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Good morning my friends, today is the 4th of July, I’m sure you don’t need my reminder of that.
I wonder what this day will hold for you? A parade, a picnic with friends or family, a patriotic concert, probably fireworks somewhere tonight.
We have so much to be thankful for, as we consider this amazing miracle, the United States of America, do you agree?
Have you considered how many peoples of the world are joining with us today in this celebration? I know, I’ve lived in one of those places so grateful for the help of America and Americans. Here are some things I invite us to reflect on today…
1. No nation has been as generous with financial foreign aide to the suffering peoples of the world as America. Billions of dollars are given., not loaned, each year, in all types of assistance… feeding starving children, providing medical care and every other imaginable help, to the disadvantaged peoples of our world.
2. No other nation has provided more military assistance, to peoples seeking to be free from tyranny and anarchy and dictatorships and genocide and terrorism and ethnic cleansing, than the USA.
3. No nation has sacrificed more of their soldiers to death, in defending or earning freedom on foreign soil, for people whose languages we do not speak…than the USA.
4. No nation has educated more adults, many of them future leaders from other countries, than American Universities.
5. No nation has received, both legally and illegally, more immigrants and refugees, from the rest of the world, than the USA.
6. No nation has given the world more medical and scientific advance, technology development, exploration of all the frontiers… ocean depths, mountain heights, even space, then the USA.
7. And I’ve saved the most important for last…, no nation has sent more missionaries to more places, supported by more resources of every kind, than the Christians of America!
And may I boldly suggest, of all the above, NOTHING has accomplished more for the benefit of our world, than #7… the great, global, missionary movement, of the past 150 years, from Christians in the United States to the world.
We can only thank God for His blessing of our nation, and His guidance of us to do all this. And prostrate ourselves before Him in worship today, begging for His intervention in the downward spiral of our nation, and calling for our fellow Christians to stand tall and strong, living our lives for God’s glory and honor.
We’re in Exodus chapter 5 today, in our summer journey in God’s Word together.
Chapter 4 ends with a wonderful worship service. For the first time in almost 400 years, the elder leaders of the Hebrews in Egypt, are hearing a word from the God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This word is coming to them from Moses, who they had not seen in 40 years, and now claims he has had a mountain-top, burning bush encounter, with the one true God and His name is “YWHW”, the great, “I AM WHO I AM”.
Evidently Moses told these leaders every detail of his encounter at the burning bush, and their response was to bow down and worship. My guess is there had never, in their lifetime, been a spiritual gathering of this magnitude. Think about that for a moment. When and where, have you experienced the most powerful, moving, life changing worship experience of your entire lifetime?
Encouraged by their response, Moses and Aaron went to meet the Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world. I wonder if in his enthusiasm, Moses had forgotten God’s warning to him: “But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, unless a mighty hand compels him.” (Ex. 3:19,20)
So Pharaoh’s response should not have shocked Moses, but I imagine it did: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey Him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go.”
Pharaoh was not impressed, either with Moses, or his claim that God had sent him, with a request that the Hebrews be released, for a worship pilgrimage into the desert. Why not?
Pharaoh knew only Egyptian, man fabricated idols, or the sun or moon that the Egyptians worshiped. He was himself viewed as a god in human flesh. Pharaoh had never had any encounter with anyone, or anything more powerful then himself… so a story about a burning bush, was for him, ridiculous.
Look around on this 4th of July, what is America’s response to God?
Seems to me, Pharaoh’s words could be spoken by a very large percentage of the American people in entertainment, media, politics, business, health care, education, in fact every segment of our society, INCLUDING Religion! Can you hear it rising up from almost every corner of America today… “Who is this LORD, that I should obey Him? I do not know the LORD and I will not.”.. honor him with my life, or trust him with my life choices, or spend any of my time seeking to know him, in fact I totally and absolutely reject this LORD, and everything about him.”
Do you hear that from all across our country?
Am I too harsh friends…or is that a fair assessment of the heart of many, many Americans on this the 243rd anniversary of that courageous signing of the Declaration of Independence?
Put yourself there in the palace, maybe hiding in the corner behind one of the muscle-bound security guards, and read the back and forth between Moses & Pharaoh, that we find recorded for us in Exodus 5. What do you sense was happening in that room?
“Get back to your work” Pharaoh shouted, as he expelled them from his presence. Pharaoh was upset, and the more he thought about it, the more upset he got, so he called his Vice President in charge of Slave Affairs and changed the rules… no more straw deliveries to the slaves in the brick making, mud pits. They would have to gather their own straw before daybreak or after their long days work, but their quota of bricks is not diminished by even one brick!
“They are lazy, that is why they are crying out, ‘let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.” (5:9)
Now, as you stand in the corner of the palace, watching this happen, if God gave you spiritual eyes, what do you think you’d see was going on here?
Satan hates God and anything about God. Satan hates God’s people, and throughout the Bible, if you’ll ask God to see events with spiritual eyes, you’ll see the overarching battle that rages between Jesus and Satan for every human being.
The only thing worse than physical bondage is bondage of the heart. Generation after generation these slaves were in inescapable physical bondage. No imaginable way of escape.
Their hearts were also in bondage to anger, resentment, bitterness and almost complete doubt about God. So when this order came out into the mud pits, not only was physical bondage turned into torture, the heart bondage was turned into rage…against God and his new emissary, Moses!
And look at the last few verses of this chapter… “When they [the Israelite foremen over the slaves] left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting for them and they said “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.” (5:20,21)
What would you have done if you were Moses? Dejected, heart-broken, confused, perhaps angry, Moses went somewhere, to be alone with God, and Moses poured out his heart. . . “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.”
WOW! Friends, one of the things I appreciate most about the Bible is that it’s real, it’s honest, it doesn’t hide the hard stuff. One of the things I respect so much about our great God… He does not receive us in His Presence expecting us to hide the hard stuff of life, pretending all is well.
The throne room of God is the most honest, open, transparent place in the world… no secrets, no pretending, only the real, raw stuff of what you honestly feel and think. And there, with full honesty, is where God can do what only God can do… in your heart, your mind, your attitudes, your character…and then He can involve you in His much larger plans and purposes in our world.
Moses was stuck… He felt like a failure. His first time up to bat, he’s struck out. More than that, he’s struck out with everyone… Pharaoh, the Israelite foremen who had to enforce this new law with their people, and even though the elders had first celebrated, I imagine that now they were in a panic too.
We’ve all been in this painful place haven’t we. We did what we thought was the right thing, even what we thought God wanted us to do… and it backfired. And now things are worse than before. What do we do in the back-draft of the fire? We do what Moses did… we go and meet with God, lay it all out before Him, and wait and LISTEN!
Psalm 37:7 says “Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”
Tomorrow we’ll look at chapter 6 which begins with God saying to Moses “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. Because of MY mighty hand, he will let them go…”
I wonder what God sees going on in your life, your heart and mind? Do you need to come into His throne room and open up your heart to him like Moses did, because you’re disappointed or broken-hearted about something? He knows all about it, and He’d be delighted if you’d bring it to him… in all of its ugliness, and then just wait and LISTEN. God will speak to you about it, and He’ll get involved if you invite Him.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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