Open—Stephen Rule
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We've seen #46 in the appendix.
46 in the back.
Uh-huh.
Eleven, 2018.
My name is.
Umm.
Nsnoise.
Like to briefly pass on a very simple principle. I hope it has broad practical application for you. This is something that's been a real encouragement to me lately, and I trust it will be for you. He turns with me to Exodus chapter 14. Just read a few verses there.
Just for context, let's read from verse 10.
Exodus 14, verse 10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore Hasta dealt with us thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt?
Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?
For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
00:05:23
And the Lord said unto Moses.
Wherefore cryst thou unto me, speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.
Just this very simple, extremely practical lesson.
Moses says to the children of Israel, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The Lord says to Moses, speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward, stand still, go forward. Now there's many things that could be drawn from this passage, but this is what I've enjoyed. We're all in circumstances and confident of it. Every single one of us are in circumstances that are well beyond our ability to.
Of them.
Sometimes it's really obvious, sometimes it's maybe not so obvious that everyone of us is in a set of circumstances that's completely out of our power. The children of Israel here realized it. They saw Pharaoh drawing 9, and you can just see that group of shepherds watching the most powerful military they'd ever known approaching them across the desert sand.
With the Red Sea on one side.
And Ferro on the other must have been a pretty tremendously distressing moment. Perhaps you're in a moment like that where you're trapped, unable to move and naturally speaking according to all your personal experience, there's not a way out. And they, it says it's, it's nice. It says they cried under the old Lord. The verse, the end of verse 10, they did cry unto the Lord.
They complained to Moses, but they cried unto the Lord. And perhaps we're in circumstances that are really beyond us.
And the Lord's message to our heart is stand still and see.
That is.
What's going to get you out of this set of circumstances is not your clever effort. It's not your careful planning. It's not how you're going to figure this one out. Present the plan to me and I'll ratify it. What's going to get you out of the circumstance is I will deliver you not before me. The, the, of course, all the typical teaching of the Red Sea, and it's a wonderful thing, but it's a practical lesson of faith counting on God.
That, I think is extremely important for every single one of us, no matter what that circumstance we face in our life is a couple that together with go forward.
Couple it together with go forward. That is the Lord is the only one that can take you out of or take you through the circumstance that you're in at the moment.
But he has a step for you to take in faith. Now, some of us are the nail biter types. You see something coming and you can figure out all the ways that can go bad, all the different ways that things can fall apart. And so we're sitting there fussing and worrying over all the things that could happen.
The Lord says to your heart and to mind, stand still and see.
But there's others that.
UMM might tend to take the approach that says, well, we'll have to take care of it. I'll go on about whatever I wanna do. It's in the Lord's hands. And the combination of these two things is stand still and go forward. There's a step to take in faith. Whatever the circumstance is in your life, there's a step to take in faith.
Perhaps it's with your children and there's that great burden on your heart for your children.
You'd love to see their heart turn toward the Lord. You'd love to see those signs of growth and the little leaves budding out and forget fruit beginning to be produced. And you know the principle first, uh, the blade, then the year, then the full corn in the year. And so the Lord has to bring that blessing into their lives. He has to do it.
But the Lord says fill the water pots with water. It's a feast of Cana of Galilee. There were those empty water pots. There wasn't the wine for that feast. And there's going to be that miracle of the water being turned to wine. The Lord had to do it. But there was a step to take in faith, and that step to take in faith was to fill those water pots with water.
00:10:06
There was the widow woman in Second Kings chapter 4 and she came. Maybe hold your finger here. Just turn to 2nd Kings chapter 4.
And.
There's another desperate situation, not as outwardly dramatic to the world around not as many witnesses.
But Second Games, chapter 4, verse one, this is a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets, and she came to Elijah, saying that thy servant, my husband is dead.
And the end of the verse, The creditors come to take him unto him, my two sons to be bondsman.
There's a situation where her heart needed to hear those words, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And she goes to the right source. She goes to the man of God. She presents the problem. She's a widow lady, two sons without resources. She's about to lose everything and she finds an answer. But the answer involves a step of faith. Go borrow the vessels abroad in verse three. Of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few, and you know the story.
The Lord comes along and He fills them. He fills every single one of them until the vessels ran out, not the oil, and then the oil ran out, and then the oil stayed. And so whatever the situation, whatever the circumstance in your life, it's like to pass on this very practical, very simple thing rather than sitting there and fussing over it.
As so many of us do, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
And go forward, take that next step of faith, pour a little more water into the water pot, give a little bit more of the word of God so that child of yours that you pray for every single day.
Go borrow another vessel to fill with oil, because the oil won't stop until the vessels stop. Take that next step of faith. Are you in the circumstance in your assembly where there is an impossible problem? And it may feel like you're pinned between Pharaoh and the sea? You know, the pillar of cloud went around in behind and it parked between them. And the Egyptian Lord is very merciful in these circumstances and before he opened.
See, He parked the pillar of cloud between them and the Egyptian. The Lord can steal your heart before He solves the obvious problem. He can make that heart stand still and stop fussing. But at the same time, he says go forward. There's a step to take in faith. There's something that God has given you to do in your circumstance, and I just encourage you with that simple word.
Go forward. They stepped, I presume, down to the border of the Red Sea.
And then the Lord had given Moses something to do. He does it. The sea opens in front of them.
They didn't curl up and hide in their tents. They didn't go into the fetal position and wait for the slaughter of the Egyptian or for the Lord to pick them up and carry them to the other side. He gives us a path of faith. He does send a donkey to help Carrie. If you're the, if you're the man that was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, he sends the donkey to help carry. But as a practical matter for a believer, uh.
He asked us to take that next step of faith, the next step of faith and the next step of faith without the nail biting, standing still in spirit and going forward in faith.