The Burning Bush

From Prince of Egypt to Shepherd in Midian 1:26

And when he got to Midian, he took on a very ignominious job. He took on the job of a shepherd. And not just a shepherd of his own flock, like he's the CEO of his own sheep industry. Rather, he's working for his father-in-law.

Now, as ignominious jobs go, working for your father-in-law, tending his sheep, that's low on the totem pole. But when you think that Moses was an Egyptian previously, you have to understand that this job is even worse yet. Why? Because in Genesis 46, we read this, that every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.

See, in Genesis 46, we read what the Egyptians thought of shepherds. And it straightforwardly tells us in Scripture that every shepherd is an abomination. Other translations say repulsive to the Egyptians. So you have Moses, this former Egyptian, grew up in Pharaoh's house with all the authority and power and might and jewelry and chariots and all that.

Now where is he? He's in Midian as a shepherd, doing a job that previously he would have thought was just disgusting. So, now time to get to today's reading in chapter 3. Moses is an old guy.

He's tending the sheep of an even older guy. He's doing a job that he once thought was repulsive. His years of wealth, his years of privilege, they're now gone. He's got gray hair.

He's getting kind of creaky. You know the old saying, the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be? That's Moses. Whatever he was in times past, he's not now.

God Uses the Humbled and the Weak 2:51

He has been humbled by both time and circumstance. But here's the thing. In God's eyes, you know what that meant? In God's eyes, that meant he was now ready.

You see, 40-year-old Moses with an iron chariot and a sword was not what God had in mind. However, 80-year-old creaky Moses with nothing more than a stick, God could use that. In fact, that was God's intent to use that. 80-year-old Moses would do just fine.

All right, let's look and see how God determines to use Moses at this phase of Moses' life as we look at verses 1 through 3 and then work our way through this chapter.

The Burning Bush That Was Not Consumed 3:30

“And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”

— Exodus 3:2-3 (NKJV)

Verses 1 through 3. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. Remember, this is an old man tending the sheep of an even older man, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

And behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush. And so he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn aside, and I will see this great sight, why this bush does not burn.

All right. As we said a few moments ago, chapter 3 picks up with 80-year-old shepherd Moses wandering around a place called Mount Horeb, which if you look in the book of Exodus, this is used synonymously with Sinai. Horeb is Sinai. So you have Moses.

He's out there. He's at the back of the desert. Scripture goes out of its way to tell us this is a place where there's really no one else. Moses is just, he's alone in this world.

He's tending a sheep at the back of the desert, and then he sees something, and he sees something that he's never saw. It's this bush, and the bush is on fire. Now, he'd seen bushes, and he'd seen fire, but here's the thing. When they combine, what usually happened was that the bush is destroyed, but not this bush.

He looks at this bush and behold, the bush is on fire. The scripture says that it's not consumed. And so Moses, he stops in his tracks. He says, whoa, I got to check this out.

This is unusual. You know, if you were to see a waterfall and the waterfall in of itself is interesting, but what if the water is going uphill? What if the water is raising up instead of down? You'd say, whoa, I got to stop.

I got to, you know, get out my phone and check this out. Well, Moses has that reaction. He says, I got to go see what's going on here. And that's what takes place.

So let's see what happens. He sees the bush. It's on fire. It's not being consumed.

Theophany: God Manifest in Holy Ground 5:15

“Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover He said, I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

— Exodus 3:5-6 (NKJV)

Let's see what happens next as he approaches it in verses four through six. So when the Lord saw that Moses had turned aside to look, God called him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. And then he said, do not draw near this place.

Take your sandals from off thy feet, for the place in which you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. All right.

Have you ever heard in Sunday school or a church in the past the word theophany? You're familiar with the word theophany. Well, what does the word theophany imply? Why?

Well, the word theophany is a mixture of two Greek compounds. The first one's theos. What does that mean? God.

Theos, God. And the last one's phaino, which means appearance. In other words, a theophany is an appearance of God. It's a manifestation of God in some sort of visible, sensible form.

In this particular case, it takes place in the form of a burning bush. But there were other theophanies. If you think of when they were led out of Egypt through the pillar of fire by night and the clouds smoked by day, that's an example of a theophany — God's presence, God's presence sensibly manifests to the degree you can see it or hear it.

