Walking By Sight Rather Than Walking By Faith
Exodus 14 gives us a great opening parallel between
Christianity and Judaism – specifically the exodus event out of Egypt. Notice that the Hebrew people are clearly
walking by sight here and not by faith.
Moses had led the people right to the spot that God wanted them to
be. The people could know this because
the pillar of smoke/fire had stayed with them.
They had passed out of Egypt without a fight. Their wealth had greatly increased. They had an obvious indicator of God’s
presence and had a leader in Moses who had become quite a strong and faithful
man through the process of the plagues. Yet
in spite of all of these things the Hebrew people discarded all of these signs
much as Christians do when trouble comes around them.
The Hebrew people looked up and saw the massive army of
Pharaoh marching after them. They
panicked. Suddenly they couldn’t focus
on the strength of God as seen through their leader. They couldn’t focus on the obvious sign of
God – the pillar of fire/smoke – that God had placed in their midst. They could only see their presumed impending
doom at the hands of the Egyptians.
Rather than focus on God’s provision, they focused on the conclusion towards
which their collective mind was jumping.
Result of Walking by Sight
They get chastised for it.
Look at what Moses says to them.
He says to them to fear not. He
reminds them of what God has done. Then
he gives them the ultimate back-handed reminder: God will fight for you; all you
have to do is to be silent.
That is Moses’ insulting reminder to them that up until this
point they have done absolutely nothing to earn their salvation from bondage. Even now as they panic they will do
absolutely nothing to earn either their freedom. They have done nothing, and Moses is
essentially telling them to shut up, quit whining, stop sniveling, and just pay
attention to what God is doing in their midst.
Of course, like any good leader, God comes to Moses and
holds him responsible for the people’s action.
Although Moses was completely faithful in the course of this process,
God holds Moses responsible and tells him to move the people forward. God tells Moses to drive them through the Red
Sea on dry ground.
God and Pharaoh, One Last Time
This of course leads us to another one of those pesky
“harden the hearts of Pharaoh” passages. Notice that this phrase is accompanied by a
divine miracle. God makes the Red Sea
part, and I am sure that this is something that neither Pharaoh nor anyone in
his company has ever witnessed. God
performs a miracle as one last attempt to give Pharaoh a glimpse of the power
of the Creator. Through God’s display of
power – power over creation – Pharaoh is presented with an opportunity to make a
final decision: recognize God or deny Him completely.
Pharaoh misses the lesson completely. Pharaoh’s bravado is back as he comes after
the slaves he had allowed to leave. In
spite of seeing a miracle of the Creator he plunges head-long into the midst of
the Red Sea. Pharaoh’s arrogance against
God is so strong that He believes he can go in the midst of God’s authority
over creation and come out unscathed. The
Lord did the miracle that led to Pharaoh’s choice. But Pharaoh chose to act against God and in
so doing his heart hardened one last time.
At this point, a rational person would have ventured into
the Red Sea as its waters were made like walls on the left and the right. A rational person may have marveled at the
strange sight and stayed on the safe dry ground. But this is not so with Pharaoh. Pharaoh plunges deep into the middle of the
supernatural believing that he cannot and will not be harmed. Pharaoh lifts up one final act against God’s
supremacy and pays the ultimate price.
His refusal to acknowledge God leaves him and his whole army dead for
all the Hebrews to see.
Parallels Into The Christian Life
Again, we see a parallel to the world and the Christian
life. How many times do we see people in
the midst of God’s presence focus so strongly on their own desires and their
own needs? In doing so, how often do we
miss out on God? How many times do we
see people make such a habit of skipping out on God’s presence that they die in
their arrogance and their own bravado of life without ever once humbling
themselves before God?
Analogies to Baptism
Before we finish with this passage, I’d like to spend a
brief moment here talking about 1 Corinthians 10:1-5. In this passage, Paul completely talks about
this exodus and Red Sea experience as an analogy to baptism. If we are going to follow Paul in his line of
thinking – and I think we should – we must be careful to get the analogy
correct.
Here we see a Hebrew people receive a gift that they have
not earned: salvation. Here we see a
people of all ages receive this gift. Here
we see a people who do not understood what’s happening at all! The only important aspect of this event is
the God was present and worked His miracle through a people who neither really
understood nor even asked for God’s miracle.
If we are to see this as an analogy for the experience of
baptism, we need to get the facts straight.
It is an analogy about how it is all God’s hand at work. Like the Hebrew folks at the time of our own
baptism we probably don’t understand it all that well. In any case, we certainly have done nothing
to earn the right to participate in it.
Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians – and Moses’ point in Exodus 14 – is that
it is completely God’s work. The Lord
will fight for you and claim you as His own.
Submit to Him now.
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