So we are continuing on in the book of Exodus. And I'm going to back up just a little bit, because I purposely stopped at the end of chapter 5. But probably a lot of your Bible shows chapter 5 connected to chapter 6. And it is. It's connected. And I want to kind of focus on that connection today. Well, let me pray before we start to read the word. Our Father and our God, we pause before we even begin to read your text here to ask your blessing on your word. Lord, we pray that you just fill us with joy. Lord, we pray that you would help us to understand who you are in a deeper way, a more fully known way. Lord, as you teach us and instruct us, And Lord, we thank you for that, in Jesus' name, amen. So if you remember, we ended last week where Moses was struggling before God and basically said, why'd you send me here? You haven't rescued anybody. Why did you have me to go in this mission of failure? This is sort of like where Moses kind of left it off. But of course, God's going to have a response. And what I want to see as we move through chapter 6 is, What God knew Moses needed to know about who God was. And so that's my heading on each section we're going to look at is something about God that we need to really know. Moses needed to know it and we need to know it. And the first is that God is in control. especially when we go through dark, difficult times, to always be able to say, I don't know what's going on, but I know God's in control. That's important for us to learn. So let me read Exodus chapter five from verse 22, and we'll go right into chapter six and just read the first two verses of chapter six. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people. Neither have you delivered your people at all. Then the Lord said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land. And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. What a great thing for us to realize when God says to you in the midst of your circumstance, I am Yahweh. I'm your covenant God. I am the Lord. I'm strong and mighty. I'm in control. You do what I told you to do and leave the results to me. The phrase, and we'll see it again in a minute, of God, his self-revelation, to tell Moses, I am Yahweh. I am the Lord. It's four times in the first two sections we're going to look at here. That's the message God's trying to convey to Moses, is, Moses, I think you've forgotten who you're talking to here. I am the Lord. I'm the covenant God. I'm God Almighty, he'll say. And I'm going to go to a couple old statements of faith. But in the Heidelberg Catechism, for the Lord's Day number 10, in a catechism, and some churches, a lot of churches still do catechisms, especially with the children, is there's a question given to the child, or sometimes it's an adult, but usually it was the children, and there was a rote answer. In other words, there was a particular answer they were to answer to that question. So they were given the question and they were to study the answer. So when they were quizzed, they knew what the answer was, right? So, and here's the question. What do you understand by the providence of God? And the answer is, God's providence is his almighty and ever-present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures. And he so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty. Indeed, all things come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand." What a great answer to that question. That's what God's conveying to Moses here. You know, I am God. Moses is like, nothing's happened. You do what I told you to do. I am God. Nothing happens by chance. The reason why so far Pharaoh's reacting the way he is, is because I'm God. My perfect will is working its way out in this whole Exodus experience. And Moses needed to hear that. In Jeremiah 23, 23, Am I a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I should not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord, His omnipresence, His omnipotence, all-powerful. And He's a good God, right? We need to know Him that way. Proverbs 22.2, the rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all. And Jesus said it this way, and He's talking about God's providence. When Jesus taught in Matthew 10, verse 29, He says, Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground, apart from your Father's will. Hebrews says, even now, even so, even now, Christ, Hebrews 1.3, Christ is upholding all things by the word of His power. Let that resonate with you in your good days, but especially in your bad days. Lord, you're in control. I don't know what's going on, but you are absolutely in control. You're the Lord. You are the Lord. One more confession, and I'll move on from these old documents. This is the Belgic Confession, Article 13, under the title of the Doctrine of God's Providence. And this is important, guys, that we know this stuff. It reads like this. We believe that this good God, after creating all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune, but leads and governs them according to his holy will in such a way that nothing happens in this world without God's orderly arrangement. Yet, God is not the author of and cannot be charged with the sin that occurs. For God's power and His goodness are so great and incomprehensible that God arranges and does His works very well and justly, even when the devils and the wicked act unjustly. We do not wish to