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Psalm 114 - The New Exodus · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

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  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle talk is a Bible study
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  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
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  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
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  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
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  others. Let's dive right in.
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  Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. And today we are continuing in
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  Book 5 of Psalms. And specifically right now we're
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  walking through some of the halal Psalms, that is psalms
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  that would be sung during the time of Passover each year in
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  the Jewish calendar, which also means that these were the songs
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  that Jesus sang the week of his death.
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  And so today in Psalm 114, this is a very short Psalm.
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  It's only 8 verses here in English.
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  And as we walk through this, you're going to see this would
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  bring instantly back to mind Passover and the story.
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  And so we're going to look today and, and see what the Lord has
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  for us from this passage. It was, it's got some fun
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  imagery, some fun pictures in it that hopefully as we reflect on
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  these and on the stories that are being brought to mind, it
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  will encourage our hearts even for today.
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  So let's dive right in verse #1 When Israel came out of Egypt,
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  the House of Jacob from a people who spoke a foreign language,
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  Judah became his God's sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
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  The sea looked and fled the the Jordan turned back, the
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  mountains skipped like Rams, the hills like lambs.
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  Why was it see, that you fled Jordan, that you turned back
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  mountains, that you skipped like Rams, hills like lambs, like
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  lambs, tremble earth at the presence of the Lord, at the
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  presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool,
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  the Flint into a spring? All right, you read through
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  that. And probably like me, if you
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  know the story of the Exodus, you might be going, yeah, OK.
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  I remember some of these stories.
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  If you haven't heard those stories before, you're probably
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  like, what in the world is happening?
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  So let's walk through. We'll give some of the
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  historical details, and then we'll see some of what it has
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  for us and what it means for us today.
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  So verse #1 it says when Israel came out of Egypt, so the
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  children of Israel, you, you might recall the stories of
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  Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's son Joseph was sold into
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  slavery. He went down to Egypt and was
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  sold to a a leader there, a man named Potiphar.
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  And through a whole series of circumstances that I won't get
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  into right now, Joseph ended up being the second most powerful
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  man in Egypt. And as a result, when a great
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  time, first of plenty came, Joseph was able to store food
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  away for seven years of horrible famine.
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  And when that famine came, Egypt was incredibly blessed.
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  They were able to become enriched through selling lots of
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  the extra food that they had collected during the years of
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  plenty. And Jacob's other sons, Joseph's
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  brothers or half brothers, they ended up coming down to Egypt
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  from Canaan. They did not know that Joseph
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  was still alive and they certainly didn't know that he
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  was the one that was in charge of Egypt.
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  And so the family ended up being reunited.
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  There was forgiveness. Joseph encouraged all of his
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  family to come down to Egypt so that they wouldn't have to
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  suffer in the famine. And so they were there and they
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  ended up being there for about 400 years.
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  What ended up happening was a different clan came in and took
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  over Egypt. And so as a result, though the
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  Israelite people, the family of Joseph, though at one point they
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  were fairly well loved by the Egyptian government of the time,
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  at least when Joseph was there, there came a time when the
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  rulers did not know and did not care about Joseph or his people.
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  And so they subjugated them and they put them into slavery.
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  And for 400 years Israel was down in Egypt and they cried out
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  to the Lord in their slavery. The the Pharaoh there had such
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  hatred and distrust of the Israelite people and how God was
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  blessing them and and enlarging their families and enlarging
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  their their crops and and children.
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  And I'm trying to recall can't remember the animals, the herds
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  flocks was the word I was trying to think of.
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  Thank you. And so Pharaoh was so jealous
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  and distrustful and fearful of the prosperity that God was
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  bringing that he ordered for the midwives of Israel to kill the
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  newborn males as soon as they were born.
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  But the midwives did not listen to Pharaoh and they lied to him.
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  And they said, listen, you know, we we would do what you're
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  asking. But turns out, you know, by the
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  time we get there, the women are already done.
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  And so we can't, you know, do this kind of underhanded murder
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  that you're asking us to do. And so then Pharaoh switched
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  tactics and he instructed his soldiers just to murder the
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  infant boys of Israel. But there was one family and 1
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  mother named Jochebed. And she had a son named Moses.
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  And he was precious to her. She cared about him.
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  She protected him and through a whole long series of of
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  circumstances that you can read about an exodus.
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  Moses ended up being raised in Pharaoh's house by his daughter
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  or granddaughter. The the exact relation is an
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  entirely defined for us in scripture.
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  He was raised there. He was raised as an Egyptian.
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  At about 40 years of age, he actually killed an Egyptian who
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  was abusing a Hebrew slave, and as a result, he ran into the
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  wilderness. He was in the wilderness of
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  Midian for about 40 years. He got married.
