Thru the Bible - Minute with McGee on Oneplace.com

God brought them across the Red Sea by power, mighty power. Only the power of God could do that. And you see here, He’s bearing them on eagles’ wings—He’s carrying them that way. And then they’ve come out now of slavery to freedom. They’ve come out of the brickyards to go to the Promised Land. From Egypt now to Sinai, from death to life, from Egyptian darkness to heaven’s light, from the helplessness under the slave master to the very heart of God; all the way from defeat to victory. Oh, God bore them on eagles’ wings, and that’s the way He bears us today.

There’s nothing between our soul and God, and there’s no broken reed to lean upon. The wisdom of God and the wisdom of man are contradictory. So much so that if one is wisdom, the other is foolishness. God has said, “It’s not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, and it’s not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, and the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, and the wisdom that’s from above is the wisdom we need today.” And, therefore, the thing that’s important here, and it’s a tremendous lesson for us today, we need the power of God, not more methods or different methods or new methods.

God was dealing with Moses directly. He was equipping him for the great task of delivering this people. And God did not want a third party brought in which would dissipate or insulate the power of God coming directly to Moses. You remember God spoke face to face with Moses. And there is the tendency to want things in persons to come between us and God. There are a great many people that do not like to do business directly with God. They like to go through a man or a church or a ceremony or through something, or even a book or go to a conference. All of these have their place. But, friends, we need to go directly to God.

The dear little lady when she was talking about, she had the assurance of her salvation, why they said, “Why don’t you know you talk about nobody can take you out of His hand? Well, you might slip through His fingers.” And she said, “Oh my, no. I couldn’t slip through His fingers; I’m one of His fingers.” We are members of the body of Christ, friends, and the Spirit of God joins us to Him. What a glorious, wonderful redemption that we have in Christ. “All of these things happened unto them for examples to us.” Here’s a picture of our redemption and what the Spirit of God does when we trust the Lord Jesus as our Savior.

Friends, when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, He is the one that takes us out of the Egyptian bondage and the Egyptian darkness of this world. He leads us across the Red Sea of His deliverance, of His salvation, of His redemption, and He brings us to the place where we can lift a song of redemption unto Him, and we’re joined to Him. We are baptized into Christ. By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. The Holy Spirit is the one that joins us to Christ, and we become one with Him. And friends, that’s a wonderful thing to be joined to Him.

“And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.” The interesting thing to note here is God worked through the pillar of fire and the cloud. And I think this represents the Holy Spirit. God works through the Holy Spirit. He does today, and here you find Him moving through the Holy Spirit or through the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. And they were led as the child of God should be led today, by the Spirit of God.

“Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” You see, the Lord here is the one that will work in their behalf. All they have to do is to accept it and receive the salvation. They are to stand still. God will be the one that will move in their behalf. And, my friend, you can’t lift a little finger to work out your salvation. All you have to do is to accept what God has done for you. “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” That’s the wonderful thing for us—it’s God who works. It’s God who wrought our salvation.

Man today is probably the greatest—or let me turn that around and say, the most colossal failure in God’s universe. And any way you look at him, he is. Man by the very brevity of his life is that, by the uncertainty of his life. That’s the condition of man today. And look at these children of Israel; they’ll never get out unless God moves in their behalf. And you and I could never be redeemed unless God did it, friends. Redemption is the work of the Lord. “Salvation is of the Lord.” Jonah said that. David said that. And that’s the message of the New Testament—that salvation is of the Lord.

I can’t help but be sick when I see the attitude of some Christians. They feel like God’s got to perform a miracle every minute for them and that you have a right to demand of the Lord that He intervene for you. If you’re sick, He has to heal you and all that sort of thing. Well, my friend, He can do it. It’s not a question of God’s ability. It’s always a question of the willingness of God and whether this is the way God wants to do it. When it’s necessary, God’s prepared to perform a miracle for us, but only to accomplish His will and His way in our lives.

