The Glory of His Mercy and Fury
What comes to your mind when you think about learning who God is? How did you get to know what you know about him? And in particular how it is that we get to know God himself, who he is, and is not, so that our thoughts about him, and prayers to him, are based on reality and not speculation or fantasy?
Maybe you think of theology books, and Latin words and technical terms. Maybe you think about classrooms. Perhaps better, you think about reading and studying and meditating on the Bible for yourself and with others, and sitting under faithful preaching, with the Bible open and a pastor doing his level best to proclaim what God has revealed in his words, rather than the preacher waxing on about his own opinions.
The reason I ask is because I think it’s insightful to ask the question for God’s people that he brought out of slavery in Egypt more than 3000 years ago. What comes to your mind, we might ask them, when you think about learning who God is? “Why, the exodus,” an ancient Israelite would say. “From the first plague, to the tenth, and the Passover, and the parting of the sea, and the roar of the waters as they collapsed on Pharaoh’s army, and then silence — God showed us who he is not simply by freeing us from slavery but in the way he did it.” Every step was revelatory. And God gave Moses words to explain and accompany it. If we were able to ask that first generation of Israelites, “Who is the Lord?” they wouldn’t think of books and technical terms; they would think of the plagues and the Passover and the Red Sea. This is how God’s people came to know him.
As we’ve seen in our Exodus series, God not only introduced himself, as friend, to his people in the exodus, but also he introduced himself, as enemy, to the Egyptians. One of the most foreboding statements in the book of Exodus is chapter 5:2. Moses has approached Pharaoh for the first time. He announces, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go . . .” To which Pharaoh responds: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
Mark that. “Who is the Lord?” Pharaoh asks. And he says, “I do not know the Lord.” And knowing how the story goes, we might pause here and say to ourselves, Oh, Pharaoh, you will know. You will find out who the Lord is soon enough. You will see him act in judgment on you and your people, and you will know that he is the Lord.
Who Is the Lord?
Alongside the major theme of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, as Pastor Joe focused on last week, the other (and more ultimate) major theme of the exodus is God making himself known. We have seen it again and again: “you shall know that I am the Lord.” After Pharaoh’s comment in chapter 5, we saw it emerge in chapter 6. There God says to Moses in Exodus 6:7, to tell the Israelites, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” And then this declaration echoes again and again throughout these chapters. God does what he does so that his people will know who he is. Twice in chapter 7. Then again in chapter 8 and 9 and 10 and 12, and twice more in 14.
And not only will Israel know him. As he says in Exodus 7:5, “The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” No more will Pharaoh be able to say, “Who is the Lord? . . . I do not know him.” Pharaoh will know God — but not as friend. Pharaoh and the Egyptians will know him as a vanquishing foe, as we see twice in this morning’s passage:
"I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." (Exodus 14:4)
"The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen." (Exodus 14:18)
In the plagues and the Passover, and now at the Rea Sea, God is showing his people, and their oppressors, who he is. The reason the exodus goes down like it does, with all its strange and unexpected details, is that God is making himself known. The main point isn’t simply to free the people from slavery. God could have done that all at once. The main point is God is making himself known to Pharaoh, and to the Egyptians, and to the Israelites, and to the world — not just the surrounding nations more than 3000 years ago, but throughout history, ever since. And here we are today, at the Red Sea crossing, learning about God.
So that’s our focus this morning: Who does God mean for us to know him as because of the Red Sea crossing? How does God make himself known here?
There are three distinct sections in the passage we’re looking at this morning: 13:17 to 15:21:
13:17–22: the pillar of cloud and fire to lead the people
14:1–31: the crossing of the Red Sea
15:1–21: the song of Moses (and the people)
So, let’s focus on what are, from what I can tell, the four most significant (or at least most repeated) revelations about who God is in these chapters. Each one is established in chapter 14, and then reiterated in chapter 15. Let’s get to know God at the Rea Sea.
1. He guides his people in unexpected ways. (Exodus 13:17–14:9; 15:13)
At the end of chapter 12, God’s people, at long last, exit the land of their slavery and oppression (Exodus 12:50). The first half of chapter 13 then follows up on the Passover and the establishment of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and in 13:17 the narrative resumes, and now in a new section, in a new location. The people are on the move, but they are not on their own. God doesn’t leave it to them to decide the direction and pace and strategy. He manifests his presence, as he did at the burning bush to Moses in Exodus 3, this time in a pillar of fire at night, and cloud during the day. Four times verses 17–22 accent that God leads the people. Look first at verses 21–22 (and see the first two):
"And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people." (Exodus 13:21-22)
Leading them with a pillar of cloud and fire is unexpected enough, but most unexpected is the path he takes them on. It is not a direct route to the promised land:
"When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” 18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea." (Exodus 13:17-18)
And as we hear “toward the Red Sea,” we anticipate what’s coming. I suspect there were old men in Israel who knew the difference between east and south. Perhaps to them the route seemed nonsensical. “This isn’t the way to the promised land.” But it is God’s way. It’s not direct. It’s not the shortest route. But it’s the best. Because, in part, God’s not quite done with Egypt. The victory isn’t yet as complete as he means for it to be and so he leads his people “around by the way of the wilderness.”
