|
GOD IS KEEPING HIS PROMISES
IN ORDER TO MAKE HIMSELF KNOWN
Exodus 6:1—12
INTRODUCTION
The greatness of a man or woman’s character is revealed when they rise above difficult and disastrous circumstances to accomplish significant things. Strength of character and nobility are only displayed when individuals overcome great opposition to succeed. Recently, a movie was made about the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team that beat the Soviet Union. The average age of the USA team was 21; the USSR team was close to 30. The USA team was all college amateurs and they played together for only 6 months before the Olympics. The men on the USSR team had been playing together, some of them, for 15 years. It was men against boys. The USSR team was touted as the greatest hockey team to ever play the game. A USA national team had not beat the USSR since 1960. Six months before the Olympics, the USSR team had beaten the NHL all-star team 8-1. When the USA beat the USSR in hockey in 1980 it was called by everybody, the miracle on ice. That is why the movie was called “Miracle.” These 20 young men became national heroes and their coach, Herb Brooks, was revered as one of the greatest coaches ever to coach. The character of these young men and this coach was displayed by the feat they accomplished. They made a name for themselves. They revealed the glory of, not only their hockey skills, but of their character when they beat the greatest team to ever play.
In Exodus 6, we discover that God has arranged the circumstances of the world in order to make a name for himself. In verse 3, he tells Moses that he is doing something for Moses and the enslaved nation of Israel that he never did for Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. He says that he appeared to them as God Almighty but that by his name, Yahweh, he did not make himself known to them. There are a couple of things that you need to know in order for this to make any sense to you. First, remember that in our English translations of the Bible, whenever we see LORD in the OT, in all capital letters, that means the English word is translating the Hebrew word, Yahweh. Yahweh is God’s personal name. It is the name he identified himself by to Moses at the burning bush in chapter 3. God’s name, as we saw there, is “I AM”. Every time you see LORD in the OT you should think in your head, I AM or the Hebrew word, Yahweh.
Now, when God tells Moses that Abraham did not know him by the name Yahweh, what does he mean? He doesn’t mean that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob didn’t know what to call God. God’s name, Yahweh, appears 134 times in Genesis and 34 of those times people are calling God Yahweh. God doesn’t mean they didn’t know his name, as in they didn’t know what to call him. He means they didn’t know how glorious he is, how awesome he is in the way that Moses and Israel are about to find out. They didn’t know his true and full nature, his character. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew that God was glorious, but they didn’t know how glorious. There are no miracles in Genesis 12-50. Those men followed God based upon his promises. They never experienced any fulfillment of the promises God made. They didn’t know him as well as Moses and Israel are about to know him. God tells Moses that the ultimate purpose behind all that God has been doing is so that Moses and Israel would know who God really is. You can see this quite plainly in v. 7. God says that the reason he is going to save Israel is so that they will know that he is Yahweh, their God who brought them out of Egypt. God does all that he does for the sake of his own name. It is his ultimate objective in the world to make himself, in all his glory, known to his people. Everything God is doing in the world right now and in your life right now is for the purpose of making you and all of his people to know his name, his glory, his awesomeness. In this conversation God has with Moses we are going to see how it is that God makes his name known to his people.
MAIN POINT
God makes himself known to his people by saving them…
I. In his time (vv. 1-5)
The time that has elapsed between God’s first promising Abraham that he would make him into a great nation and give his descendants the land of Canaan in Genesis 12 until this moment in Exodus 6 is at least 766 years. That’s a long time for God to wait to fulfill his promise. Not only is it a long time but a lot of suffering has taken place during that time. Now, when God speaks to Moses, the nation of Israel, numbering close to 2 million people, is enduring the most cruel bondage that can be imagined. They are slaves in Egypt and work from sunup to sundown for their pitiless Egyptian masters. Their slavery has just become more brutal due to Moses telling Pharaoh to let the nation Israel go for three days into the wilderness to worship the Lord. The Israelites are being required to make bricks but they are not being given the straw they need to make the bricks. Pharaoh has demanded that they continue to make the same number of bricks that they made when he gave them straw but now they must collect the straw in addition to making the bricks. The Egyptian slave masters are beating the Hebrew foremen for not continuing to make the same number of bricks. The brutality of their conditions and the misery they are living in cannot be overstated.