Now the children of Israel, just as they’re on the wilderness march, they’ve just come out of Egypt and God says to them, “The firstborn belongs to Me.” And immediately, many of them could say, “Well, look, Lord, You’ve just delivered us out of slavery and now You’re already claiming one of ours.” Well, the Lord Jesus does the same thing for you and me today. He saves us out of the bondage of sin and delivers us and sets us free. He also is saying that, “I want you to give yourself to Me.” Well, you say, “I’m free.” You are? You don’t have to, but the important thing is the blessing comes when we voluntarily come and put Him first.

God claims the first in everything, and He wants to have first place in our lives. The problem has always been so many believers today put Him last. They say, “If I have time, I’ll do this for the Lord.” And they don’t have time because they’ve been giving time to something that is their own, something that was for their own personal interest or amusement. There are those that say, “Yes, I’m going to give the Lord part of what I make if there’s any left over.” When you put Him first, may I say that that means you put Him first. That’s no mucking around, no compromising, no half-truth in saying that we put God first. He must come first.

There’s a great principle that runs all the way through the Word of God, and it is, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” In other words, God cannot arbitrarily or big-heartedly shut His eyes to sin and do nothing about it any more than a judge when there is brought before him one guilty, the judge should apply the law and the penalty should be paid. The important thing is that in God’s universe, why law is inexorable. “And the soul that sinneth, it must die.” Therefore, life must be given up for me, a sinner. You see, the death sentence is on all of us. Now if you will accept Christ by faith, you’ll be saved.

In the book of Exodus the deliverance is first by blood; that’s the Passover Feast, the death of the firstborn. And then we have crossing the Red Sea and the destruction of the army of Egypt. And that’s by power. God delivered them by blood and by power. And redemption, friends, today, is by blood and by power—the blood that the Lord Jesus shed for us to pay the penalty for our sin. And then the power of the Holy Spirit in making this real and making it effectual in our sinful hearts. So it’s the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross for us. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

“Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt.” Now those that didn’t believe God, then naturally they made no provision for protection. That’s the same message that God has for the world today. That judgment is coming and that man’s not wise today to go on as if nothing is going to happen. It was that way in the days of Noah; it will be that when He comes again in judgment. All God does is ask you to believe Him.

Friends, if you don’t change your life, you’re not a Christian, you see. Now don’t come back and say to me, “Well, now you’re saying that you have to perform good works to be a Christian.” No, I don’t say it that way. May I say this: That you’re saved by faith in Christ and nothing else, and works is excluded. But if you have put saving faith in Christ, it’ll change your life. And that’s where conduct comes in. You see, Christianity believes that the life should be changed and the conduct should be changed, but you’ve got to change the inner man first and not the outward man. That is the thing that’s all important.

One of the reasons that it’s so difficult for God to move today, even in the church or in the lives and hearts of many of us, when we are always getting in the way to take the credit, then the hand of God, the mighty bared arm of God is not revealed. The human element has to be put out of the way; has to be put to the side. Paul said, “I know that within me (that is, within my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.” Now, friends, if you don’t believe that, then you believe God. He said that. And it’s mighty hard for some of us to think that there’s not a little good in us, because we’ve been counting on it. But God doesn’t want it. God won’t use it. God cannot use it.

“Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord ….” This is Jehovah now speaking—the self-existing One. God doesn’t have to make preparation for the future. He is the self-existing One. “I am the Lord.” He’s not dependent upon anything in creation. He doesn’t lean on anything. The whole business leans on Him, my beloved.

God doesn’t want your money, and He doesn’t want what you do; He wants you. And if He gets you, then He’ll have the rest. And He’s saying to Moses, “Moses, that hand, you put it in the bosom, it comes out as leprosy. You put it in again, it’ll come out clean. Now out of that heart will come ultimately what you are.” In other words, “I want that rod in the hand of a man that is yielded to Me, and I want that hand to move because his heart is moving the same way.” Which ultimately means, “I want his heart yielded to Me.” That’s a great lesson, and it was a lesson for Moses, it’ll be for the children of Israel, and it’s for us today.

