Rough Start - 250303

SPEAKER 1 Hello, I'm Blair Lemke. Welcome to Let God Speak. Many believers think that when they decide to follow God, they'll experience only happiness, prosperity and success. But are they really right? Is following God a ticket for trouble-free living? To answer this question, stay with us as we discuss the experience of Moses after he made the decision to follow God's calling. On our panel today we have Rod Butler and Lena Yoon. Welcome. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're thankful for the opportunity to study youy Word today. And as we do, we ask that yout would send youd Holy Spirit to be with us, to lead us into truth. And this is our prayer in Jesus' Name. Amen. Well, in our last program, we looked at the experience of God calling Moses to be His spokesperson to lead Israelites from the Egyptian slavery. Moses was an 80 year old man living peacefully in Midian and thought that his leadership days were over. Today, we're going to look at how Moses followed what God instructed him to do and see how those events turned out. We're gonna begin in Exodus chapter three, where we have the account of the burning bush. What did God call Moses to do here, Leena? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, God called Moses to deliver Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt and also God wanted him to be his spokesperson. So we can find this in Exodus 3:10. So here, come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. SPEAKER 1 So a rather straightforward question. Was there any ambiguity at all here, Rod, in what was being asked of Moses? SPEAKER 3 No ambiguity that I can see was a pretty clear direction. and God even goes further. He goes further to even tell Moses what would happen. And I'd like to read that. We turn to Exodus 3. I'm going to read verses 19 to 20. And this is God speaking, and He says, and I'm sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in the midst thereof. And after that, he will let you go. So here's the Lord saying that I'm going to work miracles. So Moses must have thought, this is going to be a pretty easy assignment. I've just got to tell Pharaoh, God's going to work miracles. It's all going to happen. SPEAKER 1 Well, we know that Moses and Aaron did go to Egypt as God commanded. It's always good to obey the Lord, amen. But what did they do when they first got their leena? SPEAKER 2 So they went to Egypt, and especially to the elders, and talked to them about God's plan, and He will deliver the Israelites. And we can find this in Exodus 4:30-31. Here it says, 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 had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped. So the signs were shown to them. And so, you know, we have read from these verses that actually they believed and they worshiped God. SPEAKER 1 I can imagine that it would have been quite a welcome sight to see Moses come at that time, especially where they were positioned in slavery and all of those things. So it would have been, I imagine, quite a wonderful greeting. But we read on, and in Exodus 5:1-2, The Bible says this, Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. But Pharaoh said, 'Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.' Quite a bold response here from Pharaoh, and what do we think, Rod, that they were expecting, that Moses was expecting Pharaoh to say in this interaction here? SPEAKER 3 Well, Moses would have, God already told Moses what Pharaoh was gonna do. He'd say, I won't let my people go. So Moses should have been expecting this. There should have been no surprises for Moses. SPEAKER 1 Now, it was quite a strong no. And in fact, he denied God quite clearly there in his response. What was the significance, Lina, of this response of Pharaoh to what Moses had shared with him. SPEAKER 2 So the significance of this Pharaoh's response was such that he not only rejected, refused to believe or, you know, acknowledged the existence of God, but by boasting, he also defied complying with God's command. And also he considered himself God. And so obviously he was not subservient to any other god. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, it definitely seems like there was some humility issues there. SPEAKER 3 And also too, Blair, if you look at verse 2, it says, he says, Neither will I let Israel go. Well, by saying that, this is symbolizing defiance and more so, is it symbolizing that I'm gonna fight against God. So this is a really bold statement by Pharaoh against God. SPEAKER 1 Well, it's never a good idea to pick God as the person you're going to fight. And I think, you know, there's many Bible stories that bear that fact out. Is there any symbolism here in history for this event of Pharaoh defying God in this way? SPEAKER 3 Rod? Yes, there is. If we turn to the book of Revelation, a prophetic book, and we look at Revelation, chapter 11, and I'm going to read verse eight because it mentions Egypt and it says, and their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Now, if you do a study, Egypt represents atheism, and it links Sodom to Egypt, which again, Sodom was a city that defied God. SPEAKER 1 That's right. SPEAKER 3 And if you look in verse 3 of chapter 11, it talks about these two witnesses being who have been slayed and a further study can reveal they were the Old and the New Testament. So this is a modern, defiant nation called Egypt which is defying the word of God, the Old and the New Testament, which witnesses. So there is symbolism, there is prophetic sort of linkage of Egypt to the last days to atheism and rejecting the Lord. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, and also Revelation 11 symbolizes what happened during the French Revolution. After the end of 1,260 years of papal dominancy and Christianity and the scriptures were rejected and members of clergy were massacred and goddess of reason was worshipped, so it led France into a complete chaos. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, there is some very fascinating history in all of what has just been mentioned there. And it is quite amazing to me that the types and the antitypes and the symbolism in the Bible and how this just unfolds throughout history. It's wonderful to study. Now, we see that Pharaoh here to this response, God gives the command to let the people go, but Pharaoh begins to fight back. How did he do this exactly, Leena? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, so he fought back because Israelites were the great, huge, you know, slave population for them. So therefore, actually, He would not let them go easily and rather actually immediately increase their workload. So let's go and read Exodus 5:9 here and let more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it and let them not regard false words. SPEAKER 1 So not a welcome response for the slaves getting their workload increased. I can't imagine they would have appreciated the and the overloading. But the Bible does go on here, Exodus chapter five, and we'll read verses 15 through to 18. The Bible says, Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, why do you treat your servants like this? No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, Make bricks, and behold, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people. But he said, your idol You sacrifice to the Lord, go now and work. No straw will be given to you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks. The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, you, shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task, each day. So they're in a bad situation and it's not the outcome that they were expecting, the Israelites, they were hoping for a better outcome, especially given Moses' initial interactions with them and the miracles and all of these sorts of things. What did the Israelite leaders do at this point, Rod? SPEAKER 3 Well, they were very unhappy, they were very upset. And they went and had a big complaint and cry to Moses. And this is spelt out in Exodus chapter 5, verse 20 and 21. It says, and they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way as they came forth from Pharaoh. and they said unto them, the Lord look upon you and judge, because you have made our saviour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants to put a sword in their hand to slay us. So virtually saying that, since you've come along and said, Yes, you will let us go, life's got much, much worse. We now have more work to do, we're under more pressure. Our slavery is much worse. They were very unhappy and they were complaining to Moses. SPEAKER 1 Moses is not very popular at this stage in the story. But it does go on, fortunately. We see God's hand leading through even the ups and the downs. And in verse 22 of chapter 5 of Exodus, it says, Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, 'O Lord, why have youe done evil to this people? Why did youd ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in youn name, he has done evil to the people, and youd have not delivered youd people at all. Now, now even Moses is starting to question God and turn to God and bring the complaints that the people have brought as well. Had God really failed Moses here, Lena? SPEAKER 2 No, not at all. God had not failed Moses. God was just testing Moses' faith. And although Moses was told by God that this journey would be difficult and Pharaoh will not let them go easily. But Moses and Israelites you know, expect, did actually had not expected this, you know, such retaliation from Pharaoh, that that would, you know, he would fight back so hard. But we know that this, you know, this game was not over and God was still, you know, on and with them. And so we actually, you know, they had to have faith in God. SPEAKER 1 Do you think, Rod, that Moses was taking a risk here in the way that he was complaining against God in this way? SPEAKER 3 Well, we're very blessed that we have a compassionate, loving God. And if we look at 1 Peter 5:7, it tells us, Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. And here's an example of Moses, who's got all this calamity come down upon him, because he's following what God told him to do. He's got all this pressure and complaining, But here he is now, he's pouring his heart out. There's no presumption with Moses. He's talking to God. And this is the same as Job. When Job had all the serious health affliction, he also grumbled to the Lord that, How come I follow you and all this is happening to me? And if we look at Habakkuk even, Habakkuk was one of the prophets. If I just turn to Habakkuk, Habakkuk 1:1, and it says, the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see, verse 2, oh Lord, how long shall I cry? So prophets do cry to the Lord when things go wrong, and God understands. God, He knows the human heart, and He understands, and we've got a gracious, loving God. SPEAKER 1 You know, there's some places in the Bible that are especially relatable to as Christians reading the Word, and I think this is one of the things that we can very easily relate to, this idea of calling out to God, wondering what is happening, why it's happening. It's, you know, we often will ask God, why me? Or what's the situation? It's a common cry. And it's comforting to see that that's a cry that's echoed in Scripture as well. It's not just always a lack of faith, but sometimes a working through of the faith as you approach the different situations. SPEAKER 3 And sometimes Christians will cry when they aren't aware they've done anything wrong. SPEAKER 1 Yes. SPEAKER 3 They're crying because it seems to be unfair. We don't know the big picture. SPEAKER 1 That's right. That's right. And God does see that picture. Now, Moses in this situation did exactly what he had been called to do by God. But everything became worse when he started doing what God asked him to do. What lessons can we take from this story, Lena? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, the lessons that we can take from this story is that when things appear worse, we're discouraging, we still have to have faith in God, believing that that He still loves us and He's with us. And so we are to do our part, believing that God will do His part. And we have to leave the consequences or results in the hands of God. So there are many accounts of missionaries who lost their lives even, but from it actually a great witness resulted. So, you know, quite often times God's ways may, you know, conflict with our own expectations for quick and instantaneous, results or solutions. But regardless, we have to have trust in God and believe that actually he will answer our prayers in his time and on his terms. So we actually gonna go and read Isaiah chapter 55 verse 8. Here it says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. SPEAKER 3 That's an important point because we often think how- we wonder it should happen the way we think it should happen. And when it doesn't, we blame God. But we've got to leave it to God to organize things. SPEAKER 1 Absolutely. And we do see this, that God's ways are above ours. Now, Moses had this complaint against God, and God answered this complaint in two parts. What was the first part, Rod? SPEAKER 3 Well, if we follow on in the account here, we go to chapter six. If I read verses two down to five, this sort of answers the first part. It says, and God spoke unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have also established covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians kept in bondage. And I have remembered my covenant. So here's the Lord answering this question by just sort of saying, It's I. Remember who's speaking. Remember who's in charge. It's I, God. I'm the God that made the covenant. I'm the God that's promised these things. and I will deliver. And I guess the first answer is God, in His loving way, is reminding Moses that who's in charge? It's the God of the universe is in charge. SPEAKER 1 Sometimes we do need to remember that God is God and we are man. And we're far below Him. Now, how did God answer the second part of Moses, or the second part of the challenge that Moses had given Leena? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, the answers can be found in Exodus, chapter six, verses from six to eight. So here therefore say, 'Know the children of Israel, I am the Lord. Now I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage. I am the Lord. So in God's grace, and He promises to do four things, as we have read. First, He promised that He would bring Israelites out of the bondage of Egyptians. Second, He will free them from slavery. Third, He will redeem them with outstretched arm and with judgments. And lastly, He will renew covenant with them. So they will be His people and He, God, will be their people. SPEAKER 1 JH: mmm, very powerful. And as we read on in verse 9, we see that Moses tells the people, reminds the people what God has promised, but the people ultimately don't listen to Moses. What does Moses do, Rod? SPEAKER 3 Well, Moses points out to God that if His own people aren't listening to Him, How does God expect that Pharaoh is going to listen to Him? We picked that up in verse 12 and it says here, and Moses spake before the Lord, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me: how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am I of uncircumcised lips? So this is again, Moses is now, he's in that position where he's looking at his own deficiencies. it's somehow all depended upon him. They're not listening to me, why would they listen to Pharaoh? As if Moses is the person who's going to make it all happen. You can almost sort of sense he's taking his eyes off God a bit, hence previously that's why God answered the way He did. I am the Lord. And as Lena just said, the promises that He's made to keep. So Moses is responding by sort of saying, well, you know, How's Pharaoh going to respond? SPEAKER 1 How does God respond to this reasoning that Moses gives that, you know, Pharaoh won't listen, Lena? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, God again kindly instructs Moses to go and speak to Pharaoh, but obviously he continues to try to avoid in doing so, as Rod read in Exodus chapter 6 verse 30, and we can find the uncircumcised lips. So, They actually, this phrase means that he is not eloquent. You know, in other words, he was a slow of speech. So basically Moses is making excuses that he doesn't have this skill to do our God's work, particularly for this task. SPEAKER 1 You know, I think I've heard that excuse before. How often we come up with excuses and you know, reasons why we shouldn't do God's work. Why do we so easily fall into this, Rod? SPEAKER 3 Well, we fall into it because we keep our eyes on ourself. And, you know, sometimes God asks us to do something and we look at it in terms of, well, I can't do that. We forget the fact, I mean, you've heard the saying, God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called. If God calls us to do something, we are to step out in faith and go forward. But the minute we take our eyes off the fact that God's calling us, we look upon ourselves, we'll be discouraged because we don't have all the ability. We've got to rely on God's power to do these things. And that to me is an important lesson that sometimes when God asks us to do something, it means we're way out of our comfort zone and we have to accept the fact that God's going to sustain us outside of our comfort zone. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, I love what you've shared there. In fact, in many ways, that comfort zone, when God gets us out of that comfort zone, that's the growth zone where He stretches us and challenges us and our faith is, is, is grown very rapidly. And so, God likes putting us outside of that comfort zone, in that stretch zone. And, you know, it did make me think as you were sharing there, that story of Peter when he took his eyes off Jesus and he sank in the water and, and how often we fall into the same trap and then fall into excuses and reasons why we can't do what God is calling us to do. But we see that in this situation, God has compassion for Moses and He changes His approach to talking to Pharaoh. What was this little change that we see, Lena? SPEAKER 2 Yes, so, you know, we all talked about the fact that Moses made excuses that, you know, like he just can't talk well, you know, because he was a slave of speech, not eloquent and etc. and so God actually makes changes that He actually doesn't need to speak. So we can see this Exodus 7:2, you shall speak all that I command you, and Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my... sorry, yeah, so till you know, verse two. So basically what God told them was, and Moses will be doing the role of God, and Aaron will be his prophet. SPEAKER 1 JH: Hmm. Yeah. So Moses gets a little bit of a different way to- God accommodates him in some ways here. And if we read on in Exodus chapter 7, verses 3 through to 5, The Bible says, But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. So God here outlines the bigger picture. and I want to ask the question to you, Rod, what does God mean when He will harden Pharaoh's heart in this verse? It's almost as if is God taking away Pharaoh's free will here? In what sense is God hardening Pharaoh's heart? SPEAKER 3 Well, to answer that specific question, you've sort of got to know the story and what's coming up are a number of plagues and there's ten of them. And when you look at those ten plagues, the first five plague it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart and then the last five it says God did. What was actually happening here? God was going to send a series of judgments on the Egyptians and those judgments were going to make Pharaoh make a decision. And the first lot of judgments or the plagues and things were coming were going to make Pharaoh say, no, no, I'm going to resist God. I'm going to fight this. Because he's already said he was going to defy and fight. and as he's made that decision to resist and to fight, his heart becomes hardened. And then later on it'll say that God hardened his heart as things happen. When you've made that decision to fight against God and you've resolved yourself that your decision, other things that happen just reconfirm that. So God can send the circumstances, but ultimately we are making the decision. Do we accept what God says or do we Do we double down and say, no, no, we're going to do our own thing and then harden our own hearts? SPEAKER 1 Yeah, that's a very important distinction there. And we see this picked up in the New Testament as well with Jesus describing that unforgivable sin. There's really no sin that's unforgivable. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us of all our sins, cleanse us from our unrighteousness, 1 John 1:9. But you have this object lesson of Pharaoh you know, resisting the Holy Spirit so much that he's unwilling to confess. And those are the sins that are unforgivable, the ones that we don't confess, where we don't have that contrite heart. And so we find an interesting situation here with Pharaoh hardening his heart and turning his back against God. As we finish up our program today, what are some of the overall lessons that we can take away from our study today of Moses and this story, this account in Exodus? SPEAKER 2 The overall lesson that we can take away from this story is that God does not call the equipped, as Rod pointed earlier, because no one is fully equipped to do God's work. God rather equips the cold. And Moses had quality of being, he had humility, but he did not actually, he had excuses. But again, God in His mercy and grace, and he actually fixed it, and he didn't need to to speak. We understand that it could be very scary confronting the most powerful ruler in his time and who thought he was God. But again, we have to have faith regardless and to believe the fact that God will equip us to do His work and we have to go forward. SPEAKER 3 And what I get from the story is that Moses was 80, Aaron was 83, There's no retirement from doing God's work. He got a call at 80, and the next 40 years, he worked incredibly for God. And that means that, you know, for all of us, we don't give up, we don't retire from God. SPEAKER 1 Amen. And that's probably a great place to leave our study today. When God answered, when Moses answered the call to speak for God, only trouble resulted. Moses looked to his own weaknesses and made excuses not to keep going. But whatever God calls us to do, we too must not get discouraged if troubles arise. He will give us the skills and the talents to achieve the mission. Success and prosperity depend not on us, but on Him. If God is calling you today to work for Him, trust Him, answer the call with a yes, and go forward. We are glad that you joined us today on Let God Speak. All of our past programs plus teachers notes are available on our website 3abnaustralia.org.au youu can email us on [email protected] Thank you for joining us. God bless. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.