And tonight we're going to be looking again here at Exodus. We will start off in the passage of Scripture in Exodus chapter 11. We've been reading a true account of the battling of wills between Pharaoh, the Egyptian superpower, and Almighty God. There's been a battle between the one true God and the Egyptian gods and spirits. A battle between ultimately God and Satan. And thus far as we've looked into this series, we've seen nine plagues. Now there are ten plagues that happened there in Egypt in the book of Exodus. But because of Pharaoh's pride and unbelief, it cost him and his people a whole lot. What did it cost them? Well, it cost them their economy, it cost them their country, as well as respect amongst all the world powers. In addition, It also destroyed their religion, showing that their gods, their spirits, were useless. And as we go forward with this, we'd find that God protected Israel while punishing Egypt. And during God's showdown, as we find here, that God is meeting through Moses, meeting with Pharaoh. God would protect Israel, though he didn't protect them from all of the plagues. The first several plagues did affect Israel as well. Israel lived in Egypt, but God zeroed the plagues, particularly upon Egypt. He wanted them to understand that, I am God alone, and your gods cannot deliver you. Your spirits do not have any power, any sway over me. I am God. And so God would protect, as we find, God protected Noah and the ark and his family. God was destroying those who were evil in defiance against God. And it means that God, as we find here, as God is protecting Israel, as you see up there, each plague was aimed at a specific God or spirit or spirits, plural, that Egypt worshipped in place of God. And through these events, God stated that he was the one true God. Now, why can't we see the truths when sometimes they're staring us in the face? Maybe there's some things going on in our life that are just not good, and it could very well be like a play. God is trying to get our attention. And rather than being defiant, and rather than trying to be blind to it, why don't we humble ourselves and say, God, what is it you want to teach me? And so many times, though, the problem is our pride will flaunt itself. As you see that beautiful peacock there, pride says, God, you are not good. I don't need you. God, you didn't do what I wanted you to do. I don't need you. Number two, pride says, I am able to overthrow the one who created me and take his place. You know what, I can control my own destiny. Number three, I exist by my own strength and wisdom. No one will rule over me and tell me what to do. You know what, I will live life my way. I don't need anyone telling me how to live my life. And number four, I alone have the final say over everything in my life. And that is many times in our lives, the sentiments that we express towards God. And as a result of these sentiments, we find ourselves in bad predicaments. And as we allow ourselves to be humbled before God, we find that we can find relief. We can find redemption. We can find reprieve. And that's what God wants to give to us. And so in Genesis chapter 11 verses 4 through 8, if you'd follow along with me there in your Bible, Genesis chapter 11 verses 4 through 8, we find the final plague upon Egypt. Verse 4 of Genesis chapter 11. And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord about midnight, Will I go out into the midst of Egypt? And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, and against man or beast, that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out. And all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great danger. And God is his final devastating plague. This final devastating plague is going to kill every firstborn child, every firstborn animal, every firstborn in Egypt, not Israel. But why do you think God openly declared this destruction? God, as we find here, we find that God is so gracious, God is so merciful, and God gives through Moses the decree, Pharaoh, one more time, one more time, if you will repent, if you will get right, I will save you. But if you don't, your firstborn child will die. Our culture many times is bound up in the pursuit of equality, animal rights, social justice, the environment, and we have made gods of our lives. And how concerned should we be with Jehovah's response to our gods? Now, one of the things that happened here is God wanted Pharaoh one more time, as he gives this warning, Pharaoh, one more time. The 10th plague. Humble yourselves. Let Israel go. Let my people go. And you know what? Many times in our lives, we stand in defiance against God and say, no, God, I'm doing it my way. And what happens is, as we go through this, God begins to chastise us. The truths that God's word will declare to us this evening is we're going to look at God and his holiness requires one perfect means of escaping our coming destruction, a life for a life. You see, Satan hates God, the second point here. So wars against God to keep us in his captivity, but those whom God rescues are free forever. And number three, God's total provision reveals his love and faithfulness. And this stuff, information will come up, so that his people might humble themselves and trust him. Let's go to the Lord and ask for his blessing and then we'll begin to look at these rest of the slides here, the rest of the information and study God's word. But through this tonight, ultimately we have to understand there's going to be two things that are going to be prominent tonight. Number one, God just hates defiance. God just wants us to humble ourselves and he will help us. And number two, I just drew a blank there. Number two, ultimately God is in control. And so through this, we're going to see God do an amazing redemption. If we humble ourselves, God will help us. And God will help us to move forward, but we must understand that we need God. And the second point was that you're going to see tonight in an evident fashion, is there is a spiritual world out there trying to get us trapped and kept in bondage, the same thing that would keep Pharaoh and the Egyptians in bondage. And we must not succumb to that, but we must submit ourselves to God. Let's go to the Lord and ask for his blessing upon this evening. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I just thank you for this evening. Father, I thank you for the Word of God. I pray that you would help bring my mind and thoughts and just bring them all into collection. Father, that I could speak the words that I ought to speak. And Father, tonight I pray that you would help us to keep our hearts right. Father, that you would help us to get right if we're not. Lord, to make the next step spiritually towards you. And Lord, to understand that defiance is just too painful. And that tonight we would just submit ourselves before you. Father, I need your help. We all do. And if there's anyone tonight that's not saved, God, I pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they'd understand that they need you. Lord Jesus, I commit tonight into your hands. I thank you for all that you'll do. I love you. In Jesus' precious name, I pray. Amen. I'm gonna take you back just in some of the history of what's going on here. Abraham was 75 years old in Genesis chapter 12. I don't know if you can read that there in the back, but Abraham was 75 years old when God gave him a promise that he would make him a great nation. Between 75 and 85, Abraham, as you see, tells Abraham his offspring will sojourn in a land that is not theirs and servants for 400 years. Abraham's 85, he lived in Canaan for 10 years. 86, he ends up having a relationship with Hagar, his wife, Sarah's handmaiden, and has a child through them, Ishmael. He thinks, oh, wow, this is going to be the child. My wife, you know, Abraham's 86, his wife is 76. Wow, this must be the child we're going to have. At 86 years of age, I don't think my 76-year-old wife is going to be having any children anytime soon. And so they put Ishmael in the place of what they think is God's will. Unfortunately, it's not. Not unfortunately, fortunately it is not. And Sarah at 90 years of age would end up bearing a child while Abraham is 100 and Ishmael would be 14 years of age. At 105, Isaac was weaned and Ishmael mocks and persecutes Isaac. And then Ishmael is kicked out by Sarah and told to go. At 140 years of age, goofy thing. At 140 years of age, I hope this kicks back up. I don't know why I did that. I did it last week too. Silly thing. All right. At 140, Isaac marries Rebecca when Abraham's 140. At 160, Esau and Jacob are born when Abraham. At 175, Abraham dies, Isaac 75 and Jacob 15. And so you can kind of see the timeline going on up there at 180 years old, Isaac dies. Then going on, Joseph has made second in command when Jacob is 121 years old. And ultimately at 80 years old, when Moses at the bottom there, when Moses and Aaron begin to speak to Pharaoh, Moses is 80. Have you ever thought, I'm getting a little bit older, I don't know how much God can use me. Moses is 80. Abraham was older when God spoke to him. You know what? God can still do something amazing in our life at whatever age we're at, as long as we're willing to be submitted to him. And that's the truth. And God wants us to be submitted to him. And so let me just go through real quickly some of the plagues that were upon Egypt. He would turn the Nile River into blood, defying their faith in the spirit of the Nile. He sent a plague of frogs, crushing the frog goddess. He sent lice, belittling the god who protected them from lice. He sent a plague of flies, defeating the fly god. He then killed their livestock, trampling the four Egyptian gods who were to protect them. He sent terrible boils, scorning the three gods of healing and epidemics as nothing. Hail and lightning followed that denied four gods of the atmosphere and culture, agriculture, He sent a plague of locusts to destroy their faith and their protector from locusts, and then three days of absolute darkness dismissed six gods, including their supreme deity, the sun god Ra, night. And so the truth here is God says, you know what, Egypt? I am God. I'm in control here. And there are things sometimes in our lives we get to this place we think, I'm in control of my life. And God says, I'll show you that's not true. I'll show you you're not in control. And you try to control for a while, and then things begin to come out of control. And you're thinking, uh-oh, what's happening? Why is everything unraveling? And God says, there's a reason why. You've put other things in my place. And God would end up giving Israel an escape plan. Turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 12, verse 21. And God gives one way of escape, one way. We like multiple ways. We like it when you go to the store and you go to the chip aisle and there's 50 to 100 different types of chips that we can choose. We like variety. God says, if you want to do it my way, you want my blessings, there's one way. In Exodus chapter 12, verse 