Exodus 5:22-7:7
I don’t like today’s passage.
There is a part of me that rises up in great anger when I read today’s passage.
Because I want to be God in my life. I am me. I am independent. I am the captain of my destiny. No-one tells me what to do.
And this passage is all about GOD’S sovereignty.
But I love this passage.
Because God is sovereign, and I am not. Because my rebellion against him is forgotten, dealt with by him on the cross – not because I deserve it, or earned it, but because it is his nature to forgive. And because he is sovereign, because HE is God and I am not, he can override my sinful choices and compel me to come to him and be saved.
My pride might say I hate this passage. But I say, shut up, pride, for you are a fool. For this passage gives me eternal life!
1. I am the LORD, the sovereign God
2. I am the LORD God almighty. You are not.
3. I am the LORD, your saviour
1. I am the LORD, the sovereign God
Last week ended pretty badly, didn’t it. Pharaoh was angry, the Israelites were much worse off, now having to make bricks without the straw they needed to make bricks (and then being beaten for not making the bricks “it’s not our fault!”). Moses and Aaron are rejected by the Israelites for making them “stink” before Pharaoh. And Moses, the great hero of the Old Testament, the saviour of Israel… well he’s in a pit of despair and doubt.
How quickly we abandon the word of God! As soon as we run into trouble, we fall away.
But why? Why do we fall away? Isn’t it when things don’t go the way we had planned? That’s what we define as trouble isn’t it? Things didn’t go according to plan. But who’s plan? God’s plan? Or OUR (much better) plan.
Moses is in despair because things didn’t go the way HE wanted. Listen to his words Ex 5:22–23 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!”
The tone is accusatory, hostile. And he’s not so much worried about “the people” – he’s worried about him “Why did you send…ME”. I was having a nice quiet life in the middle of the desert – now you dragged me out here, nearly killed me on the way, put me in front of Pharaoh – only to make a fool out of me, and make everyone hate me.
And you’ve done nothing!!
Actually, God has done exactly what he said he would do. Remember a couple of weeks back, to 4:21 And the LORD told Moses, “When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform all the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will harden his heart so he will refuse to let the people go.
We read sentences like “I will harden his heart” and we give a little nervous laugh, and a little cough, because this doesn’t fit in with our mental picture of God – and then we ignore it. Or try to explain it away. It’s unfair we say. Unfair? For God to pronounce judgement on a sinful, brutal, evil ruler like Pharaoh?
Many people, even Christians (especially Christians?) get very offended with the idea of God’s sovereignty. The idea that God is in control. That God decides.
The reason we struggle with that doctrine (idea or teaching), even though it is fundamental to our faith, should be painfully obvious to all of us who are Christian. The reason we struggle with it is that we want to be God! WE want to decide our fate (and indeed, the fates of others).
And so we simply filter what we want to hear. Moses heard “rescue” and “miracles” and power and prestige. God promised all that – but also hardship and refusal and a battle between Pharaoh and God that would reveal God’s glory. Moses ignored that bit.
It’s kind of like when Jesus said he would go to Jerusalem (yes, yes, to rescue your people, yes. Glory and power and all that) - well, not quite – more like my death, but don’t worry, I will conquer death and rise again. Yes, they say – and the first thing they do is say “I’d like to be on your right hand in the kingdom” – the position of power! They just… filtered away… his words about suffering and death. So they were shocked, SHOCKED, when he died. How could this happen.
Like Moses. Pharaoh will be hard-hearted and not let the people. And Moses is shocked, SHOCKED.
Like us. We live in a sinful world, as sinners, surrounded by sinners. We know we are not God. We know we are not in the new Creation. And we are shocked, SHOCKED, by hardship, or difficulties. Shocked when God calls us to lay aside our lives. To live self-sacrificially. To love the unlovable. To forgive deep, real, hurts. To pour out our lives in service to him. But what about ME and MY plans.
There is a God. You are not Him.
There is a version of the gospel which has been filtered to suit our comfortable Western existence. It is called the prosperity gospel (herlighetsteologi) – that God is on our side, that he will make us healthy and wealthy. That he will fulfil our dreams and grant us our deepest desires. Notice the focus? Me. Me. Me. My dreams. My desires. My health. My wealth. That’s not the gospel – that’s the American Dream – actually that’s insulting the American Dream, because that involves hard work – this is the American DayDream! Just have faith and God the magic genie will give it to you.
