Echoes of Our Past

After this presentation to Israel’s leaders, Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh. They told him, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: Let my people go so they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness.”
“Is that so?” retorted Pharaoh. “And who is the LORD? Why should I listen to him and let Israel go? I don’t know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
But Aaron an Moses persisted, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they declared. “So let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God. If we don’t, he will kill us with a plague or with the sword.”
Pharaoh replied, “Moses and Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to work! Look, there are many of your people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.” Exodus 5:1-5

Intro: I assume we have all heard of Billy Graham’s passing this last Wednesday

Two of his most famous quotes defined Evangelical Christianity
(at least in North America)
“A personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
“Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior”
– this is what he urged people to do at his crusades
• to leave their seats, come to the stage, and say a prayer

Last Sunday, Steve Gumaer told us that saying a prayer does not define salvation
– Billy Graham would have agreed with Steve
• in fact, Dr. Graham said:

“Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion – it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.”

– the book of Exodus is the perfect place to deepen our understanding of salvation
• of that “daily process” of transformation
• however, the story we find ourselves in today doesn’t look like salvation

1-5 Moses and Aaron have their first audience with Pharaoh

In the message they delivered, they made slight modifications in the script they were given
– it was reasonable for Pharaoh to ask, Who is Yahweh?
• if Moses had just learned God’s name, we cannot expect Pharaoh to have known it
◦ Egypt had its own plethora of deities
◦ the Pharaoh himself was considered a deity
• I imagine Pharaoh thinking:
“Now these Israelites are inventing new gods just to get a few days off.”
– why should Pharaoh concern himself with Israel’s God?
• if the best he could produce was a slave people,
◦ then he must be a weak god – a minor deity
• Pharaoh felt no threat in defying Yahweh

Moses and Aaron immediately changed their tune
– instead of demanding they began begging
• now they ask, “Please”

(the New Living Translation left out the “Please” in verse 3, but the same Hebrew construction is used in 4:18 where Moses asked his father-in-law, “Please let me return,” only here it is, “Please let us go”)

– now they do not refer to Yahweh, the God of Israel, but Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews
• this is how God told them to refer to him (Ex. 3:18)
◦ “Yahweh” and “Israel” are specific–Yahweh a specific God, Israel as specific people
◦ “God” and “the Hebrews” are general terms
(Israelites were a subclass of the the Hebrew ethnic category)
• there was a reason for referring to Yahweh as the God of the Hebrews
◦ it was a way for Israel to talk about God that Gentiles would understand
◦ it is not unlike the way both Melchizidek and Abraham could refer to Yahweh as God Most High (Gen. 14:19-20 & 27)

He will kill us – God did not say this and it sounds rather dramatic
– but after Moses’ recent experience on his way to Egypt, it seemed like a credible possibility (Ex. 4:24-26)
– Pharaoh, however, had nothing more to say about their God
• his only concern was his slaves and their productivity

6-9 Pharaoh imposed a new policy on Egypt’s workforce

He obviously failed to consult an industrial organizational psychologist
– nor was he worried about “improving morale” or “job satisfaction”
• either Pharaoh did not believe Moses or he did not take him seriously
• he drew his own conclusion for why they petitioned for a holiday in the desert:
They are lazy
◦ now doesn’t that sound exactly like some of our old bosses? Continue reading →

Return to Egypt

So Moses went back home to Jethro, his father-in-law. “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt,” Moses said. “I don’t even know if they are still alive.” “Go in peace,” Jethro replied.
Before Moses left Midian, the LORD said to him, “Return to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you have died.”
So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to the land of Egypt. In his hand he carried the staff of God. Exodus 4:18-20

Intro: Two warnings before we jump into this passage:

First, the sequence of events is jumbled
– perhaps the storyteller squeezes all of it together to create an effect
• biblical authors were not restricted to reporting events in linear time
◦ their narrative does not always go “this, then this, then this”
◦ historical cause and effect was not a rule they felt bound to follow
• their concern was to make a point, bring out an insight,
◦ or to reveal, highlight or illustrate a truth
◦ so we are looking for the truth that is the truth revealed in this passage

Second, embedded in this passage is perhaps the most confusing story in the Bible
– that’s all I’ll say about it for now
– at any rate, God is greater than the stories in scripture can communicate
• I love the stories, but they are here to get us to God
• if we get stuck in the story, we are not allowing it to do its job

Going through these verses will be like turning pages in a photo album
– we thumb through six photographs and each one tells a story
• Moses appears in each of them with someone else
• five of these encounters are positive, only one is negative

18 The first positive encounter: Moses and his father-in-law

Moses wanted Jethro’s permission to return to Egypt
– the reason he gives is to see if any of his people are still alive
• however, he said nothing about the burning bush, and we do not know why not
• I have thoughts about that, but none of them are worth our time
– Jethro gave Moses his blessing, Go in peace
• this peace (shalom) refers specifically to what existed between them
• it did not guarantee a peaceful journey or what he’d find when he reached his destination

19-20 The second positive encounter: Moses and Yahweh

This is a footnote to catch us up on local Egyptian news
– the message was intended to give Moses reassurance
• he had not left Egypt on the best of terms
• God let him know he did not have to worry re: prior issues
– so now Moses has everything packed
• with his staff in his hand and his sons in their donkey seats, they hit the road
◦ only now the staff he carried is referred to as the staff of God
◦ it’s still a stick, but now it belongs to God
• when Jacob was old, and blessing is twelve sons, we’re told he leaned on his staff (He. 11:21)
◦ I think that’s what the staff was for Moses
◦ something to lean on, something to prop him up
(or prop up his faith and confidence)

21-23 The third positive encounter: Moses and Yahweh Continue reading →

The Preacher In Me

(My intention with this message was to continue teaching through the Book of Exodus. However, three verses we will come to are so tantalizing that I could not resist the preacher’s urge to elaborate and load more meaning into them than they were originally meant to communicate. Here in my notes, I will give you fair warning when I go off on my cherished tangents.)

But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The LORD never appeared to you’?”
Then the LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.
“Throw it down on the ground,” the LORD told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.
Then the LORD told him, “Reach out, and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out, and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand.
“Perform this sign,” the LORD told him. “Then they will believe that the LORD, the God of their ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—really has appeared to you.” Exodus 4:1-5

Intro: We pick up where we left off last week

God is recruiting Moses for his life’s mission and Moses is trying to dodge it
– the two most serious issues have been settled already:
• who is Moses?
◦ God’s answer was (basically), That is irrelevant for now
◦ Moses will discover his true self by doing God’s will
• who is (this) God? the answer is, Yahweh, the eternal “I AM”
◦ the One who is everywhere and always present to his people
– but Moses isn’t ready to move out just yet
• he is still raising objections

1-5 Moses is doubtful everything will go as God has said

This is, in fact, the theme of this chapter
– it begins with, What if they don’t believe?
– it ends with, Then the people of Israel believed

God had just told Moses, the elders would listen to his voice (3:18, literal)
– but Moses questions that assertion and asks, Well perhaps, but what if they don’t?
• I hope this sounds familiar – we are all pretty good at doing this
◦ for instance, if I do not want to face a particular challenge, I play the “what if” game
◦ what if it doesn’t work? what if something breaks? what if no one shows up?
• our brains can crank out failure scenarios all day
– literally, Moses asks, What if they will not listen to my voice?
• “voice” is a key word

God will repeat this word three times in his response to Moses:
If they do not believe you and pay attention to your voice . . .
they will believe in your voice . . .
And if they don’t believe you or listen to your voice . . . (vv. 8-9)

◦ the voice is what carries communication
◦ a message, information, a question, a command, etc.
• in his next objection, Moses will make speech deficiencies an issue
◦ for a voice to be heard and followed, it must carry weight

In answer to Moses’ question, God asks him, What is that in your hand?
– it was his shepherd’s staff; an object so common no one would need ask
• but God intends to do something with it that Moses would’ve never guessed
• Moses did not need new and spectacular resources
◦ all that he needed was already in his hand
– Throw it down
• Moses did not have to understand why God told him to do that
◦ we have introduced a complication into obeying Jesus
• we feel we must understand what God is doing before we comply
◦ “How is that going to work?”
◦ waiting to act until God forces an explanation through our brains limits what he can do with us (Mk. 6:5)
(By the way, if you ever have to pick up a snake, don’t grab its tail!)
– God assures Moses that the people would then believe the voice of the sign

The preacher in me cannot help but hear a whole sermon in the question, “What’s in your hand?” Almost everyone in scripture that God called into his service felt that they were inadequate to the task. They were unknown, came from a humble background, were not good (holy) enough, or old enough, lacked the experience, and on and on. It did not occur to them that God, who created something out of nothing, was able to amplify anything they had on hand. When Jesus told his disciples he wanted to feed a large crowd, they asked How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness? Jesus then asked them, How much bread do you have? He then took the seven loaves and did the impossible (Mk. 8:1-9). Do you see what I am getting at? A whole sermon that keeps repeating the theme, “What’s in your hand?” Because God is able to use whatever is in your hand. Continue reading →