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Storm Season - The Storm of Deliverance

  • Writer: Paul Downie
    Paul Downie
  • 2 minutes ago
  • 18 min read

Exodus 14:13-14 NIV 

[13] Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. [14] The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” 

Bhoomi Chauhan was frustrated. Her driver had driven her 125 miles to Ahmedabad for her flight to London. However, her car got snarled up in the Ahmedabad traffic. She arrived ten minutes late. Despite being there an hour before the flight was due to leave, the airline staff refused to let her board. She was on the phone to her travel agent to arrange a refund when she got another call.  


Her flight, Air India 171, had crashed, killing all but a single passenger. 


Her frustrating experience had saved her life. 


There are times when we feel hemmed in and stressed, pressed against a wall with no way out. Those are distressing times. Anyone who has experienced them – and I have – knows that all too well. 


But sometimes, those are also the very moments when miracles occur. 


The event we are studying is one of the most dramatic in all of Scripture. It’s also one of my favourites. Although the Bible does not explicitly call this a ‘storm’, it has all the attributes of one.


I'm sure many of us have been in similar situations where it looked like there were no good or easy choices to get out of a situation and the pressure was immense.  


What we see here is the solution. 


Let’s look firstly at The Storm of Confusion. 

 

The Storm of Confusion 

Exodus 14:1-4 NIV 

[1] Then the Lord said to Moses, [2] “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. [3] Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ [4] And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So the Israelites did this. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.14.1-4.NIV)


When my daughter was small, an entire division of my company at the time was bought over by a Chinese competitor. This was my first brush with the machinations of the corporate world. Half of my team were told they would be working with the Chinese company; half remained with their original company. Among those who changed company were fierce corporate loyalists for whom their employer could do no wrong. They were convinced this was a great opportunity. 


A few months later, the news broke. They might have been loyal to their company, but their company showed zero loyalty to them. They had been told to either move to a lower income country or lose their job. 


That stung hard. Even though I was not affected, the reality of how the company was treating people in order to gain profit deeply affected me. I got out. I found another job. 


Since then, I have faced redundancy and seen it happen to others on numerous occasions.  

Job issues are not the only ones that can suddenly toss confusion in our lives without warning. Health issues – either our own or those of loved ones – are a massive cause of confusion. As are political upheaval or natural disasters or shortages of food or war. 


For much of our lives we might be under the illusion that we are under control and that we are the masters of our own fate. Times of confusion remind us of the cold reality that we absolutely are not. That is what makes them so utterly jarring and terrifying. 


What was happening with the Israelites is of particular interest and relevance to that situation. They were being led by a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud – a kind of divine satnav.


Yet to many of the Israelites, it must have seemed like it was on the blink.  


Here they were, a large number of people (some say as many as a million), escaping from slavery and one of the greatest superpowers the world has ever known, yet instead of heading straight for freedom, they were wandering aimlessly in a trackless desert. 


What on earth was going on? 


It is from this apparent sense of confusion and disorientation that we learn some key lessons about what is really happening behind the scenes.  


The first thing we should see here is that the Lord commanded the confusion. 


Now, this might sound like a very strange thing to say. We know that God is a God of order, not chaos (1 Corinthians 14:33 and 40). It seems contrary to His very nature to say that He would be behind a time of confusion and disorientation. 


But yet it is true. It was He who commanded Moses to turn the Israelites round and make it seem like they were lost. It was He who led them round the desert in circles. It was He who caused this confusion. 


But why? 


Because when order is wrong, it needs disorder to correct it. When our peace and tranquillity is based on wrong doing or wrong thinking, then God needs to disrupt it. Look at what Jesus said: 


Matthew 10:34-36 NIV 

[34]  “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. [35] For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— [36]  a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 

It was Jesus who accepted tax collectors and sinners  (Matthew 9:11-13), and even a woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11). It was Jesus who confronted the religious authorities for their hypocrisy (Matthew 23). It was Jesus who turned over the tables of the temple traders (Matthew 21:12-13). 


Let's be clear: Jesus was not an anarchist. However, His coming disrupted the social order and structures of His day. The church continued this disruption, upending societal thinking and norms around the acceptance (or not) of different groups of people (Acts 15). 


We need to understand this clearly: God is a God of order, but when our order is the wrong order, then He will bring disorder. When we have the world upside down, He will upend it.


And it will feel like chaos. It will feel like confusion. But it will not be chaotic, because He will be behind it. 


As the Israelites continued their journey through the desert, it looked like they were confused. They were walking in circles. Who does that in the desert? Yet God was behind it. He had a clear plan. That plan was being worked out. 


Could it be the same in our chaos and confusion? 


