“God vs. gods” – Exodus 5-10

 Have you ever said anything that you regretted saying? Has something ever come out of your mouth that came back to bite you?

“Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility--a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.” -Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode ray tube.

“I think there is a world market for about five computers.”- Thomas J. Watson, 1943, Chairman of the Board of IBM.

“We don't think the Beatles will do anything in their market. Guitar groups are on their way out.” - Recording company expert, 1962.

A bishop of a century ago pronounced from his pulpit and in the periodical he edited that heavier-than-air flight was both impossible and contrary to the will of God. Oh, the irony that Bishop Wright had two sons, Orville and Wilbur! Wright was wrong. Sure of himself, but wrong.  - Robert P. Dungan, Jr., Winning the New Civil War, p. 38.

In Exodus chapter 5, we see Pharoah, the king of Egypt say these words: "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." This was in response to Moses and Aaron going to Pharoah and telling him that the Lord said to let his people go. They are words that will definitely come back to haunt him.

Do you think God was shocked at Pharoah’s words? Do you think God clutched His pearls, fanned Himself and said, “Well, I never!” Haha! No, I think God smiled and said, “Well, now let me introduce myself!” And for the next nine chapters or so, God showed Pharoah and all of Egypt, not to mention the Hebrews – and us -who He really was.

It wasn’t that Pharoah didn’t believe in god (little g). In fact, he believed in a whole bunch of gods. That was the problem. When Moses mentioned the one true God, Jehovah, Yahweh, the IAM WHO I AM and said His name was the LORD, Pharoah probably scratched his head and said, “Now, which one is he? I don’t recall the name.”

Egypt had gods for everything, every day, every celebration, every phase of the moon, the stars, everything outside, most things inside and every different thing that was real or imagined. This is exactly what Paul found when he went to Athens. You remember in Acts 17 where Paul found a monument to “an unknown god” and said he was now declaring that God to them.

Egypt had lots of gods. Almost as many as we do in our world today. And when we worship those other gods, we can expect Jehovah God to attack those gods and show us who He really is just like He did with Pharoah.

The passage I want to tackle this morning stretches all the way from Exodus 5 through Exodus 10. So, I thought we could take turn reading a few verses a piece until we get through. I hope you’re not in a hurry. You’re now in a hurry? Okay, maybe we don’t read the whole thing but just parts of it.

You remember where we are in Exodus. Moses has heard from God and God has revealed to Moses who He is. God’s name and title and character are all wrapped up in I AM WHO I AM. He is Jehovah, Yahweh, the LORD and He is sovereign, all powerful and all-knowing. He is able to cause or allow even bad things to accomplish His will and He does not ask for our permission or apologize for hurting our tender feelings. And yet, He does all this in great passionate love for us all the time like only He can.

Now, He just needs to show Pharoah who He is and He does that by confronting each of Egypt’s biggest little g gods and exposing them for the false idols they are and to show how powerless they are and how powerful He is.

We started already by reading a verse from chapter 5 where Pharoah tells Moses he doesn’t know God. In chapter 6, as we read last week, God promises Israel to bring them out of Egyptian slavery. He promises to free them and redeem them and make them His own people and if you have never read this story before, here’s a spoiler. God does it. He pulls it off and the Israelites are in their own land even today as a free people.

And while we continue to pray for the peace of Israel today as rockets have been raining down on them for many days now, just know this. The Palestinian people, led by the terrorist group Hamas, may launch every bomb they have but Israel will always be specially protected by Jehovah God even today as His special people.

Nothing has changed since God gave these words to Abraham from Genesis 12. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

I just wish somebody would tell those traitorous democrat squad members in Congress that nothing has changed, least of all Jehovah God and the day that the United States quits being a friend to Israel is a big step down a slippery slope that leads to destruction.

But Pharoah didn’t know Jehovah God. He didn’t know His name or His character or anything about Him and so God gave him a life lesson. This would be an impressive show of God’s power if you didn’t know anything else but when you understand about Egypt’s gods, it is much more meaningful.

Before we get into the plagues, I want to touch on something that some people can easily get hung up on and it’s found in chapter 7. God again tells Moses and his brother Aaron to go to Pharoah and tell him that God has said to let His people go. But in verse 3 God says, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you.” Some people read that and think, “Well, if God hardened his heart, then Pharoah didn’t have a choice. That’s just mean.”

