Standing Between Danger And Delight

Intro. Wednesday night, we as God’s people gathered to celebrate the grace of a new year. We gathered together around the altar to pray in the new year. Another year is gone, and we are standing on the shore of a new era. What does it hold?

What will happen? What problems are around the corner? What victories will we enjoy? The Children of Israel were in a place just like that. You see, they were standing between Danger and Delight. Today we too stand between Danger and Delight. God has great things ahead.

I. The Diligent Attack - 14:10

A. The Past Haunted Them

1. There in the Distance, the enemy approached. (600 choice chariots)

They were delivered, but the enemy was still there.

2. There in the Desert, the enemy pursued. They could hear the sound of the marching coming toward them. That is how we deal with our past, Eph 4:31 "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:" Put away means to “make a clean sweep.” It is a new year, start it fresh!

No bitterness, no wrath, no anger, no clamour (to cry in anger - Chrysostom compared to the anger of a horse trying to buck its rider), evil speaking (slander). All is to be swept away - make a clean sweep (put away)

B. The Pursuit would Hurt Them - vs. 11 (no graves for us in Egypt)

1. They began to imagine what would be done (Enemy would show no mercy)

2. They were afraid - they had never known victory, enslaved by their enemy

C. The Present Harassed Them - with every wave that crashed on the shore, and every sound of the enemy - all they could see was the frailty of their future. The Present seemed to give no way out.

D. The Panic that Halted them - 1Jo 4:18 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

1. God will hear His children, but we must cry in Faith - They stopped and cried to God, not of faith, but mere fear. Not necessarily believing He would do anything, but out of desperation.

2. They cried for a benefit, not out of obedience. This was a cry of complaint against God - They were bitter, and They had torment!

II. The Doubt of Apprehension - 14:11-12 They had been delivered, but now stood between Danger and Delight because of their Doubt. -

Ps 106:7 "Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea." Had they acted in Faith, we would not have found the murmuring against Moses in the following verses! God had been good to them, but

A. They had forgotten their Prison - slaves to Egypt (sin)

Ex 1:11 "Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." We must not forget we are not to be bound to sin.

Ro 6:17 "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Ro 6:14 "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

B. They had forgotten their Pain

1. The Pain of their Labor - bricks by hand, hard labor

Ex 1:14 "And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour."

Sin’s labor is no different - Ps 107:17 "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."

Ro 2:9 "Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;"

2. The Pain of their Loss - Egypt destroyed their children - Ex 1:22 "And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive." Sin will not only take us, but our children.

C. They had forgotten the Plagues (God manifested Himself to be true)

Through the plagues, God showed all the gods of Egypt to be false! For 400 years it was all Israel had known, but God had revealed Himself to them. Heb 1:1 "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;"