As well as the storm of confusion, we also see The Storm of Guidance. 

 

The Storm of Guidance 

Exodus 13:21-22 NIV 

[21] By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. [22] Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. 

It’s never nice when things go wrong in our lives. It’s always stressful. It always hurts. That is the reality. Having our plans frustrated and our dreams broken is always difficult to bear. 


But have any of us thought to realise that God could be using our broken dreams to guide us? 


The last time I was looking for a job was particularly painful. I knew I was no spring chicken. I knew it would be hard. But I did not anticipate having to work like crazy to get just ten interviews in the space of three months, and to fail at nine of them. When you are a man and you have the pressure to provide, there are few things worse than the humiliation of trying your best and not getting a job. 


It hurt. It hurt badly. My confidence took a battering. 


But God was using that trial to rid me of negative attitudes that had come to the fore during my previous jobs. The storm was His work of grace on His undeserving son. When I repented, I went for my tenth interview. I left thinking I had failed yet again. But a phone call a few hours later told me I had got the job. 


Have you ever looked at a storm through a window? Recently we were on a beautiful cruise ship in a wonderful part of the world, in a top notch restaurant with a plate of food in front of me. I felt like I was in my happy place. But then we saw a flash through the window. Then another. Then another. Then we heard the thunder rumble. A storm was near. We were in the Caribbean during hurricane season. 


I was not in my happy place anymore. 


Looking at a storm through a window is one thing. Waking up in a tent and staring every day at a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire is absolutely another. Could you imagine? 


Fire and cloud represented two elements that ancient people could not control: 


Proverbs 30:15-16 NIV 

[15] “The leech has two daughters. ‘Give! Give!’ they cry. “There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: [16] the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’ 

Ancient Israelites were also afraid of the Mediterranean Sea due to the storms that sometimes rose up on it. 


So why would God use two things of which they were obviously afraid to guide them through the desert? 


It doesn’t take much of a reading of Exodus history to realise how unruly and rebellious the ancient Israelites could be. We can understand why God would need something so fearful to keep them in line.  


But I believe there is another side to this. The ancient Celtic Christians pictured the Holy Spirit as being like a wild goose: untamed, unfathomable, who moved wherever He wished without restrictions. God here was taking up the picture of two wild elements, and later on a storm, as a witness to His nature: not controlled by His worshippers, not restricted by their thoughts or imaginations (Isaiah 55:8). The Shakespeare quote that ‘There are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in your philosophy’ are absolutely true when it comes to God.  


Those two pillars that guided the Israelites speak of His Power, His Glory and His Holiness – His being outside of our control and our full comprehension. 


The Israelites were being led through their tough desert life by something that ought to have blown their mind. 


Storms are a sign of God’s power and majesty. Often the storms that leave us confused and befuddled are the same: they remind us of who is in charge of our lives and that it really is not us. 


Like the stars once guided the ancient mariners, life storms also guided the early believers. 

 

For example: 


Complaints fixed a racial issue when attentive compassion was missing (Acts 6:1-7). 


Persecution moved the church out of Jerusalem when obedience to Jesus was missing (Acts 8:4 – see Acts 1:8-9).  


Even with Paul. Blindness cured a lifetime of rebelling against God’s work in his life (Acts 9:3-6, 26:14).  


And again, later on in his ministry, a debilitating condition was the cure for self-reliant pride (2 Corinthians 12:6-10). 


We would like to relegate the God who does such things to the pages of the Old Testament. However, the same God is in both Old and New and is still active today. I can tell you for sure – because I have experienced it (and sometimes even ignored it) - that this is how God still operates. 


The question is: are we willing to humbly accept the storm of guidance? Or are we too hung up on the fact that God of grace is using a storm to get our attention? 


Maybe His use of the storm says more about our nature than it does His. 


Apart from the storm of confusion and guidance, we also see The Storm of Protection. 

 

The Storm of Protection 

Exodus 13:22 NIV 

[22] Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.13.22.NIV)


Exodus 14:19-20 NIV 

[19] Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, [20] coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long. 

How often have smaller scale tragedies prevented something bigger from happening? 


For example, a number of weeks ago, a much beloved member of our fellowship was gardening on church grounds when she had a bad fall and fractured her spine. By sheer Divine coincidence, her fall was witnessed by two nurses, a married couple, who were in the church for a different reason. They treated her injury and saved her from becoming disabled, or even losing her life. 


As a result of her injury – from which she is well on the road to recovering - the church instigated a review of its health and safety procedures and set things in place to prevent further injuries to anyone else. 


The situation was bad. No doubt about that. But who can say how many lives could potentially be saved as a result? 


