[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m. if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, you can find us
[email protected] dot. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast Madison Church of Christ sermons thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Alright, so life of Moses, I said we weren't going to go over an overview, so I'm not going to do the whole extended overview from last time, but just to let everybody know where we are by looking at this right here, we had exodus one and two in class one. That's sort of where Moses is saved. We talked about how that saved. There's some literary themes between him using the word ark for him in the basket and then the ark. When he wrote about Noah and Genesis.
We have Exodus two with him killing a guy and then deciding, oh, this is a bad thing. I'm going to flee. Go to the land of Midian. That's where he met his wife, Zipporah.
Exodus three and four was our next week where we talked about the burning bush. We talked about the I am statement and all the significance there.
Last week we talked about Moses returning to Egypt from the land of Midianite. Real weird situation with feet there and everything else that went on.
And then this week is just going to be Moses speaking to Pharaoh. If this is your first time in the class, just an interesting perspective that I was able to get was I was able to go to Egypt on a class dig, whatever you call it, this past year. So I have some pictures and other things to share in the midst of this. But for right now, we are about to start Exodus five. But I just wanted to go over this because I felt it was valuable. And I sent probably four or five of you guys this past week.
I was asked about just resources I've used on this and part of it was cool because I did get to go and attend that class and that was neat. It's hard unless you're willing to go over there to get that as a resource. But the other aspects I've used heavily. I'm just going to hope that these work.
This was the guy who took us over, and his name is doctor Jonathan Moore. He's just one of the most interesting people I've ever met. Doctor Moore is a guy who lives up in Kentucky. He was a podiatrist and a podiatrist surgeon for a long time, opened clinics, ended up selling his clinics, made a whole bunch of money that way, and decided, well, I don't need to make any more money in my life. What's something else that I can do? And this guy decided to go back to school at like 42, and he got a PhD in archaeology, and now he owns a couple dig sites, does some other things in Israel and other locations. And he was the one who paid for me to essentially travel with him and go over there on this dig. But I'm not sure if everyone would have access to this or not. I just created a student account and it was free. But maybe you guys do as well. But this is athenae free academia.edu jonathanmoore I think you can access this through multiple areas. But he's just written, it's so interesting on here because it starts down here with articles that he's written that are fancy over time, and these are like foot and ankle journal articles and stuff. And then all of a sudden they randomly switch to like Egypt and the bible and Israel and stuff like that. But I just recommend for you guys to look him up, especially go on this side or something like this if you want to find out more. He's written a lot of good things about what we're talking about. I wanted to bring up Bible project. Bible project is something I used specifically a lot for last week's class. Bible project is not a church of Christ based thing, but they have so much good material. A lot of people have seen their short videos that are like, here's an overview of the book of Exodus and stuff like that. I just wanted to point out two quick things. Things in case you're interested in digging in a little bit more with it, they have a podcast that you can go to on here, and as you're scrolling through, they are really trying to get deep in this podcast. They have a guy who has a PhD who's fluent in Hebrew and a few other languages who speaks on here. But right now what they're doing is they're going through the sermon on the mount. They're releasing an episode every five days over just two verses. So that slide, and it's like an hour long. So when I'm talking about deep dives, like, they're really trying to do deep dives, but there's more if you do want more. And again, this is not a church of Christ based thing, but really, really good material up on the top. Some millionaires recently donated to Bible project, and now they have a thing called classroom.
Let me explain what classroom is. I've been able, being in grad school, to sit through a variety of grad school classes and stuff like that that have been really helpful. But on Bible project, they now have this thing called classroom. And for instance, I could click on the Exodus overview classroom. And what happens there is they have all of these sessions, and when you go to the session, you can click on it. And this is like 27 or 30 minutes of people essentially going through a chapter of the Bible. This is a lady named Carmen Imes, who is super famous for studying the Hebrew language and stuff. But they are studying, and this is a group of professors, the book, and you kind of just get to hear them talk.
It's a pretty interesting thing if you just want to take deep dives and chapters specifically related to the Hebrew and stuff like that. All right, so that's that the world biblical comment? Yes, Sonny, the Bible project also has an app. Yeah, they have an app where you can do it all alone.
