An Unexpected Cancer Diagnosis

Speaker 0:09

When my doctor first called me into his office to explain that I had cancer, my first honest reaction was good. I didn't say it out loud, but I remember feeling a sense of relief that my master plan for my family's provision was suddenly coming together because my life insurance policy had not expired. You know, our retirement nest egg could have could always be larger, but at age 55, here was my last shot for total security. And actually dying before my life insurance policy expired. So in a flash, at that moment, I remember piecing together the lifestyle benefits for my wife and three daughters, and I actually felt financially successful for the first time. That thinking is obviously twisted, although very common for men, but it had all the markings of idol worship and reliance on false gods to meet some of the deepest needs of my life. I was really excited to later go tell Beth about this clean symmetry of dying while the life insurance policy was still in force. It did not go well. She said, Do you really think a pile of insurance money, she's held her hand out like this, do you think a pile of insurance money could replace you or well, kinda. Yes. I know it would be it'll be tough at first, but you and the kids will get over it, and then you'll be set for life. She said, we would never get over it. You're minimizing your value to us and the impact of living without you. So these were the first nudges from the Holy Spirit that God was working on me, and I was heading into a desert period to beat any previous desert period before or since. Physically, the illness and the treatment were really horrific. But at the same time, the Lord carried us really magnificently and tangibly, but that was the physical part. There was also a spiritual transformation that was part of the story, too. So this I'll give you the two-minute version of my health. It could go on and on, but I'll just give you two minutes. I had lymphoma, a blood cancer. And um, years later, the the chairman of the that department at UT Southwestern said, My lymphoma was the worst lymphoma he had ever seen. He said he still has copies of my scans, and when um residents rotate through his department, he shows them my scan and he says, Now that's lymphoma. It was like a pillow of tumors in my belly. I was hospitalized, of course, about 11 different times over a couple years. I counted up 130 days of hospital stays. I needed a new immune system. When the cancer was mostly taken care of, which is a simple statement, but it was a big deal, when it was mostly taken care of, I needed an immune system because mine had had mutated and I needed a bone marrow transplant. My brother was a perfect match, but there were complications. I got a new disease that was actually much more dangerous than cancer. I got something called graft versus host disease. My brother was the graft. They took his stem cells and put them into me. I was the host. He was the graft, I was the host. And the danger is when you do something like this, I would I would inherit his immune system. Mine would go away. They would blast me one last time, even down to my bone marrow. It was all killed off. And then they would introduce his stem cells and they would populate my bone marrow and create a new immune system, his in me. The danger is that my new immune system, his immune system, doesn't know my organs. So the doctor says there's a very good chance that his immune system in you will attack your organs, thinking they're the enemy. And that's exactly what happened. I got the worst possible case. It started with my skin, then my liver, then my eyes. I got three different ocular diseases. It was going after me big time. And then my doctors always said, as long as it doesn't get to your gut, you'll be okay. It got to my gut. I was having horrific diarrhea, and what was coming out of me was the lining of my GI system. Terrible pain. They could not figure out how to stop it. At one point, they just said, Let's stop all food and drink for six weeks. Not one drop of water, not one thing of food will just feed you intravenously. And so I lost 40 pounds in about six weeks, and they started treating me with steroids. It's the only thing they could think of to stop this disease. This kind of graft versus host disease, class four, has a 5% survival rate. So there wasn't a lot of hope, but they poured steroids into me. That damaged my pancreas, my gallbladder, my eyes, um, and my bones. At some point I got through it, and I was actually released to go from the hospital at home, and I was so weak I could not even step up onto a curb. It was, and I never did see the upstairs of our house for two years. I was, I had osteoporosis from that's from those steroids, and in those several weeks or months after coming home, I broke six vertebrae just by like putting my pants on or sitting down in a chair. And and then I had to have five or six procedures to try to put cement into those vertebrae to kind of stop the breaks. And I lost three inches in height, and and I was it was still attacking me, this immune system. And for two years I was I was nauseous. Two years. And um, my adrenal system shut down for a time, my GI motility had stopped for a time. I had to get blood filtering to kind of separate, separate out the immune cells from my brother. They would take those out and then kill half of them and then put it all back inside of me. It was about a four to six hour treatment, and I had to do it 32 different times. And then it seemed like I was getting better and it all relapsed. I had to start all the way over. I had to do those 32 blood treatments again. So it was four years of recovery. And the losses were significant. I lost my job, of course, I had to stop. Uh, our savings and our retirement accounts were