epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, February 28, 2011

Exodus 11

The Lord will not send warnings forever. The time has come for a final plague. “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt.”

This plague is the one that God talked to Moses about in the beginning of His instructions regarding His Word to Pharaoh. Up to this point, Moses has not delivered God's message plainly. But now the actual moment has come.

As early as Exodus 4, God instructed Moses to tell Pharaoh that Israel was His firstborn, and if the king of Egypt would not let God's firstborn go, God would kill Pharaoh's firstborn. Moses presented God's claims in a less direct way. Now the sanction of God taking the life of Pharaoh's firstborn can no longer be ignored.

God also tells Moses that some time after this final plague, Pharaoh will finally let Israel leave Egypt. Even beyond a passive allowing of his slaves to leave the country, the king will actually push Israel out. He will drive them out completely.

Prior to that final moment, Moses has two more divine errands. First, he is to enlist all the men and women of Israel to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver and gold jewelry. Israel will not leave the country of Egypt without presents. The Lord will dispose the hearts of these adversaries to provide this gift to the Lord's people.

This is exactly what happens. The Israelites have the boldness to make this unusual request, and the Lord grants them favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. Through all of these signs of divine judgment, Moses has developed a reputation among the Egyptians as a true man of power. They consider him a great man, and they give the Lord's people what they ask for; jewelry that is to be used according to the Lord's command.

Second, God sends Moses to Pharaoh to say the last Word: “Thus says the Lord: About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.”

This is a devastating announcement that should have been considered carefully by Pharaoh. The Lord has been true to every Word He has spoken. Nine plagues were announced, and nine plagues have come and gone. Is there any reason to doubt the Lord's intention or His power?

God not only speaks of what will take place, but even of the emotional shock of this devastating judgment. There will be “a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.”

If this is what will soon take place, what will the Egyptians do to the Israelites? Will they be filled with rage? God announces beforehand that the Lord will protect His people. No matter what the hearts of the Egyptians might have been tempted to say or to do, the Lord is in charge of all these events. He says that “not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel.”

By now we should know very well that God “makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.” We have seen that most recently, and most dramatically with the plague of darkness. God arranged it so that the Israelites had light, while all the land of Egypt was covered with a darkness that was so deep that it could be felt. Moses now reveals to Pharaoh that even the servants of Pharaoh shall bow down to this servant of God, this man Moses, to whom Pharaoh has displayed such profound disrespect. The people will be eager for the children of Israel to get out of Egypt. And then, at long last, the people will go.

This time it is Moses who leaves “in hot anger.” But why would Pharaoh not take this matter to heart prior to the great wave of death that will soon spread over the nation? The Lord tells Moses why: “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

Are we able to take in the weight of the divine reasoning in these words? The Lord has known exactly what He is doing throughout this epic contest. He could have destroyed Pharaoh and all of Egypt in a moment. That was not His plan. He had a better idea, one that would involve a greater display of His wonders before Pharaoh. That is why the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

The scandal of the cross, and the persecution of the church that has continued over many centuries; these sinful horrors and so many other acts of providence that we do not understand, these are not without purpose. God's ways are good even in these events. It is the enemies of the Lord, and not God, that are deeply wicked in their hatred, their slander, and their murder. If we cannot grasp this today, a day is coming when the righteousness of the Lord and the evil of His adversaries will shine in glorious light. Until that day, we can trust Him. Remember His love for us displayed in the cross. See in that same cross His unflinching commitment to do what is right.

Pharaoh would not humble himself before God. He hardened his own heart. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart too, for His own good purposes. Pharaoh would not pay attention to the signs and wonders displayed before His eyes, and He would not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Exodus 10

God speaks to Moses again, as He has throughout this amazing series of judgment events. The Lord's servant knows what is going to happen each time he goes to Pharaoh. But the Lord hardens the hearts of the king and his servants. Why? To show forth His great signs before their eyes. They had thought it safe to abuse the Hebrews, the people of the Lord. They had esteemed the God of Moses as nothing, or as just another god in a pantheistic world. But the Israel's Lord is vindicating His own glorious Name.

These events will be remembered by the Israelites for many generations. Fathers will tell their sons about the mighty acts of the Lord. Their descendants will speak of the power and glory of their God. They will know that their God is the Lord of lords.

All Pharaoh needed to do was to let the Israelites go. But he would not do this. He would not humble himself before the God of Israel. God warns Pharaoh again. This time the Lord will bring a massive plague of locusts upon the land of Egypt.

When Pharaoh's servants hear the advance notice of what will take place, they speak to their king: “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?”

This shook Pharaoh enough for him to summon Moses and Aaron. Yet even as he appears to give in, he speaks as one who still has options, and who still wields authority over his lowly slaves. He questions Moses and Aaron. “Which ones are to go?” He is not pleased with their answer. He will not permit them all to go. Suddenly, the Lord's messengers are driven away from His presence.

Through the power of God working by the outstretched hand of Moses His servant, the Lord brings a plague of locusts upon an east wind that blows upon the land day and night. In the morning the locusts are everywhere. They darken the land of Egypt and consume every green thing.

Pharaoh quickly calls Moses and Aaron before him, again using the word sin to describe his actions: “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.” He pleads for forgiveness and relief from this plague.

Moses turns to God again, and the Lord hears. As the locusts came, so they now go. They came in on an east wind. They leave on a west wind. But then Pharaoh will not let the people go after all. God hardens Pharaoh's heart.

