Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20090524.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Exodus: God's Forming The Nation Israel For His Abrahamic Covenant
Part I: God's Deliverance Of Israel From Egypt, Exodus 1:1-15:21
G. Heeding God When Life's Trials Tempt Us To Think It Is Futile
(Exodus 5:1-7:13)
Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Sometimes God's people need encouragement to KEEP trusting and heeding God and His Word, and today is such a day:

(1) Last Monday, my wife had finished her morning use of our car so I could take it out for my "Day Off Outing"! Christ suggested His disciples change their location in Mark 6:31 to rest from the ministry, a suggestion I have found to be especially productive!

However, a small "crisis" arose before I could get the car out of the garage, so instead of driving to a location to rest, I drove to a place of business to address the "crisis"! In doing so, I heard of a discouraging trial some fellow Christians I know were facing!

This really moved me, for I had made a preliminary reading of this Exodus 5:1-7:13 passage we were due to expound for this sermon, so I noted the Lord's leading to impress me of the importance of the content of this passage on finding encouragement to keep trusting the Lord under trial, and that ESPECIALLY on my DAY OFF!

(2) That led me to consider a conversation I had with a believer last Sunday about this believers painful trials! The pain was severe, so the tears that were just below the surface had begun to flow!

(3) These two events also brought to mind an e-mail message my wife and I had received last week from Christian friends we have known all our married lives, people out-of-state, about severe trials they face! They revealed a very discouraged, faithless outlook!

(4) I then remembered the other families in our Church who have experienced discouraging trials in the last few months. I perused back through my "Prayer Meeting Prayer Request Book" and found five major crises people in our Body have faced in the last two months!

(5) That led to recalling what people in our body have faced or still face over the last two years, and I concluded that just about every family in our Church has been under intense trials in that time!



Accordingly, we may wonder, "If we face trials that are so severe, they sap our faith in God and His Word so that we feel all is hopeless, HOW do we keep trusting the Lord?!"

Need: "With the intense trials I face, it's easy to think that heeding God's directives is futile! What effective action must I take NOW?!"

  1. God had predicted Pharaoh would not initially let Israel go, but when Moses spoke to him, the intensity of Pharaoh's resistance left ISRAEL and MOSES DOUBTING GOD'S PLAN, Exodus 5:1-23:
    1. As God had said, Pharaoh did not initially let Israel go, Exodus 5:1-3.
    2. In fact, his rejection was more intense than Moses had expected, for Pharaoh increased Israel's work to destroy the will to resist him, 5:4-9.
    3. That left Israel and Moses doubting God's promised help, Ex. 5:10-23.
  2. God COUNTERED, telling Moses that as the "I AM", He Himself ALREADY KNEW of Pharaoh's RESPONSE, and that Pharaoh's HARDNESS had to INTENSIFY to GLORIFY HIMSELF, 6:1-8:
    1. The Lord's reply to Moses' complaint repeatedly focused on God's "I AM" Name as the Eternally Existing One, Exodus 6:2b-3, 6a, 7b, 8c.
    2. God implied that when He first told Moses back at the burning bush that He as the "I AM" was sending Moses to Pharaoh, God knew of Pharaoh's response, for He always exists in all eras of history!
    3. However, God wanted Pharaoh's heart to be hardened even MORE to MAGNIFY His DELIVERANCE of Israel from Egypt, Exodus 6:1!
  3. In the SEVERITY of such trials, Moses kept DOUBTING God, so the Lord REPEATED His plan to harden Pharaoh, a PLAN making SENSE in the trial, so Moses KEPT heeding God, 6:9-7:7:
    1. God sent Moses again to tell Israel of her deliverance, but Israel was so depressed and burdened, she refused to listen to him, Exodus 6:9!
    2. God then sent Moses to tell Pharaoh again to let Israel go, but Moses doubted that returning to Pharaoh would be productive, Ex. 6:10-11!
    3. The Lord responded by reminding Moses of His plan to harden Pharaoh EVEN MORE (Ex. 6:13; 6:28-7:5), which plan in view of the severe trial was LOGICAL , so Moses heeded God, Exodus 7:6-7!
  4. In light of HISTORY, Moses' CHOICE to HEED God at THIS MOMENT of GREATEST human RISK was his FINEST DEED, so Exodus marks it by giving his genealogy here, Exodus 6:13-27!
  5. For HEEDING Him, God gave Moses an EDIFYING SIGN, 7:8-13:
    1. When Moses again asked Pharaoh to let Israel go, God had him use the sign of turning Aaron's rod into a "serpent", Exodus 7:8-10 KJV.
    2. The word for "serpent" in the Exodus 7:9-13 Hebrew text is tannin, "crocodile", not nahash, or "serpent" as in Exodus 4:3 where God turned Moses' rod into a serpent at Mount Sinai. Now, the crocodile in Egyptian theology signified a perpetual, evil foe to other gods, a threat in a context of conflict such as Pharaoh's struggle with Moses about letting Israel leave Egypt, J. Vernon McGee, Thru The Bible, v. 1, p. 223-224; B. D. B., A Heb.-Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 638, 1072.
    3. To harden Pharaoh's heart even more, God let Pharaoh's magicians turn their rods into crocodiles as had Aaron, Exodus 7:11-12a, 13!
    4. However, in so doing, God gave an encouraging sign of FINAL VICTORY for Moses to KEEP him HEEDING GOD: Aaron's threatening crocodile SWALLOWED UP the magicians' crocodiles, signifying that MOSES would WIN in the END, Exodus 7:12b!
  6. In HISTORY, this VICTORY has FAR-REACHING implications:
    1. Israel is key to God's plan in post-Flood human history to overcome world paganism that was begun at the Nimrodian apostasy at Babel:
      1. We before learned God gave the Genesis 12 Abrahamic Covenant to defeat Nimrod's Genesis 11 pagan apostasy begun at Babel.
      2. This plan will climax with God's use of Christ to conquer earth's pagan kingdoms in His Second Coming, Rev. 11:15; chs. 17-19!
      3. Part of the fulfillment of that covenant was God's release of Israel from pagan Egypt as predicted by the Lord in Genesis 15:13-14!
    2. So, in view of God's master plan, it was essential that God DISPLAY His SOVEREIGNTY over Egypt's paganism in delivering ISRAEL: the hardening of Pharaoh's heart augmented God's glory in defeating the greatest resistance pagan Egypt could produce against GOD!
    3. Thus, God's encouraging sign of Aaron's crocodile swallowing up the magicians' crocodiles predicts not only Moses' final victory over pagan Pharaoh, but the coming final conquest of Christ's kingdom over all of the world's kingdoms, Revelation 11:15; Daniel 2:44!
Application: If life's trials tempt us to think it is futile to heed God's Word, (1) may we trust in Christ for salvation to become a child of God, John 1:11-12. (2) Then, by the Holy Spirit's power (Gal. 5:16-23), may we note the LOGICAL CONSISTENCY of God's leading as EVIDENCE it is RIGHT, and (3) keep heeding Him! (4) God will signal His encouragement to KEEP us heeding Him!

