Exodus 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.”
All too soon our children hear and see things they shouldn’t. Once, when our family was younger, one of our daughters happened to be in a room where a television was turned on. The dialogue from one character in some show overstepped the boundaries of our home. Our youngster overheard this actor in a heated scene, exclaim, “Shut up, d____ you!”
Horrified, our daughter turned to her mother and said, “Mommy, Mommy, did you hear that? He said a bad word! He said …. shut up!” Fortunately, our daughter didn’t know then the uglier invective, but she was no less shocked by words she’d been taught must not be spoken in our house.
There are times, many times I’m sure, when by instinct we would like to turn back offensive words on those from whom they come, “No, you shut up!” Give them a taste of their own medicine. Answer back.
But trading words like that is desperate and disgraceful. It only dirties the responder. If you hoist your enemy’s cannon ball and fire it back at him, you’ve only given him the invitation to launch it at your head again.
Listen, I won't deny there are times when we just wish the world would shut up (sorry, I mean “be quiet”), and I don’t just mean button up all that nonsense about Charlie Sheen. Let’s have some quiet from the 24 hour news cycle with its incessant “talking heads” and relentless advertisers. I still can't get used to seeing people walk about with a Bluetooth hanging on their ear. Those things are clunkier and more unattractive than old Uncle Vernon’s primitive hearing aids.
Enough already!
But really, that’s not the silence I crave. After all, you can actually turn off the TV, internet, beeper or telephone. But there is a clamor in this world we can't just switch off.
One is the voice of our natural environment damaged by sin. ”It’s water roar and foam.” (Ps. 46) Nature is fluent in telling us that all things in this world age and decay, not just flowers that flourish in the spring and then whither, not just creatures that vary in their life-cycles from the average mayfly that survives at most a few hours or the giant tortoise that at may go 150 years or more. A sequoia can live hundreds of years or a bristlecone pine for thousands but not forever. One day these too crash to the forest or dessert floor. Geologists even tell us mountains age and decay. I don’t like hearing it because I’m no exception. Nature is incessantly letting me know nothing of this fallen world lasts.
More ceaseless noise from “the rage of nations” (Ps. 46) collides with our consciousness. Egypt wasn't the first and it certainly wasn't the last nation to raise its voice in outcry against others. The cacophonous refrain of peoples at war is thunderous.
And then there is the voice of our conscience that never seems to quit talking either. The running dialogue and quarrelsomeness between my own ears is perpetual. It’s not a racket that can be silenced by me. I’m glad most thoughts making their appearance in my head aren’t broadcast as a TV script.
How astonishing and radical then is the announcement and charge God gave to His people of old at the Red Sea, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
Only be silent.
In other words—don’t do anything! You don’t have to defend yourself. You don’t have to plan. You don’t have to make decisions. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to run. You don’t have to negotiate. You don’t even have to think. Only be silent.
The Lord will fight for you.
Hollering about the Egyptians galloping down on them wouldn’t do a bit of good. Windy speculations about how to get out of this crisis would only do more harm than good. Bleating and bellyaching to Moses that it’s better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness is absurd. God doesn’t need a bunch of gasbags.
All that we need we have in the Word and work of God. God promised Israel that He would do their fighting. He would do the planning, the defending, and the leading. He would care for, speak for, and act for His people. The Lord is God. His Word not only says it better than any utterance of ours; His Word is the only speech that matters. Nature doesn’t lecture God. “He utters his voice, the earth melts.” (Ps. 46)
Our conscience can't successfully dispute the rectitude and righteousness of God's Word of forgiveness. God stills the conscience with his Gospel, the forgiveness of sins.
So, just be quiet.
There isn't a better posture for any of us than sheer silence before God's almighty Word. It’s also the safest place to be in a turbulent world. God's Word is impregnable. When God told Israel, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent,” he was setting the emancipation template for the whole mess into which we’ve fallen in this world.
The answer to everything that comes against us, whether vulgarity in our ears or those of our children, whether the perils of the world, the accusations of our conscience, or the threat of our enemy — the answer is the Word and work of God in Christ. He has fought for us and stilled the enemy and the avenger (Ps. 8:2)
I rather think the sons of Korah may have been thinking of God at the Red Sea when they penned the 46th Psalm (the psalm on which Luther based “A Mighty Fortress”)
“Come, behold the works of the Lord,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