significantly depleted. And I still have about 15 or so physical limitations that were permanent. But I gotta tell you, they were the best four years of my life. They weren't Beth's favorite four years, but they were they were the best four years of my life. When I look back on that whole serious illness and the rescue that God had orchestrated, I got to think of it on two tracks. Track one was the physical rescue, all those miraculous events and interventions of doctors and the body of Christ coming around us, the provision and the protection that God gave us for those four years and really beyond was amazing. Beth and I could tell you story after story of things that God did to help us. So that physical rescue was life-changing, and I think God meant it to be life-changing, something I would never forget. Track two, though, if track one was the physical rescue, track two was the spiritual rescue. That suffering that I went through revealed heart issues, spiritual heart issues, false gods that I had been unaware of. And like we talked about last week, the heat of the desert tests what's in our hearts. So as I suffered over the months and the years, I started noticing that I was changing. And it was amazing because it was just like the Apostle Paul describes in Romans 5, Romans 5, 3 through 5. You know this verse. That's when he says, But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. And endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. I could not get over it. I was starting to change, and it was just like the Bible said. Who would have thought? I was changing just like Paul said, the suffering will do. So that suffering produced in me endurance. I got a new endurance that I'd never had before. I just as an example, I learned how to be physically uncomfortable for long periods of time without flipping out. I had horrific procedures in the hospital, lots of pain. I was in the same room, same bed, nausea with no end in sight. I learned to carry this uncertainty for long periods of time. Again, without flipping out, finally. I was alone a lot. I was awake during the night a lot. I learned to pray and contemplate God in the night. All this, what we talked about last week, I had that obscurity. God used solitude. It was just him and me. Time much longer than I ever expected. And after a while, I found myself enduring, like Paul said. Now, my body was not getting better, but my endurance was. And Paul says, endurance then produces something else, character. I got a new character. My my illness revealed character issues in me. I was, I found I was somewhat detached from my wife and my children and my friends. I didn't quite realize that, but I was. The fact that I wanted to die rather than trust God, spiritual problem. I was cynical. I had this sense of not feeling loved. I had kind of a hole in my heart. Those, those are just four things that I've noticed over those, over that period of suffering. These are character issues, these are sin issues, otherwise known as heart issues. And the Lord started working on that. So I got a new endurance, and then the endurance led to a new character. I started to change in these big heart issues. And then Paul says, and that character then produces hope. I got a new hope. The new hope Paul's talking about is a new hope in God. Whatever he wants to do or not do with us, we can rest in that hope in God. And I got rescued from worrying about the future. So did Beth. I was thinking, would I ever leave this hospital? When? How? Will I die here? Would I ever be able to work again? Who would who would hire me after a lapse like this? And and how are we ever going to afford these medical expenses? Or will I ever feel good again? These are the kind of things about worrying about the future. It was it was like a Red Sea experience. I came out on the other side after months and years with a new faith in God. I found myself during this period. I was rehearsing a lot of lies about things. And I then started to change and started rehearsing truths. Truths regarding my money and wealth, for example. I realized it's the Lord who gives who gives me the ability to gain wealth, not me. I had to rehearse the truth that God thinks I'm valuable. He knows what I need, and He gave me the kingdom with no regrets. Jesus talks about in that in Luke 12. He says, then I started remembering the truths that my job isn't done when I merely provide financially for my family. The truth, another truth was that less wealth doesn't bring a fruitless life. False gods do. False gods will bring a less fruitful life. But then I realized another truth. My loved ones need me, not my abundance. So I started to have a new relationship reboot with Jesus. And though I was already a Christian, it was kind of like a salvation experience. I now know what it's like to be rescued by God physically and to be rescued by God spiritually. It's an unfathomable rescue. That's why I titled our talk today, Unfathomable Rescue. On so many levels, he came and rescued. And it was God initiating the whole way. Just think about that. That's unfathomable. So many levels of rescue, and then God initiating the whole way. So by crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites had experienced a physical rescue and a spiritual rescue, too. So that's what we're going to read about today. By being rescued from that Egyptian army and walking through the parted Red Sea, that was meant to make an impression on them. They were now eyewitnesses to God's power, and they had this reassurance that God was for them. God loved them. So they had a salvation experience, a new life in the Lord. Let's read about it now. We're going to be picking up the storyline at the point where the ten plagues in Egypt have already happened, all ten of those things. And the last one, where um the