Exodus 15

Exodus 15:1-21

ISRAEL’S BONDAGE. MOSES AND THE EXODUSExo_1:1 to Exodus 15:21.DR. J. M. Gray’s five rules for Bible reading: “Read the Book”, “Read the Book Continuously”, “Read the Book Repeatedly”, “Read the Book Independently”, “Read the Book Prayerfully”, are all excellent; but the one upon which I would lay emphasis in this study of Exodus is the second of those rules, or, “Read the Book Continuously”. It is doubtful if there is any Book in the Bible which comes so nearly containing an outline, at least, of all revelation, as does the Book of Exodus.

There is scarcely a doctrine in the New Testament, or a truth in the Old, which may not be traced in fair delineation in these forty chapters.God speaks in this Book out of the burning bush. Sin, with its baneful effects, has a prominent place in its pages; and Salvation, for all them that trust in Him, with judgment for their opposers, is a conspicuous doctrine in this Old Testament document.

God, Sin, Salvation, and Judgment—these are great words! The Book that reveals each of them in fair outline is a great Book indeed, and its study will well repay the man of serious mind.Exodus is a Book of bold outlines also! Its author, like a certain school of modern painters, draws his picture quickly and with but few strokes, and yet the product of his work approaches perfection. How much of time and history is put into these three verses:“And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the Children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:5-7).These three verses contain 215 years of time, and all the events that crowded into that period would, if they were recorded, fill volumes without end.

And, while there are instances of delineation in detail in the Book of Exodus, the greater part of the volume is given to the bolder outlines which sweep much history into single sentences.In looking into these fifteen chapters, I have been engaged with the question of such arrangement as would best meet the demands of memory, and thereby make the lesson of this hour a permanent article in our mental furniture. Possibly, to do that, we must seize upon a few of the greater subjects that characterize these chapters, and so phrase them as to provide mental promontories from which to survey the field of our present study.

Surely, The Bondage of Israel, The Rise of Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt, are such fundamentals.THE BONDAGE OF ISRAEL.The bondage of Israel, like her growth, requires but a few sentences for its expression.“Now, there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the Children of Israel are more and mightier than we; Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pit horn and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the Children of Israel.

And the Egyptians made the Children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour” (Exodus 1:8-22).There are several features in Egypt’s conduct in effecting the bondage of Israel which characterize the conduct of all imperial nations.The bondage began with injustice. Israel was in Egypt by invitation.

When they came, Pharaoh welcomed them, and set apart for their use the fat of the land. The record is,“Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Raamses, as Pharaoh had commanded” (Genesis 47:11).There they flourished until a king arose which knew not Joseph. Then a tax was laid upon them; eventually taskmasters were set over them, and those who came in response to Pharaoh’s invitation, “Come unto me and I will give you the good of the, land of Egypt, and ye shall eat of the fat of the land”, were compelled by his successors to take the place of slaves. It seems as difficult for a nation as it is for an individual to refrain from the abuse of power. A writer says, “Revolution is caused by seeking to substitute expediency for justice,” and that is exactly what the King of Egypt and his confederates attempted in the instance of these Israelites. It would seem that the result of that endeavor ought to be a lesson to the times in which we live, and to the nations entrusted with power.

Injustice toward a supposedly weaker people is one of those offences against God which do not go unpunished, and its very practice always provokes a rebellion which converts a profitable people into powerful enemies.It ought never to be forgotten either that injustice easily leads to oppression. We may suppose the tax at first imposed upon this people was comparatively slight, and honorable Egyptians found for it a satisfactory excuse, hardly expecting that the time would ever come when the Israelites should be regarded “chattel-slaves”.

But “he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much”. It is doubtful if there is any wrong in man’s moral relations which blinds him so quickly and so effectually as the exercise of power against weakness.Joseph Parker, in speaking of the combat between Moses and the Egyptian, says, “Every honorable-minded man is a trustee of social justice and common fair play. We have nothing to do with the petty quarrels that fret society, but we certainly have to do with every controversy—social, imperial, or international—which violates human right and impairs the claims of Divine honor. We must all fight for the right. We feel safer by so much if we know there are amongst us men who will not be silent in the presence of wrong, and will lift up a testimony in the name of righteousness, though there be none to cheer them with one word of encouragement.”It is only a step from enslaving to slaughter. That step was speedily taken, for “Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river” (Exodus 1:22).

Unquestionably there is a two-fold thought in this fact. Primarily this, whom the tyrant cannot control to his profit, he will slay to his pleasure; and then, in its deeper and more spiritual significance, it is Satan’s effort to bring an end to the people of God.

The same serpent that effected the downfall of Adam and Eve whispered into Cain’s ear, “Murder Abel”; and into the ears of the Patriarchs, “Put Joseph out of the way”; and to Herod, “Throttle all the male children of the land”; and to the Pharisee and Roman soldier, “Crucify Jesus of Nazareth”. It remains for us of more modern times to learn that the slaughter of the weak may be accomplished in other ways than by the knife, the Nile, or the Cross. It was no worse to send a sword against a feeble people, than, for the sake of filthy lucre, to plant among them the accursed saloon. Benjamin Harrison, in a notable address before the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in the City of New York years ago, said, “The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the message, ‘We seek not yours but you,’ have been hindered by those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civilization, and the feeble races wither before the breath of the white man’s vices.”Egypt sought to take away from Israel the physical life which Egypt feared; but God has forewarned us against a greater enemy when He said, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. * * Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him”. If in this hour of almost universal disturbance the sword cannot be sheathed, let us praise God that our Congress and Senate have removed the saloon—a slaughter-house from the midst of our soldiers, and our amended Constitution has swept it from the land.THE RISE OF MOSES.I do not know whether you have ever been impressed in studying this Book of Exodus with what is so evidently a Divine ordering of events.

