Salvation through Judgement

Transcript

I'd like to ask you to turn with me in your Bibles this morning to Exodus 14. Exodus 14 will begin our reading this morning in verse 15. Exodus 14 beginning in verse 15. Hear now the Word of the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, "Why do you cry to me?

Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them. And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.

Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness, and it lit up the night without one coming near and the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground and the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.

And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, "Let us flee from before Israel for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians." Then the Lord said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen." So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, all of the hosts of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. They saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Let us pray. Father I pray that after looking at this text this morning that we like Israel would see and would fear and would believe. This I pray in the name of Christ. Amen. You may be seated.

We are in the midst this morning of one of the most dramatic and captivating scenes in all of scripture. A wall of water on the right and a wall of water on the left. A whole nation walking on dry ground where they should have been walking through a sea. The greatest army in the ancient world thrown into a panic by a single look from the pillar of cloud. An entire empire swept into the deep in the morning watch and on the eastern shore in the morning light a people fearing the Lord and believing in Him.

A captivating story. But Moses did not just write this chapter to give us a thrilling story. Moses wrote it so that the people of God in every generation might look long and hard at what is happening here and learn the right lessons from it. That this narrative might shape our minds and our hearts and this text begins with one of the strangest commands in all of scripture. Verse 15 says the Lord said to Moses why do you cry to me tell the people of Israel to go forward but forward is the sea.

Forward is 600,000 people drowning behind them Pharaoh's chariots before them the sea and God is telling them go forward. What is God doing here? Why does Yahweh send Israel into an impossible situation that has no way out? Why does He put the sea in front of them and the people of the army behind them? Why does He save them by walls of water and judge Egypt by the same waters that walled in the people of Israel?

What is God doing in this narrative? That's the central question that we're going to be asking of this passage this morning. We're going to look at the purpose for what God is doing here. We're going to look at the act itself and then we'll notice the results of what God is doing in this dramatic story. So first the purpose.

Notice how Moses has framed this whole passage. The framing tells us its purpose. He brackets this passage on both ends with the same theme. At the front in verse 18 Yahweh announces what Egypt will know. Look at what he says.

"The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." That's how the passage begins. But then at the back of the passage in verse 31 Moses tells us what Israel came to know. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians so the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord. So Egypt at the beginning, Israel at the end, and the whole chapter is wrapped by one truth. Yahweh is going to be known.

So before Moses tells us what God did, Moses tells us why. Why is Yahweh doing this? Yahweh's first and central purpose here at the sea is not, in fact, to save Israel. God could have saved Israel in all sorts of ways. That's not his primary purpose, although it is one of his purposes.

But Yahweh's first purpose at the sea is to make his name known. Saving Israel is simply the means. The knowledge of God is the end of what he is doing. Look again at verses 17 and 18. God says, "I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them." Notice this language.

"And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts, his chariots and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen." Three times in two verses, Yahweh names his purpose. "I will get glory. They will know that I am the Lord. I have gotten glory." This verse tells us what Yahweh is doing here.

And it tells us what Yahweh is doing at the sea and that he is doing this for the entire watching world. This is not just a quiet, private rescue tucked away in the corner of history. This is a public revelation written on the front page of the ancient world. Yahweh is announcing his name in the only language that Pharaoh had refused to hear in chapter after chapter. Pharaoh said back in chapter 5, we have noted this several times over the last many weeks, Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?

I do not know the Lord." And now at the sea, Yahweh is answering with finality. "You will know me. You will know me by the water that comes back over your chariots. You will know me by the bodies of your mightiest warriors washed on the seashore. You will know me by the silence in the morning when not one of your men remains.

You will know me." This is the refrain of the plague cycles finally climaxing. That you may know that I am the Lord. The plagues were just the rehearsal. The sea is the actual performance. But again, notice the ending bracket to this passage as well.

Not only will Egypt come to know the Lord, his purpose is also to make himself known to Israel as well through the very same act that is significant, through the same waters. God's purpose in all that we see in this amazing miracle, God's purpose since the beginning of the book, really God's purpose in all that he does is to make himself known so that he receives ultimate glory. And so Yahweh says to Moses in verse 16, "Lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it." The same staff that turned to a serpent before Pharaoh. The same staff that struck the Nile and brought hail and locusts and darkness on Egypt. In itself it's just a stick but representative of the mighty hand of Yahweh.

