From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Non-Christians and Christians alike, we deal with fear. Nobody has to introduce you to fear. It’s just something that all of us have experienced and we all know about. And we have so many people today who are so afraid, just living in fear. Maybe you’re facing some fears today. Maybe you’re facing some obstacles. God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline.

How can we face our fears and see the rescuing, delivering power of God?

Larry Nobles: There are so many people today who are living in fear. How can you face your fears and see the rescuing, delivering power of God? It's a great question that all of us do face and can ask God for a reliable answer. And you'll discover that answer today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve.

We'll start learning that answer as Pastor Jeff shares the incredible but real story of the greatest miracle of the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea. And you'll discover how you can see God work miraculously in your life. The message today is from Pastor Jeff's series, Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God, a study of the book of Exodus. You can go to fromhisheart.org to get your copy in the format of your choice. But first, open your Bible to the 14th chapter of the book of Exodus as Pastor Jeff Schreve presents part one of the lesson, Fear, Faith, and the Power of God.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: As human beings, we tend to be very fearful people. Non-Christians and Christians alike, we deal with fear. Nobody has to introduce you to fear. It's just something that all of us have experienced and we all know about. We have so many people today who are so afraid, just living in fear. Maybe you're facing some fears today. Maybe you're facing some obstacles. God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline.

In the scripture, the Lord says over and over and over again—you've heard it said—there are 365 "fear nots" in the Bible. I don't know if that's true. I haven't researched all those verses. But we know that one of the overarching themes in the Bible is about trusting the Lord, not fearing. God would say to His servants over and over when He would come to them, "Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not fear. Do not fear." He said that to Abraham, Joshua, Moses, David, and Paul. He says that over and over and over again in His word because we all have such a tendency to fear.

In our study in the book of Exodus, Exodus means exit. We've been looking at this passage of God versus Pharaoh in the book of Exodus under the title "Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God." This series is built on Pharaoh's question: "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. I do not know Yahweh, neither will I let Israel go."

The whole first part of the book of Exodus is God introducing Himself to Pharaoh. God has brought plagues upon Egypt. Remember they came in threes, and the last plague was the most devastating of plagues. It was the death angel coming in and the death of the firstborn. God said after this happens, "Moses, Pharaoh will let you go." Pharaoh did let the people go. The people went out, and they went out boldly. They went out with gold and silver because they plundered the Egyptians. God gave them favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so they took all this booty from Egypt and they left Egypt behind with their flocks and their herds and their little ones. They all left Egypt, about two to two and a half million people.

Egypt was just devastated, and everyone in Egypt had someone die because the death angel killed the firstborn. Pharaoh is going to have a change of heart, and things are going to shift in the minds of the Israelites. Pharaoh is coming back for them, and God is going to have one last battle with Pharaoh and put an exclamation point on His destruction of Egypt.

Exodus chapter 14, beginning in verse 1: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you shall camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, "They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in." Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.' And they did so."

When the king of Egypt—God is telling Moses this ahead of time—it says in verse 5: "When the king of Egypt was told the people had fled, Pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart toward the people, and they said, 'What is this we have done, for we have let Israel go from serving us?' We just let all our slaves walk away. Why did we do that? So he made his chariot ready and took his people with him; and he took 600 select chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them."

"The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he chased after the sons of Israel as the sons of Israel were going out boldly. Then the Egyptians chased after them with all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and they overtook them camping by the sea beside Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened."

The sons of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses, "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word we spoke to you in Egypt saying, 'Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?' For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

Moses said to the people, "Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever." They were afraid, so afraid because they thought they were going to be killed by the Egyptians. How can we face our fears and see the rescuing delivering power of God?

Exodus 14 is the greatest Old Testament miracle, the parting of the Red Sea. God delivers His people through the Red Sea. God destroys Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. It's the greatest Old Testament miracle. It’s talked about over and over and over again. This is the greatest miracle in the Bible, second only to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God gives it to us to encourage our hearts so that we would not be defeated by fear, but we would walk by faith and see God work in our lives.

Let me give you three encouragements today because you may be facing some health issues or facing some financial issues or facing some marriage issues or some family issues or some things that just have your heart filled with fear. You're thinking about all the terrible things that may happen to you, and God has a word for you today. It's not an accident that you are here today. It's not an accident that you're watching today. God has a word for your fearful heart.

Encouragement number one: We can remember that God has a plan. When the fear comes rushing in, as it was rushing in on the Israelites, we can remember that God has a plan. Chapter 13, verse 17 says this: "Now it came about when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was near; for God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and they return to Egypt.' Hence God led the people around by the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea; and the sons of Israel went up in martial array from the land of Egypt."