It is when the slaughter is on that we expect the Saviour to come. And that God who sits beside the dying sparrow never overlooks the affliction of His people.

When an edict goes forth against them, then it is that He brings their deliverer to the birth; hence we read, “And there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of the house of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son” (Exodus 2:1-2),That is Moses; that is God’s man! It is no chance element that brings him to the kingdom at such a time as this. It is no mere happening that he is bred in Pharaoh’s house, and instructed by Jochebed. It is no accident that he is taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. It is all in perfect consequence of the fact that God is looking upon the Children of Israel, and is having respect unto them.Against Pharaoh’s injustice He sets Moses’ keen sense of right. When Moses sees an Egyptian slay an oppressed Israelite, he cannot withhold his hand.

And, when after forty years in the wilderness he comes back to behold afresh the affliction of his people, he “chooses to suffer with them rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” God never does a better thing for a nation than when He raises up in it such a man. We have heard a great deal of Socrates’ wisdom, but it is not in the science of philosophy alone that that ancient shines; for when Athens was governed by thirty tyrants, who one day summoned him to the Senate House, and ordered him to go with others named to seize Leon, a man of rank and fortune, whose life was to be sacrificed that these rulers might enjoy his estate, the great philosopher flatly refused, saying, “I will not willingly assist in an unjust act.” Thereupon Chericles sharply asked, “Dost thou think, Socrates, to talk in this high tone and not to suffer?” “Far from it,” replied the philosopher, “I expect to suffer a thousand ills, but none so great as to do unjustly.” That day Socrates was a statesman of the very sort that would have saved Athens had his ideas of righteousness obtained.Against Pharaoh’s oppression He sets Moses’ Divine appointment.

There were many times when Moses was tempted to falter, but God’s commission constrained his service. When Moses said, “Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh?” God answered, “Surely I will be with thee”. When Moses feared his own people who would not believe in his commission, God answered, “Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, I AM hath sent you”. When Moses feared that the Israelites would doubt his Divine appointment, God turned the rod in his hand into a worker of wonders. And, when Moses excused himself on the ground of “no eloquence”, God replied, “Go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say”. With any man, a conviction of Divine appointment is a power, but for him who would be a saviour of his fellows, it is an absolute essential.Pastor Stalker, speaking to the subject of a Divine call to the service of soul-winning, said, “Enthusiasm for humanity is a noble passion and sheds a beautiful glow over the first efforts of an unselfish life, but it is hardly stern enough for the uses of the world.

There come hours of despair when men seem hardly worth our devotion. * * Worse still is the sickening consciousness that we have but little to give; perhaps we have mistaken our vocation; it is a world out of joint, but were we born to put it right? This is where a sterner motive is needed than love for men.

Our retreating zeal requires to be rallied by the command of God. It is His work; these souls are His; He has committed them to our care, and at the judgment-seat He will demand an account of them. All Prophets and Apostles who have dealt with men for God have been driven on by this impulse which has recovered them in hours of weakness and enabled them to face the opposition of the world. * * This command came to Moses in the wilderness and drove him into public life in spite of strong resistance; and it bore him through the unparalleled trials of his subsequent career.” How many times he would have surrendered the battle and left his fellows to suffer under Pharaoh’s heels, but for the sound of that voice which Joan of Arc heard, saying to him as it said to her, “Go on! Go on!”Against Pharaoh’s slaughter God set up Moses as a Saviour. History has recorded the salvation of his people to many a man, who, either by his counsels in the time of peace or his valor in the time of war, has brought abiding victory. But where in annals, secular or sacred, can you find a philosopher who had such grave difficulties to deal with as Moses met in lifting his people from chattel slaves to a ruling nation?

And where so many enemies to be fought as Moses faced in his journey from the place of the Pyramids to Pisgah’s Heights?Titus Flaminius freed the Grecians from the bondage with which they had long been oppressed. When the herald proclaimed the Articles of Peace, and the Greeks understood perfectly what Flaminius had accomplished for them, they cried out for joy, “A Saviour! a Saviour!” till the Heavens rang with their acclamations.But Moses was worthy of greater honor because his was a more difficult deed.

I don’t know, but I suppose one reason why Moses’ name is coupled with that of the Lamb in the Oratorio of the Heavens, is because he saved Israel out of a bondage which was a mighty symbol of Satan’s power, and led them by a journey, which is the best type of the pilgrim’s wanderings in this world, and brought them at last to the borders of Canaan, which has always been regarded as representative of “the rest that remaineth for the people of God”.THE EXODUS FROM EGYPTinvolves some items of the deepest interest.The ten plagues prepare for it. The river is turned into blood; frogs literally cover the land; the dust is changed to lice; flies swarm until all the houses are filled; the beasts are smitten with murrain; boils and blains, hail, locusts and darkness do their worst, and the death of the first-born furnishes the climax of Egyptian affliction, and compels the haughty Pharaoh to bow in humility and grief before the will of the Most High God (chaps. 7-12).There is one feature of these plagues that ought never to be forgotten. Without exception, they spake in thunder tones against Egyptian idolatry. The Nile River had long been an object of their adoration. In a long poem dedicated to the Nile, these lines are found: “Oh, Nile, hymns are sung to thee on the harp,Offerings are made to thee: oxen are slain to thee;Great festivals are kept for thee;Fowls are sacrificed to thee.”But when the waters of that river were turned to blood, the Egyptians supposed Typhon, the God of Evil, with whom blood had always been associated, had conquered over their bountiful and beautiful Osiris—the name under which the Nile was worshiped.The second plague was no less a stroke at their hope of a resurrection, for a frog had long symbolized to them the subject of life coming out of death. The soil also they had worshiped, and now to see the dust of it turned suddenly into living pests, was to suffer under the very power from which they had hoped to receive greatest success. The flies that came in clouds were not all of one kind, but their countless myriads, according to the Hebrew word used, included winged pests of every sort, even the scarabaeus, or sacred beetle. Heretofore, it had been to them the emblem of the creative principle; but now God makes it the instrument of destruction instead. When the murrain came upon the beasts, the sacred cow and the sacred ox-Apis were humbled. And ~when the ashes from the furnace smote the skin of the Egyptians, they could not forget that they had often sprinkled ashes toward Heaven, believing that thus to throw the ashes of their sacrifices into the wind would be to avert evil from every part of the land whither they were blown.

