Exodus 4-6

Day 20

If I get up any earlier it will have been yesterday!!!! Yawn! I won at Bunco last night!!  I got the "most wins".....$20 to the Country Dove Tea Room! Yummers!   :)  We always have a good time!  

Chapter 4  "Signs for Moses."  Poor Moses.  He was called by God  to speak to the King on behalf of his entire people & nation....and he had a speech problem and stuttered.   This part of the story seems to make you think that God was a magician....but after all....He is God!  He can do anything.  Moses was wondering how he was going to get the Israelites to believe him or to listen to him.  So....God gave him the little stick/staff that could be turned into a snake and then back again.   Harry Potter isn't in the Bible, but the magic was a popular thing of the times.  So, Moses was given this power to be a "mockery" of sorts to the superstitions. He  could put his hand in his pocket, pull it out and he had leprosy.  Put it back in, and he was healed.  God then said if the people didn't believe the first two signs he was then to take some water from the Nile River and pour it on the dry ground and it would  turn into blood.  So Moses can handle all of that but he keeps insisting that his mouth is not his best asset.  Therefore, Aaron is appointed to be "the mouth" of God.  Moses was to tell Aaron what to say he would speak to the people for God through Moses.  He was a divine spokesperson. (Did that make him a ventriloquist then??!)  

So, Moses returns to his people and tries to rally the troops of his people!  He wants them to remain faithful and give them hope that God hears their groaning from slavery!  God promises to harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will not let the people go.  Then Moses meets up with Aaron in the desert, the Israelites learn that God has not forgotten them in their misery, and they bow down and worshiped.

Chapter 5     Talk about a job that goes from bad to worse...the Israelite slaves have to make bricks with straw.  They had been given the straw at first to make all of the bricks.  But now, because Pharaoh's heart is hardened toward the Israelites, they have to keep make bricks, the same amount everyday, but they now have to go find their own straw to use. My footnotes say that there is one Egyptian site (of ruins...not of "web") that has three types of bricks....the first layer is with straw; the second layer is only stubble of straw and the third layer has no straw or stubble at all.....hum....just as the Bible says!  Imagine that!   :)  Pharaoh is horrible and terrible to the Israelite people....they get yelled at, called lazy, and cry out to God.  Moses and Aaron see Pharaoh and say, in the name of God, you will be judged (v.21).  Moses goes back to talk to the Lord and Moses asks him, "why have you brought trouble upon this people?"  Don't we feel like that sometimes....why God, why?!  It seems as if the more Moses talked to Pharaoh, the harder his heart became.  And Moses questions God....why haven't you saved them?  Why haven't you rescued them??   I think we are told that it isn't okay to question God......but realize that if Moses questioned Him....we can too! I really think its okay.....just don't give Him your own answers to YOUR questions....at least wait for God's answers!! 

Chapter 6  OH! I love the first verse here!  "Then the Lord said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh!"  Uh-oh!!!!  Better watch out!!!!!!!!  :)   God says that because of His might hand, Pharaoh will let the people go.  And because of God's mighty hand, Pharaoh will drive the people out of the country!!!  Now sing with me...."Pharaoh, Pharaoh.....oh, Pharaoh, let my people go!  Uh! ya, ya ya ya!" 

Moses goes and tells the Israelites that God is coming for them!  That God will bring them out to the land he promised to their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.   Tell them that I will be their God and I will take them as my own.  Tell them that I will free them from being slaves! What hope! What joy!  But....the poor Israelites....they were so downtrodden and so discouraged by their bondage...all they did was not listen.  How often does that happen to us.  So caught up in our own "misery" that we can't see, hear, find, or seek God?  And He's right there all along!!  He's right there!!  He's ready to free you, to save you, to love you...and you keep missing Him!!  Quit making bricks and find God!  Then God even tells Moses to go tell Pharaoh to let the people go.  Moses says, "If my own people won't listen to me, why would Pharaoh? For I have faltering lips?"   Nothing like ending the story with a question.  Well, there is a whole page of ancestry listed...you know...."the sons of such and such were so and so..."  Moses then says again, why would Pharaoh listen to my faltering lips?  Because God will use you Moses....if you just let Him.   If you just let God use you, guide you, and fulfill His will for your life....you will be blessed.   Amen? Amen!!!