God has a plan. God told Moses at the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3, before this ever even started with Moses going up to Pharaoh, God said, "I'm going to bring My people out of Egypt, and I'm going to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey, into the promised land." The promised land was known as Canaan, and that's the land flowing with milk and honey, and that's where they were going. God didn't just bring them out of slavery to have them live in the wilderness for the rest of their lives, although they spent 40 years there because of their unbelief, but God wanted to take them out to bring them in.

The question is, if you leave Egypt and you're going to the promised land, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you're going to go from the Nile Delta to Canaan, you would go straight up. You would go northeast because that's how we can get there the quickest. But God didn't lead them that way. He led them down south. That's not the way to go north. Why did God do that? God says, "I know if they go by the way of the sea—it's called the Via Maris, the way of the sea—by the Mediterranean Sea, the people that live around there are the Philistines. The Philistines are warrior people, and My people have been slaves for all these years. They're not ready for war. They don't have any implements of war. And so if they see the Philistines, they will get so afraid that they'll turn tail and run back to Egypt."

Larry Nobles: Pastor Jeff Schreve will explain other ways He can lead us that we can handle, depending on our Christian maturity, in just a moment. Oftentimes, and it should always be often, new Christians are on fire for the Lord, sharing their faith and unashamed of their fervor. Others are more timid, usually because they feel too new or too uninformed to handle questions they know they can't answer at this point in their Christian maturity. They're afraid of losing relationships with those they believe wouldn't like the decision they've made.

Today's message is called Fear, Faith, and the Power of God, a perfect primer for all new Christians and for all Christians. But so is Pastor Jeff Schreve's series that aired earlier this morning called Holy Boldness, a study of Elijah the prophet of fire. He knew what boldness was and reaped great spiritual reward for it. Holy Boldness is our gift of thanks to you for your support of From His Heart this month of any amount, and we'll also include the booklet, Unveiling the Mystery of Prayer. We hope you'll get both the series and the booklet when you make that gift today. Go to fromhisheart.org or simply call 866-40-BIBLE, that's 866-402-4253, and we'll use your gift to share with others around the world that fear runs away from those with faith and the power of God inside. Call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org. Now let's get back to part two of today's message, Fear, Faith, and the Power of God.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: First Corinthians 10:13 says this: "No temptation"—and that word means a temptation, a trial, a test—"no temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man. And God is faithful. You can count on Him, who will not allow you to be tempted, tried, tested beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it."

Maybe you have a lot of things in your life right now, and you think that God must have forgotten how much He's put upon me because I just have more than I can bear. That's not true. God is faithful. He will not give you more than you can bear. I think about doing bench press. Back in the day when I would lift weights, it was big to see how much could you bench. When you're in high school, you want to be in the 200 club. You could bench press 200. I remember I think I was a sophomore in high school. I benched 200 on the old Universal machines, and you could kind of cheat on those because you could lean way back on the back and you only had to pull it up about that much. I did 200, and I broke all the blood vessels in my face and I had all these red dots everywhere, but I got it up. I was in the 200 club.

Well, when I got into college, I once bench pressed on a regular flat bench 275 pounds. I was pretty proud of that. I was in the 275 club. There really wasn't a club for that, but I just told people I was in the 275 club. That went up very slowly. I couldn't have done much more. Now, if the guys that were putting the weights on to see if Jeff can max out at 275, if they said, "Well, you did 275, now let's put on 400." I can't do 400. I barely got 275 up. I'm going to have to go to the doctor and get hernia surgery. I got 275 up; it was tough. And so I couldn't do 400.

God knows what you can do. He knows what your max is, and He's faithful to not give you more than you can handle. He was faithful to His people. God has a plan, and if you're facing a lot of things right now and you're tempted to lash out and say, "God, You must not care about me because You're allowing all these things into my life," just know that He's faithful. He'll not allow you to be tempted, tested, tried beyond what you are able. God knows exactly what He is doing.

You and I don't know what He's doing because our ways aren't His ways, and His ways aren't our ways. We would do it so different from the way God does, and we are fallible human beings, finite fallible human beings. He is the infinite, perfect, all-wise, all-knowing God. His ways are always right. Our ways are always wrong when we look at a situation and it's different from the way He does it because His ways are right.

Look what He says again in chapter 14: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you shall camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it by the sea.'" He's putting them in an area. They're kind of going in a circuitous manner, and it looks like they don't know where they're going. Verse 3: "For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, 'They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.' They don't know where they're going. 'Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.' And they did so."

