God leads Israel across the Red Sea.

B. God leads Israel across the Red Sea.

1. (15-18) God's instructions to Moses: stop praying and start doing!

a. Why do you cry to Me? Before the people, Moses was full of faith; but before God he was crying out in desperate prayer. This was good; Moses' confidence before the nation was necessary for their faith.

b. Why do you cry to Me? There is a time to pray, and a time to act; and it can actually be against God's will to stop everything and pray in a particular situation.

i. We can pray out of the wrong motives; praying to inform others who listen, praying to control a situation, praying to avoid action or buy time.

c. God gives Moses such simple instructions to such a mighty miracle: lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand. Even so the greatest miracle of salvation happens with a simple action on our part.

d. Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord: God is not finished answering Pharaoh's question from Exodus 5:2; the purpose of the parting of the Red Sea had as much or more to do with what God wanted to show Egypt as with what God wanted to show Israel.