Let's turn to Exodus chapter
5. I'm thankful for that song. Take
it to the Lord in prayer. That's what when your friends
despise you and everybody's against you, go to the Lord. That's what
we're going to see Moses do right here in our text. Right when
he's attacking, he does that over and over. For many decades. Exodus chapter
5 verse 1. We'll read the whole chapter.
And afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus
saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may
hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who's the Lord?
That I should obey his voice to let Israel go. I know not
the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. And they said, the
God of the Hebrews have met with us. Let us go, we pray thee. Three days journey into the desert
and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with
pestilence or with a sword. And the king of Egypt said unto
them, wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from
their works get you unto your burdens? Pharaoh said, Behold,
the people of the land now are many, and you make them rest
from their burdens? Pharaoh commanded the same day
the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, You
shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore. let them go and gather straw
for themselves. And the tail, that means the proportion, the
amount, the number, of bricks, which they did make herefore
to, ye shall lay upon them, ye shall not diminish off thereof,
for they be idle. Therefore they cry, saying, let
us go sacrifice unto our God. Let there more work be laid upon
the men, and let they may labor therein. And let them not regard
vain words. Pharaoh saying everything these
two come to you just vain. It's going to return to their
God void. It's for nothing. Terrible thing. Verse 10. And
the taskmasters of the people went out and their officers and
they spake to the people saying, thus saith Pharaoh, I will not
give you straw. Go ye get your, get you straw
where you can find it. Yet not all of your works shall
be diminished. You still have to do everything
we told you to do before. So the people were scattered abroad
throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of
straw. They couldn't even find straw. They had to look for stubble.
And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfill your works, your
daily tasks. And when there was straw, as
when there was straw, and the officers of the children of Israel,
which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and
demanded. Wherefore have you not fulfilled
your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore? And the officers of the children
of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest
thou thus with thy servants? There is no straw given unto
thy servants. And they say to us, Make brick,
and behold, thy servants are beaten, but the fault is in thine
own people. But he said, you are idle, you
are idle. Therefore you say, let us go
and do sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore now and work, for
there shall no straw be given you, yet shall you deliver the
tail of bricks. And the officers of the children
of Israel did see that they were in evil case. After it was said,
you shall not mince the alt from the bricks of your daily tasks.
And they met Moses and Aaron who stood in the way. It's a
good place to stay. As they came forth from Pharaoh
and they said unto them, the Lord look upon you and judge. They said to Moses and Aaron,
God judge you. Because you have made our savor,
our scent, our smell to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh and in
the eyes of his servants and put a sword in their hand to
slay us. You did this. And Moses returned unto the Lord
and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil and treated this
people? Why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to
Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people.
Neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. Chapter 6, verse
1. Then the Lord said unto Moses,
Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong
hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive
them out of his land. The Lord had purposed all this
to come to pass. He gave us a whole chapter here
dedicated to this. He told Moses, equipped him,
said, here's the messages you're going to preach. You're going
to be as to Aaron unto a God, and he will be as a prophet.
You will tell him what to say, and he's going to say it, and
he's going to do it. And I'm going to send both of you for Exodus to
bring my people out and up. You're going to get them out
of there. Now go do it. And they went and they said the
things of Pharaoh and everything got worse. There was kicking
against the pricks. And who did they get mad at?
Were they mad at Pharaoh? Were they mad at the taskmasters
that took their belts off and beat them? They were mad at Moses
and Aaron. They said, this is your fault. Not that it was God's fault.
It was your fault. This is the Lord's doing. This is your doing.
You did this to me. If it wasn't for you, we had
it made before you showed up. We had good times. It's about us. It's about the
Lord's people and false religion and the false religions of our
minds and him bringing us out. The first time we start hearing
those things of the sin that we are and the holiness of God,
not some gray haired grandpa that's going to sweep sin underneath
the rug. He's God. There's a flinching in there
and they're saying you can't get mad at God because he ain't there
so you get mad at the ones he's seeing. It's normal. The preachers
ought not be surprised and those that go through it ought not
be surprised. This is us. Who's this concerning? We have
this whole book of Exodus, but this chapter specifically. Who's
it talking about? It's the children of Israel.
