hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Yes, it is just I today and tomorrow as well. Pastor PJ is out for just a brief spell, but he will be back, hopefully in short order. Nothing's the matter. He's doing okay. He's just taking care of some personal business, and we trust that he'll be back soon. But until then, it's just you and I. Today, January 31st, we're going to tackle chapters four, five, and six of the book of Exodus. So we're just in this. And this is a really exciting turn for the people of Israel. You might recall that we're fast forwarding several years in the narrative here in the book of Genesis. We saw the beginning of the primeval history and the patriarchal history. We ended with Joseph being buried. And here in the book of Exodus, we're now finding that the Pharaoh doesn't know who these people are. And what he sees them as is a threat and not a blessing. In chapter three, what we just left off on, Moses is called by God at the burning bush, and he's commissioned by God to be the deliverer of Israel. In chapter four where we pick up today, we find out that Moses is reluctant to say the least. In fact, Moses gives at least three excuses that I can identify in the first half of chapter four. One of the excuses he gives is is that they won't believe him. The second excuse he gives is that he can't speak well. And the third excuse, if you can call it, this is, I just don't want to go. Please don't send me. So each of these, God slowly responds to the first one. They won't believe him. He gives him some credibility. He gives him authority to operate on his behalf. The second one saying, I can't speak well. God says but there's a problem with that Moses, because I designed your tongue. You're going to be just fine. Trust me. Finally, he says, but please, I don't want to do this. And then in verse 14, it says, then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. Now, what you might expect is for God to strike him dead immediately. But instead, what God does is say, fine, let me send you and Aaron, your brother, so that you can do this with a little bit more confidence. This is amazing because what God should have done is destroy Moses at the very moment of his rebellion. It was seemingly impossible. Preposterous for anyone to respond back to God and say, I can't do it. That's the point, Moses, because you can't do it in your own power, but with his power, you'll be just fine. Finally, God gets Moses to bow the knee and say, okay, now that you've given me these supports and these comforts in particular, his brother Aaron, who can speak well, now he's willing to get up and go still not without his problems though. In verses 18 through 20, Moses gets the approval from his father in law to make his way back to Egypt. In verses 21 through 23, this is the first time that God speaks about Pharaoh and says, I am going to harden his heart. Verse 21 says it like this, but I will harden his heart, that is Pharaoh, so that he will not let the people go. In other words, God is calling his shots before they happen. And then he says, you're going to say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. And if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son. So it's a firstborn for a firstborn. And in this case, God is already telling Moses, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. So even though we know Pharaoh is making a decision on his own, he's not having God force him to do this. God already knows and is predicting, if you can call it that, that Pharaoh will harden his heart. Along the journey, there's a slight hiccup starting at verse 24. What we think is happening here is that Moses failed to uphold the covenant obligations to circumcise his son. And so on the way over God made it aware to Zipporah in some way that he was going to slaughter them. He's going to kill them. But Zipporah being the wise woman that she is, cuts off her son's foreskin and touches Moses feet with it. And then she says, surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. And so God let him alone. Now, it's interesting here because feet could be actual feet, or it could be a euphemism for genitalia. So Is it one or the other? Hard to know for sure, but no matter what it is, what we do know is that Zipporah jumped in, and the blood of this circumcision is what eventually atoned for Moses sin in not doing it in the first place. She saves his life. This is not the first time a woman has stepped in to save Moses life, and God does along the way in the wilderness, God meets Moses with Aaron, Aaron's briefed on the plan, and then they finally meet the elders of Israel, and the elders of Israel, I love this in verse 31, they believe, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and they worshipped. What an appropriate response when you realize God is stepping in to do something great in your life. This is an appropriate response for us today when God does, even the mundane things. Amen. That we think is pretty ordinary. Again, providing a meal for us would be one of those things. We should give thanks. Bowing our heads in worship when God delivers, when God showcases that He is listening. That's a good response. Chapter 4 is an interesting one because you find so many interesting insights about Moses character and even how God deals with him. I think one of the big takeaways for you, and for me, is that we never ought to downplay God's utility of any person. I know most of us feel like who's worthy to do what God wants us to do? And even Paul says, who is sufficient for these things? The ministry itself requires so much of us, but life requires a whole lot of us, and we can often feel outgunned and outmanned. Anyone on the side of God is a majority. It doesn't matter who the opposition is. If you have God on your side, if you are on His side more specifically, then you have nothing to fear. If God calls you to do something, don't be afraid of that. And instead of being fearful, let that drive you toward obedience and confidence. And He's got it all under control. Exodus chapter five, things get worse before they get better. In fact, after Moses and Aaron approached the Pharaoh, they find out that the Pharaoh is not no respecter of the God Yahweh. And so he says, who is this Lord? Who is this King? It sounds a little reminiscent of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter three. He says, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. I do not know Yahweh. And moreover, I will not let Israel go. And they now have a problem. Instead of Pharaoh saying, yes, let's do this, he makes the burden of the people heavier. He says, instead of us giving you the bricks, now we're going to make you do the manual labor of collecting all the resources that you need to make the bricks. Verse 10. So the taskmasters in the foreman of the people went out and said to the people, thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go and get your straw yourselves, wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced even in the least. So you're still responsible for the same level of output. Although the input is going to be far less. Obviously the people groan under the weight of this burden. They beg for relief, but they get none. They get no sympathy. The response is, you guys are lazy, you're idle, you need to be whipped into