How can God get you through impossible situations? That's what we're going to look at. What's our part in God working miracles in our lives, getting us out of tight corners and big fixes? How do we get out of that? And so we're going to explore that together as we learn from what God has done in the past.
Join me as we read from Exodus chapter 14:1 and we hear this: “Then the Lord said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord ." So the Israelites did this. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!" So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. The Egyptians-all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon. As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 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 desert!" Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." Then the Lord said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen." Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt." Then the Lord said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen-the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”
There's a story told of a little boy who went to Sunday school and he came home to his dad and his dad said, “So little Johnny, what did you learn at Sunday school today?” Little Johnny said, “Oh dad, we learned about the Israelites coming out of Egypt to the Red Sea.” And so the dad said, “So what did you discover?” He says, “Dad, you won't believe this but what happened was that field marshal Moses left Egypt and he marched with his soldiers to the Red Sea. And when they came to the Red Sea, there he got on the radio and he called the engineer corps. And they came and they built a bridge over the Red Sea and then Moses took his troops over this bridge over the Red Sea and into the desert. And then you won't believe this but you know what happened next? Pharaoh's army came and they were busy crossing this bridge when Moses got on his walkie-talkie, called the air force, and the air force came with two bombers. And they bombed that bridge, blew it to pieces, and all the Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea.” And his dad looked at little Johnny and he said, “Little Johnny, tell me something, is that the story that your Sunday school teachers told you?” Well, Johnny said, “Well that's not quite the story that I heard today but if I told you the story that I heard today you would not believe it.”
And that little funny story is a reminder that this story that we've read here seems impossible and yet God did the impossible. And that's what we need to learn from today because all of us face impossible circumstances, sometimes big, sometimes small, sometimes even daily in our lives. And God makes a way. But what does he expect from you and me? And so here in our lives maybe you're in a tight corner right now and maybe you wonder how will God get me out of this how? Will he save me/ Well maybe he's saved you in the past? Maybe he's worked 10 or more miracles in your life before this day. But how will he save you now? And if you've ever been in a tight corner, God reminds us in this passage that he is a corner opener. He is the one that will find a way out for you because God will save you through your faith in him. And so what is impossible for you and me is possible with God. All things are possible with him because God will save us through our faith in him.
And so let's look at this passage together and learn firstly about the corners of God. That is the corners that God gets us into. You see the Israelites were making their away out of Egypt. They were marching along, and it was now three or four days later, and God suddenly tells them to turn back and to camp in a geographic corner. There was only one way in and no way out. And this corner of God was a perfect cul-de-sac, the last place that we as humans might have selected. But when God leads you it may try your patience but it is the best route that he's taking you on. A route for timid hearts and inexperienced feet. Pharaoh of course thought they had lost the plot and they were easy pickings for his powerful army. And as you listen maybe you can sympathize with Israel. If you have been following Jesus Christ as your Saviour maybe you've found yourself in a corner or two already. And those corners might not be of your making but in a corner of God, you can know that God wants you there. But it is so that he can bring good out of it and glorify his name. That corner may be difficult for you, that corner may even be dangerous for you, and maybe the whole world is laughing at you in that corner. But remember verse 4 gives us God's reason: your situation will bring glory to God and will let the watching world know that there is one true God. That he is a personal God, an infinite, all-powerful God.
And in the pharaoh's case, it was his greed that overcomes his grief. And he sets off with his elite two-man/ three-man chariots against women and children and a relatively defenceless ragtag army of ex-slaves. And now in the corner of God's making, Israel is in great danger as pharaoh overtakes them and herds them like frightened sheep against the Red Sea. Just as, maybe in our day and age, you're in a corner. Maybe your renters don’t pay, or maybe the creditors are knocking at your door and they're catching up with you. And so just like with Israel in that day, so in this day in this corner of God, he calls you to do something. And so let's look at that he calls you, firstly, to cry out for help. So if you're in a corner for God, the second thing you need to learn is: cry for help. Verse 10 tells us Israel cried out to God. And then in verse 11, it tells us they then began blaming poor Moses.
