Happy Sunday, everybody. We'll be in Exodus, Chapter 2. Exodus, Chapter 2. And in my infinite creativity, the name of today's sermon is Exodus. There's no limit to it, is there? Exodus. We're still in a series called His Story, Your Story, and I'll remind you what the series is about. It's been some weeks since we were in it with the Easter break and with having a guest speaker, and we are now getting back to the series that is called His Story, Your Story. And it's important, the goal of the series is to aid us in our Bible study as we read the Bible Understanding the big picture, sharing the gospel, glorifying God, all this is important to understand what is going on at any given spot in scripture that we turn to and that we read. How can we understand what it is we're reading? How can we properly apply it to ourselves if we don't understand the context of the greater story of God saving a people that would be called by his own name? So in each session of this, we go to a different part in the Bible. And we're going through the Bible, more or less chronologically, through the story of salvation. And we're putting it in perspective. How does this fit into God's salvation plan? And then what does it say then about the salvation into which we've been called as his people? And then finally, then what implications does it have for living my faith today? And those are the three questions that we endeavor to ask each and every session that we're together in this series. The last time we were together, we talked about the call of Abraham. From Genesis chapter 12, we talked about the fact that God called Abraham to come out of the place where he lived, to go to a place that he would show him, promised him that he would make him a great nation, that he would bless those who blessed him, curse those who cursed him, and that by him all nations of the earth would be blessed. And we talked about what that meant to us. We saw that the reasons that God seemed to have for picking one particular person to work his plan through is that the promised seed that he promised way back in Genesis 3, which we know is Jesus Christ, needed a family. He needed to be born of a woman. Who was that woman going to be? Well, God began early in the process deciding the route through which his family tree would come. The gospel also needed a context. He would build a great nation from the descendants of Abraham, people who would, by their interaction with the Lord, teach us about the Lord, by the people and by the individuals, give us many examples and many interesting and practical things that we could apply to our lives, but all the while showing how God was unfolding his plan. He also needed a a context in which to bring forth his word, a known history, a real place that could be explored, that could be sought out by those who came later and investigated from outside sources to say, yes, indeed, these people were there and these things did happen. He also picked Abraham because he wanted to make a great nation through which to explain Jesus before he came. Because if there's anything we know, it's this, that mankind is more likely to make up his own religion and his own take on things than he is to accept what God has plainly said. We saw many heresies exist in the church in the very first century. And so those things had to be corrected beforehand. God gave a weight of evidence and testimony and theological truth and Christological truth, that is, what there is to know about Christ, He gave it all up front so that as Jesus came and He fulfilled it, there would already be this immense body of knowledge that would reveal the truth about Him. Every heresy, every wayward belief system that has sprung out of Christianity and or Judaism can be traced back to an ignorance of God's Word. God's Word has covered it somewhere. And so he needed a context through which to pour all that information and preserve all that and pass it down in a credible way. Well, here we come to Exodus. And this is now getting into the nuts and bolts of how he's really unfolding his plan in one of the most major events of the Bible, perhaps the most major event of the Old Testament, the Exodus. And to get you background up to this point, what had happened since we left Abraham and he had received the promise of God, well, he had a child named Isaac and the promise was reiterated. He had a child named, Isaac had a child named Jacob. The promise again given to Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons. 11 of those sons sold one of them into slavery. His name was Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery down in Egypt, ended up down there serving Egypt, spent a little time in prison for something he didn't do, ultimately interpreted some dreams, caught the attention of Pharaoh, who himself had had a really wild dream. Joseph properly interpreted that dream, which was about some coming drought, and he was able to save the people of Egypt and many others, and indeed, even his own family, ironically, having to come to Egypt for help. Reunited with Joseph, they settled in Egypt. They multiplied greatly. They fared very well in Egypt until another pharaoh took over that wasn't quite so familiar with Joseph and his family. In fact, felt threatened by them for some reason, so put them into bondage, into slavery. But nevertheless, they still flourished. They still multiplied, exceedingly so, to the point where another pharaoh had to say, well, we've got to put an end to this and talk to the midwives. You've got to start killing the boys when they're born. And of course, they didn't comply. And we're blessed for not complying with that civil order. But then that brings us to where we are now. They are a huge multitude of people, perhaps a couple million, that are in slavery in Egypt. And we have been introduced to Moses. And here at the end of chapter 2 comes a summary statement before getting into the true Exodus story. Here's what it says, starting in chapter 2, verse 23. It