Next the Lord brings a miraculous darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that could be felt. This darkness lasts three days. But amazingly the people of Israel have light where they live. Once again Pharaoh is ready to let Israel go. Yet he still imagines that he can set conditions. They must leave their flocks and herds behind.

But Moses is insistent: “Not a hoof shall be left behind.” Once again God hardens Pharaoh's heart, and the king will not let them go. Furthermore, he is enraged with the Lord's ambassadors. He has pursued his policy of oppression against them. But they have frustrated him with their God's Word and His deeds of judgment against Egypt. Pharaoh is not humble before the Lord of all the earth. He is angry. He hates the God of Israel. He hates the Lord's spokesmen. And he hates all the people of Israel. He speaks forth from a heart that despises the Lord: “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.”

So be it. This is what Moses response to Pharaoh amounts to. You don't want the Lord's messenger? As you wish. Moses says, “As you say! I will not see your face again.”

The sovereign God of all power and authority is able to accomplish His will while still seeming to give the proud their own way. Do they hate Him and His messengers? So be it.

When the Messiah came, He was despised and rejected by men. He was hated without a cause. Even after He had performed undeniable acts of mercy, and signs of great heavenly power, His own people took counsel together against Him concerning how they might kill Him. Finally, when the Roman governor tried to release Him, they stirred up a crowd to demand His crucifixion.

With all of this hatred and lawlessness, the religious leaders who stood against Him imagined that they would be done with Jesus, and that they would never see his face again. Instead, in His death, an indestructible power was unleashed upon the earth. Down to the present moment, millions all over the globe testify to the power of the cross of Jesus Christ.

His enemies got what they wanted. They saw that Jesus was put to death. Yet the sovereign Lord of all the earth won. One day everyone will see Him, even those who pierced Him.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Exodus 9

Water turned to blood, frogs everywhere, dust particles that become gnats, and swarming flies... signs of the judgment of Almighty God, and the Lord's distinction between Israel and Egypt; but all this is not enough. When Pharaoh gets any relief from a plague, he hardens his heart, and he will not let Israel go.

The list of wonders continues, but the demand never changes: “Let my people go.” The next plague will be a divine attack against all the livestock of Egypt. The animals of the Israelites will be spared, a further sign of the Lord's distinction between His people and their oppressors. Yet Pharaoh still refuses to let the people of Israel go.

Then the judgment of God touches the skin of His enemies. From the soot of the kiln the Lord produces a fine dust over the nation, a dust that turns into painful boils on people throughout the land of Egypt. There was no more repeating of these plagues by the enemies of God. Their magicians are covered with boils, publicly marked by the sores that identify them as the Lord's enemies.

Through all these horrific signs and wonders of God's wrath, there is no indication of any real change in Pharaoh. This time, instead of hearing about this from the vantage point of Pharaoh, the one who is held responsible for his own sin, we are granted a small insight into the mystery of the Lord's sovereign actions that He executes for His own great glory. “The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.” This we read and accept. We are not told that we need to be able to understand or explain the profound mystery of the interaction between the sin of Pharaoh and the sovereign power of God. It is ours to extol the glory of God in all things great and small. In this moment when so many would have been praying that Pharaoh would let the people go, the Lord expressly indicates that He hardened Pharaoh's heart.

God continues in His sovereign plan, and Pharaoh continues in his sin. Early in the morning Moses presents himself again before Pharaoh, announcing the coming plague of hail that will destroy the land of Egypt.

Again the demand of the Lord is the same: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” The Almighty Lord is displaying himself before Egypt. The God of the Hebrews is not like the gods of Egypt or the gods of the Canaanites. There is none like Him in all the earth.

God reminds Pharaoh, through Moses and Aaron, that He is doing more than merely destroying the leader of Egypt. He could have accomplished that in a moment if that were His only goal. But Pharaoh and the Egyptians exist for a purpose. God raised them up to show his power, so that His Name would be “proclaimed throughout all the earth.”

God makes a claim that is higher than any man of power. He raised up Pharaoh for His purpose. The Lord's authority is not merely local or temporary, but worldwide and forever. But men still attempt to exalt themselves above God and His people.

Now Pharaoh will see the power of God for destruction. The hail will come upon the land of Egypt, destroying man and beast that will not take shelter according to the Lord's warning. Those who fear the Lord, even among the servants of Pharaoh, hear that Word and take action to protect themselves and their possessions. But those who are bold in their unbelief suffer great loss.

Through the hand of His servant Moses stretched out toward heaven, God sends thunder and hail. Fire runs down to the earth. How fierce would the storm have to be to destroy you and your possessions? How clear would the warning from God have to be before you paid attention? What does it take for a man to fear the Lord?

God rains hail upon the land of Egypt, not the kind of hail that had been seen before, but a very heavy hail, unprecedented for Egypt. Yet the Lord keeps the hail from the land of Goshen where the people of Israel live. The Israelites living together in community are safe, as are those who hear the warning of God with faith and take shelter.

Now Pharaoh speaks of his own sin to Moses and Aaron. “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.” The king tells Moses and Aaron to plead with the Lord. Pharaoh will let them go. Moses will plead to God for them, and while the flax and barley harvest have been destroyed, there will be wheat and emmer in the future. The earth is the Lord's. But Moses plainly tells Pharaoh that he knows that this is not over yet. “You do not yet fear the Lord God.” When the danger has passed, Pharaoh hardens his heart. He does not fear God. He will not let the people go.

