You know, if we were to ask, what's the greatest miracle God ever did in the Old Testament?
Well, there are some real candidates, aren't there? I mean, there's the birth of Isaac, there's Noah's flood, there's Jonah being swallowed by the fish, there's Elijah bringing down fire on Mount Carmel, there's Daniel in the lion's den. But I think we'd all have to agree that the opening of the Red Sea qualifies as the greatest single act of God anywhere in the Old Testament. And for the next several messages, we're going to camp out on this amazing event, because as followers of Christ today in our modern world, there are more lessons for us here at the Red Sea than I can possibly work into a single message. And so today, we want to do our first message out of our little series and called Lessons at the Red Sea, and I want to talk to you today about being cast upon God. If you brought a Bible today, I'd like you to open it to Exodus chapter 14.
If you didn't bring a Bible, I want you to reach under the armrest right next to you there, and I want you to turn to page 50. Page 50 in our copy of the Bible, Exodus 14 in your copy, and while you're turning, let me give you a little bit of background. Remember that after 10 horrific plagues, Pharaoh finally relented and let the Israelites go free. And the Israelites following the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, they end up camped right down at the shore of the Red Sea. Now that's where we are, so let's pick up verse 1, chapter 14. Now the Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites to camp near Peahach, he wrote, they are to camp by the sea directly opposite of Baal-zaphone, for Pharaoh will think the Israelites are wandering around in confusion hemmed in by the desert, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them, and I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army so the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.
Let me show you a map, and notice when the Israelites first headed out of Egypt going east, Exodus 13 verse 20 says that God led them south to a place called Ethom, and now here in chapter 14 we learn God turned around and led them right back north again up to Baal-zaphone, creating the impression, making it look like the Israelites were hopelessly lost and just wandering around in the desert. You know one of my favorite movies of all time is the 1973 movie The Sting, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, better known to the older ones of us as Butch and Sundance. Anyway in this movie, Newman and Redford, they snooker this big Chicago mobster and take $500,000 from him by making him think that he's betting on a horse race that really doesn't even exist. And folks, this is what it means to snooker somebody.
To snooker somebody means to make them think one thing is going on, when in reality it's not going on at all so that you can set that person up for a big fall. And this is exactly what God did to Pharaoh here in Exodus chapter 14. God made it look like the Israelites were wandering aimlessly in the desert, unsure where they were going, so that Pharaoh would be tempted to attack them and he took the bait.
Watch. Verse 5. When Pharaoh and the Egyptians were told about this, they had a change of heart.
And they said, what have we done? We've let the Israelites go and we've lost their services. Verse 6. So Pharaoh had his chariot made ready. He also took 600 of his best chariots along with his other chariots.
Verse 9. And the Egyptians chased after the Israelites with all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh and the Egyptians overtook them as they camped by the sea opposite Baal's phone. Now the Bible tells us that tactically the Israelites were in a very bad spot. The Bible calls it being hemmed in by the desert. They had the Red Sea directly behind them.
They had the mountains of the desert on both sides of them. In fact, one of the greatest lines in the whole movie, the Ten Commandments, comes when Eulbrenner pauses on the hill overlooking the Egyptians, the Israelites rather, and looking down over them he says, the God of Moses is a poor general to leave him no retreat. I love that line.
I can tell you do too. Okay, so let's move on. Anyway, the real Pharaoh, Amenhotep II, may never have said those words, but that's certainly how we felt. The Israelites looked like sitting ducks. But friends, the real truth is that Almighty God had snookered Pharaoh. Now before we go on, let me stop for a moment and point out to you how the Bible highlights the prominent place the chariots played in the army of Egypt at this time in history. Here in Exodus 14, the year is 1445 BC, we're in the middle of the 18th dynasty in Egypt, and we know today from archaeology that during the 18th dynasty, which ran from 1575 to roughly 1300 BC, we know that the chariot became the standard military piece of equipment, the backbone, if you will, of the Egyptian army, exactly the way the Bible presents it. As a matter of fact, we have actually found a real example of one of these chariots.
Let me show you a picture. This chariot is from the tomb of the great-great-grandson of Yulbrenner, a man that we know today as King Tut Ankh Amun, but you know him better as King who? King Tut, that's right. He ruled 65 years after the Israelites left Egypt, and this chariot shows you that they had a driver, it was hooked to two horses, and there was also a man, an archer or swordsman, who rode on the side of the driver, exactly the way the Bible describes it. In fact, those of you who are going to Egypt with me on the footsteps of Paul of Moses tour in February, you're going to get a chance to see this chariot up close and personal right there because it's on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. So this is what the Israelites would have seen charging at them across the desert, hundreds and hundreds of these chariots full of archers and swordsmen anxious to butcher them like a bunch of sheep. Now, friend, if you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your personal savior and one of the things that's been hanging you up is you're questioning your doubts about whether the Bible is a reliable document that you can really trust to tell you the truth, well, I'm here to say once again, the more we dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be true. We know that the Bible is telling us the exact truth today about the role of chariots at this time in the Egyptian army, and so if the Bible goes to the trouble to be this true historically, why in the world would the Bible mislead us on its most important subject, which is spiritually? The Bible doesn't. And so if you're here today, let me remind you, the more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right, and if the Bible is right about history, it's right about Jesus Christ, and if you and I trust him, we'll have eternal life and we'll go to heaven, something to think about.
