Exodus 14:13-15
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): To judge of this command, we have only to reflect upon the condition of the people; the army of Pharaoh was behind them, and the sea was immediately before them, and to go forward would be to advance into the sea itself; but we may observe that God’s commands are so many intimations and assurances of success. “Go forward,” saith God to Moses. Did Moses say, “What, Lord, and be drowned in the sea?” No; but they went forward, and the waters opened before them, and they passed through the sea as on dry ground.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): We hear not one word of Moses’ praying, and yet here the Lord asks him why he cries unto Him? From which we may learn that the heart of Moses was deeply engaged with God, though it is probable he did not articulate one word; but the language of sighs, tears, and desires is equally intelligible to God. This consideration should be a strong encouragement to every feeble, discouraged mind: Thou canst not pray, but thou canst weep; if even tears are denied thee, then thou canst sigh; and God, whose Spirit has thus convinced thee of sin, righteousness, and judgment, knows thy unutterable groaning, and reads the inexpressible wish of thy burdened soul, a wish of which Himself is the Author, and which He has breathed into thy heart with the purpose to satisfy it.
WILLIAM JAY: Now all this teaches us to do all things in religion “without murmurings and disputings,” and that nothing more becomes us than a childlike disposition, exercising implicit confidence in God, and unquestioning obedience to His commands. What He has revealed we are to believe on the authority of the Speaker. It will also apply to the dispensations of divine providence. When any of these seem to be at variance with our views, we are to remember that “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.”—Jacob said, “All these things are against me;” but if he had waited a little while longer, he might have said, with the apostle Paul, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”
ADAM CLARKE: “All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth, unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies,” Psalm 25:10. The paths. אדהוה signifies the tracks or ruts made by the wheels of wagons by often passing over the same ground. Mercy and truth are the paths in which God constantly walks in reference to the children of men; and so frequently does He show them mercy, and so frequently does He fulfill His truth, that His paths are easily discerned—but He is more abundantly merciful to those who keep His covenant and His testimonies; those who are conformed, not only to the letter, but to the spirit of His pure religion.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): “Unto such that keep His covenant and His testimonies.” He is never out of the road of mercy unto them. They are “mercy” in respect of aiming at our good, and “truth” in respect of fulfilling His promises and faithful carriage to us; therefore whatever befalls thee, though it be clean contrary to thy expectation, interpret it in love.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Yet this is not a general truth to be trampled upon by swine, it is a pearl for a child’s neck. Gracious souls, by faith resting upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus, keep the covenant of the Lord, and, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, they walk “in His testimonies;” these will find all things co-working for their good, but to the sinner there is no such promise. Keepers of the covenant shall be kept by the covenant; those who follow the Lord’s commands shall find the Lord’s mercy following them.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Some of God’s promises are general rather than specific; some are conditional, others unconditional; some are fulfilled in this life, others in the world to come. Are you fearful of the future? Afraid that when strength fails and old age comes you may be left without the necessities of life? Then let us remind you that there is no need whatever for such fears. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things”—temporal necessities—“shall be added unto you,” Matthew 6:33. “O fear the Lord, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him,” Psalm 34:9. “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly,” Psalm 84:11. But let it be noted that these promises are conditional on obeying the preceding exhortations—your business is to give God the first place in your life, to fear, obey and honour Him in all things, and in return He guarantees your bread and water shall be sure.
C. H. SPURGEON: God will keep His promise to you; only see you to it that the way in which He conditions His engagement is carefully observed by you. Only when we fulfill the requirements of a conditional promise can we expect that promise to be fulfilled to us.
WILLIAM JAY: Secondly, in reference to the journey of the Israelites, let us consider this command in reference to ourselves, for if we are Christians, we are on our way from Egypt to Canaan, “seeking a better country, even a heavenly;” and it becomes us to be always advancing in “the way everlasting.” Christians are therefore enjoined to “go forward.” It is an awful thing when, instead of this, any go backward. The Ephesians went backward, and so were called to “repent” and do their “first works,” and to exemplify their “first love,” or lose the privileges with which they were indulged. In Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress, Christian went back in order to find and fetch the roll which had dropped from his bosom while he slept in the arbour. It is also a sad thing for Christians, instead of going forward to be only stationary.
A. W. PINK: There is no remaining stationary in the Christian life: he who does not progress, retrogrades. He who does not diligently heed the Divine precepts, soon loses the good of the Divine promises.
WILLIAM JAY: Let us then go forward, fighting the good fight of faith. Let us take the following admonitions for our march: First, go forward with humbleness of mind; let us not go strutting into the new year as if we had been acting wisely, worthily, or meritoriously throughout the past year, but with penitent reflections upon the sins of our weekday, and our Sabbath-day sins, so that we may gratefully acknowledge that “it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not,” Lamentations 3:22. Therefore, with gratitude in remembrance of His mercies, they have been “new every morning,” Lamentations 3:23. What preserving, supplying, supporting, and satisfying mercies have we daily received! Go forward under a sense of present aid; in opposition to our complaining and murmuring—with a firm confidence as to what may befall us in the future. His promises more than meet all our circumstances, and provide for all contingencies of futurity, for we know Who hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” and that “as our day so shall our strength be.”