O the mystery of the wisdom and power of God in His workings with the sons of men! God hardens Pharaoh's heart with a plan for glory and judgment. Pharaoh hardens his own heart in the wickedness of his own sin and rebellion. The king of Egypt is guilty before God. God is guilty before no one. He is rescuing His people and sending judgment upon their enemies according to His great plan.

But can it be that God Himself, who is the guiltless Law-Giver by definition, would take the judgment that we lawbreakers deserve for our sin. Would He do this to rescued us from His just judgments? This is what the Lord has done for us. We should hear His warnings and flee to Jesus for safety. We should keep our hearts tender before His Word, and thank Him for His favor to us. His eternal deliverance that has brought us glorious life.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Exodus 8

The Lord is working out His mysterious sovereign will. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. See Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11. But the Lord will vindicate His own great glory, and He will manifest His great judgments before the eyes of His people and their enemies.

He has not changed His mind about what He is doing. Israel is His firstborn son. Pharaoh must let Israel go. If he will not let God's son go, then God will kill Pharaoh's firstborn. On the way to that devastating judgment, God shows His power over heaven and earth, and even over the hearts of the righteous and the wicked. And God makes a distinction between His chosen people and everyone else. That is His divine prerogative.

The plagues against Egypt continue now by the command of God, through the voice of Moses, and through the hands of Aaron. Who can doubt that all of these signs come from the Almighty? Frogs everywhere. Frogs in places where no one wants to find frogs. Not only frogs in large numbers in the Nile, but frogs out of the Nile, and frogs in Egyptian houses, and in Pharaoh's bedroom, and in his bed, and in the beds of other Egyptians. Frogs in your ovens, and in the bowls where your bread dough is rising. Aaron stretches out his hand with his staff, and frogs cover the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh's magicians can do that too. Once again the enemies of God do not feel what they should feel, but they take encouragement that their own spiritual people can also bring signs of judgment upon their own land. Why is that good news? Yet they like pretending that the God of Israel is not so special after all.

Of course, the Egyptian magicians cannot take away the frogs. To get rid of the frogs, Pharaoh needs to call on Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh is so willing to get rid of the frogs that he claims that he will let the people go. Pharaoh picks the time for frog departure, and the Lord God gets the glory. There is no one like God. But once the frogs are gone, Pharaoh hardens his heart. He will not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord said.

God is not surprised by Pharaoh's stubbornness. Nor has He changed His plan to rescue Israel, to judge the Egyptians, and to glorify His own Name. Next plague: He will fill Egypt with gnats, and He will do it through Moses, who will work wonders through Aaron. Aaron strikes the dust of the earth with his staff, and “all the dust of the earth became gnats in all the land of Egypt.” This sign the magicians cannot do. They say, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh will not listen.

After the gnats, God sends a plague of flies to Egypt. Moses meets Pharaoh again at the water's edge according to God's instruction, to present the king with the Lord's continued demand. Whether frogs, gnats, or now flies, these pests are not only all over the land of Egypt; they make their way into Pharaoh's palace and into the homes of all the Egyptians. But the land of Goshen and the homes of the Israelites face no such troubles. God makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt.

Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron, suggesting that he is now ready to comply with the Lord's command. Yet he wants Israel to perform their ritual sacrifices within the land of Egypt. He will negotiate. Moses responds with fear of the Egyptians, reasoning with Pharaoh as if with a man who will have some sympathy with the predicament of the Israelites.

Pharaoh needs Moses to get rid of the flies, so he makes it seem like he will let them go, only not very far away. He will not give up his authority position over his slaves. He will not accept the full force of God's claim. It is not at all clear that God's ambassadors have even made the true claim yet: “Israel is my firstborn son. Let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, I will kill your firstborn son.”

There is no room for negotiation, but God's messengers are looking for some opening. And Pharaoh is still operating under the fiction that he is in charge, and not any supposed God of the Israelites.

But first things first. Get rid of these flies. Do your magic, “Plead for me.” Moses wants to use this moment to his advantage: “Only let not Pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.”

Being the true representative of the Lord is not about power politics. God does not want Moses to negotiate for the release of His son Israel. But the Lord still hears the plea of His ambassador, Moses. He removes the swarms of flies. But Pharaoh hardens his heart again. He will not let the people go.

When the Mediator of the New Covenant comes, He does not negotiate with the devil for our release. He speaks as One who has authority. His Word heals the blind, and stops the roar of the waves. No questions asked.

His death settles the entire claim of the justice of God. Our salvation is not the result of peace talks with the Lord's adversaries. Heaven does not come to us as a negotiated settlement. The resurrection of Jesus is an in-your-face statement to anyone who dares to challenge the authority of the God of Israel. Jesus, the God-Man, is the God of the Jews and the Gentiles. Behold, He makes all things new!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Bible Survey - #19 - Joshua

Onward


Joshua was chosen by God as the successor to Moses. The book that bears his name begins with the transition from one leader to the next. Moses encourages the man who has been at his side all these years to be strong and courageous in the Lord's service.

The Lord will brings His people across the Jordan and into Jericho, saving Rahab the prostitute, who is listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ and in Hebrews 11 as a hero of the faith. She and her family are delivered from the destruction that God brings upon the city of man.

The conquest of The Promised Land is the Lord's display that He is the God of heaven and earth. He chooses for Himself a people and gives them a land that others seem to possess. He does this according to His own will. No one has the right or the ability to stop Him. He will demonstrate this conclusively when Christ returns.

