Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Exodus

Exodus 5:1-7:7 11/30/03

Introduction:
Ill:   If John James Audubon had succeeded as a merchant in Louisville, Kentucky, we probably would not have his marvelous paintings of birds nor an Audubon Society for the protection of birds. When he failed in the grocery business in 1819, he began his career as a naturalist and painter of birds.
Robert C. Shannon, 1000 Windows, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1997).

Explanation: Many of life’s disappointments result from giving up. We hit a roadblock and instead of looking for another way around, we decide we can go no further. Roadblocks, whether perceived or real can stop you in your tracks bringing great disappointment. It happened to Moses.

Think about it. Moses had met up with Aaron, been encouraged by him that God was going before them to prepare the way.
When they got to Egypt and they spoke to the Israelites about what God had said, they were well received, believed and even worshipped God. But then come the roadblocks.

Ill: ‘Out of every disappointment there is treasure. Satan whispers, "All is lost." God says, "Much can be gained."’ Frances J. Roberts

Will Moses listen to Satan’s ‘All is lost’? Or to God’s ‘Much can be gained.’? How Moses handles his disappointment is a lesson we all need to learn.

Read: Exodus 5:1-5

Confidently, and with great authority, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and tell him that the God of the Hebrews says ‘Let my people go.’ What a great moment of faith and spiritual triumph of good over evil. Or so Moses and Aaron expected. But, they were  disappointed.

Pharaoh’s response? ‘Nahhh. I don’t think so. Who is the Lord? I don’t know him. So, No!’ ‘Ahhh. But.’ Moses was stunned and perhaps getting a bit scared. So after demanding the release of God’s people, he sheepishly requests Pharaoh to let them go.
 
Although the NIV doesn’t use the word, in verse 3 Moses says ‘please’. That may have been polite but it was cowardly. Moses was afraid of Pharaoh. Pharaoh again says no and then tells them that they have wasted enough of his and their time. Moses and Aaron leave, greatly surprised and even more disappointed at the roadblock placed before them.

Application: ‘Let my people go’. Can’t you just picture Charleston Heston, I mean Moses, saying that? This is the most famous line in the whole book of Exodus. But, I think there is one even more important and Yul Brenner, I mean Pharaoh says it. ‘Who is the Lord? I don’t know him’

In a very real way, Pharaoh and many today are quite alike. People are responding to the Gospel with a resounding ‘Who is the Lord? I don’t know him.’ We live in a post Christian culture and there are an increasing number of people who don’t know the Lord. And like Pharaoh, many are being honest about it. But Christians are disappointed and surprised that anyone would ever question the reality of God’s existence.
 
Instead of disappointment, we need to display patience and godliness. Knowing that the message of the Gospel belongs to the Lord and He will set things right, in His time, and in His way.

Trans: Moses’ day is not starting off well. And it is about to get worse.

Read: Exodus 5:6-21

Pharaoh, pretty upset that his slaves had the audacity to ask for a vacation, decides to kick it up a notch. He now makes the Hebrews do all the prep work for making the bricks and he doesn’t lower the daily quota. So what happens? The Hebrew foremen go to Pharaoh and complain to him about the unjust working conditions. Pharaoh just replies that they are lazy and he won’t change his mind. Upon leaving Pharaoh’s palace, the Hebrew foremen, run into Moses and Aaron. What do they do? They curse them. They blame and criticize them. ‘We trusted you Moses and now look what happened. Things were bad, but you have made them worse.’

Application: The Hebrews were greatly disappointed and what did they do?
     -They ran to Pharaoh to seek relief.
     -They bowed their knees to Pharaoh to get help.
     -They went back to the very one that brought them their pain.
     -They acknowledged and accepted their place as slaves of Pharaoh.

Where should they have gone?
     -They should have run to God for relief.
     -They should have bowed their knees to God.
     -They should have gone back to the very One who said he would deliver them from     their pain.
     -They should have acknowledged and accepted their place as sons of God.

The now disappointed, now unbelieving Hebrews, ran away from the only one who could truly help them…ever done that?

Trans: We see how the Hebrews handled their disappointment, what did Moses do?

Read: Exodus 5:22-23

‘Why? Why Lord, Please tell me why?’ Moses, disappointed at Pharaoh’s response, and now his own people’s rejection only added to his disappointment. But, unlike the Hebrews, Moses ran to the only one who could truly help. God. The roadblocks in Moses life, rather than stop him in his tracks, pushed him to the presence of the Lord.

