Finding Rest in the Tumult

Let's turn to the book of Exodus chapter 14. And we're going to look at two verses, verses 13 and 14. Hear God's word.

For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we open your word tonight, I come to you to confess that, Lord, the sin and the struggle that the Israelites fought with in this passage I fight with. I believe many in this church fight with, and Lord, as we come into your word, I pray that the Holy Spirit convicts us. I pray that the Holy Spirit moves us to an understanding of who you truly are. Lord God, let it not be my words this evening, let it be your word and your word alone, and we pray that the Holy Spirit moves. And Lord God just builds this body and brings glory to your name. And it's in Christ we pray. Amen.

You can be seated. I believe I serve a sovereign God, and this morning, and many times I need reminded of that, and this morning when I walked into the sanctuary and I looked at the worship folder and some of the readings and the singing, Jim's prayer this morning, it was like, oh, this is going to tie in great with what I have planned to say. And Doug got up and shared his passage of scripture, and he started to preach, and his first two points covered what I was going to cover.

And I was like, wow, that's not good, I guess. But then the more I thought about it, and I spoke with Eugene and Doug both, God is amazing in how he works. And there are certain things that God wants his people to hear at certain times. This time it must be that we need to hear this message that we are to fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of our Lord. So with that said, if there is some repetition from this morning, let's consider teaching from God that we need to hear that. But as we dive into this text, hopefully we're going to see a much, much more rich love that God has for us, and where we truly can find rest. I titled the message Finding Rest in Tumult.

Why would you use such a weird title? When we look at the text where this is taken from, Moses is addressing the Israelites in a very tumultuous situation that they find themselves in, and we're going to reference back in the message. But where we find in Exodus 14 where this passage comes from, they are right now facing the Red Sea, and they are looking back and seeing the Egyptian army coming towards them. They have no idea how they are going to be rescued, and what we're going to see in the text is as they get caught up in the Tumult, they don't believe they are going to be rescued by the question they ask and the murmuring they make.

When I started to pray about what I should preach on, it became very evident for many in the church, we find ourselves in a very similar tumultuous situation. And so there are parallels, and one of the times when you read a text and you know that text isn't just for the original audience, though we'll touch on why it's written to them, but it's written distinctly and specifically for us as we encounter tumultuous situations. Webster defines a Tumult as this, it's a disorderly agitation or milling about of a crowd with uproar and confusion of voices. So I can picture as you're standing at the Red Sea, a million people looking back over your shoulder and you're seeing the Pharaoh's army coming at you that this would be probably a very definite, confusing, murmuring, troubled crowd of people milling about. There is a second definition, and that is a violent agitation of the mind or feelings.

A Tumult is a violent agitation of the mind or feelings. And I started to think as I turn on my TV news in the morning, as I talk with people at work, as we encounter all the things we're encountering now, I have myself have had agitated feelings that I have spoken to several who have found themselves with this agitation of mind or feelings. And so one of the things that they teach you in seminary when you're supposed to write a sermon is that you find the fallen condition factor or focus of the original audience and how it ties. And with what we've been going through, we can very much relate with what the Israelites are going through as they're standing there at the Red Sea. Why does God through Moses document this event and speak these commands to this original audience?

Why doesn't scripture just say that they came up to the sea, the sea parted and they passed through? Why does God have to in his revelation tell us that the Israelites looked back, that when they looked back they became afraid and they cried out and they murmured against God? Why is he letting the original audience know that? Why is he letting us know that? These are questions that will help us understand how to find rest in the Tumult.

When we sit and look what is going on here and we see Moses' response as God's instrument to his people, what we find is that when we read the Old Testament and have our instances where we scoff at how could you be so unbelieving or how could you struggle with this when God was your lead? What we see is a reflection many times of ourselves dealing with the same emotion, the same feeling, the same uncertainty. Doug this morning in his message talked about the double-mindedness that this brings. But, and I agree 100%, but what I want to know is why do we have the double-mindedness? And I think this passage clearly shows what brings that double-mindedness to us. Church, I would like to make the proposition that our double-mindedness even as believers that Doug spoke about which can occur occurs for one simple reason and that is our unbelief that God can do what God says he will do. I believe Satan uses it as a weapon against us.