But in my studies, I have found that word that is used there for “harden” actually means…harden…but in a different way. The Hebrew word is “chazaq” (khaw-zak’) and it means to strain or twist or strengthen and it is used like you would pull a rope tight or push down on a wet sponge. If you push down on a wet sponge, what happens? What is inside comes out, right?

God hardened Pharoah’s heart by pushing down on it, making what was in it come out. God made things happen that would force Pharoah to show his true colors. Pharoah could have decided at any point to let the people go, but he resisted because his heart was already hardened. God just forced him to do what he really wanted to do. (J. Vernon McGee, Exodus pg. 64)

Now, I’m going to hit these plagues quickly for the sake of time but I want you to see that every plague that God causes is a direct assault on one of Egypt’s so-called gods. The first plague is turning the Nile River into blood and He did that because the Nile itself was a god to them. It brought life to a dry land and so they sacrificed to it and worshiped it and trusted this river to protect and provide for them.

Real quickly, I have to say I find it fascinating that even in my trusted commentaries, some of the writers want to try to explain away the miracle. In Exodus 7:14-19, it says, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’”

One of my commentaries said that probably what happened was that God caused the muddy Nile River to get stirred up and the red clay on bottom made it look like blood. Really? C’mon. God said it was blood. I’m going with blood. Don’t try to diminish the miracle.

Anyway, the next plague, in chapter 8, was to cause frogs to invade the land. And when it says frogs, it doesn’t mean a bunch of frogs. It means a solid sheet of frogs. Frogs everywhere, every square inch. Frogs in the street. Frogs in the house. Frogs in the kitchen. Frogs in the tub, the oven, the bed, the palace here a frog, there a frog, everywhere a frog frog! And Heka, the frog-headed goddess who they worshiped, was powerless to do anything. You know why? Because she was powerless to do ANYTHING because she was a man-made idol with a frog head. But they worshiped her and so God decided to challenge her and their worship of her.

Pharoah was unfazed by all this so far so God continued, still in chapter 8, with a plague of maybe lice, gnats or mosquitoes, depending on your translation. You can imagine that any of them would have enjoyed a land filled with dead frogs but the earth god Geb would be highly insulted.

Then came the flies which were sacred to some of the gods and at this point, Pharoah is starting to weaken and trying to make some concessions to Moses but Moses isn’t having it. Look at chapter 9 where Moses is told by God to tell Pharoah, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” And do you know what Moses said to Pharoah? “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.”’

And every time, Pharoah says no. He starts to give in a little here and there and actually asks Moses and Aaron to pray for him but his heart is hard and he will not let the people go. So, God continues to show Himself by killing their livestock that they worshiped, giving them boils that caused their false prophets and priests to be in such pain, they went out of business. He caused it to hail massive hailstones that wiped out their crops that was directed against the goddess Isis, the goddess of fertility.

In chapter 10 the locusts show up and wipe out what is left of any crop that might still be growing. A plague of locusts is used several times in scripture as a picture of judgment. A plague of locusts is one of the worst things that people can endure. They eat everything and get into everything. They are nasty and horrible and what the book of Revelation mentions will come upon the earth again someday after the rapture.

Lastly, God attacks their sun god Ra by causing complete and utter darkness. It is the kind of absolute darkness that you can feel like I’m told it’s like being in Carlsbad Caverns when they turn the lights off. Can you imagine how helpless they were to do anything, find anything, even each other?

There is one more plague that we will probably touch on next week but today I just want to say how glad I am and how proud I am that we don’t worship any idols any more. Isn’t that the stupidest thing ever, to bow down in front of a man-made article of wood or stone and expect it to bring peace or joy or wisdom?

How sad and empty such pursuits must be! How disappointing it must be when you spend so much time and effort and money devoting yourself to something that, in the end, is powerless to help you. Aren’t you glad we are not so foolish as to do something like…uh oh, excuse me. My phone is giving me an alert about my bank account. Hang on. Let me just fix this.

Okay, so I was saying that aren’t you proud that we don’t do that anymore? 😊 Pastor Tim Keller said this about idol worship ~ “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” That is what you worship.

