The Word Preached

THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 1..

PreacherNelson David Moncayo
Date22 September 2019
Bible TextExodus 15
SeriesThrough the Bible
OccasionSunday Service
Length25 min

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Sermon Transcript

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Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

This is my God, and I will praise him, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host He cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk into the Red Sea. The floods covered them.

They went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. You sent out your fury. It consumes them like a stable.

At the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up. The floods stood up in a heap. The deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide and spoil. My desire shall have its fill of them.

I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. You blew with your wind. The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand and swallowed them. You have let in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

The peoples have heard. They tremble. Pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed. Trembling seizes the leaders of Moab.

All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them because of the greatness of your arm. They are still as a stone till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased. You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever.

For when the horses of Pharaoh, with his chariots and his horsemen, went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them, Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

Verse 22, Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. Therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, Why shall we drink?

And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statue and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes. I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer. Then they came to Elim, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they encamped there by the water." This is the inherent, perfect and all-sufficient word of the Lord.

Amen. Now, brothers and sisters, here in this chapter 15, after the people of Israel have gone through the Red Sea, we have this song of the people of Israel, a song and praises that come from the mouth of the people of God. They're sang, but not only Moses, but in verse 1 it says, "...then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song. All the people of Israel, who had been saved by the mighty wonders of the Lord God of Israel, were singing this song of praises."

Not only them, but also Miriam in verse 20, "...and the prophetess with the daughters of Israel will join and sing this song of praises." that we have after they have been freed, redeemed from the bandage that they had under the Egyptians. One question we need to ask in order to understand what is going on here is what is the meaning of the songs of the people of Israel when they bring these songs to God or to the God of Israel? And I want to take you to a very beautiful Psalm, Psalm 149.

And I want you to see with your eyes, because in Psalm 149 we see many of the meaning of what a song from the people of Israel represents unto or for God. So Psalm 149, actually many Psalms will tell us this, but let's read Psalm 149. And here we have a song sung by the people of God to the Lord. Psalm 149 verse 1, it says, Praise the Lord, sing to the Lord a new song. He's praising the assembly of the godly.

Let Israel be glad in his maker. Let the children of Zion rejoice in their king. Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. For the Lord takes pleasure in His people. He adorns the humble with salvation.

Let the godly exult in glory. Let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the high praises of God be on their throats or mouths and two-edged sword in their hands." Brothers and sisters, a song that is sung by the people of God. It is a manifestation of the joy and the gladness that abides in the heart of His people because of what they believe that God has done and will do for them.

This song that we have in Exodus chapter 15 is not more than a representation, a manifestation of the joy that exists in the heart, in the soul of these people who have been redeemed. And that singing, that joy, that gladness, brothers and sisters, is a manifestation of something that they know and that they believe. That is, that their joy and their shouting for joy, their gladness, their singing is necessarily rooted in something that they understand, that they acknowledge, and furthermore, that they believe. It would be irrational to be singing with joy for something that you do not believe or something that you think that is not real. That is the nature of the singing and the rejoicing of the people of Israel in chapter 15.

They are singing about who God is. If you put your eyes in the text, in verse 2 it says, "...the Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation." For the people of Israel, God was their strength, their salvation. That's why they're singing.

They know who God is and what He has done. If you go to verse 11, the people of Israel together with Moses. They are singing not only of who God is, their strength and their salvation, but in verse 11 they say, Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doings and wonders? It is not only that they knew and understood who God was, but also the things that He had done for them, liberating them, taking them from Egypt, with all of these wonders and all of these majestic wonders that He had performed in front of them.

And beyond that, brothers and sisters, we can see the heart of Moses and the people in that they were not only singing about who God was and the things that He had done, but also they had knowledge and certainty of the things that they believed He was going to do. In verse 17, it says, You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign. forever and ever. The heart of the Israelites was filled with joy and gladness and they were singing because they knew who God was, the things that He had done and the potential of who this God was going to be and the things that He was going to do for them.

Brothers and sisters, the praises that were coming from the mouth of the Israelites after they were liberated or they crossed the Red Sea were praises that were filled with faith. Not only from the text, but if you go to Hebrews 11. In Hebrews 11, this is a text that I've shown some of you. In Hebrews 11, this chapter that speaks of faith and what faith is. And then the author of Hebrews gives all of these cloud of witnesses of those people who have faith and speaks of many of these heroes of the faith.

