Substitute

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 12:1-14, 24-27, 13:8-9 (day one)
“When I see the blood, I will pass over you.”–12:13.

As The Great Artist, God drew this event into Israel’s history.  It pointed to Christ.  His death.  The first participants, however, did not understand the future meaning.  What they knew, that night as they sat huddled in their homes and heard the cries of a thousand Egyptian families mourning the death of a son in every house, was that THEY were safe. Not by their own merit, but by the death of an innocent substitute, a lamb. It was an unforgettable lesson!  A debt paid.  A death suffered.  For them.  By an innocent.  Years later Israel would understand.  John the Baptist would declare of Christ, “The LAMB OF GOD who takes away (both as to guilt and as to power) the sin of the world”–John 1:29.  All that we have with God we owe to Christ, our substitute.  We are “redeemed. . .with precious blood”–1 Peter 11:18-19

Asssertive God

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day seven)

It is not a picture of God that is familiar or comfortable.  Living on this side of the cross, we know the face of God’s mercy, God’s kindness.  It is a mistake, however, to think that the “God of wrath” is no more.  His patience is real, but the time comes when He becomes assertive in a terrifying way.  The plagues on Egypt in Exodus are that moment!  As we prepare for worship this morning, please read and reflect on these additional words from Scripture.

“The Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth. . .YET HE WILL BY NO MEANS LEAVE THE GUILTY UNPUNISHED.”—Exodus 34:7.

“The Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel.”—2 Thessalonians 1:7-8.

If we forget His assertiveness, do we really know Him?

Glory

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day six)

Exodus 8:9-10
Moses does something extraordinary. During the second plague Pharaoh pleads with him to go back and ask God to relent, in turn Moses says, “Tell me when. When do you want God to lift the plague?” Why would Moses do that? So that Pharaoh would know that there is no one like the God of Jacob.

The plagues were not an effort by God to convince Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free. God didn’t need plagues to do that. God had one purpose, to reveal his glory to the nations; the people of Egypt, the Hebrews, and countless others that would hear of the plagues. Everyone’s greatest need, including the Pharaoh, is to behold the glory of God. We are no different. Beholding the glory of God moves us from self-knowledge to desperation, from love to worship. In Pharaoh’s case, he would learn that there is no God like the God of Jacob; He alone builds and destroys nations.

God gave us his creation and His Word that we too might behold the glory of God. Do we? Do you?

Promises

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day five)

In the selected verses of Exodus 6, God makes several promises to His people through Moses.  (Hint:  look for “I Will” statements)  I will:  bring you out, deliver you, redeem you, take you for My people, be your God, bring you to the land, give it to you for a possession.

These promises indicate the great care, concern, strength, and power of the Lord.  Can you imagine someone in whom you completely trust and depend making those kinds of promises to you?  Maybe as a child or parent we have experienced or made promises that were not kept.  Sometimes we can become “promise calloused”.  Can you name any promises God has broken?  Will you praise God today for specific promises He has kept?

What are promises God has made that shape courage and hope in your heart?  (Look for “I Will” statements whenever you read the Scripture)

“True faith means holding nothing back. It means putting every hope in God’s fidelity to His Promises.”   – Francis Chan

Thus Says the Lord

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day four)  There was a common element in each of the plagues…each was introduced with “Thus says the Lord!”  God wanted Pharoah to know who he was dealing with.  Moses was a spokesman for the Lord.  God did not have to have Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, but He chose to use him.  God is able to accomplish His work by himself, yet He chooses to use us as well.  What is our response to God when He calls?  Do we argue with God like Moses did or do we just ignore what God says, as if we didn’t hear Him?  Pharoah ignored God…he claimed he didn’t know Him so why should he obey Him?  Pharoah learned the hard way.  Moses was slow, but he came to trust God in faith.  (He made the Hall of Faith lineup in Hebrews 11!)  Trust God when He speaks…”Thus says the Lord!”

