All right, Exodus chapter 6, we are coming into now really on the verge of what is the plagues proper, which is going to start midway through chapter 7. And I intend for us to probably get right up to it tonight. Moses has been called by God to be the deliverer of the children of Israel, coming out of bondage in Egypt. And we saw last week in chapter 5 that when Moses finally ascends to God's call to go and to stand before Pharaoh, when he comes, initially, things go from bad to worse. that initially not only is Moses rebuffed by Pharaoh, but the children of Israel themselves seem to reject Moses attempts to help them. Right. And we said this is an incredibly discouraging experience of an incredibly discouraging part of the story, because you think, Lord, What are you doing to me? I mean, here you've called me to go down and to speak to Pharaoh in Egypt and to call your people out. And you've promised that you're going to be with me. And yet, as it turns out, it doesn't seem like things are getting better at all. In fact, they seem to be going from bad to worse. We spent a good bit of time last week talking about the importance of being Biblically balanced in our perspective about the work and word of God that when the Word of God comes the devil comes like we find in the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13 and that a lot of people feel like well if I repent and if I decide to do what's right if I decide to serve the Lord then suddenly Everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to get better. No, actually your life is about to get better Harder right it's about that now. It's gonna be simpler because now instead of living for yourself and living for the world now You only have to focus on one thing and that is how do I glorify God? Just doing the will of God right and yet the experience of doing that is hard Because now I have to deny myself and take up my cross and endeavor to follow Jesus Whereas before I just went with whatever was easy right a lot of people unfortunately would rather be in bondage in Egypt than to follow the Lord in the Exodus, right? And we're going to see that over the course of these plagues. And so one of the seeds that I want to be planting in your mind over these couple of weeks is that what God is doing in the events of the Exodus and in the plagues leading up to the Exodus is not just for the sake of the liberation of the children of Israel. If that's all that was going on, instead of having 10 plagues, we could have just had one plague. Right. And God could have just brought that. Now, I hope you believe that. I hope you believe that God could have brought the children of Israel out immediately. Right. I really hope you do believe that. And if you don't believe that, I'm going to try and convince you of that before we're done, right? Because God could do that. If God wanted to do that, God could do that. He could do that any number of ways. He could strike dead every official in Egypt, right? And the children of Israel could just walk out. Why doesn't He do it that way? Why does He give us 10 plagues stretched over 8 to 12 months? The better part of a year? It's to teach Pharaoh something. It's to teach the Egyptians something. It's to teach Israel something. I would say it's probably to teach Moses something as well. God always has more at work and greater purposes than we often give him credit for. Let's pick up in verse one of chapter six, read down through verse 13, and then we will bow and pray. But the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land. God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say, therefore, to the people of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them. And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am the Lord, your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord." Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. So the Lord said to Moses, Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But Moses said to the Lord, Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me? For I am of uncircumcised lips. But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. All right, let's bow and pray as we start tonight. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time and opportunity to come together as your people and to open your word together. As we do so, Lord, we pray that you would open our hearts and our eyes, give us eyes to see and ears to hear your word and all that your word has to say. Father, if ever there was a passage that announces to us your sovereign purpose and your sovereign promises, surely this would be one of those passages. And we pray, Father, tonight that we would be impressed with your power and with your faithfulness and with your commitment to the word that you have sent forth and that we would be reassured and renewed in our confidence that your word, as it goes forth, will not return void. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Okay, so most of you see at the beginning of chapter 6 there an adversative conjunction opening the chapter, but the Lord said. Why does it say but at the beginning of the chapter? Well, it's because of what's in chapter 5. Moses, verse 22 of chapter 5, turned to the Lord and said, O Lord, why have You done evil to this people? Why did You ever sin me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak Your name, He's done evil to this people, and You've not delivered Your people at all. That was the tension that we saw and that we focused on last week. But the Lord said to Moses. And do you notice the difference in the Hebrew there? In verse 22 of chapter 5, Moses turned to the Lord, L-O-R-D, all in capital letters, indicating that underlying that is the Hebrew Yahweh, the covenant name of God, right? But when Moses speaks in prayer, what does he say? O Lord, capital L, lowercase O-R-D, right? Which means that underlying that word is the Hebrew word Adonai. It means Lord, I didn't tell you anything means master. It means ruler. Right. And so he turns to Yahweh and says, oh, Lord, oh, master, why have you not delivered the people? But Yahweh chapter six, verse one said to Moses. And what's actually going to happen in the beginning of chapter 6, if you notice, is that the covenant name of God receives emphatic position and place in the conversation, right? It's emphasized in a way and at a level that it's never been emphasized before. Yahweh said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. I do not always know. In fact, I probably rarely know why God chooses to do the things that he chooses to do in the way that he chooses to do them. And I am absolutely convinced to the idea, many of you have heard me say this before, that you cannot read the tea leaves of Providence. You cannot discern the will of the Lord just in this moment, just kind of looking observationally at your circumstances. That's almost always a way of making profound mistakes. When people in scripture start looking at their circumstances, trying to intuit the will of God, rather than listening to what God has said, it always ends badly, right? So you've got to be careful about reading the tea leaves of Providence. Moses is looking around and saying, Lord, what are you doing? But in this case, what we're able to see, looking back, right, over the span of the story and having a third party perspective on the story, what we're able to see is that the Lord chose to do some of these things in this way in order to more fully manifest His glory and His power. Would it have been awesome for the Lord to send Moses to Pharaoh and to say, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, OK, and here they go and they walk out. That would have been pretty awesome. Right. I mean, that'd be pretty amazing. But how much more awesome is the story that we actually have recorded for us? Where Moses goes into Pharaoh in chapter 5 and says, the Lord, Yahweh, says, let my people go sacrifice to me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh says, I don't know who Yahweh is, and I'm certainly not going to do whatever he says. That's not my guide. I don't recognize his authority over me or my kingdom, right? And the Lord says, you're about to. You don't know who Yahweh is? You're about to find out. You don't recognize his authority over you or your kingdom? You will before we're done. Now you will see what I am going to do to Pharaoh because I will bring the children of Israel out with a strong hand. What if Pharaoh resists? Of course he's going to resist. God's already said earlier in the story that He's going to harden Pharaoh's heart, right? He has put this Pharaoh on the throne at this time for the very purpose of manifesting His glory in triumphing over Egypt and its armies. It's no coincidence that this Pharaoh and not some other Pharaoh is ruling at this time. But see, Moses doesn't understand all of those things. And the children of Israel certainly don't understand all of those things. They're wondering, why couldn't this be easier? If it's God's will to deliver us from Egypt, then why can't we go simply from point A to point B and it's over and done with and it's relatively painless? Well, you can't do that because you wouldn't learn anything that way. It's better for the people of God and for the people of the world that God does it in this way and not that way. And He is ordaining all of these things in such a way that people might come to know who He is more fully than they ever did before. And that's true of the Egyptians, and that's true of the Israelites. And that's what's going on in this paragraph. Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand He will send them out, and with a strong hand He will drive them out of His land. God says, He's not going to let you go. He's going to run you out. He's not going to just say, I guess you can leave. He is going to give you stuff to get you to go away before we're done. That's what's going to happen. And in verse two, God spoke to Moses and said, I am Yahweh. You see the you see the word. Pharaoh in chapter five says, who is Yahweh? The Lord says, I am Yahweh. I am the Lord. And you are about to meet me personally, right? Powerfully. He says, I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai, God, the Mighty One, God Almighty. But by my name, Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them. Now I'm going to take a position here, and I mentioned this last week of the week before, or two weeks ago, whenever it was. I don't actually think he's saying