God's Up To Something!

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Through the Plagues, God is teaching His people to trust Him through stress, revelation, and action

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Series: The Journey: Strolling through the Scripture with the Savior

Title: God’s Up to Something!

Text:

Date: February 23, 2020

Series: The Journey: Strolling through the Scripture with the Savior

Title: God’s Up to Something!

Text: Exodus 5-12

ATTN

Pic - Mary Ellen Rothrock

In the ’60’s Mary Ellen Rothrock was a grad student in English Lit at the University of Wisconsin. The humanities department of U of W. was agnostic and atheistic, but it what not a happy place. In fact, one grad student summed it up with a quote from playwright, Samuel Beckwith: He said, “Man is just a piece of trash in a universe that’s running down.”

Mary Ellen bought into the atheism around her in her undergrad days, but as she moved into Grad school, she knew she was empty. Spiritually there was a big hole in her soul. She tried to fill that hole in the chicest way possible. She began to study Transcendental Meditation. But after a year, TM hadn’t really fulfilled her. One thing had happened, however. She began to have a lines from Handel’s Messiah constantly come to her mind when she tried to meditate. She would hear: Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. ... For unto us a Child is born … And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

tried to meditate. She would hear: Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. ... For unto us a Child is born … And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Of course, her TM instructor told her to ignore those thoughts. Meditation, you see, was not about filling your mind with thoughts, but emptying your mind of everything. And yet, the emptiness remained.

Tragic, and yet you’d have to say that Mary Ellen was on the cutting edge of a trend that has come to fruition in our country today: In 1957, a time of greater religious commitment in the United States, 82 percent of Americans said that religion could answer all or most of the day's problems. In 2002, 66 percent of U.S. adults expressed the same sentiment. Recently that percent has dropped to about 55 percent. Meanwhile, the one third of Americans who today say religion is "largely old-fashioned and out of date" is up from seven percent in 1957 and near the all-time high of 35 percent. The remaining 10 percent of Americans today have no opinion on whether religion can solve today's problems.

You might say it like this: When it comes to God, America’s faith is evaporating. Jesus, Himself, predicted it when He asked His disciples, “Yet, when the Son of Man comes, will He still find faith on the earth?” Great, and a very appropriate question for our day, don’t you think?!

And yet, God hasn’t lost, nor has He given up. In fact, I would say that, when it comes to faith, Even when we’re down to nothing, God is up to something!

BACKGROUND

The children of Israel were much like America today, only they had a much better excuse. 400 years of slavery in an idolatrous country had brought their faith to a very low point. Perhaps they didn’t even really know God that well—they certainly didn’t know His Name. They certainly didn’t have great faith in Him. In fact our text gives you a picture of their struggle. Now, we’re going to be walking through chapters 5-12 of Exodus today, but, for right now, take a look at chapter 6. In this chapter, God is reminding Moses of what He has promised to do. He is going to use Moses to lead these Egyptian slaves to freedom in a land that flows with milk and honey. That’s what he says in v8 of chapter 6. Look at it:

Exodus 6:8–9 NKJV

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.

Exodus 6:8 NKJV

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.’ ”

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.’ ” What a great promise! Did the people believe it? V9: So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. Hey, their faith was down to nothing, but they were about to learn that, when we’re down to nothing, God is up to something!

And for the next few chapters, God goes on a mission. He goes on a mission to build up their faith. That’s really what the plagues of Egypt are all about. They are faith creating judgments on the people who for 400 years have mistreated them.

NEED

And I know you might say, “Well, that’s fantastic, Rusty, but I learned all this in Bible School. Why are you preaching on the plagues?” Well, it’s because if you learn them and what they mean, they can have the same impact on you that they had on the Jews. They can build your faith.

So, I want you to listen today, especially if you are UNCOMFORTABLE. I know you’ve come looking for relief from the stress you’ve been under, but maybe there’s more to your stress than meets the eye. Listen.

Listen if you’re uncomfortable and I want you to listen today if you are UNAWARE. What I mean is that you may be unaware that God is already at work, but you’re just not seeing it. This passage builds faith by showing you how God may be showing up in your life in obvious ways that you aren’t seeing. Listen.

And then listen if you are UNDECIDED. You are one of those people who can see God at work, but you’re not quite sure if you want to be a part of this. Listen! God wants to build your faith. God is up to something.

TRANS

And today I want to look at these verses and help us discover just how God goes about building our faith. You see it in this experience of Pharaoh, Moses, and the people. You can see that, first of all, God builds our faith through

D1 –

God builds our faith through STRESS

EXP

When Moses makes it to Egypt, he goes to Pharaoh and tells him that the “I AM” says to let his people go. Well that didn’t go too well! The NLT translates 5:2 like this. When Moses tells him that God said to let His people go, Pharaoh replies,

2 “Is that so?” retorted Pharaoh. “And who is the Lord? Why should I listen to him and let Israel go? I don’t know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.” (NLT) Hey, Pharaoh gets mad: How dare some Hebrew, in the name of some Hebrew “God” come and demand that he let the people go. After all, for all practical purposes, he considered himself to be a god.

So Pharaoh decides to up the ante. He decides to make the Jews miserable. In 5:6 the NLT says,

That same day Pharaoh sent this order to the Egyptian slave drivers and the Israelite foremen: 7 “Do not supply any more straw for making bricks. Make the people get it themselves! 8 But still require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy. That’s why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to our God.’ 9 Load them down with more work. Make them sweat! That will teach them to listen to lies!”

When the people hear of this they are devastated. They know that there is no way they can do what Pharaoh is asking them to do. Look at 5:15: 15 So the Israelite foremen went to Pharaoh and pleaded with him. “Please don’t treat your servants like this,” they begged. 16 “We are given no straw, but the slave drivers still demand, ‘Make bricks!’ We are being beaten, but it isn’t our fault! Your own people are to blame!” NLT

Pharaoh’s answer? 5:17: 17 But Pharaoh shouted, “You’re just lazy! Lazy! That’s why you’re saying, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to the Lord.’ 18 Now get back to work! No straw will be given to you, but you must still produce the full quota of bricks.” NLT

Ok, folks, that’s stress!! You would have thought that, after the burning bush and the rod that became a snake, that God was going to make things smooth. O no! They got worse. God sends great stress to the people. And how do the people react?

Well, they create great stress for Moses. 5:20 says, As they (the Jewish leaders) left Pharaoh’s court, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who were waiting outside for them. 21 The foremen said to them, “May the Lord judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials. You have put a sword into their hands, an excuse to kill us!” NLT

What does Moses do? Well he takes it to God in 5:22. 22 Then Moses went back to the Lord and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord? Why did you send me? 23 Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people. And you have done nothing to rescue them!” NLT

Now, God responds and tells Moses that He is up to something. He is going to deliver His people. Moses tells the people but, as our text said, they aren’t listening anymore. This creates even more doubt in Moses. How will he ever pull this off?

And that’s just where God wanted him to be. God doesn’t usually give overwhelming victories without first allowing overwhelming stress. The tragedy is that we often give in to the stress before we experience the victory. God’s agenda is to build faith, but Christians are often unable to see it because they are so focused on their stress.

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We need to know this because of the world we live in.

And we really need to know this because of the world we live in. We life in a stress-averse world! In fact, we live in the generation that has used the word “snowflake” to describe just how stress-averse and fragile we are. That term, “snowflake,” speaks of someone who is too sensitive and weak to handle any real stress, especially the stress of someone’s opinion that is different from their own.

ILL

PIC - Julia Hartley-Brewer

Need an example? Well, Disability activists have threatened to report TalkRadio host Julia Hartley-Brewer to the police for a ‘hate crime’ after she violated one of their designated safe spaces by using the scary word “Boo!” at the Labour party conference.

It sounds like a joke. But the complainers are taking it dead seriously. A Labour spokeswoman said in a statement: “During conference, the Labour party received a number of complaints about talkRADIO presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer’s behaviour during conference, which we looked into immediately.

“It became apparent that she had caused considerable distress to vulnerable groups, including to delegates with conditions including Asperger’s, autism and anxiety disorders.

And “It is nothing less than a hate crime against disabled people in vulnerable situations, especially those who are neuro-diverse or have mental health issues.

“Everybody in the party is sickened that this happened. It is beyond belief that she thought this was a reasonable thing to do.”

So what did Julia Hartley-Brewer actually do to merit this outrage and upset? She said “Boo!”

Now, that’s pretty easy to criticize, but the truth is that many believers are Christian “snowflakes.” The only problem with that is that believers are called to take up a cross. Stress is one of God’s faith-building exercise.

We need to know this because of the One we trust in.

We need to know this because of the world we live in, but we also need to know this BECAUSE OF THE ONE WE TRUST IN. We, as sinful people, tend to turn to ourselves first. We look at our own strength and (rightly) think that we can’t do it!

By the way, that’s where God had to take His people. As long as they could trust in their Egyptian masters, they’d do it; as long as they could trust in themselves, they’d do it. God has to get them to the place that the only Being they can turn to and trust in is Him. So He uses stress to do that.

TRANS

That’s because God builds our faith through stress. But there is another tool He uses with the childen of Israel. He also builds their faith through:

God builds our faith through REVELATION.

EXP

Well, the people of Israel may have been discouraged, but God was about to give them hope. You see, for the first time in 400 years, perhaps, they were about to see the great I AM reveal Himself and He was going to use 10 plagues of His judgment on Egypt to do it. These plagues were strategically carried out to show God’s power over several things.

First, they show His power over the gods of Egypt:

The first plague turned the waters of the Nile to blood. According to J. Vernon McGee, the nile river was the life source of Egyptians and was sacred to the Egyptian god, Osiris. God takes him down!

The second plague overruns the land with frogs and is a direct attack on the ugly frog-headed goddess, Heka. God takes her down.

The third plague turns the dust of the earth into lice to plague the land. This defeated Geb the god of the earth-god of the Egyptians. God takes him down.

The plague of flies may have actually been swarms of beetles which defeats Khepara, the beetle god. God takes him down.

In the fifth plague, the cattle of the Egyptians die and God shows his defeat of Apis the black bull Egyptian god. God takes him down.

The sixth plague, the plague of boils, attacks the entire Egyptian religious system. The text says that the magicians could not appear before Moses because they were infected with boils. Boils were thought to make you religiously unclean. God takes the magicians down.

In the seventh plague, God sends hail from the sky showing his dominance of the sky goddess of the Egyptians.

The eighth plague, the plague of locusts, shows God’s dominance over the insect gods of the Egyptians and the ninth plague shows God’s dominance over the sun god, Ra.

But it is the tenth plague that takes down the most important “god” of the Egyptians. You see, the Pharaoh, whomever he might be, was considered to be the incarnation of Horus, the god who maintained the fertility of the land. When God destroys the first born of Pharaoh (and the rest of the Egyptians), He directly moves against Pharaoh and shows him that He is in control.

And that’s the truth that Pharaoh had been fighting all along. Pharaoh was determined to stand up to God and it wasn’t just Pharaoh’s own idea to do that. No, the Scripture says that not only did Pharaoh harden his own heart, but at a certain point, God hardened his heart as well. Why? Because God was going to display His awesome power to His people and show them Who He was.

And that’s the point! When God wants to build faith He will reveal Himself as the powerful God that He is!

APP

And O, how we need to know that! You and I need to know that because our discouragements may be God’s display. The stressful situations that cause us to want to quit can become the opportunities that God uses to show up and reveal Himself in our lives.

So, have you been going through stress? Maybe it’s your marriage. You’re distraught because you don’t know what to do to save it. Maybe you’ve even given up. Could I suggest this morning that what you think is hopeless could be God’s opportunity?

ILL

Pic - Marriage Counseling

I have done some marriage counseling in my days as a pastor. Very often I have seen marriages fall apart because there was so much damage already done. I remember talking to one husband and wife who had gone through so much. Honestly, when the husband came and talked to me, I thought it would end up in divorce. The wife didn’t really want to reconcile. I tried to prepare him for what I thought might happen, but he wasn’t having it! He said he believed God was going to restore his marriage. He had great faith—even more than I had! He kept believing.

I saw God reveal Himself in that couple and I watched as they were completely reconciled and are still together today. I tell you, we need to believe that God can reveal Himself in our lives because our discouragements can be God’s display.

And we also need to believe in God’s revelation because our trivia may be God’s triumph. What I mean is that God is always working! Did you hear me? I said GOD IS ALWAYS WORKING!! Like that song says, “Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working.” You see, God is always working but we may not see it. Sometimes He is working in the smallest things and if we will just open our eyes, He will use those little things to build our faith.

TRANS

Yes, I tell you, God has a building program! He is out to build our faith! He builds our faith through stress and He builds our faith through revelation, but last of all, He builds our faith through

God builds our faith through ACTION.

EXP

Like a great suspense novel, God builds the drama of the plagues until He decrees the tenth. Through every plague two things have been happening. On the one hand, pressure has been building on Pharaoh who is finding it increasingly hard to deny that he is up against a foe he cannot defeat. His country lies in ruins while his slaves prosper. On the other hand, the faith of the defeated Israelites has been growing and they find it increasingly hard to deny that their “I AM God” is up to something!

And then comes the tenth plague. says:

Exodus 11:4–8 NKJV

Then Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the animals. Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.’ And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, and all the people who follow you!’ After that I will go out.” Then he went out from Pharaoh in great anger.

At midnight tonight I will pass through the heart of Egypt. 5 All the firstborn sons will die in every family in Egypt, from the oldest son of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, to the oldest son of his lowliest servant girl who grinds the flour. Even the firstborn of all the livestock will die. 6 Then a loud wail will rise throughout the land of Egypt, a wail like no one has heard before or will ever hear again. 7 But among the Israelites it will be so peaceful that not even a dog will bark. Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites. 8 All the officials of Egypt will run to me and fall to the ground before me. ‘Please leave!’ they will beg. ‘Hurry! And take all your followers with you.’ Only then will I go!” Then, burning with anger, Moses left Pharaoh.

With this plague, God directly challenges Pharaoh’s power. His first duty was to protect his people, but the Bible says at midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt . . . there was not a single house where someone had not died. Imagine the outcry in America if, as a result of the president’s actions, every household had someone to die. Do you think the people would be upset?? God challenges Pharaoh’s power.

And God challenges Pharaoh personally. His own son dies.

But this tenth plague does more than judge the Egyptians. It is used by God to show the Israelites a picture of their need for forgiveness. Do you remember what God told them to do? He instituted what would forever be known as the Passover. The people were to slaughter a young lamb or goat without any defect. Then they were to roast the meat and eat it. They were to save the blood, however, and they were to put the blood on the door post. At midnight the death angel would come throughout Egypt and, when He saw the blood on their door, He would “passover” them and let them live.

O, but this picture of forgiveness was a picture of even more! You see, the Moses would go on to teach the Israelites God’s law and institute the offering of a lamb to atone for their sin. That sacrifice would be offered countless times over the next 1300 to 1500 years until in A.D. 30 the Passover meal would be taken again. In Jerusalem, the disciples would sit with Jesus and eat the lamb that they had roasted and the next day Jesus, Himself would BECOME the LAMB Who would offer the final sacrifice for the sins of His people. It would be His Blood that would rescue all Who trust Him from their own slavery and open up the true Promised Land to all who believe Him enough to follow Him.

But do not let yourself miss this all-important point! When the Israelites were told about this new thing called the Passover, they had to believe what Moses told them: They had to believe that God was really going to deliver them by killing the firstborn of the Egyptians. They had to believe that their own sons would be spared if they would slay the lamb and spread the blood on their doors. In short, their belief had to cause them to ACT. That’s why I say that God not only build faith through stress and through revelation, He also builds faith through requiring us to firmly believe that, if the Jews had not put the blood on the door, they would not have been spared. They had to believe enough to act.

