Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends.
Celebrations are wonderful things, aren’t they? Especially when the celebrations include lots of people. God has built into all of us a desire to ‘celebrate’, but sadly the world we live in these days doesn’t provide as many opportunities for celebration as we would like, right?! Well today, join me please in one of the greatest celebrations of all time found in Exodus 15 in the Bible.
Yesterday I left you standing on the shoreline of the Red Sea watching “miracle debris” float ashore with every wave. 1 million Hebrew slaves were finally and definitively free from Pharaoh’s suffocating Egyptian slavery. That ‘miracle debris’ floating on the Red Sea was all that remained of the most fearsome chariot army of that era, the chariot cavalry of Egypt. Pharaoh and his few remaining officials and high ranking commanders had watched the unthinkable destruction of this army, drowned right in front of their eyes, as they pursued the fleeing Hebrews through a miraculous highway God had provided in the Red Sea! Now, defeated and dejected, Pharaoh and his small leadership group were heading back to face a national disaster unlike anything since the days of the great flood of Noah! (Genesis 6)
Ponder with me for a moment, what Pharaoh is returning to. The 10 plagues, sent by the God of the Hebrews, had decimated the Egyptian landscape, slaughtered most of the Egyptian livestock, destroyed the crops in the field and even storehouses of grain in the barns. The final plague had brought death to almost every household in Egypt, as firstborn sons across the land had died. With Egypt’s chariot army dead and hundreds of their best chariots destroyed by the collapsing walls of water in the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s military was severely damaged. With the Hebrew slaves gone, his slave work force has been decimated. With Egypt’s crops destroyed, their livestock dead, and their firstborn sons dead, it’s not difficult for us to imagine helplessness and hopelessness is widespread in Egypt.
God had said to Moses: “The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh and his chariots and horsemen.” (Ex. 14:18) Now as the Pharaoh and his small group of leaders ride their chariots back into Egypt, can you imagine the questions? Where are the other hundreds of chariots and the best horses in the land? Where are the thousands of soldiers? What great army did you face out there in the desert that conquered the best military force in the world? Wailing for the dead rises up again in Egypt as families realize hundreds of their soldiers… their sons, brothers and fathers, are dead!
While we have no record of it, we can easily see that Pharaoh and all of Egypt could not deny the evidence all around them that the God of the Hebrews is the supreme, most powerful force in the universe and that He is far more than just a power. He is God who is actively involved in our world. He had and proclaimed His strategic plan for the deliverance of the Hebrew slaves, which He fully accomplished! Friends, I’d like you to consider what the Pharaoh had experienced in this nationwide devastation is a picture of what will happen across the world when God pours out His judgments on the wickedness of humanity at the end of time, as seen in the seal judgments of Revelation chapter 6 and the bowl judgments of Revelation chapter 16. There will be world wide devastation and despair beyond our wildest imagination.
Now let’s turn our attention to what was happening with those 1 million Hebrew slaves who knew they were finally and fully rescued from Egypt’s slave bondage. Exodus 15 tells us a great celebration broke out, unlike anything they’d ever experienced, led by Moses. And later Miriam, his older sister, joined Moses in leading this celebration. The words they sang, as recorded in Exodus 15, declare the greatness of God and recount the story of what we’ve just experienced in this Red Sea miracle. Let’s join them as they celebrate: “I will sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted. The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation. He is my God and I will praise Him, my father’s God and I will exalt Him. The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is His name.” (Ex. 15:1-3) What a great proclamation of truth about WHO God is; what He accomplished in this miracle; and how He is worthy of all praise and acclaim from the people He rescued! Do I hear a world wide AMEN rising up as you affirm these words from deep within your hearts?
The song continues: “Pharaoh’s chariots and his army God has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea… Your right hand, O LORD, was majestic in power. Your right hand, O LORD, shattered the enemy. In the greatness of Your majesty, You threw down those who opposed You…” (Ex. 15:4-8) While no cameras were present to capture this miracle, these words paint a graphic picture and I imagine as this song was taught to little children and then, when they grew up, it was taught to the next generations, there was no doubt about what God accomplished here this day! Especially so when grandparents showed grandchildren some of the ‘miracle debris’ they picked up on the beach that memorable day, and told them the story as they remembered running through God’s ‘water tunnel’.
This great celebration song continues: “Who among the gods is like You, O LORD? Who is like You? Who is like You – majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? You stretched out Your right hand and the earth swallowed them. In Your unfailing love You will lead the people You have redeemed. In Your strength You will guide them to Your holy dwelling. The nations will hear and tremble…” (Ex. 15:11-13) As the people sang this anthem, I’m sure they celebrated that each and all the gods of Egypt had been shamed, humiliated and proven to be nothing through the power of God’s plagues. Do you see they are also celebrating their future and their HOPEFUL CONFIDENCE that this great God will lead them up from this victorious shoreline, across the desert, to the land of promise He has spoken about, a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’. (Ex. 3:8)
May I ask friends, can you sing these words today? As you look around your world and back through your life journey, and standing in the midst of the circumstances of your life right now, can you stand and proclaim those words with the same hopeful confidence that those rescued Hebrew slaves sang that day? May I urge you to do so, right now, right where you are, make those words your confident proclamation of celebration to Almighty God!
Finally, please take note of these closing words to this great celebration song and look into your own heart. Look to see if these words are a reflection of the confidence you have that when you finally breathe your last breath here on earth, when your earthly pilgrimage is finally completed, God Himself will usher you into HIS presence! Do you have that confidence, friends? Read these words with joyful anticipation, and if you have some dear loved ones who have trusted Jesus before they died, rejoice they are with Jesus now! Moses and Miriam led the people with this closing phrase of confident celebration: “You, O LORD, will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance – the place, O LORD, You made for Your dwelling, the sanctuary O LORD Your hands established. LORD, You will reign for ever and ever!” (Ex. 15:17,18)
We don’t know how long this celebration lasted, or how long they camped there on the shoreline watching the ‘miracle debris’ float ashore with wave after wave. But whether it was one day or a week, the miracles which took place here would be memorialized in this Hebrew people for the rest of time. Generation after generation they told the stories of what happened here at this Red Sea as God delivered His people from Pharaoh’s chariot army. There was no going back.
It’s a picture my friends of Jesus Christ’s victorious defeat of our enemy Satan, by His death and resurrection. It’s a picture of the permanency of our deliverance from our sin bondage when we fully trust Jesus to be our Savior. Satan no longer has any authority over us. Our sin is forgiven, our sin bondage is broken, and we can live the rest of our lives celebrating the powerful truths of this song as we live our Freedom in Jesus Christ everyday, and look forward with unwavering confidence in our eternal heavenly inheritance which awaits us! That’s the great truth of 1 Peter 1:1-7.
I think it’s time to worship in a great celebration, what do you think my friends? Oh my, I found another GREAT Charity Gayle song… “Living in the Overflow”, are you ready to worship our great God my friends…? I see more than 3 million people have joined the global worship with this song. Let’s worship…
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 15:1-21.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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