Amen.
Exodus chapter 15, the Bible reads in verse number one,
then saying Moses and the children of Israel,
this song unto the Lord and spake saying,
I will sing unto the Lord for you triumphed gloriously,
the horse and his rider,
hath he thrown into the sea.
So this is one of many songs
that are recorded in the Bible.
Of course, the longest book in the Bible is a song book,
the book of Psalms,
but also interspersed throughout
other Old Testament passages.
For example, in the books of Samuel
or here in the book of Exodus,
the book of Judges,
in the book of Isaiah,
you'll have songs that are mixed in
that are recording different praises
that the children of Israel would sing to God.
And of course, these songs are inspired by God.
They are the word of God.
And I think that God is trying to teach us
with these songs,
a pattern of how to praise the Lord
and of how to sing unto the Lord,
because the songs that we write as God's people
should, I think, mirror the songs in the Bible in many ways.
God's giving us a pattern or an example of,
hey, here are the types of songs that you could write.
Because I do believe that God wants us to sing a new song.
Some people have an attitude that says
we should only sing from the book of Psalms.
But I think that the hymns out of the hymnal
that have been written by Christians over the years
are also very edifying
that we should use Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
But obviously when we are writing new hymns
or new songs in the Lord, the Bible provides a pattern.
You know, if we have a few hundred songs in the Bible
to look at as a pattern, then that gives us an idea.
And one of the things that stands out to me
when I look at the songs in the Bible
is just how much doctrine they have
and how diverse they are.
They're very different.
You know, when you read the book of Psalms,
you have some Psalms that are very positive
and joyful and uplifting.
And then you have other songs that are pretty negative
in the book of Psalms that are, you know,
cursing and damning God's enemies.
And if you think about it,
this song is a little bit negative
because it's about people being brown
and people being killed and everything like that.
So we want to make sure that our hymnal
is not too sanitized to where we have this hymnal
where we only sing really happy, joyful,
friendly, positive songs.
You know, there could be some negative songs mixed in,
amen, so that we can be like the book of Psalms.
That's why I like how at our church, you know,
we're bringing back singing a lot of the Psalms themselves
because you'll get a lot of that negative subject matter
and just the deep doctrine, just variety, really, you know,
where you got the positive, you got the negative,
you got the joyful, you've got the sadness,
you've got the wrath of God, for crying out loud.
That's why I like to sing that Psalm that we do, Psalm 139.
Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
You know, if churches would have been singing that Psalm
all along and reading that Psalm
and meditating on that Psalm,
then they wouldn't have bought into the world's propaganda
against hate speech, where everything's hate speech.
If they actually had been studying their Bibles
and singing those songs,
that thought wouldn't enter their mind.
They'd be like, what, hate's always bad, what?
What's this song about?
So it's important that we sing the Psalms
and that our music also mirror the Psalms
in that it has a good doctrinal depth
and a good variety of subject matter,
and that it's not just a shallow, generic song.
These songs are packed with teaching.
So let's go through this.
He starts out saying, I'll sing unto the Lord,
for he hath triumphed gloriously.
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation.
My father's God, and I will exalt him.
Now, obviously this is prophetic
of preparing a literal habitation.
They're gonna go into the promised land
and they're gonna set up the tabernacle
and it's going to be the house of God.
Or we think of today in the New Testament, the church.
The Bible says that the church of God is the house of God
in 1 Timothy 3.
But also when it talks about preparing God a habitation,
somewhere for him to live,
that's what habitation means, like a dwelling place.
That's also just talking about in our hearts.
The Bible says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith
that you being rooted and grounded in love
may be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the length and breadth and depth and height.
So we should prepare our hearts to be a habitation for God,
basically that God would dwell in our hearts,
that we would meditate upon the things of God,
God's word, have I hidden my heart,
that I might not sin against thee.
And when we sing praises to God, read the Bible,
meditate on the Lord,
then we're preparing him a habitation within us.
We want our body to be a suitable temple
for the Holy Spirit, right?
So that's a habitation in ourselves right there.
So he says, I will prepare him a habitation.
My father's God and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.
Now that's a pretty interesting statement.
The Lord is a man of war.
Now, some people have pointed out and said,
hey, there's a contradiction in the Bible
because some places the Bible says that God's a man
and then other places it's clear that he's not a man.
Which one is it?
Well, the answer is both because of the fact
that you've got the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
And so I'm gonna flip back, if you would, to Genesis 32.
And this is a point that I hammer often
because it's so important.
If you go back to Genesis 32,
you have one of my favorite Bible stories.
This is actually the first, it's funny,
I read a book about MMA and it recorded this
as the first MMA fight in the history of mankind
in Genesis 32 because you basically have the element
of tapping out here, okay?
Where he says, let me go.
And he says, not until you bless me, you know?
And you basically tap out here in Genesis 32.
But this is one of my favorite stories
where Jacob wrestles with the Lord.
And it says in verse number 24 of Genesis 32,
and Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him
until the breaking of the day.
And this is one of many times where the Bible refers
to the Lord as a man, okay?
So they're wrestled with him a man
until the breaking of the day.
And then in verse 29, and Jacob asked him and said,
tell me I pray thee thy name.
And he said, wherefore is it that thou didst ask
out for my name?
And he blessed him.
And Jacob called the name of the place, Penuel,
for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.
And as he passed over, Penuel,
a little bit different spelling there,
as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him
and he halted upon his thought.
So Peniel simply is Hebrew for the face of God.
