Let us have our Bibles open to the book of Exodus chapter 15. I want to consider a number of things about this passage that we read a moment ago, the latter portion of the Song of Moses. It was a marvelous thing that God did for Israel. He delivered them from all the power of Egypt. It should have showed them that they had nothing to fear from man. The army of Pharaoh and his government was the highest concentration of natural power organized by men in that day. There was nothing could stand before the armies of Pharaoh. He was proud, he was arrogant, and he was certain he would be able to bring Israel back into captivity and keep them as slaves in the land of Egypt. But the combined and concentrated power of man was no match even for the wind of God. For Moses said, thou didst blow with thy wind. And Pharaoh and his army were drowned in the Red Sea. Israel should have noted, they should have paid attention, and they did for a time. But they soon would decline from their confidence and faith because their hearts were hard. In verse 11, after recounting the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies, Moses returns to the attributes of God. He says, there is no God like Jehovah. And the phrases that follow show the differences between God and all that is called God in the earth. For the gods of men are but the figments of their imaginations. They're the work of their own hands, in carvings of wood or stone, or the splatters of paint upon a canvas. There is no living God but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his attributes are set forth in the passage and in the verses that follow, beginning with verse number 11. Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, O Lord, among the gods? It doesn't matter what you take as the meaning of the word God, whether you mean false deities or whether you mean various powers in the earth, Angels, principalities, for these words can all be denominated by the word God in the scriptures. But there is only one true and living God, and that is Jehovah, the self-existent one. And he returns to the attributes of God. Now if you change the attributes of anything that you think about, you have changed the thing. The attributes are what you call into your mind that you associate with the name of a thing. A cat has different attributes than the Eiffel Tower. You change the attributes and you confuse people. A very common method of deception is to use words that sound the same, but have different attributes. And people, you change the subject in the middle of the argument, and sometimes people, if they're not sharp, they won't know you did it. And some people get very good at it. And so when you say that all men everywhere of whatever religion worship the same God, The only way that could possibly be true is if the word God has no attribute. That is simply a flutter in the mind, a sound that means nothing. For the God that created the heavens and the earth is not the God of Islam or of Hinduism. The God of the Bible is distinct from all the gods of the world. And one of the strengths of Christianity is to insist upon the distinctiveness of the Christian faith and not give order on that subject, no matter how unpopular or politically incorrect it becomes. God made a distinction between those who worshipped him, between Israel and Pharaoh. Pharaoh worshipped the gods of the Egyptians and sank like lead in the bottom of the sea. And God delivered his people. And Moses magnifies the attributes of God. He says he is glorious. in holiness. His holiness is bright and shining that far surpasses all the other glories of the world, insomuch as they do not even appear to be glorious. As the stars fade out at the rising of the sun, so the glories of all the earth fade before the glory of God. Not even Moses could properly look at the face of God in all His glory. We see in the passage that is contained in Exodus 33. Turn there. Exodus 33 verse number 12. Exodus 33 verse number 12. It was after God threatened to abandon the children of Israel because of their sins. And Moses prayed for them. He said, Go up with us. Your presence must go with us. And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I find grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people. And he, that is God, said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said to him, If thy presence go not with me, carry me not up fence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and my people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. The difference between Israel and all the nations of the world is that you go with us, O God. Moses understood that, even though many in Israel did not. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Moses prayed, show me thy glory. And God said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put thee in a cleft of a rock, and I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. And this method of revealing himself to Moses was for the purpose of showing that the glory of God cannot be beheld by the creature. Of course, God does not move from place to place. God does not have hands. He has no Hyder parts. But these are figures to show us that the glory of God exceeds all the glory of men, all the glory of creation. His glory is excellent. His glory is marvelous. and is the glory of holiness, which means He is not like anything that He made. There is no comparison. As Isaiah says in chapter 40, there is no comparison that you can make that exhausts the being of God. He is like a Father. He is like a Judge. He is like a man of war. He is like a wind. He is like a fire. There is no figure anywhere that you can use that exhausts the glory of God. For we have no ladders that can reach to God, nothing that can rise up, for He has set His glory above the heavens. Now this does not contradict those passages where Moses speaks to God face to face. For those latter passages refer to the angel of the Lord, the means by which God communicated to Moses, which I believe was a pre-incarnational appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the glory of God, properly so called, was concealed as it was in Christ when he appeared. So that Moses could look at that being face to face. But the glory of God, properly so called, could not even be seen by the angels