Going Forward - Exodus 14:15

[Music] amen all right we're in exodus tonight exodus chapter number 14. exodus chapter 14 when you find your place stand with me please again good to see a good number of folk in the house of god tonight amen heart stirred just seeing you here seeing you in your place you say preacher do you notice that if i'm not here you better believe we notice it and we're thankful you're here tonight exodus chapter number 14 we find the children of israel standing at the edge of the red sea they've got mountains on both sides they've got the sea in front of them they've got the egyptian army behind them and we get to verse number 13 the bible says moses said unto the people fear you not stand still and see the salvation of the lord which he shall show you today for the egyptians whom you have seen today you shall see them again no more forever the lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace and the lord said unto moses verse 15 wherefore christ thou unto me speaking to the children of israel that they go forward i like that don't you preach a little bit tonight on that thought going forward out of verse number 15. lord help us now as we turn our hearts and our minds to the word of god thank you for the singing an opportunity to pray with god's people and spend some time around the altar and lord the opportunity to give now we pray that you bless the preaching of your word give us liberty and power and we'll make god's people tonight glean something that'll help us along the way i pray in jesus name amen you can be seated that's hard to believe it but 2020 is almost almost over and we're about to head into a brand new year and as we gather together tonight for the last service of 2020 i've asked god to help us to turn our hearts to this thought this this need this desire to go forward i believe god is pleased when his people go forward amen going forward should be the desire of every christian here i believe going forward should be the desire of every church i know a lot of churches that are going backwards i know a lot of churches are sitting still but i want to go forward in 2021 with god's help i believe going forward should be the desire of every parent every teenager every adult every every senior citizen in here say preacher i'm in my golden years i've got more years behind me than ahead of me that's fine as long as you're still breathing go forward amen and i'm praying that god will help us tonight in jeremiah chapter number 7 we see the emphasis god placed on this he said in verse 23 but this thing commanded i them saying obey my voice and i will be your god and you shall be my people and walk you in all the ways which i have commanded you that it may be well with you but they hearken not the bible says they would not incline their ear but walked in the councils and in the imagination of their evil heart and went backward and not forward boy i'd hate to think that in 2021 spiritually i lost ground that i went backward i was i did a podcast about this very subject i guess alluded to it some this week when i talked about what i preached about sunday morning out of the book of acts where at the end of the year of of of hearing new things and seeing things that ever seen before experiencing things that everybody experienced those around them at antioch called them christians and my my question was are you are you still a christian at the end of 2020 well my hope and prayer is that you are number one and that number two going into 2021 you experience a little bit of a deeper and more of a closer walk with god in this coming year i'm going to say what i said uh in the podcast and if if if a global pandemic people getting sick and and and all the things we've had to deal with all the craziness just the insanity and and the the the loss of liberties and government overreach and people that we know getting sick and people that we love dying from coronavirus if that doesn't push you towards the arms of god i can't imagine what it would take say man this was a rough year i can't wait till next year well we have no indication we have no assurance that 2021 is going to be any better or any different or any easier than this year was if you've been holding your breath and holding back and wait and waiting to go all in for god until all this was over with to see how things panned out you might have made a terrible mistake this might have just been us getting our whistle wet for the real big grand finale coming up this year you say preacher are you serious i'm telling you right now i don't know but i know this we can go forward in 2021. i don't want to go backward lord knows i don't want to go backward i don't want to take some of those tests over again i don't want to make some of those mistakes over again i don't want to have to deal with some of that embarrassment and shame bringing reproach on the lord and and all the things that go with learning from the school of hard knocks i don't want to do that over again i want to move forward there's a number of biblical examples that we could look at tonight of people that went forward in genesis 26 isaac went forward in his prosperity the bible tells us in genesis 26 12 that isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year a hundred fold and the lord blessed him and the man waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great and before he had possession of flocks and possessions of herds