Oh great! Thanks a lot, Tim! Now, I can’t make fun of the Egyptians for having idols when I could very well be standing here with as many idols as they ever had! We do that with so many things, we get pulled into idol worship without realizing it, and before we know it, we’re worshiping something which is not good, that which is not God.

So, let me ask you, what determines your happiness? Your mood? What gives life meaning? What worries you? Our answers can show the symptoms of idol worship. Here’s the deeper question, if you had something taken away from you this morning, other than God, would you lose your sense of meaning? Would your life no longer be worth living? Family, money, health, job, your home . . . if it were gone, would your life still have meaning?

We have all sorts of idols. Pride, ego, entertainment, our bodies, money, work, addictions, lust, children, families, hobbies and more. What about being in control? Does that bring you pleasure more than God? (Michael Deutsch on Aug 12, 2014) Is it something you eat or drink or smoke? If you lost those things, would you still be content, as Paul said in Philippians?

Remember in Philippians 4, Paul said, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

If you have to add anything to that last sentence, then that thing may be an idol for you. If you say I can do all things through Christ and coffee, then that’s a problem. I can do all things through Christ and my job, my wife, my money, my position…

You need to figure out what it is in your life right now or God will help you figure it out and it probably won’t go well. God is a jealous God. He tells us later on in Exodus 20, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...” Notice that God is jealous when someone gives to another something that rightly belongs to Him.

When your peace, joy, contentment or fulfillment come from something else, God will step in and take those sources away from you just like He did with the Egyptians. Don’t believe me? Just watch.

In the April 25, 1994 news section of Christianity Today, it was reported that some Elvis Presley fans were actually revering Elvis as a god. People in New York, Colorado and Indiana were actually getting together and chanting, singing, holding hands and praying to Elvis. No kidding. In fact, at the Church of the Risen Elvis in Denver they had a look-alike doll of Elvis at their altar and burned candles there. (750 Engaging Illustrations, page 261)

Now, is that the dumbest thing you have ever heard of? Or is the dumbest thing you have ever heard of replacing Jehovah God with anything this life has to offer. Let’s replace the Creator with something created. Let’s focus more on our family or our job or our health than Almighty God, IAM WHO I AM. Yeah, that’s dumb. And until you are sure that there are no idols coming before God in your life, don’t rag on the Elvis worshippers. Well, maybe a little bit but don’t overdo it, okay? 😊

How do you know if something is coming between you and God? Start with Psalm 139:23 where David said, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” If you have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus then just ask Him. And then just listen. Don’t try to justify anything. Just listen. Be quiet. Be still. Let Him tell you what is coming between you.

If you don’t do it that way then it won’t be long before He will harden your own heart and force you to face the truth and He will take that stuff away from you. Don’t let it come to that.

If you don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus then start today by asking Him to forgive you of all your many sins. Then repent of those sins and turn away from that lifestyle. Surrender to Him and allow Him to come into your life and change you. Quit trying to be good enough or earn your way to Heaven. There is no peace and joy in this life doing that and there is no path to Heaven except through Jesus. Make that decision right now as the music plays.

 

“I am the LORD” – Exodus 5:22-6:9

Okay, I want you to picture this scene with me. It’s a hot summer day and all the kids are playing in the city pool. Everybody is having fun. There’s a BBQ grill smoking over by the picnic table. There’s some music playing. Kids are laughing and about halfway toward the deep end there is a tall, strong father encouraging his little boy to jump into the pool into his arms. The father is able to stand but it’s up to his chest and so the little boy knows he can’t reach bottom.

He has his little floaties on his arms but he can’t swim and so he’s scared. He sees all the other kids jumping in the pool and his dad is encouraging him to just jump and he will catch him. So, tell me what you think is going through little junior’s mind right now. Does he trust his dad? Sure. Does he think his dad loves him? Sure. Does he think his dad is strong enough to catch him? Of course. Does he think his dad could possibly miss? Maybe.

There is a lot to be afraid of if you are little junior on the edge of the pool. But we adults think that is silly, don’t we? We know there is not a chance in the world that dad is going to miss that kid. He’s two feet away. It’s not like he’s jumping off a building. We can’t understand why that little boy won’t just jump. He’s missing out, isn’t he? He could be having so much fun if he would just trust his dad.