themselves, as we shall see. Now the glory of God has only been revealed gradually in the history of the world. The glory of God did not break forth in full splendor at the beginning, even in creation. Although creation declares the glory of God, it shows it forth. There's the glory of the sun, the glory of the stars. How glorious was that first day when God said, let there be light, and there was light. But the light that shone forth on that first day of creation is not the glory of God, it is a created glory. And God began over the course of the centuries to reveal His glory in creation, in the promises of God, in the pillar of cloud and fire which led the children of Israel, in the face of Moses as he came down from the mountain. The glory that was so great in the face of Moses having been with God that he had to hide his face behind a veil because the hardness of the hearts of the children of Israel could not bear to look upon the glory of God that was even then fading from the face of Moses. And in the face of Jesus Christ. For the glory of God is revealed in Christ. But even when he appeared, the glory of God was veiled in his flesh. Only for a few times, only were there a few glimpses during his earthly life where a measure of the glory of God shined forth from Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration and maybe some other places. It was veiled in Christ until his crucifixion when his body was broken. The veil of His flesh was rent asunder that the glory of God might shine forth. And the veil of the temple was rent so that we might have access. But even then, Paul says, we see through a glass darkly. We behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ as in a mirror. And we will not behold the full glory of Christ until the resurrection of the dead, when we rise from the dead, and we shall see Him face to face, and we shall be like Him. But even then, it will be in the mediator. The glory of God will not be seen by us, for it is above the heavens. It is glory indeed. He is glorious in holiness. He is also fearful in praises. If there is a message that needs to be preached from one end of the Christian community to the other, it is this message that God is fearful in praises. What on earth does that mean? Well, first of all, we need to understand that we do not fully praise the Lord. That our praises are useless. In fact, they are an affront to Him if they are not offered to Him in a godly manner. If they are not offered in fear. You don't just rush into God's presence. Everywhere in the Scriptures, everywhere in the Scriptures, we're called to come before Him solemnly, prepared. And it is a fearful thing to offer unto Him worship if you are not prepared. Look at Isaiah chapter number 6. Isaiah chapter number six. Isaiah chapter number six. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up in His train, filled the temple. That is, all that pertained to Him filled the temple in heaven. Above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, two of them he covered his face, two of them he covered his feet, and with two of them he did fly. Even the angels must cover their faces before the throne of God, for they are not worthy to look upon his glory. With two of their wings, they covered their feet, for they are so glorious that they must be hidden from us. Think of it. The glory of the angels is so great that they hide themselves, lest they destroy us. And with two, they fly to do the bidding of God for their ministers, ministering spirits to those who will be heirs of eternal life. Two wings to speed them on their mission. How fearful is this scene? And Isaiah felt undone. He fell on the ground. He said, I am a man of unclean lips. I'm undone. Woe is me. I'm a sinful foe. Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having alive cold his hands, verse 6, which he had taken from the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this has touched thy lips, thine iniquities taken away, and thy sin is purged. How undone Isaiah felt at even this manifestation of the glory of God, which still does not fully reveal the fullness of the glory of God. Moses said, I have seen the Lord of hosts. No, Isaiah, you didn't. You saw a manifestation of the Lord of hosts. How filled with fear our praises ought to be! What a sense of awe must fill us! How often do our praises really denigrate the God who is! Silly little ditties, irreverent little toons, sent more for selling ice cream on the street, than worshipping the Lord of hosts. How awful is the purity that is required to gaze upon even the end of his train that filled the temple. Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. A profane and worldly generation will not even behold the angels of God. let alone God, fearful in praises, doing wonders. God does not dance to our tune. Nobody And the whole throng of the Israelites even imagined what it was that God was going to do. They came up to the Red Sea. Their way was blocked. They were blocked on the right hand. They were blocked on the left hand. The armies of Egypt were coming behind them. There was no place for them to go. They had no idea of what God intended to do. And they complained to Moses. They felt that the end of themselves as a nation was coming upon them. They had no sense that God would open the Red Sea and lead them through. God does not dance to our tune. He does not mourn when we mourn. He does not sing when we sing. He's not waiting up in heaven to find out what you're going to do until He can find out what He can do. We are called not to behave like children in the marketplace who think that way. Jesus said to the Jews, you're like children in the marketplace. You expected Me to dance when you said dance. You expected Me to mourn when you said mourn. You're not to be like children in the marketplace. We are His images. He is not ours. Israel could have no idea of the resources that God had to deliver them and to supply their needs, as we shall see. But their hearts were very hard. And God taught them by this song, taught them by Moses, that it would be sung throughout their generations. It would teach them if they had ears to hear and eyes to see. And it will teach us also if we will pay heed to it. He said, that God is fearful and praises. He does wonders and He speaks of the