
Hosted by Robert Clark · EN

God has begun the work of setting His people free, by unleashing ten deadly plagues on the Egyptians. The tenth and final plague is the most devastating of all as God sends His angel of death to kill the first-born sons and animals of every household. There is only one way to avoid certain destruction: A spotless lamb must be killed and its blood applied to the doorway. For those households, the angel will pass-over and the people and animals will be spared. The lamb will have taken their place in death and saved their life. It is another awesome picture of Gospel truth, foreshadowing the coming of Jesus, the spotless lamb of God who "takes away the sin of the world" (1:29). Because He died for us, we are set free to live in the provisions of God.

In Luke 4:14–30, Jesus publicly reveals Himself as the Spirit-anointed Messiah promised by God through the prophets. As He announces the arrival of God's Kingdom, He offers forgiveness, freedom, healing, and restoration to those who recognize their need. Yet many who heard Him were impressed by His words without embracing Him as their Savior. This passage reminds us that Jesus is not merely a great teacher or one solution among many—He is the One and Only Savior who has come to reconcile us to God. The question is not whether Jesus is impressive, but whether we truly trust Him as our Savior

Pharaoh has no intentions of letting the Israelites go. He will not cut them loose; he cannot let them be free. The status of his reputation and the advancement of his kingdom depend upon their slavery. If it were up to the Israelites, they would be stuck, completely incapable of liberating themselves. They have no resources and no strength to make their way out. God must intervene...And He will. In chapters 7 through 12, God begins the process of deliverance by unleashing 10 deadly plagues on the Egyptians. Through one miraculous plague after another, God shows His superiority to the gods of the Egyptians and His sovereignty over death and life. In no time, He turns Egypt into a barren wasteland. By these judgments and acts of power, God persuades Pharaoh to let His people go. As He ravages the Egyptians with death, He also preserves the lives of His people, protecting them and leading them out of slavery. Thousands of years later, He will send Jesus to bring about the ultimate exodus whereby we are brought from death to life through union with Him and His crucifixion and resurrection.

In hearing that the Israelites wished to break from their labors in order to worship their God, Pharaoh was incensed. Rarther than granting them freedom, he turned up the heat even more. Not only would they need to keep fulfilling their quota of work, going forward they would also have to gather their own supplies. He wouldn't let them go; instead, he commanded them to "Work harder!" The desperate plight of the Israelites has only worsened. Under the tyranical hand of Pharaoh, their suffering is intensifying. And they are powerless, utterly powerless, to save themsleves. There is nothing they can do. They are dependant upon God. He is the only One who can set them free. Only God's liberating hand can overpower Pharaoh's enslaving hand. As we move from chapter 5 into chapters 6 and 7, God repeatedly reassures Moses that He will indeed, by His saving hand, set His people free. Israel may be no match for Pharaoh, but Pharaoh is no match for God. He will set His people free. He will not be stopped.

The eagerly anticipated time has come for a showdown with Pharaoh. In Exodus 5, Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh to request permission to go into the wilderness for a feast unto their God. He immediately denies their request. He does not know their God and He will not allow his work force to be depleted for the Israelite people to have a holiday. Not a chance! He won't allow them to rest; they must work! In fact, he assumes that their request is simply an excuse to be lazy, to cease their efforts, and to threaten his kingdom and his plans. So, not only will Pharaoh not let them go, he will also increase the demands on them. He will make the work harder. Adding insult to injury, going forward the Israelites will be required to gather the supplies for their building work in addition to doing the building work. Pharaoh is an actual historical figure, and he is also a type of Satan himself, and a type of the voice within each of us which says, "You must work for life!" While in the natural realm, it is true that we must work to accomplish anything in this world and to live, in the spiritual realm, such work is suicide. It is a deceptive denial of the living and loving God who gives life as a gift of grace, not as a wage earned. Sadly, we are all work-aholics who believe the lie that if we just work hard enough, we can please ourselves, prove ourselves, and protect ourselves. There are secular ways of going about it; and, there are religious ways of going about it. And, it is all deadly. It is heavy, burdensome, and enslaving. It sabotages any chance at real joy, or real peace, or real love for God and others.