Moses, at the end of chapter 5, accused God of doing nothing to save his people. He called God a liar and a do-nothing God. He cannot comprehend how God’s statement that he cares about his people and that he is going to save them can be true in light of the misery that has come upon the people of Israel. Like millions of humans before and after him, Moses views the presence of evil and the suffering of the “innocent” as proof that God is impotent and not worthy of trust. Yet, God speaks with him and explains to him what is going on. Don’t miss the incredible grace of God shown in these verses. The people of Israel and Moses have insulted the Lord of the universe and consider him a nobody. Yet, he persists in explaining himself to them. He persists in working for their salvation. We are no different from them. We complain all the time about how God is treating us. We wonder why it is that God is not doing anything to make the world or our life better. Yet, God continues to talk with us and to explain to us what he is doing. He patiently deals with those who continually call his motives and his power into question.
The first thing he says to Moses is, “ Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, king of Egypt…” The word “now” is incredibly important. In essence, God says to Moses, “I have been working to bring about this set of circumstances since the beginning of the world so that now I can display the glory of my nature in the salvation of this people. I set this time, before I created the world to fulfill my promise to deliver Israel and to make them my people. Now, when things appear bleakest, when all hope appears to be gone, is the time I fixed to deliver this people. Everything has been arranged to bring about these circumstances so that now I can make my name known, my glory shall become visible, in the salvation of my people.”
In v. 1 God says to Moses that Pharaoh, who, at the moment God is speaking, is stubbornly determined to not let Israel go will not only let Israel go free he is going to drive them out of this land, he will be so eager for their departure. This will be the case because of God’s mighty hand compelling him to let them go. Notice it is at this point that God tells Moses how he has planned for this moment for such a long time so that Moses and Israel would know the true glory of his name. Verses 3-5 are a recounting of the history of salvation over the past 766 years. It is God’s summary of all those centuries of human existence. During the long years of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s life he was revealing himself to them as God Almighty. He was showing them a small portion of his glory. He did this by giving Abraham and Sarah a son when they were both beyond the years of child bearing. He did this by protecting them when they went to Egypt and then to the kingdom of Ahimelech. He showed his kindness and power on behalf of Isaac when he provided Rebekah to him as a wife; when he caused Rebekah, after 20 years of barrenness to bear twin boys; when he protected the family while dwelling in the kingdom of Ahimelech. Then there is the long history of Jacob. He gave the rights of the firstborn to Jacob and protected him from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him. God protected him, made him rich, and gave him twelve sons while living with his uncle Laban in Paddan Aram. He kept him safe from his brother Esau and from the murderous Shechemites. He sent Joseph into Egypt and provided for him during the 13 years of his slavery. He made Joseph second in command of Egypt and then brought Jacob and his sons to Egypt and kept them safe from the famine. All of these actions revealed a portion of his glory. However, while God cared for his people, all of the promises God made to them were yet in the future. They wandered around in the land they were promised. They were but few, not a great nation. They lived in fear of the peoples around them and were constantly in danger of extinction. They have lived in slavery for many decades even though they have become a large nation. God’s love and power were shown but only in very small glimmers prior to this moment.
Now, however, God has heard the groaning of his people and he has remembered his covenant. He is going to act with a mighty hand and fulfill all his promises to his people. Now is the day of salvation. When God acts, then Moses and Israel will know the fullness of God’s glory, his power and his love. This is the same language that fills the NT as well. Jesus says on the night before his death, when Judas leaves to betray him, “ Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” Paul says in Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” Christ came at the appointed time to suffer and die for our sins. He didn’t come a day too early or a day too late. Then there is a day of salvation for each individual child of God. There is a day appointed for God’s saving individuals through the gracious work of his Holy Spirit, giving new birth and regeneration. God works in our individual lives bringing us to the point of trusting in Christ and he continues to work in our lives bringing us safely through all the traps and snares of sin and Satan until we arrive safely at our heavenly home.
