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Know that God is LORD
Know that God is LORD Exodus 14:1-31 Key Verse: 14:4 “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.” In the previous passages we saw how God chose one man to go and stand before the most powerful man in the world and demand that he let his slave labor force go free. This was a ridiculous thing to do. These slaves were making the Egyptians very wealthy and enabling them not to work at the same time. In short, the Israelites were making the Egyptian lives very comfortable. So of course, when Pharaoh heard Moses demand he simply said no. However, he also said something very interesting that we must keep in mind. When Moses requested that Pharaoh simply let the people go to hold a festival to the LORD in the desert, pharaoh replied by saying, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go. Because God is all knowing, he knew that pharaoh was going to respond this way, so God told Moses that He was going to perform mighty acts so that the Egyptians and the whole world would know that He is the LORD. Up to this point God had provided pharaoh with eleven signs to show pharaoh exactly who He is. If you will remember back a few weeks when we talked about the ten plagues we thought about how each one of these plagues showed God’s absolute superiority over the God’s of Egypt which pharaoh knew very well. After the tenth plague which took all the first born males of the Egyptians and their livestock, pharaoh seemed to understand who God was. In fact, pharaoh didn’t just let the Israelites go to celebrate a festival to the LORD, he drove them out completely. In the last passage we studied we thought a lot about God’s command to the Israelites to commemorate the day of the Passover with an annual feast that was to last seven days and had very specific rules about how it was to be celebrated. God provided this annual festival for the Israelites because he knew just how forgetful people are. In today’s passage we have a perfect example of man’s ability to completely forget the work of God that they have witnessed. It only took a couple of days for pharaoh and his officials to completely forget about what they had witnessed and to only think about what they had lost. This is the nature of fallen mankind. Instead of looking at what God has done and what God is continuing to do we, as sinful human beings, tend to focus on ourselves and what we don’t have and what we want. For pharaoh and his entire army this had devastating consequences. We also want to think about how God works and why it is we should never panic or get discouraged when we face difficult situations. When God changed the course of the Israelites, it appeared to them that He had made a great mistake, but from God’s point of few it was not a mistake at all. In fact it was just a way to accomplish one of the things that He wanted to accomplish when he sent Moses to pharaoh in the first place. That is to make sure that pharaoh and all the Egyptians knew that God is the LORD. May God less are study of this passage and help each one of us to know deep in our hearts that God is indeed the LORD. Part I God changes the Israelites direction (1-4). If you look back at the end of chapter 13 you will see that God was leading the Israelites out of Egypt. He went before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It is important to remember that God, himself was leading them. It wasn’t Moses and it wasn’t without a reason and a direction. In 3:17-18, the Bible tells us where Good was leading them and why. God led them “around by the desert road toward the Red Sea,” because if they faced war along the more direct route through the Philistine country, they might change their mind and turn back to Egypt. However, look at verse 2. “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon.” God told the Israelites to turn around and camp in a particular place. We don’t know precisely where this location was, but if we look ahead to verse 10 we can see that this encampment was in a terrible strategic location from a military point of view. They were encamped with a Sea on one side and an open plain on the other. If any enemy came to attack them there, they would have nowhere to run – they would have to face battle. So why would God lead them in this way? Well, God had his reasons. Look at verses 3 & 4. “Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ 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. If you just look at verses 3 and 4a, it would seem that God was leading them into a battle which is exactly what he wanted to prevent by leading them along the desert road toward the Red Sea. From a human perspective this makes absolutely no sense at all, but verse 4b takes this whole situation out a human perspective and puts it into God’s perspective. Let’s read verse 4b together. “But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” Notice that it says “I will gain glory for myself.” This means that God is going to do everything and the Israelites won’t have to fight at all. This is a very important point. God knew that the Israelites weren’t ready to fight yet and He certainly knew that they wouldn’t stand a chance against the strongest army on the face of the earth at the time, so it is clear that He wasn’t expecting them to do anything. As we will see later they were only required to do three things – more on that a little later. God had led them to this location for three reasons 1) so that He could gain glory for Himself 2) so the Egyptians would know that He is the LORD and 3) so that the Israelites might witness the deliverance of the LORD one more time. The first reason is something that we tend to overlook or to think of it in the wrong way. Remember God created everything for his own glory and all creation sings of the glory of God. Sometimes I think Christians make the mistake that we are somehow gaining glory for God through our work of evangelization. But this is the wrong way of thinking about our life work as a Christian. We are not working to gain God’s glory, we are letting God work through us so that He might gain glory for himself. In fact, if we work only with our own human nature God won’t be glorified in any way and our efforts will be useless. We must simply surrender ourselves to God and let him work in us – this is the only way we can glorify God. Reason #2 is the point of this message. God lead them to this in order that “the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” As I said before, from the very beginning God intended to teach pharaoh, the Egyptians and the whole world who he was through performing miraculous deeds in Egypt, delivering His people from their bondage in Egypt and bring them into the land He promised to give them long ago. Know that God is LORD over all the universe is critically important for everyone even today. In today’s many people think that they are LORD over their own life, but this simply isn’t true. (Perhaps even some of the Israelites thought back in Moses day. After