The Promised Land is a picture of the new heavens and the new earth. Our Joshua, Jesus Christ, is leading us into that final land. Even now, eternity is reserved for us where Christ is, in the present heavens. We are part of the army of love that is taking heaven by storm. The church needs to have the resolve of Joshua in this battle: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”


Our Leader is a mighty Man of war,

Commander of the Army of the Lord.

He brings us to The Promised Land Above.

Be strong and full of courage! Serve the Lord!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Exodus 7

Moses continues to express concern regarding his ability to speak. God has already solved that problem, but now He explains it again to Moses. Moses will be like God to Pharaoh. He will speak to Aaron, and Aaron shall be his prophet to the king of Egypt. God has turned Moses' weakness into an advantage. Moses will display an unusual greatness by communicating to Pharaoh as God speaks through men. The Lord's message through Moses and Aaron: Pharaoh must let the people of Israel go.

But now, instead of this being an easy process, God is letting Moses in on some of the complexity of His great and mysterious operations among the sons of men. God will harden Pharaoh's heart. So much so, that all the great signs and wonders that the Lord performs in his sight will not be enough to induce Pharaoh to let the people go. Pharaoh will not listen to Moses. This will give the Lord an opportunity to display the wonders of His judgment.

This is what Moses and Aaron did. These two men in their eighties spoke to Pharaoh using the prophetic system that God had given them in order to convey the Word that God had for this oppressive leader. This is how they would display their authority as God's ambassadors.

Moses and Aaron will be a God-and-prophet display before Pharaoh. Moses will tell Aaron not only what to say, but also what signs to perform. He will say to Aaron, “Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.” Moses will give the command, and Aaron will perform the sign.

Pharaoh did not give in to God based on this miraculous sign. He got the Egyptian magicians to do the same thing! But then Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. Pharaoh would still not be moved. His heart was hardened. He would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

Thus begin the series of plagues that the God of Israel, the great I-AM, brings upon Pharaoh's land. Moses was instructed to go out to the bank of the Nile River the next morning, and to confront Pharaoh by word and by a great sign of judgment. Moses was to instruct Aaron to strike the water, and the water of the Nile would turn into blood. Moses and Aaron did what the Lord told them to do, and in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, God used his ambassadors to perform this dreadful miracle.

There is a river in heaven. It brings life wherever it flows. A river of blood is not that river. A river of blood is a carrier of death. The fish in the Nile died. There was a stench that rose up to the nostrils of the Egyptians from this divine judgment sign.

What was the chief concern of Pharaoh's team at this moment? They were determined to win this power encounter with the servants of God. What do they do? They use their magic arts to bring about the same miracle of death. They preserve their pride by replicating a heavenly attack against their own river. Since the Egyptian magicians can replicate the sign, Pharaoh will remain in the hardness of his heart. Why should he listen to Israel's God?

Of course the Egyptians needed water, but they found a way to get what they needed by digging along the Nile. When the Lord's enemies have what they think they need, they can still insist on clinging to their foolish pride. Why does Pharaoh have to fight against God? Why do men refuse to humble themselves before the great I-AM? Would we want to dare the Lord to show far greater acts of judgment against us?

But Pharaoh's heart remained hardened. He would not listen to the Lord's representatives.

This was not a surprise. God had said to Moses that Pharaoh would not listen. But now Moses and Aaron were experiencing the hardness of the proud human heart before their eyes.

Pharaoh simply turned and went into his house. He chose not to be moved by what he had seen. He did not plead for help or relief, at least not yet. He displayed his superiority by ignoring the messengers of God and their signs. They were irrelevant. Seven days went by and there was no progress at all.

A river of blood should get our attention. Poets speak of the death and destruction that men bring upon one another in war using images like this. But what would it be like to see a real river of blood right before our eyes? Would we pay attention?

God's solution to the sin of mankind must be something more than a spectacular miracle. It must be more than a sign that pagans can reproduce. It was not the requested miracle of Jesus coming down from the cross that would have caused the enemies of Jesus to see Him as the Son of God.

What eventually cut people to the heart was the realization that the man who was willing to shed His blood for them was the great I-AM who had become man for this purpose. From His wounds a river of blood has touched even us, but it is a river of blood that has brought life. Jesus died not to perform a magic trick. He did not come to display some spectacle for our eyes. He became man to perform a humble and pure act of dying love in obedience to the Father.

When this message is received by the power of the Holy Spirit, it can break the proudest heart. God is able to make the greatest power pitifully weak. He is also able to make lowly weakness extremely powerful.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Exodus 6

The previous chapter of Exodus ended with discouragement and doubt. The people of Israel were turning against Moses, and Moses was questioning the plan of God. God speaks into this situation that seems hopeless to men. His Word turns our gaze away from powers of dictators and toward the authority of heaven's King.

God says, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” This will not happen immediately, but it will most certainly happen.

The Lord reminds Moses of His commitment to the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and His revelation of Himself to Moses as the great “I-AM.” He also renews His ancient promise to give the land of Canaan to His people. This great God of history is also the God of the future. He has heard the cry of His people and He is working decisively according to His plans. Even during a time when the world seems to be falling apart all around you, perhaps especially during those times, you need to hear the sure Word of God again. You need to trust. You need to believe.

God has a message for His suffering people. They are being played by Pharaoh. But Pharaoh is not the biggest player in the game. He is not the Lord of heaven and earth. God will bring the people out of Egypt. He will do this in a way that shows His “outstretched arm.” This is a great privilege for anyone to see. He will establish the descendents of Jacob as His people, and He will be their God. This will be a moment to remember. Pharaoh may be quite the man of oppression, but I-AM is the Lord.