God has a final day of salvation in store for all his people. You can be absolutely certain that everything is going according to plan. Regardless of how desperate things appear at this moment in the world or in your life, if you belong to Christ, then you can be absolutely certain that God has a day of relief planned for you. Weeping may remain for the night but rejoicing will come with the morning. There is no reason for despair. It will not be long until we are rejoicing around the throne of God together with all God’s people from throughout history. We have these promises made even surer through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The eternal, all sufficient, independent, sovereign king of the universe is working out all things to culminate in a grand salvation. We do not know when it will come. We only know that it is coming. We can be full of hope and persevere in trusting Christ as we wait for that day. We can know that whatever misery we may encounter along the way, it is all part of his plan to bring us to our heavenly home. Infinite wisdom, infinite power and infinite love is directing the circumstances of our lives to their appointed end, our salvation, so we do not need to fear though all hell breaks lose against us.
God makes himself known to his people by saving them…
II. In his way (vv. 6-8)
Next, God gives Moses a message to deliver to the distraught people of God. He wants Moses to deliver a message to them, while they continue to experience the full brunt of Pharaoh’s wrath, + they are still getting beat up and suffering the brutalities of their slavery. The question I have at this point is why doesn’t God just act? Why is it necessary for him to give them a message? What good are words? What we need now is action. God told Moses that now is the time of salvation, so why not act to save? How are these words supposed to help Israel in their slavery?
I think there are at least two reasons that God wants Moses to give this message to Israel. First, these words are meant to fill Israel with hope. These promises that God now makes are designed for them so that they will endure their suffering full of joy and peace and hope. This is one of the effects of God’s promises for us. Like prisoners in German concentration camps who heard that the Allies had landed on Normandy and were advancing across France knew that it was only a matter of time until they were free, so God’s people know that victory is won, freedom is only a short ways away. Second, these words are also meant to be a witness to them that it is the Lord who is acting to save them. When they end up delivered from their slavery, they will not be able to give the credit to anyone other than the Lord. No one else told them what was going to happen and so only he can receive the glory for what happens. God gives us promises for the same two reasons. He wants to fill us with hope, joy and peace while we are suffering. He also wants us to know, when we are saved, that he is the one who has done it. Only he gets the credit for our salvation.
I want to give you a short word of exhortation here. You’ve heard me say this before but it cannot be stated enough. You must study, meditate upon and memorize this book if you are going to stand in the day of trouble. God has given us promises so that we can have hope in our sufferings. Spend time today and every day reading and studying this book so that when the day of trouble comes to you, your faith will have promises to cling to. There is no question in my mind that the only reason I’m standing before you today as your pastor and am not living in despair or bitterness over what has happened to our family is because of the years I have spent reading and memorizing God’s word. When Jared’s accident happened my mind was flooded, immediately with God’s promises and explanations of reality. God’s Holy Spirit has strengthened me during these past two years by means of this word. Whatever excuses you have for not meditating upon or memorizing this word are going to appear to you one day as the foolishness they are. Money, TV, novels, a beautiful yard, a clean house, a healthy body, a successful career, or good grades will not preserve your faith when God sends trials to you. That is why God gives promises to his suffering people, to comfort us in our affliction and to strengthen our faith.
I want you to see these specific promises and to show you how they are promises to us as well. Verses 6-8 are as clear of a statement of the gospel of Christ as you will ever see. Notice first that the message Moses is to deliver begins and ends with “I am Yahweh.” It isn’t just anybody making these promises. The Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe is pledging himself to the eternal welfare of these people. The God who needs no one and nothing but upon whom all things depend is guaranteeing their salvation. The God whose love overflowed into creating the universe has determined to love this particular people. It is this God who guarantees their salvation. It is this same God who guarantees the salvation of everyone who trusts in Christ. This same sovereign, gracious, merciful, slow to anger God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, promises that he will complete the work he began in us.
