The Song of Moses

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 15:1-21

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Well as we begin chapter 15 we recount now the response of Moses and the
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Israelites to God's great deliverance through the Red Sea. Last week we looked at that in depth.
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We considered God's deliverance a fundamental way we understand the gospel.
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The whole pattern of Scripture ends up coming together in an Exodus like shape.
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We'll have more to say about that in weeks to come. But here we have what is called the
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Song of Moses. The Song of Moses is something that reverberates in many other parts of Scripture as I hope we'll have time to appreciate together.
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In part when we look last week at the Song of Moses really core material which is the actual
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Exodus, the actual passage of the Red Sea, we recounted Psalm 106.
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And Psalm 106 is actually describing the Exodus event in this way. Beginning in verse 9,
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He saved them for His name's sake that He might make His mighty power known.
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He saved them from the hand of Him who hated them and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
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The waters covered their enemies. There was not one of them left. Then they believed
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His words. Remember we said they feared God. They believed Him and His servant Moses. But that's not all that Psalm 106 says.
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They believed His words. They sang His praise. And that's the Song of Moses now.
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So Exodus 14 and 15 are held together by Psalm 106. They believed
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His words and they sang His praise. These things must always be held together by the people of God.
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Wherever the people of God believe the word of God, they sing the praise of God. One of the great joys of going to the
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Bolton every year is having the amplification of hymns and adding several hundred to the register and usually people that have sung for many decades and it's glorious.
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I usually sit in the far back but someone saved a seat for me up front the last two sessions yesterday.
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I think I'll never go to the back again. Hearing all of that music flood past my eardrums.
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It was tremendous. Where people of God believe the word of God, they sing the praise of God.
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And that's what Moses does. We have a response of praise. That's the first thing we'll see is the response really verses 1 through 3.
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And then the reflection. And then the preparation. So we're gonna look at this song in these three parts and then we'll have some application to follow.
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The response, the reflection, the preparation. So the response verses 1 through 3.
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And here's the big idea. The response is always focused on who God is.
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The response is focused on who God is. Beginning in verse 1.
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Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord and spoke saying,
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I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.
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The Lord is my strength and song and he has become my salvation.
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He is my God and I will praise him. My father's
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God and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name.
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So you see the focus is on who God is. He is my God. He is the
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God of my father. He is a man of war. He is Yahweh. Yahweh is his name.
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The Lord is his name. So this immediate response begins and all praise begins with who
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God is. Now looking at some of the details in this text. What do you notice?
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What we have here in verses 1 through 3. We'll see all the way through. This is not a song about Moses.
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It's a song of Moses. Not a song about him. The song of him. He doesn't say, thank you
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Lord that I raised my staff and when the going got tough I really stood in the gap and everyone doubted me and I had my haters but Lord thank you that I was a great man and I know this is not a song about Moses.
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It's a song about who God is. Difference so often with much, not all, but much contemporary
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Christian music is it's very autobiographical and it's written in the first person when it ought to be written in the second person.
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Who you are Lord. Not who I am or what I have done or what I've been through.
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And the older hymn writers tend to, when they do speak autobiographically, it's usually very brief and it's only to get to a larger point of expressing gratitude or awe with the
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Lord. And that tends to be upside down in a lot of contemporary music. Thankfully not all.
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There's a lot of good contemporary music as well. But you notice this sets the course for how praise is to be conducted in the
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Church of God. It is to begin with a response to who God is. There's beauty within the language.
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In fact we have in this sentence, he is my God and I will praise him.
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It's actually a very rare word for praise that is used there. It's the only place in the Old Testament where it appears.
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And perhaps it's better understood or it has a gloss of to beautify or to adorn.
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He's saying he is my God and I will adorn him. I will make a display out of his glory.
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And so this song is a attempt to do that. To beautify what the Lord has done.
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The Lord is a man of war. It's not a phrase we use very often. A man of war is an
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English warship in the 17th century. But here it's speaking of the
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Lord being a warrior. It's an idea we see throughout Scripture. Isaiah 42, a very famous passage of the
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Lord being like a warrior. And the response is focused on who
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God is and who God is is bound up with his name. In fact this Exodus event is bound up with God's name.
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How do we begin the story of Exodus? With the commission of Moses. And what does that commission look like?
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The revelation of the divine name. This is who I am,
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Moses. I am who I am. I am the Lord God.
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I am Yahweh. And so this whole Exodus event is about the revelation of who
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God is in light of what God has done for his covenant people.
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And when we understand the significance of the name, the identity of God, it makes sense that Moses now praises the name of God.
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And so in these first three verses we see the response focused on who God is and who
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God is is his name. The Lord is his name at the end of verse three.
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In Isaiah 63, in a very similar way, we have this recounted. He's asking the question, who is it?
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Who is this Lord? Who led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm dividing the water before them?
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Why? To make for himself an everlasting name. Who led them through the deep like a horse in the wilderness?
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That they might not stumble or like a beast that goes into the valley, but the Spirit of the
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Lord causes it to rest. This is how you lead your people. Why? To make yourself a glorious name.
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And so Isaiah 63 has in view what Moses has in view. Moses understood in the same way that God had revealed himself and revealed his divine name to Moses in that private encounter at the burning bush.
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In a much greater way, God revealed himself, disclosed his presence to the people of Israel.
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All that his name would be glorified. That his name would be known through all of the earth. And so that's verses one through three.
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Praise begins with a response to who God is. Secondly, praise then reflects on what
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God has done. Verses four through 13, as well as 19 through 21.
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So praise now moves from response to who God is, to reflection for what God has done.
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Pharaoh's chariots, beginning in verse four, and his army he has cast into the sea.
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His chosen captains also drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them.
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They sank to the bottom like a stone. You have a synonymous use of depths and bottom here.
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Tehemot and Metzalot. And the idea of Metzalot is like a gurgling. It's a very graphic depiction of what it was like when they were drowning, gulping water into their lungs.
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Your right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces.
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And the greatness of your excellence you have overthrown against those who rose at you.
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You sent forth your wrath. It consumed them like stubble. What an image.
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Any of you brothers shaved this morning? You get a little stubble in your sink like I did, you know?
