Battle Lines: Get Moving
Hollywood could hardly create a more dramatic moment.
The Egyptians were on the verge of a murderous rampage, determined to drive the Children of Israel back into slavery after their brief escape. First, they would shed some blood to avenge the dead children from Passover night. Then they would round up the survivors, punish them, humiliate them, and remind them that they were and always would be an inferior people.
With the Red Sea before them and Pharaoh’s chariots behind driving them ever closer to the shore, the Jewish people had the same vision of their destruction the Egyptians had. Forgetting all the miracles that had wrested them from their former bondage, their songs of deliverance had grown silent. Was this how it was all going to end?
They turned in desperation to Moses, not to seek answers but to assign blame. “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?’ For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:11-12). We are told they cried out to the Lord, no doubt with a mixture of blaming Him and asking Him to deliver them.
Moses’ faith was unshaken. “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace” (Exodus 14:13-14). Although the Bible doesn’t say so, it seems Moses wanted to linger a little longer to pray about it. But God would have none of it. The next thing we read is, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward’” (v 15).
There are times when we need to wait on the Lord, to hold our place until He makes His will known. There are other times when we need to move forward. When He has made it clear what the way is, what needs to be done, and how it is to happen, then waiting is not so much a sign of faith as it is a sign of our lack of faith in His provision. For Moses and the Children of Israel, there came a moment when they had to actually step into the Red Sea for things to happen. Had they lingered, the chariots of Egypt would have decided their fate.
If God has shown you what His will is, your delay to obey, as piously as you might frame it, is not an act of faith. It is disobedience. There is a time to stop waiting in prayer and go forward. The sea will not part until you put your foot into the water. Get moving.