Moses told all this to the people, but they did not listen. They were broken. They could not hear the Word of God with faith.

So God moved. He knows our weakness, and He still loves us. He used Moses, who himself continued to doubt that Pharaoh would ever listen to him. This Moses, from the tribe of Levi, the man the people of Israel would not listen to, the man who considered his inability to speak as a fatal flaw; God would use this Moses to speak to Pharaoh, and to lead the oppressed people of Israel out of Egypt.

The tribes of Israel were still intact after all those years in Egypt. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and the rest had leaders and followers. But God picked this one man, the son of Amram and his wife Jochebed, the brother of Aaron and Miriam, the boy that was rescued out of the waters. He would be the man that God would call to this important and difficult post.

“Bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts.” That was God's Word. It was impossible for man, but the Lord would show forth His great power. This Moses and Aaron would speak again to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing out the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt.

Yet when the time came for this man Moses to act, would he follow what the Lord told him to do?

God said to Him, “I am the Lord.” Would Moses continue to argue with the God of His fathers, the God of the burning bush?

God said to him, “Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.”

So far this had not gone very well on two levels. Moses had not delivered the precise message of God to Pharaoh. He did not say that Israel was God's special son. He did not tell Pharaoh what would happen to Pharaoh's own son if the king dared to resist Israel's God. He had appealed to Pharaoh's sympathy for the Israelites who might be hurt by their God if they did not obey His command to worship them in the wilderness. Moses did not glorify God in the Lord's particular love for Israel. This was a disappointing start.

Furthermore, the reaction of Pharaoh had been so strategic and so fiercely evil that not only did the people falter in their faith, but even Moses continued to look for a way out of his divine calling. He said, “I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?”

God knows our weakness. He hears our cries. He loves His church. He will step in with mighty acts of deliverance when we have run out of strength.

How can we be sure of this? The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. See Romans 11:29. When we doubt the determination of God, when we cannot hear His voice, when we hear only our own uncircumcised lips, we need to remember Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant. He heard the call of God upon His life, and He obeyed. He obeyed even when obedience insisted on a cross.

It is from that cross that we are reminded of our own sad failure. But it is also from that cross that we remember the Lord's perfect atoning sacrifice. God knows the full situation. He is committed. He will not be stopped. He will rescue His people according to His Word.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Exodus 5

How does the Lord work in the lives of the people He loves? Can we count on the fact that He will make our path easy once we start to acknowledge His presence and power? The elders and people of Israel had seen the signs that God was sending Moses and they believed. But afterward, when Moses and Aaron went to confront Pharaoh with the Word of the Lord, life did not become easier for God's people, but much harder.

God's Word to Pharaoh through Moses must have seemed like a great affront to that great man. Actually the specific words that the Lord had spoken in the prior chapter were even more direct. God had said, “Let my son (Israel) go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.” But here Moses and Aaron say, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” Were God's messengers easing into their role as ambassadors? Pharaoh's response was clear: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

Now what? Moses and Aaron sound like they are planning a worship experience in the wilderness. Are they leaving the impression that they will return to Egypt after they have completed their brief time away?

Whether they are leaning on their own understanding too much here, or are simply saying what God has told them to say in this first stage of engagement with Pharaoh, we can say this with confidence: They did not get the response that they wanted. Moses and Aaron went on to express concern for their own safety, rather than speaking about what would happen to Pharaoh's son. “Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

The king was not in a charitable mood. Moses and Aaron were getting in the way of his work plans for the Israelites. He blamed Moses and Aaron: “You make them rest from their burdens!” That same day he made the burdens of the Israelites much more severe. Where is the Lord in all this? Of course, He had warned Moses from the beginning that Pharaoh would not let the people go. But He had not told them the part about conditions getting worse before the Israelites received deliverance from their captors. Now they have to continue to produce the same number of bricks, but they have to gather the raw material, straw, themselves. They are also being accused of laziness. And why? Because of these men Moses and Aaron. That is the way that Pharaoh will deal with people that try to get in the way of his oppression of his slaves. He does not fear the God of the Hebrews. “Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” He will aim to make the people turn against the ambassadors of God.

Pharaoh did one other thing. He abused the foreman that had charge over the Israelites. He beat them and made unreasonable demands against them. This is the way an oppressor demoralizes those under his power. The goal is to move the foremen to turn against Moses and Aaron, leading all of the people with them in their attack. Pharaoh will not be their common enemy. God's ambassadors, Moses and Aaron, will be the ones that the Hebrews want to kill. Pharaoh will make it clear that the reason that these new demands are being pressed upon the people is the message that he received from Moses and Aaron. He will try to turn the people against the Word of God and against the messengers of that Word. If Moses and Aaron thought that they could ease into this role of speaking for God, it surely has not worked. Pharaoh spreads this madness: “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.”

The reaction of the foremen is just what Pharaoh would have wanted. They turn on Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Moses turns to God in great distress. The foremen blame Moses, and Moses blames God.

He questions the Lord. “Why have you done evil to this people?” That is a very complicated question. It is true that the madness of Pharaoh is evil. It is also true that God is sovereign over Pharaoh. But it is too early to decide that God has done evil to His people. God heard their cries, and He is delivering them out of bondage. The actions of the Lord will be clearer when Joshua leads them into The Promised Land. We must not judge the goodness of God to His church based on our present moment of trial.

The second question is more personal. “Why did you ever send me?” Moses is confused by the Lord's providence and distressed with the trouble and division that have come through His speech to Pharaoh.

