In Exodus 14, the freed Hebrew slaves reached the Red Sea only to be pursued by the hard-hearted Pharaoh and his army. The people complained about their plight and even said it would be better to remain slaves in Egypt than to die in the wilderness. In verse 14, Moses gave his famous, oft-quoted response, “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
When I read this passage, I usually find myself wondering how they could question God’s plans and goodness after everything he’d done to bring them out of slavery in Egypt. God sent unimaginable plagues to display His power to Pharaoh and freed His people from bondage to an incredibly powerful ruler without anyone lifting a sword or sling. Yet when they saw the Red Sea on one side and Pharaoh’s army on the other, they were overcome with great fear and what I like to call a case of spiritual amnesia. The fear inspired by their dire earthly circumstances was so great that it overshadowed and cast out memories of God’s miraculously displayed faithfulness, and they trembled with trepidation instead of looking to the Lord with expectant trust.
And we do the exact same thing.
While modern day Christians don’t have an Egyptian army on the left and a body of water on the right, we are hard pressed on every side by difficult jobs, broken relationships, loneliness, illness, depression, anxiety, rejection, ongoing sin struggles, and a whole host of issues. Like the freed Hebrew slaves, we often focus so much on what we can see with our eyes that we forget to trust what—or rather who—we cannot. Walking by faith instead of sight (2 Corinthians 5:7) and having faith in the unseen (Hebrews 11:1) doesn’t mean that we ignore the trouble surrounding us and stuff our feelings in an effort to seem like ethereal beings who are never touched by the brokenness of the world. It means that we look to Jesus during our trials, remember what God has done for us, and remind ourselves that if we can trust Him with our salvation, we can trust Him to comfort us in our affliction (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) and provide a way of escape during temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Sure, we can’t say that God blotted out the sun or sent a plague of frogs to liberate us from draconian rulers, but we can say that God did what the Law could not do by using Jesus’ death and resurrection to make completely depraved people like us as righteous as His Son (Romans 8:1-4). He didn’t just deliver us from worldly troubles—He delivered us from death and judgment so we can have abundant, eternal life.
As anyone who has read Exodus or watched the classic movie The Ten Commandments knows, God didn’t lead the people to the Red Sea only to let them be destroyed by Pharaoh’s army. He parted the Red Sea so they could be saved from death and eventually claim the land He promised to their forefathers. Even though many of us may not have a sea-parting moment of deliverance from our worldly troubles, we can rest assured knowing that God has made a way for us to be with Him for eternity and will wipe every tear from our eyes like the loving, perfect Father He is (Revelation 21:1-4). The privilege of being with God forever is worth more than a thousand miraculous, situational rescues, and recognizing that can help us patiently, faithfully endure a million heartbreaks. God doesn’t just fight for us—He’s already won the war! So we can trust him with all of the daily battles that wage between now and His ultimate victory.