and great store of servants and the philistines envied him well i wouldn't mind god blessing me in 2021 going forward in prosperity amen i just preached about this a little bit on sunday night about having being a generous christian and a church that was generous and a church that understood what it meant that we've been bought with the price and everything that we have belongs to god and and uh i thought about how wonderful it would be in 2021 if god could entrust me and bless me with greater blessings and greater prosperity and more possessions so that i could invest more in the work of god than i did this past year i thought about genesis numbers chapter number two the nation of israel went forward in their placement uh with the house of god and then numbers 217 then the tabernacle of the congregation shall set forward with the camp of the levites in the midst of the camp as they encamped so they set forward every man in his place by their standards i thought about first samuel chapter number 16 david went forward in power the bible says in verse 13 then samuel took the horn of all and anointed him in the midst of his brethren and the spirit of the lord came upon david from that day forward walking with the anointing of the spirit upon him i thought about ii kings chapter number three where israel went forward in their pursuit of victory in second kings three verse 24 25 when they came to the camp of israel the israelites rose up smote the moabites so that they fled before them but they went forward smiting the moabites even in their country boy i like that they didn't just chase them to the border they crossed the border chased them on back to their house amen and verse number 25 says they beat down the cities and on every good piece of land cast every man in stone and filled it and they stopped all the wells of water and filled all the good trees i mean you just they they was going forward in their pursuit of victory i don't want to stop on the brink and on the edge i want to go all the way thought about the passage of scripture in ezra chapter 3 where ezra led the people to go forward in their productivity now in the second year of their coming into the house of god at jerusalem in the ninth month or the second month begins the rubable of the son of shield hill and the bible tells us in jeshua the son of jose deck and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the levites and all that were come out of the captivity unto jerusalem and appointed the levites from 20 years old and upward to set forward the work of the house of the lord i like that that's a good statement set forward the work of the house of the lord amen and in the next verse then stood yeshua with his sons and brethren cadmile and the sons the sons of judah together to set forward the workmen in the house of god and so we see that there are multiple places in the scripture where god's word places emphasis on that word forward by the way just out of just for kicks i looked up the word backward it's in the bible 17 times the word forward's in the bible 46 times i like that i don't want to go backward i want to go forward i thought about mark chapter 14 in the garden of gethsemane jesus went forward in his prayer life the bible says he saith unto them my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death tarry ye hear him watch and he went forward a little and fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass from him so many other places we could look at where they moved forward something was being done forward but i came back to exodus because as i have sat here i looked at the story this afternoon i was able to have just a good time of study in the the office this today and study this passage of scripture which i love this story was in one of the highlight miracles of the bible is the crossing of the red sea now if you went to a liberal a liberal cemetery bible college they may have told you that it was the reed sea and they all crossed the cross on knee-deep water but that ain't what the bible says the bible says they went across on dry land and this is one of the most amazing miracles in the bible we read it and i try to picture it it's impossible to picture how awesome this event was in the bible but i love what god said in verse number 15 where he said to moses speaking to the children of israel that they go forward that's my heart and my prayer for calvary baptist church in 2021 that's my prayer and my my desire for myself i want to as we sing the old hymn higher ground pressing on the upward way i want to experience new heights as a christian i want to do things for god in this coming year that i've never been able to do before amen i'm not i'm not going to be discouraged by past failures and i'm not going to be discouraged by by past defeats i'm going to focus on the future and ask god to help me to be able to go forward as a spiritual leader of my home i want to go forward lead my family into this coming year several things in the story stands out but i want to just give you three simple points tonight if you're taking notes write this down number one i want you to notice their dire situation what a what a bind they found themselves in in verse chapter number 14. i mean as i was reading this chapter i read it forwards and backwards and read it slow and i read it fast and i just bogged down on some verses and just read it and read it and read it and i thought about them