The Redeemer of Jews and Gentiles has come. He faced great suffering. The first results of His great teaching and miracles were not particularly encouraging, The faithful church that follows Him can still expect tribulation even to this day. But one day our Joshua will bring us into The Promised Land above. That will be a good time to rightly assess the Lord's plans. Until that day, we follow the path of a crucified and risen King. What He tells us to preach, we proclaim before all men. We follow Him in the way of the cross. Our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that is ahead of us in heaven.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Exodus 4

Moses was deeply concerned that the Lord had made a mistake. As he considered his own gifts and abilities he was sure that he was not the right man for the job of confronting Pharaoh and delivering the people of Israel out of their bondage.

He was honest enough before the Lord to express his specific concern. His objection had to do with the unbelief of the people. He said, “They will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”

God uses what we have and adds His power and purpose to the task before us. He asks Moses, “What is that in your hand?” What do you have in your hand? The Lord uses His people in the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. Every member within the body of Christ is there for a reason. No one is safely ignored. See Ephesians 4:16.

God is able to use that staff of Moses to do great things. That is not because Moses is inherently a worker of miracles. It is because God can take the ordinary and use it to produce the extraordinary.

The staff will become a serpent, and then a staff again, “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” If that is not enough, Moses' hand will become leprous, and then it will be clean again. God is the Lord of life and death. If those two signs are not enough for the people of Israel, God will use Moses to pour water from the Nile on the dry ground, and the Lord will turn that water into blood. God is answering their cry for help. He will bring judgment upon the land of Egypt, and He will rescue them.

Moses continues to insist upon his own inadequacy. He is not eloquent. But what about God? Isn't God adequate? God the Creator of every human being can use people for His purposes as He sees fit. He is the Lord. He says to Moses, “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

Amazingly, Moses still objects. He says, “Please send someone else.” He is strongly resisting God, and the Lord is very angry with him. Yet God does not turn away from Moses. He accommodates the weakness of the man he has chosen. Another man, Aaron, will make up for what Moses lacks. Moses will be like God, and Aaron will be his prophet, his mouth.

Moses will take his leave now from the land of Midian and his father-in-law. He is sent off in peace by Jethro, and receives the Lord's assurance that the people who were seeking his life in Egypt are now dead.

Moses goes with his wife and his two sons. He has his small family, riding on a donkey, and his staff, which in now called “the staff of God.” He is going to present himself to the hundreds of thousands of Hebrews in Egypt as God's man for this moment. He will demonstrate the signs of divine approval before them. And he will go before one of the most powerful leaders in the world and demand, in the name of God, that this man and nation let the Lord's people go, that they might worship their great God, I-AM. He goes with the Lord's instruction to show the miracles of God to Pharaoh, but with God's certainty that Pharaoh will not let the people go.

God tells Moses what to say to Pharaoh: “Thus says the Lord.” The message will come through the voice of a man, but it is the Word of God. “Israel is my firstborn son.” God is the Father of His people. Who will dare to challenge Him by abusing His Son? “Let my son go that he may serve me.” Israel, the son of God, has a job to do. He must serve his Father. “If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.” This is the sober warning that God will speak to Pharaoh.

But Moses and His family must first arrive in Egypt alive. Along the way, the Lord met Moses, and we are told that He “sought to put him to death.” Deliverance came through Zipporah. She knew what the issue was. Someone was uncircumcised. God had given this ordinance centuries before to Abraham, and the Lord was ready to kill Moses for neglecting to mark his son according to that command. Zipporah cuts off her son's foreskin and touches Moses' feet with the blood of this foreskin. He is marked with blood, and he will live.

Meanwhile, the Lord directs Aaron to the mountain of God, where he meets Moses according to God's command. Aaron hears the Word of God through Moses and sees the signs that authenticate the message. Then Aaron and Moses meet with all the elders of Israel. They hear the Word, they all see the signs, they believe, and they worship the Lord.

Moses, the man through whom God gave the Law to Israel, could not win life with God through law. He resisted the call of God upon His life, making the Lord very angry. The pathway of life for Moses went through the blood of the cut off skin. That ceremony was an old law, but it was also a sign of grace. Through the blood of our Redeemer, Jesus, who was cut off for our sake, we have found deliverance and life. The road to heaven goes through the cross.

Getting out of Egypt through God's use of Moses was part of the Lord's plan. That plan would eventually lead to Jesus, the Messiah, to His death and resurrection, to your salvation, and to your service and calling in the kingdom of God. What do you have in your hand? God can use it now.

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Exodus 3

We need the real God. We need Him with all of His power and love. It should not surprise us that the real God, the God that we need, is more than our minds can handle. He is God.

God intended to use Moses as a very significant person in His great plans for Israel. Life in Midian might have been Moses' choice, but then God appeared to Him, and the Lord would not be refused.

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, a Midianite priest named Reuel and Jethro. In the course of caring for the sheep, He came to Horeb, the mountain of God, also known as Mount Sinai. God appeared to Moses here, and it was here where the Lord would one day reveal to Moses the Old Testament Law.

In this first encounter with God, “the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” This bush was burning but it was not consumed. It was a sign of the eternal nature of God. He was, is, and will be. He is the “I-AM.”

Moses did not immediately know what he was looking at. He turned aside to see the great sight, a bush that was definitely burning, but was not burned. Then Moses heard the voice of God. The Lord spoke to him from out of the bush, and thus began the experience of the human deliverer of Israel speaking directly with Israel's great eternal God.

