WHY ARE YOU CRYING OUT TO ME? Pastor Robert Simmons June 3, 2018 Exodus 14:10-22 10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn t we say to you in Egypt, Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert! 13 Moses answered the people, Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. 15 Then the LORD said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen. 19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long. 21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. What is a person to do when they find themselves between a rock and a hard place? In the reading today from Exodus 14, Israel has just experienced the impossible: they have been delivered from their life of slavery in Egypt. After ten horrific plagues that 1 God poured out on the land of Egypt as a judgment on the Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt, Israel has been released and they are on their way to freedom. It was a momentous day and the future looked bright; they are bound for the promised land. But then, someone
noticed that Pharaoh and his army was hot on their trail. Nine times Pharaoh changed his mind and refused to let the people go, and now here he is again coming to get them. Verse 10 gives the ominous message: As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. Houston, we have a problem! Egypt is approaching them from behind and the only thing ahead of them is the Red Sea. They have two options. Let Egypt catch up to them and take them back to their life of misery and slavery, or march into the sea and drown. Neither was a very attractive option. So, you can see why I ask, what is a person to do when they find themselves between a rock and a hard place, or to put it another way, between the devil and the deep blue sea? It was no laughing matter, Israel was in deep trouble. If they thought they had it rough before, wait until Pharaoh gets his hands on them this time! Can you think of a time when your back was to the wall with no way out? Can you remember a time you felt life had painted you in the corner? I ve had those experiences as I am certain you have too. What did you do? How did you respond or react to having your back pressed against the wall with no way to go? How did God deliver you from that situation? How did Israel react to their precarious situation? I want you to notice the three things these people did when they realized they had nowhere to go that would get them out of their situation. And I want you to know that every one of us has reacted to our having our backs to the wall in the same way. Three Responses by the People of Israel Their first response: they were afraid - v. 10. They were seriously afraid. Verse 10 says they were terrified. Fear seems like a very natural reaction in this situation: Pharaoh pressing toward them and a massive sea in front of them. Terrified? I can only imagine. Fear is a very natural and common reaction to situations where there appears to be no way out. I remember Easter 2002 when it became apparent that the neighborhood around our church back in Maryvale was totally unresponsive to our invitations. That Lenten season I walked the neighborhood, knocking on close to 300 doors, to invite families to our Easter service. That Easter morning, I was in anticipation of seeing some unfamiliar faces walk through our doors. But not one new person from the community came. I knew our church was in trouble and I was afraid of what might happen to us. I was in the first five months of my ministry at Christ Church and I was 2
afraid the church may not survive too many more years. After some agonizing prayer and discussion, we decided to sell the property and relocate to the west valley. We sold the campus to the Arizona Korean Presbyterian Church for the exact price we were asking, but there was a huge caveat: we had to move out within 60 days. Where would we go? Nothing seemed to be available. We were a church without a home; how long would that last? Hello darkness my old friend, I ve come to talk with you again! Fear made a return visit. We moved into the Lodge Hall and couldn t get a loan to build our new church. Some of you remember the Lodge Hall. No air conditioning and a couple of our cars were vandalized during worship one Sunday. Would our congregation die in the Lodge Hall for want of a new church? The Lodge Hall was our home for three long years and fear was a regular intrusion into my life during those days. Do you find yourself in a situation where it feels like you are painted in the corner with no options? A common reaction is to be afraid; terrified even. The Israelites certainly were. Their second response is also very common: they prayed - v. 10. That is the meaning of the statement, they cried out to the Lord. A recent survey revealed that nearly 80% of Americans have prayed for themselves when they had a need, and close to 90% have prayed for others who were in need. I would suggest that prayer is a normal or common reaction to crisis. Have you noticed that every time we have a national crisis of some kind, there is a call to pray for those involved? God s desire for us is that we become people of prayer as a normal course of our daily life. But the good news is that God will listen to our prayers any time we offer them up to him. When you find yourself in a hard place, pause and pray about it and ask for guidance and wisdom in knowing how to respond. Don t wait for crisis or difficulty to come before you pray, but don t neglect to pray when your back is to the wall whether or not you have been praying on a regular basis. Here is the third response of the Israelites: they complained and found fault v. 11-12. If you are honest with yourself, you have probably had this response as well. We look for someone or something to blame. In this case, they blamed Moses for taking them out of Egypt. What they didn t know was that ultimately in their complaining they were blaming God; Moses was just the instrument this was God s doing. God delivered them out of Egypt and brought them to the place where they were now standing. 3
