EXODUS xv. 2.
These words occur three times in the Bible: here, in Isaiah xii. 2, and in Psalm cxviii. 14.
I. The lessons from the various instances of their occurrence. The first and second teach that the Mosaic deliverance is a picture-prophecy of the redemption in Christ. The third (Psalm cxviii.
14), long after, and the utterance of some private person, teaches that each age and each soul has the same mighty Hand working for it. "As we have heard, so have we seen."
II. The lessons from the words themselves.
_(a)_ True faith appropriates G.o.d"s universal mercy as a personal possession. "_My_ Lord and _my_ G.o.d!" "He loved _me_, and gave Himself for _me_."
_(b)_ Each single act of mercy should reveal G.o.d more clearly as "My strength." The "and" in the second clause is substantially equivalent to "for." It a.s.signs the reason for the a.s.surance expressed in the first. Because of the experienced deliverance and G.o.d"s manifestation of Himself in it as the author of "salvation," my faith wins happy increase of confidence that He "is the strength of my heart." Blessed they who bring that treasure out of all the sorrows of life!
_(c)_ The end of His deliverances is "praise." "He is my song." This is true for earth and for heaven. The "Song of Moses and the Lamb."
THE SHEPHERD AND THE FOLD
"... Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation."
EXODUS XV. 13.
What a grand triumphal ode! The picture of Moses and the children of Israel singing, and Miriam and the women answering: a gush of national pride and of worship! We belong to a better time, but still we can feel its grandeur. The deliverance has made the singer look forward to the end, and his confidence in the issue is confirmed.
I. The guiding G.o.d: or the picture of the leading. The original is "lead gently." _Cf._ Isaiah xl. 11, Psalm xxiii. 2. The emblem of a flock underlies the word. There is not only guidance, but gentle guidance. The guidance was gentle, though accompanied with so tremendous and heart-curdling a judgment. The drowned Egyptians were strange examples of gentle leading. But G.o.d"s redemptive acts are like the guiding pillar of fire, in that they have a side that reveals wrath and evokes terror, and a side that radiates lambent love and kindles happy trust.
"In Thy strength." _Cf._ Isaiah xl. 10, "with strong hand." "He shall gently lead." Note the combination with gentleness. That divine strength is the only power which is able to guide. We are so weak that it takes all His might to hold us up. It is His strength, not ours. "My strength is made perfect in (thy) weakness."
"To the resting-place of Thy holiness." The word is used for pasture, or resting-places for cattle. Here it meant Canaan; for us it means Heaven--"the green pastures" of real partic.i.p.ation in His holiness.
II. The triumphant confidence as to the future based upon the deliverance of the past. _"Hast,"_ a past tense. It is as good as done.
The believing use of G.o.d"s great past, and initial mercy, to make us sure of His future.
_(a)_ In that He will certainly accomplish it.
_(b)_ In that even now there is a foretaste--rest in toil. He guides to the "waters of resting." A rest now (Heb. iv. 3); a rest "that remaineth" (Heb. iv. 3, 9).
III. The warning against confidence in self. These people who sang thus perished in the wilderness! They let go hold of G.o.d"s hand, so they "sank like lead." So He will fulfil begun work (Philippians i. 6). Let us cleave to Him. In Hebrews iii. and iv. lessons are drawn from the Israelites not "entering in." See also Psalm xcv.
THE ULTIMATE HOPE
"Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance...."--EXODUS xv. 17.
I. The lesson taught by each present deliverance and kindness is that we shall be brought to His rest at last.
_(a)_ Daily mercies are a pledge and a pattern of His continuous acts.
The confidence that we shall be kept is based upon no hard doctrine of final perseverance, but on the a.s.surance that G.o.d is always the same, like the sunshine which has poured out for all these millenniums and still rushes on with the same force. Consider--
The inexhaustibleness of the divine resources.
The steadfastness of the divine purposes.
The long-suffering of the divine patience.
_(b)_ Thus daily mercies should lead on our thoughts to heavenly things. They should not prison us in their own sweetness. We should see the great Future shining through them as a transparent, not an opaque medium.
_(c)_ That ultimate future should be the great object of our hope.
Surely it is chiefly in order that we may have the light of that great to-morrow brightening and magnifying our dusty to-days, that we are endowed with the faculty of looking forward and "calling things that are not as though they were." So we should engage and enlarge our minds with it.
II. The form which that ultimate future a.s.sumes.
The Israelites thought of Canaan, and in particular of "Zion," its centre-point.
_(a)_ Perpetual rest. "Bring in and plant"--a contrast to the desert nomad life.
_(b)_ Perpetual safety. "The sanctuary which Thy hands have established," _i.e._ made firm.
_(c)_ Perpetual dwelling in G.o.d. "Thy dwelling," "Thy mountain," "_Thy_ holy habitation" (ver. 13), rather than "_our_ land." For Israel their communion with Jehovah was perfected on Zion by the Temple and the sacrifices, including the revelation of (priestly) national service.
_(d)_ Perpetual purity. "Thy sanctuary." "Without" holiness "no man shall see the Lord."
MARAH
"And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
25. And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet...."--EXODUS xv. 23-25.
I. The time of reaching Marah--just after the Red Sea. The Israelites were encamped for a few days on the sh.o.r.e to shake themselves together, and then at this, their very first station, they began to experience the privations which were to be their lot for forty years. Their course was like that of a ship that is in the stormy Channel as soon as it leaves the shelter of the pier at Dover, not like that of one that glides down the Thames for miles.
After great moments and high triumphs in life comes Marah.
Marah was just before Elim--the alternation, how blessed! The shade of palms and cool water of the wells, one for each tribe and one for each "elder." So we have alternations in life and experience.
II. The wrong and the right ways of taking the bitter experience. The people grumbled: Moses cried to the Lord. The quick forgetfulness of deliverances. The true use of speech is not complaint, but prayer.
III. The power that changes bitter to sweet. The manner of the miracle is singular. G.o.d hides Himself behind Moses, and His miraculous power behind the material agent. Perhaps the manner of the miracle was intended to suggest a parallel with the first plague. There the rod made the Nile water undrinkable. There is a characteristic economy in the miraculous, and outward things are used, as Christ used the pool and the saliva and the touch, to help the weak faith of the deaf and dumb man.
What changes bitter to sweet for us?--the Cross, the remembrance of Christ"s death. "Consider Him that endured." The Cross is the true tree which, when "cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."
Recognition of and yielding to G.o.d"s will: that is the one thing which for us changes all. The one secret of peace and of getting sweetness out of bitterness is loving acceptance of the will of G.o.d.