World Bible Biblical Commentary there's a million commentaries in Exodus. This is just one that I've liked and used for it. And then finally I just wanted to show everybody how to do this. If you haven't before, this is like, normally the best thing that you can access for free. There's a lot of things you can pay for that are light years better than this. But this is the best free thing.
If you just click in, like, interlinear Exodus chapter one or something like that, what's going to pop up on Google is this thing.
It's a Bible hub site, and it's interlinear. And what's happening is Hebrew is backwards, you got to remember. But they take each Hebrew word and they break down its meaning, and then they just go that way through all of these verses and stuff. But while you're on that, you can click specifically this up here just to kind of work our way through. These numbers up top are from Strong's concordance. This is the webster's version of hebrew stuff. So when you click on those, you're able to get names and stuff, or name meanings, and they pop up a variety of times. So when you're studying your Bible, anything in the Old Testament or the New Testament, you can click, you can look up interlinear bible. This on Google BibleHub will be the first thing that pops up, like 99% of the time you click on it and you can work through each one of those words.
There are books and guides and paid services that are able to give you a lot more information about this stuff. This is person based. So a lot of time you'll click on strong concordance or something else, and it will be correct. But the rare words it will just say, like, unknown meaning or something like that, when in reality, if you really dig into this, there's a meaning behind it and it meant something.
So those are just things that I felt could help you guys kind of do and study this stuff in the way that I've gone about it. All right, so we're in exodus, chapter five.
We will go ahead and read starting in verse one.
So afterwards, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and they 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 wilderness. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord? That I should obey him and let Israel go. I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go. Then they said, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword. 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.
That same day, Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people. You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks. Let them go and gather their own straw, but require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Do not reduce the quota. They are lazy. That is why they are crying out, let us go and sacrifice to our God. Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.
Then the slave drivers and the overseers 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. But your work will not be reduced at all. So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, complete the work required of you for each day. Just as when you had straw and Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, why haven't you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today as before? Then the Israel overseers went and they appealed to pharaoh. Why have you treated your servants this way? Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, make bricks. Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people. Pharaoh said, lazy. That's what you are, lazy. This is why you keep saying, let us go. Sacrifice to the Lord. Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet. You must produce your full quota of bricks. The israelite overseers realized they were in trouble, and when they were told, you are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day. When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them. And they said, may the Lord look on you and judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Moses returned to the lord and said, why, lord? Why have you brought down trouble on this people? And this, is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak your name, he has brought trouble on all his people, and you have not rescued your people at all.
Before we go to the questions and stuff, this is just a picture I took of a tomb. It's called Rekhmeer's tomb.
And there actually is images on this tomb that have been drawn from thousands of years ago of people making mud bricks. This area in Goshen, where they would have been. I don't know what the temperature was back then, but when I was there this summer, I mean, it was like 110, 120 degrees all week long. It was pretty brutal. I know that the coolest it gets is really like kind of in the eighties or in the nineties. In the winter, it's a hot area.
And that is probably why some of these people are naked and other people are just wearing little skirt things.
But as they're doing this, I mean, it kind of, like, opened my eyes a little bit. Like, these are huge bricks that these guys are making. And these bricks, there's another picture actually goes for. This is a huge wall in this tomb. But there are other sections that show them, like, literally getting the mud out of pools of water where they've had a Nile inlet run into the desert. And they're, like, digging in this mud. Those guys are scooping it, giving it to the next crew. The next crew is putting it together, putting it in buckets. Imagine being this guy carrying these huge bricks on a stick or whatever. Right there you have other people that are walking around just doing things, shoveling, whatever else. These are just some pictures I took over there. This is just the third largest pyramid in the world. This is the red pyramid.
And those bricks, I don't know if you can tell they're huge. These bricks by these ladies in our group probably fell from the top of it. And those were probably smaller bricks. So when that's the small stuff. And this is so far away. I mean, these are ginormous bricks that these people would have been making.