R.C. Sproul says that is the very first temptation put before man. When Satan tempted Eve, he came up and said, does God's word, did God really say? Can you trust what God said?

And I think for many of us, we allow the noise and the pollution of the world to creep into our thoughts and our minds and bring about just inklings of unbelief that allow footholds for us to be overtaken in the tumult and not be able to rest. Tonight, what I would hope that we will see is the God that we truly serve. At the end of the message, church, I am going to declare to you, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, but what does that mean to us? I think there are three ways which this text using the back text from chapters 12 and 13 and then using other text from scripture will teach us, God teaching us himself how we are to trust, how we are to believe, why we can hold fast. You know, one of the things that got robbed in the opening of the coronavirus was this ability to come together as a group and worship.

And I can't remember how long we streamed, probably six or seven weeks, eight. And I can remember walking back in and being able to join in fellowship with others and how joyous that was to my soul because I was coming together with brothers and sisters in Christ proclaiming the sovereignty of God, hearing his power and his might and his worth, praying and singing and hearing his word preached. Yes, we can get that and we got some of it through the streaming, but there is a difference when we come together as a group and can share in our testimony, our walk, how God sustains. But even if we would lose that again, this text right here declares over and over how we can find rest in the tumult. With that said, I'm going to touch on three areas.

The first one is going to sound a little familiar from this morning. Rest in the tumult comes through faith, not through fear. Doug said it a little different. He said it was fear that caused the double mindedness and faith overcame that. I say that rest comes through faith, not through fear. In our text, Moses' first cry out to the people of God is fear not.

Now, does that sound silly? Facing right in front of them is a sea that is impassable and coming behind them is an armed army intent on their destruction. Yes, they are a million strong. Yes, they probably have some weapons. They have not been trained in battle.

They have been slaves for 430 years. I'm sure they're stronger, but they don't have the technical expertise to take on a well trained army. Why should they not fear? My dad, who wasn't a great theologian, but he was a very godly man, told me that sometimes fear is a good thing.

He always used that into reference if I was thinking that I could step up toe to toe with him and cause my own will to come to fruition and he'd say, Jay, a little bit of fear might be a good thing. The scripture teaches us the exact same thing. That there is a good fear, but in this text, Moses is telling the people fear not.

Well, why would he be able to say that statement and be able to be grasped by them? Reading in Exodus 12 and 13, the people have just been delivered out of the Pharaoh's hand through the work of the Passover. The people were told, Moses went to them and said, the Lord has told me so, that you are to prepare this meal and you are to do it with yourself ready to depart and when you prepare it, take the blood of the lamb, rub on your doorpost, for the Lord will move through, His angel of death will move through, and when He does and He sees the blood, He will pass over your home and He will take the firstborn of every creature in the land of Egypt. Moses goes on to tell them, when this occurs, we will hold this as a memorial for generations to come continually. The people responded with Amen and Worship.

They did exactly as they were commanded and as they had been commanded, they witnessed the exact truth occur. The Lord passes through, the firstborn of all the Egyptians are taken, the firstborn of livestock, the firstborn of families, but none in the Hebrew camp is touched where that blood is rubbed on the doorpost. They have witnessed the power of God, His faithfulness to His Word and it is now seven days later where they were even instructed that you will hold this as a celebration annually, a memorial to the power of your God's deliverance from the hand of the Pharaoh and yet they stand on the shore of the Red Sea and these are the words they say coming from verses 10 through 13 in Exodus 14. When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, they said to Moses, is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out to Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt? Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. It is clear that their fear is not just what's going to happen if they catch up to us.

Their fear is that God is not able to deliver them. That there is no possible way by what my senses are telling me that we can get out of this situation. And I would love to tell you that in this story that I would be the Moses character saying fear not, stand firm and see the salvation. But too many times I would be the one going, do you see what's going on here?

He drove us out here and we're going to die. Because unfortunately as I did my study for this I realized over and over how many times those slivers of unbelief pop up in my own life. Whether it's for my own work, whether it's for my family's sake, whether it's God is strong enough to see me through an election, a virus, a whatever. Over and over in my mind things churn so many times because I find myself affected more by the noise outside than the truth that's contained here.

