(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Exodus chapter 14 the Bible reads in verse 1 the Lord spake unto Moses saying speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and in camp before Pahiroth between Migdah and the sea over against Baal Ziphon before it shall ye encamped by the sea for Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel they are entangled in the land the wilderness hath shut them in and I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall follow after them so at the beginning of the chapter here God is actually instructing Moses to walk into a trap with the children of Israel he's basically telling him camp in this certain place where you're gonna be stuck where you're gonna have the water behind you and the wilderness is gonna shut you in because if you put yourself in that position then Pharaoh's gonna think to himself oh we got him now you know they're trapped and then I'm gonna harden Pharaoh's heart and he's gonna go after you guys and so one of the things we can learn from this is that you know God sometimes wants us to be in situations where we're under attack or God wants us to be in situations where things are difficult or maybe even they look hopeless because he wants to be glorified he wants to do something great and so when we find ourselves in a bad situation or we find our back against the wall so to speak sometimes that's exactly where God wants us it doesn't mean that we're out of God's will or that we've made a mistake necessarily a lot of times God puts us in those kind of positions sort of like the guy in John chapter 9 where the disciples asked Jesus why was this man born blind did he sin or did his parents sin and he said well no this guy was born blind for the glory of God he was born blind just so that I could heal him of being blind so here God's putting them in a position that's hopeless so that he can do a miracle and so that he can wipe out the Egyptians so he said in verse four I'll harden Pharaoh's heart and he shall follow after them and I will be honored upon Pharaoh and upon all his hosts that the Egyptians may know that I'm the Lord and they did so and it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people and who turned their heart against the people God did right God hardened his heart and so God is stirring them up to do this and they said why have we done this that we've let Israel go from serving us and he made ready his chariot and took his people with them and he took 600 chosen chariots and all the chariots of Egypt and captains over every one of them and the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued after the children of Israel and the children of Israel went out with an high hand but the Egyptians pursued after them all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh and his horsemen and his army and overtook them and camping by the sea beside Pihai Roth before Baal Zephon and when Pharaoh drew nigh the children of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold the Egyptians marched after them they were sore afraid and the children of Israel cried out into the Lord and they said unto Moses because there were no graves in Egypt has thou taken us away to die in the wilderness wherefore has thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt saying let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians for it'd be better for us to serve the Egyptians though that we should die in the wilderness and so we got to remember when we're reading this that it's a picture of the Christian life you know first Corinthians chapter 10 tells us that when they cross the Red Sea it's a picture of baptism they were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea and at the rock that followed them was Christ and on and on so this is all symbolic the Passover is a picture of salvation the blood of the Lamb is applied and they're spared death and the Red Sea leaving Egypt is a picture of you know going out from among them and being separate leaving the world and the worldly way of life and going into the promised land which represents the victorious Christian life serving God being in the will of God okay so what we see here is that the children of Israel get to a point where they're in adversity and they're starting to want to go back to Egypt or wish that they had never left now we see this again and again in the book of numbers and onward where they they start to think hey I think things were better back when we were in Egypt now of course when they're in Egypt their lives were made bitter with cruel bondage their life was horrible and they of course they don't want to go back there but this is how they feel in the moment and so the way we would apply this to ourselves is that sometimes when we're living the Christian life when we're going through a bad time we might be tempted to think to ourselves that the worldly days were better you know why did I even get in church anyway if this is how things are gonna end up you know why am I even serving God I thought if I live for God I'm supposed to be blessed and it and you know it's supposed to be better and then people could have this wicked thought but let me tell you something first of all is that when if you ever long to go back to the old sinful life I guarantee you if you go back it won't be the same as it was when you left it okay even if it were the same it it was bad then and it's gonna be bad again okay because you know the children of Israel are totally wrong about it being better in Egypt Egypt was terrible okay but they they're kind of idealizing it in their mind a little bit like oh you know maybe it wasn't so bad being back there when reality was horrible it was torture okay so we need to always remember that the worldly life is not what it's cracked up to be the sinful life is not what it's cracked up to be