Impossible Situations

Job 14:1
Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.
Have you ever found yourself in what we might term an “impossible situation?” If you are a Christian, you have. Or, you WILL. What exactly IS an “impossible situation?” An impossible situation is one in which you do not have what you need and have no way of getting it. You are completely without resources. Or you cannot handle what is going on with the resources you do have. You must function in life but cannot seem to function. You cannot go forward, but you cannot go backwards. You are hemmed in, overwhelmed, and there is no solution in sight. We don’t see a solution. Right here is where we must establish an important point. That point is this: Trials are real. No doubt about it. But it is more how we REACT to the people and things around us that contributes to the difficulty of that trial. There are some things in this life which are difficult for all of us. But there are others which are hard or impossible for us simply because of our personal makeup. The way we react and respond emotionally, intellectually, and temperamentally, is what makes something impossible to deal with.
So we have An impossible situation. A situation in which I — do not have what I need. And I do not have any way of getting it. In effect, I am completely at the mercy of God. Unless He takes the initiative to act, there is no solution.
At some point, every one of us is going to arrive at a point in life when the bottom seems to fall out. There will come a day when you will literally reach the end of your rope. Some of you have already been through it and can testify about it. Some of you are there right now and are crying out for help. And for the rest of you if you haven’t been there then keep living that time is coming. When you reach that point, the world, the flesh and the devil are all going to tell you that God doesn’t see you and that He doesn’t care. So….

What do you when your child is being rebellious and will not obey?
What do you do when your marriage seems hopeless and on the brink of divorce?
What do you do when all of a sudden you lose your job?
What do you do when you have too much month left at the end of your money?
What do you do with the grief and the pain when a child or loved one dies unexpectedly?
What do you do when your heart is broken, your dreams and hopes are shattered?
What do you do when your spiritual life is dry and God seems nowhere to be found?
It is at these times you won’t be able to think straight, it’s impossible to pray and even breathing sometimes becomes a chore. People will begin to get on your nerves and attending church becomes a challenge. You feel as if everyone knows about your situation and they are whispering behind your back.
You think…..”God, I trusted You. I believed you would deliver me from this. But here I am in this mess. Why have you allowed this?” God has already told us why: Pharoah must die. Well in order to experience The freedom we now have in Jesus Christ Pharoah (our flesh) must die. THAT is why God has allowed the impossible situation. It is one thing to be delivered out of Egypt. But now we must pass through one experience after another, in order to have the freedom causing us to become a “living epistle known and read of all men”. deliverance on the night of Passover was real. But now we are experiencing the realness of it at the Red Sea. So what we see is this: The experience at the Red Sea typifies — not a one-time event in the life of a Christian. It is a spiritual process – a process we must pass through over and over again in our Christian experience. Salvation – death and resurrection in Christ is REAL. But we must, over and over again, see the defeat of the flesh and the victory of Christ over it made real. And This happens the Red Sea experience. God gave Israel a four-fold solution to their impossible situation at the Red Sea. Scripture says He said, “FEAR NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE SALVATION.” Then He added, “MOVE FORWARD.” It is In these four things we find the blueprint that God has provided for finding Him in our impossible.
God gave Israel a four-fold solution to their impossible situation.
His words to them apply to OUR trials and impossible situations.

And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, stand still, and see
the salvation of the LORD, which He will show to you to day. For the
Egyptians whom you have seen today, ye shall see them again no
more forever. The LORD shall fight for you, and you shall hold your
peace. And the LORD said unto Moses, “Why do you cry unto Me?
Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward. But lift up your
rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it. And the
children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the
sea.” (Exodus 14:13-16)
Now it is vital that we keep this in mind: God is not giving us a
solution as to how to get out of an impossible situation. No. Rather,
He is telling us what we need to do IN it. In other words, this is not a
matter of our problem getting solved. It is a matter of how to allow
God to accomplish His purpose in us THROUGH the problem
Note the four-fold solution God gave to Moses:

Fear Not

Stand Still

See Salvation

Move Forward

 In these four things we find God's solution for the impossible. It

is, as it were, the “way of escape” — the way to overcome in Christ.