Well, let's go on. Verse 10. As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians coming after them, and they were terrified and they cried out to the Lord and they said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out in the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?
Verse 12. Didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? They never said this in Egypt. For it would have been better for us, they say, to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. Friends, what we have here is the charter meeting of the BTE club, the Back to Egypt Club. They elected Dathan, Edward G. Robinson, as their president, and they turned on Moses, and they turned on God, and they said, We need to go back to Egypt. Now, the logic of the Back to Egypt Club makes absolutely no sense here, doesn't it? I mean, why in the world would God go to the trouble to send ten plagues on Egypt to free the Israelites and then lead them out in the desert to kill them? No sense whatsoever, but friends, listen, unbelief is always illogical.
Unbelief is always irrational, and yet it's amazing how fast unbelief like this can spread. Before long, it had taken hold of just about everybody in Israel, and then Moses spoke. Thank God for Moses.
Listen to what he said. Verse 13. Then Moses answered the people and said, Do not fear. Stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. The Egyptians, whom you have seen today, you will never see them again, for the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.
Moses stands to his feet and counteracts their rampant unbelief with one of the most awesome statements anywhere in the Bible. Now, we're going to stop here. We'll pick up and go on in the next message, because we want to ask our most important question, and you know what that is, so are you ready? Yes. Ready, ready, ready? Yes. All right, here we go, nice and loud.
One, two, three. So what? Yeah, you say, Lon, so what? You say, I mean, what difference does any of this make to me, a bunch of charging chariots? What do I care about that?
All right, well, let's see if we can make that connection for you. Let's read what Moses said. Listen now. Then Moses answered the people and said, Do not fear. Stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. The Egyptians, whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you.
You need only to be still. You and me, as followers of Christ in the 21st century, this verse contains some of the most life-changing truth ever spoken in the Bible, if you and I really get a hold of it, and that's what I want to try to help us do today, is really understand the principle that lies at the heart of what Moses said here. You know, there's a famous phrase that you hear it all the time here in America. The phrase goes, God helps those who what?
Help themselves. That's right. Now this phrase, this sentence, the truth is, is never actually found in the Bible, my friends. But the Bible does recognize that there is a relationship between God's divine activity and our human activity. In fact, we find this biblical relationship clearly demonstrated in John chapter 11.
Let me tell you about it. If you remember, Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, lived in a little town called Bethany, just a couple miles east of Jerusalem. We'll show you a map. And the Lord Jesus often stayed with them when he was visiting Jerusalem. Well, one day, the sisters send to Jesus a message that their brother is sick. And Jesus delays going to Bethany for a couple of days, so Lazarus dies. And when Jesus arrives, he goes to the tomb where Lazarus is buried. It's a cave with a big stone rolled in front of it. And Jesus announces he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead.
Now watch what happens next. Verse 39, Jesus said to the people, roll away the stone. Verse 43, Jesus called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. Then the dead man came out with his hands, feet and face still wrapped in linen grave clothes. Finally, verse 44, then Jesus said to the people, take off his grave clothes and let him go.
Now would you notice here the interplay between God's divine activity and our human activity? On the human side, Jesus had the people at Lazarus' tomb do everything they were able to do. Number one, he had them roll away the gravestone. And number two, after Lazarus was raised from the dead, he had them take off his grave clothes. But in between these two human activities, Jesus stepped in and did the one thing they were not able to do. Namely, he raised Lazarus from the dead.
Now think about it for a moment. If Jesus had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead, don't you think he had the power to roll away the gravestone all by himself? Don't you think he had the power to remove the grave clothes off of Lazarus all by himself? Of course he did, right? Right? But he didn't.
And you know why? He made the people standing there in Bethany do their part, the part they could do, and then when they reached the end of what they could do, when they reached the limit of their human ability, God stepped in and did the part that only he could do. And friends, this is the biblical principle I want you to see today, that as followers of Christ, God asks us to do everything we can humanly do in our ability to deal with the issues in our life. And then, once we've done our part to our fullest ability, and we can't do any more, but the problem is still unsolved, God steps in faithfully and does the part that only he can do. You know, I summed this up in a little mantra that I used to tell my boys and I still tell them to this day. I say to them, fellas, you do your part and God will do his part.