There's a temple there called Karnak temple. Here's just people walking through it, leaning against these columns. But they're massive. Like, I can't really even put it into words. But just imagining in their day and age the amount of manpower it took to build this stuff without machines and stuff like that pulling up these columns.
It's astronomical. But pharaohs in that day and time were well known by how much they built. It was one of the reasons we have so much archaeological evidence of just the Egyptians in Egypt is because these pharaohs were like, all right, I must build the most. So starting day one for my 40 year reign, we're going to build this and this and this. And it was just never ending building of stuff.
Later on, I found out that these guys got smarteen. And instead of just having people force build stuff, they started erasing the names, chipping it off of prior pharaohs and just putting their own name in place of it just to kind of claim it. But this temple structure right here, Karnak, I got to walk through all of this. But this is just one quarter of it that was built. And these columns that you see right here are just a little area in here. This is a massive structure. And it goes to say that this was just a never ending process is what I'm trying to point out. It was constant building, constant doing things.
I took a picture. This was so interesting to me. There were pictures of ancient bricks, but it's so grainy on here. I'm sorry, but this is a brick that I took a picture of in Egypt while I was there. These are little pieces of grain and stuff that you can see in them. Here's the interesting thing. This was a modern house. They're still doing this today. This is not some fancy picture I took of a pyramid or whatever. This is a modern day house. Straw was incredibly important. It did a variety of different things. It helped bricks just to stay together and not break apart as easily. The straw actually provided gaps in the midst of the brick so that when heat was applied to it or it dried out or whatever, you can imagine those as air pockets that allowed the brick to dry a little bit easier all the way through. There's a variety of reasons that straw was really, really important.
And then here, I wanted to show you guys this. This is a picture I took of an area that would have been right by Goshen.
So goshen was this big area we've talked about in northeastern Egypt. But near the Nile over here, you can see the green. If you've ever seen a map, I don't know if it shows on there or not, but if you've ever seen a map of Egypt, it's, like, brown, and then the Nile's going down the mill, and there's, like, a little bit of green on the outstretch of it. The green probably would have been where a lot of people in that day and time, who are richer, who are Egyptians, stuff like that, lived. And then they would probably have the Israelites moved more out towards the desert areas and stuff like that. So when you're imagining them making brick, there's. There's a lot of movement in that. They're probably moving these bricks all the way to the river to then get on a boat to be transported to other cities and stuff like that. They're probably taking this wheat from the field. Then they wouldn't be want. Like, people wouldn't want to see them working in, like, nakedness out over here, all the rich egyptian people, so they'd problem, send them back out here with wheat and stuff like this. And then all of a sudden, out here is where they start making bricks and stuff like that. So when Pharaoh says, stop giving wheat to the people or whatever, what that probably means is the Egyptians were delivering, and this is just miles upon miles of desert out here. The Egyptians were probably delivering the wheat to the Hebrews out here in the middle of nowhere so that they can make bricks. This just caused the Hebrews to then have to travel those miles into the fertile areas around the nile, get their own wheat from whoever would give it to them, because it also meant that the Egyptians weren't willing to pay for it. They had to find their wheat and then drag it back out and then create the bricks. So this is a struggle.
So after all of that, let's go back to Exodus five.
We start with a being approached by Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron say, our God has asked for you to let us go with our people three days into the wilderness in order that we might make sacrifices to him and worship him. And Pharaoh's answer in verse two is, who is the lord that I should obey him and let Israel go?
So here's my first question.
How does truly knowing God impact a person's life compared to someone who does not know God?
[00:18:11] Speaker C: That word seems to indicate trust. It's not just.
It's just not. It's not just a conscious knowledge of God. It's a total trust and surrender to God. And when you truly trust and surrender to God, it changes the whole way you live your life.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Exactly. Digging in like, it obviously doesn't mean the exact same thing. But if you've studied the Old Testament before, another common way that knowing is used is between a husband and wife.
What it's trying to get across there is just a level of intimacy, a level of closeness. I think trust is a perfect word for that, so I like that direction. Knowing is not just like there is a God or whatever. It's having a personal relationship, sonny.
[00:19:01] Speaker D: And to echo that personal relationship thing, you have to do the flip side of that, which is if the person truly knows God, then God knows it and vice versa.