The Israelites had no faith that God would be able to overcome this strong and powerful army moving down upon them and they were trapped because there was no way out. The church today struggles in a great amount in the same way on many, many topics and I'm not speaking just of Grace Church. I have Christian friends who ask me, Jay when you look around and you see everything they pull up news articles and they read them to me. They say with the coronavirus, with all the civil unrest that we see in the United States right now. When there's economic insecurity there's a chance that we could all lose our work. How can't we be bothered or fearful of that occurring? And again in my own shame there are times those thoughts pop through my mind but God has given us His word that if we are His, He takes care of us. We stand here, I open by saying I believe God is sovereign and so many times, yes God is sovereign but if it goes this way, did you ever play the what if game in your head?

What if this happened, how would and then what would and what can I do? And never does that lead me towards Christ, that leads me more towards me and my thought process and what I have to figure out to fix what's going on. The Israelites were at a point where the what if game doesn't work. The Israelites are at a point where they have no hope except that of the Lord. And church I would tell you tonight truly that we live in the greatest land there is of blessing, of opportunity, we have no hope save for the Lord.

It doesn't matter the economy and its situation, it doesn't matter our ability to learn or to retain knowledge or God determines the course. As we walk through the scripture tonight, it is God's work not ours. It is God's moving of our leaders not our shouting down of people we disagree with.

Yes we are here and we are called to actively engage in society. Jesus has sent us out, Eugene spent seven weeks in a class the two kingdom theology, we are citizens of heaven but we are here on earth and God didn't say cloister yourself and sequester. He said go out into that world and take the light of the gospel to all.

That's what we're called to. Whether or not next week or next month or five years from now if the government says that we can't preach the gospel guess what we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what the world needs, that is what God calls us to and if that leads to persecution or martyrdom then it is for the glory of God that we stand before and say Christ is so much better. It is not our concern to serve man, it is our concern to serve God. The Israelites were serving themselves as they looked and they murmured why did you drag us out here to die. They weren't looking to serve God, they weren't looking to honor God, they were looking at how they can save themselves or at least to come to grips with the terms of their eminent demise. The scripture gives us a completely different view of how we are to approach worldly events, coronavirus, civil unrest, loss of stability.

God is revealed from his scripture or his knowledge to us. Listen to these words from Isaiah chapter 41, 10, 12 through 14. This is a later battle or a later time in Israel and God says this, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. You shall seek those who contend with you but you shall not find them.

Those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. For I the Lord your God hold your right hand. It is I who say to you fear not.

I am the one who helps you. Fear not you worm Jacob, you men of Israel. I am the one who helps you declares the Lord. Your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. There is no room for error in what God reveals in that text. It does not say Jay you go out and do the best you can and where you fail I will step in.

It does not say church take your best shot at it and as you encounter problems I'll see if I can see you through. God declares to Israel that it is him and him alone. He is acting in verse 14 from Exodus. Moses tells them when they're going to witness this deliverance this day the Lord will fight for you. And what do they have to do?

And you have only to be silent. Yes God uses us as instruments. God will put us into places to work for him but it is through him working through us that we can then be the instrument of God for his purpose. We go on and see in John 14 verses 1 and 2 let not your hearts be troubled believe in God believe also in me.

Who is that? That's Jesus. Jesus is letting the church know. Church if you believe in this God then believe also in me disciples believe also in me. He goes on in that same chapter then to inform his disciples that he is going to gift them with the Holy Spirit.

The helper who will come after him and what will he do? The Holy Spirit will lead them into all truth and remembrance of what Christ taught. When we start and see from Scripture how God has revealed himself we are to live by faith. Not because our minds can rationally grasp how God can accomplish this but because he is the creator God of the universe. He is the warrior God of the Old Testament.

He is the God who provides and he is the God who came and hung on the cross for your sake and my sake and made us right before him. That's the truth Scripture reveals. Not that you and I can do a single thing. Not that you and I can impact the world.

