Step by Step through the Old Testament

Step by Step through the Old Testament

Carlton L. Arnold, Teacher

Week 16

Genesis 49-50 and Exodus 1-3 - The Nation of Israel and You

This morning we're going to finish Genesis by looking at the blessing that Jacob gave his sons. Then I want to do another Old Testament survey using your Table of Contents in your Bible. We're also going to look at the name of God, again. I mentioned at one time how you can read in your Bible what the original Hebrew was based on the capitalization. Then we'll introduce Moses and Exodus. Finally, I want to plant an idea of the Hebrew Nation that's going to be formed as compared to you, as a Christian. We're going to see that in the book of Exodus. The nation that God deals with and works with is so applicable to your life today. That's what I want you to see. This comparison will last virtually the rest of the Old Testament.

Genesis 49 is where Jacob blesses his sons. I asked you to read all of the blessings, but we're not going to read them all here. They fit the lifestyle we've read about the brothers: Simeon, Levi, etc. I want to start with Judah. Remember that Judah is the line from which Christ will come and that Judah was born from Leah, the first wife of Jacob who was given to him under false pretenses. Judah is the last-born of Leah and the line of Christ. Note: A blessing from the father to a son (back then) was very significant.

Genesis 49:8-12

"Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons will bow down to you. You are a lion's cub, O Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness--who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his. He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch; he will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk. "

There is a lot of symbolism here that can be confusing, but a lot will be clearer the further we go in the Bible. I want you to look at the word "scepter" in verse 10. A "scepter" is what a king has, as a ruler. Lots of people look at this and say, "OK. Here's Judah and out of Judah will come David, as the ruler." But notice also, "until he comes to whom it belongs." Some of you may have the word "Shiloh" in your Bible-"until Shiloh comes." "Shiloh" means "sent." It is another word for... buckle your seatbelts... "Messiah," being "one who is sent." Our New International Version doesn't do it justice. It doesn't give you the real background. "Until he comes to whom it belongs," meaning "Until the Messiah, the one who is sent, comes." What "belongs"? The scepter. The king-The King of All Kings. Here's another little hint in the Old Testament of the coming Messiah. It comes from Jacob blessing Judah. Remember that the Old Testament was written well before the New Testament ever existed. You're reading something that was written thousands of years ago. This is prophecy. Nobody sat down after Christ had come to rewrite this. Understand that. This was already written before Christ. You have to look at it and say, "That is an amazing, amazing prophecy."

Now look at Joseph's blessing.

Genesis 49:22-26

"Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall. With bitterness archers attacked him; they shot at him with hostility. But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed limber, because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, because of your father's God, who helps you, because of the Almighty, who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb. Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills. Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers. "

Can you all see the analogy of how his brothers attacked him, but he remained steady? That's the kind of imagery we have here.

Who is the "Mighty One of Jacob"? God. Then he goes on to say, the "Rock of Israel." Next week, I plan to present a study on the word, "Rock." When we get through, you will be convinced that the "Rock" is clearly Jesus Christ. When we look at the word "Rock" throughout the Old Testament, you're going to be blown away. You're going to say, "I can't believe that!" You're going to want to go back and re-read it. We'll look at several passages in the Old Testament about the "Rock."

This is all talking about who God is and what He's done.

Genesis 50:22-26

Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father's family. He lived a hundred and ten years and saw the third generation of Ephraim's children. Also the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph's knees. Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place." So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Ephraim was the son born to Joseph and the Egyptian priestess. Manasseh was the other son born to them. What were their names? "Amnesia" and "ambrosia." That's a good way to remember them: "forgetfulness" and "fruitfulness."

That is the end of Genesis. We have spent three and a half months in Genesis, and we're five weeks behind. We're weren't supposed to go this slowly through Genesis. I had a lot to say about Genesis and we covered a long period of time. Chapters 12-50 covered 350 years. That's not a lot of text for such a long period of time. We are to the point where 70 people from Canaan travel down to Egypt. After Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, Jacob took his whole family to Egypt because of the famine. "We'll live in Egypt until the famine passes." How long does it take for the famine to pass? Seven years. Then what should they have done? Leave. Go back to Canaan. They didn't. They lived there long enough for Joseph to die. He was thirty when he was introduced to Pharaoh. Now he's 110. So it's been at least 65 to 70 years since the famine. Where does God want them? Because of His promise, he said, "I'm going to show you the Land and give you the Land."

