Friday, June 19, 2015

Watch This!

Exodus 14:1-30
Emphasis on V.13 (KJV)
“And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever.”
I want to tell somebody today, to encourage somebody in the Lord today, God said to tell you, “Today is your day!”
Today is your day of victory, today God is going to drop the hammer on an enemy that has been nipping at your heels, whispering lies in your ear, breathing down your neck, and making your life a living hell.  I’m telling you that today you are finally going to get the courage to put something that has been hanging over your head, under your feet where it belongs.
Today you get to forget about the enemy you left in the land of bondage and look ahead to the promises of God!
Philippians 3:13-14 (NLT)
“13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,[a] but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”
God said to tell you, the “Egyptians” you see today, you will see them no more. I don t know what the “Egyptians” represent in your life, it could be sickness, financial trouble, unrest in your family, people who are trying to bring you down, attacking your ministry, a sin, or an addiction that you haven t been able to conquer.  Whatever it is, I’m telling you now you that today can be your day for victory.
Satan is opposed to you having victory, he doesn’t want you enjoying the abundant life that Jesus came to give us.
After the children of Israel have left Egypt the Pharaoh decides he has made a mistake and wants them back and now he’s in hot pursuit.  Look what the enemy says in v.3, “For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, ‘they are bewildered by the land; the wilderness has closed them in.”
The Pharaoh is saying, “I’ve got them right where I want them, they’re trapped, there’s nowhere for them to go.”
The enemy is thinking, you’re trapped, surrounded, hedged in, and there is no escape.  Satan thinks he has the upper hand, and everything is in his favor.  He has a sense of superiority, confidence, and assurance.  The enemy thinks that you are at his mercy, and now your fate is in his hands.
How many times have you been at the place in your life where it seems like all hell has broken loose against you, and you look around for an escape but it seems like there is no way out? It feels and looks like you are surrounded, Satan is coming at you from every direction, you hear his voice laughing with that attitude of arrogance and saying, “Now I’ve got you where I want you.”
We’ve all been there, and I believe I’m writing this for somebody who is there right now.  You are my assignment this morning, you are the reason God woke me at 2 a.m. and he told me to tell you, “Things aren’t always as they appear!”
The Lord told me to tell you this morning that there is more to your circumstances than meets the eye.  He told me to tell you that what may look like the worst circumstance you’ve ever faced in your life is preparing you for a brand new glory, a brand new anointing, a brand new level of faith and power, a level beyond anything that you could imagine or have ever experienced before.  He is getting ready to lift you to new heights!
God has sent an elevator your way, but it came in the form of an enemy.  God told me to tell you he is going to turn your haters into elevators.  Almost everyone saw Goliath as a hater, but David saw him as an elevator.  Most people saw the Romans and their crosses as haters, but God seen them as elevators!
Everything the enemy has sent to take you down, God is going to use it to lift you up.  Don’t give up, you are on the edge of a miracle.  God hasn’t brought you this far just to let you perish in the desert, He didn’t bring you out of bondage just to let Satan devour you, and He didn’t call you out on the water just to let you sink and drown.  I am telling you, your help is on the way and it’s closer than you think.  The Lord has heard your cries, He has felt your tears, and He told me to tell you, “Help is on the way!”
In the text that the Lord directed me to this morning, the children of Israel have found themselves in a predicament, a bad situation, a trap.  Let’s just be honest about it: We’ve all been there, we have all found ourselves at some time in a bad situation that we couldn’t get ourselves out of.
 Sometimes we are there because of foolishness, wrong choices, or wrong associations.  But sometimes there is no explanation other than that we have an adversary who hates us and is intent on destroying our lives: physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually.  But whatever the reason: we know what it feels like to be caught somewhere in something with no way of escape.  Somebody I’m talking to, you’re in that place right now.
The temptation is that when we find ourselves in such predicaments is to be just like the children of Israel and begin to whine and complain, to start looking backward, and begin to blame God for not making our life easy, and then to call His love into question for allowing us to struggle and suffer.
I’m trying to help somebody get out of your trap this morning. You’ve been crying out to God for His help, and it looks and feels like everything has taken one giant step forward from bad to impossible. But I want to tell you this morning, when it looks like you’re down to nothing, God is always up to something.  God is getting ready to show up and show out.
Oh there is no doubt in this story that there was a trap, but the point that we most often miss is that the trap wasn’t for the children of God, it was for their enemies!  The trap is not for you, the trap is for your enemies. 
The thing I’m trying to tell you today is this: God is getting ready to care of your enemies, God has been using this storm to draw your enemies together, to bring them out of hiding, God is turning the light on, and he’s uncovering them.  God is going to pull them out of their hiding places and he’s going to take care of them once and for all.
It was an impressive show of military might and strength when Egypt came storming down on the children of Israel.  All the chariots of Egypt, six hundred chosen chariots captains in every one of them, all the chariots and horsemen of Egypt with Pharaoh leading the charge.  And they followed Israel into the midst of the sea, with the taste of victory on their lips, they charged into the red sea, gaining on their prey.
Have you ever felt outnumbered, out gunned, like the underdog, and felt overwhelmed?
Israel was no match for the great Egyptian army.  Four hundred years as slaves, they didn’t know how to fight, they had no chariots, and no weapons.  It was like trying to fight the modern U.S. military with SCUD missiles.  But they had something Pharaoh had forgotten about, they had God on their side!
Romans 8:31
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Somebody is in that same place right now: The enemy is so close, you can hear the rattle of his sabers, the clanging of his guns, you can hear his voice saying, “I’ve got you right where I wanted you, now you’re trapped and you’ll never make it out alive.”
Look at v.24
“Now it came to pass, in the morning watch, that the Lord looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians.”
I want to tell somebody: The Lord has been watching, He has seen what the enemy has been planning, and He has seen the way the devil’s been treating you, and He’s takes it personally.
v.25
“And God took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”
All of a sudden the Egyptians lost all their momentum, nothing was going their way, everything that was working for them is now working against them, nothing is turning out the way they planned.  I’m trying to tell somebody that God is working on it right now, God is pulling off their wheels.
We talk a lot about being good soldiers and fighting the good fight of faith and all that is truth, but there are sometimes when God almighty steps in and says, “let me handle it.  This is beyond what you can handle, so I’ll take care of this one.  Just sit back and watch this!”
I want to tell somebody today: You’ve been fighting the good fight of faith, and you’ve been doing everything you know how to do, but it doesn’t seem like anything has changed, but God said to tell you, he’s going to step in and take over and he’s going to fight your battle for you and give you the victory.
I guess what I want to say to you is simple, it’s something my pastor has been saying to us a lot recently, God says to tell you today, “Watch this!”

 

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