There, hey, is it, is that it? I think we're good, okay. All right, cool. Sometimes, sometimes that's how technology goes. Let's see, I think we're on verse six. The same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen. He said, you shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past, let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past, you shall impose on them. You shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, let us go and offer sacrifice to our God. Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word. And we pray that as we hear it together, that your spirit would drive it into our hearts, that its significance would be clear to us, that its application to us would be clear to us. Father, we want to be a changed people. We don't want to leave this room exactly the same as we were when we came in. We want to leave more like Jesus. So work that in us. Wield your word in our hearts, wield it upon our souls, shaping us, scraping away the old man, scraping away the sinful desires and tendencies that still cling to us. and revealing a little bit more of the glory that will one day so fill and flow out of us that we ourselves would be shocked if we could see it today. So our father be at work in us for the sake of your son Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen. Well, the last several weeks we've been camping out in Exodus chapter 3 at Mount Sinai with Moses at the burning bush, and we've been digging into the name of God, I Am Who I Am, Yahweh, we've been discussing the significance of that name, what it reveals to us about this God who is at work in creation and in history. Well, it's time to move on. And so we're going to pick it up today at chapter 4 and verse 18. We're going to try to get all the way through chapter 6 and verse 13. Just to kind of set it in our minds again, I'm sure you're familiar with it, but just to make sure that we are aware of where we are. Israel as a nation is in Egypt. They have expanded their population explosively. Pharaoh is threatened by that. The Egyptian natives feel threatened by this very large group of outsiders. And so they have enslaved the nation. They have forced them into physical labor and slavery. Israel is suffering under Egyptian hands. That's not enough to stop the population explosion, so Pharaoh orders state-sanctioned forced infanticide against Israelite boys. Moses attempted to deliver Israel from slavery after being adopted as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, so Pharaoh's grandson at that point. Tried to lead a delivery attempt at 40 years old, failed, fled to Midian. Now he's been 40 years in the desert as a shepherd in the area of Midian. He meets God at the burning bush on Mount Sinai, which, by the way, is probably not the traditional Mount Sinai. We'll talk about that more later in the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai Peninsula was part of Egypt at that time. It was Egyptian territory. There were Egyptian forts throughout that region. More likely, this was a mountain in northwestern Saudi Arabia. We'll talk about that more another time. So he meets God here on this mountain, and God says, Moses, I'm gonna send you back to Israel, or back to Israel in Egypt, and I want you to deliver them from slavery. Moses says, I'd rather not. And God says, don't worry, I'll be with you. And Moses says, well, here's one reason why you shouldn't send me. And God says, well, I'll be with you. And Moses says, well, here's another reason why you shouldn't send me. And God says, well, I'll be with you. And Moses says, well, here's another reason why you shouldn't send me. And God says, don't worry, Moses, I'll be with you. And finally, Moses just says, God, I just want you to send somebody else. Exodus chapter four, verse 13. O Lord, please send someone else. Moses does not want to do this, but God sends him anyway. Moses Finally does. Chapter four, verse 18. Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law. He said to him, let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see if they're still alive. Now that's not why he's going back to Egypt. He's not going back to Egypt to see if anybody's still alive. He's going back to Egypt because God has sent him. But there's kind of some diplomacy in this. There's some discernment in this. He doesn't say, see you later, Jethro. I'm gonna go save Israel from Egypt. If you've seen Princess Bride, you can imagine Jethro saying something like this, well, have fun storming the castle. I hope my grandkids survive. So Moses doesn't tell everything to Jethro. He's not deceiving him, he's not telling him everything, but Jethro says to Moses, fine, go in peace. The Lord says to Moses in Midian, go back to Egypt. For all the men who were seeking your life are dead. It's been 40 years. The pharaoh who wanted to kill you, he's gone. His enforcers, they're all gone. Don't worry, you'll be fine. So Moses goes back to Egypt. Verse 20, he took the staff of God in his hand, which the staff of God is just Moses Shepherd's staff. It's just a normal staff. I actually have one in my study, a modern shepherd's crook. It's just a stick. And in Egypt, he's going to face down with the staffs of the gods, and these would have been these massive, beautiful, shaped, and gold-encrusted and jewel-encrusted staffs that were magical and mystical, and they were super special. Moses just has a shaped stick. But it's the staff of God. So then Moses receives a preview. God gives him a preview of what's gonna happen. Verse 21, when you go back to Egypt, I want you to make sure that you do before Pharaoh all of the miracles that I've put in your power. So I want you to make sure that you do all of these signs. I want you to give him every opportunity to see that the God he's dealing with is extremely powerful. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. And you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says Yahweh, Israel is my firstborn son. I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son. So God gives Moses an entire preview of what's gonna happen because he doesn't want him to be surprised. He doesn't want him to walk into the situation blindfolded. God in his mercy tells him, I know you're filled with anxiety and trepidation, you're nervous, you're afraid. Let me tell you how things are gonna go. Pharaoh's not gonna listen to you. And I'm gonna do mighty signs of power. And eventually Pharaoh will drive you out. And then we come to one of those passages in the Old Testament that just makes us kind of cock our heads and go, what? Verse 24, at a lodging place on the way, Yahweh met him and sought to put him to death. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, touched Moses' feet with it, and said, surely you're a bridegroom of blood to me. So he let him alone. It was then that she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision. It's like, what is that about? You know, the Old Testament has a lot of stories like that, that at first glance just seem weird. Why is this here? What does this have to do with me today in the 21st century, of course, but why would God try to kill Moses right after sending him on a mission? And how did Zipporah know to circumcise their son and then touch the skin to the person? And which person was it? In Hebrew, it's not clear. Was it Moses who was being afflicted by God, or was it the son who was being afflicted by God? In Hebrew, it's not clear. Well, there's a few things going on here, I think. First, you may notice a parallel between this incident and Balaam. In Numbers chapter 24, you'll recall, Balaam is a Syrian prophet. Balak, the king of Moab, summons him. He says, hey, you've got this large, giant, enormous group of people who've suddenly moved into my territory, and they've destroyed a lot of other countries, and I'm just really afraid of this, and so I want you to come and curse them. And God tells Balaam, yeah, you can go, but only say what I tell you to say. And so Balaam goes on his way, and as he's riding his donkey down towards Midian or Moab, the donkey sees an angel that's waiting to kill him. The donkey stops. Balaam gets upset, beats the donkey, the donkey keeps going. sees an angel again, and the donkey, you know, tries to go off the road, and Balaam gets upset, beats the donkey again, the donkey gets back on the road, and then he sees an angel that's in the middle of the road, there's nowhere to go, so the donkey just sits down. Balaam gets really upset, starts beating the donkey, and all of a sudden the donkey starts talking to Balaam. Hey, why are you beating me up? I've never done this before. Am I a stubborn donkey? I don't think so. And Balaam is not shocked at all, and realizes what's going on, and the Lord says to Balaam, Balaam, only say what I tell you to say. And it's like the reason God does this is not that he's planning to kill Balaam. He's trying to drive home to Balaam how deadly serious he is. If you fail to do exactly what I tell you to do, then you will die. I think that's maybe something a little bit like what's going on here with Moses. Moses doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to go to Egypt. He doesn't want to be the one who has to face down Pharaoh. He doesn't want to be the one who has to deliver Israel from Egypt. And so God gives him a sense of the deadly seriousness of the situation. I am going to deliver Israel from Egypt, and I'm going to do it through you. So pay attention and do it right. But I think there's more going on. The covenant with Abraham required that every Israelite male be circumcised. The fact that Gershom is Moses' son makes him an Israelite male, and Gershom is not circumcised. Moses, then, is a covenant breaker. Technically, at this point, he's outside of the covenant with Abraham, and so he is in danger. The only safe way to relate to God is through God's covenant. That's the point God is making. The only safety that you will find is when you are living in line with what I have revealed. You break away from that, danger meets you at every turn. And so the lesson for Moses and for all Israel here is don't presume on God's kindness when you haven't been obedient. But I think there's one other thing going on here, the word touch there. In verse 25, Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son's foreskin and touched, in Hebrew it's his feet with it, so it's not clear if it's Moses' feet, though the ESV decides that it's Moses' feet, maybe it's Moses, maybe it's Gershom the son. That word appears in that form only in