Now, what’s going to happen when that kid finally decides to jump? His dad is, of course, going to catch him but he is probably going to let that kid get a little bit wet, right? He knows it will be more fun for the kid if he goes in the water, so he catches him and dips him down and let’s the water go over him, all while still holding on to him easily.

But you’ve seen this before. The kid wasn’t expecting that. He wasn’t expecting the water to go a little bit up his nose. He wasn’t expecting his face to get wet and it scared him and now he is throwing a fit. Obviously, his dad can never be trusted again. He tells his mama later that 42 gallons of water went up his nose and now his eyes are bloodshot from being held under the chlorine-infested water. It was a catastrophe and he nearly died and he can never trust his lying father ever again.

What does dad think? He rolls his eyes and says, “Hmm…that’s pretty silly.” He knows the boy is too immature to understand and that’s okay. Dad doesn’t have to defend himself.

Turn to Exodus chapter 5 this morning and I want us to look at a similar situation with Moses and God. They are not in a swimming pool. The stakes are much higher than an afternoon in the water. The Israelites have been suffering in Egyptian slavery for hundreds of years and God, in His perfect timing, has told Moses to go to Pharoah and tell them to let His people go.

It takes Moses a minute but he finally does what God has told him to do. He went to Pharoah and said, “Let my people go!” And do you remember what Pharoah said? He said, “Well, let me think about that…no. And not just no but I think you are a bunch of lazy people who are trying to get out of work so now you need to make all the bricks you were making but now you have to get your own straw to make them with as well. How do you like that?”

So, now we pick up the story in chapter 5:22-6:9 as Moses goes back to God and gives him a piece of his mind. It’s a fascinating conversation. Let’s read it in Exodus 5:22-6:9.

22 Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”

6 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.” 2 God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. 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.’” 9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.

I was in the grocery store the other day and I heard a little kid a few aisles over talking loud and complaining about this and that and his mother was trying to get him to be quiet and all the sudden I heard, “Mama, shut up!”

My first reaction was to duck! I don’t know what she did because I didn’t hear anymore from either one. I assume they left the store so she could beat the…I mean, teach junior some manners but I remember thinking if I had said that to my saintly little mother she would still be spanking me!

And so, when I read what Moses said to God in this passage, I wanted to duck. I just knew God was gonna go postal on him. But God didn’t chastise him at all. Now, you have to admit that Moses had a point. He did what God told him to do but the outcome was different than expected, right? But you still have to be careful telling God He has done “evil” as the King James says.

My NIV says, “You have brought trouble…” and what the original word means is to ruin or make unusable, to hurt or afflict. Does that sound like God? Does God ever hurt or afflict? Now, I grew up being taught in Sunday School that God sometimes allows bad things to happen to us but He doesn’t cause it. Do you agree with that?

Well, right here Moses said God brought evil. Job says it a couple of times in his book. And don’t forget in Isaiah 45:7 where God Himself says, “so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. 7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.” So…there’s that.

And if you want a New Testament illustration of God doing what we would call evil, all you have to do is look at the crucifixion of Jesus. That was God’s plan all along but it’s also a perfect illustration of how what we would call evil, God, in His sovereignty, uses for good, which is a lesson good old Joseph learned at the end of Genesis. Was it a good thing that Jesus died on the cross? Was it fair? Did He deserve it? Was it right? Those really aren’t even good questions even though they are tempting to ask. It’s also not the point God is trying to teach Moses – or us – in this passage. Notice that God doesn’t even respond to Moses.

Let’s keep reading again in Exodus 6. Go to verse 2. Did you happen to notice how many times God said, “I am the LORD!”? That is the same basic name that He told Moses in our passage last week when God said to tell them I AM WHO I AM has sent you. I AM WHO I AM and I am the LORD are also translated Yahweh or Jehovah.

God tells Moses here something interesting. Instead of smacking him down for blasphemy, instead God reveals Himself to Moses even more. In verse 3 He says, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them.” That name “God Almighty” is translated from El-Shaddai which means “the God who supplies.” That is different than Yahweh or Jehovah. The Great I AM means I am and I was and I will be forever more. It is perhaps the loftiest and yet most intimate name by which God is known and He is revealing it here to Moses – and us!

