[AI translation] In our Bible study together, we'll be following this passage, which we all know very well from our childhood Bible studies. As I read through this passage in preparation for today's sermon, I immediately thought of this psalm verse in connection with it, and it became our theme: "God is our refuge and strength. Because that is what this passage is about: tribulation, and God's help in tribulation. Here it is a question of such a hopeless misery as the miserable man can get into, and of such help, such deliverance, as only the mighty God can give. The people of the Lord, under the guidance of the cloud and the pillar of fire, reached the shore of the sea, and there they were suddenly plunged into a peril which, according to human reckoning, meant certain death. And then came divine help more certain than death in a way that surpassed all understanding.And now I would like to talk about the fact that this is still the case today! That is, that in the distress, in the peril that is becoming hopeless, the Lord's help is just as certain today!
It is quite strange that the Lord himself should lead his people into this peril. We read in the previous passage that the people were already on a road which would have enabled them to cross the Red Sea without any particular danger, over the northern bay of the Red Sea, where the Suez Canal was cut, and thus to cross dry to the other side, and yet God turns them back and makes them camp in a place where the waves of the sea roar on one side and the peaks of a high mountain on the other. Here, in this narrow place, they are overtaken by the well-armed, galloping Egyptian army. Humanly speaking, they had every reason to despair, for what could they do: they could not go to the left, for there was water there, where could they go to the right, the mountain would not let them, they could not advance, the chariots were faster, and behind them was the enemy! They are doomed! And into this terrible snare the Lord himself has led them! If they had not come this way, they would have been out of danger long ago! Why did they have to go this way? But now it's too late for sorrow! There is no escape here!
Brothers and sisters, many people today know what it means to be in danger, in misery, in distress, in hopelessness. It does not matter what kind of trouble it is. It may be physical, spiritual or material. In fact, as the Psalmist says in one place, "I am surrounded by troubles that have no number" (Psalm 40:13). One trouble leads to another, so that in the end there is no turning to the right or to the left, forward or backward: man is caught in a tight corner! But it would be a good thing if all the people in trouble here now would accept the simple fact that God led them into trouble. If, then, everyone who is in trouble, whose life is in a tight spot, would not blame the circumstances, would not bitterly see the cause in the misunderstanding, envy, ill-will or injustice of men, but would quiet down and think: has God put me in this situation? Did He put me in this predicament?
But why? What did God want? The troubles and miseries of our lives are not on us as punishment! So God does not punish sin by making someone sick or by making them lose their job, nor are these trials, nor does God want to test our faith, but most of the time He wants to warn us about something! When someone gets into trouble, the Lord is trying to warn them that there is a big problem, much bigger than they think! He is warning us that there is one main trouble, one fundamental, great trouble, which will remain a trouble even if everything else, even if the rest of it, goes away! If you are surrounded by earthly perils, God warns you that the peril is much greater than it seems, and that this much greater peril remains deadly even after all the storm clouds have passed over your life! Do you know what this tribulation is, to which God points by all other troubles and afflictions? That you may see already: the chief trouble and misery is sin! It is not the real trouble that one is treated unkindly by life, it is not the real misery that one is a widow, or that one is in pain from illness, but it is the sin of one's own sin that makes one most miserable! It is because of sin that each one is in such a trouble, in such a situation, that it is certain death for him!
This peril, this distressed condition, is symbolized by Israel's being caught between the sea, the mountain, and the enemy! This is the situation from which there is no escape. Let no one think that this is an exaggeration! Unfortunately, it is not! God only knows what sin is! And He says of it, "The wages of sin is death." (Rom 6:23); "And sin, when it is made full, bringeth forth death." (James 1:15); "Truly our sins and our transgressions are upon us, and in them we are corrupt." (Ez 33:10); "Ye are corrupt in your trespasses." (Ez 24,23); "And the sting of death is sin." (1 Cor 15,56) However we explain these Words, one thing is certain: sin and death, sin and the death of damnation are connected! One Word said that sin is like rottenness. Who has not seen what rottenness is? For example, once the rot starts on an apple, however small it may be at first, the law is that it slowly but surely spreads and eventually permeates the whole thing. So is sin: some fatal, unstoppable decay, a rot that goes on and on! In the case of an apple, you can prevent the rot from spreading by cutting the rot out of it, but you cannot cut sin out in this way! If sin is in the mind or heart, where is the knife to cut it out? We are helpless against it! Have you sin? Surely you would say there is not one! Now, let each one of you think of one sin among your many sins, one particular sin that you have already recognized in yourself. Well, there is rot in your life. Even if you had no other sins, just the one you are thinking of: that is enough for the rot to slowly become complete and to bring you to damnation! The predicament of the people of Israel, caught up there between the sea and the mountain, is but a very slight illustration of the fatal peril in which sinful man is!
