An Infant in a Cradle

Why Voddie Baucham wasn't at The Elephant Room 2 and was Disinvited from James MacDonald's Men's Conference

2012-01-30T16:45:00.000-06:00

This did not go over well with James MacDonald. Upon my arrival at the church the next day, he and I sat down (along with my assistant and several members of his staff) and had a candid conversation about my decision to answer questions in a public forum. Ultimately, we agreed that it was not a good idea for me to speak at the conference. MacDonald had already made arrangements for a replacement speaker. My assistant and I were escorted to a waiting car and taken back to the airport.

Read the rest.

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Exodus 4:1-9 – Walk By Faith and Not By Sight (Part 1)

2012-01-29T13:21:00.000-06:00

Audio will be available here.

A central issue in our passage this morning is unbelief. We are still in the same scene that began in chapter 3, the Lord’s appearance to Moses in the burning bush.

The Lord has spoken. He has revealed his purposes to redeem Israel from Egypt and to bring them to the Promised Land. Central to this is the Lord’s call on Moses, as the one he will send to Pharaoh and through whom he will bring the Hebrews out.

Thus far, Moses has offered two humble “objections” to the Lord’s call. The first question was, “But who am I?” to which the Lord answered, “I will be with you.” The second question was, “But who are you? What is your name?” to which the Lord answered, “I AM WHO I AM”—an amazing statement of absolute sovereignty.

This week, Moses offers his third objection: “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘Yahweh did not appear to you.’”

Read that objection in light of the Word of the Lord given in Exodus 3:18: The Lord has told Moses—“They will listen to your voice.” Moses responds in direct contradiction—“But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘Yahweh did not appear to you.’”

The irony in this is that Moses is accusing the Israelites of unbelief—an accusation that, itself, flow from unbelief! For he is failing to believe what the God who appeared to him said!

The reason Moses needs these signs is the same reason Israel will need them—they walk by sight and not by faith in God’s word.

We’ll talk next week about the various ways that Christians follow in the footsteps of Moses’ unbelief. But for now, let’s look at the signs that the Lord gives, accommodating Moses’ weakness.

Signs
In verses 2-9, the Lord responds by giving Moses three miraculous “signs” to perform which will cause the Israelites to listen to Moses—a direct answer to his objection.

What is a “sign?” In verses 8-9, the Lord calls these miracles “signs.” The Lord says “If they will not…listen to [the voice of] the first sign…If they will not believe even these two signs.” Signs are to be “listened to” and “believed.” That means signs speak; they speak a message that is to be believed.

These “signs” are not clever parlor tricks. They are miraculous meaningful, messages. Therefore, the question we must ask is, “What do the signs signify?”

Sign #1 - The Serpent Staff
In verses 2-3, the Lord draws attention to Moses’ staff and commands him to throw it to the ground. When Moses threw it down, the staff became a serpent, probably a deadly serpent, as Moses ran from it in fear.

In verse 4, the Lord tells Moses to put out his hand and catch it by the tail. Moses obeys and, when he caught it, it became a staff again.

What does it mean?
The Staff. Egyptian culture and belief saw the staff as a symbol of authority, leadership and power. The Egyptian magicians boasted of their ability to turn inanimate objects into living things through the use of magic staffs. Numerous Egyptian scarabs depict scenes of magicians using magic staffs that turned into snakes—much like the scene we will see later in Exodus.

The Serpent. The serpent was also an important symbol in Egypt, a sign of resurrection. The serpent was worshiped as a god of healing, wisdom and fertility.

Therefore, the serpent became a symbol of Pharaoh, who was himself considered to be a god. The Pharaoh often wore a serpent on his crown and had a scepter (staff) in the form of a serpent.

So, we can begin to hear the significance of this sign. It is not just a cool miracle. Moses’ staff signifies Yahweh’s authority—authority aimed directly at the gods of Egypt, at Pharaoh in particular. Moses’ serpent-staff demonstrates that Yahweh possesses sovereignty over Pharaoh and over the gods of Egypt. He is about to crush the head of the serpent.

Sign #2 - The Leprous Hand
The Lord next tells Moses to put his hand inside his cloak. When he does and pulls his hand out, it was white with leprosy. Then the Lord told him to put his hand back inside his cloak. When he did and withdrew it, it was restored to health, like the rest of his flesh.

“Leprosy” is a word used to signify a variety of skin diseases in the Old Testament (and is not necessarily “leprosy” as we know it today). Leprosy was understood to be incurable—it was a living death. In the ancient Near East, especially in Egypt, such a disease was seen a punishment or curse, inflicted by the gods.

The fact that the incurable curse of the gods was instantly cured signifies the power of Yahweh, who is working through Moses, over life and death—even over what might be the curse of Egyptian gods.

To Believe
In verses 5 and 8, the Lord indicates that the purpose of these signs is to encourage the Israelites to believe Moses and his message. Specifically, they are to believe that Yahweh appeared to him, which includes believing what he promised in that appearance to do—to deliver them from their enemies to the Promised Land.

Sign #3 - The Bloody Nile
Finally, the Lord says that if they will not listen to these first two signs or to Moses’ voice, then he should perform a third sign: “you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the ground, and the water that shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

This sign could not be demonstrated in the wilderness but only in the land of Egypt, for the water he was to use was to be specifically from the Nile. This indicates that it was no mere miracle with water, but a statement of God’s sovereignty over this particular river.

It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance of the Nile to Egypt. The Nile made life possible in Egypt. The Nile was the reason for the prosperity, wealth and power of Egypt. Every year, as the Nile flooded, it deposited several feet of rich, black soil in the normally dry land, making farming possible.

Very little water was available in Egypt, except from the Nile and its branches, canals and shorewells. Therefore, the vast majority of the Egyptian population lived near it, making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

So, naturally, in this pantheistic culture, the Nile was a god. It was believed that all creation sprouted from the Nile and was preserved by the Nile. The name for the Nile (Hapi) was the exact same name as that of the Nile-god—the god and the river were indistinguishable.

But, a river of blood is a sentence of death. You cannot cook with, irrigate with, bathe in or drink blood. Imagine what life would be like in America if, every drop of water available to us were suddenly turned into blood.

Therefore, we can understand the meaning of this sign: Yahweh is sovereign over life and death, over the great life-giving, life-sustaining god of Egypt—the Nile itself. To threaten the Nile was to strike at the very heart and lifeblood of Egypt. To destroy the Nile was to destroy Egypt (cf Ezek 29:9;30:12; Zech 10:11).

So, what is point of these three signs? It is this:

Yahweh is the God of gods, King of kings, Lord of lords.

The signs all speak as witnesses to the fact that Yahweh has spoken to and called Moses. But, they say something more: They speak of who Yahweh is, especially in relation to how he will deliver them from their enslavement. The promised Exodus requires not only that Yahweh be a true God—but that he be a God greater than the gods of Egypt.

These signs are meant to demonstrate that Yahweh reigns sovereign over the enemies of his people, is able to deliver them and therefore will keep his promise to do so.

Do We Have a Sign?
That’s cool, but I’m not a Hebrew slave in Egypt. So, what does this mean for us?

Does this mean that, as we have our Members Meeting tonight, Pastor Ben is going to do some miracles to convince you that God has led your elders?

Does this mean that you should ask God to give you miraculous signs and wonders, warm-fuzzy feelings, or instructions from heaven when you face difficult choices and need God’s leading?

Wouldn’t it be great if in every struggle you had, God gave you a sign like one of these?

Has God given us such “signs” to assure us that he has appeared, that he reigns over our enemies and that he can and will deliver us?

The answer is “Yes. He has given us the same kind of sign he gave Moses.” The next question is then: Where? What is the sign that God is the King of kings and Lord of Lords, the God who has conquered “the god of this world” and will deliver us?

The Resurrection of Jesus
In Matthew 12, the scribes and Pharisees told Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign.” He condemns them for needing a sign, instead of hearing the Word with faith. (We’ll look at that condemnation more next week.)

But, notice the sign that he says will be given: “But no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

In John 2, when the Jews asked for a sign, Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” speaking of his death and resurrection.

The ultimate sign that Jesus gives is his crucifixion, burial and resurrection on the third day. This proves that he is the Messiah. This sign has a remarkable connection with the signs the Lord gives to Moses.

Moses’ signs all deal with Yahweh’s sovereignty over life and death. And what greater sign of such sovereignty over life and death could there be but Jesus’ resurrection!

Moses’ signs all deal with Yahweh’s sovereignty over Egypt, the enemy of God’s people Israel. Jesus’ resurrection communicates his sovereignty over the enemies of God’s people—sin and death. His death on the cross makes payment for our sin—that which enslaves us. And, if sin is removed, death has lost its sting and the grave cannot hold us.

Moses’ signs deal with Yahweh’s sovereignty over the gods of Egypt. Likewise, Jesus’ resurrection signals the overthrow of the “god of this world,” who is Satan, and all his demonic host.

In John 12, as Jesus prepared for his “glorification” (his death, resurrection and ascension), he proclaimed, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of the world be cast out.” In the same way that Moses’ signs put to shame the gods of Egypt, Colossians 3 says that in the cross, “[God] disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in [Christ].”

The sign that Jesus Christ is God of gods, King of kings, Lord of lords—and that he can, has, and will deliver us from our enemies—is his resurrection from the dead.

That is to say: the proclamation of the Gospel—the historical event of Jesus’ death and resurrection—is our sign that Jesus reigns over sin, death and the devil, able to deliver us. But, let me give you a second, related sign:

The New Life of Believers!
Where else do we see God reigning in this way? We see it in conversion and new life of believers.

