Family, we are in a transition period. You and I will be alive when this transition occurs. Don't you know that there were a lot of people who were alive when John the Baptist was preaching that saw the church age come in to fruition? We are in that kind of company of people. What we are in now is the pronouncement of a coming change. It’s a coming of a difference of administration. Things are not going to continue as they have been.So there is a prophetic application to almost everything that is spoken in this word and what we are saying. There is a prophetic voice teaching us about our future. It's getting us used to what is already come. It's that “John the Baptist” spirit — the Elijah spirit. It’s that spirit that ministers about a coming “something”.
We’re in that day! And this people being developed and brought to the forefront today is a people foreshadowed by the children of Israel. Paul said they are types of what we must go through or experience or learn from. So that's the reason we are studying the book of Exodus.
It's interesting that in the book of Luke the 9th chapter, Jesus was taken up into a high mountain apart and Moses and Elijah showed up and spoke to Him of His “decease.” That word “decease” is the Greek word “exodus!” They spoke to Him of His exodus! So it is important to realize that if we are the body of Christ, then that's a pattern of what's going on in our midst today.
As we are being taken up at the end of the sixth day, we’re being taken up into a high place apart and were being instructed of Moses and about Exodus — about a “way out” of this particular age into the next. There is a way out of this world system into the Spirit. Out of the natural into the heavenlies.
We’re being taught a way out. And the principles are so profound, if you get into them. You cannot grasp what God is saying to this church by just listening to an occasional message.
That puts a lot of importance on the Word that is being ministered here. I really feel that way. I feel that Father is speaking through His ministers today and the people must listen and hear and remember. If He is speaking to us and we don't hear all that He is saying, then there is a gap in our understanding. It's understanding that is so important.
Family, if I were giving you directions for a long trip we were going to take and we were each going to depart at different times and days, and it took me several sessions to explain the route we were going, would you not need to set in on every session to learn where we are going? This is not a time to get lazy in the things of the Spirit. That time is past.
Previously I ministered about the time when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea. Here's the point of that particular thought. The Red Sea crossing is the most profound expression of the power of God that we have in the entire Old Testament. It's the greatest degree of the expression of Father’s power that can be found. All the way through the old covenant, whenever Father wanted to bring people to a remembrance of how He can deliver, He always brought up the event at the Red Sea. He recounted how He divided the Red Sea and how His people went across on dry land and how the enemy was destroyed. He repeated how He left the enemy covered in the waters. He spoke about that over and over again. It's the most profound expression of the power of God that can be found in the Old Testament. It parallels the resurrection of Christ which is the most profound expression of the power of Father in the New Testament. There isn't anything greater than the resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection of Jesus was the most powerful display of Father’s omnipotence. For a man to become all of lost humanity, and then be yanked out of that realm of death and raised from the dead with those who identify with Him as new creatures, is to accomplish the most profound expression of the power of our Father. It parallels the Red Sea experience, because both of them happened at the end of three days.
Here's the point, listen to this: Everything that happened to the children of Israel on their journey from Egypt to Canaan was an example of something that should happen to us upon whom the ends of this age are come. If on of those things was the most profound expression of Father’s power (the greatest miracle of the old covenant), would it not stand to reason that whatever it is that this great even pointed to, would be one of the most important things that you and I would ever have to enter to as part of the end of this age?
Note this: Everything that happened to the children of Israel was an example or type of something that ought to happen to us because were at the end of this age. Do you see this?
Next, understand that the greatest thing that happened to them was the Red Sea crossing.
And finally, whatever that Red Sea crossing experience typified is the most important experience that you and I can know at the end of this age.
What was it? It's not a lightweight thing. Whatever the Red Sea crossing pointed to is the big deal. You’re not going to be found in Canaan until you cross the Red Sea. You won't go into the Promised Land until you cross the Red Sea. You’re not even getting into the wilderness until you cross the Red Sea.
Some people think they are already in the Promised Land, and haven't even entered into the wilderness! Many are dancing and shouting today and they haven't crossed over yet. They just think they have. People say, “Praise God, we’re Promised-Land people.” However, just saying it doesn't make it so. That's a trick of the enemy to make people think they’re there when they haven't even started.
So, we need to know what the Red Sea crossing pictured or typified so that you can give everything in your soulish dimension to know that or experience that.
1 Corinthians 10:1-2 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,Here is what the Red Sea experience pictures. To the Old Covenant church in the wilderness, Acts 7, the crossing of the Red Sea is said to be the baptism of the children of Israel unto Moses. It is their union experience with Moses. Moses lifted up the rod, they crossed together with him on their journey from Egypt to Canaan and it was their placing unto or into Moses. Of what does that speak to us?It speaks to of us of the awareness of our placement or baptism into Jesus, our heavenly Moses. There is no revelation, no Christian experience that is greater than your awareness of your union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. That is the foundation. That is where the children of Israel started. They couldn't go a step further until they first went through the Red Sea.
Why do you think so many of us have struggled with our gift of salvation and living an overcoming life? We joined a church and never learned of our Red Sea experience and what that typified for us. We got saved and just thought we jumped right into the Promised Land and started looking for all the fruit. We never really knew who we were, or who our Promised Land man was.