What can be done here? One may try to satisfy the law of God. One can try to live according to His will in all things. But surely that would be trying to do so only as if the people of Israel were trying to escape over the mountain. You cannot. It is too high, so high that it can never be reached, and so steep that it cannot be climbed. Many have fallen back from it. You can try to fight the enemy. But it doesn't usually end well, because the overwhelming force is so terribly great! You can try to start to eradicate sin. It would be like someone on the seashore trying to wash the water out of the sea with a bucket! He is a foolish man, and knows very little of himself, who thinks that he will take care of his sins himself! He goes weeding, and it is like weeding weeds from dry earth in summer: he tears off the top, but the root remains and sprouts again. There are plants that the more they are cut back, the more they grow back, the more lushly they grow. Often in places where you don't expect it! Sin is one of these invincible parasites. Someone has cut down one of his sins with great force, has plucked it up, but he could not tear out the root, it grows again, and becomes even more prolific!
Oh, how tragically right the writer of Proverbs is: "Who can say, I have cleansed my heart, I am clean from my sin?" (Pro 20:9) And what we read in the book of Jeremiah: "Even if you wash in lye, or if you make your soap soiled, your iniquity will be recorded before me," says the Lord God (Jer 2:22).
Now, brethren, this is the affliction to which our fundamental verse refers, that "the Lord is a certain help". Into this hopeless misery must a human soul come, so shut up must everything around it, so desperate must the grip of certain death become, that it may know even more certain divine help than death! What then can be done? Three instructions are given in our Word.
1) In the midst of the greatest confusion, confusion, confusion, Moses cries out at the Lord's command, "Stop!" (verse 13) This is the first thing to do: stop! To be still, to notice and to confront the fact that I can do nothing here, that I can contribute nothing to deliverance from my sins. God alone does the work of redemption. For me, there is nothing left but to stop and, leaving everything to the Lord, wait. "Stop!" - for you are powerless against the powers of Satan, sin and death!
2) Once you have stopped, then the second command is given, "Behold the salvation of the Lord" (verse 13) Let me tell you that in the original Old Testament text, the Hebrew word for "salvation" here is "Yeshua", the same word as the Hebrew name of the Lord Jesus. It is also yeshuach. So the second instruction sounds like this: Behold the yeshuach of the Lord, that is, behold the Lord Jesus God! So the only eternal advice for every person struggling with sin is: look to Jesus, look to the salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ has prepared for you in Christ Jesus! Know that the Lord is at war for you! What happened to Jesus, His death on the cross and His resurrection on the third day, is the visible side of a great invisible struggle. In the person of the blood-sweating, mocked, beaten, crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ, we can see how terrible, how unspeakably great was the match, the battle, with which the Lord fought for us. It was not so simple, so easy to be redeemed from that predicament, it was the Lord God Himself who had to fight for it, a great battle had to be fought for it, a battle in which He Himself was wounded, suffered terribly, and even died! But in doing so, he was victorious! His shed blood is the extraordinary power that cleanses us from all sin! It cleanses us from that certain rot, it burns out, it eradicates those certain roots that remain, it makes a real liberation, a real victory. "The Lord will fight for you, and you shall perish." (verse 14) Indeed, what can you do in this struggle, in this great match between the Son of God and Satan? Nothing! Only one thing: watch! As the second commandment said: "Behold the salvation of the Lord!" Watch, behold what the Lord Jesus has done and is doing! Not as one watches a drama on the stage in the theatre, but as a flower watches the sun, looking at the sun so that the rays that give life and bring forth fruit can penetrate the flower. So look at it, so open yourself to Jesus, so that He may radiate His salvation, His victory, His redeeming power into you!
3) And then hear the third command: 'Go!' (cf. v.15) The way is opened to the promised land. And why did the Lord lead his people into this strait, into this perilous situation? You know already: so that they might know the salvation of the Lord! Have you ever known this greatest and most wonderful deliverance of the Lord? That is why all the miseries of this world are there, so that you may know the miracle of deliverance from sin, death and Satan, through the victory of Jesus Christ. And the wonderful thing is that for him who has known and accepted this victory, at the same time all earthly troubles and miseries begin to be solved, for him a way out of the hopeless situation begins to open. He begins to experience more and more powerfully, even in the earthly circumstances of his life, the truth of our fundamental doctrine, that indeed, "God is our refuge and strength!
Amen
Date: 13 November 1949.
Lesson
2Móz 14,1-18