don't ever be tempted to go back to that okay also why are they even tempted to go back to that because they're they're saying oh we're gonna get destroyed we're gonna get wiped out yeah but have you died yet no you're not dead so they they're talking about what's going to happen and you know what a lot of our biggest complaints in the Christian life aren't even things that happen it's just things that we think are gonna happen or we say might happen or something it's all these hypotheticals of well this is probably gonna end up happening it's like when David got discouraged what did he say well I'm probably gonna perish by the hand of Saul someday it's not gonna perish by the hand of Saul he's already been anointed king of Israel the Holy Spirit's upon him God's gonna get him all the way to the finish line but what did he say well you know what eventually Saul's gonna get me and then that's when he ends up defecting over to the Philistines getting out of the will of God so we don't want to have this attitude that says life in Egypt is better no it's better to die for Christ than to go back to that way of life you'd be better off dying in the Christian life be better off just completely being wiped out as a Christian then the then the best day of worldliness okay then the pleasures of sin for a season it's all vanity and vexation of spirit back there in the world okay and second of all quit complaining about stuff that hasn't even happened yet all right when it happens then we'll talk but all this hypothetical doom and gloom there have been so many things that I've worried and stressed about stressed out about and then they didn't even happen what a waste of your nerves you know to worry about that stuff and it doesn't even end up happening so they're saying you know man I wish you would just left us in Egypt why just let us serve the Egyptians it's better than dying in the world no actually you're better off dying in the wilderness amen I'd rather die on the battlefield than to be serving the devil for the rest of my life so it says in verse 13 and Moses said unto the people fear ye not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which he will show to you today for the Egyptians whom you've seen today you shall see them again no more forever the Lord shall fight for you and ye shall shut up right he's saying you shall the Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace and the Lord said unto Moses wherefore cryest thou unto me speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward but but lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of sea now don't miss this profound truth okay notice the order go forward and then you're gonna put out your rod and you're gonna part the Red Sea right they're told to move forward before the sea is parted which shows that they're not all the way up at the brink of the sea they're not all the way to the edge they're not all the way with their back against the wall they're not all the way up to the sea and this is the way the Christian life is we have to keep going forward and as long as we can take one more step forward or three more steps forward we just need to take those steps and not try to look too far in advance okay so here's the thing yeah the Red Sea is in front of you it looks like an insurmountable obstacle but the command is go forward anyway keep going forward go until you can't go anymore and they have not yet done that they've stopped and he says tell them to go forward and then you're gonna do this miracle you're gonna part the Red Sea and they're gonna go across on dry land so Bible says that the Word of God is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path and so God's Word does not illuminate the entire journey before us we don't know what's gonna happen six months from now we don't know what's gonna happen a year from now two years from now five years now but God always shows us the next step we know what we're supposed to do today we know what we're supposed to do tomorrow and each day that comes along we know what to do and God keeps revealing the path to us as we go but he's not gonna just show us the whole thing and so a lot of times people will quit because again hypotheticals oh three months from now this is gonna happen six months from now or I'm always gonna be in this situation I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in this situation you don't know that you don't know what's a day is gonna bring forth so all you need to do is just keep going forward go forward go forward go for it and don't like plan it out and decide why it's doomed and then quit just keep taking the next step and watch how God will open things up for you that you didn't even see as a possibility and obviously the Red Sea is an extreme example because how can you cross this gigantic body of water but yet God opened it up and the things that we're facing in our life are typically not even a Red Sea they're they're just little minor obstacles little minor bumps in the road and we just need to keep going forward go forward go for it and God's gonna open up the way before us don't try to think too far in advance take no thought for the tomorrow the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself you know this isn't one of those job interviews of like hey where do you see yourself five years from now or something I you know I have no clue you know it's a good thing I don't have to do any job interviews anytime soon because you know what I'm not thinking about five years from now ten years from now 15 years from now because of the fact that I'm just following the path in front of me I'm just kind of seeing where that the journey leads and that's the way this whole journey is because they don't even know where they're going he's taken them to the promised land the land flowing with milk and honey where's that they