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And you hit the electric razor and it falls like fine dust. The Lord consumed them like stubble.
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And with the blast of your nostrils, the waters were gathered together.
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The word blast there is simply ruach, wind, spirit. But when you combine it with nostril, with aph, it's like a hard breath, a blowing.
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2 Thessalonians speaks of the Lord destroying his enemies with the breath of his mouth, with the spirit, the wind, as it were.
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Exodus -like imagery. Nostril is metonymous with anger. And so we have bound up the sort of hard breath of God, the physical east wind, but also the spirit of God's wrath.
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All these things held together by this song. The floods stood upright like a heap.
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Water lost the property of water. It now becomes architectural. Remember, they walked through it like walls and Pharaoh stood at the gates.
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This is architectural language. It stood upright like a heap. The depths congealed in the heart of the sea.
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Again, what an image. The enemy said, I will pursue,
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I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. You notice this staccato -like pace.
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Walter Kaiser points out that it's almost like they can't breathe. They're furious in their pace and perhaps even they're now drowning, but they won't give up the fight as they enter into their ruin.
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And so they gasp out for air and with every breath they still show their rebellion against Lord. I will pursue,
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I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. And then they gurgle into ruin. My desire, the
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Lord says, shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them.
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And now it switches to the second person. You blew with your wind, right? Same word, spirit.
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The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
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Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
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You stretched out your right hand. The earth swallowed them. You, in your mercy, have led forth the people whom you have redeemed.
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You have guided them in your strength to your holy habitation. And then again, we recount the story once over.
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The horses of Pharaoh went with his chariots and his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them.
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But the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.
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And then moving to the very end where we have technically Miriam's song, better understood as Miriam's refrain, because this is simply a repetition of verse one.
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And most likely she's leading all of the women into the refrain, into the sort of chorus.
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So we have, beginning in verse 20, then, Miriam the prophetess. Interesting identification there that Miriam is a prophetess.
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We don't ever come across her prophesying activity explicitly in Scripture, except in Numbers 12, which is not a good look on her in Numbers 12.
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She is leading the people to grumble against Moses, and there, part of her and Aaron's complaint is, has the
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Lord not also spoken through us? And so we're right to understand that Miriam indeed was a prophetess and joins the small band of those who were given that honor, like Huldah or Deborah or Anna in the
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New Testament. She took a timbrel in her hand, so sort of a tambourine, a sort of wooden brace with small pieces of clanging metal, and all of the women went out after her.
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How many women in the midst of perhaps two million of the
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Israelites and all of the women follow after Miriam? And with timbrels and with dances, they sing to the
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Lord, and they sing this, sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously.
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The horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea. What a scene. The water of the
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Red Sea is still drying on their garments, and they're all there in utter exuberance, singing to the
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Lord, and now you've got several hundred thousand women with timbrels doing, I don't know, the funky chicken or the electric slide, whatever the dance might have looked like, but they're singing with might before the
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Lord, and they're encouraging the whole assembly, sing to the Lord because of what he has done.
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And then of course in verses 4 through 14, we have the recounting of what the
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Lord has done, and that's the point. Praise moves from a response to who God is to a reflection upon what
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God has done. You'd think that this kind of singing would have lasted them for the next 40 years.
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It won't even make it to the next verse. Singing is replaced by grumbling almost immediately.
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It was such a triumph, such a deliverance. You would have thought that this would have fed them for a lifetime, but they won't even make it out of the chapter.
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And there's something for us to learn upon whom the end of the ages has come about that. That praise is something that must always be fanned.
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The flames must be fanned because our flesh intrudes upon it and and takes away the memory, takes away the impact, begins to cover over that which the
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Lord is seeking to cultivate and produce. And so Scripture is constantly calling us forth to praise for this very reason, that we wouldn't wilter or go astray or become grovelers and grumblers when we ought to be worshipers of the
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Holy One. Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth, Psalm 66, 1 says.
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Sing out the honor of his name. Make his praise glorious. Say to God, how awesome are your works.
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Through the greatness of your power, your enemies shall submit to you. All the earth shall worship you and sing praises to you.
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They shall sing praises to your name. If all the earth is going to sing praises to his name, what about his own people?
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What about his church, the bride? Are we not to lead? Are we not to display? Are we not to instruct?
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Are we not to exhort all of the nations to sing praises to our God? Say, come and see the works of God, the psalmist says.
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That's what the church is doing. Every time his people gather, we're saying to those in and out, come behold what the
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Lord has done. Come see the salvation of God.
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Come praise and magnify his holy name. Who is like the Lord? He is awesome in his doing toward the sons of men.
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He turned the sea into dry land. Right? Exodus never falls away from praise.
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This is the first formal account, the first lyrics we have, lyrics proper of praise to God here in Exodus 15.
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And almost for that reason, whenever praise or worship of God is brought up elsewhere in the scripture, Exodus is hanging in the balance because praise is not just a response to who
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God is. It's a reflection on what God has done. He turned the sea into dry land.
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They went through the river on foot. There we will rejoice in him.
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There we will rejoice in him. Where? In the place where God did his great work.
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Where is that? In the Red Sea, in the Jordan, Calvary.
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In praise we're brought back to the place where God did a mighty work and there we rejoice in him.
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But thirdly, verses 15 through 18, praise is not only a response to who
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God is, it's not only a reflection on what God has done, it's also a preparation for what
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God will do. A preparation for what God will do. So in verses 14 and following now, everything shifts to the future.
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It's all about not what God has done, but what God will do. Beginning in verse 14, the people will hear and be afraid.
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Sorrow will take hold of the inhabitants of Philistia. Then the chiefs of Adam will be dismayed.
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And mighty men of Moab trembling will take hold of them. All the inhabitants of Canaan will melt away.
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Fear and dread will fall on them. By the greatness of your arm they will be as still as stone till your people pass over,
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O Lord. Till the people pass over, whom you have purchased, you will bring them in. You will plant them on the mountain.
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You will bring them in and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, in the place,
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O Lord, which you have made for your own dwelling. The sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
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And the Lord shall reign forever and ever. So praise now becomes proleptic.
