Voddie Baucham - God: A Man of War

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have your Bibles with you, open them to
Exodus chapter fifteen. Exodus fifteen. And in Exodus fifteen we
find Israel on the other side of the Red Sea,
and we find them singing the Song of the Sea,

(00:20):
or the Song of Salvation. The Song of the Sea
is the most important hymn in redemptive history. It shakes
not only Israel's future worship, but also our own. This
hymn and the event that it commemorates, parallels our view

(00:42):
and expression of the centrality of the Cross in Christian worship.
So just as for the Christian everything begins and ends
with the Cross, for the believers prior to the Cross,
the Exodus, and for the exact same reasons, the Exodus

(01:05):
shapes Israel's understanding of who God is, just as the
Cross shapes our understanding of who God is. The Exodus
shaped Israel's understanding of who they are, just as the
Cross shapes our understanding of who we are. The Exodus
shaped Israel's understanding of redemption, just as the Cross shapes

(01:30):
our understanding of redemption. And the Exodus became the fountain
head for all of Israel's praise, just as the Cross
has become the fountain head for all of our praise
as Christians. If we are going to praise God, we

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are going to praise him because He has redeemed us.
If we are going to praise God, we are going
to praise Him as our redeemer. These songs are linked
not only in the contemporary view, but they've also been

(02:13):
linked in scripture. Many commentators attribute John's words in Revelation
fifteen to this fact. For example, in Revelation fifteen two
and three, we read, and I saw what appeared to
be a sea of glass mingled with fire. And also

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those who had conquered the beast and its image and
the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass,
with harps of God in their hands, and they sing
the song of Moses, the Servant of God, and the
song of the Lamb. Isn't that interesting here? They are

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they have conquered, they have overcome. And he doesn't just
say that they sing the song of the Lamb, which
is what you would expect in Revelation. He says they
sing the song of Moses, the Servant of God, and
the song of the Lamb. Now saying that they sing
the song of Moses doesn't mean that they sing the

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song about Moses the same way they sing the song
about the Lamb. But He's saying, as they stand here
next to this sea of glass, that just as Moses
had brought the people out and they stood by the
sea and sang the song of the Sea, the song
of redemption, so too Christ's people, as they have been

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delivered in an ultimate sense, sing a similar song. In essence,
all of our worship flows from the fountain head of
our redemption in the Cross, just as all of israels
worship flowed from the fountain head of their redemption at

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the Red Sea. As we look at this, there are
a number of things to examine. First of all, the
song itself. This song, by the way, is the first
recorded psalm or hymn of the Hebrew Nation, which in
and of itself is significant. It's also not the only

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psalm to recount God's redemptive work at the Red Sea
Psalm seventy eight, twelve and thirteen. In the sight of
their fathers, he performed wonders in the land of Egypt,
in the fields of Zoon. He divided the sea and
let them pass through it, and made the waters stand

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like a heap in Psalm one O six verses seven
to twelve. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did
not consider your wondrous works. They did not remember the
abundance of your steadfast love. But rebelled by the sea
at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his

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name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power.
He rebuked the sea, and it became dry, and he
led them through the deep as through a desert. So
he saved them from the hand of the foe, and
redeemed them from the power of the enemy, and the

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waters covered their adversaries. Not one of them was left.
Then they believed his words. They sang his praise again
and saw one thirty six verses thirteen to fifteen to
him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his
steadfast love endures forever, and made Israel pass through the

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midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever, but
overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for
his steadfast love endures forever. This was a clarion call.
Again and again Israel was reminded that they belonged to God,
and that the evidence of this was never more sure

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than in the day he delivered them at the Red Sea.
The hymn has a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue
in fifteen one, I will sing to the Lord, for
he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he
has thrown into the sea. And in the epilogue in

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verse twenty one, Miriam sang to them, sing to the Lord,
for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider
he has thrown into the sea. The beginning in the
end of the song is the same. It is as
though they are following that age old adage that we're

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often taught when we first give a us speech, tell
them what you're gonna tell him, tell him, and then
tell them what you told him. That's what's happening here
in this song, in the prologue and in the epilogue,
he tells us what he's going to tell us, and
then at the end tells us what he told us.

