"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister (serve to bring up) questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith " (1Tim. 1:4)

What Kind of God do We Have - April 12, 2023 - Dr. David Antion

First question is a rhetorical question, and I hope to answer it as we go through. The question is, what kind of God do we have? What kind of God? So I'll let you decide what you want to say. There are many things you could say, right? Many things.

So what kind of god and in this festival we have the first and the last days are holy days. I'll read you Exodus chapter twelve, verses 16 and 17. On the first day, you shall have a holy assembly and another holy assembly on the 7th day.

This is Exodus twelve, verses 16 and 17. No work shall be done on them except what must be eaten on a festival day. The Jews would consider it sinful for you to refuse to eat, to fast on the day that you need to eat something.

You don't have to figure out with everything, but you need to eat something. You shall also observe the feast of unleavened bread for the very day. For in that very day that I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. That's exodus 12:16 and 17. Now in Exodus chapter 13, for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

On the 7th day, there shall be a feast. This is the 7th day to the Eternal. That's exodus 13, verse six.

So we see that the children of Israel started out of Egypt on the first day of unleavened bread. Moses and Aaron went and assembled the elders. You see this in Exodus four.

They assembled the elders and Aaron spoke all the words of the Lord spoken by Moses to Moses. Then he performed the signs and wonders from the people. And they believed and they heard, and the Lord was with them.

This is about the sons of Israel, and that they had seen their affliction, God, and that they were bowed down. God had seen their affliction. What was God going to do when he saw their affliction? He's going to rescue them, right? Exodus eleven.

This is a night to be observed, but we don't often read this very well, as well as Exodus twelve. Exodus eleven, verses one through four. Now the Lord, the Eternal, this is the Yahweh, this is the Tetragrammaton, the ever living.

Now, the Eternals said to Moses, one more plague I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here completely.

He's going to say, everybody get out and get out now. Speak now in the hearing of the people that each man, each person ask his neighbor, his Egyptian neighbor, and each woman from her neighbor for articles of silver and articles of gold. You can't carry everything, but get some silver, get some gold from your neighbors, the people you worked for, the people you helped, the people you served.

Furthermore, the man Moses himself was greatly esteemed in the land of Egypt both in the sight of the Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people. So they would say, Moses is taking us away. We're going to leave.

Could I have some silver and gold to remember you by or whatever they said, I'd like to have some silver as we go. So you see in Exodus chapter eleven, one through four that they were instructed to ask for these things. But in Exodus chapter twelve I want to read this now from the new American Standard Version and so on.

But in Exodus chapter twelve, you see the Egyptians by the time that last plague happened, the Egyptians were urging the people on, Go on, get out. In order to send them out of the land as quickly as possible, saying, if you don't go, we'll be all dead people. So in Exodus twelve, verse 34 so the people took their trough before the yeast their dough trough their dough before the yeast was added with their kneading trough bound up in their clothing and on their shoulders.

You just take that sack of dough it's not risen and put it on your shoulders and take on. Get ready to go. Now listen to what verse 35 says.

This is Exodus twelve, verse 35. Now, the Israelites I'm reading from the new English translation. This is a new English translation and it's quite accurate here.

Now, the Israelites had done as Moses told them. They had already on this night requested from the Egyptians silver and gold items and clothing. The Eternal gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians and they gave them whatever they wanted so that they plundered Egypt.

We're going to go. You want us to get out of here? How about giving us something? We can go. They park it.

So the Israelites journeyed from Ramses to Sukho there were about 600,000 men on foot plus dependents family members. A mixed multitude also went with them. Mixed multitude of various other people who looked on the Israelites and said we would like to sign with them.

You're leaving? We like to go. Because they were poly slaves, too, they went. A mixed multitude also went with them.

And flocks and herds. A very large number of cattle also went with them. You're going to go through the desert, you better take something that you can eat.

They baked cakes of bread without yeast using the dough they had brought from Egypt. So as they left, they took the dough they had and as they went, they baked those cakes for it was made without yeast because they were thrust out of Egypt and did not have the delay, the time to prepare. If you bake bread and you put your Levin in it, you wait it rises and you knock it down a couple of times and rise again.

