Go Forward
Key Passage: Exodus 14
Date: June 7, 2024
And turn your Bible to Exodus chapter 14. Exodus chapter 14.
The title tonight will be “Go Forward.” I do not even know if I would call it a sermon per se. I just want to talk with you a little bit, kind of like a pastor talking to our church about a specific day and kind of where we are at a little bit. This is not a perfect comparison, I want to say that right off the bat, but it is a good comparison about how God dealt with His people in a certain situation. It is a little bit similar to where we are at—not fully, but somewhat—but we will use it as a springboard to get going tonight.
Exodus 14, this is about the children of Israel. God had sent the ten plagues to Egypt and Pharaoh. Of course, the death angel, the firstborn dying, and Pharaoh finally said, “Get out of here.” The people were saying, “Get out of here, we are going to all be dead, you know, and already destroyed Egypt.” So finally they let them go. They took off. You remember, God led them by the way of the Red Sea. He had a reason for that, so they could not go back when they were discouraged and defeated, and because He wanted them to see one more miracle and use the Red Sea. But they were getting to the Red Sea, and Pharaoh and his army started coming after them, and God took care of them.
I want to just read a couple of verses and see what God says about it. Exodus 14, we are in verse number 10, and that kind of shows you where we are at in this thing. Would you please stand to show the Word of God respect, if you are able to? I saw earlier miracles happening at Rutherford County Baptist Church. We had a Marine and a Navy man singing together for a military. I thought, “Wow, that is something right there.” And I did not see them hit each other or anything while they were doing it, so that is pretty good. Verse number 10, Exodus 14, verse number 10.
“And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes and beheld, the Egyptians marched after them. And they were so afraid, and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, ‘Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, “Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians; for it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness?”’ And Moses said unto the people, ‘Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever.’”
All of that is important, but maybe those first three words are the most important: “Fear ye not.” Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today, for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. Verse number 14 is just a classic verse. You ought to memorize it. It is a great verse. “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” Great verse. Great verse. I challenge you a little bit to memorize that.
Let us keep going. The Lord said unto Moses, “Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.”
I will not keep reading. You know the story, but we will just kind of tell it briefly and then pray and get going. Moses told the people, “Go forward.” They got to the Red Sea. Moses lifted his rod; God split the Red Sea, you know that. By the way, some will say, “Well, that was the reed sea,” and they just kind of wallowed through in very shallow water. Well, it was also a miracle that God drowned the armies of Egypt in a little bitty shallow pond, if that is what they call it. It was the Red Sea, and God split it. The children of Israel went through all night long through that Red Sea, and the next morning, Pharaoh’s army came through the Red Sea, and God let the walls of water fall down on them. They were drowned in the Red Sea. Moses and the children of Israel were on the other side of the Red Sea, and that is where Moses’ song of deliverance was written, and they praised the Lord for what He had done.
But I want you to see that emphasis—that last part of verse number 15: “And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Wherefore criest thou unto me?’” speaking to the children of Israel, “that they go forward.” We just want to kind of focus on that part for a little bit tonight.
Can I give you a couple challenges? I am specifically talking about next Sunday. I think it is so important we go forward for next Sunday. But there are some challenges. If you see any sign, whether it be on the billboard or in the mail—you get a little brochure or something—anything you see about Easter, would you just stop and pray for next Sunday? Anywhere you see anything about Easter—the back wall back there, there are Easter eggs over Miss Jenny’s head, then over Miss Joyce’s head is Easter candy—whatever you see, whenever you see anything, let it trigger you: “Hey, I need to pray.” You do not have to close your eyes, but just whisper a prayer. How many times the Bible says, “Praying without ceasing”? Just pray all the time. Pray for next Sunday. Every time you think about it, “Where is so-and-so?” Just stop. Every time you think about somebody, stop and pray for them this week. Every time. My wife is good about praying for people who are missing. She will say, “Lord, have so-and-so get back in here.” And often she will say, “So-and-so is back,” and I say, “You prayed for that?” That is a blessing. She prays for a lot of people, and they come. If you think about anybody, just stop and pray for them.