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The hymn is divided into three stanzas. Roughly, the first
stanza verses one through six, the Lord as a man
of war. The second stanza and verses seven through eleven,
the Lord has defeated his foe, and in the third stanza,
verses twelve through sixteen, the Lord has chosen Israel as

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his own. Each stanza ends with the phrase oh Yahweh
or oh Lord, And near the end of each stanza
there is a simile that is recorded verse five like
a verse ten like lead, and verse sixteen like stone.

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These come at the end of each of the stanzas.
So it is as though we are given this visual
imagery within the context of the song, and we see
how it flows and how it works. One of the
first things that I do whenever I begin sermon preparation

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is a diagram of the text. Whatever the text is,
whether it's a text in the Old Testament or the
New Testament, long text, short text, whatever the text is,
I do a grammatical diagram of the text. And when
you diagram this text, because first reading this song again,
if you're not reading it in the Hebrew language and

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you don't understand the meter of Hebrew poetry, it's hard
to grasp the rhythm of this song. But when you
divide it and when you look at it in terms
of the outline of it, you begin to see patterns develop.

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And when those patterns develop, you see that there's something
being said, and that it's being divided into these three portions,
and that in each portion there's a point being made
about God and his redemption of his people Israel. So
let's look at it with that in mind. First the prologue,
look at verses one and two. Then Moses and the

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people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,
I will sing of the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously,
the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song, and he
has become my salvation. This is my God, and I
will praise him, my Father's God, and I will exalt him.

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At the end, you see that parallelism again, and this
parallel will go throughout. It's a hallmark of Hebrew poetry,
and the great example of this is found throughout the
Book of Proverbs. Israel's praise was immediate and spontaneous. This
is clear from the grammar in this sentence. It's clear
that when he says, then Moses and the people of

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Israel sang this song right then, in other words, right
after this happened. This song was written very shortly after
this happened. This wasn't years later. This was on the
banks of the Red Sea. This was written in response.
This is as there is debris floating in the water.

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Notice the order first. This is, by the way one
commentator's view of this. Notice the order First, the Israelites
saw God save them. Then they put their trust in
Him as savior. Finally, they sang to His glory, which
of course was the entire purpose of the exodus. The

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Israelites were saved for the glory of God. The Song
of Moses was their spontaneous, jubilant response to his grace.
Like all worship, this is a response we respond to
God in worship. Worship is not designed to initiate. Worship

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is designed to respond. So Israel is responding to who
God is and to what God has done. Oftentimes, we
think about worship as a means of initiating, and so
we gather together and we think that worship is supposed
to create something. So we think that if we get
together and if we worship the right way, then God
will come. He will descend upon us, we'll get our

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liver quiver, and then we'll know that we've worshiped God.
That's not how worship works. Worship is a response. We
don't worship God in order to get something from God.
We don't worship God in order to bring God near.
We don't worship God in order to manipulate God. We

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worship God in response to God. And we worship God
in the ways that God has taught us to worship God.
This worship is directed at God for who he is
and for what he's done. That's clear, and it'll become
more clear throughout this song. This song is not about

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how Israel feels about what God did. It's just about
what God did. We don't worship God because of what
he makes us feel like our feelings change. We worship
God because of who he is and because of what
He's done. If our worship centers around the way we feel,

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then there will be times when we will say we
haven't really worshiped because the feeling didn't come. And this
happens a great deal with people. We get used to
our emotions being manipulated. We get used to being brought
to this point of catharsis, and we want the catharsis.
We expected the catharsis. And if we're ever in the

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midst of a worship experience where you don't get the
emotional catharsis. We feel like we haven't actually worshiped, as
though the only thing that determines whether or not we've
worshiped is whether we feel a certain way. Who told
you that that's what it's supposed to feel like? How
do you know that that's actually worshiped that you're feeling

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when it's based upon your feelings? How do you know? Well?
I know because I cry. That's great. Pagan rituals often
elicit tears as well. Well, I know because I close
my eyes and I raise my hands and I feel
this warmth come over our whole body. Pagan rituals do
the exact same thing to their followers. I know, because

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I can't help myself. I just have to jump. I
just have to. I just have to. Yeah, I can
show you videos of pagan rituals that look exactly like that.
And if people who have physical and emotional experiences until
sweat drops off of them, but they are worshiping pagan deities.