Application: Should Moses have been discouraged and ask God why? Not really. God had already told him twice that Pharaoh would not initially let the Hebrews go. But Moses forgot God’s word. Perhaps because he let his disappointment, his emotions get in the way of remembering, and believing, what God had said.

We are ‘Why’ people, aren’t we? When bad things happen, when things don’t go our way, when we are disappointed, we ask why? I believe that God wants to hear our ‘whys’. But I think he would rather we remember his word, his promises.

In the midst of dire circumstances,  we often let our emotions control us instead of the Holy Spirit. We let our situation defeat us rather than use it to remind us of what God has said, what he has promised. We lose our job and we panic, get depressed and lose sleep with worry. We forget that God clearly has promised to provide for all our needs. We date and marry an unbeliever. But I am in love with her so this must be from God. We forget that God clearly tells us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

Moses, and many Christians today are guilty of emotion initiated spiritual amnesia.

Trans: An emotional Moses asks God why and is about to find out, he may not always get the answer he is looking for.

Read: Exodus 6:1-8

I want you to take notice that God doesn’t reprimand Moses for asking why. For us this means He doesn’t punish us when we come to him, disappointed. No matter how crushed, broken or desperate, God wants us to come to him. And when we do go to God we will find that He always shows great compassion for us and our need.

While he doesn’t always tell us what we want to hear, he always tells us what we need to learn. What did Moses need to hear from God? What did Moses need to learn from God? Two simple, gracious, yet powerful words, ‘I will’.

Listen to God’s compassionate response to Moses’ cry of disappointment.
 
1. I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians
2. I will free you from being slaves to them
3. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm
4. I will take you as my own people
5. I will be your God
6. I will bring you to the land
7. I will give it to you as a possession

‘I will’ said God, over and over again. ‘I will Moses, I will…Nancy, I will…Kathy, I will, Rita, I will’

Read: Exodus 6:9-13

Moses’ with his confidence in the Lord renewed, goes back to the Israelites and tells them about his meeting with God and  they don’t believe him. It seems Moses can’t get a break. He goes back to God and God repeats his original marching orders…’tell Pharaoh to let my people go’. ‘God’, Moses replied, ‘if your own people won’t believe me, why should Pharaoh?’ Once again, God tells him to go.

What is up with the Israelites? They believed Moses and Aaron when they first told them what God had planned. What happened? Two things, speed and situation.

 God’s deliverance wasn’t happening fast enough for the Israelites and
 Their current situation made it hard to believe God meant what he had said.

Before we come down on the Israelites, we need to recognize that we too doubt God when he doesn’t work on our time schedule and when the circumstances of life seem to show God has not kept his promises to us.
And Like Moses we need to be reminded over and over again… who God is, and what he has said.

Read: Exodus 6:14-27
What is a genealogy doing here? We need to remember that this event would be passed down by word of mouth for many years before it was written down.

There would have been many named Moses and Aaron and God wanted the readers which Moses and Aaron. This is especially important for Aaron and the line of the Levitical priests.

Read: Exodus 6:28-7:7

What do you think it means that Moses will be like God to Aaron? Remember, earlier the text also says that Moses will be like God to Pharaoh? What this text is saying is that Moses will speak and act with the authority of God. He is God’s chosen representative, his Ambassador, the physical representation of God to the  world. Sound like a familiar job description?

Christians, like Moses are to be like God to the unbelieving world.
    -We are the reflection of God to the lost around us.
     -We are part of the process that brings the lost back from slavery in whatever Egypt they  may find themselves in.

As Christians, we are like God to the unbelieving world.
    -We are part of the process that leads the lost, those who do not know JC as Savior, to the promised land of God’s presence and provision,  the promised land of eternal life that begins in the here and now and takes us and them into the there and then.

As Christians, we are like God to the unbelieving world.
    -We reflect his image to a world where his image has been badly tarnished by sin.
 
The way we live, speak and act will reflect our ‘godliness’ or lack of it.

As Christians, we are like God to the unbelieving world.
 -We may be the only God some people see.

People are watching and many are truly wanting to see something that humanity can’t authentically offer… a God experience.

I believe that although people are saying ‘Who is the Lord, I don’t know him’, there are many who do want to know him. Even through our frailties and weaknesses, Gods presence and power , his love and forgiveness, his Son, JC, can be revealed to a spiritually hungry generation.

Conclusion
How do we handle disappointment in life? We go to the One who is life. Moses, time and time again, with great doubts and having experienced great and numerous disappointments, continued to seek God’s face.

In the end, Moses believed that trusting God was enough for him, and for his disappointments. And I want you to know, I want you to be comforted with the reality that God can be enough for you too, when you trust him.