Saturday night we will have a men’s prayer meeting at 7 o’clock. Any men that can come, we would love to have you come. If we do not want what we can do, we want what God can do, and it comes through prayer—praying, asking God to bless. I think it was the Second Great Awakening, maybe the first; I think it was the second one. It was great up in the Northeast, but this was down the Western Frontier, they called it—that was Kentucky and Tennessee and our part of the world. They entered into covenants, they called it. Christian people would covenant to spend a whole day each month in prayer, plus a half an hour every Saturday night and a half an hour Sunday morning for God to work. That was part of one of the great revivals in our country around the beginning of our country, one before, right after, that really changed our country. Part of that was people who entered the covenant to pray. I am just saying, hey, just at least this week—I am for it all the time, and I am not there as I ought to be—but just praying. It would be great if this week we just bonded together in prayer: “Lord, we want to see you do something next Sunday. We want to see you get people in here, but when they come, we want you to change their lives.” Nothing like seeing God change your life. Nothing like it. This is going to be one of those days. But I would ask you, if you are physically health-wise able, to fast at least one meal this week—one meal. Most of us can do that. It is a Bible practice, so we do not practice it like we ought to. At least one meal. Look, we have a mighty God, and we have got to be seeking the Lord on this thing.
You have heard me tell this story before. In church, the preacher said, “I do not know what happened. I did not really change anything. It just seemed like around such and such time, things started changing around the church. It was kind of dead, but people started getting saved and people getting baptized, and things were happening.” He said, “I do not know what happened. Why was that?” The janitor was around. He said, “Preacher, I will tell you what happened if you meet me at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning.” The preacher said, “Well, preachers do not get up until noon.” Brother Anthony says, “Amen.” Is that about me, or do you include yourself in there, brother? Both ways will be good, amen. The other preacher met him at 6 a.m. the next morning. He said, “Come down this hallway here, I will show you.” He walked down the hallway, and there was a group of men meeting and praying. He said, “Preacher, those men have been meeting at 6 a.m. You know, about the same time things around here started happening, that is when they started meeting.” The preacher did not know anything about it. The men had just kind of made a commitment: “We are going to meet at 6 a.m. and pray.”
Things happen in the kingdom of God through prayer. Open victories happen because of someone praying somewhere in the closet. I just challenge us as a church family: this week, let us bond together in prayer. Maybe you need to call another member. Let us say, “Let us pray together.” Maybe it is something like, “Well, I cannot get out and get to the church at 6 a.m. every day.” Okay, maybe I am a sister—maybe two ladies. “Hey, we are going to call each other every day that we can pray.” Just the church family pray. “Ye have not because ye ask not.” It would be wonderful if God would just pour out His hand in blessing this week, this coming Sunday, because of prayer. I really believe it is important to go forward and not get stuck where we are. How do you do that? Prayer. There are just three simple thoughts. You know the number two: Work.
Someone said, “You pray like it all depends on God, and you work like it all depends on you.” It is interesting regarding First Corinthians three. Look over there, if you would, please. First Corinthians three, you know the verse, or at least a portion of it. You probably know all of it. It is a short verse, but it is interesting. We always emphasize the last part of this verse, and that is rightly so, but I want you to notice something about it. First Corinthians three, and would you look at verse number six? First Corinthians 3:6. God used Paul to pen this, and he says, “I have planted, Apollus watered; but God gave the increase.” Now, God is always the one that brings the increase; He is always the one that does it—never us. But here is what I want you to notice, and rightfully so we emphasize that part: God gave the increase after Paul and Apollus worked. Did you know that is the order? “I have planted, Apollus watered, but God…” But God did that after they had been working. It was amazing. God blesses hard workers. That is important to realize: God is the one that brings the increase, but He does it so often after we work.
This is a good verse: Proverbs 14:29, “In all labor there is profit.” Wow. “In all labor there is profit, but the talk of lips tendeth only to penury.” You know, if I am just sitting around saying, “Lord, you bless,” God might be saying, “Hey, I would bless if you got up and did something.” Then I would bless. Work. Someone said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I do not believe in luck, but the more God blesses. Work. You know the work of God? It takes work. Did you notice it? The work of God. It talks about a bishop over there in Timothy; he said, “Hey, if a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.” If it is done right, it is going to take work. Work, God bless His word. Curtis Sussing used to say, “Great churches aren’t built out of spare time and pocket change.”