You have God appearing, God manifesting Himself in a sensible way here in verses 4 through 6 in the form of a burning bush.

The Doctrine of God's Holiness: Fire and Consuming Judgment 6:42

Now, is there some significance to this form? There is, and there's probably far more significance than we have the time to explore in detail this morning. But for our purposes, I'll draw our attention to the obvious characteristic, and that is of fire. Now, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, frequently, consistently, God's nature is expressed through use of the word fire.

Fire is often used to describe in Scripture God's holiness, His purity. It's also used to express His judgment. I could spend the next hour talking about all the references to fire. Let me just cherry-pick a couple here.

In Daniel 7, Daniel says this. He says, I looked, and there were thrones placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat, and his clothing was white as snow, the hair of his head was like pure wool, his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels held a burning fire. In Deuteronomy, also in Hebrews, there's a statement that's repeated which says this: Our God is a consuming fire.

There are many references to fire throughout Scripture. Let me give you one other one. One other that I think is relevant to today's passage in Exodus 3. There was an Old Testament prophet — his name is Malachi.

Malachi chapter 3, God expresses Himself through Malachi, and God expresses Himself as a refining fire. If you're to take a sword of steel that's been in the dirt and mud and blood and sweat, and you're to stick it in the flames, everything else will cook off, bake up. What will be left is the steel itself, and even that steel will be tempered by the flames.

So Malachi 3, you have this picture. God says, I'm the refining fire. Now, fire in of itself, we have to be careful about, but he goes on to say in Malachi 3, He says, although I'm refining fire, I, the Lord, I do not change.

Covenant Faithfulness: Why the Bush Is Not Consumed 8:30

And because I don't change, you're not consumed, O Israel. I have fiery characteristics. I am a God of wrath and holiness. And yet, because I made you a promise in times past, and because I don't change, that's why you're not consumed, even though you deserve to be.

In Malachi 3, God reminded Israel that His fiery nature had not consumed them, even though they deserved it. Now, what are the implications of that? Well, when God meets Moses here in the form of a burning bush, the fire of God's nature and His character could have burned the bush. It could have fried the bush.

It could have fried Moses. It could have fried the mountain. It could have fried the whole earth, for that matter. However, the bush wasn't harmed.

Moses wasn't harmed. Nothing else was harmed in the midst. Just like Israel, amidst who God would later travel as a pillar by night, the fire that was kindled — just like in the middle of Israel, in the middle of this bush — did not harm the bush any more than it harmed Israel.

The implication is this, that yes, God is fiery. Yes, you don't want to mess with God. Yes, He is holy. Yes, He is just.

Yes, He is righteous. And yes, He is a God of wrath. He is all these things, and yet He restrains these things for the benefit of His people. And He allows His people to approach Him.

He even allows His people to dwell with Him. And we see it in this picture: that the scraggly bush — it's not a cedar here; the scraggly bush typifies Israel to a certain extent — isn't consumed even when God is in its midst. Why? Because He said, I've made you a promise.

I have made you a promise. We see His covenantal nature expressed to some extent in this picture of a burning bush. With that said, God's fiery nature isn't something to be taken for granted. It doesn't mean He's not dangerous.

In the book of Numbers, you have Korah's rebellion, right? Korah's rebellion. If you remember, after the rebellion of Korah, we read that a fire came out from the Lord and consumed 250 men. God's fire is restrained for His people's sake, and that's a good thing.

But that restraint shouldn't be taken as a sign that He's not holy or that He can't or won't act. Those who come near Me must regard Me as holy, God once said. And that might explain God's warning to Moses in verse 5 when He says, be careful how you draw near to this place.

In fact, don't draw near to this place. Take your sandals off. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place in which you stand is holy ground.

God Hears the Cry of His Oppressed People 10:46

All right, let's look at our next verses, verses 7 through 10. Verse 7, and the Lord said to Moses, I have seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, and I know their sorrows. And so I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up from that land to a good land, a large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. You know, there are a lot of passages in Scripture that are comforting.

One of them is right here. You have God's people, and they're beat up by their circumstance. Things have just gone terribly for them. Things are not turning out the way they wanted.

They are not having their best life now. With that said, they cry out to God. And what do we see? God says, I have heard them.

God says, My ear is attentive when My children cry out. Have you ever been in a, I don't know, like a playground or a crowd or an amusement park or something like that, and you watch a parent, and all of a sudden the parent stands up or looks around. They look around because they're alert to something that no one else seems to pay attention to.

