From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart, we'll explore the ways to navigate the roller coaster of the highs and lows of life. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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The Red Sea Miracle, described in Exodus 14, is arguably the greatest Old Testament miracle and the second greatest miracle in all the Bible, second only to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The people are singing the praises of God, but then the chapter ends on a low point, and we're going to see that it didn't take very long for them to go from singing praises to singing the blues—just three days.

But you know what? That's life. So there is much the Lord wants to teach us in the aftermath of the Red Sea miracle.

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As we all know, life is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, and few Old Testament events illustrate the truth like the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea. So is there a lesson we can learn from the aftermath of the Red Sea miracle? This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for joining us today for the last message in Pastor Jeff's Faithful and True series.

The Lesson Today, the Highs and Lows of Life. Now this is part one of the Final Lesson. We'll have part two tomorrow, but you can go online to promisheart.org and catch up with this extensive study of the book of Exodus by clicking the Listen link. This series, Faithful and True, is also our gift of thanks to you for your support of any amount to From His Heart. This month, you can make your gift to get these eight messages when you go to fromisheart.org. Again, click the Listen link.

But before we do that, open your Bible to Exodus chapter 15 as Pastor Jeff Shreve begins explaining how we should learn to navigate the highs and lows of life.

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**Exodus chapter 15.** I'll begin reading in verse one. Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord and said, "I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my Father's God, and I will extol him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has cast into the sea. And the choicest of the officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deeps cover them; they went down into the depths like a stone."

What did we learn from the aftermath of the Red Sea miracle? I want you to notice three important lessons that have to do with the highs and lows of life.

**Lesson number one.** The highs of life are great times of teaching. Great times of teaching in the highs, in the mountaintops. Now, everybody likes mountaintops. We like great victories. We like to celebrate great victories. God's people enjoyed the victory, and God wanted them to. The Lord brought a victory so that they could celebrate the victory. And they sang the song of Moses. You know what's interesting? Revelation chapter 15 talks about the victory of the tribulation saints over the beast and the mark of the beast because they didn't get the mark of the beast. And although they were killed, they had victory. And it says, "And they sang the song of Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the song of the Lamb." Revelation 15 points back to Exodus 15, the song of Moses. It's a song of praise, and it's a song filled with important theological truths for us to know and for us to tuck away in our hearts in the high points. So we have them in the low points and in all the in-between points of life.

So what does the praise, the song of praise, teach us about God? Well, it teaches us, number one, that the Lord is a warrior God who fights for us. Moses, in the song, talks about God being a warrior. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is a man of war, and he fights for his people. Exodus 14:14 states, "The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." Don't be afraid. The Lord, Yahweh, is a warrior. Now, we don't have that concept in our minds very much about the Lord being a warrior. But we're told to be good soldiers, suffering hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. We're in the Lord's army. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war; we're in a spiritual battle. We don't battle against flesh and blood. We battle against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. And our God is a warrior. He is a man of war.

We sing at Christmas time, "Sweet little Jesus boy." They made him be born in a manger, and people have this idea that Jesus is just so meek and so mild and just kind of effeminate, and, you know, he just never would hurt a fly. He's a warrior. He's a warrior, and he fights for his people. Two hundred eighty-five times in the Old Testament, we read about the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies, Yahweh Sabaoth. God is a warrior. You know, at the Battle of Armageddon, Revelation 19 says, John saw the heavens opened and a white horse, and he who sat upon it, who is called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and wages war. And he has a robe that he wears that's dipped in blood—not his blood; it's the blood of his enemies. And you talk about kicking tail and taking names. Wow, he is going to do some damage at the Battle of Armageddon. Well, they're extolling God because he is a warrior who fought for them.

But secondly, he's not only a warrior God; he's a delivering God who destroys his enemies. Look what he says in verse six: "Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. And in the greatness of your excellence, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send forth your burning anger, and it consumes them as chaff." Our God is a consuming fire, the scripture says in the book of Hebrews. He is the God who delivers. It says in verse 2, "The Lord has become my salvation." The Hebrew word for salvation is Yeshua. The name of Jesus is Yeshua. The Lord is salvation. You shall call his name Yeshua because it is he who will deliver his people from their sins. The Lord is a delivering God. He's a rescuing God. He's a saving God, and he destroys his enemies. He doesn't just do battle with his enemies; he wipes them out.

Now remember this. Here is the backdrop of the Exodus. Remember what we said this whole series: "Faithful and true. Introducing the one and only God." It's based on Pharaoh's question to Moses: "Who is the Lord? Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh; neither will I let Israel go." And so it sets the backdrop for a battle between God, Yahweh, and the gods of Egypt, who are not gods at all, and Pharaoh, who fancied himself a god. This isn't a close match in the battle between God and Egypt's gods and Pharaoh. This is a total wipeout. This is like watching a boxing match for 15 rounds, and one opponent doesn't land one punch. Now, the Lord could have crushed Pharaoh just like that, but he didn't do it. He eviscerated him over time because God is not a God that you can go up against. As Jeremiah said, "The Lord is with me like a dread champion." He's the all-time undisputed, undefeated heavyweight champion of the universe. That is our God. He delivers and he destroys his enemies.