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So if the only thing we're going by is the
liver quiver, if the only thing we're going by is
if we feel like we've met with God, folks, you
need to know something. The heart is deceitfully wicked above
all else, no one can know it. I've been in

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situations again. You walk into a situation, watch and experience
go down. Watch people say things in their singing and
in their preaching that are grossly unbiblical. I'm sitting in
the back of the room, going, I can't believe this
is happening. I can't believe that's being said. I can't

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believe we're singing that. I can't believe we're okay with this.
I can't believe. Spend the whole time sitting there, and
then people afterwards are walking out going, oh, that was good,
wasn't it? What was good? Well, that worship, But worship
was good? What was good about it? I've engaged in

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conversations with people about this. Did you notice that when
we worship, we made this statement, and that this statement
is actually not a biblical statement, but it's actually the
opposite of what's true biblically. Well, yeah, I guess if
you analyze it like that, I guess if you analyze
it like that. In other words, words, it's okay that

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we were saying things that weren't necessarily true because The
fact of the matter is I felt God's presence. If
it wasn't true, then how can you say that was God?
Was God the Holy Spirit falling upon you and confirming

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that which was not true? Or were you experiencing something
other than the presence of God? Were you experiencing your
emotions being manipulated? And are you so shallow in your
Christian faith that truth doesn't matter to you nearly as

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much as the liver quiver. This is worshiped directed at
the Lord because of who he is and because of
what he has done. Because it is true. Their worship

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was rooted in their covenant relationship with God. This is
where our worship should be rooted as well. And actually
this fifteen two we read, the Lord is my strength
and my song and has become my salvation. This is
my God, and I will praise him my Father's God,
and I will exalt him. The covenant language is dripping

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all over that verse. Why are we worshiping him because
he's God, because he's my God, because he's my Father's
God two verses twenty three to twenty five. During those
many days, the king of Egypt died and the people
of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out
for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up

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to God and God heard their groaning. God remembered his
covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw
the people of Israel, and God knew why because of
his covenant relationship with them. That's why. Not because they
cried more pitifully than other people did, not because they

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meant it more than other people meant it, but because
of His covenant relationship with them. This is where our
worship is rooted and grounded in our covenant relationship with God.
True worship is not just about today and how I

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feel right now. True worship is about yesterday and tomorrow
as much as it is about today. It's about who
God was, and who God is, and who God will
always be. This transcends the world I feel. Sometimes worship

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is probably and arguably more important when I don't feel
my liver quiver than it is at any other time.
It's easy to enter into the sanctuary and to enter
in to the emotion of a worship experience when things

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are going well in your life, But what about when
they're not. What about when that loved one has died.
What about you when you went and visited the doctor
and all was not well? What about when you had
a knockdown drag out with your spouse on the way

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to church. I don't nobody here has ever or whatever
experienced anything like that, But I've heard that at other
churches that there are people who sometimes show up having
had an argument in the car all the way up
to the driveway, and then as soon as it went
into park they put their smiles off. I've heard that,

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what's your worship like? Then? What do you do then?
Is God no longer good? Is He no longer worthy
because you had a bad day? Is God no longer good?
Is He no longer worthy because you just don't feel

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it right now? The song continues after the prologue with
the Lord as a man of war, which flies in
the face of so much of what we believe about God.

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If you listen to the manby Pamby mealy mouthed watered
down versions of who Jesus is today and who God
is today and what Christianity is supposed to be today.
As I've often said, the eleventh commandment is thou shalt
be nice? And we don't believe the other ten. Amen.