He is saying that even Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the big three of the Old Testament - did not know God like this. They may have used that name a few times but they had no real experience with God being the One who was always in control, the One whose will was always going to be done and the One who could use even troubles to get that will done.

Let me give you a perfect illustration. I say it’s perfect. The illustration itself may not be perfect but Sara is perfect. Sara is my beautiful and perfect, sweet sugar angel Blue Heeler and tomorrow is her birthday. She will be fifteen years old! Yes, I know she doesn’t look a day over five but she’s fifteen and you can send presents here to the church if you like. 😊

Now, you know her as Sara and you know that she is sweet and perfect in every way but do you know what the name “Sara” means? It means “princess.” It does. So, now that you know what her name means, you better start treating her like a princess. Because she is. Her full name is Princess Sara SugarPants so you commoners should probably start using that name. I’m just saying.

For most of us today, our parents gave us our names because they like the way it sounds. Or maybe we are named after a relative or something but usually our names’ meanings don’t really mean much to us. It’s not that way with God. As God Almighty, El Shaddai, we know He will always provide and that’s comforting to know. But as I AM WHO I AM, God is in control and He can and will use evil or good, sin or righteousness, suffering or happiness however He chooses to get His will done and you don’t have to like it or agree with Him. He will not get His feelings hurt by your opinion. He is sovereign and all He expects of you is that you treat Him with the respect, adoration and worship that He deserves.

You don’t have to understand Him. I find great comfort in the fact that I don’t always understand God. I say all the time that if I could understand Him, He wouldn’t be much of a God would He?

You might not agree with His methods but I want you to look again at verses 6-8. He says, “I am the LORD and I will bring you out. I will free you. I will redeem you. I will take you as my people and give you what I promised to give you.”

That is exactly what God, Jehovah, I AM wants to do for you today as well. You don’t have to understand Him and He doesn’t have to apologize for what He does or how He does it. He is like the father at the pool who is trying to show his child how to live a full and abundant life. (John 10:10) It is not going to go how you planned it but it is going to go how God planned it. And that is way better!

Now, I don’t want you to think that God is behind every bad thing that happens. Not at all. Sometimes bad things happen to us as the consequences of our own bad choices or the choices of another. Rarely does sin affect just the sinner. It often spills over into the lives of the ones we love the most. That is a consequence of sin. God has lovingly given us free will and we are free to choose what we are going to do but we are not free to choose the consequences.

Another reason bad things happen is because we live in a fallen world. There was no cancer in the Garden of Eden but ever since that first sin, our world has experienced horrible consequences of that sin that continue today in the form of disease, pain, natural disasters and sorrow that we weren’t intended to have. I remember my mother telling me about when she was a little kid, she asked her mother why God allowed there to be stickers in the grass. Her mother wisely told her it was because we live in a fallen world.

Lastly, sometimes it is Satan himself who is attacking us and causing us problems. 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” He hates you and wants you dead and if the Great I AM will not allow him to kill you, he will attack you every other way he can.

Job said, “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.” (Job 14:1) Trouble comes from all over and sometimes it even seems to come from God Himself and when that happens, you just have to trust Him. He has proven Himself to be loving and good and wise all through this story of Moses and the Israelites. He proved Himself in the New Testament when even Jesus said, “Lord, take this cup from me. But not my will but yours be done.”

And He has proven Himself in my life too many times to mention and in your life too if you will acknowledge it. He wants good things for you in this life like a good father would but His main goal is not for your protection or even your provision in this life because this life is short compared to eternity. His main goal for your life is for you to look, sound and walk like Jesus. And when you do that, your treasures in Heaven will literally be out of this world.

Are you going to believe? Are you going to trust God with whatever is going on in your life today or are you going to be like the Israelites in verse 9 who were so discouraged they wouldn’t listen? It’s a choice you have to make. Trust God who has a perfect record for thousands of years or try to do it yourself with your sketchy record. How is that working out for ya so far?

