Word of Encouragement (07/20/2022)
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 goes on to praise God, “The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name....” Here, Moses acknowledged that God was a divine Warrior. This was not to say that God was only a Warrior. God is not a one-dimensional being like the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. The Ten Commandments begin with “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3) as the First Commandment. This was not because the LORD was a small-minded, possessive, tribal God, who demanded exclusive loyalty from His people even though they had many options of gods and goddesses to choose from. The First Commandment was not an acknowledgment of “other gods,” who were competing with Jehovah for Israel’s affection and worship.
There was certainly no shortage of so-called gods and goddesses in the ancient world. Many of them were just a figment of the imagination. Behind some of them, there might have been different demons. But the LORD declared, “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God...” (Isa. 45:5). He is the only one true God, who is uncreated, self-existent, eternal, and infinite. The ten plagues in Egypt showed that the God of Israel was the sovereign Ruler of all nature, not the Egyptian gods and goddesses. And by the First Commandment, the LORD reminded the people of Israel that they didn’t have to make sacrifices to this god for fertility, that god for travels, and another god for prosperity, etc., as they saw the Egyptians do. They only had to serve and worship the LORD alone and He would take care of all their needs.
At the Red Sea, the people of Israel witnessed the LORD fighting the Egyptian chariots on their behalf. So, Moses praised God for being a divine Warrior. They learned that they could trust God as their Guide as He led them by the pillar of cloud and fire. They could trust Him to provide for their sustenance. They could trust God as their Healer. They just learned that they could trust God to be the Warrior, who would fight for them and give them victory.
Of course, the ultimate battle we face is with sin. The stake in this battle is higher and weightier than any battle in this world: what is at stake is nothing less than our eternal destiny. And sin is like no opponent we face in this life: it cannot be defeated with swords and spears, but with meekness; it is not by might and power but by righteousness and goodness, not by lording over others but by humble submission and obedience to God’s will. We have no hope of overcoming sin on our own. As fallen sinners, we were its helpless slaves; we were in a far worse condition than the Israelites in Egypt. If they needed a deliverer, we need one so much more. We needed our divine Warrior to fight this battle for us.
But because of what sin is, the divine Warrior could not use His almighty power to defeat it. Instead, He had to come in the weakness of our flesh and fulfill the righteous requirement of the law and, in the end, bear the guilt and punishment of our sin through His sacrificial death. This was the only way to take the sting of sin away. And by rising again from the dead, Jesus demonstrated that He paid the full punishment of sin and, therefore, sin was fully defeated!
Our Lord is all-sufficient. If He was willing to defeat sin for us by sacrificing Himself, what would He not do for us? Unleashing His almighty power is easy compared to becoming weak for our salvation, isn’t it? Indeed, on the last day, the divine Warrior will come to destroy all His and our enemies for good with His almighty power. Let us not forget that we belong to His triumphant army. Let us overcome the world and sin by staying loyal to our wonderful Savior!