Where does the “god of this world” reign? What does he do? Consider 2 Corinthians 4:3-4:

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The “god of this world” blinds the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing God’s glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, how does God reign? Paul continues (4:6):

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Through the proclamation of the Gospel—the death and resurrection of Jesus—God reigns over Satan, by giving sight where Satan has kept them from seeing, by giving understanding where Satan has blinded the mind.

And this sight, gazing on the beauty of Jesus with an unveiled face, is what transforms us into the image of Christ. And such transformed lives in the church function as a sign. Hear Paul in Philippians 1:27-28:

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction but of your salvation, and that from God.

Christians living lives that display the worth of the Gospel—specifically, Paul mentions, Christians unified in the church, striving together for the gospel and not frightened of opponents—is a “sign” of the opponents’ destruction and God’s salvation of the believer.

How the Sign Changes Us
So, when you hear the Gospel and see its effects in a unified, Gospel-centered local church, you are seeing a “sign” that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords.

How does that translate into living? Let me give a broad answer and then a specific example.

Speaking broadly: The way to fight fear, anxiety, unbelief, and disobedience is often to take your eyes off the obstacle and focus on who God is for us in Jesus Christ.

When a self-esteem-lacking, excuse-making, disobedient Moses, expressing all his fears and anxieties about what he is called to do in life, sits down in Yahweh’s office, what is Yahweh’s “counseling strategy?” He repeatedly takes Moses’ eyes off of Moses—and refocuses them on the Lord.

“Who am I?” “I will be with you?”
“What if they ask…” “I AM WHO I AM. I will…”
“But they won’t believe me!” “Here are three signs that show who I am.”

The resurrection speaks to us of all God’s power and glory and might to deliver us. The resurrection speaks to us of all God’s power to change and conform us into the image of Jesus Christ.

Too often our fear and anxiety come from fixing our eyes on our task, the obstacles, our enemies or ourselves, instead of on our Christ. Our disobedience to God’s commands—to love one another, to forgive, to share the Gospel, to make disciples, and so on—springs from unbelief; we don’t believe that God will supply what is needed or make up for what is sacrificed or do what he has said.

Let me make this more specific: Let’s say you’re facing a situation where you’re called to obey one of the commands given to Christians in the New Testament, such as:

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands...
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Do not let the sun go down on your anger…
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
…let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another…
Obey your leaders and submit to them…
Shepherd the flock of God that is among you …
Honor the emperor.
Preach the word….
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...

Or any of the other instructions laid out for Christians in the New Testament regarding how to put on Christ. How does this “sign” encourage obedience?

Let’s take the command that we have that relates most closely to Moses’ task—preaching the Gospel. Moses’ was to preach the promise of Yahweh’s salvation. We are commanded to preach the promise of God’s salvation in the person of Jesus Christ—whether to a neighbor, an angry teenager, an antagonistic college professor, by volunteering in the benevolence ministry, teaching Sunday School, etc.

We often fail to obey that command because of unbelief and fear. We see that unsaved person, we know they need the Gospel, and we might even want to share the Gospel with them. But, we hear that voice in our heads, saying,

“Yeah but he is so highly-educated; I could never convince him the Gospel is true!”
“Yeah but she hates Christianity with a passion; she would never listen to me!”
“Yeah but he has gone through so much pain and abuse in life; I can’t say anything to that!”
“Yeah but she is so entrenched in her sin; nothing I could say would convince her to repent!”

We all say things like that—and it leads to disobedience to a clear command.

Notice first of all that all those excuses are self-centered. “I could never…” Who does that reveal your faith is in? You! Your excuses reveal who your god is.

Notice second that each of those declares the impossibility of the Gospel message doing the very thing that God’s Word says the Gospel message does: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Such disobedience flows from unbelief—from a flat out denial that God will do what God has said he will do! Your excuses for your disobedience demonstrate what you think about the God you profess to know.

So, how do you battle such disobedience and unbelief? First, by examining your excuses—and repenting of your idolatry! Second, by hearing with faith the sign that God has given us. The fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ proves that God will save people through the Gospel. The message of the God who conquers the god of this world in his resurrection demonstrates his power to overcome the blinded, sin-entrenched, Christ-hating, suffering-burdened, lofty-minded enemy of the Gospel.

And, you see this truth in the unified, side-by-side striving for the Gospel, confident local church. When you are battling unbelief that leads to disobedience in evangelism—look at Christ’s work in the local church. A unified, Gospel-centered local church is a sign that this Gospel saves.

Consider who Northbrook Baptist Church is, in light of who we once were. We are a congregation of people who were once enslaved to sin.

In our membership are people who were sexually immoral: people who were fornicators, living in sexual sin outside marriage, indulging in pornography; people who were adulterers, breaking their marriage vows in affairs; people who struggle with homosexual desires. But, by the grace of God, they now fight against these desires, repent of these sins, strive to live lives of sexual purity and marital faithfulness.

In our membership are people who were drunkards. We have members who used to deal with their problems by getting drunk, smoking pot, doing crack, cocaine, meth. But God saved them. And now, they fight against that, repent of that, resting in the Lord.

In our membership are people who were greedy and swindlers. We have members whose greatest goal in life used to be to amass as much wealth and fame as they possibly could. They would steal and lie to get ahead, to gain a reputation, to profit themselves, even at the expense of others. But now, they repent of that, confess it, fight it and make it the aim of their life to make a name for Jesus Christ.

In our membership are people who were idolaters. We have members who, in a variety of ways, lived their lives hoping in false gods, some even worshiping false gods literally. We have people in our church who literally built alters in their home to Satan and called out to demons for guidance and help. But today, their eyes have been opened and they worship Jesus Christ as the only God in heaven and earth.

In our membership are people who were haters of one another. We have members who used to be racists. They would have viewed certain members of our church with disgust, simply for their ethnicity. We have members who used to be sexual predators; men who would have viewed every woman in the church as a target of sinful pleasure, valued only for her body. But now, the racist calls the man he once hated “brother.” Now, the predator treats as a “sister” the one he would have treated as an object. Those they used to hate and abuse, they now strive side-by-side with for the truth of the Gospel.

In our membership are people who have suffered abuses, losses, disappointments, betrayals—the kind of things that causes people to give up all hope, to curse God and die. But today, they fight the fight of faith, they call upon Jesus in the dark of night. They are afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.

All these people are here in this church. They are not perfect. They are not what they shall be. But, they are not what they once were. “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”—a sign of the power of the Gospel.

So, how does faith change us?
Unbelief says, “That person cannot be convinced the Gospel is true.” God says, “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation.”

Unbelief says, “Someone like that could never believe and be saved.” The church says, “We are the ‘someones’ like that—and God saved us.”

You look at the Gospel—and you look at the people of the Gospel. And you say to your soul, “Your excuses for disobedience are a lie. The Gospel has saved him and her and him and her and them—and, therefore, God can save him and her too. And then, hearing God’s Word with faith, we march out in faith to obey.

The reason that we disobey the clear command to preach the Gospel is not because we are in a church that fails to emphasize the need to strive after obedience. We all know that we should share the Gospel. The reason we disobey is because we disbelieve. We don’t believe God is who he says he is.

We fight disbelief, not by demanding miraculous signs about who to share the Gospel with, but by hearing the truth with faith. We fight disobedience, not by trying harder to obey the next time, but by severing the root of unbelief by fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Two More Things
This, of course, means two things must be true:

First, we must know the Gospel. We must know who God is for us in Jesus Christ. We must know about the person and nature of Jesus Christ. We must know what he did and how he lived. We must know how and why he died. We must know of his resurrection and his ascension. We must know of his promises. We must know the theological doctrine that relates to all of that. We must know of the implications for us who believe in all of that.

We must know and meditate on the riches of the Gospel, so that we can hold it up like a shield of faith to extinguish the flaming darts of disbelief shot by the evil one.

Second, we must see the power of the cross in church. I mentioned last week that a great weapon against abortion is a unified, healthy local church that is filled with the aroma of grace, mercy, peace and new life in Jesus Christ. The same is true in fighting disbelief leading to disobedience in evangelism.

We need to see and hear the testimonies of each other. We should humble ourselves and be transparent about who we were and how God saved us. This doesn’t mean we need to have everyone get up on the platform and share all the dirty details of their life. There are places that are more and less appropriate, given the circumstances.

But, we should be inviting each other into our homes and having Gospel-conversations—whether it is as couples, in small groups or one-on-one. Instead of “How is work?” and “How about those Hawkeyes?” and “You like Scrabble?”—all of which are good! How about, “Let me tell you who I used to be and what Jesus did.” And “How did God save you? What were you like before you were a Christian?” (Those conversations might take small-talk about work, the Hawkeyes and Scrabble to get there. But get there!)

And right now you’ve got an opportunity to apply this. Because right now you’re saying, “Oh no. I could never share with others what I once was! They would never respect me. They would all think badly of me. They would never let me minister or participate in church again! They would all look down on me. They would ostracize me. Every time they look at me, they would think about ___.”

Doesn’t that reveal something of who our god is? What does it say when we’re so concerned about our personal reputations in the church, that we’re willing to hide what God has done? We rob him of fame to protect ourselves.

And, more than that, we rob others of a sign of God’s power to save.

Brothers and sisters, God has given us a sign that he is able to conquer what has enslaved us, that he is able to deliver us. He has given us the death and resurrection of his Son—preached in the Gospel, visible in the Spirit-indwelt church (the pillar and buttress of the Gospel).