Praise the Lord, yesterday some of our people got here at 9 o’clock. It was pouring down rain, but they had enough faith that God was not going to send rain. Of course, the Weather Channel app helped a little bit with that, amen. You know, I was checking it too. It looked good up there. But I left at 9 o’clock, and we did not get back here until 4:30, I do not know, somewhere around there. And then they helped us put chairs in, and people had meetings after that and all that. Just so many things going on, but they were working all day long.
I remember the bus ministry. I remember old Roy Mott, who was great at this. He said, “Look, you want a one-hour bus route? You will get a couple of kids. You will get a one-hour bus route. You want more kids? You want more blessing? Get a two-hour bus route.” And he was talking about Saturday visitation. “You want a great bus route? Get a six, seven, eight-hour bus route.” Thank you, work. God bless His word. Same thing with Sunday school classes and whatnot—just work.
It is interesting; the Apostle Paul says this, “By the grace of God, but first Timothy—excuse me, First Corinthians 15:10—‘But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.’” Now, part of it was by the grace of God; He was empowered by the grace of God. He knew what he was by the grace of God. But he did include in there that he labored more abundantly than them all. That is Bible. I am just saying, work. Let us just work. These are just some ideas for us to work toward next Sunday—just rolling up our sleeves and getting busy. Maybe you want to take some of these Easter tracts and go through your neighborhood.
The Lord blessed me regarding my neighbor whom I have been trying to get to come to church. He is very good friends with the Wilsons, Earl and Linda Wilson. They have been working on him. Ms. Linda said this morning, “Hey, if you do not come, I am going to seek the preacher on you.” I told her, “Well, the last time I invited him, I told him, ‘Look, I am not one of those guys who will invite you every time I see you,’ because I kind of—I do not want to, you know—I had already invited him quite a bit, and he has always been good about it. But I am going to get him again for Easter. You cannot miss Easter.” He has never rejected me; he always says, “Well, I am not going to say no.” I want to say, “Well, go ahead and say yes.” Keep working on those neighbors.
I forget my Uncle Johnny Frank, whom I have used before, but he would not get saved. He was just a hard man. I remember my dad witnessing to his son, my cousin, years ago. Dad went to Frankie, and Frankie was listening a little bit, and Frankie looked over at his dad, Uncle John—my Uncle Johnny Frank—and Uncle Johnny Frank just shook his head, no. He was kind of the older male of the family and kind of the leader. Dad has passed; my grandpa passed. He shook his head, no, and Frankie said, “No, Steve, I am not interested,” talking about Dad. I remember, I think I was in Indiana when we were married, but in Indiana. Mom and Dad said, “Hey, we are going down. We are going to try Uncle Johnny Frank again.” I thought, “Well, Mom and Dad, you have done that a whole lot of times over the years.” They said, “You pray, we are going down there and try again.” I said, “All right, I will pray.”
They went down there that time. God had been working on his heart; I believe he had cancer at that point. He went fishing—that is always the key, Brother Fontaine. He was just ready to get saved. He was so excited. He got saved. All those years they had tried; at that time, he kept trying, and he got saved. In the hospital toward the end of his life, family and relatives would come in. He was always a rough man, but family would come in, and he would tell them, “I do not want you using that language around me anymore.” They would tell him, “Tell them, Steve and Nina, to come and tell them to bring their Bible. I want them to read the Bible to me.” They kept after that thing. You never know about your neighbor, your coworker. It may be this time we will go in love and talk to them, and maybe this is the time they will come to church. You just never know.
But we have got to do all we can. Maybe there is a friend on your mind; I need to invite them to Easter Sunday. Maybe it is a coworker. A lot of them are at least contemplating going to church on Easter. This is a key time this week: try to get them in church—a coworker, a friend, a neighbor, a relative. Maybe Sunday school teachers, “Hey, I need to go through my list.” I have been making a list, but I am going to try to get these people back in here. We have got to do our work, our part on it.
Maybe calling someone. You said, “Well, I haven’t seen so-and-so in a while.” Call up. I am not sure who to call; ask the Lord, “Who would you have me call?” Many of you have already reached out to them, and some are saying, “I will be back by Easter.” Some are already saying that. I will be doing my part; I will be calling and visiting. I am going to try to do a mail-out. I hate mail-outs; they are a lot of work. I do not like mail-outs and making sure everything is right on those. I am going to try to do a mail-out, at least to those that have not been here.