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  He had a couple kids, and then God appeared to him in a burning
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  Bush and said, I want you to go back to Egypt and release my
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  people. And so Moses went back at 80
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  years old. I, I know there's probably a
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  couple of people that are maybe around that age even right now
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  listening to the podcast. And can you think about
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  beginning your exodus out of Egypt at 80 years old?
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  Well, that's what Moses was doing.
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  And so he went down to Egypt. You can remember the 10 plagues
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  and all of that. And so Moses LED Israel out of
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  Egypt. And the last thing they did
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  before leaving was they held the Passover that there was the 10th
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  plague, the death Angel that came through.
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  And there was going to be a passing of every first born male
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  that did not have the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the
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  houses, both for Israel and for Egypt.
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  And whoever did place the blood of a spotless lamb on the
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  doorpost, they would experience, if you will, Passover that the
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  death Angel would pass over that house and he would not take the
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  life of the first born boy in that house.
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  And so as they were doing that, they that night they ate some
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  unleavened bread and they drank some of the juice.
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  This would be the Last Supper that Jesus and his disciples
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  partook of before Jesus's death. And so we have to have that
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  story in mind as we look at Psalm 114.
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  So Israel's coming out of out of Egypt, the House of Jacob from a
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  people who spoke a foreign language, that the Egyptian
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  language was different than the Hebrew language and verse #2 it
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  says when Israel came out of Egypt, Judah became his God's
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  sanctuary, Israel, God's dominion that God made his, if
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  you will, He made his dwelling with men that in the ark of the
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  covenant in his presence, the the pillar of fire by day or
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  sorry, the, the cloud, pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by
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  night, sorry. I had to make sure I had that
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  correctly. He was with the children of
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  Israel and you can think about as they went to Mount Sinai and
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  received the law, the commands of God, even the 10 commandments
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  that Moses received on the tablets of stone carved into by
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  the hand of God, as Moses received that God had made
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  Israel the place that he now lived.
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  Want to pause here real quick? You and I, if we have accepted
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  Christ Jesus as our Lord and our Savior, we have now become the
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  dwelling place of God. We are, if you will, His
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  sanctuary, His temple, the place where He has set up His home.
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  If our life is the abode of our God, may we live in a holy way.
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  May we think holy thoughts, may we say holy things.
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  Let us not profane or dirty. The temple that God has, He has
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  ennobled us with. I apologize this evening.
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  I have a whole bunch of words that my brain says, Oh yes, this
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  is the word that means He has honored you.
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  He has blessed your life with his own presence, and so you
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  ought to treat your life as something important, as
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  something sacred and holy. You don't belong to you, you
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  belong to God, as Paul would tell us in Second Corinthians,
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  and I think First Corinthians 5 or 6 as well, that our body is
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  the temple of the Holy Spirit, which we have from God who is in
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  us, and we are not our own. Therefore glorify God in your
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  body and in your spirit, which are gods.
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  So Judah became God's sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
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  He chose the children of Israel as his people, that he would
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  bring the Messianic line through, that David would come
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  through that line, and then Jesus from the line of David,
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  from the line of Judah and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham.
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  So that happens in verse 2 #3 verse 3.
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  The sea looked and fled. The Jordan turned back.
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  So here's we look at the exodus. You have kind of the beginning
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  with the parting of the Red Sea, and then you have the end of the
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  exodus with the parting of the Jordan separated by 40 years.
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  But we remember this, that even nature itself had to obey our
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  God. And this is something when we
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  think about Jesus, that his greatness came not even because
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  the sea split for him. He didn't need to walk on dry
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  ground. Jesus could walk on water.
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  So as the children of Israel and Moses, in this great show of
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  God's power, they walked through these bodies of water on dry
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  ground. What a miracle that is from our
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  God. Jesus is even better.
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  Jesus went through an even greater exodus that he walked on
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  the waters. He doesn't need dry ground in
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  order to take a, you know, mid river or mid lake hike.
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  And I just think that's so amazing thinking about what
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  Jesus has done. You can also think that the
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  Jordan was the last step in the journey of the Exodus for the
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  children of Israel, but it was almost the first step in the
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  journey for Jesus that certainly he went down to Egypt as a child
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  there in fulfillment of prophecy, even as we know from
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  Hosea 11, where the prophet would say out of Egypt, have I
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  called my son? And then in the New Testament,
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  we're told This is why Jesus ended up, why the circumstances
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  of his life led him down to Egypt, that he would come from
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  Egypt to the Promised Land, just as his ancestors had done.
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  He is the true and better Israel.
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  He is the true and better Moses. He's the true and better Joshua.
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  He's the best everything. Everyone that came before him
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  was an incomplete and imperfect picture of who Jesus would
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  perfectly be. So Jesus, yes, goes down to
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  Egypt, but then as he's beginning his earthly ministry,
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  he gets baptized by John in the Jordan.
