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Church
in the Wilderness 3
Exodus
13-14
We’re in a series thinking about the Church in the
Wilderness. The children of Israel
were the church of the Old Testament and their experience teaches us what
the Christian life is like. The
Israelites were saved out of slavery and saved for the promised land –
but in between they had a time of testing, humbling, hardship and
discipline. 40 years – a whole
generation – was spent in the wilderness.
And Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 says, that’s just like us. We have been saved from slavery to
sin, saved from spiritual overlords, saved, most importantly, from the
wrath of God Himself and we are headed for glory – face to face with
Jesus in the new creation. But in
the meantime we have our own period – right now! – of testing, humbling,
hardship and discipline. And all
the lessons they learnt in the wilderness – we will need to learn for our
Christian lives. So that’s why
we’re looking in particular at the books of Exodus and then of Numbers to
learn lessons from the Church in the Wilderness.
Last week we remembered that the Israelites were brought out of
Egypt through two things really.
First Passover. And this
week we’ll think about crossing the red sea.
Passover, as we saw last week, was the final plague on Egypt –
the LORD would pass through the land and strike down the firstborn of
every household UNLESS, a lamb was killed and the blood painted on the
door frames. If the LORD saw the
blood He would pass over and spare that house.
Well we thought about how this was a wonderful picture of Christ
and His cross. Christ our Passover
Lamb has been sacrificed. He – the
LORD. He - the Judge has shed His
own blood as a sacrificial lamb, so that He might shelter us from the
coming day of judgement. We are
those who take refuge under the blood of Jesus our Passover Lamb.
But think about this. If
the LORD’s deliverance of the Israelites just stopped at Passover – what
would you have? You’d have a
people saved from judgement – but still left in slavery. They’d have survived the LORD’s
justice, but remained in Egypt.
What kind of deliverance would that be?
Well this evening we’re thinking about the fact that the LORD not
only sheltered them under the blood, He brought them out with a mighty
hand and an outstretched arm. The
LORD doesn’t just Pass Over – He also leads us out.
And that’s important for us to know. Because we are a people who have
trusted Christ as our Passover Lamb.
We have said to God the Father – God don’t poke your head into the
house – you won’t find anything worth saving there. Please look to the blood of Christ. I
claim His blood for my salvation.
I claim His death in exchange for my life. Save me because of Jesus’ sacrifice on
the cross.’ Anyone who says that
to God is saved. Judgement has
once and for all passed over you.
You are eternally and unchangeably spared from the judgement of
God.
Now how do you respond to that truth? Christ has died for you so that
judgement has passed over you.
Well here’s one way – you might think:
Great, a blank cheque to sin.
Are you ever tempted to think that? If God passes over because Jesus my
Lamb shed His blood, well then it might look like Jesus’ blood has
financed your sin. He’s like a
financial backer who promises to cover every debt you’ll ever make. Well then – rack up a colossal debt. Doesn’t matter – Jesus blood covers it
all. So then – if Jesus died for
me, surely I can consider that as a blank cheque to sin. What do we think of that? Well we need to read on in Exodus to
answer that.
Second response we might make is this:
Jesus died for me – but He can’t really
love me
Because perhaps there’s too much
suffering in our lives. We think
He might have saved me from hell – but He hasn’t saved me from that
trouble, He can’t really love me.
So that’s response number 2 – we think
we have too much sin or too much suffering for Him to really love us.
And then, response number 3.
Jesus died for me (2000 years ago) – but
it doesn’t seem to help me today.
I’m still stuck in sin. I still seem to be just as much a slave
as I ever was. There’s no power,
no presence, no reality to my Christian life. How am I helped today by Christ and His
salvation?
Well Exodus 13 and 14 are going to help
us with those three issues. We’re
going to learn that we have been SAVED… FROM THE OLD LIFE… THROUGH
HARDSHIPS… WITH DIVINE POWER.
Salvation is not a blank cheque, leaving
us in Egypt to continue in sin – the LORD does indeed bring us out. And He does it because of His great
love – we need never doubt the Love of the LORD for us. And His salvation is accompanied by
divine power. We’re not stuck,
there is divine help for us and power to change.
