Law & Grace - Through the sea without getting wet (parting the sea)

Good morning. I want to just present to you the three electives and invite you to sign up for those. Major Bible themes, Mike, Courtney, and Craig Case will be co-teaching that. For second and third John, Roger, Bob, and Randy co-teaching that one. And then, What God is Doing in the Life of the Believer. That's kind of a long title, but we'll let it stand. Craig Johnson and I will be co-teaching that one. So anyway, we'd ask you to sign up in the lobby for the elective of your choice. We have just a couple more Sundays, and then the electives begin.

OK, in this walk through the time of the exodus of Israel from Egypt, we've had some readings and song to go along with that. from the time that Moses was assigned by God to go and to free God's people, the Israelites, from the Egyptians, the Egyptians whom they had served for about four centuries. Then Moses with his brother Aaron would appear before their own people, talk to the Israelites about what they were doing, and then before Pharaoh's court. returning again and again. We went through some of the details on that last week.

And as it came to be, because Pharaoh would not yield, 10 plagues were brought about. We've made the point previously that each one of the plagues was specifically against the gods of Egypt. Egypt had about 700 gods, as a matter of fact. And one or more of those gods is affronted and insulted and shown to be powerless by each of these plagues.

The Jews were instructed around the time of the last plague to observe the Passover, to place the blood on the top and the sides of each of the doorways in their households to preserve their firstborn. They were also to have a Passover lamb and to eat that lamb with a few other instructions, which included actually for that first Passover to eat standing up and to eat it all. Don't leave anything. If you need to, invite other people to help you come and eat, but don't leave anything. Eat it all and eat it in haste. You hear things about don't eat your food too fast.

Well, this is they were commanded to do. and to be ready to leave the very next morning. And so the Jews packed up everything, and thousands and thousands of Jews then carried their kids and their goods and whatever they could take with them and left Egypt, the place that had been their home for centuries.

They packed up with animals on carts, carrying things by hand. generally walking as it was possible and began leaving because after all Pharaoh said go and so it seemed like the right thing to do and Moses had been telling him that's exactly what God wants Pharaoh to finally do to let his people go and so focused on this part of the world here right Egypt where they were leaving Zoom in from the satellite here, and what you find is this Nile Delta. By the way, the water for that comes from Uganda. The Nile Delta was the place that they left. They had a land of Goshen, which was on the kind of east central part of the Nile Delta. That had been their home for several centuries, and now they were leaving it and heading off to the east. And as they did so, they came up to the sea.

And we'll be taking a closer look at this crossing here as we look today at today's passages and topics. Now, here is a kind of a map view of the Nile Delta. And it's this area in here where there's a series of lakes. Some of those lakes have been cut through and actually eliminated by the Suez Canal that goes through that. Some of the lakes remain, and particularly there's the larger lake right here, the Great Bitter Lake it's called, that remains there even today. And it is likely one of these lakes, and even more likely, this particular one was the one that they were crossing. And here it is shown in the satellite photo.

So you'll see that bitter lake. And why would they be there? They could camp next to the lake, and there would be some water there as a resource. And they'd come up against it, and assuming that they were allowed to go, it was not a bad place to stop for the night and to set up camp.

Now, I have to make mention, I believe that this is the proper location. Some have proposed other locations for the crossing. I will talk about later about why we don't think that's likely the case. So, other crossing points have been suggested. I believe this first one we looked at, the lake closest to Goshen is the likely candidate. Here is another satellite photo taken later in the day. So you have a lot of orange hues.

This is the Great Bitter Lake. The Suez Canal actually does go right through the middle of it. And when they cut through the canal, it did not drain the lake. but continues there. Here's another shot of it taken at a different time of day and a slightly different orientation, but it gives you an idea of what that lake would be like. So you'd imagine the Jews camped alongside that lake.

