From His Heart

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Today on from his heart, you'll learn what to hold onto tightly when riding the waves of the highs and lows of life. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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God wants us to factor in the cross in every circumstance of life. Throw in a tree. Jesus was crucified on a tree, the tree of Calvary.

When you face the morrows in life, those are negatives. How do you deal with a negative? If you take a negative and you add the vertical perspective, you take a minus, a negative, and you turn it into a plus.

And if I will look to the Lord, and if I factor in the cross, that minus becomes a plus. And Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose."

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He can heal every scar with real truth.

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God's parting of the Red Sea in Exodus chapter 14 is certainly the greatest Old Testament miracle and arguably the second greatest miracle in all of the Bible, second only to the resurrection of Christ. Immediately after they got through the Red Sea, God's people were singing the praises of God. However, it didn't take long for them to start singing the blues. As a matter of fact, just three days was all it took.

But there's so much that the Lord wants to teach us from the story of the Red Sea miracle in the book of Exodus. Thanks for joining us today as Pastor Jep concludes this series, Faithful and True, introducing the one and only God. It's a study of the book of Exodus that we've been in all month.

Today's lesson is entitled "The Highs and Lows of Life, Part Two." Let's get started. Open your Bible now to Exodus chapter 15. And here again is Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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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. It's a song of praise and it's 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 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. In Exodus 14, when the people saw that Pharaoh was coming, they were so afraid, very frightened. And Moses said to the people, "Don't be afraid. God is going to fight for us." He says in Exodus 14:14, "The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." Don't be afraid. The Lord Yahweh is a warrior.

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 and 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.

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. 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 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.

Second lesson: the lows of life are great times of testing. Look at 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. 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. But the grumbling and the griping at Moses really was a grumble and gripe at God. In Exodus 15, they're grumbling and griping about no water. In Exodus 16, five days after God destroyed the Egyptians in the Red Sea, they don't have any food, and they're grumbling and griping about food and longing for Egypt. "Oh, we remember Egypt. It was so wonderful. We used to sit by the pots of meat and we had bread to eat, and now we don't have anything. Moses, did you take us out here? Were there no graves in Egypt that you took us out here so that we would die in the wilderness?"

I was like, what happened to you guys? Forty-five days, you're not talking about dying in the wilderness. Three days, you're saying, "Well, we don't have anything to drink." And you're grumbling and griping and complaining. The lows of life are great times of testing. Now you mark it down: we will always face some trials and bitter things in life. That's life, as the song says.

Maybe you're here today and you're saying, "Hey, I'm facing some bitter things in life. Some things I don't like. I've lost my job, or I've had this situation come in. I've gotten a bad health report. I've lost a loved one. I've had to face all these things. I don't like them. They're bitter to me." And that's a test. Because the scripture says that the Lord tested them at Marah. It shows you what's in your heart when you get tested.

Hey, the mountaintop: I'm learning great things about God. This is awesome. It's like being in school. Hey, I'm taking notes. This is great stuff. But then comes the test, and Marah is the test. What's in your heart? Are you gonna trust God even when things are going bad? You're always gonna face trials and bitter things in life. Job said, "Man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward." Job said, "Man who is born of woman is short-lived and full of trouble." Jesus said, "In the world, you have tribulation; you have pressures, you have problems, you have difficulties, but be of good courage. I have overcome the world."

When the apostle Paul was saved, it was told to Ananias, "Go to Saul, pray for him; he doesn't have his sight. Pray for him that he'd receive his sight." He said, "Lord, I don't want to go because Saul of Tarsus, he doesn't like you, and he doesn't like anyone that's a follower of yours." He said, "Go, for he's a chosen instrument of mine, for I'm going to show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake." Saul of Tarsus, right at the first of his Christian experience, knew he was going to suffer for Jesus. That's just part of the deal. He wasn't surprised when he would suffer because it's like, "Yeah, he told me that at the very start of my Christian life that I was gonna suffer."

So that's just the way it is. "Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come," as the song says. We're always going to face those things.