They followed God's instructions. God purposely wanted Pharaoh to think that they didn't know where they were going. If you watch the movie The Ten Commandments with Yul Brynner, there is a scene in there where he comes upon Israel and he says these words: "Moses' God is not much of a general. If he had been a general, he would have given them a retreat." But God put them in an area where they couldn't move because you have the sea in front of them and there's no retreat on any side. If you come in behind them, as Pharaoh was going to come in behind them, there's nowhere to go. So they're trapped like a rat in a maze.

Well, God did that on purpose. Why? Because God wants Pharaoh to chase after them. Why? Because God wants the Egyptians to know. "Then they will know that I am the Lord." That phrase, "Then they will know that I am the Lord," it’s repeated nine times in the book of Exodus. Four times it's for the Egyptians to know. Five times it's for Israel to know. Do you know that God is the Lord, that Yahweh is the Lord, that He is the one who is in charge?

Maybe you're at a place that the scripture here calls Pi-hahiroth. It’s between a rock and a hard place. There's Pi-hahiroth, there's nowhere to go, there's the sea in front of you, and then there's Pharaoh behind you and you're like, "What am I going to do? The enemy's breathing down my neck, and I don't understand, God, why You put me in this situation." Perhaps God has put you in that situation so that you would know that He is the Lord, so that people in your circle of influence would know that there is a God in your life who works on your behalf. The place of your greatest fear can be the place of your greatest deliverance because the greater the problem, the greater the miracle. God is getting ready to work a great miracle for His people. So we can remember when we're facing fears and they're coming in like a flood, we can remember, "Okay, God has a plan. I always know God has a plan," and as Job said, "No purpose of God's can be thwarted."

Encouragement number two: We can fix our eyes on the Lord. Very interesting, it says in chapter 13, beginning in verse 21: "As the people were going out, and the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people." There was a visible representation of God in the sky, cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. God is with His people. Anytime if you had been traveling, if you had been in that group of two million, two and a half million people, anytime you could look up and you could see the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night. God is here with us. That was a visible reminder that God is here.

But then it says as Pharaoh changes his mind and goes after the people, chapter 14, verse 9: "Then the Egyptians chased after them with all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and they overtook them camping by the sea beside Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. And as Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened."

You can look at two different things in this situation. You have the God above you, or you have the enemy behind you. What are you going to fix your eyes on? We can choose what to focus on in life. We can focus on our problems, or we can focus on the problem solver. You can fill your mind with all the terrible things going on in your life, and you can focus on all your debt and you can focus on all the pending disaster and you can focus on your sickness and you can focus on this problem, that problem, the other problem. You're always going to have things that you can focus on to fill your heart with fear. Or you can focus on the King, the problem solver, the God above you.

Now, we don't get to see God like they saw Him in this visible manifestation of God, the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. But we have the word of God. We have the promises of God. The Bible says in Philippians 4, "Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things." As it says in Hebrews, "fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith."

In the book of Second Chronicles, Jehoshaphat was king in Jerusalem. He got word that three enemies had teamed up together and they were coming against Israel. They all said, "Hey, let's destroy Israel," these three enemies. And they were in a place called En-gedi which is about 25 miles from Jerusalem. So when Jehoshaphat gets the word it's like, "Hey, these, they're coming and they're numerous like the sand on the seashore, and they're coming to wipe you out, and they're 25 miles away. What are you going to do about King Jehoshaphat?" He was very afraid. Why? Because he's a human being. So he got very afraid and he began to seek the Lord, and he prayed and the people prayed, and they called upon the Lord. In his prayer, the last line of his prayer, I love it. He says, "O our God, will You not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You." Our eyes are on You. We have a choice what we're going to look at when the circumstances of life are very fearful.

Larry Nobles: Are you able to steadily fix your eyes on the Lord amidst potentially fearful trials? Well, that's what we've been learning about in this message from Pastor Jeff Schreve called Fear, Faith, and the Power of God. It's one of eight in his series, Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God. It's a study of the book of Exodus. Today you heard part one of this lesson. Do you sometimes feel fear because of what you might call the plagues of continual heartache or pain or hurt in your life? And it just keeps coming and getting worse and worse every single day? Why did God deal so harshly with Egypt?

Perhaps a timelier question would be why are you going through such struggles and chaos in your life? Pastor Jeff Schreve shares why God was so severe toward Egypt and what we can learn from these lessons found in the book of Exodus. The eight-message series, Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God, a study of the book of Exodus, is available online at fromhisheart.org. Click the listen link to today's message and you can find the series there. Call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-402-4253, or go to fromhisheart.org. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to join us again on Wednesday for part two of this deep study of the book of Exodus, when we'll open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.