If you want, if you allow me to use that term, he speaks of Abraham and Moses. And then in chapter 11, verse 29, in all of this category of what saving faith or true faith is, the author of Hebrews, in verse 29, is going to say, by faith, the people crossed the Red Sea as on a dry land. But the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. The praises that were coming out of the mouth of the people of Israel, of the Israelites, were praises that represented a joy, a gladness, that were rooted in an understanding that the Bible calls it faith. They had this faith in who God was, and this faith in what God had done for them, and even belief or understanding on the things that God was going to do for them.

Yet, in the same chapter, We have something that is very scary and fearful. In verse 22 of the same chapter that we have in Exodus chapter 15, the same people that had filled their lips and their mouths with praises of joy, and praises of gladness, and praises for the Lord, and the things that He was, and the things that He has done, and the things that He was going to do. It took them only three days. It took them only three days to face the first difficulty and to come to Moses and to Grambold, as he says in verse 24. They did not have water, and then they found water in Marah, which was bitter, so they could not drink that water.

And then they came to Moses to complain, to grumble against Moses, saying, Why shall we drink? In verse 24. Then Moses is going to throw a tree into the water, and the water will become sweet water, water that they could drink. Brothers and sisters, we have in the same chapter the people of God moving from a state of gladness and faith and rejoicement and all of this joy that was in their hearts and coming out of their mouths, not only Moses and Miriam, but all the people of Israel, onto a state of faithlessness, if you allow me to use that word. and a state in which these people will not believe the promises of God and the things that God had said, but rather now they are doubting God.

They are doubting the things that He had said, and we can see that doubting in the fact that now they are complaining about the circumstances. How are we going to understand this? These are the people of God, brothers and sisters. Something very interesting happens there in the end of verse 25, and I want you to see it with your text, because the Lord is going to use this grumbling or this complaining of his people to do something very interesting. He is going to give them the second condition in all this time that he had interacted with them.

The first condition was the Passover. Remember that he said, you are going to do this with the lambs so that the destroyer will pass over you. So that was a requirement given to the people of Israel so that they will not be destroyed. But then in the end of verse 25, the Lord is going to give them a second condition. And now this condition will be related to the time of going through the wilderness.

It says, There the Lord made for them a statue and a rule, and there He tested them, saying, If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord your Healer." Now, brothers and sisters, Pay attention with your mind and with your heart to the nature of that condition that God is now given to the people of Israel. He says now that if you listen to my voice, that is, if you obey the things that I'm saying from my mouth, then if you are in obedience, then the plagues and the judgments that I put upon the Egyptians will not be upon you. That means that if you do not listen to my voice, and that is that if you do not put diligence in obeying the things that I'm saying, then the same judgment that fell upon the Egyptians will be upon you. This is terrifying, brothers and sisters, because now, as we know the things that are going to happen, many people, and with the psalm that our brother read, many people fell through and in the wilderness.

Many people suffered the judgment of many similar plagues that were upon the people of Egypt, but they were Israelites. Many of the people that were singing here with joy and with gladness and that were saying these things of the Lord, many of those people that were singing, these people fell through the wilderness. The earth opened up and many of them fell into the earth. Many of them died by serpents. Many of them died through the wilderness and they did not make it to the end until the promised land.

How are we going to understand this? How are we going to understand that the author of Hebrews says to us that the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea by faith, a faith that seems to be equivalent to the faith of Abraham and the faith of Moses, heroes of the faith, and the people of Israel did it by faith. Well, brothers and sisters, the Lord has given us here in this chapter two very important elements of real saving faith. The first one, it is that real saving faith endures until the end, but endures by obeying the word of the Lord. Notice that obedience is a requirement for you to have saving faith, but that the existence of saving faith in the heart of a person will necessarily take that person to endure through the time of their wilderness and enduring by obeying and listening to the voice of the one who saved them, or who saved him or her.

That is the teaching of the New Testament. Go to Luke, please. Go to Luke chapter 8, I think. 8. Because, brothers and sisters, the Bible speaks of different types of faith, or if you want, different types of belief.

different types of acknowledging and accepting who God is, the things that he has done and the things that he will do in the famous parable of the sower. We're not going to read the whole parable, but you know, these four types of seed that the sower throws into the ground and they fall into different types of soil and different types of ground. And then when the Lord Jesus Christ is explaining this parable to his disciples, he's going to speak of these four types of belief or these four types of understanding or the abiding of the Word in the heart of a person. He speaks of that in verse 9. It says, And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, To you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God.

