Bible characters are not always larger than life heroes.
Sometimes we treat Bible characters as larger than life heroes. Consider Moses, or is it Charleston Heston? OK, Moses. It's easy to skim the high points of his life including his birth, Pharaoh's decree to kill every Hebrew baby, the defiance of the Egyptian midwives, Moses'
mother and Pharaoh's daughter. The deliverance of Moses from the river, the burning bush, and the parting of the Red Sea are other high points. It's easy to skim the high points and totally miss the low points (the valleys, the struggles, the fear, and the stubbornness) of Moses.
These men weren't superheroes. I wrote part of my sermon downtown, while I was near the Lincoln sites. Today, Lincoln is larger than life, but we have these sites and a library to remind us of Lincoln's ordinariness. What incredible things were born from his
adversity and hardships! Many times we think God's plan for us entails zero hardship and zero adversity. But there is no evidence of this in scripture. Do yourself a favor and stop reading the Bible with rose-colored glasses on your face.
Moses had to experience hard things. Consider Exodus 4:22-23 (NIV) as an example. God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh, "Then say to Pharoah, 'This is what the Lord says, 'Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, 'Let my son go, so he may worship me.' But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son."
God would not allow anything to come between him and Israel.
Think what great affection and what intense love a father has for his firstborn son. How dare Pharaoh think he could ever come between God and his firstborn son Israel! But Pharaoh's heart was hard, and he had no intention of letting Israel return to God.
The only thing that would break Pharaoh's hardened heart was for Pharaoh to somehow lose his firstborn son.
But God didn't just want this for Pharaoh. As the leader of Israel, Moses also had to understand that no one, no matter how great and powerful, would come between God and his firstborn son Israel. In Exodus 4:24 we're told that the Lord met Moses and was
about to kill him. But I started studying this a bit more, and if you look in your Bible, there is a textual variant. Another possibility, and I believe a more likely possibility, is that it's not Moses, but Moses' firstborn son that God is about to kill.
Can you imagine the dread that Moses and his wife must have felt? God is about to take Moses' firstborn son, just as Pharaoh was trying to take God's firstborn son Israel. What father wouldn't do everything in his power to spare his firstborn son? If you want
to see the fury of a man, try to take his son. Neither Pharaoh nor Moses could fully comprehend God's love for Israel until they experienced firsthand what it might be like for a father to lose his son.
In Exodus 4:24 God comes between Moses and is about to kill his firstborn son. But at just the right moment, in Exodus 4:25 Moses' wife Zipporah takes out a flint knife and circumcises their son, shedding his blood. Upon seeing this sacrifice, God in his mercy spares their son.
You are right to see a parallel between Abraham and Moses and his firstborn. God demanded that Abraham sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. But as Abraham took that knife, and was about to sacrifice his son, an angel restrained his hand. God
provided a ram as a blood sacrifice so that Abraham's beloved son would not have to die, but would live. God spared Abraham's and Moses' sons.
We cannot truly grasp the intensity of God's love until we know what sacrifice feels like.
So why all the drama? The same that was true for Pharaoh was true for Moses. It was true for Abraham and is true for today's Christian. We cannot truly grasp the intensity of God's love for Israel or for the Church until we know what it means that a father
would dare sacrifice, or even shed the blood, of his beloved son.
God our Father was so resolute about redeeming Israel that as John 3:16 (NIV) teaches, he did not spare his Son, but gave him up freely so that, "...whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." As Romans 8:32 (NIV) says, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave
him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" And as Paul also says in Romans 8:31 (NIV), "If God is for us who can be against us?"
God was about to redeem his firstborn son Israel, and no king, no person, and no thing, no matter how great and powerful, could stop the hand of God. There is no stopping a father from desiring the affection or the worship of his beloved son. In Exodus 8:1 (NIV) the Lord told Moses to say, "Let my
people go, so that they may worship me."
So these verses at the end of Exodus 4 are a high point. A son has been spared. In Exodus 4:26-28 Moses meets Aaron in the desert and tells him everything that the Lord has said and done. He tells Aaron about the miraculous signs from God, the burning
bush, the staff, the leprous hand in the cloak thing, and how God spared his son. It's an incredible testimony.
Exodus 4:29-31 (NIV) says, "Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord
was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped."
We must finally understand that nothing can separate us from the affection of God.
A watershed moment is when we understand God's mercy and grace, and know that nothing can separate us from the affection of God. As Paul says in Romans 8 neither trouble, nor hardship, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor danger, nor sword can separate us from the love of God. We're more than conquerors through him who loved us. Moses got it. Aaron got it. The elders finally got it. The Israelites got it. The glory of God, that had once seemed so obscure, became perfectly clear.
In Exodus 5:1 (NIV) Moses and Aaron, perhaps glowing in confidence, obey the Lord and say to Pharaoh, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.' " Oh, like that's going to happen!
Bricks without Straw? Really?
In Exodus 5:2 (NIV) Pharaoh refused to let God's firstborn go. He said, "Who is Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go."
In Exodus 5:3 (NIV) Moses and Aaron warned Pharaoh, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword." But Pharoah's heart was hard. Throughout Exodus 5 he made accusations against Moses and Aaron. "Why are you taking the
people away from their labor?" "Why are all of you so lazy?" "Why are all of your people crying?"
Pharaoh was so irate that he commanded his slave drivers to work the Hebrews even harder. He even took away the straw they needed to make bricks, while holding firm to their quotas that had to be made every day. They were required to make just as many bricks, at the same rate, and to
do so with the added burden of going out to get the straw they needed. When the Israelites couldn't meet their quotas, the slave drivers begin to beat the Hebrew foreman. In Exodus 5:21 (NIV) the Israelite foremen confronted Moses and Aaron. "May the Lord
look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us."
Hardness of the heart or mind is a betrayal of God.
When I read Exodus 5 I couldn't tell which was the greater tragedy. Was it the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, that he thought he could stand between God almighty and his firstborn son Israel? Or was it the hardness of those Israelite foremen, that they didn't realize
that because of God's great love, they were more than conquerors? Didn't they realize that if God was for them, who could possibly stand against them?
Both tragedies continue to unfold today. Some of you are like Pharaoh, and think that you can oppose God. You say to yourself, "Who is the Lord that I should obey him? I don't know the Lord." But some of you are like the Israelite foreman. You forget God's
power and strength and his love for you and his determination to provide an epic deliverance for all who believe.
Moses becomes discouraged and is encouraged by the Lord God.
In Exodus 5:22-23 (NIV) Moses returned to the Lord discouraged. "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."
Exodus 6:1-8 (NIV) says, "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.' God also said to Moses, 'I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan,
where they lived as aliens. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you
as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I
will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.' "
All of this reminds me of how Paul encouraged the Corinthians. As Christians, they were suffering. They had trusted Christ for eternal life, but their bodies were wasting away, they were getting older, they were losing their strength, and they were experiencing trouble and
hardship and pain. Like the Israelites, it was difficult for them to reconcile God's plan with their hardship and pain.
But what did Paul say? In 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 (NIV) he said, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus'
sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: 'I believed; therefore I have spoken.' With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his
presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not
on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
In Exodus 6:9 (NIV) we read a sad thing. "Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage."
No kind of trouble can separate us from God's love.
Here is where I want to end things this morning. It isn't just Pharaoh that has to learn a lesson. It's also God's people Israel. And it isn't just God's people Israel, it's the Christian. It's all of us. In Exodus 7-12 God sends ten different plagues upon the house of
Pharaoh. We're going to pick these back up next week. Ten plagues. Ten object lessons, each one intended to teach God's people Israel, and to teach Pharaoh a hard lesson. No one, and no thing, can stand against God, or can separate us from the love of
God.
Romans 8:35-39 (NIV) tells us, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be
slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:31-32 (NIV), "If God is for us who can stand against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"