Geikie says that the seventh plague brought these devout worshipers of false gods to see “that the waters, the earth and the air, the growth of the fields, the cattle, and even their own persons, all under the care of a host of divinities, were yet in succession smitten by a power against which these protectors were impotent. When the clouds of locusts had devoured the land, there remained another stroke to their idolatry more severe still, and that was to see the Sun, the supreme god of Egypt, veil his face and leave his worshipers in total darkness.

It is no wonder that Pharaoh then called to Moses and said, “Go ye, serve the Lord”; but it is an amazing thing that even yet his greed of gain goads him on to claim their flocks and their herds as an indemnity against the exodus of the people. There remained nothing, therefore, for God to do but lift His hand again, and lo, death succeeded darkness, and Pharaoh himself became the subject of suffering, and the greatest idol of the nation was humbled to the dust, for the king was the supreme object of worship.He is a foolish man who sets himself up to oppose the Almighty God. And that is a foolish people who think to afflict God’s faithful ones without feeling the mighty hand of that Father who never forgets His own.One day I was talking with a woman whose husband formerly followed the habit of gambling. By this means he had amassed considerable wealth, and when she was converted and desired to unite with the church, he employed every power to prevent it, and even denied her the privilege of church attendance. One morning he awoke to find that he was a defeated man; his money had fled in the night, and in the humiliation of his losses, he begged his wife’s pardon for ever having opposed her spirit of devotion. Since that time, though living in comparative poverty, she has been privileged to serve God as she pleased; and, as she said to me, finds in that service a daily joy such as she at one time feared she would never feel again.

God’s plagues are always preparing the way for an exodus on the part of God’s oppressed.The Passover interpreted this exodus. That greatest of all Jewish feasts stands as a memorial of Israel’s flight from Egypt as a symbol of God’s salvation for His own, and as an illustration of the saving power of the Blood of the Lamb.The opponents of the exodus perished.

Our study concludes with Israel’s Song of Deliverance, beginning, “The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation”, and concluding in the words of Miriam, “Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea”. See Exodus 15:1-21. Such will ever be the end of those who oppress God’s people and oppose the Divine will.When one studies the symbolism in all of this, and sees how Israel typifies God’s present-day people, and Moses, their deliverer, Jesus our Saviour, and defeated Pharaoh, the enemy of our souls, destined to be overthrown, he feels like joining in the same song of deliverance, changing the words only so far as to ascribe the greater praise to Him who gave His life a deliverance for all men; and with James Montgomery sing: “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed Great David’s greater SonWho, in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun.He comes to break oppression, To set the captive free,To take away transgression, And rule in equity.“He comes, with succor speedy, To those who suffer wrong;To help the poor and needy, And bid the weak be strong;To give them songs for sighing, Their darkness turn to light,Whose souls, condemned and dying. Were precious in His sight.”

Exodus 15:3

THE MAN OF WAR—THE PRINCE OF PEACEIsa_9:6, Exodus 15:3THESE two texts are supposed to be in antagonism. The average man imagines the second refers to God and the first to Jesus; and that God is a “Man of War”, while Jesus is the “Prince of Peace”. The God of the Old Testament, in the judgment of many, is little better than a Moloch, delighting in the sight, and even in the smell of blood; the Lord of the New Testament, in the judgment of these same, if not the very Son of God with power, is easily the “Prince of Peace”; hence the patron saint of all who oppose bloodshed and battle.Paradoxical as it may sound, good Scripture students are agreed that the Lord of the Old Testament, the Man of War, is none other than the Lord of the New Testament, the Prince of Peace; and yet, as between these two there is no inharmony whatsoever.That fact I hope to make clear in the discourse of this hour. I invite your attention, therefore, first of all to the statementTHE LORD IS A MAN OF WARThis text, like every other, should be interpreted in the light of its context. When that is done we are profoundly impressed by certain facts, the first of which isThe Lord never provokes a battle. He is peace-loving to the last degree; and I speak of the Old Testament Jehovah in making this remark.

For years, His chosen people had been in Egypt, under the tyrannical hands of the Pharaohs; His very own had suffered every indignity, insult and hardship that could be heaped upon them, and yet, God never advised a rebellion. In His communications with Moses, He never suggested the sword.