don't know and they end up wandering around in the wilderness and going all over the place okay look at Abraham he's told he's gonna go into a land that I will show you he doesn't know where it is he doesn't know where he's going but he just keeps following there's the cloudy pillar now leading the children of Israel they're supposed to follow the cloudy pillar and they don't know where they're going but they always know what the next step is and when the cloudy pillar stops it might stop for a week it might stop for a month it might stop for a year they don't know they're supposed to just follow and that's a picture of the Christian life we are supposed to just do the next thing that God commands us to do and we may not have all the answers about the way the rest of our life is gonna turn out but we just need to do the part that we can see right here I know I'm supposed to do this and then do that and and watch as the way becomes illuminated before you so he tells them go forward and then you're gonna lift up your rod verse 16 and stretch out thy hand over the sea and divide it and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea and I behold I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians and they shall follow them and I will get me honor upon Pharaoh and upon all his host upon his chariots and upon his horsemen and the Egyptians shall know that I'm the Lord when I've gotten my honor upon Pharaoh upon his chariots and upon his horsemen and the angel of God which went before the camp of Israel went behind them removed and went behind them and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face and stood behind them and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel and it was a cloud of darkness to them but it gave light by night to these so that the one came not near the other all the night so this is a really interesting thing that we see all throughout Exodus numbers where you have the cloudy pillar in the daytime and then at night it's like a pillar of fire okay and this cloudy pillar goes before the children of Israel to lead them but at this point the cloudy pillar removes and actually goes behind them and then it also talks about the angel of God verse 19 which is a reference to Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is the messenger of God angel simply means messenger and that's why you'll see times where the angel of the Lord is worshipped in the Old Testament where there's an angel of God that's worshipped or you know he comes to them and and and tells them you know put off your shoes from off your feet I'm the captain of the Lord's host place you're on his holy ground that angel of the Lord that met Moses in the burning bush that was an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ they went with Jesus into the Promised Land and so we see here that the angel of God switches from leading them to getting behind them and protecting them from the Egyptians and then also the cloudy pillar moves behind them and it's stood between them and the cloudy pillar representing the presence of God the glory of God the power of God is between the Egyptians and the Israelites and to the Israelites it actually provides light right it gave light to these but then it's total darkness on the side of the Egyptians you know that's sort of like the Word of God isn't it because the Word of God illuminates our life it shines the light on our life and it's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path God's Word is light but to the unsaved to the unbeliever to those that reject the Word of God they cannot understand the Word of God the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned and so it is a wall of darkness to him it darkens him especially the reprobate mind because the Egyptians here that are following after and pursuing the children of Israel they don't just represent unsaved people they actually represent reprobates because if you remember these are people whose hearts God hardened so God hardened the Egyptians hearts so that they would follow so this picture is the reprobate mind the one who has been hardened and blinded by God and so God's power God's glory the Word of God the Spirit of God is a source of darkness unto them but it's a source of light unto God's people and it says so that the one came not near the other all the night so God's able to protect us from persecution all right so they're being persecuted right now and again this is all symbolic obviously these stories actually happened but they are also allegorical as well and so it's a picture of the Christian life you know we're trying to do something good in our Christian life we come up against an obstacle and God tells us go forward keep going go through the obstacle keep pushing forward he's gonna open it up for us and then the devil's crowd right the reprobates the sons of Belial they come after us and persecute us and try to torment us and what does God do God gets behind us and he protects us okay so we need to trust that the Lord is going to protect us from persecution so many people today are afraid of persecution and of course the Bible commands us not to be afraid of persecution he says fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer we are not to fear persecution we're to fear God only and do what he says and not worry about the persecution because God is more than able to protect us and again 99% of the persecution that Christians are afraid of is hypothetical it's a boogeyman that never even actually ever catches up to them I mean think about pastors are so afraid of persecution but have they ever even really been persecuted in the United States of America very little persecution has hit any of us but yet everybody's just shaking in their boots of persecution what in the world I mean what are you even afraid of how do you know that God's not