The Deliverer
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We continue a study concerning Israel in Egypt and God's great deliverance which He wrought through Moses. We wish to refer you to the 9th verse of our Scripture: "Now therefore, behold, the cry of the Children of Israel is come unto Me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them."
There are two outstanding facts before us. The first is a statement concerning Israel, God's chosen people, and the second is a statement concerning the Egyptians who oppressed them. Let us center our thoughts around the two statements, "Behold, the cry," and, "I have seen also the oppression."
1. "Behold, the cry of the Children of Israel." Israel had been for many decades in soul sorrow. No doubt, they felt altogether forgotten and despised by the Almighty. The lesson for us is that we should trust when we cannot see. May we bring before you a twofold application of this cry of Israel.
(1) God sees and knows our afflictions.
There is never a burden which comes to us that God does not see it. There is never a sob that falls from the trembling lip that He does not hear it.
(2) God hears and gives attention to our prayers. To Israel He said, "I * * have heard." To Moses He said, "I * * have seen." Thank God that prayer reaches the throne! Thank God that prayer is heard! Has not God told us that whatsoever ye ask the Father "in My Name, that will I do"?
Many volumes have been written on remarkable answers to prayer. When Christians grasp the hand of God they will grasp the power that rules the rod.
2. "I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them." These words bring before us the thought of the sympathetic Christ. They also suggest to us the responsive Christ. Jesus does not only see and know, but He cares. His hand is just as ready to help us, as His ear is ready to hear us. His grace is always sufficient.
What would we do in the hour of trial and in the time of testing if we did not have a Living Christ? The Bible describes the Lord Jesus as a great High Priest. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. That He cares for us, we know.
He's near me when the storm-clouds lower,
He holds my hand when days are drear;
He never leaves, when shadows deepen,
He strengthens me with words of cheer;
I love to feel His arm around me,
And know that He's my very own;
No power of men can e'er confound me,
He guides me from His heav'nly throne.
Then there is the dispensational message. This cry of the Children of Israel brings before us that final, last, excruciating sorrow of God's chosen race into which they are now hastening. Pharaoh's tyranny is but prophetic of the tyranny of the Antichrist. The coming of Moses as a deliverer is no more than the foregleam of God's coming to rescue His people during the Great Tribulation when Christ comes from Heaven to save them.
I. A CALL TO SERVICE (Exodus 3:10)
Unto Moses God said, "Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the Children of Israel out of Egypt."
1. We have before us a man sent of God. Moses had been chosen of God from before the day that his mother hid him in the ark of bulrushes. During the eighty years of Moses' life up to this hour God's eye had ever been upon him. Now, we behold, as God commissions him to go forth as Israel's deliverer. It is most interesting when we read of John the Baptist: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." Thus in every age God has had chosen men for special missions.
Enoch was sent of God to bear testimony to the world concerning the approaching flood. Noah was sent of God to give God's call to the people to enter the ark of safety. Abraham and the patriarchs were sent of God to bear testimony to the nations among whom they sojourned. The Prophets were sent of God. They rose up early and stayed up late with their hands outstretched to the Children of Israel. The Apostles were sent to carry God's Name and to give His testimony to every creature.
We who are living at the end of the age are sent of God. It seems to us that of all others our commission is perhaps the most important, because we are called to serve the strategic moment immediately preceding the Lord's Second Advent.
2. We have before us a man sent to suffer and to save. This was the commission to Moses. This is God's commission to us. Christ Jesus Himself came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. He put the sheep on His shoulders, the sheep that was lost upon the mountains. We, too, are sent with a message of redemption. We are sent to save. We are sent to bring men to God.
II. A CONFESSION OF INABILITY (Exodus 3:11)
"And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the Children of Israel out of Egypt?"
1. Who am I? We can remember the time forty years prior to this hour when Moses evidently thought a good deal of himself. Uncommissioned, and in his own strength and power, he had endeavored to put himself forth as the deliverer of his race. He went in his own strength and he utterly failed. Now, he stands before the Almighty in his maturity. He was not old, although he was eighty. He was not old because he served forty years after the date of this call and died at about one hundred and twenty. What, then, do we have? We have a man in the prime of his physical strength, crying out unto the Almighty, and saying, "Who am I?" We have a man doubting his own. strength, and confessing his own inability.
