Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Are you facing a crisis? If so, you'll want to stay tuned for a helpful edition of Abounding Grace.

Maybe you're facing something so big, so crushing or devastating that you're scared, and hope seems lost. Today on Abounding Grace, we'll turn to Exodus 14 and see what to do when a crisis strikes. We're going through the book of Exodus right now, and if there was ever a group of people who needed God's provision during a tough stretch, it was Moses and the Israelites fleeing from Egypt. In chapter 14, we see the mighty hand of God continue to protect the people of Israel as they flee the persecution of Pharaoh. Here's Pastor Ed Taylor.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles, Exodus chapter 14, as we tackle the first half of Exodus 14. I've entitled this Bible study, "Are you facing a crisis? Do nothing." And there are those times in the life of the believer where God brings us to places of deeper faith. We would prefer that they come through reading a book, and sometimes they do, or going to a seminar or conference, and certainly, God can build our faith there. Maybe some homework that's given to you by a pastor or a counselor that says, "Here, this is going to help your faith." But most of the time, God will bring us to these places where we literally have nowhere to turn but to the Lord.

And that's how God would have it, normally and naturally, to turn to him and to trust him. But our tendency is to go off on our own. Our tendency is to trust in ourselves. Our tendency is to think that we really don't need the type of help from God that we needed last year, or two years ago, or three years ago. But God would have us to daily trust in him, not forgetting about him. And so, circumstances change and are either sent our way or allowed by God so that we might get our eyes back on him. Chapter 14 highlights the need for complete and total faith. That's where the nation is. The nation of Israel is at a place where they need complete and total faith. And what a true story it is to inspire us in God's delivering power.

Though the natural way of escape for the nation as they're leaving Egypt, as God has done a great deliverance, the natural way of escape was one way, God will bring them the opposite way on purpose. And if you just take a moment and consider your life for a moment, you will see the same thing where you've got things planned out, or you have desires, or you kind of think the way, and God will take you the exact opposite way. And remember how it made you feel, or how it's making you feel right now. You're like, "Pastor, that's where I'm at right now." And how it's easy to panic, and to walk in fear, and to doubt God, and to wonder what's going on.

Today, we'll find that God deliberately leads them into a trap, and yet he did it to show his great strength, to reveal himself in a new and a fresh way. You'll remember God's promise was to be with them in the midst of it all, that he would send the deliverer, that he would deliver them. Not only did he promise that he would be with them, but he promised that he would take care of them, and they have his word. So that the enemy, just like from the Garden of Eden, will try to get them, or even get us, by way of application, to doubt the word of God, to doubt his promises, to doubt the promises he's given to us personally. And God does promise us so many things in the scriptures, and we're to hold them close. My pastor would say this all the time. He'd say, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." It's just a great place to be. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.

You could even take out the middle part, couldn't you? "God said it, that settles it." If you want to enjoy it, then you need to believe it. That's the key of enjoying the word of God is faith and trust. And we have his word, church, and we can trust him in his word, even though the battle of the mind is real. Jot it down, 1 Kings chapter 8 verse 56. I love this. In 1 Kings 8:56, it says, "Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised." Then he says, "There has not failed one word of all his good promise which he promised from his servant Moses." There hasn't failed one good word, not one.

So, pick up with me in verse one, chapter 14. "Now the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and camp before Pi-Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal-Zephon. You shall camp before it by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, 'They are bewildered by the land. The wilderness has closed them in.' And I will harden Pharaoh's heart so he will pursue them. And I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord.'' And they did so.

I love this about God here with Moses. If you stand back from the dramatic parts of this true story, the plagues or the doubts of Moses or the reluctance, if you just stand back one step, you'll see that God was always giving Moses insight about what he was going to do. He was always telling him ahead of time. "This is what's going to go down. This is what I want you to do. This is how it's going to happen. This is what's going to happen." And he does it one more time. He says, "This is what's going to happen. I want you to go in this way, I want you to stop here, because at that moment Pharaoh's going to begin thinking about you." And it says Pharaoh's going to say of the children of Israel, "Look, they're twisted up, they don't know where they're going, they're stuck, they're bewildered, they're all closed in," verse three.