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So this just flies in the face of that. I mean,
we live in a day and age where a person
can speak out against sin and yet be attacked by
other people, because whatever the sin was that you were
speaking out against is nowhere nearly as egregious as the
sin of not being nice. So this flies in the

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face of that. Verse three, The Lord is a man
of war. You just stop right there, Just close up
and be finished. The Lord is a man of war. Amen,
holllo your praise the Lord with that. The Lord is

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a man of war. The Lord is his name, Yahweh
is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast
into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in
the red sea. The floods covered them. They went down
into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord,

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glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.
There's that ending phrase again, ending with oh Lord, and
right before it the stone. Are we okay with that?
We worship God? Okay. I worship God because because because

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he loves me. I worship God because he's gentle. I'll
worship God because he's kind. I worship God because he's patient.
I worship God because he's died. Da da da da.
All that's true. But when's the last time that you said,
worship you Lord because you're a man of war? Doesn't
even sound right, does it. We are so far removed

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from this truth, and our culture so hates this reality
that it doesn't even feel good. It doesn't even feel right.
And some of you are sitting there right now, going, yeah,
that's true. But you know that is Old Testament. The
God on the left side of the book is he
really is like that? But on the right side he's kinder,

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and he's gentler, and he walks around with lambs on
his shoulders. This is the first of many references to
God as man of war. As Longmen and Read point out,
this poem represents the first explicit statement of the warlike
nature of God. This theme of God as a warrior

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became a recurrent refrain in the Old Testament. Exodus event
itself became an important archetype in the Biblical tradition, a
means of telling and retelling God's acts of deliverance. This
is replete throughout the Old Testament. But we know this, right,
But what about the testimony of the rest of scripture.

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Is God warlike in the New Testament? Yeah, I'd say so.
When you get to the New Testament, you come to
the gospels. And when you come to the Gospels, one
of the things you run into again and again and
again is Jesus confronting demons, and he is warlike. In
the confrontation, he vanquishes them as his foes. Christ is

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a warrior. What about spiritual warfare? Two? Granthians Chapter ten
and Ephesians Chapter six make it clear that as Christians,
we are engaged in a spiritual war, in a spiritual battle.
You better believe our God is still a man of war.
What about Revelation? You know, every chance I get, I'm

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gonna read Revelation nineteen. So I'm gonna do it again.
Revelation nineteen, beginning at verse eleven, Then I saw heaven opened,
and behold a white horse. The one sitting on it
is called faithful and true, And in righteousness he judges

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and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire,
and on his head are many diadems, and he has
a name that no one knows but himself. He is
clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name
by which he is called is the Word of God.
And the armies of Heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white

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and pure, we're following him on white horses. From his
mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down
the nations, and he will rule them with a rod
of iron. He will tread the wine press of the
fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe
and on his thigh he has a name written King
of Kings and Lord of lords. Jesus is a man

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of war. We worship a man of war. But why
is this okay? Aren't we told that we shouldn't be angry?

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Aren't we told that we shouldn't give vent to our wrath? Folks,
There's a difference between divine wrath and human anger. God's
wrath is always holy, and it is always holy anger
against sin. And if God is not at war with sin,
then we have a problem because we have a God

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who is not holy. His holiness demands that he war
against sin, that he poured out his wrath on sin.
God is also not moved by passions. God's anger is
not like our anger. God's anger is calculated and purposeful,

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never out of control. And God is the righteous judge
who is able and worthy to punish justly. You see,
the reason that God says vengeance is mine is twofold
number one. I am not holy, and I don't have
the right to exact God's vengeance on anyone else. But secondly,

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even if I did exact vengeance, how would I know
how much vengeance is just? I don't. But God does,
and as a man of war, he always acts justly
and rightly. Folks, If God were not a man of war,
he could not save us. He could not redeem us.

