Four Lessons for Christians From Israel's Exodus From Egypt

Thank you. Happy Holy Day to everyone. You can see, happy Holy Day. You're ready to sabbath. It's like he didn't say sabbath. Happy Holy Day, everyone!

Every year, during the days of love and bread, I always find myself eating something leavened. And I always say, okay, this is an object lesson, so what am I supposed to learn from this? So, this year, a few days into the days of love and bread, my wife comes up to me and says, oh no, you know, you've been eating this whatever it was every day. And she said, I looked on it and it has a leavening agent in it. And she said, I didn't know. And I said, that's okay. I thought about what's the lesson I'm supposed to learn. First, I thought it was, well, the source of sin in my life is my wife.

And then I realized, no, it was thoughts like that that were the leavening in my life.

It's amazing how there's leavening and just things you wouldn't even think there's leavening. Why would they have it in there? I don't know. But it was a, I tease her about that. And she always takes my teasing very well. So, I appreciate that. I want you to go back, take yourself back to when the Israelites were leaving Egypt. And all the excitement and how it must, the incredible feeling of we're leaving slavery. Now, they had no idea what that meant. They really had no idea. And they were going to the Promised Land. They had no idea what that meant. They had no idea how far it was. They had no idea because most of them had never been out of the Nile Delta. Remember last week here in Nashville, I gave a sermon on the history of ancient Egypt and I showed you the Nile Delta. I gave the same sermon in Murfreesboro last year. They lived in this little narrow place of rich land. And when they got to the border, all they could see was desert, as far as they could see. And they started out across that desert. And Moses had told Pharaoh they needed three days to go out and worship God. Three days after they left Egypt, they were in desert. But when they're leaving, they have no idea about food. They have no idea about water. These things aren't even in their minds. They're celebrating. They're excited. God has shown that He's with them and they have no idea that God is about to take them into a situation that has no possible human solution. He's deliberately taking them into a situation that there's no human solution. There's no way anybody, including Moses, can fix the problem that God is leading them into. What I'm going to do today is I'm going to look at that story and draw four things we can learn from it. And then I'm going to go to a passage in the New Testament and see how Paul ties that into teachings in the church. So let's go to Exodus 13. Exodus 13. And we look at this story sometimes and we think, how could these people have so little faith? Well, there's a real important lesson here for us today. Verse 17.

So they leave. They're out in the desert. They're coming up on the Red Sea. They have no boats. There's not a sailor among them. There's nothing to build boats with. They're surrounded by mountains on two sides. And then this happens. And it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. In other words, he said, you know, war is too big a trial for these people. What's interesting in setting them up in this impossible situation, it was because God was saving them from a worse trial.

God made this decision because He said, these people aren't prepared to meet the Philistines. I mean, these warrior-like people, and I don't want them to have to see bloodshed. So I'll take them a different way. That alone starts to tell us something about this story we need to really think about that happens in our lives. God is setting up a trial to save them from a worse one. So He's leading them. So God led the people, verse 18, around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt. Everything's going fine. They're well organized. The tribes are together. There's people in charge. I mean, everything's running like a church social. You know? It's just, everything's running like clockwork here. They got it in order. They got it down. They're leaving. God has destroyed Egypt for them. They're being led by a pillar of fire. They're not even worried about, what are we going to eat tomorrow? They're just going out into this no man's land that they don't go into. That's no man's land out there. People die when you get out there. And He says, and Moses took the bones of Joseph with them, for he had placed the children of Israel near Solomon, saying, God will surely visit you and you will carry my bones to hear with you. And then it goes on. It says, they go out into the edge of the wilderness, and then God led them, started to lead them by this pillar of fire out into the wilderness. And they end up at the Red Sea. They end up at the Red Sea.

The story here is very important for us, because every one of us, every one of us, are going to have times in our lives where we're at the Red Sea. Every one of us is going to have times in our lives where we are at a place where there are no human solutions to the problem. And if you say, I haven't faced that yet, just wait. Because all of us will end up there. All of us will end up in places where there are no human solutions to a problem. It's hard to believe maybe sometimes God has led us there to save us from something worse. But here we are. And the spiritual lessons from this is just as relevant to us today under the New Covenant that it was to those people so many thousands of years ago. So let's pick up the story. Verse 3.

They're led out into this situation where there's no way out. Verse 3 says, For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are between, bewildered by the land. The wilderness is closed in on them, and then I will harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will pursue them. And I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. And they did so.