And it's then God says, "I'm going to deal with Pharaoh's heart and he's going to pursue you. He's going to pursue the nation, and I'm going to gain honor," he says, verse four, "and over the army. And the end result will be that the Egyptians know that I am the Lord." From Pharaoh's perspective, as he assesses the situation, the real situation is that his economic strength has just left. This was the economic engine of the nation. He's far more concerned about money than he is his own people, how the firstborn just died throughout the land. He wants to take back control. They just let their entire economic strength walk out, and it's dawning on him that it's going to hurt.

And God, he speaks to Moses, letting him know what's going to happen. And hearing from God directly is a wonderful experience. Personally, I've never heard a loud audible voice of God speak to me from a burning bush or from a cloud somewhere or a fiery pillar. But I have heard the voice of the Lord. I have had that sense of his direction in my life. I've had that sense of confirmation. And even times in that sweet moment, usually in my car, usually coming up Buckley, making the right on Hampton, where God seems to speak very loudly at that corner. I think I need to go a different direction sometimes, because it seems like Hampton and Buckley is the place where God really deals with me, whether I'm on my way into the office or on my way home.

That seems to be a place where a conversation starts in my car as God begins to speak to me about something I taught or something that's been heavy on my mind or something I won't let go, or some scripture he's bringing to my remembrance, some lesson he wants to teach me. I have heard the voice of the Lord, and it's almost always tied to what God has said in his word, to a truth that's immovable. God revealing to me what to do, how to do it, when to do it, what the results might be, sensing the leading of his Holy Spirit.

I've never had a conversation like he's had with Moses. I think I would want to, but then I wouldn't want to. I think I'd be real excited, "God, you want to talk to me? Yeah, go ahead, tell me what's going to go on." Oh man, it's going to be so bad. I don't want to hear anymore. Because you know how when people come up and they go, "Well, I got good news and bad news. What do you want to hear?" Well, you know, give me the bad news first. Let me just get it out now because I want to end with the good news. But I mean, if I have a choice, just give me the good news and you deal with the bad news. I'm not a big bad news kind of guy. I don't like it, even though much of my life in leadership is to help bad news become good news.

So I get that, I'd like that. But then I think a part of me really wouldn't like that. I really wouldn't. I mean, there's a part of me that's like, "Yeah, give me the five-year plan, Lord." But then if I knew something was going to happen four years ago or four years ahead that is going to be so hard and so difficult, I know me. And I know some of you, it would be a real sense for you to try to avoid that fourth year, to do whatever you can to avoid it, to beg and plead. Like if God told me in four years something really devastating would happen, my whole life, I just know my flesh, my whole life would be stuck on that fourth year. So I'd lose year one because I'm worrying, I lose year two because I'm worrying worse, year three, and then I'd be so dreading the day.

And so I'm grateful that God leads us by faith. I'm grateful that he'll give me what I need when I need it. Almost always he holds us on a need-to-know basis, and if I need to know, he'll tell me. If I don't need to know, I can walk by faith. He's given me what I need. And so, I think this is really a powerful time where God is giving insight to Moses, even as he wants to give insight to us. He wants to show us that he's with us. And that I've found that God, when he wants to speak to your heart, when he wants to commune with you, he wants to share hope and encouragement.

But our attitude often becomes like Pharaoh, where Pharaoh will be like God will be leading us and guiding us and giving us direction. And then like Pharaoh in Exodus chapter five, he says, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?" Almost like we approach God that we could do it better or we have a better plan or, "You know, God, leading us into a trap, that ain't going to work. That's not how things work. There are easier ways to go. There are quicker ways to go. I've traveled this path before." And so quickly, we want to come outside of the place of faith where God... and this is a battle, maybe even what we're praying about, the battle of the flesh. God wants us to stay in a place of dependence and we want to be in a place where we're in control. And those two are incompatible.

So God is preparing Moses for what's up ahead. Notice in verse five. "Now it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people, and they said, 'Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?'" So he made ready his chariot and took his people with him. And he took 600 choice chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt with captains over every one of them. Verse eight. "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel, and the children of Israel went out with boldness." I like that. So the Egyptians pursued them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and overtook them by camping by the sea beside Pi-Hahiroth before Baal-Zephon.