If you don't know God, he doesn't know you.
That's part of that personal relationship.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: We tell the teens that normally the people you care about the most or the people you talk to the most. So apply that to God. Like, how much are you talking to him? How much are you listening to him? How much are you just developing this relationship? I think it just kind of changes the perspective that you view, the events.
[00:19:37] Speaker E: That are happening in your life.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: This literally changes everything. That's perfect. Knowing God changes how I view everything, period. That could be from a happy moment all the way to a moment of deep, awful suffering that we'll talk about in a little bit.
Knowing him drastically changes a lot, and I couldn't think of a great question to go along with it, but it's just such a statement, the way that pharaoh said it, like, who is this God? I do not know who he is. That from the very beginning, kind of sets up two hemispheres of thought. One of where pharaoh is, the other is like, where Moses is. But also, based on what we've read so far, Moses is kind of just starting to get to know God himself, isn't he? He's really just starting to develop that trust.
This immediately definitely separates them to two sides. So at the very end of this chapter, I'm trying to work through three chapters tonight, but at the very end, the people are complaining to Pharaoh. He's telling them, you guys now need to make all of these bricks, same amount as before, but you need to do it without us providing straw. They're distressed and they said, where is it? When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them. And they said, may the Lord look on you and may he judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.
I mean, that's a big statement. Moses just traveled 300 miles back to Egypt, or God, to free his people, like he told Moses he was going to. Moses makes this big to do, confronts pharaoh, is in front of all these people, and then suddenly, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of hebrew people are being put to work even harder. Think about the statement from before. God originally told Moses to go three days out into the wilderness. We don't know if that's three days total or like a three day journey there and a three day journey back. But regardless, that is not a lot of time, is it? I mean, three days is like a weekend. Six days is like a full week or something like that. Like, imagine them going to him asking for this and then him just making a big to do about how ridiculous this whole thing is. What that tells me is that they were working the hebrew people incredibly hard. I mean, this is like a. I'm not willing you to. For you to take off any time, ever making stuff all day long, every day. And all of a sudden, all of these people are given more work. So them coming to Moses and Aaron, they were obviously not super happy. Moses, I could imagine being pretty embarrassed in this moment, pretty fearful for his life in the moment. And just like he's apart from Pharaoh right now, he's apart from his own people right now. He feels totally, totally alone. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, why, lord? Why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all. So out of that, here is my next question.
How do we trust in God in the midst of suffering?
[00:23:13] Speaker F: I think it kind of goes back to your first question of when you know God, you've seen what he's done before. You have that faith in him. You know how great he is. And once you know how great he is, then you can trust in him because you know his intentions are good. You know he has the power, you know, all the things about him that allows you to trust in him.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah. That knowing him, that relationship with him then gives us a place of comfort. Like, obviously, Moses is going through a hard situation here, but he's not alone. He feels alone because the two biggest forces in the land from each side have now abandoned him. But he knows God. And what we're about to see is God tries to bring up, like, hey, like, you have me. Don't forget about me. I'm still here in the midst of all of this. However, I will also go and say, while that is true, and we'll put that on a shelf for a second. In the midst of dire, dire suffering, a lot of times, God, in some of our minds, or, like, our relationship with him, is not the first thing that we run to.
I'll ask two questions off of that.
How do we continue, despite that suffering, to trust in him? And then two, how do we.
I don't know.
How do I want to phrase this?
How do we not just, like, get angry and furious at him in the midst of all of this as well?
[00:24:55] Speaker C: What's the problem if we do?
[00:24:57] Speaker B: You're right.
[00:24:58] Speaker C: It indicates a relationship.
And when the relationship is resolved, then the relationship is stronger.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: That's why I was trying to phrase that question.
That's good.
I think that Moses is learning what that relationship looks like in this, because you think of other things that have happened when it comes to his life and his suffering. Look what just happened in Exodus chapter two. Now we say just happened. This is like 40 years earlier for Moses.