They're alert because they hear the sound of their own child crying out amidst all the other noise. Have you ever been that parent? You're in a crowd at the playground in Mewson Park or what have you, Margaritaville. You're in the crowd, and all of a sudden you hear the voice of your child cry out amidst all that din, and because you recognize that's my child, you react, you respond in a way that you might not react or respond to any other child in the whole building.

In a sense, that's what we're seeing here. God says, I am attentive. When my children cry out to me, I hear their voice. I know them, and I will respond to their plight.

I will respond to their need. That's what we see in verses 7 through 10. God's telling Moses, in a world that's filled with oppression — this wasn't the only oppression that's going on in the globe at this particular time, this particular region even. But God says, I have heard the cry of my people, the distinct cry of my children crying out to me.

And I have heard of their oppression, and I know who it is that's oppressing them. And I have come down to deal with the oppressor. I have come down to respond. Because I'm a good parent, Moses, I'm going to act.

Now, what kind of action? If you're Moses at this point, you're like, amen, amen, yes, finally. God's people will be vindicated. At this point, you're probably enthusiastic about this.

But you might be wondering, well, what's God going to do? What kind of response?

The Divine Commission: I Will Send You 13:39

God has heard the cry of His people, He's going to do something, it's going to be good, but Moses doesn't know quite what, until in verse 10, God tells him, and then Moses doesn't like God's answer so much. In verse 10, God says, you know what I'm going to do, Moses? You know what I'm going to do?

I've heard the cry of my people, you know how I'm going to respond? I'm going to send you. I'm going to send you. I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

Now, at this point, we got a feel for poor Moses. He's already had some shocks. Remember, he's an 80-year-old guy. He's out of the back of the desert.

He expects that day to go just as the previous days did, with no surprises and the like. And he's already had one shock. The first shock: burning bush, not consumed. Okay, go check that out.

Second shock: the burning bush is talking to me. He's calling my name. And then he realizes, this is God speaking to me — the angel of the Lord, as it's described here, which is a reference to God Himself. God speaks to him from the midst of these flames.

Now that would be shocking. As eventful days go in Midian, this has got to be near the top of the list. But as shocking as those things would have been, nothing prepared Moses for what God told him in verse 10: that God had heard the cry of His people and that he, God, was going to send him, Moses, as his solution.

Imagine the look on Moses' face. In essence, he asked God, hold up here. I get part A of the equation — suffering, you're going to respond. My problem, God, is part B — your solution, that you're going to send me.

You know, if you grew up in the 80s, you remember the phrase, what you talk about, Willis? That's what we get here.

Who Am I? God's Sufficiency in Human Weakness 15:23

Moses, he's befuddled. He doesn't get it. Let's see, here's the response of verses 11 through 12. Verse 11: But Moses said to God, who am I? Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And so God said, I will be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I've sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Remember — Horeb, Sinai. All right, verses 1 through 10, God just gets right down to business when He talks to Moses.

They're not talking about the weather. They're not talking about Midian sports events and the like. He just gets down to business. He says, Moses, I've heard my people's cry, and I'm sending you.

I've heard my people's cry, and I'm sending you. In verse 11, Moses asks the understandable question. If you're this 80-year-old dude with a stick wandering around the wilderness at the back of the desert — he asks a question we can relate to. He says, wait, me?

Me? Is there some other guy named Moses around? What's the deal here? Now, that's a reasonable question.

When he asked, who am I? I'm not saying he should have asked it. I am saying, oh, it's understandable. He asked, who am I? And from Moses' standpoint, he knew himself and his frailty and his weakness, and he's startled. He thought he was kind of the forgotten man.

Now, at one point, it might have been different. If God had come to Moses when he was 40, how do you think Moses would have responded? Probably with some pride, and said, yes, I'm the right guy for this job. God, I salute you.

Your wisdom is impeccable. You have picked me, and I'm the man for this job. When he was 40, that would have been it. Remember, he sees an Egyptian beating up one of his people, and he looks both ways and he kills him.

And then later on, he delivers Jethro's daughters from those vagabonds there in the wilderness. He was in the deliverance business when he was younger. But now he's older. At one point, he had strength and vigor and vitality.