Jump in and trust Him today. It won’t always be easy. In fact, it will rarely be easy but whose life is easy? Jump in, trusting Him to do whatever He wants to with your life. To not trust Him is not just silly. It’s tragic. We aren’t guaranteed another breath. Choose today who you will serve, God or sin. Those are the only options and there is a way that seems right to a man but in the end leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Jesus said, “I AM the way, the truth and the life. Nobody gets to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) All you have to do is believe. Trust Him to forgive your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) Make that commitment today and allow the I AM WHO I AM to come into your life and change you from the inside out. Do it right now as the music plays.

"I AM WHO I AM" - Exodus 3:1-15

If I were to ask this morning, “How many of you are going through some sort of difficulty?”, I wonder if anybody would NOT raise their hand. Is there anybody here, anybody in the world who would say, “Everything about me is just right. I have enough money. I have good health. I have the perfect job and my spouse and my kids just adore me.”? I doubt it.

Some people are going through some minor difficulties and some people are going through a horrible crisis right now. And if you aren’t going through some sort of difficulty, then buckle up because it’s coming. It’s just life. Job said, “Man, born of woman, is of few days and full of trouble.” (Job 14:1)

When trouble comes, it’s a natural reaction to ask God, “Why?” Some of you that are a little more mature Christians know that asking that rarely helps when you are in the middle of it. I don’t think God minds if you ask but I have found that He rarely answers like we want Him to and when we want Him to. But you can ask.

We want to know if God is punishing us for something or if He is just allowing this in our lives to teach us something. Maybe Satan is hammering on us or maybe we are going through difficulties as consequences of our own actions. Don’t ya hate that? Whatever it is, we want more details so we can get through it quicker, so we ask why.

This morning I don’t want to discourage you from asking why. I just want you to try wording it a little bit differently from now on. Maybe if we instead asked God, “For what reason…” I think that’s a little different than asking why. Instead of wanting to know what you did to deserve such horrible treatment, asking “For what reason am I going through this?” opens us up to what God’s will is for us in this difficulty. What am I supposed to learn? How am I supposed to change? What opportunities does this bring to make me more like Jesus? Those are better questions than just why.

If you will turn to Exodus chapter three, we will continue our look at who God is by seeing who He was to Moses as Moses and his people were going through a great difficulty. There we see Moses being spoken to directly by God but through a burning bush. Most of you know the story but it is one of the best places in all of scripture to find out better who God is because Moses flat out asks Him who He is. And His response is fascinating but the whole story, while written nearly 4,000 years ago, is helpful, even vital to us today.

Last time we saw how God was with Moses and his family after he was born and allowed Moses, a Hebrew, to be raised up in the house of Pharoah with all the benefits of being basically the grandson of the most powerful man in all of Egypt. But when Moses was 40 years old, he killed a man who was beating up another man and had to run away to the far side of the country and live out in the sticks as a shepherd for his father-in-law. He went from the palace to living in a tent. He went from having slaves do his work to working with sheep. It was a boring, mundane and humbling job and God had him there for a reason.

But while the life of Moses might have been boring, his fellow Jews who were still in Egypt were going through a horrible crisis. They had been slaves for hundreds of years and their treatment was getting worse all the time. I’m sure they were asking God why and asking how much longer and begging for divine help. They were literally crying out for help from God…and God heard them and had a plan.

Let’s read Exodus 3:1-15 this morning and I want you to see the method God had for getting His will done and revealing Himself even while using a flawed and scared man like Moses. But it’s also the same overall method God has for using you and revealing Himself to you as well, even though He probably won’t use a burning bush with you.

Exodus 3:1-15 says, Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

I’m always amazed at people in the Bible who have any kind of encounter with God, whether it’s some manifestation of God Himself or an angel or a vision or whatever, and they just carry on a conversation with Him like He’s some guy they work with every day. Moses asks some good questions and brings up some important ideas and I’m afraid I would wet my pants and faint or something. I’d be more like Peter when he saw the transfiguration of Jesus. “Hey, y’all wanna put up some tents? That’d be cool.”

But God wanted to speak to Moses so He took him way off into the wilderness. This is some backwoods country, banjo playing redneck land right here and there was not much to look at and not much to do except watch the sheep eating what little grass was around, so God had the full attention of Moses. Have you ever been there?

