Week 5: The Rescue (Exodus 13-14) Discussion Questions

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1 Week 5: The Rescue (Exodus 13-14) Discussion Questions 1. There are two ways in which our rescue by Jesus fulfils the rescue of the Exodus. The first is that Jesus dies as a substitute for us. The second is that Jesus? What was God doing? 2. Why did God squeeze his people into a corner where they were stuck between the Egyptians and the Red Sea? (see 14:1-4) Do you think the Lord sometimes has to take us on a more difficult route so that we might completely trust him? Share any examples from your life. 3. There are times when we have to simply be still and let God work for us. That is certainly true of our salvation! But on what other types of occasions? What practical tips can you share with one another in terms of let go and let God? 4. Read Colossians 2: Discuss Jesus triumph over our enemies at the cross. Who/what are our enemies? How was Jesus death on the cross a triumph over these? How did he do it? 5. God didn t take Israel on the easy route. Why? See 13:17-18 and 14: What does it say about the nature of human hearts? What does it say about the promise of false gods? 6. Why do you think that Israel, despite having been protected through the 10 plagues still couldn t trust God? v14 -How difficult must it have been to be still and let God fight? 7. Consider three popular gods in our culture wealth, success and reputation. What do they promise? What do they often deliver? 8. William Temple Archbishop of Canterbury ( ) is quoted as saying The only thing of my very own I contribute to my redemption is the sins from which I need to be redeemed. What does such a statement say to us about our part and God s part in our rescue? 9. Someone says to you I m going to have faith, I m going to have faith as if it s something which can be worked up. What do you say to them? 10. Who was safer as they walked between the walls of water the Israelite who was relaxed as anything marvelling at God was doing, or the one who was saying to themselves we re going to die? What can we learn about trust from this illustration?

2 Exodus # 5 The God who rescues The Rescue Exodus What is God doing? How does he do it? * I want to acknowledge the help and inspiration that a sermon on this passage by the Reverend David Short was to me as I prepared. Mark. Let me ask you have you enjoyed seeing the links between Exodus and Jesus between this great rescue story of the Old Testament and the great rescue story of the New? Well I have more to show you this morning. You recall the story of when Jesus was radically transformed before Peter, James and John? Luke 9 somehow Moses and Elijah are there with Jesus... though they ve been dead for hundreds of years... And we read in Luke 9:30-31 Two men, Moses and Elijah appeared in glorious splendour, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure which he was about to bring to fulfilment in Jerusalem Now- what word do you think the word departure translates?? It s the word exodus. Departure word is exodus speaking of Jesus death and resurrection. But you see the overtones... Luke sees it as a fulfilment of the Israelites exodus from Egypt. In his death and resurrection, Jesus fulfils the Exodus. That is, the salvation and liberation of Exodus, points forward to the salvation and liberation the death and resurrection brings about! Release from Egypt is a type or rehearsal for Jesus death and resurrection. We need to understand Exodus to properly see Jesus death and resurrection in all its glory to comprehend the full picture! How does the death of Jesus rescue us? We saw last week with the Passover rescue comes about, salvation comes about, through substitution. At the heart of the Passover, a lamb has been substituted for the life of the first born. Then when John the Baptist sees Jesus behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And Jesus himself says that he will give his life as a ransom on behalf of many. That s part one of how Jesus death rescues us! Second part which we ll see today at the crossing of the Red Sea salvation comes by God fighting for them salvation is seen as a victory over enemies... And that s what Jesus does for us in his death.