His counsels are always conciliatory; His advice, patient endurance; and when at last mortal flesh can stand no more, He counsels no conflict, only a peaceful departure from the land once promised them by its own rulers; from the nations whose riches they had largely created, from the soil on which many of them had shed innocent blood, for Jehovah and Jesus are alike Princes of Peace.I defy any man, by the study, of history, either sacred or secular, to point to a single instance in which the Mighty God has provoked battles; in which He has spoken any word, or counselled any step that looked to the engendering of strife as between peoples who were at peace. John McCutcheon, in an issue of the “Chicago Tribune”, had a cartoon entitled “The Crime of the Ages”. At the edge of the landscape there lay a beautiful woman upon a couch of death. Through her heart was driven a bloody dagger and left in its deadly position. Her name was “The Peace of Europe” and concerning this crime of the ages McCutcheon put one question, “Who did it?” Who murdered that fair form? The Emperor of Austria was pointing to Servia’s ruler, and Servia’s ruler, in turn, was pointing to the Emperor of Austria, and Germany’s Kaiser was pointing at Russia’s Czar; and, in turn, the Russian Czar was pointing at the German Kaiser.

The King of England was pointing at the German Kaiser, the ruler of Belgium was pointing at the German Kaiser. The President of the French Republic was pointing at Emperor William while the ruler of Italy, stood with folded arms, refusing to say who was responsible.

But there is one thing marked in the whole procedure. Not a man had his finger lifted upward bringing accusation against God, and it is only the low-browed and black-hearted that dare make such indictment. The first drop of blood ever shed upon the earth, God justly punished by compelling all men to turn their faces from that murderer, and driving him forth as a social outcast.And from that hour until this, God has sickened at the sight of blood shed by men who were created to be brothers. Poorly instructed students of the Scriptures imagine that Jesus was the first to teach that no man should take the sword lest he perish by the sword; but, on the contrary, way back in Genesis, the ninth chapter and the sixth verse, God warns against battle by saying, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”. And again, in the same Pentateuchal writings, Moses records Jehovah’s injunction, “Ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the Children of Israel” (Numbers 35:33-34).He takes no pleasure in bloody battles.

That false philosophy of militarianism, which has been well nigh universally accepted by modern nations, and which has resulted in the creation of ever-increasing standing armies and ever-enlarging navies, is unknown to any instance of favor in the Old Testament. God, who owns the earth, has a right to determine to whom He will lease any portion of it; and when He called His people to quit Egypt and journey to Canaan, He did not at the first enjoin battle either in the going from the one land or in the coming into the other.

He asked departure from the first and promised possession in the second. Every conflict in Egypt was in consequence of Pharaoh’s stubborn and grasping spirit; and every battle in Canaan, a result of the hatred of holiness and holy people on the part of her sinful inhabitants. With Pharaoh, God was more than patient, He was long-suffering. He only struck with death in the sea, when they proposed to quit even their own territory and take back to an unthinkable slavery men whose feet were already upon a free soil; and like a tender mother, He had no contention with the Canaanites until they refused His people a possession created by the God of titles.I have read again the story of the fall of the first city in the land of promise, namely, Jericho; and while I find it is true that Joshua and his armies “utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword”, I have been unable to discover where the command of the Lord enjoined upon him so to do. Even God’s men often outrun the Divine command. David was God’s man, the captain of the hosts of the Lord, a king by Divine choice, and yet, just because he shed blood, God refused him the privilege of building the Temple, preferring to have His House unspoiled by the touch of hands stained in human blood, and hence, the opportunity of Solomon, the prince of peace.Has it ever occurred to you in your study of the Scriptures, that while prophecy declares that the last days of this age are to witness such wars as the world has never seen, and is to end, finally, in conflict and carnage hitherto unknown, yet God’s position in it all is revealed in the vision of John, who saw: “Four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree”.

And John “saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the Living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads”? In other words, the very angels of God have done their best to hold back the fiery holocaust with which Satan will yet sweep the whole world.In what sense, then, is Jehovah, or the Lord, the Man of War?

No one will perhaps object when I say, in a very substantial sense:He bares His arm for justice and right. When His favored people have endured for centuries every conceivable cruelty and hardship, when after weeks of worry, waiting and constant begging to be released, they are not privileged, and at last take their peaceful, silent departure in the watches of the night and make their way to the sea, God parts it and permits them to go over dry shod, and never even stretches out His hand against this wicked and perverse people of Egypt until they propose to quit their own land and drag these helpless, innocent men and women back to a slavery worse than death, in order to satisfy their own love of ease, their own lust, their own greed, their own tyranny. Then God bares His arm and stretches it over the sea and turns the wall of waters into the channel and leaves the Egyptian hosts dead. Who objects?There has come about a strange and faulty logic with the new and false philosophies of the twentieth century, resulting in the anathematizing of the Name of the Jehovah of the Old Testament because He was a God of battles; and yet, with the next sentence, praising the God of the present because when men fight, He puts His favor upon those whose causes are just. Americans have no objection to a God who gave us the seal of His approval when we sought to be a free nation; no objections to a God who consented that the Spanish forces should be sunk when they were sent to oppress the would-be free. Why, then, will you tell, should Americans object to a God of the Old Testament who never intervened in any war save in the interests of an oppressed people; and who never bared His arm in battle against any mortal man who was not a rebel against all Divine authority and a foe to the truest interests of the human family?

And now that nearly the whole of the world was recently embroiled in such a war as the world had never seen, when nation was at the throat of nation, when the command of rulers to their soldiers was, “Spill your blood willingly and spare not an adversary,” what did you expect of God? That He would sit upon the circle of the heaven with folded arms and say, “This is none of My affair,” or, that in His own good time He would lay His finger upon the people who have provoked all this, upon the potentates who have been tempted by the slaughter of their fellows, to increase their own borders, upon the soldiers who espoused injustice and iniquity, and at His touch they perished.

