Watching the Lord Fight Our Battles

We're going to be looking at the famous crossing of the Red Sea. The Israelites who are standing on this side of the ocean as they sense and feel the Egyptians bearing down on them and their cry to God and God's response to them in that moment. It's a very vivid part of the old testament story, of Israel's story, and there is just so much to learn from that experience. So you can turn to Exodus 14, and we'll be reading from verses one through to verse 31 of Exodus 14. But before we do, my dad once, as I was growing up, I think it was around a dinner table and I had shared probably an embarrassing story or something dumb that I had done.

He smiled at me and said, "K.J., if you can't be a good example, make sure you're a terrifying warning." This morning, we look at the terrifying warning of Israel. We'll see a terrible example of how to remain faithful to God. A terrible example of faithfulness, but a fantastic illustration of God's character. What we'll see is that so often in the old testament, we see the weakness of God's people and the strength of God in spite of that.

We see that in Israel's weakness, God's grace is complete. That in the brokenness and imperfection of God's people, God is shown to be faithful and perfect. And so we turn to Exodus 14, where we see Pharaoh having let the people of Israel go out of Egypt. Israel has left and they are well and truly gone out of the land of Egypt. But only a few days and Pharaoh has a change of heart.

He decides to go and round up those freed slaves with more than 600 chariots, the best of chariots in the known world and he goes to hunt them down. We turn to verse one of Exodus 14 to pick up the story. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal Zephon. You shall encamp facing it by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, 'They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.' And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord."

And they, who is Israel, did so. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people and they said, "What is this we have done that we have let Israel go from serving us?" So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him and took 600 chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army and overtook them encamped at the sea by Pi Hahiroth in front of Baal Zephon.

When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, "Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt?

Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." And Moses said to the people, "Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You have only to be silent."

The Lord said to Moses, "Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots and his horsemen and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen." Then the angel of God, who was going before the host of Israel, moved and went behind them and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness and it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots and his horsemen. And in the morning watch, the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, "Let us flee from before Israel for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians."

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen." So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared and as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the hosts of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Thus, the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in his servant, Moses. So we see the Israelites camped at a place called Pi Hahiroth, which was close to the Red Sea. Most scholars will contend that this was at the Gulf of Suez, which is also called the Sea of Reeds. Looking up and seeing this little dust cloud behind them, the Israelites realised that Pharaoh had a change of mind. He was on his way to bring them back to Egypt.

And immediately, they start panicking. They cry out firstly to God and then immediately to Moses. And they say, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out to the desert to die?" Now, if you think about it, you can't help but smile at this statement because think of the nation, think of the empire of Egypt they had just left. Are there no graves in Egypt?

Of course, there are graves in Egypt. Egypt was the great obsession to build the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings and these sarcophagi to host mummies in. Are there no graves in Egypt? The answer is, of course, there are plenty of graves in Egypt. On and on their whinging goes until Moses says to them, "Don't be afraid, fear not, stand firm and you will see the deliverance that the Lord will bring you today.

The Egyptians that you will see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be silent." 600 plus chariots are hurtling towards them. They are wedged between this incredible army and water, the ocean.

Moses tells them, "Stand firm, fear not, watch and be still." Four imperatives, four commands that Israel needed to follow: don't be afraid, stand firm, watch and be quiet. In other words, sit down, shut up and watch the show. And then God proceeds to do one of the most incredible things in the Bible, a thing that reverberates again and again throughout the story of the Bible, the crossing of the Red Sea. But this whole story gives us a few lessons as Christians today.

When we read the Old Testament, we should never ever read ourselves into the great characters of the old testament. We are not Moses. We are not David. We are not Goliath. We are not Paul the apostle.

Every time we read the Bible, the most likely corresponding figure is Israel or the people of God. We read what the Bible tells us through that lens, and so we focus on Israel and what their response was in the face of this threat. And the first thing we see, the first truth we see is that it often takes tough spots to break lifelong habits. Why does God allow painful, uncomfortable things to happen to us? Well, because it often takes a serious push from God to finally free us from the behaviour patterns that we've been clinging to for many years.

That's what we see happening here with the Israelites. We know that truth well though. People who eat unwell their whole lives warned time and time again to eat better, only needing to be diagnosed with diabetes or serious health problems to change those habits. Perhaps we can think of similar situations where the pain of staying the same is less than the pain of changing. We can sort of deal with the known pain and we don't go through the hardship of change, and so we stay the same.

The Israelites were in that position. They had grown up in Egypt their whole lives. They only knew Egypt. They rubbed shoulders with the Egyptians, they worked with the Egyptians, they were taught to think like the Egyptians. If they had Twitter, they would have followed the Egyptian Twitter.