And you make sure that all the parts of it are even. But they didn't have any time to do that, so they took their dough without yeast. Now, Exodus 13, they set out from Sukhov and camped an Etham on the edge of the wilderness.

This is Exodus 13, verse 20. The Eternal was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way. Which way do we go? Follow the pillar of cloud.

That's all you have to do. We sang the words trust and obey. You have to have faith in that pillar and obey.

Go. Follow where it's going. So trust in Rover.

So they went the pillar of cloud to lead them on the way, and in the pillar of fire by night to give them light. I'm going to tell you something. Deserts, unless it's a full moon, can be very dark.

There's nothing. There are no street lights, there are no cell phones, there are no nothing. It's just black.

Unless this moon is shining, you don't see. Now, they did have a full moon. But have you ever walked with just a full moon and you're walking in a dark area? It's not fun.

You've got to be very careful where you walk and what you do. And I want to tell you, I walked some of these places and I know that I had to be very careful. And it was broad daylight.

I never walked at night. It was broad daylight, although that one couple of days, it was raining. So I'm carrying an umbrella.

It's raining. We're going up to see the Tell Dan, the excavated city of Dan. They found the city of Dan where the Danite tribes were up there.

And it goes from Dan to Bersheba. You've heard that phrase. And we were up there at Tell Dan, climbing, looking over the rocks.

And listen, if you ever thought Jesus was a carpenter with wood, you get that out of your mind in a hurry. When you go to the Middle East, it's all stones, stone foundations, stone pillars, stones that were laid on top of one of their stones. And Jesus was a Tecton.

He was a highly skilled worker who worked with mostly stones. They didn't have a lot of wood. They worked with these stones.

You see, every place we went, there were stones. We went to Capernum Stones. Jesus mother's house, I mean, Peter's mother's house in Capernum.

They think they located that. And we saw it built up with stone columns and stone. This and rooms.

You see the rooms all laid out. I suppose there was some wood, but I'm going to tell you, the vast majority of these buildings were made with stone. So they went pillar of fire by night to give them light that they might travel by day and night so they could keep going.

Now, this is a very important statement in verse 22 of Exodus 13. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people. Now, what does that mean? When they refused to go in and he had to march around the wilderness for 40 years, guess what they saw every single day of their lives? Cloud.

Fire. Every day. So much so that they just got used to it.

Oh, okay, it's time for the fire now. Let's just follow them. It's going sun.

The sun is going down. Well, that cloud is now turning into a pillar of fire. We got to follow it.

Wherever it goes, we keep going. It's leading us this way. Leading us that way.

Of course, he marched them around the wilderness with that on and on and on and on. How would you not have faith? How would you not trust? How would you not see? This is God leading us in the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of fire, and he didn't take it away. Exodus 14, verse one.

Now, the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying, tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pahah between Migdal and the sea. You shall camp in front of Bale Zifon. Wherever they located here was bail over here.

Bale worship was here, named it after the place Bale Ziffon. Bale here, bale there. Wherever they were, they named it a Bale, and that meant Lord.

Bale means Lord, so Balesifon opposite it by the sea. And then God says, for Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, they are wandering aimlessly in the land. The wilderness has shut them in.

Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart. When you have a hardened heart, it means you can't learn. You're not learning.

Something happens. You don't get any good information. You get no lessons from it.

You just keep doing the same stupid thing over and over. And what did Pharaoh never learn? He never learned that these plagues were going to leave and that the God of Israel was a living god. He punished Israel.

I mean, Egypt was nearly broken down. Their cattle had diseases, they had fleas, they had flies, they had frogs, they had all this stuff. And then he had the firstborn.

And you thought Pharaoh would have said, you know what? Let's just let them get out of here. But no, he didn't. What does he say? Pharaoh said they're wandering aimlessly.

I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will chase after them. He never learned a thing. He thinks that it must be all coincidence oh, it's a coincidence that we had this oh, it's a coincidence that we had these plagues.