Confused as they may have been at the time, soon God’s people will praise him for this. In the song of chapter 15, they will sing in verse 13: “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.”
So God leads and guides them by this supernatural pillar of cloud and fire. And he doesn’t take them on the shortest, most direct route, but on his appointed path, which will prove to be best for them in the end.
Looks Like a Trap
Not only this, but then he guides them in 14:1–4 to encamp against the sea, in what seems like a dead end. It must have felt like a trap! But God knows what he’s doing: drawing Pharaoh out, to utterly defeat him. Remember God’s highest goal isn’t the liberation of his people from slavery but his showing them (and Egypt and the world) who he is, as he “gets glory” over Pharaoh (14:4).
And so for us today, he is still the God who guides us. Spectacular as a pillar of cloud and fire may seem, we have far superior divine guidance now, in God’s external word to us, and his Spirit in us. And note well that following God’s guidance doesn’t mean taking the shortest and most comfortable path. When our lives are going the way we wish, that’s no good evidence that God is guiding us. In fact, the best indication that God is leading us is often that our route isn’t the most direct, and the path isn’t the one we would have chosen according to our own preferences.
On the Bones of Joseph
Just a quick note on verse 19: “Moses took the bones of Joseph.” The final three verses of Genesis (50:24–26) tell of Joseph making provision for his bones to come out of Egypt with the people (as God foretold earlier in Genesis):
"Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." (Genesis 15:13-14)
This isn’t the last mention of Joseph’s bone. The second to last verse in the book of Joshua completes the story: “As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem.” Then, in the New Testament, Hebrews 11:22 gives the inspired commentary on what it means: “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.” Joseph believed God’s promise to Abraham. He believed God would “visit” his people and bring them out of Egypt. And making provision for his bones also shows Joseph believed in resurrection, that his bones matter because one day his flesh and bones would be restored to life.
2. He gets involved for his people. (Exodus 14:10–29; 15:3)
God doesn’t just guide from a distance, but “gets involved.” He is engaged. He’s in the details with his people. God is surprisingly active in the exodus: not just guiding, but getting glory, showing strength, hardening hearts, showing steadfast love, and now being a fighter. He is active and engaged. Not passive. Not distant.
When the people are backed up against the sea, and see Pharaoh’s army, and fear, Moses says to them in 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you.” And as Pharaoh’s army approaches:
Then the angel of God [Who’s that? The pillar of fire as God’s messenger, like the burning bush in Exodus 3:2] who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel.
So God, manifesting his presence in the pillar, moves to protect them. He steps forward to shield his people. He gets involved. He puts himself in the middle. He says, in effect, I’ll take this fight. I’ll protect my people from their assailants.
Then after God has parted the sea, and the Israelites are walking across, with the Egyptians following them, God engages further:
In the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.” (Exodus 14:24-25)
And as Moses stretches out his hand and the waters return to their normal course, verse 27 says, “The Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.” And so, in 15:1 God’s people celebrate in song that “he has triumphed gloriously,” and in 15:3: “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”
One thing not to miss here: Not only is God a “man of war,” but his people praise him for it. They don’t cringe. They’re not embarrassed. They delight. They dance (15:20). Why? Because he destroyed their oppressors. God’s people praise him because they delight in the love they receive from him in the very moment, by the very action, of his destroying those who set themselves against them.
Which means (as we’ve seen in 9:4 and 11:7) God must distinguish between his people and their enemies, which is captured in 15:19: “when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.”
Divine Love Means Divine Wrath
Exodus 15:13 is the first mention of God’s love in the book of Exodus. And this will not be the last (20:6; 34:6–7). But the people not only celebrate his love, but also, his fury, his wrath:
"Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, our right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble." (Exodus 15:6–7)
In the same moment, in the same action, his people are the object of his undeserved love, while his enemies are the objects of his well-deserved justice and righteous fury. In other words, God’s demonstration of his wrath toward the Egyptians makes known his steadfast love to his people. He endures their mistreatment for a while, but in the end his love leads to the execution of justice against their enemies. Divine wrath serves divine love. Here’s how Paul puts it in Romans 9:22–23, in a rhetorical question:
"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory." (Romans 9:22-23)
In other words, God shows his power toward his enemies so that his people will praise him. Which means for us, as his people, that our praise, and our delight in him made audible, are bound up inextricably with his justice. God’s unflinching justice to appropriately punish the wicked is not his highest goal, nor is it gratuitous. His righteous wrath toward his enemies serves his covenant love for his people.