I doubt any of us have been to exactly that spot on the map but I think most of us have been in a position where God has our full attention. Maybe you got sick or broke your leg or got put in jail. Maybe you just had a nice quiet vacation. Usually, it is pretty hard to hear God or for Him to get our attention when we are working 40 hours, come home to the wife and kids, we have hobbies and chores and Gunsmoke is on and the radio is playing and we have to check Facebook and blah, blah, blah.

It’s not that we are ignoring God. We just have stuff to do; a lot of stuff and we want to hear from God but we…you know…life. That’s when God says, “Okay busy boy. It’s time for you to take a break and listen to me for a while. I have something for you to do.” I think God showed great mercy to Moses. In fact, I’m jealous. When God wants my attention, He usually bonks me in the head, sometimes literally. But Moses got to see a burning bush that didn’t burn up. How cool is that?

Now, I don’t know how God made the bush burn but not burn up and I don’t know how God spoke to Him or in what form God took but in studying this, I believe that Moses had what is called a Christophany. That means that it was the pre-incarnate (before He became a man) Jesus that was actually doing the speaking. I say that because that is usually what we see when the term “Angel of the Lord” or “Angel of God” is used in scripture.

But however it happened, Moses was in the presence of the Creator of the universe, God Almighty, King of kings and Lord of lords and, as such, God tells Moses to show Him reverence. Do you see that in verse 5? God said, “Stop Moses! Don’t come any closer and take off your sandals because where you are standing is holy ground.”

Now, first, what does the word “holy” mean? It means to be set apart for God. It is different, not common. So, why would God call that ground holy? What had happened there to make it holy? God was there. That’s what made it holy. God is holy and where God is, that place is holy. It’s not about the place. It’s about God and when God gets your attention it’s time to show Him reverence. That’s what God was telling Moses and why he had to take his shoes off. It was an act of reverence.

So, what is reverence? How would you define it? The dictionary basically says it means respect but when we are talking about showing reverence for God, it means more than just respect. It means worship, to bow down, to adore and honor. It actually has an element of fear in it as well. That is exactly what was going on here and exactly what God expects of us when we encounter Him.

When God causes you to slow down and listen to Him, the first thing He expects is for you to revere Him, show Him the honor and awe and adoration He deserves. I truly believe that so many of us have to continue going through trials because we try to skip this part of God’s method.

Job understood this. It was his first reaction when he went through the worst day of his life. After losing everything he owned and losing all ten of his kids, it says in Job 1:20 that Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell to the ground in worship. Notice that it doesn’t say Job understood why. It doesn’t say that Job was not hurt. Job didn’t say it was okay or that it was easy or anything else. In the midst of more pain than hopefully any of us will ever have to go through, the first thing Job did was worship. He surrendered every part of himself to God and His plan.

Job didn’t have a church to go to and he didn’t have to. Worship can be done outside of these four walls. I’ll agree completely with those that say you can worship on the golf course or in the deer blind or on a boat. You can. But in the depth of your great suffering and with God trying to get your attention, do you really think that is where you need to be to show Him the reverence that is due Him?

Are your golfing buddies going to mourn with you and pray with you and support you like your church family? One of the things I love about this church is that you don’t have to pretend to be in a good mood when you are here. You don’t have to put on a happy, pretty face. Don’t insult us by trying that. Your family knows when you are hurting and we don’t expect you to always be chipper as a squirrel. Life is hard and we are here for you if you need us and if you don’t need our advice, we will be like Job’s friends when they first saw him. You remember the story. They just sat on the ground with him and mourned with him without saying a word for a week. Good luck getting your golfing buddies to do that.

But going back to our story in Exodus, look what happens next with Moses. God explains to him that He has heard the cries of the Israelites and is going to send Moses to Pharoah to set them free. Some people give Moses a hard time for all of his questions to God but I think they are fine questions. Moses wasn’t saying he wouldn’t go. He was just asking for some clarity.

You also have to realize that this early in world history, God had not revealed Himself to people like He has to us. Moses didn’t have any scripture to go by, in fact, he would write all this down later so that we could have it to help us understand God’s character and His ways and His heart.

This was also a land and culture of many so-called, little – g gods and Moses wanted to make sure he knew who he was talking to. So, Moses first asks God in verse 11, “Who am I to go to Pharoah?” What he was asking was, “What authority do I have?” and God told Moses He would be with Him. Well, then Moses has to ask, not in doubt or a lack of faith but just because he didn’t know, “Who are you?” What authority do you have?

