Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Well, good morning everybody. If we could take our Bibles this morning and open them to Exodus chapter 7 and verse 1. The title of our message this morning is "To Obey is Better than Sacrifice." As you're turning there, I invite you to come back this evening if you're able for the Dinesh D'Souza movie that we're going to show this evening. The reason we're showing it is it reinforces things that we've tried to emphasize here from the pulpit, the satanic hatred for the nation of Israel being one issue. That's tonight at 6:30.

I wore my new tie today. I don't know if you guys can see that. It's got little stars of David all over it. Did you guys know October is Pastor Appreciation Month? Thank you. Our staff got me this tie among other things. They also got me a big coffee cup that says "Be careful what you say or you may end up in my sermon." But the back of the tie says "The Star of David, subtle white on navy," which is what this is. Then the rest of it says "Designed in the United States of America." It's fun.

I also want to remind you that after our Town Square event on the 22nd, Shahram Hadian will be here that following Sunday morning teaching both Sunday School and that will be a part one and a part two, the main service dealing with the whole subject of Islam. As a former Muslim, he would know an awful lot about it. Mark that down on your calendar if you could.

In the meantime, we are dealing now with the book of Exodus chapter 7, verses 1 through 7, where the big picture of everything is God is redeeming a nation. A nation that has been in bondage for over 400 years. God is bringing them out of that bondage. Moses, his first time out doing the work of God, things don't go well from the human perspective. Pharaoh in chapter 5 says not only will I not let Israel go, but I will increase her workload. Beginning in chapter 6, verse 1, all the way through chapter 7, verse 7, God is encouraging Moses.

We're going to get the tail end of that encouragement here in verses 1 through 7, which we're going to look at today. But then chapter 7, beginning in verse 8, the work resumes where there is a power encounter between Pharaoh and Moses. If it were just Pharaoh versus Moses, we know who would win. But we're starting to discover it's not Pharaoh versus Moses, it's Pharaoh versus God through Moses. I had a youth pastor that put it this way: he said one plus God is a majority. All you have to do is be in the will of God and what can man do to you?

Then when that initial power encounter is over in verse 13, then the plagues start, 10 plagues, the first of which will be the turning of the Nile River to blood red, as we'll see. For now, we have a description of the prophets, the two people that God is going to use in this endeavor, Moses and Aaron, and more words come to them by way of encouragement. Here is an outline that we're going to follow this morning as we take a look at these first seven verses. Notice first of all the delegation, and when I mean delegation, I mean the delegation of authority.

Notice if you will chapter 7 and verse 1. It says, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'See, I make you as a god to Pharaoh.'" There are some verses that really need to be handled correctly because we've had probably since the fall of man, but it really became very prominent in the 1980s, the New Age movement. The idea that man and woman, boy, girl, can evolve into deity, godhood itself. I've had people try to convince me I'm a god, and I usually say, "First you need to talk to my wife about that, she'll give you the straight scoop. Secondly, I'm the guy that can't even find my car keys. How in the world could I be God?"

It's interesting how many of the cults, whether you're dealing with Mormonism—they believe you die and become a god and get your own planet—or the New Age movement, we're evolving into deity. That, of course, is an abject lie. In fact, that's the first lie that entered our cosmos. Did you know that? This is what Satan said to Eve in Genesis 3 verse 5, "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." That's actually not the first time this lie came into existence. It was a lie that Satan, then Lucifer, deceived himself with.

In five "I will" statements in Isaiah 14, verses 12 through 15, cataloging what was going through Lucifer's mind when he fell from the heavenlies. He says, "I will ascend to heaven." You can see all these in the verses where you can find these. "I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit enthroned on the mount of the assembly. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds." Then that last one there, "I will make myself like the Most High." That's Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 14. Because of that lie, Lucifer lost his position in the heavenlies, and because of that lie, our forebears fell into sin, bringing to us today all of the terrible consequences of sin in what we would call original sin.

The kingdom of the cults, the New Age movement, any type of theology that wants to build this idea that we can bridge the creature-creator distinction, loves these kind of passages. But God never says that Moses is a god here. God never says in the Bible that we're gods. Are we made in God's image? Yeah, but we're not gods. How do we make sense of these passages? God is trying to encourage Moses who, remember at the end of the last chapter, said, "I am unskilled in speech." What God is doing in chapter 7 verse 1 is he's encouraging Moses and he's saying, "Don't worry about it. I'm going to work so significantly through you and so powerfully that your greatest opponent, the leader of the known world, will look at you as if you're god."

I didn't all of a sudden, Moses, elevate you to God, but Pharaoh himself will think you're some kind of God because of the power that I'm going to release through you. This deals with the faulty pagan perception of Pharaoh, who also was a polytheist and worshipped many gods. God is encouraging Moses that Pharaoh's going to elevate you to the Egyptian pantheon because of my powerful work through you. Not saying Moses is God, but Pharaoh will think you're God because of the power that I'm going to release in you and through you. That kind of thing needs to be brought to bear, putting these passages in their right context when the kingdom of the cults, the New Age movement, etc., hijacks these kinds of passages.

There is in the Bible something very clear as early as Genesis chapter 1. I mentioned it a few moments ago; it's called the creature-creator distinction. God is God, and you're not, and neither am I. God has certain qualities that I will never have. He is omniscient, all-knowing. He is omnipresent, he is everywhere at the same time, and he is also omnipotent, all-powerful. None of those qualities rest with us, although we have very special status in God's creation hierarchy having been made in his image.