This sign is sufficient; we need nothing more. It is not wrong to believe because of this sign—for this sign is one and the same with the Word of God, the Gospel, preached to us.

Let us not ask for something more—like an evil and adulterous generation that walks by sight.

Let us receive this word with faith. Let us walk by faith. And so, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, our lives and fellowship will be rendered pleasing to our God and Father.

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Sin Keeps Men from Community

2012-01-28T20:30:00.000-06:00

Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a struggle until the sin is openly admitted, but God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107:16). Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders; he gives up all his evil. He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother. The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power. It has been revealed and judged as sin. It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder. Now the fellowship bears the sin of the brother. He is no longer alone with his evil for he has cast off his sin in confession and handed it over to God. It has been taken away from him. Now he stands in the fellowship of sinners who live by the grace of God and the cross of Jesus Christ. The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham; the sin confessed has helped him define true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

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50% Off All 9Marks Books

2012-01-26T07:30:00.000-06:00

A great way to build the "church health" portion of your library.

WTS books is offering 50% discounts on all 9Marks titles.

You can buy the whole set for even more off. Click below:

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How to Help Jonah

2012-01-25T17:00:00.000-06:00

"Angry people can be dense. It’s hard to talk to them."

Ed Welch, author of What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care?, pens a helpful piece on how to counsel someone like Jonah (the prophet (yeah yeah) who never really got it (no no)): "Helping Jonah"

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An Interview with Graeme Goldsworth on "Christ-Centered Biblical Theology"

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

Colin Hansen interviews Graeme Goldsworthy on his forthcoming Christ-Centered Biblical Theology: Hermeneutical Foundations and Principles. Here is an excerpt:

A sound BT should prevent the misuse of Scripture, such as when texts are relieved of their biblical context and allowed to mean something quite other from what they mean in that context. When Scripture is treated as a lucky-dip of texts that assumes Christians stand in one, flat, undifferentiated relationship to all biblical texts, it can be made to mean anything we like. This is no basis for a sound and faithful pastoral ministry. I understand pastoral ministry to be the valid application of biblical truth to the various situations that arise and affect individuals and whole congregations. BT provides the means for understanding every part of the Bible in its final canonical context. BT, then, is at the heart of the pastor’s correct understanding of how Scripture can be thus applied to people’s lives. I also believe that the main emphasis in preaching should be the regular exposition of Scripture. Expository preaching, as the norm, really requires BT in the preparation of sermons. Ideally, everyone who has the task of teaching the Bible to others should understand something of biblical theology.

Read the whole thing.

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James MacDonald Resigns from the Gospel Coalition

2012-01-24T18:00:00.000-06:00

D.A. Carson and Tim Keller link to his reasons and offer a gracious response here.

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What are you running from? Where are you running to?

2012-01-24T06:00:00.001-06:00

Good words from Paul David Tripp: "Location, Location, Location."

Tripp is the author of Whiter than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy.

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There Would Be Less Road Rage in the World If...

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000-06:00

...more traffic cops channeled Michael Jackson:

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"No serious constitutional law scholar thinks this is a plausible reading of the Due Process Clause."

2012-01-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

Well worth the time to read.

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Reluctant to Lead Your Spiritual Wife?

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

"A husband reluctant to lead a wife more spiritual than he is like a quarterback worried his receiver is too good."

~ Loren Pinilis

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When All Your Favorite Preachers are Gone...

2012-01-22T15:00:00.000-06:00

"When all your favorite preachers are gone, and all their books forgotten, you will have your Bible. Master it. Master it."

~ John Piper

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Exodus 3:21-22 - Yahweh v. Pharaoh and Roe v. Wade: How the Exodus Teaches Us to Think About and Respond to 21st Century Social Issues

2012-01-22T13:46:00.000-06:00

Audio is available here.

Today marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision on abortion—which has since resulted in the lives of over 50,000,000 unborn children being lost.

Every year since I have been at Northbrook, I have used this Sunday to either address the issue of abortion and sanctity of life directly or have meditated on how the topic of the sermon applies to our response to abortion.

My sermon this morning will not be a defense of the idea that abortion as murder. I have already addressed that issue in previous sermons, which you can download to read or listen to.

Neither will my sermon be training in how to argue persuasively in our culture. I have also done that in previous sermons. (For excellent resources, see: The Case for Life, Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, Abort73.)

Rather, what I want to do this morning is this: I want to examine how the Exodus informs how we should respond to abortion. I want to ask the big questions: How do we respond as Christians? Does Exodus speak to this today? And I want to pursue and answer by meditating on this text, asking three questions:

(1) What does this text tell about God?

(2) What does this text tell us about being God’s people?

(3) How then should we respond to abortion?

Question #1

Our first question then is, “What does this text tell us about God?”

And, the answer, our first main idea is: The Lord sees the afflicted, hears their cries and provides for them.

This has been a theme in Exodus so far, hasn’t it? In our text, the Lord has appeared to Moses and is speaking to him from out of the burning bush. He is speaking promises of redemption and provision for a people suffering under slavery.

What has motivated the Lord’s appearance at this point? What was the turning point in the storyline thus far? Exodus 2:23-25: God heard, saw and knew their afflictions.

And what is the Lord’s message for Moses to give to the elders of Israel in Exodus 3:16-17? Yahweh is the God who hears the cry of the poor, sees and knows their affliction—and is about to provide for them. The Lord promises that he will bring them out of affliction into a land of plenty.

And, in our text, the Lord provides for them richly. He says, “When you go, you shall not go out empty-handed.” Instead, he will grant them favor in the eyes of the Egyptians so that, when the women ask, they will be given silver and gold jewelry and clothing, for them and their children.

Mercy in the Law

God’s concern for the vulnerable shows up in the Mosaic Law, as the Lord outlines what life will look like for Israel as a nation in the promised land. The Law is very emphatic about how the vulnerable (the poor, the widow, the orphan) were to be treated. And that even extends to the foreigner, the sojourner. Listen to a few commands from the Law:

Exodus 23:9 You shall not oppress a sojourner.

Leviticus 19:33-34 When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself…

Deuteronomy 10:18-19 Love the sojourner…

Deuteronomy 24:17-22 You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner …

A “sojourner” was a “stranger,” a foreigner, who was temporarily residing in the land of Israel. Being a foreigner, outside the people of God, they would have been vulnerable to injustice and mistreatment. It would have been easy for a Jew to say, “They’re not one of us. They’re not an Israelite. They are dirty Gentiles. Therefore, we can afflict them, mistreat them, and overlook them.”

The Lord would not allow it. Part of the being “the people of God” meant caring for “the image of God,” in which all persons are created.

This, however, was not a kindness that Israel delighted in in their history.

Mercy in Christ

This is the mercy, however, that Jesus delighted in. Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them. He saw the sick, the poor, the outcast, the sinner.

He was found eating with them, providing for them. He was found touching the unclean, showing mercy to the Gentiles dogs, healing their sicknesses and raising their children from the dead.

In Jesus, the mercy of God was personified, made visible in the flesh. Ultimately, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He dies on the cross for the sins of Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor, slave and free—so that through his death and resurrection, they might have life and receive the riches of heaven.

See Them!

James (1:27) writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Jesus calls us, his people, to be a people who see and hear the cause of the vulnerable, of those being led away into death and provide for them in their need. The unborn fall into that category, if any does!

So let me ask you: Do you see how abortion preys upon the weak and the vulnerable, the overlooked, the despised, the marginalized and the unwanted?

Abortion is an issue that is interwoven with several issues, each of which strikes at what it means to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” at the heart of what it means for all human beings to be created “in the image of God.”

Abortion strikes at the worth of women. In America, abortion is often presented as an issue of “women’s rights.” Merle Hoffman, founder of Choices, a New York City abortion center, states that, “The act of abortion positions women at their most powerful.” (source)

Abortion is a women’s rights issue. But, only someone with blinders on could argue that abortion is about empowering women. Rather, abortion is quite often used to prevent women from simply existing, using abortion for sex-selection in pregnancy—a fact often ignored by the media. Today, India and China eliminate more girls every year than the total number of girls born in America during the same period. The United Nations estimates that over 200 million girls are “missing” due to “gendercide” (source). If we care about the equality and value of women as created in “the image of God,” then we must care about abortion.

Abortion strikes at the worth of varied ethnicities. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, initiated “The Negro Project” in 1939. It was a eugenics project. (Eugenics is “the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species.”) There was a certain type of black person that Sanger believed was “tainted,” and should be eliminated, sterilized, or segregated onto farms.

That was 1939. But today, nearly 40% of all African American pregnancies end in induced abortion. This makes abortion the leading cause of death of black people—more than the other seven leading causes of death combined (heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases). If we care about the equality and value of persons of all ethnicities as created in “the image of God,” then we must care about abortion. (source)

Abortion strikes at the worth of those with “genetic defects.” The New York Times reported that with the rise of genetic testing, more than 9 out of 10 babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. This sends a clear message about what we think, as a culture, about the desirability, worth and value of those with genetic defects. (source)

There are persons in our church who, if they had been conceived in the womb of a different mother, would not be with us today—for us to see the glory of God in them and in the resurrection that he gives. If we care about the value of persons with Down Syndrome and other genetic and chromosomal issues, then we must care about abortion.

