1. The Big Fight is coming! Pharaoh opposes God (5:1 18)

Transcription

1 You know when there s a major heavyweight boxing match. A few days before the actually fight there s always a press conference. The whole point of the press conference is to hype up the atmosphere. You get the 2 fighters bad mouthing each other, saying they ll destroy them in the ring. It s a lot of words. And of course it s not until the fight actually happens that you find out who could back their words with actions. You find out who can deliver on what they promised. This pre fight press conference idea feels a bit like what is going on in Exodus chapter 5 and 6. The heavyweight champion of the world a fighter called Pharaoh is being challenged. Pharaoh is the all powerful ruler of Egypt, he is a god, his people worship him. He struts around knowing he is invincible. And then someone he s never heard of, has come to challenge him. The Lord sends his agent Moses to challenge Pharaoh. Well Pharaoh isn t going to take this meekly and let the Lord win. No, he wants to crush the opposition. Next week the fight itself will start. But, this week we re going to look at the key players in the fight and what they can show us about how we respond to God. 1. The Big Fight is coming! Pharaoh opposes God (5:1 18) NIV Exodus 5:1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.'" This is the challenge from the Lord. Pharaoh thinks those slaves belong to him, well actually there the Lord s. Now imagine how Pharaoh is going to feel about this. Look at verse 2. Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go." In Egypt they had many gods, think of Ra, Isis. And also Pharaoh was a god. He was worshipped. So, who is so called God, the one called the Lord, the great I am, the one claiming to be greater than all other gods? Pharaoh responds with aggression and derision, Who is this god? Why should I listen to him? Pharaoh s response is a classic description of what the Bible calls sin. Who is the Lord? I do not know the Lord! All of us are guilty of this kind of sin. All of us at times live our lives with us as the boss and not God. We all think at times that we know best, that we can live our life our way without reference to the God who made us. This is sin. God knows us, he designed us, he made us, he loves us. He knows what s best for us. So, when we sin we re actually being incredibly foolish. And the consequence of opposing God, the consequence of sin, is awful. 1

2 Look at verse 3 and see the consequences of opposing God. Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword." The challenge is set. Pharaoh, do this or plagues and violence will happen to all of us. Do this because the God of the Hebrews is stronger than you Pharaoh. He thinks the Israelites are his people, they are his slaves, they belong to him. He doesn t think this God of the Hebrews has the power to follow through on his threat. And to prove he is so powerful he oppresses God s people. And of course when we sin we don t think God will do anything about it. What s wrong with a bit of sin, nothing will really happen. God won t mind, after all isn t he just that cute, cuddly, grandpa in the sky, who keeps smiling at us whatever we do! If you think like that, you re living your life as if the God of the Bible doesn t exist. You are living a delusional life based on pure fantasy. The God of the Bible is more powerful than you can ever imagine. Don t treat him like a fool and live a life ignoring him. He is the Almighty creator God. Pharaoh dismissed the threat, he rejects God, he sets himself up in opposition to God. And in response he violently oppressed God s people. Presumably because they were slaves their working life was pretty tough. Not a lot of slack in the schedule to find time to go out and scour the land for straw. The quota for producing bricks would be quite a challenging target before this draconian command. It is a command which is impossible to fulfil. And when they fell short of producing enough bricks they would be beaten and whipped. In Pharaoh s mind if they have time to go out for a party in the desert then they ll have time to organise themselves and rise up and overthrow him. So, to crush their spirit and their energy he demands they collect their own straw. Look at verse 9; NIV Exodus 5:9 Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies." The lies they might believe are that they are the people of this special God. That this God was more powerful than Pharaoh. To prove how powerful he was he oppressed God s people. Then they ll respect him and not God. And at one level Pharaoh was right. 2. The Big Fight is coming God s people don t think he ll win (5:19 23) Because of his tyrannical rule and oppression the people didn t believe that God would be able to do anything to save them. These people who just the chapter before had been praising and worshipping 2

