Exodus 6 Lesson # 6
Exodus 6:2-7:7
Recommission/Old Testament Salvation
I. Greetings:
II. Introduction: Two streams: Exodus 5:22-23, 6:1.
Note: Our passage today has two main streams of thought, two main issues: two main emphases: what we say and what God says. How we see the world and how God sees reality.
RQ Have you been discouraged with your life, your ministry, your future, or your family’s future? You are not alone – even the great Moses was once. Lets read again what he said to God:
>>>> You read Exodus 5:22-23.
Note: This is our perspective, man’s perspective. Moses’ plans had been thwarted and he was discouraged and from what he saw all was grim.
RQ If you were God what is there to say to such people as Moses, or like us at times?
>>> Read Exodus 6:1.
Q What does God want Moses to do?
An = Basically the Lord says “watch”. Watch what? Watch what He will do. Now comes God’s point of view. What is it that God is going to do?
III. God’s Plan of Salvation: Exodus 6:2-8
A. God’s Declarations. Five fold series of what was and what is: Exodus 6:2-5.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 6:2.
Q What is the first thing God says and why is this said first? Why is it important?
An = The Lord opens with saying, the key issue is, “I am here” and “I am the Lord”.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 6:3-5
Note: Then the Lord says four things: All of them begin with the personal pronoun “I”.
Q What is the first of these four statements?
An = He appeared to their ancestors.
Q What does He mean He appeared as El Shaddai (the Almighty God) but never by the name Yahweh?
An = This is not because the Name was totally unknown to them, but because what is going to do is new (to save them), so a new name. (You can find the name Yahweh before the Name is given to Moses in the book of Genesis, but most scholars believe this is “new Name” means a “new activity” by God and thus a new Name.) Yahweh is God’s “saving Name”.
Q What is the second statement?
An = 2) I established My covenant with to give them the land the once were foreigners in.
Q Look at verse 4, is what God is going to do that is new is related to the past?
An = God’s new actions are not unrelated to the past but a consequence of it. God made a promise and though all those who heard it are dead, God never forgets a promise. God always keeps His Word.
Q What is the third statement?
An = 3) God says I have heard your groaning. I have heard your longing for something better.
Note: In other words, God is aware of their circumstances and God is aware of ours. He knows what is happening to us as He was aware of what the Egyptians were doing to the Israelites. Someone here today, right now, may hurting from what someone is doing to you and God says I am aware of the Egyptians in your life. God knows what holds us back.
4) Finally at the end of 6:5 God says: I have remembered My covenant.
Note: All our hope for the future lies in God’s character. It is because “He is the Lord”, because He is who He is that we have hope.
Q Let me also ask you a key question: why tell us at all? Why not just do it?
B. God’s Future Plans. Threefold series of what will be: Exodus 6:6-8.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 6:6-8.
Q God has a threefold plan for the future what is it?
An = 1) Verse 6, I will bring you out from the burdens of the Egyptians.
2) Verse 7, I will take you as my own people. He will embrace them and be their God. 3) Verse 8, I will bring you into the land which I swore to your fathers.
God’s plan is deliverance, relationship and land.
Q How will God end their slavery according to verse 6?
An = God will also end their slavery with power! The oppressors will not only be stopped but will be shown God’s power and His justice. But He will do it. It will be “His arm”, not Israel’s!
Q After God saves us what does He offer next?
An = God wants to have a relationship with us. He will save us and then enter into a relationship with us. However, God has to save us first, then we can become His friends.
Q Why is the promise of land so important to slaves?
An = The Israelites know they have need of deliverance, they do not know they have need of land. They are not even aware of the “promise to the fathers”. God wants to give you more than you think you need. You need more and He already has it in mind.
They were slaves. They had no idea what owning a piece of land could mean. Those of you who own land know. Those of you own a home know. Oh, it means work, but it means you have a place under the son to call your own. Your own land brings you dignity, it brings you the ability to feed and cloth yourself. Land gives you employment and physical tangible blessings.
Note: They were to own, to possess the land their forefathers were strangers in. The outsiders were to become owners. Spiritually, you could move from an “on-looker” to a “possessor”. It is possible, but it will not be you that accomplish it.
Q If you have a pencil circle how many times the word “I” is used of God in Exodus 6:2-8?
An = It is sixteen times I believe
Q What does all the use of the first person personal pronoun “I” mean? Why is the text written that way?
An = Salvation is all of God. God will save Israel by the up-coming ten plagues and the opening and closing of the Red Sea. Salvation is God’s bit. Jesus died on the Cross, it is through no work of our own that we are saved.
Note: Notice how 6:8 ends. “I am the Lord”. It is because of who He is that we have hope.
IV. The Words of Men. We only see Problems: Exodus 6:9-13.
A. Moses Tries to Obey, Israel’s Viewpoint: Exodus 6:9.
Q Remember the question I asked you? Why does God tell us ahead of time of all of His great works? Why tell Moses?
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 6:9.
Q Did Moses sell them on the deal?
An = The answer is no! They were too down.
Q So why tell them?
B. Moses’ Viewpoint Expressed the First Time: Exodus 6:10-13
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 6:10-13.
Q Is Moses affected by the Israelite disbelief?
An = Yes, he is down too, and he has already tried to deal with Pharaoh and it was a complete failure.
Note: Of course, God predicted it would not be easy and that Pharaoh would not listen at first. God told Moses that way back when they were still in the wilderness of Sinai.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:19. We tend to forget that God let us know what to expect but when the going is rough, it is so easy to forget. It so hard to see what God sees.
RQ If it is so hard to see what God sees, why does He tell us. It did the Israelites no good.
C. Moses’ Viewpoint Expressed the Second Time: Exodus 6:28-30.
Note: There is an interlude placed in the text (6:14-27) that shows the lineage of Aaron and Moses, but right after that, the Lord speaks to Moses again, because Moses is still down. What is perhaps important about this short genealogy is that the text is already assuming we would want to know about these two men and where they were from, but from the point of view of Aaron and Moses, they saw no chance of themselves ever becoming important! The text sees into the future and knows God’s point of view, but Moses sees only his own point of view. Moses is still down.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 6:28-30.
Q Does Moses have an original excuse?
An = No, the same old tired excuse of chapters 3 and 4. God has already answered this, but God does remind Moses of the help He promised to give.
Note: Verse 6:30 ends with Moses again discouraged. But notice what follows. God does not give up! Notice what He does. He repeats, He re-commissions Moses and reminds Moses of the coming difficulty but He firmly reminds Moses of God’s own point of view. He will do the redeeming.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 7:1-5.
Note: Notice again the personal pronoun “I”. God repeats His words. God announces His point of view.
Q Why does God do that? It is so hard to hear what God says? Why does God keep telling us His point of view?
An = So that what happened in 6:6 can happen to you and me.
>>>> You read Exodus 6:6
Q What is our job: to save or just do what God tells us to do?
An = We are just to do what He says. God will do the saving of our friends, our family, our own problems, but He wants us “to believe.” He wants us to do what He has told us to do. When we obey, we show that we believe.
Q What has He told you to do today?
An I know for me there are certain concrete things I am to do. They are usually very tangible, often physical things that I need to do.
Q What are they for you?
Do them, no matter how hard they seem, or how hopeless the situation appears. Do what God has commanded, and then watch Him begin to do His Work.