But those are not the only reasons I address it. I address it because it affects us immediately—Northbrook Baptist Church, our neighbors, our families. In Congressional testimonies during the debate over the Obama Administration’s health care proposal, the fact was stated that, in some recent years, abortion has been the most common surgical procedure performed on American adults. This has led Merle Hoffman, founder of Choices, a New York City abortion center, to state that “Abortion is as American as apple pie.” (source)

1 in every 3 women will have at least one abortion. Statistically, this means that if there are 60 women in this room, 20 of you have had at least one abortion. This means that, statistically, if there are 30 little girls in our Big Idea Kids ministry, 10 of them will grow up to have at least one abortion. If there are 6 young women in our youth group, 2 of them have had or will have at least one abortion. If you have 3 daughters, statistics would suggest that one of them will have at least one abortion.

My working assumption as a pastor is that a third of the women in our church have had an abortion. I assume that there are women in this room who have had one or more abortions. I assume that there are men in this room, who have taken a girlfriend or wife or daughter to an abortion clinic to “get rid of the problem”—or who will face that situation.

I have seen the pain and guilt that this causes to those who live. I have sat and wept and prayed with women who, as young teenagers (and pre-teens) who were unaware of what was even happening at the time, were taken by parents to have an abortion.

I have hugged and wept and prayed with men who, decades later, are wracked with guilt over having taken their girlfriend to the clinic and paid to have their firstborn sons killed.

I want to say: If that is you: I care. I love you. I will not reject you. I will listen. I will weep with you. I will pray with you. I will struggle with you to rest in the mercy and grace given to us in Jesus Christ. And so will many at Northbrook.

Do you see and hear how abortion preys upon, not just the unborn, but upon all these groups of people created in the image of God? If we care about the souls of those who have had or enabled abortions, then we must care about abortion.

Question #2

Our second question is: What does this text tell us about being God’s people? To some extent, I just answered that. I said what we should do—but not why we should do it.

So, here is my second main point from Exodus 3:21-22: When God’s grace appears, bringing salvation to his people, it trains them in how to live as a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.

I take that language intentionally from Titus 2:11-14:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

The grace of God that has appeared bringing salvation (that is, the person and work of Jesus Christ) is what trains us in how to live as God’s possession, how to be zealous for good works. The Gospel—the Good News of what God has done in Christ—is what informs, shapes and motivates how we live as Christians.

This concept is not, however, new with the arrival of Christ. God’s “grace” in “redemption” has always been what was supposed to inform, shape and motivate how his people live. Let me demonstrate, by asking the question: At each stage in the Bible’s storyline, what informs, shapes and motivates how God’s people are to live?

Creation.

Beginning with creation is appropriate, since redemption is ultimately “new creation.”

Who is God revealed as in creation? In Genesis 1, the first thing God does is he creates a place—whether earth or sky, dry land or sea—and makes provision—he causes vegetation to grow. Once the place and provisions are prepared, he creates animals and people to live in it. And then, he specifically creates a Garden home for his special creatures, humans, where he provides for them. What is God revealed as? Essentially, a place-creating, provision ensuring gardener, who cares for his living things.

Who is man supposed to do? Man is to fill the earth, subdue it and exercise dominion over it. He is to tend and keep the Garden. Essentially—man is to do exactly what God was just revealed as doing—to care for a place and provide for God’s creatures. Who God has revealed himself to be in the creation event informs and shaped how man was to live.

Post-flood. After the flood, God explicitly institutes the death penalty, lining-out how man is to respond to the destruction of human life. What has preceded this instruction? God has instituted the death penalty for the whole earth in a flood! Because of their great wickedness, God put them to death, though giving salvation through the ark. Who God has revealed himself to be in the salvation event of the Ark, informed and shaped how man was to live.

The Exodus and Ethics

Does that hold true in the Exodus event? Absolutely. In verse 21, the Lord says, “And when you go, you shall not go empty-handed.” When God’s grace appears bring redemption to his people, God is revealed as the God who does not send out slaves empty-handed.

The Exodus event informs Israelite ethics. That word, “empty-handed” is the same word that shows up in Deuteronomy 15:13, a text regarding how a Hebrew slave is to be treated when he is freed from his slavery. The text says:

If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.

Slaves could not be sent out “empty-handed,” but should be provided for liberally.

Why is this? What informs, shapes and motivates this ethical behavior? Verse 15 is key:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.

Their ethical behavior, specifically their treatment of slaves, is informed by how God redeemed them when they were slaves. In our text, they were not sent out empty-handed, but liberally supplied with wealth. Therefore, they should treat others as God had graciously treated them.

And this logic flows all the way through the Mosaic Law. I read for you earlier about God’s concern for the widow, orphan and sojourner. But now, let me read what informs, shapes and motivates each of those commands:

Exodus 23:9 You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:33-34 …for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."

Deuteronomy 10:18-19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 24:17-22 You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.

What’s the lesson? Who Yahweh revealed himself to be in the redemption of Israel, informed, shaped and motivated how Israel was to behave under the Law.

Now, I’m not an Israelite. I am not a part of the ethnic people of Israel brought out of Egypt. I am not living in the Promised Land in Palestine, under the rule of the Mosaic Law. So what does this mean for me? This text reminds me that I am to treat others the way God treated me in my redemption in Christ.

The Rule of Christ

And don’t we see this laid out for us in the New Testament? In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul is encouraging the church to give generously to support the Jewish Christians suffering in a famine. He encourages them to excel in generosity. And how does he inform, shape and motivate that generosity? He writes:

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

In the Gospel, Jesus Christ (who was rich) made himself poor so that you might become rich through his poverty. Seeing and savoring that, should cause you to be happy to excel in using your literal earthly riches to provide for those who are in need.

In Ephesians 4:32-5:1-2, Paul writes:

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

How should we live as Christians? We should imitate God! We should love each other as Christ loved us. When another person has insulted us, overlooked us, wronged us, harmed us, sinned against us—we should forgive as God in Christ forgave us.

In 1 John 4:10-11, we read:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Jesus laid down his own life to satisfy the anger of God against our sin. That is love. And this is how we ought to love one another.

What’s the lesson then, of Exodus 3:21-22? How God reveals himself in redemption should inform, shape and motivate how his people live.

How do I apply this as a Christian? I let it remind of the fact that: How God has revealed himself to me in redemption through Jesus Christ his Son should inform, shape and motivate me—train me—in how to live as a person who now belongs to him, how to be zealous for good works.

Question #3

Our third question is this: How then should we respond to abortion?

We should rescue those being led away to death.

Before you were saved, you were as good as dead. Ephesians 2 says that we were “dead in trespasses and sins.” We followed “the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air.” We were dead—and being led away to death by the world, the devil and our own flesh. We were headed for eternal destruction.

But what did God do? God “made us alive.” 1 Peter says that God “caused us to be born.”

That is why we care for orphans and widows in their distress. When we were dying, he caused us to be born (1 Pet 1). When we were orphans, he adopted us as his children in Christ (Gal 3-4). When we were husbandless, Christ made us his bride (Eph 5).

Defending the lives of the unborn is a visible manifestation of the Gospel. It is not the Gospel. But, it imitates the Gospel. And, it gives us opportunity to preach the Gospel.

When your co-worker asks you, “Why are you Christians so concerned about abortion?” You could say, “Because children in the womb are human beings. And God hates murder.” Or, “Steve Jobs was adopted. That child could invent the next iThing!” That is true enough. But, that answer could be a squandering of an opportunity to preach the Gospel.

How much better might it be to say, “Let me tell you what God has done for me in Jesus. Here’s who I was. Here’s what God did. Here’s why that makes me want to imitate that in how I love others.”

How should we work to end abortions?

There are a lot of typical answers that are all good: vote pro-life, adopt, support single-mothers, be a business owner who accommodates the needs of unwed mothers generously, pray, etc. But, let me give you one application that I have too often overlooked: Be a healthy church, one that extends grace to and lives in peace with one another.

This past week, Russell Moore wrote:

In your congregation this Sunday, and in the neighborhoods around you right now, there are women vulnerable to abortionist propaganda, not because they reject the church but because they’re afraid they’ll lose the church. Pregnant young women are scared they will scandalize church people when they start to show, so they keep it secret. Parents are fearful their pregnant daughter, or their son’s pregnant girlfriend, will prompt the rest of the congregation to see them as bad families.

When a young pregnant woman is scared and looking for help, what will she see in the church? When a Christian father finds out his teen-aged daughter is pregnant, what will he expect from his church?

Will they see a community of sinners who are forgiven and so quickly forgive? Will they see a community of struggling imperfect people who receive grace from God and so extend grace to other struggling imperfect people? Will they see a community of former enemies reconciled to God, who are strive to be reconciled with one another?

Or will they find people stirring up division though the “foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law,” that Paul says are unprofitable, worthless and to be avoided (both the person and the issue). Will they find self-righteous people, who heap up burdens on others that they won’t lift a finger to carry themselves? Will they find a people who let a year’s worth of suns set on their anger, unwilling to strive for peace quickly? Will they find exclusive cliques, people obsessively demanding their rights? Will they overhear murmuring, gossiping, grumbling, petty-arguments?

They can smell us.

You see that hurting, scared single-mother, who is contemplating an abortion, but decided to maybe turn to the church for some help (because she heard that Jesus was kind)—that woman can sniff out the aroma of the church faster than my dog can sniff out bacon.

That father, worried about his daughter’s reputation and future, can sniff out quickly how she will be received when her sin becomes apparent.

And if they sniff out that aroma of division, of unforgiveness, of grudge-bearing—and they will be gone in a heartbeat (and so will the heartbeat). They will conclude that there is no love and no grace for sinners among these people—they are too caught up in themselves and their petty quarrels to love. They bite, tear and devour each other.