If you will continue reading the rest of the book of Exodus, you will discover that fear, prayer, and complaining become regular responses of these people. Those three reactions are still experienced by God s people today. You and I are going to need to fight fear when we face situations that are beyond our control, we will need to learn to pray more fervently in those times, and we must learn to resist the temptation to complain and blame others. Notice What God Tells Moses to Tell the People God tells his people four important things and these same four things apply to you and me in our difficult situations: First, he tells them don t be afraid - v. 13 Fear has at least three adverse effects on us. First, it causes us to lose perspective. When we give over to fear, the situation looms large in our mind to the point where the situation is bigger in our mind than God. We forget the many ways God has rescued and guided us in the past. These people in Exodus had experienced the mighty power of God at work all around them delivering them from Pharaoh, but with their back to the wall, they forgot all about that mighty power they had witnessed. Second, fear paralyzes us. We don t see any way out and become immobilized, waiting for what seems to be inevitable. When I was ten years old, I climbed onto the roof of the school building during the summer just because I could. But when it was time to get down, I panicked and couldn t find the courage. All I could do was sit there on the roof until a friend went for help. I was paralyzed by fear. The third thing fear does to us is that it causes us to grumble and complain and find fault. These people blame Moses. Whether they knew it or not, they were ultimately blaming God. Moses did not deliver them from Egypt; God was their deliverer. They are where they are because God had brought them to that place. Be careful not to fall into becoming a complaining person every time life gets tough; nobody likes a whiner, not even God. Here is the second thing God told the people: stand firm - v. 13 The word stand firm carries with it the idea of waiting. It does not mean to do nothing, but slow down, collect yourselves, don t make any quick decisions before you have had a chance to think seriously about the situation. Fear causes us to want to make a quick decision; do something, don t just stand there! Quick, not carefully thought out, decisions almost always end badly. It is as if God is saying to the people, Hold on, you are exactly where I want you to be; I brought you to this place so that I might reveal to you my power and glory. Stay calm, wait and I will make the next move. 4
Never forget that the only way for us to see the power and glory of God is when we are in a difficult place with no way out unless God intervenes. Wait on the Lord; stand firm. And the third word God spoke to these people is, the Lord will deliver you - v. 13 Scripture provides lots of support and encouragement to us when we find ourselves between the devil and the deep blue sea. Listen to what God told his prophet, Isaiah, to speak to his people on another occasion when life was rough: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:2-3). Back in the late 70 s or early 80 s, the Gospel Quartet, The Imperials, sang a song that powerfully reminds you and me that God is with those who find themselves between a rock and hard place. This song could have been sung to these people in Israel that day: He didn't bring us this far to leave us He didn't teach us to swim to let us drown He didn't build His home in us to move away He didn't lift us up to let us down By the way, for what it is worth, those words are important for you and me today in this time of transition in my life and in the life of this congregation. God is in control and has brought us together to this place and has us right where he wants us. Don t be afraid, stand firm, because the Lord will see us through. The final word God spoke to these people is this: go forward - v. 15 Perhaps you are wondering about the question God s asks that we are supposed to be dealing with? Well, here it is: After the Lord speaks these four words to his people, he then says to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? This may surprise you, but God is asking them why they are continuing to pray about this. Prayer is very important, and we must be praying people, but having prayed sincerely and earnestly there comes a time when we need to act. Pray and then do something, because prayer leads to action or else prayer isn t working like it should in our life. The great Methodist bishop, Dr. Gerald Kennedy once wrote there are two positions Christians must take in the presence of God: to be on our knees and then to get back on our feet. Pray and then do what you are asking God to help you do. 5
And what God wants these people to do is move forward. But wait a minute, to go forward is to head into the sea and that certainly spells death. Even if they do nothing, Pharaoh s army will capture them. What do you do when you don t know what to do? You obey God. Pray, yes, but then get up and move forward. fight some fear. I won t be afraid if you won t. Let s both go forward as the Lord leads and calls us. We really have nothing to be afraid of since the Lord goes before us and has promised to see us through! Remember this word from the Lord that was spoken through Isaiah: When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end. (Isaiah 43:2 MSG) Maxie Dunnam writes these words: The poet Theodore Roethke wrote a line that is packed with meaning: I learn by going where I have to go. How true. That s the way the Christian and the church learn, by going where we must go because God is calling us to go there. His call is clear: Don t be afraid; stand still; I will deliver you; and go forward! 1 I am going where I believe I need to go: into retirement away from full-time service. I plan to be active somewhere and in some capacity. I fight some fear. You must now go where God is calling you: into a bright future with a talented new senior pastor. Some of you may 1 Maxie Dunnam, The Communicator s Commentary, Exodus, p. 170. 6