Had it not been for this great deliverance, the children of Israel would only have been remembered in the after history of the world as the slaves who helped to build the Pyramids. Their religion was fast perishing among them, their religious rites forgotten; and they would soon have been found among the worshippers of the monster gods of Egypt. But God had better things in store for them when He led them through the Red Sea, making a path for them amid the waters.
I. It was one of the greatest blessings for the human race that during the preservation of the Jewish people the great truth of the personality of God and His nearness to His people was set before them in language which could not be mistaken. And it is one of the greatest blessings which we enjoy that we have the same Lord thus personally presented to us, revealed in the risen and glorified Lord Jesus Christ.
II. God is set before us in this passage, not only as a Person, but as a Person who cares with all a father's love, with all a father's watchfulness, for His own people. Our hopes in days of doubt and difficulties are directed to the same personal fatherly care of the great God who loves all His creatures, and who loves Christians above all in the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. When a great national victory is achieved, what boots it to him who loses his life in the hour of victory? The question for us is, not whether God has wrought a great deliverance, but whether we as individuals are partakers of that deliverance, partakers of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A. C. Tait, Penny Pulpit,No. 3, 100.
References: Exodus 14:30; Exodus 14:31. J. Jackson, Sermons at St. Paul's,No. 22.Exodus 14:31(with Exodus 19:7 and Exodus 36:5). Parker, vol. ii., p. 100. 14-15. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 127. Exodus 15:1; Exodus 15:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1867. Exodus 15:1-21. Parker, vol. ii., p. 106. Exodus 15:1-22. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 162.Exodus 15:2. Bishop Thorold, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 40; Parker, vol. ii., p. 317.