Saturday, December 16
God is For Us and is With Us
Psalm 114:1-8
1 When Israel went out of Egypt, The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became His sanctuary, And Israel His dominion.
3 The sea saw it and fled; Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, The little hills like lambs.
5 What ails you, O sea, that you fled? O Jordan, that you turned back?
6 O mountains, that you skipped like rams? O little hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 Who turned the rock into a pool of water, The flint into a fountain of waters.
We have an awesome God who always takes care of us. You can always trust Him to deliver you, to protect you, to provide for you! You can always lean on Him to be close to you and you can be assured that His everlasting arms are always underneath you!
It is possible that the psalmist who was writing Psalm 114 had just finished studying the five books of the Law and had read Deuteronomy 33:26-28, "There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to help you, And in His excellency on the clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, And will say, 'Destroy!' Then Israel shall dwell in safety, The fountain of Jacob alone, In a land of grain and new wine; His heavens shall also drop dew.”
Although Psalm 114 has no actual "Hallelujah," it is linked with the psalms making up the Great Hallel. Like Psalm 113, it was sung at the Passover before the meal began. For the full spiritual significance of this psalm, we must imagine ourselves back in that upper room on the night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed. We see Him there with His disciples, singing the rousing verses of this psalm.
Psalm 114 is a song of the exodus. The Exodus is mentioned frequently in the psalms (Psalms 74:13; 77:17-20; 78:12-16, 52-53; 106:9-12; 136:10-15) because Israel's deliverance from Egypt was their "national birthday." The people were now set free to serve God and accomplish the important tasks He had assigned to them: bearing witness of the true and living God, writing the Scriptures, and bringing the Savior into the world. In terms of "biblical geography," Egypt represents the world and the bondage of the sinner to its evil forces (Eph. 2:1-3). It was the blood of the lamb applied to the doors that protected the Jewish firstborn from death, just as the blood of Christ, God's Lamb, saves us from sin and death.
God's power in opening the Red Sea liberated Israel and separated them from their cruel taskmasters. This is a picture of the resurrection of Christ and the believer's participation in it (Eph. 2:4-10; Col. 3:1). In the centuries that followed, each annual celebration of Passover reminded the Jewish people that Jehovah was their God and that He was for them. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31). The prophet Isaiah saw the Jewish exiles' deliverance from Babylonian captivity as a "second exodus" (Isa. 43:14-21). What an encouragement it was to that struggling Jewish remnant to know that Jehovah God was for them!
But not only is God for us, our God Is with us and He is over us! (v. 2). The Lord not only separated Israel from Egypt, but He also separated Israel unto Himself. They were His people, His treasure and His inheritance. "Judah" and "Israel" refer to the whole nation and not to the two kingdoms that formed after the death of Solomon. After the tribes conquered the land of Canaan, the sanctuary of God was placed in Judah, and that was where Solomon built the temple. The nations around Israel had their temples, but they were empty. God's glorious presence dwelt in the tabernacle (Ex. 40) and later in the temple (1 Kings 8:1-11).
Today, God does not dwell in manmade houses (Acts 7:48-50), but He does dwell with His people, for our bodies are His temples and the church is His sanctuary (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19-20; 2 Cor. 6:14-18; Eph. 2:19-22). Jesus is "Immanuel, God with us" (Matt. 1:23; 28:19-20).
What a privilege it is to be in the family of God!
God bless!
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