Turns out today that a lot of things have been developed. Things were not park-like with all sorts of benches and shades and things like that, as they are now in many places along the edge of the lake. But nonetheless, it gives you an idea of what it would be like to look across that lake and if you could envision yourself being on the one hand up against the lake and on the other hand having Pharaoh's army coming at you. Everything you're carrying is all the goods and kids and, you know, folks older and younger. and you're not equipped to fight a battle, that would be a very tough predicament to find yourself in. Here is a view of that same lake late in the day, and perhaps gives you an idea what the Jews were experiencing here. They're ready to camp out.

And what's often not revealed in the pictures is that this crossing was, from the description, a nighttime event. Okay? Frequently we see pictures and whatnot done as if it were a daytime event. I think there's a reason why. It's really hard to have pictures where everything's all black. Right? So that's probably a good reason. So there may be good justification. Now, how would they know that the Egyptians are coming well in advance?

Well, here is one reason why. This is a dust storm. And look how far that dust storm from Egypt extends. miles and miles out into the Mediterranean. The area, once you get outside of the Nile Delta and some of the areas where there's water, lots of dry sand and the dust storms are huge. Here's one looking at it from the land.

Now you can imagine, here comes Pharaoh's army. What do you see first? You don't see Pharaoh's army, you see this huge dust cloud. as they're coming towards you. And that's probably what they saw first. It was getting their attention. They're saying, it's not windy. We shouldn't be having a dust cloud. How come there's a dust cloud? Well, it's because Pharaoh's army is coming.

Pharaoh was equipped with chariots, hundreds of them as a matter of fact. And what's interesting as we look at this particular event, Pharaoh changed his mind, didn't he? This is about, as the Bible records, about the sixth time that Pharaoh has changed his mind. So this is just standard operating procedure for Pharaoh, apparently.

And believe it or not, the Egyptians also used slings, only they would have even carved sling stones. And so it was something they were actually using rather regularly and were rather equipped with. They also had spears, bronze spears. They had spearmen. They would have whole teams of spearmen. And they also had archers. So the Egyptians were, especially if you're just looking at a bunch of people carrying their goods, the Egyptians were a pretty threatening bunch to come after them. So here is Moses, and he's told, park the waters.

And of course, the picture here is one of apparent daylight. This was probably not the scene, but rather one of it's starting to get dark. The sun is setting. Now, we have this picture, and some of you may have wondered, what is this? Randy asked me about this earlier. This is a picture of the Israelites crossing from space. It's one of those Jewish satellites. So that's what that is. It's not a medical problem. It's actually them crossing from a view from space.

And it probably wasn't like this either. That would have been nice, but it wasn't that comfy. Actually, if you think about it, it was dark. Why wasn't it just pitch black? Well, there was a few reasons why it wasn't pitch black, and two in particular.

One is while it was the 17th of the month, you'd have to go through the Jewish calendar to find out what phase, but you may have had some moonlight there to work with. And aside from that, there was a cloud by day, but a pillar of fire by night, right? And a significant pillar of fire, not just, you know, it looks kind of like a flashlight across the lake, but a very large pillar of fire, therefore their way would have been lit.

Okay? And we don't know quite what that looked like. This is one Hollywood simulation of what that might have looked like. You see dry ground and then these walls of water. One way about this that seems to be somewhat true to the reality was it appears a bit darker. I don't know with the pillar of fire that it wasn't a bit lighter than this though. So the Jews crossed. Can you imagine, at one moment you're thinking, oh, I'm going to die. These Egyptians are just going to come out here and slaughter us. And all we can do is throw sand at them. This is terrible.

And then the next moment, Moses is holding out the rod, and the waters are parting, and they're thinking, Wow! And they're amazed, but they don't just stand there, right? They say, hey, the Egyptians come and we better get across this thing. And so cross it they do. And they're going across this and amazed what was water, what was covered in water is a short time later dry land with walls of water on each side of them. And you imagine what it must have been like. Imagine the kids wanting to say, hey, man, look at those fish. Man, this is really cool. They should make something called like an aquarium or something. Then it would be like this. Right? But you can also imagine the Jewish parents saying things like, don't touch that. You don't know where it's been. And you don't want to have that. It might not be kosher. And Moses hadn't told us yet what's kosher. Right? So you can imagine the fascination with all the things that they were seeing going along the walls. I imagine it was a very memorable event, however it took place.