So he names the place Peniel because he says,
I've seen the face of God and my life was preserved.
And then over time, as the language evolved,
that name evolved into in Moses day being called Penuel
with a U instead of an I there.
So basically we see that he saw the face of God
and did live.
How can that be when other places say
that if any man look upon his face, he'll not live.
The Lord said, no man shall see my face and live.
Yet we have the Lord walking up to Abraham
in Genesis 18 in the heat of the day.
And what does it call him there?
A man walking up to Abraham.
And it turns out that it's the Lord Jehovah
that he's speaking with.
The Bible says, God is not a man that he should lie
nor the son of man that he should repent.
But yet here in Genesis 32, Genesis 18, Exodus chapter 15,
we see the Lord described as a man.
So what gives?
It's because Jesus, the son of God is a man.
God the father is not a man.
God is a spirit, Jesus said, and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth.
So God is not this flesh and bone man that Jesus Christ is.
God is spirit.
Jesus Christ is the express image of his person.
Jesus Christ is a man and Jesus called himself
more than anything else, the son of man.
Which what does he mean there
when he calls himself the son of man?
He's basically calling himself a human being.
Son of man means that he's a human being, okay.
And so Jesus calls himself the son of man, the son of man.
There's prophecy in Daniel chapter seven
about how the son of man is gonna come in the clouds
and so forth, talking about the second coming of Christ
in Daniel chapter seven, okay.
But yet here we see the Lord is a man of war.
The Lord is his name.
This is a true statement because that is referring
to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the captain of the Lord's host.
And we see that even in chapter 14,
when we have the story of the crossing of the Red Sea,
if you remember last week, it talked about how the angel
of the Lord moved from behind them to,
or before them to behind them.
And it talks about in Deuteronomy,
how God's gonna send his angel before them
that's gonna lead them into the promised land
and whoever doesn't obey him is gonna be destroyed.
And then Joshua chapter five is where Joshua comes face
to face with the captain of the Lord's host.
And what does the captain of the Lord's host tell him?
Hey, put off your shoes from off your feet
for the place where on the stands is holy ground.
The exact same statement made at the burning bush
when Moses is talking to whom?
The Lord.
But actually it says in Exodus chapter three verse two,
the angel of the Lord is who he's talking to
in the burning bush because he's actually talking
to the son, the son of God, Jesus.
So don't tell me Jesus came into existence
in Bethlehem's manger as a false doctrine.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
And Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am.
And they took up stones to stone him.
So before Abraham was, Jesus said, I am.
So Jesus exists in the Old Testament,
all the way back in Genesis one,
let us make man in our image.
Jesus is the captain of the Lord's host
going into the promised land.
Remember the rock that followed them was Christ.
So Jesus Christ is present in this story
as the man of war.
Jesus Christ is the man of war.
Now that's gonna come in handy in Revelation chapter 19
when he does battle at Armageddon with the Antichrist, right?
Is he a man of war in Revelation 19?
Absolutely.
So we're gonna understand that Jesus Christ is the same.
So don't get this attitude of, well, you know,
Old Testament God and New Testament God,
and you know, Jesus came and changed everything.
Wrong.
Jesus Christ didn't come to destroy the law.
He came to fulfill the law.
Jesus Christ was the same in the Old Testament.
He was a man of war in Exodus chapter 15
and in Revelation 19 at the very end of the Bible.
Guess what?
He's still a man of war
because he does battle with the Antichrist and his armies.
He devours them with the sword that comes out of his mouth.
He's riding on a white horse
and he is still to this day, a man of war.
That's why he said,
think not that I'm come to send peace on earth.
I came not to bring peace,
but he said, I came to bring a sword,
came to bring division.
And of course that's a spiritual sword,
not a physical sword.
It is flesh and blood that we don't wrestle with,
but rather with principalities, powers,
the rules of the darkness of this world
and spiritual wickedness in high places.
So verse four of chapter 15 here, it says,
Pharaoh's chariots at his host
hath he, the Lord, cast into the sea.
His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.
The depths have covered them.
They sank into the bottom as a stone.
Thy right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power.
Thy right hand, O Lord,
hath dashed in peace as the enemy.
And in the greatness of thine excellency,
thou has overthrown them that rose up against thee.
Thou sent us forth thy wrath,
which consumed them as stubble.
And with the blast of thine nostrils,
the waters were gathered together.
The flood stood upright as a heap,
and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.
And remember what we talked about last week,
the parting of the Red Sea and how scholars and theologians
and scientists will try to debunk this or downplay it
or claim that it was just a mild miracle
or that it was the Reed Sea, not the Red Sea,
Bitter Lakes or something else,
which it doesn't explain why they drowned in it
if it was so shallow.
But remember, the Bible is clear in Exodus 14
that the water was a wall on each side.
So when they crossed the Red Sea,
they literally had a wall of water on the left
and a wall of water on the right.
And that's really interesting in verse eight,
how he uses the word congealed.
What does congealed mean?
Well, I think the best way to remember
the meaning of this word is to think of a similar word,
jello, gelatin.
The word gelatin comes from the same root
as the word congealed.
And of course, jello comes from gelatin.
And so when I think of congealed, I think of blood.
When blood dries, it congeals.
So it gets kind of gummy.
So when the Bible says that the water stood upright
as a heap and the depths were congealed
in the heart of the sea,
it's talking about that it became a solid wall of water
on each side, like gelatin or congealed blood would do.
