Exodus 6 (God Renews His Promise to Israel / Family of Moses and Aaron / Aaron Is Moses’ Spokesman)

Exodus 6: God Renews His Promise to Israel

All right, well, let's pray and then we'll get into Exodus chapter six. Heavenly father, we thank you again for this evening where we can gather and look at your word, spend time and fellowship and prayer.

And I just pray that we would see something in Exodus chapter six or something that is discussed that we could take and apply to our lives to grow spiritually and our knowledge of you and relationship with you.

And we pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.

God’s Covenant Promise to Deliver Israel

Exodus chapter six. And the Lord said to Moses,.

Oh, with a strong hand, he will let them go. And with a strong hand, he will drive them out of his land. I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God almighty, but by my name, Lord, I was not known to them.

I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.

Therefore, say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord, I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will rescue you from their bondage and I will redeem you with an upstretched arm and with great judgments.

I will take you as my people and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will bring you into the land, which I swore.

To give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And I will give it to you as a heritage. I am the Lord.

Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not heed Moses because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. And the Lord spoke to Moses.

Go in, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to let the children of Israel go out of his land.

And Moses spoke before the Lord, the children of Israel have not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me? For I am of uncircumcised lips.

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a command for the children of Israel and for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, are the heads of their father's houses.

The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanak, Paliu, Hezram, and Carmi. These are the families of Reuben. And the sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachem, Zohar, and Shalut, the son of a Canaanite woman.

These are the families of Simeon. These are the names of the sons of Levi, according to their generations, Gershon,.

Kohath, and Mireya.

And the years of the life of Levi were 137. The sons of Gershon were Lidna and Shema, according to their families. And the sons of Kohath were Amran, Izra, Hebron, and Azio. And the years of the life of Kohath were 133.

The sons of Mireya were Malai and Musha. These are the families of Levi, according to their generations. Now Amran took for himself Jehovah, his father's sister, as wife, and she bore him Aaron and Moses.

And the years of the life of Amran were 137. The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheh, and Zichron. And the sons of Aziel were Myshiel, Elzaphan, and Zichron. Aaron took to himself Elishabad, daughter of Aminadar, sister of Nashah, as wife.

And she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Edeazel, and Ithabah. And the sons of Korah were Azzer, Elkanah, and Abiaseph. These are the families of the Korahs. Eliezer, Aaron's son, took for himself one of the daughters of Putea, as wife.

And she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the father's houses of the Levites, according to their families. These are the same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said,.

Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, according to their families.

These are the ones who spoke to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are the same Moses and Aaron. And it came to pass, on the day the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I am the Lord.

Speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you.

Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. And how shall Pharaoh heed me?

Trusting God’s Covenant When Circumstances Get Worse

Alright, so you'll remember last week that we saw in chapter 5 it ended kind of on a sour note. So we went into chapter 6, verse 1, to kind of end it a little better. Pharaoh was making some impossible demands on the children of Israel.

You'll remember that. In their frustration, what did they do? They blamed Moses and Aaron. So Moses then returns to the Lord and he asks the Lord, basically, you know, why have you sent me? Things are getting worse.

You have not delivered the people at all. And you could either see this as Moses maybe questioning things or having doubts. But I think that it's more Moses just not knowing what else to do and saying, Lord, okay, you tell me what's next.

And remember that God made a promise. And Moses, God wants Moses just trust in that promise. And if he saw things right away, you know, if we had things with God said right away, there'd be no need for faith.

So Moses needs to learn how to trust God in the difficult times. And of course, we need to do that as well. So this promise that God has made to Moses. You know, I've heard pastors say things like we can hold or we should hold God accountable to keep his promises.

I don't know if you've ever heard something like that. Okay. I have to admit, I'm not fully comfortable putting it quite that way. But the spirit of that, we can depend on God and we can call upon God to do what he said he's going to do.

You know, Lord, you said this, I'm trusting in you to do it. But sometimes people will talk about holding the Lord accountable. But what does God want? He wants someone to be able to stand in the gap between him and the people.

He's looking for a man of faith who's going to depend on him and trust him in every single area. And that's what Moses does. He's not perfect, but of all the men in the scripture that trust God, what does the Bible say about Moses?

You know, he talked to God face to face like a man would talk to his friend. So God and Moses are very, very close. All right, look at chapter six, verse one. Then the Lord said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh with a strong hand.

He will let them go. And with a strong hand, he will drive them out of his land. So at this point, the stage has been set. Moses needed to go through this. He needed to make the request to Pharaoh and have Pharaoh say no, because God already told him ahead of time that what was Pharaoh going to do?