What's very interesting here is that God told Moses, I'm taking you to a place where there are no solutions. I'm taking you there. And when you get there, I'm going to use you to show me to someone else. And in this we have the first lesson of these four lessons we learned from this passage. Whenever someone is called by God to be a representative of him, and every one of us become, as a child of God, we become a representative of God. And we don't think about that much, but every place we go, everything we do, we are Christians. We have that name upon us, and we represent God.

And sometimes God is going to bring an issue into your life that is difficult, because he's going to use you to reveal himself to someone else. And he says, Moses, don't worry about it. I've taken you to a place that you can't fix, and I've taken you there because I am going to finally show Pharaoh. He still doesn't get it. The Egyptians still don't get it. I've destroyed their civilization, and they still don't get it because they have an army, and they think that army gives them power, and I'm going to have to take the army away from them. So you just do what I tell you to do. I mean, think of Moses at this point. Okay, here we are. We're in the impossible situation. What are you going to do next? Oh, I'm going to send the Egyptians after you. This is great. You're exactly where I want you to be. Running out of food, no water, before a sea, encased by mountains. By solution, the Egyptian army is coming after you. Now that's got to be a little hard for Moses to swallow at this point. You can imagine, though, okay, Moses is going to understand this to a certain extent, the Israelites are not. Because he says to Moses, I'm doing this because I'm going to use you, and I'm going to use the Israelites to show me to somebody else. You know, that concept bothers me sometimes because I realize we as the people of God are supposed to show people God and we're supposed to show people Christ. I think about my life sometimes and my example to other people, and I think, I'm not sure I'm that good of a representative here of God and Christ. And maybe some of the trials of my life is because I'm not being a good representative. And then there's going to be trials, which God says, oh, no, no, just wait. But it's the Red Sea. Oh, just wait. But there's mountains. Just wait. This is going to be great. But I'm running out of food. Just wait.

My kids are crying. Oh, this is going to be great. I mean, God's response isn't anything of what we expect. I'm going to show the Egyptians who I really am through you.

Now, we know what happened. The Israelites begin to understand where they are. They're in an impossible situation. They don't get that God's going to use them to show His power. What they get is, we're going to die here. What's the solution? So they don't understand this first lesson. You and I need to go back to this first lesson sometimes in our lives and say, in this trial, is this an opportunity for me to help somebody else see God? Is this an opportunity for me to help somebody else see God? Think of the story now in verse 10. So now the Egyptian army is coming. They have chariots, which is the modern-day equivalent of tanks. So now they have a tank division headed down on millions of people that have rocks and stones and maybe a few spears. This is what they're faced with. Verse 10 says, And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. They're very afraid. Well, that would be normal. Now they said to Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we would told you in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians, that we should die in the wilderness.

The people were absolutely overwhelmed. Absolutely overwhelmed with fear. Now, if you read just a couple of verses earlier, it says, When they came out of Egypt, they came out with boldness. A couple of days earlier, they thought nothing could destroy their faith. They thought nothing could stop them now. The Promised Land is probably five miles down the road. And now here they are, and it's a possible situation. Now, before we're too hard on the ancient Israelites, remember something. They had spent generations as slaves.

I remember last year I gave a sermon at this time of year on how they thought like slaves.

A slave mentality. You see the world totally different than people who haven't been slaves. They had a slave mentality. They had been taken care of all their lives. And now it seemed like God had abandoned them. And before we're too hard on them, remember something. You and I have lived in the slavery of sin all of our lives. You and I have, to a certain degree, depending on this process we're in of the conversion, we struggle with a slave mentality.

We have a slave mentality. We're slaves to our own ideas. We're slaves to our own emotions. We're slaves to other people. We're slaves to other influences. So this spiritual principle applies to you and I. When we're in front of that sea and we have no way out, and maybe God's doing it to show His power to somebody else, we have the same response they did.

We panic. We're filled with fear. We're filled with confusion because what God is doing makes no sense to us. We have to admit the fear. We have to admit the confusion. And because we have this fear, because we have this confusion, we become acceptable to other people who feed that fear and confusion.

You know, it's interesting here. There's all these arguments from all these different people to Moses we just read through. The San Sito Jewish commentary says, when you look at this, what it's really saying is that everybody was bringing up different arguments. In other words, what it's saying is they're arguing among themselves about the solution to the problem. Some people are saying, let's just jump in the sea and drown. Other people saying, let's form an army and go face them.

Some people are saying, no, let's follow Moses. What does God want us to do? A large number of people are simply saying, let's go back, let's march out there and bow down and surrender, and maybe they won't kill us. And we'll just go back to being slaves. It'd be better to be slaves than be where we are right now.