great right hand of His power. He said in verse number 12, Thou stretchest out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou and Thy mercy has led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed, thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." Moses here speaks from anticipation. He speaks anticipating that God will lead them to the mountain of God and there give them law and give them instructions for building the house of God as we spoke a couple of weeks ago. A house of habitation for the Lord. His right hand is a hand of great power, and there is nothing too hard for him. We can fast forward from this scene, we can fast forward to many, many, many years later, during the end of the Kingdom of Israel, when they would be carried away captive. when their temple would be destroyed and their world as they knew it would come to an end as if it would appear that all the promises and all the covenants and all the blessings that God had promised them would all come to nothing. Turn, if you will, to the book of Jeremiah, chapter number 32. Jeremiah 32. Ah, if Israel could remember the song of Moses at this late day in their history. Jeremiah 32. In this chapter, God is giving Jeremiah a promise. He's saying, you're going to be captured, the temple and the city will be destroyed. But Jeremiah, I want you to go buy some land and some houses in Jerusalem. It's all going to be thrown, it's all going to be lost, Jeremiah, but I want you to go buy some property. Think about that. He says, I'm going to bring them back again. I want to begin reading with verse number 17. The promise of God, the prayer of Jeremiah and God's answer to him. Jeremiah chapter 32 and verse number 17. Our Lord God behold us made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arms There is nothing too hard for thee. I wonder if Jeremiah was remembering the song of Moses. The God by his right hand overthrew the armies of Pharaoh. Thou showed loving kindness unto thousands, and recompensed the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of the children after them. The great and mighty God, the Lord of hosts, is his name. Great in counsel, mighty in work, for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings, which has had signs and wonders in the land of Egypt even unto this day, and in Israel among other men, and has made thee a name as at this day." Yes, he did remember the song of Moses. Thou hast brought forth Thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, with wonders, with a strong hand, with a stretched out arm of the great terror, and hast given them this land which Thou didst swear to Thy fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. Lord, You kept all Your promises. And they came in and possessed it, but they obeyed not Thy voice, neither walked in Thy law. They have done nothing at all that Thou commandest them to do. Therefore thou hast caused all this evil to come upon them. Behold the mounts, they are coming to the city to take it. The city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Even then they were building fortifications against the city. They fight against it because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence. And what thou hast spoken is come to pass. And behold, you'll see it. And thou said unto me, O Lord God, buy thee a field for money, and take witness, for the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.' Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?" He said, you started your prayer right. Go with that, Jeremiah. Therefore thus saith the Lord, I will give this city to the land and to the Chaldeans, The hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, he shall take the Chaldeans and fight against the city, shall come and set fire to the city, and burn it with the houses upon whose roofs they have offered incense unto Baal, and poured out drink offerings unto other gods to provoke me to anger. For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their youth. For the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, saith the Lord. For this city hath been to me a provocation of mine anger and my fury from the day that they built it. even to this day, that I should remove it from before my face, because of all the evil of the children of Israel, the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I'm sick of it all. And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face, though I taught them, rising up early, and teaching them. Yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name to defile it. They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I commanded them not, neither came it to my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause it Judah to sin. Now therefore, saith the Lord, to God of Israel concerning this city, wherever you say, it shall be delivered into the hand of the King of the Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. And you're right, it will be. But, behold, I will gather them out of all countries which I have driven them in mine anger and in my fury and in great wrath, and I will bring them again into this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever. for the good of them and of their children after them, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and I will not turn away from them to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me." Now those of you who know the New Testament know that this passage is a prediction of the coming of Christ and the gathering of His people to form the church. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is a symbol and a sign of God's future gathering of the people of God out of every kindred and tribe and nation to form a people for the name of Christ. He is the Lord. There is nothing too hard for Him. He said, I will do it. I will do it, Jeremiah. The destruction of this temple, the destruction of these people, the setting aside of these people is not the end. They will be gathered again. The temple will be rebuilt. You're going to recoup your investments you're going to make in the city of Jerusalem. You and your children. And the Lord himself shall come to the temple. And he will erect a new and far better temple. A house of habitation for God. which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Because the fear of God would come upon all the nations of the world, as Moses said here, all the nations of the Canaanites would fear the fear of God would come upon them, and they would not be able to stand before the children of Israel. The fear of the Lord would come upon all nations, For the kingdom of God would be established in the mountain of the Lord, of which Sinai was but a figure. As the book of Hebrews tells us in chapter number 12. And so what is the end of these things? It is simply this. The glory of the Lord will be revealed. It will take centuries, Moses. It's going to go for a long, long time. Moses you're seeing way into the future. And this song will be sung in Israel. It will be sung in principle in the church. And in the book of Revelation we're going to see that the multitudes of people gathered before the throne will sing the song of Moses. They will sing of the redemption of which the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies is a figure and a type. Did Israel know? No, they did not know, for their hearts were hard. There were some who did. But in the events that followed after the Song of Moses, after the women came out and they also rejoiced and they answered the Song of Moses, yes, God has overthrown Pharaoh and his armies in the sea, not knowing, I believe, fully of what they spoke. Did not know, certainly, the prophetic nature of this great passage. How do we know they didn't understand? Because they declined so quickly from the high point of this song and the rejoicing before the Lord. They moved from the Red Sea, as we read there in Exodus 15, in verse 22, So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, For they were bitter, therefore the name of the place was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? After seeing the whole of Egypt swallowed up by the Red Sea, they began to gripe about not having enough water to drink. Just a few days later, Their hearts were hard. They did not believe. They did not trust. And God in His graciousness and His kindness to them allowed them to be tested. It was going to be a long journey. It was going to be a long time before they would come into the land of Canaan. It would be a long time before they were prepared for war. prepared for conquest. Many, many years would go by, and Israel needed to be forged in the fires of tribulation and trial, and here was a test. Why didn't God lead them to a good pool of water? Why did He take them to that one? Or couldn't he have anticipated that they're going to come and said, now Moses, you send a couple of young men out ahead and cut this tree down and throw it in so it's ready for the Israel when they get there. There are many things God could have done. He lacks no resources. The heavens, even the heavens are His. All the resources, the power of the world, He doesn't deal with reality as he finds it. He creates the reality. So they come to bitter waters. There are going to be many bitter waters along the road from Egypt to Canaan. You're going to know better waters in your family. You're going to know better waters in your church. You're going to know better waters in your associates, in your business, in everyday life. You're going to know better waters. They're going to come. God has ordained them. And God ordained these here. He said, I brought them here because I want to teach them something. I want to teach them whether or not they're going to keep My commandments or not. He said, if you will diligently listen to the voice of my commandment, I will heal all your diseases. Not only the diseases of your body, I will not only satisfy the thirst of your body, I will satisfy the thirst of your soul. You're not going to be like these bitter, arrogant people of the world. Shame on the church if they're filled with bitterness and anger and strife and fussing and fighting because of the bitterness that's in their soul. The Lord has better things for you and me. I am the Lord that healeth thee, he said. And he said, Moses, Moses, go cut the tree down. Now I don't know if there was anything special about this tree. I don't know if it had a chemical in its bark that would heal the water. I don't know. The Lord doesn't say. Whatever the case, it was a great miracle because one tree wouldn't think there'd be enough of whatever it had to heal a whole pool of water enough to feed several million people. If it did have a natural cure, then God greatly multiplied its effectiveness. No matter how you look at it, it was a great act of God's mercy. God healed the bitterness. It was a symbol. That God is able to heal the bitterness of Israel. The bitterness that was in the soul. The bitterness that is in the body. God is able to do as He pleases. And we are called to trust Him. This was a great test for Israel. The first test after they left the Red Sea. And you know what? They failed it. They failed it bitterly. There would be many other tests. Some they would pass. Most of them they would fail. Because their hearts were very hard. But how gracious is the Lord. How gracious and wonderful He is. Even though they stumbled at the bitter waters of Myra, God led them on to an oasis of palm trees and water, fresh and flowing. And there at Elam, they rested by the waters. God sends, Penny and I have talked about this many times, We've had a number of trials during our marriage. I've been her trial, she hasn't been a trial to me. But we've had trials in our marriage over the years. We've had trials in church, trials in family. And it seems like every time we're called to go through a trial, a bitter time, there are the waters of Elam afterwards. The Lord is gracious to his people. He will not suffer you to be tempted. Above that, you are able. He will lead you into the fresh water as he did to Israel. How gracious he was to his people. Well, may God bless you. Let us pray. We thank you, our Father, for your mercies to us. We thank you for all your kindness and all your grace to us. And we pray, dear Lord, that in all things You would show Yourself strong on behalf of Your people. Deliver us, O Lord, from the bitter waters, and sweeten the trials that we may be able to endure. And may we rest beside the wells of water that You have provided for us along the way. We pray in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.