Oh, it's nothing but a coincidence that the Nile turned bloody oh, it's nothing but a coincidence and so he just wrote it off as though we're not real. They're wondering. I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will chase after them.

And I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his armies, and the Egyptians will know that I am yahweh, the ever living Jehovah, whatever you want to say, they will know I am the ever living God. And so they did. So they went there.

So they went from one place to another place in Deuteronomy 16 six. But at the place where the eternal your God chooses to establish his name, you shall sacrifice the Passover. Now, that's a statement.

Deuteronomy 16 six is a statement for when they come into the land, okay? You shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening, at sunset and the time that you came out of Egypt later on in Deuteronomy, you see, I think, in chapter twelve, you are no longer allowed to sacrifice the Passover in your own home. You have to go to the temple. You have to use the priests, the Levites.

They were God's agency for them to sacrifice it. There's an interesting statement here in Exodus chapter 16 and verse one. I'm reading this from the English Standard version 16, verse one.

They set out from Elam and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin. It spells at Sin, but other translations called it the wilderness of Zin Z-I-N which is between Elam and Sinai. They got there on the 15th day of the second month.

Now this they've been traveling all through the first month. They got there on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. They've been traveling over a month.

Where were they? I think a guess as to where they were on the 7th day of the days of unleavened bread, I guess my guess will be they were at this crossing. They were there at the crossing. Okay? Now let me tell you something about the wilderness of Zinn Zinn.

I spent three nights there on this trip, three nights in the wilderness of Zinn. And it's wilderness. It's wilderness, okay? But we stayed in a place called Tamar.

Tamar. The name occurs in the Book of Ezekiel, in Ezekiel, chapter 47, verse 1948, verse 28. And it's in Ezekiel's vision of the way Israel was going to be under God's rule and everything.

He has tamar listed. Okay. The Dead Sea is the eastern border, and the southern border is Tamar.

Now, we stayed at the biblical Tamar, the one that's referred to in the Bible. We stayed there three nights. It has water.

You wouldn't stop when they said that children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin Zinn, which is between there on the 15th day after they had departed. You don't go to a place there that has no water. I want to tell you something.

You're looking for springs. And when we were in Getty, and Getty is not very far from there either. Not by bus anyhow.

I wouldn't want to walk it. But Ngeti is the place where David hid from Saul. You remember the story of Saul? And it is a beautiful spring it's a wonderful park.

There are IBEX animals in there now. They have them at all killed off. The Israeli government forbid any more hunting of them.

They were being killed. They have their horns go back this way. They're like little deer, nice little deer.

These places where you have a spring, like in Getty, you want to camp there. You want to camp in Tamar. It had some water.

You want to camp different places. Now, from Tamar, we were not very far. By bus, at least I wouldn't want to walk it.

But we were not very far from Kumaran. Kumaran was the Essenes place where they lived. They left the temple.

They left Jerusalem. They said it's corrupt. The Sadducees are corrupt and evil.

They called it the evil temple. Jesus called it God's house, which is supposed to be my watch. Wanted me to know if I knew about Sadducees.

Shut up here. Anyhow, so they left. They went down to Kumaran.

We were not very far from the Dead Sea. At Tamar, you go down the road and there's the Dead Sea. Not too far.

I wouldn't want to walk it, but by bus, it was not bad. We were not too far from Masada. Down there by Tamar.

We drive over to the Masada, took the tram. How many have been to Masada? Nobody. Nobody.

We took the tram all the way up. Has anybody ever been to Squaw Valley? Has anybody taken the tram up to the high mountain? That's the same kind of thing. You all load into this box car and the cable takes you all the way up and one is coming down.

You meet about halfway and the other goes up and it goes all the way up. And I'm not kidding. It's like sheer rock and mountain.

Now, the first time I was there, it seemed very small. But the top of Masada is like a city with carved out now that they've excavated. You see synagogues.

You see a number, not just one or two, but a number of cisterns, cisterns who want to raise. What do you do? You have to find a place to keep the water. And they kept it in cisterns which are just cut out of rock, rock formation, like a big swimming pool.

