Sermon Tone Analysis

Superficial Christianity only works superficially!

Superficial Christianity only gets people messed up.

Sure… it’s all fine… while it’s all fine.

The type Christianity that says “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” .

Some people even go around sharing their “faith” along those lines.

Doing so is safe… and makes everyone happy.

The person sharing is happy because they consider they’re sharing their faith.

The person listening is very happy.

Who wouldn’t be happy being told that anyone rich and powerful loves them and has a wonderful plan for them?

But then trouble strikes.

Tragedy, relationship breakdown, disease, accident… the list is endless.

But now confusion reigns.

If God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life… why do I hurt so badly?

Why doesn’t God fix it?

I don’t understand?

Today in Ex 4 we are going to find some things that may offend some people… that may make some people angry.

We’re also going to look at a couple of the most difficult to understand verses in the OT… and that will humble us.

But we’re also going to peer deep into the heart, passion and purposes of God and that will, I trust, excite us… encourage and bless us… and lead us to worship.

The eternal and sovereign, Creator and Lord who is there, who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures is so much more satisfying and trustworthy and able than the gods we make in our own image to satisfy our own little minds.

The gods we create in our own image are wonderful, benign, grandfatherly and nice… and might leave us to have our fun and play on earth while things are going OK with us.

But the God who is there is much more profound, deep, worthy of our adoration and worship.

Realising who God truly, actually is helps profoundly when our world crumbles and hurts and makes no sense to us.

Did God say that!

If we open to Ex 4:19 we see a summary statement about Moses with his wife, sons, donkey and a stick (staff of God) and returning to Egypt.

Look at vv21-23.

Did you notice: Perform before Pharaoh all the wonders (in vv8-9...to the Israelites...they were signs) now they are “wonders” to Pharaoh.

Signs point somewhere.

Wonders amaze and make people shake their heads and wonder… (In the NT we read about the miracles Jesus did being “signs and wonders).

One action with two different outcomes.

Israel saw in the miracles of Moses a sign that pointed to God…

whereas Pharaoh sees in Moses miracles a wonder that makes him shake his head in confusion… and get on with business.

Also notice: God said, “I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go!”

Some may say, “Is that fair?

I thought God so loved the world that he gave...”

He did.

But God’s much more complex than that!

Look what comes next, v23.

Let my son go… you refused (because I hardened your heart), so I will kill your firstborn son!

That’s gotta make us take a breath!

How do we understand this?

The apostle Paul in the NT comments on this… but he only makes it more potentially more offensive and confusing.

In Romans 9 Paul is pondering why God’s people don’t accept God’s Messiah… but then goes on to say that God is under no obligation to choose just Jewish people to be his people, he can choose Gentiles and reject Jews if he so desires.

Rom 9:16-18 “16 It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”

Between here and Ex 14 we are going to read 15 or more times about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.

Several times it is said, “Pharaoh hardened his heart”… and we also read “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart”.

But here in Ex 4. in the very first occurrence God says, I WILL harden Pharaoh’s heart… then I will kill his firstborn son because he refused me.

Firstly there is the paradox of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

If God sovereignly makes Pharaoh’s heart hard so he refuses God… how can God hold Pharaoh accountable on Judgement Day?

Pharaoh won’t have a let to stand on on JD… because he will agree he made his own heart hard.

He made a choice… for himself… with real consequences…

He didn’t want to hear God’s commands.

He didn’t want to lose his slaves.

He didn’t want to submit to God’s servant Moses.

He was Pharaoh; king, lord, ruler of everything!

No one forced him against his will to oppose God.

That’s the paradox of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

God in his absolute sovereignty over his entire creation has given mankind the responsibility to make real decisions with actual consequences and for which God will hold us to account.

One commentator said this is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be adored.

The exodus of Israel out of Egypt was a special time in human history where God gave an illustration of what he would later do through his Son at Calvary bringing many people out of slavery.

But in another sense it is just making plain what is true at every point in human history: That human beings are not the centre of the universe - but God is.

He is the brains, the author, the producer, the director and the main player… and whether it be Pharaoh resisting God’s will or other human beings doing God’s will… it is all for the glory of God.

Jay Adams, commenting on Rom 9:17 says, “Paul is saying that divine judgement on Pharaoh and Israel served God’s own interests.

To know this is important because it shifts the focus from man to God.

Does that surprise you?

Trouble you?

If so, consider why.

How would you expect the Creator of all things to act, if not in His own interests?”

No potter feels obligated to use his clay only to make pieces of pottery for his dining table or mantlepiece.

If he wants a chamber pot to put under his bed he’s free to use some of the clay for that purpose.

The clay can’t call the potter to account and tell him he’s obligated to only make beautiful pieces for his mantlepiece.

The potter acts in his own interest… to make things that serve him as he sees fit.

Nor do these lumps of clay (not Pharaoh… nor you and me !) call the Creator to account for making whatsoever he likes for his own purposes!

The Lord was about to kill Moses?

It only gets tougher… look at vv 24-26.

Read vv24-26.

After all that God has just done with Moses!

The burning bush… the long conversation… God’s great patience in revealing his plan, revealing his own heart, meeting Moses’ objections, providing Aaron.

Then when Moses goes back to Egypt, he pulls up for the night and God was about to kill him?

We are not told how God was about to kill him.

Maybe Moses gets very sick in the night.

Perhaps prayers are offered by Zipporah… and maybe Moses.

Apparently, the trouble was that Moses son had not been circumcised.

Zipporah takes a flint knife and circumcises (presumably) Gershom.

And Moses recovers.

But really, is not circumcising Gershom such a deadly sin?

There are as many explanations for these verses are there are commentators and preachers!

And all the ones I read said, “These are some of the hardest and difficult to explain verses in the OT” (That’s a bold claim!)

Perhaps we could just say Moses, like every other human being born of a union of a man and a woman is sinful and deserving of God’s judgement.

God is rightly, deeply offended at the propensity of humanity to make up our own minds about what commands of God are worth obeying… and how often we will obey… and how solidly we excuse ourselves from having to inconvenience ourselves by fully obeying every command all the time.

Ultimately, here, we have one hope to reassure us.

Notice that the text says, “the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him”.

Why about to kill him?

Why not just stop his heart on the spot.

Why make it a process?

Why the realisation that the problem was Gershom not having been circumcised?

Why provide another woman, the sixth in Exodus who have rescued Moses at points where he was totally helpless to help himself?

(Shiphrah and Puah, spared him at birth; His mother and sister spared his life when he was born; Pharaoh’s daughter!

spared his life from drowning in the river… and now Zipporah spares his life on his deathbed).