[Only One God] Exodus 5:1-6:9 | "Who Is The Lord?"
[Exodus] Only One God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 177 viewsSunday, March 27, 2022. Exodus 5:1-6:9 | "Who is the LORD?" Moses and Aaron attempt to enlighten Pharaoh with knowledge of God and elicit obedience based on God's word. How did they do? Let's listen and learn about the only God who is knowable and discover four ways to make Him known! This message preaches from Exodus 5:1-6:9. The title of this sermon: "Who is the LORD?"
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Introduction
Introduction
Prayer
Prayer
Pray
I. The Reading
I. The Reading
A reading from Exodus 5:1-9, reading from the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.
This is God’s Word:
1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!”
6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen,
7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves.
8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’
9 Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.”
Say Amen
Say Amen
If you receive this word by faith as the word of God and not the word of men, would you say with me, Amen? Amen!
II. The Exhortation
II. The Exhortation
When Pharaoh speaks in Exodus Chapter 5, Verse 2, he asks one question and makes one assertion, that both point to the same result:
Pharaoh does not know the LORD.
The king of Egypt does not know the LORD —
the God of Israel, the God who speaks, the God of the Hebrews, the God who meets with His people —
Pharaoh does not know Moses and Aaron’s God.
Pharaoh does not recognize Moses and Aaron’s God.
Pharaoh does not fear Moses and Aaron’s God.
Just look at what Pharaoh does.
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
Pharaoh rebels.
Not against Moses and Aaron, but against the LORD and the LORD’s voice.
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
Pharaoh’s rebellion against the LORD, was a direct result of his unwillingness to know the LORD who was speaking to him.
A word of application for us as hearers today:
Our rebellion against the Lord, is a direct result of our unwillingness to KNOW the Lord who is speaking to us.
As we read the pages of Holy Scripture, two truths are unavoidable and unique to only one God — who is the LORD:
1.) God is knowable
2.) God will be known.
For every creature who has life and breath:
God gave you that life, God gave you that breath — God wills that you know Him, Your Creator!
Hear the words of the Apostle in Romans 1:19-20 —
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
At a minimum, God wills for all people to know Him as Creator, such that His fingerprints are clearly perceived in everything that has been made.
But the LORD does not limit His self-revelation only to Creation.
If He did, our Bibles would be very small.
We would only need the first two chapters of the first book of Genesis and an eye to look around and see the world, and that’s it!
But God gave us more!
We have more than two chapters, and we have more than one eye.
To the Israelites in Egypt, broken in spirit because of harsh slavery and impossible burdens, God willed for them to know Him more.
To sinners in need of God’s forgiveness and freedom, God wills for you to know Him more.
To saints in need of God’s mercy and grace, God wills for you to know Him more!
To anyone who is doubting, God wills for you to know Him more!
To anyone who is discouraged, God wills for you to know Him more!
To anyone who is dying, God wills for you to know Him more!
To know Him as more than God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth —
to know Him as Redeemer and Sustainer.
To know Him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
To know Him Who is outside of ourselves but through Christ dwells within our hearts by faith.
To have a relationship with God — to know Him and be known by Him.
We could argue that there are only two purposes every person has in life:
The first is:
To know God.
This purpose is for those who are born.
If you are born, God wants you to know Him.
Many people spend their entire lives seeking this one end, and this one end only.
Just to know God.
The second purpose in life is, which really is a privilege, is:
To make God known.
This purpose is for those who are born again.
If you have been born again, that means, your sins have been forgiven and you have been made new by the grace of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ, then God wills for you to make Him known, as His ambassador, as Christ’s witnesses.
Few people devote their lives to this end — to make God known, because few ever know God.
Few know God as He desires to be known, as Creator AND Redeemer, as Lord of all.
If we knew God, we would obey God.
There is an unmistakeable connection in this text between Pharaoh’s knowledge of God and Pharaoh’s obedience to God.
And the same is true for us, Church.
If we knew God, we would obey God.
If we knew God, the true God, the only God, we would do whatever it takes to make God known, through our unwavering obedience to Him — wouldn’t we?