says, during those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Let's pray. Father God, this day we pray that these words would echo in our minds and take seed in our heart and help us to understand your nature and who you are and how you deal with your people. We praise you this day. We ask you to make yourself known and glorified by the preaching of your word to grant us insight, perspective, and fruitfulness in the ministry of your kingdom, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, Pharaoh had died. This was actually good news for Moses. Moses was a fugitive. Moses, seeing perhaps the plan of God in a way, seeing the need for his people to be redeemed, kind of took matters into his own hand at one point. Being part of the household of Pharaoh, he took the life of a man, And but now that Pharaoh had died and seemingly this would free up Moses to no longer be a fugitive but to be able to freely go back to Egypt. So we meet Moses in the very next chapter. God recruits him into his plan to bring his people out of Egypt. Now it's interesting because this was a change in a worldly regime and that was kind of the problem in the beginning. when they were already in Egypt and then a pharaoh came along who didn't know Joseph's story and didn't know Joseph's people and felt threatened by them and so put them in bondage. Now we see a new pharaoh comes along and now Moses is free to go back in. As you read the Bible, watch for transitions of earthly power at key plot points. you'll find that God is behind the scenes orchestrating these changes in administrations or empires or rulers or kings for the benefit of his people. And so here we have now these people under the oppression of a pharaoh. This one passes on. and the next one comes along, continues to oppress them, but yet now things are subtly different, and that God's chosen person, Moses, is going to be able to come back and to do his work. See, this captivity was predicted, and there's even a reason given. I'm going to go back to Genesis 15. I'm going to read something to you here. In Genesis 15, and this is a covenant-cutting ceremony that the Lord did with Abraham to reaffirm his covenant with Abraham and to encourage Abraham. In chapter 15, starting with verse 13, it describes this, then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. See, he gives a reason at the very end of that passage for his people to be in bondage for over 400 years and it is this, the sin the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. The Amorites were some of the people that were living in the land that would become Israel's land. And for some reason, their sin was not yet complete in God's eyes. In other words, they hadn't gone over the edge. They hadn't ridden the raft over the waterfall yet. Oh, they were heading downstream and they had no paddle and they were on their way. But apparently God has in his mind a point of no return, and that is when he would bring the Israelites in to conquer the Amorites and not a moment before. This overcomes one of the great objections to the Old Testament in which people will say, hey, the Old Testament's horrible. That can't be the same God that came and walked the Sea of Galilee and came and healed people and preached peace to people because he ordered those Israelites to go in there and commit genocide. But you, now that you're an informed Christian and you know where to go for the answer, can say, no, no, no, those people had 400 years to straighten their act up. And not only that, I can turn to the book of Joshua and I can find even when they came into that land, the people that were there had opportunity to surrender to them or to leave or other things that they could do to avoid the catastrophe that was coming upon them. See, when the Israelites showed up to the Promised Land to conquer it, everyone in the Promised Land knew who they were. They knew they were the ones that God brought out of Egypt with these great plagues and everything, with these great possessions and everything, a great multitude. They've been wandering around the wilderness and shoot, now they're here and this is the land God has promised them. They knew the story. So don't charge God with evil doing because he crushed some of his creation with great warning and with great reason. It shows the complexity of his plan. See, think about this. God is dealing with the Israelites and he's going to make them a great nation, and yet just to have them grow in a place and everything, they could be like any other nation. See, the Greeks became a great nation and great empire, and he didn't do anything special with them. They just kind of grew and multiplied and, you know, made a society and a culture and everything else, and eventually that spread. And same with the Babylonians and the Persians and the Romans, you know. These people just organically kind of formed where they were, and they formed certain alliances, and they made certain progresses. to the point where they became a great people, but it wasn't going to be so with the Israelites. They're the only ones who became a great people in total captivity within another nation, and then were brought out as a couple million people and settled into a land. It was different with them. But all the while, God is not neglecting his dealing with these other nations. All the while, he is not only orchestrating his plan to make the Israelites a great nation, he's dealing with the Amorites over here and whatever they got going on, and all the other ites that were in the promised land at the time. And he's dealing with the nations of the world all the time. As you read the Old Testament, look for that. He is dealing with other nations as well, just not in the same way as his promised descendants of Abraham. There are other places where there are very key changes in power that correspond with his dealing with his own people. The Assyrians came and they scattered the northern kingdom. So later on what happens as Israel settles the land, eventually there's a disagreement and Israel splits into two kingdoms, northern and southern. While the southern had the temple, they had the more faithful priesthood and they had the right religion. The Northern Kingdom didn't, and they never had a good king in the Northern Kingdom. They had a few in the Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom came, the Assyrians conquered them, and the Assyrians had a habit of scattering people around to neutralize their cultural identity, to kind of dissolve nations as they took them over. Well, that wouldn't do for the Southern Kingdom, so Assyria transitioned to Babylon. Babylon had a habit of taking the troublemakers out of an area and putting them together somewhere close to the capital where they could keep an eye on them. That's what happened to the southern kingdom. That way they could be transplanted right back into the land when it was time for God to restore the temple and the people to Israel. He does these things at key times. Babylon then was judged by Persia. Persia came along, they had some different policies. They ended up letting the people go back to their lands. Greece then conquered the known world at the time, conquering Persia and other places. And they spread the Greek language and culture around the known world right after the time, right around the time that their great philosophers were making great strides in philosophy. And some people say, no, no, philosophy, that's a bad word. No, we're Bible. We're theology only. No, go read the philosophers, and you're going to see how incredibly close they came to truth. without the revelation of God. There's a revelation of God in people. He talks about His law being written on our hearts, our conscience bears witness to these things, that there's a glimmer of truth in all people, and these philosophers were dangerously close. And I say dangerously because it would cost them their life to say, oh, there's only one God, and He's that God down there in Israel that cost them their life. So they came at just the right time to spread the language, to make the way, for Christ so that when Christ came then in a common language the truth about him could be spread around the world. The Romans came conquering the Greeks but not their language, came establishing great roads in everywhere, established peace in a great large amount of the known world at that time, allowing that gospel to travel. Isn't that interesting? Did you notice when Jesus was a child. One king tried to wipe him out. What happened to that king? Well, Jesus and his family fled to Egypt. But then that king passed away and they came back. So God was able to fulfill prophecy at key points along the way. All these rulers and all these empires and all these people involved, they thought they were doing their own will. They were their own free agents to do as they pleased. And indeed they did. They declared other gods. They had their own religion, they denied the true God, and even to this day, many declaring that there is no God, don't let it bother you, because God is still working His plan. They are still subject to Him. Did Babylon and Persia and Greece, did Egypt, did all these people know God and His will, and did they try to do? No. But did they do what He wanted? Well, yes. Because that's how he plans things. That's how he works. God's not executing his salvation plan for the world by dodging or adapting or improvising. He is executing his salvation plan with his sovereign rule. Now what does that mean to us? How does this mean anything to us? All these nations and all this stuff going on during those days and civilizations coming and going. We're in the here and now, what does this make a difference? Because this is part of what he has done for you. This is part of what he has done to save his people in all generations. He has literally moved the mountains of human civilization to deliver salvation to us. So this first point I want to make is that Pharaoh died. The second point I want to make is this, the people of Israel suffered. Now the change in Pharaoh made no change to relief to the Israelites. But notice in the verses that we read, the great emphasis on the suffering. They groaned and they cried. They cried for rescue. Slavery being mentioned, there's slavery being mentioned twice in a single verse in 23. See, their problem and their situation was real and it was temporal. It was a problem of situation, a problem of worldly life. And God took notice of it. God took notice. The people of Israel indeed suffered. But look what the people did in their suffering. They prayed. They cried for rescue. from their slavery. They weren't all theologians. This you find out very quickly when you read through the Exodus story. The Exodus is really amazing and miraculous and everything and the people obey God and they apply the blood of the lamb to their doorposts so that they can, you know, have the death angel pass over. They go out into the wilderness and they immediately begin to make theological mistakes. It shows that they don't really know God that well, that they've got some misconceptions about Him, that they try to take some of what they knew about the gods in Egypt along with them, and they have a hard time parting with some of those things. In fact, they lacked faith. They get to a point that it's time to go into the promised land, and they failed to go in, and their failure, according to the Bible, is not so much a failure as in, yeah, we tried, we got this far, it's all we could do. No, it was a lack of faith. but yet they cried to God and their cry was heard. They knew enough about God, they knew enough about this covenant that he had with their ancestor Abraham to know that they could cry out to him for rescue. Maybe some of them even knew the prediction about their captivity and maybe even the duration of it. I don't know how much they knew, but I know this, they didn't know much. They didn't have the Bible that we have. But