all, they were no longer slaves, so weren’t they free to do as they liked. Not really, they were still be led by God should have been a very strong indication that they were not the LORD of their own lives.) If a person thinks that he or she is LORD of their own lives they must be crazy. After all did they have any control over where they were born and to whom. And do they have any control over their own death. The answer to both of those question has to be no, but, by definition, in order to be LORD you have to have control over everything. Only God has control over everything so only God is LORD. We must always remember this. It is really quite comforting if you think about it. No matter what situation we might find ourselves in, you can rest assured that God is in complete control. If you absolutely trust Him then you will now that you will get out of that situation in such a way that will bring glory to God. This is not always easy to accept, but it is absolutely true. Reason #3 we will get to in just a little while. Part II The forgetfulness of man (5-9) Look at verse 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!’” Pharaoh and his officials had just watched as God completely destroyed their country and taken all of the first born males in their households. God had clearly demonstrated that He was indeed LORD even over Egypt and all it’s power. They should have just let the Israelites go, repented of their pagan practices and started worshipping the one true God. But they didn’t do this. Instead, they immediately began to think of themselves. They began to think about what they had lost. They began to think that now they would have to do some work if they wanted to see the glory of Egypt continue. They looked at their life without slaves and they didn’t like what they saw. They wanted the easy life to continue, so they wanted the Israelites back. Pharaoh didn’t need to be convinced. When he was told that the Israelites were gone he changed his mind and mustered his army to go after them and bring them back. Once again we are reminded how quickly and how easily people can forget what God has done. It is so easy to lose our focus on what God has done in our life and what he is continuing to do in our life and the world, and just focus on what we want. In fact, I think this is not only easy it is natural. To remember what God has done and to thank him for it every day requires work. We have to make a conscious decision to do this every day. To forget about it requires no work and no decision. As we can see from pharaoh and his officials, even if God does exceedingly great things in our lives we ca forget about it in just a few hours. So I urge you to time every day to meditate on what God has done for you and what he is continuing to do even today. If you don’t you will become just like pharaoh and you know how this worked out for him. Part III Stand firm, be still and see the deliverance of the LORD (10-31) Look at verses 10 & 11” As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 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?” When the Israelites saw the Egyptian army approaching they were terrified. As I mentioned before, they had nowhere to run. They were going to have to fight, but they were already completely defeated. They were only thinking about where they were going to be buried. To me their attitude shows that they were no better than pharaoh. They had also already forgot everything they had witnessed in Egypt. They hadn’t lifted a finger to free themselves. God had done everything through great miracles which showed that He was in complete control of the situation, but they didn’t remember any of this. They couldn’t remember anything, because all they could think about was that powerful army that was approaching them. Once again we see human nature in full swing here. Humans always look at things from a human perspective even though that perspective is so limited. We have to overcome difficult situation by looking at them from God’s perspective. We must remember what God has done throughout history and in our own lives. We must remember that God loved each of us enough to die for us and free us from our own bondage and that He is completely sovereign over all things. There is nothing that God cannot overcome and gain glory for himself. We must believe this and trust in God alone, not in what we see before us. How did Moses respond to these complaints? Look at verses 13 & 14 “Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance theLORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Just like when they were back in Egypt, the Israelites weren’t going to do anything. Well that is not entirely true, they had to do three things 1) stand firm, 2) be still and 3) watch the deliverance of the LORD. I don’t think God was asking too much of them. It was God who was going to do all the fighting for them. When I think of this I am reminded of one other person in the Bible who truly understood this principle. That person was David. David was anointed as king by Samuel while Saul was still ruling. David accepted that had made him king, but he depended on God to take care of Saul. Saul was hunting him down to kill him, but David never lifted a finger to bring down Saul. In fact, on two occasions David could have easily killed Saul and taken the kingship for himself, but instead of doing this David simply waited on God. God did the fighting and eventually put David on the throne. If you read through the psalms you will see how David trusted God to fight against his enemies and God always gave him the victory. There are many other examples throughout the Bible, best example is Jesus. Jesus knew full well what was going to happen to him yet he never fought back. Jesus is the sovereign God, He is LORD, but He knew that His Father in Heaven was going to fight the fight for him and give him the victory. God is also fighting for us, but we need to let him. We can’t be full of complaints and a defeated attitude. If we are it means that we are not fully trusting in God. It means that we are looking at our situation from a human point of view instead of God’s point of view. We must not do this. Trust completely in God – He is LORD and will always win the victory for us. We know how this story ends. God parts the Red Sea and the Israelites just walk through, but when the Egyptians try go through, God returns the waters to their rightful place and the entire Egyptian army is wiped out. Finally, all the Egyptians learned that God is LORD – even the most powerful army on the face of the earth was powerless to do anything to stop God’s plan. Look at verse 31. “And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.” It is amazing to think that only after seeing this final victory over the Egyptians did the Israelites fear the LORD and put their trust in him. And as we will see shortly this trust in God was pretty short lived. Put your trust in the LORD today. Know that he is LORD and will always fight for you. |
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