that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not know the name Yahweh at all. And I know some people have thought that, but I don't think that's actually what is going on here. The term Yahweh appears all through the book of Genesis. Some people believe that it's read back into the story anachronistically, that Moses writing generations later reads back the name of Yahweh into Genesis. I don't think that's what he's saying. I don't think he's saying that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would not have been familiar with the name Yahweh, so that if you could go back in time and say, Abraham, do you worship Yahweh, that he would say, who's Yahweh, right? I don't think that's what he's saying. But what he is saying, clearly, at the very least, is that the name Yahweh was not the primary name by which God chose to reveal himself to the patriarchs. Because Yahweh speaks of the person of God as a self-existent covenant-keeping God in a way that the patriarchs did not fully understand, but that will be more fully manifest here in the events of the Exodus. They knew of God as God Almighty. Now Israel is going to learn that He's not just God Almighty, He's Yahweh. He's the self-existent, covenant-keeping God. The God of promise. The God who makes promises and the God who keeps promises. There is something about the Exodus event, and I would understand that to be everything from the time Moses goes into Pharaoh the first time in chapter 5, all the way through the episodes at Mount Sinai, all the way through the end of the book of Exodus. There is something about that event that manifests and emphasizes the name of Yahweh and what His name means more than ever before. We're going to have a lot more to say about this before we're done, but just hold your place here for a minute. Turn over to chapter 34 of the book. Moses and the children of Israel are at Mount Sinai. The children of Israel Six weeks after the formal inauguration of the Mosaic Covenant have already broken the covenant, Moses comes down from the mountain, finds them dancing and fornicating around a golden calf, smashes the tablets of the covenant, which I consider to be a completely appropriate response to their sin, by the way. I know some are going to take issue with that. We'll deal with that when we get there. He smashes the tables of the covenant, which they themselves have already metaphorically broken, deals with their sin, and goes back to pray for their pardon with the Lord. Now, during all of this episode, Moses is desiring a closer communion with God, a greater experience of God. Lord, let me see you. And the Lord says, you can't see my face and live, right? I'll show you my back. Right? I will show you my glory, but what God actually displays is not His glory, but His goodness, which is itself a manifestation of His glory. Look at Exodus chapter 34 and verse 4. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as Yahweh had commanded him and took in his hand two tablets of stone. Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of Yahweh. Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Now, I'm going to try and make this point concisely, and I'm going to return to this before we're done with Exodus. What I am suggesting to you in chapter six is that the Exodus story manifests that name and all that it contains more fully than Genesis could. that in the relationship that God has with the patriarchs, His goodness is on display, His mercy is on display, His holiness is on display. But there's something about having multiple generations of Israelites experiencing bondage, being delivered from a pagan oppressor, God's judgment sweeping over not just a family, but an entire nation, laying waste to that nation and its army, bringing that people out to the mountain, God making covenant with them there, them breaking the covenant, and then Him pardoning them for breaking the covenant. That manifests God's glory. and specifically God's name Yahweh in a way that that Genesis doesn't as fully. Now, we go back to Genesis with all of the information we have about God and the rest of the Bible, and we see those elements there. Right. But how much of that did Abraham understand? How much did Abraham understand that God is a God who visits the iniquity of the fathers onto the children to the third and fourth generations, but will show mercy to thousands? How well does Abraham understand that? Well, he probably understands that intellectually, right? But Israel is seeing that. Because 400 years later, the children of Jacob are experiencing this manifestation of God's holiness, and God's goodness, and God's justice. Does that make sense? Now, I may be wrong, and you can say, well, I just don't buy that. I just think that Abraham just didn't know the name Yahweh. OK, that's fine. I'm not going to be dogmatic about it. But I think that's what's going on in chapter 6. And Exodus emphasizes the name of Yahweh. What does God declare to Moses on the mountain in chapter 34? He declares the name of Yahweh. I don't think that's a coincidence. In fact, I think you're intended to remember chapter 6 in chapter 34, right? So now I've planted that seed. We'll cover it up with dirt and come back to it later. All right. He says, "...by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them, but