But for others, they are in parables, so that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand. Now, the parable is this. Pay attention. The seed is the Word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard.

Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved." They are not saved. Verse 13, And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares of the riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

As for that in the good soil, there are those who hear in the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience." Read again verse 13, because this is the type of faith that the people of Israel, that many of the people of Israel had. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, received it with joy. But these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away.

Now, why is this important, brothers and sisters? Because in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, as I have said to you many times, and to some of you personally, the Apostle Paul says that the things that took place, that the things that happened to the people of Israel, and then he particularly and specifically speaks about the crossing through the Red Sea, those who were baptized in Moses, that those things happened to them as an example. for the church. Why, brothers and sisters? Then he says, unless there be any among you who thinks that is strong or firm, that he may not fall.

I'm just translating from Spanish. Brothers and sisters, this is very important. Because saving faith, real faith, is a faith that endures until the end, and endures by listening to the voice of the One who has saved us. When we come to the Bible, the only qualifier of saving faith, it is endurance until the end. It is obeying while we endure until the end.

This is what proves that saving faith is a genuine faith, and the more fearful thing, it is that both, together, Satan, tribulations and trial, the deceitfulness of riches and the deceitfulness of the things that are passing away, according to the parable that we have just read, are servants that test the genuineness of the faith of those who claim and profess to be in Christ. They are servants that test, that try to prove the genuineness of the faith of those who are or profess to be in Christ. That's why Peter says in chapter 1 verse 5, he says that we are kept, that we are guarded, that we are protected by God's power through our faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed. That's 1 Peter. Chapter 1, verse 5, it is God the one that keeps us and protects us, but He does it through the faith that He has given to His people.

Now, brothers and sisters, this is very important, because if you read the book of Hebrews, He says, "...lest there be any among you with a heart of unbelief departed from God, the living God, that we are to exhort one another, that we are to sharpen one another, that we are to encourage one another in the faith, so that we all have enduring faith that goes and continues and abides in the person of Jesus Christ." Now, this is not a very popular message and this is not very popular things to say. But brothers and sisters, these things should take us exactly to do what the Bible says that we should do. To put our hope in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because we can acknowledge that we have no strength, no power, no knowledge, no wisdom to endure on our own. So then, as we sang the song, that our hope is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing can foresee in a tone, only the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because when by faith we are united to Him, by faith also we continue abiding in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the gospel, the righteousness of God, it is manifested unto the world from faith, unto faith and the life that we now live in the flesh, we live by faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us, so that we can come, brothers and sisters, like the person that said, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Brothers and sisters, apart from the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and apart from who He is and the things that He has done, it would be impossible for us to endure until the end.

We depend entirely on the workings of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, yet the Bible calls us to believe in Christ, calls us to put our hope in Him entirely as the one who saved us and the one that carries us in His hands and the one that is going to take us until the end. The people of Israel, as then we will see in Deuteronomy chapter 1 and 5, these people failed to believe that the Lord was going to take them through the wilderness and was going to protect them from their enemies. They did not believe that. They were filled with fear. So, saving faith requires that we believe that the Lord is able and mighty and powerful enough to take us through the wilderness as He has promised that He will do.

Just as we are pilgrims through this world and walking through this wilderness unto glory, we are to believe that He is the one that carries us in His hands. When we put our eyes away from Christ and into our circumstances, into our own strength, that is called unbelief. That is believing in yourself. That is believing in that you have the ability to go through the circumstances of this world. But believing is putting your eyes onto Christ alone.

And then the promise is for those who believe, They will be saved and they will obtain the outcome of their faith, which is their salvation of their soul, 1 Peter 1.9. Obtaining that outcome, which is the ultimate salvation of our souls. That is the glory of the gospel that takes us away from self and takes us entirely to the person of Jesus Christ and rest can only be found in Him. We will never be able to provide for our souls rest.

We might be able to provide temporary rest. We might be able to confuse ourselves into or deceiving ourselves into believing that we are in peace. But true rest can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ. And that requires removing our eyes from self and putting them in the person of Jesus Christ. And then He is the one that takes us all the way through unto His presence.

Amen.