Let's read from God's holy word from the book of Exodus and chapter 5. The fifth chapter of the book of Exodus, here we have God had commissioned Moses to go to speak to Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go. And instead of Pharaoh responding positively to that, He said, who is the Lord that I should obey him? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. God had said that Pharaoh would not let them go, but eventually he would. But this is a great trial for Moses.

And instead of letting them go, he made their burdens much more difficult. So instead of, they were already working extremely hard to make all the bricks, and now they were given no straw to make the bricks with, they had to find the straw as well. So they had to work much harder than before and were beaten when they didn't fulfil their work task as before.

So we are picking up the reading here in Exodus 5 and verse 15, the officers that have been beaten from the children of Israel go and speak to Pharaoh about how unreasonable this is. So Exodus 5 verse 15, Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dearest thou thus with thy servants?

There is no straw given unto thy servants, who may say to us, Make quick, and behold thy servants are beaten. But the fault is in thine own people. But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle. Therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord. Go there for now and work, for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall you deliver the tale 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 finish work from your bricks of your daily tasks. and they met Moses and Aaron who stood in the way, that's the leaders of Israel met Moses and Aaron as they came forth from Pharaoh and they said unto them the Lord look upon you and judge because ye have made our savour to be a board in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servant to put a sword in their hand to slay us. And Moses comes to prayer in verse 22.

And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Lord wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? Why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in his name he hath done evil to this people. Neither hast thou delivered by people at all.

Chapter 6 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. And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by the name of Jehovah I was not known to them. And I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, pilgrimage wherein they were strangers.

I'll leave the reading there. As we come to this time of this prayer meeting, I want to consider the prayer of Moses, this short prayer at the end of Exodus 5. It is a prayer when Moses was in great distress. Moses was a man who loved Israel. We read in Hebrews this commentary on Moses. Hebrews 11 verse 24. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches, than the treasures in Egypt. This is Moses who loved God's people.

He went to visit his brethren. He could have stayed in the royal palace with the royal privileges, with the wealth, with the security, with the reputation that he had as a prince in Egypt. But he forsook all that because he loved God's people. He loved the children of Israel. He fell for them in their troubles and in their sorrows. and he had a concern, he thought they would understand that he would be used to deliver Israel and of course they did not understand and then when he sought to intervene he then killed that Egyptian and then fled for his life to Midian for 40 years but God then called him at the age of 80 to go back and to speak to Pharaoh and at this point Moses didn't really feel he was the person at all to go.

He said, send by whom thou wilt send, send somebody else. But God gave him this commission to go and speak to Pharaoh. And he went. He went and spoke and at the beginning of chapter 5 we have Moses and Aaron going to, in obedience to what God had told them to do, to go and speak to Pharaoh. And said to Pharaoh, let my people go that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. So he went to speak to speak to Pharaoh that he would let these children of Israel go and Pharaoh mocks them. Who is the Lord that I should obey him? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Pharaoh was defiant. He was not going to let them go.

And instead of making any positive move to letting them go, he made life much more difficult for the children of Israel. Their burdens were now much heavier and they were beaten because they couldn't fulfill the impossible tasks that they were given. And the leaders of Israel were punished because they hadn't provided as much work as they normally had because they weren't given the same resources.

And then they come back to Moses as they stood in the way. And they said to Moses, this man who had left so much to be a blessing to God's people. And they said unto them, the Lord look upon you and judge, because he has made us favour to be a board in the eyes of Pharaoh. This must have been very very hard for Moses, who loved Israel, who had given up so much to seek to be a blessing to them. And yet now the people who he had sought to help, instead of thanking him, instead of being grateful for what he had done, said that basically God was going to judge Moses and Aaron for what they had done.

What a difficult situation Moses was in. God had said that Pharaoh won't let them go easily. I guess Moses didn't think it would be this difficult. And so instead of things getting better, they got worse. And the leaders come to Moses. Moses we don't read gives a reply. He goes back to God. What less than that is for us. when we are confronted with impossibility, with great sadness, with great conspiration. How can they go forward? And God encouraged him to go and he went and now things have got much worse, not better.

And Moses returned unto the Lord and here he pours out his heart to God. He's heartbroken, he's really upset. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated 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. This was truly honest.

It was a difficult prayer. But he came back to God, pleading that God would appear. And he could not understand why, if something was going to be... God had told him to do something, why everything should have gone so in the opposite direction. Of course this is so much, so true of so many places in the Bible, isn't it?

The darkest The darkness before the dawn. The darkest time before the liberation. You see, there was this word that when Israel's, when the work of deliverance was announced at the beginning of chapter 5, then Pharaoh made the bondage worse. And so, how that Satan, you see, when he knows that his time is short, He knows, and when God starts to work in the hearts of God's people, starts to show them their need of grace, and start to make them hungry and thirst after righteousness, often you see the devil comes in and seeks to destroy them more. He spurs up all the rage of hell as it was with people that Jesus, when they were possessed with devils, when he was going to take that devil out, often it would come and ruin that person or make them nearly dead before it came out. You see the negative before the positive. But you see God was going to work. And then there's a beautiful answer that we have as we read at the beginning of chapter 6.

Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. You see Moses was in a complete constellation. It seems an impossible situation. Pharaoh wouldn't listen to him. The children of Israel were telling him, God's going to judge you because of what you've done. And Moses is saying, what am I doing? And you see we come to, and that's the lesson, we come back to God. Moses didn't run away from God. He went back to God. And when we're in a difficult situation, when we don't know how to understand what's going on, go back to God.

