Exodus 14:13-14 NIV
“Moses answered the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.'”
The situation was tense: Pharaoh and his army were advancing against Jacob’s descendants from behind, yet the Red Sea lay wide and deep before them, and there was no other route for escape! In the face of that adverse moment, the Israelites said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exo 14:11-12 NIV).
Anyone in Moses’ place would naturally feel the pressure of calming down multitudes of anxious people who are seeing their demise in the very future. However, the response God’s servant gave the Israelites says a lot about the depth of his personal relationship with God. Moses responded, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still”, as in our reference text. Hallelujah! To speak with such certainty about God’s faithfulness, a man must have known God in deeply intimate ways that others may never have experienced.
Indeed, the more we know and commune with God at a personal level, the more a deep-seated assurance about His faithfulness firmly settles in our hearts. It is an assurance of faith that does not blink at the face of adversity, knowing well that God is more than able to do what He says, no matter what the circumstance might be! That happened to Paul. When he was faced with problems because of the gospel, he said, “…I am not ashamed, for I KNOW whom [God] I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Tim 1:12 NKJV). Hallelujah! Beloved, to be still and know that God is God is so important, and that takes an intimate relationship with Him.
Pst. Emmanuel