When you and I face our Red Sea moments, we are overcome with fear and we're overcome with confusion. That's what happens to us, just like they were. And in that fear of confusion, we start getting pulled different ways. And in that fear of confusion, other people who come along to feed the fear and confusion. That's our second lesson. When you're faced with this unconquerable trial, you're faced with a situation where there are no solutions.

Many times there's someone who comes along, God allows them to come along, they will try to drag you back into Egypt. They will try to drag you back into a solution that is not God's. Your focus won't be on God in the trial. Your focus will be on the Red Sea and the Egyptian army. Your focus will be on that. Your focus will be on the Egyptians, not on God.

And as long as our focus is on the Red Sea, which we can't cross, and the Egyptians, which we can't fight, what will we do? We will be in fear and confusion. And there are always people who come along because they live in fear and confusion. They will try to convince you and feed your fear and confusion. Remember that. Next time you're in your Red Sea moment, watch. Someone's going to come along and get your focus off of God. And when your focus is off of God, you're going to try to come up with, well, let's swim, or let's go fight the Egyptians, or let's just go surrender to the Egyptians, or let's run up into the mountains.

Some solution that won't work can't work. But you may grab hold of these solutions, and then wonder why they didn't work, because your focus is no longer on God. And that's the second lesson here. The second lesson is someone will always try to drag you back into Egypt. And you have to remember that. And sometimes it's not intentional. Sometimes they're suffering the same fear and confusion you are. And because they're suffering the same fear and confusion, they're having the same reaction. So, okay, we're in a Red Sea moment. Everybody gets a Red Sea moment.

And sometimes that Red Sea moment is caused by God to reveal Himself to other people. It's caused by God to save us from another trial, a worst trial. Like, no one will fight the Philistines. We'll take them out here. Wait, did they see what I'm going to do?

But then we have to realize in that fear and confusion that happens during these Red Sea moments. Someone will come along and try to drag you back into Egypt. So how do we deal with that? What do we do now? Red Sea moment? Somebody's just feeding the fear and confusion. It's interesting what God told Him to do next, Moses. Verse 13. And Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which you will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. And the Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. He says to them, okay, everybody's in confusion, everybody's in fear. And He says, stand still and behold what God will do. When you and our face with the Red Sea moments, and all that fear and that confusion, we're grasping for any conclusion to the problem. And we want God's answer immediate. At least I do. I don't have much patience. I want God's answers immediately. And I want my answers. Okay, so I got my Gibeon answer, but I don't like it. So I'm looking for another answer. Can't we run up into the mountains and hide? No, just stand still. I tell you what, there's enough of us. Maybe we just rushed the Egyptians, and the pillar fire goes before us. No, God has a better solution. Put the pillar fire before us and wipe him out, and we'll come along behind him and hack him to pieces. Okay, just that's the great, I like that solution. God says no. But standing still is the worst solution possible. Of all the solutions, that's the one I like the least.

Except maybe trying to swim the Red Sea. Okay, I like that. I don't like that one at all.

So you're giving me the solution. I like the least. Stand still. So, here's the great difficulty in this. God's timing is not your timing. It's not my timing.

There are times where God says, stand still. The time to stand still is when you are overwhelmed with the fear and confusion of an impossible situation. Because there's times you don't stand still. We'll talk about it in a minute. The time to stand still is when you're in the confusion and fear. But the problem is, when you're in the confusion and fear, you know what the hardest thing to do is? Stand still.

It's the hardest thing to do.

I learned this lesson many years ago. I was facing this personal issue in my life. I went to an older minister and I said, I don't want to do here. I have a decision I need to make. I don't know what to do. I was discussing with him. He said, oh, it's simple, Gary. What is it? Stand still and wait for the salvation of the Lord. Now, just the type of personality I am, don't you have another solution?

He said, stand still. If you don't know what God wants, you're probably, probably going to make a bad decision. You're probably going to do the exact opposite of what He wants. So stand still and wait. It's in the fear and confusion that we have to stand still and wait. When you are at that Red Sea moment and you're in that fear and that confusion, and there's always somebody else feeding it, too. There's always someone else saying, oh, do this, do that. You're getting advice from all over the place, right? Everybody is now giving you advice. There's a point where you say, you go to God and say, okay, I'm standing still. I'm not going to run to the mountains. I'm not going to run out in the sea. I'm not going to fight the Egyptians. I'm going to stand still, and you will show me what to do.

