What a sight it must have been to behold. Exodus 14:30 tells us that the Hebrews “saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.” Imagine, the might and power of the finest of Egypt’s military, with Pharaoh himself in command, laid to waste in an instant, crushed not by armed soldiers, but by the weight of the sea crashing down upon them. “Let us flee from the face of Israel”, they had cried, “for the Lord fighteth for them…” (Ex. 14:25). But it had been too late. Fulfilling the promise that Moses had made to the Children of Israel, God had indeed fought for them (Ex. 14:14), not a single Hebrew had lifted a hand to resist the enemy.
The same people who had all too recently cried out in fear and doubt to Moses, lamenting that they had been led out to the wilderness only to be slaughtered (Ex. 14:12), now beheld the lifeless bodies of their tormentors strewn along the beach. There is an unparalleled exultation, an unbridled joy that fills the soul in fear of certain demise when reprieve suddenly and unexpectedly appears, providing escape from impending doom. All the more is the rejoicing of the soul that is profoundly saved to the uttermost, the threatening peril not merely abated but annihilated.
The pursuit of the Egyptians was not just temporarily avoided, it was completely derailed. In a single night, the object of the Hebrews persecution, the source of their fears and reluctance to walk in the freedom that God was providing, had been obliterated. If only those of us in Christ realized that our own redemption and deliverance is no less thorough! Were we to stop long enough to look around us we, too, would see that the enemy is not drawing ever-closer in pursuit, but lies “dead” along the shoreline. God has removed the wheels of the chariots, He has blunted the swords and broken the spears of our own enemy. Though our own adversary is not literally dead, he is a toothless lion whose only real power lies in our willingness to fear his roar.
To God goes all glory. In service to Him,
Loren
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