Exodus 4:18–5:21

Hey, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. That's where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from the book of Genesis to Leviticus. Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll jump into the Lord's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. Father, we pray now that as we read your word that you would please help us to understand it. Please, Father, bless us as we read it.
In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we are at Exodus, Exodus chapter four. We're gonna begin at verse 18. And we're going to read through. Let me see here. I gotta look on my computer. Give me one second. Read through almost the end of chapter five. Here we go.
So Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, please let me go and return to my brethren who are in Egypt and see whether they are still alive. And Jethro said to Moses, go in peace. The Lord said to Moses and Midian, go return to Egypt for all the men who sought your life are dead. Then Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey. And he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand.
But I will harden his heart. so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is mine, is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go. that he may serve me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your first born. And it came to pass on the third on the day at the encampment that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses's feet and said, Surely you are a husband of blood to me. So we let him go. Then he said, then she said, you're a husband of blood because of the circumcision. And the Lord said to Aaron, go into the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him on the mountain of God and kissed him.
So Moses told Aaron all of the words of the Lord who had sent him and all the signs which he had commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders, the children of Israel. And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people. So the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that he looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.
Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is Jehovah? And I should obey his voice and let Israel go. I do not know Jehovah, nor will I let Israel go. So they said. The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days journey into the desert and sacrifice to Jehovah our God. Lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. Then the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work?
Get back to your labor. Pharaoh said, look, the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their labor. So the same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick before.
Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And and you shall lay on them a quota of bricks, which they made before. You shall not reduce it. But they are idle. Therefore, they cry out, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God. let more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it and let them not regard false words.
And the taskmasters of the people and their officers went out and spoke to the people saying, thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go get yourself straw where you can find it. Yet none of your work will be reduced. So the people were scattered abroad throughout the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. And the taskmasters forced them to hurry, saying, Fulfill your work, your daily quota, as when there was straw.
Also, officers of the Children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, Why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today as before? Then the officers of the Children of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, Why are you dealing thus with your servants?
There's no straw given to your servants. And they say to us, Make brick. Indeed, your servants are beaten, but the fault is your own people. They said, You are idle, idle. Therefore, you say, Let us go and sacrifice to Jehovah. Therefore, go now and work.
For no straw shall be given you. You shall deliver the quota of bricks. And the officer of the Children of Israel saw that they were in trouble after it was said, You shall not reduce any bricks from your daily quota. Then, as they came out from Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron, who stood there to meet them, and they said to them, Let Yehovah look on you and judge because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants to put a sword in their hand to kill us. Wow, what a long passage. We need to ask ourselves the same three questions as every day. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what do we call it to do in response to these words? What is this about? Well, It says Moses going to Egypt, Moses taking his family with him to Egypt, Moses arriving in Egypt, Aaron going out to meet him, them getting an audience with Pharaoh, and well, Pharaoh's not very happy.
These are a bunch of lazy bums. Oh, kind of like me. Who's yawning at four or five in the morning? Right. You bunch of lazy bums. What are you doing? Get back to work. Right. And so there is harsh treatment of the people. So the number of different things going on here. Point being, it's.
That's hardened Pharaoh's heart. There's, God sends Moses on this, gives him signs, commissions him for this job, and yet things get worse rather than better for the Israelites. I think that's what this is getting at. God is gonna redeem his people, but sometimes the redemption of God's people Looks like going through trials and hardships It's not easy It's not gonna be easy actually the very last words here Right the the people of israel in chapter 5 verse 21, let the lord look upon you and judge Right. They're saying the lord. Jehovah.
He's And we think that you might have done wrong because now they want to kill us. They're forcing us to make the same amount of brick as we've always had to make. But they won't even give us a straw to make the brick. It's your fault. Imagine how Moses must be feeling. Imagine what he must be thinking. God's the one who's told him he's got to go. God's the one who's commissioned him for this work and Pharaoh won't listen to him. Seems like he's hell-bent on keeping them in slavery. The people think Moses must be off his rocker. And what's he to do? What's going to happen? Why isn't Pharaoh listening?
It's part of God's judgment. sometimes even as God judges the world, his people are wrapped up in it. We, his people, suffer even with the judgment. That's why the prophets will often say, woe to you who say, you know, the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord. When that judgment comes, when God judges a nation, even his covenant people, though they might be sojourners in that nation, often suffer with it. But no, his people will be redeemed. But in the midst of it though, they'll suffer as well.
Well, there's way more than we could ever just handle here. But I think that's what's kind of at the heart of this. What's the best verse to underline? Man, I have so much underlined in this. Let me see here. What would I, what do I have double underlined? Well, I have underlined verse three.
Right there talking to Pharaoh. The God of the Hebrews has met with us, please let us go three days journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God. Lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with a sword. I think that's that's part of what's going on here, right? Notice that at first they're just asking for three days, three days to go sacrifice, but he's not going to let them.
And then verse 17, you were idle, idle. Therefore you say let us go and sacrifice the Lord. That's how Pharaoh thinks of them, you bunch of lazy bums. You just wanted to go on holiday. What do we call it to do? God might be calling you to go do hard work and the work that he is calling you to do might not be fun. might not be glamorous, might be outright difficult. Will you still do it? Will you still follow in his ways? Will you still trust in him? Will you do the hard things, knowing that he has a plan of redemption?
Let's pray. Father, sometimes things get worse before they get better. We pray that you would give us faith and that that faith might bring perseverance. Father, because trials and suffering produce character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint. So Father, we pray that you would please help us as we might suffer, help us as we might struggle. Let us look to you. In Jesus's name, Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.