Well, the Lord has commanded
Moses to lead the children out of Egyptian bondage. And as you know, Moses offered
one excuse after another as to why this was a task too great
for him. And I really don't think that
the excuses that he offered were because he was fearful of going
before a pharaoh, I think was a fear of failure. And therefore,
whenever he objected to him being the instrument that God would
use to lead Israel out of bondage, whenever he offered those excuses,
God would always remind him that the Lord would be with him. The
Lord would be gracious to him. that he would not go forth in
his own strength. He would go forth in the very
strength of the Lord. He spoke to Pharaoh earlier back
in the fifth chapter. He spoke to Pharaoh and said,
let my people go. That's what the Lord said, let
my people go that we may go three days out in the wilderness and
worship the Lord. And Pharaoh said, well, y'all
are not working hard enough if you feel like you can take a
week off, a week's vacation. and go out and worship your God.
So Pharaoh said, I'm gonna make it a little more difficult for
you to take any time off. I want the same amount of work
to be produced by you, but you'll have to gather your own stubble,
your own straw, wherever you can find it to make the bricks.
And you better not, the number of bricks that you
make had best not go down. You keep the number up. And Pharaoh,
so insistent, and then word came to the taskmasters, forced them
to work harder, to gather their own stubble to make the bricks.
And then the taskmasters, they spoke to the men of Israel who
were over companies of men and said, you've got to make your
men work harder, gathered the stubble. And then those men,
when they saw Moses and Aaron come out from meeting with Pharaoh,
they said, look what you've done. You've caused our workload to
increase. Thanks a lot, Moses. You've made life more difficult
for us. In fact, look at chapter 5 and
verse 20. And they, that is the Israelites,
the leaders of the tribes of Israel, in chapter 5 and verse
20, they met Moses and Aaron who stood in the way as they
came forth from Pharaoh. They all stood there waiting
for Moses and Aaron to come out. And when they come out, they
said unto them, they said to Moses and Aaron, the Lord look
upon you and judge because you have made our savior. You made
us to stink before Pharaoh to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh
and the eyes of his servants to put a sword in their hand
to slay us. It's your fault. In verse 22, Moses returned unto
the Lord, and he said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated
this people? Lord, you ordained this. Why
did you do this? You see, Moses did understand
this, and we need to understand this. All things are of God.
He understood that. And then he says, why is it that
thou hast sent me? Why do you send me? Why did you
send me to Pharaoh? Lord, you knew this would make
things more difficult for the children of Israel. Why did you
do this? He says in verse 23, for since
I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to
this people. And neither hast thou delivered
thy people at all. Lord, you said you're going to
deliver your people. You said you were going to release
your people from Egyptian captivity, but we haven't been released.
Instead, Pharaoh is demanding more work from us. Lord, why
have you done this? Do you ever find yourself asking
the Lord, why has this happened? Why have you done this? And we
must in every situation remember the Lord knows the end from the
beginning because he ordained all things from the beginning.