So here are the Jews. They're walking across. They're finally coming across this sea, this lake, and coming up on the other side, walking on dry land, with the Lord having miraculously, not only providing the dry land and the parting of the water, but light in the midst of this. Now, there's something else that happened that you may have picked up from the account. Most of the time, this pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, most of the time would be in front of them, leading them. But this is an exception.

This pillar got between the Israelites and the Egyptians. And the Israelites then were able to walk across, not only miraculously across this place that had very shortly before been a sea, but they were able to walk across without having to worry about the Egyptians coming up to the rear flank of them. because they were held off by this pillar. Then finally, this pillar lifts out of the way, and the Egyptians think, ah, we've got them.

That was a very serious mistake, right? Because they were not going to get the Israelites, but they themselves were going to be gotten, right? And so the Egyptians go running in, thinking that they have this tremendous opportunity to come in and catch these Israelites and take advantage of the miracle. And so the Egyptians get sucked in. They're saying, well, if the land's dry and the waters are parted, we'll go there too. And there are the Israelites right there. We've got them. And can you imagine what the Israelites were thinking after this huge relief? Oh, look, the Lord parted the waters. The Lord made the land dry. The Lord's provided light for us with this pillar of fire.

You can imagine the huge relief, and then all of a sudden, oh no, the Egyptians are coming. You see, because all this, while we know the story, they didn't know how it was going to end. Was it going to end with the Egyptians coming across and wiping them out anyway? Was that how this was going to happen? Oh no! Panic, relief, and then panic again! But guess what? That's not how it was going to happen.

Moses would raise his hand over the waters, and the Israelites would see again the waters coming in on the Egyptians. The Egyptians not only had the waters coming in on them, but they were stuck in confusion there in the water and couldn't get across. So understandably, when the Jews see that the Egyptians are cut off, every last one of them drowned.

Not one of them getting a cross. The Lord had provided miraculous delivery for every single Israelite. It wasn't a 95% deal. Well, 95% of the Israelites made it. And it wasn't a deal where at least most of the Egyptian soldiers got nailed. It was down to each and every single person. Every single Israelite made it a cross, and every single Egyptian soldier got nailed, got drowned that day.

And so Moses put together a song on the spot, the Song of Moses. It's recorded there. And we also have Miriam, the sister of Aaron, led a tambourine band and song and celebration there. They were greatly relieved and excited. Can you imagine the sweeping of emotions that they went through that day? Panic, and then relief, and then panic, and then relief again. What a tremendous thing. And to finally have a huge answer. No, the Egyptians aren't coming anymore. Not at all. Not one of them. One of the things we pointed out last week, and we have it included in your handout here, again, that same slide.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10.2, says that the people of Israel were all baptized into Moses under the cloud and through the sea. It was a physical presence. The cloud was there. The sea was there. They all walked through it.

They were baptized into Moses. It was a physical presence that did the baptism. The baptism would all, very shortly, place them under the principle of law. They would soon find themselves, in less than a couple of months, they would soon find themselves receiving the law, what's called the Law of Moses. And the Ten Commandments are only a portion of that law. We, however, are baptized into Christ.

Romans 6.3 and Galatians 3.27 say that we in the church were all baptized into Christ Jesus.

Because we went through something physically? No. We went through something spiritually. It was a spiritual baptism. Israel's baptism was a physical presence baptism. This is a spiritual presence baptism. The Jews, all who walked through those waters and saw all this take place, they remembered it because they were there. It was a physical experience. Do you remember when Christ was crucified and you were there? No, you don't. I don't think so anyway. And why? It's because you were not physically there as the Jews were there as they crossed the sea.

But you were spiritually there when you believed in Christ as your Savior. It was a spiritual presence that placed you there. This baptism would place all of us under the principle of grace. Principle of grace. Romans 6.3 spells that out. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, all of us, that is those who believe, have been baptized into his death, the first of five things. You've been baptized into, placed into, immersed into, identified with his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, and his seeding, beginning with being baptized into death.

