And Moses said to 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
Yes. Don’t you love these words in Exodus 14:13–14? Don’t you love Exodus 14:13–14? Think about it. God’s people have been delivered out of slavery in Egypt. They’re now standing right on the edge of the Red Sea with this massive body of water in front of them, with the Egyptians, who have enslaved them for years, now threatening to overtake them. Pharaoh and his army have now come after the Egyptians to try to bring them back. And the people are worried, concerned, afraid. “What do we do? Where do we go when we’re trapped with a sea in front of us and all this army behind us?”
Exodus 14:13–14 Reminds Us God Fights for Us
We have a God who fights for us and asks us to simply be silent and trust in Him.
And God says through Moses, “Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord.” Now think about that. “Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord.” How are they going to see the salvation of the Lord? By just standing there and seeing God work, “which he will,” it says, “work for you today. The Lord will fight for you and you have only to be silent.”
Is there any clearer picture of faith in God that leads to salvation from God? This is the essence of what it means to be saved by God from sin, to stand and see, to trust, to believe that the Lord fights for you, that Jesus has done the work, that he has died on a cross for your sin, that he is risen from the grave, that if you trust in him, you will be saved. You don’t have to do anything but trust in Jesus. It’s by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus alone, that He saves us. All glory, be to his name. He has fought the ultimate battle for us, and he has prevailed.
Exodus 14:13–14 Reminds Us to Trust Jesus
And then, so now think about this. This is our life. Day in and day out, you and I face challenges. You and I face struggles with sin, struggles with trials and circumstances in life. And it’s in those struggles with sin, it’s in those trials and circumstances we face in life that God calls us to do the same, to trust in him, to trust that just as Jesus fought for us on the cross, he fights for us today. He works on our behalf.
Think about whatever you are going through in your life, maybe it is a struggle with a particular sin. Trust in Jesus. He gives you power over that sin. As you are struggling with circumstances, trials you’re walking through, to know that the God of the universe fights for you, if he is for you, who can be against you? What can stand against you? Nothing, Romans 8:31-39 says.
This Verse Leads Us to Praise God
So I just want to pray this over you right now: God, I praise you, first of all. We praise you together for fighting for us, Jesus, for fighting the ultimate battle on the cross for us, for taking on death and defeating it, for defeating sin and Satan, death, the grave, for giving us eternal life, the fact that we have eternal life through faith in you, through trusting in you. All glory, be to your name.
So God help us in this way to trust in you today, with whatever we’re walking through in our lives, to be still even in this moment and to know that you, the God of the universe, you fight for us, that we have no reason to fear, that we can stand firm through trust in you. So help us to live in this today, in this kind of stillness and this kind of firm standing in you without fear, because we know that you, the Lord of all, our Lord, our God, our savior, our king, our father in heaven, you fight for us. We love you and worship you, God, and we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