I established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant." See, this is what Yahweh evokes. The name of Yahweh should evoke faithfulness across generations. faithfulness to covenants and promises throughout history. Not just God's faithfulness in any one person's life, but now faithfulness for over 400 years in the life of the offspring of Abraham. Do you see that? And God says, I made these promises, I have heard their groaning, and I have remembered my covenants. And what part do the Israelites play in all of this? Boy, if you're looking for some type of synergism, you're not going to find it in the Exodus chapter six. Right. This is all about God. You say, but they prayed good. They prayed. That's right. That's a good thing for them to do. Right. But Exodus chapter six is all about what God is doing. He made the covenant. He gave the promises. He heard the prayers. He called to mind the covenant and he comes to rescue them. And he does it without any need for their help. Do you notice that? You are going to see this repeated throughout biblical history, but there is a special way in which this is being done here. Do you remember later in the invasion and conquest of the land, how the Lord will tell Joshua and the children of Israel, I have already given you the city of Jericho? And he says that while the walls of Jericho are still standing, the gates of Jericho are shut. And this ragtag nation of slaves doesn't have any military apparatus to be able to do anything about it. And God says, I've already given you the city. OK. Trust the Lord. He says it's ours. It's ours. What should we do next? He says, walk around it once a day for six days and then march around it seven times on the seventh day and shout and blow the trumpets and stand back and watch. Now, what materially do the Israelites contribute to the victory over Jericho? Yeah, sandals. Good answer, right? No, I mean, you know, they walk, they walk and they watch. They wait and they what? God couldn't have knocked the walls down the first day? Of course he could have. Do you think that it took seven days of marching to develop enough cracks in the foundation that finally the walls collapsed? I mean, do you really think that's what's going on? God is saying something about himself. He is teaching his people and the people of the world something about himself. What do you think the impact on the people of Jericho was as this ragtag bunch of slaves starts walking around that city? What do you think they're doing the first day and the second day and the third day? jeering, mocking, laughing. What do you think Pharaoh and the Egyptians are doing at the beginning of this story? Jeering, mocking, laughing. Of course, God's got to deal with that right now, right? No, no. He's content to sit back and wait and watch. God is revealing something about himself. Do you see that? The Bible is about God. It's not about man. Say therefore, verse six, say therefore to the people of Israel, I am Yahweh. and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who's brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord, if you want me to be. Now, if you read that last part in your Bible, if you want me to be, is God bargaining with his people? He's saying this is who I am. This is what I'm going to do. Now, do the Israelites accept or reject that offer? Most of them reject it. What happens? They die in the wilderness. You know what's interesting? They don't die in Egypt. Why not? Because God said, I'm going to bring you out. And he did. Do you realize that the success of this program doesn't depend on their cooperation or consent? Do you realize that? Do you see that? Now, am I suggesting that their faith is unimportant? No, it's the difference between going into the promised land or dying in the wilderness, okay? Your faith is important, right? It's the difference between going to heaven and being with the Lord or going to hell. But do not think that you have God over a barrel. Do not think that your participation in his program somehow handcuffs him so that he's not able to act apart from your free will and consent. Who's got free will in this relationship? I've got the will that's under bondage to sin until Jesus decides to do something about that. If anybody's got free will, it's God. And the Lord says, this is who I am and this is what I'm about to do. And you know what the children of Israel are called to do during all of this? Stand back and watch. You know what's interesting to me? In the plagues, we're going to notice that some of the plagues, God only attacks the Egyptians. But the early plagues affect both the Egyptians and the Israelites. You think that's a coincidence? You think God starts throwing plagues at the people of Egypt and suddenly realizes, oh, no, the children of Israel are suffering, too. I need to do something. I didn't think about that. Right. Is that seriously? Nobody thinks that. Right. What is he doing? He's teaching the children of Israel something and he's teaching the Egyptians something. Here are the children of Israel who didn't believe God and didn't accept the messengers of God. God says, OK, that's fine. I'm still going to do what I'm going to do. But they are going to taste the judgment of