You do your part and God will do his part. And this is the biblical principle that lies behind what Moses said in Exodus 14. Here in Exodus 14, the Israelites had done everything they could humanly do. They'd left Egypt, they'd followed God wherever God took them, and now here they are trapped against the Red Sea. But once they got to the Red Sea, it was time for God to step in and do for them what they could not do for themselves, all they had to do, as Moses said, is stand still and see the deliverance of God.
Now let's bring all that forward and talk about you and me today. As followers of Christ today, we often get to the same place that the Israelites got to at the Red Sea. We often get to the same place that Mary and Martha and the people of Bethany got to there with Lazarus. That is to a place I like to be called being cast upon God. Let's define.
What does it mean to be cast upon God? It means to get to the place in life in any situation where we have done everything that is humanly possible to do, but friends, where the biggest and the hardest part still needs to be done, it's just that we humanly are incapable of doing it. It's not that we're uninterested. It's not that we're unwilling. It's not that we're unconcerned.
It's just that we're unable. And so we stand still just like the Israelites did, just like the people at Lazarus tomb did. We take our hands off the situation and we give it totally to God and we actively trust God. We actively rely on God to step in and do for us at that point what only He can do. And we stay in this spiritual posture of being cast upon God for as long as it takes, let me repeat, for as long as it takes for God in His perfect timing to act.
Now, don't get this wrong. To be cast upon God is not some form of passive fatalism. It's not some form of helpless resignation.
It is an active, living, vibrant, trusting of the living God Himself to intervene in our circumstances at His perfect timing and do for us what only He can do because we're out. We've done it all. We still haven't fixed it. There's nothing more we can do. We are cast upon God.
And friends, there is no situation in life, no matter how big or how small, upon which this biblical strategy of being cast upon God won't work. Recently, I was on the telephone trying to deal with a frequent flyer ticket for my son to get him home from California. And try as I may, I could not get the ticket I needed for my son with this ticket agent. I mean, I had talked till I was blue in the face and I couldn't do it. So finally I said, I'd like to talk to your supervisor. And so I'm on hold and they went and got a supervisor and I started praying. I said, now, Lord, I've done my part here. I've gone through the channels. I've gotten a supervisor on the telephone. I'm going to explain to her carefully everything. I've already made my best case.
I'm going to make it again. But, Lord, I can't turn this supervisor's heart to me. I can't make him or her want to do what I need them to do.
Only you can do that. And so the supervisor came on the phone and I got to talking to her and giving her the whole explanation and the whole rationale. Meanwhile, I was praying, OK, Lord, I've opened the tomb. Now you've got to make Lazarus rise from the dead here, Lord. That's kind of the deal. Well, you know what I got to tell you?
I got the ticket. The supervisor said to me on the phone, she said, you know what? She said, I don't even know why I'm doing this for you. She said, but I'm going to do it for you. I didn't have the nerve to tell her that I'd called her Lazarus and ask God to raise her from the dead. But that's what happened.
What happened in this little simple situation? Say, Lon, you manipulated God. No, I didn't. No, I didn't.
No, I didn't. I was cast upon God. I said, God, I've done everything I know how to do. There's nothing more I can do.
You got to do the rest of this now. And God loves it when we do that. Friends, God loves to have us come to him and be cast upon God. This is one of the most powerful weapons that we have in our arsenal as followers of Christ to deal with everyday circumstances in our life.
Big or small. The sad thing is so few of us know about it and so few of us use it. This is how we got this campus where you're sitting. We've done everything we could to find twenty five acres of land somewhere around Tyson's Corner. And you remember we had a real estate agent who said there are no twenty five acre parcels of land around Tyson's Corner.
And he said, Lon, if there were, you couldn't afford him anyway. And you know what we did? We disbanded the team that was looking for land because it was nothing to see. And we said, we're just going to be cast upon God. Lord, we've done everything we know how to do. We're at the end of what we can do. It's time, God, for you to step in now and do something. We waited a year cast upon God.
And suddenly at a party one night, one of the men who had been on that team heard somebody else talking about how the National Wildlife Foundation property might be for sale. And that's how it all happened. We just were cast upon God and God didn't give us twenty five acres of Tyson's Corner. He gave us fifty two.
Fifty two. Hey, that's how we got the money to actually do this. This facility, after we'd been through the county, gotten permission, fought our way through, been in the papers, been on the news.
Then all of a sudden we got to the place in January of 1999 where we had permission to build this property and we didn't have enough money. And I got on my knees and I said, oh, Lord Jesus, this is going to be really bad. I mean, we're going to be the laughing stock of Washington, D.C., Lord. If we can't do this property after everything we've been through, we're going to disgrace you. We're going to disgrace ourselves.
We're going to disgrace the work of God. But, Lord, there is nothing else I can do. I've talked to everybody I can talk to.