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Because He has done this, He will do this. We have the first fruits of the beginning of what this
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Exodus means for our glorious future. Nations will be melted away.
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God's people will be gathered to the place of sanctuary. The Lord will reign forever and ever.
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Scholars argue that that last line would have been something that that was the moment you sung all together, all in unison, with all vigor.
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What a way to end a song of praise. The Lord shall reign. We open
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Psalm 96, we open a string of psalms, and that's the call to worship. The Lord reigns.
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Preparation for what God is going to do. That is how He uses praise in the lives of His people.
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So many of our hymns turn from what God has done to what He will do. Usually somewhere in the second or third line we have, usually it goes something like this.
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A response to who God is, that's the first stanza. Second stanza, what God has done through Christ on the cross.
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Third stanza, usually some mourning for sin, some thankfulness that He is still present, though we mourn our flesh and our failure.
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Fourth stanza, the glorious hope. That's a typical structure for Him, and that's a very biblical structure for Him.
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Who God is, what God has done, who we are, what God will do.
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Part of the glory of this whole Exodus event, when we think of it in this way, right?
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Moses understands that God has brought His people out and now all of the inhabitants of Canaan will be dispossessed.
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This is the land that God had given to His people, the land He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
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And now Moses understands the covenant people of God will be brought through that abode of death, through Sheol itself as it were, through the
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Red Sea, and they will enter into that land and fear and dread will fall upon all of these nations and all of these nations will be overcome by the strong arm of the
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Lord. Now there's a lot more covenantal intrigue that will go along with that unfolding narrative, but we're just focusing on the content of the song itself.
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But then he understands you will bring your people in, you will plant them in the mountain of your inheritance.
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This is prophetic, right? This is not the mobile tabernacle which rests on no mountain but travels with the people of God all about.
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This is not the resting place at Shiloh. This is looking forward to the Davidic dynasty when the
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Mount of Zion is fixed as the dwelling place of God. And with that, later prophecy shows all of the nations streaming to this mountain of God, all of the
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Gentile kings bringing tribute to the worship of God. And though this is beyond Moses' purview, he has not forgotten the promise of Abraham.
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Your seed shall be a blessing to all of the nations of the earth. And we have that held out, and I don't want to spend too much time on this, but we have this held out in such a beautiful way in Isaiah 19.
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In Isaiah 19, the Exodus picture of utter devastation becomes a picture of mercy.
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Exodus is the overthrow of the evil empire of Egypt, the serpentine ruler drowned in the depths, his head bashed, as it were, in a way that draws us to the great snake crusher to come.
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And in Exodus, we have the overthrow of Egypt, but what about the promise made to Abraham that Gentiles would compose the covenant people of God?
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That Israel was set apart, not unto itself, but for the sake of the world.
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And in Isaiah 19, Isaiah casts this vision. It's in the context of oracles against the nations, particularly
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Egypt and Assyria, the northern bigwig and the southern bigwig.
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Assyria to the north and Egypt to the south, and Israel tempted always to either depend on them or to fear them one way or the other.
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They're either looking for Egypt to help, or they're fearful of Assyria. They don't trust God to deliver them. And so this oracle is coming, pronouncing judgment upon these neighboring nations.
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But Isaiah then casts a vision for this glorious future, which takes up the reversal of God's judgment upon Egypt, the reversal of God's judgment upon Assyria.
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Now not judgment, but hope. Now not wrath, but mercy. These nations will come to share in the salvation of the people of God.
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Isaiah 19, beginning in verse 18. In that day, this is a glorious future, in that day, five cities in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear by the
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Lord of hosts. In that day, five out of six cities will speak the language of Canaan and set themselves apart to the
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Lord of hosts. Only one city will be called the city of destruction. I looked it up last night, that's 83 percent.
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It's pretty good. Eighty -three percent of the inhabitants of Egypt, of the Egyptian cities, will be known by the name of the
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Lord. In that day, there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar to the
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Lord at its border. So whether it's at the heart of this once evil empire or at the very border, at the farthest extremity, there you have an altar to God and a pillar to God.
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And it will be for a sign, for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt, for they will cry.
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Who will cry? They will cry, the Egyptians will cry to the Lord because of the oppressors and he will send them a
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Savior and a mighty one and he will deliver them and then the Lord will be known to Egypt and the
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Egyptians will know the Lord in that day. Do you remember how we began in the last chapter, this great act of deliverance?
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The Lord said, right, stand here, stand still, behold what I'm going to do, right, as he's preparing to smash the
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Egyptian army with the crushing weight of the sea. And what does he say? So that the
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Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. He desired through judgment to show the
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Egyptians that he was the Lord God. But here, how do they come to know that he is the
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Lord? I will make sacrifice and offering. They will make a vow to me and perform it.
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The Lord has struck Egypt and now he heals it and they will return to the
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Lord. Do you see? Judgment now becomes mercy. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria and the
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Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians.
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In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the
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Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, blessed is Egypt my people. Blessed is
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Egypt my people. Do you see? Judgment becomes mercy.
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Through the greatness of your power, we just recounted from Psalm 66, your enemies shall submit themselves to you.
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The enemies will submit either by judgment or by mercy, but they will submit. All the earth shall sing praises to you.
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The charioteers were the first to sing praises unwittingly and unintentionally when the waters began to cave in and they cried out, the
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Lord fights for them. That was praise. All the earth shall worship you and sing praises to you.
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Wherever God strikes a nation in judgment, we can hope in light of his great mercy, healing will come.
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At some point his mercy will be shown. Isn't that our prayer here in New England?
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That judgment will become mercy. And beyond this, praise prepares us for that ultimate judgment to come, which for us is the ultimate consummation of God's mercy.
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On that day, that fearful day when evil men and evil women and evil works and evil itself is utterly cast down,
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God will be glorified. It's interesting when we turn to Revelation chapter 15,
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I don't know if you've ever noticed this, I never noticed it, it never stood out to me till now. John says,
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I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image, over his mark, over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God, they sing.
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So notice first, right? Response to God's victory, right? Now they're on a sea like glass, not a sea that's threatening to crush them, but a sea like glass.