Ultimately a man will do what’s in his heart. That which is in the heart will come out. “Out of the heart come the issues of life.” The Lord Jesus Himself, you remember, made this statement concerning—He says a good tree brings forth good fruit, and an evil tree brings forth evil fruit. And then He went on to say that it’s the heart—that is the place where the issues of life are settled and that becomes, actually, all important, by the way. And so we find that He makes that very clear to us today.

One of the reasons that many of us are not used of God today is because we’re too strong. Have you ever stopped to think about that? We’re actually too strong for God to use us. And He can’t use us when we’re that; it’s out of weakness we’re made strong. And God has “chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty.” Here’s Moses, and Paul the apostle too, and if today you are willing to be weak and recognize you’re weak and will let God move through you, it’s amazing what He can do through a weak vessel. Most of us, may I repeat it, are too strong for God to use us.

“I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.” Now when we say that he could look upon God, he could look upon the revelation of God. The Lord Jesus, when He came to this earth, actually was veiled in human flesh. It can still be said, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, he hath exegeted him.” He has let Him out in the open where now you can know God, and the only way you can know Him, of course, is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

God saw us in the darkness of sin and ignorance. He saw us hopelessly lost. And we were not able to save ourselves. And so we’re told here “being justified without cause by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” and God saves us by grace. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” that you and I might have redemption, and we are saved, therefore, without a cause by His grace through the redemption that’s in Christ Jesus.

Now why do you think God has redeemed you? Why do you think God has redeemed me? God found nothing in us that called forth His salvation. He makes it very clear that when He saves us, it’s not because any merit is in us at all. Actually, it’s without a cause. That is the thing that Paul says in Romans. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely”—and that word “freely” means “without a cause.” It’s the same word our Lord used when He said “they hated me without a cause.” Now you and I are justified without a cause.

I’ve got a question, you’ve got a question. All God’s children got questions. He’s patient today. He’s willing today. Whatever your problem is—it may be personal. Maybe it’s personal failure like Simon Peter. Maybe you don’t know the way to salvation like Thomas. Maybe it’s like Philip; you have an overweening ambition, and you haven’t been able to reach your goal. Or maybe like Judas, you’ve looked out on the world, and you’ve wondered whether God’s forgotten or not. Whatever your question is, bring it to Him. He has the answer today.

“He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” May I say to you, you could not have a stronger statement for the deity of Christ. The Lord Jesus says, “When you look at me, you look at God. Not 99.44% God, not God’s veil, but you’re looking upon God in human flesh when you look at Me.” My friend, you are faced today with a dilemma: Either He’s God the Savior of the world or He’s the greatest imposter the world’s ever seen. There’s no middle ground with Him. He’s the Savior of the world, and someday we shall see Him.

What is your ambition in life? Is it to get rich? Is it to make a name for yourself? Is it even to do some wonderful thing for God? Listen to me. The highest desire that any human heart can have is to want to see God. Moses said, “If I could only see you.” And that’s all that I ask is that. “Just show me the Father.” Would you love to see the One who died for you? Personally, I would love to see the One who created this universe, who died for me, and who has put up with me. I’d like to see Him. Someday we’re going to see Him.

“Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” And that answers once and for all a question: Is the way to God a church? A denomination? Is the way to God a ceremony? Is the way to God today a system of ethics? May I say to you, don’t misunderstand me, I believe in the church. I believe in a ceremony. I think Christianity presents the highest system of ethics the world has ever seen so far, but let’s be clear on one thing. The way to God is a person—that person is Christ.

May I say to you, my beloved, our Lord is saying to you and me, and I don’t care who you are—it doesn’t make any difference what your failure is. It doesn’t make any difference how many times you’ve promised Him, He says, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. I’ll stick by you.” What a Savior. He not only reached down to save us 1900 years ago, but, my friend, this morning “… He abideth faithful … ,” and He says, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

“There arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” There is something that we need to keep in mind as a tremendous lesson here. I’ve often wondered why these movements today who specialize in reaching children have not used this verse. It should be used. There is a continual and a continuous responsibility of teaching the Word of God to each generation, because if you don’t, why the time will come and they’ll forget all about you. There’s always the new generation coming on that never heard about the Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, it’s always necessary to teach the next generation.