firstborn and every household was killed. That was the last one, and Pharaoh finally relented and let the two million Israelites head out. Now, remember, Israel had been in Egypt for 400 years. But now the Exodus is beginning. And they're heading toward the Promised Land, heading toward that land that God swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Canaan. Let's find Canaan in our books. Although that was near. For God said, Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. But God led the people around by way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. What? Yes. Let's do a geography lesson and look at our maps. We're about to read the scripture that's going to mention several locations, so I wanted to tell you about those in advance before we read them. But looking at the map, you see where Egypt is on the left? They were heading toward Canaan. That was the land of Abraham, Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now it was populated by Canaanites, pagans. But that's where God wanted them. That's the promised land. So if you're looking at that, can you see the most direct route? What would that be? You'd kind of head up along the Mediterranean, wouldn't you? Well, that's what you'd think. Well, the Israelites were in an area in Egypt called Goshen. Do you see that there? Goshen? That was an area where Jacob's family settled way back in Genesis 46 and 47, 400 years earlier. And Pharaoh, who was friends with Joseph, Jacob's son Joseph, made a special arrangement for Israel. And they they gave him the land of Goshen. It was a huge settlement and was an area excellent for grazing cattle. You see, Jacob's family were shepherds. And the Egyptians were farmers, and they considered shepherds to be kind of a low status thing. So no one had any problem with these Israelites hanging out in Goshen. It allowed Israel to remain distinct for hundreds of years. It protected them from the assimilation of Egypt and it prepared them for redemption. So they were fruitful and they grew to approximately two million people. And those plagues, those ten plagues, never affected the Israelites in Goshen. The plagues happened over in uh Ramesses and Pi-hahiroth. Okay, now let me just, if you look at the map, there are some numbers. Let's just go over these numbers really quickly. So, first of all, we just mentioned that God did not want them to go the way of the land of the Philistines. There, there's a road that runs right across the Mediterranean Sea, right along the side. It's the fastest route to Canaan. It's a two-week journey. And the Via Maris runs along that Mediterranean coastline. It's a route that was full, that was really militarized. There were Egyptian and Philistine armies there and fortresses there. And it was, they'd encounter fierce resistance if they went that way. So God said, I'm not going to send them that way. They're not ready for war. So God sent them, um, beginning at Ramesses. You see that where number one is? That's the city that the Hebrew slaves built. It was a store city. And uh Pithom is another one. You can see that there. It's where all the action took place with Pharaoh and Moses, right there. That's where the Exodus began. And then they went south. God led them south out of town into Succoth. That's a town. Remember, they're going south. They should be going northeast, don't you think? But God's taking them south. And then they run into Etham. Today we're not sure where that is, but we know it's on the edge of the wilderness in the Sinai Desert. And then they make a turn, presumably north or northeast, to Pi-hahiroth. This is an area. Um they mark there's a there's an area there, a tower that was called Migdol. It was a tower or an Egyptian fort, and there was a statue of a pagan god called Baal-zephon. And so right there is where um is where they kind of make a turn, an unexpected turn. Now they're gonna cross into the Red Sea. Historians will say there's two possibilities of where this happened. We don't know exactly where it happened. One of the possibilities is that they actually crossed over three freshwater lakes. And you see them, do you see Lake Bala or Lake Timsa or the Bitter Lakes? You see those on your map on the left? Sorry, I need to. On the map on the left. Um, it's unlikely they really did this. These freshwater lakes had reeds in them. Um, they were marshy, they were shallow. But for um for theologians that don't believe in the supernatural of the Bible, they will say that that's how Israel got across the Red Sea. It wasn't really the Red Sea, it was just a little marshy area. Very, very unlikely because we know, because we'll read it in a second, the text says the water walled up on them. And if it was just a shallow marshy area, how was it that that drowned the whole Egyptian army? So that's very unlikely, uh really not really biblical. The better place of them crossing over is the Gulf of Suez. If you look at the right-hand map, you'll see two gulfs coming out of the Red Sea, like two fingers. That left finger is the Gulf of Suez, that right finger is the Gulf of Aqaba. So in all in the ancient days, all of it was referred to as the Red Sea. It's probably there that they went. And so God led these people around by way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea, and that's where they most likely crossed. So, right into the water. Let's look now at the at the text. We'll repeat verse 17 again just to give us context. Here we go. When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near, for God said, Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. But God led the people around by Way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt, equipped for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from there. And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by a