Psalms 106:9

He rebuked the:Red Sea also.

Israel at the Red Sea

No doubt the children of Israel supposed that now all was over; the Egyptians had sent them away, entreating them to depart, and loading them with riches. They said within themselves, “We shall now march to Canaan at once; there will be no more dangers, no more trials.” “Not quite so speedily,” says God; “the time is not arrived yet for you to rest. It is true I have delivered you from Egypt; but there is much you have to learn before you will be prepared to dwell in Canaan. Therefore I shall lead you about, and instruct you, and teach you.”

I. The children of Israel just now had three difficulties--three exceeding great dangers. And so I believe that every heir of heaven, within a very short period after the time of his deliverance, will meet with the same.

1. The first they had was a great trial sent by God Himself. There was the Red Sea in the front of them. Now, it was not an enemy that put the sea there; it was God Himself. We may therefore think, that the Red Sea represents some great and trying providence, which the Lord will be sure to place in the path of every new-born child; in order to try his faith, and to test the sincerity of his trust in God.

2. Then the children of Israel had a second difficulty. They would not have cared about the Red Sea a single atom, if they had not been terrified by the Egyptians who were behind them. These are the representatives of those sins of ours which we thought were clean dead and gone. The pangs after we come out of Egypt are at times even more painful than those we feel in the house of bondage; and there is usually a time of trial a little while after the new birth, which is even more terrible and awful than the previous agony of the soul, though not usually so protracted.

3. But there was a third difficulty, which perhaps wrought them more misery than either of the other two; these poor children of Israel had such faint hearts. They no sooner saw the Egyptians than they began to cry out; and when they beheld the Red Sea before them, they murmured against their Deliverer. A faint heart is the worst foe a Christian can have; whilst he keeps his faith firm, whilst the anchor is fixed deep in the rock, he never need fear the storm; but when the hand of faith is palsied, or the eye of faith is dim, it will go hard with us.

II. But, thanks be to God I the children of Israel had three helps. Oh! child of God, dost thou discern this mystery? Whenever thou hast three trials, thou wilt always have three promises; and if thou hadst forty afflictions, thou wouldst have forty measures of grace.

1. The first help they had was Providence. Providence put the Red Sea there, and piled the rocks on either hand, while providence represented by the fiery cloudy pillar had led them to its shore, and conducted them into the defile, and now the same pillar of providence came to their assistance. They had not come thither undirected, and therefore they should not be left unprotected, for the same cloudy pillar which led them there came behind them to protect them. Cheer up, then, heir of grace! What is thy trial? Has providence brought it upon thee? If so, unerring wisdom will deliver thee from it.

2. Again: the children of Israel had another refuge, in the fact that they knew that they were the covenant people of God, and that, though they were in difficulties, God had brought them there, and therefore God was bound in honour to bring them out of that trouble into which He had brought them. “Well,” says the child of God, “I know I am in a strait, but this one thing I also know, that I did not come out of Egypt by myself--I know that He brought me out; I know that I did not escape by my own power, or slay my first-born sins myself--I know that He did it; and though I fled from the tyrant--I know that He made my feet mighty for travel, for there was not one feeble in all our tribes; I know that though I am at the Red Sea, I did not run there uncalled, but He bade me go there, and therefore I give to the winds my fears; for if He hath led me here into this difficulty, He will lead me out, and lead me through.”

3. The third refuge which the children of Israel had was in a man; and neither of the two others, without that, would have been of any avail. It was the man Moses. He did everything for them. Thy greatest refuge, O child of God! in all thy trials, is in a man: not in Moses, but in Jesus; not in the servant, but in the master. He is interceding for thee, unseen and unheard by thee, even as Moses did for the children of Israel. Look! on yonder rock of heaven He stands, cross in hand, even as Moses with his rod. Cry to Him, for with that uplifted cross He will cleave a path for thee, and guide thee through the sea; He will make those hoary floods, which had been friends for ever, stand asunder like foes. Call to Him, and He will make thee a way in the midst of the ocean, and a path through the pathless sea.

III. God had a design in it. And here, also, we wish you to regard with attention what God’s design is, in leading the Christian into exceeding great trials in the early part of his life. “They were all baptized,” says the apostle, “unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.” God’s design in bringing His people into trouble, and raising all their sins at their heels, is to give them a thorough baptism into His service, consecrating them for ever to Himself. I mean by baptism this morning, not the rite, but what baptism represents. Baptism signifies dedication to God--initiation into God’s service. It is not when we are first converted that we so fully dedicate ourselves to God, as afterwards, when some great Red Sea rolls before us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)