This is a picture. The Lord made all this come to
pass in reality. physical nation to picture spiritual
Israel throughout time. That's in our day too. That's
right now in 2024. Pharaoh, who's that? That's God's
devil. I worded that specifically. I
love it in Job when it said he reported, he showed up. I was
in the military. I don't report to people that's
under me or my equals. I'd say, hey, call them by their
name. That's the Lord's devil. And he said, I can't touch Job.
And he brought Job up to him. He said, hey, look at Job. He
said, well, I didn't even consider him. He said, consider him, I
said so. He did as he was told, wasn't he? But that's a picture
of Satan. He's running and he's providing
for, and he's encouraging the working. of the people of God. That's another gospel, which
is not another. It's not close. Well, that's
pretty close. I say, no, it's not. It's false. There's either
poison or not poison. There's either the truth or a
lie. And this one's promoting works as hard as he can do it.
You give them rest. What are you? They're lazy. If
they go to rest and they ain't gonna go back to working. And
he's ignorant. He's ignorant of the things of
God. And there's Moses and Aaron, God's preachers, those sent to
preach and to teach and to intercede and pray for God's people. Where is this taking place? Egypt. What's that? It's a cursed, barren
land of earth. What's that picture to us? That's
this world, isn't it? That's this world. Where are
they at? They're in Egypt. They used to be in the land of
Goshen when they first got there, wouldn't they? They went from
Goshen to a ghetto. Literally, that's the Germanic
name. They had a concentration of Jews in one area, a place
for them to bide. They went from Goshen to a ghetto.
Remember, they had a representative when it was Goshen. Remember
that? They had a head. There was one that spoke on their
behalf. That was Joseph, and he spoke the language of the
king, of Pharaoh. And he knew their rules and their
system of government. He knew everything about it,
and they had no clue. But they didn't have to know any of those
things. They didn't have to speak that language, because they had
a representative. They had Joseph, and that's our brother. He ain't
gonna do us wrong. But God sent Moses to bring him
out. They had 400 years there after Joseph died. About, I don't
know, somebody else can look it up. That's their business.
390, 400 years, long time. Plenty enough time that nobody
hardly remembered these things of no leader. All they had was
Pharaoh. That's your father, the devil.
That's what we're born into this world is, isn't it? Wickedness. And then, but God, but God sent
Moses and Aaron to bring them out, to represent them. Moses to give the words of God
and Aaron to be the prophet, just a mouthpiece. Just say what
he said. Not your thoughts, not your doing.
How long have these particular people, this generation, this
specific generation that physically left there, how long have they
been in Egypt? It's an easy question. Their
whole life. Their whole life. Their whole
life, they were born there. They're born in this world. They're
of it. Right? You see the picture? I said this
is talking about us. It's talking about our generation,
too. We're born into this. Born and conceived in sin. Come
from the womb, speaking lies. And it's been going on for so
long, especially for us, that our parents are that way, our
grandparents are that way, and our great-grandparents are that
way. And if God don't reveal himself, they don't know God.
They can't figure him out. Nobody knew God. Nobody believed
on him. But God revealed himself and
sent his word, didn't he? Who brought them to Egypt? How
did they get there in the first place? God sent famine and he
sent Joseph to save many people alive. Remember that? Remember
us going through Genesis? He sent Joseph there and he was
in in prison, he was in Potiphar's house, and he ended up in prison,
and then he did these dreams, interpreted these dreams of the
baker, and ended up, he's the right hand of Pharaoh. He ascended,
didn't he? All picked from Christ, and he
provided for him, and he provided for Jacob, and he sent wagons,
and he sent the gospel to him, and somebody declared to him,
to bring them into the best land that there was. God did this. And then God have those pharaohs
and each generation of pharaohs forget all that. He put taskmasters
over them. What's happening here? They're
under taskmasters. This is not a good work environment.
It makes my skin crawl to hear it. It's a toxic work environment. Oh, you think that's toxic? God be with us. They're in a
bad work environment, but there's a lot provided in their work
to keep them working. There's some benefits to it.
So, well, it's bad, but they keep getting strong. Like, we
don't have to go source all this raw material ourselves. They're
okay. They're a decent boss. They were
encouraged to work, to keep working, to keep making these bricks.