21, then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, draw out and take you a lamb according to your families and kill the Passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel on the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door. and will not suffer the destroyer to come in under your houses to smite you. God made one way, kill a lamb, paint its blood on the doorposts, and hide it behind you. The Lord would pass over. A sacrifice was needed. A deliverer was needed. And God had allowed the Egyptians and Israelites alike to decide whose blood was to be shed. You see, that night there was a choice. Either you kill the lamb and you put its blood on the doorposts, or that night the blood of your firstborn dies. It's your choice. God gave a very detailed plan. Verse 3, we set it aside on the 10th day. Verses 3 and 4, each family needed their own substitute. If the family was too small, if they couldn't afford a lamb, then they could share one with their neighbors. Verse 5, substitute animal had to be a sheep or a goat. Had to be a one-year-old male. It had to be without defects. And then they were to take special care of the substitute until the 14th day at which they would slaughter this. And it was a sacrifice. They had to kill a lamb. You see, God allowed the Egyptians again to make that decision. The instructions came at length. Put the blood on both sides of the door. As you enter, you're protected because of the sacrifice of the deliverer. Entire family had to rest behind that door. If they didn't, whoever was outside of that, whoever was outside of that protection would be hurt, would be killed. And the entire, and so as they break away, there can be no substitutes. You can't say, God, I don't have a lamb or a goat. Maybe I'll have a, I'll have some. I'll have a gopher or I'll have some other type of animal. I'll do that and I'll put its blood. No, that wouldn't do. It had to be a lamb. God was very, very specific. And God does this as we find throughout the scriptures of the sacrificial lamb, because it all points to one ultimate lamb, Jesus Christ. And all throughout, whether you're in Genesis, you're in Exodus, you find this lamb that always points to Jesus Christ. The whole Old Testament points towards the final lamb, the sacrificial lamb that would come. So which one of these steps, I would ask you, is the most important step? Which one was it? Was it to kill the lamb? Was it putting the blood on the doorpost? Was it hiding behind it? Which one of those steps was the most important? The answer is, They were all important, every one of them. You couldn't skip one of them. Everything you had to follow to the T, exactly as God told you to do. And why is God so detailed in his instructions? Number one, he's holy. Number two, sin is a serious offense against God. As I have been talking about on Wednesday nights, when you sin, it is a grief. It is a vexing of the spirit. It goes so deep to the core of who you are. When you sin against God, you hurt him. as a great emotional hurt. We also have to understand why he's so detailed in the fact that he alone provides our way of escape, as he did for Adam and Eve. What did God do with Noah? Get on the boat, build a boat, build the ark, get on it, and I will close it. Which one of those are most important? They all were important. You see, if we don't follow God's instructions for our lives, then catastrophe happens, problems happen. We need to follow what God's prescription is for life. If they had to believe that that lamb, they would be safe. If they killed the lamb and they hid behind the door and they put the blood on the sides and the top of the lintel, it was a protection for them. And as they killed that lamb, they would ultimately understand the holiness of God, their helpless condition. You know what? We can't deliver ourselves. You also have to understand God means business. If tonight we don't kill that lamb and we don't put the blood on there, we haven't followed the instructions God's given us, my child will die. You have to believe God. And salvation that we have today comes down to a belief, is God serious about what he says? Is God serious about his truths to the believer that if you don't follow me, judgment and even worse, chastisement will come? We have to believe God. And many times we believe God after we felt the consequences. They had to trust that deliverer. And God would follow through in Exodus chapter 12, verses 28 through 30, if you'd like to read with me. And the children of Israel went away and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they. And it came to pass that at midnight, the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, and to the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt. There was not a house where there was not one dead. So the firstborn dies. You might be asking the question, is God evil? No, God gave a warning and you had a choice to do right or do wrong. He told them how to escape. He gave them God's plan. And Pharaoh would rise up in the night and there was a great cry, great destruction. What did the Egyptians do that night before the angel went over, the death angel? What did they do? They put their children to sleep as at every night. After all the plagues, nine plagues, after all their gods have been proven to be powerless, they put their children to bed as though it's just another night. And you know what, very well, it could be someone, they lay themselves to sleep tonight as though it's any other night. And it could be their last night to ever