“Preparing for God to Move” (Exodus 4:18 - 6:1) | 2/19/23
Exodus 4:18 - 6:1 | 2/19/23 | Will DuVal
I know from your social media posts and text messages to me over the past week that MANY of you have been following the revival that’s still going on at Asbury University, now entering its 11th straight day. Our own Pastor Brian actually traveled there to Wilmore, KY last week to experience it for himself, and here’s how he described it for me; he said:
“The room itself was simple, not produced or emotionally manipulative, but sweet and humble. People from all over the nation gathered to repent from sin and seek God… One of the sweetest things was that all denominations, generations, and ethnicities were there… It seemed to be a small foretaste of Heavenly worship… There was a shared bond and love for God and His gospel that unified all of us…
At one point, the whole room was called to confession and people stood up one by one and confessed their sins to the whole room and we reminded them that the blood of Jesus covers them. Repentance and prayer were significant to this gathering…
It all began with faithful prayer by those at Asbury (53 years ago) for the Lord to awaken their community. [And] it started with a routine chapel service [last week] and the Lord drew many students back after the service to pray and confess their sin. From there more and more students continued to join. I just feel a sincere hunger for more of God from Gen Z and Christians all over the nation. They want to see a move of God, and they are praying for it to happen.”
And friends: it IS happening. God is on the move. Similar outbreaks of days-long worship and prayer services have since been reported at Samford University in Alabama, Cedarville University in Ohio, and Lee University in Tennessee. God is on the move.
So I have two very simple questions to get us started this morning: Do we want to see a movement of God HERE, in our OWN midst as well? And secondly, if God WERE to move amongst us - in OUR church, in OUR city - what would it look like? What should we expect from a genuine, bona fide movement of God?
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Well, I think our Scripture passage for this morning offers us some clues. We’ve been working our way through the opening chapters of the book of Exodus for a few weeks now, and last week, God called Moses to leave Midian, where he has been sojourning and HIDING for 40 years now, and to return to EGYPT in order to set God’s people free. And despite all of Moses’ excuses and attempts to EVADE his calling - Moses tried FIVE TIMES last week to circumvent God’s calling - nevertheless, God’s will WILL prevail. Moses WILL return to Egypt in the second half of ch4 this morning, in preparation for an unprecedented movement of God; the exodus - God’s deliverance of His people from their bondage in Egypt - is THE central, climactic moment in all of the Old Testament. So if we want to know how to PREPARE for a real, authentic, powerful, transformative movement of God, we will do well to consider these chapters leading up to God’s decisive action in chs7-14 - the plagues, Passover, and parting of the Red Sea - all of it BEGINS here in chs 4-6, by PREPARING for God to move. And we’re gonna observe 5 traits here of a movement of God; here’s your outline for this morning, that I finished too late for the bulletins, but perhaps it’ll help you organize your notes to give you a preview, an overview, here at the start: Every movement of God is marked by 5 traits; it is:
1) ____-demanding (4:18-23; 24-26)
2) _____-including (4:27-29)
3) Fruit-_____ (4:30-31)
4) ______-provoking (5:1-18; 19-21); and finally,
5) Heart-______ (5:22-23; 6:1)
And we’re gonna fill in those blanks as we go, but I’ll give you a hint (for those of you who like to play “Guess the Sermon Points”): they’re all gonna start with the letter “O”. That’s your clue. 😀
SCRIPTURE: I invite you to stand… Exodus 4:18-6:1:
“Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” 19 And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” 20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.
21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”
24 At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
27 The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. 29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
5:1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” 3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” 4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” 5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” 6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it, and pay no regard to lying words.”
10 So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. 11 Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’” 12 So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.” 14 And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?”
15 Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.” 17 But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ 18 Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.” 19 The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, “You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.” 20 They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; 21 and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
22 Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”
6:1 But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.””
This is the word of God… Let’s pray…
5 Marks of a Movement of God:
#1- It is OBEDIENCE-demanding. Specifically, movements of God demand that we obey both God’s calling and His commandments. (4:18-23; 24-26)
Now I’m gonna tell you right up front that Moses does NOT perfectly obey God’s calling and commandments here, and as a matter of fact, he will fall short in FOUR of the five marks we’re gonna outline this morning. But that only serves to highlight the fact that the exodus is going to be a movement of GOD, and not a movement of MOSES! Nevertheless, the point still remains that WHEN God is on the move, He calls His people to FOLLOW. To fall in line, and OBEY.