3 He fights for us against all our true enemies which would utterly enslave us he fights against everything that stands between us and God So I invite you to come with me as we look at: 1. What is God doing? 2. How does he do it? 1. WHAT IS GOD DOING? God is lifting heaven and earth to rescue his people who couldn t lift a finger to rescue themselves. Ch. 14: Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 Tell the Israelites to turn back and camp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to camp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. 3 Pharaoh will think, The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert. 4 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. Pharaoh thinks he s got Israel exactly where he wants them. They re stuck between the wilderness and the deep blue red sea. Now why why is this happening? 14:4 I will harden Pharaoh s heart and I will get glory over Pharaoh... and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord God brings his people to the place of utter vulnerability to show his glory when he overthrows the Egyptians. Did you notice in the reading massive emphasis on the military might and power of the Egyptians? Cast your eyes down Ch. 14 vv 6 and 7 chariots made ready 600 of the best v9 The Egyptians all Pharaoh s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops; v10 Israel is afraid when they see them approaching... Mentioned again in vv18, 25, 28 - this is huge! Freedom from slavery doesn t happen easily. It s going to be very difficult and terribly costly. There s massive opposition to the freedom of God s people. You see nobody just grows or evolves into salvation spontaneously or naturally it doesn t happen. You don t go to sleep one night a slave and wake up the next morning a happy free person. True freedom involves a fight and a victory over everything that enslaves us that s what s happening here at the Exodus and it is what happens on the cross... Look at v14 as Moses says to the people the LORD will fight for you; only have to be still... And have a look at v25 the Egyptians suddenly have a rush of insight when it s all too late says Let s get away from the Israelites... the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt! And no sooner than the waters close over the Egyptians then Moses and God s people in Ch 15 sing a song look at 15:1 I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously the horse and rider thrown into the sea v3 - the Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name It s not as if God loves a fight... But he will fight because we are so precious to him and we are so deeply enslaved and we are so unable to rescue ourselves that unless he s willing to fight for us, we are lost forever. You see your willingness to fight for someone is entirely dependent on how precious that person is to you. On how much you love them. See how much the McCanns are fighting for their daughter Madeliene... or closer to home how much the Morcombes are fighting to make something count from their very great loss... And what did we see last week? That the slavery we know is much more serious than the slavery to Egypt Israel faced...

4 It is slavery to death it is slavery to sin and it is slavery to Satan himself... And apart from Jesus Christ and apart from his death and resurrection we are held in lifelong bondage to Satan and to death that s the teaching of Jesus. It is precisely because of these wretched things that God has sent his one and only Son. It s because of these things that Jesus ministry was so full of constant conflict. His fight for us starts the moment after he s baptised as he goes out into the desert and confronts Satan head on. So deep is his love for us and so precious are we that he puts forth his own Son to fight for us. You see - how does the death of Jesus rescue us? Yes last week Jesus the Lamb dies in our place. Our substitute. This morning by the fight and victory over our enemies. Paul to the Colossians - When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. We are forgiven as Jesus stood in our place for sin and as he s nailed to the cross our sins are paid for! That by itself was no easy light weekend s work for him. It was a cosmic and titanic battle! But there was more happening. Everything that stands opposed to us is also defeated there and Jesus disarms Satan and all manner of evil powers and triumphs over them in his death. Christ appeared we read in the NT to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and he saves us not just by paying for our sins, but by destroying the accuser. This is wonderful stuff and it s prefigured is what God is doing in here in Exodus! He s fighting to free people who do not have the power to free themselves that is the glory and grace of God that he would fight for us! Grace is not just this kind of passive thing where God turn a blind eye to the naughty things we do... That is not the grace of the Scriptures. What God does at the Red Sea shows that grace is very active. He steps in on our behalf when we are powerless - when we had no ability to help ourselves he steps in out of grace, to give his Son that we might be free. That is the what? What he is doing. He s fighting for us. 2. HOW DID HE DO IT? The answer is one word He does it alone End of Ch 13 he doesn t take Israel the easy route to Canaan. They ve escaped the land and the easy route would have been just to walk around to the land of Canaan days it would have taken. But God drives them back into the wilderness until they re squeezed there by the sea. He never takes them by the easy route because God knows their hearts. 13:17 at the first sign of trouble Israel is going to race back into the arms of Egypt. Isn t that amazing? The hearts of God s people are so addicted to idols that not only does God have to fight for us, but that he has to fight to win our hearts. And God keeps putting us in places that are way beyond our comfort zone. Because he will save and he alone. And if you re wondering what is God doing in your life why God has you in the place you are in maybe this is why he takes Israel to the absolute dead end turns them back from the easy way, leads them until they re stuck there and when Pharaoh comes and corners them on the edge of the sea they have no place to go no possible human help they are beyond their capabilities and that is where we learn to trust God.

