So we are in Exodus chapter 4, and we're still at that burning bush experience, and it continues throughout the chapter. Let me pray for the Word and then we'll dive into it. Our Father and our God, we pray for your aid as we begin to read and study your Word in this wonderful chapter. Lord, I pray that you'd allow us to see your greatness and the glory of Christ hidden here in the shadows and the types that are contained in chapter four of Exodus. Lord, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. So Moses is really gonna struggle, and I'm so grateful that God Let us know this, because there's a lot of things that go on in the Bible between the Lord and people we find in the Bible that we don't get any details. It's just like, hey, that's not for you. This was just between me and my servant. Here we get the details. And it helps me a lot, because I flounder. a lot, not to compare myself to somebody great like Moses, but I can at least compare myself to his flounderings for sure. And that's what we have here. And I want to read the first nine verses of chapter four. Then Moses answered and said, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice. Suppose they say, the Lord has not appeared to you. So the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand? He said, a rod. And he said, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses fled from it. Then the Lord said to Moses, reach out your hand, take it by the tail. And he reached out his hand and caught it. and it became a rod in his hand. That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you. Furthermore, the Lord said to him, now put your hand in your bosom. And he put his hand in his bosom. And when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. And he said, put your hand in your bosom again. So he put his hand in his bosom again and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh. Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign. And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land." Now, I have to back up a little bit to understand what's going on here, because God in chapter 3 had clearly said that Moses was God's instrument to go to the elders of the people, to speak to the people, but then to get the elders of the Jews together. And that those elders were going to go with Moses to go see the king. And when you go to like Exodus 3.18, it says, then they will heed your voice. and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt." And Moses, in his struggle and his doubt, says, but suppose they don't believe me or listen to my voice. Suppose they say, no, the Lord has not appeared to you. What if they say that? Now he's going directly against what God's Word just declared to him, that this is exactly how it's going to unfold before you. God doesn't always tell us what's coming down the pike. Actually, never too much. But he told Moses what was going to happen. He gives him specifics on it. And Moses here is floundering in doubt, is what he's doing. God gives him three signs. And remember, a sign is always pointing to something beyond itself. The Gospel of John speaks of the miracles of Jesus not just being miracles he's just deciding to do. They're signs. They're pointing to something. They're saying something beyond just what the sign is. And that's what you have here. So sign number one, he's demonstrating God's authority over evil. And let me reread that. He says, what's that in your hand? He said, a rod. Cast it to the ground. Cast it to the ground, turns into a serpent. Snakes in ancient Egypt, if you study a little bit, I mean, not even do a deep dive on it, and just look at the hieroglyphics and the pictures, the writings, they have the carvings. Snakes in Egypt had a predominant spot. It was a symbol of power. Pharaoh had a snake on his headpiece. If you want to call that a crown, but his headpiece had a snake in the front. Egypt was full of asps and whatnot. Nehebu Kai. I have no doubt I've pronounced that incorrectly, was the Egyptian snake god. So they actually, now God's really saying, and doesn't that, at least from my mind, I went right back to the garden and thought, well, the evil one, Satan himself, appears as a serpent to our forefathers, to Adam and Eve, our foreparents. So here God is really showing that he has authority over all that's evil. All that is opposed to God. Including Pharaoh and his evil tyranny over the Jewish people. Moses, when this happens, he does what God says. He puts it on the ground, his staff. If you read, if you're a student at all of the Old Testament, it was very common for people to have a staff, men to have a staff. It was used to support themselves. Jacob leaned upon his staff. The Bible says at the end of his life, it was a weapon. I mean, so, you know, it's nice if you're out and about, you know, have something in your hand, right? So it was very common. So he happened to have his particular staff with him. tosses it to the ground, it turns into a snake. And Moses did what I would think all of us would have done. Doesn't tell us what kind of a serpent it turned into, but it could have been a poisonous asp. Some think maybe a cobra, you know, but it turns into this serpent and Moses runs. I would have done the same. I don't like snakes. Especially if I knew it was a poisonous snake. I get as far away as I can from the timber rattlers whenever I do come across one. I don't play with them. I don't grab them by the tail, I can tell you that. And Moses runs from it, and God says, now go pick it up by the tail. Now, it doesn't go into any detail. That kind of gets me curious. I mean, did Moses like hearing that? Go pick it up by the tail. Are you crazy? I mean, that's what I would have been thinking. But the Bible doesn't get into that. It just shows that Moses went and did what God told him to do, and it turns back into a staff again. That staff of Moses, later in this chapter, but I want to read you over in chapter 17 as well, it becomes known as the rod of God. It's Moses' staff, but it's symbolic. of the power of God over all that would