So let’s look at this first thing – we
are saved FROM the old life.
For this we’ll look at two practices
that followed Passover as described in chapter 13. The first practice was to consecrate
the firstborn. Look at chapter 13,
verses 1 and 2:
The LORD said to Moses, 2
"Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first
offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man
or animal."
Now look at v12:
12 you are to give over to the LORD the
first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock
belong to the LORD. 13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn
donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every
firstborn among your sons. 14 "In days to come when your
son asks you,`What does this mean?' say to him,`With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of
the land of slavery. 15 When Pharaoh stubbornly
refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man
and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring
of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.' 16 And it
will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt
with his mighty hand."
To remember Passover, the LORD wants the Israelites to give over
to Him every firstborn. All the
firstborn animals will be sacrificed.
All the firstborn children will be redeemed – that means a payment
will be made for them. Numbers 3 tells us it would be 5 shekels – which
wasn’t a huge amount but it was a token to say that the firstborn belongs
to the LORD.
Now the firstborn stands for the rest of the household. We learnt that last week – to strike
down the firstborn is to judge the whole house, to spare the firstborn is
to save the whole house. Because
the firstborn was the most valuable thing in the house – he was the
heir. And he stood in the place of
the others. So to have to redeem
the firstborn with a token amount of money – the Israelites were
demonstrating that really they all belonged to the LORD.
And of course that’s what redemption is. Redemption is the payment that is made
to free a slave. And the LORD has
redeemed Israel – He has freed them from slavery in Egypt at a cost. But imagine yourself in a slave
market. Imagine the shackles around
your feet, imagine your cruel master taunting you. Now imagine a stranger comes and pays
the price for your freedom. Ask
yourself – are you now free?
Answer: Absolutely – you are free indeed. You are no longer the property of your
cruel master. The shackles are
off, you can be who you were really created to be. But now ask the question again – are
you free?
Well another answer is, No – absolutely not. You are owned by a new master. You’ve been redeemed. A price has been
paid and you are not your own. You
don’t walk away from the slave market a free agent. You walk away under new management.
It’s the same in the Christian life. 1 Peter 1 says
you were redeemed from the empty way of
life handed down to you from your forefathers… with the precious blood of
Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
You were a slave to an empty way of life. But now the price has been paid for
your redemption. Are you
free? Absolutely – you have nothing
to do with that old life now – free indeed. Are you free? Absolutely not, you
belong body and soul to God. I
don’t know if anyone’s taken part in a promise auction where people have
bid for you to be their slave for the day. If someone paid 50p for you, it
wouldn’t be great for the self-image and you probably wouldn’t take your
slave master very seriously. If someone paid a million pounds for you –
that would be pretty good for the self-image wouldn’t it? But it also means you’d take your new
owner very seriously. Well God has
paid the price for us – it was blood of His Son who He has loved and
enjoyed from before the foundation of the world. Can you put a price on the Son of
God? Well whatever that is – that
is the price paid for our redemption.
We were bought at a price.
We belong to God.
And in fact that has been the refrain throughout Exodus – Moses
keeps saying to Pharaoh – Thus says the LORD: “Let my people go that they
may serve Me.” They had been serving the Egyptians – the LORD wants them
to serve Him. In the NIV
translation they always translate it ‘That they may worship me.’ But more basically the word just means
‘serve’ – which is why the ESV translation says 15 times that the
Israelites are to be saved from Egypt to SERVE the LORD. Saved to serve.
Think about it. The LORD
doesn’t make all their chains spring open and say “Off you run – run
free. Send me a postcard from
Canaan, let me know how you get on.”
No – they are redeemed by the LORD so they belong to the LORD. Saved to serve.
Friends if you’ve sheltered under the blood of Jesus you are
saved. But you are also bought. You can’t be sheltered without being
bought. It’s just the very nature
of salvation. If you’re protected
by the blood, you are also purchased by the blood.
Are you starting to see how wrong it is to see salvation as a
blank cheque? The Israelites were
saved to serve. And they were also
saved FOR PURITY.
Look at chapter 13 verse 3 –
3 Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate
this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery,
because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand.
Eat nothing containing yeast.
And look at v6:
6 For seven days eat bread made without
yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the LORD. 7 Eat
unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to
be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your
borders.
The feast of Passover was ALWAYS to be followed by the feast of
unleavened bread. If the
Israelites have enjoyed the Passover, then they have to be yeast free for
a week. Why? Well think about the night of the
Passover. The Israelites were
specifically instructed to eat the Passover Lamb with yeast-free bread –
unleavened bread. Because the
whole thing was to be eaten in haste.
Can you imagine the whole of the Israelites getting up and fleeing
Egypt and you’re left there watching the oven waiting for your bread to
rise. If you wait for bread to
rise it’s very clear, you’re not really on board with the whole salvation
thing. You’d like to enjoy the
lamb IN EGYPT. You’d like to bed
down there, you’d like to enjoy the lamb AND enjoy the old life. And the LORD says it can’t happen. If you take advantage of the lamb then
you are saying ‘I’m done with Egypt, I’m coming out in haste’ And therefore you won’t have
yeast. So every year the
Israelites have Passover and straight after they scour their houses for
yeast and get rid of it. Because
they are saying I’m grateful for the lamb and I’m done with the old life.
You can read 1 Corinthians 5 for yourselves and see how Paul points
to this same truth. We Christians
have benefited from Christ’s cross, and therefore we are done with the
old life and we eagerly scour our selves and our communities of traces of
the old life. Because you can’t
take advantage of the lamb and bed down in sin. It’s just a total contradiction in
terms.
Do you see how false it is to see salvation as a blank
cheque? We have been bought at a
price. We have been saved to
serve. We’ve been saved FOR
PURITY.
Now it’s not a case of Jesus saves us a little bit but if we
cooperate by serving then we’ll be fully saved. It’s that Jesus saves us completely –
and so if we are truly saved then we are swept up into this salvation by
Jesus – saved from the old life, saved to serve, saved for purity. That’s always what true salvation
accomplishes.
So salvation is not a blank cheque. It’s redemption – it’s being bought by
a new master to serve Christ who paid for us in death and blood.
But then what
about our second question, perhaps Christ died for me all those
years ago, but can He really love me today. What about all this suffering, what
about all this sin – does His love still hold true?
That can be a very urgent question actually. Just read chapter 13 v17:
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did
not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was
shorter. For God said, "If they face war, they might change their
minds and return to Egypt." 18 So God led the
people around by the desert road towards the Red Sea.
Here’s the straight route to the promised land. If you keep the
Mediterranean on your left, keep going, you can’t miss it. But the LORD says, watch out for the
Philistines. I’ll take you another
route. So this is the route He
sends them on. He sends them
straight for the Red Sea. Can
anyone see a problem here? The
Jews are not a maritime people.
They have no boats with them.
And this is the route God sends them on.
But not only this – He stirs up Pharaoh to chase them! Read with me from chapter 14:3:
3 Pharaoh will
think,`The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed
in by the desert.' 4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he
will pursue them. But I will
gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians
will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this. 5
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his
officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we
done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!" 6
So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7
He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of
them. 8 The LORD
hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites,
who were marching out boldly. 9 The Egyptians--all Pharaoh's horses and
chariots, horsemen and troops--pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they
camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.
10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites
looked up, [can you
imagine this in your minds eye] and
there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and
cried out to the LORD.
What on earth is the LORD doing?
Hemmed in by the desert, the Egyptians and the Red Sea. And this is not just an unhappy
coincidence – this is the LORD’s doing. Chapter 13:21 – the LORD is
leading them in a pillar of cloud and fire. What is He doing?
Last week my printer wouldn’t work and I cried out loud ‘LORD
what are you doing?’ Surely you’ve
got better things for me to be doing than fiddling with some
appliance. That was my reaction to
a faulty printer. What would you
be saying if you looked up and saw the Egyptians bearing down on
you. Here’s what the Israelites
say in v11:
11 They said to
Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you
brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us
out of Egypt? 12 Didn't we say to you in Egypt,`Leave us
alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to
serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"
This is hugely ironic.
