Moses 5 GROWTH THROUGH RESISTANCE
Exodus 5:1-7:5\
C. The Salvation
6. Problems That Abound 5:1-7:5
1) The Arrogance of Defiance 5:1-14
2) The Anguish of Doubt
a. Anger Against Moses 5:15-21
b. Anguish From Moses 5:22-23
3) The Announcement of Deliverance 6:1-7:5
a. God’s Person Uplifted 6:1-8
b. God’s People Unbelieving 6:9
c. God’s Prophet Unsure 6:10
d. God’s Plan Unfolding 6:13-27
e. God’s Power Unleashed 6:28-7:5
Moses is still in God’s school. If he felt he had problems forty years before, and problems on the way to Egypt, he hadn’t seen anything yet. Having wrestled with God he would now wrestle with the powers of darkness. He was about to come up against the most powerful human being in the world, a man worshipped by his people, the Pharaoh of Egypt. He stood nose to nose against Moses, Aaron and their God. Nine plagues - blood, frogs, gnats, flies, plagues, boils, hail, locusts and darkness that turned Egypt into a barren wasteland left him unmoved. Even when the tenth plague killed his son and he let Israel go, he sent his soldiers to bring them back and cost them their lives, drowned in the Red Sea. Moses was about to meet a real problem. But just as resistance makes muscles strong, Moses will be made strong in the Lord. See first. . .
I. THE ARROGANCE OF DEFIANCE (5:1-14)
1. The Compassionate Request (5:1)
Moses, being a former prince in Egypt, seems to have had no difficulty getting an audience with Pharaoh. Pharaoh might have been curious about this one time warrior, but whatever the reason, Moses and Aaron were allowed in. They did not ask Pharaoh to release Israel but gave the compassionate request God told them to make - that Israel be allowed to make a three day journey into the desert to worship God (Ex. 3:18). In other words, they wanted a week or two off. The request, they said, came not from them but from God.
2. The Calloused Response (5:2-5)
. Pharaoh was not impressed with them or their God. God, in His mercy, asked Pharaoh only for a small favor - time off for His people. But the world’s people don’t like God to intrude in their lives at all. They don’t want to do ANYTHING for God. So Pharaoh said, “Who in the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go?” (5:2) Moses then issued a warning, saying God might strike Israel with plagues or sword if they didn’t obey (5:3). This too was an act of mercy, for they were letting Pharaoh know it is serious and dangerous to disobey the God of the Hebrews. Unmoved by compassion or by this warning, Pharaoh saw this as taking people from their work and refused to listen.
Application: Learn here that the words, “Who is God that I should obey him?”, is the first step many take on the road to hell. A prodigal man or woman, who wants to live filthy, says this and jumps into sin. The teenager says, “Who is the Lord that I should obey Him” and gives their body to lust or drugs. The adults say it and sell their souls for money. A proud man or woman, who may be nice and moral and respectable, but has no time for worship or prayer, or finding God’s will, does the same. They say this and jump into selfishness and self righteousness, seeing no need for Christ dying for them and no need to love or serve him.
Application: Learn also that these words have future consequences that break the hearts of those who utter them. In the months to come, when the plagues have done their work, when all the firstborn are in their graves, and when thousands of Egyptian soldiers lie at the bottom of the Red Sea, the screams and cries of those left will be heard echoing up and down the halls of the palace - Why didn’t Pharaoh listen to God? And in hell, many of you will say the same, but it will be, “Why didn’t I listen to God?”
Application: We Christians need to learn here that when heaven starts working, hell starts working. When we hear the voice of God, we will hear the voice of Satan soon thereafter. When we wake up the powers of heaven with our prayers, with our commitment to Christlikeness, with our evangelism, we wake up the powers of hell that attack us. Burning bush experiences almost always lead to Pharaoh experiences. Decide you will practice your Christianity at work and your work place will become a war zone like you’ve never seen before.