He killed a man, and then it said he feared for his own life, and he just ran away to Midian or whatever. At least in this situation, he's acknowledging that God is present, and he's coming to him and saying, like, what do I do with this now, God? Like, you've made me a promise. You've said all of these things, like, what do I do now?
I think that's an excellent point.
Trusting God in the midst of suffering really, really hard.
Obviously, like, no reply that I give is going to answer every single individual question perfectly and make all suffering cease everywhere.
But, Wesley, if you go back to.
[00:26:11] Speaker G: The first question about whether we know God, and if you truly do know God, then we have that inherent trust in him. And I can't believe that. If we have that knowledge of God and we have the trust him, does that somehow change our definition of the word suffering?
Because we compartmentalize, right? Sometimes we put in really big boxes, in small boxes, seems to be this really big box. But in my mind, when we truly know God, God's box gets a whole lot bigger and that suffering box gets smaller because we can separate the importance of the spiritual relationship with him over the physical suffering that we have on earth.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: And I'm not trying to downplay suffering at all. Suffering is suffering. It's awful.
But I feel like suffering also gives everyone, like, a crux of, like, you're able to go in one of two directions. You're able to either get a lot further away from God in that instance, or you can really get a lot of closer to him in that instance. So sometimes when we think of suffering, like hindsight is 2020, once we get past the moment, we're able to kind of see how things worked out.
[00:27:26] Speaker D: Sonny, to bounce off what Wesley just said, part of it, and I think trade kind of alluding this to that knowing part is an action on our part.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: There's action there that has.
[00:27:40] Speaker D: And for me, prayer is living a life with God.
And if we're living a life with God through prayer, then that trust comes a whole lot easier because it's not any different than that person that's like your spouse. You're living that life with them, and it's easy to trust them. It's easy to go to them in that midst of suffering. It's the same with God. If prayer is living life with God, then there's no question that we shouldn't be coming to him and offering those things to him over suffering.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree completely.
[00:28:21] Speaker E: I think part of it is also learning to lean on your church family. In two corinthians Paul, in chapter one, verses three and four, he explains that sometimes we go through suffering so that we can comfort other people when they go through suffering. So I think a lot of it is God has given us a family that we can also lean on when we go through suffering to keep trusting in God.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: I love all of this. Yeah, I definitely think, like, everything that he created is there for a reason, including the church. We're able to use it.
I'll just say, like, only other thing that I can think of with that is the wise man built his house upon the rock. Like, there are going to be rain, there is going to be rain, there are going to be storms, there is going to be these other things.
Just dwelling in our own lives. Wasn't mean to build on the rock.
But I digress. We have to move through other chapters. Ok.
[00:29:22] Speaker G: In your digs, is there any evidence that suggests you said ghost? Is there any evidence to send us? No. They were at Ramsey's building, that city there in the valley of kings, building pyramid and overseers. Pearl and those overseers were at those different locations, and they all collectively went back to the federals. Hey, what's going on? Or is there evidence that says yay?
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Barely.
[00:29:42] Speaker G: They were making all the bricks in Goshen and they were transported.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: So they lived in Goshen, pyramses. And that whole section from Exodus one, those two cities were actually immediately on the outskirts of Goshen. So they're probably living in Goshen still in the midst of this. And even while they're building those cities, moving them back and forth between the two. So does that answer that question?
[00:30:07] Speaker G: So there's no strong evidence of where the, like, bigs of where the bricks were being made.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: When you go throughout Egypt, though, there is evidence everywhere of people digging into the side of the hill and using slave drivers and stuff like that. The issue is there were, like eight different capitals in major cities over a 3000 year period in Egypt. And we go to all of these different sections and stuff. And they did not. Only egyptian culture was weird in one section. Like, they would outlaw slavery, and this is like 2800 BC. Like, they would outlaw slavery for a period. Then the next section, they'd enslaved their own people. And then hundreds of years later, they'd enslaved these other people from over here. And hundreds of years later, they'd enslaved people from over here.
So it's hard to go through slave areas or worker areas and pick out things, because all the valuable things, all the temple stuff and things that we can date, that was in other sections. The areas that these guys were working were mostly just the only evidence that you can really tell. Outside of some old school houses, way under the dirt made out of bricks is just like, there will be a hill and it will have, like, that cut out of it. You're like, yeah, they're probably digging there.