They’ve just come out of Egypt and if you believe the film the Ten
Commandments (and why not it seems plausible enough) the Israelites had
been working on some pretty impressive graves actually. So they say to Moses – what a shame, if
you’d wanted us to die, we know some great graves back in Egypt. Pity we’ve all got to die in the
desert!
So first they’re sarcastic.
Then they just lie. Verse
12 – they never said leave us alone to serve the Egyptians. Not while they were slaves. They had cried out under the oppression
of the Egyptians. They were
desperate to be saved when they were in Egypt. But now with Pharaoh bearing down on
them they say those very telling words:
It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to
die in the desert!"
Now really that’s the heartbeat of the Israelites’ grumbling
throughout Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. We’d be better off as slaves of Pharaoh
than to die in the wilderness.
They come to crisis moments and then their whole sense of
identity and reality unravels.
They start to see their past, present and future wrongly. They think back to Egypt and they have
rose coloured glasses. They look
at the present and all they see is desert and armies and Red Sea and
hunger and thirst. They look to
the future – and they can only imagine death. So they panic and they say “It would have been better for us to
serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"
What about us? What happens when we face crises? Paul says we will. Acts 14:22 he says:
We must go through many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God
This is the way God saves. So what do we do when we face the
crises? Do we envy the
Egyptians? The non-Christians? Or
our old life? Do we have rose-coloured glasses regarding the past? How do we look at the present, do we
only see desert and armies and hunger and thirst – only our problems? When we imagine the future – is it only
doom we forsee? Do we believe that
the LORD really loves us?
In Deuteronomy the Israelites are
recorded as saying “The LORD hates us, so He brought us out of Egypt to
destroy us.” Isn’t that nuts? But that is what every fearful heart
says in these crisis moments. “The
LORD hates me, He saved me only to destroy me.” Take any crisis moment you’ve had and
boil down your fears – that is the essence of it. The LORD hates me, He saved me only to
destroy me.
Instead we should be saying the LORD
loves me – I know this because He saved me. He demonstrated His love for me at the
cross. I have no idea what this
current crisis is about – but He hasn’t brought me out of slavery in
order to have me die in the wilderness.
As Philippians 1 says “He who began a good work in you WILL carry
it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.”
Why does the LORD saves us THROUGH
hardship? In chapter 14:4 the LORD
says “I will gain glory for myself.”
The LORD ties His glory so much to His own people that their
vindication will be His vindication. The LORD is glorified when His
people are saved, and the LORD gains MUCH glory for Himself when they are
saved against the odds. There is
more glory for the LORD to lead them through the Red Sea than to take
them straight to Canaan. And there
is more glory for the LORD to lead YOU through hardships than to give you
an easy life. Jesus is glorified
by leading you through hardship.
Your testimony to the LORD is all the greater for the wilderness
experiences He sustains you through.
He doesn’t hate you. He
loves you. He’s not destroying
you, He’s saving you through hardship – and He will be glorified
in your life as He leads you through.
Let’s watch Him do that as we turn to the
LORD’s divine power to save.
Chapter 14:19:
19 Then the
Angel of God, who had been travelling in front of Israel's army, withdrew
and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and
stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and
Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side
and light to the other; so neither went near the other all night long.
21 Then Moses stretched out
his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back
with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were
divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry
ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
In verse 19 we see the character who
began the Exodus for us at the non-burning bush. The One Moses met in the bush, whose
name was I AM, who called Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob –
He was the Angel of God. And now,
here is the Angel of God. Angel
just means ‘Sent One’. So He is
God and He’s the One Sent from God.
This is one more reason why Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 10 that
the Israelites were accompanied by Christ. The eternal Christ accompanied the
Israelites. There He was – the
Angel – the Sent One of God – putting Himself between His people and
danger. Like Gandalf saying ‘You
shall not pass’ – there He is protecting His people.
Of course when Christ would come at
Christmas AS an Israelite, born as a Jew, then He would act much more
like Gandalf in protecting His people.
