would ask you to turn in your Bibles this morning to the 114th Psalm. Psalm 114, and I'm going to begin just by reading it. When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The sea looked and fled. Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. What ails you, O sea?" That might have been the intention of the psalm, but the word ails is really not in the original, but it just Why OC? Why are you acting this way? Why are you doing this? They imply something's wrong. Something's ailing you. Could be. And that's what's in the tradition from the King James, actually earlier than the King James, probably the Tyndale version, all the way through the English language, renderings like what ails you is present. But it's just asking the question of the sea. Why are you acting this way? Why are you doing this weird stuff? What ails you? Or why are you, OC, fleeing? O Jordan, that you turn back! O mountains, that you skip like rams! O hills, like lambs! Tremble, O earth, at the presence of Yahweh! The presence of the Lord. It's actually not the proper name of God, Yahweh. It's actually the Adonai, the Sovereign Lord. Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Sovereign Lord, the Lord of all creation, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water. Let's again pray. Father, we're thankful for these Psalms. We're thankful that they do contain a vitally important message for your people, and they do help us to understand your workings in history, and also your workings that continue, because you're the same God, yesterday, today, and forever, and with all of the might and power and strength and resolve and commitment and purpose that you've displayed in times of old, you still work towards similar ends in our lives as your people. So be pleased to teach us as we look into the scriptures together, give us a present message for our own understanding as we would negotiate the troubles, the problems, the difficulties of this present evil age, and learn to serve and honor and glorify you, the God of our salvation. So hear our prayers and meet with us in your favor. For the sake of Jesus, our Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. Well this morning we turn to this second of six psalms that comprise a collection of psalms that the ancient Jews, and I guess present-day Jews as well, call the Egyptian Hallel. The word Hallel is a word that means praise. We have it in the word hallelujah, praise the Lord or praise Yah. And then it's the Egyptian Harel because it's praise for the Exodus. It's praise for God's mighty works in delivering His people from Egyptian bondage. These songs of praise were traditionally associated with the festive seasons of the Jews, the Exodus celebrations like Pentecost as well as Passover, as they celebrated the deliverance of their nation from slavery and oppression in Egypt. This is the Old Testament salvation, Israel's rescue from captivity and bondage. And it's a rescue from bondage that was celebrated by our Lord Jesus along with his disciples at the Last Supper. And it's these Psalms that were sung by Jesus just prior to his own exodus that he would accomplish in his death and resurrection. When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn't the Pharaoh in Egypt that was destroyed, but a greater enemy. The great empire of evil, the great trinity of evil, the world, the flesh, and the devil were defeated and destroyed by the death of the Son of God. Look at Hebrews in chapter two, it puts it this way. Speaking of Jesus, so that by through death, he might destroy him who had the power of death. Now for the Jews in Egypt, that was the Pharaoh. Pharaoh could have put them to death anytime he wanted to. He was after Moses to take his life. Moses had to flee. He was the Pharaoh. He could do whatever he wanted. But yet the enemy that Jesus defeated is the one who had the true power of death, at least his dominion and his enslaving power and his frightening Horror is the devil. And deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Just like Egypt, Israel and Egypt, we were slaves in sin. We were slaves captive to death, the fear of death. And now we've been redeemed. And now we've been rescued. and our people that know that not even death itself can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are free, free to serve our God in life and in liberty. The writer of the Hebrews saw that the death of Jesus, the salvation of Jesus, was to be seen in Exodus terms. The power of satanic empire is overthrown. God's own kingdom is established with the enthronement of heaven's true king. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. Like you see it in Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit in my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. Jesus achieves this enthronement, having defeated his enemies, ruling in the midst of his enemies, redeeming a people to be his own people for his own possession. Emancipated to worship and to serve God in the liberty and in life. And hence the deliverance songs of the Egyptian Havel for us as God's people are more than just an historic account of what happened in Israel's long ago past. It's something that anticipates and celebrates the greater deliverance that's to be found in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus embraced these psalms. Jesus sang these psalms. He sang them in anticipation of his own saving acts, the exodus that he would perform in Jerusalem. Jesus invests these psalms with his own identity as the true deliverer of God's people. And he gives them as a gift to the church. that we might sing his praises in the light of his mighty acts of might and of mercy. Now these Psalms begin with the deliverance, these songs of deliverance begins in the 113 Psalm. And the focus of Psalm 113 is the God who delivers. The focus is upon this incomparable God who exists in