“Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea.” The word there is forceful, meaning Moses had to pull them up or to pluck them out. I love that because I would imagine the pillar of cloud started to move and the people did not budge. They had been on a mountaintop like we cannot begin to imagine. It was on this seashore that they had seen the hand of the Lord move in a powerful way and they responded with singing and dancing and worship like they had never done before. Then…Wait, we’re moving?! Why is the cloud moving? Moses! Where are you going and…why would we want to leave this place? We may have experienced something similar when we have a time with the Lord that is powerful and exciting. It happens sometimes on a Sunday morning. We hear His voice through the songs and the Word and we feel His presence and we do not want that moment to end. But it does and it always will until that which is faith becomes sight. 

Besides that, God did not bring His people out of Egypt and through the Red Sea to leave them there. The promise He gave to Abraham was for a people and a covenant and a place. The Promised Land. They were not there yet. Neither geographically nor spiritually. Have the people learned to fully trust the Lord, no matter what? No. Have we? But the good news is what the Bible says: “He has perfected  for all time those who are being sanctified.” Our position is forever in Christ. Our practical and daily reality is also that we are being sanctified. How does God do that with us? The same way He did it with them.

“And they went into the wilderness of Shur.” A wilderness in the Bible could be open plains that provided some grass for flocks but was mostly uninhabited. Or a wilderness could be a desert place, a sterile, sandy area that provided little sustenance for men or beasts. The wilderness of Shur was part of what is now Saudi Arabia. God led them from a mountaintop of sorts to a wilderness. He will lead them to several as they go from the wilderness of Shur to the wilderness of Sin to the wilderness of Sinai. They will face one challenge after another, from thirst and hunger, from enemies in the land, and from disputes with one another that will require Moses or others to settle them. They are being sanctified! God is raising up His children and that happens mostly through trials and tests. In fact, that is why the Lord led them to Marah in the wilderness, for “there he tested them.” They traveled for three days in the wilderness and found no water at all. That is a long time for families and children and livestock to be searching for water. 

When they got to where the Lord wanted them to be, Marah, there was water! Two million people went to get a drink and to water their flocks, only to discover why this place was called Marah, which means “bitter.” The water was not drinkable. It was bitter, acrid, brackish. They could not drink it. Not because it was offensive to their palates, like city water is to any of us who have a well! Many people find city water undrinkable. My grandfather used to drive to my house when I was growing up and every week, he would fill up 4 or 5 gallon milk jugs with water, because he lived in the city. City water has helped a whole industry develop with bottled water in the stores and Brita filters in homes. But in Marah, this was not a palate problem or a preference. Otherwise all of those who could stomach the water would have shamed all the rest: “Suck it up, buttercup. There’s no sweet tea here. Just hold your nose and drink.” No. This was deadly water. Why would God lead His people through three days of no water to bring them to a place of poisonous water? To test them. And the irony cannot be missed. This is the Lord of all creation, the one who parted the Red Sea, a sea of water, and His people walked through it on dry ground. The Lord fought for them; they had only to be silent. Now they faced another test. 

Will they who experienced God’s mighty power over the Red Sea and over their enemies now trust Him to give them a drink of water? 

Will we who have been led from darkness to light, from death to life, from rebellion to adoption trust Him when we go through trials and tests?

He stood only five feet tall in his socks, and his huge head looked too large for his body. His nose was crooked, his eyes small and piercing, his body frail. Physically there was nothing appealing about him. He fell in love with a young woman and proposed to her, but her insensitive response was, “I like the jewel but not the setting.” He never married. But may I just offer a rhyme for those who would elevate beauty or looks over character, which is never a good idea? “She chose the setting and soon was regretting, for instead of a jewel, she married a fool.”  

This jewel’s name was Isaac Watts, considered the father of the modern hymn. If so, then Watts had over six hundred children, including “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “Joy to the World.” I am so thankful for people like Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby, Phil Wickham, Shane & Shane, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Chris Tomlin, and many others who have written songs of praise to our God that we can sing with great joy. James Boice wrote that music “is a gift from God that allows us to express our deepest heart responses to God and His truth…(with) our hearts joining with our minds to say, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ to the truth we are embracing.” Yes! The people of God sang a song of salvation that Moses wrote after God’s mighty deliverance of His people through the Red Sea. As the Psalmist said, “The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. Then they believed His words; they sang His praise.” We who believe, sing. 