and he knows what the end result is going to be. You see, the
Lord saw, the Lord knew because he purposed what's going to happen,
the way this whole thing is going to transpire in their exodus
from the bondage of the Egyptians. He knew, he could see it because
he had ordained everything from the actions of Pharaoh to the
actions of his taskmasters. to the actions of the Israelites,
to their reaction to the things, to the troubles and difficulties
that God would send. The Lord saw it all. From the
beginning, He saw the very end. But Moses couldn't see it. And
we can't see what the end result is going to be. Oh, we know that
we're going to be glorified. We know that we're going to honor
Christ Jesus forever and ever. But that road that we've got
to travel between now and our entrance into glory, we don't
know what's going to befall us. And we've got, in order to have
peace, in order to have rest in this world, in this world
of trouble, in this world of trial, in this world of disappointments. We've got to remember all things
are of God. Doesn't matter what it is. You see, nothing sneaks up on
the Lord. There's no trouble or difficulty
that you have faced or will ever face that's just going to happen
by chance to you. The Lord governs all things. He's sovereign in all the situations
of life. No exceptions to that. No exceptions. And Moses, you see, he's confused. He's confused with the providence
of God. Because you see, the providence
of God, though it is a sweet truth that God is directing all
things to the end that he himself has purposed, though it is a
sweet truth, when we're going through the providence, it isn't
always sweet to us, right? That's just the truth of it. And what it is, we cannot see
what the end result is going to be. We don't see how all things
are working together for good, for them that love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose. We don't have
that kind of knowledge. Well, how can we find any rest
in this world of trouble? We find rest by believing our
God. is casting ourselves upon him. Lord, I don't know what you're
doing, but you know what you're doing. And I can't see how this
particular event or episode or situation in my life is going
to work out for my good, but you have said that all things
are working together for my good. Give me faith to believe you. And I dare say that the sin that
doth so easily beset all of God's people is unbelief. And it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing
to me to admit how little I believe God. And I have to ask God for forgiveness
for lack of faith. I know he rules all things. I know that all things are under
his dominion, but I want to have the peace
and the joy of truly entering in to the fact that my God rules
all things. You know, it's interesting when
Moses puts up these excuses like he does here again in chapter
five. Why have you so evil entreated
this people? And there at the end of verse
22, why have you sent me? Why have you sent me? It's interesting
and encouraging to know that the Lord doesn't rebuke him. Though Moses was certainly wrong
in questioning the Almighty One and in murmuring the outworking
of his eternal counsels, yet the Lord, the psalmist says,
he knoweth our frame. You know what he remembers? That
we're just dust. And again, the Lord is merciful
and gracious. The scripture says he's slow
to anger and plenteous in mercy. And this is certainly manifested
time and time again with Moses, who kept on offering excuses
to why he's not the man for the job. Instead of the Lord setting him
aside, instead of the Lord removing the commission to lead the children
of Israel out of bondage, the Lord encourages him. And the Lord is always encouraging
us. And we're thankful for that.
He revealed to Moses that he would be his strength. and the
sufficiency of his grace. Whatever it is that God in his
purpose and by his providence brings to pass in our lives, he gives us grace to endure it
as a good soldier of the cross. I want you, let me give you three
or four things here. Number one, behold the mighty
hand of God. Now look in chapter six, verse
one. Then the Lord said to Moses,
he didn't cut him down, he didn't rebuke him harshly. Then the
Lord said to Moses, now shalt thou see what I'll do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand shall
he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out
of the land. And God spake unto Moses, and
said unto him, It is as though the Lord is saying to Moses,
Remember, remember who I am, I am the Lord. This is not one
of the false gods of the Egyptians. This is not a pagan dunghill
deity. This is the great I Am that's
talking to Moses, who has promised the deliverance of the children
of Israel out of bondage. He said, I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but
by my name Jehovah was I not made known to them, but I made
known my name to you, Moses. I am the Lord, he said. In verse
4, I've established my covenant with them to give them the land
of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein there were
strangers, and I've heard their groaning. Moses, don't you know, don't
you remember that I am very much aware of what my people are going
through? These people whom the Egyptians
keep in bondage? He says, I have remembered my
covenant, and I'll tell you, to the children of God, what
a sweet thought it is that we were included in the covenant
of grace, entrusted to the Son of God to be our Savior and surety
and sacrifice for our sins, our substitute, the satisfaction
of God's justice. We are remembered in the covenant
of grace, and God says, I'll never forget my covenant. Our God has covenanted within
the Trinity for the salvation of all of His people through
the doing and the dying and the rising again of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the covenant will not fail. In fact, David says in 2 Samuel
23, he said, all my salvation is in that covenant. All my salvation. My salvation is not dependent
upon me, upon my holding out to the end,
upon my faithfulness. My salvation is dependent upon
the great three-in-one who chose me unto salvation, who gifted
me to the Son of God to be my own Redeemer, my own Savior. He bears full responsibility
for all of my salvation. And my everlasting life lays
heavily upon his shoulders and he's able to bear it. He hadn't
lost any of his sheep and he never will. So he tells Moses in verse six
of chapter six, wherefore say unto the children of Israel,
I'm the Lord. I'll bring you out from under
the burdens of the Egyptians. I will rid you out of their bondage. I will redeem you with a stretched
out arm and with great judgments. I'll take you to me for a people. I will be to you a God and you
shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you
out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will bring
you in. He says, first of all, I'll bring
you out. Out of what? Bondage. And then
he says, I'll bring you in. Into what? The land I promised
to give you. He's the God who brings us out,
and he's the God who's gonna bring us in. He brought us out of the bondage,
the captivity of Satan, the captivity of sin, He brought us out to
freedom and he's gonna bring us in. He's gonna bring us into
the land of everlasting joy and happiness. My, what promises
from the Lord. I'll bring you in, he says, and
I'm gonna give it to you for a heritage. And the Lord reminds
him of this. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. Behold the mighty hand of God. He's going to do this. He would do it. He's going to
take care of his people, no matter what the enemy does. This is not dependent upon Moses. It's not dependent upon Aaron.