transcendent majesty and glory, yet He looks far down upon the things that are done on the earth. And that majestic, glorious, transcendent God cares about you and me. And He raises up the poor. And He lifts up the needy. And He blesses the barren to become fruitful and to multiply. And we really shouldn't just conceive of this as just like the materially poor and needy necessarily. I don't think it excludes them. We're just the barren women who can't have children. I don't think it's just individual people that he has in view. Because you see, as we tried to see last week, the nation of Israel itself was in that very condition. The covenant people because of their covenant disobedience, breaking covenant with God. They lost their land. They lost their king. They lost much of their population. The northern kingdom being destroyed by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom being decimated by the Babylonians. And now they're under the control of imperial conquerors. But yet they're confident. Their God was the God of the Exodus. He visited them in Egypt when they were in bondage, when they were poor, when they were needy, when they were barren. And He delivered them. And He is able to do this again. This language is the language you find in Luke chapter 2. In Luke chapter 4, Mary in her great human phrase we call it or it's been called the magnificat in latin the first words my soul magnifies the lord is magnificant in the latin so it has that name but it ends with these words that he is shown strength with his arm scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He's brought down the mighty from their thrones, and he's exalted those of low estate. He lifts up the humble, the poor, the needy, exalts those of low estate. And he fills the hungry with good things. and sends the rich empty away. He helps his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. Israel remembered the God of the exodus. He's just that kind of God who meets with us in our destitution, meets with us in our poverty, meets with us as we're decimated and needy and helpless in ourselves. This majestic God looks far down, beholds His people in all their needs, and provides deliverance, provides deliverance in His Son. And so Jesus, in chapter 4 of Luke's Gospel, came into the synagogue of Nazareth, and he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He found the place where it was written. This is what Jesus read at the beginning of his ministry, as he read the scriptures in the synagogue of Nazareth. What passage did he turn to? Here it is. Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he's anointed me to do what? To proclaim good news to the poor. God's the God who lifts up the poor, lifts up the needy, rescues the destitute. We have good news to proclaim to the nobodies of the world, the poor of this world, to make them rich in faith. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and when the eyes of the synagogue were upon him, he said to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your ears. The God of the Exodus has returned again in the glory of his Son, in the glory of his incarnate Son, to perform another exodus, to lift up the downcast, to raise up the poor, to meet the needy and their destitution, to provide life and liberty and power and ability to be worshippers and servants of the living and the true God. So Psalm 113 deals with the God of the Exodus. Psalm 114 deals with the Exodus itself. When Israel went out from Egypt, that's the Exodus. The house of Jacob from a people of a strange language. Now you might be thinking, what's the value of going back to those times? What's the value of looking back to the past? It's past. It's over. It's done with. We want something new. We want something now. We're the people of the new and the now, aren't we? Temporary people have no use for the past. But God's people have great use for the past. And so there's a purpose to be seen. in what God did at the Exodus. We have divine purpose unveiled as we look at the past, as we look at the Exodus. What's this whole business about Israel going out from Egypt, the house of Jacob, from a people of a strange language? Why did that happen? What does it mean? What does it mean for me? Well, it's like God has a purpose and a plan to make Judah His sanctuary and Israel His dominion. We don't get that purpose and plan. Then the second thing we need to see is not only to look at the past gives us a sight of the purpose and the plan, but to look at the past gives us a sense of the power at work. That God's power is at work in this exodus. Then having looked at the plan and purpose that the past shows us, the power that's displayed in the exodus, we want to say something about, here I came up with, scratching my head, the lesson of the Exodus, but I don't have a P for that. And so I thought about it a while, and I said, well, maybe pedagogue. Pedagogy is teaching, teaching, like a lesson. So you want to think in terms of how the old Greeks used words. They had a Greek word called pedagogy, and that meant instruction, instruction, teaching, pedagogue. I know it's not a word we tend to use today, but it's a biblical word. It's used by Paul in the Greek, and it speaks about God's lesson. God designs to teach His people, to show them His purpose, to unveil the plan, to give us a sight of the power that today we would learn. We would be taught the lessons of His grace now, today, by His own work of pedagogy, the lessons that He teaches. Well, that's our sermon this morning. Let's begin with the purpose, real quickly. The purpose is that Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. What's that all about? Well, again, the purpose of God in delivering his people from Egypt was not just, well, let's liberate them and you go your way. Free them from bondage and you decide on your own what kind of existence you want, what you want to map out for yourself. Use your freedom, hopefully in good and responsible ways, but God's hands off on the whole thing. Well, God wasn't hands off on the whole thing. He redeemed them from Egyptian bondage to bring them to himself. His plan and purpose is that they would become his sanctuary. The nation of Judah would become His holy thing, or His holy place. That's actually what the word means. It's translated sanctuary, but it's Judah became His holy place. The place of His holiness. Now sometimes that word for holy place is used for the tabernacle in the wilderness. But it's not just the tabernacle that's His holy place. Judah is His holy place. Now, it might be speaking about the tribe of Judah, but more often, and especially after the division of the kingdom, Judah was the southern kingdom. It's the kingdom of God's people, ruled by David and his descendants. That nation, capital being Jerusalem, the whole of the nation was His holy place. Not just the temple on Mount Zion, not just the tabernacle that preceded it, but the nation becomes His holy place. How does the nation become His holy place? Well, because there is holy people. There is holy people. God's bringing them not only out of Egypt, but into Canaan. He's bringing them into the land of the promise. And he brings them into the land of promise that they would be his faithful partners in covenant. You see the picture of Mount Sinai, where God says, you've seen how I've taken you on eagle's wings and I brought you to myself. He says, now, if you will hear my voice and obey my commandments, keep my covenant. You will be to me a people for my own possession." He says, you will be a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Holiness was to define God's people. And the land became a holy land because holy people were designed to inhabit it. They were designed to inhabit it because God was present in them. It's His sanctuary, His house, His place of residence. God was to reside with His people in that land that He set apart for them. You see, there's nothing sacred about any land anywhere. And we tend to call it the Holy Land. You want to take an excursion to the Holy Land today and visit Israel and all the places where Jesus walked. And that's all very tempting to our emotions as Christians to go to see the places where Jesus walked and the places where he had been. But the fact is it's just land. It's just territory. And the only thing that ever made it holy is God chose that land to put his people, who were holy people, in the land where he would commune with them. It was to be something of a restoration project of creation. The creation was to be humanity in the image and likeness of God, being fruitful, multiplying, fill the earth, subduing it, and glorifying God in righteousness. And that project God gave them, He was to be with them and present with them. And that's the whole idea of Israel. You have to start somewhere. If human sin messes up the whole creation, then God's going to do a restoration project of bringing people back to Himself, so that there will be a place where His people will dwell with Him in righteousness, His presence in their midst. Israel was to be the place of starting it. And then through Israel, the whole world, the whole nation, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. But here's the problem. The people didn't keep faith with God. That was the plan, though. And the wonderful thing about divine plans is they're perfect. There's nothing lacking in the plan. There are many things lacking in the partners that fail to achieve the plan as God drew it up. But that doesn't mean God has to go back and drop new blueprints to do something different, to do something else. It just means God needs a new partner. Israel was an unfaithful partner. But you know, God provides for himself another partner. The fullness of the times, God sent forth his son to be born of a woman, to be born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law. God's plan of redemption, God's plan of salvation, God's plan of having a people and a place with his presence. Though Israel could not fulfill it because of their disobedience, God finds a way to fulfill it in the person of his son, the true king. who is the true sanctuary. Destroy this temple, Jesus said, in three days I'll raise it up. But he's not only the sanctuary, he's also the king of the realm. All authority in heaven and earth is given to him. It's a royal priesthood that God establishes in the person of the royal king himself, or the royal priest himself, our Lord Jesus, the high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He's the king priest, and he reigns, and we become a nation of king's priests in him. But you see, it all begins with God's plan. It all begins with God's purpose. And God's purpose with Israel is they would fulfill His plan. They didn't, but that doesn't mean God stops, says, let's scratch this and go in a different direction. It's a plan He does come to fulfill. But not in the exodus of the past with Israel, but from the point of this Son, the future that was fulfilled, passed to us in Jesus, in Jesus. So that the people of God are brought out of a greater bondage to be a sanctuary of the Lord, a place of His presence, to be a people who exercise through Christ dominion, kings and priests unto our God. Well, he says something about the plan that this passage does set forth. We seem to move from that to the reality of what God did to achieve it. What God did to bring the people into the land of promise. And it involved two bodies of water. The Red Sea and the Jordan River. The Red Sea and the Jordan River. And so verse three tells us the sea looked and fled. Again, it's poetic, it's metaphoric. Seas don't see anything. I mean, they're seas, but they don't, S-E-A, but they don't, S-E-E, they don't see anything. But yet, metaphorically, that sea was visited by a strong east wind, Exodus tells us. And if the sea, S-E-A, had eyes to S-E-E, they would have seen a strong wind. They would have looked and they would have said, I'm out of here. They would have fled. As it was, their flee was just that they would no longer continue on their natural course. Walls of water were built up as the sea, instead of going down in their natural direction, with the opposite direction. And just seas of water began to build up. So the dry land appeared and the people of Israel walked through the sea on dry land. And what happened at the Red Sea happened also at the Jordan. The Jordan turned back. It stopped its natural flow. Strange things don't only happen with seas. When God's power is at work, it's not just seas that do unnatural things. It's mountains as well. Oh, mountains! that you skip like rams. I grew up in the city and have rams around me. I don't know much about them and how they skip and how a mountain would be like a skipping ram or hills like lambs. But I do know that Mount Sinai shook. I do know that the people quaked in the presence of the God who appeared on Mount Sinai. And this is something of again an imaginative metaphoric picture of that mountain that actually did seem as if the earth was moving right under their feet as they met in the presence of the God of heaven and earth. God's power visited the topography of the land, affecting seas, affecting rivers, affecting mountains. So if you were there, you probably would say, what gives with you seas? What gives with you mountains? Why are you acting this way? Why are you doing these things? There was a translation that goes back to probably Tyndale. What ails you? What ails you, O sea, that you flee? What's wrong with you? What's gotten into you? Nor the sea behaves this way. Nor the sea does what you're doing. Why are you doing this, mountains? The reality is they're doing what they're doing because of the power of God that has come to redeem his people. Now again, God didn't need to do pyrotechnics. He didn't need to do lightnings and thunders and earthquakes on mountainous regions. He didn't need to open up seas. But he wants to give a sense to his people of the power he exercises on their behalf. What he is able to do for their redemption. And we need to be impressed with that. We need to be impressed with the reality of divine power at work on our behalf. God doesn't give us seas that quake and mountains that quake and sees that flee and turn back. But you know what he does give us? He gives us the resurrection of his Son. The power that works in us, Paul says, is likened to the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand. Read Ephesians chapter 1. Paul prays that the people of God would know the exceeding greatness of the power that works in them according to the working of His might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead." Can you imagine what power it takes to raise the dead? It's a completely unique power. Any power that we know about could only destroy life, not create life. You put your finger in a light socket. No, don't do it. Don't do it. But it can hurt. It doesn't heal. Electrical power will kill you. Nuclear power will kill you. This is power that gives life. That God exercises. How great that power is. It's unfathomable. And yet it's the same power that works in us to give us life in Christ. To raise us from spiritual death to spiritual life. And we need to be impressed with that. That that power that has worked in us will continue to work in us until it brings us into God's presence with exceeding great joy. That we will be strong, not in ourselves, but in the Lord and in the power of His might. And it's only when we come to be bankrupt in ourselves, it's only when we come to see weakness in ourselves, that we seek the strength that God Himself supplies. When Israel was backed up to the Red Sea, with the armies of Pharaoh closing in on them, they had no place else to turn. Moses takes the rod of God, puts it over the seas, and behold the salvation of God. You can't save yourself, God's power can save you. The sea opens up. The people go through. The sea comes back and destroys their enemies. They're brought to safety. And then God opens up rocks to give them water. He sends manna from heaven daily. It's amazing to see the power that God exercised towards them. And by faith we know that same power is at work towards us. That we can be strong in Him and in the power of His might. And so the psalm sets out the exodus in terms of the purpose of God. To make a people for his own possession in whom he dwells. And the power of God that affects it. It's unfailing. God's project, in terms of his people, cannot fail. His power guarantees it will succeed. Well, the psalm seems to conclude the lesson. Now, I probably could say it actually concludes with his presence. His first seven actions is tremble, O Lord, at the presence, tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord. There's a presence of the Lord that's involved in what God does when he redeems his people. A presence that he exercises in their midst. He's present in the tabernacle, which is the house of God, the place of meeting. He leads them with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. God is present in the camp of Israel. But the lesson we need to learn as God's people is to tremble at that reality. of a God who was present among his people, at the presence of the God of Jacob. Now you might think, well, Israel, they were filled with dread at the presence of God who spoke to them at Mount Sinai. But yet for them, you know what that was? That wasn't trembling. That was dreading God and wanting to distance themselves from Him. That was their problem. God put His power on display, His presence in their midst. And instead of that being something that attracted