live. And the question is, do they know Christ? God tried to save Israel. He gave them 10 chances here. 10 chances. You want to know something also remarkable? God gave Egypt, this is a little jumping ahead, a little rabbit trail. God gave Egypt 10 plagues. God gave Israel 10 chances in the wilderness. They moaned and complained for 10 times. At the 10th time, God says, enough is enough. You're not going into the promised land. The 10. Little side there. But it was foolish of them. They did not trust God. You had seen the Nile turn into blood. You'd seen darkness for three days. You'd seen boils and lice and flies and all sorts of different things coming. And yet you choose to put your child to bed tonight as though it's any other night. And that's foolish. And you know what? That's what happens when we stand in defiance against God. God is holy. And God's provision portrays for us his rescue plan, that God has a plan for us. I like several things that are written here. Let me read these for you. God provided just one means of escape from death for Israel. It's the same for us, one path to God. Israel had to trust completely in God's provision. Outside of them, what could they do? It's the same for us. Israel humbled themselves and sacrificed just one lamb. It's the same for us. God's one deliverer just once. There's why it's wouldn't escape death if they offered an animal with a defect. If that animal has a break or a defect, no good. God told the Israelites there had to be death. The death of your firstborn or the death of a lamb. I'd much rather have a substitute lamb in my place. A substitute in my place. Is that not a beautiful picture towards the cross of Jesus Christ back in the Passover? The life of the Israelite firstborn was in the parents' hands. The life of the firstborn was in the parents' hands. Put your child to bed. If you've done what God said, your child's okay. If you've done it your own way, your child's in danger. And that firstborn would need a substitute to save them. And the question is today, do we need a savior? Yeah. If we live lives for ourselves, if we live in defiance like Pharaoh did, Pharaoh hurt his family. Pharaoh hurt the land. He hurt the economy. And ultimately he hurt himself. We cannot pay for our sin, but God gives us a way out if we're willing to follow it. We can't put our heads in the sand thinking, oh, God's warnings are deaf and mute and they don't mean anything. No. God is serious. And if we want to get right with God, if we want to make things in His way, repentance and faith are the soul deliverer. Many times mankind says sin can be outweighed by my good deeds. When I get to heaven, God's going to look at me and say, you're a pretty good person. Your good deeds are a whole lot more than your bad deeds. That's not what God says. God says that even one sin outweighs a lifetime of good deeds, and it will still send you to the place of eternal judgment. And many times people will trust in several things to keep them away from God. They will trust in religion. They will trust in their own sacrifices. Some may trust in a sinful man. Some may trust in religion. Some may trust in spirituality. Some may trust in culture. Some may trust in university. Some may trust in government to save them. None of those can perfectly and permanently save us. It's only Christ. And if we try to trust in one of these things, what is the expectation that we'll have? And that's the lake of fire. You see, our good deeds do not outweigh our bad deeds. One good deed is enough to send us to the place of God's punishment. And what would happen there with the Egyptians, they put their heads in the sand. Not again, that crazy Moses doesn't know what he's saying. That crazy Christian keeps telling me that there's a heaven and there's a hell. I, I, I've got my own way. I'll do it my way. I want to tell you, if you do it your way, you'll suffer the consequences of your choices. And so God in his holiness requires one perfect means of escaping our looming destruction of life for a life. There's a substitute. As I come to the second point this evening, God, Satan hates God. So wars against God. to keep us in his captivity, but those whom God rescues are free forever. If we want freedom, it's going to come through God's path. And God would rescue Israel out of their bondage, out of their slavery, out of their torment, out of their emotional pain. God rescued Israel. Look with me at verse 35 of Hebrews chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. I don't know why I put Hebrews. It's Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. Okay, Hebrews doesn't have 36 verses, so it's Exodus chapter 12. That was a mistake on my behalf. Exodus chapter 12, verse 35, and the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses, and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment. And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required, and they spoiled the Egyptians. And the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth about 600,000 on foot that were men, beside children, so just 600,000 men. It is estimated upwards of two and a half million Israelites would leave. God had humbled every power in Egypt and shown them, you're nothing to an almighty God. He destroyed their country, and not only that, he also plundered their wealth, and you know what? God revealed he was the sole God. God also did something. He revealed, you know what, if you're willing to humble yourselves and do right, I will provide for you. I will be with you. I