‘Day 268

2 And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who were victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. Revelation 15:2. (NASB)

Just as Moses and the children of Israel were delivered from the Egyptian army only by God’s intervention, those standing on the sea of glass can sing the song of redemption because their deliverance and protection comes only by the hand of God. Throughout the ages, a detailed account has been kept of man’s rebellion against God. Now, as the plagues are poured out, He is just and true in all His judgments.

In Revelation 4 the sea of glass is clear as crystal, here in Rev15 it is “mingled with fire.” The reference to fire may suggest the bloody red colour of the Red Sea after the armies of Pharaoh have been destroyed. In Exod.14:30-31, it says, “That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his Servant.”

For 430 years the Israelites lived in a foreign culture, subject to oppression that succeeded in altering their view of God. As a world power, Egypt was unsurpassed, and the Israelites were tempted to think that their God was as weak as they were. The awesomeness of Egyptian polytheism had confused their minds. They needed the plagues to set them free spiritually as much as physically. All the plagues were attacks on Egyptian deities.
To see the Egyptians dead on the seashore meant not only that their oppressors were dead, but that everything that Egypt stood for-wealth, splendour, intellectualism, military superiority, and religious influence-was now washed up on the sands of the Red Sea. For so long Israel had been impressed with a mirage. But now they could clearly see that what the Egyptians stood for was inferior to the God who cared about Israel.

Since the fall of Creation, God has been seeking to show us His hand in the world. All along God has permitted evil to co-exist with the good so that we might appreciate the significance of the good. God has promised that, if we obediently follow Him to the land of Promise, He will put behind us all that has sought to deceive and destroy us. He will one day destroy sin, death, and the grave (Rev.20:6-15), and we will “see” our “spiritual Egyptians” dead on the seashore.