Harden his heart or God was going to harden Pharaoh's heart. So this had to happen. God promises Israel's release. And I want you to think about that word promise. Isn't God doing this? He's making a promise.

And when we talk about God making promises, what are we saying? We're talking about God making a covenant. And what's the definition of a covenant? You'll remember from our study in Genesis. How do you define covenant?

An agreement. Okay, a binding agreement or a promise. So when we talk about God's promises, we're talking about his covenant. Israel could not stay in bondage. It was impossible for them to stay in bondage in Egypt because God has promised that they will be brought out.

And it all stems back to God's covenant through Abraham. Look at verse two. And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God almighty. But by my name, Lord, I was not known to them.

I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians kept in bondage.

And I have remembered my covenant. Now, that statement that God has remembered his covenant. Obviously, it should be obvious that it doesn't mean that he forgot. And now he's like, oh, yeah, I remember what I told Abraham.

So now I'm going to do that again. But what is he saying? I remembered my covenant. Can you put that a different way, Russ? OK, it's time to get things going, right? It's time to fulfill this. So God remembers his covenant, meaning God keeps his covenant.

This is the whole basis of trust. So we can trust God because he is faithful. He keeps his promises. He keeps his covenant. You compare that with man. This is the great contrast. When man makes a promise, when a person takes an oath or a vow or they say they're going to do something, they say, you know, I promise I will do this.

What does man often do? Yeah. You know, people have no no issue, apparently just breaking promises and breaking covenants. But God always has the contrast. God always keeps his promise. So this is the whole basis of trust.

This is the whole basis of saving faith. God will make a promise. His people are to trust in that promise. And just to illustrate this, turn back to Genesis chapter six. Because this concept of covenant is essential in understanding how God works and interacts with mankind.

So where's the first time you see the word covenant in scripture? Who knows? Okay, so that we're where God should. Okay, the rainbow that's in Genesis nine. So it's before that. I'll give you a hint. You're in that chapter.

Okay, so this is the first time we see the word covenant in scripture where God makes an agreement, right? He makes a promise. He makes this agreement with Noah to deliver Noah and his family from the flood.

Look at Genesis six, starting in verse 17. And behold, this is the Lord speaking. I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under heaven, all flesh in which is the breath of life. Everything that is on the earth shall die.

But I will establish my what? I will establish my covenant with you and you shall go into the ark. You, your sons, your wife, and your son's wives with you. So let me go through this to show how God works through his covenant.

There is a promise made by God. What is the promise that God makes to Noah? He's going to flood the earth. Yeah, that's true. But what else? Yeah, he's going to save them, right? So no. So God has made his promises covenant.

And what's man's responsibility? Okay, well, yeah, build the ark, which demonstrates that Moses or excuse me, Noah believes, right? God tells him something. And you figure at this point, the earth has never been flooded ever.

I mean, it's questionable whether or not it had even rained ever on the earth, right? So for him to tell Noah, I'm going to flood this whole place. I mean, that requires some faith on Noah's part. And then to spend, what is it?

120 years building this massive boat. You can imagine the people that saw Noah doing this. What did they think? He's crazy. Well, he's crazy for believing God. But by the way, that's probably what they think of us.

We're crazy for believing God's word. But this is an act of faith on his part. So God makes the promise. Noah believes in response, and his works are the evidence that he believes God. So God makes the promise, and he saves Noah, or he delivers him from the flood.

Now, all this language, we can see, hopefully, how it pictures what God does ultimately in the New Testament, right? You think of the ark. The ark is the method which God uses to save or deliver Noah.

What's the ark symbolic for? Cross. Okay. It's symbolic for the cross, or it's symbolic for Christ, right? Turn to Genesis chapter 9. And when I say something is symbolic, or if the ark is symbolic for Christ, that does not mean that it didn't happen.

Sometimes you hear people talking about symbolism, and they say something symbolic. And it almost sounds like they mean that it's just not real or something. This is the error that the liberals make, right?

They think that the Old Testament is all symbolic, that it's pointing ahead to Christ. Well, you know what? That's true. It is symbolic, but it also really happened. So it actually took place, and it's symbolic.

It points ahead to Christ. Russ, you had something. It's representation. Right. Yeah, there's types and foreshadows in the Old Testament that point ahead to Christ. So the flood comes, and because of God's promise to Noah, he and his family are saved.

And by the way, the ark has how many doors? One. Just as there is only one name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Acts chapter 4, verse 12. And then Jesus in John 10, verse 9. Jesus said, I am the door.

So this whole thing foreshadows Christ. And that's the same thing with the Exodus. Okay, God is saving. He is delivering his people. So Egypt is a picture of the world, or it's a picture of sin. God is taking the people out.

He's delivering them, and he's leading them where? To the promised land, which is symbolic of what? Heaven. Right. So all of this is symbolic for what we see in the New Testament. So obviously in the New Testament, now there's another covenant.

The new covenant where God makes a promise that whosoever call it upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So God makes the promise. Man responds in faith and is saved or delivered from sin and its penalty.

So it's all about God making covenants with mankind. And also there's always a mediator, right? There's always a go between God and then the people that he's speaking to. But there's always someone in between, right?

So far, who have we talked about that's in between? Who are the mediators? Okay, so Moses, we know that. Noah, God gave the promise to Noah, and it applied to the whole human family that God would never again flood the earth.

And then in the New Testament, obviously, Jesus is the mediator. So if you look at it all throughout the scripture from Genesis to Revelation, God is very consistent in what he does and how he works and interacts with man.

The Sign of the Covenant in Noah’s Day

All right, look at Genesis nine. We're going to spend one more moment on Noah. Again, to emphasis the importance of covenant. So Noah gets off the ark. God speaks to him in verse 11. Thus, I establish my covenant with you.

Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. Um, you know, this is one reason why, um, uh, I don't believe that. Uh, global warming will melt all of the polar ice caps and flood the earth and just destroy everybody.

Yeah, I mean, you know, things might happen. Um, we all want a clean environment, but the earth's never again going to be flooded. Why? Because God said so. Verse 12. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant, which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations.

And I set my rainbow in the cloud. So this is what Janet was talking about. And it shall be for the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. It shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud.

And then notice the language in verse 15, same thing God said, uh, to Moses. And I will, what I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you. So again, it just means that you can depend on God.

You can trust in God. He said it, we believe it. And that, you know, that settles it. We can depend on what God said that it's true. All right. Turn back to Exodus chapter six. Any comments or questions so far?

Yes. I just want to understand the mediators. Yep. It's only those two mediators, Christ and Moses. Well, there. Abraham was not a mediator because he didn't really talk with him.

Um, so Moses and Jesus are considered like the two great mediators. Um, Moses is the mediator of the old covenant and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. Um, Abraham typically isn't considered a mediator because the promise was given to him.

And he wasn't necessarily taking that message and telling a group of people. Okay. I think he could probably be considered one. Um, but a mediator generally takes that message and goes back and forth between God and in the people.

Does that answer the question? Okay. Anything else so far? Joseph. Okay. You want to expand on that and why he might be here? Yeah. You know, I guess I wouldn't, I wouldn't question that, but I'm thinking more on a bigger scale, I guess.

So the mediators typically you would think of, um, Moses and Jesus, but then again, a priest is a mediator. Um, every priest in the old Testament was a type of mediator. Uh, but now in the new Testament, there's a statement that's made in first Timothy chapter two.

It's very specific that there is now what one mediator between man and God, the man, Christ Jesus. So now, as far as new Testament Christians go to us, there's only one, there's only one mediator. All right.

Exodus chapter six, starting in verse two, and God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God almighty, but by my name, Lord, and that's in all capital letters, but by my name, Lord, I was not known to them.

So do you remember when we were in chapter three, a few weeks ago, we discussed this, uh, that the patriarchs used this name. Uh, Abraham, he knew the name of the Lord because he used it. He called the place Jehovah Jireh, the name of God, Jehovah or Yahweh.

I am that I am. You see that all the way through the book of Genesis, right? And yet here, what does the Lord say? By my name, Lord, I was not known to them. So this is where the liberal scholars come in and say, see, this is one of many examples where the Bible is contradicting itself.

Uh, or they will say that this proves if you go to a seminary, most seminaries are liberal these days. This is what the teachers professors will tell you that this proves that Moses didn't even write the book of Exodus.

Uh, because if he did, uh, he would know that Genesis, um, says one thing. And now he's saying something. Of course, they don't believe that Moses wrote any of the first five books. So most scholars would point to this as a contradiction or that different people were writing Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus.

How many of you are at least familiar with that, with that, uh, what I would call an attack on the scripture. Okay. So most of you have at least heard of this. So does this prove that Moses didn't write the, uh, first five books or does it prove that there's contradictions in the Bible?

To me, if you ask me, the only thing it proves is that liberals don't have any faith in the word of God. That's what it proves. But we have to acknowledge this is kind of a, a difficult question. Uh, the Lord says by this name, I was not known to them.