First God spoke of His own holiness through His instruction to the man who would be the mediator of the Old Covenant. “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” God is holy. Whatever He calls holy, is holy.

Then God identified Himself to Moses as the God of Israelite heritage. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses was afraid.

We all might like to live a life of ease, ignoring the oppression of the covenant people of God. God calls His servants to care about the afflictions of His people. He will take Moses out of the relative ease of his family life in Midian, sending him back to the nation where a powerful ruler is oppressing men and women who are crying out to God. He hears them, and He will send Moses.

God will deliver them through the man that He has chosen. They will go from Egypt, but the escape from a place of trouble is only half of His promise to them. Deliverance is not only what you are being rescued from, but also where you are being sent to. He will bring them to a “good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Of course there are other people already in that new land. They will be removed by the Lord, and the people that God has chosen will be given the territory that they once possessed.

God has seen the way that the Egyptians treated the Hebrews. This Moses who the daughter of Pharaoh rescued from the waters of the Nile will confront the leader of Egypt. Moses has a very hard time believing that he is the man for this task. He looks at himself and questions the wisdom of God's plan. But the Lord assures him, “I will be with you.” The Lord is able to use him in the confrontation of Pharaoh, and He promises that Moses and the people out of Egypt will serve God on this same mountain where Moses has seen the burning bush.

Moses questions the Lord as he hears this plan. The Lord assures Him with His own divine name, “I-AM.” This self-existent Being, through whom all things have their being, can be trusted in this very difficult mission. God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is far greater than Pharaoh, and He is the one who is calling Moses.

The people of Israel will leave their servitude in Egypt, and God will bring them out to the wilderness so that they can sacrifice to the Lord in that place. From the very beginning of this mission, the Lord makes it clear to Moses that Pharaoh will resist the Word of God. But God is powerful. He will show His glory before Pharaoh in acts of divine judgment.

God will make it impossible for Egypt to oppress the Hebrews any more. In fact, as they leave the land of Egypt, the people of Israel will ask the Egyptians for silver, gold jewelry, and for clothing, and the Egyptians will freely give their wealth to those they once subjugated.

We too easily forget God. His plans seem hopelessly unrealistic. Will the Hebrews ever be able to leave Egypt? Will a man like Moses be used for this task? He does not even appear to be very willing. Yet the Lord fully accomplished this mission. He rescued an abused people and brought them out from under the gaze of their hostile captors.

This should be an encouragement to our faith. Our Lord has redeemed us from an even more devastating bondage than physical slavery. Our deliverance from sin and death did not come through Moses, but through a different Man. He would face great oppression and persecution, but He was more than a match for any and all of His enemies. As He told them Himself, “Before Abraham was, I-AM.” He is the real God. No one can defeat Him.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Bible Survey - #17/18 - Deuteronomy

An Earnest Farewell


Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant. As he prepared to depart this world, He spoke at length to the people of Israel. He taught them again concerning the events that had brought them to this point. He brought God before their hearts with a powerful plea for obedience and faithfulness. For the second time in the Torah, He gave them the Ten Commandments and many other provisions of the Law. But it is his earnest pleas that should still grip the New Covenant reader today.

Moses reveals a prophetic awareness of what God will do to Israel in the centuries to come. He gives them a song that does more than guide them in righteousness. It shows them that they will fail because of their sin.

He also points to a Word that will be earnestly proclaimed to them by bold ambassadors of a New Covenant. This is the Word that we have heard and received. It is on our lips and in our hearts. This Word leads us to a better Promised Land by grace and truth.

All people in every age need to hear and love the Law of God. We need to acknowledge our transgressions and turn from them. But we could never have entered heaven through Law. We needed a new Mediator to win the battle for us, and to take us home.


O hear, O hear, the word of God's command!

The way of lawlessness will lead to death.

But Law can never bring us to the Land.

The Word of God must save us from our sins.


Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Exodus 2

The plan of the Anti-Messiah Pharaoh was to use all the people of Egypt as his deputized force against the Hebrews. They were to be the extension of his own hatred against Israel. His order was plain: “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile.”

God begins His redemption by using one of those baby boys. The parents of this one boy did put their little one in the Nile, but not the way that Pharaoh insisted, and not with the result that he anticipated.

These parents, both of the tribe of Levi, first hid their son for three months, and then they prepared a little ark of safety for him. They also sent his older sister, Miriam, to look over him where he floated in the reeds at the river's edge. What an irony that the person who would save the boy, the young woman who would be touched by what she saw and heard, would be the daughter of Pharaoh.

A man like Pharaoh may dream that he rules the world, but his own daughter can be moved by God in the direction that the Lord Himself decrees. Not only is the baby brought up out of the waters that were to be his grave, the baby's sister is nearby to make this helpful suggestion: “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” The boy's true mother will be the baby's happy nurse, and then, in due time, the weaned child will be treated as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. What a deliverance from death! But God will use this boy to lead His people through the waters that will engulf their enemies.

It will be the daughter of the enemy of the Hebrews who will name the child “Moses.” He was drawn out of the water. He will be the one that God will use to lead his people out of Egypt.

This Moses grows up as a son of privilege in a land of oppression. Yet he will identify himself with his real brothers and sisters. One day, after he has acquired the strength of a young man, he will secretly express his calling as a deliverer by murdering an abusive Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. This kind of, take-matters-into-your-own-hands approach would not be the way that God would bring his people out of Egypt. Moses will not be a violent revolutionary. In fact, his deed was not as secret as he supposed. It will not be through his own strength or through his skills of personal persuasion that freedom and righteousness will come. God will bring the best release. He will do it in His time, and He will do it His way. He will use Moses, but not as a commando or as a community organizer. Moses will be a mediator of a solemn covenant between God and His nation.