Through these four steps, if we will obey, we will come into God’s

purpose.

Fear Not

 The first of God's four-part solution is "fear not." So often in the

Bible, when God approaches a person, or begins a work in them,

He says, “Fear not,” or “be not afraid.”

 Now right here we discover a great irony. The impossible

situation is one in which we do not have what we need, and have

no way of getting it. It is therefore a situation in which we are prone

TO fear. Indeed, the first NATURAL reaction we are likely to have,

even as Christians, when we find ourselves this helpless, is TO fear.

Yet God tells us to “fear not.”

 What makes this more ironic is that, as we have seen, it is God

Himself who orchestrates the impossible situation. God often

deliberately puts us into a situation designed to bring out all of our

fears, and then turns around and says, “Fear not..”

Why? Why does God do that?

 He does it, not to scare us, or make us uncomfortable, but to set

us free. It is by creating a situation which tends to gender fear, and

then telling us to “fear not,” that God sets the stage for our freedom

FROM fear.

 How? Well, the fact is, the only way to defeat the enemy, and to

overcome fear, is to face it head-on. God must therefore create a

situation wherein we have our fears exposed, met in Christ, and

overcome by the power of the resurrection.
Standing Still

 The first thing which God said to the children of Israel was "Fear

not.” He said this to them in the midst of a terrible crisis which HE

Himself had created. He wanted them to get their eyes off of

Pharoah, and to make the choice to BELIEVE HIM. Then, and

only then, were they — and we — able to go to the next step. That

next step is STAND STILL.

 The ability to "stand still" is the direct result of "fearing not." You

cannot “stand still” if you are afraid — in the spiritual sense. Instead,

you will be fragmented, on the wrong basis, and operating from the

irrational. “Standing still” means to BELIEVE, and to refuse to move

from that faith — despite all that would come against it.
Now ask: How much did God require Israel to do to save

themselves? Zero. Israel was not required to turn and fight

Pharoah. In fact, Israel was not even told to make a deliverance

for themselves away from Pharoah. All God said to Israel was,

“Stand still….the Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your

peace.”

Why would God allow such a thing? Aren’t we delivered? Aren’t

we set free from the power of the flesh by the Blood of Christ?

Yes, totally free. But we aren’t set free from the PRESENCE of

the flesh. We still live in a body which is subject to all of our old

patterns and habits — those we learned from birth, in our Egypt.

Therefore, God creates situations where we are forced to face

them! Why? For the purpose of overcoming them.

 What good is freedom if we never believe we are free? What

good is freedom if we never act like we are free? What good is

freedom from sin if we continue acting like sin has power over us?

 Not much good at all. Therefore, we must EXPERIENCE our

freedom and begin walking in it. And the only way this can come

to pass is if God creates situations wherein we might learn to face

the flesh and overcome it through Christ. Then our freedom will be

real and experienced, not just so “far off” fact that never seems real.

 So God brings us to the Red Sea. He sees to it that we come to

the place where we face the impossible. We come to where we

KNOW we cannot deliver ourselves. We come to the place where

the flesh is bearing down on us and there seems to be no escape.

Perhaps our attitudes, our actions, our emotions, and our thinking,

all seem so empty and unholy. We cannot find deliverance, and

maybe we cannot even seem to find God.

 What would God say to us? Exactly what He said to Israel. He

would say, “Fear not and stand still. And you will see the salvation

of the Lord.” In other words, BELIEVE and stand still IN the faith of

Jesus Christ. And if you do, you will SEE the salvation God has

given you brought to pass in your experience. You will SEE

Pharoah and all of his hosts brought down. You will SEE with your

eyes what God has told you is already true: You are free.

 When God said, "And you will SEE the salvation of the Lord," He

was not saying that He was about to GIVE them salvation. No. He

gave them that already, on Passover night. Rather, they were

about to SEE the salvation which they already had! It was about to

be made manifest.