oppose God, over all that is evil. So like in Exodus 17 verse 8, it says, Now Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, Choose us some men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. I think it built confidence into Moses. He didn't have confidence in the rod, but it reminded him that the God who told him to throw it on the ground and turn it into a serpent and pick it back up, he's the God of all power over all that opposes anything to do with God. And I think that was encouragement to him. There's also a lesson here for me, and hopefully you get something out of this, but there's a lesson here that it says in verse 2, the Lord said to him, what's that in your hand? He said, a rod. Nothing special, just what's that in your hand? What if they don't believe? What if they say you didn't send me? What's that in your hand? It's a rod. He didn't ask Moses to go form an army. He didn't tell Moses to go get some kind of a formidable weapon, a sword. He just said, what's in your hand? What do you got right there? I'm going to use that. Joseph Excel picks up on that and he writes, but all that God said to him was, Moses, what is that in your hand? Not what can you get, but What have you got? Now we learn from this that God can use any instrument which pleases for his work, and that those are altogether wrong who suppose that they are not called upon to do anything in the service of God, because perhaps they are not distinguished as others. And they're not having as much money as others. They're not so much influence in their lives as other people have. Not so great learning in their lives. Not so much time on their hands and so on. It is not to be looked at in this way as if God demanded of us that which we have not. But simply, he requires of us that which we have. I thought that's so true. And I've told you before, I've met widows at caskets who said their husband was always going to do something for the Lord. But that was the final word on the man. He was always going to do something for the Lord. And why didn't he? Why didn't he? Did he think he wasn't eloquent enough? Did he think he didn't have enough money? He didn't have enough energy, enough time? What did he have? The Bible says really clearly in 1 Peter 4.10, as each one has received a gift." He's talking about the gifting of the Holy Spirit. Every single believer, every Christian has received a gift. Your gift is different than my gift. My gift is different than your gift. They vary. It's the manifold grace of God. But he says, as each one has received a gift, Minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Everybody has been given a gift. And we're not to say, Lord, I didn't have this, I didn't have that. God says, what's that in your hand? What do you have? What have I gifted you with? Use that to bring me glory. Use that to exalt my son, Jesus Christ. So I think there's a good lesson there for us. So the second sign, God's authority over disease. He tells Moses, put your hand in your bosom. That's literally in the Hebrew, but probably in his robe. And he put it in his bosom, in his robe probably, took it out, and it's leprous. It's like snow. He said, put it back in there, and he puts it back, and it comes back out, and now it's healed. Another sign, a sign that God has power not only over all that opposes him, over evil itself, the serpent, but God's got power even over disease. And leprosy was probably the most feared disease in antiquity. And you know from studying the Bible and hearing sermons that you couldn't even get near a leper in the Old Testament. And that's true not just for the Jew. I mean, anywhere you went, nobody was going to be around a leper. Contagious. And in the Bible, usually it could be a multitude of skin diseases. But either way, it was a very much feared disease. And you can imagine what you would feel like and maybe what Moses felt like when he pulls it out and he thinks, God gave me leprosy. I don't know if I would have thought, is he mad at me? Did I wrong you, Lord? Why did you give me leprosy? And then he just, as easily as he gave him leprosy, he took it away. It's a sign, right? It's a sign. The king of Syria, in the Bible, sends his general to Israel to get him healed of leprosy. And this is in 2 Kings 5. And it says in verse 6, Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy. And it happened when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, Am I God? to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of leprosy?" King says, I don't get the power to heal leprosy. God alone has the power to heal leprosy, is what he's saying. And that's the point, is God is the one who has power over disease. Again, Joseph Excel writes, that as the leprosy is only cured by God, so their deliverance was only God's work. I think that's a good point of what the sign's pointing to. So God's authority over all that's opposed to Him, evil itself, God's authority over disease, and then third sign, God's authority over the Egyptian gods. And you'll see that unpacked and unfolded a lot more when the plagues come. But in verse 9, it shall be, they don't believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, you'll take water from the river, pour it on the dry land, and the water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land." God's power over the Nile, right? That's the river they're talking about. It's the Nile. It was the life stream for the Egyptians. They had a god, H-A-P-I is how we spell it. I'm assuming it's pronounced happy. But that was the god of the Nile. And you have to understand to the Egyptians, without the Nile, They had no life. So they saw it as the source of life. And this god, Happy, which is a strange looking creature, if you want to look him up on the internet depictions, it has the attributes of both a man and a woman. And it has to do with fertility. The old fertility cult. And so the Nile, every year, floods. And when it floods, the silt and the water gets into the fields. And that's how they get their crops. They're dependent upon this Nile. And so they worship