Faithful Shepherd, you have led me through some very difficult times and brought me safely through. Now as I seek to live for you, please grace me with Your presence. I pray that you guide my every move and action. Lord, I confess some days are more difficult and fire in my faith becomes dull. Renew me, O Lord, just as you did with reluctant Moses and untested Joshua. Then, Mighty Lord, please use me to help others find your promise and their way home to you. In Jesus' name I pray. AMEN.
As a minister, I am privileged to be present at many of the most important events in people's lives. Good or bad, to be there at the crossroads of life is a sacred trust. In those moments that are hardest, dying and death, verses like this one fill my heart with strength and remind me why I answered a call to serve in waters way above my head. God's promise here is a great reminder that what he began when he redeemed his people out of Egypt, he would also complete by bringing them into the Promised Land. Now, we can hear a more powerful promise behind these words. We can find it even more reasonable to trust them. God did what he said for Israel. Since he did for them, can't we say with confidence, "I know you will guide us to your holy dwelling?"
McLaren's Exposition
What a grand triumphal ode! The picture of Moses and the children of Israel singing, and Miriam and the women answering: a gush of national pride and of worship! We belong to a better time, but still we can feel its grandeur. The deliverance has made the singer look forward to the end, and his confidence in the issue is confirmed.
I. The guiding God: or the picture of the leading.
The original is ‘lead gently.’ Cf. Isaiah 40:11, Psalm 23:2. The emblem of a flock underlies the word. There is not only guidance, but gentle guidance. The guidance was gentle, though accompanied with so tremendous and heart-curdling a judgment. The drowned Egyptians were strange examples of gentle leading. But God’s redemptive acts are like the guiding pillar of fire, in that they have a side that reveals wrath and evokes terror, and a side that radiates lambent love and kindles happy trust.
‘In Thy strength.’ Cf. Isaiah 40:10, ‘with strong hand.’ ‘He shall gently lead.’ Note the combination with gentleness. That divine strength is the only power which is able to guide. We are so weak that it takes all His might to hold us up. It is His strength, not ours. ‘My strength is made perfect in {thy} weakness.’
‘To the resting-place of Thy holiness.’ The word is used for pasture, or resting-places for cattle. Here it meant Canaan; for us it means Heaven-’the green pastures’ of real participation in His holiness.
II. The triumphant confidence as to the future.
Based upon the deliverance of the past, it is as good as done. The believing use of God’s great past, and initial mercy, to make us sure of His future.
{a} In that He will certainly accomplish it.
{b} In that even now there is a foretaste-rest in toil. He guides to the ‘waters of resting.’ A rest now {Hebrews 4:3}; a rest ‘that remaineth’ {Hebrews 4:3, Hebrews 4:9}.
III. The warning against confidence in self.
These people who sang thus perished in the wilderness! They let go hold of God’s hand, so they ‘sank like lead.’ So He will fulfill begun work {Php 1:6}. Let us cleave to Him. In Hebrews 3:1 - Hebrews 3:19 and Hebrews 4:1 - Hebrews 4:16 lessons are drawn from the Israelites not ‘entering in.’ See also Psalm 95:1 - Psalm 95:11.
GOD BLESS YOU.