At one point, he'd even lived in Egypt. If you think about it, you think, you know who can be our agent provocateur? Who can be the guy who's in the right place to kind of effect deliverance? Oh, I know — Moses.

He's already in Pharaoh's house. Ah, this is good, right? He could have done that. Moses, at one point, when he was 40, he was in the right place, you would think, to effect deliverance, to change the system from within.

And he had power and youth and authority and might and friends and all that different stuff. Now he's got nothing. Now at 80, Moses knows he doesn't bring anything to the equation. He's got no advantages to this task from his standpoint.

He can't even talk. He'll tell that to God later. He'll say, I can't even speak. I'm clearly the wrong guy.

I'm old. I'm living in a distant land. The sword, the chariot of my youth has been replaced by my stick. God, I've got a stick.

If that could be of use to you, that's what I got. Who am I? Oh, God. He looks at his tattered sheep robes, his sheep-stained hands and the like. He says, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?

That's his question of God in verse 11. Who am I? Now, what's the answer to that? Well, the short answer is this. Moses was nobody, and God loves to use nobodies.

Moses was nobody. Moses was humbled. Moses was broken. Moses did not have any strength that he brought to the table.

However, throughout the Bible, we see it's the most surprising people that God likes to use. Think about David. David, if you remember, when he was younger — Samuel, they're trying to find who's going to be the future king. They go to Jesse and say, Jesse, you got any sons?

Jesse says, yeah, I got a lot of sons. Here, take your pick. I got a big bin of sons here. Pick your favorite one.

And so they rummage through the bin of sons and they don't come up with any good ones. Even the handsome and strong ones and the like. That's not who God has chosen to be king. And so eventually Samuel says, well, what you got left?

He says, well, I don't know him. I got one in the storeroom. I got one back in the shelf. I got one out in the field.

His name's David. You probably don't want him. Well, I'll bring him in. Let's check him out.

And of course, that's the guy. That's the one God wants. The one no one would have guessed is the one that God guessed, the one God chose, the one God decreed. You see it in the New Testament also.

You got Jesus, and He says, all right, my public ministry has begun — time to get some disciples. Now, where does he look? Does he go into the temple? Does he find, you know, the guys with the best religious clothing, the guys who can quote every verse in the Torah, the guys who know all that stuff?

Well, not so much. Instead, he goes down by the water and he finds fishermen. And beyond fishermen, he goes and finds a tax collector. He finds people you would never expect to be utilized to the greatest of ends.

God loves to do that. Have you ever thought that you're just a nobody? Again, God loves to use nobodies to accomplish great things. He does this consistently.

Now, why does he do it in this case? Why pick a nobody? Why pick Moses when Moses was at the end of his strength and not the beginning? Well, here's the thing.

Think about it. Think about what was about to happen. Think about it — so it's about to go down in the next number of chapters in Exodus. You see, before too long here, in the next couple weeks, we're going to see Moses is going to go into Egypt, and he's going to talk to Pharaoh.

And before long, the plagues are going to start dropping all over the Egyptians. And as the plagues drop one by one by one, onto the 10th and most scary of plagues — as these things occurred, the fact that God used this guy, this guy, to accomplish these things, would demonstrate that the power by which these things had happened couldn't have come from him, but must have come from God Himself.

When the plagues started to drop on Pharaoh and the Egyptians, everyone was going to realize it wasn't because of some power in Moses. It wasn't because that guy with the stick had some intrinsic power in of himself. It couldn't possibly be because of him — that these plagues, these things that were happening, must be because of God.

Now, if God had sent the most powerful Jew of his day, if God had sent the most powerful individual of his day, the people might have gotten confused. They would have said, well, it's because of that powerful guy that this is happening. However, by sending this weak old shepherd from Midian armed with a stick, by sending that guy, no one was confused that all the stuff that was going on wasn't because of him, but was because of God, God's will and God's decree.

So when Moses asked God, who am I? You'll notice God didn't answer that question.

I Will Be With You: The Ground of Moses' Confidence 22:04

Didn't answer it. Because who Moses is is irrelevant to the equation. Instead, he simply told Moses, Moses, Moses, here's what you do need to know. As you go do this, I will be with you.

Moses, who you are, is irrelevant to the task at hand. I can cause stones to cry out my name. I can do any number of things. Who you are is the least relevant part of the equation.

