Topic: Sermon Series – Living by Faith
Text: Hebrews 11:29 By faith the people (Israelites) passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. - NIV
Title: The Progression of Faith (Part 1)
Intro: We have referred to the 11th chapter of Hebrews as the “Hall of Fame of Faith.” The writer list’s the names of several hero and heroines of the faith throughout the chapter.
The “foyer” into this “hall” has this banner placed over the entrance stating the necessity to live by and progress in the faith:
Hebrews 10:36a You need to persevere….Persevere, -?p?µ???? (hypomones) - Endure, remain steadfast, constant, progress. (Is the idea).
Hebrews 10:36b so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. ( Doing the will of God is the necessary condition for receiving the promised blessing and reward!)
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.- NIV
Revelation 22:12 Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.-NIV
Important to remember? Yes it is! Why?
Hebrews 10:37 For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” 38a And, (so our response to that reality?) “But my righteous one will live by faith. (Important? Extremely!) And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”
NLT- who turns away
NKJV - draws back
Shrinks back -?p?ste???ta? (hyposteiletai) cowers (What if I do?)
Hebrews 10:38b But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,
KJV - who draw back unto perdition
Strongs Lexicon - ?p??e?a – perdition – apoleia
a) Utter destruction
b) The destruction which consists of eternal misery in hell
Hebrews 10:39b but to those who have faith and are saved. – NIV
Hebrews 10:39b but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. - KJV
So the idea that is presented in our scripture text is that a true, living, saving, faith is one of progression, one that progresses, one that perseveres through the set-backs, persecutions, problems, test, trails and difficulties of life!
IN fact we are to go from - FAITH TO FAITH…
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” ( Rom 1:17 NKJV)
And from GLORY TO GLORY…
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor 3:18 NKJV)
Romans 4 puts it this way in the NLT…
Romans 4:20 Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. - NLT
Any way that is why I’ve entitled todays message around the idea that is really presented here regarding faith, and living by it… I’ve entitled today’s message…
The Progression of Faith!
WE saw in prior weeks that God’s intention in for delivering Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, was not solely for them to get out of slavery (step 1) and take a three day journey into the wilderness in order to offer sacrifices to Him and worship Him (step 2) but the end game, the goal was to take them to a land that He had promised to their forefather Abraham centuries before (step 3)!
Exodus 3:8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
And Canaan often time is referred to allegorically speaking as a type of heaven for the believer!
Proposition: Our scripture text places before us a picture of how we progress on to our heavenly home!
As Isaac Watts wrote in his beautiful hymn…
Isaac Watts - We’re marching to Zion, Beautiful, beautiful Zion; We’re marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God.
So let’s begin by looking at first of all…
I. The Dilemma that was before the Israelites:
Exodus 13:17a When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter.
A) Point?
1. There is no short-cuts with God when it comes to Christian growth and Christ-like character development!
Matthew 7: 13 Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. 14 But the gate is narrow (contracted by pressure) and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are those who find it. – AMPC
Matthew 7: 13-14 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention. – THE MESSAGE
B) Perspective:
1. Reason?
Exodus 13:17b For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”
a) God knows our breaking point!
1 Corinthians 10: 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. -NIV
b) He may want to bend us but not necessarily break us, though oftentimes he has to allow it in order to save us!!
Psalm 34:18 The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit
c) In this case – however He was accomplishing something else!
Exodus 14:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon.
C) Perplexing!
1. God turned them off the route or road - to have them camp by the red sea.
a) Pi Hahiroth was due east – they needed to go west to get to Canaan!
b) God turned them 6 hours off the route
c) About 2 million people had to make this u-turn toward the sea!
D) Purpose?
Exodus 14:3 Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’
1. That is what God wanted!
Exodus 14:4a And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them.
a) Reason?
Exodus 14:4b But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So the Israelites did this.
Robert Hawker –I hope the Reader (of this passage) will not lose sight of the great doctrine included in this. All things whether they mean so, or not, must minister to God’s Glory!
Proverbs 16:4 The Lord has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom. -NKJV
Matthew Poole – God is saying, “I will be honored, by the manifestation of my power and justice.”
i. Continue…
Exodus 14:5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!”
b) Reasoning?
i. Who will build our pyramids now?
Matthew Poole - Why did he say, “Why have we done this?” They who never truly repented of their sins, now heartily repent of their only good action.
Exodus 14:6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them.
ii. So the Lord intervened right? Yes, but not in the way that you think!!
Exodus 14:8 The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly.
iii. As He said he would!
Exodus 14:9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.
i. Overtook -?????????????? (way·yas·sî·?u) to reach, attain to, cause to reach
c) Result?
