Exodus 14:13-31.
IN front of the children of Israel, the sea, beating its waves on the sandy shore; behind them was the Egyptian army. The Israelites were not trained soldiers, but just newly freed slaves. They had said to Moses, Why bring us out here to be killed? They had not thought of God, had they? Had He forgotten them, or did He not care what happened?
Let us turn back a few pages in our Bibles to the third chapter, and read verses seven and eight again.
“I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Would God then leave them on the road to die? Has He ever been untrue to His word? No, never! God does what He says He will, always. Yes, the people thought about their troubles and fears, but you won’t find in verses eleven and twelve that they said anything about God. But He was just going to deliver them, and as Moses said, they were to “fear not,” to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” which He would show to them that day, for they would not see the Egyptians any more again for ever.
The angel of God, who went before the camp, went between them and the Egyptians, and the pillar of the cloud took its place there too, to be a cloud and darkness to their enemies, and to be a light by night to the people. That closed the way behind; —what about in front of them?
The twenty-first verse answers: Moses, at God’s word, stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made a dry road across to the other side before morning. This was God’s answer to their fears, making a way where there never had been one before, and never would be again.
Into the midst of the sea on the dry ground late that night walked the men, women. and children, and the flocks and herds, the waters standing still as only God could make them, like walls on either side of the road. How strange it all was, but it was God’s way for them. The Egyptians after a while, early in the morning, found out what had happened and tried to follow. Even to the middle of the channel of the sea their army drove, but God was not on their side. He troubled them, took off their chariot wheels so that they wanted to get back to the Egyptian shore. Let us flee, the Egyptians said, for the Lord is fighting for Israel against us, but it was not to be. Moses, at God’s word, stretched out his hand over the sea which rolled back where it had been before, covering chariots and horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that had come into the roadway from shore to shore; not one was spared. One party was saved, and one was lost. That is solemn, isn’t it? Not an Israelite lost, not an Egyptian saved!
ML 01/29/1922