THE GREAT DELIVERER by Selected

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 8, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 47.

THE GREAT DELIVERER.

By Selected

THE deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt was one of the earliest instances of God’s protection of his church, and often have his people turned to it since to assure themselves in peril. Richly have the evidences of his protecting presence been multiplied. Such scenes, remembered among his people, have made heroes. By them the might of Moses as an Egyptian soldier became the power that conquered the ignorance and sinfulness of the Israelites, and the perils of the desert during the long campaign of forty years. By them Joshua took heart, Gideon went to the battle, David braved the Philistine giant defying the armies of the living God, Elijah met the idolatrous priests at Carmel, Daniel entered the den of lions, Paul went to Rome. The covenant-keeping Jehovah, who came between the Israelites and Egyptians that memorable night, has come to dwell in his church. Its history repeats on higher planes the journey in the desert. Its deliverances have been marvelous. Thousands re-echo the ancient psalm, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they had swallowed us up quick.” This same protecting God dwells by his Spirit in each renewed life, and looks out on its foes as he did on the Egyptians at the Red Sea. “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

God opens a way for his people in their need. Shut in by mountains and the sea before and on each side of them, with the Egyptians behind and pursuing, there was no escape. “When Israel went out of Egypt . . . Judah became his sanctuary. The sea saw it, and fled.” “He saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.” That was no triumph of man. Never were people more helpless than they. All that they could do was to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” That deed shows God to us. That scene has become the symbol of the deliverance of the soul from sin and death. The words “Saviour” and “redemption” took their place in the Bible in connection with this deliverance from Egypt, and that other deliverance which always recalled it—the return from the captivity.

But these words have gathered new significance with human experience and hope, till their fullest meaning appears in the shouts of the victorious host standing by the glassy sea and singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Rev. 15:3 . And still the God who delivered his chosen by opening a way in the sea, who has redeemed by the sacrifice of his Son those enslaved by sin, is the God of our daily lives, to whom in every strait we may appeal, “Lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.” When we come to impassable waters, we have a more powerful instrument than the mantle of Elijah. 2 Kings 2:14 . We have the wonder-working Spirit of God. In every peril wherein our adversaries are too great for us, if we turn to him, “God is faithful, who . . . will with the temptation also make a way to escape.”—Selected.