Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Sometimes good ideas, even well thought through plans, don’t work out as we hoped, right? Sometimes they even explode making the situation much worse than before. What have you done when that happens to you?
Exodus 5 gives us the story of Moses doing what God’s voice from the burning bush had told him to do… return to Egypt announcing that he’d met with God and God was about to rescue the Hebrews who’d been enslaved in Egypt for several generations!
Moses had grown up in that Egyptian palace and understood the undisputed power of Pharaoh. Exodus 4 shows us just how reluctant, almost traumatized Moses became even thinking about returning to face Pharaoh in that royal throne room, the most powerful room in the world at that time!
But courageously Moses did go back and initially the Israelite elders who first received him were delighted with his news that God was concerned about them. (Exodus 4:29-31) But Pharaoh’s response was, as Moses feared, harsh and humiliating: “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!” (Ex. 5:1,2) And with that rebuff Moses and Aaron were dismissed from their brief audience with the Pharaoh and probably they were gruffly hurried out of Pharaoh’s presence!
Immediately Pharaoh responded to this shocking and threatening encounter with Moses by issuing an order that would radically move slave life in Egypt from difficult to brutal! No longer would the slave masters supply the brick making mud pits with straw!
Beginning immediately the slaves would have to find their own straw for making bricks yet their daily production quota would not be altered! And failure to meet the daily brick quota would be met with beatings! Their cry for help which had been going up to God now turned to cries of anger aimed at Moses: “You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials who are going to kill us!” (Ex. 5:21)
Moses was devastated! The mission and message entrusted by God to Moses at that burning bush miracle, had brought Moses back to Egypt but… it had exploded in his face. Pharaoh was mocking him; the Israelites were rejecting both him and his message from God; and Moses was confused, probably doubting the legitimacy of his experience at that burning bush.
Moses had only one place to go…back to God seeking answers! His words and tone reflect his frustration: “Moses returned to the LORD and said, ‘Why Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Is this why You sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and You have not rescued Your people at all!” (Ex. 5:22,23)
Moses had nothing to lose by being honest, forthright, direct and seeking answers only God could give him. Have you ever been in that place of frustration with God, perhaps feeling God wasn’t being fair, or maybe God wasn’t holding up His end of the bargain you thought you had with God?
So what was happening here my friends? Had Moses misunderstood God? Had God changed His mind? Had God miscalculated Pharaoh’s response? Or could it be God actually preparing something the world would never forget but it would require patience, persistence, some pain but also great faith and obedience on the part of Moses and the Israelites?
Can you discern when God is doing something much bigger than you understand and God is asking you to join with Him, but let God lead the process? How have you handled those rare opportunities in your life journey?
God answered Moses’ hard questions with this powerful statement: ‘Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh! Because of My mighty hand he will drive the Israelites out of his country!” (Ex. 6:1) God was preparing a power showdown… the power of Egypt vs the power of the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Israelites.
While it had been about 400 years since Almighty, Eternal God had made His Covenant with Abraham, (Gen. 15:4,5,18) and then Isaac (Gen. 26:2-4) and then Jacob; (Gen. 28:13,14) and while Jacob’s descendants had abandoned the Covenant Land God had given them and stayed in Egypt hundreds of years after the famine was over back in Joseph’s time; (Gen. 50:22)
God had heard their desperate cries, He was concerned about their suffering and God was ready to fulfill the promise He had made to Jacob to bring Jacob’s descendants back home to Canaan by God’s supreme, undeniable power! (Gen. 46:3,4)
Now pause a few seconds. Can you and I apply that great truth to our lives, our painful and complex life situations? Does Almighty God know much more about your situation and mine, your life and mine, than we do and is He more powerful enough to accomplish ANYTHING He wants, for His glory and our good…at any time HE wants?
Please notice in Exodus 6:6-8 that God then made a prolonged, powerful, detailed promise about what He was going to do in Egypt to rescue these Hebrew slaves, His people. Look carefully at God’s specific declarations:
* “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians…
* I will free you from being slaves…
* I will redeem you with mighty acts of judgment…
* I will take you as MY own people and I will be your God…
* I will bring you to the land I swore to give to Abraham…
* I will give it to you as a possession…”
* “I am the LORD.” (Exodus 6:6-8)
Let’s stand there in those mud pits with those weary, worn, frustrated Hebrew slaves. How would you have responded if this message had come to you from God? Here’s what they did: “Moses reported all this to the Israelites, but they DID NOT LISTEN TO HIM because of their discouragement and harsh labor.” (Ex. 6:9)
I know we’d all like to have a happy ending today, but we must face the truth. Sometimes the circumstances of life we find ourselves in are so complex, so discouraging, so hopeless even promises we read in God’s Word or words intended to be encouraging by our friends spoken to us are like rain on a tin roof… nothing but noise, leaving our hearts untouched.
Oh, we know the end of the story and that a great deliverance was soon to happen for these slaves, but they didn’t know that. All they knew was life was getting more painful by the day, and Moses’ promises of God’s compassion seemed nothing but empty words.
So, let’s pause right here for today… what do you do when you find yourself in a ‘mud pit’ like they were in?
I’m offering us a very significant worship song today; and then additional notes and questions in the Grand Narrative link just below, and I urge you to press in to see what God might want to say to you in your situation today, my friends. I’ll be here, waiting for you tomorrow…
Today’s Scripture: Exodus 5 & 6.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Exodus 6
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“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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