day, by day, in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. So that pillar of cloud followed them for forty years every day. Let's go to chapter fourteen now. Then the Lord said to Moses, Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon, you shall encamp facing it by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, They are wandering in the land, the wilderness has shut them in, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so. Let's stay on page nineteen for a minute in your booklets. So this is it. After four hundred years, God frees his people and leads them out of Egypt to where? Into the wilderness. Seems counterintuitive. You'd think they need a break. You'd think they'd send them somewhere to rest. No, he sent them into a wilderness, a desert, a place of barrenness and heat. Remember, God is trying to teach them a new appetite. And he's also trying to bait the Egyptians to pursue them. The Egyptians think they're confused. So, God had a perfect school set up in this desert, a protected lab environment for preparation. That desert experience, 40 years, was going to instruct the Israelites in the same things we talked about last week. The desert would humble them, it would test them to see what's in their hearts, it would prepare them for what's next, it would remove their faulty crutches, it would eventually remove their fear, and they would go through it with God alone. Verse 19 says, I took Joseph's bones. Now, we won't read this, but um, way 400 years before Joseph said, as he was about to die, he said, you know, at some point God is gonna come, is gonna come back and get His people and bring them back home. And when that happens, take my bones with you. And they did. They remembered that. But now God sets up this pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. Isn't that something? Author um and speaker Paul Tripp had some great observations about these beleaguered Israelites. He said, you know, if you think about it, these were people that were beaten down and abused for generations by their Egyptian masters. During that time they had no rights, really, and almost no hope. And they were crying out to God who seemed, who seemed so far away and seemed to be unhearing and uncaring. And even after God rescued them, they would probably surely be susceptible for to doubt and to fear, which they did. So look what God did. He gave them a pillar of cloud and fire. It was His very presence. It was a visible personal constant for 40 years. It was a what we call a theophany. Theophany. Theo means God, phaino means to appear or become visible. It was a physical manifestation of God's presence. There are several theophanies in the Old Testament, like the burning bush. Moses stood before God. He couldn't see His face, but God appeared in the burning bush, or the lightning and thunder on the top of Mount Sinai, or when the angel of the Lord came and talked to Jacob, wrestled with Him, or when He came to see Joshua as a warrior. Remember those kind of things? Those were outward displays. This pillar of cloud and fire was an outward display of God's glory. And the pillar was a way to see God's presence. And it gave the people a way to see Him and be with Him. This God's holy presence was in their midst. He was a constant companion and leader from the very start of that journey. He gave them comfort and assurance. And think about it, at any time, day or night, they could look up and see that pillar. God was with them. And it signaled to all the other nations that God's protection and involvement was with Israel. No other people had that. And the assurance that God gave them was going to be with them for 40 years. He will never change his mind. He'll never disappear. He won't get tired of them. He will always be there. This pillar was God Himself. In fact, in verse 21 says, and the Lord went before them. Doesn't say the pillar went before them. The Lord went before them. Okay, now we've got to say it. On verse uh page 20 of your handout. We've got an impulse to say, sure, it would sure be nice to have a pillar in my life. At three in the morning, I would love to just open my eyes and see that pillar of fire out there in the dark. Every minute, every day, all the time, all the time. But actually, we've got something better than that. Remember when Jesus on His last day on earth said, I'm going to ask my Father to give you a helper to be with you forever. And that Holy Spirit will dwell with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. See, there are over a hundred passages in the Bible about God's promise of security and his presence that He'll never leave us, never forget us. It's this is God's constant message to us. And He remember, He created you and me to be with us. He created you to be with you. That's why Jesus was called Emmanuel, God with us. And that's a difference between us Christians having a triune God and these monolithic religions who have a God that remains distant and overtly non-personal. But our God of the Bible is the one who hears, who acts, who makes his presence known. It's in relationship to his people. So this gift of the Holy Spirit is better, Jesus said, than having Him in person. Pastor Tim Keller in New York, the late Pastor Tim Keller, you know, had a church filled with young, upwardly mobile professionals in New York City. They were highly educated in all kinds of fields of business and technology and the arts. And he would say, you know, he had a lot of skeptics come to his church, and a lot of people were curious about Christianity. And he would say, you know, these were these are busy people, educated people. And they would often ask him for just kind of an outline or a set of bullet points about how to be a Christian. You know, they're quick learners, and they were like, hey, I just I just