Lord managed to drown the Egyptian army in. 
         2. The Lord manipulated his creation with his creation power for the sake of his people. 
   2. I have grown increasingly frustrated with natural explanations that seek to undo the supernatural work of God.
      1. We have bowed to naturalism as a worldview for too long, and the Bible does not do that, and we should not explain the Lord’s work away with means the Bible does not advocate for. 
      2. If Yhwh is the Creator of all things, then he as Creator works supernaturally, and nothing merely natural is an adequate explanation of what he does and how he does it.
         1. So, we don’t have to try to come up with a Micky Mouse explanations for Creator Jesus operating within his powerful existence to blow the minds of 2-dimensional humans. 
   3. The Lord parted the sea for gospel and practical saving. 

The Lord defeats his enemies. V. 23-28

1. In this defeat, the Lord judges Egypt for their heard-hearted idolatry while disparaging Ra, the sun god. 
   1. Ra was one of Egypt’s gods. Ra was the sun god.
      1. It’s not lost on the reader that defeat is fully viewed in the daylight of the sun who is supposed to be Egypt’s savior. 
   2. As the sun rose, those who worshiped Ra could view Ra’s subjects lying dead on the beach.
      1. Ra could not save them because Ra is not the Lord.
         1. Ra is a fallen demonic being who cannot overpower his Creator, the Lord. 
      2. He is under the sovereign hand of his Creator, and the Creator Jesus gets glory over his rebellious creature. 
2. It was particularly appropriate for the Lord to drown them in the sea because they had tried to stomp out Israel by drowning their baby boys in the Nile River.
   1. God does not wink at justice. Vengeance is his; he will repay.
      1. Deuteronomy 32:34-36 (CSB) 34 “Is it not stored up with Me, sealed up in My vaults? 35 Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay. In time their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.” 36 The LORD will indeed vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one is left — slave or free.

Trust in the Lord only grows in the soil of suffering. V. 29-31

1. Israel would not learn to trust the Lord unless they experienced him being faithful to his promise.
   1. Rebellion in the garden ensured that suffering would come to all of creation.
      1. Yet the Lord will not let suffering have the last word. 
      2. Yet the Lord uses suffering to overcome suffering by showing his faithfulness in suffering so that we grow a rock-solid faith.
         1. 1 Peter 1:3-9 (CSB) 3 Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. 5 You are being protected by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials 7 so that the genuineness of your faith — more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 You love Him, though you have not seen Him. And though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
2. There is no such thing as inheriting salvation without the testing and strengthening of our faith in the Lord. It’s the only way.
   1. No one skates into the eternal kingdom without having their trust strained and hardened by conflict with

Application

Since we know that the Lord fights for us and that he grows our faith through suffering, how can we actively join in that sanctifying work? 

How can we faithfully join with the Lord in growing our faith?

There is. I’ve blended some of my insights with my hero George Muller’s thoughts on this exact question. 

1. Expect the Lord to put us in impossible situations for his glory and to build our trust in him. 
   1. Deuteronomy 8:3-5 (CSB) 3 He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then He gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothing did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these 40 years. 5 Keep in mind that the LORD your God has been disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.
      1. If you expect as a Christian that from your profession of faith forward is going to be easy, then you got sold a lie and have not been discipled in the faith. 
      2. “It is doubtful whether God will bless a man deeply until he has hurt him deeply.” – AW Tozer
         1. See the appendix for the context of how Tozer came to this conclusion.

2. Carefully read the Bible and carefully think about what you read.
   1. The Bible is full of historical people and events that provide a manual to imitate, but many of these gems require us to slow down and take the content into our souls in order for them to bear fruit.
      1. Read – Study – Journal questions – Seek answers – Shift your view of all things to see them through the lens of God’s word.

3. Keep an upright heart and clean conscience not indulging in anything contrary to the mind of the Lord. 
   1. Cultivate the mind of Christ in your mind with holiness. 
   2. Sin and willful rebellion cloud our thinking and acting. 

4. Don’t avoid opportunities where your faith will be tried and you have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. 
   1. Don’t avoid hard things. 

5. Let the Lord work for you in the hour of trial, and do not work a deliverance for yourself. 
   1. This one will take lots of failure, confession, repentance, wise counsel in fellowship, and willingness to get back on the “hard things by faith” horse and try again.
   2. But, for those who will do these things, there is an unending fountain of forgiveness, mercy, and powerful grace that will get us to completion.
      1. He who began the good work will be faithful to see it to completion, and that one who began it is the Lord himself. 
      2. He will fight for us. 

Appendix

AW Tozer on Samuel Rutherford’s perseverance in suffering:

“Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace.”

The hammer is a useful tool, but the nail, if it had feeling and intelligence, could present another side of the story. For the nail knows the hammer only as an opponent, a brutal, merciless enemy who lives to pound it into submission. To beat it down out of sight and clinch it into place.

That is the nail’s view of the hammer, and it is accurate except for one thing: The nail forgets that both it and the hammer are servants of the same workman. Let the nail but remember that the hammer is held by the workman and all resentment toward it will disappear.

The carpenter decides whose head shall be beaten next and what hammer shall be used in the beating. That is his sovereign right. When the nail has surrendered to the will of the workman and has gotten a little glimpse of his benign plans for its future, it will yield to the hammer without complaint.

The file is more painful still, for its business is to bite into the soft metal, scraping and eating away the edges till it has shaped the metal to its will. Yet the file has, in truth, no real will in the matter, but serves another master as the metal also does.

It is the master and not the file that decides how much shall be eaten away, what shape the metal shall take, and how long the painful filing shall continue. Let the metal accept the will of the master and it will not try to dictate when or how it shall be filed.

As for the furnace, it is the worst of all. Ruthless and savage, it leaps at every combustible thing that enters it and never relaxes its fury till it has reduced it all to shapeless ashes.

All that refuses to burn is melted to a mass of helpless matter, without will or purpose of its own. When everything is melted that will melt and all is burned that will burn, then, and not till then, the furnace calms down and rests from its destructive fury.

With all this known to him, how could Rutherford find it in his heart to praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace? The answer is simply that he loved the Master of the hammer, he adored the Workman who wielded the file, he worshiped the Lord who heated the furnace for the everlasting blessing of his children.

He had felt the hammer till its rough beatings no longer hurt; he had endured the file till he had come actually to enjoy its biting; he had walked with God in the furnace so long that it had become his natural habitat. That does not overstate the facts. His letters reveal as much.

Such doctrine as this does not find much sympathy among Christians in these soft and carnal days. We tend to think of Christianity as a painless system by which we can escape the penalty of past sins and attain to heaven at last.

The flaming desire to be rid of every unholy thing and to put on the likeness of Christ at any cost is not often found among us. We expect to enter the everlasting kingdom of our Father and to sit down around the table with sages, saints, and martyrs; and through the grace of God, maybe we shall; yes maybe we shall.

The flaming desire to be rid of every unholy thing and to put on the likeness of Christ at any cost is not often found among us.

But for most of us, it could prove at first an embarrassing experience. Ours might be the silence of the untried soldier in the presence of the battle-hardened heroes who have fought the fight and won the victory and who have scars to prove that they were present when the battle was joined.

The devil, things, and people being what they are, it is necessary for God to use the hammer, the file, and the furnace in his holy work of preparing a saint for true sainthood. It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.

Without a doubt, we of this generation have become too soft to scale great spiritual heights. Salvation has come to mean deliverance from unpleasant things.

Our hymns and sermons create for us a religion of consolations and pleasantness. We overlook the place of the thorns, the cross, and the blood. We ignore the function of the hammer and the file and the furnace.