So, Exodus six.
So Moses just asked pharaoh, I mean, just asked God, like, what in the world? Like, why have you brought me down here? Is this the reason?
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 of his country. God also said to Moses, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God almighty. But by my name, the Lord. I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaanite where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord. Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor. Then the Lord said to Moses, go tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to let the Israelites go out of his country. But Moses said to the Lord, if the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I am speaking with faltering lips? Now, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites and pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he commanded them to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
Verse 14 through 27. I'm going to briefly mention that after this. Right now, we're going to skip it. I'll just read 28, 29, 30. Now, when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt, he said to him, I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, everything I tell you. But Moses said to the Lord, since I am speaking with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?
So God gives Moses this huge spiel about why he should trust him, who he is, what his identity is, what he's still going to do. And Moses is like, it makes sense to me. He's still caught up in, like, a God. People aren't listening to me. Not only is Pharaoh not listening to me, but our own people aren't listening to me. And then b, he says, I speak with faltering lips. That's a really interesting thing. Wish we had a little bit more time for a deep dive. Cellular Bibles might say uncircumcised lips, you think of a circumcised person, would have been a person who's, like, devoted or is a follower of God. So when he's saying uncircumcised lips, he probably means one of two things. He probably either means, like lips that aren't worthy to speak about you, because as he mentioned already in an earlier chapter, like, he's not good with words and stuff like that. So he might be saying, God, not only do these people not believe me, but I don't know if he had a stutter or I don't know if he was quiet or whatever else, but he might be saying, I'm a person who can't even speak right anyway, God. But then the other side of things might be him genuinely saying in some way, like, I'm a person who doesn't even, like, know enough to be devoted to you or know about you or have that trust in you. Like, why am I like, God? I'm scared of these two situations. I'm not willing to do this, and you're still making me be the person who is supposed to go do this.
So that's the faltering lips thing. But for this section in exodus six. Couple questions again.
All right, so this is just me thinking this was a question that just came from me. In verse six, seven and eight, God makes this incredible speech. He's like, therefore say to Israelites, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. He's saying he's going to set them free. He's saying who he is identifying himself and everything else.
Here's just a question I had. So God continually tells Moses he's going to set the people free. He wants the Israelites to know he remembers their covenant. He makes this big speech right here. But following this, if you've read Exodus before, there's still a whole bunch that takes place. And there's a lot that happens when God, like the first six days of creation, it could have been like that. You're out of Egypt. You can go, you're released, you're free or whatever. So my question is, why do you think God didn't just immediately set the Israelites free after making this awesome movie level speech to Moses?
[00:36:42] Speaker E: I think it's because of the covenant he made with Abraham is he told them that those who curse you, I shall curse. And so I think, and he's reminding us that he made that covenant way back in the beginning. And so I think the thing is, he can't just free Israel because then he's not fulfilling his covenant and his promise. He also has to curse them. And I think in chapter four, he even says that I'm going to kill their firstborn. That's what Egypt did to Israel. So he also has to bring that curse on them.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: You're talking about to Egypt or to the Egypt. Okay.
[00:37:17] Speaker E: Because of that covenant he made with them way back in Genesis.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: I think that's good. I'll rephrase this a little bit. Why didn't he just snap his fingers? Israelites are gone. Snap his fingers again. And then Egyptians are just like Bleh. Like because to me, like the Israelites are working through a lot here and you can see people at this point, point after Moses goes to pharaoh and makes this like big statement, you can see them just laughing at him, being like, that dude is crazy. He thought that he was talking to a bush on fire and he's just a looney tune and now we're all suffering for it.
[00:37:55] Speaker H: Well, as he goes through with the, with the plagues and everything, he systematically goes through and discredits the egyptian gods and including Pharaoh. In the end, he uses this time not only to free the Israelites, but to show to the Israelites and to the world that he is God. Because later on when they are going into the promised land, you can tell that some of the Canaanites have heard the stories of what happened in Egypt.