I love the way God answers Moses. It is God’s name. It is His character. It explains His history and His eternality. It is beyond complete comprehension and yet there are libraries full of books to explain it. It explains His power and sovereignty and makes His grace and mercy and forgiveness all the more incredible. It is a name and a phrase picked up and used by Jesus to explain who He was. They didn’t understand how Jesus used it and we can’t understand it completely either but it is enough! It is more than enough!

God revealed Himself to Moses in verse 14 by saying, “I AM WHO I AM.” It might be translated Jehovah or Yahweh or simply “The LORD” but it has more meaning than you see at first glance. God is saying I am who I am, what I am and what I have been and will be. I am enough. I am more than you could ever ask or imagine. I am what you need me to be and I am unchangeable. You can not change me, scare me, threaten me or intimidate me. He says in Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

And I, Todd, am here to tell you based on my own experience that He is here today telling you that no matter what you are going through, no matter how hard or painful, boring or terrible, God’s presence is enough! God’s presence is enough! If you don’t agree with that, it’s okay for you to be wrong. Let God be true and every man a liar (Romans 3:4) because His presence is enough IS His name. It is His character and nature and He wants to reveal Himself to you like He revealed Himself to Moses and how He revealed Himself to Job as well.

It’s this point in the message that you are expecting me to give you an illustration. It’s what a good preacher would do but you’re stuck with me and I struggled finding one example so I will give you several. He was with Abraham in Genesis 21. He was with Isaac in Genesis 26. He was with Jacob in Genesis 28. He was with Joseph in the pit, the palace and the prison. He was with David in Psalm 23 where he says, “I will fear no evil for you are with me.” He was with Mary in Luke 1 where the angel told her, “You are highly favored. The LORD is with you.” And what did Isaiah say that child would be called in Isaiah 7:14? Immanuel, which means, “God with us.”

I could go on but there are too many. But I happen to know because I have heard the testimonies that God was with Billy in prison. God was with Cody in jail. God was with David as a biker, with Janet in her wheelchair, with Bruce before he was a believer but married a believing woman, with Morris in the hospital and with me when my mother died and we can all testify today with the saints of old that God’s presence is enough for whatever you are going through.

Maybe today God is trying to get your attention. In fact, no “maybe” about it. He IS trying to get your attention. He wants to speak to you in a still, small voice like He did with Elijah (1 Kings 19:12) but if that doesn’t work and you still won’t listen then He may just take you out to the wilderness to get your attention. He may use a burning bush or it may be something else, even something horrible that He allows so that you just stop and listen to Him. But He will not be ignored for long.

When that happens, it is immediately time to stop what you are doing. Stop with your plans and your ideas and what you think is best and just surrender all of you to all of Him in worship. When you do that, you too can find out that God’s presence is enough for anything and everything that you are going through.

Call on Him today, right now. Stop with your plans and your other thoughts and dreams. Stop with what you want or think you need or even have to have. Go to God with open hands. Tell Him right now that you have nothing and are nothing without Him. Tell Him you surrender and you want what He wants. If that’s not true yet just be honest and tell Him you want to want what He wants. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief as the father said to Jesus in Mark 9.

As the great I AM, God could force you to love Him and obey Him but He wants to have a relationship with you. In fact, that’s why He created you. If you don’t have that relationship today then you need to make that decision. None of us are guaranteed another breath and it is what we decide in this life that affects not only our peace and joy in this life but also our next life for all eternity.

Is God speaking to you today? I would love to pray with you about whatever it is if you need it. I would love to pray with you right now about your relationship with God or your lack of. If you don’t have that relationship then just ask God to forgive you of all your many sins. Repent or turn away from that old lifestyle and give all those old desires to God right now in prayer. Allow Him to come into your life and change you from the inside out. That’s the mark of a true believer.

I hear people claim to be Christians and followers of Jesus but their lives have not been changed. That’s a huge red flag. Don’t allow Satan to deceive you. When God is truly Lord of your life, He changes your heart and your mind and your behavior. If that’s not obvious, then something is wrong. Let’s pray about it right now as the music plays.