A singing of deliverance

The people of God were plunged in despair, on the shores of the Red Sea. At that time, as the Lord had to sigh after someone like Gideon, who would rise in the middle of this frightened camp to remind everyone of the faithfulness of God in the past. A few generations later, Gideon had only a small army of three hundred men against a large army, yet he cried with faith before the battle (see Judges 6 and 7). You see, with the Lord, the moment to rise, it is always in the darkest moment. It is when everything seems desperate, when it seems that there is no escape, when God alone can save and deliver. The situation of Israel on the shores of the Red Sea was willed by God to serve as an experience. It was a time to build their faith. Because faith is never really put to the test when everything goes for the best.

If only Israel had remembered the miracles that God had done for them in Egypt. If only they had believed in His word, He would carry them in His arms as a father carries his child. If only a few had begun to sing a song of worship - the same song they sang later on the other side of the sea. If only the people had believed in God, crying : "He is my strength ! My God will triumph. Who is like you, O Lord ?" Tell me, what would have happened ?

They would have established a strong and eternal faith in God - a faith experienced through the fire of their situation. Their faith would have emerged so unshaken that it would have carried them through all the difficulties of the journey into the desert that awaited them. They would have had a foundation of faith on which to build. And, with time, they would have learned to praise God with confidence in all circumstances, with such a strong faith that the hell would have trembled.

The great need of our time are Christians who have learned to sing a song of deliverance while they are still in the ordeal.

David Wilkerson