They heard all the gossip stories of the Egyptians, of the pharaohs and their queens and the nobility. When push came to shove and the Israelites stood there in the cul de sac between Pharaoh and the sea, the dead end. When it came down to it, the Israelites were willing to go back to the old ways. Now, you might be tempted to think that they didn't know any better. That they didn't know anything but Egypt.

But I think they did know better. Whilst it's true they had grown up in Egypt and had adopted perhaps most, if not all the Egyptian habits, they didn't enjoy their life under the yoke of the Egyptian masters. It's a lie what they say here that we would rather go back and serve the Egyptians. We're told at the beginning of the Exodus story, Exodus 2:23, that Israel groaned because of their slavery and they cried out for deliverance. It wasn't a fun time in Egypt.

And yet, here we find them accusing Moses of doing something against their will. Have a look, verse 11 and 12. "What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone? Let us serve the Egyptians.'

It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." So they make it sound as if Moses manipulated, twisted their arm to get them out of Egypt. Yet, we're told that they groaned and cried out for deliverance. We don't have any recording in any place where they actually said, "Leave us alone. We want to serve in Egypt."

In fact, chapter four verse 31 tells us that when Moses is sent by God to go and speak to the elders of Israel to say, "God, our God of our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has spoken to me and said he's going to rescue us," this is how they receive this news from Moses. Chapter four verse 31, "When the Israelites heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and they worshipped." There's no rejection here. There's no manipulation here.

They are all too grateful for God's decision to rescue them. Yet they claim here that they long for the days of making those bricks for the Egyptians. Why do they say that now? Well, they exhibit human nature. That the pain of changing, the pain of something new is often more than the pain of staying the same.

The pain of the known. Their whole lives, they had spent slaving for the Egyptians, and now, when the unknown futures of blessing under God was weighed up against the known variables of the past, they would prefer the known over the unknown. Have you ever asked yourself the question, "Why did God put them in that corner, in that cul de sac in the first place?" Well, surely, God could have parted that sea much earlier. I mean, he could have parted it as soon as they arrived and not cause them to camp there and wait there.

Why does God wait until the very last minute like this? Well, it's because God raises the stakes to break habits, to break thought patterns for his people. God paints his people into a corner in order to break them from old ways. You see, the truth is the human heart doesn't learn if the status quo is maintained. Instinctively, we are creatures of habit.

We are creatures of comfort. And as long as something isn't horribly broken, then we make it work. These Egyptian masters were bad masters, but the Israelites amazingly are willing to go back to them. The Bible tells us that we should see ourselves in the example of the Israelites. In the New Testament, Hebrews 3, it quotes Psalm 95, which is, in turn, a reflection on the time of Israel in the wilderness.

So Hebrews 3 quotes Psalm 95. Psalm 95 gives interpretation to the life of Israel in the wilderness, and it says this: "Psalm 95, today, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." That's a quote from Psalm 95, and then the author of Hebrews 3 in verse 12 exhorts Christians in response and says, "Take care, brothers and sisters, lest there be any of you with an evil unbelieving heart that leads you to fall away from the living God." So much of God's disciplining in our life, so much of the spiritual formation that He works in us, what the old English Puritans used to call the mortification of sin, the dying of sin in us, comes from lessons that are etched into our hearts from situations that are almost unbearable.

Situations where there is no escape route that you can think of. Situations where you are in such a tight spot, you realise that your old vicious cycles of thought and sin are fatally flawed. They cannot save you. So often, it's only then that we return to God. So friends, there might be some sitting here this morning who are either in this predicament right now or those of us who might be facing that predicament very soon.

Know this: God sometimes puts his people in dead end roads to experience real desperation before at the last minute that Red Sea opens. Why? Because He needs to break us in order to remake us. This leads us to the next point, that when we are surrounded, human instinct is to look up. When there is no escape for the Israelites, both in front of them, in the sea, or behind them, to the left or to the right, they look up because human beings instinctively look up.

When the human heart realises that there is no place to go in their situation, no government authority to appeal to anymore, no family member who can bail them out, no silent patsy to take our blame. When you realise you have no place to go in your perilous situation, you and I look up. People just do. I was listening to a stand up comedian this week talking about just that, how religious he says he gets when he gets onto a plane and he begins negotiating with God and he takes people's bags and he puts them in their overhead and he's very nice to everyone, just in case. Just so he can say, "God, please keep this plane going because I've been nice to people."

But at the end of the day, when you are surrounded and you've tried everything in your own power to escape but can't, you look up to a higher power. In Exodus 2, when the Israelites groaned under their slavery, the Bible says that they cried out under that weight. But importantly, if you look at that verse, the cry is never directed to God. It is a cry to the sky. It implies that the Israelites didn't know who God was.

