God Promises Deliverance

 Exodus 6: 1-13

 

August 14, 2024

 

God Promises Deliverance

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 spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord.  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them.  I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.  Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.  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.  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.  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.’”  Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

So, the Lord said to Moses,  “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.”  But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them 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.

As one who has come to grips with a need for a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been given the Messiah in the flesh, and Jesus said this to Philip: ^“Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”  (John 14:9-11)  As I put that down, this verse came into my mind: John 14:20-21, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  Do you get it we have been put in an envelope and sealed with the Father, and the Son, and it is impossible to get to us without the Father and Son’s approval. 

God had shown Himself to the patriarchs were privileged to know the God who made the covenant, but for them, the covenant was barely fulfilled. The patriarchs knew God as the Maker of the covenant. Moses and the generation of the Exodus would know God as the One who fulfilled the covenant.

i.              The patriarchs knew the name Yahweh (it is used some 160 times in Genesis), but the great application of the name referred to God who kept and fulfilled the covenant: I have also established My covenant with them. “The patriarchs had only the promises, not the things promised.” (Kaiser)

 

ii.             As God Almighty: In addition, though the patriarchs knew God Almighty (El Shaddai), they did not know Him as extensively and intimately as He would reveal Himself to Moses and his generation. They knew the power of God, but didn’t have the same personal relationship and revelation that Moses would come to know. (Morgan)

 

Next, we see the promise of the fulfillment of the promise to the patriarchs, and then Moses coming to grips with uncircumcised lips.  He was not the first man God used; Isaiah had the same issue: “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

 

It is a humbling time when we come to this understanding: “I can’t, you never said I could, You can, and you promised you would.”  Philippians 4:13, Philippians 4:13, ^“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

                                                                 

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice