The Song of Moses

The Song of Moses as a Pattern of Redemption

Well, good morning, everybody. It's lovely to see everyone. It's always somewhat sad to have to fill the pulpit under these circumstances, that being that dad, of course, is out, not feeling 100%. I can't remember, at least in my lifetime ever, him being kind of out of the count, as it were, due to back issues.

He's tweaked it a couple of times here and there, as everybody does. But this is the first time in my memory that it's this severe. And it's been ongoing now for a solid week, because if y 'all remember, this time last week, he was making some jokes about it as he came up here.

And so y 'all keep praying for dad. Again, under these circumstances, I am sorry that he is not here, but I'm always happy to fill the pulpit when I am called upon. So here we are. If y 'all would like to turn with me to Exodus chapter 15.

Exodus chapter 15. We're going to begin in verse one. And we're going to read all the way through verse 18. It begins,. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.

Triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider have he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare him in habitation. My father's God, and I will exalt him.

The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast to the sea. His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them. They sank into the bottom as a stone.

Thy right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee.

Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thine ostrils, the waters were gathered together. The floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow thy wind. The sea covered them.

They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchest out thy right hand. The earth swallowed them.

Thou, in thy mercy, hast led forth the people, which thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy strength and thy holy habitation. The people shall hear and be afraid. Sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.

Then the Dukes of Edom shall be amazed. The mighty men of Moab, trembling, shall take hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon them. By the greatness of thine arm, they shall be as still as a stone.

Till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased. Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

The Lord shall reign forever and ever. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful morning. We thank you for bringing us together and giving us yet another opportunity for the saints to gather, to hear your word proclaimed, for your word to be as a salve upon our spirits, to uplift us, to refresh us, to encourage us, to inspire us, and to give us everything that we need to go into another week, expanding your kingdom, battling the various battles that the enemy may try to throw our way in many diverse ways.

We thank you for the sword that we have in your word, and we thank you that we are equipped with the sufficient word that can handle all situations we may find ourselves in. We thank you for this word.

We thank you for what it means to us this very day, those spoken many thousands of years ago, and we just ask that every word spoken today is consistent with your word and that our services are blessed.

We thank you and we love you and we ask these things in your name, amen. Now, the story of the Bible all the way through is essentially a story of redemption. It's a story of deliverance. It begins with a perfect, sinless creation, but then sin corrupts both space and time, and from that point forward, the story unfolds as a story of paradise regained by fallen man, but not by fallen man.

It's paradise regained by God, who, of course, first breathed the breath of life into mankind to begin with, and so throughout the Bible, we're given numerous historical narratives that accomplish two things at the same time.

Number one, they act as a picture, so the individual stories of redemption that we find, they act as a picture that showcases the whole story of God's redemption, but in microcosm. It's a little version of it.

Again, it's a picture. It doesn't have every minute detail of the entirety of the story, but it's enough for us to grasp the power that is behind God in his redemptive acts as they point to the broad story, the whole story of redemption, so that's the first thing each of these historical narratives accomplish, but secondly, they also play their part in the whole story as well, so each story has its own unique narrative, its own unique emphasis, and things like this.

They all point to the whole, but they also contribute to the whole. Each individual redemptive story, including that which Moses and the Israelites were just coming out of, being delivered from, they contribute to the whole, the whole picture, and each individual narrative of a redemptive act of God to deliver his people, we see a little bit more.

We see and learn a little bit more about God's character as savior, as redeemer toward his people, and each time, we're reminded of his strong arm that brings the deliverance that we need regardless of how impossible the situation may feel, and of course, the context of the text we just read is the perfect example of an impossible situation.

From the human viewpoint, all has been lost. We're just moments away from devastation, and yet, with God, all things are possible, as we know, and so we see all of these examples of, again, God's strong arm carrying his people through what they need to get through regardless of how impossible it may feel.

The first time that blood was ever shed was when God killed and skinned an animal to cover the shame that Adam and Eve brought upon themselves, thus delivering them from that shame. There's one example of that microcosm example of the redemptive story.

Enoch was translated from earth to paradise because of his faith, quite literally delivered from the madness that surrounded him. Noah and his family were preserved from the flood. Joseph was saved from his turmoil and then exalted.

Israel, the man, was protected from famine when he went into Egypt, and then Egypt, the nation, was protected and saved from slavery when they left Egypt. So we have all of these examples of deliverance, of redemption in an individual story.

There's deliverance from the wilderness wanderings. There's victory in battles against all odds, fighting giants, fighting coalitions of pagan kings, nearly always outnumbered. This little, these, in some cases, ragtag armies of mighty warriors, no doubt, but still outnumbered, outranked in many occasions, made it through because of God's deliverance.