being told of god in verse number 15 to go forward at a time in their life when it seemed like it was the least likely that they could or be able to you might be sitting here tonight saying preacher if you preach this message beginning last year i probably would probably be excited but after this year and with the uncertainties of this coming year i just don't see it happening they didn't see it happening either that's what god told them to do verse number two they had they had mountains and rocks on either side they had the the the sea in front of them and they had the egyptian army behind them their situation was dire the obstacles were significant i'm just going to throw this out mountains and a sea is not something that you can move right we're not talking about a stump i'm not talking about a boulder in the road that you can dig out and roll over and gang up on and move moving i'm talking about two mountain chains and a c god said go forward how am i supposed to go forward it's absolutely humanly impossible obstacles were significant the opposition was stubborn there was no talk in the the the egyptians out of chasing them they had already been through ten plagues they had already seen god do unbelievable things that aren't experienced unprecedented devastation and judgment and yet they are determined when you read chapter number 14 they're determined and the heart of pharaoh's heart was hardened in verse number four god said i'm going to harden his heart and he shall follow after them in fact in verse number five the heart of the pharaoh and his servants were turned against the people they said why have we done this that we've let israel go from serving us they forgot in just a couple of minutes they forgot the ten plagues i'll tell you why they let them go they didn't have much choice but they were stubborn have you ever had a have you ever had opposition have you ever had adversity that was so strong that there was no negotiating with it there was no walking back there saying uh pharaoh let's talk about this no pharaoh was done talking pharaoh was not in the mood for negotiations obstacles were significant the opposition was stubborn and their opportunities were shrinking go forward um how far four feet 10 feet 15 feet some of us can't swim how far you reckon we can go you may be sitting here this evening saying preach you're praying you're preaching about going forward and i'm just gonna be honest with you if you consider where i came from and what he saved me out of and my family and my my background it's a miracle i made it this far i don't think i could go any further oh you have no idea how much further you can go when god says go forward he means go forward he ain't talking about little baby steps you know the little baby steps like when you're stealing a pair of shoes from kmart and they're tied together he's talking about moving forward i want to move forward and i'm serious am i the only one tonight that wants to move forward if you want to move forward say amen help me out tonight i want to go forward you say a preacher i just don't think that i can go much further i think i've maxed out i think i've hit the lead john maxwell one of the greatest leadership experts in the world he's got a lot of books on leadership i've got a bunch of his books i've read a lot of them he has a thing and he talks about the lid factor he said when you hit that lid that's as far as you can go but a lot of people quit a lot of people give up he said what you got to do is you got to move the lid preacher with my education level with my experience with my bible knowledge with my walk with god i've i've maxed out i've gone as far as i can go hey god says go forward he means forward you say where am i going to go he says go forward that's what he said dire situation again i talked to just a minute ago i referred to the power of god's miracles he said richard take a miracle for me to get closer to god in 2021. that's what i'm talking about don't let the thought of a possible miracle scare you i'm a candidate we see their dire situation number two we see their desperate state you think their situation was bad their frame of mind was almost as bad look at what happens down here in verse number 10 and when the pharaoh drew nigh the children of israel lifted up their eyes and behold the egyptians marched after them they were so afraid and the children of israel cried out unto the lord what about that look at verse 9 but the egyptians pursued after them and the bible says all the horses and chariots of pharaoh and his horsemen and his army and overtook them in camping by the sea i've got this in my notes if you want to put these sub-points under the desperate state in verse 9 they were overtaken that what your bible says they were overtaken the bible says in verse number 9 that they went out of israel verse 8 says they went out of israel egypt they went out of egypt with a high hand that's what it says great great victory great day they were shouting singing and laughing and they spoiled all the egyptians on the way out but now the egyptians have overtook them is that what the bible says overtook them so in verse number nine they were overtaken in verse number 10 they were overwhelmed in verse number 11 and 12 they were overreacting have you ever done that before come on now be honest they said to moses in verse 11 but because there were no graves in egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of