Now here's the danger that you have, that I have, that we have, that they had: the bitter things in life, the bitter waters in life. You can't let those things make you bitter. See, it's one thing to face bitter situations; it's another thing to get bitter. The poster child for that is the lady in the Book of Ruth. Her name was Naomi. Her name means pleasantness. She was married to a man named Elimelech. His name means "My God is king." My God is king and pleasantness come together. They get married, they have two boys, Mahlon and Kilion, and they live in Bethlehem, the house of bread. But there's a famine in Bethlehem, a famine in the house of bread. And so they leave Bethlehem and go to Moab. Not a good plan to go to Moab. Wanting to escape the famine, they went to Moab.

What happened in Moab? Elimelech died. Mahlon and Kilion died. Naomi, in 10 years, lost her husband and both her boys. Then she heard that God had visited his people and that the famine was over. So she goes back to Bethlehem. And when she goes back to Bethlehem, Ruth was with her. She goes back to Bethlehem, and they say, "Is this not Naomi?" And she said, "Don't call me that. Call me Mara." Bitterness. "Cause the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but I come back empty. And the hand of the Lord has been against me." She was bitter.

Bitterness will wreck and ruin your life. You can't let the bitter things cause you to be bitter. So what does the scripture say to do? James 1:2-3: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, when you encounter various Maras, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." Now, it doesn't say that it is all joy, because it's not. It says consider it all joy. As I've told you before, that word "consider" is an accounting term that's saying, "Okay, I'm taking this situation, this Mara, and I'm putting it in the plus column, not the minus column. I'm considering this all joy because I know that God is at work. He is testing me, and he is at work in this situation."

Hey, we'll always face trials and bitter things in life. But we can face any trial with faith in God. What do we do when we face the Maras in life? We trust God. We consider it all joy by faith. We consider it all joy by faith. We put it in the plus column and we say that, "Hey, God is able. The God who delivered us from the Egyptians, the God who wiped them out in the Red Sea. I mean, is this too big a thing for God? We don't have any water. Can God not provide water for his people? Of course he can. And my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus."

So we put our faith in God and we remember what God has done. You know, that's why I said the mountaintop times: that's the time to learn about God. That's what we learn in the praises. God is a warrior God. God is a delivering God. God is the only God. God is a loving God who leads his redeemed. And I cling to those things. Adrian Rogers used to say, "Don't doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light." And don't evaluate God based on the Maras of life. Those are just tests to see whether you're going to trust God.

The Apostle Paul said this in Second Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 8 through 10: "For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves. We thought we were gonna die in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead, in God who can do anything." And then he says this: "Who delivered us, past tense, from so great a peril of death? And he will deliver us, present tense. He on whom we have set our hope. And he will yet deliver us." Future tense. God is the God who has delivered, who will deliver, who will yet deliver. You can trust God.

And when you're facing the bitter things in life, go back to what the Lord has done. Go back to his track record because he is faithful and true, and he's worthy to be trusted and worthy to be praised.

So the highs of life are great times of teaching. The lows of life are great times of testing. And then lesson number three: the highs and lows and in-betweens of life are to be experienced with the Lord Jesus. We walk with him as Christians. Christ is our life, it says in Colossians, chapter three. And so we walk on a daily basis. We walk with God. The Bible doesn't describe a run with God; it's a walk with God. It's step by step. And step by step, he leads me.

And so this is what the Lord said to Moses. So the people grumbled at Moses, verse 24, saying, "What shall we drink?" Then he cried out to the Lord. And the Lord showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There he made for them a statute and regulation. And there he tested them. Moses didn't know what to do. "What do I do, Lord? I got two to two and a half million thirsty people, and there's no water to drink because this is bitter water." And God showed him a tree and said, "Throw in the tree."

Now, there's not anything magic about the tree. This is a miracle, a miracle of God. But I think it's a message for us today. And the message is this: God wants us to factor in the cross in every circumstance of life. You factor in the cross. Throw in a tree. Jesus was crucified on a tree—the tree of Calvary. When you face the Maras in life, those are negatives. How do you deal with a negative? If you take a negative and you add the vertical perspective, you take a minus, a negative, and you turn it into a plus. A minus—that's a negative, that's a Mara. That's a bad thing. But if I will look to the Lord, and if I factor in the cross, that minus becomes a plus.