inquire with undue curiosity into what God does that surpasses human understanding and is beyond our ability to comprehend. But, in all humility and reverence, we adore the just judgments of God, which are hidden from us, being content to be Christ's disciples. so as to learn only what God shows us in the Word, without going beyond those limits. This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort, since it teaches us that nothing can happen to us by chance, but only by the arrangement of our gracious Heavenly Father, who watches over us with fatherly care, sustaining all creatures under His Lordship, so that not one of the hairs of our head, for they are all numbered, nor even a little bird can fall to the ground without the will of our Father. In this thought we rest, knowing that God holds in check the devils and all of our enemies, who cannot hurt us without divine permission and will. For that reason, We reject the damnable error of Epicureans, who say that God does not get involved in anything and leaves everything to chance. So God tells Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand, he will let them go. With a strong hand, he'll drive them out of his land. And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am. The Lord. That's a good word. So the first thing that God needs Moses to understand is that God's in control. The second thing is that God keeps his covenant. Praise God for that. I used to go to men's gatherings called promise keepers. Went to several of them. And in actuality, men are not promise keepers. We fail miserably at our promises. And we stumble, and even willfully at times, sin. God's the ultimate promise keeper. He keeps his word perfectly. And he covenants with us in Jesus Christ. And he promises to keep that covenant that we have in Christ. So this is Exodus 6, 2 to 5. And 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, Lord, I was not known to them. I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage to which they were a stranger. And I've also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage. And I have remembered my covenant." God always keeps and remembers his covenant. If you go back to chapter 2 of Exodus, it says in verse 24, So God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Does that mean sometimes God remembers and sometimes God forgets? Is that why it says that God, Oh, I just remembered. I forgot all about it. I remember. No, God always remembers his covenant. We're the ones that need to get reminded. often that God is a covenant keeper, right? When we come to Jesus Christ on his terms by faith and repentance, and we embrace Christ, God is faithful to keep our covenant of salvation in Jesus Christ. He's good to his word. In Psalm 105, just to undergird what I just said, Psalm 105 verse 8, the psalmist writes of God, He remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded for a thousand generations. God always keeps and remembers His covenant. In Deuteronomy 7, 9, Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Psalm 103 and verse 17, but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children, to such as keep his covenant and to those who remember his commandments to do them. When you go back to Genesis, and I'll take you back there for a minute, There's a couple places we could go to, because God reiterates His promise to Abraham several times. But I'll go to chapter 13, verse 14, where it says, And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, Lift your eyes now, and look from the place where you are northward, southward, eastward, and westward. For all the land which you see, I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth. So that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and width, for I give it to you. This is the land that God is bringing the descendants of Abram out into, to inherit. It's the land that he promised through his servant Abram. When you get to Genesis 22, verse 16, and this is a significant verse, and I'll tell you why in a second. But it says, God says, By myself I have sworn. That's a strange phrase, isn't it? By myself. I swear by myself, God says. By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing. You've not withheld your son, your only son. Blessing I will bless you. Multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In other words, they'll prevail. Right? And this is fulfilled temporarily in the release of the Hebrews, the Jews from Pharaoh and Egypt to go and inherit that land. But the ultimate fulfillment is in Jesus Christ. And the writer of Hebrews picks up on this. And so I'm going to take you over to Hebrews 6, and then we'll move on. But Hebrews 6 verse 13 says, For when God made a promise to Abraham, now we're going back to the passage I just read. That's what the writer of Hebrews has in mind. When God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself. saying, Surely, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope that's set before us. He's talking about the fact that we fled to Christ as refuge, as our Redeemer, as our Savior. Two immutable things. God swore by His own name, the unchanging promise of God, and then the oath that confirmed it. So we have strong consolation, the writer of Hebrews says, we who fled to Christ for safety, that God will indeed bring us to glory. I want to go back just for a minute, because