The other question that Paul is very explicit, it's implied in Romans 6.3, but stated explicitly, Being placed into Christ, being baptized into Him, being, simply put, in Christ, is not something that you did.

You didn't work really, really hard and finally get everything checked off on your checklist, and God says, okay, now you're in Christ. See, that's not how it happened, is it? It's by His doing you're in Christ Jesus. God did it. All you did is believe. And that belief is not a work. It's His work that you believe in and therefore you're placed in Christ.

Galatians 3.27 gives the same message. For all of you, that is all those believers He was writing to, who were baptized into Christ.

One of the things that's very clear as we go through this account, there that day, or night, where the Jews crossed over through the Red Sea, God sent Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, but not to die in Egypt. The Jews were saying, oh no, we're gonna die here, it's terrible, Moses, what are you doing? You really, really blew it, what were you thinking? But Moses was not sent to take the Israelites out just a little distance away so that they could die in Egypt.

No, he was sent to bring them out. God acted by sending the ten plagues to bring Pharaoh to finally let God's people go, even though he changed his mind one more time, the last time. God acting through Moses and Aaron and also through the plagues brought his people to the sea. You see, they were there on purpose. They were there on purpose. Ever been between the sea and Pharaoh's army? Oh, I'm sure not exactly like that. But you ever been in a situation where you look at it and you say, ah, this is terrible. How can this work out well? This is awful. Why did God bring me here? That may be exactly what God had in mind. Though His people thought they were as good as dead, they were asking Moses, What's the matter? Didn't you think there were enough graves in Egypt so you'd bring us out here? God acted to save them. They saw themselves as dead.

God didn't. God acted for us. Christ died for our sins to end that bondage and to bring us out forever. God sent Christ to save us from years of bondage and the tyranny of death. And in the process, God had us not be threatened with death, but actually die with Christ. Even though that accomplished wonderful things, it actually was death. Not just as good as dead, but real death. Though we died with Christ, God had an eternally good purpose in all of it.

It wasn't God's failure to act, it was in fact God's action. How about these things that happen to us that are difficult? How about these circumstances we look at and say, oh, how can this possibly end up good? I'm either going to get a really good fast swimming lesson, Or are these Egyptians going to take me out?

Romans 8.28-30 puts it this way, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good. Does that mean that all things are good? No. Some things are just plain not good. But He causes all things to work together for good for those who love God. to those who are called according to His purpose, those whom He foreknew.

He knew you in advance. He also predestined. Now, this is something very interesting. When you think of predestination, do you think, oh no, I'm not really making decisions. I'm not really doing things. I'm just going through the motions as if God has this big cosmic machine and everything's predestined. My next breath is predestined. I don't have any choice. Everything is locked in. Is that the way it is? Is that what God does?

No. What is the predestination? It's not defining your every action. It's not meaning you don't have a choice in what you do next. Predestination is about where you're going. And where you're going is you're going to become conformed to the image of a son. So it's not dreaded predestination like I don't have a choice.

Every good thing I do, every bad thing I do, it's all determined like a big machine. No. It's regardless of what happens, whether it's good or bad from a human standpoint, and some things seriously are not good. Regardless, God is going to use those things to conform me to the image of his son. And that's very good. That's the predestination the Bible talks about. There's also a principle of death to life. Death to life for Israel. The people of Israel thought that they were as good as dead.

Here's the Egyptians racing toward them. I'm sure they saw this big dust cloud and knew what that meant. Egyptians racing toward them on one side, the sea on the other. They were about to become a kosher sandwich, right? They found that God miraculously saved them from what seemed to be certain death by parting the sea for all the Israelites but not for any of the Egyptians, none of them, not one. That principle of death to life was lived out, get this, physically for Israel.

God brought them from certain death, as they viewed it, to miraculously preserve life. In a short period of time, they went from panic and desperation to relief, to panic and desperation to relief. Before we believed, we were dead in our trespasses and sins, the walking dead, if you will. even as we walk the planet and we're interacting with each other. But we who believe in the body of Christ have been raised with Him so as to have new life, Christ's very own resurrection life. That's the principle of death to life. It was carried out not physically with the Jews as with the Jews, but spiritually for us as God brought us from spiritual death to miraculous life. And death was something else.

