The God Who Will Not Let Us Down

Sermon Summary / Transcript

Let me remind you of where we left off in Exodus 5. Moses had been sent back to Egypt by the
Lord (after 40 years in Midian) to march in to Pharaoh and order that he let God’s people go. So
he and Aaron went in and gave the order from the Lord—and Pharaoh refused, being stubborn
of heart. This great plan of deliverance seemed to be taking a great step backward as things for
the Israelites under slavery went from bad to worse. Pharaoh—who now thought that this was
just a ruse to try to get them a three-day holiday vacation and that they were too lazy to work for
him—said, “Now you have the same quota of bricks each day, but we will no longer provide you
with the straw.”
The people were upset with the foremen, and the foremen were upset with Moses and Aaron.
The people were angry, asking, “What have you done? You came here, and now you have
made things even worse for us. We were slaves under great oppression, but now we have an
even worse lot. Some great deliverer you are.” Then Moses begins to wonder if this is really a
good idea. Say what you will about Moses, at least in his complaint he turned to the Lord rather
than against the Lord (Exodus 5:22). When you have pain, questions, lamentations, or even
complaints, turn to the Lord, not against the Lord.
Moses is upset. He has two questions and one complaint for the Lord. Question 1: “Why have
You done this? You made things worse for the people.” Question 2: “Why did You send me?”
Then one complaint: in essence, he says “Lord, since I’ve come here, Pharaoh has made things
worse, and You have not made things any better.”
I imagine that most of us have come to the Lord with questions or complaints like that before.
Have you ever cried out—maybe verbally, or maybe just in your spirit—“God, why would You do
this?” It could be a simple thing like not being able to sleep at night. That can be terrible. Maybe
as you get older you can’t sleep, and you’re up hours at a time. Maybe it’s because you have
little children crying. I’ve had many a night hearing a child cry and thinking to myself, “In all of
Your good providences, what purpose could this possibly have?”
Maybe you are still single, wondering “Lord, why would You do this? I want to be married. I want
to be a good husband (or wife). I’m not asking for a bad thing.” Maybe you want to have
children. “Lord, they are a blessing. Why won’t You bless me with a child?” Maybe you have
problems with your children. “God, why would You do this? I know we’re not perfect, but we
prayed, brought them to church, and read the Bible. We’ve tried to do the best that we can.”
Maybe you’ve been sick. Maybe nobody even sees the trouble that it gives you just to get out of
bed each day and make it through life, and you keep praying and say, “Lord, why don’t I get any
better?”

Maybe you have a temptation that’s still there after all these years. You still look at that website.
Why doesn’t the Lord just remove that temptation? Maybe you’re attracted to people of the
same sex. You’ve prayed and prayed and prayed: “Lord, I don’t want that.” Or maybe you’ve
have a proclivity to drinking or drugs. “Lord, why would You do this?” It’s not the Lord who
tempts us and leads us, but you know what I’m saying. You ask, “Lord, why? I don’t know if I
can keep doing this. I don’t know what You’re doing in all of this, Lord.”
I’ll never forget one of the very first people to see me as a new pastor. I was all of the ripe old
age of 25 or 26. Why anybody would come to see me, I don’t know. This man was maybe 10 or
15 years older than I was at the time. He had a successful career in athletics. He was a strong
man, a sort of man’s man—man who some people were intimidated of. A good man, but a
strong man.
I’ll never forget how he came, sat down, and shared a little bit. We had some pleasantries. Then
he started breaking out in tears and was telling me about his three or four kids. Their youngest
was a special-needs child. She had a lot of special needs and he was not sleeping. He showed
me once the bed that they had to make for this little child. It almost had to be a sort of cage just
to keep her in. She was absolutely violent. They loved her to pieces, but they were just at their
wits end, not knowing what to do. He was fighting back tears. He never told me exactly why he
came to see me, but I think he was looking for someone to tell him that it was okay that he and
his wife were considering if there was a special home that might be able to provide some care
for their daughter that they weren’t able to provide. But I could just see on his face something
that I certainly hadn’t experienced. He was absolutely wearied by the trials of life and a sense
of, “Lord, I believe in You. Why is this still happening?”
Do you ever come to the Lord and ask, “Why did You send me?” Maybe it’s your school. “Why
did You send me?” Maybe this isn’t your country. You’re from a long ways away, and you’ve had
those moments. “I don’t know why I’m here.” Maybe it’s the job you’re in. “God, I don’t
understand why You let me take this path.” “Lord, why did You send me into this marriage? It
wasn’t what I expected.” “Lord, why did You send me to parent these children? This is so much
more difficult than I could have ever imagined. What are You doing? Why are You sending me?”
Do you ever come to God with a complaint like Moses’? “Lord, I’m trying to do the right thing,
but I don’t feel like You’re doing Your part.” That’s what Moses felt like. “You sent me. I listened.
I’m here. I did what You told me to do, but I’m not sure that You’re keeping your end of the
bargain.” That was Moses’ complaint. It might be your complaint.
So what does God say? Follow along in Exodus 6:1-9:

