Our Egyptians

“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 only need to be still” Exodus 14:14.

In one of the most tension building scenes in the Bible we witness Moses and the Israelites running for their lives being pursued by their previous captors.  The exodus wasn’t on their radar as they worked in brutal conditions.  As far as they were concerned, their future was laid out for them.  How relieved they must have felt when circumstances came into their lives that brought them out of their enslavement.  But then, their relief turned to fear and anxiety as they realized what deliverance looked like.  It looked scary…it looked hopeless…it looked like a trade-off!  Throughout the exodus their nerves had to be calmed and their spirits had to be lifted.  They must have teetered between the relief of the rescue and the fear of the future.  After all, their captors were still chasing them.  Their minds were not free in the deliverance because they were still being pursued.  Moses continually reassured them that God was in charge of the rescue.  He encouraged them to be brave, steeped in faith, and expectant in belief.  Not only did God separate them from their enslavement but He was going to completely remove it.  God loved them so much that His goal was not just to give them a break from what enslaved them…it was to give them freedom from it once and for all.

We are have either been enslaved to something or are presently enslaved.  Sometimes it’s harder to stay free than to get free.  Staying free means to stand firm when things get touch in the wilderness.  Standing firm means to recognize where you are is God’s will…standing firm means to be confident in God’s timing…standing firm means to reconcile that God is in complete control and will fight for your freedom.  If we will only move when He gives us peace to move we will continue to walk hand in hand with Him right through the desert.  ‘Though they were armed for battle, they did not need to do the fighting:  the Lord would fight for them.  This is a powerful message for any believer engaged in any type of struggle or conflict.  Most of us react in one of two ways:  either we complain and give up like the Israelites did, or we take things into our own hands and fight in our own strength… We need to simply stand firm and have faith in God.  Yes, action will sometimes be required on our part, but we must take action under God’s direction’ The Applied Old Testament Commentary, p. 229.

Whatever our Egyptians look like they will probably continue to chase us…after all, their leader is darkness and their bounty is our freedom.  If we will allow God complete access to our circumstances He will fight for us, and ‘today we will never see again’ that which enslaved us.