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  And then instead of coming from the wilderness into Canaan, he
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  goes from Canaan into the Jordan, into the wilderness
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  where he is tempted. Not for 40 years like the
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  Israelites for their sin and their refusal to follow God, but
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  he's tempted by Satan for 40 days in the wilderness.
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  And Jesus succeeds where the children of Israel failed and
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  where they doubted God and where they didn't follow him, and
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  where they worshipped false gods and false idols of their own
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  creation. And they rebelled against God's
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  leaders and said, Jesus submitted to God's leadership
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  and Jesus trusted God to provide for him.
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  He trusted him for the food that Israel didn't trust God for it,
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  even though he gave them the manna and he gave them the quail
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  and he gave them the water from the rock.
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  But Jesus, when he was tempted by Satan to take matters into
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  his own hands and command the stones to be made bread, Jesus
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  didn't do that and said he said, no, I don't live by bread alone.
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  I live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
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  I'm going to listen to the voice of my father.
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  So verse 3, the sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back.
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  We can think about Jesus and what he accomplished.
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  And also the fact that God is so amazing that he does these
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  miracles and that the same miracle working God that worked
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  thousands of years ago for the children of Israel is the same
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  wonder working God that works on our behalf.
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  And I've seen time and time again, God answer prayers.
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  God come through in ways that I could never have orchestrated or
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  imagined. God is the wonder worker.
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  Verse #4 the mountains skipped like Rams, the hills like lambs.
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  This is saying like in in fear, they are trying to get away, if
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  you will, from the Lord, and that's what it says in verses 5
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  and 6. Why was it, see, that you fled
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  Jordan, that you turned back mountains, that you skipped like
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  Rams, hills like lambs? And this is probably talking to
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  the shaking of Mount Sinai that was experienced by the children
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  of Israel. When they got to the mountain,
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  God's presence was there. And in the Exodus 1916, it says
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  on the third day when morning came, there was Thunder and
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  lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud blast
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  from a trumpet so that all the people in the camp shuttered.
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  And this is what it's like to interact with our God, that
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  there is might and power and so much incredible awe inspiring
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  action that is taken by our God. So then verses 7 and 8 says, OK,
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  we remember what God has done, and so now here is what we need
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  to be doing. Verse 7, tremble earth at the
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  presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
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  who turned the rock into a pool, the Flint into a spring.
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  There was a time when the children of Israel needed water
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  and so the Lord instructed Moses to speak to the rock and water
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  would come out of it. Moses got angry at the people.
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  He hit the rock instead of speaking to it, but water still
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  came out because God was good even when people were not.
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  And I think, oh man, verse verse 8, as we think about Jesus and
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  his death that mankind could have asked for Jesus to forgive
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  them. He he would have.
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  You can think of his words on the cross.
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  Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
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  They could have spoken to God, but we hurt Him, we beat Him, we
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  made him bloody, we put the crown of thorns onto his head.
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  We crucified Him. And though we struck the Rock of
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  Ages and his bleeding out for us, you can think that the blood
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  and water that poured from his side as he was pierced, that we
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  received a life that God was good.
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  God was good to provide salvation.
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  God was good to provide resurrection.
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  God was good to provide everlasting life, even though
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  people did not earn it. And I think about this God here
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  as he's mentioned the God of Jacob for all of those that have
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  been traveling with us through in our sermon podcast, walking
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  through the life of Jacob in our family Family Feud series in
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  Genesis 25 through 36. You know, Jacob's not a great
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  person. Like when you hear the God of
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  Jacob, you're not hearing like this great, laudable person.
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  You're thinking about a very broken person.
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  He is the God who is faithful to the unfaithful.
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  He is the holy God of the unholy.
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  And so here God is good to us. He's forgiving, He's patient,
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  and He gives us grace and life and forgiveness, though we have
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  not earned it with Him, and instead the we have treated him
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  and others poorly. He has lavished his good grace
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  on us. So let's tremble at his
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  presence. Let us have fear and adoration
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  and worship for this God who forgives, who restores, who
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  heals, who works miracles, who has set up his home inside of
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  our hearts and our lives. The one who can make wonders
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  happen. The God who gave his own life
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  for us, the one who struck for us that we might receive
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  forgiveness of sin and a restored permanent relationship
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  with our God. This is the God who is worthy to
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  be praised in every way. Well, I hope that this Psalm was
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  an encouragement to you, and I loved getting you a look at
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  this. Psalm 115 is our Psalm for next
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  week. I'm really looking forward to
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  that one. And then Psalm 116 is in two
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  weeks from now. That is one of my favorite
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  Psalms of the entire book, and there's 150 of them.
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  So for me to say that's one of my favorites that that's a big
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  statement. And we are almost to the end of
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  our weekly schedule and we'll be going back to a weekday schedule
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  once we hit Psalm 119 in just a few short weeks.
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  Thanks for tuning into Tabernacle Talk.
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  Have a wonderful day.