And yet, if you go back to Genesis, they're using the name, they obviously know of it. So, um, let me just say this just because we don't have an answer, or if somebody brings something to you that looks like a contradiction, just because you might not know right off the top of your head.

That doesn't mean anything. Okay. Nobody has all of the answers, but I think there is an answer here. All right. So to the patriarchs, they obviously knew this name. I want to read this, uh, explanation.

This is the best one that I found. It comes from the Bible knowledge commentary put out by Dallas theological seminary. Dallas is one of the good seminaries. One of the last few that are left. Here's what they say about this.

All right. It says, why did God say that by his name, the Lord, he had not made himself known to the patriarchs was not God's, uh, was not God known by the name Yahweh to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Yes, he had been, but he mainly appeared to them as God almighty or El Shaddai. The one who provides or sustains, he had not displayed himself to the patriarchs primarily by the name Yahweh. So in Exodus three 14, God meant that now he was revealing himself to Moses, not only as sustainer and provider, but also as the promise keeper.

The one who was personally related to his people, the one who would redeem them. Okay. So in other words, it's a matter of emphasis, right? In times past, the Lord was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob primarily as El Shaddai, God almighty, the sustainer.

But now he will be primarily known as Jehovah or Yahweh, the one who keeps covenant with his people. Uh, he is the God who dwells in the midst of his people. So it's a matter of, of emphasis. Also, God now is connected to this group of people where that connection really, you're not going to say it didn't exist, but that wasn't the emphasis.

God had appeared to Abraham as a man, to Isaac, to Jacob made promises, but now he's entering into a covenant with the whole group. All right. So that's the best explanation that, that I found. I don't know if that's satisfactory for you, but it is, is for me.

Okay. Look at verse four. I have also established my covenant with them to them, uh, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians kept in bondage.

And I, again, we see, I have remembered my covenant. So God now tells Moses, uh, what to say to the people. Look at verse nine says, so Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not heed Moses because of the anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the children of Israel go out of his land. And Moses spoke before the Lord saying, the children of Israel have not heeded me.

How then shall Pharaoh heed me for I am of uncircumcised lips. So this, this is a strange expression, right? I'm of uncircumcised lips. What does that mean? He's a poor speaker. We've already heard him say this, right?

Yeah. Um, yeah, I think that's what it means in Jeremiah six, verse 10. I looked at this. Uh, the Lord says about, uh, the Jews, he says they are indeed, uh, their ear is uncircumcised. They cannot give heed.

So if an uncircumcised ear is an ear that won't listen, uncircumcised lips are, you know, it's a mouth that really can't speak or can't speak well. And Moses has already given this, uh, complaint or objection or reason to God, an excuse.

I would call it an excuse. I can't go to the people. I can't go to Pharaoh and tell him this. I can barely speak before people. I'm not very eloquent. Is God buying this? I don't think he is. Yeah. God, I think God has had enough of this excuse.

Look at verse 13. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a command for the children of Israel and for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

So that it's like Moses, that's enough questioning. That's enough of all of this. You know, you're going to do what I tell you to do. Okay. So now we see a little break in the narrative. The story has been flowing very nice all throughout Genesis.

And then all of a sudden you come to this and comes to a, comes to a halt. Uh, we've seen this before in, uh, Genesis. I think it was chapter 36. The story is flowing. Nice. We're reading about Jacob and, and then all of a sudden we get a whole chapter about Esau and his family.

And it seems out of place, right? And, and this kind of seems out of place, but here's the thing. The genealogies were very important to the children of Israel. So it's important information they would have wanted to know.

Here's the thing. There's no good place for it. Where else are you going to put it? So, uh, this may be seen as maybe a turning point. Um, it's as good a place as any, I suppose. Now about this genealogy, um, what do people do when they usually come to sections like this in scripture?

Yeah. The speed reads skip over it. Um, I think primarily because the names are so hard to pronounce, you know, if it was Joe and Bob and Larry and Bill, and you know, you could read through that. That's easy enough.

But some of the names are a little challenging. So that's what people do. They S they skip over it. And guess what? We're kind of going to skip over it too. A little bit. All right. But here's the thing.

The genealogies are important. I don't want to skip over it and give the impression that are not important. They're important for several reasons. Number one, it shows that God cares about history. Number two.

Uh, and if you have reasons why raise your hand after I give a few reasons, but it shows that God interacts with real people and cares about them. You know, it's not some fairy tale once upon a time with these people that nobody knows who they are.

I mean, these are real, real people. Uh, number three, it helps to demonstrate the Bible's accuracy and attention to detail. If we do end up going through the book of Leviticus, which I'm not sure we're going to do that.