It's congealed on each side of them.
So don't downplay that miracle.
Now, another thing I forgot to mention last week
is that there is some controversy
about where Mount Sinai is actually located.
So like I was saying,
if you look in the back of your Bible,
sometimes it'll have maps
and it'll show the route of the Exodus,
and it never actually shows them crossing the Red Sea.
It actually shows them crossing like little lakes
or puddles or something a little bit higher up.
But where did they actually cross?
Well, the traditional location of Mount Sinai,
if you can just picture in your mind, the Red Sea,
you know it has that little kind of fork at the top
where you have the two different gulfs there coming up,
Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba.
And you have these two gulfs at the top.
And that triangular peninsula
is today called Sinai Peninsula.
So that's where the traditional location of Mount Sinai is.
But I think it's more likely
that Mount Sinai is actually east of the Red Sea,
east of that rightmost finger,
and that it's actually in Saudi Arabia.
And there's another location in Saudi Arabia
and it's called the real Mount Sinai.
And it's actually a mountain
that's actually burned at the top too.
It's actually blackness there.
And it makes a lot more sense
because if you think about it,
if the children of Israel were in that V,
if God led them into that V,
they're pretty much trapped there.
And then if they cross that finger on the right,
then they would head over to the real Mount Sinai.
What's it called again?
It's called like Jabal al-Laz or, what's it called?
Jabal al-Laz.
Oh, I said it right.
I was close anyway, Jabal al-Laz.
You can actually look it up on Google Maps.
It's something like that.
You can look it up on Google Maps
and you can see where it is and everything like that.
I've looked at it, but it's been a long time,
so I don't speak Arabic, so it's hard to remember the name.
But basically, that's probably the real Mount Sinai
because if you think about it, crossing the Red Sea,
we kind of know how long it took
because it took all night to get across, right?
They did it throughout the night.
So it was long enough to where all of Pharaoh's chariots
and horses and all of his men would get into the sea,
but none of them had gotten out the other side yet.
And of course, he slowed down the chariots
by making the wheels fall off.
But the children of Israel were able
to get across in one night.
So if you kind of think about this
and do the math and think about it,
you can come up with a rough idea
of about how far of a body of water they cross.
They probably, and I'm just,
again, this is just a really rough estimate,
but let's say they crossed a body of water
that was about seven miles across, right?
Let me just throw that number out there.
It was approximately seven miles, right?
Well, how long does it take to walk seven miles?
Well, if you're just walking at a casual pace,
which if anything, they might've been going kind of fast,
you know, they might've been in a hurry to get across.
But if you're just walking at a casual pace,
it takes like 20 minutes to walk a mile.
I'm a pretty slow walker,
and I typically walk like 21 minutes to a mile, okay?
So if you do that math,
then that's like two hours and 20 minutes, right?
But they had to get like 2 million people across.
So let's say it was 10 miles across,
then it'd take like, you know,
three hours and 20 minutes or something to get across, right?
So then you can see how that'd be plenty of time
for Pharaoh and his chariots and horsemen
and everybody to get in there.
The wheels fall off, they're stuck.
It's gonna take hours to get out.
The water comes in.
So, you know, you kind of have an idea.
There's no way that they cross the body of water
that was only like, say a half mile, okay?
The story wouldn't make any sense.
The story wouldn't work, okay?
There's no way they cross the body of water.
It's only a couple of miles or something.
Two miles, it's not enough for the story
to be able to function in real life,
which this stuff really happened.
Then it has to be,
but we know they didn't cross some body of water
that's, you know, 40 miles or something,
because obviously that's too much.
So you can kind of, you know, use a little common sense
and narrow it down and figure it out.
And I think that the most likely crossing
is that they went down into that V,
they crossed, you know, down here at the bottom
of the right finger and ended up over here
and then went over to the Mount Sinai.
Now, I don't know that 100%,
but all I know is that they crossed
a substantial body of water and, you know,
it was many miles that they crossed,
but not a crazy amount of miles.
So anyway, I'm just throwing that out there.
Verse number nine said,
the enemy said, the Egyptians,
I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil.
My lust shall be satisfied upon them.
I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.
Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them.
They sank as lead in the mighty waters.
So this is just really vivid, poetic imagery of basically,
you know, they're talking about, man, we're gonna go there,
we're gonna get out our sword,
and then basically God just breathes out his nose,
you know, the breath of his nostrils, right?
So he's just like, you know,
he's not even opening his mouth necessarily to blow.
He blows out his nostrils,
and this is obviously metaphorical,
but just talking about how God just with so little effort,
just wipes them out and they just sink like lead
and they're just wiped out.
It's just nothing to him.
Like think about a little effort you're exerting
to just blow out your nose.
That's just showing how easy it is for God to destroy,
you know, probably the most powerful nation in the world
at this time, most powerful military force.
He just blows on it.
He just, and they're gone,
blows out his nose and they're gone.
Verse 11, who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?
Now, when we see verses like this that mentioned gods,
it doesn't mean that there actually is more than one God,
but the Bible talks about there are Lord's many
and God's many, but he says that there'll be those
that are called lords and called gods
in First Corinthians chapter eight.
But of course we know that there truly is only one God
that actually exists.
So when the Bible talks about these lowercase gods,
it's typically talking about the false gods of the heathen,
which are actually demons that they're worshiping.
So these gods do exist in a sense.
They're not really gods though.
What they actually are is devils or demons or evil spirits,
fallen angels and so forth.
