An overview for Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson for December 8, 2024, from Exodus 5:1-4, and 6:2-9, entitled “Freedom Promised.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO:  “On a trip to China, (U.S. President Ronald) Reagan made a speech on Chinese television. However, the Chinese government didn’t want the Chinese people to hear everything he had to say and blocked out some parts of his address. We in the press corps came rushing over to get his reaction. How was he going to stand for such censorship? How could he allow this to happen — his full message not getting through to the Chinese people? 

Reagan just smiled at all of us and replied, ‘Oh, it didn’t bother me at all. You guys do it all the time.’”

(Helen Thomas, Thanks For The Memories, Mr. President, p. 130)

In our passage from Exodus for today we see how Moses WAS a faithful messenger, sharing with Pharaoh all that God told him.

CONTEXT

We’re continuing our study in the Book of Exodus. We saw last time how the Egyptians had enslaved the people of Israel who had come to Egypt under Joseph to survive the famine, and were killing their children. Israel cried out in these conditions, and the Bible says God heard them. He called Moses to be used by Him to deliver the people, despite Moses’ hesitancy about his own inadequacy. Now Moses and his brother Aaron stand before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they give him God’s message. This brings us to our focus passage for today, in Exodus 5 and 6.

OUTLINE

I. God’s Message (5:1-4)

II. God’s Promises (6:2-9)

TEXT

I. God’s Message (5:1-4)

Exodus 5:1-4

“And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’” :2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” 3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, otherwise He will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” 4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you [a]draw the people away from their [b]work? Get back to your [c]labors!”

The “afterward” here refers to how in Chapter 4 God had called and prepared Moses and Aaron to go and speak to Pharaoh. So “afterward,” they did go to Pharaoh. 

??? How do you imagine they may have felt about this? 

(Probably were NOT looking forward to it!)

??? Have you ever had to go and speak to someone, and really did not want to do it??? Anyone want to share what this was like for you???

Undoubtedly that is how Moses and Aaron felt as well. Especially with what we know about his hesitancies when God called him to do, he could NOT have wanted to do this. But to his credit, he DID! And when he did, what did he say?  

“Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go …’”

FIRST of all, NOTICE in :1-2 the multiple use of the name YHWH (“LORD”) as we saw last week that God gave Moses when he asked Him what His name was. He told him “I AM THAT I AM,” and we saw that when we see “LORD” in all 4 caps like that in the Old Testament, in Hebrew it is not the word “Adonai” or “Lord,” but YHWH, “I AM.” 

This makes a lot of sense when you read the text here:

— So Moses & Aaron told Pharaoh, “Thus says YHWH the God of Israel … let My people go.”

— And then Pharaoh says: “Who is YHWH that I should obey His voice … I do not know YHWH …”. 

The text just make even more sense when you put God’s name, YHWH, in there instead of the word “LORD.” These verses are good examples of that.

So this message comes from “The LORD (YHWH), the God of Israel. It’s not just “any” god who is saying this, but THIS God, YHWH God, the God of Israel.

And this God’s message to Pharaoh is that He wants him to let His people go and worship Him in the wilderness. “Thus says YHWH,” God’s messengers here said. This is God’s message.

This is a good standard for us today too. “Thus says the Lord” should be the Christian’s constant refrain. The message we have to share with others is the word of GOD. 

— We don’t need to come up with our own “original material”!

— We are not merely to echo the ideas and standards of the world.

— We aren’t just to tell people whatever they want to hear. 

We are to give them God’s message: “Thus says the LORD …”

“This is what GOD’S WORD says …”. 

On the one hand, that can be hard, when it’s not what someone wants to hear. But on the other hand, it kind of takes some pressure off. We don’t have to come up with our own “stuff;” just tell people what God says.

Now we may think, Moses had a really hard job: telling Pharaoh the difficult things the Lord commanded him to share.

But the truth is: WE have very similar responsibilities today! Just as God commanded Moses to share some hard truths with Pharaoh, so God has commanded US to share sometimes difficult things with people around us today too! 

??? What are some of the people/situations where God might command us to share something difficult today???

(— telling a family member they are off track can be very difficult.

— witnessing to a friend or work associate who is deceived can be very hard as well.)

You/your group can think of a lot of situations they face today where we have basically the same responsibility to share difficult truth that Moses did in his day.

Having the responsibility to tell people what God says can be very difficult. 

— It can be hard, when you know you have to tell them something that’s not what they want to hear.

— We might be tempted to change the message, to make it more “palatable” to people. 

— ALSO: it’s a challenge for us to KNOW what God says, in order to be able to tell them! You can’t tell them “thus says the LORD,” if you don’t know what the LORD has said! So we have the responsibility to read, study, and memorize His word, so that we CAN tell others what His word says!

But it’s important that like Moses, we tell people just what God says, not compromising or changing it in any way. An illustration you could use in this point Sunday might be: 

While in Australia during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur’s wife Jeannie was invited to christen the Bataan, a warship named in honor of her husband’s service on the peninsula earlier in the war. “Her husband said: ‘Jeannie, all you have to do is break a bottle of champagne on the bow and say, ‘I christen thee Bataan and may God bless you.’ That’s enough of a speech.’ The shipyard manager handed her a typescript and asked her to read it. She handed it right back and said: ‘I’m going to say just what the General told me to say,’ and she did.”)

(William Manchester, American Caesar, p. 317)

Just as Jeannie MacArthur was faithful to pass on just her husband’s message, and nothing else, even more so we need to be faithful to pass on God’s perfect message, without compromise or changes, to those who need to hear it.

??? What are some of the hard things that we as Christians might need to tell someone TODAY???

(— That God says there is only one way to Him, and that is through Jesus.

— That God says in both the Old and New Testament that homosexuality is a sin. 

— That people are not basically good. “All have sinned;” “the heart is desperately wicked” etc. 

— That love is not just a feeling (I Cor. 13)

— That there are only two sexes, and that God assigns gender; it is not a choice. (Psalm 139)

And on and on. Just as Moses & Aaron had some difficult things to tell Pharaoh, so WE have some difficult things to tell people inn OUR culture today. Let’s ask God to help us have the courage to say what we need to: “Thus says the Lord …”!

So what was Pharaoh’s response to this hard message? He didn’t respond well, did he?

:2 says: But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”

So he did not accept God’s message. In fact he said “Who is YHWH that I should obey His voice?” In a way, that’s a good question: “Who is YHWH?” He didn’t know this God. He knew Ra, the Egyptian sun god, and many others. But he didn’t know YHWH.

But before this episode is over, Pharaoh will know very well who Yahweh is! 

But Pharaoh did not respond well to God’s message — and we need to be ready for people today not to respond well to God’s message either. BUT WE MUST NOT BE TEMPTED TO CHANGE IT on that account. Let them accept it, or reject it. But be a faithful messenger, who passes on the pure and uncompromised word of God. 

THEN NOTICE how Moses & Aaron proceeded in :3: This is a good lesson for us too. Despite Pharaoh’s rejection, notice the attitude with which they continued to entreat him. Moses said back to him: “PLEASE” let us go 3 days’ journey into the wilderness. “The Hebrew particle ‘na’ is used to express a polite request, entreaty, or exhortation. It often appears in contexts where a speaker is making a plea or request, adding a tone of urgency or politeness.” (Strongs/Bible Hub) 

So Moses and Aaron were very respectful in their address to Pharaoh. They were not arrogant, or disrespectful.

This is a good example for us today. The scripture teaches us to respect authorities, and to treat them with honor:

— Romans 13:7 “Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”

— In Acts 23 when Paul was struck at the command of the high priest Ananias, Paul told him “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall,” but when he found out he was high priest, he apologized in :5, saying, “I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

So the scriptures command us and give us the example of treating authorities with respect. As Christians we are not to be arrogant and demanding; we are to be respectful, and politely ask. 

Despite their humble approach, Pharaoh did not listen to them. :4 “But the king of Egypt said to them, ‘Moses and Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!’”

So Moses & Aaron shared God’s message with Pharaoh, as graciously as they could — but he still rejected it. We should be prepared for the same thing today. We should try to be as gracious as we can — but still be prepared for the same kind of reaction. They still may not accept it.

You might ask your group: ???Has anyone shared the gospel/some truth from God’s word with someone recently, who did not receive it well??? 

Encourage your group that despite these rejections, we need to be faithful messengers who share God’s truth, just like Moses and Aaron did. 

II. God’s Promises (6:2-9)

After they shared God’s message with Pharaoh, the Lord now speaks to Moses and gives him another message, this time a message of comfort and promise for God’s people:

“God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD; 3 and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD (YHWH), I did not make Myself known to them. 4 I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned.”

After the rejection of the message by Pharaoh, God reminds Moses of Who He is: “I am the LORD (YHWH).” He reviews Hebrew history and says “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and God Almighty (El Shaddai) but by My name (and again here you see how important it is that we understand that in Hebrew this is not “Lord”/“Adonai”, but YHWH/Yahweh/Jehovah). He says by My NAME, YHWH, I did not make Myself known to them.  