What were they making bricks for? Treasure cities. Treasure cities. Pharaoh's treasure cities. We're
working on a building. I used to sing it in gospel churches
when I was a kid. Not true gospel churches. There's
a gospel, bluegrass music that's of a false god. I've been working
on a building since the day I was born. Working on treasure cities. Says
in Exodus 1, therefore they did set over them taskmasters to
afflict them in their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh, not
for God, for Pharaoh, treasure cities, Pithom and Ramses. And
I went and looked them up. I told you that when we was in
chapter one, but I went and looked them up again. They got pictures of Pithom and
Ramses. You know what Pharaoh's treasure cities look like now?
You can kind of make out a heap of dust. There's some rubble
a little bit here and there. That builder and maker was not
God, that was man. And that's what we're all doing,
we're working for man. Now we may have a Bible in our hands
and we may play a guitar for Jesus and travel around this
country and try to be soul winners, but we don't know him. It's all
treasures of man, treasure cities of man, and it's gonna be to
nothing. Who put those taskmasters over then? The Lord did. The Lord raised up Pharaoh. Pharaoh
put him over there. The Lord said, I've raised you
up, show my power. And he did this, and he sent the trial.
He sent the affliction so he could save them for their affliction.
And they'd ask him to do it, and he'd oblige. And he'd get
all the glory for it. Isn't that a blessing? What about
our trials? We'll get to the taskmasters, that's bosses and
employees in a little while, but what about our trials and
our afflictions? God sent them. Lord, make me
believe that. Whenever I have tough times,
don't let me mope around this world murmuring like people that
cuss him and cuss his servants and let me walk around with my
chin up saying God's on his throne. He does right. He's holy. And
that's for my good. I don't understand it and I don't
have to. He does. That's enough for me. I don't
want to bring reproach on the gospel. I don't want to bring
doubt on the gospel. I want to Glorify Christ. The Lord put
those on. He told Moses in Exodus 3, He
said, you take your shoes off, Moses. Moses, I want to check
out that burning bush. Why ain't that thing gone away?
I know something about fire. It consumes. There's fire on
it for real. It ain't consumed. And God said,
take your shoes off. This is holy. What's going on
here is a holy thing. First time it's mentioned. And
the Lord said, I've surely seen the affliction of my people,
which are in Egypt. I've seen it because I let it happen. That's
my doing. I've heard their cry by reason
of their taskmasters. They finally cried out to me
because I sent them taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. He
didn't stop there. The Lord's not an austere man.
He's not a father that just bops his children on the head for
no reason. He's teaching us something. He's a good and faithful father.
He said, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand
of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land, and
to a good land and a large, and to a land full of milk and honey."
They didn't have enough good sense to call out on me, so I'm
going to send them some taxmasters, and they're going to call out
on me, and I'm going to bring them in. They're going to be
happy. It's good for them. Turn over to Ephesians 6. Ephesians
chapter 6. I want us to look at this. We can call it a Sunday school
if you want, but Pharaoh's accusing them to be idle. He said, you're
going to go worship God and you're going to stop working. We're going
to do everything we can do to keep you working, keep you productive,
trying to please and build cities of refuge or cities of treasures,
treasure cities. We'll keep you working. And he
said, if you quit working, they're going to be idle. Be a bunch
of lawless antinomians. We want grace, don't we? We just
wanna go worship God and thank Him. We are not to be idle. Though
that's what's pushed by Pharaoh, by the prince of this world of
darkness, we're not to be idle. The worship of God, when God
saves us and we kneel, blessed be the God of Abraham, we kneel
to Him, it requires a lot of moving parts, don't it? It does. The Lord has hands, and He has
eyes, and He has ears, but He gave us hands too. We're His
servants, and we're not servants that sit around in His basement
playing video games all day. He gave us something to do, but
it's not because of our taskmasters. We're not beaten to submission
and made to do these things, and if not, we're gonna suffer
wrath. It's a labor of love. Don't you
want to? Don't you want to? We get, the
Lord let us. Isn't that a privilege? It's
a privilege. We're willing bond slaves. He
said, you're free. And we said, you go to that gate
where everything, all the business went down, bore my ear through.