We have Ruth, we have David, we have the exiles of Babylon. These are all examples of God's deliverance of his redemption being shown to us in a real life historical story, historical event. And all of these historical events carry a redemptive arc.

They each shed new light on the character of God as the deliverer, but every single story is tied together by that single scarlet thread that points us back to the person that did the redeeming in every single case, and that being the Lord Jesus Christ, of course.

Now, we all know that all of these stories, each of them beautiful, each of them awesome, in their own context, they all culminate in the life, in the work of Jesus Christ, the fulfiller of all redemptive acts in history.

So we know what they're all pointing toward, and we know that upon his finished work on the cross, we see, again, what everything was pointing toward, and that's certainly the case. But amazingly, though the redemptive act at the cross absolutely stands preeminent, not one of God's redemptive acts, each of those individual stories, some that we just referenced, many more that could be, not one of them will ever be forgotten or kind of absorbed away into the overall story out of the picture.

Even with as glorious as the future will be in the new heaven and in the new earth, we will still remember each and every one of those individual stories, and in fact, in a way, they will play their part in that glorious future.

Now, we're gonna be talking about that idea more in a little bit, so stick a pin in that. We'll come back to it in a moment. But let's take a closer look at this song of Moses to begin with, as God is praised for his deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt.

And just to give you a little bit of context, you can turn back one chapter to 14. We're not gonna read the whole chapter. We could, we should. It certainly deserves its due, but for the sake of time, let's just take a snapshot of the preceding events leading up to this song that we opened up with.

So in Exodus chapter 14, starting in verse five, it says, and it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people. And they said, why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?

And he made ready his chariot, took his people with him. He took 600 chosen chariots and all of the chariots of Egypt and captains over every one of them. So of course, at this point, the plagues have occurred.

Pharaoh has been, at least what should have been, a thorough humbling. I mean, he was humbled, absolutely. But with regard to him feeling it, apparently he wasn't done yet. And so now, not only himself, but all of the people of Egypt are now hardened once again, and regretting the fact that they have just been spoiled, essentially, of the Hebrew people.

They went in, they were given gold, they were given provision, they were given resources, everything they needed to make this grand move from Egypt to the promised land. And now the Egyptians' hearts are hardened again, and they're sitting here thinking, wait a second, we're not letting this happen.

And of course, pride comes before the fall. And so we know what comes next. Skip down to verse 10. So the decision has been made. The elite chariots of 600 have been called upon, but so has every single chariot in Egypt.

So I want you to, you know, this is an innumerable sized army here. It's not limited to 600. That's just the elite chariots. Every single chariot, and some scholars estimate probably somewhere around 20 ,000 chariots are now on the move to completely wipe out whomever they need to wipe out, and then take the rest for slaves once again.

So skip down to verse 10. When Pharaoh Drunai, so the decision's been made, he is now near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore afraid.

And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt?

Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we die in the wilderness. Now, I just want you to take note of something, because we know the hard heartedness and the stiff neckness of the Israelite people of this time.

So here's yet another demonstration of their feeble frame. Keep that in mind as we go into this song that we opened up with, this epic song that was not sung just by Moses, but by all the people, by these people, that just said what we just read.

That's an interesting thing to note when we get there. Skip down to verse 16 now. But lift up thy rod. Okay, so now the Egyptians are right on him. God is now talking to Moses. What do we do about this?

What do we do about this disaster that's waiting to happen? Lift up thy rod, Moses, and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry land through the midst of the sea.

And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians and they shall follow them. And I will get me honor upon Pharaoh and upon all his host and upon his chariots and upon the horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots and upon his horsemen.

Now skip down to verse 24. And it came to pass that in the morning watch, the Lord looked under the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and he troubled the host of the Egyptians.

I want you to take note really quick of God's presence. Yes, there is a very real doctrine of transcendence in the sense that the father is in a place that we can't comprehend. He is a spirit who does not have a body like men.

We are told by Jesus that no man has seen the father. He is a spirit. He must be worshiped in spirit and truth. We know these realities. There is a real doctrine of transcendence, but at the same time, there's a doctrine of eminence as well.

He is there and he is present with his people throughout both testaments. Yes, we have the spirit living within us now and that is absolutely unique to the new covenant. That is what makes it a better covenant, at least in large part is the fact that we are now the temples of the living God.

Our very bodies are. But God has always been present. He's always been there with his people. And right here, he is in the morning watch. He is right there. And he looked again through the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire.

Look at verse 25. And he took off their chariot wheels and they drave them heavily so that the Egyptians said, let us flee from the face of Israel for the Lord fighted for them against the Egyptians. So they see it, but they're not quite done yet.

