TUESDAY
Subtitle: Standing still and letting God fight
Today, let’s look at a little more of the context for our title verse in this campaign. I know we just went through this text a couple of weeks ago. I will not rehash everything Chuck preached on. I only want to highlight verse 14 and the context.
Exodus 14:5–14 (NIV)
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. 8 The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. 9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth , opposite Baal Zephon.
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!”
13 Moses answered the people, “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.”
Throughout our last campaign, we talked about the transformation in the life of Moses. He started as the war hero who tried to start the rebellion in his own power, timing, and means by killing the Egyptian. The Hebrews didn’t follow him and Pharaoh tried to kill him, so he was forced to flee to the desert. Even at this point in the story, Moses has dramatically changed.
If we were to rewind a few verses earlier to 3:18 we see that, “The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.” Now, this was a group of former slaves who knew little of battle and had no battle training. So their readiness for battle was likely laughable in comparison to the Egyptian chariots. Even so, an un-surrendered Moses could have trusted in his genius battlefield tactics to perhaps outwit the Egyptian army. This is likely what he did to help Egypt defeat the Ethiopians when he was prince in Egypt (see 
Moses Gives It A Go). After the success he found in Egypt, the Egyptians likely sang songs of his glorious victory. He certainly was tempted to repeat that outcome and gain glory for himself.
However, after 40 years in the wilderness as a shepherd and witnessing the great power of God in the plagues, Moses is surrendered. He does not chase glory for himself but knows that God is the one who will gain glory for himself through Pharaoh and his army (Ex. 14:4a). The Egyptians will come to know the majesty of Yahweh through his deliverance, not the majesty of Moses (Ex: 14:4b). The people of Israel will sing a song of glory to God, not a song of glory to Moses (Ex. 15).
Instead of frantically coming up with a battle strategy that “is crazy enough that it just might work” (I’m not thinking of a specific movie reference but I know I’ve heard it in a ton of movies), Moses implores the people to be still and trust that the Lord will fight for them. This is a major high point for Moses in the story of Exodus, thus far.
So, Moses is surrendered. The people are not quite there yet and many of them never get there. They cry out to the Lord and grumble with Moses. They see no way that they will get out of this mess so they, as one commentator says, “gabble like chickens” (that’s just a funny image that I thought I’d share with you) in vv. 10-12. They would rather be slaves in Egypt than dead in the desert. They knew they couldn’t defeat the Egyptians with military might (they were probably right) and they had no courage whatsoever in this moment (we will talk about courage next week). They had no control over the outcome of this situation. They really had no other option than to surrender to the Lord and be still.
Reflection
Imagine yourself as a participant in this scene. Imagine you are among the Hebrew people who just recently left Egypt, and not the Egyptian army that is barreling down on them. You are stuck between the sea and the Egyptian army. There is no solution that you can see to this obstacle. You either drown or you are killed or enslaved again by the Egyptians. How would you respond to Moses’ statement to be still and trust that God will fight for you?