Death was separation for Israel. The people of Israel crossed the sea that God had parted for them, but He closed those same waters over the Egyptians who were in pursuit. Those Egyptians that thought they were pursuing the Israelites to take them out were taken out themselves, every last one. The death of the Egyptian military in the waters of the sea separated the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptians physically, never to have them pursue again. So by the death of the Egyptians, God made physical, get that, physical separation between Egypt and Israel. And death is separation for us.

In the New Testament, for us, we who believe and are therefore in the body of Christ, a spiritual death also means separation. That's why the New Testament letters use terms like dead unto, or dead to, or died to. You'll see those terms used again and again. So being dead unto and all the similar terms means to be, we can expand it, dead in relationship to, to the sin nature, to the law, and to the world. Dead in relationship to. Does the sin nature end? No. Does the law end? No. Does the world end? No. But dead in relationship to, that's the point. Death is separation, being alive is union. That starts in Romans 6, 1 through 11.

Dead to sin, alive to Christ. continues on in Romans, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians 2.20, and finally in Colossians 3.5 and 20. Dead to sin, died with Christ in relationship to the world. Now, frequently people will say, well Paul is the one who explained these truths, and that's true. But Peter clearly understood it.

Look at 1st Peter 2.24, and he himself, that is Christ, bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by His wounds you were healed."

Die in relationship to sin, live in relationship to righteousness. In Romans 7, 4-6, Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another. to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound." Died in relationship to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter, the letter of the law. Galatians 2 19 and 20 says a similar truth more succinctly, for through the law I died to the law so I might live to God. Died in relationship to, alive in relationship to.

There's one more truth to be drawn from this passage and that is that the Israelites had a pillar of cloud by day. The pillar of cloud most typically went in front of them and led them along the way. Where they went was where God wanted them to go. The pillar of cloud led them as they went. There's a pillar of fire as it came to be night and darkness fell. And the pillar of fire remained there as they encamped over the night.

And you imagine being in your tent and there's this kind of flickering of fire coming through every little crevice and crack and perhaps a hole in the tent. And looking out there, this would be awesome. There would be unmistakable sense that God was present with you, wouldn't there? That would be quite clear. Day and night, He's always here. God is present with us. And if you don't believe it, there's the evidence right there. Clouds don't usually belch fire. Israel had God's external and visible, got that? External and visible presence.

From the time they began to come out of Egypt, they had this visible presence of God as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It was unmistakable that God was present with them all the time while they were in this wilderness. Most of the time the cloud led them as it traveled They traveled by day and remained there, visible as a pillar of fire as they camped out each night. So the Israelites always had a visible reminder of God's presence as they were out in the wilderness. Always had a visible reminder.

We have God's internal and invisible presence. I don't know about you, but I don't go around with a pillar of fire and a You know, a pillar of cloud over the top of me. Don't look around for that fire in the cloud to lead me around. Our presence of the Lord is internal and invisible. We have God's presence as well.

Just not when we wander the wilderness, oh certainly then, but all the time and in every single person who believes. We are both individually, as each believer here today, and together as a church body, all of us who believe, the temple of God. One way to put it is the Jews had a temple in Jerusalem, and God dwelt in the Holy of Holies in that temple. We're the Holy of Holies. We who believe are the holy of holies.

God dwells in us, a truth that Paul wrote twice, both as a church body in chapter 3, 1 Corinthians, and individually in chapter 6. We have God's constant presence with us. For us, it's not a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire that you see day and night. But we have a written and inspired reminder of God's constant presence wherever we go, including in the remaining days and weeks of this year, including the things that are happening and are going to happen in your lives and in mine, wherever we go, as long as he has us here. That's good to know, isn't it? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage.

We thank you for the things that you have done, the things that you have accomplished in our lives. We thank you, Lord, for your promise and continual presence with each one of us. We can count upon who you are and your presence with us. We've not been handed an assignment to carry out on our own, but you are with us every step of the way. We thank you for that comfort and that assurance and your love and fellowship with us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.