In Israel’s Song of Liberation (Ex. 15), beautifully simple and refreshing to the spirit, God is everything and satisfaction is the result. Even though you may have been a long time on the wilderness journey, yet you can turn back with joy to re-echo this song. And if you have just set out on the road, how suitable it is that you should sing like this.
I think it must have been a wonderful thing for God that day, when between six hundred thousand and two million Israelites opened their mouths and sang this beautiful song. Depend on it, heaven listened that morning. They were very happy that day; they had a right to be. Was it not a beautiful song?
What was there in the song? Note first that there is a peculiar absence of a great deal that is found in what we tend to sing–about ourselves. This redemption song from first to last is about the Lord.
There was no song in Egypt. You must be out of Egypt before you can really sing to God. It is not a question of having the vocal capacity, but the state of soul which warrants such a song. Israel sighed, wept, and groaned in Egypt, but they could not sing. Even in chapter 12, they did not sing. Why? They were not at liberty. The moment they were, out comes the song.
So will it be with you. The moment you learn that the death and resurrection of Christ are for you, and that by these you are dead and risen, you will not be able to keep from singing. The song will burst from your lips spontaneously without a bit of effort. This is the true thought of worship. It is the overflow of a heart in the fullness of the liberty of God.
Now listen to this new song of redemption. It begins with, “I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea” (Ex. 15:1). It celebrates His victory. How does it finish? “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever” (Ex. 15:18). It proclaims His glory. The song begins with the sense of the grace and power that has delivered, but it closes with the glory. Faith enjoys the salvation that it has found in the Lord, and takes a flying leap right over all the difficulties of the way, saying, “Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation” (Ex. 15:13). There is faith’s confidence: what grace has commenced, it will also finish.
Doubting friend, take up this language, and let your doubts go. They are the fruit of unbelief. It is Satan diverting the eye from Christ. Rest on Christ and all your doubts will go for you will be occupied simply with what God sees in His Son.
What is Christianity? It is the knowledge that the Father and the Son, with the Holy Ghost, dwell in the believer. God has set him up in this scene in the power and spirit of Christ, that he may live here as the Lord lived. Christianity is the repetition of the life of Jesus in the life of the Christian.
I cannot therefore allow myself any comfort from this chapter if I am dejected. Did you ever hear Christ murmuring? Never! Even in the darkest day, we hear Him say, “I thank Thee, O Father…” (Mt. 11:25). He was always subject, always obedient, always peaceful–and joyful even in the shadow of the cross. Ah, beloved, we have a perfect pattern in the life of the Lord Jesus. Let us follow Him.
Observe the way their soul’s vision is filled that resurrection morn: “The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation” (Ex. 15:2). Is there not refreshing vigor about that note of the song?
As we get older, should we grow colder? As we go on, are we to become feebler? Away with such unbelief! Let me show you an old convert. Four years in a prison, cut off from everything, and all Asia turned away from him, listen to what he says: “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). What keeps a saint right? The company of Christ.
Let us get a little more into this element of joy. You usually see young Christians very bright. Should we older ones be the reverse? God forbid! “The Lord is become my salvation” is a fine note to sing when we have learned our own weakness and incompetence. His heart was filled with gladness as those voices rang from the borders of the Red Sea. Shall He not hear ours also? They saw that the road back to Egypt was blocked. They had heard the word, “Stand still.” They had seen God deliver them in that marvellous manner, and now they turned and gave to God all the praise.
Further, they say, “He is my God.” And more than that, “I will prepare Him an habitation” (Ex. 15:2). That to me is the most lovely bit of the whole chapter. The moment I am on the ground of redemption, I am fit for His company. He loves to have my company. “I will prepare Him an habitation” is faith’s apprehension of God’s ultimate purpose. They seized the thought that God was going to dwell with them (see also v. 13). It is His strength that brings you out of a defiled world, and it is to a holy habitation He leads you (see also v. 17). They seem to say, “Lord, You will never be content till You have us in Your own company.”
You say, we are not there yet. No, but is it not a wonderful thing that while you and I are here, God can dwell with us. How few of God’s people ever rise to this. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). It is an immense thing for the soul to see that. It is only on the ground of redemption that He can dwell with us. And we shall have His company permanently.
This song celebrates that it is not only a people that are redeemed and purchased, but a people brought right home to God. They rejoice that every enemy has melted away, and every opposer is “as still as a stone till Thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over, which Thou hast purchased” (Ex. 15:16). What God has begun, you may depend upon it, He will carry on to the end.