Yet what so often hinders us is the same sin that hindered Pharaoh.
Pharaoh believed in other gods.
Egypt had numerous other known gods, many known by multiple names.
Pharaoh knew those gods but he did not know the LORD who reveals Himself, not as one among many, but as the one and only God!
And worse, as history teaches us, Pharaoh viewed himself as a god.
The king of Egypt would not submit to the voice of the LORD, he would not obey the LORD — for why should he, if he and God were peers?
And this blasphemy, this idolatry, this pride, this rebellion, this sin is thriving in the hearts of many people who will not let go of themselves and will not submit to the Lord and obey Him, because they view themselves as divine alongside God.
But the Gospel of the grace of God proclaims a better way, and a better life. The Gospel frees us from ourselves and from our sin, and offers eternal life through the knowledge of God.
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
This text in Exodus is about knowing God, the knowledge of God, God who desires to be known.
III. The Teaching
III. The Teaching
As we consider carefully these nine verses of Scripture, may the Spirit teach us through the Word ,ways in which God is known and what our response must be to knowing Him.
First,
Know God - Through HIS Witnesses (5.1a)
Know God - Through HIS Witnesses (5.1a)
Look with me again at verse 1 —
1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”
This verse begins with Moses and Aaron in motion. They went.
They are going to Pharaoh with a purpose, to enlighten Pharaoh with knowledge of God, and elicit from Pharaoh obedience to God on the basis of His Word.
Moses and Aaron are witnesses, more specifically, God’s witnesses.
What does it mean to be a witness for God?
A witness for God is someone who speaks God’s word and testifies of God’s ways. A witnesses is someone who speaks!
But before a witnesses speaks, a witness must first GO!
Jesus said to his disciples, after His resurrection from the dead, right before He ascended into Heaven —
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
How will the disciples get from Jerusalem, to all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth?
They had to first GO!
Being sent by Jesus, being empowered by the Holy Spirit, they had to put feet to the Gospel.
Moses and Aaron put feet to what God had told them to do, and they went to Pharaoh, sent by God and empowered by God and equipped by God to be His witnesses.
This is the first means by which God is made known in this text.
Know God - Through HIS witnesses.
Moses and Aaron went. Had they not gone, Pharaoh would not have had the chance to know God.
Each one of us must examine ourselves and answer this question — If we who know God do not go — who will not have the chance to know God through our witness?
The lost aren’t going to come to you. Don’t count on the lost to come in droves into this Sanctuary. Fish don’t jump into boats. God’s people, as Christ’s witnesses, must GO!
Know God - Through HIS witnesses.
Second,
Know God - Through HIS Word (5.1b)
Know God - Through HIS Word (5.1b)
Let’s look again at verse 1 and see what happened after Moses and Aaron went on their mission to make God known to the king of Egypt:
1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”
After Moses and Aaron went, the text says Moses and Aaron spoke.
They “said to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD...’”
God is known through His Word.
A witness not only goes, but a witness also speaks.
Remember, God revealed miraculous signs to Moses before this.
His staff when thrown down became a serpent and was taken up again. His hand when put into his bosom became leprous and was healed again. Water poured onto dry ground became blood.
Aaron witnessed these signs too, as did the elders of Israel and the people of God.
But to Pharaoh, —
Moses and Aaron did not come first with signs; they came first to speak.
In the God acts on the basis of His Word.
When God created the heavens and the earth, how did God do it?
God spoke. “God said...’Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
God speaks first.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
God speaks first.
There is a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, that he probably didn’t say (per L.Dorsett), but it goes something like this:
“Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” (St. Francis?)
There’s a nice message in that saying, and it is an encouragement for us to live in such a way that agrees with our words.
But Church, that’s not what it means to be a witness for Jesus in the truest sense. A witness testifies. A witness speaks.
A witness for God is someone who speaks God’s word and testifies of God’s ways. A witnesses is someone who speaks!
If God is to be made known to the lost, to unbelievers, it will be through God’s witnesses speaking God’s Word.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Jesus commissioned His disciples with these words —
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and then what did Jesus say?