And the Lord said to Moses, stretch out thine hand over the sea that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared and the Egyptians fled against it.

And the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them. There remained not so much as one of them, but the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea.

And the waters were a wall into them on their right and on their left. So there's our context going into chapter 15. We'll look at the last two verses there in a second. But in the final act of deliverance from the Pharaoh, who of course represented the cruelty and the oppression of sin and of Satan, we think about his desire to be a cruel slave master, his desire to oppress the people of Israel.

That is again, a flesh and bones picture of our own sin in our hearts today. Jesus tells us that we are slaves to sin prior to conversion. And so Pharaoh pictures that. He typifies that. He pictures the oppression of our sin, but also of Satan himself.

And so this is a very important character for that very reason, so that we can remember what this looks like. In the final act of deliverance from this Pharaoh, God commands Moses to stretch out his hand one more time.

And on this occasion, it's to close the waters of the Red Sea on top of the most powerful military in the world. And much like the reverential terror that the disciples felt when they went from experiencing that fatal tempest on the sea while Jesus is asleep in the heart of the little ship, when they went from experiencing that to a total calm, the moment that Jesus commanded the wind, now in this context, the Hebrews here stood in a similar peace and a calm when just moments before they were deafened by the raucous of 20 ,000 chariots being crushed by walls of water by the same hand of God that would later calm the sea when Jesus would do so with his disciples.

So imagine the very drastic change of environment. You have walls of water, a miracle really beyond the imagination. The visuals, of course, had to have been like no other. And you have the most powerful army, 20 ,000 strong if not more, rushing toward you.

Of course, they've already been stopped in a sense because God removed the wheels from the chariots, so they look like a total mess, but they're still there. The noise, the crying, the gnashing of teeth, and then the sound of the waters collapsing on top of them and then calm.

The army is gone. The victory has been won. The Hebrews did absolutely nothing other than watch, of course, other than Moses' obedience to put his hand over the sea, which God wanted him to be a part of it.

Imagine the change of scenery at this particular time. Total deliverance, total calm, total reverence by the delivered. Look at the last two verses of 14 there for a second. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore, and Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses.

You can imagine a little bit of embarrassment after that previous episode we read a minute ago where they're complaining about, or were there not enough graves in Egypt for us to just die there? You had to bring us here to do it?

And now total fear of the Lord in a reverential sense again, and in Moses, his servant. And so we have all of that as the context. We have all of that as the backdrop. And then chapter 15 opens with the word then, which of course leads right into the song that we began with this morning.

Then, what do we find on the lips of the freed slaves of Israel? What is the intuitive action that the Hebrews are driven to do in light of such glorious goodness and benevolence on the part of their deliverer?

It says, then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord. That was the intuitive action. That is what they were driven to do. They were driven to sing in worship and in praise, but also notice as we're about to look at it more closely, in an orderly fashion that was able to recount the historical events that just occurred in a cogent way, in a way that was easy to follow, in a way that would be easy to pass down for generations to come.

You have praise mixed with history, all to the glory of God. Let's take a closer look at this song. Exodus 15 again, verse one. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and they spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.

The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. Now, I want you to note as this song unfolds that I've already alluded to it several times, it is manifestly historical. In other words, Moses is not only praising the Lord here and expressing his gratitude to him through song, which he was doing, but that's not all he was doing.

He was also recounting actual historical events in this poetic form. Now, why would this be? Why is all of this happening the way that it's happening? Why is the Spirit moving Moses to sing this song along with the rest of the congregation?

Well, given that this event, even though it was just seen by as many as maybe a couple million people, couple of million eyewitnesses, this event would probably seem so spectacular in the future retellings of it that Moses wanted to solidify its historicity in a way that could be passed down generationally.

So this was a matter of how do we encapsulate what we just saw? How do we encapsulate the redemptive act of God that we just witnessed, the deliverance that we just experienced, the crushing of the strongest army and all of its gods on earth by the hand of our God?

How can we encapsulate this in a way that will stand the test of time? I'm speaking from the human viewpoint, of course. Stand the test of time and we'll be able to be passed down in a way that our kids will be able to see it, they'll be able to sing it, they'll be able to visualize everything that just happened long after we are all in the grave, long after the eyewitnesses are gone.

So the Spirit moves Moses to put it in this form. And not only Moses, as we've already said, but there was perfect consensus among the people. There was perfect unity, having all just taken part in the eyewitness account of these events.

