Now You Shall See

[0:00] Perhaps you'll bear with me as we read God's Word together.

[0:19] It's Exodus chapter 5, reading the whole chapter, and the first verse of Exodus chapter 6. Verse 1, and the heading here is Bricks Without Straw, and that's going to be a difficult job.

[0:41] This is God's Word. Afterwards, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.

[0:56] Pharaoh said, Then they said, The God of the Hebrews has met with us.

[1:13] Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.

[1:24] But the king of Egypt said, Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work. Then Pharaoh said, Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working.

[1:39] That same day, Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and foremen in charge of the people. You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks.

[1:50] Let them go and gather their own straw, but require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don't reduce the quota. They are lazy.

[2:01] That is why they are crying out. Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Make the work harder for the men, so that they can keep working and pay no attention to lies.

[2:15] Then the slave drivers and the foremen went out and said to the people, This is what Pharaoh says. I will not give you any more straw. Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it.

[2:26] But your work will not be reduced at all. So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw.

[2:37] The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw. The Israelite foremen appointed by Pharaoh's slave drivers were beaten and were asked, Why don't you meet your quota of bricks yesterday or today as before?

[2:58] Then the Israelite foremen went and appealed to Pharaoh, Why have you treated your servants this way? Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, Make bricks.

[3:09] Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people. Pharaoh said, Lazy. That's what you are. Lazy. That is why you keep saying, Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.

[3:23] Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, Yet you must produce your full quota of bricks. The Israelite foremen realized they were in trouble when they were told, You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.

[3:41] When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them. And they said, May the Lord look upon you and judge you. You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials, And have put a sword in their hand to kill us.

[3:55] Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, He has brought trouble upon this people, And you have not rescued your people at all.

[4:13] 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, And he will drive them out of his country.

[4:31] And may the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his word this morning. Amen. I need to tell you that The songs have been ministering to me this morning In a different way From usual Because for reasons I don't know Nobody seems to be able to tell me so far I'm almost totally deaf this morning So I do sympathize with her sister But So I have to pray with my eyes open Because if somebody is praying And I'm waiting for their prayer to finish I don't know when they've finished

[5:31] Unless my eyes are open So But it's an interesting experience You know Because Paul the Apostle said The most staggering thing He said Something that's completely upside down From the way the world looks at things He said I will all the more gladly Boast of my weakness That the power of Christ may rest upon me He didn't see his weakness as a liability The world teaches us That That the world belongs to the strong That the victory always belongs to the strong But the Bible says the exact opposite The battle belongs to the Lord Always All the battles belong to the Lord And the victory Is with those who trust the Lord

[6:34] So when we are weak Then we are strong Hands up all the strong people today Why are we strong?

[6:47] Because we're weak Because he is strong We're strong in the strength of the Lord Which is the only way to be strong So I think I'm getting a A semaphore signal from the back seat Because I always forget to switch this thing on That's it now Stephen I think Okay Well here we are in In Exodus 5 today And we read about A part of the story of Israel Which I don't You really You could not exaggerate The suffering Of the people of Israel At this point In their history You couldn't exaggerate it There are historical accounts Of the brick kilns Of Egypt And when you read What people were suffering then

[7:49] In these conditions They weren't almost entirely naked Under the hot Egyptian sun They had nothing on their heads To protect them They had nothing to protect them From heat stroke Or any of these things That can kill you outright And they were working in temperatures Of say 90 to 100 degrees They were making bricks With their bare hands And they were moulding mud And not just mud All sorts of stuff They had just had to work it With their hands Until Formed bricks And they would add straw to it To reinforce the bricks It was horrible work And people tended To die Quite quickly After the labouring task So they were constantly Bringing in new workforces New slaves And

[8:50] Egypt's palaces Even were built With these bricks So they used millions Literally billions of bricks And There was no end to this This labour It was just Horrific Now actually If you go To Pakistan Today You'll find That mostly It's mostly The Christian community That's working In the brick kilns And They're They're basically Bond slaves And the stories That are coming out Of Pakistan Today Are absolutely Horrible So This is bang up to date But I want to I want to Suggest to you That it's up to date For us as well I wonder how many of us Here Now don't put your hand up But I wonder how many of us Here Recently Have had a shock About The price of something