I tell you, beloved, that America ought to learn from this late terrible conflict, that revealed at once the fortunes of war and the fate of nations, the meaning of Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional: “God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line,Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart;Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire;Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!Judge of the nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard—All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding, calls not Thee to guard—For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!”There is a sense in which the Lord is a Man of War, and every believer of earth expects that when all conflicts are over, God’s interference will be the one thing about it all, applauded by every angel and approved by every good man, forTHE LORD IS THE FATHERHis entire attitude toward men, whether in peace or in war, is determined by that fact.He is animated by Divine affection. His part in battles only reveals His paternity. He participates contrary to His nature, and His desire; but in perfect accord with His paternity. He would willingly war with none, but when circumstances demand it, He must either surrender His throne, prove His unfitness to administer a world, or else make bare His arm.I think that those of you who know aught of the woods, will consent with me that there is no more peace-loving and timid creature to be found in the deep shadows than the partridge. Did you ever hear of one of them undertaking to fight a man? I saw that recently!

I, myself, had the experience of it. The occasion accounted for this strange conduct, out of all accord with the nature of that timid bird.

We were driving to a little town in the Northern part of the state, and the mother partridge lay in the middle of the road, her brood of little ones, not more than two days old, safely tucked in, their heads jutting past her feathers, creating almost an embroidery about her body. Our horses were within three feet of her, when we stopped them.I, supposing her wounded and unable to move, got out and walked to her, and put down my hand; and suddenly she fluttered a few feet, and the little ones quickly took themselves to cover, but before they could accomplish it, and while she supposed them in danger, she suddenly turned and reversed every feather on her body and ran at me with a whirring sound, making battle for her own. What animated her? Mother love!Would you have a God who is indifferent to the fate of His children? Would you have a God who, when their lives are put in peril, by followers of the adversary, folds His arms and refuses to interfere? Then He would never be a Father.There are some men in America who have a new name for God; He is a “force”.

I prefer the old name given Him by the One who knew Him best, “Our Father”.Mark you also, He is the eternal Father. “The Everlasting Father” is His Name. God, then, is not compelled to do what He does, quickly; He is not under the necessity the Japanese were under, a few years since, of either winning the victory quickly or not at all.

He is not situated as Germany is supposed to have been, where the time limit told absolutely the final tale of battles. If it can be done quickly, then victory; if delays occur, then defeat is certain! We are told that Napoleon once came upon the battle-field to find his forces flying before the enemy. Taking out his watch, he looked at the time and turned to the discouraged and disordered troops and said, “There is just time enough left to regain the day.” And under the inspiration of his presence, they did it. God always has time enough to regain the day. Let no man imagine then, in the end, His cause will not triumph.

Stafford Brooke says, “God dwells in the great movements of the world, in the great ideas which act in the human race.”Certainly He does! The poet who wrote: “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world,” should have changed his phraseology—“God’s in His Heaven, and in all affairs He will over rule.”And He will be justified of all.

Of the Lord of the Old Testament it is written: “For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet”. The great day then belongs to the future. It is the day of God’s perfect triumph. It is the day of which Horatius Bonar wrote: “O, wondrous day!—God’s day, not man’s as heretofore;Christ’s hour, not Satan’s as before;When right shall be might ,And might shall all be right And truth, for ages sorely tried,By error mocked, reviled, defiled,No longer on the losing side,Shall celebrate its victory.And wave its ancient palm on high;When good and ill unmixed flow on forever,Each in its distant channel fixed,An everlasting river!”THE LORD IS THE PRINCE OF PEACEThe Man of War, the Everlasting Father, He is the Prince of Peace. There are a number of senses in which this is true. One might almost say that in every sense it is true.He provides peace for the individual. The experience of a man who yields himself to God is always in fulfillment of the promise of Jesus. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you”. “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding”, is his experience who has found in the Prince of Heaven, a friend. It is written, “Great peace have they which love Thy Law”. Father Ryan, the poet priest of Louisville, puts a sweet message into his words: “Restless hearts! restless hearts! Ye are toiling night and day,And the flowers of life, all withered, Leave but thorns along your way;Ye are waiting, ye are waiting, till Your toilings all shall cease,And your ev’ry restless beating is A sad, sad prayer for peace.Restless hearts! God is Peace.”For the nation, He is a Prince of Peace. The prophecy of wars and rumors of wars for the end of this age is relieved by that other prophecy of the end of wars when the Prince of Peace shall come. The Psalmist saw that day from afar and of it he wrote: “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire” (Psalms 46:9). Isaiah, the Prophet, joined with the sweet singer of Israel, in picturing the day when the Prince of Peace “shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”.

No wonder he concludes that sweet vision with the words, “O House of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord”.All talk of disarmament has meaning only with those who understand that disarmament will occur solely in consequence of the toppling of the thrones of earth, the taking from a few men the power to hurt and kill, and the putting of all her interests, temporal and eternal, into His hands, whose right it is to reign; and whose plan is peace! Sherman was right—“War is hell.” The horrors of it never looked as yesterday, when thousands of our fellows were dying daily.

Nor has the promise of the Prince of Peace in the place of power and the experience of peace for every portion of the earth, ever seemed so sweet as at this moment. Blessed be God!He plans peace far the universe! The man who studies the Book of Revelation will find that God’s last act in dealing with this world will be the overthrow of all rebels against Himself, the end of all rebellious spirits and intentional insurrection of their captain and leader, Satan. When that is accomplished, then will be a new heaven and a new earth, God dwelling in the midst. All tears will be wiped away, “no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away”.And who did it? The Prince of Peace!