So it says, who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?
He's basically saying, look,
the Egyptians have their gods,
the Canaanites have their gods,
the Philistines have their gods,
but there's no God like the Lord.
He is unique.
He is the only true God that could deliver
in this mighty way.
Who is like thee, glorious in holiness,
fearful in praises, doing wonders?
Thou stretchest out thy right hand,
the earth swallowed them.
Thou and thy mercy has led forth the people
which thou has redeemed.
Thou has guided them in thy strength
unto thy holy habitation.
The people shall hear and be afraid.
Sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine.
See, that is a biblical name, Palestine.
Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed.
The mighty men of Moab, trembling,
shall take hold upon them.
All the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.
Now this is true, because if you remember,
Rahab the harlot later in the book of Joshua is gonna say,
hey, we heard about how God parted the Red Sea for you,
and our hearts melted.
She said, look, when we heard that,
we were scared to death.
Unfortunately, the children of Israel
don't take this to heart.
They're like, yeah, man, when the dukes of Edom,
when the mighty men of Moab,
man, when the people of Canaan hear about this,
their hearts are gonna melt.
But then when they get to the Promised Land,
what do they do?
Oh, we can't do it.
And they whine about it.
And then they end up falling back
and wasting 40 years in the wilderness.
But Rahab the harlot,
from the perspective of the Canaanites knew,
yeah, we are scared.
The children of Israel didn't have the faith.
They forgot about this.
Verse 16, fear and dread shall fall upon them.
By the greatness of thine arm,
they shall be as still as a stone,
till thy people pass over, O Lord,
till the people pass over which thou has purchased.
And we talked about in chapter 13
about the concept of redemption
and God purchasing the children of Israel.
Thou shall bring them in and plant them
in the mountain of thine inheritance,
in the place, O Lord,
which thou has made for thee to dwell in,
in the sanctuary, O Lord,
which thy hands have established.
The Lord shall reign forever and ever.
So they're talking about being brought
to the mountain of God's inheritance,
the place which the Lord made from dwelling.
Now they're gonna go to the special mountain,
but that's actually not going to become
the final dwelling place for the Lord and his house
and even for the children of Israel,
because that Mount Sinai is in Arabia.
Whether it's the traditional Mount Sinai location
in the Sinai Peninsula,
or whether it's the real Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia,
either way, it's not in Israel, right?
So what is that mountain?
What's the significance of that mountain?
Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, it's also called.
It's given two names, Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb.
Well, if you remember,
when God appeared to Moses at the burning bush,
it was in Mount Sinai, it was in Mount Horeb,
because he tells him, he says,
when you bring the children of Israel out of Egypt,
you're gonna come worship me in this mountain.
This is gonna be a sign unto you,
you're gonna come worship me in this mountain.
So that special mountain, the holy ground,
the place where God manifested to Moses
and to the whole assembly of the children of Israel,
where they all heard the voice of God,
and they were so terrified,
they told Moses, we want you to talk to God,
we don't wanna hear from God directly ever again,
because we're scared.
They were just horrified by the experience
of being confronted with God in Mount Sinai.
So that mountain was a special place.
Put off your shoes from off your feet,
the place you're standing on is holy ground.
But is that the permanent location of God's blessing,
or of God's house, or of God's people?
No, because today, nobody even knows where it is.
We don't even know which one it is, okay?
And the thing about it is that God's house
is not limited to a certain location,
or holy ground is not limited to a certain location.
It's wherever God is.
It's wherever he's choosing to bless at that time,
wherever he appears at that time.
So there are a lot of people today
that are really wrapped up with geography and locations,
where they think, oh, the promised land,
and Israel, and Jerusalem, and oh, the land is so important.
The thing that was important about that land
is the God of the land, and the people of God
being in the land.
You know, like when the Bible says, for example,
in Psalms, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
They shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls,
and prosperity within thy palaces.
He says, for my brethren and companion's sake,
this is what a lot of people don't keep reading,
for my brethren and companion's sakes,
I will now say peace be to thee.
Because of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek thy good.
So a lot of people today have a sticker
on the back of their car, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
But what was the purpose of praying
for the peace of Jerusalem?
Because of our brethren and companion's sakes,
we were to pray for that.
And because of the house of the Lord our God,
is the house of the Lord there today?
No, there is no house of the Lord there.
Our brethren and companions aren't there, okay?
So don't be obsessed with a geographic location.
I mean, what if the children of Israel
would have just got obsessed with Mount Sinai?
They would have just ended up living in the desert
for the rest of their lives.
They would have just, instead of going into land
that flows with milk and honey,
they would have hung out in the desert, okay?
Now God, again, revisits this mountain,
because in the days of Elijah, centuries later,
when Elijah gets discouraged and Jezebel's gonna kill,
Elijah, what does he do?
He flees into the wilderness,
and he ends up hiking across the wilderness
and hiking all the way into Arabia, into Mount Sinai.
Say, how do you know Mount Sinai is in Arabia?
Because Galatians chapter three tells us
that Mount Sinai is located in Arabia.
So let's go back to Exodus chapter 15 here.
Why does my voice keep getting louder?
Is somebody messing with something in the controls,
or is it just, because I'll be preaching along,
and everything sounds right, and then all of a sudden,
it just, the volume starts to go up.
What's going on with these machines here?
So I don't, now I sound normal again, right?
All right, I don't know what's going on with that.
But I started getting too loud there for a minute.