Every time I see men with earrings, I said, oh, are you a slave?
I didn't know that. That's what that is. They ought
to have a preacher come tell them sometimes. You stand up
that gate and you bore a hole in my ear. And it's permanent.
And that way everybody knows I'm yours and I did it on purpose.
I wanted to. Because you was good to me first.
I loved you because you first loved me. And I love the wife
you gave me. And I love the children that you gave me. And I'm yours.
And I ain't going nowhere. Prove it. That's a labor of love. That's not Taskmaster, is it?
That's not somebody beating you. Here's what it is. It says in
Proverbs 20. You stay in Ephesians 6. I'll read Proverbs 24. You
can go read it later if you want. I'll send you the notes. It's
Solomon. He's wise. Let's hear him. He
said, I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard
of the man void of understanding. Now he knew some things, but
he didn't have understanding. And lo, it was all grown over
with thorns, and nettles covered the face thereof, and the stone
wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw and considered it
well. His house is in shambles. You
get that? Walls falling down, thorns growing
everything, wheat eating in five years. He said, I looked upon,
I considered it well, I looked upon it and received instruction.
God taught me something in this. Yet a little sleep, a little
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. We all want
rest, don't we? That's this whole nation's generated
on watching a stock market. So if our portfolio is doing
enough, we can retire and sit around and do nothing. God did
not make us that way. He said, by the sweat of your
brow, you're going to earn your bread until your days are over. So
shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth, and thy want
as an armed man. You do those things, you have
that rest, you got troubles coming. We're not to be idle. There's
a practical application of that too, but a spiritual application,
isn't it? Seek ye diligently the kingdom
of God. The Lord's revealed himself to
us. I want to do everything, I can't keep my eyes locked on
him. I can't, so I ask him to make me. And that's his doing
to make me ask him. He's probably sent a taskmaster
or two after me, on purpose. That's something in it. Ephesians
six, verse five. Servants, now this applies to
them people back in, we'll have an application here in a second.
This applies to those back then too, God changes not. Servants,
be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the
flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of heart, as unto
Christ. Go read Romans 13. The government
officials we have in San Diego County, the Board of Supervisors,
God put them there for you and for me. And we don't have to
respect the man, we don't have to obey the man, we don't have
to bow to the man, but we bow to the God that put the man there.
Do you understand? I hope we learned something in
five years. We're better off now than we was four years ago.
God taught us these things. As unto Christ, Not with eye
service as being pleased. That means, oh, here comes the
boss, hurry up, let's look like we're doing, being busy. That's just eye service
and lip service and only working hard whenever somebody's looking.
But as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.
From the heart. I'm sent to preach to people
here. If you're working in liquid assets, okay? You do it as unto
the Lord, not to whatever purple haired person's over top of you
being your manager. You do it as unto the Lord because it is
unto the Lord. And let no man tell you different
from what God's word says. Stand strong in his word, not
what somebody else tells you. You hear me? I know you do, but
somebody else may hear me too. With good will doing service
as to the Lord and not to men, knowing We know these things. The Lord's loaded us daily with
benefit. We know this. That whatsoever
good thing any man doeth, the same shall receive of the Lord,
whether he be bond or free. The Lord gave us these instructions
and these promises and everything else, and he's good for his word.
He says it. I don't want somebody else's
method of raising children. I've seen the outcome. I'm going
to do what God says. People try to give me advice.
You senior children, I don't want my kids growing up like
that. I'm gonna do what the Lord says. Now they may grow up heathens,
I don't know, but I'm gonna do what he says. I know he's right,
and if there's a point of failure, it's me, isn't it? And ye masters,
knowing whatsoever good thing, verse eight, any man doeth the
same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free,
whether he's Jew or Gentile. That don't make a difference.
Whether you are a willing bond servant or you're a bond server,
or you're bought, you're just a plain old slave. Either way,
it don't make a difference. And he masters. You bosses. You
own a company? Are you a manager at some place?
Whenever you come back, you listen to this. You'll be mastered.
Do the same things unto them, unto your servants, those that's
underneath you, forbearing, threatening. Don't you threaten them. Don't
you go in and be a hard taskmaster and rule over them. Don't beat
them. Knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is
respect to persons with him. You treat all men the same because
we're all sinners. We're all just like Adam. And understand that.