For it is written, that “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new”. Brethren, in the light of it, let us change but one word, then sing this song; sing it in spite of sorrow, sing it in spite of the war clouds that gather again; sing it in faith; sing it in anticipation of the glad day to come when the Prince of Peace shall prevail and war shall be no more. “Joy to the world! the Lord will come; Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare Him room, And Heaven and nature sing.“Joy to the earth! the Saviour will reign; Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plain, Repeat the sounding joy.“No more He’ll let sin and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.”

Exodus 15:22

FROM THE SEA TO MOUNT SINAIExo_15:22 to Exodus 40:38 “So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water” (Exodus 15:22).“For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys” (Exodus 40:38).WE concluded our last study with the song of victory started by Moses, joined in by the Children of Israel and completed by Miriam.One could easily imagine that after the experience of such a miracle as all Israel had witnessed, further confidence in God would be easy and constant, but alas for changing circumstances and the shift of human emotions! The very opening verse of this study holds a hint of trouble!“They went three days in the wilderness, and found no water”. The verses that follow, Exodus 15:23-26, report the murmurings of the people against Moses, and the necessity of a new miracle from God to silence their complaint. And yet, when one understands all the circumstances incident to this complaint, while he may not justify the Israelites, his condemnation of them will surely be softened. Burton, in his third edition of “Meccal!” (145), speaking of the atmosphere in this vicinity, says, “At dawn it is mild and balmy as an Italian spring, and inconceivably lovely in the colors it sheds on earth and sky; but presently the sun bursts up from the sea, a fierce enemy that will force every one to crouch before him. For two hours his rays are endurable, but after that they become a fiery ordeal.

The morning beams oppress you with a feeling of sickness. Their steady glow blinds your eyes, blisters your skin and parches your mouth, till you have only one thought: When will evening come?

At noon the heat, reverberated by the glowing hills, is like the blast of a lime-kiln. The wind sleeps on the reeking shore; the sky is white; men are not so much sleeping as half senseless. They feel that a few more degrees of heat would be death”. It is easy to see, therefore, how two or three millions of people, encumbered in travel by great herds and many little children, seeing the supply of water ‘fail utterly from the skin-bottles, and nothing ahead but a parched plain and scorching mountains, should wonder how life could long be sustained, and even ask what profit to escape from Egyptian oppression and witness Pharaoh’s overthrow, if we are so soon to perish?This is the beginning of the journey fromTHE SEA TO SINAIAnd this is only the beginning of Israel’s trials. They are thirsting for water now. Shortly they will be in want of bread, and as hunger grows, cry out,“Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exodus 16:3).And, again at Rephidim, they will be without water, murmuring against Moses and saying,“Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst” (Exodus 17:3)?But it is only in our hours of extremity that we learn the most valuable lessons; and out of these experiences Israel learned that “meat and drink is from the Lord”.

At Marah the Lord directed Moses to cast a certain tree into the waters and they were made sweet (Exodus 15:25), and from Marah they removed to “Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters” (Exodus 15:27). When, some six weeks later, they cried for bread, the Lord said unto Moses,“Speak unto them saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall he filled with bread” (Exodus 16:12). * * And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the host” (Exodus 16:13).To this day it is not an unusual thing for quails to be found migrating in that country in enormous numbers, and being birds of low and heavy flight, they become easily exhausted in their migrations and can be picked up by those in need of them.

An edible lichen is often blown from the spots where it grows and carried by the winds to the valley below and showered there inches deep, and some have argued that God fed them by natural means, but when it is remembered that this “manna” was continued along the course of their travel from Egypt to Canaan through the entire forty years, it is seen to have been a miraculous gift from God. We have been taught to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”, and God has answered the prayer for those of us living in this land by means so natural and so abundant, that even His own people almost forget that “every good and every perfect gift comes from Him”.We are in danger from the very abundance of our blessing of bearing the mark of Gentile corruption, of which Paul speaks, when of them he says, “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful”. It is when one is brought into the severest straights; it is when one has reached the end of human ingenuity, that God can best reveal Himself to him as the giver of all good.Henry M. Stanley, giving an account of his relief expedition in his search of Emin Pasha, speaks of a time when he and his comrades, after the utmost economy in their diet, were out of food and ready to perish. In their extremity they made their appeal to God, and lo, there was a sound as of a large bird whirring through the air, and just as they looked it dropped in their midst, and the little fox-terrier snapped the prize and held it fast as in a vice of iron; and when they had discovered that it was a fine, fat guinea-fowl, sufficient in flesh to meet all the immediate demands, they agreed that the God who sent quails and manna to Israel, and fed Elijah with the ravens at the Brook Cherith, was still able and willing to care for them who put their trust in Him.But when God causes the dry rock in Horeb to gush forth a refreshing stream, He has not put an end to all of Israel’s troubles. In our times of trial, we are prone to think, “If only God would do for me this greatly needful thing, I would never be in such want again.” But no man knows what a day may bring forth.

There are enemies more dangerous than hunger and thirst.The rise of Amalek represents a greater need.“Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim” (Exodus 17:8).It is easy to imagine how unfit for war Israel was at this time. The march had been a weary one; the intense heat and the want of water had exhausted them, and it would seem an easy thing for this Bedouin chief and his followers to strike them a blow that would mean little less than a slaughter of the whole company.