Then we learn that the Lord is the only God who is holy and awesome. I love verse 11 of this song. The question is asked, "Who is like you among the gods, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?" Now, who is like you among the gods? Are there lots of other gods? Well, there are lots of other gods with a little "g." People that worship a statue or a stone; it's not really a god. It can be a demonic force that they worship. BAAL was a demonic force that people worshipped, but compared to God, there is no other God. "I am God," the Lord says, "and there is no other." You're not going to find anyone else in the heavens that is God. There's only one God. And God is majestic in his holiness. He is, as that word means, glorious and magnificent in his holiness. The holiness of God means the sacredness, the set-apartness of God. He's not like anything or anyone else. He is holy, holy, holy. And he's glorious in his holiness, who is like the Lord our God, as the Bible says in Psalm 113, who humbles himself to behold the things in heaven and in the earth.

I remember reading that years and years ago when I first started thinking about that Psalm 113:6. "Who is like the Lord our God, who humbles himself to behold the things in heaven?" God is so great, so mighty, so awesome, so powerful, that even to look around heaven is a humbling experience for God. Because neither heaven nor the highest heavens can contain God. He is so great and so awesome. That word "awesome" in praises literally means the God to be feared, the God who is full of awe and wonder. Wow, God. You know, that's what the fear of the Lord is. The fear of the Lord is reverence for God. It's an awe of God. It's not necessarily cowering in the corner because God is around, because God doesn't want us to be afraid of him like that, but he wants us to stand in awe of Him. Awesome in praises, working wonders. Like the wonder they just saw in Exodus chapter 14. You know, if you had talked to an Israelite before Moses was sent to them and you said, "Hey, this is what's gonna happen. God is gonna raise up a deliverer, and God is gonna use that guy, and here's how Pharaoh is gonna be just humbled and humiliated and destroyed. Plague, plague, plague, plague, plague. And then at the end of it all, God is gonna wipe out his army in the Red Sea." That person would have looked at you like you had been smoking crack. I mean, he'd have thought, "What in the world? You have a drinking problem, pal? I mean, that will never, ever, ever happen." But it happened because God is awesome in holiness, working wonders.

And then it says that the Lord is the loving God who leads his redeemed. This is so encouraging. It says in verse 13, "In your loving kindness, you have led the people whom you have redeemed. In your strength, you have guided them to your holy habitation." God is the God who loves us now. He redeemed these people. He loved these people. And as you go on to read in Exodus, you think these people are hard to love because they're whiners and gripers and complainers. And you know when they would really do just really whine and gripe and complain, the Lord would say to Moses, "Moses, look what your people are doing." Moses is like, "My people? They're your people. They're not my people." But it's like God saying, "Yeah, this is your problem, Moses." Moses says, "Lord, this is your problem. I don't know what to do." But God still loved them.

You ever whine and gripe and complain? You ever blow it big time? You wonder, does God still love me? Can God still love me? "In your loving kindness," in your chesed (the Hebrew word there), "your loyal, faithful, covenant love, you have led the people whom you've redeemed." And how were they redeemed? Through the blood of the lamb. Through the blood of the Lamb. How are we redeemed in the New Testament? See this exodus from Egypt. Egypt is a picture of sin. It's a picture of being lost. And how were they redeemed out of Egypt? Through the blood of the lamb. And they came through the Red Sea and God's delivering power. How are we saved in the New Testament? How are we delivered? How are we redeemed in the New Testament? Not redeemed from Egypt, but redeemed from sin through the blood of the lamb. Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but through me and the blood that I shed on the cross." The Lord is the loving God who leads his redeemed.

And where does he lead us? He was leading them to the promised land. Sometimes we get the idea that the promised land is heaven, and it is promised to us. And so we could say, "Well, the Promised Land is heaven." Yeah, but it's not the picture of the promised land. It is not where you go when you die. That's where they came out of Egypt through the wilderness to go to the promised land. The promised land is the Spirit-filled life. And the Lord wants us to enjoy the Spirit-filled life as we walk with him.

So the highs of life are great times of teaching. We learn about God and his character in those mountaintops. But how about the lows of life? Because you're riding high in April, and you're shot down in May. And they're going to get shot down. And they don't even wait till May. It's just three days later.