them to Him, they said, get away. We don't want God to come in this way. We don't want God to speak to us in this manner. Moses, you go up to the mountain. You get the words. We'll listen to you. No, they won't. We don't want God to speak to us. But you see, when God's people respond properly to God's purposes and God's power to work in their salvation, there's a response of trembling that doesn't drive us from Him, but drives us to Him. There's a trembling that is the proper kind of trembling, is reverence and godly fear. is to respond to God with reverence and with godly fear. And I need to make those words up. They're found in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12. We serve God with reverence and with godly fear. There's a healthy kind of fear. Everybody that grew up in the 60s knew what it was when dad took off the belt. The fear. We knew what that meant and we knew what was coming. But that didn't mean we didn't want dad. That didn't mean we didn't want to jump on his lap and play with him. That didn't mean we didn't delight in him coming home. As long as the belt stayed on the rings of his pants, it was great. We ran to dad. He's our father. And yet we reverenced him. And we feared Him with a healthy kind of fear. It kept us in the boundaries of what we knew as proper, acceptable conduct in His presence. It's that kind of fear and trembling that brings us to relate to God with a yearning to please Him. So there's never an occasion for chastening. There's never an occasion to gain His displeasure in anything. The wonderful thing about a Christian is we can always know the smile of God. Just turn to Him. So our tendency when we sin is to turn away. So we don't want His presence because we feel guilty. But God says, turn to me for cleansing. Don't turn away in shame. Turn toward me for the cleansing away of your shame. Turn toward me for the forgiveness I offer freely in my grace. Don't turn away. Turn toward me. That's what God delights in. Remember, this is the God who is like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. He's waiting for his son to return to him. Waiting for him. When he does, the young man is filled with a sense of shame. Make me as one of your hired servants. And the father had no patience with that. That won't fly. Make you one of my hired servants. You're my son. He runs to him, falls upon his neck, embraces him. The brother that was dead is alive again. It's a time to re-celebrate. It's a time for joy. But the father's face is always a face of welcome. A face of acceptance. A face... It's never the father's problem when we turn away. It's our fault. It's our problem. It's our folly that brings us ever to turn away. Our posture should always be to turn back to him. Because that's the place where cleansing is found. That's the place where renewal is found. That's the place where help and hope is found. Turning back to God and never turning away. And that's the lesson of the Exodus. To turn back to Him again and again and again. Because that presence that makes the earth to tremble should make us to respond with reverence and godly fear. Because this God has not come to crush us, but to cleanse us. He's not come to destroy us. He's come to deliver us. He's not come to cast us off. He's come to bring us near to Him. He turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into springs of water. What does that mean? He means He's the one who provides. Just as He provided for Israel when there was no water. Water out of rocks? Are you kidding me? No, I'm not kidding you. Water out of rocks. The God of heaven and earth, the God who creates rocks and creates water, can bring water out of rocks if He's willing to do it. Pool of water. Springs of water. Because His people have need. They need water to survive. God is the God who provides the needs of His people that we would survive. And not just survive, but thrive. He gives us life. And He gives us hope. And He gives us promise. And He gives us all of the assurances of His grace that His purposes cannot fail. His power secures it. His presence assures it. And He's concerned to be the God who puts us in the school of His grace to teach us to be His worshipers. To turn toward Him and not away from Him. To turn towards Him, not with dread and distance, but with reverence and with godly fear. May the Lord be pleased to bless His Word. Let's go to Him in prayer. Father, we're thankful for this time that we could spend in Your Word Gleaned from this wonderful psalm, such spectacular truths that take our breath away. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to consider your power and your purposes and give us a yearning to be people that receive the benefits of that power and purpose. That we be a people who truly do belong to you because We have been the recipients of your grace, not because we've earned it, not because we've done any works of righteousness that is secure to us, any favor, but Lord, you have loved us freely and you have worked for us for the purposes of your grace to make us a people for your own possession, to dwell in us by your spirit, to work in us by your grace and power, and ultimately to bring us into your everlasting presence with eternal joy. We're thankful, Lord, for the greatness of your love, and we're thankful that we can respond in faith and in faithfulness, turning towards you, receiving the benefits of your love, and living in the light of the Lord. So hear our prayers, bless your people, and we pray, Lord, that we would Reflect the reality that we are a people of the Exodus. We would celebrate the great deliverance of God coming to us in our Lord Jesus Christ and show forth the praises of you, the God, who has called us out of the darkness of this present evil age and into the marvels and wonders of your saving power and grace. Hear us as we ask these mercies in Jesus' name. Amen.