1 But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to
Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong
hand he will drive them out of his land.”
2  God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord.  3  I appeared to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name
the Lord 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 lived as sojourners. 5  Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the
people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have
remembered my covenant.  6  Say therefore to the people 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 slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an
outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.  7  I will take you to be
my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am
the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of
the Egyptians.  8  I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I
am the Lord.’”  9  Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not
listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.
(Exodus 6:1-9)

The Core Concept
You can see the introductory statement in verse 1. The Lord says, “Moses, I know you’re
worried, but let Me reiterate. This is not going to fail. Not only will this not fail, but I’m telling you
that Pharaoh will send them out with a strong arm. He will want to get rid of you.” Then, in
verses 2-8, we have the main argument. God has something to say to Moses, and something to
say to the Israelites through Moses. Those are the two halves that we’re going to be looking at.
Did you notice the big idea? It’s repeated three times in verses 2, 6, and 8. God says, “I am the
Lord. I am YHWH.” This is the most important part of His reply and the fundamental issue of all
of the book of Exodus. Who is the Lord? “I am the Lord.” Your need is to know who God is. If he
could know who this God really is, it would answer Moses’ questions and respond to his
complaints. If he could simply and marvelously know the One to whom he is complaining, it
would make all the difference. But he doesn’t quite know yet.
I’m sure you’ve seen a clever commercial for Pepsi that’s been out for a few years. They have
this character, Uncle Drew, who’s Kyrie Irving, a famous basketball player. He’s dressed up like
this old man, and he’s got a white beard and some baggy sweatpants on. They set this whole
thing up, and it’s staged that people don’t know who this guy really is. So they’re playing a late-
night pick-up game of basketball in some urban center. There are all of these really impressive
people there—and then here comes this old guy, Uncle Drew, who just happens to be an NBA
superstar. But he’s all dressed up. When you see this guy who looks at first like he’s creaking
out his back and can barely walk, and he starts dunking over people, it’s a clever commercial.
They have done several since then. If they would have known who this was, it would have made
all the difference in their confidence. They would have said, “We want that old guy on our team.”
Parents, isn’t this what you want to communicate to your children in their pain, anger,
complaints, and suffering? You want to look them in the eye and say, “I’m your father.” “I’m your
mom.” What does that mean? On the face of it, they might say, “I know that. I’ve known that my
whole life. You’re mom. You’re dad.” But what would you mean? “Look at me. I’m your dad. I’ve
taken care of you. You don’t know what I’ve sacrificed to love you, feed you, and clothe you, and
I love you more than you can possible ever fathom.”

You realize this when you have kids: as much as you love your mom and dad, you have no idea
how much they love you. In saying, “I’m your dad”, “I’m your mom”, you’re saying, “I love you so
much. I know what I’m doing. I only want what is best for you. Would you please trust me? I am
your dad!” All of that is wrapped up here in this simple statement: “I am the Lord.”
Notice He begins with that phrase in verse 2. He begins verse 6, the speech to the Israelites,
with that same statement. He ends the whole thing in verse 9 by reissuing this statement of self-
identification. This was their fundamental need. It is our fundamental need. You need to know
the Lord—not casually, not just a few things about Him. If you really know Him, you will be
changed. Look in the Bible. No one comes away from an encounter with the Lord unaffected. It
may not always lead immediately to faith. It may lead to cowering in fear. But no one comes to
an encounter with the Lord and is unmoved. You need to know who this God is.

God Addresses Moses
God says four things to Moses: “Let me tell you what I have done for you and your people: I
appeared, I established, I have heard, and I have remembered. I appeared to your fathers
(verse 3). I knew them. I was their God.” So He’s looking backwards into the past. Then you
have this line, which has been difficult for a lot of scholars, at the end of verse 3:
3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by
my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.