one other place in Exodus, that's in Exodus chapter 12, verse 22. where Israel is commanded to touch their door frames with the blood of the Lamb so that the angel of death will pass over. And I think what you get here is kind of a foreshadowing of the Passover. Interestingly, Exodus 1 through 15 is arranged almost like a chiasm. If you're not familiar with what a chiasm is, it basically looks like a giant V. It moves in and then it moves back out. And so at the beginning of Exodus, you have Israel in danger from the waters of death. Israelite men being tossed into the river Nile. At the end of Exodus chapter 15, Israel is delivered through the waters of death, just like Moses at the beginning. Then you move forward a little bit, you have Moses running away from Egypt, Israel moving away from Egypt. Then you've got Passover stuff with God appearing to Moses here, and then Israel later on with the Passover. And then right in the middle, you have the section of the plagues that is God's revelation of power against Moses, or rather against Israel. So I think this is kind of a foreshadowing of the Passover. Now the thing is, I could be wrong. I don't know for sure what's going on here, but that's my best shot. So if you have a better shot, I'd love to hear it afterwards. Moses and his sons and all Israel, though, are only delivered from death through the shedding of blood. That's kind of the idea that's drawn out here. So Moses is delivered from death. Verse 27, the Lord had said to Aaron, I want you to go into the wilderness to meet Moses. He goes out and met him at the mountain of God. Moses tells Aaron everything that God had revealed. This is what God says he's gonna do, and these are the signs he said that we're supposed to do. And so they come back to Egypt, gather together all of the elders of the people of Israel, the leaders of the nation. This would have been probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 men. Aaron spoke all of the words of the Lord that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And so now we see how this is going to work out. Moses is going to hear revelation from God. He's going to give it to Aaron, and Aaron is going to be the spokesman. So Aaron tells them everything God had said. And Aaron does the signs in the sight of the people, not Moses, which is interesting to me. It's Aaron who takes the stick and sets it out, and it turns into a snake in front of the Israelite elders. It's Aaron at this point who sticks his hand inside of his coat, pulls it out, and it's covered with leprosy, sticks it back in, and now it's healed. It's Aaron who takes a cup of the waters of the Nile, pours it out, and it's turned to blood. He does those three signs, and notice what Israel does Verse 31, the people believed. When they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel, that he'd seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. God does not just say through Moses, back up Israel, I'm here. He gives them evidence, concrete evidence, signs to build up their faith. God cares about the weary souls of his people. He wants to give us hope. Moses, when he leaves Midian, he leaves nervous, yes, but there's hope here. This is a hopeful journey. I'm on my way back. God has given us all of these signs. He says he's gonna do this. He gets back to Israel. Israel is filled with hope. They believe, ah, it's good of God to give us reasons to hope. especially because man's stubbornness often dashes our hopes. Chapter five, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, let my people go. Notice, by the way, it's not Moses saying, let my people, Moses' people, go, it's the Lord saying, let my people, Yahweh's people, go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Pharaoh says, who is this Yahweh fellow? I've never heard of him. I don't know him. I'm not familiar with him. I have no reason to think I should be concerned about what Yahweh wants. Go away, Moses. Pharaoh knows lots of gods. Egypt at this time has hundreds of deities. The nations around Egypt all have at least dozens. And Pharaoh would have been familiar, not just with the Egyptian pantheon, he would have been familiar with the Edomite pantheon, he would have been familiar with the Moabite pantheon, the Midianite pantheon, he would have been familiar with the Canaanite pantheon, he would have known the gods of the Hittites, the Mitanni, he would have known the gods of all of these nations around him. So when Moses comes in and says, hey, Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, let my people go, when he says, who is Yahweh, what he's saying is, I have never heard of this person before. Whose God did you say he was? Moses says he's the God of the Hebrews. And Pharaoh says, who cares? The Hebrews are slaves. They don't get gods. Who cares? I do not know Yahweh. And moreover, I will not let Israel go. I don't know why I should obey the voice of this Yahweh fellow. That's one of the primary themes of the rest of the book of Exodus. God says, chapter seven, verse five, the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh. Later on, By this you shall know that I am Yahweh. I will strike the water that's in the Nile and it shall turn into blood. Tomorrow the frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people so that you may know that there is no one like Yahweh our God. On that day I will set apart the land of Goshen where my people dwell so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I, Yahweh, am in the midst of the land. The point of the plagues that God pours out on Egypt is to show to Pharaoh who Yahweh is and why he should be obeyed. But Pharaoh won't budge. They say, well, the God of the Hebrews is met with us. He wants us to go three days into the wilderness, have a sacrifice to him. Otherwise, who knows? Maybe he'll fall on us with pestilence and plague. That's what gods do sometimes when they don't get the worship they want. They're speaking to Pharaoh in terms that he understands. Plague, pestilence, that follows a failure of worship. You have to figure out which god to atone for and appease and stuff like that. The king of Egypt says to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens. Three-day weekend, that's all they're asking for. After over a century of slavery, over a century of nonstop work, asking for a three-day weekend, and Pharaoh says, no. Why would I do that for you? Now, I think that the request for a weekend off is probably sincere. The goal is to reveal Pharaoh's arrogance and his cruelty. He's not willing to let them have even a weekend off. He has absolutely no concern for the well-being of these people, only for the building of his own kingdom and maintaining his own control. Pharaoh believes, first, that Yahweh is unworthy of worship. You want to go three days into the wilderness to worship Yahweh? I don't care. Yahweh's not worthy of that. Yahweh is unworthy of worship. Second, Israel is unworthy of rest, verses five through nine. You make the people rest from their burdens. That, in Hebrew, is the word Sabbath. You're trying to give them a Sabbath. Who do you think you are? So the same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, you shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past. Let them go and get their own straw. They shall still make the same number of bricks. The reason that they want time off is because they are idle, bored, lazy. Now, parents, you know what it's like sometimes. Your child comes to you at two o'clock in the afternoon during Christmas break, says, Mom, I'm bored. And you know what you normally respond with. I mean, sometimes it's, OK, well, let's play a game. And often, it's something more like this. Oh, you're bored. That's great news. I have so much that makes me not bored. So how about you help me with some of the stuff that makes me not bored? You could wash some dishes, or you could sweep the floor, or you could do something like that. And the kid says, no, I'm fine. I'm not. I'm not not bored. Moses says, these people are lazy. They're not working enough. They already work from sunrise to sunset every day, no days off, sometimes beyond sunset and sometimes before sunrise. They're just not working enough. They're lazy. That's why they're saying, oh, we want to go have a festival to our God. No, what they need is heavier work so that they labor at it and have no time to listen to lying words. And with that, Pharaoh throws down the gauntlet. Who is actually speaking truth? Is it Yahweh who says they are my people and I am gonna bring them out of Israel? Or is it Pharaoh who says they are my people and I say they're going to stay in Egypt? You see, Pharaoh is a tyrant. Or to use a Bible word that's been co-opted by critical theory, Pharaoh is an oppressor. See, the problem with being a sinner, living in a world that is riddled with sin, is that every one of Adam's children both oppresses and is oppressed. at different times and in different ways. Oppression, by the way, is prolonged, cruel, or unjust treatment or control, cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control. See, the problem with critical theory is that it says that some people are only oppressors by virtue of their identity. For example, all white people are oppressors because they are white. All non-white people are oppressed because they are not white. All sexual minorities, so-called, are oppressed because they are minorities. All straight people, so-called, are oppressors, and so on. And so you end up with the tyranny of white, heteronormative, cisgender male oppressors. But the reality is all of Adam's children At different times, in different relationships, and in different ways are both oppressors and oppressed. None of us fails to sin and none of us can escape being sinned against. We shouldn't throw out a good Bible word just because it's been abused by anti-Christian philosophies. Oppressive, controlling, tyrannical behavior is condemned by God. Now, generally, people who engage in this, like Pharaoh, they don't think that they're doing that. They don't see their words, actions, behaviors as oppressive. They see them as needed, justified, even righteous. Pharaoh doesn't believe he's doing something wrong here. Pharaoh's not sitting on his throne being like, you know what, I know this is the bad thing to do, but I'm gonna do it anyways, because I don't care. Pharaoh is tasked with preserving Mayotte. in Egyptian theology, the principle of justice, truth, balance, harmony, law, and order. Moses and Aaron are threatening the balance