So our God not only guides, but gets engaged, in the details. He steps between Israel and Egypt and fights for his people. This should give us fresh confidence in how active and aggressive and eager God is for the details of our lives. Knowing God as the God who fights for his people will help us to pray with confidence.
3. He saves his people from certain death. (Exodus 14:30; 15:2)
Remember they were goners. They were backed up against the sea. With Egypt coming. Charging at them with 600 chosen chariots. And yet in this seemingly impossible situation, God makes a way. He saves his people. He rescues them from the threat. He delivers them from death.
Chapter 14 ends with: “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians” (verse 30). Salvation is a key word at the Red Sea. And in 15:2, in the song of praise, the people say, “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”
And perhaps the single most important pair of verses in these chapters is 14:13–14, as Moses addresses the people:
“Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:13-14)
“Salvation” here, perhaps unlike common notions in places today, is not fire insurance; it’s rescue from a burning building. And when God saves like he does in Exodus 14, his people need not even lift a finger. They dare not. They dare not raise their swords. They dare not even raise their voice. Not even a war cry is called for here, as he will later at Jericho. God shows us something about himself when he saves through the agency of his obedient people. And he shows us another aspect of who he is when saves while his people do not work but “have only to be silent.”
Grace for and Grace through
It reminds me of Romans 4:5 in the New Testament: “To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” This is what we call justification by faith alone. In Christ, God declares sinners to be in the right with him through faith, not any of our own doing. Similarly, this salvation that God works at the Red Sea is a see-only salvation. It’s a faith-alone rescue. God does not instruct them to take up their swords. There will be other times for that. God does indeed extend his grace in the world in ways that involve his people’s participation. But before he calls his people to the battle that he will fight through them (coming in chapter 17, against the Amalekites), he first fights for them here in chapter 14.
Don’t miss the nature of this divine rescue for the kind of rescues you need. For a marriage you think is done. And perhaps even a counselor says it’s done. Or for a child or friend you fear you will always be estranged to. It feels like you are backed up against the Red Sea. There seems to be no other options, no other possibilities. No way, no how. The chariots are bearing down and it’s only a matter of time.
To be a Christian in these situation is to remember the Red Sea. Humanly speaking, it was hopeless. But God made a way his people could not even have asked or imagined. Knowing God creates hope for otherwise hopeless situations.
4. He is to be feared and praised. (Exodus 14:31; 15:1–2, 11)
One of the most striking reversals in the course of this chapter is how the Israelites move from fearing Pharaoh in verse 10 (“they feared greatly”), to Moses’s first words to them, “Fear not” (14:13), and finally to verse 31: Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
They have seen the power of God on display in plague after plague. But now, in a dramatic demonstration of his “great power,” they see how God’s power far surpasses Egypt’s and “the people fear the Lord.” And this is the right kind of fear. This is healthy fear. The kind of fear we all should have before God. In this chapter, God’s people move from unrighteous fear to righteous fear. They should indeed fear God with the fear of awe and reverence, and with fearing his omnipotence, were they to ever turn from him.
It is the kind of fear that elicits praise. That’s why the next thing recorded is that Moses and the people sang. They praised this God who had made himself known to them:
Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,
"I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him." (Exodus 15:1–2)
And as his people delight in him, and praise him, God “gets glory.” Glory is no small theme here at the Red Sea. In fact, in chapter 14 is the only place in the Bible where we find this particular way of putting it — “get glory”:
Exodus 14:4: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”
Exodus 14:17: “I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
And then four times in chapter 15 (verses 1, 6, 11, and 21) God is celebrated, for the first times in the Bible, as “glorious.”
Here at the Red Sea, God does indeed make himself known to his people and to Pharaoh, and to the Egyptians, and eventually to the world. He “gets glory over” Pharaoh as the one far more powerful, as he guides and get involved and saves his people, and as his people respond with holy fear and hearts of praise.
Meal with Your Father
For more than a thousand years, the exodus and crossing the sea was the single greatest event in the history of the world. In no one single event did the God of heaven reveal more about himself, and more clearly and memorably, than he did at and around these events.
Until Calvary. Where the new single greatest and most God-revealing event in the history of the world occurred, in the person and life of his Son, culminating in the final acts of his life, and his death and his resurrection. Which is what we remember each week at the Table.
Here at the Table, we remember how God guides his people. And fights for them. He rescues and redeems them in Christ. And what is that a composite of? Where goes this guidance and engagement and protection and provision and rescuing begin to lead for how God’s people would come to know him? As Father. It was almost too good to be true. Until he sent his Son who called him Father, and welcomes us, even instructs us, to do the same.
When we come to this Table, we come to eat with Jesus, and with his Father.