And at that moment, that's the hardest thing to do. It's interesting. We go through this lesson, and we can apply this lesson in Exodus 14 regularly in our lives. Regularly. Stand still. So it was only when they stood still that God revealed the solution to them. As long as they were running around fighting each other, you could imagine what's going on. Someone's beating somebody else up because he wants to go fight the Egyptians. The other person's saying, let's go surrender to the Egyptians. And so he starts beating them up. The whole place is people wailing and crying and screaming and people running around and children are crying and women are huddled with their children and wanting what to do. The men are arguing, this is what Israel turned into. And the hardest thing to do in this mess, stand still, let's go to God because He brought us here. He didn't bring us here to die. He brought us here to give us a solution because this was better than the other way you could have taken us. And He's going to show Pharaoh something because Pharaoh still doesn't get it. Pharaoh still didn't believe that the Israelite slave God was more powerful than the Egyptian gods. He can't be more powerful than Ra. He hit me. And I'm Ra's personal representative. So I'm going to go deal with these people and I'm going to deal with this God. And God says, okay, I will show you who I am. So they had to stand still. That's our lesson number three. Once you... or there are times when you must stand still, become calm, and wait for God's answer. It's the becoming calm part. Standing still is okay. The fear, the anxiety, the confusion has to go down here. I have to focus on God. I can't focus on the Red Sea. I can't focus on the mountains. I can't focus on the Egyptians. I got to focus on God and become calm and wait for God to do something. And so that seems to be what had happened. Moses told him to stand still. And all the wailing and fighting and arguing and millions of people begins to calm down. And they begin to become quiet. Now, they still have anxiety, don't they? You and I still have anxiety when we're faced with our Red Sea moments. But there's a calmness coming over everybody because, okay, we stand and wait. The pillar of fire is still here. The pillar of fire was still there. God's still with us. Calm down. Take a big breath. What is it God wants us to do?

Which leads us to what happened next. Because He tells them to stand still. And then in the next verse, verse 15, He says, they're still worried. They're still upset. They're still, God, now they're praying. Okay? Remember, they've gone from telling Moses, let us go back to Egypt because we'll die here. Now they're praying. In their calmness, because remember, the anxiety isn't totally gone. But now, their vision has shifted. Their focus has shifted. Their focus has shifted from the mountains and the sea and the Egyptians to God. And what do you do when your focus shifts? You start praying. So now they start praying because in verse 15, the Lord said to Moses, why do you cry out to me? Okay, they're praying. That's good. But guess what happens when your focus shifts? God says, I'm going to give you a solution. Tell the children of Israel to go forward and lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel go on dry land through the midst of the sea. That's exactly what happened. After standing still, and your focus shifts, your focus shifts from the trial to God. And now you start to pray. You're in prayer to God. Now sometimes standing still can take a long time. For these people, it didn't take that long. Standing still can take a long time sometimes, can't it? Sometimes you stand still for a long time and you learn to be calm in the face of the trial. And you keep praying, and you keep praying, and you keep praying. And you know what happens one day? God says, uh, why are you standing there praying? It's time to move. God doesn't expect us just to stand still the rest of our lives. There is a point where He supplies answers and He says, now you must obey and move. Here's the strange thing about human nature. When faced with these impossible situations, we tend to get overwhelmed with fear and confusion and run around from problem to problem, and then God says, stop, and we shut down. So what we do is we're trying to move when we should be standing still. When you're in the trial, the last thing you want to do is stand still. You want a solution and you want it now. And I'm going to find a solution. So in the confusion and fear, we run, we move, we do. God says, stop. Now here's the other strange thing about human nature. When we stop, we stay stopped.

God says, no, no, no, no, no. Once I show you the solution, move. You actually have to walk through the Red Sea. That must have been a terrifying thing to do. Absolutely terrifying. We have to walk through the Red Sea. The solution is there, and God says, now move. Well, I don't want to move now. Well, you know, a few minutes ago, all you wanted to do was move. I told you to stand still. Now you will move. I'm not moving. I'm not going anyplace. God told me, stand still. I'm not going anyplace. Okay, well, I'm going to destroy the Egyptians. We'll destroy them. No, I'm going to destroy them with the Red Sea, and you've got to go through the Red Sea. I don't like that solution. Well, you didn't like it when I told you to stand still. Now you don't like it when I tell you to move. This is us. So don't be too hard on these people, okay? This is us. Well, I don't want to move now. I didn't know I had to walk through the Red Sea. I thought you'd said, like, ships. Don't you have ships? I mean, God should have ships. No, no, no. I'm going to part the water. Do what? I'm going to part them. But it's money. No, it's going to be dry. I'm going to dry it off for you. And you're going to walk through it. I'll just stand still. It's so difficult to take the step. Just like it's so difficult to stop. And stand still and pray. And then God at some point says, why are you crying out to me? Here's the solution. Just go. And we have to go. We have to step out on the faith. God has given me the solution. I have to go. Every one of us has to walk through the Red Sea from time to time. Every one of us has to walk through the Red Sea from time to time. Because God's never going to take us over the mountains. God's never going to supply ships. And He's never, ever going to destroy the army behind you until you're in through the Red Sea. So you and I have to do the same thing. We have to move forward. And it's only after you stand still that God says move. It's only after you've stopped, shift the focus on Him. Now you're praying. Now you're asking Him. And He says, here's the solution. Go do. He expects us to obey. He expects us to follow.