of Egyptian society. It's like somebody going to North Korea and saying, you know what, Kim Jong-un, he's not God. He's not worthy of worship. How does Kim Jong-un respond? Because that disrupts the balance. Egyptian society was a carefully stratified nation. Everyone fell into their place perfectly, from Pharaoh at the top, equal to the gods, down to the lowliest slave at the bottom, who was a little better than a beast. Moses and Aaron here come in, and they are trying to disrupt that stratification. They're trying to disrupt the nation, and Pharaoh's job, delegated to him by the gods, is to prevent that from happening. You don't have to be a dictator of an entire country to be a tyrant. Oppression exists wherever selfish authority is abused. Excuse me, wherever authority is selfishly abused, that's what I intended to say. And that can happen in any relationship. husband, wife, father, mother, boss, co-worker, employee even. Pastors are not immune from that. It can happen anywhere. The stubbornness of Adam's fallen sons and daughters often leads to despair and suffering. Israel's response when they find out that they've been tasked with making the same number of bricks and they don't get any straw, the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and they said to the people, Pharaoh says that we don't get straw. Go and get your straw yourselves. Wherever you can find it, your work will not be reduced in the least." So the people scatter through the land looking for, you know, fallow plots of land where they can gather the leftover straw from the harvest. They're looking anywhere they possibly can. They're gathering grasses, they're gathering anything they can find that could fill the role of straw in this brick making. To make mud bricks you use clay and water and you need a binding agent and that's what the straw is for. The straw pulls the mud together, keeps it together so that it doesn't fall apart as soon as it's out of the kiln. So that's what they need. They need this binding agent but they don't have it. They still have to make the same number of bricks So they're looking everywhere. The taskmasters are chasing after them, yelling at them the whole way. Complete your work, your daily task each day. Finish your quota. And when the day finishes and they haven't done it, the foremen of the people of Israel were beaten. The ones Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them. These are slaves themselves who are tasked with overseeing other slaves. These ones have the responsibility to make sure the other slaves get their work done so that Pharaoh doesn't get upset with them. Now they're being beaten and beating in ancient Egypt was not a pleasant thing to endure. This was usually something like you would be laid out flat on the ground, somebody would hold your feet, somebody would hold your hands, and they would stretch you as tight as they could, and then they would take a stick and they would beat you up to 100 lashes, sometimes more. If they were in a specially vindictive mood, then they would beat you on the soles of your feet. This was cruel. And while they're being beaten, they're being asked, why haven't you finished your quota? So the foreman come to Pharaoh and they say to him, why are you treating us like this? You're not giving us straw and yet they say to us, make bricks. Your servants are being beaten but it's your own people's fault. They're not giving us the stuff that we need to finish the job. Pharaoh says, You're lazy. You're lazy. That's why you're not finishing your quota. That's why you're saying, let us go and sacrifice to Yahweh. You're just lazy. Get back to work. No straw will be given to you, and you must still deliver the same number of bricks. Pharaoh blames Israel for their suffering at his hand. See what you made me do? None of this would have happened if you hadn't rocked the boat. It's your fault that you're suffering. It's your fault that your life is hard. It's your fault that I took away the stuff you need to finish the job. It is your fault It's absolutely despicable. Pharaoh blames Israel, the Israelite foreman come out when they saw that they were in trouble, they met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them as they came out from Pharaoh and they said to him, Yahweh, look on you and judge because you have made a stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Pharaoh blames Israel, Israel blames Moses. which is a common dynamic in situations like this. It's not safe to go deal with the authority figure, so we're going to find somebody that we can scapegoat safely. And that happens to be Moses. Why did you even bother coming back? We were perfectly fine until you came back and rocked the boat. You're not helping. Moses. This is the voice of fear, the voice of suffering, the voice of despair. You can see how abuse confuses the victim, it disrupts their understanding of the world and where responsibility lies and who's actually at fault for how things are broken. Pharaoh blames Israel, Israel blames Moses, Moses turns around and blames God. Moses turned to the Lord and said, oh Lord, which here in Hebrew is Adonai, oh Adonai, Why have you done this? Why did you ever send me? Ever since I started speaking to Pharaoh in your name, he has only done