Who is the Lord that I Should Obey Him? - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Exodus 5-6:12, Moses meets with Pharaoh to ask him to let the people go out of Egypt. Pharaoh, not knowing who God is, refuses.
Brick making video shown during the sermon: https://youtu.be/T2K4fL1CkLM?si=YjyRjrgGdXXE5KgT
Transcript:
Passage today is from Exodus six, chapter six verses one through five. Then the Lord said to Moses, now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country. God also said to Moses, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.
When you're five years old, it is difficult to comprehend why an alcohol pad should be applied to your scraped knee. You've cried for help and mom or dad has come to your side, they've told you this is gonna sting, but it's gonna help. But in that moment of application, you just don't understand. You cry, stop! You question the wisdom of what they're doing. Now, my mom was a nurse, so I could never question her about these things.
Older now, we are able to both sympathize with that 5-year-old while also understanding the wisdom of the parent. The gap in comprehension between the adult and the child is a helpful analogy for us in wrapping our minds around our position in relation to God. We are like that small child, and he is like that adult, except vastly, infinitely more. As with parent and child, so with us and God, we must trust him. And when we understand who he is we can grow in our trust in him.
Now, Moses and Aaron have been given the difficult task of confronting the Pharaoh of Egypt with the initial request that he simply let the Israelites go into the wilderness to worship God. It would be an impossible task, they, with no reason to expect success except that God has promised to be with them and that he had given them signs to demonstrate God's power. Even so, God did tell them that Pharaoh would stubbornly turn down the request and that God in fact willed that that stubbornness should occur in order to fulfill his purpose of revealing his glory as he delivers his people.
Though all this is anticipated, though they are told this is gonna sting, the Israelites are still hit hard when it happens just as God said it would.
We continue on in Exodus five, verses one through four. It says, afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go. Then they said, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword. But the king of Egypt said, Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!
Now, as we head into this passage and we have this direct encounter between Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh, we're likely to wonder once again, well, who is this Pharaoh? Why is he not named? As it turns out, it was common practice at that time that Egyptian historians would not name the kings of their enemies. I want you to remember something. Moses was brought up in the court of Pharaoh. He was well educated. He would've been familiar with that practice. And so in keeping with that practice, he does identify generically that they're engaging with the King of Egypt, with the Pharaoh, but he goes unnamed because this Pharaoh is the enemy of the people of Israel. Now based upon biblical chronology and coordinating it with some other details there's good reason to think that this Pharaoh is Amenhotep the second. And he would've ruled, according to the High Egyptian Chronology, somewhere between 1455 and 1418 bc. He's the son of Thutmose III.
In fact, he's not the first born son of Thutmose III, but the second born son of Thutmose III. I want you to keep that fact in your mind, in your back pocket 'cause it will be important later on. So we have good reason to believe it's Amenhotep II, and others suggest, I think, that it's Ramses the Second. Whatever the case, they're engaging here with Pharaoh and they're making a very simple request, which is that he would let the people go three days into the wilderness to worship their God.
Now, Pharaoh's response is this, and it says in verse two, who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, I will not let Israel go. Pharaoh's thinking is this, is, why should I respect the God of the Hebrews? Why should I respect the God of Israel? You're an enslaved people, he obviously hasn't done very much for you. He can't deliver you from the Gods of Egypt. He can't deliver you from myself. And the Pharaohs are often, attach to themselves kind of a divine sort of status. In fact, if you, if we go back to this slide, and I'm assuming that this is in fact referring to Amenhotep II, it says Amenhotep, the God, the ruler of Thebes. So, and this is something that is common in ancient times, that Kings would attach to themselves this godlike sort of status. And so Pharaoh's thinking is like, why should I listen to your God? You're doing the work that I want you to do, and I, I'm not gonna let this God of the wilderness take you away from it.
Now, Moses and Aaron repeat the request that they be allowed to go and, and worship their God because they say they're afraid of what God may do to them, that he might bring judgment upon them for their disobedience. Now, they could also say that because God's gonna bring judgment on you, but they don't go that far at this point, they just start off by saying, just for our own sakes, Pharaoh, please let us go.
