EXODUS 14 lesson # 11
IT IS GOD AND GOD ALONE WHO SAVES HIS PEOPLE
I. Greetings: This lesson is about the great act of salvation recorded at the Red (or Reed) Sea. This event is the key example of salvation in all of the Old Testament. What the Cross is to the New Testament, the Crossing of the Sea is to the Old Testament.
II. Setting the Scene. Exodus 14:1-20.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 13:17.
Q Why did God not take the direct route and immediately lead Israel into the Promised land?
An = There is a great road that leads right out of Egypt into Palestine. God did not take them this way because He wanted to bless them. He took them the long way to the promised land. He had His reasons, our chapter and its surroundings gives us a few of them.
This is the first of them. They would immediately encounter war and want to return to Egypt, to slavery (Exodus 13:17). God knows what we can handle.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:4 and 18.
Q What do these texts say the reason for taking the Israelites against the Sea was?
An = He wants to show Egypt that He is the Lord (Exodus 14:4,18,25).
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:31.
Q What is Israel doing here?
An = They are worshipping the Lord because they saw what He could do. He wants to show Israel how to trust Him, that He and He alone is their Savior (Exodus 14:31). This is how He does it….
A. Yahweh’s Speech to Moses. Exodus 14:1-4.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:1-4.
Note: God tells Moses to lead the people seemingly into a trap: to lead them west against the Sea with no way to get out of Egypt. Matthew Henry tells us that God led them against the sea to let them understand that their only way out was “up”. And it was from above that their deliverance would come.
Q How did the Egyptians understand the Israelites being lead right into a dead end at the Sea?
An = Notice in verse 3 the Lord knows this will aid Pharaoh into thinking Israel is trapped in the wilderness. God is going to use the stubbornness of the Egyptians to reveal who He is. See verse 4.
Q Have any of you ever complained about some of the difficulties God has allowed into your life, but it later helped you know who He is? Anyone care to share?
B. The Counter Move By the Egyptians. Exodus 14:5-9.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:5-9.
Q Has Pharaoh has again changed his mind?
Q What is Pharaoh response?
An = He has assembled the entire Egyptian military to recapture or slaughter Israel.
Note: Pharaoh, as do all bullies, thinks Israel is to serve Him, but we were made to serve God.
C. Israel’s Reaction. Exodus 14:10-12.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:10-12.
Q Did Israel react in faith? How did they react?
An = They complained. Did not Israel view the previous 10 plagues and watch God deliver them time after time? Yet they seem to quickly forget God’s mercies in the past.
Q What do neither Israel nor the Egyptians figure into the equation?
An = God.
Q Think back right now what the last stressful situation you were in? What was the last crisis? Jot it down right now.
Q Did you, in practice, act as if there is not a God that could act in your life? Did you act as a non-believer? Give yourself a rating from 1-10 as to how you did?
D. Moses’ Response. Exodus 14:13-14.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:13-14.
Q Who alone has faith that God is going to pull this thing off?
An = Only one person knows a different way to see reality. He knows the one key element that both Egypt and Israel left out: God. That one person is Moses.
Note: 1) Notice the change in this man? He tried so hard in Exodus 3 and 4 to get out of taking the challenge to deliver his people. He really did not believe back then what God was saying to him.
2) Maybe some of you today know what God wants of you, you are arguing with God because you are afraid his calling will not work. You won’t be happy and others will just not buy into it. But Moses…
3) Moses did obey. He did risk his future and look at the results:
a. He was not only alive, Pharaoh had not killed him, but
b. He was about to accomplish the seemingly impossible, Israel was about to leave Egypt, but what is more,
c. He was a new man. He now knows the Lord. He believes. He is the only one not in panic.
Q What are the three commands in Moses’ speech?
An = a. Do not fear!
b. Stand by and watch, God will do what He promised. He will save.
c. Keep silent. God will fight for you.
>>>> Turn with me to Psalm 46:10 and let me read it to you.
Q Is it hard to believe God will deliver you and that He will be glorified through it?
An = I know it is for me, but as hard as it is to believe at times, God really is there.
E. God’s Action. Exodus 14:15-20.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:15-18.
Q Does God want to hear prayers from Moses?
An = No, sometimes the time for prayer is over. God does not want to hear from Moses. It is time to move. There is a time to pray and a time to move forward.
Note: Now God prepares the situation.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:19-20.
Q What moves from the back to the front of the camp?
An = The pillar.
Q Why does it move?
