The Red Sea Story Tells The Story Of The Cross Psalm 106 (day 21)

For this lent season, I am doing a forty-day study in the Psalms looking for aspects of the atonement that will end around Easter. My hope is to generate a newfound awe of what Christ did on the cross.

Psalm 106:8-12

[8] Yet he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power. [9] He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and he led them through the deep as through a desert. [10] So he saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy. [11] And the waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. [12] Then they believed his words; they sang his praise.

I believe that the story of the Red Sea is the same story of the cross.  When God led Israel out of Egypt He led them right to the Red Sea; they couldn't go around it and they definitely can go through it. Pharaoh was right on their heels ready to destroy them. So Israel had to depend on God to save them from the enemy. God opened the Red Sea and they passed on dry ground as he destroyed the enemy by collapsing the water around them. The very thing that saved Israel is the very same thing that destroyed the enemy. That is exactly what the cross did for us; the very thing that saved us is the very same thing that destroyed Satan, our enemy. Because of what Jesus did on the cross we’re no longer victims to Satan but they are still at work “trying” to get us to believe that they (Satan and demons) are powerful.

I would like to give a small glimpse of how the enemy works.  There are three main devices Satan uses:

1. Temptation
2. Accusation
3. Deception

These devices are not sin on our part, it is sin on Satan’s part; however, they can become sin on our part if we give into these devices.  Humans have always been attracted to the absolute self-sufficiency of God, desiring to be autonomous themselves. Satan uses that very desire to entice man away from God. As we see in Genesis 3:1-7, the first words to man from Satan are “Did God actually say to you, you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” This says three things: it accuses God of withholding the truth; it tempts the man and woman by appealing to their desires to be entirely self-sufficient; it uses deceit to promise gain to man in their desires of autonomy.

In Genesis 3:6 it says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Satan did nothing to Eve as he spoke with her. He merely used Eve’s own desires, “good for food,” “delight to the eyes,” and “to make one wise” to seduce her through his temptation, deceit, and accusation. In the same way, Satan uses these three devices against us. We are not victims under the attack of Satan but rather participants as our own evil desires entice us to sin (James 1:14).

We have to remember that we carry the same victory Jesus did on the cross. So we are no longer victims of sin either. Take a moment today and thank our Lord Jesus that he destroyed the enemy and our sin in one event…The Cross!