October 6, 2006

“IS THIS WHY YOU SENT ME?”

Exodus 4:21-7:7

Did you ever take on a new task for God or make a renewed commitment to him in some area of life – and things became worse? You really, honestly felt God’s leading and responded to it and took positive steps to address a problem or meet a need – and instead of helping, you actually made matters more complicated, more painful, more difficult, not only for yourself but for others?

That’s what happened to Moses in the passage before us this morning. Moses responds to the call of God and returns to Egypt. His first task is to meet with the leaders of the Israelites. He tells them of God’s message and of God’s intention to deliver them from slavery and he and Aaron demonstrate the special signs God gave them. It is a wonderful coming together! We are told in Exodus 4:31 that the people believed, and were so overcome by God’s concern for them that they bowed down and worshiped. It was a great beginning.

Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and asked him to release the Israelites to go into the desert to worship and hold a religious festival to God there. Pharaoh’s response is scathing. “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.”

His harsh answer is bad enough, but that is not all. He is so infuriated by the request that he makes their work even harder. He tells them to keep making bricks, but now they will not be supplied with the straw that is a key ingredient in brick-making. Instead they must gather their own straw wherever they can find it, but they must still make the same number of bricks. When they fail, the Hebrew foremen are whipped for not producing the usual quota. When the foremen go to appeal to Pharaoh, he accuses of the people of being lazy! Why else are they asking for time off to go into the desert? He sends them out with a command to go back to work and to meet their quotas!

As they leave, they meet Moses and Aaron outside. The foremen turn on them angrily. “This is your fault! Some deliverers you are! All you have done is make things worse. Now Pharaoh is out to kill us.” And they actually call on God to judge Moses and Aaron for causing them trouble.

Put yourself in Moses’ sandals right at that point. Can you imagine how he felt? We don’t have to rely totally on our imaginations, because he immediately goes and tells God how he feels in 5:22-23: 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.

You can almost taste and feel Moses’ despair and discouragement, can’t you? “God, I trusted you! I did what you told me to do, and it has only made things worse. Is this what you had in mind? Is this why you sent me?”

Have you ever been in that position and felt the way Moses did? We recently watched the film, The End of the Spear which tells the story of the five missionaries who were killed trying to bring the Gospel to a violent tribe of warriors in the jungles of Ecuador. They went because they believed God was calling them to share Jesus with these people. They knew it was dangerous. But they went anyway. I wonder what went through their minds when the warriors ran out of the forest with their spears raised? Some must have experienced the horror of seeing their companions speared first before they themselves were attacked. I wonder if the thought came to mind, “God, is this why you sent us?” These young men were in the prime of life. They all left young wives behind, most of them left young children. Surely those wives must have wondered, “God, is this what you had in mind? Is this why you sent us?”

To answer Moses’ question, I want us to step back and go behind the scenes in Exodus 4-7. What we are witnessing is the buildup to an epic battle, a mighty conflict. I want to give you a metaphor, a word picture to understand what happens in these next few chapters. The picture is that of a heavyweight boxing match. The stage is set, the lights are on, and the public address announcer is introducing the fighters.

“And in this corner, Pharaoh, ruler of all Egypt! Undefeated and undefeatable, lord of all he surveys!”  The Egyptians worshiped Pharaoh as a god. Each Pharaoh, they believed, was sent from heaven as a special gift to the Egyptians to rule over them and bring them power and prosperity. There are mentions in Egyptian inscriptions of the “mighty hand” of Pharaoh. His word was the final authority in the land. His pronouncements were introduced with the words, “Thus says Pharaoh!”

Arrayed alongside of Pharaoh are all the other gods of Egypt: the mighty Nile river was worshiped as deity. The sun god, Ra was revered. So were various other gods of crops, fields and fertility, all of which protected Egypt and ensured her prosperity.

“Now, in the other corner…who?” A nation of slaves? A shepherd with a staff in his hand? Moses speaks out, “Yahweh, the God of Israel says, ‘Let my people go!” And Pharaoh sneers, “Who is Yahweh? I do not know Yahweh! Why should I listen to him?”

And so the great conflict begins. The bell sounds, and the mighty Pharaoh comes out snarling and immediately deals some devastating body blows. “Take this! And this! And this! How dare you challenge me?”

By the time the first round is over, Moses and the Israelites are clinging to the ropes, gasping for breath, blood streaming from their cuts, ready to quit. “Where was God? Where was their champion?”

The end of chapter 5 ends very bleakly. What a disaster! Whose idea was it to engage in this battle anyway? But what we have to keep in mind is that the end of chapter 5 represents only the end of Round One. Now, tell me. Is this a one round fight? No. In fact, we could say that this fight is scheduled to go 12 rounds. A well known baseball manager in America was famous for his rather self evident remark about any sporting event: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Round one has been a disaster. But the fight is not over.

As Moses and the Israelites retreat to their corner after the first round, let’s listen in to what God has to say to Moses. His words are so clear and so reassuring in Exodus 6:1: Then the LORD (Yahweh) 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.”

It is as if God is saying, “We’ve got Pharaoh right where we want him! Now watch and see what I will do with my mighty hand.”

(Continue reading Exodus 6:2-8)

Once again, in God’s own words we see his character revealed. He repeats many of the same themes we saw when he spoke to Moses in the burning bush. He has heard the groaning of his people and he has remembered his covenant. He has come down as a deliverer, to bring the people out of bondage and to redeem them from slavery. The themes of deliverance and redemption are here. But he adds another one. It is the theme of adoption in verse 7: 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.

In fact, this is even more explicit back in Exodus 4:22-23: Then say to Pharaoh, “This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go so that he may worship me.”

And why will he do all this? The emphasis is clear in the text in his message to the Israelites in 6:6: I am the LORD (Yahweh)…and then in 7, Then you will know that I am Yahweh your God. And lest we missed the first two statements, he says it again at the end of verse 8: I am Yahweh.

Who is in the boxing ring against Pharaoh? Ultimately, it’s not the Israelites, or even Moses. It is Yahweh, the eternally present God of the universe. And when he starts to fight and raises his powerful hand, two things will happen. The Israelites, God’s own people, will know who he is. They will know that “I am Yahweh!” But even more than that, look down at chapter 7, verse 5: And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD (Yahweh) when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.”

We are watching the beginning of a mighty battle. The fight has opened badly for our side. Score round one for Pharaoh. But remember, this is only the first round. And listen to God’s promise. When it’s over, when the final round is fought, everyone will recognize who the victor is: Yahweh, the one and only true God.

Well, that is what is going on in these chapters. Yes, things look bleak. But God has a plan and he has the power, the “mighty hand” to accomplish his plan. “Now watch,” he says, “and see what I am about to do.” But as I have mentioned several times, there are three main characters in the book of Exodus. The first is God himself, and we have been looking at the story through his eyes this morning. But let’s take a look at it through the eyes of the other characters.

First of all, let’s look at the Israelites. How did they respond? If we were to graph their emotions through these 4 chapters, we would follow them from despair to faith in 4:31 and then back to despair again. In fact now their despair is darkened by the bitterness and anger that come with disappointment. Even when Moses delivers God’s encouraging words, look at their reaction in 6:9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.

Is that where you are this morning? You trusted God, you took a risk, you launched out in faith – and the battle became fiercer and the struggle harder and you got knocked down in the very first round. And now you’re angry and bitter and not about to trust God and try again. Just remember, the fight isn’t over after one round. Or maybe I should put it this way: It’s only over after the first round if you quit!

Let’s look at the story through Moses’ and Aaron’s eyes. If we were to graph their spiritual journey through these chapters, we would find them traveling from doubt to faith to doubt and back to faith again. Doubt in the desert became faith when they confronted Pharaoh the first time. This turned to doubt again after Pharaoh’s harsh reaction. “Is this why you sent me?” Even after God’s extensive reassurance, Moses still wobbled. Look at his words in Exodus 6:12: If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips? But after more reassurance and instructions in the first part of Exodus 7, Moses and Aaron got up, dusted themselves off and went back for round two. Look at Exodus 7:6: Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them. That is faith in action. And they never shied from the battle against Pharaoh again. As the book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:27: By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. He saw the true champion of the fight, invisible but standing tall to win the victory over the enemy.

In closing, I want to go back to the wives of those missionaries in Ecuador. The first round ended disasterously, with their husbands’ bodies lying dead on a sand bar in the middle of the Amazon jungle. “Lord, is this why you sent us?” But that was only the end of round one. It was not the end of the battle. They gathered themselves together. Not long after, Elizabeth Elliot, wife of Jim Elliot, one of the men who died, and Rachel Saint, the sister of the pilot who was also killed, made their way down river and made contact with the same village. They took the Elliots’ little girl with them. They stayed in the village, with the same men who had done the killing. And they began to share the Gospel with them. Over time, several of the other wives also visited with their families. The love and forgiveness they shared broke down the barriers of hostility and fear and hatred. Today there is a thriving church among the tribe. The very men who did the killing are now leaders in the church. “Lord, is this why you sent us?” Yes! But there is more here than a story of God’s grace in the Amazon. The death of the five missionaries captured world headlines. It was front page news. As the story spread, it released a flood of new missionary volunteers: Christians who dedicated themselves to Christ’s service around the world because of what had happened on a sand bar in the Amazon. “Lord is this why you sent us?” Yes. A thousand times, yes! It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. The battle doesn’t end after round one. Moses “persevered because he saw him who is invisible.” May we do the same. God is on our side.