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Reading Ex.14:1-31

The Israelites were on their way out of Egypt and they had much to learn. I hope that you are on the way too. By that I mean that I hope that you have made a beginning of the Christian life by confessing your sin to God and admitting your need of Him, His love and His grace. I hope that you have personally and deliberately called out to the Lord to save you from your sin and that you have put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ!

The Israelites had some interesting lessons to learn as they set out on their pilgrimage that would lead them to the Promised Land. We have to learn similar lessons ourselves. To some of you the truths of this chapter are already well-known but there is no harm and indeed much good to be had in being reminded of them again. To others of you some of the truths of this chapter may well be totally new to you – how good to be able to learn them well!

The Israelites are on the way out of Egypt but they are not left to their own devices and neither are you if you are a Christian. The LORD God was the One who would determine the way by which the Israelites would travel and it is the LORD who decides the way in which the Christian must lead his life.

Our chapter begins with the LORD instructing Moses as to just which direction the Israelites are to travel in and he gives what was probably some very unexpected advice.

(When the LORD spoke to Moses He did gives some explanation of just what His plans and intentions were but it seems that Moses did not immediately explain it all to the people. Perhaps Moses thought they didn't need to know or perhaps he thought that if they did know they would not want to do as they were told! Moses does do some explaining later on and it may well have been better had he done so earlier. In the NT Jesus urged His followers to count the cost before setting out because there is indeed a cost to be met if you are to be a successful disciple of Jesus Christ.

Lk.14:26-30 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’"

The first instruction that the people received and which they followed must have sounded rather strange:

"Turn back!"

Not only must such an instruction have seemed wrong but it must have sounded dangerous too!

The LORD had His purposes however. He knew that the Egyptians would misinterpret the situation and think it an easy thing to recapture the Israelites. It is not however an easy thing for the enemy to recapture an obedient people! And the LORD was active in it all not to promote as His primary concern His people's comfort and happiness rather He was at work at He always is to promote His own glory.

How careful we must be to remember this simple truth! What heartaches we might spare ourselves if we kept in mind that the LORD sovereignly works to secure His glory and His renown and that this takes precedence over everything else!

The people have made a good start – they have done as they were told but it was far from being a mature obedience. As soon as problems were encountered they began to waver.

We may well have taken the right steps of obedience but that does not guarantee that all will be instantly plain sailing. The Egyptians, who now were regretting their decision to let the Israelites go, had decided to chase after them and caught up with them at the very place where the LORD had told them to camp!

The LORD would keep His people safe on the way to the Promised Land but that did not mean that the journey would be trouble free! Don't you be surprised if as a Christian you encounter difficulties and battles on the way – He will keep you in the midst of difficulties but not necessarily from those difficulties!

The life of faith is rarely a life of unbroken success. It certainly wasn't for the Israelites and they responded to the approach of the 1^st Egyptian Chariot Division well and badly. And life is rather like that – we get some things right and some things wrong. Let's not beat ourselves up over this and let's not hastily judge others either but let us try to learn to make better progress.

a.       What the Israelites got right – they cried to the LORD. This was a sign of marked improvement. They called upon the name of the LORD, that is the One who had entered into covenant relationship with them – they called to the LORD who had made promises to them. When they had been in serious distress in Egypt they had merely cried out to God – to a God they didn't know that well at all. Later when the work load had increased they had even cried out to Pharaoh! Now at least in difficulty they were calling on the LORD.

b.       What the Israelites got wrong – they complained bitterly to Moses and in their bitterness came very close to committing serious blasphemy as they suggested that the LORD had not done anything good for them at all!

Moses responded to the complaints of the Israelites with a three point message!

In my English Bible the command "Fear Not" is used 33 times. What a lovely thing this is! Fear is such a horrible thing that cripples us and washes the colours out of life leaving life a series of sad greys. But with Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm as the writer of the hymn "Begone unbelief" put it. Or from another hymn, How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord we have these words:

‘Fear not, I am with you, O be not dismayed!

I, I am your God, and will still give you aid:

I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,

upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

The Israelites humanly speaking had good reason to be afraid as they elite forces of the Egyptian army bore down upon them. But the people of God is never reduced to regarding things purely from a human standpoint. God must somehow be factored into the equation and He has promised never to leave or to abandon His own.

The Israelites therefore are firstly summoned to get a grip upon themselves and to control their fear. Moses goes immediately on to explain why! This too is important because the Israelites are not to be told that things aren't that bad – things were that bad. They weren't simply to cheer up for no reason they were to cheer up because the LORD God was coming out to do battle for them!

When everything seems to be going wrong it can be tempting to throw in the towel and simply give up and give in. With the Egyptians bearing down on them I guess that some at least of the Israelites thought that the time had come for them.

But Moses calls upon them to stand firm, to stand fast. It might not seem like much to stand firm but it can be a real achievement when all seems to be stacked against us. Paul urged the Christians in Ephesus to stand firm against the schemes of their enemy the devil and when they had taken up the whole armour of God and done all they could they were to simply told to remain standing!

