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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Monday, 13 January 2025:
Exodus 14:4 – …the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.
God’s plan for your life is the glorify Himself through your life while drawing you closer to Him in the process. His glory takes priority over your comfort and security. However, God is faithful to save. God intentionally placed His people in an impossible situation, a totally vulnerable position that was impossible for Pharaoh to pass up. God left His people exposed and helpless (self-helpless). Why? Because He was about to use His people to reveal (glorify) Himself to His people and to a watching world. God glorifies Himself by doing what only God can do so there can be no doubt it was Him. Of course, by definition, the infinitely vast amount of what God does anyway is far outside the limits of what man can do, even far outside the limits of what man can even understand. We experience God whenever we have a glimpse of that continuous activity and appreciate that it is God’s power at hand.
In the situation of the Israelites pressed up against the sea, God was going to leave no doubt for anyone to question His presence. No surprise, God’s people were overcome with fear by their situation and completely misinterpreted their circumstances, believing that God had left them to die. Most telling was that, in their desperation, the Jews longed for slavery again, that they might have the ‘protection’ of captivity. Doesn’t the bird in a cage get fed far more consistently than the free bird outside? Just like the slave and the caged bird, many Christians are happy to sacrifice the fullness of their joy for the comfortable captivity of worldly compromise, syncretism, and dependence on ungodly institutions – “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36; Luke 9:25).
The problem for these slave-minded Jews is the same as that of the compromised Christian, they are totally out of touch with what God is doing and lack the courage to step out into freedom and true joy – “Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’?” In the midst of what God was doing, Moses, who understood the ways of God, reminds the weak that God is God — “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.” (Exodus 14:13, 14) Translation: “Shut up, stand there, and watch God work.”
While the weak were worried about what the weak always worry about – themselves; God was about His business doing what He always does – Glorify Himself – “the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.” In order for God’s people to experience the power of God in their lives, they had to be freed from captivity and placed in a position of complete dependence on God, and they had to walk through the impossible (in this case the Red Sea in pursuit) with God. Having gone through the impossible, “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.” (Exodus 14:31) Jesus said, “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives.” (Luke 4:18) However, freedom requires courage.
Christian courage comes from faith, hope, and love – total trust in God, in God’s love, and in God’s word. Without faith it is impossible to please God because God will always take you outside the limited realm of your human understanding and capabilities to function where He operates for His purposes and for His glory. In the faith environment, God becomes ‘real’ to us, and we then can truly witness to what we have seen and experienced first-hand, rather than just recounting stories we have heard from others.
Jesus warned his disciples though to carefully consider the cost of discipleship. To follow God means we will have to step into rushing waters, fiery furnaces, and lion’s dens; we will have to face the giants. Unfortunately, most will choose to die in a desert rather than to face the giants in the Promised Land. Most never see the big moments because they prove themselves unworthy with the little things.
The commitment to deny ourselves, take of our crosses, and following Jesus is not just a one-time decision, though that initial commitment is essential. We continuously decide to follow one day at a time, one step at a time, in the face of continuous temptations to do otherwise. Discipleship requires discipline – continuous, Spirit enabled, self-control to resist our internal desires to return to comfortable captivity, the promised protection of prison. Before we can be chosen to face mighty evil armies, we must handle ourselves well in the desert. Will we prove ourselves worthy today?
Exodus 14:5 — Now it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people; and they said, “Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?”
How quickly Pharoah had forgotten the ten plagues! It is so easy for even Christians to forget the awesome reality of the God who sovereignly controls our lives. Think about what you are saying when you ask yourself why you should obey God or when you question God’s goodness, faithfulness, and presence in your life.
Exodus 14:11 – What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
Again, how quickly God’s people forgot God’s word, the ten plagues, the Passover, and God’s miraculous provision. Faith is tested in hard times and easy times. In this case, when things seemed hopeless, the faithlessness of many was exposed. When things got hard, the people would have rather returned to the bondage of Egypt than to be free in God’s Kingdom. How often today do people return to the ways of the world when they feel like fidelity to God isn’t satisfying to them? We sin when we feel God can’t be trusted or when we feel His good isn’t good enough.
Exodus 14:12 – For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.
Few people are willing to die in defense of the freedom to worship God. Many people prefer cowardly captivity than courageous freedom. It takes faith to live free.
Exodus 14:13 — And Moses said to the people, “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.”
Fear is the opposite of faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Fear causes you to be more influenced by what can be seen than the God who cannot be seen. Faith trusts the unseen all powerful God and His word when what you see and feel seems to contradict it. What do you believe to be true?
Exodus 14:14 – The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.
What a great verse to remember! Shut up and keep moving in faith. Verse 15 continues — “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.” Quit worrying and whining and keep moving forward. Quit praying for God to give you the guidance and strength He has already given you. Don’t keep trying to pray away your responsibility. There are some things God will only do through your faithful obedience. Take action.
Exodus 14:21 – Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
God reveals Himself by doing what is impossible for people to do.
Exodus 14:22 – And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
People, attempting to explain away God’s miracles, will say that the ‘Red Sea’ is a mistranslation of ‘Reed Sea’, which was a place of very shallow water and that what really happened was Pharaoh’s chariots were merely stuck in mud. However, the Bible makes is clear that the Sea became walls. And then the walls fell and covered the chariots completely (v28). What the Israelites saw caused them to fear God.
Exodus 14:30 – Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.
What happens when you put your trust in an ungodly leader?
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 13 January 2024: 5Share God’s word honestly and humbly to the best of your knowledge, being as careful as you can not to exceed the limits of your understanding. Always validate the teachings of others with your own careful, prayerful Bible study, like a good Berean. The Holy Spirit is your teacher.
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 