3 God because he d promised to save them from slavery now despaired. NIV Exodus 5:21 and they said, "May the LORD look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." And it s not just them; Moses himself doesn t think God will keep his word. In essence he calls God a liar. NIV Exodus 5:23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all." And I have a lot of sympathy with them; their situation was awful, unimaginable. Not only were they slaves, but their masters had issued a demand which was impossible to fulfil. They loved the idea of being saved but clearly God isn t powerful enough to win. Pharaoh is just too strong. You see this again in NIV Exodus 6:9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage. They think the situation is too bad, too hard, God isn t actually in control. He s not strong enough to beat Pharaoh. All they have is despondency and death to look forward to. But, they d not listened to God. They d heard the wonderful news that God had listened to their cries, he d remembered His covenant. But, they d not heard the detail. God had said that Pharaoh would refuse to let them go. NIV Exodus 4:21 The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. And the reason he d refuse is so that Almighty God, the Lord, could prove he was God over all with might acts of judgement. They d not listened to God when he said the way he would deliver his people would prove to them what kind of God he was. Pharaoh would refuse, Pharaoh would oppose God, but God would crush him and prove that he is the one true Almighty God. But, in their despair at their suffering, the Israelites had forgotten what God had said. The way the story was developing made them doubt that God was in control. And we can t be too critical of them because we often do the same thing ourselves. Do you look at what is happening in the world and doubt God is really all powerful? When you look at what is happening in the Middle East where 1000 s of Christians are being horrifically killed, do you think God has lost? When you look at the Western world and see the growth of secularism and the shrinking of Christianity do you think God isn t really in control? Where is God? Why doesn t he act? I can t trust him, he can t protect me? 3

4 Or what if you tell people about the Lord Jesus Christ and they reject the message do you begin to doubt that God is in control? The church seems so weak and pathetic, we re a tiny percentage of our nation, and we seem spend most of our time fighting with each other. Surely it s just a matter of time before we re wiped out and either secular humanism or Islam will win? But, when we do that we re forgetting what God has said. More than that we re forgetting what God has done and what he has promised. Our God is all powerful, nothing is outside of his control or his direction. He s told us time and again in the Bible that we should expect the world to ignore us, to reject us, to persecute us, to kill us. The New Testament is full of warnings that because the world rejected Jesus it will also reject his followers, us Christians. NIV John 15:18 19 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. We know God is truly in control, we know that through Jesus Christ all of our enemies have been crushed. And that knowledge can transform how we live our lives. We can even face torture and death because we know God is in control. I was at a conference a week or so ago and heard about some of the atrocities that are happening in Northern Iraq to Christians. We heard about children from Christian families being dragged out onto the streets and in front of their parents being forced to decide whether to convert to Islam or be beheaded. According to the report not a single child converted every single one was beheaded in front of their parents. How could they do this? How could they be so brave? Because they believed what Jesus said to the thief on the cross next to him. Today you will be with me in paradise. They died knowing that God was in control, that the good news about Jesus Christ is true, and that it is worth dying for. They knew that they were safe for eternity. If those children in Iraq can stand firm and not doubt that God is in control then I think we are without excuse. Can you imagine how embarrassing the conversation between us and them in heaven might be? Those children saying to us, It must have been really tough for you to stand up for Jesus, you might have been looked on as a bit weird, I can understand why you felt you had to fit in with the culture around you. You might have lost some respect, or lost a career opportunity. For us it was so much easier, all we had to lose was our heads! 4

5 I know that s a ridiculous scenario, but I feel really compelled by the example of those children. They stood up for the God they knew and believed in. They didn t doubt he was in control. They remembered who the Lord Jesus Christ was, what he did and what he d promised. We need to look at what God has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to remember what he promised. And then we need to believe him. And that s what God does back in Exodus. He reminded Moses of who he was and what he d promised to do. 3. The Big Fight is coming God is mightier than Pharaoh (6:1 7:5) This is right at the end of the pre fight press conference; this is the last bit of talking before the action really starts. Look at NIV Exodus 6:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now! The time has come, now the Lord God is going to act. Now, he is going to show what he can do. Now, he will demonstrate that he is not just the World Heavyweight Champion. Now, we re going to see that he is the Universal Heavyweight Champion. Look on and see what he says he will do. Exodus 6:6 "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'" The Lord God is saying to Moses Don t doubt me, I will show you what my name means by what I will do. You will come to know that I am the all powerful, eternal, creator God who will bring judgement on my enemies and salvation to me people. Watch what I will do to free my people. And of course that is exactly what he goes on to do. We re more privileged than Moses. We know that the Lord God did save his people through a mighty act of judgement on Egypt. But, more than that, we know that the Exodus is just a shadow of a much bigger rescue from slavery. We know that the Lord God has proved he is in control when he rescued us from our slavery to sin. Look at verse 6 again. For Christians verse 6 has a much bigger meaning than it did even to the Israelites. Therefore, say to the Christians: I am the LORD and I will bring you out from under the yoke of sin. I will free you from being slaves to it, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm that is nailed to a cross and with mighty acts of judgement on my son the Lord Jesus Christ. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of sin. 5

6 In the story of Exodus the Big Fight is still to come. But, for us we know that the Big Fight has happened. The Lord Jesus Christ was utterly victorious, he crushed our enemies, we are free, we can live for him. Don t doubt God. Don t oppose God. Trust him, live for him. He is in control. 6