The words "stand firm" are also found in other parts of the Bible. In the Book of Daniel for example the words appear not as a command but as a statement:

Dan.11:32 "the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action."

Or in the NT Paul writes to the Christians in Galatia urging them to consider what Christ has done for them and so act accordingly:

Gal.5:1 "or freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

But there is another reference in the OT to standing firm to which I want to draw your attention and that because the situation is so similar to that of Ex.14. Jehoshaphat was King and the country was threatened by a foreign invasion. Jehoshaphat too was scared – his forces were not adequate to resist the enemy – so he called the nation together and together they sought the Lord calling upon Him and reminding Him of His promises. The LORD responded through the words of a prophet: 

2Chron.20:15-17 "And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the LORD to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you.”"

When all looks bleak and beyond our capabilities the Lord is well able to carry out His purposes – His strength is made perfect in weakness and our weakness becomes the perfect stage upon which the Lord can bring glory to Himself!

The Israelites were not to be totally inactive as they stood still to observe how the LORD would intervene for them but none of the things they were to do would be responsible for securing their deliverance.

So here we have a clear picture of our own salvation – we are called upon to believe in what the Lord has done for sinners and in exercising our faith He saves us but we are not to imagine that it is our faith that effects our salvation it is merely the means whereby He communicates to the salvation that He alone has wrought for fur us!

Moses calls upon the Israelites to stand firm and to see. In particular they are to see the LORD go into battle on their behalf! The rest of the chapter focuses really on just what it was that the LORD did as He went to fight on His people's behalf.

·       v.17 He will continue to harden the hearts of the Egyptians. In this way He will get great glory and renown for Himself.

·       v.19 The Angel of God (the Lord Jesus Christ) will interpose Himself between His people and their enemy. This is really just a shift in emphasis from leadership to protective mode. The Egyptian army can do nothing until the LORD is good and ready.

·       v.21 Moses must act as well but in itself his acts would be futile – the important thing is that in acting he demonstrates his trust in the LORD. He must hold up his staff and extend his hand over the sea. What a ridiculous thing to do! But the LORD has told Him that by this method the sea will be split in two and a way of escape will be opened up for the Israelites which will at the same time prove to be the way of destroying the Israelites enemy. The miracle takes place – not instantaneously but as the result of a night of the wind blowing.

It is perhaps worth noting that this deliverance tested the faith of Moses and the people as the wind blew from the east the sea would have parted from the further shore and it would not have been immediately evident to the Israelites what if anything was happening. This reminds me of a passage in the Book of Daniel where Daniel had been praying but the help seemed a long time coming:

Dan.10:12-13 "Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty–one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me,"

·       Doesn't it strike you as amazing that after all the Egyptians had witnessed of late of the LORD's power and even earlier the previous evening as the pillar of cloud stopped them approaching the Israelites that they still press on regardless! Such is the stubbornness of the rebellious heart. The Egyptians rush on to their destruction – oh my friends I hope none of you are like them, refusing to learn, refusing to stop and change direction. Before the day was over those Egyptians who thought that it was the Israelites who were in confusion themselves brought to utter confusion and destruction!

·       In their confusion they cried out recognising what Moses had told the Israelites a matter of hours earlier:

v.25 "the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians."

·       The deliverance is complete as Moses once again stretches his hand out over the sea and the waves return destroying the elite of Egypt's army!

There is no better conclusion to bring than the one with which Moses concluded the chapter. Listen carefully to his summary:

vv.30-31 "Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses."

I'd like to end with a lengthy extract from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Christian and Hopeful had taken a wrong turning and wandered into a place where they should not have been. Giant Despair had captured them and imprisoned them in his castle, and the name of that castle was Doubting Castle. There they were very roughly treated suffering beatings day after day – so bad was it that they thought it was all up for them, they were in such a hopeless situation that they even considered suicide – they were as anxious and depressed as the Israelites on the borders of the Red Sea as the Egyptians bore down on them. This is what Bunyan went on to write:

Well, on Saturday, about midnight they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day.

Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this passionate speech: What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful, That is good news; good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom, and try.

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon-door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. They then thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King’s highway, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction.

Now, when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile, to prevent those that shall come after from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they consented to erect there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof this sentence: “Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of’ the Celestial country, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims.” Many, therefore, that followed after, read what was written, and escaped the danger. This done, they sang as follows:

“Out of the way we went, and then we found

What ‘twas to tread upon forbidden ground:

And let them that come after have a care,

Lest heedlessness makes them as we to fare;

Lest they, for trespassing, his prisoners are,

Whose castle’s Doubting, and whose name’s Despair.”

Let us too remember the promises of God; they are keys to bringing us out of many depressing situations and discouraging mind sets that we can so easily get ourselves into. We too must learn not to be afraid, to stand firm and to see the salvation of the LORD!     To God be the Glory.