What you need to know that will give you confidence as you go stand in Pharaoh's court is that you're not alone when you do it. What you need to know is I'm with you. I am with you. I am the one who's burning this bush without consuming it.

I am the one who, by speaking words aloud, formed the whole cosmos itself. I, the one who formed and founded everything in the created realm, I'm going to be right at your side as you go into Pharaoh. That's what you need to know. Back in the 16th century, there was a reformer named John Knox.

If you're a Presbyterian, you probably value that name, John Knox. And he had a quote that said this. He said, one man, one man plus God represents a majority. One man plus God represents a majority.

If God was supporting Moses, nothing could stop Moses. All right, let's look at our remaining verses in chapter 3.

The Name of God: I AM WHO I AM 23:20

“And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.”

— Exodus 3:14 (NKJV)

I'm going to read it as a block. Verses 13 through 22. Then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what's his name? What shall I tell them?

And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

And this is my name forever. And this is my memorial to all generations. Go gather the elders of Israel together and tell them, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to me and has said, I have surely visited you and I've seen what's done to you in Egypt.

I've said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey. Then they will heed your voice, and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us.

Now please, let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. And so I will stretch out my hand. I will strike Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in its midst.

And after that, he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. And it shall be that when you go, you're not going to go empty-handed. But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely, of her who dwells near her house.

She'll ask for articles of silver and of gold and of clothing, and she'll put them on your sons and on your daughters. And so you shall plunder the Egyptians. At one point, Moses asked the question, who am I? Who am I? Moses, in verses 13 through 22, he moves on to a different question: who are you?

Who are you? Who should I say is sending me? What shall I tell the people when they ask? Well, verse 14, God answers in the way that only He can.

He says, I am that I am. I am who I am. Now, is that a theologically dense answer? Yes.

Moses would spend the rest of his life trying to comprehend this answer. Is this a mind-bending, theologically dense, somewhat confounding answer for people on a low pay grade like us? Well, yes, it is. Absolutely.

Do we have any nuclear physicists in this room? I know we have at least one rocket scientist. Let's say you got a rocket scientist and he's got the opportunity to explain quantum mechanics or physics to an infant. How's that going to work?

How's that going to turn out? Well, not so well. He could talk and talk and talk. He could talk for hours.

He could talk for years. And there's going to be almost no comprehension of what is being said because of the gap in knowledge and understanding between the two. Magnify that by a trillion fold. And you see the problem here.

For God to even start to explain who He is — Moses, he doesn't have the bandwidth to process the answer. And so God says, I am who I am. You know, if you ask someone, anyone — you meet someone on a plane, and ask, tell me about yourself, who are you? What sort of answers are you going to get?

Well, people are going to say, well, I grew up in Toledo. I'm the son of Bob and Jane. I'm a dentist or a lawyer or what have you. They're going to explain who they are by pointing to things and even people that are external to themselves in order to define their attributes so you'll know more about them.

See, that's the way we typically are. We explain who we are by pointing to external things and markers that will help others to understand who we are. God is above and transcends all that. God doesn't define Himself or his name or his attributes or his character or his nature by pointing to things in the created realm in order to do it.

He can't. That would be silly. Instead, he simply says the correct and most appropriate answer, I am who I am. He appeals simply to His own nature.

God's existence isn't predicated on his relationship to anything else. He doesn't define himself on the basis of anything else. And that tends to narrow down the possible answers that he could give to Moses' question. So the simplest answer, the most accurate, sufficient — even if it's complex, even if it's confounding — but the simplest answer to Moses' question is the answer that Moses got.

God says, I am who I am.

God Keeps Covenant and Fulfills His Promises 27:55

Now, after identifying himself in this way, God returns to the business at hand and reminds Moses. He goes, you know, Moses, if they want to know anything about Him, remind them. Who was it that was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? Who did all that stuff in years past?

Who was that God? Well, the God of your forefathers, the God who made covenants to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Israelites — that's me. I am the one who has done all of these things. So he reminds Moses, hey, I've made promises in times past, and I've kept all of them.

I've made promises. I made a covenant with your forefathers. I have expressed what would happen before it happened. Remember when God first talked to Abraham, way back in Genesis 15, he told Abraham that the day would come when all of his descendants — at that time he had none, but at that time all of his descendants, centuries and centuries later — would be oppressed by foreign people.