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And the same thing is true for us: When we really believe, we are willing to act. If we’re not willing to act, we don’t really believe. We’re more like what Louis C.K. the comedian.

ILL

He once said, I have a lot of beliefs .… And I live by none of them. That's just the way I am. They're just my beliefs. I just like believing them—I like that part. They're my little "believies." They make me feel good about who I am. But if they get in the way of a thing I want, I just do what I want to do - Louis C.K. That could explain the sexual misconduct charges he faced in 2018.

If all we have is believies, we don’t really have faith. You see faith comes down to action.

APP

And we need to hear this! Now I know that sometimes people can act without really believing. You can fake your way through your religious exercises and there are a lot of people who do that. They come to church without really seeking God. They come because family or friends expect them to come.

Others help their neighbors without really loving them. They might do that because they think someone else will find out about what they’ve done and be favorably impressed, but they don’t really love from their hearts.

Others can sing “Our God is an Awesome God” but not even truly believe in that God. Yes you can do things without really believing. Action does not mean you necessarily have faith, BUT IF YOU REALLY DO HAVE FAITH, YOU ABSOLUTELY WILL TAKE ACTION!

Listen! I know you might feel like your faith has taken a real hit. Maybe you’re here and you’re not even sure you believe in God. Here’s what I’m here to tell you: Open your eyes! The very stress you’ve been using to prove God’s not there might be the very thing He wants to use to prove that He is. Open your eyes: Perhaps the trivial interventions you’ve been ignoring are the arrows that point you to God. Open your eyes: Perhaps your faith just needs the jumpstart of your being willing to step out in faith and trust God enough to act.

So let me just pull this together with three very specific actions:

First, Since God builds our faith through stress, your troubles aren’t all bad. God wants to use them to build faith. Instead of questioning God when the troubles come, why not ask God to use those stresses to build your faith.

Second, Since God builds our faith through revelation, He wants to reveal His identity to you. EXPECT HIM TO WORK! Look for His hand and allow what you see to turn you to Him in trust.

Third, Since God builds our faith through actions, what is He calling you to do? Is He calling you to receive Him as your Savior? Is He calling you from controlling your own life to turning the control over to Him?

What is He calling you to do? If you’re a member here or even if you’re not, maybe He’s calling you to take a step of faith and stop living an unaccountable life. Maybe He’s calling you to join a life group or to allow someone else to disciple you.

What is He calling you to do? Perhaps He’s calling some of you to open up your checkbook and begin tithing. You’ve been afraid to surrender, but you know that you need to turn over all your finances to Him. You can SAY you trust Him, but until you ACT, you really do not.

Let me tell you what will happen if you will believe enough to act. It’s the one word that we use around here to describe what success in the Christian life looks like. It’s life change! It is faith in action and it has a powerful impact.

VIS

Pic - Mary Ellen Rothrock

It did for Mary Ellen Rothrock. You remember she turned to Transcendental Meditation to try to fill that empty place in her soul that her atheism could not touch. As she meditated, she kept hearing lines from Handel’s Messiah. One of the ones that kept repeating in her mind was, And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. To her young mind, not only was the music thrilling, but the words seemed to come from beyond this world. She loved the joyful language: ‘Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. ... For unto us a Child is born … And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.;”

Her TM supervisor told her to ignore the words that kept coming to her but “She told herself, ‘These aren't just random thoughts.’ Then suddenly it hit her: The phrase And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed was an invitation from a personal God of glory to seek him! Why couldn't he be ‘Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace?’

Within months, she met a woman who explained how she could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. She said, “As I heard the words from the Bible, the words from the musical score made sense. The Holy Spirit convinced me of the truth: the God I'd hungered for, the personal God, loved me. ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.’

I tell you, God is longing for you to “get it.” Even if you’re “down to nothing,” God is definitely up to something! He is in the faith building business. You may feel like you’re “down to nothing, but God is up to something!”

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