God is not there to do our will. We were made, by Him, to do His will. We are his servants – he is not ours. To disobey him is to rebel against the power at the centre of the universe, and is a foolish thing indeed. Pharaoh rebelled, and look at v 1! Then the LORD told Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go. In fact, he will force them to leave his land!” 2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’
God is God. The Lord is the Lord. There is only one God.
Moses, God is God. Not you.
Daniel, God is God. Not you.
2. I am the LORD God almighty. You are not.
There’s a big puzzle in this story, and that’s vv14-25 – the random genealogy (list of names). Let’s have a break here and bore you to death with a list of births and deaths! Just as the story’s getting interesting.
That might be just a clever literary device. God has just said “I am the LORD” and v13 The LORD commanded Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Ooh, the stage is set – and then we cut away to this list of names. It’s like an advertising break at a crucial point in a TV program. “And the murderer is….” Pause. Fade to black. “Buy our nappies”… argh!
But I suspect it’s more than just old style “advert break”. This list of the ancestors of some of the clans of Israel has been deliberately placed here, and the names carefully selected. Why?
That’s a question you should be asking when you read the Bible, and it’s a big part of my job in explaining it. Why? Why is it said like this? Why is it said here? It’s a surprise, and surprises should make us sit up and concentrate. A bit like Jesus’ surprising the apostles with “I’m going to Jerusalem…” (yes, yes, to be crowned King!) “…to die”. Huh? But they dismissed it – it didn’t fit with their framework – their preconceived ideas of God and the world – and so they ignored his word. Oops. And missed out on the very reason he came, the central work of Jesus, the message they would spend their lives proclaiming and die for: Christ crucified – the righteous who died for the unrighteous (us) to bring us to God.
Watch for the surprises… and allow God to shape your framework, instead of trying to shape God to fit your framework. If you don’t let the Bible shape your view of God, you will eventually find that you are worshipping a lie – a God made in your own image – a Jesus who does not exist – an idol. And that is extremely dangerous.
So, why the genealogy? Why only 3 sons of Israel? Why these sons? Why these families?
Well, let’s examine it. 14 These are the ancestors of some of the clans of Israel: The sons of Reuben, Israel’s oldest son, were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. Their descendants became the clans of Reuben. 15 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar, and Shaul. (Shaul’s mother was a Canaanite woman.) Their descendants became the clans of Simeon. 16 These are the descendants of Levi, as listed in their family records:
The author is not really interested in the descendants of Rueben and Simeon, is he? He mentions them only to get to Levi – because that’s Moses and Aaron’s clan. So why mention them at all? It’s to point out that Levi is not even the firstborn. He’s not the most important son. He’s down the list. Number 3. Then we get the sons of Levi Gershon, Kohath, Merari. Again, Moses and Aaron are not even from the firstborn of Levi. They are number 2.
The point is this: Moses, and Aaron his brother, are not anything special. They’re just ordinary guys, from an ordinary family, from an ordinary tribe. They have no special skills, no special promises, no special position in life (and even if they did, Moses showed how quickly you can mess that up: from the palace to the desert in one easy move!).
They are ordinary.
Actually, not even that. Reuben lost his birthright because of sexual sin. Simeon and Levi ransacked an entire town, murdering everyone out of revenge for their sister Dinah being assaulted. Moses and Aaron’s parents did something forbidden in the law: Amram married Jochebed his father’s sister. Korah, mentioned in v24, was the one who rebelled against Moses and who was swallowed up by the ground in Numbers 16.
Their family line is a mess. Rebellion and evil all over the place. There is nothing special about them.
But God.
God has called Moses, and together with him, Aaron, to be part of his salvation work. This whole story is God’s initiative – from the baby floating in the river to growing up in the Palace, to fleeing to the desert, to seeing the Burning bush – all to bring him to this point: The Aaron and Moses named in this list are the same ones to whom the LORD said, “Lead the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt like an army.” 27 It was Moses and Aaron who spoke to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, about leading the people of Israel out of Egypt.
