The Lord is a Man of War

Title: The Lord is a Man of War
Text: Exodus 13-15

Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space is reported to have said, “Oh my, its blue!”

O course, the blueness of the earth would’ve been known, in a theoretical way, for many many years prior to this. Everyone knew the earth was covered in water, and that water refracts sunlight in a certain as to make it look blue.

But what was known in theory had yet to be seen in reality and totality. In 1961, that changed.

Let me ask you a question. How did you get your theology? Some of it may have been delivered by your parents, Sunday School teachers, and the various pastors you have had. Some of it has come directly from the word of God. Some of it has come from good books, podcasts, etc…

But what if I told you that the greatest theological breakthroughs, the highest visions of God have to come through risk, suffering, and adventure? And that the view of God you gain from these experiences make the trip worth it.

We are on our way to becoming a nation of “skimmers,” living off the risks of previous generations and constantly taking from the top without adding significantly to its essence. Everything we enjoy as part of our advanced civilization, including the discovery, exploration, and development of our country, came about because previous generations made adventure more important than safety. – Edwin Friedman, Failure of Nerve

The church of Jesus Christ is regularly at the risk of various theological downgrades. Keeping good theology is hard. Various false teachers, cults, and liberalizing forces constantly threaten the church’s fidelity to sound doctrine. But today we’re talking about a different source of threat. Namely, that our preference for safety and comfort will keep us from seeing certain aspects of God that can only be known through Godly risk and adventure.

Not sure how many of you know that the entire framework for the Lord of the Rings universe came to Tolkein as he fought in the trenches of WWI. There have been books written about this — including John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War.

“The war imposed urgency and gravity, took [Tolkien] through terror, sorrow, and unexpected joy, and reinvented the real world in a strange, extreme form. Without the war, it is arguable whether his fictions would have focused on a conflict between good and evil; or if they had, whether good and evil would have taken a similar shape.”

Even CS Lewis, who as also a WWI veteran, spoke about the connection. Speaking about how realistic he found the LOTR battle scenes to be, Lewis said

This war has the very quality of the war my generation knew. It is all here: the endless, unintelligible movement, the sinister quiet of the front when 'everything is now ready',[b] the flying (fleeing) civilians, the lively, vivid friendships, the background of something like despair and the merry foreground, and such heavensent windfalls as a cache of tobacco 'salvaged' from a ruin.

I know many of you have read quite a bit of Tolkien. If you’ve ever wondered, how did he dream up this world, these characters, those battles — the answer is significantly related to his time spent in the trenches.

Over the next two weeks, we’re going to work through Exodus 13-15 and the title for these two messages will be, “The Lord is a Man of War.” We get that from chapter 15, commonly referred to as the song of Moses. It is the first song in the Old Testament. And it is full of deep theological insights about the nature of God.

Listen to the first few verses:

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying, “I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name.

How did Moses gain these insights?

He was a man who was mostly cut off from a sound theological upbringing. His parents were unable to raise him beyond the age of his weening. He had his Jewish mother only as a kind of nursemaid. As soon as he was ready to eat solid food, he was shipped off to Pharaoh’s house. There he was no doubt catechized in the Egyptian religion. How would the mighty Moses, the prophet, priest, and king of the Hebrew nation, receive his theological education? Like Tolkien, Moses received a key part of his education in the trenches.

There are many truths in the Song of Moses that can only be learned by going on an adventure with God. A life centered around safety cannot fill our hearts with the glories we see here. This is not a song written by a man dedicated to safety.

We will hold 15 for next week. Today we want to spend our time in chapters 13&14 and see the struggle that spawned these insights.

Look at Exodus 13:17-18

17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” 18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle.

Let us see that even as God is going to lead them into some risk and danger, he is also shielding them from other trials. When some difficulty enters our lives, we are often so focused on what the Lord has let into our lives, that we forget to ask what God has kept out of our lives.

We have to remember that God dispenses our difficulties in perfect wisdom and care.

Charles Spurgeon, who knew suffering quite well once wrote,

It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by His hand, that my trials were never measured out by Him nor sent to me by His arrangement of their weight and quantity.

As Psalm 103 puts it, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” We are going to see that the Lord is a man of war. Yes and amen. But he is also a tender father. He is both at the same time.

I wanted you to see the struggles the Lord was withholding. Now let’s see the struggle he is allowing:

Now turn to chapter 14:1-4 where we see him set the people as a kind of bait for Pharaoh.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.” And they did so.

And in vs. 5-9 we find that Pharaoh takes the bait. His addiction to the free labor of the Hebrews causes him to repent of his repentance. He rouses his army and chases the people all the way to their encampment.

Look at vs. 10

10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. — Exodus 14:10–12

Now here we find two things:

We see how perfectly God sees things.
He knew Pharaoh would take the bait.
He also knew that his people were, in their present state, unable to endure much difficulty.

We see how poorly man sees things.
The Hebrews are leaky buckets. They had just gone through 40 days of witnessing the shock and awe of God at work in Egypt.
And we how Pharaoh, in the exact same way, failed to let God’s past performance be indicative of future results.

Putting all this together, we see a huge gap between human beings and God. Pharaoh and the people of Israel are more like one another than they are like God. God is just different.

That’s the message of Isaiah 55:8-9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Now look at the comfort Moses is able to provide in vs. 14:13-14

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 Great Eucatastrophe

Going back to Tolkien again, one of the things he is most known for is the idea of eucatastrophe.

