“The LORD will fight for you while you [only need to] keep silent and remain calm.”
Exodus 14:14 (AMP)
Moses’s instructions here seem simple enough, but are they? Staying quiet and calm in the midst of chaos or turmoil can be fairly difficult, for me at least, since I sometimes struggle with anxiety.
Back when that ubiquitous British phrase, “Keep calm and carry on,” was so popular, I wanted to shout, “BUT IT’S NOT THAT EASY!” It’s catchy and looks good in print, but staying calm and carrying on with life as usual is simply more complicated than that. It takes real effort and mental fortitude, and sometimes we still fail to reach that calm, quiet place.
Both examples, Exodus 14:14 and this time-worn phrase, are good advice … but HOW do we live them out?
I need more than a catchy mantra.
I need God’s guidance and some practical application.
So, let’s take a more in-depth look at this verse and those surrounding it.
Just before Moses—the Israelites’ initially reluctant leader—spoke these words to them, they were running for their very lives, attempting to escape slavery in Egypt as well as Pharaoh, his soldiers and 600 chariots.
One can only imagine how frightened and anxious they were. The vast Red Sea was right before them, and Pharaoh’s army was right behind them.
Essentially, they were trapped with no where else to go. Winning this battle seemed an impossibility, and certain death was all that remained.
Exhausted and full of despair, hopeless really, they cried out to the Lord. When He didn’t answer them directly, they turned their doubt and anger toward their leader. Someone had to be blamed for this catastrophe of epic proportions.
“Then they said to Moses, ‘Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What is this that you have done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?
Did we not say to you in Egypt, “Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?” For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians [as slaves] than to die in the wilderness.’”
Exodus 14:11-12 (AMP)
They were reacting out of sheer terror, BUT they had been obedient to the Lord, and He had brought them this far.
Moses needed to remind them of the Lord’s power and faithfulness.
“Then Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid! Take your stand [be firm and confident and undismayed] and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today; for those Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see again.
The LORD will fight for you while you [only need to] keep silent and remain calm.’”
Exodus 14:13-14 (AMP)
Keep silent?
Remain calm?!?
Egypt’s entire army was about to devour them! But even in the heat of the moment, at their lowest, God spoke through Moses and opened the Israelites’ eyes to the truth.
This wasn’t a battle between them and the Egyptians; it was a battle between the Egyptians and the LORD God, and it had already been won.
All the Israelites needed to do was get quiet—literally “keep silent, hold your peace” in Hebrew—and let God fight for them, difficult as that may have been.
They needed only to listen for His voice and obey, despite their fear.
“The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to move forward [toward the sea]. As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, so that the sons of Israel may go through the middle of the sea on dry land.
As for Me, hear this: I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will go in [the sea] after them; and I will be glorified and honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and his war-chariots and his horsemen.
And the Egyptians shall know [without any doubt] and acknowledge that I am the LORD, when I am glorified and honored through Pharaoh, through his war-chariots and his charioteers.”
Exodus 14:15-18 (AMP)
Who would have ever envisioned that God would peel back the mighty waters of the Red Sea and make a way of salvation for the Israelites straight through their doubt and their despair and their dread?
But He did! He did the unimaginable and the humanly impossible for His beloved children, and He does the same for us today.
The Lord fights for us and does what we cannot, and in doing so, rightly receives all the glory and all the praise.
The Israelites made it safely across the sea, and as Pharaoh’s strikingly superior army pursued them, his soldiers and chariots and horses were swept away by the water as it rushed back into the void.
The Lord was victorious in every way, just as He said He would be.
“The LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians [lying] dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the LORD had used against the Egyptians, they feared the LORD [with reverence and awe-filled respect], and they believed in the LORD, and in His servant Moses.”
Exodus 14:30-31 (AMP)
There is power in letting go of that which was never fully ours to begin with, those things we were never meant to control.
In those moments, let the Lord do the fighting for you.
Run to Him.
Pray.
Dive into His Word.
Allow Him to continue making you more like Himself, whatever that process of sanctification may look like.
Claim His peace over your heart, over your mind, over your life.
And trust that what He says He will do, He will do—because He is who He says He is:
- Elohim, God/The Creator (Genesis 1:1)
- YHWH/Yehovah/Yah, LORD/The Self-existent One (Genesis 2:4)
- YHWH-Elohim, LORD God (Genesis 2:4)
- Abba, Father (Matthew 6:9)
- Adonai, Sovereign (Genesis 15:2)
- Attiyq Youm, The Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9)
- Ehyeh, I Am (Exodus 3:14)
- El Chuwl, The God Who Gave You Birth (Isaiah 43:1-3)
- El Deah, The God of Knowledge (1 Samuel 2:3, Romans 11:33-36)
- El Elyon, The God Most High (Genesis 14:22, Psalm 78:35)
- El Emet, The God of Truth (Psalm 31:5)
- El Gibhor, The Strong and Mighty God (Jeremiah 32:17-18)
- El HaNe’eman, The Faithful God (Deuteronomy 7:9)
- El Mishpat, The God of Justice (Isaiah 30:18)
- El Olam, The Everlasting God (Psalm 90:1-2)
- El Rachum, The Merciful God (Deuteronomy 4:31)
- El R’oi, The God Who Sees Me (Genesis 16:13)
- El Selichot, The God of Forgiveness (Nehemiah 9:17)
- El Shaddai, God Almighty (Genesis 17:1-2)
- El Yeshuati, The God of My Salvation (Isaiah 12:2)
- Immanuel, God Is with Us (Isaiah 7:14)
- Ish Milchamah, Warrior/Man of War (Exodus 15:3)
- Messiah/Christos, The Anointed/Chosen One (1 John 4:2)
- YHWH-Jireh, The LORD Sees/Will Provide (Genesis 22:11-13)
- YHWH-M’Kaddesh, The LORD Who Sanctifies You/Makes Holy (Leviticus 20:8)
- YHWH-Nissi, The LORD is My Banner/Refuge (Exodus 17:15)
- YHWH-Raphah, The LORD Who Heals (Exodus 15:26)
- YHWH-Ro’hi, The LORD Is My Shepherd/Friend (Psalm 23)
- YHWH-Shalom, The LORD Is Peace (Judges 6:24)
- YHWH-Shammah, The LORD Who Is There (Ezekiel 48:35, Colossians 1:19)
- YHWH-Tsid’Ke-nu, The LORD Our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5-6)
- YHWH-Tzva’ot, The LORD of Hosts (1 Samuel 17:35)
- The Alpha and The Omega, The Beginning and The End (Revelation 1:8)
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
But we will remember and trust in the name of the LORD our God.”
Psalm 20:7 (AMP)
FREEBIES
These “Keep Calm and Trust God” phone lock screen wallpapers are a great way to remind ourselves to get quiet and lean into our Lord God when everything around us screams otherwise.
He is for us and will fight for us.
We have only to let go and trust Him.