evil to his people, and you have not delivered your people at all. Well, boy, that's trippy. How many conversations has Moses had with Pharaoh to this point? One. And as soon as things blow up with Pharaoh, Moses is ready to throw in the towel. Whoa, Lord, these guys are throwing real punches. This actually hurts. Can I get out of the ring now? Isn't that like us? Why did you ever send me? Why have you done evil to this people? They were perfectly fine until you decided that you were going to do this thing and rescue them from slavery and everything. Why did you have to interfere? Now here's the thing, God had already told Moses, Pharaoh is not going to listen to you. Remember, chapter four, verse 21, I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. See, God's promise never comes all at once. It always comes with the appearance of slowness. And that's why Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 3, do not count the Lord's slowness as slowness. Don't look at God's, you know, apparent laziness in moving along his plan and think, well, you know, that just means nothing, it's never gonna happen, the promise will never be fulfilled. No, the reason God moves slowly is because he's eager for repentance. He wants people to change and turn away from their sin, be delivered, so he moves slowly in that way. All of God's promises come that way. They move slowly, slowly, slowly, until all of a sudden, bam, the glorious fulfillment arrives. And so with Israel his deliverance appears to move slowly, there's more suffering before there's freedom. You see my friends when we encounter difficulty in the path of godliness that's not a sign that we're on the wrong path. God never promised us an easy path, he promised us a good destination and strength for the journey. God says, this is what I'm gonna do. Man says, no you ain't. And the question then is, to whom will you look? Moses says to God, ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he's done evil to this people, you haven't delivered your people at all. Yahweh 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. Pharaoh will get to the point where he is so excited for Israel to be gone that he will kick them out. And you say, that's crazy. God says to Moses, I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, El Shaddai. We've talked about that over the last few weeks. But by my name Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them. Now, Yahweh, that name appears all throughout Genesis, and Abraham uses it, Isaac uses it, even Adam uses it, Eve uses it, even when she names Cain. The name Yahweh was known before. But the meaning of that name, the significance of that name was not revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as it would be revealed to Moses in Israel. I have established my covenant with them. I'm gonna give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Listen to this, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves. I have remembered my covenant. This is a pep talk. God is giving Moses a pep talk. So say to the people of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 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 Yahweh, 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 Yahweh." So now the stage is set. Yahweh versus Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt. To whom will you look, Moses? Will you look at the greatness and goodness of your God? Or will you look at the fearfulness of Pharaoh? Who is bigger? Who is bigger? Moses goes to Israel and he tells them what God had told him to say, but, verse nine of chapter six, they did not listen to Moses. What a change. From the end of chapter four, they heard what the Lord had said. They heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel. That phrase just by itself is very significant. Joseph, as he's about to die, he looks at his brothers and his sons and his grandsons and his nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews and the whole family's gathered around. Joseph says, guys, I'm about to die, but Yahweh will visit you and he will bring you out of this land. Israel now hears, this is it, this is Yahweh visiting us, he's seen our affliction, he's gonna save us. They believe, they bow their heads in worship and then, after the first opposition, they don't listen anymore. Why? Because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. They were in despair. Israel has been trained in craven fear. Israel has been trained to be terrified of authority. They have been trained to be terrified of power. They have been trained to fear the lash, to fear the sword, to fear the slave drivers, to fear Pharaoh. In their life right now, Pharaoh is big. He's the one who yanked the straw. He's the one who beat them when they didn't fulfill their quota. Pharaoh is big. God, he seems pretty small. He says he's gonna do this stuff, but so far, all we've seen are some pretty cool tricks with a stick. They don't know him yet. They don't yet know what it means that Yahweh is their God, and the reason is because of their harsh slavery. Abuse has a long-term impact on the soul, the mind, and the body. In fact, in some cases, emotional and verbal abuse has a longer and more far-reaching impact on the body than physical abuse. You can