Every Hebrew from Abraham is now in Egypt. There are none in Canaan. But God said, "That's where you have to be." Joseph has his family swear to go back to the Land without delay. "And when you go, carry my bones with you." Because that is the Land people wanted to be buried in. When God comes back to rule, they wanted to be there-they didn't want to miss anything. Now they have to leave Egypt and get back to Israel. How long does it take them? 430 years. You begin to wonder, "Well, what were they doing all this time?" They become just like us. When we experience a famine that is satisfied by something, we don't let go of it. We don't go back to God. We want to hang on to what took care of us to the point of being enslaved by it and then it is hard to turn back to God. That's why I wanted you to look at the Nation vs. You. Seventy came down to Egypt and (according to some estimates) around two million returned to Israel. The 70 have become ~2 million in 430 years. This is a sizeable population of people that now live in Egypt.

Through Genesis, God has been revealing Himself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and others. He keeps telling them, "I'm going to give you the Land. I'll curse anyone who curses you. I'll bless those that bless you. Through you, all nations will be blessed (through the coming Messiah)." And where are they? In Egypt. Are they in disobedience? Yes, and they're in slavery and bondage. We'll see this in Exodus.

Before we get into Exodus, I want to give you a chronological overview of the Old Testament. Use the Table of Contents for the Old Testament in your Bible as a reference.

Chronological Overview of the Old Testament:

Bible	Start	End	Time (approx.)	Comments
Genesis 1-2	Eternity	Adam & Eve sinning	Eternity	We have been through Genesis.
Genesis 3-11	Adam & Eve	Abraham	2000 years	-
Genesis 12-50	Abraham	Israel in Egypt	350 years	-
-	Genesis 50	Exodus 1	430 years	Now 1400 years from Christ. 1000 of it is the rest of the Old Testament and 400 years is silence.
Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy	Israel in Egypt	Israel ready to cross Jordan into Canaan.	42 years	There's a lot of information, but not a lot of time passes. Forty years is primarily time spent wandering in the wilderness. The old generation passes away.
Joshua	Israel crosses into Canaan.	Conquests	30 years	They cross the Jordan river and start a series of conquests.
Judges Ruth	-	-	325 years	There is not a (relatively) lot of information for such a long period of time.
1 & 2 Samuel 1 Kings 1 Chronicles	Kings - Saul, David, Solomon, etc.	-	200 years	The nation asks for an earthly king instead of their Heavenly King (God).
2 Kings 2 Chronicles	Kingdoms Split	Israel is wiped out.	360 years	A problem happens around 930 BC. The nation (the twelve tribes) splits--the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom is wiped out around 722 BC. The Southern Kingdom is wiped out about 150 years later.
Ezra	-	-	70 years	For 70 years, no Israelites are in the Land. God wants them back in the Land so that Christ can come according to the prophecy.
Nehemiah	-	-	-	The Nation comes back, rebuilds the wall, and rebuilds the temple.
Esther	-	End of the Old Testament	-	Malachi prophesied during this time (~400 BC). This ends the Old Testament history.
-	430 BC	4 BC Christ's birth	430 years	Right before Christ, there are about 400 years of silence. We'll cover this period later. I'll go over the history, what was happening to the Hebrew nation, what was going on, etc.

Do you see the Old Testament now? This is a kind of snapshot of the timeline. A lot is said about the kings and kingdoms in 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles.

All of the other books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.) were written during these time periods. They were written at that time, about that time. The history of the Old Testament ends with Esther and Malachi. You can draw a line. We're going to keep going over this because I want you to be able to do this after the end of this Old Testament class-not necessarily the dates and times, but you will understand the flow of the history of the Nation of Israel.

I don't expect you to be able to spout off all the details, but when I understood this, it did a lot to help with my understanding of the Old Testament. The flow finally sunk in. I understood that the books were not just isolated books. You can put it in perspective-like we did with Genesis 38. You can look at these things and remember that there is a line being drawn to lead to Christ. We're going to see it this morning. The lineage of Christ was in danger in the book of Exodus. Satan was trying to stop this line to prevent Christ from being born, physically. This is exciting. This is really good stuff. It helps you to see some things.

Exodus:

Exodus is a book of redemption. The Hebrew Nation, about 2 million strong, are in Egypt. God wants to get them back to Israel. He sends Moses. How many of you have seen the animated film, "Prince of Egypt"? How many of you have seen "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston? We're going to see some things dispelled about Charlton Heston's character, Moses, in that movie. But the story line is about the same. Some things are dramatized a bit, but it's pretty good. It's a story of redemption. It's how God delivers them out of slavery. Egypt got to the point where they were scared of these Hebrews. The Hebrews lived in the land of Goshen. They kept to themselves and didn't intermarry. Some of them may have, but for the most part, they kept to themselves. They became so many in number that Pharaoh said, "Let's put them under bondage." They kept growing.