and pay homage to this Nile god. So that which is the instrument of life and the symbol of life to the Egyptians, God turns into the symbol of poured out blood, which is the symbol of death in the story. Somebody wrote, when Moses later struck the Nile with his staff and demonstrated God's power over it in Exodus chapter 7, he was showing God's superiority to predicting God's victory over the Nile God, and as well, by extension, all the gods of Egypt. As a matter of fact, in Exodus 12.12, we'll see, it says, against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am Yahweh. I'm going to undo all these false gods you have and show you that I am the true great God. When we get later in the book of Exodus, and I'm going to guess here, but I think it's chapter 17, you'll see Moses' pagan father-in-law comes to faith in Yahweh and says he's the true great God. And he sacrifices to him. It's really cool. I just jumped up ahead. We've got to wait for that. But I think it's chapter 17. Arthur Pink, in his book, Gleanings in Exodus, writes, this third sign was to be wrought only if the testimony of the first two was refused. It therefore tells of the consequences of refusing to believe what the other signs so plainly bore witness to. If man rejects the testimony of God's Word, that he is under the dominion of Satan, depraved by nature, refuses the One who alone can deliver from the one and cleanse from the other, nothing but divine judgment awaits him. The water turned into blood speaks of life. giving place to death. It anticipates the second death, the eternal death, the lake of fire, which awaits every Christ rejecter. Be warned then, unsaved reader, and flee to Christ for refuge before the storm of divine wrath overtakes you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." I think Pink did a good job with that. So now Moses is going to, once again, doubt. You'd think he'd have his confidence built. He's got three signs, three solid signs. Okay, I'm ready to go now. I've got these three signs going. I'm going to perform these to the elders. They're going to believe. I get it. Sorry I doubted you, Lord. No. It gets worse and worse. That's why I can relate to Moses so much. So Moses now is going to doubt his own ability. And this is verse 10, and I'll read it to 12. Then Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. So the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall say." Isn't that almost exactly what the Lord Jesus said when he told us not to be afraid to go out and witness, and when we stand before governors and we get arrested for witnessing to people? The Holy Spirit will give you what to say. That doesn't mean we don't study scripture. That's pretty much what he's going to give us. This is what we've got tucked down in our minds. But it's the same kind of idea here. We don't feel adequate, do we? None of us do. I certainly don't. I'm just like Moses started out saying, who am I? Who am I to go to Pharaoh? He's got all these doubts. They don't listen to me. I can't speak. I'm not a public speaker. You've got the wrong guy. That's kind of what Moses is saying here. I saw in one of the commentaries, they went through some examples, because it's so common for us to feel inadequate to the task that God calls us to. So like you see Solomon say, now, oh Lord, my God, you've made your servant king instead of my father David. But I'm a little child. I do not know how to go in or to go out. I don't know what I'm doing, Solomon said. Isaiah says to God, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. I'm not your spokesman, I've got unclean lips, Isaiah said. Jeremiah says, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth. Too young, Lord. You got the wrong guy. Go get somebody that's a little more mature to be your spokesperson. It's not me. And that's basically what Moses is saying here. I will be with your mouth, is God's response. And I think you could almost fill in the blank there. If God indeed has gifted you and called you to do something, and you say, but Lord, I can't... Do this. And God says, I will be with your fill-in-the-blank, your mouth, your hands, your strength. Whatever it is that God's calling us to do, I'll be with you. I'll empower you through it. The old preachers used to say, what, that God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called, right? And that's what God does. I used to hear preachers say that all the time. I will be with your mouth. In 2 Corinthians 3.5, this is all summed up in one verse. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. That's the summation of what's going on here. The Apostle Paul said something very similar in 1 Corinthians 2. where he said to the church, And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. It's key, right? God takes humble people. He humbles them even more. He crushes them a little bit to get them all ready. I was reading a little devotion this week about how you can't make wine from grapes till they're crushed, right? And God wants to turn us into the elements, in a sense, the bread and the wine, and that we might serve people and serve God. But we go through some difficult times. as he lets us go through some crushings, that we can be that sweet savor to the world. One more Arthur Pink, if you'll allow me. He writes, neither the wisdom of Egypt, in which Moses was thoroughly skilled, nor the solitude of the desert, had fitted Moses for spiritual activities. Forty years had been spent in Egypt's court, and another 40 years in Midian's sheepfolds. Yet when the Lord appeared to him, Moses was full of unbelief and self-will. How this shows that the quietude of monastic life is as impotent to destroy the enmity of the carnal mind as is the culture of high society or the instruction of the schools. It is true that Moses had been much sobered by his lengthy sojourn to the backside of the desert, but in faith, in courage, in the spirit of obedience, he was greatly deficient. Grace, not nature, must supply these. The difficulties felt by Moses and the objections which he raised are those