If somebody's there in the sound room changing the volume,
don't change the volume during the sermon, all right?
You know, we gotta just find a good volume
and just stick with it.
So can everybody hear me okay in the back?
Does this sound good right now?
All right, so let's just, let's leave it the way it is.
All right, so Exodus chapter 15 here,
he talks about the mountain,
they're gonna go to the mountain.
See, the reason that they're talking about the mountain
is because that's the instruction that they've been given.
Right, we're gonna leave Egypt,
and we're gonna go worship God in a mountain.
They don't really know what's ahead.
They don't know exactly where they're going.
They know that they're going to a land of milk and honey,
but they don't know that the mountain
is a different place than the promised land.
You know, because they're taking it one step at a time.
And that's how our life is.
You know, God doesn't always show us
the final destination of our life.
We just kind of know what the next step is.
And for them, the next step is Mount Sinai.
So it says, the Lord shall reign forever and ever,
verse 18, for the horse of Pharaoh went in
with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea.
And the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them,
but the children of Israel went on dry land
in the midst of the sea.
And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron,
took a timbrel in her hand,
and all the women went out after her
with timbrels and with dances.
And Miriam answered them, and notice,
she's singing like a chorus,
because what she sings is actually
the first couple of lines of the song.
Because at the very beginning of the song,
in verse one, it said, I will sing unto the Lord,
free of triumph gloriously.
The horse and his rider hath he cast in the sea,
or thrown into the sea.
And then in verse 21, Miriam answered them,
so she's like a chorus answering back.
The song that Moses sang was, I will sing to the Lord.
And then she sings back, the ladies answer with,
sing ye to the Lord.
And then the lines the same, free of triumph gloriously.
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
And they're singing and dancing and praising God
and playing with the timbrels and so forth.
So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea,
and they went out into the wilderness
of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness,
and they found no water.
Now, here's what I want to point out,
a great truth from this sermon,
or from this chapter, rather,
that I want to deliver in this sermon.
Here's the great truth of this chapter.
You can have a really fun time singing and praising God
and dancing and woo, and still be very unspiritual.
And still be totally unspiritual,
and just completely sin against God grievously that week.
Because that's what we see in this passage.
I mean, if you read Exodus chapter 15,
if you look at the music program
of this church in the wilderness,
if you just went to the church in the wilderness
and just studied the music program,
you'd be like, oh man, these people are excited.
They're zealous, they're fired up.
And you know, there are a lot of churches like that.
They've got Miriam, and they got the timbrels,
and they're woo, you know,
and they've got it going on, but hold on a second.
That doesn't make you spiritual.
And here's the evidence, is that in the next breath,
what do they do?
And they just talked about how great God is.
And in the next breath, verse 24,
the people murmured against Moses,
saying, what shall we drink?
And you say, well, that's, you know,
they're not really murmuring.
They're just kind of, they're just thirsty, okay?
They just want water.
Okay, but look at the next chapter,
because this is just right after that.
Look at verse two of chapter 16.
And the whole congregation of the children of Israel
murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness,
and let's see if they're just asking
for a little water after bedtime.
It says in verse three,
and the children of Israel said unto them,
would to God we died by the hand of the Lord
in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,
and when we did eat bread to the full.
Now they're talking about how great it was in Egypt,
and they wish they would have died there.
They don't even want to be delivered by the Lord anymore.
This is like a week later.
It's like a few days, like three days later, okay?
So this is going to, on Sunday, woo, you know,
and then on Thursday, it's like, oh, just kill me now.
I don't even know why I'm even a Christian.
I don't even know why I even go to church.
And look, there's a powerful truth here,
that the emotion, it doesn't get you very far.
You know, when it comes to living a life
filled with the Spirit and walking with God,
it's sort of like nutrition, okay?
Singing praises to God is a simple carbohydrate, okay?
Now look, simple carbohydrates have their place.
You know, I remember when I was a kid,
I used to have this book,
it was called Health, Safety, and Manners.
And this book was like my nutritional Bible, okay?
I was a little, you know how little kids
kind of fixate on things?
When I was a little kid, I had this little book
from the Christian school,
it was called Health, Safety, and Manners.
And I mean, I must have read that book like 50 times.
I would just study the nutrition section,
I would study the exercise.
I would do all the exercises in the book.
I didn't care as much about the manners,
but you know, I really, safety, you know,
but I really honed in on the health part, you know?
I don't know why, but as a kid,
I just, I loved the nutrition and the exercises.
You know, I was doing all the warmups.
I mean, like even to this day,
I still think about and remember principles like,
oh, well, you know, that book said, you know?
And you know, it goes to show you how,
what you teach your kids,
you gotta be careful what you teach them,
because it really sticks with them.
They're like a sponge at that age.
But anyway, I had this book on health, safety, and manners,
and it showed a picture of a candy bar.
And it said like, you know,
if you're about to do some athletic activity
and you need some quick energy, this is what you eat.
You know, eat this candy, you know,
this is gonna give you that burst right away.
Like, because if you eat a slow carbohydrate,
it's not gonna kick in for a while, you know?
But if you eat the simple carbohydrate,
then now the problem with you
is that you're eating the candy bar
and you're not doing the athletic activity, right?
That's the problem.
The candy bars aren't the problem.
It's that you're not doing the sports, okay?
But anyway, you know, they show the kid
and he's about to play the soccer game
and he eats a candy bar.
And you know, I found that to be true.