So, they are in bondage and God needs to deliver them from bondage. This is just like you were in bondage to sin. In Romans, it says that you were a slave to sin and free from God. Before you became a Christian, you were free from God. You could do anything you wanted because God only required one thing from you: a belief in Jesus Christ. If you didn't believe in Jesus, you could do anything you wanted. You were free from God. You were a slave to sin. You couldn't help it. "Well, I just like my sin." God delivered you from sin (Egypt) through the blood of Christ. He will deliver the Nation (redeem them). We're going to see a lot of symbolism here. When they passed through the Red Sea, they were baptized, if you will, by Moses. We'll see that. This is very similar to our Christian lives. I want you to compare the Nation to You.

Exodus 1:1-7

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

Notice that it's saying, "Israelites." Do you remember where "Israel" came from? Jacob's name was changed to "Israel" when he finally got right with God. So, the descendants of Jacob are known as "Israelites."

Note that 400 years pass between verses 6 and 8.

Exodus 1:8-10

Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

Egypt was known as the World Empire at this time, if you read secular history books. They were very strong and very wealthy. This is a story of a group of people called the Israelites, who the Egyptians viewed as a threat.

Exodus 1:11

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

This is what you'll see in the movies.

Exodus 1:14-16

They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live."

If you do this long enough, what happens to the descendants of the Israelites? They die off. A lot of people have a hard time today: as Christians, they say, "I believe in Jesus Christ, I can understand the Holy Spirit, and I know that God exists, but I have a problem with Satan. Is there really a devil, an angel that God kicked out of heaven?" You will see him in the book of Exodus-very plainly, over and over. The power behind Egypt was Satan. I'm not going to convince you of it. The Lord, God, will. You'll see that power behind Satan. This is an example. Satan was convincing the Egyptians to get rid of the Israelites by killing the males so they couldn't pass along the male seed.

Exodus 1:17a

The midwives, however, feared God

So after 400 years, they still know about God.

Exodus 1:17b-19

and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

"It only took 15 minutes! It took me an hour to get there, but they were done!"

Exodus 1:20

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.

Notice God's work. God was kind. God was not silent during this period. He was still working. He has to get His people, the Israelites, to a point where they see the need for redemption, the need to be delivered. Hang on to that. What do we need in our lives to see what God has done for us? The same thing. This is why we say, "God, I am a sinner. I know that I am a sinner. I have this sin nature in me. I commit sins. Please forgive me of those sins by the blood of Christ." We have to admit that we need God. That's where God wants us and that's where he wants the Israelites.

Exodus 1:22

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."

So now Pharaoh is intervening and sending some soldiers out to find boys and throw them into the Nile to be eaten by crocodiles or drown in the river. You've seen the movies. You all know what happened.

Exodus 2

Chapter 2 begins with the birth of Moses. You can read that. Pharaoh's daughter finds him, takes him, and has him nursed (by his mother).

Exodus 2:10

When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water."

We have the birth of Moses and this is where Moses starts.

Note that 40 years go by between verses 10 and 11.

Exodus 2:11-14a

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us?

How about that!? Be sure to rely on the Word of God and not the movies to understand what really happened. Even though Moses was raised in Pharaoh's world, he knew who he was (a Hebrew).

Notice what these Israelites asked him, "Who made you ruler and judge over us?" Now what's going to happen to Moses after God meets with him? He's going to be ruler and judge over them. Isn't he? God did it. What is Moses trying to do? It's almost like God has prepared him and said, "You're the one, but you're not ready yet." And Moses says, "I'm going to go ahead and take care of it."

Exodus 2:14b-15

Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known." When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Midian is a child of Abraham and Keturah. Remember Keturah was the wife of Abraham after Sarah died. If you go back and read it, you'll see that they had a son named Midian. So these Midianites were monotheistic. They knew about God. This is where Moses went.

This is an interesting, fascinating story. I want to challenge you. When you read the Old Testament (because we hear the Jews talk about it), we think of God as being the God of the Hebrews, the God of the Jews. "The Old Testament is a story just for the Jews." Yes, it is, but there is more. There is so much more. God is working in so many people at this time. He was working with everyone. He never forgot anyone. He was always working with them.

Exodus 2:23-25

During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

I've got to read this to you. It is so good. I want you to see Christ, again. How many of you know about the burning bush? Who was in the burning bush? God? Would you believe it was Christ? Would you believe that? I'm going to show you. It doesn't say, "Jesus Christ," because that's His name in the New Testament. Later on, we're going to see other names that were given for Christ. Just because God hadn't revealed it to the people before doesn't mean it wasn't true. He kept revealing Himself and revealing Himself until He had revealed Himself fully: Jesus Christ, in the flesh. That's where we're headed.