All that we can do: Saturday we will go out and pass out the rest of these thousands of Easter tracts. Let us get them out. Invite people to come Easter Sunday. Let me just work you. It may be the person you invite, and you work out of the tract; they do not come. But God says, “That little church down there is using all their effort; they are working with all their might, so I will bless them.” God often blesses in the back door that way. He gets the glory; He gets the credit. We cannot say, “Hey, look at me.” Everywhere you go—go to the gas station this week—take an Easter tract. “Hey, let me invite you to church on Easter. Come to church.” Everywhere you see people. Some of the best business you ever have is at a gas station pump. They are going to be stuck there for a couple of minutes pumping their gas. You are going to be stuck there. Might as well give them a tract and witness to them. Try to give them the church. We will give them real high octane called the Holy Spirit of God. Amen, they get saved. But just everywhere, just working, working. We have got to work, do what we can do.
God blesses—more often than not, you find out God blesses after somebody has been working. I went to a good church yesterday, and God is blessing there, I guarantee you. That preacher and his wife, both—they have been working. Praise the Lord for it. God is blessing. But we have got to be working. It is wonderful when God says, “All right, you have been working, you have been praying. I think I will step in and do something.”
I mentioned it here recently, but our church had its three-month anniversary. The church was meeting in that little, little bitty daycare—it is now the green realtor building in LaVerne, across from the post office and Dunkin’ Donuts. There it is, with an old Ford pickup truck and a bright green neon sign. You are not going to see brighter neon anywhere than that. Actually, it was a pretty good sign for their business. I think the best church sign we ever had was at our second building. Beside us was a little appliance place, and it had a washing machine out there with a dummy’s legs hanging out of that washing machine. We would try to tell everybody where our storefront was, but they could not get it. I would say, “Our church is right beside where the legs were hanging out of the wash machine.” “Oh, I know that place!” Best sign we ever had right there. We are going to put that on the new property.
That little daycare, at its three-month anniversary, we had been trying—I do not know how many thousands of doors we knocked on at that point. We were running probably 18 or 20 people at that point. At that three-month anniversary, God said, “You know what? Those people are not doing a great job, but they are trying with all their effort, and they are praying.” God decided to bless. Just a little bitty old auditorium, probably about from here to the wall right here or something like that. I do not know. I do not even think we had that podium; we had a little makeshift one that I had made, and it was not much to speak of at the time. The people started coming into that little bitty daycare and started filling it up. Pretty soon, we said, “Well, maybe the kids can sit”—kids were sitting on the floor right around the pulpit.
The little auditorium, all the chairs we had were full, so we had a little daycare, so we had little bitty chairs like we had over here in Building C. Adults were sitting in little kitty chairs. We had a little hallway where adults were standing. I remember Clay Stannett and others standing in that hallway. God put 72 people in that little bit of the building. I think we had four people saved that day. Ms. Tammy was sick; I think maybe Ms. Tammy and Sarah had to stay home. I went home—I mean, I had to pick my bottom jaw up. I just kept dropping it. I just could not believe it. It was just… God blessed more than any day. It was just a miracle day. It was awesome to see. I will never forget that. But people had been praying, and people have been working. God decided to step in.
Friend, let us just say He is the same today as He was then, and He can do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. You and I, we have good creative minds; you can think a lot. He said more than that. God does more than that. That is prayer and work.
And then this last point will be done. Look over in Joshua chapter number seven, if you would please. Joshua chapter number seven. I think it is just so important: Let us say we will go forward. Satan loves it when the church just gets on the defensive. Hey, let us go out and go forward. God is the one who split the Red Sea; He can still split a Red Sea for us today. He is the same God today.