And that water goes in there and they save. Now, one place that I did not go my knees. I said, I'm not going to go down there.

From our level ground up on top of Masada, there were like 30 steps going down. When you got down. I talked to the people who did go down, the younger guys.

Everybody went down. Some of the people went down and they looked and they said, it is enormous. It was probably as big as this room and deep.

A cistern under the ground. You had to tilt down all those steps to get to it. So they were prepared to stay for a long time.

And then we saw king Herod. King Herod had a house up there. It's excavated.

Now you can see his place. They were prepared to stay a long time, but unfortunately, the Romans were prepared to stay longer. The Romans were not going to let them get away with it.

We're going to capture each and every Jew or Idomian or whoever they were up there, and we're going to kill them. Going to capture everyone. So they began to say, here's what is going to happen to you if the Romans capture us? Our kids are going to be molested and taken.

Our daughters are going to be used in brothels. Our wives are going to be used in brothels. They're going to be abused and misused, and some of the men are going to be beaten up and made slaves, and others are going to be crucified just to show.

So what are our options? What are our options? Surrender to the Romans? No. They'll take us away and abuse us toe bad. So at the end of their supplies, they decided the option suicide.

And they were willing to let somebody slight their throat or their wrist and die. Die as painlessly as they could. Let yourself bleed to death, and they killed themselves.

The Romans never got them, but the Romans were determined. Romans do not like you rebelling against their their government, and they do not like it don't you that you cause trouble. And then the people ran.

They ran down to to Masada. A lot of people did. The essenes, the Essenes did first because they were down there close.

So they went up and other people came from Jerusalem and went up. And probably even some of the sadducees and leaders got down there before they could be captured. And once they got up on there, I'm going to tell you, you don't get up there and capture them because as I told you, there's nothing but rocks.

Why do you think the death penalty in Israel was being stoned to death? Wasn't being hung on a tree. It was being stoned to death that there's so many rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks everywhere. So if the Romans try to come up, boom.

It's a big roller down. Or you throw something down, you hit them, and they're going to stay down there. They have no way to get you from down there.

You're way up here. They're way down here. They start climbing up, here comes a boulder.

No. So they were able to hold off, but finally they had to give in. There was no alternative.

It's an amazing story. They've had film on it. You can see you want to rent a film on Masada, you probably could rent it.

But here we were. Here they were at the wilderness of Sin, right down there in that area. And we stayed there, and it was pleasant.

They put up no, it wasn't a luxury hotel, let me tell you. It was a trailers that they had made into little cabins, trailers. But we had hot and cold running water shower in every place.

Electricity was in there. We had all the stuff. And then we ate up in a common area of a cafeteria.

Had to walk every time I want someone to walk, I probably had to walk from here, past that building there, past that building there, to get to the dining hall every morning. Uphill, uphill. My knees already hurt to get to breakfast.

Okay, so this was the wilderness of Zinn, okay? The Israelites journey from Ramses to Sukhov. This is chapter twelve and verse 37. And they came about 600,000 men, and they were there and so on.

So we talked about that. Okay? We're in Exodus chapter 16. They were in the wilderness of Zinn, and I think they were at the place in the desert where God was going to destroy the Egyptians.

And if you read Exodus chapter 14, I won't take all the time to read that. Now, it's a wonderful story. How they get there? They're trapped mountains on either side, egyptians behind them and a sea in front of them.

They've got very few choices and they have to march forward. And finally they said what? Move forward. Right, don't get fearful.

Stand here and see what? What does it say? What? Stand and see what? God fighting for the salvation of the eternal. Salvation? What kind of God do we have, brethren? He's a saving God. He's an ever living God who saves.

He saved his people. They didn't deserve it. Pharaoh drew near.

I'm going to just read a few verses here in Exodus 14. Pharaoh drew near. The sons of Israel looked and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them and they became very frightened.

So the sons of Israel cried out to the eternal and then they said to Moses, is it because there were no graves in Egypt? There's a smart alec come. They got no land to bury us in Egypt. We got to bring out here to die out here in this wilderness.