You know, like I said, we can be pretty hard on these people. And they were facing a real army and a real desert and a real sea. And a real sea. You and I are facing all these situations in our lives. None of them are as big as this one. All their solutions led to them dying or being made slaves. That was all their solutions. They had to have the faith. Now we know the story. God's solution worked. It worked. They all went through. They all got to the other side. The Egyptian army got in the middle and the waters closed. That was a reality. Those people actually witnessed that. They saw that. That's not a legend. It's not a story. It's reality. It's what they experienced. And you and I will go through these moments many times in life. So here we are during the Days of 11 Bread, because it was during the Days of 11 Bread that they crossed the Red Sea. These lessons apply to us. These are part of the lessons we're supposed to learn from the Days of 11 Bread. These four simple lessons. Having to do with, you will end up in trials that sometimes God is leading you into. Now sometimes we create our own trials. So that's not what I'm talking about. Sometimes we'll end up in a trial that God leads us to. One, because maybe it's easier than the other trial that we're about to face. Or two, it would be because He's going to reveal Himself to somebody else through you. And then when that happens, somebody's going to come along and convince you, run to the mountains. Or let's go fight the Egyptians. Someone's going to try to convince you of a solution that is not what God wants. So then you're going to have to stand still in all the confusion and all of fear. And then once God says, okay, here's what you're going to do, stop crying out to me, and step forward. You've got to walk forward on faith.

As simple as that sounds, there's nothing more difficult in life any of us will do than those four steps. That's the most difficult part of life.

So there's our four steps I wanted to get from the Old Testament. I want to now go to the New Testament. I actually want to. And this is funny because the last time Mr. Walker spoke, he went through one of the scriptures he went through was a scripture I was going to use, and he laid the foundation for me to build up. He just did it again. So I never ask him what he's going to speak on. I just figure he's going to really set me up well. 1 Corinthians.

Because he went to 1 Corinthians. I'm going to go to 1 Corinthians. I'm going to pick up and cover what he covered but in different details. So he set up what I want to talk about here.

Oh, let me get to 1 Corinthians. I flipped the page, looked up and looked down, and it was in 1 Chronicles. Where did that come from? 1 Corinthians. Verse 1 of chapter 10. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud all passed through the sea. Now, there's something very interesting about that comment we miss. The Church at Corinth. You know, we're going through 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians in the Inho Bible studies. In fact, we have an Inho Bible study this Wednesday night in Dixon.

I call them Inho Bible studies. They're actually not in anybody's home anymore, but the smaller Bible studies we have. We're going through 1 Corinthians. We've been going through and showing what kind of world these people lived in. And it was predominantly a Gentile church. And that's what makes this interesting. He says to a Gentile church, our fathers went through the Red Sea. As these Gentiles came into the church, the entire Old Testament applied to them also. Unfortunately, there's a belief among many that, well, Gentiles come into Christianity and the Old Testament no longer applies to them. Then why would He say this? Why would He say to Gentiles, our fathers? He didn't say, oh, the few Jews of the congregation, your fathers, our fathers, because they were now part of the story. They're part of the narrative. Old Testament Israel applies to them. They're part of the narrative that God is creating, the story He's doing to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. So that's just a very, that's a very interesting point about that little verse, our fathers. He goes on, He says, all were baptized into Moses and in the cloud and in the sea. All were baptized into Moses.

Now, this wasn't some kind of baptism for salvation. To be baptized in the Greek word, just means to be immersed, totally immersed. They were totally immersed in the sea into Moses. When they walked through that red sea, and they followed, by the way, the pillar of fire, in the cloud, which is God, they followed God through there. They became immersed into the leadership and the vision and the mission of Moses. They were immersed into Moses. Moses was going to tell them, after that point, Moses was going to say, this is what we're going to do, this is what God says. They were now immersed into Moses. God would give the Ten Commandments to Moses, and Moses would come down and teach it to them. Actually, He told it to them. They just stopped up their ears and said, we can't, this sound is too great for us. So they're, why would He say they're baptized into Moses? Moses was to be their example. Moses was to be their leader. Moses was the one who was to tell them what God the Father wanted.