Don't we do the same thing when we're in a corner? We cry out to God, “Oh God help me!” And then we say: “it’s their fault,” or “they got me into this” or “if only she didn't say this or that.” We blame everybody and everything. And the Israelites were grumbling. They were not all people of faith yet, in one sense, and they did not have the whole Bible in a picture of God's faithfulness for them. And their image of God was deficient but those are all just excuses. And what we will see as we carry on reading through Exodus is that grumbling is a sin. It's such a serious sin that it can lead to sickness in your life and even death. But that's all in the short term, all this grumbling. You see without God's help, these helpless and hopeless people would have continued. If they did not cry out to God they would have been destroyed by the Egyptians. The reality is: we are all helpless and hopeless. We have all sinned and we fall short of God's glory.
For five thousand years we as a human race have been involved in a march. You say, ‘Where have we been marching to?’ All of us are marching one step in front of another towards our grave. If you had the privilege of being an astronaut up on the space station looking down at this green and blue planet, you'd see a giant cemetery. For 5 000 years or more, we as humans have been buried on this planet and all of us are marching to our graves. That's the corner that we're in. But God saves us despite our grumbling, despite our rebelliousness he has made a way if we will cry out to him. And so if you're in a corner start with pray. Cry out to God. But secondly, God then calls you to faith. You see God calls you to faith and so the first thing is this corner. The second thing is this cry for help. And the third thing is a call to faith. Moses points to the people of God, in verse 13, and says to them, “Do not fear. Do not be afraid.” For the opposite of fear is faith.
There is a sense in which we need to dare to risk what God has said. We need to stand firm on his promises. And that's why this call to faith reminds us to risk for God and to put our faith in him. By faith, the Bible says, the people pass through the Red Sea as on the dry ground. That's what we read in Hebrews 11. And we need to dare to risk as individuals and as a church here at the Baptist Church of Rosettenville. You see, we need to remember that God is like that eagle mother pushing her little eaglets out of the nest. And we think, ‘Well we'll never fly. We're comfortable where we are.’ And God pushes us out the nest so that we stretch out our wings of faith and start flapping as we fall and we discover that faith lifts us. And we will soar up on wings like eagles if we will put our trust in Jesus and hope in him who is able to save you and me. That's the great promise of this passage. You see we must remember that when we're in a corner of God's making we can cry out to him for help in prayer almost certainly. But then God calls you and me to faith in him. That means that we need to trust God. We need to persevere with God. We need to keep trusting him. And then you will see God save you, not just in your whole life, but in the particular corners of your life throughout your life because God will save you through your faith in him. And that means persistence.
There was a Scotsman, by the name of Bruce, and he lost a battle against oppressive forces of the south. And he went and hid in a cave and the story goes that as he sat in the cave wondering what his next move would be. He watched a little spider trying to weave a web and the spider climbed up the wall and would fall, clam up a bit further trying to get to the ceiling of the cave eventually getting there and throwing the first thread. And then the others and all the threads that would make up the spider's web. And Bruce said he realized it was through the perseverance of that spider that he was victorious. He went on to keep fighting and have victory. That's what we need, we need perseverance. We need to remember that salvation is all of God.
Sometimes I get impatient and I wonder when is God going to change me and transform me more than I am and I see that he's brought me a long way but there's so much further to go. Praise be to him that I’m not what I used to be. Oh, but I pray that I might be what he's called me to be. And sometimes we can lose patience and when we're in a corner we lose perspective. And Jesus says to us, “Trust me.” He calls us to believe in him. You and I can never be redeemed unless God does it in our lives. We can never be changed on the inside unless our creator recreates us, makes us a new creation. And we need to trust God. That's why verse 14 tells us that God will save you and that you need to be still. God will fight for you and you just need to receive what Jesus Christ has done on your behalf. For Jesus has died on that cross of Calvary to redeem you, to save you, to be your substitute, to die in your place that you might have life forever in his presence. And so it's not by good works that you are saved. All the good works that you could do in the world will not get you to Heaven, only Jesus can save you. You cannot save yourself. Salvation is a gift from God and so that none of us can boast.