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They have the victory of God and what do they do? They respond. They sing. And what do they sing?
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Verse 3, they sing the song of Moses. They sing the song of Moses.
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So both at the beginning in Exodus 15 and at the end in Revelation 15, the song of Moses is sung, but it's not the song of Moses by itself.
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Because the song of Moses in the event of the Exodus, that was just a projection, that was just a shadow, that was just a type of a much greater deliverance and a much greater deliverer.
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So not only do they sing the song of Moses, they sing the song of the
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Lamb. Praise prepares us for what
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God will do. So let me now, moving to application, give four points.
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There's so many more points that we could give. I tried to, actually I did stretch it to five and I cut back,
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I think, for the interest of time. That might mean something to you if you were at the Bolton.
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There was a lot of ribbing going on about five points. The Lord delivered and his people responded with praise.
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I want to give four points about praise, four points about praise. The first point is this, praise is compelling.
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Praise is compelling. Praise is compelling because praise is, as we've seen, a response to who
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God is, a reflection upon what God has done, and a preparation for what
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God will do. If praise is all of those things, praise is stirring, praise is jolting, praise is moving, praise is compelling.
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Do we know who God is? Do we know what God has done? Do we know what God will do? Then we ought to be compelled to praise
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Him. Where we are not praising God spontaneously, energetically, joyfully, meaningfully, it must be that we've lost sight of who
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He is, or we've had short thoughts for what He's done, or we don't care what He will do. Are you compelled to praise?
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Martin Luther, who you'll hear a lot about in 48 hours or so, Martin Luther said where there is such a lazy, unwilling heart, nothing good can be sung.
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Is God pleased when, you know, we finally get to the hymn, halfway into the song, and we start mumbling out the words?
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We're half in our head, we're half just trying to get through the song, we're not even reflecting on the words.
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If someone then says, oh, you know, I love this line, it's all new to you, you were just looking and speaking, nothing was passing through your active thinking, and for that reason nothing was passing through your heart, and for that reason nothing was ascending to God that looks like praise that's pleasing to Him.
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Where there's a lazy, unwilling heart, nothing good can be sung. Heart, Luther says, courage must be cheerful, merry, whenever we're called to sing.
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This is why God has put aside such lazy, unwilling worship when He says,
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I have no desire for you, says the Lord. I am not pleased with the food offerings of your hands.
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You see what Luther's getting at using some of the minor prophets in this way? This is how
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God responds to lukewarm worship, to unwilling worship, to lazy worship, to half -interested or disinterested worship.
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Did you gain something from showing up? Did you gain something from standing?
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Did you gain something from mumbling out the words? Has any of that ascended to God in a worthy manner?
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Essentially, God says, you don't have a desire for me. I don't have a desire for you.
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I have no desire for you, says the Lord. I'm not pleased with what you bring. Why? Because where there is a lazy, unwilling heart, nothing good can be sung.
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Remember in the days of Ezra after Jeshua and Zerubbabel in Ezra 4, and there was this great momentum just like the
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Israelites here in Exodus 15. They were all excited to begin work upon the house of God, but then they, you know, they got a little caught up in the life of domestic construction, and there were always fires to put out, and things to build, and things that needed to be tended, and it's never -ending.
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As we, many of us know, some more than others, it's never -ending. The work is always there. Doesn't matter how early you rise or how late you sleep, there's always more to be done, more than you can do.
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But the effect of this didn't just linger for a few weeks. It didn't linger for a few months. It didn't linger for a season.
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It didn't linger for a year. It didn't linger for five years or ten years. The people of God had been brought back to the land, and all of that praise was a distant memory, and for 16 years no one put a stone toward the
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Lord's house. For 16 years, until the
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Lord prophesied through Haggai. And this is what the Lord spoke through Haggai to his people.
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Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses while the temple lies in ruins?
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Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build a temple that I might take pleasure in it and be glorified, says the
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Lord. You looked for much, but it came to little. And when you brought it home,
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I blew it away. Why? Because of my house.
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You see what the Lord is saying there to his people? You looked for much. Let me just get this done and get this done this is and then we'll finally be able to work on the
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Lord's house and we'll finally devote ourselves to his name and his praise. Just gotta get all this other stuff done
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Lord. Just one more year. 13 years, 14, 15, 16. And Lord is saying you looked for much and you produced very little.
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You spread widely. You worked hard and it came to nothing. Why? I blew it away.
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I let it slip to your fingers because I will not prosper you while you neglect me because of my house that is in ruins, the
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Lord said. Oh Lord, don't exaggerate. Aren't there enough people? Isn't there enough praise?
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Yeah sure, we're checked out, but other people aren't and there's a lot of good signs for health. Surely you exaggerate.
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Is your house really in ruins? No, it's just a temporary construction site. This is why the house is in ruins and this is the contrast that the
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Lord drives home. My house is in ruins while every one of you runs to his own house.
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That's why. My name is not magnified. I'm taking no pleasure in your praise because you're all consumed with the the ferret -like pace of your own ambitions and interests.
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My house is in ruins. Can you imagine the
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Exodus if God were to bring his people out of the dominion and bondage of Egypt and then they cross over the
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Red Sea and they sing this great song and the women stop there dancing, you know, their big sunglasses and 80s hair and they all hug and tears are streaming down their face and they're saying
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God is amazing. What a run. This is great. Well, we're gonna go build a house and hope your life goes well and everyone just spreads out and they all just spend the rest of their lives focused on exactly what's in front of them, on the needs of the day, the needs of the hour, the project, the ambition and meanwhile there's nothing to say about the dwelling place of God, nothing to say about his name being magnified.
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Did we not say the whole point of the Exodus was that God's name would be magnified? God did not bring his people out of bondage for their houses.
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He brought his people out of bondage for his house, his name.
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This is why praise is so compelling. Psalm 48 records, we have fought,
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O God, on your loving -kindness. Just start there. Have you fought on the loving -kindness of God?
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We have fought, O God, on your loving - kindness in the midst of your temple.
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There's no place for privatization, ultimately speaking. Do you want to know how you should view praise? View praise in this way.