Well, that's what's going on here. God expressed to the forefathers what would happen, and he also said that when it happened, I will be with them. And ultimately they will be set free. God makes promises.

God keeps promises. And God tells Moses that this is the hour of fulfillment. God tells Moses, you know those things I promised in times past? Well, this is the hour of fulfillment, and you are the instrument that I've chosen.

The Hardening of Pharaoh for the Glory of God 29:17

Now, the deliverance could have happened like that, in theory. I mean, God could snap His fingers, breathe a word, anything, and the deliverance could have happened. But we'll notice in the next number of weeks that the deliverance doesn't happen right away. Why is that?

Moses goes in and tells Pharaoh what's going on, and right away Pharaoh's response is not to acquiesce. Instead, he resists. Why is that? Why would this not happen right away?

Well, verse 19, we just read, God told Moses, He says, look, you're going to go do this, but here's the thing: Pharaoh's not going to respond. I want you to go do it, but I already will tell you ahead of time — spoiler alert, Moses — that when you do it, be prepared.

Pharaoh's not going to like it. He's not going to respond. He's not going to listen. Why?

Well, for the obvious reasons that Pharaoh was a sinner. Pharaoh was a rebel. Pharaoh was also a man with a god complex. Remember, what did they tell all the pharaohs and kings and leaders of this age?

Well, if you were a king and leader of this age, if you're the most powerful man on the planet, what did the people tend to do? They treated you like you were a god, and so you began to get into this god complex. The pharaohs all had it. They thought they were divine.

And so if you think that you're divine — you're touched by the spark of divinity or what have you — and some old shepherd rolls in and tells you that some other god is telling you what you need to do, what are you going to say? You're going to say, no, no, no, no. This is my land.

This is my jurisdiction. And no other god comes in, tells me what to do. And that's going to be Pharaoh's response. He's going to say, I'm not going to be pushed around.

I don't care who your god is, fella. I'm not going to respond to that. And so his heart hardens — with each plague, even, his heart hardens. So God tells Moses, this is going to take some time.

But here's the thing: that time, that delay, was part of God's plan. None of this is an accident. None of this is an accident. Even the delay is absolutely part of God's plan.

Because here's the thing: the more that Pharaoh rebelled — which we'll see in the next couple chapters — the more Pharaoh rebelled, the more glorious God's ultimate victory would be. The more Pharaoh rebelled, the more glorious God's ultimate victory would be. And when God was done, the Jews would know that there was a God in Israel, and the Egyptians would know that there was a God in Israel, and that this God was stronger than their god, stronger than Pharaoh.

When the God of all creation was done dropping plague bombs on them, plague after plague after plague, not only at that point would the Egyptians be happy to see the Israelites go, they would even give them gold just to go faster. And that's what God told Moses in the verses we just read.

He says, by the time this is all done, after all these plagues are committed, not only are they going to be happy to acquiesce, happy to respond, they are going to give you gold and stuff right off their backs. And so you shall plunder them. So you shall plunder them. And that ironic twist is what God tells Moses is coming at the end of today's reading.

Now, next week, we're going to read about Moses' first encounter with Pharaoh. And we're going to discover that Pharaoh was just as stubborn as God had anticipated.

Conclusion: Raised Up That God's Name Be Proclaimed 32:29

However, even that stubbornness is going to serve God's divine purpose. As we close this morning, let me read to you God's word to Pharaoh from Romans 9, centuries later. He says, for the Scripture says to Pharaoh, it is for this purpose that I raised you up — is for this purpose I raised you up — that I might show my power in you.

For this purpose I've raised you up, that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. See, Pharaoh would rebel. Pharaoh would rebel. God knew it would happen.

God knew that Pharaoh would fight against him, and in due time, God would crush Pharaoh beneath His divine foot. But in the meantime, I want to remember a thought, or at least a phrase: when the tallest tree on all the earth is cut down, you can't help but admire the axe that did it.

Pharaoh, for all his strength and power and might — when he would ultimately fall, the sound of his fall, so to speak, would echo across the whole globe and cause all those on the globe to tell the story of the God who did it. And that's what Romans 9 — what it says is, for this purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

The whole world would marvel at the God who brought down Pharaoh. And next week we'll consider the encounter Moses will have with Pharaoh when he'll declare to Pharaoh, let my people go. Let's pray.