Now in one important sense, Moses DOES obey here. Last week, God had instructed him to “Return to Egypt”. Now we read in v20: “So Moses took his wife and his sons… and went back to the land of Egypt.”
But the passage doesn’t START in v20; notice what Moses does first in v18, BEFORE he obeys God’s calling: “Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.”” Two things to point out about that:
First, when God calls you to do something, you don’t need ANYONE else’s permission. A lot of commentators applaud Moses here, for being so thoughtful and so deferential to his father-in-law, who had more or less adopted Moses these past 40 years; so Moses seeks his blessing here. But that’s NOT what the text says; Moses didn’t ask for Jethro’s blessing; he asked for his PERMISSION: “Please LET me go back…” But friends: Moses didn’t need Jethro’s PER-mission; he’s already received GOD’S CO-mmission! Moses should have simply been INFORMING Jethro: “Hey, I just wanted to give you the heads up that the family and I are gonna be heading back to Egypt…” Because when God calls, we obey. Moses is not to be applauded for his deference to JETHRO here; he should have been deferential to GOD!
Second, please note that he also LIED to Jethro, about his REASON for returning: “to see whether [my brothers in Egypt] are still alive.” THAT’S not why he’s going back! So why’d he lie? My best guess is that he figured Jethro would think Moses had lost his MIND if he told him the truth, maybe even try to PREVENT him from returning, or at least from taking Jethro’s daughter and the grandkids along with him. If Moses had admitted, “Sooo, God appeared to me and spoke to me from a BUSH, that was on fire but didn’t burn up, and God told me that He’s chosen ME - an 80-year old, fugitive shepherd - to free His people - some 2 ½ MILLION people - from enslavement to the most powerful nation on earth: Egypt…” Are you starting to see why Moses lied? But a lie is still a LIE. And the REASON Moses once again takes matters into his OWN hands and LIES here is that he once again doubts God’s ability to make good on His promise. He figures: “If I tell Jethro the truth, I won’t even make it out of MIDIAN; he’ll have me locked up in a padded room. I’ll just tell him a little white lie…” And he breaks God’s commandment.
But Moses disobeys his calling even more blatantly than that. Look closely at God’s instructions here in vv21-23 with me: “the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”” I count FOUR orders that God gives Moses here:
1) Do miracles;
2) Identify Israel as my SON;
3) Demand Israel’s release for the purpose of SERVING God; and…
4) WARN Pharaoh of God’s punishment if he refuses to comply.
Now let’s skip ahead and re-read Moses’ actual CONFRONTATION with Pharaoh, in ch5, and consider: does Moses DO what God had CALLED him to do?
Ch5: “Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” …they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.””
1) Did they perform any miracles? No. Perhaps Moses doubted that God would come through for them in the clutch…
2) Did they mention Israel’s SON-ship? No. Perhaps they were afraid of OFFENDING Pharaoh, who himself claimed to be the father over all of Egypt.
3) Did they mention leaving in order to SERVE Yahweh? No. Perhaps they were once again afraid of angering Pharaoh, who also claimed to be a GOD; Pharaoh was the LORD over Egypt, who alone would be served.
4) And did they WARN Pharaoh about the death of his firstborn? No. Instead, they mentioned the threat to ISRAEL - “lest God fall upon us with pestilence or the sword”. Apparently they tried to play the SYMPATHY card… with this ruthless tyrant!
In short, Moses and Aaron obeyed God’s WILL, but not in God’s WAY. And one can’t help but wonder if part of the reason God allows Israel to continue to SUFFER as they’re going to now, for an additional 8 chapters, instead of just liberating them right then and there on the spot: is because Moses didn’t do it GOD’S way. While we’re at it: do you remember from last week in ch3 who God had instructed Moses to take WITH him when he confronted Pharaoh? God said, “you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt” (3:18). But Moses and Aaron went in alone in ch5.
Friends: it may seem like I’m NIT-picking here, but when the Almighty God of the universe tells you to DO something, it’s a good idea to hang on his every word, every little detail… to NIT-pick! If you don’t think God is concerned with the specifics, with every minute detail, just wait until we get to chs25-40, and his instructions for building the ark of the covenant, and the tabernacle, and the priestly garments; our God is a NIT-picky GOD!
And what you and I might consider tiny instances of disobedience are in fact a MASSIVE deal, to such a holy God. How big a deal?
Consider vv24-26 here. Undoubtedly one of the most BIZARRE stories not only in the book of Exodus, but in all the Bible. What in the world is going on here, with Zipporah’s circumcision of her son? The passage is admittedly vague and difficult to interpret, in part because of the ambiguous identity of all the pronouns used here; we read “the Lord met HIM… sought to put HIM to death… Zipporah touched HIS feet with the foreskin (the Hebrew does NOT actually say it was “Moses’ feet”)... So God let HIM alone…” So who is HIM? Is it MOSES? Or his son? And if so, WHICH son - Gershom his firstborn, or Eliezer, his second?
I’ll give you my best guess: I think all the “hims” here refer to Moses’ SON. Probably Gershom, since we’re not even sure Eliezer is born yet at this point in the story, and since so much of the focus in this passage is on the firstborn sons. God is in effect saying, “Moses: how are you gonna rescue MY firstborn son, Israel… and how dare you threaten PHARAOH’S firstborn son with death… when you haven’t yet obeyed my simple command of circumcision with your OWN firstborn son!” For context: the Midianites likely did NOT practice circumcision at this time, and Moses had effectively raised his son as a Midianite, and NOT as an Israelite. So this is sort of a graphic, OT version of the NT requirement that an elder “must manage his own household well… for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? ” (1 Tim 3:4-5); if Moses won’t follow God’s commands with his OWN kids, how’s he gonna faithfully shepherd 2 ½ million Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land?!
But notice again: it’s not even MOSES who obeys God in v25; ZIPPORAH has to step in and save her son’s life. I can just imagine Moses saying, “Look: you’re the Midianite, who didn’t want to circumcise our son in the first place; I don’t want you - or HIM! - holding this over my head for the rest of my life…” This is more passive leadership from Moses: “Who am I to free Israel… Who am I to cut off his foreskin?” So Zipporah says, “Fine; give ME the flint then; I’LL do it!”
And interestingly, the word she uses here translated “bridegroom” - chathan in Hebrew; 12 of the 20x it’s used in the OT it actually means “son-in-law”. I think she’s declaring that her son Gershom has now become like a son-in-law to her, because he WAS Midianite (like her) but NOW he’s become Israelite (like Moses). And we’ll learn later in ch18 that at SOME point in the journey, Zipporah and the boys returned back HOME to Midian, and I’m guessing it was after this incident at the “lodging place” before they even made it to Egypt - she turned back.
But admittedly, that is speculation; the one thing we know for CERTAIN, is that God had commanded his covenant children to be circumcised way back in Genesis 17, Moses had FAILED to follow that command thus far with his own child, and yet a movement of God DEMANDS that we obey and follow!
That’s the first thing we need to recognize, Church, if we want to see God move, if we want to see revival break out in our OWN midst: God is calling us to OBEDIENCE. Simple faithfulness to the revealed will and word of God. It’s the same promise he made to Solomon: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Obedience: humble ourselves, pray, seek God, repent… and THEN God promises to move; to hear us, forgive us, and heal us.
#2 - (moving MUCH quicker now…) a movement of God will be OTHER-including (4:27-29).
Remember, Moses was SUPPOSED to include the “elders of Israel” when he confronted Pharaoh in ch5, which he will fail to do. But he does at least get his brother AARON on board with the movement, here in v27. And then they BOTH “gather together all the elders of the people of Israel” in v29 and get THEM on board at least initially as well. And in v31 we hear, “the people believed” Moses. After all his worrying and doubting God last week… that no one was gonna listen to him… the Israelites would never follow Moses’ lead… God proves to him here: “Moses, when you listen and OBEY me, good things happen. I always come through.”
Because God always DESIRES to include others in His work of redemption. We see it time and time again, all throughout Scripture: God moving personally, but never PRIVATELY; God’s work is ALWAYS communal. He’s making a PEOPLE for His own possession, not a PERSON. When God chooses a person, a leader, it is always for the sake of calling a PEOPLE.
God promised Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation, and bless ALL nations through you”.
God fulfilled that promise in JESUS, who included OTHERS in his movement - he called and empowered 12 disciples, who he then commissioned to go out and continue - to EXPAND! - His Kingdom work: “Go make disciples of ALL the nations”.
We see it in the way Jesus designed his CHURCH: not to be headed by a pastor at the top who does all the ministry while everyone else simply pays his salary, but rather “he gave… the pastors… to equip the saints for the work of ministry… until we all attain to the unity of the faith and… grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Eph 4:11-16)
We’ve ALL got a role to play, brothers and sisters. “As each has received a gift,” 1 Peter 4:10 exhorts us, “use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace”. That’s why we’re calling you to “Step Up” this “Step Up Sunday” - because if you DON’T, you’re missing out on the movement of GOD! And that’s one thing that historians of the great movements of God in the past all agree on: Sure, the Great Awakening may have had its George Whitfields and its Jonathan Edwards… just like the 1st century EXPLOSION of the church had its Peters and its Pauls… but for every famous leader, famous “equipper”, there were 1,000s of unknown saints doing the WORK of ministry, taking the movement out into the streets.
And that’s something ELSE Pastor Brian pointed out about the Asbury revival: he said, “One of the things that really struck me was the lack of a celebrity pastor, or a star worship team.” It’s just ordinary people, being filled with the Spirit and power of an extraordinary God.
#3- A movement of God will be Fruit-ORIGINATING (4:30-31). It will necessarily generate FRUIT.
In v30, Moses offers these elders of the people the PROOF that God had in fact sent him, by “[doing] the signs in the sight of the people” - turning his staff into a serpent then back again, turning his skin leprous then back again.
Now, we don’t have time this morning to discuss the role of miracles in God’s movements TODAY, but one thing we MUST all agree on is the very simple truth that Jesus taught: “You will know a tree by its FRUIT”.
That was the litmus test for prophets in the OT, how God’s people would know if someone was a FALSE prophet - “when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken” (Deut 18:21-22). The proof is in the pudding!
It’s the same here with MOSES: the Israelites could clearly see that Moses was filled with God’s power because He MANIFESTED it to them in signs and wonders.
And regardless of your theological position on the cessation or continuation of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit today, one thing we can ALL agree on is “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Moreover, WITH such things, every true follower of Christ will be FILLED, and every true movement of God will be MARKED.
Many of you have asked me: “What do you think about what’s happening in Asbury? Is it LEGIT?” My reply is: we’ll know a tree by its fruit. What is the FRUIT of what’s going on in Asbury: is the campus there becoming a more LOVING place? More JOYFUL? More PEACEFUL? More KIND, GOOD, FAITHFUL, GENTLE, SELF-CONTROLLED?
What about US, West Hills? This church has grown like CRAZY in the past 3 years. Praise God! So did the 1st century church. But so too did 7th c. Islam. Gaining a lot of followers is NOT the fruit of a movement of God. Joel Osteen pastors the largest church in the country, and I can promise you: it’s NOT because God is really MOVING there.
Are we growing as much QUALITATIVELY as we are QUANTITATIVELY, together as a church? Are we more LOVING, joyful, peaceful, kind… than we were 3 years ago? I hope and pray we are; THAT is the fruit of a movement of God.
And so too, by the way, is WORSHIP. Ch4v ENDS with v31: “when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.” Every true movement of God WILL result in WORSHIP.
But #4 - it will ALSO provoke OPPOSITION (5:1-18; 19-21).
This is the longest section of our passage - 21 verses in ch5 - but we won’t spend the most TIME on it, re-reading all of it, because the long and SHORT of it is simply this: every movement of God will face OPPOSITION. Both externally - the first 18 verses here focus on PHARAOH’s hostility toward Yahweh - “YAHWEH? Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I don’t know no Yahweh, and moreover, Israel ain’t goin’ NOWHERE!” As a matter of fact, if y’all - Pharaoh was a Southerner - if y’all have got too much TIME on your hands, SO much time that you think you can manage a week-long vacation out to the desert to worship this YAHWEH, then I’ll TELL you how you can use all that extra time: you can start finding your OWN straw to use in the bricks you make to construct all my building projects. V9: “Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it, and pay no regard to lying words” - “Moses: I’ll teach you to spread LIES amongst my slaves, and make them LAZY; DOUBLE their work!” And then, when it proved physically IMPOSSIBLE for the Israelites to keep up with the work, but the Egyptian taskmasters kept mercilessly BEATING them anyway, where did they turn? Did they turn to GOD, in prayer? No - they ran straight to PHARAOH! V15: “Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh”! Notice: they still identify themselves as HIS “servants”, not the Lord’s. And how do you think they even got an AUDIENCE with Pharaoh, in the first place? These slaves? It was all part of Pharaoh’s PLAN, to turn the Israelites AGAINST Moses!
And that’s exactly what HAPPENS, in vv19-21: “[The foremen] met Moses and Aaron… as they came out from Pharaoh; and said, “The Lord look on you and judge you, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh… and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Moses: it’s all your fault! And what started as external opposition - from Pharaoh - has now become INTERNAL as well - Moses’ own people opposing him, once again (but not for the last time, unfortunately, as we’ll see!).
So too, we TODAY must recognize that every movement of God WILL encounter opposition both externally - from the world, from the devil - as well as INTERNALLY - even from those within the Church. It was certainly true of early Christianity, as the Church exploded out from Jerusalem and grew exponentially day by day; you remember from our study through the book of Acts together last year: it was PERSECUTION that drove the expansion of that 1st century movement of God. But right about the same time, the church started facing INTERNAL opposition as well, from some of the Jewish Christians who didn’t APPRECIATE the inclusion of the Gentiles in the movement. They wanted Paul to stop PREACHING to the Gentiles.
And Jesus had warned his Church about ALL this: “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt 7:15). Internal opposition, within the Church.
But especially external opposition, from the world; Jesus warned all who would follow Him: “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you… If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” (Jn 15:19-20) “In the world you will have tribulation.” But then he encouraged us: “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33) And He promised: “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). Brothers and sisters: Jesus has not left us to face opposition ALONE; He has promised that He is WITH us, through it all, if we will but turn to Him.
And that’s the last point here, #5 - for all his failures, Moses does get ONE thing right here at the end, and it’s the most important ingredient of ALL in a movement of God: while the Israelite foremen ran to PHARAOH with their problems, where does MOSES turn, in v22? “Then Moses turned to the Lord”
A movement of God, if it is ANYTHING, it MUST be: Heart-OPENING (5:22-23; 6:1). It is an opening of our HEARTS, a turning of our hearts BACK to the LORD. In PRAYER and in FAITH.
We CRY OUT to God in prayer, then we COUNT ON Him to come through, in faith.
We give him BOTH our cares, our concerns, as well as our hope and our trust.
We get REAL with Him - “God: this STINKS! “why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? God: your plan doesn’t seem to be WORKING!” - we get REAL with Him; but then we RELY on Him. We TRUST Him, when He says: “Now stand back and WATCH what I’m about to do.”
I love Phillip Ryken’s commentary on this verse; he says (166-7): “Sometimes God allows our troubles to continue in order to prove that only HE can save us… When Moses failed to change Pharaoh’s mind, it became more obvious than ever that only GOD could set his people free. It was precisely when Moses despaired of providing deliverance himself that God said, ‘Now you will see what I will do’ (Exod 6:1).”
Or as the apostle Paul put it, when he was at HIS lowest point: “I pleaded with the Lord… But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:8-10)
Friends: when we are at our very WEAKEST, we are right where God WANTS us to be, so that He can step in - MOVE in our midst - and prove that only He - God ALONE! - can be the source of our deliverance.
And why should we TRUST Him to do it? Because God has already provided us the greatest deliverance of all: Colossians 1:13: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, JESUS, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Don’t you see how all five of these aspects of a movement of God ultimately point us to JESUS, and the GREATEST movement of God in history, 2,000 years ago?
JESUS offered God the obedience that we should but so often don’t.
JESUS empowered and included others, those we exclude.
JESUS backed up his bold claims of divinity with FRUIT, with ACTIONS, with signs and wonders, resulting in worship, all to the praise of God the Father.
JESUS was opposed both externally - by the Pharisees who called for his crucifixion - and even internally, by his closest friends: Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him and opposed his crucifixion.
And yet Jesus was obedient all the way to death, even death on the CROSS. Like Moses, he cried out to God: “My God, My God - why have you FORSAKEN me?” Jesus got REAL with God! But then He RELIED on God: “Not my will, but your will be done, Lord”. And in the end, He ENTRUSTED Himself to God: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”
And because He did, God has now highly EXALTED him, and given Him the name that is above EVERY name, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:9-10)