Fool Around And Find Out

TITLE: FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT

SCRIPTURE: EXODUS 5:2 / EXODUS 15:1

I want to lift as a thought this morning from this text – FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT. We hear the words from EXODUS and whether we like it or not, fragments of clips begin to play in our imagination. For some of us the scenes are from CECIL B. DEMILLE’S “THE TEN COMMANDMENTS” (1956) where Charlton Heston stands on the rock above the sea, with arms stretched out wide, staff in hand, declaring, “THE LORD OF HOSTS WILL DO BATTLE FOR US,” and then thick clouds gather, and the wind makes a way in the sea.

Others will remember the scene from “THE PRINCE OF EGYPT” BY DREAMWORKS (1998), where Moses walks a few feet into the surf, staff in hand, and he pushes it down on the ground he stands and the waters part and draw back, opening a path for God’s people to escape Pharaoh’s Army. On dry land they cross over, between enormous walls of water on their left and on their right, protected from the chaos and death of the sea.

• Pharaoh’s Army follows them, warriors on foot

• Warriors in chariots

• Then the walls of water begin to collapse behind the Israelites and violent waves wash over the Egyptian

• Not one of them remained, the Bible tells us, and at dawn the Israelites saw the bodies of their former masters washed up dead on the seashore

• The chariots, cutting edge military technology – gone

• Pharaoh’s elite warriors – perished

• The house of slavery - dismantled

According to God’s plan, the Israelites were trapped. The mighty Egyptian Army chased them, and the Israelites ran along the path God led them – only to end up Stuck at The Red Sea.

• There was no way out

• The Red Sea was in front of them

• The Egyptians were pursuing them from behind

• They could either go forward and be drowned in the Red Sea

• Or they could turn back and be slaughtered by the Egyptian Army

That’s quite a choice, isn’t it? It’s what we call a predicament.

• According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a predicament is -- “a difficult, perplexing, or trying situation”

God is not bashful about leading his people into seemingly impossible situations. In this text we find the Israelites, no sooner than having boldly departed from Egypt, now pinned between the deep waters and the oncoming pursuit of Pharaoh’s mighty chariots. Not surprisingly they panic and start firing off sarcastic complaints against the leadership of Moses and the plan of God.

• Why has God abandoned them?

• Why has He put them in such jeopardy?

• We can understand this because we know the “Rest of the Story”

• But place yourself in their shoes.

• We complain because it is too hot or too cold

They allow their present circumstances to erase all thoughts of the promises of God and His past demonstrations of faithfulness. They fail to trust in His sovereign control.

• Moses reminds them that they need to take courage

• To stand firm

• To have confidence in the Lord’s conquest of their enemies

• And to look to the Lord for deliverance

I don’t know if you have ever been there before in your life where the situation looked grim and there was nothing else you could do. It is difficult at those moments to stand still and look to the Lord for His deliverance and to bring you through. There comes a point in our lives where we begin to understand and trust the words recorded in EXODUS 14:13 “AND MOSES SAID UNTO THE PEOPLE, FEAR YE NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD…”

• Sometimes we need to learn to just Stand Still

• Just be quiet and Stand Still

• Stop all that crying and Stand Still

• Stop all that Cussing and Fussing and Stand Still

• Put the phone down fall on your knees and Stand Still

Bruce Hurt wrote these words pertaining to the Predicament the Israelites found themselves in --

• Why did God lead Israel to this place which was militarily speaking a place of sure defeat?

• Because God knows that the place of desperation can become for us the place of dependence on Him!

• It is that place that we come to where we can see absolutely no way out, and then in utter desperation we have to cast ourselves completely, totally, upon Jehovah

• In the place of desperation, we come to understand the passage found in PSALM 55:22 “CAST YOUR BURDEN UPON THE LORD, AND HE SHALL SUSTAIN THEE: HE SHALL NEVER SUFFER THE RIGHTEOUS TO BE MOVED”