This song was a confession. It was a confirmation and it was a consensus among the entire ancient congregation that God had just delivered them in the most magnificent way. And so even though Moses is the writer of this song, it's attributed to him, he is careful to make this an anthem of his people, of God's people, not just of himself, and one to affirm and to sing with all of their being, they will sing, for he hath triumphed gloriously.

The horse and his rider hath he overthrown into the sea. Verse two goes on to say, the Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare him in habitation.

My Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Now, the Lord did an amazing work when he created his image bearers with the capacity to be courageous, to be strong, to be lethal with righteous precision when it was necessary.

We think of Joshua. We think of Gideon. We think of David and his mighty men. We think of the prophet Samuel hacking Agag to pieces because that was the right thing to do in that moment. God created his people with a great capacity to win battles, to be formidable warriors, to be formidable fighters in this life.

Christians have always had the greatest capacity to be men among men, warriors of the highest caliber, and with God as their banner. And yet, in verse two here, Moses reminds us that it is by his strength, God's strength, that we have victory in 100 of the battles that we have to face, that come to his people.

So we have to remember, God, of course, doesn't, in a perhaps theological sense, need anyone to fight battles on his behalf. But another thing we have to remember is that God always ordains the means just as much as he ordains the ends.

So he ordains a great victory. He ordains for, you know, let's just say the Amalekites to be completely obliterated. What are the means to get there? Well, it is to raise up great God-fearing, righteous and moral warriors, such as Joshua and such as the men that fought alongside him, to go in there and to wipe out the Amalekites on behalf of God.

So we have to remember, God does this. He works through means. He works through us. He works through his people. Right there in chapter 14, we didn't read the verse, but Moses just got done saying, everybody relax, God will fight this battle for us.

And God says, what are you talking about? You put your hand over the water. You put your rod over the water. So God has always wanted to work with and through his people. But at the same time, and with as much responsibility as we have to put in the work to be good warriors, I mean, Joshua didn't just go into battle blind, tempting the Lord and saying, well, he's gonna have my back.

No, Joshua trained. He worked at his craft. He worked at his sword skill. He was a warrior by definition. And then he was that formidable instrument that the Lord used to wipe out the demonic pagans that were sacrificing their children to the false gods and things of that sort.

And so God does that. He forms warriors. He forms men to fight like this. But, but, and this is what Moses is emphasizing here in verse two, it is by God's strength that victory comes. It can never be by our own strength alone, regardless of how well trained we are.

And so that's what he reminds us. 100 of the battles that come to his people, they are won through his strength. He says in verse two also, he has become my salvation, the deliverance of God's people.

Time and time again, God is there. He is redeeming. He is delivering. Again, we see it all throughout the scriptures pointing to what? It is one version or one insight into the whole of redemptive history.

Moses says in verse two as well, my father's God, you notice that? And of course, that's a reference to the continuity from Abraham to Moses and onward from there. The true God, the God of my fathers, in contrast with the false gods of the very land that they now marched toward in Canaan.

And they move forward with the Lord as, look at verse three, a man of war overseeing them, ready to destroy anything or anyone that would interfere with the migration of his people to the land of promise.

God is a man of war and he will always be there to deliver his people as such. Take a look at verse four. He goes on to say, Pharaoh's chariots. Again, this is the song itself. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea.

His chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them. They sink into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.

And in the greatness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee. Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils, the waters were gathered together.

The flood stood upright as a heap and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. So many wonderful things going on there. Of course, we see yet another reference to the strong hand or the strong arm of God.

But I want you to note something. When Moses says in verse seven, it says, and in the greatness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against whom? Thee. They rose up against you.

Pharaoh and his people, no doubt, were antagonists toward whom in the narrative of Exodus? The people of God, the Hebrews, the Israelites, those that they were oppressing, those that they were wanting to brutally subdue and then to take advantage of in a number of ways.

That's what's in the narrative. And yet here, Moses is telling us and reminding us that God himself took the offense personally. It was him whom they were offending. It was him who they rose up against.

And we see that in verse seven. So we learn a very important lesson here. If we would just pause there for a second. When the wicked world rises up in persecution of Christ's church, it is not us that they're attacking.

It's not us that they're offending ultimately. Of course, we are a part of it. We feel it and we experienced the tribulation. But ultimately, God is who sees it. God is who is offended. He feels it and it will not go unpunished.

He finishes it by saying, thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. They offended him and that was the result. That was reaping what you sow on the part of the Egyptians. That was the consequences of rising up against him by proxy of his beloved, his people.

Verse nine says, the enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. This is exactly what our brothers and sisters in many parts of the world are experiencing at this very moment.

This is the attitude that the demonic enemies and forces of the devil have toward God's people. This is the sentiment that they have as we speak. I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil.