You know, you might be sitting there thinking “God could never use me, I’m not qualified. I’m no good at this. I’m born into the wrong family. I don’t have this skill or that skill. God can’t use me.” Guess what? You’re wrong! God doesn’t need the skilled, or those born into the right family, or with power, or connections. He can provide all that, if necessary. He is sovereign, after all. Your job is to simply be obedient. 7: 6 So Moses and Aaron (eventually) did just as the LORD had commanded them.
To share a personal story - I felt the same way when God called me to plant this church. Ridiculous, I said, I’m the wrong person for the job. I’m an accountant, for goodness sake. I don’t have these skills, or these, etc. And yet here we stand, 2 years old, God’s grace evident throughout this congregation. God is the difference. He works in our weakness.
But I also want to talk to those of us here who don’t really know God. If you’re sitting there thinking “God can’t accept me”, or “Daniel, if you really knew me and what I have done, you wouldn’t be saying that God can use me, God can accept me”. Well, you’re wrong. The whole Bible is story after story of God accepting the unacceptable. So if you’re unacceptable to God, you’ve got good company: Moses, Aaron, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, the apostles Peter, John, Paul, for example!
Why? Because
3. I am the LORD, your saviour
6:6 “Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.
God is in the business of saving people. And did you see why he saves people? It’s a repeated saying, again and again. It’s there in v6 “I am the LORD”
Notice that LORD is in capital letters. This indicates the letters YHWH or Yahweh (or older translations had Jehovah). It is his name – his personal name revealed to Israel.
The reason he saves is because he is the LORD, Yahweh. He saves because that’s who he is. That is his character, his very nature.
That’s what v2-3 means: And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.
This doesn’t mean that they didn’t know his name, Yahweh, before now. A number of names have a “yah” as part of them, like Joshua (Yeshu-yah) and Jochebed (Yah-kebed, meaning “Yahweh is glory”); and also because Genesis uses the name Yahweh 162 times! For example, after Isaac is redeemed from the sacrifice, Abraham names the place Yahweh-Yireh (the LORD provides).
So they knew his name – but now he will reveal to them what it means – who he really is. The saviour God.
The Exodus is an object lesson on the character and nature of our saviour God. That is why it is so important. We see in one great event the hostility of God towards sin and injustice: he is the Judge of the world, and he is irresistible. Justice will be done, must be done. And in the midst of his just judgement on the pride and arrogance and cruelty of Pharaoh and his people – we find mercy and salvation and patience and tenderness. We find a God who covers over the sins of his people.
For who is this Moses who speaks back to God in unbelief? He is nothing, a no-one – yet in 5:22-23 he moans against God. In 6:12 he tries to wiggle out of obeying God. In v30 he does the same “No God, I won’t do it”.
And yet God’s reaction is not judgement…but mercy. So, too, his reaction to the Israelites who reject his Word. 9 So Moses told the people of Israel what the LORD had said, but they refused to listen anymore.
God had every right to simply walk away. To abandon them. To terrify them in his wrath and subdue them. But instead he deals tenderly with them, patiently repeating his words and sending Moses and Aaron to rescue them anyway. He covers over their sins, the sins of Moses and the sins of the people of Israel, and says you will be my people, and I will be your God. (6:7). Why? Because I am Yahweh – the LORD – the covenant keeping God.
Exodus reveals the heart of God.
But Exodus is only a shadow of the reality to come. In Exodus we see in part who this LORD, this Yahweh, is – on the Cross we see it in full.
On the Cross we see the full extent of God’s justice as he pours out his wrath, his anger, on the sins of the world upon the shoulders of his Son. We see his justice as Jesus cries out “My God, my God why have you abandoned me”, and the sun goes dark and the earth splits open as with a loud cry Jesus dies. And we see in that same moment his amazing mercy as the one who is on the cross, the one paying the penalty for my sins, the one carrying all my wrongdoing on his shoulders is not me – but him. God himself, bearing the cost of our rebellion. Even Moses’ sin is there. The sins of the Israelites ignoring God is there. All the sins past, present and future committed by his people, all focused like a huge magnifying glass on that one moment in history, that one Man on the Cross, bearing our sin. What love! What mercy!
This is why in the New Testament he is not called Yahweh, but the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the full and complete revelation of Almighty God, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, the LORD.
1. He is the LORD, the sovereign God
2. He is the LORD God almighty. I am not.
3. He is the LORD, my, your, saviour
He is our Lord, our saviour.
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