5 What do they do? they say to Moses is this not what we said to you in Egypt v10 Egyptians marching after them is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? what have you done for us in bringing us out of Egypt? is not this not what we said to you Egypt let us alone that we serve the Egyptians it would be better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert Despite the fact that they have seen the 10 plagues despite the fact that God is with them in the cloud and fire and smoke - they turn on Moses and say we want to serve Egypt. It s better to be a slave of Pharaoh than a slave of God! We know God has promised to rescue us; we know he did those 10 plagues, but it s just too hard to trust him to come through for us And slavery back to those false gods is easier than having to trust God when things are so hard. And I think that s probably always true. It s easier to trust false gods than it is to trust the true and real God. And I think there is an insight here because what false gods do is that they offer us ease or promise us plenty. Their offer is completely empty of course they always give the opposite Take three popular gods in our culture wealth, success and reputation All good things in themselves no doubt but if you give yourselves them, they will be initially exciting and enticing... but then they ll turn on you and enslave you and rob you of your joy. That is the way it is with false gods. But God knows that he has to show that he can be trusted and he alone, so he brings us to the end of ourselves and what is Moses answer to their complaining and grumbling v13 fear not, stand firm see the salvation of the Lord which he will work for you today for the Egyptians you see today you will never see again the Lord will fight for you you only have to be still. This is what marks off the God of the Scriptures from every other God it s that he saves and he alone. In every other religious system... salvation is dependent on me or a combination of me and my god. I have to follow a path, I have to achieve enlightenment, I have to achieve purity, to I have to achieve detachment, I have to be meritorious. But the God of the Bible is the one who works salvation alone without us doing anything whatsoever towards it. One of the former archbishops of Canterbury (William Temple) said this: The only thing of my very own I contribute to my redemption is the sins from which I need to be redeemed. And God tells Moses exactly what to do to stretch out his hand toward the water... And during the night the Lord opens the sea from the other side and God s people walk through on dry ground. You must not think this is a natural occurrence. Every time it s mentioned we re told there s a wall on the left and a wall on the right... And then in an amazing moment, Pharaoh and his troops pursue God s people right through the walls of water. What were they thinking? It s a great picture of the hardness of our hearts isn t it? When we harden our hearts it s like a kind of spiritual blindness and one of the lies we keep telling ourselves is that there s going to be no consequences for resisting God I can fight against God and nothing s going to happen... v24 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. 25 He jammed the wheels of their chariots 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. It is the Lord who fights it is the Lord alone who fights... and then he commands Moses to stretch out his hand again and the waters of the sea close over over the army of Pharaoh and his soldiers and not one single person remains. And the chapter ends in thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea shore and Israel saw the great work which the Lord did against the Egyptians and the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and his servant Moses. Well I think the people had begun to believe on the previous night. I don t think they would have stepped into the sea otherwise. And there s a lovely picture there of faith isn t there?

6 I mean here s a question... did it make any difference when they were in the bottom of the sea whether God s people were nervous or confident? I m guessing that some who went into the sea were absolutely certain and convinced of God s power and were trusting him. But I m guessing a lot of the Israelites were saying to each other we re going to die, we re going to die... but they still went through... because it s not the quality or quantity or the strength of their faith... it s the object of their faith. And if we ask the question when did real faith come in this story... the answer is right at the end... After God fights, after God s people realise that he alone has delivered them. That s what true faith does. True faith looks back to what God has done and back to what God alone has done and then it looks forward in trusting his word for the future. Faith doesn t come by trying hard to have faith. You don t wake up in the morning and say I m going to have faith, I m going to have faith, I m going to have faith... Faith comes as we look back on what God has done and sees what he has done he has fought for because of his grace. And I don t know really what Moses and Elijah and Jesus I don t know the full content of their conversation on the mountain that day but if I was Moses I might have asked Jesus something like this: Lord what is it that you can possibly to that will top that day at the sea I mean what rescue and deliverance what salvation could you possibly do that would come close to it? And if he asked such a silly question, Jesus would say something you know Moses that day at the sea points to my death just as the Passover did... and when I m lifted up on a cross I will fight against every real enemy against Satan and sin and every real enemy which holds us in invisible chains which holds men and women captive forever. And I will disarm those opponents and I will bring a freedom which is eternal and imperishable and that no one can take away from you and after I am raised again, everyone who lives after my resurrection will look back on my work and trust. And I have said to them I will raise them up at the last day... and you know what Moses? Their rescue is bigger and their wilderness experience harder than yours and their Promised Land is way better than yours! And that is why we sing the song salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb and that is why the Lamb says they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more the sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat for the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide then to springs of living water and God will wipe away all their tears from their eyes.