they knew enough to cry out for him, and this brings up another very important biblical theme. As you read the Bible, look for the prayers of God's people, both Old Testament and new. God's people pray, and God hears those prayers, and God responds to those prayers. Now I just got done making a big deal about the sovereignty of God and the fact that he has command over the nations and is working his plan despite the efforts of man. So the question comes up naturally, why pray if God already knows everything? Why pray if he's going to do everything anyway? He's already working his plan. He has in mind what he wants to do. He knows he's going to bring the Israelites out sooner or later, and an Israelite could well say, well, yeah, we could pray, but why pray? I mean, there was this prophecy he's bringing us out in so many years. What's the big deal? He's going to do it. I mean, God does what he wants to do. It doesn't matter what I do. Does that sound like a familiar attitude? Now, I know I've even been tempted with that attitude a time or two. Many of us have. That's a common attitude in the world. Well, God seems to be doing whatever he wants to do. You people say he's in charge. So why does it even matter? It matters. We're reading the book of Daniel this morning, Daniel chapter nine, one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. We're reading Daniel chapter nine this morning, and here Daniel was reading Jeremiah. The chapter opens with he's reading Jeremiah. And Daniel, of course, is in exile over in Babylon. He's got some of the writings of Jeremiah, who was over there in Jerusalem when the place was destroyed, and so had a firsthand account of all that. But he's reading where the captivity was supposed to be 70 years. Well, that sets Daniel off praying. Why? Because it was very close to that time. Daniel was a very old man. He had been there the entire 70 years, at least. So the time was drawing near for that to be fulfilled. Now, if God said it to Jeremiah, doesn't that mean, as God has proven himself over and over, that he's going to do it with or without Daniel? But what does Daniel do? Daniel begins praying and fasting. I know it's a bad word in Baptist circles. And wearing sackcloth and ashes. So this went on for some days. Don't know how long he was doing this over this one subject, but we know in the past he had been subject to praying and fasting for as much as like 30 days at a time. So Daniel is praying and fasting and wearing sackcloth and ashes for God to fulfill something he said he would fulfill. Why? It's a waste of time, Daniel. God's going to do it anyway. Daniel knew God and was joining Him in the work. That's what God's people do. God's people join Him in the work that He is doing. That's part of their identity. And if he doesn't join God in prayer, even when he knows full well that God's going to execute what he wants to do, then he is clearly not one of God's people. And if we hold that up as an excuse, he's going to do what he wants to do anyway, so I don't need to pray, well, I think that's pretty strong evidence that we might not be God's people. For an attitude like that doesn't exist among the people of God. They join him. Daniel prayed an incredible prayer. His prayers are summarized in one prayer in that chapter, and he prays repentance. He uses all four words that the Hebrews had for sin, and he uses them repeatedly. We have been wrong and we have sinned and we did it on purpose and threw it up in your face and we are wrong. But in everything you've done, God, you've been right, he says. He calls him righteous three times. So he prays over and over, we were wrong and you were right. And you were just doing everything you told us you would do in your covenant with us. And when you read the last chapters of Deuteronomy, you find that to be exactly true. God was just doing what he said he would. And he's keeping his promises to Israel, both positive and negative for them. And Daniel acknowledges all of that. He repents of the things and he finally comes to the point where he says, but now it's time to have mercy. Please turn your wrath away from Jerusalem. What an incredible prayer. It's rubbish to think that we need not pray. This is what God's people do. And do you not know that prayer is also two-way? That prayer is more than about getting God to do things. It glorifies God. That we would bend the knee and pray is an act of worship. It declares to those who might notice that he's real, that he is, that he's worthy of that acknowledgement. And it repeats those same sentiments to ourselves and in our hearts. It glorifies God. and it edifies his people through prayer. He makes his people to be like him. See, if we don't pray and God acts, we have no part of it. And our faith is not enhanced. Our faith is not improved. But if we pray and God acts, we become part of what he's doing in a very real way. And here the exodus occurred not just because the people suffered, not just because God had said they'd be there so many years and then he'd bring them out and make them great, but because they prayed to God is assigned as part of the reason that they were brought out. Prayer acknowledges God as the sole person who can do anything about a situation. Prayer matters. The people of Israel prayed. And God remembered his covenant. You'll notice here it says, verse 24, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So he remembered. And this is not remembered as in a way as, oh yeah, I had that thing with Abraham. I almost forgot about it. No, no, no. Things don't leave God's mind. Everything's there all the time. He is all Ram. If you're a computer person, you know the difference between Ram and Ram. He's all ram. It's always there all the time, ready, right at hand. It's not that he remembered it, but it is that he at that time was applying it. He was putting into action the covenant that he already had. He honored it with action. He never forgot. It's at this time that God acted to honor