need an owner's manual, just just an outline. And if you know, they thought they could just kind of go off and learn, and then they'd have it, and that'd be great. What were they missing? The relationship with Jesus Himself. And Keller would say it mean being a Christian means following and having a relationship with Jesus. It's not just following instructions. But sometimes we as Christians fall into that trap of just wanting God to give us direction, some answers, relief from pain, a five-star existence, or at least a comfortable existence. So the principle here is that our impulse to want guidance only from God, who created us to be with us, is rooted in wanting God's gifts more than God's presence. Is God's presence that big of a deal? Yes. It's the relationship that God's always wanted from us from the start. That the Holy Spirit will sanctify us, grow us, convict us of sin, change our hearts, give us new desires, and give us a relationship with them. That's way better than a pillar of cloud. So the the Israelites would gladly exchange their pillar of cloud for our Holy Spirit. So, what has God taught us about Himself? He's taught us just by what we've read so far. Um, God knows His people, He knows how we're wired, He knows what we can handle. Have you ever seen God do that to you? You take your well-laid plans and then alter them to our great disappointment, and then point us elsewhere? And in the end, we can kind of look back and realize, gosh, He really does know me. And I didn't see any of the trouble ahead, but he did. That, and and we realize we really do need him. So God knows us. We can see just from this text, and God keeps His promises, and that God's always present to His people. Remember, God didn't have to do this for Israel. He did not have to do this, but he did. He was with them, and he wanted them to remember it. We also learned that God's powerful enough to make everything work for his glory. He used Pharaoh, he used um this weird route in the desert, all for their benefit. He used it all. And then he's also unfathomable. God seems, God's leading seemed to be the wrong way to get out, but it's in this midst of hardship. We can seldom tell what God's doing in our lives. He's unfathomable. It seems like we can tell what he's doing. We almost always cannot. God's always accomplishing more. So, you know, another principle is that God rescues his people in ways they need it, often with a wilderness than never expected, wise protection, and larger plans that can be larger plans than we think we can conceive at the time. All right, let's go to page 21. Let's keep reading. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, What is this we have done that we have let Israel go from serving us? So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, and took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and He pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them encamped by the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, I love this. Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt? Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians. For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. And Moses said to the people, Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. 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. So every household in Egypt had lost, had somebody dead in it, and they were mad. They had a scary army with six hundred chosen chariots, and they were all coming for them. And they used to, the Israelites marched out of Egypt defiantly, but when they saw that dust cloud in the distance, they and they were pinned against the sea, they panicked. So we've got to analyze their reaction. They cried out to the Lord, which is good, but they suspected the plan all along was to kill them. See, it was exposing their heart. What are some of the lies revealed in those statements about that he's trying to kill them? They're thinking that slavery would have been better. And that and that security in the way they used to live would have been better than what they do now, what they have now. The devil I know is better than the devil I don't, kind of thing. And those mighty miracles, those ten plagues, who cares? What's going on now is what we care about. And God doesn't seem to be for us. It seems like, gee, have you ever thought about this? That my luck with God has run out? That in this situation that I'm in, this desert I'm in right now, God's got no provision for me. You think that way? You know, more than losing their nerve, it was a lack of faith. They had forgotten what God was like, and Moses was blindsided by that response. And he told them to go, to stand firm and be silent, to shut up is what the the way that Hebrew is actually read. So let's not forget to see, though, God's patience within. These Israelites were ungrateful and doubting and unfaithful, but God was patient, and He didn't punish them for their unbelief, and He was faithful in the face of their unfaithfulness. So, the scripture now describes the event itself kind of matter-of-factly. Let's look at it. It goes like this 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 hosts of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was a cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night, without one coming near 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, 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 all his horsemen. And in the morning watched the Lord in the pillar of fire and in the 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, upon their horsemen. So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when morning appeared, and 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 and all the host 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. Israel saw the great power of the