Exodus 14:13-14 NKJV
And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”
It is one thing to speak and act in faith when all around is comfortable, and a totally different thing to do the same thing when pressure is speedily mounting from a critical situation. That latter was the case Moses got handling. A series of things were happening at the same time: Pharaoh’s choicest chariots and horsemen were charging at the Israelites; the Red Sea was not only ahead of God’s people but it had FLOODED; and as a result of the rising tension, the Israelites began to ‘lecture’ God’s servant, saying, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?…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).
In such a setting, the urge to give up and to let ‘whatever will be, will be’, can be so high. However, it was so different with Moses. His response and the tone of his words depict that he was at rest concerning the faithfulness of God. He said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace”, as in our text. Hallelujah! Reflect on those moving and powerful words for a moment. Notice, given the situation at hand, the courage, faith, and hope in Moses’ response are so uplifting! Let’s revisit his words again:
It takes courage to “not be afraid” at the face of adversity; it takes faith to “Stand still, and [to] see the salvation of the LORD”; and, to know that “The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace” ushers in such a great hope. While Moses had severally been with God and seen the display of His power before, he still had to stand firm in God’s faithfulness. How God would do it, Moses probably didn’t know; but one thing that he was so sure of was, “…the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever”; and that was it! The LORD our God is still that same faithful God, who honours the words of faith that we speak—even in the most challenging of times!
Pst. Emmanuel