I've seen everybody I can see. Lord, there's nothing else I can do. I'm just cast on you, God.
I'm just cast on you. Two weeks later, out of my fax machine came a fax that turned into a thirteen point one million dollar matching gift. And it was that single gift, trust me, that made this whole project possible. This is where we are with Jill's house. We've talked to everybody we can talk to, gotten through the county, seen everybody we know how to see.
Now we just need twenty million bucks. Just that simple. You say, Lon, what's your strategy for getting it? My strategy for getting it is the same strategy Moses used, the people in Bethany used, that we used to get this campus, that we used to get the money to build it.
I'm cast upon God. That's my strategy. That's the biblical strategy. And so, friends, what I want to say to you is that in your life, this is the strategy I want to urge you to use.
When you've studied for that test as much as you can study, when you've prepared for the SAT, the LSAT, or the MCAT as much as you can prepare, when you've worked on that proposal as much as any proposal can be worked on, when you've gotten all the medical treatment that it's possible to get, when you've prepared for that job interview, as much as it's possible to prepare, when you've gone over your speech as much as any speech can be gone over, when you've done everything in your political campaign that can be done in a political campaign, when you've tried all the fertility methods known to man, when you've taken as many practice swings before tryouts as is possible to take, when you've tried all the fundraising ideas known to man, when you've talked to and prayed for a wayward child as much as a child can be prayed for or talked to, friends, when you get to the point that you've done everything you know how to do and you can't do anymore but the problem's still not solved, then you know what you do? It's time to do what Moses taught the Israelites to do. It's time to do what Jesus taught the people in Bethany to do. It's time to be cast upon God, to stand still in our spirits and to wait for God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And I'll tell you the great news is God always does it because God is faithful and it's part of his nature, his character and his person that when we cast ourselves on him and we're really to the point where we've exhausted all that can be done, God loves to step in, God's anxious to step in in his timing and do for us what we can't do. Friends, you will never be cast upon God genuinely and authentically that God won't do what you're asking him to do, what you need him to do.
But let me give you two caveats very quickly and then we're done. Number one, make sure you've honestly done your part. I mean, you know, you can't expect God to give you good grades, I used to tell my boys, if you don't study. You know, this is not wiffle dust that you just walk into class, didn't do your homework, didn't study and God gives you a hundred on the test.
Sorry, doesn't work like that. Friends, don't expect God to open the doors and take you to the top of your profession if you're not willing to invest the time, the energy and the dedication it takes to get there. You do your part and if you really do, then God will do his part.
But that's the deal. If we don't do our part, God's under no obligation to do his part. And the other caveat is this, make sure that while you're waiting on God, you're patient. Remember, God runs on his timetable, not ours. We waited a year, a year cast upon God for this property to come up and you say, how long, Lon, were you prepared to wait? Friends, I was prepared to wait forever, forever. And people would say, well, how long do you think? I mean, we've been waiting nine months now.
I'd say, you know what? Then we're going to wait nine months more. And nine months after that, God is going to work when God's going to work. I don't know when God's going to work. I just know God is going to work and I'm going to wait on his time.
I'm not in fleshly impetulence. I'm not going to grab this thing back because if I do, all I'm going to do is muck it up. I'm going to leave it with God.
When you get cast upon God, you leave it with God and you stand still and you wait because God's got a timetable. You've got to be patient. You say, well, you got that airline ticket right there on the phone that day. I know. I needed it right then. God knew that and he gave it to me.
I did. Well, we waited a year for the land and I've got some things in my life. I've been waiting literally years for God to do and I'm still waiting. I waited seven years for God to open my father's heart to come to Christ. I waited 22 years cast upon God for God to open my mother's heart to come to Christ. After I'd done all I could do, 22 years.
But you know what? God did it. When you're cast upon God, there's no timetable, folks. You're just cast upon God. It's just that simple because God has the timetable.
So you let him set the time. Well, I hope this will help unless I miss my guest. There are a lot of us here today tackling some really tough things in our lives like the Israelites were at the Red Sea. You've done everything you know how to do. Frankly, there's nothing else.
You've come to the end of the line. Friends, I've got a great biblical strategy for you. Cast yourself on God.
Leave it there. Stand still and let God do for you what you can't do for yourself anyway. God is faithful. You do your part. God will do his part.
You can take that to the bank. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thanks for reminding us today of the biblical strategy you've given us for dealing with impossible-looking situations like the Israelites had at the Red Sea. And that strategy very simply is to be cast upon God. Teach us the power, Lord. Teach us the efficacy of being cast upon God for every situation in our life, large and small, where we reach the end of our resources. And teach us to be patient, Lord, and be content for God's timetable and not our own. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that if we do our part, you will do your part, just like you did for the Israelites at the Red Sea. Help us to use this strategy powerfully in our lives each and every day. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.