Here we see something dramatic. For most of Israel’s journey through the desert, God led the way in the form of His fearful pillars of fire and cloud. It would have been an awesome sight as these two utterly uncontrollable elements of nature led a nation of a million people. 


Yes, their path through the desert may have been confusing. But here they were, on the shores of the Red Sea. 


And then they did something strange and thoroughly out of character: they went behind the Israelites, back towards the desert. 


That would also have been confusing and disorienting. 


But there was a ‘method in the madness’. 


Against them, and approaching at speed, was the greatest and most fearsome superpower of the day: the Egyptians. They were the nation that had enslaved the Israelites. Now they were coming to take them back by force. 


So let’s imagine the scene here. On one side, you have the fully trained, professional army of a great military power. On the other side, you have a ragtag mob of unarmed escaped slaves. 


Who do you think would win that battle? 


Premier League verses Pub League doesn’t even begin to explain the difference in power and ability. 


No-one would give the Israelites a chance. 


No-one, that is, except God. 


Do you see what was happening here? The fearful, uncontrollable element of the cloud was protecting the Israelites from attack! 


How many times have we endured a storm that was protecting us from a bigger one? 


Many years ago, a friend of mine visited his doctor because he had nagging chest pains. He was sure he had an infection and was hoping to receive antibiotics. His doctor took one looked at him, stabbed a finger towards him and said, ‘You! Get to hospital now!’ 


My friend was very taken aback. He at there, his mouth gaping open in shock. 


The doctor dialled for an ambulance that whisked him to hospital. They gave him anaesthesia. He awoke many hours later after a quadruple heart bypass. His doctor had noticed the early signs of a heart attack and saved his life. 


Time and time again we feel unwell and find it's a warning sign of something much worse that could be coming: a small storm is the sign of something bigger that could be prevented – a bit like feeling a little unwell after an inoculation. 


But we don’t like that little storm, do we? We don’t like the pillar of cloud moving behind of us instead of in front. It’s just not normal. It’s not right. 


Jeremiah experienced it. Men from his priestly home town of Anathoth were out to kill him because of the message God had given him (Jeremiah 11:18-23). Jeremiah complained to God about it (Jeremiah 12:1-4). 


Yet this is God’s response: 


Jeremiah 12:5 NIV 

[5] “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan? 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jer.12.5.NIV)


It’s as if God was saying ‘Okay, it’s bad now, but it’s going to get worse for you, Jeremiah, so you need to man up and face this!’ Jeremiah's little storm was to prepare him for the bigger one. It was to make him ready so he would be safer from the worse effects of what was to come. 


Sometimes when God sends storms into our lives, it’s not because we did something to deserve it, but because we need it to protect us from something else. It’s because God is staging an intervention to save our lives. Instead of cursing the storm, we ought to heed it: to listen to what God is saying and obey. 


Apart from the storms of the storms of confusion, guidance and protection, we see The Storm of Deliverance 

 

The Storm of Deliverance 

Exodus 14:21-22 NIV 

[21] Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, [22] and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 

While I am writing this study, a very powerful super-typhoon has blasted its way across lightly populated islands off the coast of Northern Luzon, Philippines and the southern coasts of Taiwan and is now barrelling it’s way towards Hong Kong and mainland China. Hundreds of thousands of people are being evacuated. Power lines have come down.


Thankfully only a handful of people have died. When a storm like this packs winds of a hundred and forty-five miles per hour, you absolutely have to be grateful for such a small death toll. 


But I doubt for one second that anyone affected by this mighty storm would see its wind as a source of salvation. Categorically not, I would say. 


Yet a strong east wind did exactly that for the Israelites. A key, and dangerous, element of a storm played an important role in their rescue from Egyptian slavery. God used it to pile up the sea on either side of a pathway and dry up the sea floor so that this happened: 


Exodus 14:29 NIV 

[29] But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.  

But what happened when the Egyptians tried to go after then, down the self same pathway the Israelites had used through the deep? 


Exodus 14:23-28 NIV 

[23] The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. [24] During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. [25] He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.” [26] Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” [27] Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. [28] The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. 

The Israelites walked through the sea after the wind had blown it dry. The Egyptians tried the same thing. The Lord fought for the Israelites and drowned the Egyptians. 


The Israelites were saved, but not by their own hand. Instead, it was very clear that God had intervened. 


Exodus 14:31 NIV 

[31] And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.14.31.NIV)


There are a great many times that the storms that save us drown others. For example, rises in interest rates are good for those with savings, but bad for those with debts.  


Paul noted this about the storms of life – and he has been through a fair few: 


Romans 8:28 NIV 

[28] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.8.28.NIV)


So the self same storms that can leave others floundering and drowning can be the making of us. 