 In our experience, we already possess full victory in Jesus

Christ over all sin and death. The flesh, as earlier mentioned, has

NO power over us. But it acts like it does. It lies to us all the time,

and will not behave like a defeated enemy. This makes it difficult

for us to believe, let alone to obey and refuse the power of the

flesh. Therefore, God puts us in the position of the impossible

situation, so that we might SEE that the salvation He has wrought

in us is real. It is there that if we stand still, we shall SEE the

salvation of Jesus Christ come forth in us.

 So we see that the impossible situation is really God's way of

making articulate and real that which is already ours by faith. When

God is in the process of doing this, things can be scary. But if we

will obey God — fear not and stand still — we shall SEE. We shall

not only SEE it “out there” in our lives, but we shall SEE it within.
Many of the spiritual problems — problems with our faith — that we

have in our Christian walk go back to one problem: We have not

seen, or we will not believe, that IT IS FINISHED. Thus, we are still

trying to finish it. Or, we are still trying to get God to finish what He

has already finished. The result is confusion at best, but usually

defeat. Afterall, if we don’t believe it is finished, then how can we

ever come to walk in the victory?

 But wait. Let's step back a moment. Let's ask: WHAT is

finished? If we are to “stand still,” WHAT are we to “stand still” IN?

Some of us don’t even understand that.

 What is finished through the victory of Christ is everything that is

necessary for your salvation. That is the beginning, to be sure. But

most of us make the mistake of thinking that once we get salvation

out of the way that the “rules” change. In other words, sure, God

saves us by His grace because Christ won that victory over death.

But once saved, we forget what saved us, and grace is out the

window. We then proceed to try to develope a relationship with

God on a works basis. This is, of course, a receipe for disaster.

 The fact is, if you are saved by grace, you are living IN grace.

You are in the process of experiencing salvation. Salvation is

not merely some “classification” God pastes on us. It is a new

birth with a new life. Thus, the Christian walk is a walk IN salvation,

in grace, and in the love of God.

 What this means is that you do not enter into salvation through

the total forgiveness of God, only to pop in and out of forgiveness

once you are saved. If you are a Christian, you ARE forgiven

forever. Nothing you do can change that — although you certainly

must believe it or it will do you little good.

 Likewise, if you are in Jesus Christ, there is NO condemnation

for you. This isn’t the case only if you obey God. It is the case

EVEN when you sin. And if there is NO condemnation, then there is

no unforgiveness. The two always go together.

 Also, there is absolutely nothing between Christians and God.

God has, in Christ, reconciled us back to Himself. We enter into

this reconciliation at salvation and nothing can change it. Our

works do not chase God away.

 All of these things are finished through Christ. God is essentially

DONE working on them. There is nothing to add to them, and

nothing can subtract from them. Not our works and not our sin.

They are eternally in place — and will remain so even if not a single

person ever believes or receives them. BUT — and this is the

whole point — we will not benefit from them or experience them

unless we BELIEVE. And then, having believed, we must STAND

in them by that same faith.

Moving Forward

 We now come back to a question asked earlier: Move forward?

Move forward to where?

 Move forward to Jesus Christ. Move forward to death. To

surrender and abandonment to God. To perhaps a place in faith

you’ve never been. But move forward to resurrection. To a new

freedom from Pharoah and his armies. To being able to walk in

the forgiveness of your sins and the freedom Christ has provided

in a greater way.

 Actually, this entire life of ours in Jesus Christ is a journey out of

Egypt to the promised land, and then on to glorifying Jesus Christ.

Thus, we are always moving forward. Always on a journey to a

destination in the purposes and will of God.

 The fact that God told Israel to "move forward" BEFORE He

opened to them the way holds great significance for us. It tells us

that God isn’t going to tell us much ahead of time as to where He

is leading us, or as to how He will lead us. He simply says, “move

forward.” It is only AS we do, that the way opens.

 Note that. We don't normally see the way BEFORE we "move

forward.” We usually see it AS we move forward. God opens it

up perhaps only one step ahead of us. Consequently, it is correct

to say that many times we will not know where God is leading, and

we will not even know OUR next step until God opens it up.
Moving Forward

 We now come back to a question asked earlier: Move forward?