Pharaoh again takes the lead in pursuing God's people. Egypt's firstborns are dead, the cries and the wails of the nation continue throughout the land. And where do we find Pharaoh? He's angry. He's upset. He sees his two and a half million people workforce gone. And he comes to that place, "My son is dead, my country's in chaos, I have to do something." So he takes his own chariot, the Bible says, and 600 choice chariots. These were advance, technologically advanced fighting war machines. That's what now Pharaoh's going to lean on. He's not going to soften his heart, he's not going to humble himself, he's not going to seek the God of the Israelites, he's not going to consider the 10 plagues, he's not going to recall all 10 of the times God was gracious to him and merciful to him. None of that. He's going to take things into his own hands. He takes these chariots of Egypt with the captains over them, and he takes off to pursue them.

And it's interesting because the Egyptians knew the power of God. Pharaoh knew the power of God. He watched it with his own eyes. If the plagues weren't enough, if the frogs and the boils and the flies and the grasshoppers and the firstborn weren't enough, Pharaoh still has one more, one more thing he's trusting in, all of these little gods, and now he has one more thing that God's going to show his power over. And to some commentators, they point directly on the military might, that God's going to show his power over Egypt's military might, and he is. But I suggest something there's even greater than Pharaoh's going to learn that's more than his military might. God is wanting for all, going to show Pharaoh and the nation that God is greater than Pharaoh. Pharaoh has to learn that. The nation has to learn that.

And this is the episode. They're going to lean on their military strength and they're going to go and recover what's been taken after everything that's happened. I think it's good just to pause here for a moment and let's be very, very careful here. Even though I understand that Pharaoh's lost and unsaved and all, I agree. But let's just be very careful that we're not so quick to point the finger at Pharaoh and just kind of shake your head and go, "What is this guy's problem?" Because this is a pattern I see among believers, among those in and out of our church or those that might email or connect with us. I see the same thing. God has shown himself faithful, shown himself faithful, shown himself faithful. I mean, how many years, how many times, how many situations can you look at in your own life and see God has been faithful, God has been gracious, God has been merciful, and still you want God to prove himself to you.

Still you won't trust. Still you won't lay down your agenda. Still, it's still continually something you won't let go. You won't let go, and you'll lean on whatever else you have and lean whatever... this is a pattern I see. We see Pharaoh, sometimes the Bible is a mirror even in an unbeliever that rebukes us. Because how much more is it for us who know God and are born again and live in the New Covenant that would turn to lean on the arm of the flesh? It wasn't too long ago that we studied the life of King Saul, and it wasn't too long ago that we studied the life of David when David was on the run and you'll remember how many times David was tempted or had the temptation before him to take things into his own hands and fix it. "And I'll end this and I'll take this and I'll do this." It's a real difficult place to be because it's often in a place of pain. It's often in a place of kind of feeling like you're not in control.

And it's a very uncomfortable place as we'll even see today with the children of Israel and their response to a faithful God, where you are in a place where you just want some semblance of control. And God says, "No, I'll take care of that for you, just look to me." And we're like, "Yeah, I actually just don't want to look to you anymore. I just don't. I love you, God, and I appreciate you, but you've let this go on too long." There wasn't too long ago where I had that opinion about a very important situation in our own personal life, my family's life, where I just came to the end and I'm just like, "This is too... it's just been too long. I can take care of it, I'm going to take care of it." I remember it like it was yesterday. I was here on a weekend service teaching whatever Bible study was there.

God seemed to bless his word and encouragement, but I went home super discouraged. I went home just overwhelmed, situations just too much, man, it's gone on too long. So I go right up and go right to bed and I'm going to take a nap and that evening we had scheduled the Afterglow on a Sunday night, just a gathering of prayer, come together and seek the Lord together. And I remember as the home was getting ready, Marie, my daughter was getting ready to go, and I said, "I don't want to go. I don't want to go. Just go without me. I'm going to stay in bed and I'm feeling kind of foul right now." You guys never get in a foul mood? Yes? No? It's like, "Oh, Ed, you're so horrible." What about you? Like, I'm just in a foul mood, like I just don't feel good, I got all this wrapped around, I'm just battling, I can take care of this.