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If God were not a man of war, he could
not defeat our foes and our enemies. If God were
not a man of war, our salvation would not be secure.
If God were not a man of war, Heaven would
not be a secure place because others could come in
and plunder. But because God is a man of war,
I know that I'm saved because God is able to

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say to the uttermost. I know that Heaven is secure
because none will overrun his boundaries. And I know that
sin will be dealt with because God is rootless in
his wrath as he pours it out against sin. God
is a man of war, and in his war he

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defeats his foes always and completely. Beginning of verse seventeen,
in the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries.
I love that phrase. Now notice he doesn't say in
the greatness of your wrath and the greatness of your

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anger and the greatness of her He says, in the
greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. God's adversaries
are overthrown because of the greatness of his majesty. You
send out your fury. It consumes them like stubble. Interestingly enough,
this reference to stubble points back as well five verses

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ten through twelve. So the task masks and the foreman
of the people went out and said to the people,
Thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go
and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it.
But your work will not be reduced in the least.
So the people were scattered throughout all the land of

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Egypt to gather stubble for straw. What does God reduced
them to stubble? At the blast of your nostrils, the
water piled up, the flood stood up in a heap,
the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The

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enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake. I will
divide the spoils. My desire shall have its fill of them.
I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.
You blew with your wind The sea covered them. They
sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like you,

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o Lord among the gods, Who is like you, majestic
in the holiness, awesome, in glorious deeds, doing wonders? And
it interesting how that Stanza begins and ends with the
majesty of God. The outcome of the war our God

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is fighting is never in question. Our God is a
man of war. But every war he fights, he wins,
because there is none like our God. Egypt had opposed God,
and God judged them. Look at this, Look at the
hubris of Egypt. The enemy said, I will pursue, I

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will overtake, I will divide the spoils. My desire shall
have its fill in them. I will draw my sword,
my hand shall destroy them. I will, I will. I'm
going to do this. And yet God's response, you blew
with your whim The sea covered them. They sank like
lead in the mighty waters. There it was, and the

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result the expression of God's holiness. It is because he
is holy, because he is God. God did not deliver
Israel because they were good, but he delivered them because
they were his. God does not fight his wars on

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behalf of the highest bidder. God fights his wars on
behalf of himself. He fought this war on behalf of
the people of Israel because they were on his side. Folks,
the only way to be sure that God will fight
for you is to be on God's side. We even

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see in the Old Testament that there were times when
God fought against Israel Numbers twenty five to three. So
Israel yoked himself with bail and pear, and the anger
of the Lord was kindled against Israel Judges two fourteen.
So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel,
and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them,

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and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies,
so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Second
King is thirteen three. And the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel, and he gave them continually into
the hand of Hazael. King of Syria, and into the
hand of ben Hadad, the son of Haaeel. Jeremiah thirty

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six to two. Take a scroll and write on it
all the words that I have spoken to you against
Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day
I spoke to you, from the day of Josiah until today. Folks,
Israel is not God's chosen people because they are always

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holy and righteous. Israel was God's chosen people because of
his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the fact
that they were his covenant people did not mean that
they were always on his side. There were times other
than these as well, when they were against God and
God was against them. So no, just being Jewish doesn't

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guarantee that God's on your side. But being an heir
of Abraham, according to the Spirit, that's a different story altogether.
This is why we need one who can deliver us

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and pay for our sin, otherwise we too would remain
the enemies of God. Ephesians make this clear, does it not.
We were objects of God's wrath before the grace of
God found us, even as the rest. But it is

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by grace that we've been saved. It is by grace
that we are made something other than the enemies of God,
something other than the objects of God's wrath. So God,
as a man of war, wars against sin and unrighteousness. We,
as being found under our federal head the first atom,

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are inherently enemies of God, because we are born in
sin and shaped in iniquity. As such, the man of
war ought to consume us. The only way that we
are not consumed by this God, who is a man
of war, is that this God delivers us. The deliverer
for Israel. That the Red Sea was Moses, and this rod.