He is showing the Israelites and the Egyptians and the world that he is the God and showing that all these things that the Egyptians think are gods, theyre nothing.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Thats a huge thing that were going to talk about in next weeks class with the plagues and stuff like that.
I also just want to point out before we go on to the next one that in my opinion, maybe theres also a level of suffering that he is wanting the Israelites to go through in the midst of all of this.
Yes, he is wanting to teach the Egyptians. But I guess I'll say it this way, like when my daughter falls down and tries to figure out like who's going to comfort me in that time, like naturally she ends up running to Sarah or I in the end, in the midst of the Israelites going through all of this, yes, it's very painful, but just like Moses, I think God is kind of using their suffering to get them to know him a little bit better and saying like, hey, like, you got to get to a level where you truly have this trust in me.
[00:39:46] Speaker F: I think there's also, in my opinion, least a part that they need to see that it's not Moses.
Pharaoh said yes. For both Moses and Israel be like, hey, look what Moses did. I mean, they go and blame Moses. They're not blaming God there. It's, you know, why did you go say this to pharaoh?
[00:40:06] Speaker B: I guess, like, I guess, like Gideon like, he goes, he has this huge army. God keeps cutting it down, cutting it down, cutting it down. Maybe with Moses, he would have gotten too much confidence in himself if God immediately did things. So God gets him to a point where you're like, he really is isolated from these two groups. And all right, now it's time to work.
[00:40:27] Speaker G: Also, he's training Moses, too.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: This is going to come up again.
[00:40:32] Speaker G: So he's training Moses how to deal with the Israelites because they're going to question God.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:40:39] Speaker G: Over and over and over and over and over. So he's training Moses how to deal with these people.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: And then that works even more. And that could have been a bullet point from last week. Like, Moses has been saved from water. At this point, the Israelites will be saved from water.
Moses at this point went to the mountain, talked to God, was fearful of God. Israelites wind up doing that at some point. Again, like, all of this is a case study. And Moses going through, what is your lights? Well, it's like what you said two.
[00:41:06] Speaker I: Three weeks ago about this being the book of names, right?
This soliloquy of you. Will the Israelites know who Yahweh is?
But he is laying out for them? Listen, if you want to know what my name means, this is what my name means. And there is no one equal to me. I mean, it ties in back to the beginning of Genesis one to me, like, you read the language that's around Pharaoh. It's the same language. It feels like around the original sin, like equality with God was something to be grasped. I'm going to reach out and I'm going to take the fruit. And here is a man who is claiming to be God. And God, yahweh himself is saying, no, this is what I'm defending my name here.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: This is what it looks like. Y'all have set me up very good for this slide next week.
[00:42:04] Speaker J: This is where you go off one of the. You going back kind of what you said a little bit. I think the real inspect of, like, how the Israelites, and like, when he's talking with Moses there and Aaron, well, he's giving them, like, the plan of what is, like, he's gonna do to, like, not only Egyptians, but I think the reason why you're saying why he didn't just snap and, like, tell them to leave was because throughout the entire time of Egypt, while they're enslaved, they're over here, here, like, asking for, like, help from God. And they're all like, where is he? We're just like, they're just gonna forget about now. I think it's that lack of hope is rising. Like, because they lost so much hope, they were like, it's been forever. Where is he at? We're just still suffering here. No one's helping, so he's making them go through this for a while because they've lost their hope and faith.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I can definitely see. So I had other questions. Think about this week. How can we reach out to those who are discouraged by life? How can we overcome being discouraged by God? Becky mentioned an aspect of that earlier, but before you leave, I asked verses 15 through 27. But when you read that, just remember that oftentimes when it says, like, this person lived 130 years, that's because they're trying to point out that person. Levi's son was Kohath. Kohath's son was Amram. Amram's son was Moses. That's kind of the family tree they're trying to do through that. But to end class, just on a really great note, I didn't know this until I read that Amram, Moses father, married his father's sister, Jacob.
That's weird. So father, sister, which means that Moses mom was his great aunt. So there you go. All right.
[00:43:56] Speaker I: I.