He will reveal what it is. You think of the constellation there was at Calvary. You think of the powers of darkness that were raging there. The darkness of that night, midday became midnight. But you see, it was the dawn of resurrection. It was the beginning of a liberation which would liberate God's people forever from their sins.

It was a wonderful deliverance, but the darkness that preceded it. and so in our little lives if we are to venture onto this and to follow the Lord don't be surprised if there is those that Satan seeks to work up all manner of things to try and stop you but you press on and do what Moses did go back to God and pour out the impossibility of your situation don't go away from God but go back to God And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Lord, wherefore? He couldn't understand it. In fact, you can't understand your situation. Why has God allowed it? God is in control of everything. Why has he allowed it?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people, neither has thou delivered them at all. But you see, God was going to show his power in delivering not just one or two of the patriarchs. That was great power. This was now a nation of something like two million people that were in slavery to the most powerful monarch of the world at that time. This was a tremendous problem and God was going to show that he was going to let them go.

He could have changed Pharaoh's heart and said yes you can go. But you see Pharaoh was going to show with all the power of Egypt that he would not let them go. He would not let them go. But you see there was going to be a contest. Who was greater? God or Pharaoh?

And you see we read that I will redeem you with a stretched out arm. God was going to stretch out his arm and redeem Israel from all their slavery. Moses was going to be stretching out his hand over the Red Sea if you remember. He was going to stretch forth his rod many times to bring the plagues. But is there not another implication here? And I will redeem you with a stretched out arm. How did the Lord Jesus redeem his people? Was it not with a stretched out arm? That Calvary, his arms were stretched out and that was the deliverance. That was how he was going to redeem his people. with a stretched out arm.

You see God was going to deliver his people and he says here as we read and I appeared unto Abraham and Isaac, unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty but by the name Jehovah was I not known. The enormous power and you see really a lot of what Abraham and Isaac and Jacob lived on was promises. God's promises that He would deliver them. The promises that He would give the land of Canaan. The promises that there would be a seed. But when Abraham died, he only had a burying place that he owned. He didn't have all those things. They were promises. He saw them afar off. But they were but promises.

But you see God is going to say to Moses, I'm not just going to give you promises, I'm going to give you the outworking of those promises. I'm going to bring this whole nation out of slavery. I'm not going to just promise it, but I'm going to do it. God did promise so many things to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were blessed promises.

But here there was going to be a more of a performance of it. And in that performance it was going to be clear that God had done it. That it wasn't just Moses had particularly clever negotiating tactics with Pharaoh and managed to let them go. No, his negotiations came to nothing. And it made matters worse. And so in our little lives. that we might recognise this.

When deliverance is declared for God's people, when the Lord starts to work in the hearts of God's people to show them the exceeding sinfulness of sin, it seems that the enemy will stir up all the evil in their hearts to try and overcome them. And yet you see, we're to go back to God.

God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He's working in the hearts of his people to bring them to deliver them. And though they walked through difficulties, you see, God was going to reveal himself in a way that he'd never done before, in such a marked way, opening the Red Sea, all those 10 plagues. There were so many miracles in the time of Moses. He's a great man of God and God was going to demonstrate his power.

To start with, you see, The Egyptians were able to copy them. There must have been a trial of Moses' faith. The magicians could make the rods go into serpents as well. There must have been a trial for Moses' faith, and yet they could go so far and then they stopped.

And how, to start with, the context seems to hang in doubtful scales. And then God cleared the field and showed that this is none other than the fever of God. He demonstrated that the magicians had to acknowledge that they couldn't continue. And when the plague of boils came, they were blasted away. They couldn't stand before Moses.

You see God was showing his mighty power. To start with it seemed the trial of Moses faith but then it would become clear who really was the God, who really was in control, who really was to be believed. And so as we come in our difficulties and we come with our impossibilities and our things that seem to contradict we may come where Moses did. And Moses returned unto the Lord.

He didn't run off to talk to lots of other people. He didn't reply to those officers that said, the Lord judged you for what you've done. He went back to his master and poured out his heart to God. And God didn't tell him off. God didn't rebuke him. God revealed himself. God was saying, I'm passing, you're going through this trial of your faith. And as a result of that trial of your faith, you are going to know me better than you ever knew me before. You're going to see the power of God like you never saw it before. So God was using these things, you see, to bring his people to worship, to know him.

You see, and he then goes on, I didn't have time to read it, but in chapter 6, he goes and renews all the promises that he'd given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. None of them had failed. You see, Moses said, neither have they delivered thy people at all. In Moses' view, the deliverance was over. But God's time isn't over, and I'm not going to go back on one promise that I've given.

But there's going to be a time, and there's going to be a demonstration of who is in control, and who is really the God that is to be feared. And so as we come tonight for prayer, May we remember these things. May we remember the value of prayer, to go back to God. You see, this is so much of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Moses was a type of Christ. He came and the Lord Jesus left heaven's glory to come to this earth and to be despised and rejected of men. His own people rejected him. Moses' people rejected him. But he set his face as a flint towards Jerusalem. He set his face towards Jerusalem.

I have a baptism to be baptised with. And how am I straightened? Because he had that work to accomplish. And he would accomplish it. When they took him to Calvary and nailed him, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. God was working a great delinquence.

Withstretch their arm. A picture of what Christ was doing that God did to Israel, bringing them out of slavery. So God is bringing his people out of the slavery of sin to give them an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away. May we come to God in all our conspiration at times and recognise that God is God and he is leading his people. for their eternal good. May the Lord always bless you. Amen.