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09.18.2011
Exodus Series
Bruce B. Miller
We are in a new series: Exodus: the God you thought you knew.
We are exploring and remembering seven anchor stories of our faith in Exodus.
In each of them we will come to better understand the God you thought you knew.
We discover that the theme of Exodus is redemption.
The point of the book is that God saves his people.
The central character is not Moses or Israel, but God himself.
Exodus is God-centered, as our lives should be.
This chart from the Exodus study guide shows where we are going.
The story takes place in three main places.
We start in Egypt and move through the wilderness to Mount Sinai.
We will learn about God’s power, protection and presence.
Today we are diving into our second anchor story: the story of the Ten Plagues.
We asked people around McKinney what they know about the ten plagues of Egypt.
MOS video
While the ten plagues are fascinating, our focus today is not getting to know them, but more importantly, our focus is getting to know the God who enacted them.
One of the biggest issues in life is the answer to the question: who is God?
How you answer that question dramatically affects your life now on this earth and in eternity.
As we enter our story I invite you put yourself in the shoes of major characters: Pharaoh, Moses, the Israelites and the Egyptians.
How did they see God at the start and how does their view of God change?
What about you?
What do you understand about God right now?
How might God open your eyes today to see him more fully?
It’s Pharaoh who asks the million dollar question when he protests, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?”
That sounds rude, arrogant.
But don’t we ask that same question in our lives?
Maybe not in those exact words, but we question if we really need to obey God.
Who is he anyway to tell us what to do? Don’t you want to do what you think is best in your life?
After all it is your life, right?
Maybe.
The point of our story today is that you can know that the God is the Lord who rescues his people by believing his declaration and by seeing his demonstration.
Open your Bible to Exodus chapter five.
We will be moving through seven chapters, chapters five to eleven.
Chapter five raises the central question:
The Question: Who is the LORD?
(Chapter 5)
In this chapter notice how the character of God is questioned by Pharaoh, the Israelite foremen and by Moses too.
The chapter opens in verse one with Moses’ first attempt to appeal to Pharaoh:
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 desert.’
”
Exodus 5:1 Pharaoh sarcastically responds with the central question:
2“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.”
Exodus 5:2.
Who would have the audacity to tell Pharaoh what he must do with his people, his slaves?
Who the heck is this so-called “Lord”?
In defiance Pharaoh says, “No, I don’t know this Lord and I will not let Israel go.”
Throughout the rest of the story we see that God answers Pharaoh’s question in no uncertain terms.
He will be forced to acknowledge God’s superiority and he will let Israel go.
But this does not happen right away.
In fact what first happens upsets Moses and the Israelites.
They doubt God.
Follow with me in chapter five, verse four.
4 But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor?
Get back to your work!”
Drop to verse seventeen.
17 Pharaoh said, “Lazy, that’s what you are—lazy!
That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.’
18 Now get to work.
You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.”
Rather than being freed from slavery, their slavery got much worse.
The suffering intensified.
Moses failed.
It did not work.
In fact, it seems to have backfired.
How do the people respond?
They are very discouraged.
The Israelite foremen say to Moses,
“May the LORD look upon you and judge you!
You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
Exodus 5:21.
What is their view of God here?
Ironically they ask God to judge the man that God has sent to deliver them.
We often expect God to quickly make everything better, but usually things go from bad to worse before they get better.
God tells us to expect opposition in this life, to plan on suffering.
It happens often.
A Christian does what God calls him to do and it makes things worse!
You agree to serve in Promiseland and a kid falls and hurts himself.
You blame yourself and feel like the worst volunteer in all of Promiseland.
It’s easy to wonder if we did the right thing, and maybe even to wonder if God cares what happens to us.
That’s what Moses wondered.
Look at verse twenty-two to see Moses’ frustration.
22 Moses returned to the LORD and said, “O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people?
Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” 5:22-23.
Moses blames God for the trouble that he says God has brought and he blames God for not keeping his promise to rescue his people.
Moses doubts God’s character.
He has just made things worse.
Moses knew Pharaoh would be stubborn, but he did not anticipate that suffering would increase and that the people would turn against him.
How do you handle it when after you pray, after you step up to serve God in some new way, bad things happen?
The Apostle Peter says,
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12.
In this fallen world, we face suffering and it often increases when we dare to serve God in new ways, when we agree to confront Pharaoh.
We are in a war.
It’s easy to trust God in worship services, but when life hits you in the face on Monday, will you still trust him?
In his painful doubt, Moses did the right thing to return to the Lord and bring his complaint straight to the Father.
That’s where we need to go with our questions and frustrations.
God’s timing almost never matches ours.
God’s view of how much hardship we can take rarely coincides with what we think.
Moses got his eyes off God and put them on his circumstances.
His view of God became distorted and diminished.
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