They love to hijack John 10, verses 34 through 36, where Jesus is defending himself for calling himself the Son of God. It says in those verses, "Jesus answered and said to them, 'Has it not been written in your law, "I said you are gods"?' If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming' because I said I am the Son of God?" He's referring backwards to Psalm 82 verse 6 where it says, "I said you are gods and all of your sons of the Most High."

The verse goes on and it says your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. It's interesting to me that Moses was really hung up on his speech issues. "I'm not the best public speaker. I don't have the gift of gab" is what he's saying. Exodus 6 verse 30, he says, "But I am unskilled in speech." Exodus 6 verse 12, "For I am unskilled in speech." Exodus 4 verse 10 is where he first brought up this insecurity. "Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent," and then he goes on and he says, "For I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."

Moses is being told by God, "Don't worry about it. The power that I'm going to release through you is going to be so prominent that Pharaoh himself will think you're God or God-like. And even beyond that, don't worry about it, you've got a brother named Aaron." Aaron is going to do the speaking for you. This is an arrangement that goes all the way back to Exodus 4 verses 14 through 16, where God said of this arrangement, "Moreover, he, that's Aaron, shall speak for you to the people and he will be a mouth for you." Moses, here's how it's going to work: I'm going to give you my word, you're going to share that with Aaron, and Aaron is the one that's going to speak these words to the people and Aaron is the one that's going to speak these words to Pharaoh himself. This hang-up that you have with your lack of articulateness is not going to be a problem.

What we call this in the theological world is condescending. We use it sometimes as a negative, being condescending, we accuse people of. But really what it means is "con" with, "descend." God is the great condescender, not in the negative sense, but he comes down to our level and accommodates us where we're lacking. All the way through the Bible, God is doing this. He's not some God that's erudite and removed; he's the one that actually comes down to our level. Concerning the nation of Israel, they had a treaty, and as you study those treaties, whether it's the Royal Grant Treaty in Genesis 15 or a fancy name called the Suzerain-Vassal Treaty of Deuteronomy chapter 28, what you'll discover when you study ancient Near Eastern literature is these were treaties common in that time period.

In other words, God took the treaty structure that they were using and he used it to advance his program. That's how God condescends. The ultimate condescension of God is the incarnation, where God became one of us. At the point of the virgin conception, humanity was added to pre-existent deity, and the eternally existent second member of the Godhead, God the Son, was born into our world and walked among us. He became one of us. John chapter 1 verse 14 says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. This is how God relates to man. We can understand God because he's not up in the clouds somewhere; he's one of us. He lived amongst us with all of the limitations of being a human being without sin because he had no sin nature thanks to the virgin conception.

It becomes a great passage here, Exodus chapter 7 verse 1, on the condescension of God. "All right, Moses, you've got some insecurities, you've got some hang-ups, don't worry about it, I've got you covered here. Aaron will function under your delegated authority." I don't know of any system of theology or philosophy that teaches this kind of thing about God, the condescension of God. What follows is a command. You'll see that in verse 2: "You shall speak all that I command you."

In our sermon last Sunday, we talked about the "all." What does "all" mean? It means "all." If I was to translate this into Texan, I would say it means "all y'all." In other words, I'm going to tell you what you're to say to Pharaoh, to Aaron first and then to Pharaoh, and don't hold back anything. That's our philosophy of ministry here at Sugar Land Bible Church. When it says "preach the word," *keruxon ton logon* is the Greek, "preach the word," it means all of the word. Because the prior chapter says all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work.

Jesus said this, quoting the book of Deuteronomy: "Man shall not live on bread alone but on" what? "Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." This is why Paul said in Acts 20 verses 26 and 27, "For I am innocent of the blood of all men for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God." We are not the kind of church that does these little eight-week series on things, how to be your own best friend or whatever, eight weeks on it, and then we move on to another eight-week series. Many churches function that way. That's just not who we are. We're a church that wants to work through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. If you're wondering what's going to be in the sermon, all you have to do is read ahead to the next area that we didn't cover. That way the leadership of the church is really not in control of the topics; God is in control of the topics because you deal with whatever comes up next in the text, whether it's a tough text to absorb or not.

You'll notice the "alls' with this particular command. The command, still on verse 2, is: "You shall speak all that I command and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go." That's your message. Take the nation of Israel, which has been in bondage for 400 years, and release them. Let them go. Isn't that the whole message of the Bible? Isn't the whole message of the Bible the journey because of Jesus out of bondage into freedom? What is being explained here in microcosm form is God's message to the human race. Do you want to be let loose from the bondage that you're in, the bondage of sin, the bondage of fear?

The book of Hebrews talks about fear of death. Hebrews chapter 2, holding men and women in bondage. You come to Christ, you're released from that fear because absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The world is scared to die. That's why they're always trying to look younger and look healthier, and it's almost like they're trying to escape the inevitable. Diet and exercise are great, but they only postpone the inevitable. We're dying, and you need something in your life that's going to release you from that bondage and fear, and that's what the Gospel does. It releases you from sin, it releases you from slavery.

One of the greatest scams that the devil has going—and I fell for this one for years—is don't get too close to Jesus because he's going to wreck your life. He's going to make you unhappy, he's going to make you miserable, and in fact, Jesus is the one that releases us from bondage. John 8 and verse 32, Jesus speaking, he says, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you" what? "Free." It doesn't say I'll make you miserable. John 8 and verse 36, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."