Another example. When the Covid Pandemic struck, it was mentioned more than once that it would scar our nation's mental health; that we would never be the same. But that would depend on how we reacted to it. Some people saw their faith in God challenged, or even destroyed. Others, like me, sought God all the more and had their faith in Him renewed. 


Storms can bring destruction. I have personally witnessed the destruction they can bring. There are fewer sights more devastating in the world. 


But they can also bring deliverance. They can help deliver us from slavery from things that do not matter and guide us to things that really do. They can free us from the wrong thoughts and attitudes and actions that captivate us. 


Often we see a storm and are terrified. But have we ever thought for a second that God led the Israelites using a cloud and delivered them through a wind? 


The storms do His bidding (Psalm 148:8). Have we fully taken this in? 


If the storms of nature do His bidding, how much more the storms of life? 


Do we really see what they can do? 

 

Conclusion 

Exodus 14:13-14 NIV 

[13] Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. [14] The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” 

How we see things really matters. In the right doses, even some deadly poisons can be effective cures. For example, belladonna in the right dosage can be an effective pain killer or muscle relaxant. Botulinum is extremely deadly, but in controlled doses can help with diabetes. 


Something that kills can also cure. 


The storm the Israelites faced here was one of the biggest in their history. They had the Red Sea in front of them, the Egyptians at their back and the desert either side. There was no way forward, no way out and no way back. 


They were trapped. 


And leading them into that trap were two uncontrollable elements of cloud and fire: two manifestations of God’s power and glory.  


God had led them into the storm. God was with them in the storm.  


But God also fought for the in the storm and led them through the storm. 


And all the time, while their knees were knocking and their mouths were complaining, God was in complete control of the storm. He did not take His hands off the wheel, not even for the blink of an eye. 


That tells us more about what happens during our life storms than anything else. 


But this whole terrifying event turns when Moses makes his speech to the people. I want you to notice precIsely what he said. 


What he said seems to be based on a Hebrew poetic form called antithetical parallelism, where a positive and a negative are contrasted to convey a message. He provides three of these antithetical parallel pairs: 

  • ‘Don’t be afraid, stand firm’ 

  • ‘The Egyptians you see..., you will not see again’ 

  • ‘The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still’ 


And by ‘be still’, Moses actually meant ‘be silent’. And not without due cause, if you see the preceding verses (Exodus 14:10-12). 


Maybe this is a message you need to hear today. 


When we find ourselves trapped, cornered and facing an uncontrollable storm, one of our first instincts is to open our mouths and complain. But here’s the thing: complaints never fixed anything. In fact, the negative thought process required to create them likely makes things worse. In my experience, we voice our complaints, we listen to our own complaints, then we make them worse and voice then again. The whole process continues until we spiral into resigned despair and distress. 


Is that not what we see happening to the Israelites here? 


Yet they failed to see that God had commanded the storm, He had led them into the storm, He was controlling the storm, He was with them in the storm and He would guide them through the storm. 


This very storm, like the blind man who needed healing by Jesus, had been engineered so that the Israelites might see just how powerful God is (John 9:1-3). 


But they didn’t see it. They were more concerned about the storm itself. 


Yet in Moses' words we see a very previous promise that was fulfilled only moments later: the Egyptians who had enslaved them and at that point were harassing them would be seen no more.  


Now, I have no doubt that to the Israelites that statement would have seemed like utter nonsense. The superpower army that was pursuing them, hemmed in as they were between the desert and the sea, would be seen no more?  


How, exactly? 


And then God intervened. And then He delivered them, both in the storm, through the storm and with the storm. 


God gave a similar promise to the persecuted first century church, and through them to us: 


Revelation 21:4 NIV 

[4] ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rev.21.4.NIV)


Right now you might feel cornered by the storms in your life. Right now you might not see any way out. Right now you might feel totally overwhelmed. 


But I want to give you this promise: the suffering you bear now you will one day never see again. Ever. It will be as far from you as the east is from the west.  


Now, you might not be able to see how. But the God who commands the storms of confusion, guidance, protection and deliverance is able to find a way that you might never have thought of to get you right out of there. 


All you have to do is trust in Him and His goodness. He will rescue His beloved from the storms of life. You will see. 


Prayer 

Lord Jesus, my storms have left me feeling cornered and utterly overwhelmed. I have no way forward. I gave no-one else. I cling to Your promise that the storms I see today I will only day never see again. Guide me through them to Your Promised Land, I pray. Amen. 


Questions for Contemplation 

  • What are the storms you face in life? Do you see any way out? 

  • How does God use elements of a storm to help the Israelites? What can we learn from this? 

  • How does His promise that you will one day never see your storm again help you? 

 

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