For now, Moses is afraid that His murder of an Egyptian man will lead to his own death. He runs away from Egypt, settling in the land of Midian for many years. There he takes a wife and has children. But he has not really forgotten his people.

Even in the way that Moses finds a wife in a far-off land, he expresses his calling to come to the aid of the oppressed. Seven daughters of a priest of Midian get into some trouble with some shepherds who would try to use their force to drive these shepherdesses away. Moses rescues them. He is a courageous man who see injustice and stands in the way of approaching trouble. This is what these women need. This is also what Israel needs. And this is what the world needs. We need the right man to come and to stand in the way of danger for us. We need someone to protect us from adversaries and enemies who are far too strong for us.

Their father, Reuel, has an eye for such a man. When he hears what this strange “Egyptian” has done for his girls, he has questions for them. “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” Exactly. This is the kind of man that we need in a dangerous world. And Reuel gives one of his daughters to this man as a wife. She bears him a son. Will Moses just settle down there and forget his calling? He knows that he cannot entirely run away from his past. He names his boy Gershom based on his own awareness that he is not at home. He says, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”

Meanwhile, his people, the people of Israel in Egypt, are suffering under the cruel bondage of their enemy. They cry out to God. God hears. He sees. He knows. He will help. And He will choose to use this man whose life was spared by Pharaoh's daughter.

“God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

What about now? Does God know about oppression? Does God hear when those who call upon His Name are mocked and abused? More than that, can God do anything about the problem of our own sin, and the swiftly approaching enemy of death? God has appointed a Mediator of a New Covenant. He sent His own Son to accomplish what Moses could never have done. His Son faced the righteous wrath of the Almighty that was against us, and has led us out of the worst bondage imaginable.

Not only has God gathered us in Christ; we are His body, a force for love and good. Pharaoh demanded that all his people join him in his murderous hatred of the Hebrews. Jesus calls us to be his body in love, even commanding us to love those who persecute us. He is patient. And He will win.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Exodus 1

The exodus of the people of God from their bondage in Egypt is one of the most glorious and important pictures of our salvation contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. The slavery of Israel in a foreign land was not a surprise to God. Generations before, the Lord had revealed to Abraham, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.”

This is exactly what took place. The time of Israel in Egypt began with the amazing story of Joseph, who served as a trusted adviser of Pharaoh. Eventually that Pharaoh would breath his last, and another man would take his place. As the centuries moved forward, Israel grew from the original sons of Jacob and their immediate descendants, seventy persons, to a vast and exceedingly strong multitude. The land was filled with them. But they were no longer treated with respect. Joseph was long gone, and the new regime did not respect Israel.

The new Pharaoh planted within the minds of his advisers a security concern regarding this minority people. There were too many of them, and they were too strong. If they sided with an enemy of the Egyptians, they would be a formidable force against the rulers of the land.

His solution was to persecute them. He put people over them in order to enforce the royal decrees. They afflicted them with heavy burdens.

This plan did not work. As has often happened with Israel and with the church over the centuries before and after the coming of the Messiah, the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread abroad. When an enemy tries to destroy the Lord's people only to have them prosper, that enemy can quickly be filled with fear. When God causes His people to survive and even thrive in the midst of fierce opposition, the people who stand against them can become enraged, and their venom against God and His beloved people may grow.

The Egyptians made the lives of the people of Israel bitter with oppressive work. They ruthlessly abused them as slaves. If that was not enough, Pharaoh began a program of genocide directed at the Israelite males. He gave the order to the midwives among them to kill the baby boys, but to let the girls live. This is a wicked attempt to take away all protection from those who are weak. It is a male, a seed of the first woman, who would one day crush the head of the serpent. The spirit of Anti-Messiah was at work in the governing authorities in Egypt.

This plan was also a failure. The midwives feared God. They would not obey the king of Egypt. They lied to him, rather than obey his vicious law. What was God's reaction? He blessed them for the lie that saved the lives of the babies of His people. Once again, the people multiplied and grew very strong.

Pharaoh did not give up his rage easily. He would use the power that he had against the Lord's suffering people. He would not give his command only to the midwives. Everyone was to be a soldier of death for his evil purposes. If it was his will to see baby boys die, they would die. He gave a command to all his people. They were all deputized on the side of the Anti-Messiah king of Egypt. “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

What an order! All the people of Egypt must be murderers of the Hebrews without any just cause, or they will face the wrath of the supreme authority in the land.

Throughout the history of our redemption, there have been many powerful men and angels who imagined that they could thwart the plan of God's special love for His chosen people in Israel and the church. Some have put their hand to the plow in their desire to kill. They have used murder as their weapon when lesser forms of persecution have failed.

Wherever such vehement hate seems to win the day, it may look like the purposes of God will fail. But this is never the truth. God wins.

The Lord was the One who brought Joseph to Egypt in the first place. The Lord was the One who announced it all beforehand to Joseph's great-grandfather, Abraham. It would be the Lord who would lead His people out of Egypt. In the process of redeeming them by the blood of the Lamb, He would teach His people about the coming Messiah, the true Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

He too would face the wrath of a murderous king, but everything that would happen to Him would be in accord with the plan of the Almighty. Though at our lowest moments it may appear that evil will prevail, God will always win in the end. His Name be blessed forever and ever. He has rescued us from bondage.