We can impact the world only as the Holy Spirit leads us to impact it for Christ Jesus. Hebrews 11 says this, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. I had a conversation with one of my friends who is Christian and I truly believe that he is saved but there is a considerable thought process on his part that faith is part belief but also hope.

And I don't mean hope like we know but hope in a wish. He attends a church that looks for extra biblical revelation. One that's looking for what has God left out of this canon. And folks I'm here to tell you that if you struggle with that thought at all there is nothing left out from the Bible that we have. We declare that the Bible is God's inspired, infallible, inerrant word. Why do we declare that? Because God tells us that himself.

All Scripture is God breathed and it is valuable for reproof, for correction, for teaching. All of it. And it is given for you and I that we can rest in faith that the God who has created, as Doug said this morning, ex nihilo. Can you think of nothing? And then realize that in nothing, with no material at all, God spoke and it was.

That is an incredible feat. When we came to the table this morning, what did we celebrate? We celebrated the life, the death, and the what? The resurrection. I've used it before. I've told it in Sunday school, I've told it I think when I preach.

I've worked in the medical field for 32 years now. And I've never seen anyone resurrected from the dead. Dead is dead. But the power of God brought Christ back from the dead and that shows that he truly is the one who could pay our sin debt. Those are the things that we get to rest on. Those are the things that we get to set firmly upon. Moses tells the Israelites with this army descending fear not church as we hear the hoopla.

As we hear so and so can do this for me, so and so can save this. They are men, they are sinful, and they will fail outside the hand of God. Church, the only thing that we have is Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit. That is where we are to find rest. If our person isn't the person, then our prayer is that God moves his heart. As we see, he moved Pharaoh's heart in the Old Testament. As we see that he moved Pilate. As we see that he accomplishes all his things. God himself said, my purposes will not be thwarted.

Are we truly resting in faith upon the word God has revealed? The next thing that Moses tells them is to stand firm and I'm going to go down a little rabbit trail here quickly. But stand firm to the Israelites was sort of a, when looked in the original meaning, is to stand still.

To stand rooted. Well they didn't really have anywhere to go. If they decided to turn around and run back that way, they were going to hit the army.

And if they tried to go the other way, they were going to run into the water at that point. So, but that's not what Moses is exclaiming to them. He is saying stand still in what you know because the next thing is you're going to see God deliver you. So stand still, stand firm and see this deliverance. As I looked up that word stand firm, it took me to Ephesians chapter 6. And if you have your Bible, flip over to Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 through 20.

And I just, I loved how this tied together. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, and this will sound very familiar, this is putting on the whole armor of God. But he says these words, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

So Paul is telling them it's not your strength, it is the strength of the Lord that you're to rely on. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.

Against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm, to stand still. Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. Stand firm. To the Israelites that was to stand and rest in the knowledge of what God has already done for them in the plagues, the Passover up until this point and wait until you see what he's going to do now. For us church stand firm is accomplished and given to us. We are to stand firm in what?

When it says to take up the whole armor of God, what is the whole armor of God? That description very simply is Christ Jesus himself. We are to be rooted in Christ Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Put on the belt of truth. Salvation is of the Lord. Put on the helmet of salvation. Christ imputes his righteousness and takes our sin. As we walk down through that armor it is nothing of our own that we put on but it is all of Christ that we encircle ourselves with that we come into.

And we can't do it without the Holy Spirit regenerating our heart to understand who he truly is. That is why as I prepared this message it convicted me so harshly of how often the unbelief rises when outside noise causes me to move to that what if. What if he doesn't win? What if I lost my job? What if I got sick?

What if? I've heard testimonies even within the church members here of what God does even in the worst of times. When I could see no way further in the future God did this. We had a young boy born here ten years ago from the medical field. It was astounding to me because his pulmonary artery did not fully develop and it was too far away from his heart and he was going to pass away. Doug was called down. And do you know what happened outside the body?

They prayed and that pulmonary artery grew and attached and circulation started through. We do not serve a God who is unable. He doesn't reveal good luck I'll be there if I can.

He reveals I am the one who will deliver. But Jay what happens when he doesn't? Well when he doesn't it glorifies him also. You know Paul writes about death and he tells the people that he's writing to I know I have a job and I have to be with you but I much would prefer to be with Christ. Though I love the work that God has called me to at this moment if I had my choice I would be there because it's far better. Church do we see death as far better? Do we truly believe God in his workings?

