WHAT FAITH BRINGS (PART 14)

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

Hebrews 11:29

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It was a risky proposition.

The Israelites had been living in Egypt for more than 400 years and although they were often oppressed and treated as slaves, they had shelter and food and water, the basics needed to stay alive.

But one of them, a Hebrew named Moses, came to the Israelite elders and reported his personal encounter with God at a burning bush at Horeb, the place referred to by the scriptures as “the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1). The essential nature of God’s message to Moses to relay onto His people was this:

“The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: ‘I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’” Exodus 3:16-17

God made a promise to His people. If they believed in Him with faith and were obedient to His leading, He in turn would deliver and save them while bringing them to a place far greater than where they were, a place where they would be set free.

Thankfully, we know how things played out. The Israelites trusted that God would do what He said He would do, fleeing Egypt on foot with Moses as their front man. Even when the decision seemed to place them in immediate peril as they arrived at the Red Sea with Pharaoh and his forces bearing down on them from behind, we know that God used His unmatched power to divide the sea and allow all the Israelites to cross on dry land. And when they looked back to see Pharaoh and his army trying to cross the same way, they saw that it was nothing more than a deadly trap as the Lord released the sea so to crash down on the Egyptians, killing them all.

Indeed, God was making good on His blessed assurance as only He could and He was able to do so because the Israelites displayed their faith and belief in Him.

Friends, faith still operates this way for us today as it has through the ages. Life is full of risky propositions and difficult situations that lead us to places where we need to trust God to lead us through. And when we do, we, like the Israelites, get to experience His amazing deliverance and rescue.

Need an example?

Here’s the most primary, fundamental one I know, one that every single person ever created faces.

For since the great fall in Eden’s garden, mankind has been under the affliction and oppression of sin...and it’s that sin that places everyone in immediate danger because they are a sinner who has fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23) and will stand in judgment before a God who condemns sinners to eternal damnation and torment (aka Hell).

Thankfully, God made a promise that will come true for anyone who simply believes by way of the conditions He set forth through faith. Here is that promise:

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Like the Israelites under the oppression of Egyptian captivity, God grants rescue to all people under the oppression of sin. All they need to do is place they faith in Him, faith that He will do as He said He would do, and believe in His Son Jesus as Savior, the Jesus who is the only One who can bring us to God (John 14:6).

In this fourteenth message in this series, we learn that faith brings us to where we obediently follow God’s leading and believe in His promises, and when we do, we gain His salvation and deliverance which will rescue us from Hell and usher us into the glorious splendor of Heaven forever when this worldly life ends.

Today, rejoice in your Christian faith and the blessed hope it brings, a hope you can hold onto every day.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.