[9:50] Or about What's happening With their bills Their mortgage Or their fuel price Or whatever Okay There was a time When paying your bills Was something That you Were more or less In control of You might find There was too much Month left At the end of the money You know But generally speaking You were in control Of your finances But if If the bills Go through the roof If the prices Suddenly spike The whole situation Is out of control And you're faced With an impossible task And so Many people today Are already Robbing Peter To pay Paul And trying to Keep up These people Were faced With an impossible task They were told You make the same Number of bricks But I'm not going to Provide you with The straw that you need An absolutely Impossible task Let's

[10:51] Look at it A wee bit More Let's go back To the last verse Of chapter 4 That Carl Covered for us Last week At verse 30 We read this Aaron spoke all The words that The Lord had Spoken to Moses And did the signs And sight of the people So he He performed the miracles That God Had enabled him And Moses To provide for the people To convince them That they were Speaking from God And at verse 31 And the people Believed And when they heard That the Lord Had visited the people Of Israel And that he had Seen their affliction They bowed their heads And worshipped What else were they Going to do You see They had These people Had a theology From experience Now we all do this We all tend to build Our theology On experience It's a dangerous Thing to do Because sooner or later

[11:52] Your theology Is going to light you down Because your experience Isn't necessarily The best Arbiter of the truth It's just An arbiter of your experience Let me explain These folk Had lived Under hardship For generations God had prophesied To Abraham That his descendants Would live in a land That was not their own For 400 years And they would be slaves And they would be afflicted For 400 years God had said that So Although Moses comes on The scene here You can guarantee This affliction Has been going on For generations Before Moses Comes on the scene So this has been A bad scene For a long Long time And when When your experience Is that bad And that constant For a long period Of time That affects Your theology You begin to think

[12:54] About God In a particular way And for these people God was the God Of legend But he wasn't Their God He was Joseph's God Perhaps And they knew The stories of Joseph That were carried down Through the families Generation after generation And they knew All the stories About God But he was a God Of legend He wasn't real for them And he wasn't involved And he wasn't concerned About the price of eggs You with me?

[13:28] God wasn't involved With them He was engaged And we know that This is We know that They thought this About God Because of this Last verse In chapter 4 When they heard That the Lord Had visited The people of Israel And that he had Seen their affliction You see They really honestly Thought That God Wasn't interested In them That God was distant He was remote He was far away And suddenly They'd discover God has come For a visit Wow How amazing is that?

[14:02] And Moses and Aaron Are the living proof That God has come For a visit God isn't remote Anymore And now they're also Discovering That God has seen Their affliction They thought that God Wasn't interested They thought God Was so remote And detached That their affliction Was of no concern To him And suddenly Here it is Here's two Trustworthy servants And you know Moses had Worried himself Sick about this This part Of his pilgrimage He was so So worried As to how This was all Going to work out How was Aaron Going to feel About him After all These years That he had Run away And never Checked in on His family For forty years How was Aaron Going to feel About him How on earth Were the people Going to believe What he had to say You know He just couldn't Imagine it all Working out well And then suddenly

[15:03] We discover Moses and Aaron Gathered together All the elders Of the people Aaron spoke All the words That the Lord Had spoken to Moses And he did the signs In sight of the people And suddenly For Moses It's a completely Turned around situation Because The elders Accept The story That Moses And Aaron Present And the people Believe So You know Aaron's on board The elders Are on board The people Are on board And Moses Is standing there Saying Oh I wish I had Trusted God Sooner This is all Coming together I love it When a good plan Comes together I don't think Moses Moses In the a-team But you know What I mean He was Thinking That this is Going well This is This is super You know If All we need to do Is trust God And this is going To be a cakewalk Well that's