You have Joshua 7. Let me just talk to you a little bit about this situation here for the nation of Israel. Remember under Joshua they crossed over the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and they faced this great big city, the city of palm trees, Jericho, a great big city. They said, “How in the world are we going to take that?” God said, “Well, I have a plan for you.” It did not make any military sense. God’s plans do not always, but heaven can make sense of no sense, amen. God said, “March around that thing; do not talk, just play the trumpets. Just march around it seven days, seven times. At the very end, play the trumpets and a long blast.” And God’s people shouted, and both of those walls fell down flat. You know the story. They marched in there. It was a great victory. How could the children of Israel, just that small nation, take that huge city? It was a great victory. Word spread around; it was already spreading around. It spread even more: “Wow, their God, Jehovah, is powerful.” It was an amazing victory.
Then they came to a little bit of a city called Ai, just a small little town. General Joshua said, “Well, we do not need to send the Army and Navy and the Marines and Air Force too. We do not need to send them all in there,” you know. I am teasing my brother Kevin over there about him eating somewhere or whatnot, but he can handle it better than anybody; he always does some good with that. Anyway, he said, “We are not going to send them all in there.” You know the story. They went over there to battle Ai, and I believe 36 men died—Israelites. They lost; they were fleeing. The word got back: “Man, we got defeated! We were running like a bunch of dogs with our tail between our legs and defeated.” Oh, my goodness. What were we going to do? All the intimidation around here—they hear about that, and we are going to get killed, you know. Joshua falls on his face, and he is praying to God after that defeat.
Now, I want you to notice Joshua 7, look at verse number one briefly here. We will not get it all. Verse number one is very interesting in how God says it: “But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing; for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.”
Now, wait a second. If I understand right, one guy took it—Achan. But God says, “The children of Israel committed a trespass.” Look down in verse number 11. This is when Joshua is on his face praying. We will start in verse number 10: “And the Lord said unto Joshua, ‘Get thee up. Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned. They have also trespassed, transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, dissembled also, and have put it even among their own stuff.’” Here is one man saying it, but God said Israel sinned. All of Israel suffered a defeat because of Achan.
It is very interesting. It talks about him taking the accursed thing. That was the first battle, Jericho. You know the Bible talks about tithing and first fruits? I believe this is a wonderful example of tithing. And later on, even at Ai and other places—look, you can take this portion of that first, but He said, “No, no.” In fact, He called it the accursed thing. Malachi 3 talks about if we do not tithe, we bring a curse upon ourselves, and I am not just preaching about that, but it is a great comparison. It has been on my mind and heart a little bit lately about the accursed thing, and they lost.
But not just that; here is my third thing: If we want victory, let us get clean. We have got to be clean. It burdens me. I do not want to be the one that hinders God’s working and God’s blessing at Rutherford County Baptist Church because of my sin. I do not want it to be me. It could be. God did say, “Israel has sinned.” It is interesting; they went to battle, as far as I know—maybe not. I do not know. But I know in the first battle, Achan was fighting, but maybe Achan fought in the second battle. I do not know. But he did not die, but others did because of Achan’s sin.
I am just saying, hey, if we want God’s blessing, let us say, “I am going to get clean. I will get myself right.” It was in his tent; let us go through our homes; let us get our homes right. Something between you and your spouse, let us get it right. Something between you and your kids or you and your parents, let us get it right. We want God’s blessing. I have said it recently: God does not bless a mess. God is so open to forgive and to cleanse. I have got to confess and get things right. “He that covereth his sin shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” That is God’s word, a promise. It is always true. We all think we are the exception, but we never are. Never. Make it clean. Whatever it is, I do not know, and I am not trying to pick on any certain thing, but just clean.
I want God to bless. What do we want to just say? “God bless.” What can we do? Pray, work, let us get clean. Have you ever gotten a coffee cup, drunk some out of there, and then realized, “Oh, there is a fly in there, a bug or whatever”? It is not clean. God uses clean vessels. Over there in Timothy, he is talking about vessels of honor and some to honor, some to dishonor. He said, “Depart from iniquity, and you will be a vessel of honor.” God can use you just by getting clean. Nobody is perfect. Nobody is perfect. I want to be a vessel of honor that you can use. I just think it is so important that we go forward.
You say, “What if we do not hit 200?” That is all right. Let us just keep going forward. Often we do not pray specifically because of our lack of faith. Let us just say, “Hey, we are going to set a goal. We are going to go after it. We are going to pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. We will try to get clean.” We would like to see God work.
Original File: Go Forward - Pastor Paul Chisgar Sunday PM 32821