And you be long-suffering than people. And you pay them good.
And you look out for their interest. Why? Because God took good care
of you and loaded you with benefits daily. And he's forgiven us,
hasn't he? I thought about three of you
have bosses. And at different times throughout
the year or subcontractors or whatever, some of y'all may be
bosses. This is God's word concerning those things. This is God's word
concerning those things. And that's only applied in the
light of Christ and what he's done for us. If we don't know
him, we won't get the lesson. I want to know him and I won't
be taught of him. And he said, they shall be taught
of God. But I'm going to ask him anyway. I ain't going to
set on my laurels and just pretty well please hope when he comes
and teaches me something. I'm going to ask him to and go
where his lessons are being taught with his other people. I'm going
to be gathered together. I'm just going to soak him one
day. Somebody's out there on the airwaves is going to hear
that and they're going to show up and be like, I didn't listen to y'all for
two years. I figured we'd come down here. I want to talk to
you about this in consideration about the attitude. My pastor
was a faithful man and y'all loved him. Henry, my first pastor,
God gave me two and a half. I was under another one for about
a year and a half I was in college. Good man, faithful man that just
told me what God said. They taught me things. I'm thankful
for them. What a benefit, what an ascension
gift of Christ. Boy, he's good to me. I want to talk to you
about attitude just as mine did. He taught me things. If I had
a, now hang on, if I lost you, let's wake up and pay attention
to me. If I had a stone castle. Beautiful place. I had 24, this
is important to me, maybe not you, 24-7 armed guards that are
trained, well-trained, and I had high fences, and I had a personal
cook. Somebody make all my meals for
me, and everything was provided for me, and I could read when
I wanted to, I could nap when I wanted to, I could work out
when I wanted to, I could watch TV. Good cable. I ain't had cable
in 10, 15 years. We'd have good stuff, movie channels.
And I had someone to tell me, hey, it's best to go to sleep
now. And I didn't have to worry about sleeping in. I had somebody
that'd wake me up on time, early in the morning, when God says
to get up. And I'd never run out of money. I'd never get my
days and nights mixed up like a baby. That can happen if you
don't wake up on time. You get your days and nights.
You're up all night in darkness, because man loves darkness more
than light, both carnally and spiritually. But I won't get
my days and nights mixed up. Somebody watch after me, and
the money that would provide for all that would never run
out, and I have no worries whatsoever. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Now, what's the difference between
that and a prison? It's the exact same. You got 24-7 armed guards. They tell you when to go to bed.
You can nap all you want, read all you want. We're going to
cook for you. You ain't even got to do dishes. We'll take
care of it all. There was a preacher in prison.
I can't remember what city it was, and I can't remember the preacher.
He's probably thankful I don't either. He was in prison, and
he said, I'm writing to you from the Lord's palace in Avondale,
or whatever city, fill in the blank. That's what Paul did,
didn't he? He was in prison in Rome. He said, I write to you
from Rome. Might as well said, I'm writing to you from the Lord's
palace at this halfway house in Rome. Lord's put me here.
I'm his prisoner. See the difference in our attitudes?
It's important. God's going to teach us something.
How's that going to happen? We're going to be brought out.
We're going to be gathered together and worship God together in the
wilderness. There's going to be an exodus
that takes place. We're going to be in false religion. We're going to
be in our own way, and we're going to be in our own thoughts,
and we're going to be turned, repented, and brought to and
gathered together because we're all following the same fellow.
We're going to fall in line behind him. We're all following Christ. We'll be brought together, and
we're going to worship God together. and a land flow of milk and honey.
How? How's that gonna happen? How'd
it happen here? God sent two preachers. That's it. And in his power, through them,
just as a mouthpiece, the Lord's gonna bring his sheep out. And
just as Moses went and said, Lord, I don't know what's happening.
Ain't nothing changed now either. I don't know what the Lord's
doing. I just see he's done some things after a while. From what? Exodus were brought out, just
as Joseph was brought out of the pit to the palace. That's
us too, back in our text in Exodus 5, verse 4. And the king of Egypt said unto
them, wherefore do you, Moses and Aaron, let the people from
their works? You're taking them out from underneath
the law. You're telling them they don't have to do works.