And faith then leads you and me to action. The action does not save us but only God can save us. And Moses simply held out his rod by faith and the people joined in what God was doing by moving on, by walking through those frightening walls of water. And God used that east wind to clear the path. And God worked it at that precise moment, in that precise day, to do exactly what he had planned. And so God calls you to faith. But if you call to faith, notice that fourthly there is complete salvation. The complete salvation of God. You see here as he placed that cloud of his presence between the Egyptians and the Israelites between these two nations so that in the early hours of the morning, right about two o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the morning, two to three million people escaped from their pursuers. That light from God's pillar of fire lighting the way as they cross the Red Sea. And the Bible tells us in the book of Psalms that on the other side the cloud was dark and there were sounds of thunder and lightning that masked the noise of two to three million people escaping from the Egyptians. That pillar of cloud separated those two people's groups there and God supernaturally made a path through the sea so that the Israelites could escape from the Egyptians.
Now like little Johnny at the beginning of this message, there are modern sceptic’s, people that are theological liberals, or what are called “progressive Christians,” or these people that deny the Bible that claim to be “hip” or “woke.” And God still speaks. And they question God's word. And the reality is the historical fact remains that while we might not know the exact spot, and some archaeologists point to this spot, or that we do know that millions of people left and went through the Red Sea and that there was an Exodus. And it was not just through a little salt marsh blown dry by a coincidental east wind but it was through a sea that was deep enough to drown an internationally acclaimed army. And the supernatural facts remain. Walls of water on their left and their right and a dry seabed for them to walk on the crossover that was wide enough to accommodate two to three million refugees and deep enough to drown these soldiers and their horses. And most of all it was a life-changing miracle that shapes the faith of not just Jewish people to this day but even us Christians to this day. And that's why verse 31 gives us the appropriate response to God's miracle-working power in your life and mine. We are to fear God with a Holy reverence and awe before him. And then we are to trust him with all our hearts. Remember Moses wrote these first five books of the Bible. We are to respect and trust God who has revealed himself as true truth in time and space and we see God working as we trust him because God will save you through your faith in him.
Now maybe you're listening to this message and you're in a corner of God's making and you have come to this message and you've come with a cry for help: “Help me, Lord!” Well, then you need to know today that God gives you a call to faith. He says, “Trust me. Be still and watch what I do so that you may see the complete salvation in these days of God in your life.” Now you may be in a stormy boat like the disciples but Jesus is with you. And you can know that God will intervene. Jesus is praying for you and he is still calming storms. He is still breaking away through the tightest corner. And he is always before you, and behind, you guarding you all around. And by his Holy Spirit, he calls you to dare to risk on him, to step out in faith, to do what he's told you to do, to move with his Holy Spirit through the impossible obstacles of your life so that all who watch your life may know that there is a great and awesome God. Because God will save you through your faith in him.
So how can God get you through impossible obstacles? It's through your faith. Trust him and be still and know that he is God. Let us pray together. O Lord Jesus, thank you that you are still working miracles in our lives. That sometimes you have saved your people, sometimes you've taken them even through death and into eternity with you, but all the time you are working all things together for good for those that love you and that have been called according to your purpose. Help us Lord Jesus to trust you now. Help us to not fret and worry, or grumble and complain. Forgive us Lord when we have not prayed, and argued, and been afraid, and murmured against you. Forgive us, Lord. Have mercy on us. And not only forgive us but cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And help us today whether we're a young believer or a mature believer to trust you, Lord Jesus, to put our whole life in your hands. Save us, Lord Jesus. Keep us day by day in whatever corner we may find ourselves, make a way out under it for us. We pray in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
Well, I pray that God might strengthen you. If you have perhaps put your trust in Jesus for the first time today won't you let me know by commenting below? But live your life by faith, being still in his presence, trusting Him to work in your life, and then your life will be to his glory. And his power will be at work and so to him be all the praise, and the honour now and forevermore. Amen.