shape. You can imagine how these people felt after this took place. They turn to Moses and Aaron and say I hope you're happy with yourselves. Look what you did. They basically laid on them and sang, The Lord look on you and judge because you have made a stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants. And they put a sword on us to kill us. Thank you very much guys, you've helped out quite a bit. In verse 22, moses turned to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For I came to Pharaoh to speak your name and he has done evil to this people. And you have not delivered your people at all. What this reminds us is that obedience doesn't always result in quick blessing. Moses responds with prayer, which is a good prayer. Probably could be better in terms of not complaining, but the right response is there. He inclines himself to the Lord and says, Lord, this is what you're doing. Help me. Help me figure this out. Now you're going to be in a similar situation. I guarantee you, you're going to find yourself doing what the Lord wants and finding yourself on the other side saying that didn't seem to work out the way that I had hoped. God didn't bless me immediately. And that's okay because God doesn't operate on our timescale. We have to be patient and let the Lord work things out as he sees fit. The posture of the Christian is one of humility and patience. Trusting him, even as we take small steps of obedience, or in Moses case, large steps with unpredictable consequences. Chapter six doesn't have a break. Now, there's a title break for us, and there's a chapter break, but it looks if you were just to take out the chapter and title break here, you would see an unbroken scenario. The Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land. A strong hand is the Lord's. It's the Lord provoking Pharaoh to do exactly what he wants. And he says something interesting here in verse 3. He says, I appeared, this is God speaking, I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, that is, El Shaddai. But by my name, the Lord, Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them. That's not technically right in the sense that God is not trying to say something precisely true, as in I never said the name Yahweh. What he's saying is that I revealed myself as El Shaddai, God Almighty, to the ancestors, your patriarchs, but I'm going to display a new facet of my character by my name. That correspondence to my name, that is my covenant, keeping faithfulness to you. You're going to see a larger expression of this. Now, remember the book of Exodus is all about the Exodus. God delivering his people out of Egypt. And this is the paradigm of salvation that orients the entire old Testament narrative, everything about the old Testament looks backward to this event of God's salvation, God's deliverance of the people of Israel through Egypt, and then looks forward to the ultimate deliverance that will come through Jesus Christ. And God says this is going to be a cornerstone event. This is going to be the kind of event that cannot be ignored. It's going to define and shape my relationship with you going forward. And so he talks about his covenant. He says, I'm going to redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. And then verse nine, Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel. But get this, they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. And there is such a thing as being too low to even hear the truth. Being so discouraged, so depressed that you can't respond to what's there. What do you do with something like this? Yet again, Moses going to the Lord and the Lord tells him, I want you to go to Pharaoh and get to work. Moses is reluctant yet again. How can I do this? I am of uncircumcised lips. I don't have the right words to speak. I'm not eloquent. There's better people, Lord. Please send them. Oh, the humility and patience of the Lord, the condescension, because again, he doesn't destroy Moses. Verse 13, But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, and gave them to him. A charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. Okay, so Moses makes excuses, God rejects them, he enlists the help of Aaron yet again, and a mercy to Moses and gets them on their way. Now what we have next is an odd placement, you have the genealogy of Moses and Aaron. Here's why I think this genealogy is here and not at the beginning of the book or some other place. I think it goes down to verse 26. These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, bring out the people of Israel. And this is meant to highlight just exactly who we're talking about here. God's going to use him in such a profound way that Moses, who I believe is the one writing the book of Exodus, now inserts their pedigree, their lineage, to say these are the Moses and Aaron, the one and the same Moses, who come from this lineage. This is who God used to deliver the people of Israel. A couple things you might notice here, verse 20, his parents names are Amram and Jacobet. That's something you'll want to keep in mind. Amram and Jacobed, that's the name of his mother and father, and they're from the line of Levi. They're Levites, which, of course, God's going to use in a very special way, and we're going to get to that very soon when we get to the book of Leviticus. Okay, that's chapters 4, Tomorrow, we're going to jump into the plagues, and we're going to cover the first, I believe, seven plagues? In these few chapters that we covered today. There's just three. I would love to remind you, God can use you. God wants to use you and you may feel inadequate, ill suited for the task. But if God calls you, God will equip you. Trust him to do that. Just like he used Moses. Now, ultimately, Moses is not the hero. It's because Moses is weak that God is demonstrated to be strong. This is something very similar to what Paul says in second Corinthians chapter 12. It is because he's weak. Paul's weakness highlights, demonstrates Christ's weakness. Worthiness, Christ's strength and ability to use even the weakest among us to accomplish His glory's purposes. And hey, that's you and me. Okay, let's pray. God, I thank you so much for using weak people like ourselves to exalt you. That's what we want. We don't want to be self sufficient, self sustaining creatures. We want to be the kind of people who. Out of drawing from your resources do great and remarkable things for your sake, for your glory. And for your honor, please help us to do that today. And as we go about our day, Lord, help us not to look down on the gifts that you've given to us. Paul talks about the way that we should think about ourselves. He says, let each person think of himself with sober judgment. That is that we don't think too highly of ourselves, but that we don't even think too lowly of ourselves. Let us not neglect the gifts that you've given us because we're afraid or because we're unsure. Help us to trust you and to use the gifts that you've given us for your glory and your purposes. We ask this all in Jesus name, amen. All right, folks, thank you so much for joining me today for the daily Bible podcast. I'll be back with you tomorrow for chapters seven, eight, and nine. Until then, keep at it and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

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