egypt is not this the word that we did tell thee in egypt saying let us alone that we may serve the egyptians for it had been better for us to serve the egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness they're overreacting that's a typical baptist trademark by the way every time i read the story about the israelites going going through the red sea and going through the wilderness i'm convinced more than ever that they were baptist the only thing they did in there that wasn't bad this was when they brought so much to the tabernacle that that that moses had to stop them because they was bringing too much at that point i'm not sure what they were but up to that point i think they all is baptist i ain't never had to stop nobody from giving hey man say well y'all stop you all gave too much let's take it all back no no no i never had that problem wouldn't that be an awesome problem to have in 2020 2021 imagine that brother imagine brother barely saying y'all quit giving i can't carry these offering plates they're too heavy but no they were overreacting that's what a lot of people do that's what that's what most of us have a tendency to do can we can we just get real for just a minute most of us have a tendency to overreact i'd rather be lost i'd rather be lost than having to deal with this right now think about what you're saying you'd rather be serving pharaoh in egypt than sitting right here well think about that just a minute because there was no graves in egypt has stopped taking us away to die he brought us all the way here to die i'm telling you moses had to be and the bible says it there's no question about it but i mean he had to be the meekest man in the earth not to have a cussing fit every time they open their mouth i can see moses now when they're saying why did you bring us we didn't want to come out here to start with why'd you bring us out here to kill us i was just like i was standing at a bush it was on fire i stand there barefooted i didn't have a choice what my idea yeah they were overtaken in verse nine overwhelmed in verse 10. they were over reacting in verse 11 and 12 but with god's help the enemy in verse number 27 the bible tells us they were overthrown i like that and the lord overthrew the egyptians in the midst of the sea it's amazing when you're overtaken and overwhelmed and overreacting god can still overthrow the enemy which brings me to my third point we see their dire situation we see their desperate state some of you some of you in 2020 you experienced anxiety and fear like you have never experienced before fueled fueled by the media and all the medical experts come on now just just get real get real things you've never worried about never thought about those of you watching on live stream i'm preaching to you too don't get up and go feed the cat that cat'll be fine you just sit down and listen to the preaching for just a minute some of you are controlled by fear that's exactly what they were dealing with in verse number 10 they were sore afraid yes sir they got they got a red sea in front of them they got mountains on both sides and they've got the egyptians behind them they were scared to death and god said i want you to go forward i want you to go forward preacher i can't hardly move i'm scared to death i want to be perfectly honest with you and i'm not trying to appear spiritual because i'm not all that spiritual i swing at it i fail miserably but i'm going to be honest with you 2020 wasn't a year of fear for me it was a year of aggravation i've never been so frustrated and aggravated and mad it's a miracle i ain't on blood pressure medicine tonight my blood pressure gets up quick i read the news and my top of my head about blows off i'm serious i have to get my mind off of it i have to just the bible says once everything is pure and lovely think on these things whoa i have to just get my mind off of it somebody asked the amish they asked the amish people they said why haven't y'all all died of covet they said well we don't have a tv they say what you don't know won't hurt you i guess that's true oh jethro out there with his bowl cut still plowing up them beans amen nobody told him wearing a mask jedidiah bless his heart riding that bicycle down there to the store and get them seeds and go back to the house don't have a tv you know what i thought was weird i thought this was interesting this might help somebody in verse number 10 you know why they were so full of fear you won't know why they were so full of fear they was looking behind them egyptians were behind them where are we at their dire situation their desperate state thirdly i like this point they were able to go forward because of their divine support when they when humanly speaking it was not going to happen emotionally spiritually they were in no shape whatsoever to go forward i mean all they want to do is just sit down and cry god said tell the people to go forward and i know they had to look at moses and said have you lost your mind we don't have a we don't have boats we don't have we don't have floaties we don't have surfboards boogie boards we have nothing there aren't even enough logs to get us across how we supposed to get how are we supposed to go forward god says well i'm going to tell you what i want you to do and then i'm going to make it happen i know that's deep i'll let that settle in just a minute he parted the water they still had to walk