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”
Sometimes I can’t help but to wonder at times when I reflect on this Biblical account –
• Was it necessary?
• Wasn’t there already a heaven sent pillar of cloud and fire holding back Pharaoh’s chariots so that the Israelites could pass through the divided sea?
• Could not that pillar have kept them at bay a little while longer, until the waters had returned?
• Did they all have to be covered by the sea, sink like lead in the mighty waters?
• I wonder — don’t you?
• But, I hear the Lord say – Look I told Pharoah – FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT
Let me be very clear here so you understand what I am saying we find recorded in EZEKIEL 33:11 “…AS I LIVE, SAITH THE LORD GOD, I HAVE NO PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF THE WICKED; BUT THAT THE WICKED TURN FROM HIS WAY AND LIVE: TURN YE, TURN YE FROM YOUR EVIL WAS; FOR WHY WILL YE DIE….”
Some of us, I believe, still struggle with the violence of God in this narrative, and not all of that struggle can be explained by pointing to the different sensibilities of the writers of those days and today’s readers. The tension between God’s fierce justice and God’s equally fierce mercy is part of the biblical witness, not just something we bring to it.
Terence Fretheim points out that God’s violence is never an end in itself, but is always exercised in the service of god’s saving purposes for creation under threat --
• It serves the deliverance of slaves from oppression
• It serves the deliverance of the righteous from their antagonists
• It serves the deliverance of the poor and needy from their abusers
• It serves the deliverance of Israel from its enemies
And violence in the service of God’s saving purposes for creation under threat is not just a matter of the end justifying the means. I can’t begin to imagine what our history had been, not to mention what our hope as a people would look like, had the Hebrew slaves simply slipped out of Egypt under the cover of night, without the clash of the two very different visions of freedom - land - life represented by Pharaoh and the God who hears the cries of the poor.
• Would we even care about continuing forms of slavery and human trafficking?
• Would we care about domestic violence?
• If God is not angry, why should we be?
• We may struggle with the violence of God, but indifference with respect to those who have suffered human cruelty, indifference is not an option
• The God we encounter through the witness of scripture is a passionate God
• He will get to the point and say keep trying me if you want
• He will say keep pushing my buttons if you want
• He will say – FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT
Whatever you make of it, the violent ending is not random violence. Much is at stake here; everything is at stake.
• It’s Pharaoh’s oppressive sovereignty clashing with God’s
• It’s Pharaoh’s vision of a house of slavery competing with God’s vision of God’s people on God’s land
No one was going to look back and say, “well, if that odd cloud hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have gotten out. There’s no way they could have outrun the Egyptian military.” They did and the outcome was decisive and clear.
• After that night, no situation of human oppression could ever be justified as somehow being part of God’s plan for creation
• Pharaoh’s Army got drowned in the Red Sea
• ARETHA FRANKLIN told the story in her hit album --
Oh, oh, Mary, don't you weep
Tell Martha, don't you moan
Listen, Mary
Tell your sister don’t moan
Pharaoh's Army
All of them men got drowned in the sea one day
Yes they did
Mary
Mary, don't weep
Tell Martha not to moan
Don’t moan, don’t moan
God had tried to warn Pharaoh about God’s OMNIPOTENT power. But Pharaoh’s heart had already been hardened by the Lord. God sent 10-Plagues to help soften his heart and open his eyes and get his attention.
--Plague One -- The Nile River was turned into blood
--Plague Two -- The Frogs were everywhere and in everything
--Plague Three and Four -- Gnats and insects were everywhere in Egypt
--Plague Five, Six, and Seven -- Cattle dying, boils, and hail
--Plague Eight and Nine -- Locusts ate everything green and everything went dark
--But, it was about to become even darker
--Plague Ten -- The death of the first born
There are many dangers of a hard heart. You can’t see what God is doing right in front of you. Look at how the Ten Plagues of Egypt destroyed every area of life for the Egyptians.
• It destroyed their government
• It destroyed their economy
• It destroyed their religion
• It destroyed their food/water
• It destroyed their farms
• It destroyed their livestock
• It destroyed their armies, and more
Pharaoh had been warned ten times already to let God’s people go, yet by sending his army after Israel, Pharaoh revealed that he still had not learned.
• He still could not let go
• He still persisted in rebellion against God
• The Red Sea crossing was not a trap set by God for Pharaoh
• It was a form of deliverance for God’s people Israel
• Egypt, in their rebellion, tried to use God’s protection as a method by which to destroy
• As a result, destruction came upon Egypt instead
Pharaoh would not see what God was doing right in front of him and all around him. We see this both in our culture and sadly within Christianity today.
• The world thinks they are smarter than God
• The world serves the creation and not the creator
• The world would rather have lies than the truth of God
• The world throws out the morals and standards of God
• The world rejects the Spirit of God for the spirit that is in this world
I can hear the Lord saying to us today – Okay now, FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT. In those ancient days, the Pharaoh was considered a god, and his every word was law. There was no one who could stand against Pharaoh, so the Lord used him to demonstrate his own superior power. The Lord’s plan to use plagues and miracles to free the nation of Israel was not conceived in reaction to Pharaoh’s rebellion.
• God is never reactive - He is always proactive
• He had orchestrated the back-and-forth with Pharaoh and the exodus from the very beginning
• Four hundred years prior to the exodus, JOSEPH prophesied on his deathbed that God would lead His people out of Egypt to the Promised Land
• And he made his relatives promise to carry his bones with them when they went
God was trying to non-violently warn the Egyptian army that destruction was about to fall upon their heads, and they should turn back while they still had time. The Egyptian army received the message loud and clear, and in fact, did attempt to turn back according to EXODUS 14:25. says that “THEY SOUGHT TO FLEE FROM THE FACE OF ISRAEL.” God had given them plenty of opportunities to turn back while stationed by the Red Sea –
• Pillar of Cloud between Israel and Egypt
• Strong East Wind blew all night
Pharaoh missed a great opportunity that day on the banks of the Red Sea, if he would have been obedient to God’s command he and his people would have been blessed.
• Centuries before, God promised ABRAHAM that He would BLESS THOSE WHO BLESS HIM AND CURSE THOSE WHO CURSE HIM
• Moreover, He promised that through Abraham and his descendants, ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD WOULD BE BLESSED
• Pharaoh and Egypt could have been blessed that day
• They could have known the love of God, but Pharaoh chose another path — the path of plagues and judgement
What about you today?
• Which path will you chose?
• Will you chose to defy your Creator?
• Will you scoff at God’s authority?
• Will you reject God’s love?
• If so, what is left for you?
• FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT
--God’s actions were for deliverance and protection first from the invading army
--Second from the drowning waters
--Though God did not desire that the Egyptian army be killed, their refusal to repent and refusal to abide by their promise to let Israel go meant that they had departed from God’s hand of protection
--God is saying to us that we need to get ourselves together
--Make sure we are on the Lord’s side
--If not, FOOL AROUND AND FIND OUT
