Wednesday: Defender and Deliverer

Daily Lesson for Wednesday 24th of January 2024

Read 1 Corinthians 10:1-4. How does Paul describe the Exodus story? What spiritual lesson does he seek to teach with it?

Read Psalms 114:1-8. How is the divine deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt poetically described here?

What a poetic depiction of God’s marvelous deliverance of His children from the bondage of Egypt is given in Psalms 114:1-8. All through the Old Testament, and even in the New, the deliverance from Egypt was seen as a symbol of God’s power to save His people. Paul in these verses in 1 Corinthians does just that, seeing the whole true story as a metaphor, a symbol of salvation in Jesus Christ.

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Psalms 114:1-8 also depicts divine deliverance through God’s sovereignty as the Creator over the powers of nature, which was how He saved His people in the Exodus. The sea, the river Jordan, and the mountains and hills poetically represent the natural and human powers opposing the Israelites on their way to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 1:44, Joshua 3:14-17). God, though, is sovereign over all of them.

In fact, for many of God’s children in all times and in all places, the way to the heavenly Jerusalem is fraught with danger. The Psalms encourage them to look beyond the hills and toward the Creator of heaven and earth (Psalms 121:1).

The spirit of Psalms 114:1-8 is captured by Jesus’ calming of the sea storm and His proclamation that the church has nothing to fear because He has overcome the world (Matthew 8:23-27, John 16:33).

The Lord’s great deeds on behalf of His people should inspire the whole earth to tremble at His presence (Psalms 114:7). The trembling should be understood as acknowledging and worshiping rather than as being terrified (Psalms 96:9, Psalms 99:1). With God on their side, believers have nothing to fear.

What are some of the spiritual dangers we face as believers, and how can we learn to lean on the Lord’s power to protect us from succumbing to these dangers that are as real for us now as they were for the psalmist?