[16:04] Moses theology At this point But you see When you get Your theology From experience It's not secure It just means That your theology Is based on A good point In your life Or even a bad Point in your life I mean The number of times I I had the sad task Many years ago Of trying to minister To a couple Who had been bereaved Twenty years Before I met them And they were As sad On the day That I met them As they must have been When their daughter Died Twenty years previously And the reason For that Was because There had been No input Of the word Of God Their theology Had come from Their experience And as far as They were concerned God Had let them down God had abandoned them God had hurt them Where it hurt most And their faith Had gone And they were bitter And they were sad That was their experience

[17:07] And that gave them Their theology There's an absolutely Amazing story Told by Dr. Donald Barnhouse Was one of the great Preachers Of last century In Philadelphia In a big church In Philadelphia And he He told the story Of he had been Conducting a series Of services Not in his own church But in another church For another minister And all the talk In the church Was that the minister's Wife was just about To produce their first child And so everybody Was buzzing about this And waiting for news And then on the very Last night Of the series of meetings The minister of the church Didn't turn up Until late And Dr. Barnhouse Thought well We know what this is about But when the minister Arrived He was completely Devastated He was ashen He was completely

[18:08] Crushed And he said to Dr. Barnhouse He says In those days They didn't talk about Down syndrome They talked about Mongolism And he said To Dr. Barnhouse He says My wife's produced A mongoloid child He says I don't know What to tell her I don't know How to tell her And Barnhouse Said to him He said This is from the Lord This is from the Lord He says You need to know that And he took him to Exodus chapter 4 Verse 11 Moses had protested Oh my Lord I'm not eloquent Either in the past Or since he's spoken To your servant I'm slow of speech And of tongue And in verse 11 The Lord says Then the Lord said to him Who has made man's mouth?

[19:07] Who makes him mute Or deaf Or seeing Or blind? Is it not I? The Lord? And this man This poor minister He grabbed the Bible Off Dr. Barnhouse He said Let me see that And he sat there Tears streaming down his face Dried his eyes So he could read the Bible properly And finally There was a smile Broke out in his face And he said Our child is a blessing From God And Dr. Barnhouse Said yes she is And he went To the hospital To see his wife And he walked in And he said Darling He says The Lord has blessed us With a mongoloid child And she burst into Floods of tears As you would expect And then she finally said Where did you get that?

[20:07] And he showed her The scriptures And they prayed together And they told the staff That the Lord had blessed them With a mongoloid child And the following Sunday When that minister Stood up in his pulpit There were 77 nurses From that hospital In his congregation And 30 of them Gave their hearts to the Lord Before the end of the service You see You can get your theology From experience Or you can get it From above When you get it From here You're getting it From above When you just trust Your experience You're going to end up With a twisted picture Of God And you can't blame These slaves For having a twisted picture Of God Their suffering Was horrible But whether While you want to get Alongside people And feel And sympathy for them

[21:09] And try to comfort them You can't comfort them By confirming Their wrong theology You can only comfort them By giving them The truth That comes from above So that they get A proper view of God And so here they are They're beginning to enter Into a proper view of God And they know that God Is with them And they know That God Has seen their affliction And they bow their heads And they worship Hallelujah And then afterwards Of course Moses Bear in mind That Moses is on the crest Of a wave here Right Now I don't know if you've ever Watched surfers I mean I Just about Scares the life out of me Just to watch a surfer But they sit up there On the crest of this wave But the thing about

[22:09] A crest Is it's not going to be There forever Every wave that crests Is going to fall And Moses is on the crest Of a wave Because it's all going Swimmingly Thank you very much It's all going so well And afterwards He goes to Pharaoh And he's still on the crest Of the wave And he's Still thinking God's got this sorted And he goes Into Pharaoh And says Right Well You need to let The people go So that they can Hold a festival A feast And celebrate Their God In In the wilderness And he's standing there Full of optimism And Pharaoh says Huh Who's the Lord I don't know I don't know any Lord Who is this God that you're