**Second lesson.** The lows of life are great times of testing. Look at verse 22. Or as it ends up at the end of the song, it says, "I like this. Miriam, the prophetess, Aaron's sister, Moses' sister took the timbrel in her hand. And all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing. And Miriam answered them, 'Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and his rider he has hurled into the sea.'" They're singing, they're dancing, the tambourines are out. I was gonna call this sermon "Dancing on Pharaoh's Grave," which is kind of a catchy title. But here's the problem: we don't know if Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea. Some say he was; some say he wasn't. If you go by Cecil B. DeMille, he shows that Pharaoh didn't go into the Red Sea. He said, "This is a job for a butcher, not a pharaoh." And so he didn't go in; he sent his armies in there. The scripture says that God destroyed his armies and his chariots, his choicest servants and warriors in the Red Sea. It doesn't say anything about Pharaoh. You know, it probably would have been more humiliating for him not to die and have to go back to Egypt. Egypt has been totally destroyed. He's been totally and completely humiliated.

Some have said, "Well, what about ancient Hebrew or ancient Egyptian records? What do they say about it?" They don't say anything about it. Why? Because you didn't talk about defeats. You didn't write about that. You're in Egypt, and Pharaoh Thutmose III got destroyed by the God of the Hebrews. If you wrote that, you're dead. They would break your tablet. I mean, you don't do that. So they just didn't record anything. Nothing is recorded about his military conquest from the last 15 years or so of his life. Why? Because he didn't have any. Why? Because he was decimated by the God of the Hebrews, Yahweh.

So then it goes on to say in verse 22, "Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water." Remember this when you talk about wandering in the wilderness. The wilderness is not a forest; it's a desert—rocks and sand. And there, the Bible calls that the wilderness. It's a hot, sandy, rocky place. They found no water. When you're in the desert, water is really important. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore it was named Marah. The word Marah means bitterness. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" Man, we go from the high, high. We just saw God work the greatest miracle in the Old Testament. We were a part of that. We see the Egyptians dead on the seashore. We are singing, we are dancing, we are shouting his praises. Three days later, we're grumbling at Moses. There's no water.

Now, can you imagine it? So put yourself in that situation. Remember this: they were led by God. Moses is the human instrument, but Moses is watching the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The scripture says this in Exodus chapter 40: "And throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day when it was taken up." They're following the cloud. So when it says in verse 22, "Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea," he led Israel from the Red Sea because the cloud began to move. He's following God.

And so here you are, and you're an Israelite, and you're saying, "Okay, man, this is awesome. But now we have to—we can't stay here on the mountaintop. We gotta move on with God. Cause wait, he's taking us to the Promised Land. And all the Philistines and the Canaanites and the Jebusites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Ammonites and all the ites, man, they're scared to death because they heard about what our God can do." And so they go, and day one, they're thinking, "You know, we got some water saved up. But man, it'd be nice if we could find some water. We're out here in the desert." Day one, no water. Day two, no water. Day one, it's a little bit. Okay, it's on my mind. Day two, it's really on my mind. We don't have any water. There's two to two and a half million people plus lots of livestock. We don't have any water. Day three, no water. Wait, there's some water, and let's go taste the water. Oh, the water is bitter. It's brackish water. It's salt water. Can't drink that water. And they grumble and gripe at Moses, but the grumbling and the griping at Moses really was a grumble and gripe at God.

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You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve today and the message, the highs and lows of life. And it's from Pastor Jeff's eight lesson series, Faithful and True, introducing the one and only God, which is a study of the book of Exodus.

Hey, are you struggling living life on the ocean liner of troubles and trials in your life? Are you seasick of it? Well, one of Pastor Jeff Shreve's heroes, Adrian Rogers, quote is appropriate here when he said, God doesn't promise smooth sailing in life, but he does promise a safe landing. And to add the obvious to that remark, God never goes back on a promise.

Yes, life is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. But like the Jews who sang God's praises when they crossed the Red Sea, it didn't take very long for them to begin singing the blues. But you know what? That's life. One day we're in the palace, the next day in the pits.

This series we're in now on From His Heart is called Faithful and True, introducing the one and only God. And it'll help you take on a new attitude toward trusting God and riding out those waves. But Land Ho is ahead to get the series. Just make a gift from his heart this month of any amount and we'll send it to you in the format of your USB flash drive, digital download, CDs, or DVDs. Your choice.

Call 86640 Bible 86640 Bible to make that gift. Or go online to fromisheart.org and ask for the series Faithful and True. It's our thanks for coming alongside this ministry and being a part of the impact that we're having around the world each and every day. Thank you for standing with us in this mission.

Well, that's all the time we have for today. I'm Larry Nobles and we're very grateful that you connected with us and we're praying that you'll be here next time for the conclusion of the last message in the Faithful and True series, the Highs and Lows of Life. Join us then when Pastor Jeff Shreve opens up God's Word to share real truth, real love and real hope from God's heart. Here on From His Heart, there is tremendous truth.

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There is bless love. There is hope that you always dream love. He can heal every scar. True, real love, real hope.

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From his heart is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out about that when you go to fromisheart.org.