Exodus 15:11

There is no one like him

Good evening. Well, have you ever read through the Exodus story and been struck by this odd tendency of the people of Israel to complain and grumble? And you see the story and you see God's work and you see how much he has proven his faithfulness, his power, and also his care and love, and the relationship that he has established between himself and Israel, and wondered, why on earth are they complaining? Why don't they just sit back and let the Lord handle it? Well, I certainly was struck with that in preparing for tonight's devotional. And it's my goal this evening, for all of us, that we would walk away praising God because there is no one like Him. We're in a series. on God and the Pentateuch each Wednesday, some individual gets his turn to exposit one verse from the Pentateuch on God, and so that's what we are. The text is Exodus 1511, so take a moment and open your Bibles if you can. I bookmarked it and then I pulled the paper out. It reads,

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

This text comes in the context of a song that Israel is singing after God has destroyed the Egyptians in the Red Sea and delivered them safely to the other side. They have been freed from their bondage and servitude to Egypt. And so they sing a song of praise to God for his awesome deeds. And it seems, in my reading, it seems like a striking contrast to the grumbling that we have just heard one chapter earlier and will continue to hear even later in this chapter. Not us, because we're not reading it, but if you were to be reading the text, or the full story. As I said, the goal is for us to all walk away from here praising God because there is no one like him. And I wanna show two ways in which God is, in which there is no God like God. First is in regards to his judgment. And the second is in regards to his mercy. And we'll be drawing on the broader context of this, of this verse to demonstrate that. So in regards to his judgment, Israel, the text here, it says, who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? There's a little bit of a comparison here in that statement that the Egyptians, that Israel has just seen God perform 10 plagues against the Egyptians. And in each case, or in many of the cases, there's this statement, so that you may know that I am the Lord. also to the Egyptians so that Pharaoh or the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord, and even in one case, that there is no one like me on the earth. And... Sorry, give me a second. So in Israel's context, they have these plagues, from what I have understood is not my expertise, but they are each specifically against Egyptian gods. And whether that is the case or not, we get to see that whatever their gods are, they are nothing compared to Yahweh. Before the plagues start, they go to Pharaoh and Moses and Aaron go and they cast their staves on the ground and The Egyptian magicians who seemed to have some ability to do something similar cast their stabs on the ground. They all become snakes. But the one that belonged to Aaron swallowed up the others. And you see in that case, even there, that while there seems to be this similarity, and that is blinding Pharaoh's eyes, that Yahweh is the one who's stronger. And then as the plagues start to unfold, and Pharaoh continues to harden his heart, For only one of those plagues were the Egyptians really able to do anything similar. I think that was the second plague, one of the bugs, gnats or flies or something like that. Okay, I could be wrong. It could be the blood. Either way, the point being that then the rest of the nine plagues, the Egyptians can't do it. And God is the one who is shown forth as triumphant. And yet, as things are not yet quite relieving, the Israelites, they complain a couple of times. So... That brings the story up to the time when Israel has left Egypt and they are before the Red Sea. They grumble and say, why can't we just serve Egypt? Just let us alone. And then God brings Israel through the Red Sea, Egyptians following after, and the Red Sea comes down and destroys them, never to be seen again. God's judgment for the Israelites should be apparent and clear. Judgment of their enemies. If they are on God's side, they should be safe and not need to fear. Well, when the When they finally do sing and change their tone and say, praise God, who is like you, oh Lord, among the gods, which is what they should be saying, the reasons are clear from what they've been able to observe. And I, I might have lost my place, but, For us, as we sing this song as well, we have the same God. And he has demonstrated his care in adopting Israel as his son. And he has also chosen us as his children. And so, yeah, just I guess wanna think about the application of seeing that there is no God like God. In regards to judgment, and I think To get into that, first is to think about who the enemies are that we have according to scripture. First off, we do have the devil as an enemy. Ephesians is clear that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers in heavenly places. Leaving it there, it's still kind of vague. How does that apply to our own lives? But at the very least, if you were to be faced with a devil that was obvious and clear, you know the answer. God is in control and not the devil. And I think some subtle ways that that can come into our lives and in our contexts here in the US. One comes from my own life in which I was in college and got into a lot of charismatic theology and community. And there were a lot of things that people did that came out of a fear of the devil, even though they were claiming to believe in a God who is more powerful. And one small example was prayer walks. You can do prayer walks, there's nothing wrong with that. But there is, if you are doing it because you think that you have a responsibility to manipulate the devil, that your prayers are more powerful if you are in a certain spot. And so I think just understanding that there is no God like our God, who is the true king of the world, and all other so-called gods, devils, demons, or idols that we construct in our minds, have no power. So another enemy that we have is the world that persecutes the truth and persecutes us. And a comfort that we have is that our God is greater and he will bring justice forth. For the Egyptians, sorry, for the Israelites, he destroyed them utterly. It took time because that was God's patience, but he did it. And then thirdly is our own sin and our own flesh. Galatians speaks of the war between the spirit and the flesh and The Egyptians here were drowned in the bottom of the sea, and interestingly enough, they get recast by Micah as our own transgressions. So when we consider that God's judgment on our own sin, that he will conquer our own sin, it just adds so much beauty to the Song of the Sea here. So I will read a little bit here from Micah chapter seven. It says, sorry, finding the starting spot.

As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things. The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might. They shall lay their hands on their mouths. Their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth. They shall come trembling out of their strongholds. They shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall be in fear of you. Who is like you?

Or who is a god like you? Sound familiar?