gonna prevent all that persecution before it even happens and look if you think that you can be a godly fired-up red-hot soul-winning Christian in 2019 and not face any persecution you're crazy because we're living in a nation that's being given over right now I mean there are just so many reprobates and so many haters of God it's just it's getting hostile toward Christianity and it's that's the trend okay so if you think that you're gonna be able to just be fired up and serving God and just doing great things and it's and there's gonna be no opposition you're crazy it's just not gonna happen it never happened in the Bible like that it's certainly not gonna happen in our country today you have to be ready the Bible says he had all the will of God in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution but you just got to go forward go forward and let God fight your battles for you let God protect you and look I'm speaking from experience you know here I am I've been pastoring for what 13 and a half years now is that right or is it more or less 13 and a half years now I've been pastoring and look I have angered the devil's crowd a few times am I right you know I mean I've angered the synagogue of Satan I've angered Sodom and Gomorrah I have angered the devil's crowd at you name it I've angered this false religion I mean I've angered the Hindus the Muslims the Catholics the Orthodox I've angered every just about everybody that you could mention 70 avenues are mad the Mormons are mad Jehovah's Witnesses are mad that black Hebrew Israelites are mad I mean look I've angered the devil's crowd okay I've angered the US government I've angered the Jews I mean I've angered everybody okay the SP LC and just just a couple weeks ago the ADL wrote a whole article about how my channel needs to be shut down on YouTube and how dare YouTube still host this guy's channel and whatever and you know yet here I am here I am and you know what I'll tell you what the cloudy pillar has protected me from like 99% of the persecution you know I'm I mean knock on wood but I have experienced I think very little actual persecution that actually hit home you know what I mean now the enemy has thrown a lot of punches but very few of them have landed over the last 13 and a half years that's what I'm saying so what would it make any sense for me to just go through my life just scared of persecution when you know the vast majority of the time it's like that dream where you're trying to punch somebody and you can't really get any power behind it who's ever had that dream before pretty much everybody all right it turns out I'm normal so you know that dream where you're just punching somebody in the face and your punches just have no power that's basically how the you know how the the the the sons of Belial when they persecute Christians that's most of the time how it is if you just stand your ground it all just kind of bounces off okay and so the point is don't live in fear of that stuff you know and and don't think that you can compromise with the Egyptians like don't send out the white flag you know you're at the Red Sea your backs against the wall the Egyptians are bearing down on you don't say like hey let's negotiate just go forward don't take one step backward in your Christian life do not backslide go forward move forward keep going forward okay why because the Egyptians are impossible to compromise with they're impossible to please they're implacable okay that's a word that's a vocabulary word that every Christian needs to know I know it's not a common word and some people thought I meant implacable like it can't put you anywhere you know but it's implacable all right if you don't know what that word means you look that up in the dictionary and figure out what it means and realize that the children of the devil are implacable the reprobate of Romans 1 are implacable implacable means you cannot placate them you cannot please them you cannot satisfy them implacable means that no matter what you offer to do as a compromise they'll always take more you give them an inch they're gonna take a mile you give them a finger they're gonna take the whole hand they will never ever be satisfied and look just this week I saw some news article about all these transvestites protesting chick-fil-a in Toronto Canada who saw that what in the world I mean this this chick-fil-a isn't exactly faithful word Baptist search all right I mean they basically they're like they were reportedly said that they support traditional family values I was like oh man wow they didn't even say anything negative about the bundles of sticks out there but they basically just said like well you know we just support you know the Bible's view on marriage or the family and then it's like people are just enraged that they're serving a chicken sandwich to them right I mean that's what this award look Toronto Canada today is freaking out because the owner of a chicken restaurant said something didn't even say something negative just said something positive about the Bible's view on the bank now you tell me that we can compromise with these people you can't even be quasi Christian you can't even just have a halfway normal view of the family without these people freaking out and and okay that's Canada but we're just one step behind Canada okay we're a couple steps behind Canada but anyway you know that's the future I mean give me a break that doesn't that just show you how implacable they are eat chick-fil-a Baptist is not even acceptable you think faithful word Baptist is ever gonna be anywhere near acceptable on these people it's never gonna happen so give up on trying to compromise with the devil's crowd give up on trying to make them happy give up on meeting them in the middle get as far away from them as you possibly can go out of Egypt with a high hand and don't look