I'm going to put a marker here. We're going to come back to this. Let's just take a prophecy and how it's used in the New Testament, and then let's look at something that was really important for us during the days of 11 bread. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 18. Deuteronomy 18.

They were immersed into Moses. Deuteronomy 18, verse 15.

God says here, the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 1815, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet, like me, like Moses, from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all the desire of the Lord your God in Horem in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God. Let me not see his great fire anymore, lest I die. He says, now God's going to send you a prophet who's going to teach you what you were taught from Mount Horem, which was when they heard Mount Sinai. They heard the voice of God. And they said, no, please Moses, let him talk through you because we will die. They're immersed into Moses. Moses, you go to God for us. And He says, there's going to come a prophet that is going to speak to you like what you heard on Mount Sinai. And the Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good, and I will raise up for them a prophet. In other words, when they said, please don't let God and all His glory talk to us. And God said, okay, I understand. So I'm going to talk to you just like from Mount Sinai through a prophet that I will send. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brother, and they will put my words in his mouth. And he shall speak to them all that I command. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, who speaks in the name of the other God, that prophet shall die. So he says, I'm sending you a prophet, and he will be like Moses, and he will speak for me. And if you do not listen to him, I will require your life. Interesting prophecy, isn't it? Let's go to Acts, chapter 3.

Right after the Holy Spirit is poured out on the church, the Day of Pentecost, Peter here is talking from the temple, and he's talking to a large group of Jewish people there. And in verse 19, breaking in the middle of this sermon, he tells them, "...repent therefore..." Now remember, these are people who follow God, by the way. They worship the true God. The center of their religion is the Ten Commandments.

These are the descendants of our fathers, the physical descendants of our fathers, as he told the Greeks, who were not physical descendants of our fathers. But spiritually, we're all part of this plan, what God is doing.

"...repent therefore be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before..." So this is after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he says, repent because he's going to send him back. Those times of refreshing, the great prophecies about the Messiah, who's going to rule on earth, they all knew this. In other words, he's talking to a group of Jews who knew the Scripture. They're tying all this together. They know exactly what he's saying. "...whom heaven must receive until the time of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers..." Remember what he's talking about here? It's about Jesus Christ. "...For Moses truly said to the fathers, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, and you shall hear all his things, whatever he says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people." You read the rest of the sermon. You know what the rest of the sermon is? This is the first of a whole series of prophecies that all the prophets gave about the Messiah and Jesus is that Messiah.

Moses was inspired to write after the people had been immersed into him.

You did not want to listen to the voice of God about Sinai. And God said, that's okay, because someday I will send a prophet. He'll be like one of you. You'll see him as one of you. And He will tell you everything I want you to know. It's Jesus Christ. Now you think about the Scriptures we go through and you're baptized. You think about what Paul says in Galatians where he says that we are baptized into Christ. They were immersed into Moses, his leadership and vision, the commandments given to him, what God was doing through him. They were totally immersed into following Moses. You and I live under the new covenant. According to Paul, when you were baptized, you were immersed into Jesus Christ. When you were immersed into Jesus Christ, everything, you are now, you're completely covered with Christ. His leadership, his goals, his mission, his commandments, everything he receives from the Father is given to us. And we were immersed into it. What do we do all week long? What do we do? I don't eat much bread normally, but I found myself all week long walking over and eating a piece of bread. Just so I could say, okay, Christ has to be in me. He has to be in me. I have to be immersed here. It has to be totally in me, not the dead Christ that I commemorated on Passover, but the living Christ because I'm immersed into his life. I'm immersed into his life. It's the only solution to the red sea problem that you and I face every day, which is salvation. There is no solution to salvation except immersion into Christ. There is none, and we eat that. We eat that all week long. The picture we're immersed into Christ. Now, remember, 1 Corinthians was written to a church during the days of a lot of loving bread, or about the days of a loving bread. They're told how to keep the Passover. They're told about the days of a loving bread, and he says to them, keep this feast. It's a command from the apostle, from the Gentile church to keep the days of a loving bread.

And here he is talking about, let's go back to that Red Sea crossing, which happened during the days of a loving bread. Let's go back to that, and let's look at what we're supposed to learn. So we looked at what we learned directly from the Old Testament. Now we're looking at what Paul said we learned from it. He's going to talk about this very same thing. Let's go back now to 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. See how Mr. Walker set me up again? He does this all the time. Every time he speaks, I speak, I think I'm going to have him come and set me up. Verse 3, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink. Now he's getting into an allegory here. In other words, here they are immersed in Moses, but as they go through the Red Sea, they go out now and they're eating the manna, the bread of physical life. Remember Jesus said, we talked about this in the past, Jesus said, eat this bread. God gave you your father's manna, which kept him alive physically, eat this bread, and this bread will keep you alive forever. And they said, what is this bread? He says, it's me. It's me, he said. So they ate this physical bread, but there was a spiritual thing that they were doing. They didn't realize it.

