And Moses said to the people, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." The LORD said to Moses, "Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen."
Exodus 14:13-18
We must pause for another day at these verses to reflect further on the superb illustration they give of the nature and operation of faith in the Christian life. Israel was shut up unto faith (Galatians 3:23) by the circumstances that assailed her at this point. The geography of the place was said to have been rocky crags on the one side of them, and frowning Egyptian fortresses on the other side. Behind them were the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh, and in front of them the Red Sea. They were hemmed in on all sides, and when left, right, backwards and forwards are all impassable, the only other direction is upward, and it was thence that help came. It is in fact only when faith is left as the only alternative to despair and disaster that it can be truly born in the soul. The human heart has an almost unbelievable capacity for self-trust, and it is this that God has to shatter before He can bring men to rest themselves utterly on Himself. This is true of saving faith - how many false trusts have to be broken and done away with before a man will cast himself, forlorn and helpless, on the Rock of Ages! - and of every further expression of faith in the spiritual life. One recalls Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, where he speaks of having the sentence of death upon him that he might not trust in himself but in God. This is the true parallel in spiritual life to Israel's experience here. And advance in Christian things means nothing more or less than a repeated coming to this point, dying again and again to all self-trust in order to live unto God.