The secret of much of the darkness among God’s people today is, that they are reading the New Testament through the dimness of the Old Testament. What ought we to do? Read the Old Testament with the light that God has given us in the New. It is a profound mistake to read the New Testament through the Old Testament. Everything was in type, shadow, and figure in the Old Testament. Now everything is wrapped up in Christ, a living Man at God’s right hand. I am in Him, and you are in Him. What is the secret of power today? Only the Holy Ghost! Therefore you can easily see the folly of the present day in going back to the Mosaic ritual. You are out of date. Everything now must be in the power of the Holy Ghost. Perhaps this is never more true than in song.
A redeemed, rejoicing people, with God in their midst, have the sense that they are a delivered people; they know they are God’s people, but there is something more. They have the knowledge that holiness belongs to God’s people. “Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders” (Ex. 15:1l).
They had a deep sense that “holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, for ever” (Ps. 93:5). Let us not forget it. I hear someone say, I am not happy. May I ask you a question? Are you holy? Ah, that searches me. It ought to search us all. It is not that sin is not in us but that does not give a bad conscience, if it be not working. Holiness is the soul walking in the light, and in separation from the flesh, the world, and from the things that do not suit God.
But supposing I am making provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. If I am walking in the flesh, I shall not get the support of the Spirit, nor the comfort of the Spirit. “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:14), is the injunction. If I do not, my joy will go, and I shall inevitably lose my brightness. And what is the secret of this? I have not been holy.
Happiness walks just one foot, and one foot only, behind holiness. The secret of a happy life is a holy life. It is very simple. “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). You walk with Christ, and you will become holy. Do not try to be holy. The moment you try to be anything, it is not of Christ. There is no effort in Christianity. Walk in holy fear, and your heart will be kept in the company of Christ. It is a beautiful thing when a soul walks in that kind of holy fear. You walk with Jesus, my friend. Tell everything to Jesus. Have no secrets with Him. If you are in weakness, go to Jesus, and tell Him about it. Count on the heart of Jesus, and the strength and love of Jesus. He has no reserves on His side; do not let us have any reserves on our side. You will be happy then.
But more than this, holiness leads to such confidence in God that the soul can triumphantly say, “The people shall hear, and be afraid” (Ex. 15:14). Will you meet enemies? Plenty of them. What will happen? They will all go down before God. Every difficulty becomes a new opportunity for God to display His power. The Lord comes in to show Himself strong. Is all the world against you? God and you are a match for them–invincible! All the difficulties will disappear, because you will have the strength of the Lord. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
The song closes very beautifully: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in; in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established” (Ex. 15:17). They are a holy people on the road, and they are going to the sanctuary. That is the spot where there is neither enemy nor evil occurrent. And, beloved friends, we are going to it, and what ought to mark us by the way is holiness.
“The Lord shall reign for ever and ever” (Ex. 15:18) is the triumphant conclusion of faith’s song, and the reason is very blessed. His glory and their deliverance are based on the same thing: “For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea” (Ex. 15:l9). They got back to the starting point: the end of the song is the beginning of it. The older a saint gets, the more his soul enters into and enjoys the simplicity of the grace of God.
Miriam and her fellows ring out the chorus of this redemption song, “with timbrels and with dances,” saying, “Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea” (v. 21). The chorus is not on a level with the song itself, for Miriam is a type of a soul that never gets beyond the thought of escape. She has not a note about getting into the land. She rejoices in what had been done in destroying the foe, but breathes not a word about getting into the land. It is very striking; for she never did get in. She died in the wilderness (Num. 20:1). In the history of her soul, she never got over Jordan.
It is our privilege to pass in spirit to where Christ now is. God will sustain us, and keep us, and carry us on, a bright living witness for Him. Be for Christ in this scene. Are you a young convert? Be out and out for the Lord. It is His purpose to carry you in.
You may be a Caleb, or a Joshua. They fully followed the Lord. They were the only two that got into the land (Num. 14:26-30). Had I met these two men, forty years after, and said, Were not you among the men that stood on the shores of the Red Sea and sang that song? Yes, we sang that song, and are not we here, two witnesses to the truth of what we sang? Ah, it is beautiful to see this.
And I believe there will be many a saint in glory by-and-by, whose history has been something after the pattern of Caleb and Joshua. They had been kept and sustained by God the whole way along, and they had fully followed the Lord. May God give you to completely follow the Lord Jesus Christ, for His blessed name’s sake. “Thou shalt bring them in…” (v. 17).