“The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent”

By Hayley Boud

Exodus 14:14

(v13) “Do not fear”
Fear destroys faith. When we pray, we must have faith. Without faith our prayers will not be successful so we need to make sure that anything that destroys faith is put aside. Today we have to make sure to put aside fear in order to pray. Sometimes when we pray we might be afraid to pray in a certain way because we fear what others will think of us. I remember the first time I shouted at a prayer meeting and I was afraid people will think I’m crazy or think I’m seeking glory and some people did. Some people told me not to shout because the bible says to pray in your secret room. And they were right but when God tells you to do something, you have to put aside fear and do it.

We have to be careful because fear is not a gift from God; fear is not something God gave His church. Fear destroys faith because it leads us to do our own will instead of God’s.

When difficult times are in front of us (in the same way the red sea was in front of the Israelites and Pharaoh’s men behind them) we start to fear. We might even complain as the Israelites did (vs 11). “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the wilderness....is this not the word we spoke to you in Egypt saying, ‘leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians....better to die there than here in the wilderness’”.

We are sometimes like that. When we cross really hard situations, we tell God things were better before and we complain and accuse people (as the Israelites accused Moses) and God. We blame others and we find it really hard. For example, when the doctor didn’t sign the form to say I could get the special consideration for missing my exam due to sickness, I was so angry against the doctor. I was so annoyed at people who had advised me not to sit the exam. And I was afraid I wouldn’t get my degree because I failed the exam. But I had to put this aside and trust God as Moses did.

So, if any of us are crossing hard situations now, we need to put them aside and trust in God. Let’s not complain or blame others.

(v15) “Why do you cry to me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward”. God expects us to do something. We have to make the first step because we already have the authority and the power living in us. It’s not always easy to make that first step and it’s not always easy to keep faith. For example, once it started to rain and I needed to go out but I didn’t want to get wet. Odon said to me, “if you have faith, just walk out into the rain and it will stop”. In my heart, I know God is capable of stopping the rain, but I definitely didn’t have enough faith to believe it would stop when I walked into it. And we also have to remember that God won’t stop the rain until we move into it. He waits for the last second before intervening, to test our faith (Hebrews 11).

“LORD” the Lord Chancellor is the most senior judge in England and Wales and is in charge of the court system. Jesus Christ is the most senior judge of all which is why He is called the Lord of Lords. So when we pray, we can remember this. We can remember that He is in charge of everything and if the highest judge, who controls everything is fighting for us, we can’t lose the fight.

“FIGHT”

1. Use weapons
- what weapon does God use? What weapons should we use?
(full armour of God)

2. Disagree/argue
- who can win an argument against God. So if we disagree with a person or with a situation, best not to argue with them/it but just pray because no one can win an argument against God.

3. Try hard to prevent something
- God is the only one who can prevent situations from happening. He is the only one who can prevent sickness, death, sin, accidents.

4. Try hard to achieve something
- God is the only one we can turn to when we need something fulfilled.
Exams, good marriage, using our gifts, praying and fasting

5. Try not to show or do something
- temptations, anger, hatred, bitterness, greed, selfishness, jealousy, eating too much,
6. Compete to win or get something
- God is competing with satan. Today we are competing with satan. But we are already winners.

“SILENT”

We don’t have to make lots of noise, we don’t have to complain and we don’t have to go around telling everybody. We don’t have to create problems with people. We just have to let God fight for us.