The insolence behind these words, the arrogance behind them, the audacity behind these words. Again, nothing is new under the sun. This is the context of the ancient Hebrews with specifically Pharaoh and his legion behind them doing the persecuting.

But we face the same dark spirits that the Israelites faced at this time. They're still there, still influencing new flesh and blood. It's no longer Pharaoh. And this is still the sentiment. This is still what they want to do.

But what is the response? What is the end result each and every time? Verse 10, thou, God, didst blow with thy wind and the sea covered them. They sank as lead in the mighty waters. And so it can be hard sometimes for us just to bring this a little closer to home, the present day, as blessed as we are in this nation.

Again, we have brothers and sisters all across the world dealing with severe persecution. It can be hard for us to bear the righteous anger that we have toward the insolence, toward the audacity of God-haters.

There are times Paul tells us to be angry, but don't sin. There are times when that righteous anger that we are bearing, that we have within us, and rightfully so, becomes a burden in a sense because we are feeble, because we don't have the full picture, because we can't really comprehend the magnitude of what is happening all around us.

And so when we see these God-haters in high rebellion against His Word and His Christ, we have this righteous anger within us that we feel and it can be burdensome. For all of history, verse nine, this is how the God-haters have felt and expressed their rebellion, in total confidence, total insolence, as if they will somehow win the day.

The confidence in verse nine is really unspeakable, given what they have already seen with the 10 plagues, with the loss of their firstborn, the death angel wreaking havoc over their people, and this is still how they feel in verse nine, and this is still what we have to deal with, total confidence, but the result will always be the same.

He will always blow with His wind, covering those who deny His Lordship with His judgment and with His wrath. Verse 11 goes on and says, who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

Thou stretchest out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Now, we have to understand here, the rhetorical strategy that Moses is incorporating into the song at this point. As his song cascades into its conclusion here in just a bit, verse 11 is very much a polemic, a denunciation of the pagans and their gods.

When he says, who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods, Moses was very aware. He was acutely aware of the theology of the Egyptians and their panoply of deities. He knew what they believed. He knew the deep-rooted, what's the word I'm looking for, commitment to these false gods.

And so for him to include something like this right on the cusp of utter defeat of these gods so-called, for him to throw this in there is very much an intentional polemic against these very dark forces that we have been talking about.

Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? So brief phrases like that, they're of course true, we know that, but they are also effective. What I mean by that is when things like this are said, they are effective against the spiritual battle that God's people face.

With every pronouncement made of his exclusive right to Godhead, the evil spirits that animate the false idols shudder. And why do they shudder? It's because knowing what they know, they peer into the future of their final destruction, knowing that they're not actually a god, not actually a god that can stand.

There's only one, and it is Yahweh, Jehovah, as Moses puts it in verse 11. Who is like unto thee, O Lord? And so Moses emphasizes God's holiness, as he continues there in verse 11, he emphasizes his holiness, which of course even further stomps upon the false legitimacy of these false gods, because he is the only one that is holy, he is the only one that is set apart.

He adds the very interesting phrase there, notice again in verse 11, fearful in praises, you see that? Fearful in praises. And what that illustrates to us is how vital our reverence in worship should be, how vital it is, how important reverence in worship is, and what it should be.

We cannot ever approach the God of all holiness without having a fear, a reverence in our praises to him. We can't go in haphazard, we can't go in letting our emotions lead. It is, remember, the concept of God not being a god of confusion, where is that found?

It's found in 1 Corinthians, I believe chapter 14, but it's in the context of Paul talking about church order. In other words, worshiping God in an orderly fashion. That doesn't take the spirit out of it, that doesn't even take the emotion and the gravity that we feel in our connection to God as the heavens open and he hears our songs, he hears our praises, he hears our petitions, it doesn't remove any of that.

What it does is it retains the fact that we are a people set apart from the rest of the pagan world that absolutely emphasizes the confusion, that leans into it very much. And so this little note here that Moses gives us, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, this is important for us to remember these things, we're to be reverent when we praise him.

Verse 13 goes on and says, thou in thy mercy has led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. What is this a story of? It's yet another story exemplifying the redemptive work of God. This is a specific narrative, a specific tale, but what is it doing?

It is pointing us to the ultimate story, which is the entire Bible, the ultimate story of redemption. Here, they have been redeemed. He says, thou has guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.

And what's amazing about what we see here and what we'll see in the next couple of verses as well is that confidence, confidence is the only necessary attitude for God's people to move forward because their advancement in life, their advancement here toward the promised land for us toward Christ, the confidence that we have and the advancement as we move forward, the progression is based upon salvation itself, the redemptive work of God.