As Moses stands in the dust with God before the burning bush, he is vulnerable and exposed. In their interaction, God is revealing to Moses what he believes about himself, i.e. who he thinks he is, and what he believes about God, i.e. who he thinks God is. As the conversation proceeds, it becomes increasingly clear that Moses has some major misconceptions about Who God is and who he is. One of the many things God is up to is making more clear who He Himself really is, The Great I Am, and making more clear who Moses really is as one created by, loved by, and provided for by God.

Since there is a God, nothing is more important than Who He is and What He is like. In this part of Exodus, He introduces Himself to Moses personally as the great "I Am." He is the true God, the living God, the everlasting God, the One who always has been and always will be. He is the God who loves His people and is committed to their freedom. As Moses stands vulnerable and exposed before Him at the burning bush, God reveals Himself with greatest clarity as the great "I Am" who has always been with and for His people and who has both the plan and the provisions to set His people free. He will execute His plan with perfection and to completion, in His way and time. Just as God worked in the lives of Moses and the Israelites, He works in our lives as well, showing us the desperation of our predicament and the sufficiency of His redemption. He shows us the various ways in which we are enslaved and He reveals Jesus as the One who alone can set free. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

God met Moses in the dirt, where he stood with uncovered feet and an exposed heart. From a miraculously burning-and-yet-not-consumed bush, God spoke to Moses, declaring His faithfulness and plan to rescue His Hebrew people from Egyptian bondage. Moses had spent 40 years in obscurity in a place called Midian. Previously, in his younger days, he felt destined for a life of significance. He believed he would be an advocate for his people, but when he took mattters into his own hands and murdered an Egyptian, the Hebrews did not applaud him. Sensing rejection, hearing that Pharaoh was aware of his act, and fearing for his life, he fled to Midian where he spent those many years in the lowly, seemingly unimportant position of tending to his father-in-law's sheep (cf. Acts 7). But when the time was right, God intervened. He appeared in that burning bush and called out to Moses to begin fulfilling His plan of setting His people free. God has His way of revealing Himself to us as well. In His perfect time, He uses our life circumstances and struggles to invite us to honesty and vulnerability; He confronts our pride and our unbelief; He reveals His character of faithfulness, love, mercy, and grace; and He teaches us to live by faith in His provisions for us through Jesus Christ, rather than by our own efforts. He persuades us of the truth that sets us free.

What do you have in common with Pharaoh? There is probably more than you realize. As he ruled over Egypt there were many things that had to go his way, or else! He was the most powerful man in the kingdom, but he was also the most insecure. He was the scariest and the most scared at the same time. We all have ways we want things to go in this world. If we're honest, we often believe we need things from the circumstances and the people around us, things that make us feel valued and things that make us feel fulfilled. All it takes is some disruption, some intruder, some threat to our kingdom and we react. We seek to exercise control and to fight for our comfort. The good news is just as God sent Moses to free His people from the clutches of Pharaoh back then, He has sent Jesus to set us free from our own Pharaoh-like hearts today. He comes to show us that our well-being is found in His prominence, His plans, and His provisions, not our own. He has come to deliver us.

We all find ourselves sometimes in places where we ask, "How did I get here?" There are many factors that determine where we end up in life, some within our control, some outside our control. There are decisions we make, people we meet, and experiences we have that all play a part in getting us where we are. The story of Exodus acquaints us with the reality that God is over all these circumstances, sovereignly orchestrating all things for His glory and our good. He is guiding us along, even causing us at times to be stuck, in order that we might learn to trust in Him. In God's good plans for us we are right where we belong in order to see His provisions for us, both physically and spiritually. Jesus came, lived, suffered, and died that we might know without a shadow of a doubt that our Creator God loves us, that He is always with us, and that He will always give us exactly what we need.