God against Egypt. Do you see how gracious God is? By the way, people who want to fight against this idea of God being God, they always act as if somehow it's not fair. It's not right. God is not good if he decides whom he will save and how he will save them. That's not fair. That's not right. Do you really want what is fair or do you want to know God as he reveals himself here? Isn't this a beautiful picture? The Lord is saying, I love you too much to leave you in Egypt. I love you and I've made promises to you, and therefore I'm going to save you. Now, if you want to die in the wilderness, you have that option, right? But I'm going to deliver you from Egypt nevertheless. Isn't that a beautiful thing? That's revealing the glory of God. Now, verse nine, Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel. But what do they do? They don't listen. Why do they not? Did you notice this? Why did they not listen to Moses? Because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. This is the part of the story where I just want to cry. Because this is human sinfulness. They are certainly in bondage, but it is not to the Egyptians. It is to sin. Do you see that? What has sin done? It has broken them so that they cannot even see the goodness of God. It has broken them so that they cannot even believe in the promises of God. That's what sin will do. in people's lives. It will break people so that they cannot see or know or believe in the goodness of God. What does God do about that? He comes to save them anyway. Thank God. Do you realize that? Do you realize that's what he did in your life? If you're a believer, he came to save you anyway. He didn't make you some offer and then say, well, you know, they're just not they're too depressed. They're too discouraged, they're too sinful, they're just not going to be, you know, they just he said, no, it's because they're broken and dead in their sins that I'm going to come and deliver them. I mean, it's just sad. Moses here is announcing these gracious promises from God and the people of Israel are so beaten down by their slavery and their circumstances that they can't even hear the goodness of God. They can't even see the goodness of God's word, the goodness of his promises. Brothers and sisters, we don't want to be those people. Right. We don't want to be people that are blinded by our burdens and our sin to the goodness and the glory of God. And if you're a believer, you don't have to be. If you're a believer, God has made a difference in your heart. He has taken out the heart of stone and put in the heart of flesh, as Ezekiel says, so that you can hear God, so that you can believe God, so that you can obey God. Right. Now, you can still say, I want to be a slave in Egypt, because we've got onions and leeks and all. I mean, that's the weird stuff they say when they get in the wilderness. Oh, if we were only back in Egypt where there are onions and leeks. Seriously? That's why you'd want to go back and be a slave is so that you could have onion on your whatever? I mean, I don't get that. But that's what we do all the time. Don't we? Here I've been set free by the Lord, but oh, if only I could be back the good old days of sin, right? There's nothing good about those days. And here's what sin will do. It will blind you to the goodness of God so that you will not see God's graciousness and you will not hear his word. Verse 10. So Yahweh said to Moses, go in, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to let the people of Israel go out of his land. I love this. It's not like Moses says, all right, people of Israel, here's what God's going to do. And they say, we don't believe you. And Moses says, oh, Well, let me figure something else out. You know, God, we need a plan B. They're not going to go along with that. The Lord just keeps pressing forward. He's like, doesn't matter. Don't worry about that. You just go in and start talking to Pharaoh, right? God's just pressing forward. The Lord says, go to Moses, go to Pharaoh, tell him to let the children of Israel go out of the land. But Moses is the one who puts up the barricade now. But Moses said to Yahweh, Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me? For I am of uncircumcised lips. That has got to be the weirdest statement by Moses in the first half of this book. No, I'm not. I mean, I think I know what he means, but no that doesn't make any sense to me at all He's saying I'm unworthy Right. I'm unable I'm not up to this task. What a contrast with the man 40 years before who takes it upon himself to kill an Egyptian who's beating a Hebrew and thinks, my brothers will recognize that I'm the deliverer. Then he felt supremely confident. Now he feels like an uncircumcised pagan, right? I can't go to Pharaoh if my own people don't believe me. How can I go to Pharaoh? How will Pharaoh listen to me? Verse 13. But Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. I love this. Because nobody's listening to anybody, you know, so God speaks to Moses, who speaks to the children of Israel, and they don't believe it. God keeps speaking to Moses. He says, you go tell Pharaoh this. And Moses isn't listening to God now. He's like, I can't do that. And then the Lord says, no, you're going to go. And then Pharaoh is not going