But Pharaoh's not buying it. He says, you're all just a bunch of troublemakers. In verse four, he says, Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to work! It makes you wonder either, whether he's saying that because prospectively he's, he's saying you would be taking the people away from their work. Or if even in the present moment, maybe the people have set aside some of their work in anticipation of going into the wilderness to do this worship. And he's saying, why are you taking away from the work, even right here and now.
And as a result, Pharaoh increases their labor. Continuing on in verse five says, then Pharaoh said, look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working. That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: you're no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don't reduce the quota. They're lazy; that is why they're crying out, let us go and sacrifice to our God. Make the work, make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies. Now notice this tactic here. Pharaoh's tactic here is very much in keeping with what we would expect from a tyrant. If he suspects that the people are plotting against him and they wanna escape his rule, he's like, they've got too much time on their hands.
They're congregating, sharing ideas with one, each, with each other. The best thing to do is just work them to the bone so that they're so tired, all they wanna do is go home and go to bed. And so the way that he brings that about is he says they gotta keep making the bricks that I've commanded them to make, but now instead of the straw being provided for them, 'cause Pharaoh's got other workers that can be dedicated to acquiring straw for the making of bricks, now they've gotta get the straw themselves. They've gotta figure that out, and so now they won't have any time on their hands.
Continuing on in verse 10, it says, then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, this is what Pharaoh says: I will not give you any more straw. Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all. So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. The slave drivers kept pressing them, and saying, complete the work required of you for each day just as when you had straw. And Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, why haven't you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before? Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: why have you treated your servants this way? Your servants are given no straw, yet we're told, Make bricks. Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people. Pharaoh said, lazy, that's what you are-- lazy. That is why you keep saying let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Now get to work. You'll not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.
Now, I mean, just imagine the difficulty of, of what they're doing here. They need straw. They're not given straw. It says they're going through the land just trying to collect stubble. So you imagine they, they clear the fields for straw and so they're going there and they're just getting the little scraps that they can to work to make these bricks.
And notice the relationship here, is you've got Israelite overseers. They're Israelite overseers, so they're actually Hebrews and you have Egyptian slave drivers, so you kind of have, they're kind of like this mediator between the two. And the Egyptian slave drivers are just beating on them saying, go, you've gotta, you've gotta keep producing these bricks.
And so the Israelite overseers, now they go to Pharaoh to make this appeal saying This is impossible, what you're asking us to do. But Pharaoh doubles down and says, no, you're not gonna get any straw and you've gotta still meet the same quota. And I mean, some of us here could probably. Relate to that. Maybe you've been in a position in your work where the bosses said, I want you to do the same thing, but with less.
And you know how frustrating that can be. Well, I wanna give you kind of a, a very vivid visual of what this labor would've been like. I found this awesome video and I'm allowed to share it, from Appian Media, that will show you exactly what it was like to make bricks at that time. Imagine trying to do that job without the materials that you need to do it. I mean, I wouldn't want to do that even with, even with the materials to do it. And to have slave drivers at your back saying, make more, make more. Do it quick. So we, we continue on in verse 19, the Israelite overseers, they've, they've made this appeal.
They've made this appeal and says the Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, you are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day. When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, may the Lord look on you and judge you! You've made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Moses returned to the Lord and said, why, Lord, have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, you have not rescued, rescued your people at all.
I want you to kind of just visualize this here. It seems as though perhaps Moses and Aaron had used up their audiences with Pharaoh. They, he wasn't gonna welcome them back into his presence, so they're standing outside. They know these Israelite overseers have gone in to speak to him. He has rebuffed their request saying, no, just get back to work.
So they're coming out, they're upset and they're like, how'd it go? And they're like, it went terrible. And they're upset and they say, may the Lord look on you and judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Now I want you to notice here that they're not, they're not rejecting God. They're not so much blaming God. They're blaming Moses and Aaron. They're saying, you guys have bungled this up. You've, you're the ones that have really brought this on us. And so when you get to verse 22, we see Moses kind of bearing the burden of this, saying, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? And, and just kind of reckoning with the, his purpose in all of this, is this why you sent me, just to make things really difficult for my people. Because he's not seeing the rescue. He's, he says, he says to God, I've gone and done what you've told me, and things have just gotten worse. You've not rescued your people at all.