God in His infinite wisdom created us in His image and put a song of praise in our hearts. We simply cannot help but sing about God and His Son Jesus. God created singing, and He “rejoices over you with singing,” Zephaniah writes. The Bible says that when God created the earth, “The morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Adam wrote a poem, the first one, and who knows but that he didn’t sing it to Eve when he said to her, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”? The psalm writers wrote a whole book of songs for the people of God to sing, 150 of them. Why? As the greatest psalmist of all, David, wrote, “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” 

And we know our songs of praise will be sweetest when we are in His presence, as John witnessed when God allowed him to see heaven: “And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, ‘Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” We glorify God in many ways, but certainly through songs of praise.

Moses broke into song because God had triumphed over His enemies. It is considered an antiphonal song where Moses would have sung a line and the 2 million Israelites would have responded with the next phrase or section. Their praise thundered as they stood on the shore with their arms raised to God. I am sure there were some in that number who couldn’t carry a tune if their life depended on it. But it didn’t…and it doesn’t! We make a joyful noise when we sing to God and He hears it as a sweet melody.

So, why stand there mute while all the congregation around you sings with all their might to our Mighty God? 

Go ahead. Sing!

Moses and the people of God were backed up against the Red Sea as Pharaoh and his army charged across the plains toward them. God said, “Tell the people to go forward.” God was about to divide the sea! This was not a natural event any more than the birth of Jesus was a natural event. God did this. God then told Moses that He would harden the hearts of the Egyptians to go in after them. There is no fear of God in their hearts, and God hardened their hearts even more, as He had done with Pharaoh. Why, Lord? “I will get glory over Pharaoh, and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” Remember Moses had said to the people of Israel, “The Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.” God’s judgment fell on Egypt on the same day God’s deliverance came for His people. I believe this points us also to the final judgment, as our Lord will right all wrongs, settle all accounts, and execute perfect and complete judgment on His enemies. All while God welcomes His people into the new heavens and earth. 

When Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, God brought a strong east wind that blew all night, dividing the water into two halves and drying out the ground so that 2 million people and all their belongings and animals could walk across. Just imagine this mighty wonder of God. Think of what that looked like. It was the largest and most magnificent aquarium the world has ever seen. Amazing sea creatures on the right and left, but not behind glass! 

The people of God started walking to the other side on dry ground, but they still had a problem. The Egyptians pursued them into the sea, also on dry ground. As they raced toward Israel, I would imagine moms and dads were having to calm their children and themselves as they heard the chariots rumbling. It will be ok. Moses told us God would fight for us. And he will! If he opened this sea for us to walk through, He is not going to let Pharaoh and his army hurt us! They walked on dry ground even as they stood in faith on the solid rock of almighty God. Isaiah wrote of God’s miracle at the Red Sea, “Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?” He did. And God says to us, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” Will we throw our whole weight onto that bedrock of God’s promise? We can! Faith is ours, even in the midst of the sea.

David would write later, “Some trust in chariots.” And boy did Pharaoh and his men trust in chariots. And in horses. This was perhaps the most powerful army in the world, and they knew it. They were feeling good as they raced across the floor of the Red Sea toward the people of Israel. And then God reached down and messed with their chariots. Some say the wheels fell off, others say they got so clogged up they wouldn’t roll but had to be dragged like sleds by the horses. David may have been inspired to think about that when he wrote, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They (chariots and horses) collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.”

I believe when the wheels came off was when the soldiers under Pharaoh’s command started to read the handwriting on the walls of water on either side of them, so to speak. It said something like, “You have been tried and found wanting.” Ok, maybe not. But they were thrown into a panic. They said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them.” The enemies of God gave testimony to His power in their final moments, but without repentance. They believed in God, but it was not saving faith, any more than the devil’s belief in God will save him.

The army of Pharaoh, and certainly Pharaoh himself, did not repent. They fled in fear from God’s power and protection of His people, but they did not humble themselves before Him. They were all swallowed up by the sea and their bodies ended up on the shore. The Bible says, “not one of them remained.” The people of God continued their journey to the other side of the sea and the greatest miracle of deliverance in the Old Testament was complete. 

God delivers His people. Then and now and forever.