And, I finally, I'm like, "I'm the pastor, I can't let them go without me." I'm going to go, and I sat downstairs and I just had my head down for an hour and a half. I didn't participate, I didn't pray. It's one of those times and maybe you've been there where I'm just waiting for them to say "Amen" so we can go home. And I don't want to be there, but I'm there nonetheless. Pastor Matt was with us back then. He's leading the thing, and wouldn't you know it, as God began to move in that room, speaking forth his word through different people, there were different words that kind of started in front of me and then started around, kind of went around the circle in the room. And they were really specific words that were very encouraging and almost just like being repetitive, repetitive: "Don't think take things into your own hands," that kind of stuff. It's going around the room and it's going around all the way up into behind me.

And even Marie is kind of going, "I think that's for you, I think that's for you," and I'm thinking, "Nothing of this is for me, I want to go home." But I was listening. That's the beauty of being in the company of... I wasn't going "la-la-la-la-la" the whole time, that would not have looked good. So I was listening, and I was there even though it was a battle. The spirit against the flesh. The spirit was willing, but man, the flesh was weak. And so as it goes all the way around, I'm sensing, "Man, this is for me. This is for me." And then as we're getting ready to go, I'm like, "Well, maybe not so much because it's time to go now." Matt's winding it down. And as Matt is sharing, he shares something about obedience, like something about obedience. Like, "There's somebody this word's for, you've got to respond because if you don't, you'll be disobedient." And that is a place where God knows me. That's a place...

I'm not saying I'm not disobedient or have had those things, but that's something that God deals with me when he brings something to me that's black and white. It's very difficult for me to choose to disobey. Very challenging. And so he's pressing the issue, pressing the issue, and I'm like, "Yeah, I don't think I want to respond to this because this is where pride comes in. I'm the pastor." And all the words were like pretty strong. Like, somebody's messed up in this room. And everybody's waiting, "Get up, messed up one, messed-up one." And I'm like, "I don't want to be the messed-up one." But the Lord was dealing with me. He was dealing with my heart, and I believe literally saved me from making a decision that could have led to great consequences. It would not have been successful. And I did respond and just started bawling and crying and everyone's coming around laying their hands and praying on the one messed-up person in the whole room. The word was for one person.

You see, the battle of the spirit and the flesh, it's real, church. Please don't dismiss it. Don't think it's no big deal. Don't just walk away like you'll get over it or it's not that bad or I don't want to be that messed-up one. I might just tell you, you are that messed-up one. You and I are walking in a world that's hurt and it's scary and it's hard and it's difficult and you have your own issues. And God might even lead you to a place of, "This is where I want you to go." And in... you're going to feel a lot of things there, and I want you to feel it. I want you to feel it this way. I want you to come to the end of yourself. I want you to be in a place where you have nowhere to turn but me.

That's how it started when you were born again. That's what you admitted. That's when you stood to receive the Lord when you raised your hand, when you came up to a stage like this and you prayed for the salvation that God offered you by repenting of your sins. That's where you were. You were stuck, nowhere to go. You couldn't go to the left or to the right. You couldn't walk out the door the way you came in. The only logical, valuable, important place you could turn to was the Lord. And you did. And over time, you stopped turning to the Lord. Over time, you started to lean on your own understanding. So once again, God will lead you to a place where, "Will you look to me now?" Because I wish I could say, that episode a few years ago, that was the only time I was the only messed-up one in the room, but that's not true. We walk in often broken and beaten, no matter what we're carrying around, no matter what our role is, no matter what our title is. The Lord's working deep in us all so that we might trust him.

Guest (Male): This is Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. And if you missed any portion of today's Bible study, you can simply go online to aboundinggraceradio.com. Abounding Grace is available by podcast on most platforms, including oneplace.com. Listen and learn when it's most convenient—at the gym, in the car, or as you're getting ready in the morning. You can also get our app. It's available on all platforms. This is another way to hear Pastor Ed's teachings. Search for Ed Taylor in your favorite app store. Well, each month, we like to suggest a book that will encourage you in the Lord, and this month, it's "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung.

Maybe you've been on a search to find God's will and you're stuck or frustrated, waiting for clear and unmistakable direction. In this helpful book, you'll learn that God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed his plan for our lives: to love him, obey his word, and after that, to do what we like. He says, "No need for hocus pocus, no reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something." We'll send you a copy with our thanks for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Please remember, it is through your support that we're able to present this radio program on stations all across the nation. Thank you for standing with us. Call 877-30-GRACE and we can help you with the ordering details, or go to our online store at calvaryco.store. We'll return to Exodus next time on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. We'll see you then. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado, here in Aurora.