will help you. And if we're willing to humble ourselves and say, God, I'm in bondage, I'm struggling. And we humble ourselves before Almighty God and say, God, I need your deliverance. I will do whatever you want. God says, okay, I'll deliver you. You see, God would rescue the enslaved. What kind of effect would this have had on Israel? People who had been beaten up in slavery, 400 years in slavery, that affects a culture. It revealed to them that they had value and purpose. You know what? There's an Almighty God that wants to rescue me. But it's even more, Almighty God saw them as his chosen people and he's totally set them free. And the path of deliverance, as you see up there, they'd be in the land of Goshen, there on the right of that split in those rivers there, and two and a half million slaves left overnight. What an exodus. And while they felt free and leaving Egypt, God knew Pharaoh's army still stood in the way of total freedom. And Pharaoh realizes, uh-oh, look at me at Exodus chapter 14. And when you want to get freedom and you want to move forward, I guarantee what we're seeing here in Exodus is going to happen in your life. If maybe you're saying, I'm in that bondage, I'm in that struggle, I'm in that slavery to whatever a vice is, guess what's going to happen? Satan says, I'm not letting one of my laborers go free. I'm not going to let them go easily. Exodus chapter 14 verse 5, and it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, why have we done this? You have two and a half million, you have 600,000 men, you have an incredible workforce to keep the Egyptian economy going forward, and overnight it's gone. It would have wrecked the economy. going on. Why have we done this? That we have let Israel go from serving us and he made ready his chariot and took his people with him and he took 600 chosen chariots and all the chariots of Egypt's and captains over every one of them. They hadn't buried, I mean overnight, Pharaoh hasn't even buried his young son yet. And what happened here is truly Satan was over charge of the Egyptians. And Israel was now trapped between the Red Sea and an encroaching army. And I guarantee if you're trying to find victory over something in your life, an attack is going to come and you're gonna find, and you might get fearful. I don't know what to do. I'll just go back to Egypt. I'll just go back. It's a whole lot easier. Let's see how they responded, verse 10. And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were, what, sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord, proper response. And they said unto Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, improper response coming up, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I serving God again? Why am I doing this? It's too hard. I just can't do it. It's more than I can handle. God, you don't know what that army's coming. I've got two and a half million people as a husband. If I had my wife and my daughter with me, I'm thinking, did you bring me out here to slay my family? I would be angry. After all that they'd seen, they had seen God, 10 plagues on Egypt. They had seen God miraculously deliver them out of Egypt with wealth. And yet how quickly we turn on God and say, God, why? And we turn to our fear and our own emotional state. We don't trust God. God, you can't deliver me from this. It's more than I can handle. What happened? Israel feared the Egyptian army more than they feared God. But something happens here. When we begin to trust God in Exodus 14, 13, and Moses said unto the people, fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you to you today. For the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. Here's the key. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. You know, if we humble ourselves, God says, I'll fight for you. In verse 18, the Egyptian shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots and upon his horsemen. God would declare his faithfulness. He told him not to fear, but to stand firm. He said he'd set them free and then he also, they didn't need to do a thing. You just need to trust God. And you know what, really that is what we ought to do in our lives. Just trust God. You know what, I see an army. There's a whole lot of trouble coming towards me. I'm scared. I want deliverance. I don't want to go back to that bondage. I want to go back to that slavery there in Egypt. I don't want to go back to that thing that's causing me so much pain, but I don't know how to go forward. Trust God. In verse 19, I hear in Exodus 14, and the angel of the Lord, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them. You see, God puts a barrier between Israel and Egypt. The pillar of the cloud went from before their face and stood behind them and it came between the camp of the Egyptians The camp of Israel and it was a cloud and darkness to them But it gave light by night to these so that the one came not near the other all the night God says not tonight. You're touching my people not tonight. I'm gonna hedge him in I'm gonna protect them God moved heaven and earth to save Israel. He put a wall a cloud between them He separated the two groups and and then in verses 21 through 22 You see, God does the impossible. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground. The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. Moses raises his shepherd's staff. God parts the Red Sea. Two and a half million people. The only thing holding them between Israel and Egypt was a cloud of God's protection. Egypt couldn't touch Israel unless God allowed it. God says, I'm delivering you. If you think about it, imagine if you're walking through, what a wonderful aquarium, right? You're walking through and I wonder if you could see the whales or the fish or other types of marine life there. Can you imagine, I mean, you're walking through the Red Sea, high walls of water. You have enough faith to walk through those walls and say, you know what? This water could fall on me any minute and I could die, but I'm going to trust God. I'm just going to take a step by faith and I'm just going to do what God wants me to do. And you realize that really is our path to deliverance, to step by faith, doing what God wants us to do. It may not make sense. You may not think, why am I doing this again? But if it's what God wants you to do, you ought to do it. That's where your deliverance comes, when you take a step by faith, step by step by step, as those walls of water are all about you. God's part of it. God's made the door wide open for you to get through. The only thing you need to do is step, step through it. And God destroys Pharaoh's army. Look with me at verses 24 and 25. And it came to pass, and in the morning watched the Lord look unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians. You know what? God can very well take our enemies and confound them. He can trouble them. Their minds can cause them problems. God can do anything with our enemies. He can remove our enemies. and get them away from us. And verse 25, and took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily, so the Egyptians said, let us flee from the face of Israel. And here is the ultimate statement. For the Lord fighted for them against the Egyptians. You see, when we step out by faith, we step out through those walls, the path of deliverance, People are going to say there's something going on there. Just today, as I was doing my radio program for the 22nd, I did the story of Steve Currington, who started our, the RU program that we have on Friday nights. And he stepped out by faith and said, well, my life is no good. I guess I'll go back to church. I don't know what else to do. I'll go back to church. And he did. And God began to work and he began to study and meditate in God's word. And God did a great work in his life. God made an open door. He said, the path is open. You just got to go for it. And he had deliverance. As we find here even more, verse 26 through 30 in Exodus 14, the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength. And the morning appeared, and the Egyptians fled against it. And the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the seas, and the waters returned. and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the hosts of Pharaoh that came into the sea after him. There remained not so much as one of them. The children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. Not one Egyptian escaped. You know what? If you're in defiance against God, you will not ultimately escape. There will be no deliverance. If you're against God, God's against you. Can you imagine Israel seeing their enemy defeated right before their very eyes? God fought for them. And when I step forward by faith and I do what's right, God fights for me. God helps me, but I've got to do what's right. I've got to have the initiative and the discipline to move forward and say, it doesn't make sense. I don't want to do it, but I'm going to. And Satan wants to keep us under bonds. He wants to keep us hopeless. And God reveals himself to us today. And God will one day destroy Satan. Our enemy, ultimate enemy, Satan will be destroyed one day. Your freedom is God. Pharaoh felt he was free. Those Israelites went through that water. We can go hurrah, hurrah, hurrah with the chariots. Wow, this is pretty cool seeing all this water parted. Here's several things that. happened here. Just as Satan wanted to destroy Pharaoh and Israel, he wants to destroy us and keep you and I under bondage. He wants several things here, and God provided one path of salvation for Israel through the Red Sea. God provided a fact that he said, I'm going to destroy the God. Pharaoh, in your pride, I will destroy you. And you know what? God destroys us when we're proud. And God opened that path of freedom there. Israel had to go forward. Satan is not our friend. Living life your way is not your friend, because ultimately what you're doing is following Satan. And Pharaoh felt he was free to bring Israel back to slavery. Satan thinks he's free to try to put us back into bondage, but if we follow God, he can't. We have freedom. The cost to Pharaoh was his country, his honor, his son, his wealth, and ultimately his life, if we live life our way. Think about Adam and Eve, the same thing. Dangle the carrot, Satan did. Eat this fruit. Eat this fruit. And destruction. Here's several things that Satan wants to destroy us. He leads us to believe that he's more powerful than God and we can be our own God. Number two, he uses his followers, religion, spirits, friends, family, culture, elders, university to deceive and threaten us. He promises fame, fortune, success, or power to lure us away from the truth and into our self-destruction. And he uses superstitions, curses, or lies to convince that there is no hope. Satan is not our friend and he does us no favors. So God offers complete freedom. In the deliverer, we have freedom. God offers each of us here today freedom. So the question is, will you embrace the freedom from the bondage of sin that deliverer