For four hundred years, they'd been Egyptians or at least in Egypt. They had forgotten the God of their forefathers, and so they groan and they cry to anyone who may hear them and it is Yahweh, their God, who hears and who decides to deliver them. Now, here in chapter 14, amazingly, we start seeing a little glimmer of hope because in verse 10, we see that when the Israelites are terrified, who do they cry out to? They do. They cry out to the Lord.

I mean, thankfully, there's only been 10 enormous plagues that they've seen and, you know, how many miracles and pillars of cloud and fire that keep them safe and so on. And so you hope by now they're starting to believe, but they do. They have learned something and they cry out to their God. They begin to see Him as their rescuer and yet, they don't see Him as their only rescuer. Because in the space of one verse, they first cry out to God, and then they yell at Moses.

God is not enough. They need Moses too. But even if Moses was sympathetic to their yelling, and even if he was able to help them personally, he can't bring himself to that position. He can't do anything actually because he is as stuck as they were. Only God has that power and God knew all along what He was about to do.

We read in verse 4 that God has told Moses what is about to happen. "I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord." But at the end of the chapter, who is it that knows and who is it that believes? Verse 31, "Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses." It's not just for the Egyptians, it's partly so that the Egyptians will know, but most importantly, it is that his people will know that He is the Lord.

A family friend of ours, who is a recovering alcoholic, became a Christian late in her life. She found God, she might say, at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. But she would also tell you how in Alcoholics Anonymous, the people would often say to one another, "I wish you desperation. I wish you desperation." In other words, they're saying, "I hope you hit rock bottom."

Now that sounds like a terrible thing to say to one another. This is meant to be a supportive group. But if you've been an alcoholic, and you know the effects of alcohol, and you know that alcohol is killing the person sitting across from you, then you know that that hope is one of hope. That wish is one of hope because it's only when you hit rock bottom, when you actually hit rock bottom, that you know the only way from there is up. God allows his people to come to a place of utter desperation, rock bottom, with nowhere else to turn, so that they will look up and they do.

And yet, it's a qualified look. Our third lesson is that if the Lord's glory is at stake, He will do the fighting and that is what they ultimately learn. The crescendo of chapter 14 is verse 14, that "the Lord will fight for you Israel, you only have to be silent." NIV says, "You only have to be still." Desiree and I have that verse in a little frame at home.

It's a great Bible verse to know and to remember. The Lord will fight our battles. We only need to be still. We only need to be quiet. Now, on sort of first reading, you can think that God is saying to them, "Just shut up."

So sort of like the dad driving the car and the kids are really annoying in the back and they're just, "I'm gonna turn this car around if you don't be quiet." No. What's happening here is God really saying to them, "Be quiet in your faith. Have your hearts rest in what I'm about to do. Still yourselves and trust that I can save you."

The Lord is going to fight for you. You need only to rest and watch as He does. Well, we see that Israel had lost all sense of dignity at this point. They've insulted their great leader Moses, they're hyperventilating in their prayers and cries to God. They are totally misrepresenting their reality by saying that life was better in Egypt than as free men.

And God quickly slaps them back into reality. "Stop your whinging," He says, "get up now and get ready to cross the sea." Now, unfortunately, we know that this isn't the last time that Israel has a communal whinging session. God simply tells them what He's going to be telling them a number of times in the wilderness: "Stop crying out to me, pack up your tents and then see what I'm about to do." Now, we know that this was God's plan all along.

He had brought them to this point. He was going to put them in this furnace, heat it up so that He can start bending them, remoulding them in order to bring them to faith or a deeper understanding, at least, of Him. And God wants to show them just how helpless they are and how much He loves them. Because we see God throughout this entire story. It is God who has directed the people to camp at Pi Hahiroth, next to the sea.

We see that it's God that has changed the heart and the mind of Pharaoh to pursue them. He has hardened Pharaoh's heart. And now again, God makes the mind of the Egyptian army obstinate as they decide to pursue the Israelite people through the Red Sea that has miraculously opened. I mean, can you sort of think logically, would you do that? You've just seen the 10 plagues, you've survived that somehow, you see the pillar of cloud and fire, and there is a massive wall of ocean next to you.

Are you gonna hurtle after them? I don't know. It's it must be a sovereign thing that God makes them this stupid. They go after the Israelites nonetheless. God, we are told, slows them down with this pillar of cloud, He obscures their vision and He gives Israel, who are all on foot, time to pass through the ocean, then as the Egyptians find themselves completely in the ocean, God closes up the sea and He swallows them all up in it, and in that heavy armour, in those chariots, with their bridled horses, they all drowned.

None of them survived. The power of God in this chapter is absolute. It is all of God and nothing of Israel. Scholar John Durham, in his commentary writes, "Yahweh is ready to fight Israel's fight, and he does so in the place of his choosing, on his schedule, in the open light of day, where the defeat and its making can clearly be seen by all." This is a show for God.