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The deliverer for us is Christ and the Cross. And
it's because of Christ and the Cross that God made
him who knew no sin, to become sin for us,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
As I Saya says, all we like sheep, had gone astray.
Each of us had turned to his own way. But
God hath caused the iniquity of us all to be

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laid on him. God pours out his wrath on Jesus Christ,
so that all of us who are found in Christ
can be delivered from this man of God war. And now,
instead of fighting against us. He fights for us because
we are found in Christ, Oh sinner. This also means

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that if you are apart from Christ, there is nothing
you can do to protect yourself from this man of war.
God will consume you and destroy you. You cannot be
good enough, and as has been said, your arms are
too short to box with God. What are you planning

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to do? Are you planning to point to other people
who are bigger sinners than you are and hope that
that's enough for this man of war not to consume
and destroy you. You know that's not right. From the
time that you were a child, you learn to say
things like that's not fair, because in your soul you

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know that sin needs to be dealt with, in your
soul that injustice needs to be dealt with. However, in
your soul you refuse to acknowledge that there is sin
and injustice in you as well, and that if God
strikes down all of the people outside of you but
doesn't strike you down as well, he has been unjust.

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Unless there is one who pays for your sin, unless
there is one who delivers you from this man of war,
the only one who can do that is Jesus himself. Well,
next we see that the Lord has chosen Israel as
his own. Beginning of verse twelve, you stretched out your

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right hand. The earth swallowed them. You have led in
your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You
have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
The peoples have heard, They tremble, the pangs have seized
the inhabitants of Felicity. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed,

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trembling sees the leaders of Moab, all the inhabitants of
Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them.
Because of the greatness of your arm. They are still
as stone to your people, O Lord, pass by, to
the people, passed by whom you have purchased. What beautiful words.

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First we see God's action. He stretched out his hand
and the earth swallowed them. Then we see God's affection
for Israel. He led with this steadfast love the people
whom he redeemed. So now God is not only a
man of war, but he's a man of love. You
have guided them by the strength, by your strength, to
your holy abode. Interestingly enough, they haven't come to the

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land of Promise yet. And yet the song says, you've
guided them to your holy abode. Why, because his holy
abode is where wherever his presence is. That's why God's
coming judgment on the inhabitants of the Promised Land is
foretold here felictia edom moab Canaan. They just come on

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the other side of the sea, but they know where
the promised land is, and they know who inhabits the
Promised Land. And so they say, those people are hearing
about this even now, and they're terrified because everybody knows
that God has promised us that land, and this man
of war is going to give it to us. And

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then we see God's people on the march. Till your people,
oh Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom
you have purchased, that is us, God's people on the march.
It's interesting there is an already and not yet atmosphere here.
Already they are in His abode, because they are in

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His presence, and yet they are on the march people
pass by. That is us. We are already in his presence.
We are already in His kingdom. And yet we pray
your kingdom come. We recognize this already and not yet tension.
We recognize that we are redeemed, and we are victorious,
and yet the last battle has not been fought. We

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recognize that we are in Christ, and Christ is in us,
and yet we long for the New Jerusalem. We recognize
that we have been redeemed, and yet we will be redeemed.
This is the same reality that we find in this text,
this already not yet tension. And as we worship God,

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we worship God in the midst of this already not
yet tension. It's amazing that, you know, sometimes, if you
didn't know any better, you'd think that Christianity would be
a suicidal cult, because we sing songs about how much
we can't wait, and how much we long for being
with God, and how we long for Heaven, and how

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we di and that you if you, if you didn't
know any better. But that's the already not yet tension.
We long for the coming of Christ to judge the
living and the dead, and yet we recognize that he

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does not yet have the fullness of the reward for
which he died. So our desire is for him to come,
and we say, come, Lord Jesus. But our desire is
for every soul that he has died to redeem, to
be redeemed, and so we live with attention. And then

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finally we come to the epilogue beginning of verse seventeen.
You will bring them in on your own mountain, the place,
o Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary,
O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will

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reign forever and ever. For when the horses of Pharaoh,
with his chariots and his horsemen, went into the sea,
the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them.
What the people of Israel walked on dry ground in
the midst of the sea. Then here comes the epilogue. Miriam,
the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in