back and go forward and let God be your rearward to fight your battles and protect you from behind he's got your back amen you just got to go forward all right and so these people are implacable if they won't even tolerate chick-fil-a and then I saw another article this week this lady who is in the Congress of Finland and I don't know what they call their Congress I don't know if they call it the stewarting or Parliament or whatever they call it but this legislator this government official this woman in Finland this is all she said she just got up and said how is it consistent with the Lutheran Church's beliefs to support a gay pride parade when their doctrine is supposed to be based on the Bible so she's saying how is it consistent for the Lutheran Church of Finland to support this when they're supposedly based their beliefs on the Bible and then she just posted some verses from Romans 1 and you know what they're trying to they're trying to prosecute her criminally they're not just trying to say she's bad or she needs to step down or we don't like her they were literally listing the criminal codes that she was violating by saying that just by even saying anything negative toward this queer community I mean is that just bizarre I mean so this is it just goes to show you how extreme the censorship is how extreme the devil's crowd is they are implacable they're not gonna stop and so we need to just go forward and leave them in the dust and trust God to have our back as we go forward amen so the Bible says here that they came not at them all night verse 21 and Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground and the waters were a wall unto them on their on their right hand and on their left now the reason that God gives this detail of the waters being a wall on the right hand on the left is because people will try to explain away this miracle in fact if you look in the back of your Bible and it has a map of the Exodus you know some Bibles have maps in the back I promise you none of them show them actually crossing the Red Sea I've never seen a map in the back of any Bible that shows the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea and if you look in the back I mean if somebody has one raise your hand and tell me about it but the ones that I see they're crossing like the Bitter Lakes or the Reed Sea do you see that everybody who sees like a Bitter Lakes crossing or a Reed Sea crossing yeah look at all these look at all these maps several hands does anybody have one where they actually go across the big body water the Red Sea none of them they all have them crossing because this is what the scholars have told us that you know they actually cross the Reed Sea so they want you to think it's like a wetland now reeds are like tule's who knows what I'm talking about is there a better word for a reed or a tule is that what's that cattails yeah that's another name for it it's like yes swamp lands or right now when I was a kid you're you know around like I remember around like 1991 1992 and you know there's a lot of environmental stuff going on as always and the big thing in the California public schools was like we got to preserve the wetlands who did who went into those wetlands and when all those field trips yeah it was just a huge deal the wetlands you know and so man I learned a lot about those wetlands because it was like we're we got to save these suckers you know so we'd take all these field trips to the wetlands and so we learned about the tule's or the reeds and I used to have piano lessons on a street called tule court also so I remember that but you know the reed shaking with the wind right the wetlands so they want you to believe that they didn't cross the Red Sea they actually crossed the Reed Sea and it was like a wetland okay so that's why it wasn't really that big of a miracle okay but here's a huge miracle then why did Pharaoh drown in a wetland it's just some stupid little wetland then why you know they say oh it's only up to their waist or something well then how come Pharaoh's army is drowning in three feet of water it doesn't make any sense right and so the Bible's really clear that there was a wall of water on each side okay so this time Hollywood got it right for once with Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments they actually one time got it right now I'm not saying the rest of the movies accurate but you know they actually show a wall of water on each side that's literally what it was like it was there I mean if you were if you were crossing the Red Sea with the children of Israel you it was like going to the aquarium I mean you literally had a wall of water on this side and a wall of water on this side that's what the Bible says so when he parted the Red Sea I've seen other like scientists try to explain how the wind can sometimes blow the sea aside but that's why the Bible says they went on drying the ground because even if a strong wind just naturally were to create some shallowness it wouldn't be dry that fast would it this is a supernatural parting of the Red Sea wall of water on each side and walking on dry ground in the midst so don't downplay this miracle it was the Red Sea I don't care what that map shows it was the Red Sea and they had a wall of water on each side and it was extremely deep which is why the entire Egyptian army is going to drown in it okay so every detail in the Bible matters the wall on each side is to let us know what this was like and the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea even all Pharaoh's horses his chariots and his horsemen and it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked upon the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians and took off their chariot wheels now here's another thing make no mistake about this crossing the Red Sea took a long time it took a long time