And this dividing is going to do one thing. One act is going to make God known to Egypt and to Israel both. That is God's purpose here. But then second, how does God do it? How does God make himself known to the whole world in one act?

How does one act make himself known and bring glory both to his own chosen people and also to the people that hate him? Well we need to understand that this one act actually accomplishes two things that both reveal the nature and character of God. That's really what is significant about this act. Yahweh works one act, one motion of his hand, that is at once the salvation of his people and the judgment of his enemies. The water that walls up for Israel is the water that crashes down on Egypt.

The dry ground that opens for Israel is the dry ground that vanishes under Pharaoh. The wind that pushes back the sea for one group is the wind that brings that sea down on the other. Same act, one act, but it is salvation through judgment. Let's look how God accomplishes this. First, God does this with the pillar.

The presence of Yahweh, which has been going before Israel, now moves to the rear and stands between Israel and Egypt. The text says, "And there was a cloud and the darkness and it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night." Same cloud, but two faces. Darkness on the Egyptian side, light on the Israelite side, the pillar does not change, the difference is the people on either side of the pillar. And here's the important reality. The very same presence of Yahweh that is salvation to those who trust him is judgment to those who refuse him.

Yahweh deals with all people really in the same way. That way is light to those of faith, but darkness to unbelief. But then in verse 21 we see this, "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided." Now liberals will point to this text and they'll try to minimize the miracle by claiming that the Red Sea was just a swampy marsh and this big hot wind blew through and dried it up so they could pass through. Now of course that can't explain what happens to the Egyptians later, but it also ignores the significance of what Moses is portraying here in the way that he describes this and what God is actually doing. The language that Moses uses in this passage to describe God's act is language that he has already used all the way back in the in the beginning of the book of Genesis and that is very intentional on Moses's part and of course ultimately on God's part.

You see the word translated "wind" in verse 21 is the same word that Moses used to in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2 when he says this, "and the wind of God was hovering over the face of the waters." It's the Hebrew word for spirit and what does the Spirit of God do over the waters in Genesis chapter 1? Do you remember this text? "And the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters and God said let there be light," and then notice this, "and God separated the waters from the waters and God said let the dry land appear." You see the similarity between what God did at creation and what God is now doing at the Red Sea is unmistakable. Moses is writing about the Red Sea so that when we hear it we hear Genesis. This is the first day of the world being replayed at the Red Sea.

Yahweh is making a covenant people by the same breath and the same word by which he made the world. The chaos of the deep giving way. Dry land appears and a covenant people is born. And of course this is not the first time that Yahweh has done this since Genesis 1. After the worldwide flood, when the whole earth had drowned in judgment, Genesis 8 says that God remembered Noah and sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded and dry ground appeared.

Same language. The Spirit of God hovered over the waters, the waters divided, dry ground appeared and a covenant people emerged. This is the pattern of the Bible. Yahweh is the creator who creates by his spirit and Israel walking through the dry land with the walls of water on either side is walking through the third creation moment of Scripture. Genesis 1 then Noah and now this.

But here's the thing that Moses wants you to feel because here is where salvation through judgment becomes a visible reality. The same spirit that gave Israel dry ground is the spirit that will drive those waters back over Egypt. The same hand that creates for one group is the same hand that uncreates for the other. How does that happen? Well the text tells us the Egyptians pursue, they go down into the corridor between the walls of water, they are inside the act of God's salvation, but they are inside it as enemies.

And in the morning watch that hour just before dawn, verse 24, Yahweh in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and through the Egyptian forces into panic. Yahweh doesn't draw a sword. Yahweh does not move an army. Yahweh simply looks. He looks and the wheels clog.

He looks and the proud cavalry of the Empire stutters in the sand. And on the ellipse of the Egyptians themselves the confession breaks open. Let us flee from before Israel for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians. There is the confession of verse 14. The Lord fights for them and that confession is on the lips of the Egyptian soldiers themselves.

They know it now. They know it the way that a man knows that he is drowning, that realization comes to him. And then the waters that were a wall come crashing down by the hand of God and verse 28, not one of them remained. The very waters that were Israel's salvation become Egypt's judgment. The dry ground that Yahweh made for Israel is unmade beneath Pharaoh.