there's a verse here that's very controversial. It's a tough verse. And we just skimmed right past it. You might have noticed it. You might not have noticed it. But let me read it, and I'll just unpack it a little bit, and then we'll move on. So in verse 2, Exodus 6, it says, And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, as El Shaddai. You've heard that before, El Shaddai. I appeared to them as El Shaddai, God Almighty. But by my name, Lord, or Yahweh, I was not known to them. El Shaddai means God Almighty. Yahweh is His proper name, right? The thing that's a little tough with the verse is that when you go back and read the prior books, Genesis and so on, and you read how God did reveal Himself, He does reveal Himself as Yahweh. And there's times even with the patriarchs that He reveals Himself as Yahweh. So what's the possible solutions to the conundrum we find ourselves with? What did God mean by that? Some think that you're supposed to read that as a rhetorical question. And as a matter of fact, the NIV footnote down at the bottom of the page, a lot of the NIV, has this. But by my name Yahweh? Was I not known to them? Like, it's a question. Like, you know, of course I was known to them. I don't think that's what's going on here myself. I think it's better probably to understand that they, in their day, the patriarchs didn't understand God at that level that Moses and the delivering Jews that are coming out of Egypt would come to know Him. as a Redeemer, as a Deliverer. That what God is doing in the Exodus experience is actually a fleshing out of His own name of Himself. His name is tied to who He is. And He's a Redeemer. He's God Almighty. He's El Shaddai, for sure. But He's a personal God who delivers. He's Yahweh. So I think that's probably a better way to understand what's going on there. And God did... you know, sort of expositionally. Teaching is a better way maybe to understand it. When God did reveal his name to Moses, remember he said, I am that I am Moses. Therefore you tell them Yahweh, the great I am, the self-existent one, says let my people go. Right? That was the idea. So we'll move on. I just want to touch on that. So the third thing that Moses needs to know about God is that God's a savior. God saves, right? And we'll look at verses six to nine. Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage. I am the Lord.' So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, But they did not heed Moses because of anguish, of spirit, and cruel bondage." They had their eyes on their problems. They weren't lifting their eyes up to the true and living God. But I emphasized a few words that I hope you came across. God, in the prior passage, in verse 2, and then into these verses 6 to 9, four times does that self-revelation and says, I am Yahweh. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. John MacArthur, in his commentary says, I am the Lord. The Lord calls the Israelites to change their focus from their sufferings to his character. He is always faithful, even in times of suffering. He's always faithful. We need to know Him that way. Our trials that we go through drive us to our knees that we might look to heaven and say, you're the Lord God Almighty. I'm suffering right now, Lord, but it's not by chance. You're God Almighty. You've got your purposes. You're fulfilling. And the book of Romans tells us that He's working everything to the good. We have to believe that in faith. So four times, I am the Lord. And then seven times, I will. I will. I will. Moses, you're not going to do anything. I will. I will. I will. Seven times. Proverbs 21.1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord like the rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes. Remember that. Remember that the next time we come up in this country for election cycles. God is in control of all of that stuff. All of it. We don't look to political leaders for salvation. We look to Yahweh. We look to the true and living God, to our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, when I deliver you by my strong and mighty arm, my strong hand, then you shall know experientially who I am. I am the great Yahweh. I'm your deliverer. Right? That's what he says. Job had that experience. Do you remember Job? He goes through suffering. He doesn't know what's going on. His friends keep telling him he's in sin. You must be in sin. You wouldn't be suffering. And it wasn't because of Job's sin. He was a righteous man, most righteous around. He wasn't a perfect man, but he was a righteous man. And there he was suffering. Even his wife at one point said, why don't you just curse God and die? That's encouraging. And at the end of that whole experience, Job keeps saying, if I just could have my day in court, if I could just see God, if I could just get in His presence and argue my case. And he kept saying that. And then it happened. And when God shows up and confronts Job, Job covers his mouth and says, he says this, this is Job 42.5, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear. I knew about you, Lord. I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I bore myself and repent in dust and ashes." And he covers his mouth and he says, I will speak no more. I will speak, you are God. And that's sort of the idea of what God's conveying here, is that the Israelites will know I'm God experientially, because I