it wasn't a small body of water it wasn't some bitter lakes Reed sea crossing it took a long time to cross because think about it there had to be enough time for all the children of Israel which were literally about two million people because later they're gonna number the men of war as 600,000 you have at least two to three million people crossing the Red Sea how long does it take two to three million people to get from point A to point B it's gonna take time take a long time but not only that there had to be enough time for the Egyptians to go after the children of Israel and the children of Israel are still in the sea and the Egyptians are coming after them but have not yet reached them so it has to be a really long path through the sea in order for the tail end of the children of Israel to still be leaving while Pharaoh and his hosts are coming in and then there has to be enough time for all the children of Israel to get out Pharaoh and his hosts are still coming and there has to be enough time for all of Pharaoh's entire army to get in the Red Sea before any of them reach the other side because it's not like a few Egyptians made it to the other side and started killing Israelites none of the Egyptians make it to the other side but yet all of them get into the sea so do you see how that proves this is a wide distance because in order for two or three million people now and of course we know that the two or three million people they're not necessarily trained in any kind of fighting whatsoever they don't necessarily have any weapons or have any way to fight but still Pharaoh's army had to be pretty considerable in order to strike fear in two million people right yeah they have a pretty decent-sized army I mean the Bible does tell us okay he had 600 chosen chariots but then he also has all the horses and all the infantry he's got a huge army and this massive army has to all get into the Red Sea none of them make it to the other side but they're all in that shows that they had to go miles this isn't even just one mile this is many miles we don't know how many miles but it's something that probably took the children of Israel all night to get across and it took the Egyptians you know time to get into it took them hours to get into it it took hours and hours to cross because their gigantic body of water okay and so don't fall for that little lake or whatever that they show it being crossed if it was that stupid little lake they could just go around that lake the reason that they had to cross the Red Sea is because there was nowhere else to go they're stuck their back is against the sea there's no way around it because this massive body of water and there's only one way forward through it okay so we see that all of the Egyptians get into it and then God starts to slow him down to make sure none of them get to the other side he actually removes the chariot wheels it says in verse 25 he took off their chariot wheels that they drave them heavily so again what I'm showing you here is that everybody had to get in but nobody gets to the other side now obviously chariots are really fast so I mean how many miles per hour can one of these battle chariots go I'm not sure who would like to guess who thinks they have a pretty good guess of how fast one of Pharaoh's chosen chariots I mean these are like his best guys fast horses you know right riding a chariot how fast do you think they're going what do you look whatever it is though it's a lot faster than anybody who could go on foot right so let's say they're going 20 miles an hour 25 30 miles an hour whatever whatever the speed okay however fast they're going it's obviously a lot faster than a marching speed which is like four miles an hour okay so they're gonna be going at least you know five times as fast or more so basically God wants to give time for all the infantry 100% of the infantry to get into the sea but not enough time for the chariots to just blow through it but again it must have been many miles or else those chariots would have just cranked through it in a matter of minutes okay so they all get in the sea God knocks the wheels off and once God takes the wheels off their chariots that's when the Egyptians know that they're in trouble at that point because they they knew that it was something supernatural when the wheels begin to fall off and so the Egyptians said verse 25 halfway through let us flee from before the face of Israel for the Lord fight it for them against the Egyptians and the Lord said unto Moses stretch out thine hand over the sea that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians upon their chariots and upon their horsemen and Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared and the Egyptians fled against it and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea and the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them there remain not so much as one of them everybody dies everybody gets wiped out but the children of Israel walked upon the dry land in the midst of the sea and the waters were wallowed to them on their right hand and on their left that's obviously retrospectively saying that and then verse 30 thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore they saw the dead bodies of the Egyptians washed up on the shore and Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians and the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses now the reason that God makes such a big deal about this is because this is going to be something that they need to keep going back to because of the fact that in a very short period of time the children of Israel are gonna be murmuring they're gonna be complaining they're gonna be disobeying and so God's really trying to emphasize what they saw they saw a wall of water on each side you're not gonna forget that going across the Red Sea on dry ground