Exodus 3:1-2a

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.

Now who is in the bush? What does it say? It says, "angel of the LORD." I told you that when you see "angel of the LORD," that is the pre-incarnate Christ. The ministry of Jesus Christ during the Old Testament was to carry out God's instructions (God, the Father). When we see this in the Old Testament, I believe it is the pre-incarnate Christ. But wait! It gets even better and more clear! You can say, "OK. Maybe. I don't know about that. 'Angel of the LORD' could have been Michael." Just wait.

Exodus 3:2b-3

Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight--why the bush does not burn up."

Isn't that great!? It sounds like something I would do. "Gee, I wonder why that bush isn't burning up."

Exodus 3:4-5

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."

Is "LORD" in big letters or little letters? Big letters. I told you that whenever you saw big letters, what was the word? In Hebrew, it was the tetragram, YHWH. We do not know how it was pronounced because the Hebrews considered it such a sacred, holy name that they never pronounced it. Actually, the pronunciation of this Hebrew word is lost. No one knows. We made it "YaHWeH," or "Jehovah." Whenever you see this in your Bible (most of your Bibles), LORD refers to "Yahweh." When you see the lower case (Lord or lord), it refers to other names (like Adonai). "LORD" is key, though.

Notice that in verse 2, it was an angel of the LORD. What is it in verse 4? LORD. Hold onto that.

If it were an angel, would it be holy ground? Maybe. Maybe not. Angel, maybe. God, definitely.

Hold on. I'm just building a little case here.

Exodus 3:6

Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Whoa! This "angel of the LORD" who is called, "LORD," is now saying what? "I am God." Moses has heard about God and says, "Whoa! Let's hold on here." That's an awesome thing! They really did a good job with this scene in the "Prince of Egypt." It was spine tingling. I know it was just a cartoon, but I liked that when the bush lit up, everything moved away including the stones around it. The area became totally smooth. That is not biblical, but I like the image of it. I just thought, "Wow! Awesome! Holy Ground!"

Exodus 3:7-10

The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey--the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

Upper or lower case? Upper. Yahweh, Jehovah, said... This was not an angel of the Lord. That's why we have the trinity: God, the Father, God, the Son (who was the angel of the LORD in the Old Testament and part of the holy trinity), and God, the Holy Spirit.

I believe that whenever God came to earth, He was the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament. It tracks. Every time we get to an instance in the Old Testament, we see the action and ministry of the pre-incarnate Christ, carrying out God's will. Think about it as you go through this. It will make the Old Testament as alive or more alive than the New Testament as you are seeing Christ. I do not believe that the fundamental, Christian view would support that it was God working and Christ was just sitting there, waiting to be born of a virgin. I just can't picture Christ, idly sitting by. He was involved with people. So whenever God said, "I need to be in the world, involved with people," Christ, the Son of God, was involved in it. He was doing it. (We have the work of the Holy Spirit also, and we'll read about that.)

Exodus 3:11

But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

What is Moses doing? We're going to see this over and over, but what is Moses doing? If you were hiring Moses to do a job and you had a list of criteria and you saw his resume (raised in Egypt, knows the Israelites, etc.), how would he rate? He'd be up there. If you wanted someone to negotiate with the Egyptians to let the Israelites go, doesn't it look like Moses would be one of your prime candidates? Yes.

Moses is either being very humble or he's playing the game that we all play. Q: "Will you teach the three-year-olds?" A: "Well, I don't know the Bible well enough." I mean, what do you do with three-year-olds? There are some basic stories, but you don't get into this kind of study with three-year-olds. But we have to come up with our excuses on why we can't serve the Lord.

Exodus 3:12

And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

He's already said it once, but He's saying it again.

God uses the future-prophetic tense meaning, "It's already done." We're going to see that again in the Old Testament. We're going to see it with Joshua. In other words, "It's already happened." It's like in the movie, "Hoosiers," when the coach is talking to the player that has to make the game-winning shots, "Now after Spanky has scored these two goals, ..." He treated it as "done." This is what God is doing with Moses, "When all this has happened you will worship me on this mountain." This is already done. You don't think about "could" or "maybe." It's done. Future-prophetic tense. God says, "It's already happened in the future. That settles it."

Exodus 3:13

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, `The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, `What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

I love this! What does this tell you at this point about what they're calling God? Think about that. We take it for granted. We have all the names in the Old and New Testaments for God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. What kinds of names do they know? Give it some thought. They don't have all these names. They have "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Remember that at this time there are all these other "gods" and idols around. It was very easy to have this polytheistic (many god) religion. It was easy to have that view. It was difficult to believe in only one God.