For Christ when He took our humanity – did indeed die to hold back
our powerful enemy. That’s the
length Christ will ultimately go to to deliver us, but here in Exodus, He
just models it by standing in between Egypt and Israel. And then, v21 the strong east wind
blows on the waters. You could
even translate v21 as the strong ancient Spirit blew on the waters. And if you were thinking about Genesis chapter
1 you’d notice a lot of similarities between the Red Sea and the creation
account. You see, by the Spirit
and through the Word (Christ) the waters are divided to create dry ground
that’s what happened at creation and it’s what happens in salvation. It’s the divine power that created
heaven and earth that is unleashed to save His people.
And so the Israelites are saved with
divine power and pass through on dry ground. They haven’t just been sheltered by
Passover – they’ve been empowered by a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm.
And now, on the other side of the Red
Sea, the Israelites could never be the same again. They would never pass back the way they
came. They’d crossed over. They weren’t yet in the promised land
but they were once and for all done with Egypt. They were indeed saved from the old
life – saved through hardships – saved with divine power. And in chapter 15 they can do nothing
but sing.
What about us? Many Christians think of themselves as filthy
pigs sheltered from judgement but made miserable by the call to fly. We preachers get up and tell everyone
to live new lives in Christ, and so often we feel ‘I can’t’. I’m grateful for the cross, I’m grateful
that I’m sheltered on the final day – but it doesn’t make any difference
today. I feel like I’m still a
slave to sin. I don’t feel like
I’m a new creation. I don’t feel
like I’ve crossed over. I’ve got
no power to lead a new life.
Well turn to Romans chapter 6 as we finish.
Do you remember a couple of weeks ago we thought about 1
Corinthians 10. And there Paul
said that the Israelites were baptised into Moses when they went through
the Red Sea. Baptised into Moses. That’s basically saying they trusted
Moses to lead them through a place they couldn’t get through
themselves. They were united to
Moses and because Moses got through the waters, they could get through
the waters.
Well of course we’ve been baptised into Christ. We have no ability to defeat the armies
of sin and Satan and we certainly can’t get through the waters of
judgement. But Christ can. And a Christian is someone who says ‘I
trust you Jesus. I know you can
get through death and judgement and I throw my lot in with you. You go at the Head, I trust you, I
follow you, I’m united to you.
Where you go, I will follow.’
That’s what being baptised into Christ means.
Ok now let’s read Romans 6.
Paul has just been talking about how the cross shelters us from
the coming judgement. No matter
how much we sin, we’re still saved.
And then he asks the question:
Romans 6:1 What shall
we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2
By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were
baptised into his death?
If you are
united to Jesus: You are as dead to sin and Christ’s lifeless corpse laid
in the tomb. It doesn’t matter
what you feel – Christ is your reality.
You are dead to your old life.
Look on to v5
5 If we have
been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be
united with him in his resurrection.
Do you see –
we have shared in Christ’s death and we WILL share in His
resurrection. We are done with
Egypt and we will see the promised land.
But where are we? We’re in
the wilderness. But the one thing
about the wilderness is that we ARE DONE with the old life.
6 For we know that our old
self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7 because
anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Friends, we
are not slaves to sin. We are not
bound to it. Christ’s death has
freed us from it.
8 Now if we died with Christ,
we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that
since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no
longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to
sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ
Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body
so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer the parts
of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life
(through the Red Sea!); and offer the parts of your body to him as
instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your (slave)master,
because you are not under law, but under grace.
The key is
that word in v11 ‘count yourselves dead to sin’. It’s a word that means ‘think about
it.’ ‘You do the maths’. Mull it over. The Israelites wrote a song to remember
the Red Sea experience – we need to keep singing about our
redemption. They had all sorts of
ceremonies to weave these truths into the fabric of their lives. They got together and spoke these
truths into each others’ lives. We
need to do this. Through our own
Red Sea, we have been baptized into Christ, and while we wait for our
resurrection future we have the power to lead the new life even now in
this wilderness time. So are you
remembering? Are you feeding on
these things in the Scriptures?
Are you singing these truths?
Are you meeting with others to encourage one another? Don’t stop doing that. We are wilderness people and we need to
remember – He has saved us from the old life, and He continues to deliver
us through hardships, and He empowers us with divine strength.
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