And aren't you glad that your salvation is not dependent upon
you? The Lord said in Psalm 89 concerning
the son of David, who's David's Lord, God said, I have laid help
upon one who is mighty. He's the mighty God. He's the
everlasting father. He's the prince of peace. And he's building his church.
We don't have to worry about that. For those of you who are
local, If you read the newspaper just a few days ago, it had something
about a preacher, kind of out in your territory, by the way.
And he grows churches wherever he travels. I'm sure some of
you read that. He's written several books on
how to grow churches. And now he's gonna go to Florida,
he's gonna grow a church down there. Let me tell you something. I guess Noah never read one of
his books, How to Grow a Church, because Noah wasn't very successful. He preached 120 years as a preacher
of righteousness, and when the end came after 120 years, and
he had built the ark and faithfully preached righteousness through
all of those years, it was him and his wife and sons and daughters-in-law,
and that's all it was. See, it's not man. by his ingenuity
and strength that builds a church and keeps the people of God.
It wasn't Moses here. It's not Aaron. It's all the
Lord. It's all the Lord. We better
not build our hopes upon anything that any man can do or has done. We build all of our hopes upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the solid rock. Here's
what people don't understand. Only the Lord can do the work.
Hey, the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, that's
a work, it was absolutely impossible for Moses to do it, or Aaron
to do it, or for them to release themselves from Egyptian bondage. That's totally impossible. Who
must release them? God must release him and he will
do it by the blood of the Passover lamb. That's what God uses. That's why we keep preaching
the grace of God to sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. So the
Lord reminds Moses he'll do the work. And look, look at verse 28 through
30 of chapter six. It came to pass on the day when
the Lord spake unto Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord
spake unto Moses saying, I am the Lord. He keeps telling him
that. This is something that the Lord
has to drill within our hearts, in our minds, who he is. I tell you, if we could get a
firmer grasp and an understanding of who the Lord is, It'd be a great help to us. I
am the Lord. Speak thou unto Pharaoh, king
of Egypt, all that I say unto thee. And Moses has got another,
he's got another excuse. Behold, I'm of uncircumcised
lips. How shall Pharaoh hearken unto
me? I'm nobody. He's already admitted
he's not a speaker. He had some kind of voice difficulty. Some say he stuttered. God said,
well, I'll send Aaron with you. He'll be your spokesman. So notice here in chapter seven
then, here's the Lord's message. The Lord said to Moses, look
here, see, pay attention. Let me tell you something. I've
made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy
prophet. In other words, when you go before
Pharaoh, you're not going to go in your own strength. I'm going to endue you with authority
and power, and I'll give you the message. I'll show you, teach
you what to say. you'll be endowed with power
and authority. So that when you speak, it will
be like me speaking, the Lord says. And that is a tremendous thing
to remember. The Lord's servants, God's preachers,
have been given a commission and a message to proclaim. And when we speak the very truth
of God, by the very power of God, under the leadership of
the Holy Spirit, we speak in God's stead. That's important
to remember that. Look over with me in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He's been speaking about reconciliation. The Lord reconciled us to himself. took the obstacles out of the
way, paid our sin debt, took our iniquities away, established
righteousness for us. In fact, Christ is our righteousness. And he says in chapter 5 of 2
Corinthians, verse 18, excuse me, and all things are of God
who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit. That is, that God was
in Christ reconciling the world of His elect, the world of those
that God loved, the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them. Well, who did He impute the trespasses
to? That's a logical question to
ask. He imputed them to the Lord Jesus. They were charged to Him and
have committed to us the word of reconciliation. We preach