he didn't carry them they had to walk but god made a way where there was no way so they could go forward when it looked like there was no going forward three things i noticed that god helped them with i'm talking about miraculous things that god used i don't think i've ever seen it quite like the lord showed it to me this afternoon the bible says in verse 21 moses stretched at his hand over the sea and the lord calls the sea to go back by a strong east wind write this down number one their divine support was because of the wind y'all catch on here in just a minute i'm going to just take a breath while you catch up i've had all day to think about this see the early church in the book of acts he told them i don't even want you to leave i want you to tarry till you be endued with power from on high don't don't i don't want you to go forward till the wind blows you get to acts chapter number two and the bible says the spirit of god came and fell on them and there was the sound of the mighty russian wind and i'm going to tell you at that point when the wind of god began to blow the church that had been sitting in fear and hibernation began to move forward for god's honor and glory huge giant steps were taken next to because the wind blew i couldn't help but notice it says that lord calls the sea to go back by a dry east wind all that night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided and that is something god appointed a time of darkness dryness and division i'm letting you catch up i'm in verse 21 look at it darkness sea the strong east wind all that night made the sea dry land and the waters were divided are you caught up with me now god appointed a time of darkness and dryness and division as the perfect time for them to go forward that's when that's when most churches would just quit that's when most pastors would just resign that's when most church members would just say i need to find me another church when the wind blows it don't matter how dark it is or how dry it is or how divided it is when god's wind blows it's time to go forward amen we see the wind in verse 22 we see we're talking about the divine support we see the walls oh this this blessed me verse 22 the children of israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground and the waters were a wall under them on their right hand on their left what about that if it wasn't for those walls they would have drowned if it wasn't for the walls that had been destroyed in fact in verse 16 and verse 21 the bible tells us they were afraid of the sea they were afraid of the water god took what they were afraid of and divided it are y'all getting this the very thing that was so intimidating the very thing they were so afraid of god divided it and god used what was supposed to destroy them to be actually what protected them the water became walls the walls held back the rest of the water and they went across on dry ground protected by the very thing they feared i'm i'm trying to be patient some of y'all is it it's slowly coming to a ball i've been chewing on this all day see this this coronavirus i'm just going to be honest with you i really believe this with all my heart i believe the cove coronavirus china virus whatever you want to call it i believe it made our church stronger this year it made our church stronger i've seen growth i've seen people walking with god i've seen new families and new people added people saved lord's opened up new doors for outreach opportunities to impact others the offerings jumped like 25 30 percent all the way back in march and they haven't gone down we had the strongest offering sunday we've had all year round in a in a pandemic we've seen the altars full we've seen the power of god working i've had more liberty to preach i've had more excitement about the ministry this year and i think god took the water that we were afraid of that was so intimidating and it looked like we wouldn't go no further and god divided it it actually became protection it's unbelievable but that was 2020 we're going into a new year we see the wind we see the walls in verse 22 verse 31 we see the work of almighty god israel saw the great work which the lord did upon the egyptians and the people feared the lord and believed the lord and his servant moses what a verse when i read verse number 31 it was like god just put a bow right on top of the christmas present because god did in one night what he had deliberately chosen not to do during the ten plagues of egypt and that was he destroyed the egyptian army he went he wasn't toying with him anymore he wiped them out they were annihilated he did it one night he did it not one israelite soldier had to raise a sword not not one staff was raising not one fist was made god wiped them out god did it you know i think sometimes we forget that the same god that annihilated the egyptian army is the same god that's fighting our battles today i do not for the life of me know why we can't figure that out and why every time we see an egyptian army we tremble and we get afraid every time we see a body of water we get afraid and we get all intimidated we fail to realize that the same god that fought for israel fights for us he does it it's him i mean it's it's unbelievable the things that god has done in this church in 2020. i may be mistaken i don't think i am as far as i know we were the first church to get a fine we were the first one anybody find out about if it