You say, “Well, Pastor, that's where Pharaoh and all of his men were defeated and destroyed. That's where the type of the god of this world, the devil, and the demons were left behind.”
That's true. And the moment you were placed in Christ, Satan was defeated because Jesus defeated him. Do you follow this?
"Yes, but Pastor, I'm still fighting the devil."
But see, if you are, then that tells me that you haven't understood the Red Sea experience. You have not understood a revelatory awareness of your being placed in Christ. We’re not to fight the devil. We are wrestling with principalities and powers but we are wrestling from a position of victory, not trying to get one!
Do you realize that from the point of the Red Sea, for a period of forty years, they never once fought Pharaoh again? They never once had a struggle with Pharaoh again. Why? Because they saw His death!
“But, Pastor, the devil is attacking me constantly.”
That's the point of the Red Sea experience. There is an awareness and revelation in your union with Christ, that leaves Satan behind. He's a defeated foe. He has been defeated for two thousand years. The problem is what you believe about it.
Your only way to know the devil is defeated is to have your New Testament Red Sea experience. Go with Jesus into the death, burial, and resurrection and on up, and know that you are seated with Him in the heavenlies today. Know that – not simply hear it, but know it!
With all that in our minds, let’s turn over to Exodus 15.
We had to share all that with you, because of the first word in Exodus 15. “Then.” The first word is “then.” Father doesn't waste words. When He said, "Then Moses sang", it means that the purpose for the song had to do with what just happened.
They didn't just say, “Well, let’s just start singing.” No. Something happened that made them sing! They sang because of what they saw. And brothers and sisters, when you see what we’re preaching, you will sing. You won't be able to stop singing.
What did they see?
14:31 Thus Israel saw the great work which the Lord had doneThat's the reason they sang. They didn't sing because they were blessed, and they didn't sing because they were delivered. They sang because they saw what He did! They were blessed and they were delivered because of what He did.They didn't sing about the blessing and deliverance. They sang about what He did. We have been caught up in singing and shouting because of the blessings and deliverances, and not because of what He did!
Family, if you see and understand and remember what He did, you will have a song on your lips all the time. Not just when and blessing comes. Not just when you have plenty of money in the bank, but all the time. If you can get that, family, that will change every day of your life. You will hold your head up high and sing a new song. You won’t sing the old song many of us have sung in the past, “Woe's me — I'm going under — I don't have enough.”
Exodus 15:1 Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and spoke, saying:
Hear this: In Exodus 14 there was a great miracle. But Exodus 15 there was a great miracle, too, because Moses and all of the children of Israel sang the same words together by the Spirit of God! There were 600,000 men plus women and children, and they all sang this song by the Spirit of God.
When they saw the work that God had done to the enemy of God's people they all sang by the Spirit this same song. Can you understand the miracle there? They didn't have a song book. Moses didn't say, “Let’s turn to page 453 in our song books.” They just sang by the Spirit! The same song!
I will tell you, there will come a time that the body of Christ, those that are pictured by those people, who will sing a similar song! Revelation 15 says those who gain the victory over the beast and over the mark of the beast and over the number of his name all sang the song of Moses.
Does it stand to reason that they sang because of what they saw? Will not the children of God also sing because of what they see?
“Oh, what's God going to do?”
No. They sung because of what they saw He had already done. You want to know why we sing these new songs? It's new to us, but it's songs about what He has already done.
What we’re going to sing about is what He did two thousand years ago when He went into the death, burial and resurrection. When we see ourselves follow through that, we will, also, sing the song of Moses. That's what this is about.
Sometimes we try to make people sing and get excited. Let me tell you something. Look at verse 2.
The Lord is my strength and song,
When you know that the Lord is your strength, you WILL have a song. When you know that the Lord is your strength, He will become your song. We have much teaching today about worship and praise. But all of our teaching about worshiping and praising will be swallowed up when we see what Moses and the family of Israel saw! You won't be able to be quiet.
You know there are times when you come to church and you don't feel like singing and you see me sometimes when I might not feel like singing. If we don't feel like singing, it means we've lost the revelation of what we saw. We forgot! Say “amen” to that, will you!
Lets look at judges chapter 4
23 So on that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan in the presence of the children of Israel.Verse 1 of chapter 5 says,
24And the hand of the children of Israel grew stronger and stronger against Jabin king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.1Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying:Do you see the song comes after the victory? The song comes after God subdues. Isaiah 53 is the great substitutionary sacrifice chapter. It's the most perfect expression of the cross of Calvary that the Old Testament has to offer. It is explains a great deal more profoundly than what those who were there physically saw.Those who wrote about it physically just saw physical sufferings. Isaiah was there and He saw spiritual sufferings. He was there in the Spirit. He saw an identification between God and His people. In verse 3 it says,
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.And it goes on all the way through these verses. What a powerful scripture!
4 Surely He has borne our grief's And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.Isaiah 54 starts with this phrase,
1 Sing, O barren,Why do we sing? Because of what we saw! This is a revelation of the Cross. How could Isaiah speak of what he saw 700 years before it was ever accomplished? It because the Cross of Calvary and Jesus’ slaying as the Lamb was planned before the foundation of the world. This was all in God's plan. That's the reason the Red Sea can picture so perfectly.Do you understand that we sing because of what we see?