Title: The meaning of the Red Sea miracle
Contents
1. Words that begin
Yesterday, our ancestors in Japan, who robbed and lacked many countries, treated the people of each country as slaves, mercilessly beaten those who did not obey, imprisoned them, tortured them horribly, and killed them. It was March 1st to commemorate the incident where the peoples held a nonviolent non-resistance movement for freedom and independence.
We, who have already achieved a free and independent nation, must become truly free people who build a truly free nation in all aspects, including politics and diplomacy, society and the military, ideology and spirit, ethics and religion.
In particular, we must become children of God who enjoy the spiritual freedom that is the basis of all such freedoms and become God's people.
If freedom from slavery is not freedom for what it is, then we have no choice but to live the life of a slave again.
Israel, liberated from Egypt by God's grace, had to go through many trials in order to become God's people in the true sense of freedom, in the true sense of freedom.
2. God Parted the Red Sea
When Israel came out of Egypt and headed for Canaan, the Promised Land, they were pitching their tents on the beach next to Pihahiroth, when Egypt's mightiest armored forces and horsemen rushed right in front of their eyes. Again, the Israelites were very afraid and cried out to God, and also complained about Moses.
“Are there no burial places in Egypt, so you bring them out into the wilderness to die? When we were in Egypt, didn't you tell us to be left alone? It would be better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Oh yeah! Don't you have any pride?
These people's bodies were freed from Egypt, but they still have not given up their slavery.
After being a slave for hundreds of years, can you become a free man without slavery in a short time after being freed? Have you received a human education during those long years? Have you had any technical or knowledge training? Have you had a chance to become educated?
It would have only increased the scrutiny and the fear and anxiety.
Wasn't he just serving the idols of Egypt as he was told, and living a life of barely getting enough food while being overworked with simple labor?
But Moses, the leader in the same crisis, was different.
Moses, who lived a life of encounter with God, showed the image of a truly free man. That God is fighting.
So, stand still and see the salvation of God.
Egypt's horse and chariot forces were all buried in the Red Sea.
Everyone, I want you to believe that the true freedom to be detached even in the face of imminent death and even in a national crisis of absolute desperation is faith in the God who gives eternal life.
In the end, God revealed it to Moses, who was truly free, and not to Israel, who had slavery, and worked through Moses.
As you said, the people went out toward the blocked Red Sea, and Moses held out his staff and stretched out his hands toward the Red Sea to pray.
Isn’t the modern version of the ‘Miracle of Moses’ in the seas off Jindo and Incheon?
Most people think that when they are given freedom they become free people, but in reality they are not. In order to live a life of true freedom, we must go through effort, hard work, adventure, and struggle to become a free man.
If you indulge in alcohol, drugs, pleasures and sins, be led by celibacy and lust for success, or depend on powerful people, you will unknowingly develop a slavish spirit.
The Lord referred to all these unfortunate phenomena, saying that the one who sins is the slave of sin.
And he taught me the only way to become a truly free man, a truly free man.
In John 8:32, it is said, “If the Son sets you free, you will truly be free.”
8:36 says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Just because you've been freed from everything, doesn't mean you're free.
When we trust in the Lord as our ransom who becomes the slave of sin and is led to destruction by the devil, we can enjoy true freedom when we completely surrender our entire life.
3. The duality of the Red Sea event
The amazing miracle of the parting of the Red Sea shows the duality of salvation and destruction.
It was another wonderful saving grace for Israel, who obeyed Moses who prayed with an unreasonable command to go out to the Red Sea rather than the land. However, it was the judgment of destruction for all the Egyptian horsemen and chariots who were deceived by the devil, worshiped all kinds of idols, and followed Pharaoh's command to pursue them by the way of the Red Sea.
In fact, rather than God judging Egypt, it would be more accurate to understand that Egypt itself caused its own destruction.
Isn't that something you should have realized already? How many and tremendous miracles of God have you experienced during that time?
How many times have you had a chance to realize that so many gods of your country are in vain? Even the shaman, the applause, and the magician who had faced each other several times, didn't they declare that they should let Israel go because it is the power of God that they cannot be defeated?
How many times have you seen and experienced the calamities that must be fulfilled according to the word of God delivered through Moses? tell me what?
Have you not seen the amazing and dreadful miracle that the angel of God stood before the Egyptian army behind Israel at the Red Sea and was unable to charge because the pillar of cloud blocked it?
Ignoring all those countless opportunities for repentance and faith in God that are difficult to even imagine, they rushed into the Red Sea.
I don't know how he dared to enter the very road where the Red Sea parted overnight.
Here we see another different form of slavery.
It is the slave spirit that is not caused by weakness and ignorance, but the slave spirit that is not caused by weakness and ignorance as a king. It is not the slave spirit that has been lost, but the slave spirit that believes and depends on possessions. Can you see the enslavement spirit that could not be shaken off despite the tragic loss of a child, and of the eldest son, and the enslavement of feelings of rage and resentment to the point of losing reason?
The nature and aspect of the slave nature of Israel, the ruling class, and the slave spirit of Egypt, the ruling class, are completely different in nature and form, but in reality, the two slave spirits stem from the devil's slavery that leads to sin that leads to destruction.
Some interpret the miracle of the Red Sea, saying that God loved Israel and hated Egypt.
But in my opinion, God does not seem to be so petty and biased.
It can also be seen from the fact that, while allowing the land of Canaan to be conquered later, he warned that if given the opportunity, if they imitate the idolatry and sinful life of the Canaanites, they would be destroyed like them.
The essential meaning of the Red Sea event, which is salvation for those who believe and obey, and destruction for those who believe and obey, and destruction for those who do not believe and disobey, is to educate, train, and save both.
In Exodus 14:17-18,
“I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will go in after them, and I will be glorified in Pharaoh and all his army, and his chariots and his horsemen. You will know that I am the Lord.”
And as I said before, he blocked the pursuit of the Egyptian army with the pillar of cloud, and made it possible for the Egyptian army to see the parting of the Red Sea and the opening of the road. Nevertheless, the Egyptian army rushed into the middle of the Red Sea to annihilate Israel, which had been enslaved for more than four hundred years.
So, does the Egyptian army no longer have a chance to repent? Has God no longer given them the opportunity to repent and believe in the true God? It's not like that.
God saw the Egyptian army rushing into the Red Sea from a pillar of fire in the cloud, and disturbed the Egyptian army and broke the wheels of the chariot. Why didn't you kill him, just make it dizzy, and let the chariot break down?
Everyone, I hope you believe in the love of God who gives you a chance to repent and be saved at the last moment of death.
After all, everyone dies at least once, isn't eternal life the problem?
Anyway, according to God's word, when Moses stretched out his hands to pray, the Red Sea reunited and the Egyptian army was all buried. The Egyptian soldier who repented and believed in the midst of that death would have been saved.
4. Conclusion
In the sense that everyone lives for something or someone, lives by something or someone, believes and depends on something or someone, every human being is not a free man but a slave to something or someone. I can say.
In other words, not every person or every nation that has departed from God is truly free or truly independent.
We earnestly pray that all of us will truly believe in God in the Lord, live a life of true free people by obeying the Word, and become troopers who make up a truly independent nation.
(Poongseong Methodist Church. Book: Complete Commentary on 27 New Testament Books/ Interpretation of Difficult Scriptures I, II/ Salvation Before Jesus Came/Paul’s Understanding of Man/ Prosperity Prayer/ Seasonal Sermonbooks/ Sermonbook 18. -3051)