God says, Moses, I am revealing Myself to you, and to Israel in these days, in a newer and deeper way than to anyone ever before. This is what theologians call “progressive revelation”: God progressively reveals more and more of Himself to His people. And of course, in the New Testament He will reveal Himself more fully and finally in the Person of Jesus Christ, who said in John 8: “Before Abraham came into being, I AM.” Jesus is the fullest and most final revelation of God.” Hebrews 1:1-2a says: “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son.” “Has spoken” there is an aorist tense verb in Greek, means a finished, past tense action. God SPOKE in Jesus. That revelation is full, final, and complete in Him. 

Since Jesus walked on earth, others have come saying that they have a more full revelation of God. Some of those include: Mohammed, who came 600 years later and established Islam, in the 1800s the Bab (an Iranian word that means “the gate”) who claimed to be a manifestation of God like Jesus or Mohammed; Joseph Smith in America who claimed to have a newer revelation of God in the Book of Mormon, and so on. But all of these “fuller revelations” are unnecessary. God has already spoken fully and finally in Jesus. There is no higher revelation than Him:

— Jesus told Thomas in John 14, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” 

— Philippians 2 tells us He is “the name above all names.” 

— As Hebrews 1:2 says, He “has spoken” to us in His Son. Jesus is God’s final revelation. There is no deeper revelation than Him.

Then God continues His message of comfort in :5+:

5 “Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. 6 Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 7 Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the LORD.’” 9 So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage.”

So God comforts His people in :5, saying “I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel … and I have remembered My covenant.”

This is important. God says He remembers His covenant. A covenant is an agreement, a promise. God does not forget His promises. In this case, He had promised to make of Abraham a people through whom He would bless the world. God says, I haven’t forgotten that. I have not just left you, Israel, to rot in Egypt. I remember My promise, and I am going to do something about it.

So God had said, I remember My covenant, and I am going to DO something about your captivity, Israel. This tells US that God remembers and keeps His promises to US today too!

In the 1920s, Harry Truman was presiding Judge of his county, and he led the passage of a bond issue for highways. He had promised to let the low bidder for each project get the job. 

“It was a stunning victory—the vote in favor of the bond issue was three to one. Good as his word, he let a first contract of $400,000 to a construction firm from South Dakota. Other work soon to other firms not usually chosen for public projects in Jackson County. 

The roads were built, and extremely well. Five years later, in 1933, the Examiner could report;   ‘It is now generally recognized that every promise made at that time [1928] by the County Court … has been carefully fulfilled. Every road proposed in the plans submitted has been built exactly as promised, and all well within the money voted and the estimates of the engineers.’”

(David McCullough, Truman, p. 177)

Harry Truman kept his promise to his constituents. But we know the same thing is true of our God. When all the annals of history are over, we will be able to report that “every promise made” by our God, “has been exactly as promised.” “Not one word has failed of all His good promise,” just as Solomon proclaimed in I Kings 8:56. 

Then in :6+ God makes a number of specific promises to Israel:

(I will probably ask my group to find God’s promises in :6-8 and call them out. Or you can just share them)

— :6 “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians”

— :6 “I will deliver you from their bondage”

— :6 “I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments”

— :7 “Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God”

— :7 “you shall know that I am the LORD your God”

— :8 “I shall bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob …”

— :8 “and I will give it to you for a possession”

So although some are similar, there are about 7 specific promises God makes here. And He fulfilled them all, because He is faithful to His promises. 

(We did a similar exercise last week, but if you didn’t, ask:)

??? What is one of God’s promises that is especially meaningful to you today?)???

(To me, II Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” I just love the fact that even though I am not always that faithful to God, He will always be faithful to His promises to me. Though I am faithless, He remains faithful, and my salvation is secure and sure because of who HE is!)

You/your group can share some of your favorite promises of God that you cling to.

I also claim I John 1:9 all the time: I am so glad that I can be absolutely confident that if I confess my sins, God is faithful and righteous and will forgive my sins, and cleanse me from ALL unrighteousness! I need that promise, and use it almost daily! )

You/your group can share some of God’s promises which are most precious to you right now, and you can talk about how just as He was faithful to accomplish all that He promised Israel, He can also be counted on to fulfill all His promises to US today too. “Not one word has failed of all His good promise,” as Solomon said — and not one word WILL fail of all His good promise.  This passage reminds us of this great truth and promise.

Now again, what was the response of the people of Israel to God’s promises? Verse 9 says “they did not listen to Moses” — WHY? It says “because of their despondency and cruel bondage.” So it wasn’t that they just “didn’t believe;” they were in a time of cruel slavery and their spirits were crushed. It’s hard to reach out in faith and take hold of a promise in a time like that.

But like that favorite verse of mine says, “though we are faithless, He remains faithful.” God would deliver them anyway, because of Who He is. As He said at the end of :8, “I AM YHWH.”  And we will see how He does that in a powerful and miraculous way, over the next weeks. 

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