This is a lesson that God wants to make. And the lesson is, "I have gained the glory. And Egypt will know and Israel will know that I am the Lord." Friends, that is a truth we must always remember, that if the Lord is to get the glory for eternity, then He must do the fighting. If the Lord is to get the glory, He must do the fighting.

If we were somehow involved, if we could somehow give something towards that fight, we would get some glory. But if God gets all the glory, He will do all the fighting. So often, we think, "My company needs me, my business needs me, my church needs me. My family needs me. Surely, God needs me."

No. He doesn't. The God of the Bible does not need us. No one is indispensable to the limitless almighty God of scripture and we will do well to keep remembering and keep believing in the immeasurable power of God to do the most surprising things in life. Don't stop believing that.

We are so tempted to. Perhaps it's because we don't see that power every day. But don't stop believing in the almighty power of God. He still works in those incredible ways, and yet, at the same time as you remember His boundless power, don't forget the other aspect of this chapter, His unlimited love for his people. His unlimited love for His people.

We need to remember that in those impossible moments in life, when our backs are against the wall, we must simply let God be the God of our salvation. That we must remember that He is able, that He is willing to work His incredible power for those He calls His beloved. And sometimes, He needs us to be prayerful. He wants us rather to be prayerful. He wants us to cry out to the Lord as Israel did and at other times, He tells us we simply need to be quiet and trusting and watch on, to just be obedient to the things we know, to the things that are clear.

But either way, we trust that He is powerful, that He is able and that He wants to, that He loves. If the Lord is to get all the glory, He must do all the fighting. Friends, wasn't that imminently shown to us in Jesus Christ on the cross? In Jesus and His work, it was truly the war that ended all wars. He fought for us.

He won the victory over our masters, the masters of sin and death. Our backs were against insurmountable wars, a wall of eternity, and we were the ones caught between the devastation of sin filled existence and the righteous judgment of God hurtling towards us. But a miracle that ranks as the greatest in the Bible. If the crossing of the Red Sea was number two, this is number one, that Jesus Christ, God incarnate, would take upon Himself our sin, took upon Himself our punishment and bore the outpouring of the wrath of a righteous and just God on Himself in our place. Maybe you're at a point where it is time to just be still and wait.

You've fretted, you've fought, you've negotiated with God, and now God simply says, "You know what to do. You need only to be quietly obedient and wait for me to do what I'm about to do." Perhaps for some of us, we know that God has told us what our marching orders are, that we are to get up and go. We need to get going. You know what scripture tells you to do.

You've asked His will on a particular area of your life and it is clear. Now He says, "Stop praying, get up and go. Do what I ask." In either case, we know this, that through it all, Jesus Christ has already fought that great battle for us, the biggest one in our lives. We have already crossed the Red Sea.

We have undergone the judgment of that ocean that the Egyptians, in their disobedience, never survived. The New Testament tells us that we have been baptised through the Red Sea. The apostle Paul tells us or suggests that in one Corinthians 10 that that was the baptism for Israel. We've survived that judgment by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through humble faith, we now cling to His victory. Now, our Father, through that faith, allows tough spots, difficult cul de sacs to break lifelong habits, to bend us, to reshape us, to mould us back to His will.

And so when we are surrounded with situations that seem insurmountable, He reminds us to keep looking up and then in order for us to remember His great power and love, He tells us again this morning that He fights for us so that you must recognise and remember and believe that He is your Lord and that as the Israelites did at the end of chapter 14, you will believe in Him. Let's pray. Thank you, our great God, that you remind us today that you will get the glory and we know that, Lord. We believe that. We profess that with our hearts and our mouths that all glory goes to you.

And yet, the implication of that is that you must do all the fighting, that you must do all the saving, that you must do all the building up, all the redeeming, all the restoring. And so Lord, where our lives get frantic, it gets anxious and consumed by man made fixes or fixes we think are spiritual. Lord, help us to have that humble, quiet faith that reminds us that the Lord will fight for us, is fighting for us and has ultimately fought for us in Jesus Christ. And so, Lord, whatever it is that is in our life at the moment, that is on our path, we pray that we will see Your victory in those things. Where that victory may be our changed lives, our transformed godliness, transformation, spirituality, Lord, we pray that You will do that.

Where it is the transformation of loved ones, family members, will You do that? Lord, where there is injustice, where there is brokenness because of sin that has touched us, has hurt us, will You fix that? Thank you, Lord, that we are reminded that you are an incredibly powerful God and that you work on behalf of your people because you love them so much. Help us to see your victory in our lives. Give us the spiritual eyesight to see it.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.