The spirit wind that opened a path for the redeemed brings the deep crashing down on the rebellious. Creation runs in reverse order over the chariots of the dragon king. The judgment waters of Noah's time come crashing down once more upon the enemies of God. And don't miss the symmetry that Yahweh has built in here. Pharaoh wants to creed that every Hebrew boy would be drowned in the Nile.

The waters of Egypt were Egypt's weapons against the people of Yahweh. But now, in the morning watch, those very waters become Yahweh's weapons against the people of the serpent. Israel walks, Egypt drowns, and the same God did both in one stroke so that he might be known. And God produces, third, exactly the result that he intended. The Egyptians knew.

Yahweh said in verse 18 that they would and they did, but hear how they knew. They knew Yahweh in the moment their wheels clogged. They knew Yahweh in the moment that they cried, "Let us flee, for the Lord fights for them." They knew Yahweh in the moment the wall of water broke over their head. They knew Yahweh in the silence of the morning when not one of them remained. Egypt knew Yahweh, but they knew Yahweh through judgment.

And this is a real knowing. God's judgment upon sinners is just as much a part of his essence as his mercy for his people. Every chariot driver in Pharaoh's army made an Orthodox theological statement in the last moment of his life. The Lord fights for them. The Lord is God.

But the confession that knowledge produced was not faith. It was terror. It is it is the knowing that demons have when they confess Jesus as the Son of God and shudder. It is the knowing the world will have on the last day when every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus as Lord, including the knees and tongues of those who go down to hell. Pharaoh got his answer.

He asked in chapter 5, "Who is the Lord?" In chapter 14 the answer washes over his face. He knew. He knew forever. He knows still, but he knows from the bottom of the deep and that knowing is his judgment. And hear this this morning, "There is a way of knowing God that does not save.

There is a way of knowing God under the flood, under the judgment of God. There is a way of meeting God face to face that ends not in worship, but in ruin. God's enemies of every age will know. They will know on the day that the chariot's clog and the sea returns and not one of them remains." But Israel also knew, and that knowing was different. Same God, same act, same waters, but different knowing.

Verses 31 or 30 and 31 tell us this, "Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians so that the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses." Three verbs here in the response of Israel. They saw, they feared, and they believed. This is the knowing that Moses wrote this chapter to produce in all of us. And listen carefully, Israel does not know this because Israel was somehow better than Egypt.

Israel knows Yahweh because Israel walked through the act of judgment but as a redeemed people. The same waters that judged and drowned the Egyptians built walls for Israel. The same hand that crushed the Empire opened the path for the slaves. The same act of judgment that condemned Pharaoh saved Israel because Yahweh in his mercy put Israel on the dry land of the on the other side of the flood. They experienced the judgment but they walked through unscathed.

And folks this is what redemption truly is. Redemption is being saved, being on the saved side of God's judgment. Redemption is being the one for whom judgment becomes a wall of protection instead of a tomb. Redemption is knowing the God whose wrath drowned the dragon as the God whose hand led you through the water on dry ground. Israel knew Yahweh but Israel knew Yahweh through redemption.

And that knowing produced fear and it produced faith. Not the fear that runs away but the fear that bows down and concludes that this God is to be trusted. And so we need to put these two kinds of knowing side by side. Egypt knows Yahweh through judgment and that judgment falls upon them. Israel knows Yahweh through the redemption that flows from the same judgment.

But the New Testament reveals that this pattern of salvation through judgment runs even deeper. Because the New Testament reads this very passage in Exodus chapter 14 as a shadow of a even greater act of salvation through judgment. Listen for example to Luke chapter 9 on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses and Elijah appeared in glory and spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. The word translated departure there is the very word for Exodus.

They are speaking with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration about his Exodus. And Christ's Red Sea is at Calvary. There outside Jerusalem Yahweh made himself known to all by one act of salvation through judgment. At the cross the whole creation pattern of the Bible runs in reverse over the body of the Son of God. Darkness falls over the land at noon.

The deep covers the face of creation again. The earth shakes. The rock split. Creation pulls apart around the Sun. And Jesus sinks into the tomb the way that Pharaoh sank into the sea.