which have, in principle and essence, been felt and raised by all of God's servants at some time or the other. The perfect servant, the Lord Jesus alone accepted. If they have not been expressed by lip, they've at least been finding their self a place in our hearts. We feel inadequate. And I told you before, I think that's when God's like, OK, now I can use you. Now I can use you. You know you can't do this in your own strength. Now you're ready to be used as my instrument, as my vessel. So if that wasn't bad enough, Moses doubting that it's still going to work out with these signs, says he can't speak, very good. Well, God says, I'm going to be with your mouth. And in this next section, it reminds me of when Isaiah had his experience in Isaiah chapter 6 of seeing the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. And at the end of that experience, the Lord says, well, who can I send? Who can be our instrument to go to the people and to preach? And Isaiah says, what? Everybody knows. Here am I. Send me. where Moses says, here am I, send someone else. You ever say that to God? That's a dangerous... Jonah did that. It didn't work out too good. Here am I, send somebody else. But that's what he says. Okay, verse 13. But he said, O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send. That's well-worded. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well, and look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you should do. So he shall be your spokesman to the people, and he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God. and you shall take this rod in your hand with which you shall do the signs." He points Moses right back to that rod. The rod is not a magic rod. It's simply a symbol to remind Moses of the power of God that's with him. It's the power of Yahweh, right? But it's not a magic stick or anything like that. God just has it there as a sign to Moses, as a sign later to the people that their God is with them and He's a powerful and mighty God. The provision of Aaron, his brother. We'll see, God's already spoke to Aaron. He told him to go to the mountain. He's already had a conversation. He goes, oh look, your brother's coming. Like as if God's caught unawares. Wow, that's convenient. That's a coincidence, as my wife said today. There is no coincidence. So God's at work in all of this. He knows Moses' weakness, and he's already got it all worked out. Douglas Stewart said, probably the better translation, we don't understand, that God's mad at him and he's like, well, but your brother Aaron, it might be better worded like this. Even though the Lord was angry with Moses, he said, is not Aaron your Levite brother? In other words, God was not pleased with lack of faith. And that's what's going on here. But he provides in his grace a helper for Moses and his brother, Moses' mouthpiece. J. Vernon McGee thinks Moses made a big mistake here in not just simply being the commander in chief of the Israelites as the mediator of the Old Covenant. And this is what, let me just read what he wrote. He writes, Moses made a great mistake in asking God for a spokesman. God allowed it, but he did not want a divided command. You'll find out that this caused problems as the children of Israel journeyed through the wilderness. In the book of Numbers, we will discover that Aaron was involved in making a golden calf for Israel to worship. while Moses was on Mount Sinai. This was a terrible blunder on the part of Aaron, and it came as a result of this divided command. Other problems crop up in the book of Numbers. God did not need Aaron for the job of delivering the children of Israel. All he needed was Moses. Moses was reluctant to trust God all the way, and God had to send another man with him. We need to recognize our weakness, but when God calls us to do a job, we should respond with trust. God will enable us to do the job he calls us to do." Right? And that's true. So, verses 18 to 23, we're going to be introduced here to a theme that I want to touch on a little bit, which is Israel, my son. You're going to see a language here. So it says in verse 18, down to 23, So Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, Please let me go and return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace. And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, Go return to Egypt, for all the men who sought your life are dead.' Then Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took, here it is, the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your firstborn. That's sharp. And we'll see more about that as we move through it. Later on, and just to follow it just a little bit, the theme of Israel, God's son, his firstborn. When you get to Hosea, farther down the line here, the prophet Hosea, in chapter 11, verse one, it says, when Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my son. When you flash forward to the New Testament, the New Testament writers do not see the fulfillment of this language in the Exodus. They see the fulfillment of this prophecy, this language here, as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And let me read that to you, and then we'll move on. But in Matthew 2, Verse 13 and following, it says, Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, take the young child, who this is baby Jesus, or a young Jesus, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt. and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. and was there until the death of Herod. It's the same thing going on. The old Pharaoh had died. Now Moses can go. He's going to release his people in the Exodus. But here in the story of young Jesus with his parents, they go and flee to Egypt. And when the death of Herod occurred, this is what happened, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I called my son. Ultimately fulfilled in the sonship of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. So this is really fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ, who comes out of Egypt to be our deliverer. To take us through the road out, the exodus of our