You know, when I'm running
or going on a long bike ride, you know,
I'll pop a couple peanut butter cup, you know,
organic, Justin's organic peanut butter cups, amen?
You know, I'll pop some of those,
like before I do some kind of a run
or a bike ride or during a run or something.
And here's the thing, it's really easily digested.
You know, it's such a simple carbohydrate.
You pop it in your mouth.
You don't even have to stop running.
You know, it's not like you're eating some big heavy meal.
You just pop those in
and they just go right straight to your bloodstream,
straight to the liver, gives you the glycogen,
gets you rolling.
Okay, so singing praises to God
and worshiping God like this is like a simple carbohydrate.
Like it puts you in a good mood pretty fast,
gets you in the spirit pretty fast,
but it's not a lasting burn.
So if you just only, your only relationship with God
is going to the church and singing and getting emotional
and praising God, and it's all about the music for you.
And there are a lot of churches, believe me,
they're all about the music.
There are a lot of Christians, their whole walk with God,
their whole devotional is music.
Like, oh, well, what do you do?
You read your Bible?
No, you pray?
No, no, I listen to Christian music.
I mean, that's a big thing for people.
But let me tell you, you know what that's like?
It's just like eating only chocolate and candy
and you're not eating any meat.
You're not eating any potatoes.
You're not eating any vegetables.
You're not getting all your essential food groups.
You're not getting essential fat.
It's just all just a quick burn,
just all chocolate and all candy.
That's the key.
Now, look, I'm not against chocolate.
I'm not, these things,
simple carbohydrates have their place,
but not a steady diet of just that, okay?
So what are the complex carbohydrates of the Bible?
You know, you've got the, first of all, what's the protein?
You know, you got to get the protein
of the meat of the word, right?
The doctrine, the doctrine and the complex carbohydrates
of actually reading your Bible and praying
and actually learning doctrine, going out soul-winning,
actually doing work for the Lord.
So you're exercising and burning through
some of those calories that you're taking in.
And I'm telling you,
if you want to be in it for the long haul,
you've got to get some spiritual meat on the bone, okay?
And you need to actually read your Bible.
Look, my sermons are not geared
to just get you through the week.
And I mean, a lot of churches will even,
they'll even say this, like, hey,
we're gonna give you that boost
that you need to get you through the week, you know?
I got to go to church, kind of get my boost,
get my fix and kind of get me through the week.
My preaching is designed to give you like a slow burn.
Not just to give you something that's just,
oh, it's so relevant to me right now, pastor,
that's exactly what I needed to hear.
And look, a lot of times you are gonna come to church
and say, hey, that's exactly what I needed.
But you know, you ever go to church
and it's not exactly what you needed?
All the time.
I mean, if you're going to church three times a week,
it's not always gonna be,
oh man, that's exactly what I needed to hear.
That's exactly what I'm going through right now.
Sometimes it's like the last thing you're going through.
You know, you're dealing with problems with your kids
or something and the pastor's preaching
about the seven vials of revelation.
God pouring out his wrath on the planet.
You know, you're having marriage problems or something.
So it's not always gonna be,
or you know, the Bible's preaching,
the Bible's talking about how to have a good marriage
and the pastor's preaching a marriage sermon
and you're, you know, 12 years old or something,
you know, or you're 90, you know,
and you've already been there, done that, you know?
So, you know, the sermon's not always gonna be
exactly what you need right now, but here's the thing.
The sermon is packing nutrition and vitamins and minerals
that your body's gonna be able to store for later use
and it's gonna be a slow burn.
It's gonna be energy that you're gonna be storing up
those carbohydrates and fats and everything.
You're gonna be storing this up for years from now,
months from now, days from now.
So we need to have a balanced diet,
not just looking for a quick, just quickly,
get me in the spirit, get me fired up,
get me praising God because you know what?
I've seen it my whole life, going to the summer camp,
the emotional sermon, the emotional music,
the emotional altar call,
everybody coming down and crying at the altar
and then literally days later,
they're just doing wickedness
and have no interest in the things of God.
And you say, what in the world?
Who's observed that before at a summer camp?
Because when you're a teenager, this is big,
where the kids get real emotional
but nothing changes in their life.
But isn't that exactly what happened in this passage?
I mean, a great victory, it's emotional,
we're singing praises to God,
we're dancing around, we're so happy, woo!
And then there's no real change on the inside.
You see that?
So what we need to make sure is that we actually
have a change on the inside.
We need to make sure that we actually have a foundation
and a root system that goes down deep,
not just the flowers and leaves of worship and praising God
but rather that we dig way down with a big taproot
called reading our Bible
for a substantial amount of time every day.
And that's the root system.
And you know what?
That's what people don't see.
Just like what do we see?
We see on the outside, we see the flowers,
we see the leaves, we see the branches.
What we don't see is the root system, okay?
And the root system is really gonna determine
when the storm comes whether that tree holds up.
It's not gonna be based on the flowers.
It's gonna be based on the roots that it has, okay?
And then you'll find out who is shallow
and who actually has a depth of a walk with God,
who actually spends time with God,
sweet hour of prayer versus have a little talk with Jesus.
Reading the Bible every day versus,
well, I get the Bible when I go to church, you know.
Actually having serious decisions that you make
in your heart where you actually make a decision
of here's what I'm gonna change about my life
or I'm gonna go to church three times a week
or I'm gonna go soul winning every week
or I'm gonna get this sin out of my life
or whatever the decision that you make
that's actually something concrete of like,
here's what I'm gonna do
versus just, oh, I love God so much.