3. The Cruel Reaction (5:6-14).
It’s not enough for the devil and his people to disobey God, they want to hurt God and his people. Pharaoh turned his fury toward the Hebrew slaves. He, like Adolph Hitler, had the devil’s wisdom. He knew this talk of freedom could lead to a rebellion so he increased their work load and their pain.
This would serve two purposes. They would be too tired and frightened to fight and they would blame Moses and Aaron and hate them for bringing all this pain down. What Pharaoh did was stop bringing straw to the Jews making bricks. He made them, and no doubt their families, find their own straw. But they had the same quota of bricks to fill, which was almost impossible and, no doubt, left almost no time to rest. When the quotas were not filled the Egyptian slave drivers beat the Jewish foremen.
II. THE ANGER AND ANGUISH OF DOUBT (5:15-23)
1. Anger Against Moses (5:15-21).
Time went by (5:23) and some Hebrew foremen finally went to Pharaoh to plead for mercy and ask why he was doing this. He told them it was because they were lazy and asked to go into the desert and worship. They left, and standing outside, no doubt hoping for the best, were Moses and Aaron. And what happened next broke the men’s hearts. The angry, hurting foremen lashed out at them saying,
“May the Lord look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his servants and put a sword in their hand to kill us.” (5:21).
In other words, you talk about saving us and all you’ve done is make things worse. You talk about the power of God! All we see is the power of Pharaoh!
Application: Leadership - These unbelieving Hebrews failed to say the two things they should have said. The first involves LEADERSHIP, the second involves the LORD. They should have said, “Moses, things are bad. What do you want us to do? What is your counsel? What do you think God wants now?” You see, Moses never was trusted and followed by the Hebrew church of the desert. All they did was turn on him and blame him every time they ran into a difficulty.
Illustration: The phenomenal success of Jerry Falwell in a town no larger than ours - Lynchburg, Virginia - is a matter of record. Falwell explained it like this. When I went there the deacons said, “Jerry, you are our leader. Show us where you want this church to go and we’ll help you get there.” The second thing they should have said involved. . .
Application: The Lord - They should have said, “Moses, things are bad. We need to call A PRAYER MEETING. We are facing a GOD SIZED PROBLEM and we need to get hold of God.” The first response of a carnal church, when things go wrong, is to get mad at the preacher and the second is to worry, to fret, to complain and to leave God out. The problem hasn’t been created yet that God cannot solve but we’d rather whine and worry and blame others than take it to the Lord.
2. Anguish From Moses (5:22-23).
Moses was devastated and as the foremen took their anger out on him, he took his anger out on God. He said,
“O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all” (5:22-23).
In other words - this is forty years ago all over again. I failed then and I’m failing now, and it’s all your fault. I didn’t want this job in the first place.
Wow! You can feel Moses’ fury between the lines. Chadwick (The Expositor’s Bible) says this is “startling to our notions of reverence.” Was this prayer sinful? Yes and no! It’s unbelief was sinful. He should have said, “We need a prayer meeting.” God had told Moses Pharaoh would not release Israel (3:18-20). Why then was Moses angry and surprised?
Application: We do the same thing. We know God does not grant us immunity from troubles, that few people will be saved and that we will grow old and die. Yet when our kids go wrong and troubles come, when our witnessing and working seems in vain, and when we grow old and begin to lose our energy, our teeth, our health, our hearing and our sight, we ask God, “Why?”, and do it with surprise and anger.
But, in a sense, the honesty of it was not sinful. The unbelieving heart was the sin but honest prayer about the sin was the only cure. We must tell the Great Physician what is wrong. Jesus, on the cross, asked God why He had forsaken Him, but then gave Himself up to the Father’s hands.
Matthew Henry says when circumstances make us retreat, let us retreat to God. Jesus has given us the wonderful privilege of calling God “Abba - Daddy” (Rom. 8:15). He doesn’t love us and help us WHEN WE MEASURE UP, He loves and helps us because He is our daddy.
III. THE AFFIRMATION OF DELIVERANCE (Ex. 6:1-7:5)
1. God’s Person Uplifted (6:1-8).
God answered Moses’ honest prayer. He did it by getting him to look away from Pharaoh, away from the Hebrews who didn’t trust him, away from his problems - and look to HIM. His first words were, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. . .” (6:1). Five times here, in righteousness, God says - I WILL! And four times He says - I AM. We are to look to and lean or who He is and what He can and will do.
Application: Waiting on God. We love to see immediate results. We love to work our problems out quickly. People come to counselors with marriage problems created over twenty years and want them worked out in twenty minutes. One of the hardest lessons we learn in God’s school is WAITING ON GOD to work our problems out.
When God says, “You will see. . .,” we say, “How, God?” or “Now, God, I want to see it now!” Sometimes we need to take a problem to the Lord, lay it at His feet, back off and let Him work. That’s when He says, “Now you will see what I will do. . .” (6:1)
2. God’s People Unimpressed (6:9).
When Moses hurried to tell Israel who God was and what He was going to do, their “discouragement and cruel bondage” (6:9), made them unimpressed. They would not listen. This is when a true pastor ought to shine. To give hurting people hope is our highest calling, but Moses didn’t shine, he whined. We see. . .
3. God’s Prophet Unsure (6:10-12)
God nudged him and said go to Pharaoh but Moses said, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips” (6:12). The word here and in verse 30 is literally “UNCIRCUMCISED LIPS.” Moses not only felt he was not eloquent and was slow of speech (4:10), but that he didn’t speak with the authority of God.
Application: Maybe we have been wrong all these years to see Moses as a towering, Charlton Heston type of dynamic leader. Maybe he was a soft spoken, timid old man who felt and acted like God had given him a job too big to handle. Just maybe pulpit committees ought to take note of this. Just maybe churches are in the trouble they are in because committees use worldly standards, seeking positive, handsome, CEO types, instead of looking at the heart.
4. God’s Plan Unfolding (6:13-27).
God should have reached out and killed Moses for this same lame excuse but He didn’t. And right here, as Moses wrote this record, the Holy Spirit had him put in a history lesson. Moses’ and Aaron’s family tree traced back to Levi, in Genesis, were given. Moses, reflecting on his stupid, sinful distrust, saw that his life was no accident. He was born, delivered from the Nile, raised in a palace and kept sheep in the desert as a part of God’s plan. Like Jeremiah, God chose him to do this before he was formed in the womb (Jer. 1:5). We are not here by accident. We are created for a reason and we are to find it and do it. Finally, we have. . .
5. God’s Power Unleashed (6:28-7:5)
. God sends Moses and Aaron, in His power, to do battle with Pharaoh and his gods. God promises the plagues, the “mighty acts of judgement” (7:4) and the coming deliverance of Israel. Application: You and I need to know that with God all things are possible and that His plans will never fail. This is true whether, like William Wilberforce, you are trying to free slaves owned by England, trying to bring your children up right, trying to win someone to Christ or trying to be a good teacher, deacon or pastor.
Conclusion: I cannot help but compare Moses with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln looked like anything but a leader. He was not liked by his own people and most historians say he would not have been reelected. And like Moses, when his work was done and before he saw the promised land of freedom, he died. But also, like Moses, the only explanation of what he did was, God did it.
On a cold, wet February day in 1861, a train left Springfield, Illinois. One thousand people came to tell a fellow townsman goodbye. Abraham Lincoln, the newly elected President of the United States, stood on the back of the train platform and spoke to the crowd. Everyone knew that a sense of sadness filled his life as he left them. He reminded them that for 25 years he had lived among them. His family had been reared there. One died in their city. He said he was leaving to lead a troubled nation, not knowing if he would ever return. And then Mr. Lincoln said, “If God gives His presence, I shall not fail, but if not, I shall fail. I go trusting Him who can be with me and stay with you at the same time.” You and I, whatever our task, can say the same and see the same victories in life.