He says, for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Christ was with them. The pre-incarnate Christ was with them in the wilderness. They were immersed in Moses because they did not have the Holy Spirit yet. We are immersed in Christ. And he's saying, let's look at our fathers and see how God led them. But what God is doing in our lives is so much greater, so much greater than what he was doing with them, because what he's doing with us is preparing us to be his children forever in his kingdom. They did not receive God's Spirit in Mass. That's why he told them, he sent them Ezekiel, who said, someday you're all going to be resurrected, and the New Covenant will be made with you. He told them that. It's our time now to be part of the New Covenant.

We're not just following Christ because we're immersed in Moses. We're following Christ because we're immersed in Christ. Look what he says now. He goes on, but with most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. That's what happened. They went through the Red Sea, and that generation, except for the younger generation, the older generations all died off. Now these things became our examples. He says, we're supposed to go back and look at what happened to the ancient Israelites, the Red Sea, the wilderness experience, because they're our examples. And that's what we rehearsed in the first half of this sermon, was our examples. Because there are examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Now you can go through what happened to the Israelites as they left the Red Sea. And there are 10 times they rebelled against God in the year that it took them to get from the Red Sea to the promised land. And you will find all of these are the issues. Now Paul just said, this is our example. So what Paul is saying is, let's look at what led them to failure so this doesn't lead us to failure. This is real important, this list, because he's drawing it exactly from the book of Numbers. He's taking it right out of the book of Numbers. He says that they lusted after evil things as they lusted. They wanted instant gratification. Give us meat. The bread of life that you give us is not enough. Give us meat. Give us water. I know you gave us water last week, but we're going to stop our feet until you give us water this week. Instant gratification. You and I live in a world of instant gratification, but ours isn't about, am I going to die today for lack of thirst? Theirs was pretty intense. Ours is on. Oh no, my cable system went down. I can't watch my favorite show. It's the end of civilization as we know it. Right? My internet service and cable service went out last week. I had a great Red Sea moment. It says in verse 7, Do not become idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up the play. In other words, they just went out and lived. They started to live these sin-filled lifestyles because idolatry allowed them to do that. Well, most of you aren't going to go worship the bale, right? But how about jobs and money and houses and things and clothes and status, the things that we worship that take us away from God? Remember, he says this is our examples, folks. This is, if drew them away from God, it's what drives, draws us away from God. No, let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did. And in one day, 23,000 fell. We have to be real careful about sexual immorality, and we live in a sexual promiscuous society where to consider biblical sexual immorality makes you a hate monger and probably mentally ill.

Are we in danger of what they faced? And we're so hard on those people. They did not have God's Spirit. Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents. They tempted Christ. They tempted Christ. I just want to take a minute to go here. Let's go to Numbers 21. We'll come right back to finish this up in a minute. But Numbers 21, because here's what they attempted. When he's talking about the snake, God actually brought a plague of snakes upon him. Numbers 21, and here's what led up to that. Numbers 21 and verse 4. Verse 4 says, Then they journeyed from Mount Hoar by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land and eat them. And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have they brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no food or water, and our soul loathed this worthless bread, this bread of life. We hate that. So the Lord said, Firey serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people died.

They simply became, it says, discouraged. But in Hebrew, now, word can be translated a couple of different ways. The stronger meaning is they became impatient. Their discouragement was because they were impatient. You know what? This is taking longer than we thought. And this man is pretty good. But you know, it's the same stuff every day. And it's hot. And, you know, yeah, there's water, but we have to stand in line. We never had to stand in line in Egypt. We just went down to the Nile, got a bucket full of water. Now it takes me two hours to stand in line just to get water. They became impatient. And that's when they turned against God.

It is impatience that drives us many times to go against God. We just won't wait for God to do what He's going to do. And we want to solve. We want to control everything. I think one of the greatest things that you learn through life as you get older is stop trying to control everything.

Stop trying to control everything. You're not God. Took me a while to figure that one out.

Let God be God and follow along. You'll find life gets a whole lot simpler. Let God be God and follow along.

And it gets a lot simpler. They became impatient. Now let's go back to 1 Corinthians.