Exodus 14:10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.
d) Reasoning? (Of the Israelites)
Matthew Poole -Why, then, it is asked, should the Israelites have been “sore afraid?” Were they “arrant cowards?” The answer is that the Egyptian army, whatever its number, was composed of trained soldiers, well-armed and used to war; the 600,000 Israelites were, in the main, unarmed, ignorant of warfare, and trained very imperfectly.
Exodus 14:11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
i. A word spoken in fear and unbelief!
ii. God didn’t send you to deliver us, but to kill us!
Theodore Beza - Such is the impatience of the flesh, that it cannot wait for God's appointed time.
Robert Hawker- Is this the language of those who had seen the miracles in Egypt? Alas! my soul, what is man!
iii. A fickle, facilitating, faithless, creature!
iv. This is the cause of most “back-sliding,” “believers” walking away from Christ!
Luke 8:13a ... They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. -NKJV
OK SO ALL THIS SET’S UP – POINT; PICTURE #2…
II. The Deliverance that leads to forward progress
A) The Scene:
1. Israel was hemmed in on every side!
a) They arrive at the Red Sea, that has a beach about 4.5 miles long by 2 miles wide.
b) Josephus, the historian records that mountains closed in around the beach - there was no apparent escape route.
c) Mountains to the left, mountains to the right, Egyptians behind and a Red Sea before them!
i. What would they do?
B) The Script!
Exodus 14:13a Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid.
1. The NIV records “Do not be afraid” 70 times. The KJV “fear not” 71 times!
2. Fear and faith are not synonymous!
a) You live in faith and fear at the same time.
Dr. Caroline Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD in Communication Pathology specializing in Neuropsychology who conducted a study of the subject of fear said that…
Dr. Caroline Leaf -Fear triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses, and activates more than 30 different hormones and neurotransmitters, and that fear is at the root of all stress.
a) Reasonable fear?
i. Acronym. F.E.A.R. False Evidence Appearing Real?
ii. Is this False evidence? I don’t think so!
iii. REAL THREAT!
iv. Death seems inevitable!
b) But what does Moses say?
Exodus 14:13b Stand firm…. KJV- Stand still
Stand firm ????????????? (hi?·ya?·?u) -stand, present oneself, stand with someone
i. Who?
a. The Lord!
b) Retreat?
i. Impossible?
ii. Hemmed in on every side!
ii Surrender? NEVER!
a) Those who live by faith don’t surrender to fear!!
Hebrews 10:38a And, But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” NLT- who turns away NKJV - draws back Shrinks back -?p?ste???ta? (hyposteiletai) to cower
Hebrews 10:39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,
MSG- But we’re not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We’ll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.
2. Anyway, Moses says….Stand firm, don’t surrender, STAND WITH SOMEONE WHO IS STANDING WITH YOUt!
C) Reflection:
1. Often time God will hem you in, in order to make you trust him!!
2. He will purposely bring crisis into the Christian’s life to teach him faith
3. He will ordain opportunities to show His faithfulness and power!
4. Essentially – In that sense you should trained yourself to see God in and behind every crisis in life!
James 1: 2-8 When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence. (JB PHILLIPS)
Message- 4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
D) Reassurance:
Exodus 14:13b and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.
1. How?
Exodus 14:14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.-NIV
Exodus 14:14 The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.-NKJV
Geneva Study Bible - The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. Put your trust in God without grudging or doubting
Matthew Poole-Ye shall contribute nothing to the victory, neither by your words nor by your deeds
E) Result?
1. AFTER THE FACT THE ISREALITES SING A SCRIPTURAL TRUTH WE NEED TO HEAR!
Exodus 15:2 “The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. 3 The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name
Exodus 14:15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. (Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.)
J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D- Men are more ready to cry out for help than to help themselves. They are more ready to call for more light, more means, privileges, than to use faithfully what they possess. They are more ready to complain than to exert themselves; to wonder at what the Divine Providence has done, or to speculate on what it intends to do, than to observe its will, and stand in the line of their duty, and “go forward.”
2. How?
a) There is a sea before them!
Exodus 14:16a Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea….
b) Staff = symbol of your authority
c) Exercise your authority - Moses!
d) What will happen?
Exodus 14:16b to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.
c) As you exercise your authority -I will intervene supernaturally!
d) I will divide the water so the Israelites may go thru on BONE DRY GROUND!
e) THERE IS NOT A OLD TESTAMENT MIRACLE THAT IS REFERRED TO MORE THAN THIS ONE!
F) Reiteration - With a new addition:
Exodus 14:17a I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them.
1. Not only Pharoah, but, All of the Egyptians too!
Thomas Coke- That is, I will suffer the hearts of the Egyptians to be hardened by their own violent and infatuating passions.
G) Reason?
