THE WISDOM OF GOD
Rev. Bernt P. Tweit
Epistle Lesson; Romans 11:33-36
Gospel Lesson; Matthew 16:13-20
Sermon Text; Exodus 6:2-8
As you can tell from our text today, the Children of Israel were in the land of Egypt. It was hundreds of years before this that they had come to Egypt. We recall Joseph and how he was sold into slavery in Egypt, where he grew in favor with Pharaoh, and became his right hand man.
A famine came and the Israelites were forced to go to Egypt where food was provided for them. Thus, this famine caused Joseph's brothers, also, to come to Egypt for their food.
The Israelites stayed in Egypt even after Joseph died. And, the Bible says, "The Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them." Exodus 1:7
It was then that a new king came to power in Egypt who did not know Joseph. The new king saw how the Israelites were multiplying and was afraid of their size, so he oppressed them with forced labor, as slaves, making bricks.
In time Moses was born, and grew. Right before our text, Moses and God were speaking at the burning bush. God spoke with him there, at the burning bush, instructing Moses to go to Pharaoh and ask for the release of his people.
Pharaoh responded to God's command with a command of his own. The Israelites would be forced into harder labor. The people were to receive no straw to make their bricks. They would have to gather their own straw and then make bricks with it.
The Children of Israel complained to Moses. And so, Moses went to God in prayer. Our text for this morning is God's answer to Moses' prayer.
Moses challenged God's wisdom in his prayer. Moses had done what God wanted him to do by going to Pharaoh, but now the Israelites were suffering for it. Moses said in his prayer, "O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people...and you have not rescued your people at all." Exodus 5:22-23
But in His answer, God showed Moses (and He shows us) how wise He is.
Our text this morning reveals to us 'The Wisdom of God'. Today I would like to look at two things in particular:
The Covenant God made with His people, the Israelites and the Covenant God made with us.
God freed the Children of Israel and how God has freed us.
A History Lesson about the Covenant
God said to Moses, "I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob...I established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan."
Right now I would like to back up a step and fill in the history prior to this answer God gave to Moses. God simply reminded Moses of His covenant with the patriarchs. Here is the covenant God made with Abraham.
God asked Abraham to gather together five animals: a cow, a goat, a ram, a dove and a young pigeon. He asked Abraham to cut the cow, goat and ram in half in mirror image, and lay the halves opposite each other. Then, God caused Abraham to fall into a deep sleep. And then, this is what God said to Abraham. "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions." Genesis 15:13-14
God also made a very similar covenant with Isaac and Jacob saying that the land of Canaan is theirs.
What is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement, or a promise that is made between two parties. The word we use most frequently for covenant is contract. (Especially this week we will hear about labor disputes over contracts between baseball players and owners.) God is reinforcing the fact that He is a powerful and gracious God who has made a solemn contract or promise (covenant) with His people and that He will keep His promise.
God promised to give them their own land, the Land of Canaan. When God heard the groaning of the Israelites in slavery in Egypt, He remembered His covenant with them.
God has also made a covenant with us. That covenant is that we will receive eternal life in Heaven, through faith in Jesus. He also hears our groaning and remembers the covenant He made with us.
How He Freed Them.
How He Frees Us!
Moses may have been thinking about the exodus as a great plan that God had prepared for them. But God had a much bigger plan than Moses could have imagined. Moses may have only been thinking about the exodus from Egypt, but God was thinking about the salvation of the world! God help us if our plan of salvation had been left up to Moses, or for that matter, if it had been left up to us!
Today as we look at our text, we see that it was Moses who complained to God. It was Moses who was challenging the wisdom of God, because after he did what God commanded, Israel suffered for it.
Really, we are no better than Moses. Every day we second-guess God. We second-guess how He saves and whom He saves. We second-guess the gifts He gives to some people and not to us. When we try to "play God", we break the 1st Commandment.
You shall have no other Gods.
Moses wasn’t punished for challenging God. Rather, God mentions how He would save the Israelites and us. Today, as we look at our text, especially in the last three verses, we see seven statements that begin with the phrase, "I will". All of these statements show how God was going to free the Children of Israel. After each and every one of these statements we can look into the New Testament and see corresponding statements of how it is that God has saved us!
I will
bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.
The Israelites were yoked in slavery. A yoke is that which binds you together. A yoke of oxen are 2 oxen that are joined by a piece of wood to plow the fields or pull logs. The Israelites were yoked in slavery. God would remove that yoke from them.
We are yoked in the slavery of sin.
God promised that He would release them from that yoke. In the New Testament, God promised that He would release us from the burdens that we bear. God will also give us rest. Matthew 11:28 says,
"Come to me,
all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest."
Take my yoke upon you.
I will
free you from being slaves to them.
God would also free them from being slaves. As a matter of fact, Pharaoh not only freed the Israelites, he drove them out of Egypt.
We also have been freed from slavery. Hebrews 2:14-15 says,
"Since (we) have flesh and blood,
(Jesus) shared in our humanity so that
by His death
He might destroy him who holds the power of death
-that is, the devil-
and freed us who were held in slavery."
I will
redeem you
with an outstretched arm and
with mighty acts of judgment.
God kept his promise by buying them back from slavery. An outstretched arm was a way of showing power among the ancient Jews, similar to the way people flex their biceps today, to show their strength. The "mighty acts of judgment" obviously refer to the ten plagues that God would send down on Egypt before Pharaoh would finally let Israel go.
I will
take you as my own people.
What a great and wonderful promise that is to us! Similar words are used in the book of I Peter 2:9-10,
"But you are a chosen people,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation,
a people belonging to God,
that you may declare the praises of Him
who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people,
but now you are the people of God;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy."
I will
be your God.
"As God has said:
‘I will be their God, and
they will be my people.’"
II Corinthians 6:16
I will
bring you to the land I swore to your forefathers.
In Colossians 1:13 God has promised that He has rescued us from darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of His Son, who He loves.
"For he has rescued us from darkness and
brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves."
I will
give it to you as a possession.
The possession that God gives to you is certainly that glorious inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Ephesians 1:14
"…who is a deposit
guaranteeing our inheritance
until the redemption of those who are God’s possession."
The wisdom of God is displayed in the 6th chapter after our text. Those chapters lay out the 10 plagues and the Israelites exodus from Egypt. They had been released, just like God had promised in His covenant with them.
Where is the wisdom of God for us?
One terrible day, Jesus was taken to a place of execution, outside the city walls of Jerusalem. There, He was nailed to a cross, to die in agony between two criminals, as a common criminal.
We might be tempted to ask, "Where is the wisdom of God in that?" Could our God be a wise God who allowed His Son to be arrested and executed as a common criminal?" That seems more foolish than wise. And, yet, what happened three days after the crucifixion? It was the day of resurrection! Jesus’ resurrection brought the Good News that He had overcome death and was alive again!
Many people, since the resurrection, have questioned the resurrection and considered this sheer foolishness. When the apostle Paul heard about this, he declared, "To the philosophers and the people whom this world calls ‘wise’, it seems utterly foolish to think that one man’s death could atone for the sins of the whole world and bring us back into fellowship with God.
Men have always sought for reconciliation with God. The Greeks tried it through their learning and their eloquence – and failed. The Jews could not find the way, even through a careful study and observance of their law. But God confounded all this worldly wisdom by the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. For the ‘foolishness’ of God is wiser than men, and the ‘weakness’ of God is stronger than men!" Summary of I Corinthians 1:20 – 25
The wisdom of God reached its highest glory in the coming of Jesus Christ. It was He who declared,
"I am the way,
the truth and
the life."
It was He who became the final and perfect solution to our salvation!
Amen.
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