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her hand, and all the women went out after her
with tambourines and dancing, and Miriam sang to them, sing
to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse
and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Here's
the epilogue. But in the epilogue there is something interesting here.
Number one. In the epilogue there is the introduction of

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Miriam and the women, the first time that she's named,
and she comes and she participates in this in other words,
the song of Salvation is for everyone to sing, for
the men as well well as the women. Especially in
the ancient Nears, the mention of them was highly unusual,
and yet the women participated. Secondly, the song that the

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women sang was exactly the same song that the men sang.
Why because the women need the same thing that the
men need a redeemer to redeem them a man. This
has echoed also in the New Covenant, and that when
Christ is resurrected from the dead, the first ones to
tell the good news were the women who went to
the tune. But there is also this repetition of the

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prolog to remind us of what the song is all about.
The song is all about God, who he is, and
what He's done, and how he has redeemed his people.
Why did he redeem them so that they would worship?

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What happened when he redeemed them? They worshiped. They worship
what characterizes them after they've been redeemed. Worship This is
what characterizes God's redeemed people. We worship him, and we

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gather together to worship him corporately. One day and seven
we gather together again and again and again, not once
a quarter right, not just you know, when you're feeling
a little down, you feel like you need a little
some extra, you go into that. No, that's not. We
do this over and over and over again. Why because

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this is who we are. This is what we do,
because this is who we are. We are redeemed on
our good days. We are the redeemed who worship our Redeemer.
On our bad days, we are the redeemed who worship
our Redeemer when we're up for it. We are the

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Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we're not up for it.
We are the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we
feel like it. We are the Redeemed who worship our
Redeemer when we don't feel like it. We're the redeem
who worship our Redeemer when we see it crystal clear.
We're the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we can't
quite comprehend it. Were the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer.

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It's who we are. That's why, it's what we do.
And Christ tells the woman at the well that God
is seeking worshipers who will worship him and spirit and

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in truth not just seeking sinners to save, seeking worshipers
who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Why
because they have this natural predisposition toward being worshippers. No,

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we worship because we're redeemed. That's why. It's what God
makes us when He redeems us. When we understand what
Christ has done to deliver us from our sin, when

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we get a glimpse of the fact that we were
enemies of God like the rest, and that we deserve
to be the second group in the Red Sea and
not the first. It is at that moment that our
worship makes sense. But as long as we believe that

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we're inherently good, that we're better than most people, that
we haven't done anything really sinful, and that we try really,
really hard, and that God ought to be satisfied with that,
listen to me. We will never worship anything but ourselves

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because we're the only ones that we actually deem worthy.
But when you get it, when you get it, when
you understand that what my sin deserves was overturned soaking

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wet wagon wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea,
and yet He saved me, then you worship. Let's pray Father,

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We bow before you as a humble and grateful people
who recognize that you have dealt with us not in
accordance with what our sins deserved, who recognize that we
deserve to be consumed and destroyed. And yet you demonstrated

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your love for us, and this that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. We are overwhelmed by
your goodness, by your grace, by your mercy, by your majesty,
by your kindness, and by your redemption that is ours

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in Christ. Grant by your grace that we would never
take this regreted, and that we would continue to be
overwhelmed by your goodness, by your mercy, by your kindness,

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by your redemption. Father, I pray for those under the
sound of my voice who have come into this room
trusting in anything other than the finished work of Christ.
Would you remind them that you are indeed a man
of war, and that they stand condemned as your enemies,

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And would you quickly remind them that you have made
a way of escape. Grant by your grace that they
might flee to Christ, that their sin might be atoned for,
that the wrath poured out at the cross would take

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the place of the wrath that they deserve at the
end of the age, and that through repentance of sin
and faith in Christ, they too might be saved. And
for all of us we say to you that we

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worship you because of your redemption, in light of your redemption,
and we thank you for all that you have done
on our behalf through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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Thank you again for this one day and seven, this
Lord's Day, where we gather together to remember, to confess,
to receive. Would you be blessed by it? We pray

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in Christ's name. Amen.