That Joshua was able to discomfit him and his people with the edge of the sword prevailing, while Moses’ hands were held up in prayer, gave good occasion for the adoption of the new battle cry, “Jehovah-nissi” (Jeremiah 17:15)—Jehovah is my banner. And, when one remembers that Amalek was likely a grandson of Esau, and so a fit representative of the flesh, he is encouraged to hope for victory against all the lusts that would defeat the progress of the Christian on his way to the promised land. And when the Church remembers that the flesh is also her greatest enemy, this bit of ancient history ought to come as an encouragement to victory through the intervention of the same mighty God.Arthur Pierson, in “The Miracles of Missions”, calls attention to the fact that when, in 1851, the king on the throne, ruling over Siam, was a foe to missions, and the thirty-three years of work which Christians had done in that country seemed threatened with defeat by him, suddenly on April 3rd the king died. And do you remember also that in 1850 the outlook for missions in Turkey was dark indeed, because the Sultan had issued a decree that all missionaries were to leave the land and the missions were to be closed? It is related that when one of our American missionaries, having failed to get the decree revoked, called on a brother laborer and told him the final decision, the brother replied, “The Sultan of the universe can reverse it,” and the next morning the tyrannical Mahmud was dead, and his successor in office favored the continuance of the work.But where in the annals of history has there occurred a more marked intervention of this same Jehovah than that reported in connection with the siege of Pekin in the Boxer movement. You will remember that as the weary days wore on, and the native Christians and allies were cooped up in the English Compound, they longed ‘for a loaded cannon, knowing full well that to fire once upon the cowardly enemy would be to fill them with fear lest arms had been secretly smuggled to the allies.

It fell out just then that an old rusty gun was discovered in the French Quarters. It had not been loaded for thirty years and it was hardly known whether it would stand the strain of a single fire.

They were also embarrassed by the want of ammunition. But suddenly some of the Russian soldiers remembered to have brought with them a little powder and some balls, and when they were brought, the ball fitted perfectly to the cannon. Then a young man from America volunteered to touch it off, expecting that the gun would explode and that he might lose his life in the act. But, knowing the importance that might possibly attach to it, he stood ready to make the sacrifice. Imagine the surprise and joy, therefore, of the besieged when they saw the gun act perfectly. The ball went crashing through the Chinese quarters, killing one or two and striking terror to the multitude of the besiegers.

In the confusion the Chinese exploded a sunken mine, blew up their own building, killed many of their soldiers, and created the universal impression that the allies had been reinforced and supplied with fire-arms—“Jehovah is my banner”. If Israel had a right to that as a watchword in her war with Amalek, the Christian, conquering through Jesus Christ and the Church, seeing enemy after enemy overthrown, has repeated occasion to employ the same term.Passing over the 18th chapter, which contains the return of Moses’ wife and children to him, and Jethro’s counsel resulting in the appointment of the seventy judges, we are brought to Sinai, and are ready forTHE GIVING OF THE LAWSIt ought to be remembered that Sinai is the southernmost point in this journey to Canaan, and it is of interest to get in mind the physical features of the land.George Dana Boardman speaks of the plain lying at the foot of this mountain as a sandy plateau some 4000 feet above the Mediterranean, two miles long and half a mile wide, while Cunningham Geikie makes claim for a still larger open space.

The mountain that rises out of it about 2200 feet high, is made up of granite deeply fissured, and presents an august mien. It was upon this imposing mount that the Lord descended, and the Psalmist, centuries afterwards, pictures with an inspired pen the wonderful phenomena associated with God’s visit to the earth.“The earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken. * * He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under His feet. And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly; yea,He did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His secret place; His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies” (Psalms 18:7-11). “The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God; even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel” (Psalms 68:8).He first voices the Ten Commandments. Those commandments have remained to this hour the divinest of all moral laws. They oppose polytheism; they put an injunction on idolatry; they render sacred the Name of Jehovah; they set aside one-seventh of time for rest; they honor age and parenthood; they insist upon the sacredness of human life; they demand chastity; they protect property; they call for the truth and they inveigh against covetousness.

Truly, as Joseph Parker has said, “The old world has no need of new commandments, for we know that there are none better than those delivered millenniums gone to Moses.” If it were not for the fact that we are to give a series of nine sermons to the Ten Commandments, this chapter would not suffice to attempt even a brief exposition of each; but I am not content to pass the subject of the Decalogue without calling attention to the wonderful way in which it was given.First of all, “God spake all these words” (20:1). No wonder that after having heard His voice, the people were filled with fear and said unto Moses, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die” (Exodus 20:19).

A little later God writes with His own finger these Ten Commandments on two tables of stone, but Moses breaks these, and in the 34th chapter, verse 1 (Exodus 34:1), we find God renewing them.It has ever been the custom of God to give His laws clearly, to choose the very words in which they should be expressed, and then to preserve them in a supernatural way. George E. Merrill, in “The Parchments of the Faith”, speaking of the wonderful way in which the scribes copied the sacred Scripture, declares that any manuscripts which contained mistakes were destroyed, saying, “Very slight mistakes were enough to vitiate a synagogue roll. Three errors of a scribe upon a single sheet, the blurring of letters * * any mutilation of the text by ordinary wear, and many other causes, condemned a document.” There are people who are troubling themselves these days to know whether what we have is the Word of God. If all such spent their time instead in familiarizing themselves with the sacred pages of the Bible, God would be speaking His commandments afresh, yea, even writing them upon the tablets of their hearts, and they might be the medium to the world of the best expression of God’s Word to man.Following the giving of the Law is God’s legislation for social order. No man can read the 21st, 22nd and 23rd chapters of Exodus without being impressed with the fact that God is here providing for a nation, and it would be difficult, also, to enact statutes that represented more of wisdom and of justice—laws for servants, laws for murder, ill-treatment of parents, injury to one’s fellows, theft, trespasses, borrowing, uncleanness, idolatry, the poor, slander, charity, Sabbath, feasts, in fact, everything that would likely arise in the life of this young nation.