And Romans 8:28 says, "And we know"—this is not, we hope, we think, we guess—"and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." We know that. Adrian Rogers, years ago, preached a sermon that I heard in college, and I've never forgotten it. He called it the Chemistry of the Cross. It was one verse, Romans 8:28. He said, "You know, a chemist can take materials that in and of themselves are dangerous and harmful acids and other things, and he can mix those together in such a way to produce some kind of medicine, some kind of serum, some kind of potion that can be healing."

He said, "That's what God does through the chemistry of the cross." And so when we put the cross into our situations in life, into our good things, into our bad things, into our in-between things, we look at it through the lens of the cross. We factor in the cross; those negatives become positives. We consider it all joy, knowing that God is going to use this for good in my life. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

So he wants us to factor in the cross as we walk with him. He wants us, secondly, to listen to him and obey him. So here is the statute and regulation that he gave the people that day. Verse 26: "And he said, if you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians. For I, the Lord, am your healer." I, the Lord, am your healer. Yahweh, Rapha, Jehovah, Rapha. He gives us that name in verse 26.

The Lord wants us to listen to him and give earnest heed to his voice. The Scripture says, "Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart." Behold, today is the day of salvation. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." Do you hear the voice of God? He said, "If you belong to him, you do." God speaks primarily through his word, but he speaks through songs, he speaks through preachers, he speaks through friends to speak to your heart. And he wants us to listen to him, and he wants us to obey him.

We listen not to say, "Well, what does the Lord have to say about it? I'll see if I want to do that or not." No, he's God. We listen to, obey, and do what he says. In Psalm 81, the Lord laments the fact that his people didn't listen to him. And so what did he do to his people? He said, "I wanted to bless you, but you wouldn't listen. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways." But you didn't listen. So what happened? "I gave you over to the stubbornness of your heart." You didn't want to follow me, so you reap what you sow. "Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways. Then I would quickly subdue their adversaries. I would feed them with the finest of the wheat and with honey from the rock. I would satisfy them."

The Lord says, "I want you to listen to me and obey me because you love me." And how do we know we love God? We obey God. "He who has my commandments and keeps them," Jesus said, "he it is who loves me." For I, the Lord, am your healer.

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If you're a person who's been grumbling and disobedient towards God, maybe you need to just pray and say, "God, here's my life. Take it back and help me to be the Christian you want me to be." Or perhaps you know right now that you have never been saved. That means you've never come to a place in your life where you sincerely bowed your heart repentantly and asked God to forgive you and to come into your life and change you. If that is you, great news: He'll do that immediately, and you'll be changed for eternity.

To discover more of what that means, we invite you to go to fromhisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link for a lot more about what you've done and what He will want to do in the future. Again, go to fromhisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link.

As we've mentioned this month, the Book of Exodus is a book about a rescuing God coming to deliver His people enslaved in Egypt for centuries. In this great and miraculous deliverance, God reveals Himself as faithful and true, the one and only God. In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh was asked the question, "Who is the Lord Yahweh, that I should obey His voice?" God answers that question in a resounding, unforgettable fashion.

This powerful series on the Exodus from Egypt reminds us afresh that we serve a God who is able and who always keeps His word. This series is also our special gift of thanks to you for your support of From His Heart this month. For any amount, you will receive eight messages in the format of your choice that will empower your faith and animate your testimony to a lost and hurting world.

To get your copy of "Faithful and True," you can call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) or go online to fromhisheart.org and request the series "Faithful and True" when you make your gift of any amount today. Call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org.

Thanks for joining us today on From His Heart for this series and the message "The Highs and Lows of Life." I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to be here next time for a message that expands on the subject of fear that we can all encounter in our lives. Join us for the lesson called "When Fear Meets Faith." That's when we'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope. From His Heart, there is truth.

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There is hope that you always dream love he can heal every scars of true Real love real from his heart.

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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, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.