Now, Moses should know better than this. God had told him explicitly, you're going to go to Pharaoh, you're going to make these demands and you will deliver this people from Egypt, God would bring this about, but that Pharaoh is going to resist. That's what he told Moses, is I'm, in fact, I'm going to make him resistant to your appeal. So he told Moses the hurt is coming, but Moses didn't imagine that it was gonna sting this bad. I think he's forgetful.
God always keeps his promises, but we have to remember the details of what he has promised, and he never promised his people no suffering. He didn't promise the Israelites no suffering, and he has not promised us no suffering. We see this throughout the course of the Bible when we turn to the New Testament.
So this is after Christ, the epistles of the Hebrews. We go to Hebrews 11 and we have this record of the people, the saints, those who demonstrated great faith in God's promises. And starting off in Hebrews 11, verses 32 through 35. We, we do have some record of some good things that happened. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign enemies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. But then you get to the second half of verse 35, and you have a bit of a turn. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Verse 36, some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheeps skins and goats skins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us they would be made perfect.
And what the writer of Hebrews is saying here is that God did meet some immediate promises that he made in that time, and we're gonna see how God's going to meet his promise that he made to the Israelites here by the fact that he's, he will deliver them from Egypt. But what the writer's talking about here is that there is a greater promise yet to come, which is bound up in Christ.
And they were still looking forward to that and had not found that, and had to suffer, suffer persecution and, and death. That situation of suffering and anticipation carries on into the present. Now, we have seen Christ. We have seen Christ, and so we are now included among this faithful cohort, but there is still more to come. Continuing on into the next chapter, it says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You see, we have a compare and contrast here. A compare and contrast here between Jesus and Moses, Jesus and Israel. When Moses and the Israelites endured opposition from sinners, endured opposition from Pharaoh, they begin to despair saying, God, where are you? What? What are we? What are you doing here? In the case of Christ, we did not see him despair but persevere in faith. And so we look to his example so that we will not grow weary, so that we will not lose heart in the midst of hardship.
It's critical that we remember what God has told us-- and we learn so much from what he has told those who came before us. In response to Moses' complaint, God reminds Moses of who he is and what he has said. So we turn to Exodus six. Then the Lord said to Moses, now you'll see what I'll do to Pharaoh: because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country. God also said to Moses, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name of the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.
When we began in chapter five with the appeal that Moses and Aaron made to Pharaoh that he would let the people go, Pharaoh questioned them by saying, who is the Lord such that I should listen to him? The trouble that Moses is having in this moment is that he himself is also forgetful about who the Lord is. That he is the God of his fathers, that he is the God of the covenant who had made a promise to give his people the land of Canaan. He's forgotten that he is the God who sees, who has heard and seen the suffering of his people.
He's forgotten that he's the God who has promised deliverance. Notice in the course of those verses how again and again, God says, I will, I will, I will, and it's all buttressed, it's undergirded by this reality that I am, I am the Lord. And so he can say, I will. I will bring this about, and the purpose that plays out as all this comes to pass, you see in verse seven, then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. When all this happens, then they will fully understand that God is exactly who he says he is, then you'll know that what I say is true.
Continuing on to verse nine, we see what follows from what God tells Moses to say. It says, Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor. Then the Lord said to Moses, go tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country. But Moses said to the Lord, if the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?
So we see here that not only has Moses been wrestling with his trust in God, so too the people are wrestling with their trust in God. They're so discouraged by this harsh labor that they're suffering, and we're gonna be leaving off on this note. There is no further resolution here, at least this morning, to this situation. The people are, are discouraged, and as a result, Moses is discouraged. The Lord tells Moses, go to Pharaoh again. Go to him and tell him to let the people go. And Moses is thinking to himself well, and he says to God if they won't listen to me, why in the world would Pharaoh listen to me since I speak with faltering lips?
