God's Best...When Things Couldn't Be Worse

I will bring you out, not you Moses. The how is not related to your strength. The answer is my strength. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Underline these as we go along. I will deliver you from bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

The word redeem there is the word reclaim used in the beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth, where Boaz reclaims or redeems his bride. God is saying, I will reclaim my bride, my nation. I will do it because I am the Lord. Verse seven, I will take you for my people. I will be your God. In the Old Testament, we have the account of Moses standing before the Pharaoh and he demanded in the name of God that Pharaoh must let God's people go free. Pharaoh's response was predictable. He said, who is this God?

In defiance, Pharaoh placed God's people under an even harsher burden. We're going to look at that account today. And as we do, we're going to gain some practical insight for our lives. This is wisdom for the heart. Stephen Davey is working through one of our vintage wisdom series called Out of Egypt. He's called this message God's Best When Things Couldn't Be Worse. We find our places this morning in Exodus chapter four, a sermon entitled God's Best When Things Couldn't Be Worse. One of the things I've enjoyed about studying the life of Moses thus far is I can so easily identify with him and especially this morning as things seem to cave in on him and the bottom seems to drop out. Exodus chapter four, which we studied last session, led us to the conclusion that God wanted Moses to be independent of his own abilities and very dependent upon who God was. And God will, in a sense, stress that very same lesson in these next few verses.

But we'll pick it up where we left it off last time. It's in verse 27. God tells Aaron in chapter four of verse 27, go to meet Moses in the wilderness.

So he went and here's a beautiful reunion. He met him at the mountain of God and he kissed him. You need to understand they've been separated now for 40 years. Aaron is Moses's older brother. Aaron is three years older than Moses is. And we know that Miriam is perhaps seven to nine years older than Moses.

And they'll soon meet as well. And they embraced out there in the desert or wherever they were. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord, which he had sent him and all the signs which he had commanded him to do. And I just imagine if Moses was like me, he said, hey, hey, little brother or big brother, look at this trick. And he probably threw the stick on the ground and they both were amazed all. And Moses would say, that's no problem.

And he'd reach down and he'd grab it by the tail. And after he showed him the other sign of leprosy and perhaps told him about the sign of the water, then Moses and Aaron verse 29 went and there was a great reception. They assembled all of the elders of the sons of Israel and Aaron, now he's the voice for Moses, spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. And he then performed Moses, that is performed the signs in the sight of the people.

Note this. So the people believed. You remember there were five reasons why Moses didn't want to serve God. And at the heart of most of them was the thought, the people may not believe me. They may not follow me.

I'm really too insignificant and unqualified and ignorant and all of those things that you really want me to do that. And God would say, yes, I do. And I love the thought that Moses perhaps with sweaty palms performed the signs, but the text tells us so the people believed when they heard that the Lord was concerned about the sons of Israel and that they had seen the reflection. Now there wasn't a great meeting. Somehow this had probably gone from slave hut to slave hut and the news had been whispered abroad until finally all the people heard what God was going to do for Israel.

And you note the result. It says, and they bowed low and they worshiped. I think there was a revival because for nearly 400 years they had been impressed by all of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon. They had seen the marvelous things that supposedly the gods of the Egyptians had done and perhaps their faith was at its lowest ebb. But now Moses comes in, performs the sign, says, God, Yahweh is concerned about you. And the response is worship. Their faith now reaches new heights. And I think coming in on the crest of that conference, the results of that revival, Moses is now confident that God is going to do great things with him.

And chapter five, verse one tells us what happens. And afterward, Moses and Aaron came and said, this is a declaration, not a request. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go that they may celebrate a feast to me in the wilderness.

There it is. Moses with the confidence that God is on his side. Like you and I, when we go, perhaps knowing that God wants us to speak a word to our neighbor or to our friend or to our relative to do something that we know would honor him, we go with that confidence, expecting results, thinking that if I obey God, God will make everything work out just fine. And Pharaoh said in verse two words that struck the heart of Moses, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, this Yahweh, this God of a parcel of slaves.

Besides, I will not let Israel go. Moses does some quick thinking. He restates.

Now it's a request. Verse three. The God of the Hebrews has met with us. 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 sword. But the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you draw?

The people literally translated the peasants away from their work. Get back to your labors because Pharaoh is automatically going to be incensed. You are telling me the king of this great land of the conqueror of other lands that your God, who I have never met and could care less about, who must not care much for you because you're slaves, is telling me what to do. I don't know this God.

It's interesting. Most archeologists and biblical chronologists believe that this was Ramses two or Ramses. The second time seems to match that. Well, we have found by way of the spade of the archeologists, some interesting insights into the ego of this very man that Moses stood before. There is a mortuary temple that was built in Western Thebes in this man's honor, and they have discovered this. And I quote, this is Ramses the second. King of kings am I. If anyone would know how great I am, let him surpass one of my works.

Not a very humble man. Moses goes in and confronts him with the demands of Yahweh that he could care very little for. And Moses is, I think, shocked at his response.

And so he rephrases. But it really gets worse than that because Pharaoh will add to their labors for six the same day. That's the same day Moses and Aaron came to him. He commanded the task masters over the people in their form and saying, You are you are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously.

Let them go and gather straw for themselves. It was the custom in this day to mix water and mud and lay that in a wooden mold and allow the sun to dry it. And then they would use that. In fact, the Egyptian word brick is the word we get Adobe in our English language.

And so this was a practice of the day. But they would always use a straw or a grass to mix in with that mortar to give it firmness and to give it tenacity. And without it, bricks would crumble. Without it, they would have to carefully gingerly create those bricks because they didn't have the straw to keep it together. But he says, Without the straw, you keep up your quota.

And if you want straw, you go get it for yourself. The quota of bricks verse eight, which you were making previously impose on them. You are not to reduce any of it because they are lazy. Therefore, they cry out. Let us go and sacrifice to our God. In other words, they have time to think about going and worshiping this God, this insignificant God I've never heard of. They must not have enough work. We will crush the spirit of their worship. So the taskmasters verse 10 of the people and their foreman went out and spoke to the people saying, Thus says, Pharaoh, I am not going to give you any straw. You go and get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it.

But none of your labor will be reduced. So the people scattered. They scattered like frightened animals through all the land of Egypt together, stubble for straw. And the taskmasters pressed them, saying, Complete your work quota.

Your daily amount, just as when you had straw. There is the result of what Moses would think would lead to the deliverance of the Israelites. Have you ever had your hopes completely dashed? Perhaps it was something like a financial investment that you knew would work out and you lost every penny.

Perhaps it's something much smaller. And yet at the moment big, you plan a picnic for the family. And on that day it rains your hopes. You have felt that feeling. Perhaps where you are living right now in the situation where you are right now, you're having difficulty keeping your hopes up.

And in your heart there comes questions. We have all had our hopes and our expectations changed. In fact, my wife and I laugh about the day I proposed to her. I had that thing planned out to the T. I had practiced my proposal many times. Like most of you men, probably all of you men that are married in front of the mirror, you had it all mapped out. And boy, I had this thing planned. I was going to ask her to marry me on Thanksgiving day.

As a college student, I would work odd jobs and I was saving money because I wanted to put that ring on her finger and I wanted to not have any debt on that thing. And so I was feverishly working. It was in the fall obviously and I can still remember the last amount of money I needed to raise would be raised by raking this man's yard. The only problem is we were leaving the next day and that particular day was pouring down rain. So I was raking leaves in a downpour. And I can still remember this man. He'd come and look out the window.

He'd laugh and he'd tell his wife something, you know, that lunatic out there raking leaves. But I had to have that money for the final payment. Made it. Got that ring, stuck it in my pocket. We headed to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with her parents. I could imagine her throwing her arms around my neck and just, you know, jumping up and down with glee and saying yes 100 times and I'd just eat it all up. Well finally I got her alone and got that proposal and it all just came out just perfectly and it ended with the words, will you marry me? And her face turned pale and she got this look in her eyes and she said, I don't know.

No hug. You know, to this day I'm convinced. I talked her into marrying me because I said, you're wearing this.

Put it on. Oh man, we have so many illustrations in our lives where we think we've got everything mapped out and then someone doesn't respond. I can imagine Moses walking into the courtroom with his chest full of confidence and he looks up at that Pharaoh and he says to Pharaoh, let my people go, God says. And Pharaoh says, who is your God?

And makes their bondage even worse. I want you to notice the reaction first to Pharaoh, the foreman of the sons of Israel, verse 15 came and cried out to Pharaoh saying, why do you deal this way with your servants? There's no straw given to us, but you keep saying, make bricks. Hold your servants are being beaten, but it is the fault of your own people. He said to them, you are lazy.

You're lazy. Therefore you say, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. So go now and work. You see, Pharaoh's offended that they would worship someone other than him.

That's the whole problem. You go and work and you'll be given no straw. Verse 18 yet you must deliver the quota of bricks. When they left verse 20 Pharaoh's presence, they met Moses and Aaron as they were waiting for them.

Can you imagine this? The text indicates that Moses and Aaron were stationed somewhere, perhaps down a corridor there in the palace. And they were waiting to hear the response of the foreman before a Pharaoh.

And they come storming down this hallway and they turn the corner and they walk face to face. They walk right into Moses and Aaron and they unleash incredibly painful words on them. Verse 21 they say to them, may the Lord look upon you and judge you for you have made us literally stink in Pharaoh's sight and in the sight of his servants to put a sword in their hand to kill us. Moses, Aaron, you have made our bondage worse. May God judge you. Put yourself in his shoes. Here he is doing what God has told him to do.

There you are living in a way that God has commanded you to live. And what do you get? The dashing of expectations? The pain of rejection?

Misfortune? You would say to God exactly what Moses is about to say. In fact, if you are following along in your notes you need to jot down two words because he is going to ask two questions.

Basically one word each. The first question is why? Why? Verse 22, then Moses returned to the Lord and said, oh Lord, underline, why have you brought harm to this people? Why did you ever send me?

He's going back to the burning bush. In effect he's saying, God, why did you ever send me? I told you at the burning bush that I was not the man for the job. Why did you ever talk me into it?

Why did you ever send me? I don't believe that there is a question posed to the throne of God any more than the question why? God's answer for him is the same answer for you if you are at a point now where you are asking God why.

It is an incredibly profound answer. Verse one of chapter six. Then the Lord said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.

Did you catch that? Moses, I have brought you to an end of yourself and to an end of your ministry so you will see now what I will do. This isn't going to be won by a trick with the rod or the staff. Pouring the water out into blood will not really accomplish what needs to be accomplished. It will be done by me says Yahweh. But I want to give Moses the benefit of one thing. And in fact, I think you want to underline this in your text. Verse 22 of chapter five.

I missed it, but I want to go back the first phrase. Then Moses returned to the Lord. And I like that because Moses was giving God an opportunity to answer him. Men and women, without a doubt, Christianity is filled with the ruins of very bitter people who have difficult things land on their doorstep and they chuck it all. They never go back to the Lord and even ask why.

They simply respond with, Well, God, if that's what's going to happen when I give you the reins of my life and I do what I think you want me to do, forget it. I'm God. But Moses did go back and God's answer then comes to him in the form of six. I am. Get your pen out.

I want you underline these six times. God will say, I am the Lord. Verse two. God spoke further to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord.

You want to know the answer to the question why it is the answer of who just know that I am a sovereign God. I am Yahweh. Verse six. Say to the sons of Israel, I am the Lord. Verse seven. And you shall know that I am the Lord. Verse eight. Last part of the verse. I am the Lord. Verse 29. I am the Lord. Chapter seven, verse five. I am the Lord. I believe that answer is fundamental in our theology, in our lifestyles. It is an understanding of who God is. If you went out on the street today and you asked 10 people, do you believe in God? Eight out of 10 would say yes. But if you went out on the street and you asked 10 people, who is God? You would get 10 different answers. I really believe that the crack in the foundation, the thing that makes the church stumble, the thing that creates confusion and ineffectiveness is at its very basic root, a lack of understanding of who God is.

A.W. Tozer writes that the first step downward in any church is when it surrenders its high opinion of God. Is God a God of justice? Then he would demand in us lives of honesty and integrity. Is God a God of grace? If that is who God is, then he demands lives of love motivated by grace.

If God is a God of holiness, then he would demand his children to be holy and pure. And that's why I go back to the thought that the problem in our lives, ladies and gentlemen, is that we really have surrendered our high opinion of who God is. Because we have surrendered our high opinion of God in our Christian world, we not only as individuals struggle with the day to day trials, but the church is losing ground. It goes back to our view of who God is.

We have a light view of him. And so when we hear of him and when we hear his word, we are convicted, but we are not changed. We are challenged, but we are really not converted. Because when we take a low opinion of God, we take a low opinion of God's words. And so in our society today, this book is being questioned and debated and dissected and disobeyed.

Why? Ultimately, we do not know who God is. Isn't it interesting that you would think that God would give to Moses a better program, a more effective plan, but he doesn't. The church is far too long, been impressed with growth rather than truth, with programs rather than purity.

Why? Because we have reaped the generation that knows very little about God and we are, we ought to be concerned men and women that we like Peter become the bastion for the truth as a church that we present to our young, to the next generation, a pure truth. Theology that is who God really is in his character. What God is doing is giving Moses a lesson in theology proper. He is saying, I am Yahweh. Moses asks a second question, and this is typical.

We ask the same thing. God tells Moses in verse 10, look, verse 11, go tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the sons of Israel go out of this land. And I think Moses is probably wondering, Lord, were you there the last time I was in the courtroom? Did you forget what Pharaoh said?

You want me to say the very same thing again? Moses spoke before the Lord, verse 12, saying, behold, look, the sons of Israel have not listened to me. How then will Pharaoh listen to me?

For I am unskilled in speech. That's the second question. And God's answer will come back at least 10 times. He will say these words.

I will. Verse six, Chapter six, I will bring you out. Not you, Moses.

The how was not related to your strength. The answer is my strength. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Underline these as we go along. I will deliver you from bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. The word redeemed.

There is the word reclaim used in the beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth, where Boaz reclaims or redeems his bride. God is saying, I will reclaim my bride, my nation. I will do it because I am the Lord. Verse seven, I will take you for my people.

I will be your God. Verse eight, I will bring you to the land which I swore to get to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I will give you a possession for I am the Lord. Chapter seven, verse three, I will harden Pharaoh's heart. I will multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh will not listen to you, for I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring you out. Bring out my hosts, my people, the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt by great judgments.

And the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh because I will stretch out my hand on Egypt. There is no better answer if you question why how God says I am who I am and because I am who I am, I can do what is best for you. You see, ladies and gentlemen, you need to understand and I don't want you to miss if you get anything else.

Get this. Because I believe this is at the root of the problem when we question God. God's reputation is at stake. If he said he will, he he will. And if he doesn't, he has far greater to lose than you do because he has broken his word.

God is telling Moses, I will bring you out of Egypt. Bank on it. Trust me. My word is true and I have the power and the strength to back it up.

I'm going to do it. What a beautiful place to be in as a minister of Christ, as a person who is trying to impact your community and your courtroom for God. You bank on the fact that God will do what he wants and what he wills.

He is powerful enough for the job. Moses, I am the Lord. And because I am Yahweh, because I am who I am, I can do what I say I will do. Let me give you one point by way of application.

Very simple. Affliction produces wisdom. Affliction produces wisdom. And in turn, wisdom then understands the value of affliction. Wisdom recognizes the invisible hand of an all powerful God. And in that afflicted state, when we return like Moses to God, he gives us a lesson of his character. And there is the greatest wisdom. The fear of the Lord, Solomon said, is the beginning of wisdom. The reverential trust and understanding of who he is will allow you and me to face the hardships of life without growing bitter.

Because of who I am, I will do what's best for you. William Cowper, in a time of great discouragement and despondency, got so deep in discouragement, let me quote, he tried to put an end to his life by drinking poison. God graciously led someone to find him and relieve him and he was delivered. Evidently, his stomach was pumped out. And as soon as he recovered and got back home, he ordered a coach to take him down to the Thames River where he planned to jump. The driver of the coach held him back. Frustrated that evening, he went home and fell on a knife and the blade broke.

Can't even die. So he put up a rope in the basement and he put his neck in the noose and he jumped and a friend came in before he strangled to death and took him down. Finally, Cowper got at his Bible and he flipped it open to Romans chapter eight. And in the depths of his sorrow, God met him there and he went to his knees. Later, as a man of God, he wrote these words that you'll recognize. God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. He plants his footstep in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep and unfathomable minds of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright design and works his sovereign will. In the storm, in the chaos, there in the midst of your affliction and troubled heart, he is Yahweh. He is all powerful.

And because he is all powerful, he is bound and capable of carrying out his work when he said he would do nothing for you other than that which would bring about spiritual good. You ask why? He introduces himself. You ask how?

He introduces his power. Has obeying God ever brought you trouble and opposition? Has doing the right thing ever resulted in your life becoming more difficult? That was certainly the case with Moses. And I trust that looking at the example of Moses encouraged you today. During the month of July, we have a free resource to equip you to think biblically about politics. It's an excerpt from Stephen's book, I Pledge Allegiance. Go to wisdomonline.org for information. There's a link on the homepage that's going to direct you to this free resource. We're glad you're with us. Please be sure and come back next time as we bring you more wisdom for the heart.