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
A witness must go, and a witness must speak.
Notice in this conversation, Pharoah is not a believer. That is critically important to context of what is taking place here.
This is why this is a witnessing encounter.
Witnessing is most often telling people who don’t know, what they don’t know and need to know.
Moses and Aaron are not before the elders of Israel, they are not before God’s people, but they are standing before unbelieving Pharaoh.
And take comfort, Church — Moses and Aaron are not perfect witnesses. They do not deliver God’s Word exactly as God gave it to them. They mess up their first impression and their presentation.
Do a study of this chapter and contrast it to chapter 3, and you will notice some important differences in what God told Moses and Aaron to say and what they actually said.
Even Moses and Aaron’s tone comes across a bit rougher than it probably should.
Let me suggest this application for us — Church:
We don’t have to be perfect witnesses in what we say. Better to be an imperfect witness than to be no witness at all.
We are going to mess up our Gospel presentations, but we can’t mess up the Gospel.
We are going to flub, and stutter, and stammer, but let your presentation be imperfect! Let your delivery be a bit flawed.
No one trusts a perfectly polished sales pitch!
The Gospel is not a sales pitch!
It’s not our presentation that’s on display anyway, but rather what ought to be on display is a demonstration of the power of God as we speak HIS message.
Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh.
And how does Pharaoh respond? He rebels.
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
This verse is one of the defining verses for the next several chapters.
And observe here, clearly, who Pharaoh is rebelling against.
He does not say “Who is the LORD, that I should obey YOUR VOICE (MOSES AND AARON) and let Israel go?
What does Pharaoh say?
“Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?”
You see, as imperfect as Moses and Aaron were in their speaking for God, Pharaoh recognized that they were speaking for God.
It wasn’t Moses and Aaron’s presentation Pharaoh rejected, it was God that Pharaoh rejected, and God that Pharaoh rebelled against and the text makes clear why —
Pharaoh does not know the LORD.
“Who is the LORD?”
Is it because Pharaoh does not have any knowledge of God? — Ignorance?
Or is it more probable, that Pharaoh doesn’t recognize or submit to God as God — which is why Pharaoh has no intention of obeying God.
Pharaoh will not let Israel go.
In other words — Let’s see whose God wins out!
Pharaoh will not know God, as God has been given to Him to be known, through His witnesses and through His Word.
And Church — this is often all anyone will get as a chance at knowing God. God’s witnesses speaking God’s Word.
And we must ask ourselves: if we will not go, and if we will not speak, then who will come to know God through us?
Know God - Through HIS Witnesses,
Know God - Through HIS Word.
And now, Moses attempts a third option.
Know God - Through HIS Worship (5.3)
Know God - Through HIS Worship (5.3)
He’s already acknowledged this by saying in verse 2 — “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” That is, a feast to the Lord as part of worship.
But in verse 3, we can hear Moses and Aaron’s tone soften just a bit, and his language changes to be more clear — look with me at verse 3:
3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
As Allen Ross says —
“When Moses announced to Pharaoh that the Hebrews would be leaving Egypt, he did so in terms of their going to worship their God, because to worship is to acknowledge the highest authority…
The implication of Moses’ demand was clear to everyone: to go ‘three days’ into the desert and to sacrifice ‘to Yahweh’ clearly meant that their loyalties were with Yahweh, not the world or the world’s king, especially one who claimed to be a god.
By making this pilgrimage they would be proclaiming that Yahweh, not Pharaoh, was their God as well as their king.” (Ross, RHG, 159).
God will be known through His witnesses, through His Word, but also through His worship.
That is —
Worship that belongs to God, and is shared with NO ONE ELSE!
This theme will develop in great detail as Exodus and the Law unfold —
The worship of God’s people with proclamation and obedience of God’s word, is a witness to the world.
Pharaoh, and Egypt would notice the Israelites being gone for three entire days. Imagine the amount of bricks that would NOT be made in three days. And all the while, the Egyptians would take notice of what the Israelites were doing while they were away — sacrificing to God. Worshiping God, and not Pharaoh, and not their other idols.