(Exodus 6:3)
The difficulty is that you see ‘LORD’ in small capital letters, so this is YHWH (or Jehovah). The
Lord, the divine name is what’s being translated here. The difficulty is that YHWH, “the LORD”,
occurs more than 100 times in Genesis. Genesis 4:26, for example, says,
At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.

(Genesis 4:26b)
How can it be that we have ‘the LORD’ more than 100 times in Genesis; and in Genesis 4,
people called on the name of the Lord; and yet Exodus 6:3 says that they did not know Him as
the LORD?
If you were to go to seminary, you would probably learn in your first semester about this thing
called the “documentary hypothesis”. You don’t have to know anything about it now, but what
you’d learn is that liberal German scholars a century ago, largely because of this verse, thought,
“Hmm… the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) must not have been written by Moses,
but must have been written by four different authors. There was an author called the YHWH-ist
or the Jehovah-ist. When he uses ‘the Lord’, that’s him writing. Then there was another author.
We’ll call him the Elohim-ist, because that’s the word for ‘God’. When he doesn’t use the word
‘Lord’ that’s him writing. Then there’s a priestly author, and then there’s another one who
compiled Deuteronomy. So there’s four people that compiled the whole book.

They divided all the five books of the Bible up into all of these little fragments and said, “One
person didn’t write this. Moses didn’t write this. Look, there was obviously some confusion here.
There was one strand of tradition that said that they didn’t know the Lord and there was another
strand that said that they did know the Lord. So they tried to patch it all together.” It’s largely
been discredited, even among more liberal Christians. They say, “That just seems rather
speculative.”
But how do we understand, then, why we have ‘the Lord’ 100 times in Genesis, and yet here in
verse 3 it says that they didn’t know the name of the Lord? Here’s the best explanation, and
many other people have said the same thing: although they knew the name, ‘the LORD,’ they did
not yet know the full identity of the LORD. They knew that there was this title, ‘YHWH.’ But this is
a turning point in God’s revealing of Himself in that they will fully understand what it means for
Him to be the LORD.
Let me give you an illustration. Especially when I was starting out as a pastor, my dear mother
would sometimes tell me, “Now remember, when you’re talking to someone, or somebody’s
suffering, or maybe even a family member is having a difficult time,” she’d say, “I want you to be
Pastor Kevin.” It was sort of her reminder of, “I don’t want you to be normal, Kevin, like you grew
up. I want you to be Pastor Kevin. I want you to ask good questions. I want you to think, and I
want you to pray, okay? I want you to put on your pastor hat. I want you to be a pastor, to
remember that!”
It could have been that there were people in my life who well knew that I was Pastor Kevin. I
had been to seminary. I had been ordained. I was Reverend Kevin DeYoung. But perhaps,
needing to grow in my own understanding—which is not what the Lord does, but just for
illustration—there might have been people earlier in ministry (hopefully fewer now) who would
say, “I knew Pastor Kevin, but I didn’t really experience him as Pastor Kevin.” I had to grow into
something. I had to show more. There was a name, there was a title, but I wasn’t fully realized.
You might have that in your own life as perhaps a mom, a dad, a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher.
There’s this name, and people know you by that name, and yet the full identity of it needs to be
revealed.
Well, God wasn’t lacking. He didn’t need to grow up in any way. But their understanding was
deficient. They knew the name, the title—and yet, now something will change, and they will see
something about the Lord that they had not known before.
They had known Him as God Almighty. You can see the little footnote. That’s a Hebrew phrase
that may be familiar to some of you: “El Shaddai”. In the Latin it’s ‘omnipotence’: the omnipotent
One. In Greek it is ‘Ponto Crator’: the all-powerful. The best explanation of the Hebrew is that it
may mean ‘One of the mountain.’ El Shaddai, the almighty Strong One. They knew God as this
almighty, strong, sovereign Lord. What they did not know as fully was this sovereign Lord as
their Redeemer. It was not knowledge of the name itself that eluded them, but an understanding
of all that the name signified. What is new in verse 3 is the revelation of God as Savior: that the
Lord sees and hears their plight and has purposed to deliver them. “I appeared to your fathers.
Now even more have I appeared to you, Moses. I established My covenant. I made promises. I
have a plan.”