The promises that God makes consist of seven “I will’s”. The first three relate to God’s promise to deliver them from their captivity. He will bring them out from their bondage, free them from their slavery and redeem them. You do know, don’t you, you and every human being in the world are born into slavery? All of us are slaves to our own lusts, to Satan and to the ways of this world. We’ve all read the reports of how overweight the American people are. If we’re not slaves to our own desires, then stop eating more than you should and start exercising the way you know you ought. If you’re not a slave, then stop yelling at your kids right now. If you’re not a slave, then quit worrying about the future. If you’re not a slave then stop looking at pornography or stop gossiping. If you’re not a slave, then go and seek the forgiveness of that person whom you offended. If you’re not a slave, then turn off the TV and the computer and give your evenings to reading the Bible or tutoring poor children or counseling the depressed. People don’t usually think of themselves as slaves because we are usually doing what we want to do. The only time we come face to face with our slavery is when we try to change. As C.S. Lewis said, “We only know how truly bad we are when we aim to be good.”
The glory of God is displayed when he rescues us from our slavery to sin, to Satan and to the world. Titus 2:14 says it so well, “He (Jesus) gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness…” Or Romans 6:18, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” The first work of God’s salvation always is a work of deliverance from slavery. For us it is deliverance from our slavery to our desires, Satan’s deception and the world’s pleasures.
Second, God’s salvation is not only freedom from slavery but also freedom for a purpose. “I will take you as my own people. I will be your God.” That purpose is to become God’s very own people. God rescues his people from slavery in order that we might be his people and he might be our God. He saves us from sin so that we will enter into a relationship of mutual delight with the God of the universe. As 1 Peter 3:18 says it, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring us to God.” Again, as Titus 2:14 says, “He offered himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people of his very own, eager to do what is good.” Here is the goal of salvation, to belong to a people who, together, have our attention fixed upon the one who has delivered us from our slavery. We are rescued from our bondage to become part of a people who enjoy God above all else and whom are enjoyed by God. God sings over us and we sing over God. According to Zephaniah 3:18 God sings over us, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” We sing out of our joy in God as well, “Because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”
Finally, God tells Moses that he will give this delivered people who are now his people a land of their own, for their own possession. There is a place for the people of God to call home. There will be an end to living in a foreign land, to living in the wilderness. There is a home for the people of God, where God dwells and where all of our needs will be met. The land flows with milk and honey, where all of our enemies lie defeated and where our king rules without competitor. This is the message Moses delivers to the nation of Israel, living in the misery of their captivity. It is the message that Christ, the greater prophet, the final deliverer, communicates to us in our captivity. The sovereign, all-powerful God promises this salvation to all his chosen people.
God makes himself known to his people by saving them…
- In his time
- In his way
- And…
III. In spite of their unbelief and impotence (vv. 9-12)
Moses takes this message to the people of Israel and they don’t listen to him. They ignore these promises. The word of God has absolutely no effect upon them. The words of Moses are to them a fairy tale. Nice ideas but no practical help. They ignore Moses and go on living in their slavery with no hope, no joy, no peace, no anticipation. The reasons for not listening are, “because of their discouragement and their cruel bondage.” We need to think about these reasons and how it is the ears of the people of God are deaf to the words of God. The question I have here is this: is their discouragement and cruel bondage a sufficient reason to not believe the promises of God? We are told this all the time. Suffering, depressed and discouraged people regularly use their circumstances and their emotional state as the reason for why they cannot trust in the promises of God. I was regularly told in the counseling classes I took in seminary that emotions are neither moral nor immoral, they simply are. In other words, you can’t be blamed for how you feel and your emotions give you a reason for not doing right or believing right. In other words, in our therapeutic culture, we are told that suffering people, discouraged people cannot be expected to trust God’s promises or to love others. Suffering and the depression it produces are sufficient reason to ignore God’s word. Is that true?