Uh, we would see that God really cares about attention to detail, doesn't he? And then finally, I would say that it's important. The genealogies are important because they help to confirm prophecy. In particular, the prophecy of the Messiah.

So when you get to the gospel accounts, you see what the genealogies of Christ and Matthew chapter one, Luke chapter three, and you can see, um, Jesus's genealogy going back to one goes back to David, I believe, or is it Abraham?

And then one goes back all the way to, to Adam, right? So it kind of just helps to show us that God is involved all throughout human history. You know, his hand is guiding all of this, bringing it to pass, uh, just like he said he was going to, uh, any other comments about genealogies?

Russ?

I was going to say, I'm kind of like you. Yeah. These are hard words to pronounce, but I have the feeling that if we went back and did some research on these names, the meanings and the like would have a lot of significance.

We just have a tendency to gloss over it.

You want to do that and bring it in for next week? Can teach us something. All right. Well, if you want me to get, all right. All right. That's a deal.

I see another hand. Yeah. Linda. I have a note that says genealogies were used to establish credentials and authority as well as outlining the history of the family. Right.

Yeah. And of course it's very important. The Messiah comes from the line of Judah, right? And of course the priesthood, it's going to be very important that the genealogy is kept to know who the priests are, to have a valid priest, a descendant of Aaron.

Uh, any other Larry? Yeah. I heard of a man that was reading the genealogies, you know, uh, this one, you know, he lived so many years and then he died and I kept going back and forth like that, you know, we lived and I died and it got him thinking about his own mortality.

And he thought, where am I going to go when I die? And he ended up becoming a believer just through reading the genealogies, contemplating it. Yep. Amen. Yet God's word is powerful.

Even the genealogies. Russ. I did do something one time that I thought was rather interesting. I took all of the names from Adam to Noah and I did a timeline and looked at how many of those people died just before the flood.

Yeah.

Yeah. And Methuselah was the oldest man who ever lived. Right. And there's something that ties in, you know, he lived so long because once he died, then the flood came right after that. And it's like a picture of God's long suffering too.

Yeah. So there's all sorts of different things you can take away from the genealogies, but it's going to be very important with the priesthood especially. So in verse 20, we see this is one, one more thing.

Moses, parents, uh, Amram and his wife. So Moses mom is who? Most people probably skip over this, but, um, you know, I, I like putting this stuff out there so that no one's blindsided with some critic or skeptic that comes to you.

Believe the Bible. Oh yeah. What about this? And you're like, Whoa, I've never heard that before. Okay. So you know where I'm going with this? If you read it carefully and see Moses, parents, Amram, his wife, Jacobed.

Yes. He married his aunt. Okay. And that's shocking to modern, uh, ears, but also consider Cain. I mean, I don't know how you get around this. Cain married who? Sister. Yeah. If you can tell me how he married someone else, I'd like to hear it.

But, uh, uh, Abraham married his half sister. Isaac married his cousin. And understandably people really kind of struggle with, with stuff like this. But I just like to point out that a, obviously it was a different time and different standards.

B the Bible never says, Hey, this is good and people should do it. It's just recording what happened. And then C starting with the law of Moses. See, some people don't like God's law, but under God's law, this stuff was banned.

It's like Paul said, uh, you know, what did he say? I agree with the law that it is good. Well, we say amen to that. Okay. So it's just one of those things that sometimes people throw that at Christians as you know, you can't believe this.

Well, it happened. A lot of messed up stuff has happened that the Bible records. But back then it was Noah's grandchildren. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. Yep. A couple other important names in the genealogy or the, the son and grandson of Aaron, uh, his son Eliezer and his grandson Phineas.

What did they have in common? They would become what they would both become high priests. Uh, Nadab and a Bayou. We'll read about them. There's a story about them as well. It didn't turn out quite as well for those boys.

Uh, so Aaron was the priest and we'll see in a moment that Aaron was also what? There's three great offices in the old Testament. Aaron held two of them. What are they? Okay. Priest. Aaron was a priest.

We're going to see. He was also a prophet. He wasn't king, right? Um, there's one person now who holds all three offices. Who is that? Jesus, right? Jesus holds all three offices, prophet, priest, and king.

So there's a return to the narrative verse 28 and it came to pass on the day the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses saying, I am the Lord speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

All that I say to you, but Moses said before the Lord, behold, I am of uncircumcised lips and how shall Pharaoh heed me in chapter seven, verse one. So the Lord said to Moses, see, I have made you as God to Pharaoh and Aaron, your brother shall be your prophet.