offers to you? And it can be right now, you can have that. And so Satan hates God, so he wars against God. As I had said, we fight a spiritual battle. Those thoughts that come into your mind, such as Moses telling God at the burning bush, God, I couldn't do it. I stuttered too much. I can't go back to Egypt. Or how about the thought of Pharaoh, I mean he's weeping over his son who's just died and then in anger he wants to get even with Israel. Though ten horrible, horrific plagues, you would think that's enough to make any person just say, logically it doesn't make sense to go after Israel. As I had mentioned this morning, Satan would even come in through thoughts of Peter and Jesus would rebuke Peter saying, get behind these Satans. There is a spiritual warfare out there, but number three, God's total provision reveals his love, his faithfulness, so his people might humble themselves and trust him. In the wilderness journey we find here, Israel was two and a half times the population of Saskatchewan, plus all their animals. There were no roads, trees, food, water, animals, septic, Stores, vehicles, GPS, maps, whatever. Two and a half million people in a lost barren desert. Now you might want to be asking the question, why in the world did they go down and across? Why didn't they go straight across? There was a land of Philistines and a whole lot of enemies, so they couldn't do that. It was too much problems. And so God brought them down to circumvent to keep them safe. God gave them a detour, but that detour was ultimately for their safety. Sweltering by day, super hot at day and freezing at night. Needed tents, clothing, bedding. Needed at roughly, if you were thinking two and a half million people, they would need 200 semi-trucks of food each and every day. How do you provide? We just left Egypt. Now, we think about it as a little kid, and when you're in Sunday school, Israel, they escaped out of Israel, too, and all these people, wow, God did it, and you see all this group of people all happy with all these animals. Those animals all have byproducts. Those animals need food. Humans need food. Babies crying. Things wearing out. Now, things didn't wear out because God protected them, as we find later in Scripture, but nevertheless, they would need 177 Semi-trucks of firewood each and every day. That's a whole lot of cutting of wood. Where are you going to get that if you had wood? They needed 750 square miles to camp out each night, 27 miles by 27 miles, 10 times the size of the city of Saskatoon. And God did all of this, leading them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Now, God made a promise to them in Exodus chapter 13, 21 and 22. Would you look with me here? And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people. So how was really the trip possible? God led them. He led them in a very clear pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. How does God lead us? Very simply. The Word of God and the Spirit of God who indwells us. Very simple. God leads us. He helps us through. God spreads a covering for them and he gave them shade from the heat of the day. An amazing thing that God does. You see, God's provision. Ultimately, for 40 years, God provided for them in a desert wilderness. And you might be thinking, if I go forward and do something for God, how is God going to provide for me? How can I do it? It doesn't make sense. If I do this step, I don't know what's going to happen. And you know what? That's the part of faith. Faith says, I don't understand, but I'm going to trust you, God. How would the enemies of Israel feel in seeing such a large mass group of people out there? It would make them fearful. But something happens here coming back to Exodus chapter 16, verse 11. They've seen God do 10 plagues. They've seen God get them out of Egypt. They've seen God part a sea. not only part it, bring them across on dry land. Now I can imagine if they crossed it and they opened it up and now they're walking on clay or mush or whatever, all this sea life at the bottom that they have to walk on. Nope, it's dry land. Then we come to Exodus 16 verse 11. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel speaking to them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass that at even the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoarfrost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna. Which means, what is it? For they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. God provides. God can provide in the wilderness. God can provide in that place. Quail at night, man in the morning, and God was gracious. They didn't deserve God's provision. They had been moaning and complaining. They had gone against God, and yet God provided food for them. I would have liked to have seen the logistics of their city of how they would have brought all their sewage and all that garbage and all that other stuff, how they would have disposed of that. But nevertheless, they did for a very long time. But something happened here in Psalm 106. Let me read Psalm 106 for you. Psalm 106.7, if you'd like, you can turn there. We are getting close to being done. But Israel is quite reminiscent of you and I. Psalm 106, verse 7, it says, our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. And then going down to verse 13, they soon forgot his works. They waited not for his counsel. Verse 14 of Psalm 106. but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. You forget God's works. You pray and you pray and you pray and God answers your