The phrase, which is literally “vexation of spirit”, that is translated “discouragement” is used about 20 times in the OT. Two of those uses I think are significant to the meaning of the word here. First, in Numbers 21:4 we are told that while the Israelites were traveling through the desert, “the spirit of the people was vexed/impatient on the way.” As a result they began to grumble against God and against Moses. They said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! We detest this miserable food!” Then we are told that God’s anger burned against Israel and he sent poisonous snakes into their midst in judgment. Obviously, in this case, the suffering of wandering as nomads in the desert and the discouragement it produced were not sufficient to excuse Israel from trusting God.
The second use of the word is by Job in Job 21:4. Job says, “Am I complaining to man? Why should my spirit not be grieved or impatient?” Job as a result of his suffering impatiently demands that God explain himself to him. His “friends” try to tell him that the reason for the suffering is due to his sin. They say, God only sends suffering to wicked people and so Job must be wicked. Job correctly rejects such a perverse explanation. However, he continues to demand that God explain himself. He insists that he has a right to have God explain himself. If you’ll remember, God finally does answer Job but his answer is simply a rebuke of Job’s demand to be answered. Essentially God tells Job he does not have a right to be impatient with God. God knows what he is doing and so he should be patient and trusting.
It seems to me that the use of this phrase communicates that God’s estimation of these people is that they have no grounds for not believing his word. Yes they are suffering and yes it is painful. However, the great I AM has pledged himself to them in love and he has told them that he is working out his salvation and so they ought to believe. Suffering and emotional distress are no excuse to not believe the promises of God. We must guard ourselves that we do not cut ourselves off from the only source of help that is available to us when we are suffering, the word of God. God’s promises are true no matter what you are going through. It really is true that you are being treated far better than you deserve, no matter what is going on in your life.
Right after Moses returns from being ignored by the Israelites God commands him to go to Pharaoh again. He is to tell him to set Israel free. However, Moses has been completely undone by the despondency and unbelief of the people of Israel. If his words had no effect upon the people of God then how in the world will they have any effect upon the cruel king, Pharaoh? Moses’ vision is filled with the negative circumstances, not the glorious Lord of the universe and his promises. What Moses says is that he has “uncircumcised lips.” (You can see that in the margin of your Bible or in the text of the KJV and the ESV.) I don’t think Moses is referring to the fact that he is not a good speaker, that he has “faltering lips”. What he is saying is that his lips do not have divine power. Uncircumcision is regularly used throughout the OT in this figurative way. It identifies people and bodily organs as being devoid of divine enabling (uncircumcised hearts, hands, etc.). Moses is convinced, due to the fact that the Israelites did not listen to him, that his words have no divine enabling. This is in spite of the fact that he is speaking the words God told him to speak. He too is overcome with despondency and unbelief. Like Israel he refuses to believe what God has clearly said. He believes that because he did not experience the results he thought he ought to experience that God is not working.
We are again given a graphic picture of human unbelief and impotence. The astonishing thing continues to be God’s commitment to these people. He graciously continues to work for their salvation. As a result of seeing this human sin and weakness, we are reminded that salvation is of the Lord. What we are about to witness cannot be explained by human work. God does not use Moses or deliver Israel because of who they are but because of who he is. Only God can enable Moses to speak, only God can change Pharaoh, only God can bring out Israel, and only God can give Israel faith. Our salvation is outside of us; it does not depend upon us. If salvation depended upon us, then we would be lost. God saves sinners; therefore, we must not put on airs. We must humbly and openly acknowledge what we are and trust God to do what he has said he will do, save all those who trust in Christ. We must not require God to act as we want him to act before we believe. We must believe his promises because of who he is.
God makes himself known to his people by saving them…
- In his time
- In his way
- In spite of their unbelief and impotence
© Copyright
2004 John Swanson.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute
this material in any format provided that:
(1) you credit the author,
(2) any modifications are clearly marked,
(3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction,
and
(4) you do not make more than 1,000 copies.
If you would like to post this material to the web, or if
your intended use is other than outlined above, please contact
River Hills Community Church, 2843 West Court Street,
Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943. mail@riverhillsonline.org
|