Who do you think you are? Antinomians. You're lawless. What's wrong with you? That's
not the way things are done. Nothing strange, is it? Get you
unto your burdens. You get to work. You get to work. What do Pharisees ask Nicodemus? They said, is there
any prophet that comes out of there? Go read your Bible. Get
to work. There was, why did Jonah come from there? Anyway, yeah. He said, get you to your burdens.
And Pharaoh said, verse five, behold, the people of the land
are now, now are many and you make them rest from their burdens.
Pharaoh was mad. He said, you stop helping them.
He told his men, he said, we're going to use them. There's a
bunch of them. We got to get this done while the, while the iron's hot
and we're still going to use them, but you make it harder.
Make it harder. We was providing a straw. Now
you stop that. Let them go find stubble. We was doing all these
things. We're over them. We're kind of rough on them,
but, and they cried out, but we were helping them out some
to keep us going. But now it's going to have to
get a little harder. Some of y'all been exposed to that. Hadn't
you? Y'all been under that, that false bondage of church discipline. Now what it is, you want to,
you'll be free from a law, put them under more law. That's a
false gospel. Nobody's saved underneath that
gospel. They don't have a redeemer. They don't have a head to lead
them out. They're doing it themselves. That's false. A dear brother
of mine, he was in that before God saved him and he was on vacation. He was out of town on vacation
with his family and come under church discipline while he was
out of town and found out about it when he got back. He goes,
I wasn't even there. How did I get in trouble? It's laughable. It ought to be mocked. Ridiculous. It's like fencing the Lord's
table, hedging his table. That's his table. It ain't my
table. It ain't your table. It's the Lord's table. The Lord
gave it to Judas. What's the word say? I'm going
to keep going back to that. Why do I say these things? That's
what God did. That's what he said, wasn't it? Pharaoh was
mad about it though. Verse 8, Exodus 5, 8. And the
tail, the proportion of bricks, same amount of bricks we make
every day, the quota. which they did make herefore
to, ye shall lay upon them, ye shall not diminish thereof, for
they be idle. Therefore they cry, saying, let
us go sacrifice to our gods. You want grace? He said, you're
being lazy. You're being lazy. Now we read
Proverbs, I read Proverbs 24 to you. We ought not be slothful.
We ought not be lazy. But the Lord asked these things
plainly, didn't he? He talked about that. lame man. He said, would you
be made whole? You ready? It's going to come
at a cost to you. Something that's free ain't worth
nothing, is it? Your family's going to be mad
at you. You're going to have to go work for yourself instead
of taking handouts for everybody. And instead of having everybody feel
sorry for you all the time, that ain't going to happen. That's
gone. You're going to start being a child. Start walking, getting
up and walking around some, isn't it? And like those bond servants,
you want to go? Here's your chance, you're free.
Beat it. I ain't going nowhere. I'm going to stay right here.
Well, people's going to make fun of you because you got your
ear pierced and you're my bond servant and you willingly stayed
a slave. That's all right. They can just make fun. See the
difference in love there? That's not taskmasters and beat
and put more law on them. It's a labor of love. It's a
labor of love. You go out and find young wood,
hay, and stubble, he tells them. There wasn't no straw. Couldn't
even find any. They found stubble. And you still have to make the
same amount of bricks. We'll put an extra on you. And if you
complain about it, we'll beat you. And they did. They beat
them. And then some of the representatives of Israel, some of these officers,
not Moses and Aaron, not God's appointed representatives, not
the ones that already told them what it is, they went behind
Moses and Aaron's back and said, we'll handle this ourselves. They went to work things out
with Pharaoh. They said, we don't need the man you sent. We can
do this all by ourselves. I mean, it's handy they're here,
but we'll just get us a vending machine full of Moses and Aaron's.
We'll pick one out of the litter next time. They didn't regard
the men that God sent. And they said, we'll go talk
to Pharaoh by ourselves. Verse 15. Then the officers of
the children of Israel, that's the ones that Israel appointed,
leadership they had, came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore
dealest thou with us, thy servants? We're your servants. He's kissing
up to him. We're yours. Why are you doing
this to us? There's no straw given unto thy servants. And
they say to us, Make brick. How are we supposed to do that?
