Here we have the world's first praise song. Moses and the people spontaneously praise the
Lord for what they have just seen and experienced. The song recounts the events at the Red Sea,
extolling the Lord for who He is and what He has done but it is more than
that. It also looks forward, extending
this work into the future and to all those who stand between the nation and the
possession of the Land, the people of Philistia, Edom, Moab and all the
inhabitants of Canaan, all those "ites" who they were to drive from
the Land the Lord was giving them. They
are a nation united in their praise and their faith for the future. They see clearly that this is going to be a
walk in the park from here to possessing the Land. All the nation is filled with faith and hope,
a glorious moment in her history.
"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is
who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love
him and manifest myself to him.” Do you
see that connection between having the commandments and keeping them as proof
that you love Jesus? Faith and belief
reveal themselves to God by actions and if faith is revealed by obedience,
Jesus will manifest or reveal Himself to that person. Jesus leaves the disciples with a great gift,
His peace. Not the world's peace, dependent on circumstances of peace, but a
peace that passes anything that the world can do to us. We have that peace through the Holy Spirit,
the Helper abiding in the believer. The
Israelites faith was shakeable because it was dependent on miracles, they
needed faith like Job that believed that even though things didn't go his way,
there was a redeemer who would plead his case ultimately and God would acquit
him. Sometimes faith waits until the
seas are parted to step out, sometimes the step of faith precedes the sign.
Peter calls his readers to holiness of life, not just
holiness or right belief. He quotes, “You
shall be holy, for I am holy.” Jesus
also said, in the Sermon on the Mount, that we are to be perfect as our Father
in heaven is perfect. It is proper to
say that Jesus believed, had faith, and that faith led Him to go to the cross
and die, to suffer the agony of the flesh and the spirit, the indignities that
were heaped on Him, knowing that the end would be resurrection. We know He believed that because He told them
in advance about both His death and resurrection. We know equally well that Peter and the rest
didn't believe that He was right. They
didn't rush to the tomb on Easter Sunday expecting it to be empty and Him
raised. Peter knows because He did see
the resurrected Jesus and he expects that we, because of the outpouring of the
Spirit, can have exactly the same faith as they who saw Him. We can have the faith that endures and
perseveres to the end, no matter what the future holds, He is our peace.
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