Exodus 14:17b And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen.
H) Reminder:
1. God not only gains glory when he saves the saint, but also when he punishes the sinner!
John Piper - God is not only glorified when his people are satisfied in him. He is also glorified when he is defied by people and then pours out on them a just and holy wrath, and the glory and rightness and moral beauty of that wrath is made visible.
John Piper - God means for the world to see him as glorious both in his mercy and his wrath.”
Romans 9: 22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—NIV
2. That is what the culmination of the Great Tribulation is all about!
Revelation 18:1 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2a With a mighty voice he shouted: “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’
Revelation 18:17a In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!’
3. Heavens response?
Revelation 18 (NIV)
20a Rejoice over her, you heavens!
Rejoice, you people of God!
Rejoice, apostles and prophets!
For God has judged her
4. Reason for rejoicing?
Revelation 19:1 After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, 2 for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”
a) Do you see how differently we see and perceive things than Heaven does?
A) Purpose?
Exodus 14:18 The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”
John Gill – They will acknowledge him to be Jehovah, the self-existent, eternal, and immutable Being, the one only living and true God, who is wise and powerful, faithful, just, and true…
1. In fact, all the earth shall finally acknowledge this!
a) Rehab! – 40 years later!!
Joshua 2:10 We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.
b) FINALLY THE DELIVERANCE COMES THIS WAY:
Exodus 14:19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20a coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel.
Isaiah 52:12 But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, & the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Isaiah 58:8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Exodus 14:20b Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
B) Picture of:
John Gill - This was an emblem of that division and separation which the grace of God, the blood of Christ, and the light of the Gospel, make between the true Israel of God, and the men of the world; and which will continue throughout time, and to all eternity, so that they will never come near to each other
Rev 21:27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
So….
Exodus 14:21a Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east and turned it into dry land.
C) Procedure:
1. How did he do it?
Exodus 14:21b The waters were divided,
a). The sea was divided right down the middle into two walls of water!!
Exodus 14:22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
b) Quite a feat!
2. Consider the Red Sea!
a) Length: 1,398.1 miles
b) Maximum Width: 190–220 miles
i. Average Width: 174.0 miles
ii. Minimum Width: 16–18 miles
c) Maximum Depth: 9,970 ft
i. Average Depth: 1,607.6 ft
C) Point:
1. Egyptian response to the parting of the sea?
Exodus 14:23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea.
2. God’s response to their entering the red sea?
Exodus 14:24a During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army…
Exodus 14:24b and threw it into confusion.
Q: HOW?
John Gill- the thunder and lightning no doubt frightened the horses, so that they broke their ranks, and horsemen and chariots might run foul on one another, and the hailstones scatter and destroy many…
Exodus 14:25a He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving.
Matthew Poole- Either burning them with lightning, or tearing them in pieces with thunder-bolts, or loosening them, and making them to fall off.
Daniel Whedon - Their chariots were entangled with each other, bemired, (turning the bottom of the sea into mud again?) broken, and overturned in the awful confusion that ensued from the pouring rains, blinding lightnings, and appalling thunders.
D) Problem?
Exodus 14:25b And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
John Gill- They rightly took the thunder and lightning, the fire and hailstones, to be the artillery of heaven turned against them, and in favour of the Israelites.
Exodus 14:26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.”
1. Exercise your authority and faith again!
a) Finish the job!!
Exodus 14:27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
b) Why this end?
c) Let consider…
III. The Doctrine ( The teaching/ the principles this leads us to)
Hebrews 11:29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; [but when the Egyptians tried to do so,] they were drowned. - NIV
A) Principle/Point of the lesson?
1. Faith?
a) Israelites entered the waters by faith!
b) Egyptians did not !
i. Fury not faith is what motivated them!
a. The righteous shall live by faith not hate or anything else!
Exodus 14:29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 30 That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.
Exodus 14:31 And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.
B) Pattern?
1. God will ordain challenges and lead us into victory so that our faith will grow!
2. Our faith in Him will be tried, tested, throughout our life’s course, but for a glorious reason!
1 Peter 1:7 Expanded Bible - These ·troubles [trials; testings] come ·to prove that your faith is pure [to test and prove the authenticity of your faith; like a test that proves the genuineness of a valuable metal]. This ·purity of faith [or tested and proven authenticity] is ·worth more [more precious; more valuable] than gold, which can be ·proved to be pure [tested and proven authentic] by fire [Ps. 66:10; Prov. 17:3; 27:21; Zech. 13:9; Mal. 3:3] but ·can [or will] be destroyed. But the ·purity [tested and proven authenticity] of your faith will bring you praise and glory and honor ·when Jesus Christ is shown to you [?at the revelation of Jesus Christ].
Are you up to the test?