prayer. Wow, what a miracle. God did something amazing. Something else happens in the future and all you do is you go to anxiety and fear and you let that consume you. And the question is, is he still God? The obvious answer is yes. But are you trusting him? And how soon do we forget, we complain? They would complain when they ran out of water. They would come against Moses. And Moses, excuse me, in Exodus 17, verse four, they ran out of water. Verse four, Moses crying to the Lord saying, what shall I do unto the people? They'd be almost ready to stone me. They're angry because what they want, what they expect, what they need is not being provided for. And so what do they do? They lash out at God's leader. And the Lord said unto Moses, go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel, my rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock. and horrib, and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." Now we talk about it 1 Corinthians 10, 4 about Christ being the rock, but God again gave specific instructions. Moses struck that rock one time, and the rock satisfied. God was precise. The river satisfied as though that river would be a 900, if you want to think about two and a half million people, you would need 900 tanker trucks per day to water two and a half million Israelites and their animals. That's a whole lot of tanker trucks. Now out of Valais, they had some tanker trucks going down. They had trucks going down. Thankfully, they're starting to put it more by rail, but they have 16 trucks going a day. Imagine 900, if you were to think about that. Now they didn't have those trucks at that time, but they had to find that much water per day. God doesn't forget us in our bondage. God doesn't forget us when we're in the wilderness. God will. God miraculously sent Moses. He trained a man. God delivered them in Egypt. God provided the plagues to get them out of there to convince the Egyptians to let him go. God parted the Red Sea. God will do what is necessary to get us out of bondage, but we've got to be willing to say, you know what? I'm just going to trust God. So how did God, how did Israel honor God's provision? They threw it all back in God's face and they murmured and complained. And that's many times like what we do. If we prepared a beautiful meal for maybe a starving beggar, he'd never think of throwing it back in your face, but that's what Israel did. Take all that you've given me and they throw it back. I don't want it. Just like Israel, we ridicule God's word and doubt him day after day after day. God gives you your breath. God gives you life. God gives you the money that you have. God gives you the provision, the house and where you're at. God does that. You said, no, I work for that. I earned that money, but God gave you the health so you could earn it. God gave you the capability to earn of the capacity to do the job that you do. God did that. What have we done to force God to give us anything? Nothing. He does it out of his love for us. And yet we often breathe murmurings and complainings against him. And God would know the best path for us as sinners. Let's consider it several ways for Israel in the wilderness. God alone knew the best path. What did they have to do? Yes, Lord, whatever you want. You don't have to lead, you just have to follow. And many times we want to lead, but all you got to do is follow. And so for us today, follow. And God graciously reveals himself to us. He provides for us. He answers prayers many a times. and were unthankful. And so God's total provision reveals his love and faithfulness so that his people might humble themselves and trust him. And in conclusion, here's what God did. Abraham's descendants would live in a foreign land 400 years. They'd be enslaved and oppressed. God would punish the nation that enslaved them. God would set Abraham's descendants free, and then they'd leave with great wealth God provided. And you know what? In our lives, if we are willing to not be defiant against God, humble ourselves, God will help us out of bondage. If we're defiant, we get the same consequences that have happened ultimately to Pharaoh. We get God's judgment upon us. It may not be death, but it is sure misery. And so this evening I challenge you That you would just trust God. You'd be faithful and you commit to fulfilling your promises to him. You commit to saying, God, whatever you want, I'll humble myself and I'll do what you want. And if we choose to trust him, you'll watch the Red Sea part. You'll watch things happen in your life that you never thought possible. Can I tell you, I never would have thought I'd be a pastor. I never would have thought it. I was in university doing engineering and when God called me, I thought, oh man, I can never do that. No way. That's not me. I would, I've seen God do such incredible things as we eventually stepped out and made our way up here and saw God provide in ways that just unbelievable day after day after day. It's a daily step of trusting God. And so this evening, as I come to the invitation period, can I have Ms. Pat come forward as we come to the invitation time? I'd really want to challenge you. Where is your trust? There is a spiritual warfare out there. There are enemies all around and they can cause us to become so fearful. But the question tonight is, will you just trust God? Trust Him and watch Him do amazing things. You may not make sense. You may not, you can't logically put it together, but I'm trusting, but I'm telling you, if you trust God, He will deliver.