to listen when they finally come. It's like nobody's listening to anybody. Right. The point is, God's program is not dependent on anyone. Do you see that? Yahweh, I Am, is self-existent. He doesn't need anyone or anything. God didn't create you because He was lacking something. And He doesn't give you commands because He needs your help. He is gracious in creating you because He is a God of love who desires to manifest His own glory. And He gives you commands so that you might experience the blessing of fellowship with the eternal God. That's it. God doesn't need the children of Israel to be on board. He doesn't need Moses to understand everything that's going on. He doesn't need Moses to have confidence in the plan that God's setting before him. And he doesn't need Pharaoh's cooperation. He just says, this is who I am and this is what I'm going to do. Now go do it. Isn't that beautiful? Because there's nobody in this story that you could point to and say, boy, look at Moses, the man of faith. Not in this chapter. Right. Not in chapters 3 or 4. It's not Moses the man of faith. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6, it's Moses the man with a lot of questions and doubts and fears and concerns and a lack of self-confidence, which means he's just the kind of man that God is pleased to use. God chooses people who are not strong and capable and confident, but people in whom His glory can be manifest, right? We have this treasure in vessels of clay. Right, jars of clay. Verse 14, these are the heads of their fathers' houses, the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, Hanok, Palu, Hezron, and Carmi. These are the clans of Reuben. The sons of Simeon, Jemuel, Jaman, Ohad, Jacob, Zohar, and Shal, the son of a Canaanite woman. These are the clans of Simeon. These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations. Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the years of the life of Levi being 137 years. The sons of Gershon, Libnai, and Shimei by their clans. The sons of Kohath, Amram, Ishar, Hebron, and Uziel, the years of the life of Kohath being 133 years. The sons of Merari, Meli, and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites according to their generations. Amram took as his wife Jacobed, his father's sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years. The sons of Izhar, Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri. The sons of Uziel, Mishiel, Elzaphan, and Sithri. Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of Amenadab and the sister of Nashon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithmar. The sons of Korah, Asir, Elkanah, and Abiasath, these are the clans of the Korahites. Eleazar, Aaron's son, took as his wife one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phineas. These are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites by their clans." Now, a lot of those characters, not all of them, but a lot of them are going to be important later in the story, okay? So you just want to keep in mind that there is a genealogy primarily relating to the Levites in Exodus chapter 6. This is actually where we learn the names of Moses' mother and father, Amram and Jochebed, although some have questioned whether that was his grandparents or his great-grandparents. That's not a debate we need to have tonight. But nevertheless, Amram and Jochebed are the names of Moses' parents in the text, right? And yet they're not mentioned in chapters 1 and 2. They're mentioned here in chapter 6. These are, verse 26, these are the Aaron and Moses to whom Yahweh said, bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts. It was they who spoke to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt, this Moses and this Aaron. Do you see how emphatic that is? And I think part of the reason for that is that the Bible emphasizes the historicity of its claims. That the Bible is not a fairy tale. This is not a long time ago in a faraway land, right? This is not once upon a time. The writer says, this Moses, this Aaron, from this family, this was their father, this was their grandfather, this was their clan head, this is how they're connected to Jacob, this is how they trace back to Abraham. It was this Moses and this Aaron who went to that Pharaoh in Egypt to do God's work. And if you doubt, if you question, there are so many people, unfortunately, who believe I can be a Christian And being a Christian doesn't mean that I have to believe that the Bible is historical, right? I don't have to believe that the stories of the Old Testament are actually true. Here's the problem with that. Do you believe in Jesus? Jesus believed they were true. That's a problem, right? You can say that Jesus was wrong about those things, and there are some people today who say they believe in Jesus, who say, but Jesus had limited understanding and errors in his thinking because he was a man of his own time, right? Well, then you've emptied Jesus of some major doctrinal and theological content, right? You've denied things that Scripture itself teaches about Christ. Jesus believed that Moses wrote this history and he accepted it as historical. Now, what if scholars say, well, there's no evidence for an exodus? Well, I would say that's debatable, right? Like we