am going to deliver them. I will do this." God doesn't say, I will seven times, the perfect number, the number of perfection, and then I carry it out. God is going to do this, right? They will know God is Redeemer. In verse 6, He says, I will redeem. The root of that Hebrew word is the word go well. And you heard that word before, if you remember my teachings at all, when we were in the book of Ruth. It's the word for the kinsman redeemer. He is going to redeem them. In Ruth 4.14 it says, Then the women said to Naomi, Blessed is the Lord, who has not left you without a Redeemer today. In that story it was Boaz. But the ultimate kinsman-redeemer is our Lord Jesus Christ, who came and lived perfection, and suffered for our sins, and died, and rose again the third day gloriously. He is our Redeemer. God says to them, I'm Redeemer. I'm going to redeem you and you're going to know me as the true and living God in a new experiential way. And then God is God, the fourth thing that Moses needs to know. And it sounds simple, but sometimes we forget that God is God. He's Almighty God. Exodus 6 verse 10 to 13, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the children of Israel go out of his land. And Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, The children of Israel have not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me? For I am of uncircumcised lips. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a command for the children of Israel and for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. Do you see the theme here? The Israelites are focusing on their suffering rather than the true and living God and the Word of God. They won't receive it, because they're focusing on the woe is me. Moses does the exact same thing here. He's like, I think you forgot, I told you before, I'm not good, I'm not eloquent. I'm not eloquent of speech. You got the wrong boy. I'm the wrong guy for the job. I have uncircumcised lips. I'm not spiritually prepared. to go and speak on your behalf. That's what Moses is saying again. Even though God had previously said, what? I'll be with your mouth. Who created that mouth? I gave you that mouth. I don't have the wrong boy. I know who you are. I know your weaknesses. You're going. And here God says, I think you've forgotten, Moses. I'm God. I'm not asking you to do this. I'm commanding you to do this." That's really what God's response is here. And you see here liberation. They're going to be released from bondage. You see redemption, finally and fully fulfilled at the cross. And adoption. They're going to be my people. I'm going to be their God. We see those three same things in our salvation experience. We've been adopted into the family of God. All right, you guys ready? We're into a genealogy. And here God is going to teach Moses that God is God throughout the generations. You ever sit back and think... My wife did a little bit of the family tree history stuff. You know, there's people that love to do that. My wife loved to do that for a season. She went back as far as she could. And we found a lot of interesting things that we found about the family. But do you ever think about that spiritually? Who is back upstream? Some great, great distant grandparent who was praying for you? And you didn't even know it. I think about this sometimes. Lord, raise up preachers in my family. I mean, people were praying these things. I don't know who they are. But God has been faithful throughout the generations. Now, this is kind of a different genealogy. And I'm going to pause a bit as we move through it. There's a few things we can pull out of this. Because it's not a complete. genealogy, but there's a purpose to it, okay? So I'm going to slowly work our way from 14 to 27. And it starts with Jacob's firstborn son, Reuben, okay? If you remember the book of Genesis. So it says in verse 14, these are the heads of their father's houses. The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanak, Palu, Hezrum, and Carmi. These are the families of Reuben. It's the firstborn of Jacob, and now we know who his children were. Jacob's secondborn son was Simeon. So we go on in verse 15 to Simeon. It says, and the sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ahad, Jachin, Zahar, and Sheol, the sons of the Canaanite woman. And these are the families of Simeon. So now we get the next generation after the second-born son of Jacob. Who do you think we're going to see next? The third-born son of Jacob, which is Levi. So it says, these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations. Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were 137. Now we get the age that Levi died at because the emphasis is on Levi. We're not going to keep on going down through the sons of Jacob. Now we're going to go to Levi. So here we move. And now we're going to talk about Levi and his children. So we get his kids, and now it moves on from there. So we have Gershon, Kohath, and Mereri. And these are his kids, and now we're going to move down the line through the line of Levi. So it says, the sons of Gershon were Libni and Shimi, according to their families, and the sons of Kohath were Amram We need to underscore that or he's going to come up in the story. Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uziel. And the years of the life of Kohath were 133. The sons of Merai were Mahali, Mushi. These are the families of Levi according to the generations. Now I told you to underscore Amram, right? Now we're going to look at Amram, who is what? Moses' father. You see where he's going with this genealogy? Now Amram took for himself Jacobed, his father's sister as wife, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of the life of Amram were 137. So remember, we parked on this a little bit earlier, that Moses' mother was also his grandfather's sister. It was his great aunt and his mother. I won't go into the details of my crazy family, but I've got some of this stuff in my life. At the time that this took place, the law wasn't given yet. They didn't have the written law. God had not made an edict that, hey, from now on in the family, you're not to do that. So most commentators say it probably wasn't sin, but it might have been a little scandalous by the time people were starting to read that this is what his family was. So, in Exodus 26-21, we have Moses' uncles mentioned. The sons of Izar were Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri. And the sons of Uzziel were Mashiel, Elzaphan, and Zithri. I'm sure I'm pronouncing all these names wrong, but that's OK. I sound very confident. So Korah here is Moses's cousin. Why has that come up in the story? Why is that important? Because Korah is going to lead a rebellion against Moses's leadership later on, and he's going to get judged for it. So I'll save that for in a minute. So Exodus 6.23. We see here Aaron, that's Moses's brother, took to himself Elisheba, daughter of Ammonadab. Ammonadab, I'm going to say. And that name is going to come up again, unfortunately I'll have to say it again. Sister of Nashon, his wife, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu. Those names should probably sound familiar for a student of the Bible. Nahab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. So Aaron's wife's parents are actually named in Jesus' genealogy. Jesus is a direct descendant of their parents. They're mentioned in Matthew 1.4. So in verse 24, Korah, we'll talk about him a little bit. The sons of Korah were Asir, Elkanah, and Abiasath. These are the families of the Korahites. What became of this family? It doesn't turn out good for him. Korah is going to, in Numbers chapter 16, leads a rebellion. And it gives me a little bit of insight into, like, maybe it's because he was Moses' cousin. He thought he had some right to leadership, that he tried to usurp the leadership of Moses and sort of take over things. And he's judged for it. If you go to Numbers 16, Moses says to the people, hey look, Korah's going to die. And if he dies by natural causes, if you look over and he just drops dead, and you think, well, he dropped dead, you know, this is his time, then I'm not your leader. But if something supernatural happens and he dies, then you know that God called me as his servant. And that goes down in Numbers 16. Now let me just read you a little bit of it. This is Numbers 16.31. It says, Now it came to pass, He's talking about Moses. As he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, and all the men with Korah with all their goods. So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit. The earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly." That's a grotesque vision. To go down into the pit alive and have the earth closed in on you. God took care of it. And Moses' leadership was reconfirmed. And you'll see, through the whole experience of the wilderness wanderings, that that happens over and over again. That Moses' leadership is questioned. And God deals with people that are questioning God's man, right? So in Exodus 6.25, Eleazar, Aaron's son, So now we're moving on to Eleazar, and there's a reason for that. That's the third son of Aaron. So Eleazar, Aaron's son, took for himself one of the daughters of Petil as wife, and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites, according to their families. Now you remember Aaron's first two boys, his firstborn and his secondborn, Nadab and Abihu. They die under the judgment of God, because they were priests of the Lord, and they offered up strange fire. They did not perform the work of the temple in the manner that God had told them to perform it. And fire came out of the altar and consumed them both on the spot. They both died on the spot, because they were not faithful priests. Here we have Eleazar. He is a faithful priest. As a matter of fact, when Aaron is about to die, God speaks to Moses. Moses takes Aaron up the mountain with Eleazar. And he takes the garments, the priestly garments off Aaron and places them on his son, his third born son Eleazar. And God's chosen Eleazar to be the priest to replace Aaron. And as soon as that happens, Aaron dies. The Lord calls him home. and Eleazar is a faithful priest. His brother, the youngest in the family, he's also a faithful priest in the Bible. So he had two that were not faithful and two that were faithful to the Lord. Speaks volumes. I guess I could go down a rabbit trail and say, hey, if you ever have a family issue where you're like, I got this one kid, he just seems so far from the Lord. I got this other kid, he just seems so close to the Lord. There's biblical examples of that in your Bible, right? I'm not saying that I'm not talking about salvation here. I'm talking about their faithfulness to serve. And sometimes