2. Who am I that I should go? Moses may have felt content in the home of Jethro. He now was established with his wife and sons. He did not like to pick up and move out into new paths; he did not care to return to that land from whence he had come. Sometimes we do not wish to have our nests stirred. We do not wish to go.
3. Who am I that I should go and bring? The greatness of the Divinely commanded task overwhelmed Moses. In after years he confessed to God he could not alone bear so great a burden. With the task confronting him of bringing a million and more people out of Egypt, out from the power of Pharaoh, out from the tyranny of the Egyptians, Moses trembled and pleaded his own utter weakness. I suppose most of us feel the same way, as we face the tremendous issues which He before us, and the important tasks which God lays upon us.
III. THE PROMISE OF AID (Exodus 3:12)
And God said, "Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain."
1. The promise, "I will be with thee." God seemed to be saying to Moses, "I will put My omnipotency by the side of thy impotency. I will wed My strength to thy weakness. My almightiness shall superabound over thy nothingness." As we see it, the very fact that Moses was weak made him strong. Let us remember that God has taught us, just as He taught Moses. Moses was commanded to go to Egypt and to Pharaoh. The Church is commanded to go into all the world, to every creature. To Moses God said, "I will be with thee." To us and to the Church, God says, "And, lo, I am with thee alway, even unto the end of the world." If God is with us we need not fear. All power is His.
2. The promise: "Ye shall serve God upon this mountain." Here is a blessed assurance and a glorious consummation in anticipation. God did not ask Moses to embark on a problematical task. He did not ask Moses to undertake something which could never be completed. God told Moses that his service would be successful, that his undertaking should reach accomplishment.
Does not God tell us as much? Are we not sure that the One who has called us, will see us through? Of Christ it was written, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth."
Has not God said unto us what He said unto Jacob, "I am with thee, * * I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of"? It is a wonderful thing in the games when the runner knows that he will win the race, or the wrestler is assured that he will attain victory. We so run, and so also do we fight, not as uncertainly. We know that in Christ we shall prevail.
IV. THE NAME OF GOD (Exodus 3:13-14)
1. The name which Moses gave to God. "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the Children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is His name? what shall I say unto them?" Moses, in asking God His Name, himself, gave a name to His God. He called Him the "God of your fathers." How significant was that name!
How our own hearts are stirred and thrilled with the fact that the God we serve is the God whom our fathers served, that the God who wrought of old is the same God who works through us!
2. The name which God gave to Moses. God said unto Moses, "I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, "I AM hath sent me unto you." This name is most meaningful. Moses had called God "the God of your fathers." God told Moses that He was the Eternal I Am. In other words, that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the same God who now came forth to deliver. God, however, gave a further meaning to His name, "I Am."
Let me quote for you Exodus 3:15 : "And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; hath sent me unto you: this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations." Thus the name "I Am" proclaimed God the same in the ages past, and the same forever. In other words, the God who led the Children of Israel, is the God who leads us.
From everlasting, Lord art Thou,
To everlasting Thou shalt be;
Thou dwellest in eternal now,
Thou great, supernal One in Three.
V. OUT OF EGYPT AND INTO CANAAN (Exodus 3:17)
In our verse God said concerning Israel, "I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, * * unto a land flowing with milk and honey." Two things are before us:
1. There is an outcoming. We are all come-outers. God saved Israel out of Egypt. He saves us out of Egypt, that is, out of the world. Let us stop just a moment to consider that from which we came out when we were saved.
We came out of sin.
We came out of self.
We came out from sorrow.
We came out from Satan's sway.
We came out of suffering.
Thank God we are out, and by God's grace we will stay out!
"Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee;
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thy self,
Jesus, I come to Thee."
2. There is an incoming. God did not only promise to take Israel out of Egypt, but He promised to lead Israel unto, and into the land of Canaan. We remember in the days of our boyhood that we preached a sermon on Canaan which was alliterated something like this:
· The Presence of Peace.
· The Partaking of Plenty.
