Exodus 14

Even after Pharaoh let the Israelites go, after he thought he was finished with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it turned out that God was not finished with Pharaoh. The Lord sent the Israelites into a trap. They were following Him, and He deliberately sent them into a place where they would seem to be stuck between a pursuing enemy and the impassible sea. Pharaoh would hear of it and be unable to resist the opportunity to follow his base impulses. The Lord would show one more time the glory of His judgments against the Egyptians. He would harden Pharaoh's heart, and the angry, mourning king of Egypt would chase after the chosen people of God. The Lord would manifest His own great glory in this contest against an arrogant and brutal man, and the Egyptians would know that the God of the Hebrews was the Lord.

We might think that Pharaoh would not have had it in himself to pursue such a foolish strategy. We might suppose that even if one man continued in this cruel hatred, that he would not be able to convince others to go out with him against the Israelites. But they did go. They saw an opportunity to express their hatred for God and His people, and they could not resist it. Any suggestion that the God who created the heavens and the earth has a chosen people, and that He has the right to give them a land as He chooses, will be an offense against the proud who set themselves above God. It is a message that must be killed. The power of this kind of hatred is a formidable force, but fighting God is a fool's errand.

When the king of Egypt was told that Israel had fled from Egypt, he did change his plans. He came back to his own strange view of reality. He brought his forces together, including 600 chariots, and began a hot pursuit of the people of God. They drew near the thousands of Israel, and Israel saw it.

Then panic overcame the Lord's people. “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?” They forgot their prayers for deliverance. They imagined that life in Egypt had been very tolerable, certainly better than dying in the wilderness.

Moses urged them in the way of faithfulness as he understood it. “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Then he panicked.

Yet God had another plan. Deliverance for Israel would not come by them standing still, but through their going forward using the gifts that God had given them. The Lord had worked wonders in Egypt by His Word and the staff of Moses. Moses still heard the Lord's voice, and he still had that staff in His hand. God expected him to hear His direction, and to use what he had for the Lord. This is how God would part the Red Sea so that the Israelites could go through on dry ground, and this is how Pharaoh's forces would be overwhelmed by divine judgment. Israel would be the Lord's bait that the Egyptians could not resist, even to their own destruction. God would get glory over His enemies.

But how could Israel survive the onslaught of forces approaching them at the speed of swift chariots? How could they live long enough to make it through the Red Sea without being overtaken by this force that they saw approaching them? The God who had delivered them through the blood of the lamb would protect them. His angel went in front of them and behind them. He was their hedge. The cloud of the Lord's presence came between the Egyptians and the people of Israel.

Then the Lord used His Word and the hand of Moses to provide a way of salvation. The wind (or “spirit”) prepared the way for them all night, turning the tumultuous waters into a pathway of life. The Israelites walked on that new road through the waters of God's judgment, but when the Egyptians presumed that the wall was anything other than a gift for the chosen of the Lord, they were overwhelmed in waters of divine judgment.

There were signs of disaster toward the end. Their chariot wheels were not able to deal with the Lord's road through the sea. Their great technological advantage over the Lord's people did not prove to be a help to them, but a portent of what would come against them very soon. They knew it before it happened. They wanted to back away, but it was too late. They said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”

Then, in a moment, it was all over. Over 400 years in Egypt, and 10 great plagues, and a venomous pursuit by a crazed enemy ended by the Word of God and the hand of His servant, Moses. And they were gone. “Not one of them remained.”

God had rid the earth of the pursuing menace in a shocking display of His power. During the long struggle it had seemed that deliverance would never come. Up to the very moment it had seemed that all would be lost. Yet when the end finally came, the speed of the Lord's victory was shocking. Then it was obvious that He could have won this battle in seconds at any moment He chose. But this was the victory He had in mind.

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians. But a far greater victory came on a different day, and it has become for us a better path of life. When the apostles Peter and John saw a grave with no Jesus inside what a sudden victory over death suddenly burst forth for the Lord of eternal life! We follow in that pathway with everyone who believes in the saving power of the blood of the Lamb.