The Sign Of Something Significant

Allow me to digress in order to progress. To occupy ourselves with song as we stroll along our way is not an unusual occurrence. For instance:

Upon leaving the love of his teenage years during the late 60s, many young men could be heard singing,

“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day; when its cold outside, I’ve got the month of May. Well, I guess you say, ‘What can make me feel this way?’ My girl. Talking ‘bout my girl. My girl!

And then while working in the yard, tending the flowerbed or raking leaves or mowing the lawn, and contemplating how far the Lord has bought us, some have been heard singing,

“I thank You Jesus; I thank You Jesus, I thank You Lord; for You brought me from a mighty long way.”

And then some of us, while walking alone in the shadows of a dark night, thinking about the dangers that might lurk in the darkness to engulf us, could be heard singing,

“Walk with me, Lord. Walk with me; walk with me, Lord; walk with me. All along this tedious journey, I want Jesus to walk with me.”

And many a preacher/pastor, when facing a hostile crowd of church members, have been heard singing from their seat to the pulpit,

“I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord. Stay Thou near by. I need Thee. Oh, I need Thee. Every hour, I need Thee. So bless me now, my Savior. I come to Thee.”

So to occupy ourselves with song as we stroll along our way is not an unusual occurrence.

But if you would look again at the first three words of verse 1 of chapter 15, you will find an uncharacteristic phrase: “Then SANG MOSES ….” If the commencement of that verse had read, “Then Spoke Moses,” or “Then Prophesied Moses,” or “Then Prayed Moses,” perhaps we would have read it and paid no attention to it. For characteristically, Moses would Speak as the mouthpiece of God and as the representative of the people. Characteristically, Moses would Pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on behalf of the nation. So if that verse would have read “Then Said or Prayed Moses,” it probably would not have grabbed our attention.

But it does not say, Then Said Moses, but THEN SANG MOSES!!! And that, my friends, is an unusual occurrence! Nowhere else in Scripture do we find this phrase or any hint that Moses ever Sang again. Only here is recorded the startling words of THEN SANG MOSES! We need to really look at this! For, I submit to us that, the Singing of Moses Signals the Sign of Something Significant!!!

Let me just take a few moments to explain why I chose to use the term Sign instead of miracle or wonder. All three of these are actually synonyms one for the other. Beyond that, they have a different nuance in terms of emphasis. All three can be describing the same event and yet God is teaching us three different truths.

As an example, one of the writers describes the man on the side of the road who was born blind; and it may be described as a miracle in one passage or referred to in another as a sign and still another may refer to it as a wonder. And the reason is because the word “miracle” has to do with the objective reality of the supernatural, supermundane, and super-terrestrial activity of God invading the natural order of things and bringing out His desire and design in them. Irrespective of what others think about it, it’s just God acting through His own sovereignty.

In other words, when we look around and see it, it is already a miracle. But when I observed that same event from a subjective conclusion, then it is no longer a miracle; it is then a “wonder.” Which simply means this: When I look at the miracle that God has performed, I wonder how it was done. That’s why it is a wonder; because that’s speaking out of my own subjective experience or the eye of the beholder of the miracle in the Bible. So when one describes what God has done, he describes it as a wonder; but when it was what God had done, it was described as a miracle.

And so the reason I am using the word “sign” is because with every miracle, the first thing that God wants us to recognize is the fact that we are not to focus on the miracle anymore than we focus on a sign.

As an example, I leave Lubbock and the sign on the side of Highway 119 says Levelland is 19 miles, I don’t hop on the sign and think I’ve arrived. When you get hungry this evening and you see a sign that says Furr’s Cafeteria or Burger King’s, you don’t hop on the sign. The reason is because the sign is pointing to something inside or something farther on down the road.