We're starting to see it's impossible, isn't it? And behold, thy servants
are beaten. but the fault is in not own people.
They ain't seeing much. This ain't our fault. We don't
deserve to be treated like this. Why me? That's poor representation, isn't
it? He said, that's somebody else's fault. Verse 17, but he
said, Pharaoh speaks back to him. You're idle. You're idle. You're lazy. You ain't doing
enough. You ain't working hard enough. You ain't trying to make
God happy. He's his own God, isn't he? Not trying to make
me happy enough. Therefore say ye, let us go and do sacrifice
to the Lord. But you haven't earned it. Exactly. God be gracious
to you, you ain't done enough. Yeah, that's not the definition
of grace, is it? They don't get it. Pharaoh don't speak this
language. They don't. They don't get it. Verse 18.
Go therefore now and work, for there shall no straw be given
to you, yet shall you deliver the tale of bricks. You still
gotta make as many, I don't care. And the officers of the children
of Israel did see that they were in evil case. They knew he was
in bad shape. After it was said, you should
not mince from the bricks of your daily. They're not taking
any number of bricks off. Verse 20. And they met Moses
and Aaron who stood in the way. as they came forth from Pharaoh.
They went and dealt with the king by themselves. They went
and dealt with the evil one, the accuser of the brethren,
the things that are written against us even, a picture of the law.
They went to deal with that by themselves. And the whole time,
here's two men God sent standing in the way. There's a way that
seems right under man, that's what they just did. They're standing
in Christ's the way. That ain't changed. They was
the other day, they're today, and they're going to be standing
in hymn for eternity. And they come across them. They
bumped into Moses and Aaron leaving Pharaoh's house on the way back
to deliver bad news. You get that? They went up there
to plead, and it didn't get, they got the exact same words.
He said, it's the same number of bricks, but now you're going
to get your own stubble. I don't know what to tell you,
and we're going to beat you if you don't like it. And they're gonna have to
go tell as the representatives of Israel, they appointed themselves
representatives because they thought they did right. They're
going to go back and tell what? Bad news. It's as bad as we thought,
boys. Probably gonna get worse. Not
good news to Israel. They're telling bad news to Israel,
not good news to Israel. Did you get that? And the accusations. of them being mean and doing
wrong and being hard of Moses and Aaron, it's already started.
Look at verse 21. And they said unto them, Moses
and Aaron, the Lord look upon you and judge. May the God of heaven and earth
damn you, is what they're saying. You get that? It's so flippant
and loose off the tongue in our day. We hear it left, right and
center on TV and in the world walking and at swim meets. It's
crazy. It's all over the place. Nothing's
changed. God look at you and God judge
you. Because, why? What'd they do wrong? They come
and said God's gonna bring us out. And you don't have to talk
to Pharaoh, we will. Great, that's good news isn't
it? Because ye, not the Lord. What the Lord's doing? Ye have
made our savor to be at horde in the eyes of Pharaoh. We had
a good thing going until you showed up. We smelled good to
Pharaoh. We were his cup of tea. We were
his sweet cup of coffee until you showed up and changed everything.
And in the eyes of his servants, we're his servants, and put a
sword in their hand to slay us. We're going to die because of
you. Oh, if God gave them life, they'd live by the means of Moses
and Aaron. These officers of Israel, they
were not looking to a holy, sovereign God on his throne. They were
looking at the actions of men and the providence only as it
affected them. They were looking at themselves,
but God. This cursing of Moses starts
here. He ain't going to quit. He's
dead. It's going to last a long time. They had to get him. One time he said, Lord, they're
gonna stone me. Like I saw them picking up rocks. They're gonna
kill me. He said, hush, do what I tell you to do. You'll be all
right. Here they told him, they just,
could you imagine that somebody coming at you, everything you're doing
is good and everybody accuses you of doing wrong and being
mean and unapproachable and rude. And there's some of God's servants,
people profess to believe God. God sent them a preacher and
they run them out of town because they said he wasn't nice enough. And
now they're trying to find another, I ain't preaching there. Beg
him back. What if God sent you Jonah? Well,
this ain't good enough. I might have a better one than
this. You need Christ, not the man he sent. You need the message
that he's got. That's what you do. Who cares
if he's mean? I need salvation. I need a savior. I need a king.