God just got to take people out of the picture, right? So it says in Exodus 6.26, These are the same Aaron and Moses, just in case we were wondering. These are the same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, according to their armies. These are the ones who spoke to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are the same Moses and Aaron. And the last thing that God needs Moses to understand is that even though He's Almighty God, and He certainly is. He's El Shaddai. He's a personal God. He's Yahweh. Perfectly revealed Himself, according to Hebrews 1.1, in the person of Jesus Christ. We know God fully when we look to Jesus. But the last thing He needs to know, even though all that's true, God chooses to work through His ambassadors. Paul said that in one of his writings, right? It's almost like as if God is using us as his ambassadors to make a plea to mankind on God's behalf, be reconciled to God. In other words, come to Jesus Christ. And he uses ambassadors. And that's what he tells Moses. So to wrap this up, let me read from verse 28. I'm going to swing into chapter 7 a little bit. And it came to pass on the day the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I am the Lord. Speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you. But Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I'm of uncircumcised lips." It's almost like he's saying, Lord, I think you're missing what I'm telling you here. I'm of uncircumcised lips. And how shall Pharaoh heed me? So the Lord said to Moses, See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh. And Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay my hand on Egypt, and bring my armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments." Do you see he calls the Israelites God's army? My army, my people. Verse 5 to 7, And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand on Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them. Then Moses and Aaron did so, just as the LORD commanded them, so they did. And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh. So let your mind drift back to the beginning of this story when Moses is rescued out of the Nile, out of the river, by the daughter of Pharaoh. Aaron was three, right? So just give you some perspective. There's little bits and pieces all through the Bible. You start putting it together, you get a bigger picture of what's going on in the story. He's three years older than Moses. He says that to Moses, you're going to be as God to Pharaoh. Now, obviously, God is trying to convey that you're going to be my ambassador, you're going to be my spokesperson. When you speak to Pharaoh exactly what I tell you to tell him, it's as if your words are God's words. And that's exactly what Jesus said to the apostles. When you go to the New Testament, Luke 10, 16, Jesus says to the apostles, He who hears you, hears me. He who rejects you, rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me. That's why it's so important that we come under the authority of God's Word, the apostolic teaching. It's the words of Christ that are contained even in the epistles, because they're inscriptorated. Jesus said, I place my authority on my apostles, and we have their word in our Bible. It's important that we come under that authority. So he's going to be like a god to Pharaoh. And I think Pharaoh, in his pagan-ness, probably after a while, started thinking Moses was like a god. Remember, they worshipped Pharaoh like he was a god. He's going to start to think in his mind, like, am I dealing with a god here? All these plagues that are carried out. But it's all by the power of God. It's all God. God says, I will, I will, I will. But I'm going to use you, Moses. Your words will be my words. My words are going to be in you. And you're going to speak my truth to Pharaoh. And I will deliver my people. Pharaoh and his people, he said, because of what I'm going to do, will then realize that Yahweh is God Almighty. They're going to come. And he already said the Israelites would figure it out experientially. He says, but they're going to know. And it's not in a good way, right? It's not like all of Egypt got saved or something, but they know that this Yahweh is the true and living God, to their own shame. And I'll end with a quote by Douglas Stewart, who picks up on that. He says, It is one thing when a people acknowledge the greatness of their own God, It is yet another when grudgingly, yet inescapably, a pagan people acknowledge the supremacy of a god that they previously had never even heard of. And that's the story of Exodus, in a nutshell. Let me wrap up with a prayer. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for reminding us who you are. And Lord, help us in the moments of our own doubt, when we start to look at our own faults and our inabilities, and we pause and hesitate to do the ministry you've called us to, rather than getting our knees and looking upward to the Almighty God. who's revealed himself to us personally in the person of Jesus Christ. Lord, take these words and your scripture and massage these things into our minds this week, Lord, that we might be changed permanently for the better because we spent time with you and in your word. In Jesus' name, amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his confidence upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus.