These bricks won’t break me!
Exodus 5 :1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
2 And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.
3 And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.
4 And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens.
5 And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.
6 And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying,
7 Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves.
8 And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.
ILL:A recent request for sick leave to the U.S.S. Saratoga read: Dear Captain, When I got home I found that my father’s brick silo had been struck by lightning, knocking some of the bricks off at the top. I decided to fix the silo, and so I rigged up a beam, with a pulley and whip at the top of the silo, and hoisted a couple of barrels full of bricks to the top. When I got through fixing the silo there were a lot of bricks left over. I hoisted the barrel back up again, secured the line at the bottom, and then went up and filled the barrel with extra bricks. Then I went down to the bottom and cast off the line. Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was heavier than I was and before I knew what was happening, the barrel started down and jerked me off the ground. I decided to hang on, and halfway up I met the barrel coming down and received a severe blow on the shoulder. I then continued on up to the top, banging my head against the beam and getting my fingers jammed in the pulley. When the barrel hit the ground it busted the bottom, allowing all the bricks to spill out. I was now heavier than the barrel and so started down again at high speed. Halfway down I again met the barrel of bricks and received severe injuries to my shins. When I hit the ground I landed on the bricks, getting numerous painful cuts from the sharp edges.
At this point I must have lost my presence of mind because I let go of the rope. The barrel then came down and struck me with another heavy blow on the head, putting me in the hospital for three days. I respectfully request five days extension of leave…. And the moral of the story is that there is pain living & working among the bricks!
Many scr. Tell stories, but this particular one explains and give the description as if it as a title to a book. Called the tale of the bricks.
I've come to preach today concerning the tale of the bricks, & my title today is “these bricks wont break me” I'm trusting that someone leaves here knowing there is hope beyond your current situation!
Text: The story of our deliverance begins in a brickyard. It’s a brickyard where men and women are being put to hard labor, making bricks for Egypt’s king and for his dreams of glory. Imagine those huge pyramids, those immense temples that you can still visit in Egypt.
Calculate how many millions of bricks it must have taken to build such places, and then imagine, if you are Pharaoh’s engineers, how you will get so many bricks. It will be lots of work for somebody, hard and unyielding work. Who will do it?
They turned to the children of Israel and put them to forced labor. They enslaved the Hebrews. Day after day, month after month, under the broiling sun, with no reward but a whip when you are slow or a shove to the ground when you stumble, the Israelites made bricks.
One day through Moses and Aaron, their leaders, they made a simple request: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’” Pharaoh, may we have a brief holiday, please, so that we can worship our God? That request would set off a chain of events that resounds even today. That request would inaugurate God’s deliverance for them and for us and it happens to be called the tale of the bricks!
Point: I’ve come to preach today that there are those among us who feel enslaved just as Israel did, you’re at the grind, you’re struggling, life seems unfair, the test that you’re going thru right now is hard, you’re not sure if you can bare the load for its getting heated in your situation, its taking its toll on you, but the lord has sent me here today to let you let know, that while you’ve been making bricks he’s been making away of escape, just hold on help is on the way! your brick making is just the inauguration for God to step into the picture and make himself known, someone needs to cry these bricks won’t break me, there is hope!
Bro Tenney said it like this: 2 things God never tells you, how long it will be or what you have to go thru to obtain it…
Point: but this we know, his word does not lie, and he will never leave us or forsake, we may not know how long we must endure, or what we must face, but we know these bricks cannot break me, I still trust him!
So many of us feel like because we a Christians that we are above tribulations…
Here is Israel an entire nation “Gods chosen people” the promise seed of Abraham who would become a great nation, and yet they are enslaved under the hand of pharaoh. There is no freedom, no liberty, and for over 400 years they will labor, and slave to serve pharaoh.
If anybody should’ve felt like giving up, it should’ve been them,…We live in a want it now world, to where if it doesn’t happen when we think it should then we bail on God and think he must not be for us..But to the contrary, one of the most important attributes or characteristics you can ever posses as a child of God is SEMPER FI which simply means faithful unto death!
The tale of the bricks is this, Israel has been slaving away for years and yet they’ve not lost their hope, Moses “the preacher” if you will, is still telling them that everything is going to be all right, even tho they are still sweating, still slaves, still near death….
For too many of us we won’t believe the preacher unless we can see the signs, but ive come to tell you that isn’t faith, that’s fear, fear operates by what it sees, but faith operates by what it knows!!!!!!
Point: hear me today, just because I don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening or going to happen, what I'm trying to preach to someone today, is there is still hope in the brickyard, yes you may be toiling, it may be hard it may be tough, it may seem like your loosing the battle, but right now there ought to be a spirit arise in you and know that deliverance coming, don’t let the brickyard crush your hope, help is on the way, shout the Bricks won’t break me!!!!!!!!!!!
The request was we need a few days off to worship. Here is my point, while they’ve been slaving away making bricks their mind is still on praising their God, in other words they have stated these bricks won’t break us!
And while they continue making bricks, Moses & Arron makes a request, please allow us to go & worship our God!
Its important to note that they could’ve praised God from where they were & I believe they did, but they wanted a set time,& place to offer special praise & offering unto God much like we do here on Sundays. Church is still the most important thing we do as Christians!
In other we want a special time to gather that it will be uninterrupted that we can just show forth praise unto out God, we need worship beyond the brickyard!
Point: can I tell you that here in the brickyard is where most praise is lost, yea I can praise when things are good, I can praise him when I'm up, but the children of God understood these words, “ IN Everything give thanks unto the Lord” Here is where faith steps in, faith is not worshipping him just because the conditions are conducive, faith say even when I'm in the brick yard slaving away and I'm suffering like I've never known I will still find away to worship,. Blessed is the man whose mind is stayed ion the, these bricks wont break me I will still praise the Lord!
Look what happens after the request and after the enemy finds out they want to go worship their God.
He takes away their straw, straw is what it takes to make bricks and says you must go and gather stubble, then Pharaoh says I'm going to make it tougher on you because you’ve got it too easy, if you can have your mind on worshipping God then the work is not hard enough for you, so I’ll make it more difficult. If I can get the brick making to break you then you'll think twice about worshipping your God!
Point: well doesnt this sound familiar to anyone…, pastor the more I try the harder it gets, the more I desire to worship God, the more I want to commit to God, the tougher the challenge, what I'm preaching to you today is that the enemy will do his best to apply the pressure, take away the straw replace it with stubble try and make it more difficult for you to have time to praise, but I believe I'm preaching to some folks that have their minds made up and the bricks won’t break us, but there will forever be a praise in our hearts & on our lips regardless of how bad the situations become, there is hope beyond the brickyard! Deliverance is on the way!!!!!!
What I'm preaching today is this event the tale of the bricks, set in motion the plan and the hand of God to bring Israel out of bondage..
Point: if you can maintain your worship in the brickyard, and it doesn’t break you, I can tell you just like the scripture, that with every temptation he will make away of escape. Because what the enemy doesn’t know is while your making bricks, God is making an exit strategy & deliverance will come.
Look at the common underlying factor of these, Mordecai, 3 Hebrew children, Daniel, and Joshua & Israel at Jericho…all of these have one thing in common.
Everyone of them stood in the midst of adversity, their faith was tested, they had to endure torture, testing, and tribulations, but the one common element they shared was they never stopped praising God.
Point: their circumstances did not detract, detour, or diminish their faith or trust in God, I'm preaching don’t let the bricks break you, there is hope beyond the brickyard just keep praising your God. And soon you'll see deliverance come!
The one thing I don’t want to overlook,. Is far too many wait to come out of the trial before the praise God.
At Jericho, they marched and shouted for the walls to come down, not when they came down..
3 hebrews walked in the fire, and it was in the midst not once they got thru it, but right in the middle of it, and they cam out unharmed, their clothes didn’t burn, nor harm happenend to them
Point: I'm telling you that you may be among the bricks this morning you’ve have walked into this place burden with things I don’t know, tested and feel like you’re at your roads end, but I want you to know regardless of how bad it is, if you'll just keep praising God thru your testing there is deliverance beyond the brick!!!!!!!
You be the judge as to whether God had done anything at all for His people in the brickyard, this prayer turned the tide. This prayer brought from God a word of powerful encouragement: “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh … by a mighty hand he will let the people go.”
Point: And you know the story. You know of the plagues, the Passover, and the Red Sea. You know how God delivered His people into freedom. You will not die in the brickyard!!!!
Bishop TD jakes said it this week. PERIL< bricks> is part of the process to get you into the promise, point: the brickyards will come, the strive the strain, the sweat will all be a part of the process, just know the peril is not the promise, but the process to the promise, deliverance will come, hope will prevail, you will not die in the brickyard
Closing: About 10 years ago, a young & very successful executive named Josh was traveling down a Chicago neighborhood street. He was going a bit too fast in his sleek, black, 12-cylinder Jaguar XKE, which was only 2 months old.
He was watching carefully for kids darting out from between parked cars & slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed that spot, no child darted out, but a brick sailed out & - WHUMP! – it smashed into the Jag’s shiny back side door.
SCREECH!!! His slammed on his brakes & his gears ground into reverse, tires spinning the Jaguar back to the spot where the brick had been thrown.
Josh jumped out of the car, grabbed the kid & pushed him up against a parked car. He shouted, “Who are you? And what are you doing?” Building up a head of steam, he went on. “That’s my new Jag, & the brick you threw is going to cost you a lot of money. Why did you throw it?”
“Please, mister, please…I’m sorry! I didn’t know what else to do! I threw the brick because no one would stop.” Tears were dripping down the boy’s chin as he pointed around the parked car. “It’s my brother, mister,” he said. “He rolled off the curb & fell out of his wheelchair & I can’t lift him up.” Sobbing, the boy pled, “Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt & he’s too heavy for me.’
Moved beyond words, the young executive tried desperately to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. Straining, he lifted the young man back into the wheelchair & took out his handkerchief & wiped the scrapes & cuts, checking to see that everything else was okay. He then walked with them to make sure that the younger brother was able to get them back home all right.
It was a long walk back to the sleek, black, shining 12-cylinder Jaguar XKE – a long & slow walk. Josh never did fix that side door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at him to get his attention again.
Point: everyone at some point in time will live among the bricks, some will break among the bricks, some will throw bricks, they mean no harm they just don t know how to deal with the bricks, but it’s in these times we need a church that will stop, look & listen to the cries from the people and if they are in the bricks we must stop our busy lives in order to help them get back in their chair, get them to safety, sometimes it takes bricks to recognize the need! But they don’t have to die in the bricks!