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I can give you an image of sort of a trickling stream that comes into a massive body of water and then returns out as a trickling stream and that's essentially the life of an individual believer going from their own private walk to entering into the gates, entering into a corporate worship and you go from this private little stream where your whole life is bound up with reflecting, digesting, meditating, hearing, partaking in the means of grace.
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As this stream then, Sunday by Sunday or other opportunities that come, you enter now into the larger water and there you pick up weight, you pick up breath, you pick up depth.
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Now you have momentum and then you're a little bit stronger as that trickle for the next week and just when you're beginning to, you know, spread out and spread thin and become weak, you enter back into that body of water and you're empowered and strengthened once more and this is the life, the ebb and flow of praise for a
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Christian going from his own individual sphere to the life of corporate worship. We have thoughts, not
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I, we together have thoughts on your loving kindness in the midst of your temple, not in the midst of my paneled house.
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I can do it on my own, my way. You see, the Lord gathers according to your name,
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O God. So is your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness.
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Let Mount Zion rejoice. Let the daughters of Judah be glad. The whole mountain now, with imagery from Exodus 15 in view, the whole mountain now erupts into joy, into glory.
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If I of Zion's city through grace a member am, let the world deride or pity.
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I will glory in thy name. This is what it means for God to have brought his people out of bondage, not to be saved as abstract individuals, but to be made a kingdom of priests.
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Remember we said the Passover is a act of consecration and it's taken up again by the
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Levites in a more focused way and when you understand that, go read Hebrews 9 and see the blood of the
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Sun that cleanses us from every ritual impurity and defilement. Why? So that we may have our consciences cleansed from dead works and we may serve the living
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God. In the context of sprinkling and cleansing rites, what is that service?
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It's Levitical service. It's priestly service. It's praise. It's worship.
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So the blood is given to us that we might praise him, worship him. It's not given to us to go our own way, at our own speed, in our own direction.
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If you want to know if you want to know what you are worshiping, consider your ways.
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That's what the Lord says through Haggai, consider your ways. Don't consider someone else's ways.
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Don't compare yourself to someone else's ways. Don't vindicate or defend yourself against someone else's way.
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No, the Lord's not interested in that. Consider your ways. Consider your relationships.
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Consider that influence on you and your influence on them. Consider your time. Consider your resources.
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And as you consider your ways, you will find what's at the center of your praise, what is the end or the goal of your praise, what is the hand, what is the foot of your worship.
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We enter into the gates so often like a half -dead corpse, unsubmissive to God.
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Our consciences are dead. Our minds are starving, so starved perhaps we're ignorant to the effects of our starvation.
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Our imaginations are stained, walking through the world for a week. Our hearts are closed, if not toward God, at least toward our brothers and sisters.
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Our wills are rebellious. And when we enter into His courts, praise transforms every aspect of that failure.
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If our minds are unsubmissive to God, praise correlates to a submission of all of our life to God.
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We're reoriented to what is right and what is true and what is good.
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If our consciences are half -dead, praise involves a quickening of the conscience by His holiness.
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Things that we didn't care about 24 hours ago now are cutting into our hearts. Now we have a conscience and a sensitivity.
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Our eyes aren't as dry as they were midweek. If our minds were starving, now they're being nourished, they're feeding upon His truth in praise.
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If our imaginations have been stained, here our imaginations are purged, purified, as we behold
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His beauty together. If our hearts were closed, praise involves the opening of our hearts up toward God and therefore to our fellow man.
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And if our wills are rebellious, praise drops us to our knees and there and only there we surrender to the
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Lord God. We say, Thy will be done. Jesus Himself had to praise the
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Father, not because He had an unsubmissive will or a dead conscience or a starved mind, but so that He was resolute in going to the cross and even on the cross there worshiping
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His Father, singing Psalm 22 to the abject darkness of the sky.
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The Father still, still is seeking those who will worship
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Him in spirit and truth. The days of Haggai are these days.
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The Father is seeking those who worship in spirit and in truth, not in maintaining status quo, but worshiping in spirit and truth.
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Praise is the essential point of Exodus. Praise is the, to use a
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Latin, sine qua non, that without which not. Without praise, the covenant is not.
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Praise is the essential point of the covenant. In the broadest possible sense, the entire drama of redemption is drawn about and drawn by the worship of God, that my name may be glorified.
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And if that's the whole point of Exodus, and that's the whole point of the Bible, it's the whole point of history, and it's the whole point of eternity.
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Praise is your reason for living, it's your reason for being, it's the purpose of your existence.
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Worship is our destiny. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
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His own special people. Why? That you may proclaim His praises, Peter says.
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So praise is compelling. Secondly, praise is combative.
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Praise is combative. Not only is praise compelling, but praise is combative.
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Throughout Exodus 14 and 15, we've had this imagery of warfare. The charioteer said, the
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Lord fights for them. We recounted in the song, the Lord is a man of war. He's drawn his sword.
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Psalm 76, he makes even the wrath of man to praise him. The Lord fights for his people, and because he fights for his people, they praise him.
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And in this act, in this way, their praise becomes their weaponry.
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Their praise becomes their warfare. Their praise becomes combative. I didn't know this last week.
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I wish I had. I would have tried to print it out when we were going through Exodus 14, but I came across an old copy of the
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Geneva Bible. You remember, the Geneva Bible was sort of the Bible of the English Reformation.
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The reason King James employed so many to work on a new translation in 1611 was to have an authorized translation without all of the study notes that would make a certain one sitting on a throne uncomfortable.
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The Geneva Bible was printed in many variants, and I don't know if this was part of the original printing, but the version
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I saw from 1560 had a front plate illustration. When you first opened up that cover, and by the way, if you go back to Luther's day, buying a
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Bible back in the earliest days of the printing press revolution, that would have been like buying a car.
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That would have been the expense. Next time you go Bible shopping, you walk across the tables at the conference, and you see a
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Bible, and you go, 35, that's kind of steep. Well, it would have been 35 ,000 in Luther's day, something like that.