his covenant. Now, the covenant is very important in understanding everything you read in the Old Testament. And it's reiterated here that this is a covenant with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob. It is repeated to each generation. In other words, the idea is three is enough to set a pattern. He says, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, that sets a pattern. This is generational going on to all the descendants of Abraham in perpetuity. This covenant that continues. The last time we talked about this covenant and the fact that we are adopted into it, you can refer back to that sermon if you want to learn more about it. But after the book of Genesis, whenever this covenant with Abraham is mentioned, it's never mentioned as just with Abraham, because it is generational. And the terms honored here by the Exodus are some of the terms that God laid out in Genesis chapter 12, that he is making them a great nation, that he is blessing those who bless them and cursing those who curse them. He is doing those things right here in the book of Exodus. In Genesis 15, he mentioned this specifically, which we read, that there would be deliverance, that there would be retribution against the oppressor, and that they would come out with great possessions. God is doing his covenant work right here. So God remembered his covenant and God began to act. The very next chapter picks up with Moses. God is putting together his team of leadership that he's going to use to bring the people out of Egypt, and he begins at that work right away. But one question might arise in all this. He's acting, but it's been 400 years. And it would seem that the majority of that time they were in this oppression, they were in slavery, most of that time. And people always ask the question, how can there be a God and so much suffering? While the Bible is very clear, people suffer. And it's our sin that brought the suffering upon us. The question should be if the suffering is noticed. That's a better question to ask, not why do people suffer if God is so good? No, ask the question, is God good enough to notice that we're suffering? Yes. Look at the example that we're given. He heard their cry. He knew what was happening. The question should also contain is the suffering then for a good reason. Matthew's suffering a little bit right now with his knee surgery. You know, he got into this knee surgery thing. He didn't, I think, realize that he was going to be severely handicapped for a couple weeks, maybe not severely as many people. Certainly limited in what he can do. Why? He was getting around beforehand. He had a little bit of pain, but nothing like he's experienced the last few days. He's going through it for a good reason. Because ultimately his condition will be better than it was prior. For many years to come, hopefully. The question is not whether or not we suffer. The question is, is the suffering noticed, and then the further question is, is the suffering any good for anything? Is there any reason for this? Yes. If someone is suffering, there is a reason for it. God will turn it to something better. And we know this to be true. How admirable is it for someone to suffer for the benefit of others? We'll accept that, won't we? We'll say, well, OK, this person needs some help. I'm going to cancel what's on my schedule and forfeit a little bit of my opportunity and a little bit of my profitability, maybe, a little bit of my comfort. And I'm going to go out of my way, and I'm going to work alongside that person. And for me, it'll be suffering. Will we accept that? Would we applaud that? Yeah, I think we would even applaud that. Because it's going to result in something better. Isn't that interesting that we will accept the suffering in our own perspective for a greater benefit later, but we don't give God that benefit of the doubt? Is it not hypocritical to say, well, yeah, I choose to suffer in this way so that I can have this thing come about and this positive thing happen, but when it comes to God, we won't accept any suffering at all. All of a sudden we throw it up as an excuse, must not be a God. It's very hypocritical. Well, how does all this apply to us? Here's what we've learned so far. Pharaoh died. The people of Israel suffered. The people of Israel then prayed. God remembered His covenant. God began to act on that covenant. What does this mean to us? Well, let's answer our questions that we answer each time for this series. How does this event fit into God's salvation plan? Again, much of what we learned last time, He's establishing the line through which Christ will come. this nation that will carry the word and the many laws and everything, which we'll talk about next time. But this is also a revelation of God. How this fits into God's plan is he begins in a very large way with the nation Israel to reveal himself and his character. He reveals himself in the very next chapter as I am. I am that I am. In other words, I am the self-existent one. And the way that he said it, I am that I am, would lend itself to an interpretation by a Hebrew of He is eternal. He was and is and is to come. Which is a label that's reiterated throughout the Bible. And so He is eternal. He is the self-existent I am. And this I am is established, which Jesus will use to reveal who He is. Because over and over again he says, I am. And he says it in a way that would tip them off that he was referring to Exodus chapter 3. It reveals who God is. He hardens the heart of Pharaoh after Pharaoh hardened it some. So that God would be glorified with more tremendous plagues and miracles bringing the people out. We see God hearing prayer. We see him responding to prayer, keeping his covenant. We see him appointing leaders and working through leaders. We see his priorities of justice, not bringing disaster upon the Amorites before they're really ready for it. We see all these wonderful things. And we see, above all, God setting up the world to see his glory. This