Identity

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day three)

“I am the LORD.”  This little phrase of self-identification frames much of what God says to Moses at the outset of the confrontation with Pharaoh.  The question of identity was an important one to Pharaoh.  When Moses demanded freedom, Pharaoh wanted to know the identity of the one behind the demand.  Pharaoh placed no credence in the name of the LORD, but God’s repetition of his identity to Moses was more about shaping a people called by his name than introducing himself to Pharaoh.  Israel’s Egyptian masters resisted the LORD’s identity, and they would die by that name.  The LORD made short work of that.  The longer question was this: Would the children of Israel live by that name?  And so the question comes to us.

Stubbornness

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day two) 

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go.” 7:14

Several weeks ago I came across an internet meme which pictured a billboard which stated  “This year thousands of men will die of stubbornness.” Then, spray-painted just below this was a defiant response…“No we won’t.” The Pharaoh of the Exodus story could certainly relate to the graffiti on that billboard. Defiant and unyielding, he was willing to watch his people, the land, and the livestock suffer greatly rather than relent and show compassion, humility, or even a trace of humanity towards the Israelites. We can be instruments of God’s glory of objects of his wrath. What is he sending your way to get your attention? Do not let your own pride and stubbornness put you in the same category as the Pharaoh. Take off your sandals, find Holy Ground and yield to God’s great plan.

Small/huge step

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day one) 

“Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, . . . ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.’ “–5:1.

It was a HUGE mistake that surely seemed small to Pharaoh.  Just a SMALL matter compared to his normal pressures. But, it had a huge impact.  At first, Moses asked only permission for the Jews to go out in the desert to hold a religious festival.  Just a beginning. No great loss for Egypt.  Had Pharaoh, at this point, recognized their right to religious freedom, had he bent just slightly the Jews would still have left eventually, but without such cost to himself and his people.  Still true.  No step of obedience is small.  It will lead to more.  More obedience, more blessing.  No resistance to God’s will is small, either.  It hardens the heart and leads to judgment. Obedience may seem small, but it never is.

 

Does God get angry?

RE Verse reading–Exodus 3:1-14, 4:1-15 (day seven) 
“Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses”--v 4:14.  Does the Lord get angry?  With us, I mean.  Are we in danger of this happening to us?  “Do not put the Lord to the test” is the way Moses verbalized this life-lesson years later. ( Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 4:7)  Yes, the Lord gets angry!  Like a parent with a child who resists His will, asking one question too many, resisting obedience one moment too long. That moment when further hesitation becomes defiance.  Peter felt Christ’s anger. “Get Thee behind me, Satan”—Matthew 16:23.  The Pharisees too.  “He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart“–Mark 3:5. (Did they even notice? Not sure)  Be careful!  The Lord is patient with His people, but eventually anger rises toward hard, unwilling, hearts.  Explains where some are, even today. “To one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.”—James 4:17.  Does God get angry?

Identify

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 3:1-14; 4:1-15 (day six)
Who are you? Who are we? Exodus never lets us forget who these people are; they are the “people of Israel,” the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had a tremendous sense of corporate identity; they were God’s people because of God’s covenant with their forefathers. Even when God moved in the life of an individual it was always in the greater context of a people. Abraham was the father of a nation, and Moses led a people out of slavery; the people were always in view.

Maybe one of the messages of the Exodus, and the people of God, is that we must regain a perspective of our corporate identity. We tend to be so individualistic that it is hard for us to break free and participate in our corporate identity. You see, we don’t do church; we are the church. We don’t go to church for worship; the church worships. We love and serve others not because it is something we are supposed to do, but because it is who we are in Jesus. We are the church, a chosen race, a holy priesthood, called to be the people of God in a very broken world. We are the Kingdom of God breaking into kingdom of the world.

I think that is what Jesus meant in John 17:22-23:

“The glory you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Let’s be His church!