I just love God so much.
And you know what?
I'm not doubting the sincerity.
I mean, at that moment, that person probably does
really love God that much at that moment.
I don't doubt that sincerity at all.
Because you know what?
For a second there, they were actually in the spirit.
Their blood sugar spiritually spiked.
You know, they went to that summer camp
that crammed them full of peanut butter cups
and they're like, boing, ah, you know.
I have all this energy.
So it's like, yeah.
So for a minute there, they were in the spirit
and you know what?
Everybody who's saved does love God on the inside,
the inward man.
The apostle Paul talked about how he delighted
in the law of God after the inward man
but then he had this other law warring in his memories.
He got the flesh, you know.
Because here's the thing.
If we say we love God and we don't keep his commandments,
we're lying but see, here's the thing.
That's because when we're not keeping his commandments,
we're walking in the flesh.
Okay, when we are walking in the spirit,
then we obey the Lord and here's the thing.
Even if you're walking in the flesh though,
even if you're living a sinful life,
if you're saved, deep down is the inward man.
Deep down is the new creature.
Deep down is the person who really loves God.
And so you know, sometimes the summer camp
can bring that new creature out.
It's like Groundhog Day or something.
You know, this new creature that's hardly ever seen.
You know, it's like, wow, I didn't even know
this person even had a new creature.
You know, when all your worldly friends in high school
that you're thinking to myself,
there's no way this person is a Christian.
But then all of a sudden at the summer camp,
it's like, whoa, this new creature emerges
for like 10 minutes or an hour or two hours.
But here's the thing.
That's not gonna produce lasting spirituality, right?
And I'm not against it.
It's good to have emotional experiences.
It's good to have those mountain peaks of excitement
and praising God.
And sometimes it'll be a preaching service.
Sometimes it'll be a song that you sing,
but you'll have those moments of ecstasy, right?
Where you're just thrilled to be in church
and you're thrilled to be,
maybe it's out soul winning that you have
that mountain top experience.
Those are great, but you know what?
You can't live off that.
No more than you can live off of candy.
You know, it's a treat is what it is.
And if you're not interested in the vegetables
and the meat and the serious food of God's word,
you will not make it in the Christian life.
You'll be exactly like these people
where you're just, woo, you're like a Roman candle,
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and then you're just gone.
Where did he go?
You know, for a minute there,
he was our most zealous church member for like three weeks.
And then he's just gone.
Why?
Because he didn't have any lasting change.
So this is what we see with the children of Israel.
They're pumped, they're excited, they're having fun.
They're praising God, they're filled with the spirit.
I'm not doubting their sincerity,
but they did not have any real decisions that they made.
They didn't have a real serious walk with God.
They weren't spending time daily with the Lord
and walking in the spirit.
And so they revert back to their sinful condition
constantly.
So we've got to watch.
And you say, oh, well, that's only unsaved people.
That's garbage, okay?
Saved people get backslidden.
Get real.
Of course saved people get backslidden.
Otherwise there wouldn't be all these warnings telling you,
let him that thinks he stand to take heed lest he fall
and, you know, put on the new man
and don't walk out of the flesh.
Otherwise Paul wouldn't have talked about
the struggle that he had in Romans chapter seven, okay?
So look, we are all susceptible to getting backslidden.
We're all susceptible to grumbling, moaning, complaining.
And you know, this is one of the biggest sins
that the children of Israel fell into is complaining.
And how often do we see that in 2019 America?
You know anybody like that at work?
You have anybody like that in your family?
You know, do you ever end up being like that?
Somebody who's just always down and depressed
and complaining and upset
and just never happy with anything.
You know, the Bible tells us to be content
in whatsoever state we're in.
And yet the children of Israel, they complained,
they grumbled, they mumbled.
We're all susceptible to that.
We can all, look, I've gone through periods
where I was feeling sorry for myself.
Everybody, Elijah felt sorry for himself.
Jonah felt sorry for himself.
Moses felt sorry for himself at times.
It's part of being a human being.
But it's wrong.
It's a sin.
We need to rejoice in the Lord.
And look, if you need a quick fix,
I'm all for busting out of him as a quick fix.
I mean, there are times when I'm feeling down
and I just need that quick spike
in the blood sugar spiritually.
And you know what I'll do?
I'll just sing a song.
And that works.
But you know what?
That's not gonna get me through the whole day.
It's not gonna get me through my whole week.
It's not gonna get me through the month.
That's just a quick fix.
But you know what?
Before that sugar wears off, you know, yeah,
I'm gonna eat that chocolate.
But you know what?
Before I crash from that, you know what I better do
is sit down and eat a real meal.
So yeah, by all means sing a hymn to lift your spirits.
Sing a hymn for a quick fix.
But then you know what?
Sometime before that wears off,
you better reach for the Bible
and read some heavy chapter in the Bible
so that you actually get something
that's gonna keep you full longer.
Because you know what?
Chocolate peanut butter cups,
they don't keep you full very long.
They're very satisfying at the time.
Extremely satisfying.
All right, but, you know, an hour later, two hours.
That was the biggest mistake I made
when we did that bicycle ride in Kansas.
Where's Charlie?
Here's a mistake I made.
I don't know what I was thinking.
All we did was just fill our backpacks with just snacks
for the whole day.
And we're out in the middle of nowhere.
There's like no restaurants or anything.
And at first I was like,
oh, these are gonna be great.
Whenever I exercise, I always love these peanut butter cups.
I love these chips, you know, these nacho cheese,
organic Doritos and stuff.
And then like, I thought, oh, it's gonna be great.
But you know, when you start out at six or seven
in the morning and it gets to be two, three, four,
and all you've been eating is snacks,
you're just, you need something real.
So finally I found some crummy pizza place,
called in a pizza from my bicycle, you know,
and ate that pizza.
But the thing is like this year, this year, my strategy,
I'm putting two foot long Subway sandwiches in my backpack.
Seriously, I'm gonna get those Italian BMTs
because they, you know,
because they have so many preservatives,
it's not gonna go bad.
You know, with all those nitrates, it'll still be fresh.
That's why I like that, you know, BMT,
all that pepperoni, salami, ham, it's so cured.
Yeah, you know, it'll last for days.
And I'm gonna put a couple foot long sandwiches.
Why?
Because you know what,
the peanut butter cups are gonna be great at first,
but you know what,
I'm gonna need something a little more substantial.
And think about it spiritually, friend.
Yeah, singing praises to God or even emotional preaching.
You know the emotional preaching,
the really tugs at your heartstrings,
the tear jerking illustrations,
people are on their death bed and there's a lot of,
look, I've had sermons bring me to tears, you know,
with the tear jerking illustrations,
but you know what, if that's what you get Sunday morning,
Sunday night and Wednesday night,
you're not going anywhere spiritually.
You've got to get into the heavier sermons.
So don't be one of these people like,
oh God, this sermon's too heavy.
It's too doctrinal.
You know what I mean?
It's too deep.
And all you want is just the screaming and yelling,
ah, bunch of sodomites, you know.
Look, that's great,
but that's more of a peanut butter cup.
You know, or more of a fruit loop, I guess you could say.
What you really need, what you actually need,
and look, I'm for that.
I'm for that kind of screaming and yelling,
hollering, beat the pulpit, kind of preaching,
but you know what, if that's all you get three times a week,
you're not going to make it.
You've got to get the full diet.
You've got to have those sermons on the Trinity.
You've got to have those sermons, you know,
going through Leviticus and going through, you know,
the book of Mark, chapter by chapter, verse by verse,
and going through the gospel of Luke,
and looking at every verse and every parable
and every teaching.
You know, you've got to be rooted
and make sure you get all the vitamins, all the minerals,
all the essential fatty acids.
You need the whole counsel of God.
You don't want to just be like getting a spiritual scurvy
because you're not getting any vitamin C
or whatever the nutrient you're missing.
You know, you're missing your essential fatty acids
and your nerves and your brain aren't functioning properly.
You know, you're not getting any fiber in your diet
and you know, well, I'm not even going to go there.
Well, you know, bad things will happen.
You know, you're not getting enough iron.
So you're, you know, you're anemic.
You're not getting the EFAs.
Your hair starts falling out and what, you know,
all these problems.
You've got to get a balanced diet
and then you got to get out there
and do the work of the Lord
so that you can burn off some of the calories
and you'll be ready for more nutrition.
So that's the main point.
I think we can learn from this chapter
because it's no accident that this chapter starts out
with a praise and worship service
and it ends with everybody burmoring against God.
It's like the exact opposite of how the chapter started.
Right?
So anyway, I'll just quickly hurry up and close here.
They get there.
They can't drink the water.
What do we drink?
The water's bitter.
Verse 25, he cried unto the Lord
and the Lord showed him a tree,
which when he had cast into the waters,
the waters were made sweet.
There he made for them a statute and an ordinance
and there he proved them.
And of course, this could be symbolic of the cross.
You know, that Jesus bear our sins in his own body
on the tree, right?
And so the cross is the one that gives us the water of life
that we can drink and be satisfied and so forth.
And he tested them.
When it says he proved them, it's saying he tested them.
And guess what?
They failed the test, you know,
by murmuring and complaining.
And he said to them in verse 26,
if thou will diligently hearken to the voice
of the Lord thy God,
he's gonna give them another chance, of course,
and will do that which is right in his sight
and will give ear to his commandments
and keep all his statutes,
I will put none of these diseases upon thee
which I have brought upon the Egyptians.
For I am the Lord that healeth thee.
And they came to Elam where were 12 wells of water
and three score and 10 palm trees
and then camp there by the waters.
So basically what happened is they go three days
and they haven't gotten to water.
Now they obviously had water that they brought with them,
but it's running out after three days.
And they get there and it was a test.
God put this bitter water there as a test
and they had the wrong attitude.
But then he throws in the tree, the water's become sweet.
They drink the water,
but then it turned out just the next stop
were all the palm trees and all the water.
So if they would have just hung in there a little longer,
they would have passed the test.
So we need to pass the test in our life.
Sometimes when we're groaning and complaining,
deliverance is just right around the corner.
Blessing is right around the corner.
So we don't wanna just give up too soon
and think like, oh man, I'm doomed.
It's like tomorrow things were all gonna work out.
So don't give up on God.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord.
I pray that you just help us as Christians
to be strong in the Lord and the power of your might.
Help us to take in the nutrition that we need spiritually.
Help us to listen to doctrinal preaching and teaching,
read our Bibles.
In addition to singing and praising you
and the more fun sermons, Lord,
help us to get a balanced diet
so that we can be in it for the long haul,
not for the sprint, but for the marathon, Lord.
And we just pray that you'd bless us now
as we go our separate ways tonight.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.