[23:10] Talking about Should be worshipped Because you see Pharaoh too Has his own theology And Pharaoh's theology Says He's the top dog He's God Egyptian pharaohs Were believed to be The sons of the god Ra Who was the sun god So he actually Thought he was divine And he was perfectly Happy for people To show Worship towards him Now you need to think Of what's going through Pharaoh's mind Because this is a man Who's thinking About the rest There were loads Of gods in Egypt There always are In an idolatrous society There were lots of gods But you know People In the heart of hearts They know That their Gods are fake They know Their gods are fake Isaiah says

[24:12] You You take a piece of wood You curve it You put it in the form Of a man And you give it eyes And a mouth And hands And it can't do A thing for itself You have to carry it Everywhere And it's absolutely No use to you It can't do a thing For you You made this With a piece of wood That was left over From the wood you used To cook your dinner And now you're going to Bow down and worship it Hello But you see That's idolatry Idolatry Is a suppression Of the truth Now think about this folks Because Paul Said to the Roman church He said People are without excuse Because they're suppressing The truth If you're suppressing

[25:13] The truth That's not a display Of ignorance That's a display Of knowledge When you suppress The truth You know the truth You just Don't allow it The light of day You don't allow The truth To influence your life In any way Because you're set On a course And the truth Is an inconvenience I used to pastor In a setting Where people Were concerned For ecumenism They wanted to Join denominations Together And join Churches Together And Basically It was the gospel According to John, Paul, George And Ringo All you need Is love Okay So you just Love each other And it's cozy And we have A great coming Together And if the truth Of your doctrine Gets in the way Of the union Of the two churches Then You throw the doctrine

[26:14] Aside The truth Is an inconvenience It's not something You want to interfere With this union You're trying to build I'm sad But that's That basically Is how most Ecumenism works It's not biblical It's not godly You can't have Unity By jettisoning The truth In fact You can't have love By jettisoning The truth Because love And truth Can't be separated The god of truth Is the god of love So here we are There's a great suppression Of the truth Going on here And pharaoh Is not prepared To accept That there's Another god A rival god That these people Notice his language here He doesn't Like What's being said Let my people go You see As far as pharaoh

[27:15] Is concerned They're his people That's a direct challenge To his ownership And you know If you know If you know In your heart of hearts That all the idols Of Egypt Are actually fakes And you know That they don't really Accomplish anything At all And if you're A determined Unbeliever Who believes That you yourself Are the only True deity In the place Then basically When you consider The fact that You control The largest Most powerful Army on earth At that time And you control The money supply And you control The lives Of millions Of people And you have The power of life And death Over those people Then why should You not be The one That receives The worship Why should you Not be God Pharaoh's not Being illogical He's being Perfectly reasonable He's got every right

[28:17] To think that He's a God From his Point of reasoning So 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 This is not What Moses expected This is not Even plan B Then they said The God of the Hebrews Has met with us Please let us go A three days journey Into the wilderness They're saying Please here Do you see this They're saying Please Why would you say Please to a dictator When you've got The word of the Lord On your lips Let my people go There's no please About it Let my people go And there's a time

[29:19] Coming very soon In this situation Where it's going to be Absolutely clear That Pharaoh Has no choice But let's carry on With this He wants He decides That in order To deal with this situation Since he has the power Of life and death Over people He needs to make These people more afraid And by the way You need to know The dictators Throughout history Have been the most Afraid people You could meet Joseph Stalin Lived in a house That had eight Locking bedrooms And each of these bedrooms Had a combination Lock on it And he He never told anyone Which room he was Going to sleep in For fear he would be Assassinated He was so afraid

[30:24] That he had these Eight different Rooms to sleep in And he would choose A different one At random Dictators are Very frightened people And so because They know the power Of fear in their own lives They go out of their way To make fear A major controlling factor In the lives of everyone They want to rule So Pharaoh turns This thing around And decides that He's going to add To the burden Of the Israelites He's going to make Their work even harder And by the way Since they're now Having to make The bricks without straw The one thing That matters to Pharaoh Is clearly not Productivity Because he's given them Now an impossible task It's not output That matters to him It's oppression

