Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it.

Over the next 3 weeks we will be looking at Exodus 2:23-25, so really one verse a week, as today we will be focusing squarely on verse 23 but we will read all 3 verses each week.

My title for this message is, “God’s Grace in our Groanings.”

God’s ways are not our ways.

His methods are not our methods and His wisdom surpasses all human wisdom.

The way that man views one situation, God may view in an entirely different way.

Man’s view of events and circumstances are limited but God’s view is total and unhindered.

While man may only look at the ends of his situation, God not only looks to the ends, He knows the ends entirely and the means by which man is to get there.

This is what we are going to see in our passage over the next few weeks.

As we read these verses, we are going to see that man needs to be honest about the situation that he is in.

In order to know God as we should, we need to know ourselves and our circumstances.

As Calvin said at the start of his Institutes, our wisdom consists almost entirely in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves and today, Lord willing, we will be able to make an honest assessment about ourselves.

Lord willing, we will also grow in our appreciation of the grace of God.

Before we get to our verses, it’s important to provide the background of what Moses and the people of Israel are going through at this point in the book of Exodus.

The Israelites are oppressed under the hand of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

By this point, Pharaoh has given the order for all Hebrew baby boys to be killed and thrown into the Nile.

This plan backfires on Pharaoh in providentially ironic way as he becomes the adopted grandfather of Moses, a Hebrew.

Moses grows up in Pharaoh’s household and through a series of events that we don’t have time to look at, Moses eventually flees to Midian where he lives for 40 years.

At this point in the book of Exodus, Moses has not yet returned to Egypt and the Jewish people continue to suffer under the hand of not just one Pharaoh, but a number of different Pharaohs.

Other than a few years during the time of Joseph, the people of Israel have been oppressed by Pharaoh after Pharaoh after Pharaoh, each one likely worse than the last.

Despite that reality, God has continued to be gracious to His people and it would be through their groanings that God’s grace would be more clearly revealed to them.

Let’s go ahead and open in prayer and then we will read Exodus 2:23-25 but we will spend most of our time today in verse 23.

Exodus 2:23–25 (ESV)

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.

Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

The Reality of Suffering

As we go through these verses, one of the first things that probably jumps out to us is the reality of suffering.

We read in verse 23 that the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.

The English language does not do a good enough job stressing the absolute distress of these people.

These people are in an absolutely miserable situation.

These people aren’t just groaning, they are moaning, they are shrieking out, they are calling out in just pure desperation for deliverance.

These people aren’t just inwardly agonizing, they are projecting the extent of their hurt in all that they do.

Suffering is real and no one is immune from it.

As long as sin exists in the world, there will be suffering.

The people of God are not immune from suffering and the presence of suffering within the life of the People of God does not indicate that God is not there or does not care about the things that they suffer.

Understand that we as Christians are rational people.

We do not deny the existence of suffering and I am hoping that our theology is strong enough that we understand that the title of Christian does not remove us from suffering.

Pain is real.

Hurt is real.

Sorrow is very, very real.

However, the People of God suffer very differently than the rest of the world.

Yes we all suffer but we can go through suffering differently than anyone else.

Christians are the only people who can go through suffering with the confidence that suffering will be used for the greater good.

Christians are the only people who can confidently say, “There may be pain in the night but joy comes with the morning.”

They are the only people who will be able to say with David in Psalm 30:11-12

Psalm 30:11–12 (ESV)

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

Can a non-Christian look at death and suffering in this way?

No, because to them, this life is the best that it will ever get!

Or if they believe in some other god, they agonize inwardly because they assume they’ve done something wrong and now they are being punished or if they could just muster a little more faith and good works, it will all stop.

It is remarkable to me how throughout the centuries, Christians have gone to their deaths rejoicing.

They have gone through suffering with singing, through pain with praise, through hurts with hallelujahs.

Like Paul writes, we are sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

I often think of the story of John Rogers, the first English martyr under the reign of Bloody Mary.

Rogers was a contemporary of William Tyndale.

After Tyndale was arrested and executed, Rogers carried on the work of translating the remainder of the Old Testament into English for the first time and it was released as the Thomas Matthew’s Bible.

Eventually, Rogers was arrested for his preaching of the true Gospel and he was offered numerous opportunities to recant but never did.

At the time of his imprisonment he had 10 children with another on the way.

On the day of his execution he walked past the site of his old church and as he approached the site of where he would be burned, he looked up and saw his wife and his 10 children and in the arms of his wife was the 11th child that he had never even met.

Rogers was given one more opportunity to recant of the protestant doctrine before being burned alive but he said, “That which I have preached, I will seal with my blood.”

And it was said that as they lit the platform on which Rogers stood, he looked as if he felt no pain and as the fire reached his knees, he put his hands into the fire as if he was washing his hands.

The French Ambassador to England at the time said that Rogers did not look like a man that was going to his execution, but looked like a man going to his wedding day.

I’ve heard of Christians as they have been skinned alive say to their executioners, “Thank you for removing this physical garment so I may better put on my garments of righteousness.”

I’ve heard of Christians that are about to be beheaded say, “You can remove my physical head but you will never remove me from my spiritual head, Christ.”

What can we learn from this?

That the people of God are not immune from suffering but they are able to go through it differently.

Going back to our text, I want to point out another great lesson that we learn from verse 23: God alone as our source of rescue.

God Alone as Our Source of Rescue

Notice that verse 23 begins by referencing the death of the king of Egypt.

When a leader dies or is removed from office, especially if they are a wicked and cruel leader, there is always the hope that his successor will be better.

That was certainly the Israelites hope.

The Pharaoh dies and they almost expect that the next Pharaoh may lighten their load.

They aren’t necessarily expecting that they’ll be allowed to leave but I think they are hoping that the work load might decrease but that doesn’t happen.

In fact, it seems likely that it may have even gotten progressively worse under this new Pharaoh.

There is something very human in this, something that we all in some way practice.

I know that there are several in the United States today, several in this church, that are counting down the days to the next election.

Why?

Because the hope is that whoever the next president is will be able to do something about the circumstances that we have found ourselves in.

The thought is, “the next guy or girl will bring prices down, they’ll make inflation go down, they will stop the border crisis, they will fight for the lives of the unborn, they will do this and that to make our way of life easier or at least back to normal” but that’s not a guarantee.

Things could get better under the next person but there is nothing to say that things won’t get worse.

I know of several people who are hoping that Putin dies but there is no guarantee that the next guy will be any better, he may be even worse than Putin!

What does this tell us?

What did the Israelites learn in this situation?

That if your hope is solely in another human being, you will always be disappointed.

I love Lora and she does so much for me and our family but she’s an absolutely terrible God.

The ultimate hope and the ultimate source of rescue is solely in God alone.

Alec Motyer said that the Israelites had a new king, but still the old sorrows.

What we see the Lord doing is something very strategic with suffering.

Notice that it is through suffering that the people cry out to the Lord.

They realize that Pharaoh isn’t going to rescue them, Egypt will not be their savior, another man will not be their redeemer!

It is through weakness, it is through suffering, that man sees their need for God.

I remember hearing Steven Lawson talk about the time where he was getting ready to propose to his wife and he went to this special jewelry store to look for a ring and he looked at several different ones but none of them jumped out to him.

He asked the jeweler, “is this all you have?”

And the jeweler reached under the counter and pulled out this black velvet pad and pulled the diamond out of the ring.