In faith, Moses told his people:
Exodus 14:13-14
(13) …Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD,
which He will shew to you [today]: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen [today],
ye shall see them again no more [forever].
(14) The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
In response, God answered with a question:
…Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward (Exodus 14:15).
Moses was correct in putting his faith in God, but faith by itself is nothing more than wishful thinking. True faith takes action. (See James 2:20, 26.) Whether or not Moses already knew what he had to do is not clear. What is clear is that he had to do more than just make inspiring statements of faith. With the Egyptians bearing down on them, now was the time to take inspiring actions of faith. To make things clear for his servant, the LORD spelled it out for him:
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. (Exodus 14:16)
It was not until Moses obeyed and took those actions that God started to move. Walking in faith does not give us the luxury of seeing if God will do what He promises and then obeying. Walking in faith is going forth in the confidence that God will do what He promises and acting on that faith. When God promised Abraham that his seed would be greater in number than all the stars of heaven, it was after Abraham had prayed for an heir and before he received one. God brought him out under the stars of heaven, made His promise to Abraham and Abraham “believed in the LORD; and He counted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). That kind of belief is not wishful thinking. It is full confidence that God keeps His promises and acting in light of those promises. When God later asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only true heir, Abraham did it “accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19a). That word translated “accounting” is also translated “reckon” in our Bibles. It comes from the Greek word logizomai. It means to suppose or to count something as true. Abraham knew God’s promise to him, and against all human understanding, did what God asked of him because the LORD had already promised him many heirs. That would not be possible without a son. So, if Abraham actually did have to go through with the sacrifice of his son, he assumed – and rightly so – that God would raise Isaac from the dead if He had to because God keeps His promises.
When God told Moses to point his rod over the Red Sea, Moses did not argue the logic of it. He just trusted and saw God go to work.
Some people have trouble trusting the Lord as Savior because they balk at His promises. They ask: “How can someone else dying on a cross save me?” Or “How can it be so simple?” It works when that Someone is Jesus Christ. It’s also not simple. Christ sacrificed everything to save mankind. It was not simple for Him, but His finished work on the cross made it simple for us.
That kind of unbelief is not limited to the unsaved, however. Believers sometimes balk at the promises of God thinking that those promises are for others, not for them. Or they put people like Moses up on pedestals as though they belong in some pantheon of the gods because they were somehow super saints. God has no pantheons and He has no super saints. He only has believers like you and me to trust Him so He can show Himself mighty in our lives. If we really want to prove to the world that the power of our faith in God really means something, we cannot just stand there. We must do something.
[Photo by Edward Zhao on Unsplash]
Grace in Waves 