[31:24] He's not bothered By the fact That they're not Going to meet the quotas It's more important That they're oppressed And that they know Who's boss So this is Pharaoh Turning up The heat To a huge extent So the taskmasters And the foremen Of the people Went out And said to the people Thus says Pharaoh I will not give you straw Go and get your straw Or yourselves Wherever you can find it But your work Will not be reduced In the least There's a good question We could ask At this point Paul raises A good question For us Because he said To the Corinthian church That the sacrifices That are offered By pagans To their idols Are not offered

[32:25] To God But to demons This is a fascinating thing And it's important That we understand this That this is not Just a tussle Between God And Pharaoh Behind Pharaoh There is a darkness There is a power A personal power That has held people In slavery For 400 years We need to think About who Pharaoh Really is In this story Moses in many ways Is a type of Christ There are so many parallels In Moses life With the life of Jesus For one thing This exodus Is going to be Brought about By a man Who is reduced To a state Of complete And utter Powerlessness And weakness

[33:26] Moses has no strength Of his own Well he's greatly regarded By the people In Egypt And even by His own people But Moses Knows the truth Moses knows That if this exodus Is going to happen It's going to be Not by might Nor by power But by my spirit Says the Lord Moses knows that There's no possibility That Moses Thinks the power Resides with him So here we are In a situation Where Moses Is facing a man Who has behind him A darkness That we need to try To identify What would be That darkness Behind Pharaoh I think it's Actually quite easy To get to the point Of understanding Of what the darkness Is that's controlling

[34:26] Here This is one man You know Behind the idols That people are Offering sacrifices To are demons That's New Testament Truth Okay That's what Paul said To the early church Don't imagine For a moment An idol Is just an idol And that's the end of it That is not the end of it Behind that idol Is real Personal Evil And the Bible Calls them demons So who would be Behind Pharaoh Would it not be Satan We're even told That after the Passover supper We're told That Satan Entered into Judas Judas Became the key Player at that point Because the most Important part Of the story At that point Was that Jesus Needed to be Betrayed And Jesus

[35:26] Had known From the very Beginning Who was going To betray him He could have He could have Exposed Judas At any point But he didn't In fact He loved him To the end But the fact Of the matter Is That behind Judas' Betrayal Was Satan Himself This was a role That Satan Wasn't going to Delegate To one of his Minions To another Demon This was something This was a part He wanted For himself To be the one Who would Actually Bring about The betrayal Of Jesus And I believe That it's not Twisting scripture Or anything Close to it To say that Behind This pharaoh Was none other Than Satan Himself Who hated The people Of God And hated God Because he sought Worship for Himself Have you

[36:27] Any idea Of the pride Of this pharaoh His pride Is unbelievable His country Is going to be Brought To complete And utter ruin In the chapters Ahead And still He won't Accept The supremacy Of the living God When you're Dealing with That level Of pride It wouldn't Be at all Surprising To discover That pharaoh Is the earthly Representative Of Satan Himself Against the People of God And the Purposes Of God And the Glory of God So there's A lot At stake Here But the Taskmasters And the Foremen It's Interesting How This is Sort of A double Layered System Of Government Here Pharaoh Has his Own Taskmasters These Are Egyptians

[37:28] Who are Given the Job Of keeping The Israelites In line But more Than that Pharaoh Appoints Foremen The foremen Were Israelites Themselves Who were Required To bring About the Discipline That was Needed For their Own People To produce The number Of bricks It's a Horrific System And in Fact it Was Paralleled In the Gettos The Nazis Did exactly The same Thing with The Jewish People They Appointed People Who were Called Capos And they Would go Around and They would Have a Stick and They would Have a Smart hat On and They were The ones Who were Supposed to Keep the Jews In line And make Sure that They didn't Infringe The Nazi Laws and Rules that Were laid Down So it's So it's a Divide and Conquer Kind of Approach To things And what

