Word of Encouragement (07/14/2022)

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying, “I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name....” (Ex. 15:1-3)

Moses rejoices, “…he has become my salvation.” The basic meaning of this is that the LORD has saved Moses and Israel. They saw how God achieved this: by drowning Pharaoh’s chariots under the Red Sea, not to mention the ten plagues in Egypt. The people of Israel did not have to raise a finger to fight off the Egyptians: “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (14:14). All they did was complain when they saw the Egyptians coming, cross the Red Sea on dry ground when the LORD parted the sea, and watch the Egyptians drown when the LORD returned the sea to how it was. The LORD, indeed, became their salvation.

This is something to sing about only if you accept the fact that you cannot save yourself. You would not call God “my salvation” if you could have saved yourself and God was just a more convenient way. The people of Israel could not save themselves. Their path forward was blocked by the Red Sea and the Egyptian chariots were chasing them from behind. Pharaoh’s army was the strongest in the world and it could be that his chariots were the main reason. On the other hand, the Israelites were slaves all their lives. How could they hope to defeat Pharaoh’s chariots? They could not dispute that the LORD saved them as their mighty Deliverer.

But there is more to God being our salvation: not only does God save us; He is also what our salvation is all about! What does that mean? God delivered Israel from the Egyptians. Was that all there was to salvation? Think about what it means to be saved from drowning. Is it enough to have a lifesaver to hold on to amid a vast ocean because it will help you not to drown? No, it is to be pulled out of the water and placed aboard a ship or on solid ground. In speaking of salvation, we must talk not only about what we must be saved from but also what we are saved unto. Even though Israel was delivered from the Egyptians, they would not be fully saved until they took possession of the promised land and settled there as a free people. But even that was just a picture. True salvation consists of being saved from sin unto covenant union with God. That is why one of the first things God did after the exodus was to ratify His covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai.

The ultimate end of our salvation is our union with God because He IS our salvation. He IS the Fountain of life, the Fount of every blessing. He IS the Resurrection and the Life. He IS Love, Joy, and Peace. He IS all that is good, true, and beautiful. He IS our forgiveness, righteousness, justification, sanctification, and glorification. To give an analogy: He is more than someone who gives us an oxygen tank to breathe (i.e., He saves us); He is also the air we breathe (i.e., He is our salvation).

What is more important, then, than to abide in Him and cherish Him as our greatest Treasure? If we don’t have Him, we don’t have anything. To lose Him would be like living in a palace at one moment and suddenly having all the air sucked out of it. What value is a palace filled with treasures if there is no air to breathe? I hope what we want is not just heaven but the kind of heaven, in which God is all in all. I hope what we want is not just living forever but living in communion with God, who is the Eternal Life with all of its vitality and richness and purpose.