sin into life. So Pharaoh has ample time here to really release the Jews. But he begins to harden himself. And later we'll see that God hardens Pharaoh, who's already hardened himself. And he's not going to let them go. And his firstborn will be destroyed, sadly. I wanted to take this little section here and talk about it separately, because it's a strange incident. And I don't think I found a commentator that didn't say, well, this is a strange passage. Because there's not much detail. So I'm not going to speak a whole lot on it. But I do want to read it to you, and I'll say a few things. But in Exodus 4, verse 24 to 26, So it came to pass on the way at the encampment, that the Lord met him, meaning Moses, the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah, that's his wife, then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet and said, surely you are a husband of blood to me. So he let him go, meaning God didn't kill him. So he let him go. Then she said, you are a husband of blood because of the circumcision. What on earth is going on there? It doesn't give us any detail. And then you just go back to the story. It's just this little episode just kind of drops in there. So we can at least conclude here that Moses, at least one of his sons, he has two sons, is not circumcised. Well, God's people were to be circumcised. This goes all the way back to God's covenant with Abraham. And as a matter of fact, it's very to the point. It says, this is my covenant. This is Genesis 17.10. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you, your descendants after you. Moses is a descendant. Every male child among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. That's the Old Testament covenantal sign. The New Testament covenantal sign is baptism. But the Old Testament was circumcision. In chapter 17 of Genesis 14, the Lord very clearly points out, And the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. Now, commentators are all over the place of, why didn't this boy get circumcised? Why didn't Moses do this on the 8th day, right, to be circumcised? And yet, it was not done. And God stops him cold in his tracks, basically saying, you're the one who I'm going to bring the law to the people through, and here you are, a covenant breaker. I really think that's how you would interpret it. And obviously, Zipporah and he had talked about this before. Maybe some think she was opposed to it, and that's why she ends up doing it. I don't know. None of those details are there. But God was going to smite Moses. Some say, well, no, he's actually talking about a son. But the way mine reads in the New King James, they point to it. No, God was going to kill Moses because he was a covenant breaker. And he was the one who was to lead them in the exodus to be the mediator of that old covenant. So God deals with it right there. Zipporah circumcises the son. God relents, and they move on. So it's kind of a little strange. Anybody else think it's a little strange? I thought it was a little strange. And then we wrap up with verses 27 to 31. And the Lord said to Aaron, go into the wilderness to meet Moses. Now here we see where God has spoken to Moses and said, I want you to go to your brother, right? So the Lord said to Moses, I'm sorry, to Aaron, go into the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him on the mountain of God and kissed him. So Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel." See, now we're back in Egypt, right? Just like a flash, we don't get the journey or any of that. But now they're back in Egypt, they gather the elders, verse 29. Verse 30, And Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people. So the people believed. And when they had heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. That's a great ending of a chapter, right? So the Word of God, confirmed by signs. And you'll see that motif throughout the Bible, that the Word of God is confirmed by signs and wonders. You see that in the Old Testament, you see that in the New Testament. Jesus at one point said, well, if you won't believe me for the things I'm saying, at least believe me for the works. And he meant the miracles, the signs in the Gospel of John. At least look at these and see that they're signs that Jesus was trying to say, that I'm the Messiah, I'm the Son of God. But people wouldn't believe. But it's the Word of God, which is truth, accompanied by signs and wonders. The apostles, same thing. Before the Bible was put together, it was always the Word of God that was confirmed by signs and wonders. And we don't need that today. We have a completed Bible. I don't need signs and wonders to convince me that this Word is true. It stands on its own merit. The Word speaks for itself as being true. And I'll end with a little quote by J. Vernon McGee, because I thought this was good. He says, this is a great worship scene that we have here. Don't leave this chapter without seeing this worship scene. The people believed when they heard the Lord had visited the children of Israel and looked upon their affliction. Then they bowed their heads and they worshipped. They worshipped the true and living God. So he says, this is a great worship scene that we have here. These people come now to faith. in God. And it will be on this basis that God will lead them out of the land of Egypt, their faith in the true and living God. We'll end with that for today. Our Father and our God, we pray that you take the word that we've read and the little additional points that I made, Lord, that you just massage that into our minds, that we would meditate on these things throughout the week. And Lord, that we might really just relish and your goodness, and your power, and Lord, that you're our deliverer. Lord, we were bound in darkness and sin, and you freed us in the great exodus through the cross. So Lord, help us to be mindful of these things. In Jesus' name, amen. Receive the benediction and the blessing of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord made his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel.