You and I love making plans. In fact, we are encouraged to do so. In secondary 1, my form teacher made all of us come up with a study plan before the exams came, saying “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. I remembered I diligently made an hour by hour study plan, being extremely proud of it and of keeping it. But we also know that our plans do not always work the way we want them to. We make many big plans, only to find out later that we cannot achieve it. Countless companies plan to be profitable in X number of years but never make it there. Today, we come before a different Person’s plan; we come before God’s rescue plan for the Hebrews. Does this plan seem likely or unlikely to pass? Keep this in your mind as you consider His plan.
(A) God Calls through a Promise (Exo 3:16-18a)
In the verses preceding our passage for tonight, God reveals himself to Moses in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed (Exo 3:1-15). He tells Moses of his plan to deliver them out of their slavery to the Egyptians in verse 7, and sends Moses to be his messenger to Pharaoh. When Moses questions God (Exo 3:11), God promises Moses his presence in verse 12, and reveals his name, I AM WHO I AM, or YAHWEH. We see God’s eternal nature, unchanging character and independence in this mysterious name. And today, God is revealing more details to Moses about his rescue plan for the Israelites.
God continues by calling Moses to action (Exo 3:16) - he is to “go and gather the elders of Israel”. This could be a matter of convenience to spread a message to an entire nation, but it also shows us how God’s people were organized. They had Elders, and the same is true of the early church and you can see this from Acts 20:7-35 where Paul speaks to the elders of the Ephesian church.
As young people, this is very important, for we are not naturally inclined to think of our church leaders as people that we should pay that much attention to. This text tells us that God’s people always had leaders to lead them spiritually. Does your church have leaders? The bible seems to suggest they are important people, and church goers will do well to respect and listen to our elders. We like to think that we are better and know more things, but the Bible tells us that God gives his people leaders.
And God gives these elders of Israel a message through Moses: God is YAHWEH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God of their forefathers; He is the one who promised Abraham that they will be blessed. God has observed you and what has been done to you in slavery (Exo 3:7): this is a God who sees. We spoke about this when we read the end of Exodus 2, but let this amaze you again. What does this mean practically for us? If a boss is mistreating you, God sees. If you are suffering from a health condition, God sees. If you are breaking your back in ministry, God sees. Back in Genesis, Hagar calls God as the “God who sees me”, and He sees us, and all of our afflictions. Let that comfort you.
God promises to bring them out of Egypt to a foreign land of other nations, a land flowing with milk and honey. This is a crazy promise. This is not just a promise of their slavery stopping and staying in Egypt. They are not just overthrowing the Egyptian rule of their slavery, but they are going to conquer 6 other people groups. This is a big promise! God is not One who promises small things here.
God tells Moses that the Elders of Israel will listen. This is an amazingly comforting thing to say to Moses, for Moses had been rejected by his own people. Remember how big is the promise is above. And God just makes it even better: you won’t be going to Pharaoh on your own. The promise that the elders of Israel would accompany Moses was an incredibly reassuring one for him - the man who had effectively been in exile for 40 years. This is a God who reassures doubly.
God is not one who leaves us on our own to do his work. How often have we benefited from just having different people around us to help us in our ministry? Are you grateful for your fellow brothers and sisters who serve alongside you in church? Even here in fellowship, we have so many people doing different things – leading us in song, teaching, printing the sheets, arranging the room with chairs, leading us in the Catechism, etc. God never meant for you to be alone. It should cause us to be grateful for God’s people in our lives, and if you don’t have such a community, then think about this.
(B) God Breaks Down Sin and Unbelief (Exo 3:18b-20)
In God’s first message to Pharaoh, He introduces himself as the God of the Hebrews. Who are the Hebrews? They are slaves, with no power and say in the world. This is a God who chooses to be associated with his meek people, his slaves. There are so many other things that we can use to describe God in his power. In fact, you could have expected that God would say he is “the Almighty” or the “creator of the heavens and earth”, but instead, he is the God of the Hebrews who meets with them. Our God is one who draws close to his people. He isn’t just a God who knows them - He is a God who draws them into His identity.
The main point of the passage is that the Hebrews must go to worship their God (c.f. Exo 3:12 where God gives his people a sign). The whole point of saving them out of their slavery is not just into nothingness, or into a lavish lifestyle of comfort with milk and honey. It is to sacrifice to the LORD. It is to restore their relationship with God by having them sacrifice for their sins.
If you are a Christian today, what has God saved you to? It isn’t just to do nothing! It is not to live a comfortable life of ease which some might promise you. Like the Israelites, we are saved to worship him. And that means our lives are not ultimately the ones that matter, but it is God who matters. It is hard for us to lay ourselves down because we are glory seekers, and we would love to glorify ourselves. We love being God but let us see what God does next to people who seek their own glory. But God has saved us, and we have been saved to worship Him.
Exo 3:19 tells us that God knew the king of Egypt would not let his people go unless compelled by a mighty hand. This is a play on the fact that in ancient Egyptian text, Pharaoh is mentioned to be “the one who destroys enemies with his arm”. And so here is God with his mighty hand, with his power and he will subdue this king of Egypt. He will defeat him with a mighty hand. Exo 3:20 gives us an insight into the coming wonders that God will do to break down Pharaoh, to break down sin. This is a God who knows the future, he is the one who is I AM WHO I AM, the one whose sovereignty reigns over every single thing. He is unchanging in his purposes and his will will be done. Does that bring you comfort and confidence if you are a Christian today? Nothing you ever experience will fall outside of God’s reign.
But this is also a scary thought. As far as God knew and saw, and observed the affliction of the Hebrews, and how we take comfort in it, we must know that this is the God who also knows and sees our sin. God saw Pharaoh’s sins and his heart, He sees our hearts too with all of our sinful desires. He knows what bad thoughts run through our minds, he knows how much you want this and that. And what does he do here? He breaks it down. God breaks Pharaoh apart, all of his sin, he plans to defeat completely. How scary is that? You and I know this is not a close match, there is a clear winner. As we live our lives as Christians, how are we hard-hearted like Pharaoh, and how has God broken down sins in your life over time? How has God compelled you as he will do with Pharaoh? God is resolutely determined to break down false gods. God is resolutely determined to break down sin. When God compels you, there is only going to be one winner.
(C) God Provides Everything Abundantly (Exo 3:21-22)
God also promises to give favour to the Hebrews in the sight of the Egyptians - they will not leave Egypt empty handed but leave with silver and gold, and clothing. As if leaving slavery is not good enough, God tells them that they will leave with provisions. This is almost like a surprise bonus. This is the time where you pray to God for something and he provides ten times over what you prayed for.
There is something else that adds to the strangeness of this upside down world. Women will be the ones asking for these from the Egyptians! Not mighty warriors with swords, but women will ask and the Egyptians will give. The slaves will plunder the Egyptians, the ones who treated them harshly. This is unbelievable stuff that God is saying. This is outrageous.
God’s entire rescue plan sounds like a mad man talking. It sounds bonkers and out of this world. And this is the God we come before today. God’s rescue plan today sounds equally outrageous. (God reveals Himself in a burning bush). The eternal, unchanging, the One who needs nothing God, YAHWEH, will observe the affliction, sin, and uselessness of his people, and not say “what do I need you for”, but say “I’m going to bring you out and provide for you abundantly." This God breaks down our sins, our hard hearts, our doubts, our unbelief, our idols, He defeats them utterly, breaks us completely that we might come in repentance to him again and again, perfecting us in the image of His Son.
Then this God starts promising us crazy things, eternal life, adoption as children of God who share an intimate relationship with Him, who will be glorified with Christ (Col 3:2-4). We will not just free from the penalty for our sins, but righteous, precious in his sight. This is going from -100 to +100. This is God’s rescue plan. Do you see what kind of sins is He breaking down? Do you see what it’s worth?