[38:29] Pharaoh is Seeking to Do is To undermine Moses Authority And undermine Moses Favor with The people So that Moses Then doesn't Have the Support That he's Had until Now Now this Is exactly This is not a New strategy Satan uses This in Churches all The time I wonder If we know How much Of an Interest Satan Takes in This church I think To be Honest I think We're Fools If we Don't Believe Satan Takes an Interest In this Church Because With our Stance On the Authority Of Scripture And our Confidence In Jesus Alone For salvation That puts This church Firmly in The cross Hairs Of the Adversary So we Need to Understand That his Policy of Divide and

[39:29] Conquer Has worked So many Times in Churches It's amazing How often Trouble breaks Out and People start Falling out With each Other over Nothing at All But by the Time it's All finished You've got so Much pain And so much Hurt And then you Have collateral Damage You have people On the edge Of the whole Argument Who don't Even know What it's All about But they're Suffering the Same pain As everybody Else We need You know Paul said We're not Unaware Of Satan's Schemes I think Sometimes we Are I think Sometimes we Don't really Believe that Satan gets Involved In church Affairs I don't Think he Can keep His hands Off church Affairs So the Fact that We're Having a Good Right Just now Does not Mean that We should Be complacent We need To be on Our guard Constantly We need To be At prayer

[40:30] Constantly Morning Noon And evening Praying for The body Of Christ Praying for Each other Upholding Each other In love So he Sought to Divide And conquer Well let's Just find Out if That If that Actually Worked The Foremen Of the People of Israel These are The Israelites Themselves Who are Foremen They were Actually Beaten Why have You not Done all Your task Of making Bricks Today and Yesterday As in The past So the Foremen Take the Beating And that Puts them In a Very Very Bad Place And the Foremen Of the People Came and Cried To Moses Or They came And cried To God No they Didn't Who did They look For help To They looked

[41:30] To Pharaoh They went Crying to Pharaoh Oh jailer Oh jailer Please help Us This is the Man who Has made Their life A misery This is the Man who Thinks he's Their god And they Should worship Him and Not Yahweh And what They're doing They're going Asking Pharaoh for Help How sad Is that Why do you Treat your Servants Like this Your Servants They've Just Discovered That their God Is the Supreme God That They've Just Discovered That their God Has sent Moses And Aaron To tell Them That all One million Of the Israelites Are going To leave Egypt On a Single Day Hello Can you Imagine what That looked Like a Million people

[42:31] With their Goods And the Valuables They had Collected And their Children And their Old people A million People on The move Out of Egypt In a Single day That's what's About to Happen They've Just Discovered That their God is Going to Set them Free And that See That That Pharaoh Will drive Them out Of his Land But instead Of that Seeing their God as The almighty The Yahweh The covenant Keeping God El Shaddai The omnipotent One They go Running To Pharaoh It's really Sad They can't Help themselves You see Let's not Condemn The Israelites We would Probably Have done The same Thing Because These people Have been Institutionalized They've Had centuries They've Had generations Of slavery And they've

[43:31] Never known Anything else And we Can't Criticize Them for Doing this But we Can feel Such grief For it We can Feel So sad That at The very Point of Their Greatest Need They would Go running To their Oppressor To ask For help No straw Has been Given To your Servants And they Say It's Not Our Fault It's Your People You need To beat Your own People Not us And pharaoh Is completely Twisted I'm not Going to Release Your Burden Just go And get On with It You know What you're To do You see This is Proof That pharaoh Is not Interested In the Output He's not Interested In how Many Bricks They Produced His Priority Is the Oppression Of the

[44:31] People He wants To make Clear That they're The slaves And he's The master My brothers And sisters That's exactly How satan Wants to Speak To you And me He wants To tell Us that These little Habits That we've Got That we've Tried To deal With over The years These sinful Habits That we're Ashamed of And that we've Never really Sorted in our Lives He wants to Tell us That that's so Engrained in us You know People say Oh I'm a Warrior I've been a Warrior all my Life That's who I Am Well listen I'm sorry But you're Rightfully saying To God That he's being Unreasonable When he tells You not to Worry Is God Unreasonable Is God Whose love Is this Shape Unreasonable Does he Command the Impossible Or does he Give the Power To obey