were talking about a minute ago, if you're looking in the wrong time in the wrong place, maybe you can say we don't see evidence. But here's the reality. It comes down to this as a believer. Now, I'm not talking right now as just a disinterested person. I'm talking as a believer in whose heart and life the Holy Spirit has made a change. Is it enough for me that the Bible itself says it was this Moses and this Aaron? And the answer for me is yes. It's enough to say that I don't need any corroborating evidence. I'm happy that we have so much corroborating evidence. We do. We've got a tremendous amount of corroborating evidence confirming the Bible's account of so many people, places and details. But you know what? If we didn't have any, it wouldn't really matter to me. And I have to be completely honest with you about that. What the Bible does not allow you to do is to put Jesus in one category and the history of the Old Testament in a different category. This is important. I'm only going to make this point just briefly. People want to say we can believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but we can't believe the Exodus account. And I say, which is harder to believe? That Jesus was crucified on the Roman cross, put in a tomb, and on the third day rose again from the dead? Or that a historical Moses went to Egypt and led the children of Israel out of bondage. I mean, seriously, which is easier to believe, the stories of the plagues or the resurrection of Christ? And this is what I believe. The people who put Jesus in one category and say, well, that's historical. But all of these other stories in the Old Testament, they're not historical. I don't believe that those people can keep that consistent. Right. I think eventually you'll abandon one of those positions. And what they almost always abandon is Jesus. And if they don't, their kids will. You've got to realize the Bible is a package deal, right? Either Jesus is who he says he is, and therefore what he says about the Old Testament is true, or you might as well just abandon all of it and say there's not really any point to this. And I think that's an important point. You may not feel that way, but I think these kind of passages force us to grapple with that. It was this Moses and this Aaron who did these things. You can either believe it or not. But if you don't believe it, you're denying something that Jesus himself indicated was true. Verse 28, on the day when Yahweh spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, Yahweh said to Moses, I am Yahweh. Tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you. But Moses said to Yahweh, behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me? Do you see I hope you see this better after studying through Genesis. I hope you see the heroes of the faith are not very heroic. Right. That the Bible does not whitewash the failings of its heroes and that the story is about God and gives glory to God. It is not primarily about the people that we often attach such great significance to. We've got to go just a little bit further. We're almost out of time. Chapter 7, verse 1, And Yahweh said to Moses, See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring out my hosts, my people, the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. Moses and Aaron did so. They did just as Yahweh commanded. Now, Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh. I want to say something good about Moses here and Aaron, because I've kind of been trying to be fair with the text and say this is really a story about what God's going to do. It's not about the faith or faithfulness of Moses and Aaron. But let me say this. Moses' obedience was not conditioned upon his ability to understand why God was doing the things that he was doing. You see that? And that is to be commended. That Moses and Aaron obey the Lord even though Moses feels unworthy and unable. Even though he feels like there is little chance for success. Even though he doesn't understand what is going on and why it has to be this way. And yet he does just what the Lord commands. That is praiseworthy. All right. Now, do you notice how God addresses Moses continued struggle to believe and be confident in the first seven verses of that chapter? He says, I've made you like God to Pharaoh. And Aaron shall be your prophet is just like skips right over the fact that Moses just said, I'm a man of uncircumcised lips and the Lord's like, yeah, whatever. I've made you like God to Pharaoh and Aaron, your brother will be your prophet and you will speak all that I command you. And Aaron will relay that to Pharaoh. But I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. I mean, aren't we having enough trouble with this program without God now intervening and hardening Pharaoh's heart? He says, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. And even though I multiply my signs and my wonders, Pharaoh is not going to let the people of Israel go. Well, then what's the point of the signs and wonders? Ah, I'm glad that you asked. God does not do the things that he does solely for the reasons that you and I assume. are the reasons, the primary reasons. Let me give you an example that may make this a little clearer. I mentioned, I think, last week or the week before Ezekiel. God tells Ezekiel, I'm going to send you as a prophet to the captives in Babylon. Right. And he tells him right up front, no one's going to listen to you. Don't worry though, because I'm going to make your forehead as hard as the foreheads of your audience. So they're going to be stubborn, but you're going to be just as stubborn, right? They're going to be stubborn against my word, and you're going to be stubborn with my word. I'm thinking at this point, I don't really want to be a prophet. You know, that doesn't sound like the kind of ministry that would get me very excited. Because it seems to me like the natural question at that point would be, Lord, why send a prophet to people that are not going to listen? And yet that is one of the major themes of Ezekiel, so that they may know that I am the Lord. See, Ezekiel is not sent to the captives in Babylon in order to save them. He is sent to the captives in Babylon so that the word of God might be spoken in the face of their rebellion. You know what the plagues of Egypt are about? It's not about softening Pharaoh's heart because it does just the opposite. The plagues are one of God's several means to harden Pharaoh's heart. We'll talk more about that next week, Lord willing. The plagues are not about softening Pharaoh's heart and convincing him finally to give up the children of Israel. Oh, no. It's about manifesting the glory of God in the face of a sinful, wicked, stubborn ruler. Now, Sunday you'll see on the bulletin, it's already on my blog. We have a choice whether to believe in the God who He is or the God that we wish Him to be. Because you can look at that and you can say, I don't like that. I mean, wouldn't it just be simpler if God just, you know, sent his word out for salvation and that was kind of the whole purpose and that was the only purpose. And if a person is going to believe and be saved, that's great. If not, let's not waste our time. And wouldn't it just be a lot easier than what we're seeing here at Exodus and in so many other parts of the Bible? God's program is so much bigger than you or I can imagine. And the Lord says, Moses, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh. And I'm going to multiply my signs and wonders and I'm going to harden his heart. And when it's all said and done, they're going to know I am Yahweh. And that's what this is about. I am Yahweh. It's about manifesting the glory of the true and the living God. And God's going to choose to do that in what seemed to be very difficult and very convoluted circumstances. And yet that was his plan from the very beginning. The Egyptians shall know, verse five, that I am Yahweh when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. And that's what this is all about. You say, no, it's about saving the children of Israel out of Egypt. No, it's not. That is a wonderful, blessed byproduct, but that is not the primary purpose. Do you see that? You see, that's important because of how the New Testament talks about our salvation. I mean, Ephesians starts out talking about blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined us as adoption and as sons unto Jesus Christ to himself. And then this recurring theme in Ephesians. To the praise of his glorious grace by which He made us accepted in the beloved. He did all of this. He chose us. He adopted us. He predestined us. He forgave us. He did all of these wonderful things for what end? So that His glorious grace might be made known and might be praised. Wow. You mean that all of this with Jesus was not just about letting me go to heaven when I die? Oh, no. That's just the wonderful, blessed byproduct of God manifesting his glory and his grace in Christ. Does that make sense? Go read Ephesians. You'll find that it is lining up very nicely with what we're seeing in Exodus. It's almost like the Bible is one book has one author and one thing. I think that might be the case. OK, let's bow and let's pray before we go. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time and this opportunity for these good people that you've brought together in this place tonight and for your word. Lord, your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It refreshes our souls. It nourishes us. It helps us. in a dry and weary land. We live in a world, Father, where there is so little to be encouraged about it seems at times, and yet when we open your word, Father, we find the refreshment that our souls long for. We pray, God, that you would bless the seed that is sown in our hearts, that you would help it to grow and to bear fruit, and that you would be glorious in our mind's eye, that we would realize your greatness and that we would praise you for it, that we would be truly and eternally thankful for the kindness that you've shown us in Christ, knowing that you did not have to do so. And we pray, Father, that you would help us to trust you and to wait for you and to be patient as you work righteousness and justice and judgments in this world for the manifestation of your glory. Help us to be confident, Father, because of all that we see in Scripture and all of the promises that you have made. Help us to be confident in your ultimate good purpose in saving your people forever. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.