Why have you dealt with us like this, bringing us out of Egypt? Is it not the word that we spoke to saying, let us, leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptian than to die in the wilderness. So that's what they thought. But the sons of Israel look in verse 29, Exodus 14, verses 29 and 31.

But the sons of Israel, the children of Israel, they call, walked on dry land through the midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right and on their left. Now, if that doesn't give you a shiver of how powerful this miracle was, here's a water of wall here. Here's a water wall here.

I'm walking through this pathway just about, maybe as wide as this or wider in this room wall on either side were water. But the ground under my feet was dry. And if you look up all the scriptures I've done this before, I don't want to take time now, but the Scriptures, they walked on dry ground.

Dry ground. The miracle was not just that the waters were separated. The miracle was they walked on the dry ground after the bed.

After this water sits, try walking on something that's been rainy. I walked on golf courses shortly a day after it rained. And it's kind of putty and muddle, and it's not dry.

It's mushy and mucky, and you get in the wrong place and your feet are all over mud. They walked on dry ground. Okay, thus listen.

Verse 20, verse 30. This is Exodus 14, verse 30. Thus, the Eternal, the ever living God, saved Israel that day, saved them from the hand of the Egyptians.

And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the Eternal had used, it has to be great power to separate the sea, great power to dry the land. Tried getting something dry.

You don't use your dryer, and you can't hardly get your sweatshirt dry if it's soaking wet. When Israel saw the great power was the Eternal used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Eternal, and they believed in the Eternal and in his servant Moses, at least for those moments, they did. And they sang this wonderful song of Moses in Exodus chapter 15.

I won't read that for you. And you have a corresponding song which they sing, called the Song of the Lamb in Revelation 15. So God defeats Egypt.

God saves. One of the songs we sang today. We're glad you came to save us.

God came. You came from heaven to earth to show the way, from the sky to the earth, the land, and then you went back up and you came to save us. God saves.

Two timothy, chapter one, verses eight and nine. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the Gospel according to the power of God. Listen to the next verse.

Now. Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. God had this great plan from all eternity granted in Christ Jesus.

He has saved us that we deserve to be saved. What did he save us from? Well, he saved us from several things, right? From our own sins, from the world's pressures taking us out of the world and giving us the strength to resist the worldly stuff. And from Satan, his minions, and the fiery darts which keep coming to try to make us doubt he saved us.

Titus, chapter three and verse five. Listen to this statement. He saved us there it is.

God is a saving God. He saved Israel that day you read in the psalm, Psalm 136 what he did, he saved Israel. And what does it praise God.

And let us thank God for his mercy never fails. His loving kindness is everlasting. His loving kindness is everlasting.

Titus three, verse five. He saved us not on the basis of these which we have done in righteousness. Our righteousness couldn't get him to do it, but according to his mercy.

By the washing of regeneration, washing us, making us new, regenerating us and renewing by the Holy Spirit, we are renewed constantly. Hebrews chapter nine, verse 24 through 26. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

Nor was it that he would offer Himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with a blood that is not his own, otherwise he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Hebrews ten, verses 15 through 17.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us. For after saying beginning quote here, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days. It's the quote from Jeremiah 31 says the eternal I will put my laws in their heart, and on their mind I will write them.

He then says and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Their sins and their lawless deeds, god will not remember them anymore. That's the kind of saving power now.

Hebrews chapter twelve, verse two. What are we supposed to do? Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seating at the right hand of the throne of God. That's what gives us, that's our saving.

He came to save us. We sang that song. He came to save us.

Have you been saved? How many have been saved? How many? Don't know whether you've been saved or not. There are three tenses in the Bible about salvation. One, you have been saved by grace.

By grace you have been saved through faith. Two, we are being saved as we walk in this life, we are now being saved. And three, a future tense we shall be saved.

So we have been saved. We are being saved. We shall be saved.

Those three tenses are in your New Testament and very clearly identify God's purpose. And then this beautiful passage which I love so much. This is such a great I don't think I could do it well enough with my voice to make it ring out the way it should be.

This is Jude verse 24 and verse 25. Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.