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1560, the very first thing you would have opened to when you opened up the cover of this Geneva Bible was a woodcut illustration of the
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Red Sea being parted. Above it were the quote, fear yet not, stand still, behold the salvation of the
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Lord. Underneath the woodcut, the Lord shall fight for you. So everyone that was part of turning to Scripture, part of this
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Reformation movement, the very first thing their eyes beheld when they opened up the book, the
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Holy Bible, the sacred writings, as Nichols reminded us yesterday, the very first image they saw was the
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Red Sea being opened, and the reminder, behold what God will do, the Lord will fight for you.
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No wonder God's people throughout Europe were galvanized, willing to have their life and their livelihoods torn apart.
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Not empty words when Mighty Fortress was sung 500 years ago, the body they may kill, let goods and kindred go, this was reality.
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How could they sing that joyfully? Behold what the Lord is going to do, the Lord will fight for you.
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Praise Him, let your praise be your combat. The battle was between not the
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Israelites and the Egyptians, but between the Lord and the Egyptians, and so it always is, the battle belongs to the
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Lord because it's His battle. So He fights. Praise keeps us true to the reality of the battle, it keeps us true to the all -encompassing power of our
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God. His arm is glorious. This is how He trains our fingers for war. Isn't it interesting when you consider
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David, right? You can slay a lion, right?
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You can chase away a bear, you can even slay a giant Philistine with five smooth stones.
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Well, actually one smooth stone, I guess, but he had five. Interesting detail. But one thing that he couldn't slay or chase away or throw a stone at was a demonic presence that would overtake
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Saul. That's above the pay grade of even a young, strong warrior like David.
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What in the world could you utilize in that kind of warfare? What shield, what spear, what sword, what sling is going to have any effect when you're not fighting against flesh and blood, but against spiritual principalities and powers?
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What in the world are you going to use? You know what David used? A harp. And when he sang to God, the demonic presence fled.
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I don't think we read that with enough insight. Our worship is our warfare, brothers and sisters.
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Are you like me? There's times where I don't realize how much I need to have hymns being played on my commutes.
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If I was driving to and fro to get my heart situated in my mind right, and so often
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I'm like, it's so amazing. I just put on worship music and it's just like the day is brighter, my thoughts are clearer, temptations don't have any hold on me.
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Wow, there's something in the hymn. No, it's not the hymn. It's not Bob Coughlin.
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It's not Fanny Crosby. It's how God has designed praise to be like armor for the fight.
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And so we're not doing God a favor when we gather to sing to him. God's doing us a favor.
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He's arranging and mustering his army and we're taking down principalities and power. How do the walls of Jericho collapse?
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Do they get some, you know, big sumo boys and throw them at the wall? Do they build siege ramps? What do they do to take down the wall?
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They sing in circles. They sing and they worship and they praise and the city is thrown over.
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Do you know that hasn't changed at all? As we behold the depravity, the ruin that surrounds us, a global slaughter of the unborn, the pride parades touting every abomination imaginable, every disorder, the blood loss that we see in so many parts of the world today, some of the horrific photographic evidence and videos that's come out of Gaza.
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It's demonic. I saw an image of a closet where two young Israelite children sought to hide in one of the kibbutz and you could only see the bullet holes and the bloodstains.
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That's demonic. How do we respond? How can we respond?
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Politicians say enough prayers, enough thoughts. That gets us nowhere. The church knows, no, more praise, more prayer.
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Let us stand still and behold what God will do. He fights for us. 2
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Chronicles 20, just to bring this point home, 2 Chronicles 20. I'd love to see how long it takes for people to find
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Chronicles. That's okay. 2 Chronicles 20. In the context, you have the Ammonites and the
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Moabites and the people of the Mount Seir and they're preparing to attack Judah to invade
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Jerusalem and Jehoshaphat is, by the way, anyone have a baby on deck? Jehoshaphat.
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There you go. Bring that name back. He was a wonderful man, a wonderful servant of God. Jehoshaphat cries out to the
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Lord. 2 Chronicles 20, beginning in verse 12. Oh our God, will you not judge them?
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We have no power against this great multitude that's coming against us. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
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The Lord loves putting his people in these situations. Isn't this a lot like Exodus? More than you realize. The Lord responds through a prophet,
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Jehoshaphat. Stand still. Behold the salvation of the Lord. Does that sound familiar? Do you see a pattern with how
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God likes to operate? Who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem?
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Do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.
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The immediate response to this, this word, which is a promise given by God.
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Stand still. I'm going to fight for you. I am with you, so do not be afraid. And the immediate response is, they break out just like Exodus 15.
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They break out and pray. Some of the children of the Levites, from the Kohathites and the Korathites, they praise the
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Lord God of Israel. We read with voices loud and high. The battle hasn't even started yet, and they're singing like the victory is sure.
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The invasion hasn't even begun, and they're singing with voices loud and high.
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Isn't that amazing that God doesn't say, behold my salvation, I am with you. Do not be afraid.
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And they go, okay, I hope that's true. And then they all go home and sweat it out through the night. No. What do they do?
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They praise the Lord God of Israel with voices loud and high. The invasion hasn't begun, but they're already fighting.
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They're already fighting. And then the most amazing thing, they take this right into the warfare proper.
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God doesn't direct them to do anything else. He didn't even say, by the way, you know, start singing to me.
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It's just a spontaneous response, as it should be. But then they take this upon themselves.
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It says, Jehoshaphat took counsel with the people, right? This wasn't what God required.
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The Lord gave them this word. They all rejoiced, and they responded in praise. And then amongst themselves, they came to this conclusion.
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Jehoshaphat appointed those who should sing to the Lord, who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, saying, praise the
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Lord. His mercy endures forever. So they recognized, you know what?
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The Lord will fight for us. So what's the best thing we can do? Put the cavalry out front?
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Send the longbowmen in volleys? No. Put the singers in the front.
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Put them at the front of the army. Put the harp players, put the tambourines, put the trumpets, put the horns, put the marching band out front, and let them constantly be singing this, praise the
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Lord. His mercy endures forever. Verse 22, when they began to sing into praise, the
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Lord began to fight for them. He began to set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, and then ultimately they're defeated.