[45:32] His commands Is that Why the Apostle Said his Commands Are not Burdensome His commands Are not Burdensome Because it Is God Who is at Work in You To enable You to Know and To do What pleases Him The power Of God In your Life is Astonishing We need to Take it Seriously Folks God is Infinite In order In order To give You The help That you Need He doesn't Send you An installment Of himself He gives All of Himself To you And all Of himself To me And all Of himself To Ruth And to Evelyn And to Margaret And to John And to Janice He gives All of Himself To each Of us Because he's Infinite And he Doesn't Have to Ration Himself Out So what You have Dwelling Within You Is all Of God That you're Ever going To need Or see Now if You want To get

[46:32] Up and Dance That's Just Fine Because That's A dancing Time Is it Not I mean What sort Of stuffiness Is there In us If we Cannot Get excited About a God Who is Able To turn Our lives Completely Around And give Us victory Over the Sins that Have laughed At us For years Sin Doesn't Get to Laugh At Christians My brothers And sisters We get To laugh At sin Not Because sin Is a Funny Matter But because Its power Is futile Over a Christian If the Son sets You free You will Be free Indeed My brothers And sisters I'm saying To you right Now The son Has set You free And you Are free Indeed Amen And so How does This finish Well The foreman We don't

[47:32] Know from The text Here really In the Original Language Whether the Foreman Were waiting For Moses And Aaron Or Moses And Aaron Were waiting For the Foreman I rather Think it Was the Foreman That were Waiting For Moses And Aaron They had A few Things they Wanted to Say You would Understand The Lord Look on You And judge They said To Moses They were Not happy With Moses Let him Be the Judge Because you Have made Us stink In the Sight of Pharaoh They weren't Exactly respectful But they did Get it on The nose And you Put a Sword In their Hand to Kill us Well that's A bit of An exaggeration Actually Because Pharaoh Had always Had a Sword in His hand To kill Them So there Was nothing New in That But when You're Upset Then exaggeration Comes easily Doesn't it But let's Look at this Last verse That we had For today This is Verse 1

[48:33] Of chapter 6 Let's just Look at this Verse But the Lord said To Moses Because Moses Had cried out To God And came Very close To rebellion Get very Close to Saying God This is All down To you This is You've Made a Pig's ear Of this Lord Have you Got a Plan B So Moses Elizabeth Is at his Wits End This Thing That he Thought Was all Coming Together A day Or so Ago Is suddenly All falling Apart But since I came to Pharaoh, says Moses, to speak in your name, he's done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.

[49:21] Lord, you haven't kept your end of this. But listen to this. The Lord said to Moses, let's just check out these next four words, because the whole of what we've read today hangs on these four words.

[49:40] Now you shall see. Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.

[49:58] Now you shall see. You see, this is where the theology from experience is going to be replaced by theology from above. God is saying, now you're not going to make up your theology from what you've just experienced.

[50:16] I'm not going to be a good guy one day and a bad guy the next. Now you're going to get theology directly from me. Now you shall see what I will do. This is not down to you, Moses.

[50:27] This is not down to you, Israelites. This is my work. I will do this. What a God we serve.

[50:40] Eh? Let's pray. Father, we marvel at your kindness that you would help us to see where our theology just doesn't cut the mustard.

[50:57] Where it just isn't accurate. Where it just isn't secure. Lord, help us get our theology from your word and not from our experience. If our experience supports the truth of your word, then we praise you for that.

[51:13] But if our experience is telling us something different from what your word says about you, Lord, help us to get straight into the pages of your word and see the truth. Help us stand secure on what you have revealed of yourself.

[51:28] And we bless you. We praise you that you are a self-revealing God. And you have revealed yourself supremely in our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for your son.

[51:41] We praise you, Lord. Lord, we pray that we might look for your glory and that people might see in us a theology of you that makes them reach out for a God so wonderful.

[51:55] In Jesus' name. Amen.