THE SONG OF MOSES

Part 11

Exo. 15:1-22

Morning Meditation 11/12/16

Verses 1-2 say, “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.”

It didn’t take Moses long to compose this song. These things happened overnight. The song of Moses is God exalting and something that Israel can sing in future generations to remind them of the victory enjoyed here.

Faith needs a project to tackle, an impossibility to overcome and a song of victory to sing. Moses and the nation had all of this. We have come to the song of victory.

The song of victory celebrated the power of the LORD. It was sung unto the LORD: “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD. This song praises the LORD for what HE had done. We do not find a hint in the song where the victors were taking away from the VICTOR. When God does the work, He should be praised. When man does the work, he will demand credit. Men have a strange way of saying “This is what God has done,” then spend all the time exalting men for the accomplishment of the project. We hear the saying all the time “let’s give credit where credit is due.” Well, if that means we are going to spend our time being thankful for the people who took part in the project, let’s just leave God’s name out of it, and admit we don’t think He did it at all!!! If you think I’m being hard, I remind you that sometimes truth seems hard. We should not serve God for credit here. Our time of reward is not where we brag on each other, it will be when Jesus rewards His servants at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Now is not the time to receive credit. Credit will be awarded at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Moses and the children of Israel sung this song “. . . unto the LORD . . .” I think Moses stepped before the people and looked up, and talked to someone he could not see, and said, “LORD I hope you will be pleased. We have a song we want to sing to you!” And the LORD was so pleased that He had Moses record this song so that everyone who would ever read the Bible would be able to read this song. God is glorified when we praise Him.

Faith needs to be able to sing of what God has done through our trust in Him. They sung of the triumph of the LORD. It was the Lord that triumphed over Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Moses says in verse three, “The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.” I believe Jesus is the One described by this statement. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the One who overcame Satan on the cross, and He will be the One who wins in the battle of Armageddon. When training the Church at Ephesus to do battle with Satan and the powers of darkness Paul said, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Eph. 6:10). When we bring the cross and the righteousness of Christ against Satan, the battle is over before it starts. Satan is fighting a battle already lost and we are fighting a battle already won. Satan hates it when we celebrate the victory because it neutralizes his efforts. Moses said of the LORD, “. . . the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. . .”

The song of Moses is one in which he gives personal testimony: “The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation . . .” The Lord not only saved the whole nation on this occasion, He saved Moses personally. Each of the children of Israel, on this occasion, gave personal testimony of the truth of personal salvation. If a million souls are saved, it happened one at a time. The Lord knows each of us by name. He dealt with each of us personally before He saved us. When we were saved, we did not feel a collective burden lifted, we felt a personal burden lifted. When we sing our hymns and spiritual songs, we should address the Lord personally in them and let them be our personal testimony to the Lord.

Moses rehearses in this song of victory what the LORD had done. Verse one he says, “ . . . the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” Verse four says, “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.” The chariots of Egypt were like the most advanced tanks of our day. The “chosen captains” were the most skilled fighters in the world. Egypt was a world power. The LORD’S simple uncontested victory over this mighty foe became the basic theme of this song.

Moses describes what happened: “The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.” I want to ask you a question at this time. How do those liberal scholars who believe that the water that Moses and the children crossed, was ankle to knee-deep water, get around this? Moses used terms like, “The depths have covered them,” and “they sank into the bottom as a stone.”You can’t sink a chariot in knee deep water. Bible believers have no problem with this.

Verse six continues, “Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.” The LORD’S right hand in this case was the raging waves of the sea. There is awesome power in the mad waters of a raging sea. Pharaoh and his army did not stand a chance. Incidentally where they crossed was no little branch. It had to be wide enough at the point of crossing for six hundred chariots and all the army of Egypt to be down in the bed of the Red Sea at the same time. Verse 8 says, “And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.” This is not the description of a branch. It is the description of the Red Sea that God used to destroy Pharaoh and the whole army of Egypt. Verse ten says, “Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.” This is a victory song where God is credited one hundred percent for the victory.

Then Moses goes from the description of what the LORD did TO Pharaoh, to what He did FOR His people. He sings in verse thirteen, “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.” He sings of redemption and the cause of it is mercy. If there were ever people who did not deserve to be redeemed, it was Israel. They were reluctant to follow Moses. They were a difficult people. Not only did they follow Moses with reluctance, but they complained and murmured at every point. It takes a God who deals in MERCY and not in JUSTICE for someone like this to survive. Moses knows this. Moses killed a man a little over forty years before this, when he began his attempt to set his brethren free from bondage in his own strength. Moses did the best he could and became a murderer. God had been merciful to Moses and he knew it. He knew that God had been merciful to Israel in this deliverance. So one of the stanzas of his song includes this. He also says in this stanza, “ . . . thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.” Here Moses sings of guidance. He also speaks of “strength” in His guidance. He guided them into a trap but to God it was no trap at all. We do not only need to be redeemed, we also must have His guidance afterwards. Notice where the LORD leads: “unto thy holy habitation.” Where were they? I recently crossed one of the tongues of the Red Sea. We had traveled miles to get there. We had seen nothing but desert (what the Bible calls wilderness). Yet Moses calls the desert in which he now stands, as he stands on the shores of the Red Sea, “thy holy habitation.” Moses was on the backside of the desert when God appeared to him in the burning bush. Moses knows that the desert is turned into the sanctuary of God when the LORD is there. Are you in a desert place in your Christian life right now? There may be someone standing beside you that can turn YOUR DESERT into a SANCTUARY OF GOD, if you will allow your faith to see the UNSEEN ONE.

I must close for today. May God bless these words to our hearts.

In Christ

Bro. White