An = Can you picture this pillar moving from the front of the camp into the back? It moves now to protect Israel from the advancing Egyptians. The pillar made the night darker for the Egyptians but was a light to Israel. The purpose of the movement of the pillar was to protect Israel during that dark and scary night. The wind was blowing, the darkness impenetrable and so both Israel and Egypt wait for morning.
III. The Event of Salvation. Exodus 14:21-30.
A. The Opening of the Sea. Exodus 14:21-25.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:21-25.
Q What did Moses do?
An = Moses stretched out His hands and the waters divided.
Q How did the waters actually part?
An = A strong east wind blew all night and then the waters piled up on both sides.
Q What stopped the Egyptians from riding down upon the Israelites and killing or capturing them the moment they arrived on the scene?
An = The Egyptians arrive a long time before the Sea is opened. However, they are first blocked from the pursuit and then they are brought into confusion (see verses 24 and 25).
Q When the Egyptians speak in 14:25 what do they finally realize?
An = At this point of confusion the Egyptians finally realize they are not fighting a weak bunch of slaves, they are fighting God. The Lord God of Israel.
>>>> Re-read Exodus 14:25.
>>>> Then have everyone turn to Exodus 5:2 and have someone read this verse.
Q What has Pharaoh learned?
An = Who the Lord is. Pharaoh asked, and now he knows.
>>>> Then turn back to and you read Exodus 14:3,4 and
>>>> Then have someone read Exodus 14:25 again.
Q What name did the Israelites call God by?
An = They call God by the divine Name: The LORD. The God Pharaoh said he did not know is now known. He is fighting for Israel.
B. The Closing of the Sea. Exodus 14:26-30.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:26-30.
Q Who destroyed the dreaded Egyptian army?
An = It was God and God alone.
Q How did God free the Israelites from the Egyptian Army? What was the actual means, a supernatural or nature one?
An = It was both: the Creator and the Redeemer are one. The God who made the world and nature is master over her. The story says the event at the Sea was both a use of nature and yet more than nature. 1) The East wind blows and yet the waters stood up on both sides is clearly not of nature. 2) The Egyptians were drowned (a natural cause) and yet the timing that allowed them not to pass and but permitted Israel to was clearly a miracle. All the miracles of the Bible have this theme. He who does the miracles of redemption is He who made the world.
>>>> Have someone read Genesis 1:9-10.
Q What do these verses have in common with our event here at the Red Sea?
An = It was at the separation of the waters that a place for mankind was began. It was at the separation of the waters that a new life began for Israel.
IV. Conclusion. Exodus 14:31.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 14:31.
Q What is unusual or possibly dangerous about the “trust” of Israel?
An = They put their trust in both Moses and the Lord. This is a bit disturbing and indeed potentially dangerous. However, you will watch Moses be pulled off the pedestal again and again in the following chapters.
Q However, as dangerous as it sounds there is there not often a mixing of where people put their trust?
An = It is often in a man, a leader. This puts all the more weight on those who aspire to leadership. People must find you faithful and loyal to God’s desires and your ego must be daily submitted to the needs of the people because you love them as God gives you the ability to do so.
Note: In summary, lets review a few major points.
1) Q Who engineered the trapping of Israel by the Sea to demonstrate that it is His power and His alone that saves (Calvin)?
An = It was God. Israel did not get together and arrange themselves into three tiers and blow the Sea open. They did not swim across nor go across on barges either. God and God alone saved Israel.
2) Q Was it Israel’s faith that saved them?
An = No! They did not deserve to be saved. Remember their speech in verses 11 and 12? They were complaining. They were saved because God chose to save them, not because they deserved it.
3) Q How does the Bible often view the Red Sea event, as a type of deliverance from slavery from what?
An = Slavery to sin, and therefore the deliverance from Egypt has been a type of deliverance from sin through out the rest of the Bible. Therefore baptism became a way of symbolizing the deliverance at the Sea from Egypt. Israel passed through the waters and was made free, free from slavery. This served as a type of the Christian passing through the waters of baptism and being free from sin.
4) Q If Egypt is a type of the believer being enslaved to sin, then should we expect to be able to save ourselves from sins that enslave us?
An = No! What the event at the Red Sea teaches us is that Pharaoh, though he refused to let Israel go, and repeatedly demanded that Israel serve him, was finally forced to let Israel go. You may struggle with sin and captivity of the Devil but the Exodus story tells us that God will not be stopped. He can deliver Israel from slavery and us from sins that enslave us. Nothing can stop the power of His death on the cross. We were made to serve God not Pharaoh. We were made to serve Jesus Christ and not sin.