I don't care what color the trumpet is he's blowing it out of. They're so mean to Moses and
Aaron. And they said, because of you, you made our smell be
abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh. But God's ascension gift to these
people while they were still enemies, while they were rebels,
while they had no understanding, this preacher, preachers that
he sent, that's without the bounds of time. You understand that?
After the Lord ascended, that's what Paul said, we looked at
that last hour. He gave that daily benefit, the ascension gift of
Christ as his preachers and teachers. Get that? He's not bound by time. Because of Christ, Moses and
Aaron's coming, right? And look what happens. Just like Elisha and Naaman,
the Lord sent him a preacher, Naaman a preacher, didn't he?
Moses intercedes for him. They cuss him and he prays to
God for them. Verse 22, and Moses returned
to the Lord and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou evil and treated this
people? Why is it that thou hast sent
me? I don't understand what you're doing, Lord. I did what you told
me, and it don't seem right. That's like those rolling in
the ship. Remember that? The Lord said, go to the other side of the sea.
And they started rolling, and the storm came. They're not making
forward progress. And the ship's filling up with
water. And they cried, Lord, we're doing what you told us
to do. Are we going to drown? Why are you doing this? He didn't
understand, did he? For since I came to Pharaoh to
speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people. Neither
hast thou delivered thy people at all. You said he's going to
deliver them. And Lord, we ain't seen, we ain't seen it working yet.
I was talking to some folks the other day, spiritual growth,
just like children growing. You know how if you're with young
people or you as a child, you want to grow up fast and you
just didn't see yourself growing, did you? And you want your children
to grow. You don't see them grow because
you're with them every day. But then you look back over time,
or somebody's away for a year or two, and they come and say,
well, them children got big, didn't they? I don't feel like
it got no bigger. You did, you grew eight inches. We don't see
that in ourselves. We don't. But others see it,
don't they? And just like Moses here, he
said, Lord, I don't see you working. God ain't out of business. He
ain't out of business. I know people tell me, I just
don't feel like the Lord's done anything for me. Well, you don't
see it, I do. It's as plain as anything. He didn't understand,
did he? But God answered him anyway. Chapter six, verse one. Then
the Lord said unto Moses, now shalt thou see what I will do
to Pharaoh. This is part of everything I'm purposing right now, Moses. I'm setting the stage just as
I want to set it. And he says, now you're going
to see what I will do. He just established to Moses,
Moses ain't going to do nothing. Moses said, I did everything
and it didn't work. Yeah. Lord says, I want to do it. For
with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand
shall he drive them out of this land." I'm gonna do it to the
point where Pharaoh's gonna beg y'all to leave. Hide and watch
it. Hide and watch it. It's gonna
happen. He's gonna do it. Over in... How, Lord? Over in
chapter 7, we'll get to it. In time, he said, I'm going to
harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the
land of Egypt. What was the signs and wonders
of God? Pestilence and locusts and frogs
and flies and a whole bunch of bad things. The Lord said, that's
my signs and my wonders, and I'm going to do it. And he's
going to beg you to get out of here. The Lord's going to prove
to us it's not of us, it's all of him. Well, I'm in there. I hope I'm looking forward to
going through exodus I was before I still am and I thought I hope
you're as Much looking forward to going through this as I am
and Sid will bring his people out He'll be bringing us out
while he shows us. He brings us out. Do you get
that? That's pretty good Father forgive us Forgive us of our
trying to do everything ourselves and not look into your son and for rebellion, willful rebellion. Lord, break the hearts of your
people. Show us the love of Christ and
make us willing bondservants, thankful bondservants, bondservants
that kneel and are grateful for our master. We'll be with every
family represented here and those that's heard your gospel in this
state and others and other nations these last few weeks, Lord, pierce
their hearts, conquer them as only you can and bring your people
out and gather us together. We ask these things in the name
of our King, the captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. All right. Brother Trevor
and Brother Caspio will come hand out the elements.