There's a couple of things here that we just see in this whole situation. Once we see just how difficult it is to lead others that even while God had kind of, you know, picked Moses back off his feet to go to the people that in the face of their discouragement, he became discouraged. This is our nature as human beings. We tend to affect one another in those sorts of ways. It's difficult for leaders to lead. We also see that Moses here is still thinking about his success before Pharaoh, depending upon himself. He's like, how will I succeed if my lips are faltering? And what God would say to him is, it doesn't depend upon your faltering lips. And again, I've already told you he's gonna be stubborn. Very, very stubborn. You're gonna have to do this again and again. But Moses is, his gaze is just fixed upon his immediate situation. The immediate failures that have come upon him. He's thinking to himself, well, I've failed in the past, so how could I possibly succeed in the future, and this is a sort of cynicism that can begin to envelop churches and denominations. The, the longer that you are in church ministry, whether it's vocational like myself or volunteer ministry, you're serving the church, the longer you go in it, you're like, well, we tried this, we tried that, we didn't experience success. And suddenly you run, you run pretty thin on your list of ideas to try. And you can be led to despair, but we should not despair because our success does not depend on our faltering lips. Our success rests upon the hand of God being with us now. We don't understand everything that he is about. God can work through failures. He can work through setbacks. He can work through discouragement. Even while he's bringing us all the way along, and then suddenly there'll be some success and then there might be some setback.
And this is, this is the way of our path here in this earth until Christ returns and everything is ultimately perfected. But God has his purpose and plan, and in all we must remember that the Christian way, the way of Christ, it's a way that brings suffering with it. In 1st Peter four, verses 12 through 14, Peter reminds his readers this, who were apparently in undergoing some suffering.
He says, dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the spirit of glory and of God rests on You.
See, when we face difficulty, and sometimes just difficulty of circumstance, but sometimes when we face difficulty and when we face direct resistance, we shouldn't be surprised. We shouldn't think like, oh, well, well this shouldn't be happening. No, this is nothing strange. Jesus himself faced such difficulties and, and resistance. Rather we should take encouragement that we are walking alongside Christ. We are following him, we are sharing in his sufferings. And what we have in Jesus is a concentrate of what is going to happen with us. We see in a very short window of time, Christ enduring that suffering, that resistance, his death and resurrection, his suffering gives way to glory. The same promise holds for you and I, it applies for pastors, leaders, church members, Christians.
You see, we are, we are like the Israelites, but we are at a different stage of the story. What the old, old Testament, foreshadows and anticipates in Christ, we have seen revealed by his appearance. Now there is more to come, if our present condition was all our promise in Christ amounted to it, it would certainly be a great disappointment. We await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. We await the return of Christ. Until then, Jesus tells us, his disciples, that it won't be easy and that we will need to be steadfast in hope, lest we accept some cheap substitute in its place.
Jesus says in Matthew 24, verse four through 14, watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, I am the Messiah, and will deceive many. You'll hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All of these are the beginning of birth pains.
Then you'll be handed over to be persecuted and be put to death, and you'll be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
We know the difficulties of our own time-- honestly, in our own particular case, generally speaking of us here in the room, they greatly pale in comparison to the situation of the Israelites that we were just reading about, and they pale to the situation of the persecuted Christians worldwide. But our hardships can be accounted among that number, even if small in comparison. And we must be prepared for the appearance of greater trials. It's daunting, it's overwhelming, and it should drive us to prayer, that we would trust in the God of our fathers, that we would trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he, Jesus, rather than our circumstances, rather than our gifts and our abilities, that Jesus, our God and Savior, would be our confidence, not ourselves.
We join our prayer to that of King David who prays in Psalm 56 verses one be through four. Be merciful to me, my God, for my enemies are in hot pursuit; all day long they press their attack. My adversaries pursue me all day long; in their pride many are attacking me. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise-- in God I trust, and I'm not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
Let us pray.
Dear father, we, in reading this history of the people of Israel, so easy for us to be critical, to be critical of Moses, to be critical of the people saying, how could you be so forgetful? God literally told you what he was gonna be doing, but Father, may this be an occasion for us to confess our own forgetfulness, our own lack of trust in you. Father, we confess that too often we allow the immediate circumstances around us to overshadow us.
To block our gaze from looking unto you as our savior. Father, lead us to put our faith and trust completely in you, that you will keep your promises. Father, let our confidence be in you and not in ourselves. Father, help us to fix our hope in you, not in our, our track record of success. Father, we are, we are weak creatures. We make all kinds of mistakes and we face all sorts of difficulties, but Father, we trust in your plan and your purpose to work through us, people with faltering lips, to bring to completion your plan. That you'll work through us for your glory and our good.
Father produce this trust in us by the work of the Holy Spirit. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we worship God and hear the preaching of his word. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)