get away from somebody's fists, but their words stay with you. People who have been discipled by angry shouts and malicious words and reviling speech and balled up fists will struggle to trust. They will struggle to trust God even. Because in their life, authority and power has been used to hurt, to control, and to manipulate. And so they will struggle to trust that authority and power could be intended for their good. And it's not just Israel who's struggling with this. Israel says, no, we're not gonna listen to you. So the Lord says to Moses, I want you to go back in, talk to Pharaoh again, tell him to let the people of Israel go. And Moses said to the Lord, behold, the people of Israel haven't listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me? I'm a man of uncircumcised lips. I don't talk good. Israel, my own family, they don't wanna listen to me. Pharaoh's definitely not gonna listen to me. What's the point? In Moses' eyes, Pharaoh is big, God is small. But God is patient with them, as he's patient with us. He doesn't just look at Moses, he doesn't look at Israel and say, hey, I'm God, obviously I'm bigger, huh? He builds their faith. by delivering one smashing blow against Pharaoh's authority at a time. I know you guys are having a hard time trusting me, so we'll start small, shall we? Let's turn the Nile River to blood today. Well, that wasn't enough. How about frogs in Pharaoh's bed and everywhere else he goes? Oh, the frogs are all dead. That's okay, I can make gnats out of dust, biting insects that will cover his body and cover his servants and afflict them. The gnats disappear, I can make flies and bring in swarms of flies and don't worry, Israel, they're not gonna hurt you, they're just for the Egyptians, a special treat. I can kill their cows. I can give them blisters just like they gave you blisters. I can smash their kingdom with hail from heaven and fire out of the sky. I can send locusts to eat their harvest. I can send darkness so thick that they can't actually get out of bed for three days. I got this. I am Yahweh. But he does it one step at a time, not only for the display to Egypt of his power, but for Israel to build them up so that when God finally says, all right, I want you to cover your door with blood so that the angel of death doesn't come in, Israel says, wow. Wow. When God says, all right, I want you to go talk to your neighbors and ask them for gold and silver, your Egyptian neighbors, ask them for all the gold and silver they have in the house, Israel doesn't say, well, that would be really stupid. They're not going to give it. Israel says, that's a great idea. I'm going to do that. He builds up their faith one step at a time. God does not wait for Israel to become confident that he will deliver them before he saves them. He doesn't wait for them to kill their fear and despair before he rescues them from the cause of their fear and despair, because he is merciful. He is good. My friends, God does not always wait for our faith to be big and strong before he acts. Usually, he acts when our faith is weak. Not always. Sometimes he says, I want you to trust me. and I want your faith to be strong like Elijah. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed that it wouldn't rain for three years and six months, and sure enough, when he prayed, boom, no rain for three years and six months. Elijah was a man of faith. Most of us don't have faith like Elijah. He knows our frame. He is mindful that we are dust. Thank God, his faithfulness to us does not depend on our faith in him, it depends on his own goodness. 2 Timothy chapter two actually, this is a glorious example of that, 2 Timothy chapter two. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us, but if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. This is the message of the good news, isn't it? This is the good news that God has given to us to give to others. We are totally unable to deliver ourselves from our primary problem. Powerless. Slavery to sin and slavery to the prince of darkness. Sin was our master, death was our lord, affliction was our lot, sorrow was our daily bread. And we could not get away from that, but God being rich in mercy, and because of the great love with which he loved us. When we were dead in our transgressions and sins, he made us alive with Christ. That's the good news. And now the stage is set. Pretty soon we're gonna get to plagues. And that's going to be fun. One of the reasons I love the book of Exodus is because it gives us this huge view of God. He is so big, so surpassingly big. that even all of his enemies put together, all of his enemies throughout time allied together against him are, as he says in Isaiah chapter 40, less than nothing. Our God is a God of power and his power is always directed by goodness. So my friends, we always have reason to rejoice. Let's pray. Our God, we give you praise because you are good and because you are great. It is good for us to know you. It is good for us to be called by your name. And we rejoice in you, O Lord. And we pray that you would build us up in this knowledge, that you would strengthen our faith, that we would hold fast to you because you love us and because you are with us. So help us, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.