Lesson: When Pharaoh's resistance tempted Moses to lessen his TRUST in God's Word, God repeated the logic of His plan, making it believable, and gave an edifying sign of final success to keep Moses heeding Him!

Conclusion:

The Lord applied this message last week in an edifying way!

In the sermon introduction, you recall we mentioned an e-mail my wife and I had received from friends we have known all our married lives. Their message was gloomy and lacking in faith in the Lord! Because of the intensity of the unbelief expressed in the e-mail, we had stalled in giving them a reply as much for our own spiritual protection as well as for not knowing what we could say to help them!

When we didn't initially reply, our friends sent a second message, so my wife got out a notebook of expository applications I had composed on the Psalms years ago, and asked about sending a replay with my treatment of Psalm 93. I feared such a formal approach might seem "preachy" in this setting, and so do more harm than good. Yet, Nadine noted how applicable the psalm was in explaining God's power relative to the particular needs of our friends.

I admit that with some trepidation, I gave my approval to her sending the reply! Yet, I knew from experience that when a believer felt as strongly as she did about such a reasonable direction to take, I was not to stand in the way lest I harm the other party's conscience!

Amazing to me, we received an unusually warm reply from our friends! They reported how decades before, Psalm 93 had been used of the Lord to direct them when they faced intense trials in their college days! Nadine's reply had made them recall the Lord's use of that psalm in their youth, renewing its lesson again with immense force! The eternally Existing "I AM" Who long before had helped our friends with that very Psalm, and that without our knowledge, had FORESEEN the CURRENT trials they faced and had SPOKEN FORCEFULLY to them AGAIN through His gracious use of US!

I was astounded, and found this event to be very instructive! It was another one of MANY signals over the years from God that HIS plan for US is to FOCUS others on APPLYING HIS WORD! For ME, it meant I was to KEEP ON producing sermons and lessons! The EFFECTIVENESS of this effort would be God's responsibility!

So, if the intensity of the trials we face has DRAINED what FAITH we have left in God and His Word, may we NOTE to the LOGICAL CONSISTENCY of God's leading as HOPE to KEEP heeding His Word. We will see the Great "I AM" KEEP providing EDIFYING SIGNALS to KEEP us GOING in His directed paths!