who Christ is and what He's accomplished. He reconciled his people. Now
look at verse 20. Now then we are ambassadors for
Christ. Watch this. As though God did
beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled
to God. And this is what God is telling
Moses when he said, I'm gonna make you a God. You'll be a God
to Pharaoh. It's as though God was speaking
to him when Moses spoke to Pharaoh and Aaron spoke to Pharaoh, God's
message. And when a preacher of the gospel,
led by the Holy Spirit, preaches to you the message of God, it
is though God, through that man, is preaching to you. That's why
when people don't believe the gospel that I preach or than
any preacher of the gospel preaches. The message of redeeming grace,
the message of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. When people
don't believe, it's not that you don't believe me. You don't
believe in God. This is God's message. No wonder Paul said, preach the
word. Our Lord sent forth the 70, as you remember, I'm sure, out
of Matthew and also out of Luke. And he said, when they hear you,
they hear me. And if they reject your message,
they're rejecting me. That's the way it is. We need to understand this, when
the servant of God is preaching the message of God, you'll hear
that man and that message that he declares from God, you'll
hear him or you won't hear from God at all. That's the way it
is. That's why we don't invent the
message. Moses and Aaron didn't go before
Pharaoh, inventing their own message. The Lord gave it to
them. Go back, first of all, let me
take you a passage of scripture. First Peter chapter three. Interesting
passage of scripture here. First Peter chapter three. I'm
saying, endeavoring to say, And when a man is preaching by the
power of the Spirit of God, the God-given message, not his own
thoughts, but God's Word, God's message of grace, of sovereignty,
of the blood redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he's
preaching God's message to people, it's as though the Lord Himself
is preaching through that man. We're ambassadors for Christ. See, when Moses went before Pharaoh,
it wasn't in his own strength, it wasn't in his own power, and
it wasn't with his own message. He's God's ambassador. Pharaoh
better hear him, but he won't hear him. He won't hear him. He'll have to answer for that.
Let me show you this passage of Scripture. I don't have much
time to spend on it, but 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 10, verse 18,
I'm sorry. Chapter 3, 1 Peter verse 18. For Christ also hath once suffered
for sins, 1 Peter 3, 18, the just for the unjust, the righteous
for the unrighteous, for this purpose, to bring us to God. That's why He died. to bring
us to God. Couldn't bring us to God any
other way. Our works won't do it. His life wouldn't do it.
The Lord's birth wouldn't do it. He suffered in His body and in
His soul for our sins. That's the only way He could
bring us to God. Being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit." Now watch this, "...by which
also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which
sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein
few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." So is this saying
that our Lord Jesus actually preached To those souls who finally wound
up in the pit of hell, did He preach? Did He preach Himself
personally? To those who perished in the
floodwaters, when the ark was floating above? Well, how did He preach to them? He preached to them through Noah. During that 120 years of Noah's
building the ark, the Lord was preaching through him. And that's
what this is talking about. Doesn't mean that the Lord went
and preached to them when they were in hell. They're in hell
now, but they were preached to by the Lord through his servant,
Noah. And the Lord preaches through
His servants. A man who is telling the truth
about God, telling the truth about us, telling the truth about
Christ Jesus and His great saving work of redemption on the cross
of Calvary, God preaches through that message. So if you reject
that message, you reject the very Word of God. So when those people rejected
the preaching of Noah, they weren't just rejecting the preaching
of a man. They were rejecting the message
of God's servant who preached to them the very word of the
Lord, that the ark is the only place of safety. And you're not
gonna find any safety anywhere else. That's what Noah said.
There's righteousness in the Lord, Would you be right with
God? Would you be saved? There's an
ark. Enter into the ark. They wouldn't
hear Noah. Actually, they wouldn't hear
the Lord. See what I'm saying? They wouldn't hear the message
of the Lord. And then go back over here to
Exodus chapter 7 again. Exodus chapter 7. Now watch this.
He says in verse 2, thou shalt speak all that I command
thee. You don't choose your subject. You don't decide what you're
going to preach. See, the Lord's servants, and you hear me preach, you heard
Bill preach, you've heard Henry preach, you've heard several
servants of the Lord through the years, those of you who have
been here a good bit. And you know that the Lord's
servants ask God for a message, we study the word of God, we
pray, we seek a word from him, we seek a message from the Lord,
and we study, and we deliver the message. And we believe and
trust that the Lord directs us to a passage of scripture, And
from that passage of scripture, our responsibility is to bring
out the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace to sinners
through Christ. But we speak all that God commands
us. We don't invent anything. That's what Paul told Timothy.
Preach the word. That's all. Preach the word. Be instant, in season, out of
season. When they want to hear what you've
got to say, when they don't want to hear what you've got to say.
You just preach God's message. And those men who speak for me
up here, they seek a message from God, and the message from
God always centers around, here is God's message. The Lord Jesus
Christ and His work of redemption. That's God's message. You can't
go wrong there. Now, if you start preaching something
else, it's not gonna be good, because God won't honor it. And
you always remember this, and this is good for everybody. God
honors those who honor his son. That is a steadfast rule. God honors those who honor his
son. Now, the Lord says to Moses,
Give them the message. But look at verse three. I want
you to know I'm going to harden his heart. I'm going to harden
his heart and I'll multiply my signs and my wonders and not
next Wednesday, but the Wednesday after that, we'll start talking
about the wonders, the plagues. that God's going to bring, the
first nine, and then the last one, the 10th one, will be the
death of the firstborn. God's gonna bring forth all of
these signs, but he says to Moses in verse four, but Pharaoh's
not gonna hearten to you. Don't let him get you down, Moses. He's not gonna believe you. He's
not going to listen to you. And the reason he's not going
to listen to you is in order that I'll lay my hand upon Egypt
and I'll bring forth my armies, my people, the children of Israel
out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. The reason I'm going
to make certain that he won't release the Israelites yet is
in order for me to make a name for myself in Egypt. And that's
what God did, and people are still talking about what God
did to the Egyptians. So he says in verse five, the
Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth
mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from
among them. Two sobering truths. Number one,
God says I'm gonna deliver my people. He's got a people. chosen out of every nation, kindred,
tribe, and tongue. He's got a people gifted to Christ
Jesus and covenant of grace before the world began. And he's gonna
have them. He's gonna have them. He's gonna
bring them out of captivity. He's gonna conquer Pharaoh, the
evil one. I'll be talking about him a little
bit more next week. And he's gonna conquer the Egyptians. He's gonna bring judgment upon
the Egyptians, and the Lord's gonna bring judgment upon all
those who oppose him. You better not oppose the Lord.
If you oppose the Lord, you're in for everlasting torment. That's the way it is. two truths he brings forth here,
the salvation of God's chosen people and judgment upon unbelievers. He says here, look, look at verse
four, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt. That's his hand of
judgment. That's his heavy hand of judgment. You can't bear his heavy hand
of judgment. Only one man could, the God-man. God laid his hand of judgment
upon the Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute. That heavy hand of
wrath and vengeance, nobody else could bear up under that, but
our mighty Savior did. and he bore our sins away. And
then, having satisfied justice, he laid down his life and then
took it again. And it's our joy to preach his
message, and it's our joy, I hope, to hear his message, to rejoice
in what God has to say. We're not preaching Baptist history. Not trying to make you historians.
You don't need to get to know the great leaders of churches
and preachers of days gone by. What do you need to know them
for? You need to know Him. Whom to know is life everlasting. That's what scripture says. All
right, let's sing a closing song, what do you say? 299, day by day and with each
passing moment. Number 299. A very good song. One of Joe's favorites and one
of my favorites too. 299, day by day and with each
passing moment. Strength I find to meet my trials
here. Stand together.