Exodus: Who Is the LORD?

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, today we come to one of our favorite parts of the Bible: a genealogy. Now, why are these included in the text of Scripture? There are many reasons, but the most important is that God's promises and dealings run in families. If your parents and children are important to you, then you should love genealogies. They may not be your parents and chil...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the notice in our text this evening is rather bleak and definitely heartbreaking. The children of Israel did not heed Moses, because they couldn't breathe. Now, you don't need me to relate this text to the wave of protests that swept the USA and indeed the whole world last summer. That wave of protests was triggered by George Floyd's dying word...

Why does God say "You'll see me deliver" and then proceed to give Moses a little speech about His name and His promises? Because what we need in cases of pain and suffering is to remember who our God is! That's right. Israel needed to remember who their God was more than they needed deliverance from Egypt. And brothers and sisters, the same goes for us today. We need the knowledge of God more than...

God doesn't answer the "why" questions. Instead, He reiterates His promises. There's a lesson for us there.

Here, in Exodus 5, God is on the move. The initial announcement of His purposes is made to Pharaoh. And then all hell breaks loose. The question this chapter poses is, "Can you stand the disappointment? When God sets out to move in your life, in your church's life, in your community's life, and things immediately go downhill from there, how will you respond?" Because be in no doubt. When God begin...

God said "Get in there, be respectful, bring along the authorized representatives of the community, and ask for something that is a known privilege of slaves." Moses gets in there, is totally not respectful, demands immediate abolition, and does it in the name of God. So in your personal life, in your political life, in your place and calling, whatever it is, learn the lesson of Moses. Do it God's...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have told you repeatedly that this book of Exodus takes us from slavery to worship via the knowledge of God. And it does so with tremendous literary artistry. Our passage this morning seems pretty vanilla. Compared to the tremendous climaxes we've already witnessed, such as the announcement of God's name and the "bridegroom of blood" episode,...

When He says "You will go," the conversation ends. Literarily speaking, the last part of Exodus 4 portrays that truth with this blizzard of very short scenes, each one communicating a different aspect of Moses' obedience. The emphasis is clear: for as long as Moses spent arguing with God about whether to go, in the event, when he started to obey, things started to happen. Yet at the heart of these...

Is God responsible for disability? Does God disable people? The answer has to be "Yes." If you have Down Syndrome, God gave it to you. If you have cancer, God gave it to you. If you have Covid-19, God gave it to you. Of course, He used and uses secondary causes, both in striking and in healing. But these things can ultimately be traced back to Him. He gave you your mouth, and if your tongue doesn'...

We all associate miracles with the Bible. But actually, if you leave out conversations with God and His angels, the Bible does not talk about very many miracles. Almost all of the miracles are concentrated in the times of Moses, Elijah/Elisha, and Jesus. Yet though miracles are not a typical feature of Israelite history, any more than they are a typical feature of everyday experience for modern Am...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come this evening to one of the high points of Biblical revelation. This text is a highly disputed text; the commentators have run roughshod over it since Classical Antiquity. There are many books on what the name of God is and what it means; indeed, my own brother-in-law, Jared McKinney, wrote his bachelor's thesis on the name of God during...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have spent the last two Sunday evenings looking at God's encounter with Moses at the burning bush. We saw what the sign of the burning bush revealed about the nature of God as fire. We saw that our God sends a man to accomplish His purposes regarding the salvation of His people. And tonight, we will look a little more at the man whom He send...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have already noted that God is largely absent from Exodus 2. But He is omnipresent in Exodus 3 & 4. This is the most sustained outbreak of God's revelation of Himself since Abraham. And there is a lot to see of our God's character in these chapters. Particularly here, as He announces the purpose of His self-manifestation in the fire of the b...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, WIRED magazine recently had an article on forest fires. This article talked about the conventional wisdom on forest fires, how their direction and speed can be predicted, and so on. And it talked about how that conventional wisdom has been shattered in recent years with the rise of mega-fires, gigantic blazes that cover dozens of square miles a...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, our sermon this evening deals directly with the character of God. In many ways the passage before us is connected to the next section, where God not only knows but also takes action to redeem His people. But I want us to focus on this passage together this evening because it highlights the character of God apart from and prior to any "action" a...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the passage in front of us contains some fascinating stories. We have an old-West style gunfight between Moses and an Egyptian guard. We have a showdown at the well, a marriage, and a new baby. But why? What's the point of these accounts? What do they tell us about God, who is not even mentioned in this chapter until the very end? I think the b...

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, what lessons can we learn from the birth of Moses — the river nativity, as I like to call it? It is a ripping good yarn. It is just a delight to read. Three faithful daughters save a son who will save God's people. But what does it tell us about God? It tells us that He delights in upsetting expectations, both positively (in giving the story a...

If you think that physical survival is the most important thing, you will gladly strangle newborn babies to stay on Pharaoh's good side. If you think that physical survival is the most important thing, you will happily become a kapo in Auschwitz, stripping the gold fillings and the rings from the corpses of your fellow inmates. If you think that physical survival is the most important thing, you w...

Exodus shows us immediately that God keeps His promise of fertility — and that Pharaoh will fight to stop God's promises from coming true.

The climax of this book is at the very end, when God comes to live with His people. The path to that climax is rocky, as we see God reveal His ways through Israel's enslavement, through His rescue of them, and then through His revelation of His law, covenant, and worship. But the payoff is all the more earth-shattering because getting there has been so hard. So let's trace the path of God's people...