Exodus 15:3

These words are part of an outburst of national song, the triumphant song of God's chosen people when they, by God's strength, escaped from the tyranny of Egypt, and found themselves a redeemed, free, delivered people. The Lord has continued to exercise His triumphant power in the Christian Church. The standard of spiritual life in individual Christians at the present day warrants the expectations which have been awakened by the first promises of the Gospel. It is possible to look at this in two or three aspects.

I. The thought of God's triumphs as a man of war seems to be valuable as giving in its degree a proof of the truth of Holy Writ. The moral expectations raised by our Lord's first sermon on the Mount are being actually realized in many separate souls now. The prayer for strength to triumph against the devil, the world, and the flesh is becoming daily more visibly proved in the triumph of the Spirit, in the individual lives of the redeemed.

II. The triumphs of the Lord in the individual hearts among us give an increasing hope for unity throughout Christendom. We cannot deny the debt we owe to the labours of Nonconformists in the days of the Church's lethargy and neglect. We cannot join them now, but we are preparing for a more close and lasting union, in God's own time, by the individual progress in spiritual things.

III. We must do our part to set our seal to the triumphant power of Divine grace. It is the half-lives of Christians which are such a poor proof of the truth of our Lord's words. They do not begin early enough; they do not work thoroughly enough. We have the promise that this song shall be at last on the lips of all who prevail, for St. John tells us in the Revelation that he saw those who had overcome standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.

Bishop King, Penny Pulpit, No. 569.

Reference: Exodus 15:6.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Easter to Ascension Day, p. 34.

Exodus 15:9-11Israel was, in the first place, delivered from the hand of God, and then, as the result of this, Israel was delivered from the hand of Pharaoh.

Consider:—

I. The state of the Israelites when Moses came to them. (1) They were in bondage. (2) They were so far conscious of the misery of their position that they had a strong desire for liberty. (3) They were by no means ready at first to accept the message of God's deliverance. (4) They had their comforts even in slavery. In all these things we have a picture of ourselves.

II. The deliverance. (1) The moment the Passover is observed, that moment Pharaoh's power is broken. The moment that all is right between us and God, that moment Satan's power is broken, and he can no longer hold us in bondage. (2) The waters of judgment which saved the Israelites were the means of destroying the vast host of Egypt. The power of Satan is broken by the very means by which he intended to destroy. (3) It is our privilege to take our stand on the other side of the Red Sea and see ourselves "raised up with Christ" into a new life.

W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, 1st series, p. 121.

Reference: Exodus 15:22-27.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 113.

Exodus 15:23-27From the story of Marah we learn these lessons:—

I. The water was deleterious, not distasteful only. Had the people drunk it, it would have wrought disease, but it was healed by the obedience of Moses to God's directions. So if we are attentive and obedient to His voice He will find us remedies from all things that might hurt us.

II. It was not possible, perhaps, that the children of Israel should, by persevering in the unwholesome draught which is there typical of sin, have vitiated their taste till they delighted in it. But it is too possible in the antitype.

III. Though we are compelled by God's providence to pass through difficulty and temptation, we are not doomed to dwell there. If we are faithful, it is but in passing that we shall be endangered. If we use the remedy of obedience to God's word to-day, to-morrow we shall be beside the twelve ever-springing fountains, and under the shade of the palm-trees of Elim.

Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 197.

We have in our text a parable of the deep things of Christ.

I. Israel was in those days fresh from their glorious deliverance out of Egypt; they had sung their first national song of victory; they had breathed the air of liberty. This was their first disappointment, and it was a very sharp one; from the height of exultation they fell almost at once to the depths of despair. Such disappointments we have all experienced, especially in the outset of our actual march, after the first conscious sense of spiritual triumph and freedom.

II. Of us also it is true that God hath showed us a certain tree, and that tree is the once accursed tree on which Christ died. This is the tree of life to us, although of death to Him.

III. It was God who showed this tree unto Moses. And it was God who showed it to us in the Gospel. Applied by our faith to the bitter waters of disappointment and distress, it will surely heal them and make them sweet. Two things there are about the tree of scorn which will never lose their healing power—the lesson of the Cross and the consolation of the Cross; the example and the companionship of Christ crucified.

IV. The life which found its fitting close upon the Cross was not a life of suffering only, but emphatically a life of disappointment. Here there is comfort for us. Our dying Lord must certainly have reflected that He, the Son of God, was leaving the world rather worse than He found it in all human appearance.

V. Whatever our trials and disappointments, let us use this remedy; it will not fail us even at the worst.

R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions, p. 46.

References: Exodus 15:23-25.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 20; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 540; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 987. Exodus 15:23-27.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 453; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 275. 15:23-16:36.—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 128. 15-18.—J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 61. Exodus 15:24, Exodus 15:25.—J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on the Parables, p. 257. Exodus 15:25.—J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 177; J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii., p. 185. Exodus 15:26.—A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p. 161; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1664; J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 394; Parker, vol. ii., p. 319. Exodus 15:27.—T. Kelly, Pulpit Trees, p. 314. Exodus 16:1-8.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 459.