- The Lord will Reign
Exodus 15:18 The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.
After the Exodus, Moses and the people sang the “Song of Moses.” They celebrated the victory over the enemy with song and dance: “the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation…the Lord is a man of war.”
The Song seems to celebrate the miraculous defeat of the enemy even more than their own miraculous escape. Salvation and Judgment go together. When sin and evil is judged salvation comes. The judgment on Sin is the Salvation of the soul. This happened at the cross and the tomb. It is right and proper to sing and dance a celebration song in response to what Jesus has done for us.
A promise for us for all time is embedded in this celebratory song: The Lord shall reign forever and ever. This is good news for us every day, because we live with bad news and the fear of bad news always. The Lord is saying to us, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” Hallelujah, our God reigns. Jesus is in charge. Our Savior is in control. What have we to fear? Jesus announced the kingdom of God. This is the reign of God breaking into our history and our lives with grace, mercy and peace. He is a good God for us, and He is a kind God with a good will toward us. He has come; He has conquered; He rules all things for our good. Repent and believe the gospel.
The kingdom comes: we enter the kingdom of God. Actually, the kingdom of God comes into us. This is my Lord’s Prayer: I will let God rule and reign and have His will and His way with me, for I know that it is gracious and good. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done. The great news of this proclamation is that God’s reign is forever and always. He rules with the end in mind. What happens now makes a difference in eternity. We look at the things that are not seen. We don’t always see the goodness of God in His ruling decisions, but we trust Him to do the good and right thing. And we are content. He is working an eternal weight of glory out of our temporary light afflictions.
This is quite a remarkable thing for Moses and the people to sing and say. It is a proclamation of faith in the unseen goodness of God for the eternal future. They have seen God’s salvation; they praise Him for it; they submit to Him as Ruler; and they trust Him to be eternally good. We also have the same promise: The Lord reigns forever.