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So they send out the singers, they send out praise, and the enemies of God are overthrown. And then after the victory, verse 28, they come to Jerusalem with stringed instruments, harps, and trumpets, and they come into the house of the
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Lord. What do they do there? Praise. They praise as soon as God speaks a word to them before the war, they praise through the war, and then with the victory, they praise as a result of the war.
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Praise begins and endures and completes the entire victory of God, you see?
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Praise is combative. Third, praise is calibrated.
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Praise is calibrated. By that we mean it's carefully adjusted or it's set.
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And my point here is that so often we do come with disinterest or half a heart, half a brain.
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We're not actually active and engaged in the worship of God. We're essentially saying unintentionally we dare not say this, but we've come into a place only thinking in horizontal terms, and we might as well be saying,
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God, I don't desire you. And God says to us, nor do I desire you.
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But I also want to point out that sometimes it's not because we have half a heart or half a brain, or we're only thinking horizontally, sometimes we gather with God's people and we're struggling.
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We're in immense pain, or we're in the midst of a trial, or we're being flooded with doubts, or with spiritual attack, or whatnot.
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And here God graciously condescends, and he receives stuttering and lisping praise.
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The heart is there, the sincerity is there, but rather than being joyful, rather than loud and high voices being lifted up, rather than having that vigor and that courage, there's sort of a weakness, and there's a pain, but the sincerity is there.
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Lord, help me. Help me to cast aside anything that's preventing me from looking at you rightly.
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And our praise becomes calibrated. How do we know this? We know it just by looking at the
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Psalms. The Psalms are not written for the go -getters, for the hundred ten percent people.
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Do you know sometimes you'd think Psalms are written that way, and then you go look for like a Psalm, just kind of start at Psalm 1 and work your way through, and try to find that Psalm that's just joyful, and you've got to keep flipping for a while.
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It's like, okay, lament, lament, attack, trial, lament. All right, Lord. He calibrates his worship in such a way, he meets us where we are.
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He wants a sincerity to be there, so I'm not speaking to someone who's lazy, or disinterested, or apathetic.
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Your own condemnation be upon you. Speaking to a brother or sister who makes the effort to come, they have a desire to please
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God, but they're struggling. They're in pain. They're not thinking rightly.
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They're not living rightly. They want to praise God all right, and God calibrates his worship in this way.
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It's why, in fact, the whole church is meant to calibrate our worship accordingly. Do you know that God commands us as a church to mourn with those who mourn?
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So we don't say, we're singing with vigor, we're singing with high and holy praise, buck up, why so glum, turn off the blue face.
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No, because in the Psalms you have lament. You have songs of mourning. You have a
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Psalm like Psalm 88, that it ends with no resolution, no light, and God gives this to his people and says, this is how you'll praise me.
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Jesus, of course, criticized those who honored God with their lips, but worshiped in vain because their hearts were far from him.
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God's looking for sincere worship, and when we understand that that sincere worship doesn't have to look like this cheesy grin and where everything's great, fantastic, how are you doing, that we can be honest with where we are in our human experience, because Jesus entered that human experience in its fullness, and the
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Psalms recount every aspect and dimension of what it means to worship God in a fallen world as a being of flesh, and we understand that then it doesn't matter what the season, what the trial, what the pain, what the struggle is, we can worship
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God in sincerity in a way that pleases him. God calibrates our worship. God wants the sincerity of his praise so profoundly that he doesn't even take pleasure in your fake smiles.
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I'd rather have you lament. I'd rather have you lament. At least it's you that's praising me and not a projection of who you should be that's praising me.
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That's how much God cares about his worship. In other words, brother or sister, be very weary of performative praise in your home.
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Be very weary. I was speaking to some of the men at lunch yesterday about this.
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I said, I often pray and then I have to repent of my prayer, because my whole prayer was bound up with the effect upon others ears, rather than actually having a prayer to God as if there were no other ears but his.
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That's performance. That's pharisaical prayer. Not a bad song.
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You know that song by Matt Redmond, The Heart of Worship? It dominated for like a decade. I remember going to a church and I was invited from a friend.
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They had just built this whole new area and it was like a youth night and there was this young man who I know is a friend of a friend and he was up there leading this worship.
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He was sort of this, you know, band leader. They had all these video screens. They had a camera set up, all these lights, and he sings this
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Matt Redmond song. So he comes out, he has his guitar and the microphone, two jumbo
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TVs with the video on him, the lights upon him, and he's closing his eyes and he's saying, you know, forgive me for what we've made it.
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It's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. You wouldn't know that from appearance. You wouldn't know it from the
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TVs and the light and all the people gathered around staring at this person. And I found it so offensive, like, ah, yeah.
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But the reality is I can fall into that just as easily. Might be more camouflaged, but God takes no pleasure in performative praise.
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And just because others can pat you on the back and say, that was moving, that was stirring, just because they took pleasure in it doesn't mean that God took pleasure in it.
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Our praise must be calibrated so that we can genuinely believe. Karl Barth once said that God's beauty embraces life as well as death.
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Fear as well as joy. What we might call ugly as well as what we might call beautiful.
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It reveals itself to be known on the road from the one to the other. Do you see? God's praise is all comprehensive.
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It's for every dimension of life. Every aspect of your life can be calibrated to the praise of God.
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Do you know that? There's no excuse. There's no season, no reason, no trial, no setback that cannot be calibrated to the praise of God.
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And then lastly, praise is cleaving. I have more to say on that, but I'm just gonna forego it, which is paining me, because I was gonna mention
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Mahler, but that's okay. Praise is cleaving, the last point. Praise is cleaving. Interestingly, to cleave has sort of an antithetical definition.
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It's one of those few words that, depending on the context, it can mean the opposite thing. So cleaving can either mean to adhere or join in an intense way, in a strong way, or it can mean to divide and separate.
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Isn't that funny? Shouldn't you just come up with two separate words for that? You know, a meat cleaver, right, separates you. Our brother would know this very well.
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Cleaver, you chop down and you have the flesh separated. That's cleaving. But cleaving in the
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King James Genesis 2 sense is also joining together in a very resolute and intense way, to adhere strongly, or to separate and divide, and praise is both of those things.
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Praise chops us away from the carcass of the world unto God, but in doing so, it also joins us together as a body.