Remember Joseph before Potiphar, "I worship the one God." Potiphar's reply was, "He must be a pretty poor God for you to be in slavery." It was alien to think of monotheism-one single God. They only knew Him as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." That's how they referred to Him.

Exodus 3:14

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: `I AM has sent me to you.'"

Does anybody have what "I AM" means in the Bible? "I will be what I will be." Anything else? "YHWH". Here it is. "I am self-sustaining, self-evident." This is a word that is very hard to understand with our finite minds. "I AM WHO I AM." In other words, God is trying to describe eternity to you, man, with your small, little, limited mind. "I'm trying to describe to you that I AM THAT IAM. I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. I AM YHWH. I AM Jehovah. I have always been and always will be." You're meeting God and this is what you hear. Before you heard that, you were thinking, "OK. A God of Abraham, a God of Isaac, and a God of Jacob." And now He says this to Moses. What do you think? He's got to explain this name. Let's read.

Exodus 3:15

God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, `The LORD, the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Yahweh, Jehovah, I AM THAT I AM.

Go over to Chapter 5. We'll come back, but we're skipping ahead to focus on the Name.

Exodus 5:22-23

Moses returned to the LORD and said, "O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all."

We're going to read more about this later.

Pharaoh makes them make bricks without straw. He made the bondage harder. So the Hebrews interpreted it as, "God is not with us." So Moses went back to God and actually complained a little bit. We're going to see that Moses complains a lot.

Exodus 6:1

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."

When God is working with you, you are going to get to a point where you say, "I can't stand much more." And God is going to push you a little bit more (allow a little bit more to happen). You will say, "Wait a minute, God, I can't stand this." God says, "No. I want you to endure a little bit more." He's going to take you to the point where you can't stand anymore-to where you have to say when you come out of this (whatever He's taken you into), the only thing you can say is, "God did it." God knows your heart and mind. He knows the point past which you can say, "Well, I fixed that. I took care of that." Do you hear me? So what does He do? He says, "Well, I've got to go a little further with them. A little further."

You want that. That's what you ask for, "God, take me to those places where I can't go so that I will know you're working with me. Don't take me out of it. Don't give me the easy way." Listen to me talking to you all like this. Here it is right before Thanksgiving. "Don't give me the easy way out. Make it hard for me, God, so that I know it will be you and I can praise you. I can worship you." He does that. He knows what your limit is. The Bible says that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond that which you're able. With every temptation, He will make a path, a way of being redeemed, of coming out of it. That's in the New Testament. That's what He's doing with the people. He's saying, "I'm going to take them so far that when they get there, they will say, 'God did it.'" He's doing this with Moses, too.

Exodus 6:2-4

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 known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens.

That is a tremendous truth for all of us. God did not take the book of Genesis and say, "I'm going to put everything about me in the book of Genesis. I revealed some things to the people at this time as they were able. Now, Moses, I'm revealing more of myself, who I am, to you. And I'm going to reveal more to you and to the Israelite Nation. I'm going to keep revealing myself until it culminates in Christ's coming when you will see God, in the flesh. The Word with us." Do you see that the Old Testament is a revealing of God that keeps expanding and revealing until finally we see God in the flesh, Emmanuel? That's unbelievable! God only revealed certain things to them.

What does that say to you, in your Christian life? The day after you become a Christian, you don't say, "OK, God, give me everything." Do you know what our brains would be like? Smoke would pour out and our ears would curl up. We couldn't take it. So what does God do? He says, "As you're walking, I'm going to reveal myself to you. As you get into these trials and tribulations, I'm going to be working with you-you alone and uniquely you. No one else. As a matter of fact, I've got the whole world planned-the weather, the trees, the droughts, etc.-planned just for you, not everybody else, just for you!"

"I go to Fred. Fred, I've got everything planned just for you-everything to make you grow in Christ." Do you believe that? I believe it. Even though there are millions of Christians, every one of those lives God has preordained, knows the plan, knows what's going to happen, knows how to grow them in Christ, and reveal Himself to them so that they will grow in Christ. God desires to reveal Himself to you. Are you willing to allow Him to reveal Himself to you? What does it take? A humbling before God. "God, I am not who I am. Show me who you are."

Amen, Praise the Lord?

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the truths we have. We thank you for everything that we share with one another. May we truly forget about ourselves, God, and concentrate on you and how you want us to love others. During this week, Father, it is a time of Thanksgiving. In all things, we are to give thanks to you and we do. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

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