And so she will turn to the soft, smiling, warm embrace of the abortion clinic. And the father will decide (wrongly) it is more loving to take an out-of-state vacation with his daughter and make the problem go away.

What’s our scent?

Which aroma—that of life or death—is wafting through Northbrook Baptist Church? Which aroma are you cultivating? Is it that of Christ—or of the rotten tomb you used to lie in?

Brothers and sisters, when we were in sin and headed off to death, but Christ loved us, paid for us, saved us. We were once murderers, but we were washed, sanctified and made new. Let us be a church that happily and humbly displays as much in our love for one another, so that those who are grieving past abortions or considering one now might know Northbrook to be a place where they can find grace in time of need.

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Where I Want to Be

2012-01-21T17:00:00.000-06:00

"I want to be and remain in the church and among the little flock in which there are timid, weak, and ailing people who recognize and feel their sin, plight, and misery, who sincerely sigh and cry to God without ceasing for comfort and help, and who believe in the forgiveness of sins and are persecuted for the sake of the Word, which they teach and confess in purity and without adulteration."

~ Martin Luther

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It's a Girl!

2012-01-21T13:00:00.000-06:00

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What Should You Be Thinking about During the Lord’s Supper?

2012-01-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

Justin Taylor shares this quote from J.I. Packer (“The Gospel and the Lord’s Supper,” in Serving the People of God):

I don’t think we can ever say too much about the importance of an active exercise of mind and heart at the communion service. . .

Holy Communion demands of us private preparation of heart before the Lord before we come to the table. We need to prepare ourselves for fellowship with Jesus Christ the Lord, who meets us in this ceremony. We should think of him both as the host of the communion table and as enthroned on the true Mount Zion referred to in Hebrews 12, the city of the living God where the glorified saints and the angels are.

The Lord from his throne catches us up by his Spirit and brings us into fellowship with himself there in glory. He certainly comes down to meet us here, but he then catches us up into fellowship with him and the great host of others who are eternally worshipping him there.

We are also to learn the divinely intended discipline of drawing assurance from the sacrament. We should be saying in our hearts, ‘as sure as I see and touch and taste this bread and this wine, so sure it is that Jesus Christ is not a fancy but a fact, that he is for real, and that he offers himself to be my Saviour, my Bread of Life, and my Guide to glory. He has left me this rite, this gesture, this token, this ritual action as a guarantee of this grace; He instituted it, and it is a sign of life-giving union with him, and I’m taking part in it, and thus I know that I am his and he is mine forever.’ That is the assurance that we should be drawing from our sharing in the Lord’s Supper every time we come to the table.

And then we must realize something of our togetherness in Christ with the rest of the congregation. . . . [We should reject the] strange perverse idea . . . that the Lord’s Supper is a flight of the alone to the Alone: it is my communion I come to make, not our communion in which I come to share. You can’t imagine a more radical denial of the Gospel than that.

The communion table must bring to us a deeper realization of our fellowship together. If I go into a church for a communion service where not too many folk are present, to me it is a matter of conscience to sit beside someone. This togetherness is part of what is involved in sharing in eucharistic worship in a way that edifies.

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The Best Argument Against SOPA I've Heard

2012-01-20T17:54:00.002-06:00

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How to Get Around Wikipedia's Blackout

2012-01-18T13:40:00.002-06:00

Ha! So much for a blackout!

Doing some research, I just used Wikipedia. Here's how:

(1) Do a Google search for your desired topic.

(2) Click the link to Wikipedia article.

(3) The article will load, and then quickly be covered by the blackout page.

(4) After the article loads, but before the blackout page appears, hit your browser's stop (X) button. The article will stay up without blackout.

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FREE BOOK: Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian by John Piper

2012-01-16T13:05:00.001-06:00

You can download a free PDF of John Piper's Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian here.

You can buy a paper or Kindle copy here.

Bloodlines Documentary with John Piper from Crossway on Vimeo.

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Exodus 3:11-22 - The Name of Yahweh is a Strong Tower (Part 2)

2012-01-16T09:54:00.000-06:00

Audio will be available here.

Last week, Moses asked, “Who am I?” And God answered that he would be with Moses to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt. We saw that God is always with his people to enable them to fulfill their calling. But knowing that God is present with his people is not enough.

If Kermit the Frog promised to be with you as you faced a gang of violent street thugs, it would not be comforting. He’s a Muppet. He’s not real. He can’t help you.

If I promised to be with you as you were thrown out of an airplane from 5,000 feet without a parachute, it would not be comforting. I can’t fly. I can’t help you.

The promise of a person’s presence is only as comforting and boldness producing as the person is strong and capable to meet the need at hand.

We must therefore answer the question: Who is God that the promise of his presence should comfort and encourage us?

In the remainder of the Exodus 3, we get a glimpse of two things: who this God is and how presence works.

What is His Name?In verse 13, Moses asks a second question. “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

Moses is apparently unfamiliar with the name of the Lord (given that he must ask!) and expects the Israelites to be as well. (Whether “Yahweh” was or was not use previous to this is a question we don’t have time to address.)

Who should Moses say has sent him? This brings us to our first main point:

(1) The God who is present is Yahweh.
In verse 14: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’”

“I AM WHO I AM?” What does that even mean? “I AM” comes from the Hebrew verb “to be.” Its essence is to indicate “an action or state of being of which there is no particular concrete instance in view.” So, it refers to general, conceptual terms.

The way it is written makes it possible to translate it multiple ways:

Past: “I have always been who I have always been.”
Present: “I am who I am.”
Future: “I will be who I will be.”

Which should it be one, two or all of these? Let’s note a few things about this statement:

First, it does not indicate an action but a state of being. God is not referring to something that he has done (is doing or will do), but to his existence.

Second, nothing in this statement itself indicates a tense (past, present, future). In such a statement, the tense must be inferred from the context. But, nothing in the context indicates a tense (past, present or future).

Third, “I am” is an equative verb. These are usually accompanied by a “predicate,” a word or phrase that tells something about the subject. So, for example, if someone said, “The coffee is…” you would expect to be completed with something like “…hot,” “…dark,” or “…very bright, medium bodied with lively citrus topnotes.”

But, here, the predicate (I am) says nothing more than what the subject (I am) has told us. It is like saying, “The coffee is the coffee.” The effect of this is: we are forced to focus, not on a concept, especially one that exists outside the “I AM,” but on the “I” itself.

So, this statement and this state of being are the answer to Moses’ question, “What is his name?” He is the God who is. The answer pushes us beyond any on temporal category (past, present or future).

In the context, who is this “I AM?” In verse 15, he is the God of the past—the God of the patriarchs, who made a covenant with them. In verse 16, he is the God of the present—the God who sees what is happening to them now. In verse 17, he is the God of the future—the God who will bring them out of Egypt into the promised land. So, in its immediate context, the past, the present and the future all converge on this “I.”

So, we should conclude that all three—“I have been,” “I am,” and “I will be”—are intended. No single option rises over and above the others. When God describes himself throughout the Bible, he describes himself as the one who transcends temporal categories—the God who was, who is and who shall be forever. This is, as one author writes, a “bold but simple statement of supreme, factual, dynamic existence that cannot be contained within any one time reference.”

Yahweh
In verse 15, the name “Yahweh” appears again (printed in most English Bibles as “LORD” in small caps). “Yahweh” is his name. It comes from the same verb as “I AM.” Thus, “Yahweh” is probably “shorthand” for “I AM WHO I AM”—not unfolding, but hinting at that reality.

When he says, “thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations,” it means that this is the name by which he is always to be known. That is to say: God will always and forever make himself known and be remembered by the essence and nature expressed in this statement.

Implications
The God who is present with his people is Yahweh, the great “I AM WHO I AM.” But, what exactly does this say about him?

“I AM WHO I AM” implies that he is:

Eternal. Given its past, present and future nuances, it implies he is the God who always was, is now and forever more will be.

Self-existent and self-sufficient. If he is eternal, it implies that no one and nothing created him. He depends on nothing outside of himself.

Unchanging and unchangeable in his essence and nature. God is not today someone different than he was yesterday. And, tomorrow he will not be different from what he is today. This is the same God that was revealed to their fathers, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Self-determining, independent, autonomous. God’s existence, essence, nature, actions are not ultimately determined by anything or anyone outside of himself. Yahweh must be taken on Yahweh’s terms. He calls the shots. He cannot be adapted to the opinions, desires and preferences of men. He will be who he will be.

We could certainly say more. But, all this leads to one ultimate conclusion: He is sovereign. In Exodus 33, when Moses asks to see God’s glory, God tells him:

I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name “Yahweh.” And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

When God proclaims his name “Yawheh,” he follows it with a proclamation of sheer sovereign grace—more precisely, sovereign grace over the hearts of men: He shows grace to whom he shows grace. He shows mercy to whom he shows mercy.

And this statement of sovereignty in grace brings us to a very important aspect of God’s name, one that we dare not miss: He is the God who is always and absolutely faithful to his covenant people.

A Covenant God
God is not a mere, abstract, static, monolithic collection of attributes. In our Western culture, and particularly in more intellectual and reformed circles, it can be tempting to dissect God on a systematic level and leave him there. “Who is God?” a catechism asks; and answers, “God is a Spirit, and does not have a body like men.” This is true enough, but not enough.

When God reveals his name, he reveals it in relationship to his covenant people. In Exodus 34, when the Lord passed before Moses, he proclaimed:

Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.

He is the God who keeps covenant with grace and with justice. And, on the heels of him revealing his name to Moses in our passage, comes this statement (15):

Say to the people of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.”