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Our worship of the Lord has separated us from the world by gathering us together in praise.
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We have been gathered to praise the Savior together. We don't just show up to politely behave and sit near each other, we are to actively, in an interwoven way, be joining our voices together in praise.
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Actively, in an interwoven way, praying what someone is praying out loud in our mind from our heart, amening what they are saying, perhaps even out loud.
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I'd love to have more amens during prayer time. Otherwise, our mind is just wandering.
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We're thinking about who knows what until we hear a pause, and then we follow along for 10 seconds and our mind wanders again, because we're not viewing our praise as active, incorporate in nature.
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According to Pew Research, New England adults are the least likely in the United States to believe in God or attend a church regularly.
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Least likely. For those that were at the
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Bolton conference yesterday, we talked about the second Great Awakening. Some of the good fruit that sprouted from that in a morass of failure and loss.
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We spoke about Asahel Nettleton, the great revivalist from Connecticut, and we contrasted his faithful,
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Calvinistic approach to evangelism and discipleship with Charles Grenison Finney and his new measures, which were a denial of total depravity, denial of the sinfulness of man, and basically a technique of emotional manipulation to get people to pray the sinner's prayer and then never doubt ever again, which led to the complete collapse of the revival in short order.
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This was what Asa Mahan said of Finney's reign.
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The people were left ultimately like dead coal which could never be reignited again. Dead coal.
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I guarantee you they didn't look like dead coal in the midst of the sweep and the emotional fervor of Finney's preaching or these big tent meetings.
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They probably looked like they alone had laid hold of the Spirit of God and everyone else was pale by comparison.
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All other churches needed to now join in with these new measures in this new direction to keep in step with the
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Spirit, and all of those people, almost to a tee, were like dead coal within a year.
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But Nettleton's ministry was noted for the lasting impact. One of his fellow pastors at the
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Connecticut School for Theology, Bennett Tyler, put the difference like this. He says, the revivals were no temporary excitement, which like a tornado would sweep through a community and only leave desolation behind it.
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That was Finney. They were like showers of rain which refreshed the dry and thirsty earth and caused it to bring forth herbs, meat for them by whom it is dressed.
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These fruits were permanent. By them, the churches were not only enlarged, but beautified and strengthened, and then an influence was cast on the community around them.
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Do you notice that? That is the fruit of praise. Right praise. Praise by Spirit and by truth.
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Churches not only enlarged, but beautified, strengthened.
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I ask the question of GRBC. Is our praise, is our approach to prayer, is our manner of active corporate gathering unto
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God, of fellowship with and for one another, is that beautifying and strengthening this body?
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Or are there fissures? Are there hairline cracks? Can you imagine all of the women being gathered out to praise, this great refrain in response to what
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God has done, His great act of redemption, and that as they're being gathered to sing, you know, they have the lyrics in front of them, and they're just haphazard, and they're spending their whole time giving cold looks at other people in the church, and then, you know, there's a chorus going on over here, but there's a few people gossiping over here, and towards the back, there's some back biters, and so we're not even gonna go.
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We're not even gonna go. Can you imagine that? I can't imagine that. If it's not the height of spiritual immaturity, then it's the depth of something despicable.
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We long to see thy churches full, Isaac Watts once sang. We long to see thy churches full, amen, but full of what?
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Full of what? Full of Pharisees? Full of hypocrites?
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Full of unregenerates? Full of goats? Full of tares? What do we long to see God's churches full of?
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We long to see them full of people that are sold out to the praise of God, to the glory of His grace, people that cover a multitude of sins, always looking charitably against a brother or sister who has manifestly done them wrong, closing any sense of coldness, denying themselves for the sake of Christ, always uplifting and working in such a way that they are a promoter and a helper for worship, rather than a hindrance to it.
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Nathan White, I totally agree with him. He got some flack on this, and it's like, no,
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I totally agree with this. He said it's far easier to stand on a street corner and speak to unbelievers, scream at them even to repent, it's far easier to travel around the world and evangelize than it is to love your family and love your church day after day, in good times and in bad, faithfully and persistently to the end.
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Do you agree with that? I agree with that. It's easier to go on a rolling tour for people you'll never see again and love them, preach to them, evangelize them.
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It's just effortless, natural. But where you have to be day by day in the home, week by week in the life of the church, that's where it's hard, because that's where it's vital.
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That's where it's hard, because that's where it's vital. The kingdom of God advances through the church, and the church advances by praise.
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We long to see thy churches full, that all the chosen race may with one voice and one heart and one soul sing thy redeeming grace.
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Amen? The Lord delivered us, and as a result, we are to praise Him. Our praise is compelling.
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Is it compelling? Our praise is combative. Is it combative?
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Our praise is calibrated. Are we honest? Are we sincere? Are we meeting the
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Lord from where we truly are? Are we letting others see us where we truly are? And praise is cleaving, chopped away from the carcass of a fallen world, gathered together with the life -giving union we have in Him, our great
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Bridegroom, cleaving together closely with one another in this very way. Robert Hawker said, and I close with this, think of the far happier privilege of those who are citizens with the saints in the household of faith.
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Their admission into this church is sacred, their residence is blessed, great are their privileges, everlastingly secure their interest, united to their spiritual head, the
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Lord Jesus, united to others in Him, members of His body, members of one another.
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Oh, how closely joined together. May that be our aim, our prayer, our praise.
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Let's pray. Father, thank
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You for Your Word. Please, Lord, give us a spirit of prayer and praise. Let us be sincerely before You, as if only before You.
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Let us have a singular eye to Your glory. Lord, help us to consider our ways.
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Let us not be like the people of old who forget things as quickly as they heard them, who stopped up their ears.
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We're not willing to hear You. We're not willing to attend to Your Spirit. May we not, as we were already exhorted, not be forgetful hearers.
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Show us, Lord, as individuals, as families, and as a church, how to improve the manner and the character and the shape and the dimension of our worship.
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Where there is lack, where there is need, where there is deformity or ingrowth, Lord, help us.
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Help us to repent and to address and to grow. For the times are such that, like Jehoshaphat, we must have the songs of worship and praise at the front of the battle, if there's any hope of deliverance.