In essence, a eucatastrophe is a massive turn in fortune from a seemingly unconquerable situation to an unforeseen victory, usually brought by grace rather than heroic effort. Such a turn is catastrophic in the sense of its breadth and surprise and positive in that a great evil or misfortune is averted.

Tolkien himself described it as — a sudden and miraculous grace

And that’s what we see here. He puts his people in an impossible position. Which makes them an irresistible target of his enemies. And then delivers them in a way nobody saw coming.

And so God tells Moses to, “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 14:16-18

The people pass safely through the divided sea and Pharaoh and his armies follow.

And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.” - Exodus 14:24-25

26 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” 27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. 29 But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses. — Exodus 14:26-31

Application:

Why does God allow us to get on the edge of destruction? Why does our loving father allow the darkness to threaten us and unnerve us?

We See God

Well, we’ve already provided one answer. Namely that God has certain things he wants to teach us about himself. He wants us to be like Israel in vs 31

31 Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.

This is information we have to learn in the trenches. We like Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin might have certain theoretical knowledge about God prior to the adventure itself, but only when we actually take the trip to the edge of darkness do we really see him as he is.

That what ol Job said at the end of his adventure:

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” – Job 42:5

Proverbs tells us that we are to buy the truth and sell it not. Get also wisdom and understanding. – Proverbs 23:23

Some truths are more important and therefore more expensive than others. There is some knowledge about God that can only be seen from the trenches.

Proverbs also says “One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”

The next time God leads you to the edge of the Red Sea, and allows some frightening hardship to befall you, consider this. If you are hungry enough for the knowledge of God, even this bitter thing will wind up being sweet.

So that’s one reason God brings us to the edge. He has things to teach us there that we cannot learn anywhere else.

Others Gain Strength from Our Story

There’s another thing God is doing with the Israelites’ hardship. Namely he is going to use your story of struggle to teach and comfort others. Think about what we’re doing right here right now,. We are reading about someone else’s struggle. And we are getting comfort from it. And not only us, the people of God have, for millennia returned to this story for instruction and inspiration.

Try to remember that the next time God puts you in the trenches. He is going to use your struggle to support some other saint down the road. As a result of Tolkien’s time in the trenches, the world was blessed with some of the most stirring storytelling that is known to man.

Likewise, God intends to use this or that crisis – not only to teach you about himself, but also to teach others.

That’s exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:6 – “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation”

By the way, this includes your struggle against sin. Some of the fiercest Pharaohs we face do not come from without but from within. Our own battle against various sins can feel at times to press us up against the edge of spiritual extinction.

Sometimes our Pharaohs have to with circumstances and sometimes they have to do with sin. In both cases, the Lord God is your deliverer. He will redeem you. And in your redemption you will learn things about God that you wouldn’t have been able to see in any other way. And so will others.

We’ve been talking a lot about repentance this week. And in those conversations have made various references to David’s great sin in which he lay with Bathsheeba and had her husband killed. We’ve mentioned that his repentance, unlike Pharaohs was genuine. And thanks to God, we have the 51st Psalm as a record of his repentance.

Listen to a small section of that Psalm:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

See that the end? What was the ultimate result of his struggle with sin and his salvation from it? “He will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”

Oh how prophetic was this statement. Think of how many sinners over the centuries, have turned to Psalm 51 and repeated David’s very own confession as a blueprint for their own repentance.

Now truly David’s role in redemptive history is bigger than ours. But it is not fundamentally different. To paraphrase something said of David elsewhere, “You and I will teach our hundreds, and David will teach his billions” – but the lesson is the same.

Even in our struggle with sin, the Lord is a loving fatherly man of war. He will fight for us and will deliver us from both inward and outward enemies and in the end, we will have something to teach others.

The Destruction of His Enemies

There’s a third thing God is doing in all of this. And here we will only touch on this topic and hope to return to next week and discuss it more fully.

It is very difficult to make sense of your suffering without understanding the following: God is both a saver and a destroyer.

One great danger of portraying God as an artificially sweetened father, is that we cut off a whole dimension of his personhood and motivations. Namely, that as the title says, The Lord is a Man of War.

Yes, he has saving purposes, but he also has destroying purposes. Look back at vs. 26-31

26 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” 27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. 29 But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses. — Exodus 14:26-31

In addition to teaching Israel, and many through Israel, God has a third purpose – the destruction of the wicked.

This is something we will expand upon in much more detail next week, but for now let simply say that you won’t be able to make total sense out of your struggle until you remember that the Lord is both a savior of the humble and a destroyer of the proud.

In other words, your struggle isn’t completely about you. It is also about your enemies. He is bringing judgment to some and joy to others. This is his perfect and just will.

On this subject, my mind often turns to the song of Mary, the mother of Jesus in Luke 1:46-53

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

And indeed God did this very thing through the cross of Jesus Christ. Through the one thing, he has accomplished two things. The redemption of his chosen ones and the destruction of the proud.

“He brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.”

The gospel message became the aroma of death to those who were perishing and the aroma of life to those who were being saved.

Conclusion:

Why does God have you in the trenches, fighting for your life. He wants to teach you things and turn your theoretical knowledge into direct knowledge.

He wants to teach others through your story.
Finally, and do try to remember this the next time your in the trenches – at the end of this story – you will be saved and some enemy will be destroyed.

And he wants to use your crisis in the very same way he used Israel’s and Jesus Christ – the true Israel.

Listen to Colossians 2:13-15

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

The Lord is a Man of War