He is not simply the great “I AM WHO I AM.” He is the God who graciously enters into dynamic, personal relationship with his people through covenant promises to do them good.

You cannot know God merely by formulating and dissecting systematic statements in an academic and catechetical fashion. Such statements are important; God makes them. Nevertheless, God’s essence and nature cannot be fully known and experienced apart from his self-revelation in the midst of the community of his covenant people. Yahweh is defined in the context of relationship.

The focus of the revelation of God’s name in context is this: This God is going to be faithful to his promises, his people and his purposes.

This is good news. He is always with them, always acting and reigning, now ready to intervene for their good. Yahweh will let nothing and no one come between him and his people.

This is good news indeed—if, and only if, you are one of his people. Can we know Yahweh today? If so, how?

Jesus is the I AM
In the Gospel of John, this “I am” language shows up on the lips of Jesus. In John 8, Jesus uses this language three times, finally saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” The Jews understood his claim to be the one true God, for “they picked up stones” to kill him.

This is how John describes Jesus in Revelation 1:4:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come…

And this is how Jesus describes himself in Revelation 1:8:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega…who is and who was and who is to come...”

Jesus, “who saved a people out of the land of Egypt” (Jude 5), is the great “I AM”—the self-defining God of the past, present and future—in the flesh, with us.

In the New Testament, we do not find the name “Yahweh” used and exalted as we do in the Old Testament. Rather, the New Covenant exalts the supremacy of the name of Jesus, at which every knee should bow (Phil 2:9-10). We are to believe on this name to be saved (1 John 3:23; Rom 10). It is that name that is emphasized throughout the book of Acts as powerful and effective to bring the blessings of salvation to all who will call upon it in faith.

The God who revealed himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM” is known and seen in the person of Jesus Christ.

How does this apply to us as Christians?
Last week, I spent a large part of the sermon providing practical examples of how we might apply the promise of God’s presence to various situations. But remember: It is only this understanding of who the God who is with us is that undergirds all those applications. Therefore, you must preach to yourself.

Last week, we considered a hypothetical trial that you are called to face. And so, you remind yourself that, as a believer in Jesus, the Lord is with you. But then, you hear a voice—perhaps that of Satan, of the world, or of your frail, faltering flesh— whispering in your ear:

God is with you—so what? Do you see how big your enemy is? How impossible this situation is? How long the struggle has been? Who is this God that you should find any confidence in him?

If you can’t answer that last question—“Who is this God?”—you are dead in the water. The truth that God is with you is useless apart from the knowledge of who this God is.

If you can’t answer that question, you will not pray, you will not press on in faith. Only a satisfying vision of who God is for you in Jesus has the power to change your heart and to cause you to act as you should.

So, you say to Satan, the world and your flesh:

The God who is with me is Yahweh, revealed and known in Jesus Christ: the eternal, unchanging, self-existent, self-sufficient, self-determining, self-defining, self-revealing, all sovereign Creator and Sustainer of the universe. And all this he puts to use for me in the Gospel. He is the God who is always and absolutely faithful to his people. He is the God who will let nothing and no one come between him and his people, or let his purposes be thwarted.

That is the kind of answer that, when combined with the truth that the Lord is present with his people, will compel you to go through trials with joy and strength and patient endurance. Believing anything less of God will cause you to cower and run away.

So, the God who is with his people is Yahweh, the all-sovereign God who will let nothing and no one come between him and his people. I want you to see that truth worked out in this passage.

How does God use his sovereign grace for the good of his people? Our second main point:

(2) Yahweh reigns sovereign over the hearts of all people.
In verses 16-17, the Lord instructs Moses to go and gather the elders of Israel and to proclaim to them that Yahweh, the covenant God, knows of their sufferings and intends to deliver them and fulfill his promises.

But, how will they respond? The Lord says in verse 18, “And they will listen to your voice.” The Lord knows how the elders are going to respond before Moses goes.

The elders are to join Moses in going before Pharaoh to present this request:

Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God.

I am going to forego examining the details of that request for now. We will look at that when the request is made in chapter 5. For now, I want to focus your attention on what God says next.

In verses 19-20, the Lord says:

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.

We see here that the Lord knows exactly how Pharaoh will respond and exactly what is required for Pharaoh to let the people go. And, he will do exactly that, sovereignly move to cause Pharaoh to let them go.

This movement—from knowing how elders respond, to knowing how to move Pharaoh to action—now culminates in what the Lord says in verse 21, “And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.”

God’s sovereignty is so great that it reaches even to the hearts of the enemies of God’s people. He will actually change the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will favor the Israelites.

Think of how a great a thing this is! In chapter 1 we read, “And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service…” But now, the Egyptians will “favor” the Israelites, not because they have naturally soft-hearts, inclined toward favoring the Hebrews, but because God puts it in their hearts.

The Heart Changer
Yahweh is sovereign over the hearts of all. This means: God can change hearts. How does this apply to how we live?

Perhaps you are a wife who desperately wants and needs her husband to step up and be man—to take primary responsibility for leadership, protection and provision in your home. He’s not obeying God’s purpose for husbands. You’ve learned what 1 Peter 3:1 says:

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

(It’s interesting, isn’t it, that change happens in husbands when they see “the imperishible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Sanctification—conformity to God’s purposes—happens in husbands by means of seeing the beauty of God’s glory in Christ put on gracious display through their wife—not by her brow-beating him with the husband-law!)

You know this now. But, you’ve spent years leading him, swatting-down his leadership attempts, nagging and browbeating. Now he’s secluded, withdrawn, uninterested, neutered. He is resigned to let you lead and to be a passive, if not absent, wimp. He’s unresponsive, perhaps even mocking, toward your new desire to see him lead. His work, his hobbies and his friends happily receive, affirm and nurture his strength and leadership—they are a wife enough for him now. Is there any hope?

Or, perhaps, you’re the husband. You have spent years abandoning your role as a husband, forcing your wife to pick up the slack. You’ve spent years coming home from work exhausted, frustrated and drained. You have not seen your role as that of a servant-leader, laying down his life, to lead, provide and protect. Rather, you expect your home to be a castle and your wife and children to be your servants.

Recognizing this as wrong, you’ve started trying to lead. But, what you’re finding is that your wife, after years of waiting for you to be her husband, has now put up a sign: “Position Filled.” She’s got her friends (real and/or on-line), her women’s group, her books, blogs and podcasts on family, her own hobbies and interests. These things now give her leadership, protection and provision—and you’re no longer needed. She laughs at or ignores your attempts to lead. Is there any hope?

Yes. We have a God who is sovereign over the hearts of all, with whom you can plead to graciously change your heart and the heart of your spouse.

When that is your marriage, what god, what idol are you going to run to, to cause your husband or wife to change: to brow-beating? to behavior-manipulation? to threats? to cynicism? to despair? to apathy? Or will you put your hope in the God who reigns sovereignly over the hearts of all?

Examples, of course, could be multiplied: evangelism, reconciliation with an estranged child or parent, standing up for justice at work, working for change in government, rebuking someone in sin, finding yourself needing to (but unwilling to) repent or forgive.

Whether you are struggling to savor God’s glory in Christ or working to strengthen this vision in those you are teaching and training or you are seeking to spread this vision in evangelism and missions and loving deeds—you can and should pray for God to change their hearts!

Let’s turn now to see to what end his sovereignty is used, our third main point:

(3) Yahweh’s sovereignty guarantees the victory of his people.
When the Lord spoke of Pharaoh’s response, he concluded, “after that he will let you go.” The Lord will work to guarantee the release of his people from slavery.

Verses 21-22 continues:

And when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.

They will ask for silver and gold and clothing from the neighbors and those in their house. (They are neighbors and share houses, likely, because the Israelite women are household slaves, living in or close to the Egyptian homes.)

And, because God has given them favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, they will receive what they ask for. This clothing will be provision for them as they travel through the wilderness. And, this gold and silver will be used to build the tabernacle—which is the fulfillment of their calling (to worship the Lord who dwells in their midst).

On their way out, they “plunder” the Egyptians. “Plunder” literally means to “strip off.” “Plunder” is a term related to war. It is what victorious armies do to defeated cities. They take their treasure.

But, notice who will do the plundering and how they will do it. Who? The women of Israel will plunder Egypt. Women don’t plunder! Big, strong, trained, sword-bearing soldiers plunder! But, what have we seen in Exodus 1-2? Who is it that was thwarting Pharaoh’s plans—midwives, a mother, daughters, women. Who are they? In that culture, they are considered weak and foolish. God is using the weak and foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

How do they do it? Not by thievery. Not by swords. They simply ask. This emphasizes what we saw last week: “Not by might, nor by force, but by my Spirit, says Yahweh of hosts.” The God who is with them—Yahweh—will fight for them and sovereignly guarantee the victory of his people.

Yahweh arranges the salvation of his people so that in happens in a way that forces people to boast in Yahweh alone.

A Strong Tower
What’s the big application we should take away from Exodus 3? We might ask: What response is God expecting from Moses and the Israelites? Hearing God’s self-revelation in the name “Yahweh” should move them to faith. They should believe that he will do what he says he is about to do: “I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites…”

So, our ultimate application might be this: Rest in the name of the Lord.

Proverbs 18:10 reads, “The name of Yahweh is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.” That is an interesting statement, isn’t it? Yahweh’s name is a strong tower. What is a strong tower? It is a place where you can find protection from whatever is outside that tower.

How do you find refuge in a tower?

1. You admit that you are in danger.
2. You admit that you are incapable of delivering yourself.
3. You see and believe that the tower is sufficient protection.
4. Believing this, you run into the tower.