The waters of judgment that should have drowned us drowned him. The chaos that should have swallowed us swallowed him. He went under alone in our place. But the very judgment that fell on him is the salvation that flows to his people. The cross is one act by one hand that is at once the judgment of sin and the salvation of sinners.

The wave that crushes Christ is the wave that builds the wall for the people of God. The body broken under God's wrath is the body that becomes the path through the waters. Salvation through judgment. And on the third day in the morning watch the very hour that Yahweh looked down on Egypt at the Red Sea. The women came to the tomb and they saw an empty grave.

The wind of God blew over the waters again. Dry land appeared again and a new creation man stepped out of the deep onto the eastern shore of the empty tomb and in him a covenant people was born. And now that same act the cross is making God known to the whole world. One act but making God known in two ways. To those who reject the Son the cross is an announcement of judgment.

Paul says this plainly. Foolishness to some, a stumbling block to others and they will know God by the cross those who don't believe but they will know him as judge and they will know him at last when every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ is Lord but they will confess him from under the flood of God's judgment. But to those who trust the Son the same cross is the salvation of the Lord. Those who believe know the same God by the same act but they know him as Redeemer through the very judgment that fell upon him. They confess him from the Eastern Shore.

Same cross, same wrath but two knowings and in both in the salvation and in the judgment God gets glory and the world knows that he is the Lord. And so Moses leaves you, the cross leaves you with one question this morning. Which knowing will be yours? You will know Yahweh. There is no other option in the universe.

Pharaoh knew him, Egypt knew him, every chariot driver at the bottom of the sea knows him, every demon knows him, every Christ-rejector on the last day will know him. The question is not whether you will know him. The question is whether you will know him as the judge whose flood broke over your head or as the Redeemer whose flood broke over his son for you. Which knowing will it be? The answer is settled at the cross.

Salvation is not for those who avoid judgment, salvation is for those who hide in the one who took the judgment. To know God as your Redeemer you must come to the one who went under the flood for you. You must trust the one whose body is the broken path through the waters. You must take refuge in the Christ who was crushed under the wrath of God so that you might walk through on dry ground. So really whether you are right now trusting in Christ or whether you are still his enemy, the call for all of us is the same as how Israel responded in this text.

So whether you're a believer this morning or whether you're an unbeliever, this is how you ought to be responding to this reality of salvation through judgment. First, see. See what God has done at the cross, the great power that he used against his enemies. See the road that he opened by the body of his son. See the resurrection morning where death itself washes up on the sand.

Second, fear. Fear the God who is so holy that the only way to save sinners was to drown his son in their place. He is the creator who turns chaos to dry land and the judge who turns dry land back into chaos. And third, believe. Trust the one who took the flood for you.

Believe the Lord and believe his servant, the greater Moses, the true mediator, the one who did not stand on the shore but who went into the sea of God's judgment for you. And then go forward. The whole posture of the redeemed in this chapter is that they walked through what Yahweh had opened. They did not stand still. They did not refuse the road.

No. They walked forward. And the truth that holds you who are believers, the truth that holds you when you walk is this. The judgment is behind you. The flood that should have crushed you was crushed instead upon Christ.

And the dragon that hunted you is dead in the surf. In Christ you have already crossed and you stand on the eastern shore. And so may we all this morning, everyone in this room, may we all see and fear and believe and know Yahweh not as the judge whose flood breaks over your head but as the Redeemer whose flood broke over his son for you. Let's pray. Father I do pray that if there is anyone in this room this morning who is still your enemy, who still deserves your wrath, who still deserves your judgment, that they would see the act that you accomplished at the cross.

They would see it. They would fear you rightly and they would believe in your son who took that wrath upon them. I pray that you would do the work of regeneration in unbelieving hearts this morning. Whether it be a child who has yet to repent of his or her sins or an adult who is not trusting you. Help them to see and fear and believe.

But for those of us who are believers, help us also as we reflect upon that act at the cross of salvation through judgment. Help us likewise to once again see afresh to fear and to have our faith renewed. That we would see with rejoicing that the judgment is behind us, that the flood of your wrath fell upon your son for us and that we are now standing on the Eastern Shore having been saved from the just wrath of God. Help us to rejoice in this wondrous truth we pray in the name of Christ. Amen.