Do you know that God has a plan? Have you ever been driving or riding with somebody, and
that person has no plan? They’re faking it: “Have you been to Saskatchewan before? Do you
know where we are?” “Sure!” You realize they don’t. They’re driving and trying to look at their
phone. They don’t know where they’re going. Some of us think that with God. We’re in the
passenger seat, trying to be patient as He takes another wrong turn. God takes us through
some backwoods shortcut—and all of a sudden, we end up in the middle of Saskatchewan. We
finally say, “God, what are you doing? You don’t know how to drive!” But He does.
“I established my covenant. I have a plan. I’ve had promises.” You see the third thing that He
says? “I have heard. I’m listening, Moses. I’m not ignoring you.” We saw the importance of God
simply hearing you in your distress in chapter 2. Doesn’t it make all the difference when you are
talking and your friend looks you in the eye, and she hears you, she’s nodding, and she’s
listening? Doesn’t it make all the difference when the doctor takes time to ask questions and
say, “I want to hear more. Tell me what that’s been like. What exactly are you feeling?” You can
see that he’s listening and writing down. He hears you. Doesn’t it make all the difference when
your spouse will put down the phone, not multitask for two minutes, but just sit, listen, and hear.
God says, “Moses, I’ve been leaning in. I know you can’t see me, but I’m listening. I hear you. I
appeared. I established. I have heard.”
Then the fourth thing He says is, “I have remembered.” See that in verse 5? “I’ve not forgotten
all that I promised.” Much of what we read at the end of chapter 2 is now being reiterated,
except God is now making sure that Moses understands who He is. Remember the end of
chapter 2? God heard their groaning. God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac,
and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew. It’s beautiful.
At that point, it’s simply the narration of what’s going on behind the scenes. Who’s writing this
but Moses? And how does Moses know that God knew, heard, saw, and remembered? How
could he write that in chapter 2? He could write that in chapter 2 because here in chapter 6, God
tells him, “I’ve been listening. I haven’t forgot.”
God is not helpless. He is not too busy. He is not too small. He is not indifferent. He is not
surprised by your suffering. He is not rolling His eyes. He is the Lord. The first thing God does is
say, “Moses, I have something to say to you. I am the Lord. I appeared, I established, I heard,
and I remembered. I’m the Lord.”

God Addresses the People
These are a beautiful few verses—verses that speak of God’s great plan of redemption. With
Moses, He looks to the past and says, “Let me tell you four things that I already done.” Here
with Israel, He looks to the future and says, “Let me tell you seven things that I’m going to do.”
There are seven promises of salvation here. Number 1: “I will bring you out from the burdens of
the Egyptians.” Number 2: “I will deliver you from slavery to them.” Number three: “I will redeem
you with an outstretched arm.” Number four: “I will take you to be my people.’ Number five: “I
will be your God.” Number six: “I will bring you into the land I swore to give you.” Number seven:
“I will give it to you for a possession.” He’s piling up promise after promise after promise—seven
of them. “I’ll take you to be My people.” Just like Boaz needed to wait for the nearest kinsman
redeemer to step down so that he might become the kinsman redeemer and save Ruth, so the
Lord says, “I will make you My people. I will draw near to you that I might be your kinsman
redeemer. I’ll give you the land.”
It’s not just, “You’ll be in it.” Remember, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were in the Promised Land,
but they were sojourners. He says, “I’m going to give it to you.” They hadn’t owned anything
except for a little cave. You remember that story in Genesis 23? It’s a curious story, so you
wonder, “Why in the world are we spending a whole chapter here to talk about Sarah being
dead, them buying a tomb here for her in the cave of Macpelah, and the bartering that they do
to buy it?” Because it signified their faith in the promise! “We’re going to buy a little cave here, a
little burial site, because we believe God’s promise that one day this whole land will be ours.”
That’s all they ever owned. But God says, “That’s going to change.” What liberating, freeing,
rescuing, adopting, loving, lavishing good news! God says, “I am going to give you a better,
abiding possession.”
Now think of these seven promises to the Israelites, and think of how much greater are the
promises that Christ makes to us. To the Israelites: “I will bring you out from the burdens of the
Egyptians.” Jesus says to us: “I will make your yoke easy and your burdens light!” “I will deliver
you from slavery to the Egyptians!” Hebrews 2:15:

[I will] deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong
slavery.