And, as we have studied this bit of legislation together with that which comes at a later time in the Pentateuch, we have been constrained to feel that a state built upon it would be beautiful and strong and free from the very evils that now threaten the overthrow of the most advanced governments of the world. If the social order here suggested had prevailed, slavery would have been impossible; the saloon would never have risen; trusts and corporations could never have occurred; or, if they had, would have been dissolved utterly every fifty years, and the wealth thus combined so scattered that an absolutely new start by new people would have been the result.

Under this legislation, war would have had no occasion, and if it had occurred with the people who would not regard God, it could never have been waged for greed of gain.There are able interpreters of the Bible who believe that in the Millennium every legislation will be regnant, and that for the first time the world will behold a Christian state. If one would take the pains to trace the sayings of Jesus that relate to social order, he would see that they did not oppose this legislation, but simply interpreted it, and plead its need. And we are among those who believe that many of the revolutions of the past, some of the uprisings of the present, and certain of those that will characterize the future, are all ordained of God, and are the Divine effort to bring back men from legislation that has been unjust, oppressive, immoral, to the statutes of Him who never spake other than a sacred law.Exodus 24:1 to Exodus 33:23 take us from the subject of social legislation to that of the Tabernacle, and the apostasy of Israel, which might be stated as the Pattern in the Mount, and Apis on the plain!You remember God called Moses into the mount to give him the pattern of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle expressed God’s purpose to dwell in the midst of His people. And yet, while He was talking with Moses, out-lining in minutia every single particle of that wonderful tent in which Jehovah Himself was to dwell, the people on the plain were pleading with Aaron, “Up, make us gods” (Exodus 32:1)! According to tradition, Hur opposed this appeal, and perished at the hands of the would-be idolators.

Aaron yielded to it, and while he saved himself, he brought about the slaughter of 3000 of his brethren (Exodus 32:28), disannulled the covenant of God’s grace, and for a time, at least, threw the whole camp of Israel outside God’s saving and keeping power. How often we may miss the very blessing that God has planned for us, and is in the act of providing in our behalf, by turning to worship before some idol, who can tell?

And how easy it is to let our affections turn back to some object that fascinated us when we were in Egyptian bondage—unregeneracy, and thereby lose the favor of the King Himself, forfeit the wisdom of His counsels, and render inoperative His most beneficent purposes. It is not easy for a modern believer to hear Moses’ cry, as he beseeches the Lord to forgive this sin, and take Israel to His heart again, without remembering that many a time he has had occasion to say with William Cowper, “O for a closer walk with God,A calm and heavenly frame,A light to shine upon the road That leads me to the Lamb!“Where is the blessedness I knewWhen first I saw the Lord?Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and His Word?“What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!How sweet their memory still!But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.“Return, O Holy Dove, return,Sweet messenger of rest;I hate the sins that made thee mourn,And drove thee from my breast.“The dearest idol I have known,Whate’er that idol be,Help me to tear it from Thy throne,And worship only Thee.”A few words then on theT AND THE Dby way of a hasty glance through the remaining chapters. We shall not attempt a description of the tabernacle. That would require many discourses. But no student of Scripture ought to be satisfied until he has made a close study of its every part and appointment, aided by some such exposition as Geikie’s “Hours with the Bible”. It was about 15 feet high, 15 feet in width and 45 feet in length. The Holy of Holies was a 15-foot cube, while the Holy Place was 15 by 30, and the whole was located in an open court 75 by 150 feet, enclosed by curtains seven and a half feet high.It was to be provided by a free-will offering from the people.

If one imagines it an inexpensive building, he need only read of the talents that were invested (Exodus 38:24-30). The building in which we now worship did not cost so much, and yet this people, without a foot of land, with herds and flocks insufficient to satisfy the hunger incident to their journeys, and yet leave seed and sacrifices, rose in response to God’s appeal, and made an offering that ought to be at once an inspiration and an example to present-day followers of Jesus Christ.

Here is the record of it,“And, they came, both men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold: and every man that offered an offering of gold unto the Lord. And every man, with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, and red skins of rams, and badgers’ skins, brought them. Every one that did offer an offering of silver and brass brought the Lord’s offering; and every man with whom was found shittim wood for any work of the service, brought it. And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats’ hair. And the rulers brought onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate; And spice, and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense.

The Children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for all manner of work, which the Lord had commanded to be made by the hand of Moses” (Exodus 35:22-29).“And all the wise men, that wrought all the work of the sanctuary, came every man from his work which they made; And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the Lord commanded to make. And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.

So the people were restrained from bringing. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much” (Exodus 36:4-7).It was to be planned after the pattern shown in the mount. Three times in this Book, God reminds Moses of that fact: Exodus 25:40; Exodus 26:30; Exodus 27:8.Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, refers to this fact, and quotes, “See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee in the mount”.There are two suggestions in this worthy our consideration. First, let men be slow to change from the Divine order, or dissent from the Divine Word. It is written, “Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you”. The temptation in this time is to do to suit ourselves, and to frame philosophies of life that correspond to conduct rather than follow the letter of God’s Word. Men have even gone so far as to brave the Divine challenge.“If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are in this Book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this Prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City, and from the things which are written in this Book”.