And what do you do once you are in the tower? You rest. You rest in the sufficiency of the tower to protect you from the onslaught of your enemy.

The name of the Lord is not a physical place. Rather, it represents a person, God’s nature and essence—now seen and known in Jesus Christ. How do you run into Christ? Like a tower:

1. You admit that you are in danger. We are in danger from our sin, the death that it brings, the devil (who uses our sin to accuse us before God), and from the wrath of God deserved by it.

2. You admit that you are incapable of delivering yourself. You cannot change yourself. You cannot give yourself life. You cannot pay for your own sin. You cannot overpower Satan and his accusations. You cannot resist the wrath of God.

3. You see and believe that God’s name—his essence and nature, put on display in the context of his covenant promises—is sufficient to save. In the Gospel, God says to us:

“In the life of Jesus Christ there is perfect righteousness. In his death, there is full payment for sins. In his resurrection, sin, death and the devil are conquered. In his ascension, there is the promise of my presence, the outpouring and indwelling of my Holy Spirit. In his reign, there is my power to conform you into my image and to work all things for your good. In his return, there is resurrection from the dead and life in the New Heavens and New Earth.

“For any and all who will look upon Jesus, call upon his name, believe these things—to such I will credit his full righteousness, I will forgive their sins, I will bring them out of death and slavery to sin into life and righteousness and peace, and I will give them myself forever.”

4. Believing this, you run into God’s name. That is, you cry out to God for mercy in the name of Jesus, trusting in him.

And what do you do then? You rest. You rest in the sufficiency of his name to do what he has promised, to deliver you from the onslaught of your enemy.

Friend, if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ—that is what it means to be saved. Hear who God is in Jesus—and believe.

And brothers and sisters—let us remember that our salvation is not completed by any other means than it began: By hearing the Gospel with faith. All the other applications that we have seen and that we will see will only happen if this happens: We see the glory of Yahweh revealed in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ—and we savor it, rest in it, and then walk in faith.

“I AM WHO I AM” is a strong tower, a mighty fortress. The name of Yahweh is powerful, for it speaks of all that Yahweh is. And all that Yahweh is he is for his people in Jesus Christ, whose name is exalted above all others, into which we run and are safe.

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Exodus 3:11-22 - The Name of Yahweh is a Strong Tower (Part 1)

2012-01-08T11:45:00.000-06:00

Sermon audio will be available here.

As I was preparing to preach this sermon, I recited to myself Joshua 1:6: “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.” And then, I thanked God for his promise of being with me and to not forsake me, asking him to help me preach.

Was that appropriate? Was I, in reciting a promise given to a particular man at a particular time for a particular task, misapplying Scripture—even as I prepared to interpret and apply Scripture?

That is one of the questions that I want to take up this morning. How do we interpret and apply passages like the one we are in this morning—passages in which God makes promises and statements to individuals and nations that are not us?

In Bible reading, Christians often suffer from a few frequent ailments. We read the Old Testament and say:

“This does not apply to my life at all!” And so we give up on Bible study as “irrelevant.”
“This cannot apply to me.” We limit application to merely the initial audience. A promise to Moses or Jeremiah or Israel—is merely and only a promise to them; it has no application to the Christian.
“This does apply to me—immediately, directly and indiscriminately!” And so we take a passage like this—in which the Lord promises Moses success—and we indiscriminately apply it to whatever situation we face. (“God promises to be with me when I go ask for a raise and cause my Pharaoh-like boss to give me a raise!” …which might end up with your Pharaoh-like boss letting you go!)

I want to look at the beginning two verses of our passage this morning, understand what they mean in context, and then spend a large portion of our time dealing with how we might read such passages and apply them to our lives. We’ll come back next week and finish out the passage in verses 13-22, looking at God’s name, what he does, and how that teaches us to live.

The Question

In verse 10, the Lord revealed his purpose for Moses: “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

In verse 11, we read Moses’ response: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Moses’ response has been interpreted in a variety of ways, ranging from sensible to humble to fearful and faithful. The best answer, I think, is to understand this as not an attempt to decline a calling, but as a culturally polite way of accepting honor. This is similar to how David responds in receiving Saul’s daughter as his wife (1 Sam 18:18), “Who am I, and who are my relatives, my father’s clan in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?” And when the Lord makes a covenant with David to cause his throne to endure forever, David’s reply is (2 Sam 7:18), “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”

The Answer

In verse 12, the Lord’s reply is somewhat unexpected. The Lord does not say, “This is who you are.” He does not emphasize Moses’ skills, preparation or even promise to make him adequate. Instead, he points Moses away from himself to the Lord’s presence.

First, he gives Moses a promise of his presence: “But I will be with you.” Such a statement is promise to give special wisdom and power to that person, so that recognize their authority, thus it ensuring the fulfillment of their call.

The Lord accepts Moses' objection of inadequacy. He is inadequate! Moses will not bring the people out of Egypt by his own might—as he had attempted when he slew the Egyptian taskmaster. Rather, the Lord will work.

Second, the Lord gives Moses a sign of fulfillment: “…and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” This is what is known as a “sign of fulfillment.” It is a confirmation that a leader or prophet has completed all or part of a task assigned by God (Stuart, Exodus).

The sign that proves the Lord is with Moses is that Israel will gather around this very mountain to serve the Lord. When that happens, it will mark that the exodus has been successful.

Of course, this sign is only given after Moses has led them out. This means Moses must walk by faith. Moses must believe what he cannot see. As the author of Hebrews records (11:27): “By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

Moses must not look to himself, but trust in the invisible God who promises to be with him. And so, this brings us to our one main point for this morning:

The presence of God enables his people to fulfill their calling.

The Lord's Presence in the Old Testament

This is, of course, not a truth isolated to Moses and his calling; it is found throughout the Old Testament.

Moses’ replacement, Joshua, will hear these words as he prepares to lead the people in the conquest of the Promised Land (Joshua 1:5): “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.”

Once Israel in the land, it is the same with the judges that God raises up. The Lord says to fearful Gideon (Judges 6:16): “But I will be with you…”

When the Lord raises-up kings over Israel, what is their hope of success? Here is David’s confidence before facing Goliath (1 Sam 17:37):

And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!”

This is a truth that he will celebrate in song (Psalm 23): “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”

When the people were exiled and the prophets spoke hope of their return to the land and the fulfillment of God’s promises, what was their hope? Isaiah 41:10:

…fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

And when the people are brought back to the land and tasked with rebuilding the temple, where is their hope of accomplishing the task? Zechariah 4:6: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says Yahweh of hosts.”

The presence of Yahweh is the great hope of God’s people from beginning to end.

Jesus Christ

And, of course, the full presence of God is found in his Son, Jesus Christ—Immanuel, “God with us.”

Yet, Jesus is not just the presence of God among his people. He lived as God’s people, as the perfect man, whom God was with. Living in our place, he faced his calling—death under God’s wrath for our sin—with perfect assurance, resting in his Father’s presence. As he spoke of his approaching crucifixion, he said to his disciples (Jo 16:32):

Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

And through his work, he promises his presence to his people—his presence which is granted through the Holy Spirit.

What then does all this say to the Christian? How does this apply to us?

How Shall We Apply?

Before we move to how this applies to us, I want to ask another question: Should this be applied to us? The text we are in is God speaking to one particular man, Moses, about a particular calling to do a particular thing at a particular time with a particular people in a particular place.

Does Exodus 3:12, “But I will be with you…” have right application to Christians? That is where I want to spend the rest of our time this morning—working through how we can move from an Old Testament passage to application to the particulars of a Christian’s life.

An Escalated Emphasis

What we have here is God’s promise of his presence to one of his chosen servants, in order to enable him to fulfill his calling—a promise which is not an isolated incident. As we’ve seen, such a promise of enabling presence is picked-up and repeated to leaders, prophets, priests, and kings as the Bible’s storyline unfolds.

Moreover, the promise of God’s presence is a theme that, as it is repeated, is escalated. (Remember, we look for themes that are continued, emphasized and escalated.) As the Exodus unfolds, the presence of God is not merely with Moses, but with Israel in a pillar of cloud and fire, that has guided, protected and sustained them. Finally, he is dwelling with the people of God in the Tabernacle.

The promise of presence to individuals, such as prophets and kings, culminates in the hope of God being present with all his people. As the Old Testament ends, it is the promise that God himself will come to dwell with not just prophets, priests and kings, but with his people.

We have also seen that this blessed hope finds its fulfillment in the arrival of Jesus Christ. And who are we as Christians, as people who hope in Jesus?

Like Moses, we are prophets. Moses’ wish will be (Num 11:29): “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” And that wish comes to pass at Pentecost, which is what Peter says in Acts 2.

We are also all priests and kings. In Revelation 5:10, the elders and creatures in heaven sing of Jesus, regarding those he has redeemed: “…you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” We are priests who shall reign.

We are not only prophets, priests and kings, we are, like Moses (and Israel), commissioned ambassadors of God in Christ. Matthew’s Gospel ends with this commission from Jesus (Mt 28:19-20):

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

As with Moses, God is using us as his mouthpiece. Paul writes (2 Cor 5:20), “…we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal though us.”

And how is it that this work of speaking on God’s behalf will be accomplished? Jesus finishes the Great Commission with this promise: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He is with us so that we might carry out his commission. And such enabling presence of God is what we see in Acts 11 as the church preaches the Gospel: “And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.”

So, the promise of God’s presence to help his chosen servant in his mission continues and escalates through the storyline of the Bible, finding its culmination in Jesus—who in turn extends the promise of God’s presence to his people to help them in their calling to live as his commissioned ambassadors.