(Hebrews 2:15)

“I will redeem you with an outstretched arm!” the Lord says. Jesus says, “I will redeem you from
the power and the penalty of sin, because I give my life as a ransom for sinners.” “I will take you
to be my people, Israel.” Ephesians 2: “I will bring you near to Me, you who were far from Me,
alienated from Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in
the world.” “Israel, I will be your God!” Revelation 21:3. “I will dwell with you. You will be My
people, and I will be with you as your God.” “Israel, I will bring you into the land that I promised
to give you.” Jesus: “I will go and prepare a place for you and come again and take you to
Myself, that where I am, there you may also be.” “Israel, I will give it to you as a possession.”
Jesus: “I will give you your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world.” Matthew 25:34.
Our God loves to make promises—and as His people, we often struggle to believe them. Do
you see what happens in verse 9? I find verse 9 to be an absolutely remarkable verse. It is, on
the one hand, exceptionally sad and, on the other hand, amazingly tender and realistic. Moses
spoke all of these promises to the people of Israel: seven promises of redemption, of liberating
grace, of freedom from slavery, of a new land, of a possession, to be their God and they to be
His people. But they did not listen to Moses. Why? Because of their broken spirit and their harsh
slavery. As one commentator puts it,

“The ‘I wills’ of salvation lead to an “I won’t” from God’s people.

“I will, I will, I will!” The Lord says. “I won’t believe you,” God’s people say. They could not hear
the promises of God because of their pain. They could not see through their suffering. You could
translate the Hebrew literally: they did not listen because of “the shortness of wind” or the
“shortness of spirit”. They’re panting. They’re out of breath. One commentator paraphrases it as
“demoralization brought on by exhaustion”. I’m sure that describes some of you.
“Demoralization brought on by exhaustion” is what you are feeling. You’re too hurt to hear and
too burdened to believe. It’s all too human that we turn the “I wills” of God’s salvation into the “I
won’ts” of unbelief. When you are tempted to turn the “I will” into an “I won’t”, you need to step
back and try to get a clearer picture of this God.
That’s what God is trying to do for Moses and the Israelites. That’s why He says three times,“I
am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. If you knew Me, you would trust Me. If you could
begin to grasp all that it means that I am the Lord…” And maybe a lot of us were like the
Israelites were in verse 3. We knew God. We knew Him as God Almighty. Maybe you know
something about God. You know true things about God. Maybe even you have a kind of
relationship with God, but it’s incomplete. You know God in your head and in your good theology
to be strong, powerful, mighty, and sovereign. But you’re struggling to believe and to know that
He is strong, powerful, mighty, and sovereign for you, His child.
You do not know Him—or at least in this moment you are struggling to experience Him as a
maker, defender, redeemer, and friend. Brothers and sisters, do you know that God has
promised us everything in Christ? Abraham knew the Lord as a promise maker. Moses knew
Him as a promise keeper. But we know the One in whom all the promises are yes and amen.
Just think of Romans 8:

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the
Spirit is life because of righteousness.

(Romans 8:1, 10)

In Christ,

…[we] did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but [we]
have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!
Father!”

(Romans 8:15)

In Christ,

…the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the
glory that is to be revealed to us.

(Romans 8:18)

And in Christ, we know that

32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will
he not also with him graciously give us all things?
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor
things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:32, 38-9)

All of the promises are, “Yes and amen!” in Christ.
Think in this advent season of all the prophecies of the Old Testament that find their yes and
amen in Christ. All the promises that people waited for and did not see, all the fulfillment that
they kept longing for, hoping for, and waiting for, would one day be realized. There would be
One born of the seed of the woman, and He would crush the head of the serpent. He would be
Abraham’s offspring, descended of the tribe of Judah, heir to the throne of David, born of a
virgin in Bethlehem, preceded by the messenger of the covenant. He was a prophet like Moses,
a priest like Melchizedek, and a king like David. As the prophet said, He entered Jerusalem on a
donkey, He was betrayed by His friends, He was sold for thirty pieces of silver, and was
accused by false witnesses. As Isaiah tells us, He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted. He was
hated without cause, crucified by transgressors, buried by the rich in His death, and given
vinegar and gall to drink. He was pierced for our transgressions and wounded for our iniquities.
Not one of His bones was broken. He was buried in a tomb, and He rose from the dead on the
third day according to the Scriptures. All promises, all waiting, and all one day realized, because
God remembered.
We have to take the long view. Moses had much more good news coming than he could even
fathom. Friends, you have much more good news coming than you can even fathom. No eye
has seen, no ear has heard, and no tongue can recite the good things that God has for those
who love Him. He remembered His covenant in Exodus. He remembered His covenant on that
silent night, holy night. He remembered His covenant on resurrection morning. He will
remember His covenant to you. Every “I will” of divine promise ends up as an “I did” of gospel
deliverance. God has not forgotten who you are. Let us not forget who He is.