Lord used against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses. There's a reason why this event is so treasured by thousands, by believers for thousands of years. It's because the people contributed nothing. God did everything. Let me count the ways in the last couple minutes. Just notice what we just read and just count them. This is what the Lord did, not Israel. So the angel of the Lord and the pillar of cloud and fire moved from the advance guard to being the rear guard. It positioned himself, he positioned himself between the massive threat and the defenseless people. Did you remember that? The cloud moved between the enemy and Israel, so Israel could keep proceeding. Isn't that cool? He he created darkness and still lit up the night. He drove the sea back and he walled them on the left and the right. He created a strong east wind that made the sea dry. And the sea land dry. And he threw the Egyptians into a panic. He did that. And then he clogged their chariot wheels. Don't you love that? God got into the details like that, clogged their chariot wheels. And then he sapped the courage of the best Egyptian soldiers. And then he made the sea return at just the right time. And all the Egyptians were killed. And God restored the faith of the Israelites for the Lord and Moses. He did everything. The Israelites did not do anything to save themselves. Page 23. They didn't kill any Egyptians. They didn't defend themselves. They didn't fight the Egyptians. Have you ever noticed in your life when you're walking with the Lord and He intervenes and He answers prayer? He answers in such a way that you know that it's His doing. You ever notice that? You see His hand in details that really exceeded your expectations. You got a fuller answer than you asked for. God often answers aspects of our prayers that we didn't even think to ask about, but He gave us anyway. Have you noticed that you get to give credit to Him and Him alone when He answers your prayers? And we kind of come away realizing, gosh, the Lord really does know me. He knows my circumstances and He knows how to bless me. So the next morning the sun rose on people who had now been redeemed. And it looks a lot like when we are redeemed by the Lord. Although, you know, although God redeemed Israel from Israel from slavery, he did much more. He he left, He let them leave behind their old life and now join Moses. You know, the apostle Paul calls about, makes a reference to the Red Sea when he's talking in 1 Corinthians 10. He says, you know, we kind of undergo our own exodus and now come under Jesus' leadership. The Israelites came under Moses' leadership after that event. Now, when we are saved, we come under Jesus' leadership. And he said that we are in Christ today, someone who leaves behind our old life and our bondage to sin and death, and we're baptized into the death of Christ, buried and then raised to new life. So Paul says that that Red Sea experience for Israel is kind of a vivid picture of our deliverance in Christ. It wasn't just a physical rescue, it was a spiritual salvation for Israel and for us. You know, many times God ordained suffering, and instead of letting it bypass us, he lets it happen. And in my illness, I remember laying in that hospital bed, and then years later lying on my bed at home or on the couch. And I've got to say that I took comfort in the fact that I was able to endure God's wise path because Christ had already come and delivered me. My deliverance had already happened when the Lord saved me. And because my deliverance had already happened, I was able to endure God's wise path of suffering for me and really reap the fruit of that suffering with a new endurance and a new character and a new hope. God is so comprehensive. He thinks of everything and he anticipates everything. He comprehensively cares for us in a lot more ways than we could ask for. So to this day, the Jews, even today, remember this Red Sea experience. They talk about it a lot. I forget where I am. Okay. Is that it? Okay. No? No, no. That's somewhere in here. Okay. So if you know anything about Jews, they they view this Red Sea experience as the defining salvation event in Judaism. The Red Sea experience shows up all the time in their worship, in their identity, and their theology, in their ethics, and their hope for the future. You know, this Red Sea experience marked the birth of their free nation. It was the dividing line between what they were, slaves, now they're free, between fear and trust, Pharaoh's kingdom and God's kingdom. And whenever God, you'll see it all over the Bible, whenever God wanted to remind Israel of who he is, he always says things like, I'm the Lord your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And that and the song they sang in Exodus 15 is something the Jews sing for their morning prayers. It's the Shirat HaYam, I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. They view the Red Sea as hope, that oppression is not the final word, that God remembers his covenant. So for the Jews, that Red Sea crossing is not just some ancient miracle, it's a foundational example of God's power to save his people. So as we end, the principle is sometimes we don't grasp the Lord's love for us. We have to be shown. God set up the Red Sea experience to show us the breadth of His power and the depth of His love and care. It's meant to leave a mark on us. Is that something? This was done for us. To leave a mark. He knows how to redeem us physically and spiritually. Let's pray. Father God. Who would we go to but you? You love us, you know us, you know how to rescue us, and you have. You have already come. We thank you for that deliverance. Thank you for the Red Sea that we can contemplate and remember you. It's in the strong name of Jesus we pray. Amen. See you next week, everybody.