It is not wrong to read God’s promise of his presence to Moses and be encouraged by God’s promise to be with you—provided you are thinking through how this points forward to how God’s presence comes to us in Jesus Christ.

Your Personal Devotions

This is the kind of serious meditation that you need to learn and cultivate in your personal devotions and Bible study—if you want the whole Bible to inform your living, speaking, thinking, and praying.

Such Bible-reading takes time and work. It requires a growing knowledge of the Bible’s overall storyline and an increasing familiarity with its individual parts and how they relate. (Although, to be honest, what I just did isn’t all that difficult. All it entails is a person who has a basic familiarity with the Bible saying, “Oh, yeah. God frequently promises to be with his people—and Jesus said he’d be with us always to help us do what he’s commissioned us to do.” All I’ve done is taken the time to track down and fill-in the specifics!)

Such Bible-reading will pay dividends. It will profit you in personal growth, in Christian living and decision-making, in parenting, in counseling struggling friends, and even in evangelism.

The Bible is not a collection customized, personal instructions for how you are to live in every detail and decision of your life. Neither is the Bible a catalog of pieces of advice on a host of generic situations.

There certainly are some passages that relate more directly and immediately to some situations than others. However, unless you’re one of those smarty-pants “Bible-answer-man” guys on the radio, who can call to mind a catalog of verses and passages at a moment’s notice—or you transport your entire counseling library with you, you’re not likely to be able to call them to mind when needed.

There is something very helpful about be prepared to use the passage you meditated on that morning (or the previous evening) to address the situations you find yourself in each day.

Let’s think through a few sample situations, as though this passage were your personal Bible reading for this morning (or the night before), fresh on your mind.

Endure trials.

Say you find yourself in a trial (you can fill in the blank as to what kind of trial). Your neighbor is suing you. Or, your boss fires you. Or, your work load is too great for you. Or, you’re in a rocky marriage.

You know enough to know that God doesn’t guarantee any particular outcome. You could be wrongly convicted, unemployed and over-worked—and it might not end. But, you also know that you are called to face the trial as a Christian—as a representative of Jesus Christ. You know that you are called to face this trial in a way that glorified God and reflects the image of Christ, no matter what.

If this is the passage you meditated on, you might think and pray this way:

In my Scripture reading, the Lord promised Moses that he would be with him so that the task the Lord had sent him on would ultimately be successful. And, I noticed that, throughout the Bible, God is promising to be with his people. And Jesus has promised that he would be with his people always, even to the end of the age.

I have no guarantee that this situation will turn out the way that I prefer. But, I know that Jesus lived a perfect life for me. He died for my sins. He conquered death in his resurrection. He poured his Spirit into my heart, through whom the Father and Son both live with me. No matter what man does to me, no matter how this turns out, I will always have the presence of Christ.

Father, I thank you that you love me. I thank you that you are with me through your Spirit, because of what Jesus has done. Please help me and empower me to trust you in this situation, to be further conformed into the image of Christ and to glorify you no matter what the outcome.

And then you face the trial, resting in God’s powerful presence.

Counseling a Friend

You will often find yourself sitting across the table from a friend who is struggling with life, spilling their sorrows, looking to you for counsel. You’re hit with the situation for the first time, and must think on your feet.

What can we say? Why not turn to the passage you’ve been studying? So, you might say:

Wow. That sure sounds hard. I don’t have all the answers for that situation. But, I’d love to continue talking and praying about it.

But, I can say this for now: I was reading Exodus 3 in my devotions this morning. And in that chapter, the Lord tells Moses that he is sending him to bring the Israelites out of slavery. Moses questions how it is that he could do such a thing. And the Lord replies by promising to be with him. In fact, as the chapter continues, the Lord reveals his name to Moses—showing that he is sovereign over everything. In fact, he even controls the hearts of people.

We’re not living in Egypt or Midian. And, you’re not Moses. But, Jesus has promised that he’ll be with his people always. He’s given us his Holy Spirit to dwell in us, empower us, change us.

I don’t have all the answers to your situation. I know it is hard. I know you don’t think you can do it. But let’s remember right now that Jesus is with you. Let’s pray and ask him for help.

Rebuke Sin

Perhaps you see a brother or sister in Christ continuing in sin that needs to be addressed. That’s something many of us are scared to do. This is the passage you’ve been meditating on this morning. How does it help?

You recall that the Lord is present with you. And, you’ve probably meditated on this whole chapter (which we’ll finish out next week). And, in the remainder of this chapter, who is this God that is present with his people?

In verses 14-15, he is Yahweh, “I AM WHO I AM,” the self-existent, independent, self-determining, creating, sustaining, unchanging, eternal, ever-present God. He is the sovereign God who can be known, revealing himself to people, relating to them through promises, which he always keeps.

In verse 18, he the God who knows that the elders of Israel will listen to Moses.

In verse 19, he is the God who knows that Pharaoh won’t listen Moses, but also knows how to cause him to listen.

In verse 21, he the God who will give the Israelites favor in the sight of the Egyptians.

The God who is with you is the God who is sovereign over the hearts of his people and their enemies, even over their responses and actions, in order to glorify his name and do good to his people. And so, you pray this way:

Lord, my brother in Christ is in sin. His sin is not glorifying to you and harmful to him. You’ve called me to love him by rebuking him, so that he might repent and be satisfied with who you are for him in Jesus.

I confess: I’m scared. I feel entirely inadequate. I know that I cannot open his eyes or change his heart.

But, I know that you are the same God who was with Moses. You are the sovereign God, who rules even over the hearts of people to cause them to respond in the way that will glorify your name and bring salvation to your people.

Lord, would you please glorify yourself by being with me as I speak? Would you please glorify your name by giving me favor in the eyes of my brother, so that he would listen to me? Would you glorify your name and do good to my brother, causing him to repent and turn from his sin?

Parenting

As a Christian father, you’re called to “bring [your children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Training children in the discipline and instruction of Jesus is not always a simple task.

You might plan out elaborate devotions or follow your catechism schedule—all to find your children not attentive and uninterested. Opportunities to teach them the Gospel are usually not found on a structured schedule held to a refrigerator by a magnet (and the Bible does not expect them to be!). How can you take what you’re meditating on in personal Bible reading and turn it into Gospel parenting lessons?

Perhaps your child is asking for your help:

Of course I’d be happy to help you. Did you know that God promises to be with his people to help them, just like Mommy helps you? When I was reading the Bible this morning, God promised Moses he would be with him to help do a very hard thing. It makes Mommy happy when you ask for help, because I want you to grow up learning to ask for help when needed. I pray that God will show you that you can’t save yourself, but that only he can do the work of salvation.

Or perhaps your child is scared of being in bed alone. You can sacrifice a little sleep, sit with them in bed a bit and say:

I know it is scary to be alone. Mommy sometimes faces situations where she is scared too. But I was reminded of something this morning, when I was reading Exodus 3…

What’s Your Excuse?

God has called us to himself in Christ. And Christ has sent us on mission to be ambassadors who display his glory, proclaim his message, show forth his image to the world. And that call extends to every aspect of life, whether that be how we relate to friends or enemies, parents or children, husbands or wives, evangelism and missions, trials and successes, and even how we die.

The list is endless. But so is God’s presence. I wonder which of these you’re facing today and how you’re responding. Which are you cowering from in fear? Which are you sinfully trying to tackle in self-reliant independence? Which are you making excuses to avoid?

With You By Grace

Let me close with a final thought. You might be saying, “That’s all fine and good, God with his people and all that. But God isn’t with me. He won’t help me. I’m too big of a sinner. I don’t have enough good works for him to work in me.”

The reason God was with Moses (and Israel) to help them was not because they deserved it. He was with them because he made a gracious covenant, a promise of grace, to Abraham. He was with them on the basis of grace.

How do we receive the promised blessing, the Spirit of God? Paul asks in Galatians 3:3—“Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” It is by hearing the Gospel with faith.

Jesus said in John 8:29: “And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” The reason the Father was always with Jesus was because Jesus always did the things that are pleasing to the Father.

And the reason that God is with you always is that same reason: because Jesus always did the things that were pleasing to the Father. By grace through faith, this righteousness, this perfect record of always pleasing the Father, is reckoned to us through faith.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, rest and rejoice in knowing that “the Spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us sideth.” Live out his calling on your life (and read the Bible, seeking to apply it to your life) out of the confidence that God is with you always.

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Jim Hamilton Commentary on Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches

2012-01-07T22:45:00.001-06:00

Jim Hamilton's latest book is the Revelation volume in the Preaching the Word series, edited by R. Kent Hughes -- Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches.

It is available in hardcover and on Kindle.

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Ten Reasons Why Your Kids Might Think You're No Fun

2012-01-07T16:49:00.002-06:00

Gotta love Doug Wilson's wit. Read his Ten Reasons Why Your Kids Might Think You're No Fun.

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33% off Jerry Bridges' new book - "The Transforming Power of the Gospel"

2012-01-06T07:15:00.000-06:00

Looks good. Releases January 13.

The Transforming Power of the Gospel
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Great Parenting Resource - $1.99

2012-01-05T10:00:00.000-06:00

Bruce Ware's Big Truth for Young Hearts in on sale now for $1.99.

It is essentially a full systematic theology (course of Christian doctrine) broken up into small chapters on a children's level (not really little children though).

It is basically what Bruce Ware, professor of Systematic Theology at Southern Seminary, said to his girls at bedtime to teach them about God in book form.

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