· The Practice of Power
· The Place of Purity.
We had five of them, but we can only remember four. We used to tell the people that when Israel entered Canaan they entered into these five marks of blessings. Is this not true of us? God not only saved us out of our penury, but He led us into His plenty. He not only took us out of our sorrows, but He led us into His peace. He not only delivered us out of our weakness, but He placed us in the center of His power. Remember also, that beyond all of this, there is paradise, into which God will certainly bring us by and by.
VI. THE WILDERNESS WORSHIP (Exodus 3:18)
1. The three days' journey. This was the distance they were to go out of Egypt. Everybody knows what a three days' journey means. It is a journey down into the valley of death, into the grave, but up into a resurrection experience. The three days stand for the three days Christ's body lay in the tomb. The three days in which Christ descended into Hades. The three days which ended with the rolling away of the stone, and with the statement, "He is not here: but He is risen." When we are saved we should go no less a journey with our Lord than the journey of death, burial, and resurrection.
2. The journey into the wilderness. You may say that you thought the journey was into Canaan. That is true. Canaan was not, however, the immediate experience. Between Egypt and Canaan there still lies the wilderness. The days of testing, however, should always be days of trusting. The days of trial should always be days of conquest. The wilderness stands for many unpleasant things. It suggests trials, difficulties, sighs, and sorrows. However, the Lord has said that even in the valley of the shadow of death He will be with us.
3. The objective was to worship God. They were to go three days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice unto the Lord, their God. We have come out of death and into life, out from Satan's tyranny and into the liberty of God, in order that we may walk with Him, in order that we may bow at His footstool and worship at His throne. To worship God is the climactic experience of the Christian.
VII. FOREWARNED AND FOREARMED (Exodus 3:19-22)
As we close today's message, there are three things in our four final verses which must not be overlooked.
1. The forewarning of Pharaoh's resistance. God plainly told Moses that the king of Egypt "will not let you go." God did not lay before Moses a rosy pathway out of Egypt. He told him definitely that Pharaoh would resist him and ask to keep the people under his authority and power that they might serve him. We have the same thing to face. There is not one young man, nor one young woman who by faith takes Christ as Saviour and Lord, and steps out of the world, but who will find obstacles by the way. Satan stood by to resist Joshua, the high priest. To Peter, Jesus said, "Satan hath desired to have you." Paul wrote, "We would have come unto you, * * but Satan hindered us."
2. God's revealing of wonders. Was Moses to be alarmed because Pharaoh would resist him? Not at all. In Exodus 3:20 God said, "I will stretch out My hand, and smite Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go." Satan, like Pharaoh, was powerful, but God is all-powerful.
God still works wonders. He still delivers His children from Satan's snares. He hath promised that there is not any temptation which shall come to us but such as is common to man, "But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
3. God's promise of going out full. God not only told Moses that he would lead the people out, but He told them "ye shall not go empty." There would be "jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment." Thus it is that God makes the wrath of man to praise Him. Thus it is that God overrules every obstacle, and leads to every enlargement and victory.
AN ILLUSTRATION
A POOR MAN ROBBED
Satan will oppose us and rob us as much as he can but God will surely lead us out, "' If a poor man be robbed of twenty or thirty shillings, no wonder if he cry and take on, because he hath no more to help himself with; but now, if a rich man be robbed of such a sum, he is not much troubled, because he hath more at home. So a man that is justified by faith, and hath assurance of the favor of God, he can comfortably bear up against all the troubles and crosses he meets with in his way to Heaven.' Remember the Apostle's reckoning in Romans 8:18 : 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.' He was so rich in grace that all his losses were as nothing to him. One of old got his living by his losses, for he said, 'By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit': thus spiritual riches enable us to bear temporal losses with great patience. It is far otherwise with the worldling, whose goods are his god; for when these are taken he cries out like Micah, 'Ye have taken away my gods which I made, * * and what have I more?' He to whom God is all things cannot be robbed, for who can overcome and despoil the Almighty?
Lord, lead me to count nothing my treasure but Thyself, and then I may defy the thief. If I have suffered loss, let me make a gain thereby by prizing Thee the more.