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When Moses led the children of Israel from the slavery of Egypt, the Israelites were afraid and frightened. They had been under the bondage of Pharaoh and their taskmasters for over 400 hundred years, they could not really comprehend how Moses would lead them to safety, where they could go and serve their God in peace. Up to this point, Moses himself had been an outcast. When Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, he killed the Egyptian. Moses then fled to the desert, where he met Midianites. There he marries Jethro the Midianite’s daughter Zipporah. While tending Jethro’s herd, Moses experiences a revelation, in the form of a burning bush that was not consumed, God tells Moses that he has been chosen to liberate the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. (Exodus 3:1-10)
When Moses went to confront Pharaoh, God used Moses to send 9 plagues into Egypt and still Pharaoh did not allow the Israelites to go and worship their God, after all, they were his slaves. It was the 10th plague, the death of first-born children, including Pharaoh’s son, that convinced Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Ex 11:4 So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. 5 Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. When this happened, Pharaoh could no longer continue to be stubborn. Ex 12: 31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”
The Israelites left Egypt quickly. Soon after, Pharaoh changed his mind and sent his army in pursuit of the Israelites. Ex 14:5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them.
Can you for a minute imagine the scene that the children of Israel faced: in front of them the Red sea and behind them, Pharaoh and his officials and six hundred horsemen coming after them. What a sight. The Israelites were in a state of hopelessness and as such they told Moses as Pharaoh approached in Ex 14: 10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. 11 They 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? 12 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!”
But God had a plan for their deliverance from Pharaoh and his horsemen; He had a BIG plan that only He God could execute. When the Israelites reached the Red Sea, the waters miraculously parted to let them cross. Ex 14: 15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.” 19 Then the angel of God, who had been travelling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long. 21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
When the Egyptian army tried to pursue them, the waters closed and the Egyptian soldiers drowned. Ex 14: 26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward[c] it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
This is how BIG our God is. A mighty man in battle. Do you understand that He does not care whom He destroys when it is time for Him to bless you? Can you perceive that numbers don’t mean a thing to Him, when He is ready to act on your behalf? If you can just take a moment to take in what God will do on your behalf, then maybe you would stop being fearful of your ‘enemy’. I prophesy into your life according to the words of Moses in Ex 14: 13… “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. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
We know that our God uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. 1 Corin 1:27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. I am sure that on that day, when Pharaoh and his horsemen perished, the Israelites did not for one minute think that this king who had terrorised them for years, would die just like that.
God loves us all so very much that He gave His only begotten son to come to this world and die in our place. He wants to fight our battles for us but we have to let Him do it, His way. So just like the Israelites, let us reverence God and put our trust in Him.
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