happened nobody said anything about it we got to find for having church in the united states of america we had a we got a fine for meeting on may the 24th memorial day and honoring those who died so that we could be free the irony the irony of that of the six services that we had in in in in uh going against this the county executive the service they find us for ms chronowetter was march the 24th memorial day and then for god to just part the red sea and the board of appeals baltimore county i didn't even think i didn't think we'd get any closure or any victory till we got out of maryland i've already made my mind up we got to get out of this mickey mouse outfit i said it we got to we got to get out of baltimore that we'll get no justice no no we'll get no fair trial in baltimore county and the baltimore county appeals over overruled they reversed they didn't drop the fine they say we should have never got it to start with yeah god did that and i'm saying god did that and i'm giving god all the honor all the glory because i was the one sitting in that library for two hours during that last court hearing chomping at the bits i was like let me say something i got to say something they wouldn't let me say nothing it was just brother gibbs and the attorneys and they were going at it i'm saying they're going i got something i want to say boy let me at them i got a whole bunch of stuff i want to say and it was like god said hey this is my battle sit senator shut up i'm gonna fight this and the bible says the lord did a great work the israel saw the great work which the lord did i didn't get to take any credit for it none of us got to take any credit for it god did it god likes to fight in such a way that nobody but him can get the glory amen that's why sometimes he wakes to the last minute he waits till they've already been dead and buried four days before he shows up is he dead oh yeah he's dead lord he stinketh good perfect wonderful let's do this just as god predicted in verse four look at verse four bible says god predicted in verse four god said i'll be honored upon pharaoh and upon all his hosts that the egyptians may know that i am the lord look at what he said in verse 18 the egyptians shall know that i am the lord which i have gotten me honor upon pharaoh and upon his chariots and upon his horsemen well what do you know look at verse 25 he took off their chariot wheels that they drave them heavily so the egyptians said let us flee from the face of israel for the lord fighted for them against the egyptians before they died before they died stay with me now before they all drowned in the bottom of the red sea they had a testimony service and they all had to stand up and say mr pharaoh i just got a word on my heart i want to stand up and say that i know god is fighting for these people over here because i just grease these chariot wheels this afternoon and they just fell off for no reason and i know i know i'm testifying it's the lord they all died preacher you're reading too much into that i don't know in the middle of their wheels coming off in the middle of all that frustration they was able to say um the lord fighteth for them lord said yeah that's kind of what i was trying to do here before y'all all die i wanted you to know that that's my that's my people you're messing with and just as he predicted in verse 4 and in verse 17 and verse 18 the israelites also honored god in verse 31 and they saw that great work which the lord did and the people feared the lord well that's something in verse number 10 they were fearing the egyptians come on now y'all don't make me pull you stay with me in verse 10 they were fearing the egyptians now at the end of the story they were fearing the lord in the beginning of the story they believed everything pharaoh said pharaoh said i'm going to get you they said oh moses he's going to kill us at the beginning of the story they were believing everything pharaoh said it's a type of the devil but at the end of the story they believed everything moses said oh my goodness they believed the lord and they believed his servant moses i'd say it's pretty good night's work for the lord wouldn't you across the red sea we said preacher what are you trying to say i'm saying when god says go forward just go forward i don't feel like going forward go forward there's no way we can go forward go forward we've got too much going against us we're playing against a stag deck go forward in 2021 go forward when god parks the red sea you better have your shoes on you don't need rain boots it's to be dry ground you don't like mud you knew that god don't like mud right he don't even like dirt that's why he had him all sit down in the green grass when he fed him five those are two fishes five thousand people they said and the green grass bible says he'll like mud put your shoes on hey we're going into 2021. i don't know about you but i'm going forward i'm go are you with me tonight are we going forward heads of bad eyes are closed i wonder if musicians are coming if there'd be maybe somebody like to slip out of their seat and get in this altar maybe god tonight through the message reminded you of his power and his might reminded you of how big he is how powerful it is he also reminded me

Channel: Calvary Baptist Church - Dundalk, MD

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Length: 36min 40sec (2200 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020