These are tough questions. When you're 90 yeah death probably is far better. Death looks better to me at 52 right now than it probably did at 30. But I was a believer at 30 and Paul's words were still true.

What we have to look forward to is far better than anything that a country or a job or whatever can supply here. And yet we worry and what would happen if I died who would take care of my wife and my kids? God will. You know when I was 9 years old or 8 or 9 I remember this as the greatest lesson my father ever taught me. I used to go to bed then and my dad worked out of town a lot and when he was home it was just the most secure feeling I had at that age. But then I started to think I played the what if game when I was 8 or 9 I thought what if something happened and my parents died.

And I started to cry in bed one night and they came over and they said what was wrong and I said what would I do what would happen to me if something happened to you guys and they didn't understand at first and I said if you would die. And my dad looked at me and what you would normally think to tell an 8 year old probably is oh don't worry about that I'm in good health and I'll be here. My dad said these words to me. Right now God feels that you need us so he has us here.

But if we were ever taken by God he would raise someone up to take care of you. That was his answer and it was the most tremendous thing I could have ever heard. My dad told me about the sovereignty of God in that answer. He said he will provide what you need when you need it and it's not us who can tell you that we can.

I didn't understand it fully then. But when I look back on it now and realize my dad didn't want to lie to me and say I'll be here as long as you need me because he didn't know. He told me the truth that God is the one that's in control of his family. That God will take care of those if he takes him.

And that was one of the most tremendous things that I have ever heard. As we look and see in standing fast it ties to that faith in point one that we must live by. But we finish with Moses telling the Israelites after saying stand fast he says and now see the salvation of your Lord which he will work for you today. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to preach on the first Sunday of the month. Because ladies and gentlemen if you were in the early services the AM services you saw the salvation of your Lord at the table. Doug will tell you I'm a weirdo and I wish we took the Lord's table every Sunday.

Because that is truly the place. We see it in Doug and Eugene's preaching. We see it in our readings.

We see it in our worship hymns. But at that table this morning you saw the salvation that God has given us. God loves you so much that he took the form of man.

He lived a perfect life under the law. He gave himself over to men who he created and he allowed them to beat him and bruise him. He allowed them to hang him on a tree and then on the third day after dying after shedding the blood that covers my sin to make me right. After becoming my sin. You know that third verse of it is well with my soul. My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord oh my soul. When we see the salvation of the Lord that God has wrought for us and the love and the mercy that is attached to that.

Then we look at texts like Paul writing in Romans where he says all things for those who love God work for the good. What we're in right now. Where we're at as a country.

Where we're at with the coronavirus. Where we're at with civil unrest believe it or not is not outside of God's hand but is actually for the good for those who love him and serve him. Think about that.

Ponder it because if I had my choice I would wipe it all out today. But God is using it for our good. He is using it for his glory. Are we able to rest in faith in that? Are we able to witness to a world lost who is dying without Christ through this. Bringing the gospel more meaning to a world who is blatantly sinning against God and running from him.

Because that's what we're called to. Ultimately the Israelites are saved that day by Moses holding up his staff. The waters parting.

They going through on dry land. And then as the Egyptians pursued hard God relents and lets the water crush them and destroy their enemy. Church. Jesus Christ has destroyed our enemy. We have no reason to fear. Satan has been defeated.

Sin can no longer separate us from God and God himself adopts us when the Holy Spirit changes our heart. Regenerates us. As we have this election coming. As we have continued coronavirus. As we see world unrest.

As we see sin just bearing its ugly head over and over in our culture. Hear the word of God. Fear not. Stand firm he is able. And see the salvation of your Lord which is accomplished through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father we thank you so much for your word. I do ask that you forgive me Father for my unbelief so many times. Lord God I just praise you that you have been truth.

That you have been true to and steadfast to your word. And that Lord you will never change from that. Lord help us to rest and rest in you alone. Let us find our joy. Let us find our peace our happiness. And Lord God our fullness in you through Christ. We thank you so much for all you do and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.