The people of Israel were already predisposed to worship.
Look at the last verse of Chapter 4 as a reminder:
31 And the people believed; 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 worshiped.
It is out of the worship of God that Moses and Aaron then went to Pharaoh to make known God’s Word. It is to worship God that they want to be released.
And worship requires total submission to God’s authority. Total obedience to God’s Word. Total allegiance to God, as God alone!
And what does Pharoah do?
He devises a scheme to keep the people from worship. He gives them more work to do.
4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!”
6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen,
7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves.
8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’
9 Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.”
Moses and Aaron were not speaking lying words. They were speaking God’s Word, and God’s Word is truth.
But Pharaoh rejected God’s witnesses, and rebelled against God’s word, and sought then to suppress God’s worship with what?
More work.
Perhaps a word about busy-ness is in order. Perhaps a word about distractions is in order.
The Lord requires that one day be given to Him as Sabbath rest. Because —
2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
Work is not a bad thing — it is a good thing. But any good thing can become a bad thing if it becomes the main thing.
If work takes us away from the worship of God, work becomes a bad thing. Even for people who have to work on Sundays, even for people who have retired from work — you should be taking a day to rest from your labors and rest in God as worship.
And Pharaoh puts the people to more work, to keep them from worship.
And God takes notice of this.
The text draws considerable attention to the workload imposed upon the people of Israel — the burdens.
And this leads to the fourth way in which Pharaoh will know God.
Know God - Through His witnesses,
Know God - Through His word,
Know God - Through His worship —
and fourthly,
Know God - Through HIS Work (6.1, 6-7)
Know God - Through HIS Work (6.1, 6-7)
Look with me in Chapter 6:1
1 But 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.”
God says — “Now you shall see.”
What does that means?
Can you see words? No.
Can you see works? Yes.
God says — “Now you shall see” which means GOD IS GOING TO WORK!
God is going to intervene. God is not resting. God is going to work. And God will be known when God works.
God speaks to the people of Israel, and BEGINS and ENDS by revealing His name, giving them KNOWLEDGE of His name, so that they will know Him when He works.
6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.
7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’ ”
The people are broken in spirit. So broken that they did not listen to Moses.
9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.
Moses is discouraged, and even questions why God did not act. Moses put himself on the line, in faith, and God did not deliver this time. Pharaoh did not let the people go. And now Moses is surely embarrassed and doubting all the more. ,
But God needed the people, and God needed Moses, to get to such a low place, so that when they would be delivered, THEY WOULD KNOW that it was not Moses who delivered them, and they did not deliver themselves, but that they would KNOW GOD — THE ONLY GOD — THEIR GOD, as their Creator and Redeemer, as their Savior and Deliverer.
Generally speaking, what is good can become bad. What is bad may get worse. What gets worse could get ugly.
And we want to quit.
When we think we’ve hit bottom and gone as low as we can go, the bottom gives way to greater depths of despair and hardship and discouragement.
And we want to quit.
But it is at the moment that we want to quit, that God is ready to save.
We have to be broken before we can be saved.
And this brings us to —
The [Christ] Conclusion
The [Christ] Conclusion
Christ was broken for our sin on the cross.
Christ bore an unbearable burden that was ours. The wages of sin is death.
Jesus took our sin upon Himself and died under the weight of that burden.
Jesus was beaten. Jesus was rejected. Jesus was mocked. Jesus was accused of lying.
And Jesus died anyway. Why?
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Jesus has made God known — through His witnesses, through His word, through His worship, and through His work.
It is not enough to say we know God, if we do not obey God.
It is not enough to say we follow Christ, if we too will not take up our cross and follow Him, to submit to our Father’s will obediently, to share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death.
Jesus died, but was raised from the dead! He is alive right now, and ready to save.
Jesus prayed —
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Will you believe the Witnesses, the Word, The Worship and the Work that points to Christ Jesus, our Lord?
Jesus said again —
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Amen.