is a revelation of God. He also reveals salvation. As we read the Exodus story and the hard part, the hardest part of coming up to this and saying, yeah, I want to preach just one about the Exodus for this series. And the hardest part, as you know, is a preacher, right? The hardest part is, what do I say about the Exodus in one sermon? Because the Exodus teaches us about the nature of salvation because it's typical as they are redeemed as a people and brought out of Egypt, That becomes typical of how it is that a person is redeemed by God and taken out of the world and sanctified and set apart for his purposes and how it is that we're saved. And the whole Passover feast nestled in there with all its great symbolism and everything that God gives them to speak of Christ, our ultimate lamb and our ultimate sacrifice. All these things are packed into the Bible through and through, not just the story of the Exodus, but through and through. How this fits into the salvation plan is this, he is packing now into his word from Exodus on many, many great truths that reveal his nature, his character, that reveal the truth about Christ and how it is that people are saved. You can preach the cross and salvation from every page of scripture because he has done it this way. This also reveals the complexity of the Bible because you realize what's going on here in the book of Exodus is a great juxtaposition of many things. God is establishing his reputation, that is his glory. He is teaching us about Christ. He's working all the while justly in the lives of his people and in the nations of the earth. He's instructing us about his character. He's giving us godly examples to follow. He's giving us ungodly examples to not follow. And he's teaching us all the while how to know Christ and to be saved. That's a lot to get done in a few pages. That's how this fits in the God Salvation Plan. Well, what does this say about the salvation into which we've been called? I'm just going to deal with the passage at hand. What this says about the salvation into which we've called is that handed down through centuries of civilization. Civilization moving actions. The prayers of a people, the prayers of individuals. All these things knit together and delivered to you on this day. That should really be stunning to you. That should put a value on the salvation into which you've been called is that it is not just something that God put there that you should come to it if you want. It's not like a well he dug in a field and left it that those who want water might go seek it out and might find the well and have a sip of their own power. But no, it is God working in all aspects of worldly life. To bring to you personally. A salvation you didn't deserve. you cannot earn. That's profound. What kind of love would do that? That the salvation into which we've been called is a great act of God from which we benefit and in which we participate for our benefit and for others. Do you realize participating in your salvation were a bunch of Hebrew people you didn't know that were praying because of the horrible situation they were in. And one day you might meet some of them. And they might say, yeah, I was there and I was one of those who prayed. And you could say, thank you for praying because God brought you out of Egypt. He was able to bring me salvation. And you had a part in it. And the question, and the third question we have is what implications does it have for living my faith today? My question is this, will you have a part in someone else's salvation? Are you praying this day for God to fulfill those things that he said he would fulfill? Are you joining him in his work at the yoke of prayer? It's a great privilege that we have. The implications this has for living our faith today is to repent and be saved because it presents here a model of salvation. And these Israelites were so helpless in their situation that this is not a story about them forming a union. This is not a story about them getting some Egyptian advocates to speak on their behalf and forming a grassroots movement and having some kind of court injunction or protest or anything. No, this is about a people in a situation that could do nothing but cry out to God. And we're promised in the Bible that those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Will you? Or will you work your worldly means? Will you try to do it your way and on your terms? Will you try to earn your way out? Well, it's clear that you can't. because of the story that we've read. The other implications it has for our faith today is that we should lift up to God great praise for what He has done. Amen? For what He has accomplished, not just for you, but for the lives. When we read these stories from the Old Testament, we're talking about real people with real lives and real passion. And they had fathers and mothers and sons and daughters. They had friends and they had distant kin and close kin of all kinds. These were people that loved and these were people that lost and these were people that gained and they were people like us that cried out to God and were helped. Let us praise him for what he does. By his great grace, let's pray. Father God, we praise you this day. We thank you for assembling us together. And I pray that your will is done through this series that you reveal yourself and how it is that you work. That we may have greater understanding when we open your word. We may see what this has to do with us. And we may see even most importantly, Lord, what it says about you. We praise you this day for making yourself known through your word. And we ask you to call us to join you. I ask that all hearing this would begin to join you more in the work that you're doing by engaging in prayer for all those around us, for your great plans to be unfolded for this world that we're in, and for ourselves, Lord, I pray that we would seek you, cry out to you, for we know that you will hear, we know that you will act. In Jesus' name, amen.