Chapter 10, now verse 10. Nor complained. Some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. They got, they became so negative. All they could do was gripe. All they could do was see bad. They could never see God. Once again, they kept losing their focus on God. Every time they lost their focus on God, all they could talk about, all they could think about, all they could feel was impatience and dissatisfaction and how rotten our lives are. And God kept saying, but you're on the way to the promised land. Don't you remember? Don't you remember I crushed Egypt. Remember the frogs? I was pretty proud of that one. You know, I mean, I'm being facetious. But you know, God said, look what I did, folks. I thought the frogs were pretty funny. I brought those people down to show them their gods were nobody and to save you. And he would tell them actually, not because you were better than them, but because you were weaker than them. Because you were the small, weak people, I chose to save you and because I promised Abraham. Remember, it was the promise to Abraham is why I'm doing this. Not because you were so much better than the Egyptians, because you weren't. But he showed who he was. He said, don't you remember I'm the one who killed the firstborn for you. I'm the one who opened the Red Sea for you. I'm the one who destroyed their army for you. I'm the one who's caused water to come out of a rock every place we've stopped for you. I think about all that God has done for us. How many times are we in these negative, angry, bitter ways? And God is saying, but look what I've done. I sacrifice my son for you. What more do you want? Yeah, but I don't know. If I made more money, I wouldn't have to eat at Cracker Barrel. I could eat at a steakhouse.

That's his Cracker Barrel steakhouse? You've eaten the bread of life!

And we get upset because, oh, God gave the man a what's-there problem. We're not that far different, unfortunately. Just in a modern way, that's all.

Verse 11. By the way, we all get negative attitudes, but a constant negative attitude is because we don't depend on God. We keep trying to find solutions to our own problems, and they never work out. Because they never work out, we're negative all the time. My solution didn't work. It's God's fault. My solution didn't work. It's God's fault. At some point, you wake up and say, oh, wait a minute, it never was God's solution to begin with. It was always mine, and mine don't work. My solutions don't work. His does. And we were immersed in Christ who came to teach us that. Verse 11. Now all these things, he says it again, all these things happen to them as examples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. They're written for us.

God's destruction of Pharaoh and his army is written for us. It's written for us. Ancient Israel, collapsing and just spiritually rebelling against God so many times in the wilderness that they all had to go wander around for 40 years. That's written for us. God finally taking him into the Promised Land. That's written for us. It's all there so that, you know, he could have done that and not recorded it, but he wants us to learn this. And it's during the days of 11 bread that we go back and we take these Old Testament stories, we tie them into what the New Testament teaches, like here, where we basically just go through Exodus 14 and 1 Corinthians 10, and we look at them together. And it all comes together.

God has promised you the Promised Land. He's promised us the kingdom. But you and I are going to have a number of red seas we're going to have to cross. We're going to have some times in the wilderness where there seems to be no food. We're going to have times when there seems to be no water. We think, well, our flocks and our children are going to die.

Are there a little more subtle, usually, problems than theirs? Theirs were pretty dramatic and immediate. Sometimes our are going to... our problems, our trials are going to be dramatic and immediate. But you and I are partaking of the spiritual food and the spiritual drink that is Jesus Christ. We are immersed into Him, and we are to be striving to have God through His Spirit create in us the likeness of Jesus Christ. Are you talking about immersion? That's immersion. That's what God wants from us. He's done a lot of effort to get you where you are. God... we forget that. God's done a lot of effort to get you and I from the best we were in to where we are now. He's put a lot of work into getting us out of Egypt. We forget that. Just like the Israelites forgot all the work God had to do to get them out of Egypt, because they sure didn't get them out of Egypt, did they? You and I don't get them out of the spiritual. Egypt, God takes us out, and He's done a lot of work, and there's a lot of work yet to be done.

Remember, Paul tells us, look at that example. Remember that you and I can't get caught up in immediate gratification, and we can't get caught up in idolatry and sexual immorality. We can't get up tempting Christ, pushing Him all the time, pushing Him, trying to get our way, trying to make Him do things our way, as He keeps telling us, submit to God the Father and do it His way, just like He showed us to do. We will make the Promised Land. We will make the Promised Land as long as we follow. Because He says He will get us there. We will get there as long as we follow. There is no Red Sea too big for God. There is no desert too big for God. There's no nomadic tribe that would come along and attack them. That was too big for God. There was no Egyptian army too big for God. But they were too big for all the Israelites. Just like what's going to happen to us in our lives at times is too big for you and me. It's too big! And God says, of course it is.

You and I can't open Red Seas. God can't.

You and I can't destroy Egyptian armies. God can't.

You hang on to God. And He tells us the prophet He sent. The prophet He sent has come. And you and I are being immersed into Him. And He will send Him back. And what He does, we will receive the Promised Land.