would be an amazing experience and then to see the dead corpses of the Egyptians washed up on the shore knowing that God has fulfilled his promise he has completely wiped out the enemy you've been protected you've been saved you've made it through isn't it hard to believe that these people would ever doubt Moses again because I mean it said it now he says they believed God and his servant Moses they feared God they believed the Lord but they also believed Moses so I mean these people are sold that Moses is the man of God Moses is telling the truth I mean is there any doubt how can there be any doubt but yet time dims the memory doesn't it a few months go by a couple years go by and I mean they're just constantly forgetting the Lord's works and so we need to take a lesson from this and realize that you know what it's possible for us also to backslide if we stop reading our Bible if we stop meditating upon the things that God has done in his word and then the things that God has done in our lives if we stop thinking about those things if we don't constantly meditate on those things and dwell on those things we'll forget about those things have you ever thought about something like oh I'm never gonna forget this but then you forget it don't you we as human beings are extremely forgetful we are forgetful creatures and we only remember things when we make a point to remember them or if we just constantly keep recalling them and bringing them up right even that word recall is another word for remember you know Rick it's like you have to call it back up again right you got to bring that out again and you have to remember you know because you got to keep bringing it back to mine and so don't ever forget about the victories that God gives you in your life you know we've all had times when God answered a prayer in an amazing way right I mean and and and probably if you're to stop and think about you get oh man I totally forgot about that remember there was that one time that my back was just totally against the wall I thought I was completely doomed and then boom God came through I mean there are tons of times like that in my life but do I remember all of them do you remember all that we need to remember how God has bailed us out he's had our back he's done miracles in our lives that way when we face the next hurdle we're not we're just gonna remember hey I've already done this I've already been through this it's gonna be the same as every time and we should get the longer that we're saved we should just get better at handling persecution should get better at handling opposition setbacks even catastrophe in our lives we should get better at handling it because we should say you know what God's done it before God's gonna do it again and you know I've never seen the righteous forsaken I've never seen his seed begging bread God will always always take care of us the angel of the Lord and camp it round about them that fear him and so we have nothing to worry about and I'm not saying nothing bad is gonna happen in your life but anything that that's bad that happens God has it under control just like bad things are gonna happen the children of Israel where they don't have any food they don't have any water they get in battles but God always sees them through it it's always part of his plan but how many times do they just freak out instead of just going forward so we need to always keep in memory the Word of God because even we weren't literally here for this this should become a part of us as well you know the Red Sea crossing even though we weren't there we should read it in the Bible and apply it to ourselves as if we were there you know and we should take all the Bible stories and apply them to our own life but then not only the Bible stories should they give us confidence like oh look here's where God delivered this guy God delivered these people God deliver this guy well God's gonna deliver me too okay that's one thing but then number two let's also look at our own lives and think about all the times that God has delivered us in our own lives you say well God's never done anything for me well you know serve God a little longer and build a track record okay you know what I mean because I guarantee you if I were to ask for a raise of hand hey who's been saved for a long time and had some really great answers to prayer you've had some horrible situations where God just miraculously pull you know probably every hand would practically go up and if you have if you're not there yet then you know what keep serving God and and build some experiences you know maybe you just need to pray more and get some answers to prayer get some confidence builders so that you'll have those things to look back on you know tribulation worketh patience patience worketh experience experience leads to what hope right because if we have the experiences of God delivering us then we have hope he's gonna do it again that's what the children of Israel for God we don't want to forget that so let's have hope based on their experiences and let's also have hope based on our own experiences and spend our lives going forward no turning back don't look back just go forward speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward okay then I'll remove the obstacle but first go forward let's borrow it in a word of prayer father we thank you so much for this great chapter Lord I pray that we would just apply it to our lives Lord help us never to fear the devil's crowd help us to realize that you have our back all the time let's not think about serving them or going back to them or making a deal with them or placating them Lord help us to just turn our back to this world the world behind me the cross before me no turning back and help us to go forward Lord and I pray that you would just part the Red Seas in our life and in Jesus name we pray amen