"I Am the LORD"

[0:00] I hate to break it off when you guys are having such a good time enjoying one another's company, but let's turn in our Bibles to Exodus. We're back in Exodus today, chapter 5, starting in verse 1.

[0:14] We'll go all the way to chapter 6, verse 9. Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, just as you revealed yourself to Moses, and to Israel, we know that today you are revealing more of yourself to us from your Word.

[0:42] So we incline our ears and our hearts to you. Show us that you are the faithful God, the God who is with us, the God who is completely trustworthy, even when every circumstance seems to indicate otherwise.

[1:08] Renew our faith in you and our love for you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Exodus chapter 5.

[1:21] Afterward, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

[1:34] But Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord.

[1:45] And moreover, I will not let Israel go. 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, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.

[2:03] But the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, Why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.

[2:15] And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens. The same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past.

[2:32] Let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past, you shall impose on them. You shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore, they cried, Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.

[2:47] Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words. So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, Thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw.

[3:01] Go and get your straw yourselves, wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least. So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt together, stubble for straw.

[3:13] The taskmasters were urgent, saying, Complete your work, your daily task, each day, as when there was straw. And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had said over them, were beaten and were asked, Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?

[3:33] Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, Why do you treat your servants like this? No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, Make bricks, and behold, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people.

[3:52] But he said, You are idle. You are idle. That is why you say, Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.

[4:04] The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.

[4:16] They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them as they came out from Pharaoh. And they said to them, The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made a stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.

[4:31] Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.

[4:50] 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.

[5:02] God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty. But by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them.

[5:18] I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

[5:31] 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.

[5:46] 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.

[5:56] 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.

[6:09] Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. This is God's holy and authoritative word.

[6:23] Perhaps a few of us have lived what others would describe a charmed life. You haven't really encountered much suffering in or setbacks in your life, smooth sailing most of it.

[6:38] You come from a solid family. You've always been healthy. You went to a prestigious school, found a wonderful spouse, and now you make a lot of money, and you're well loved by everyone around you. But most of us, and probably even those of us who appear on the outside to have such a charmed life, have experienced significant pain and brokenness in our lives.

[7:00] Maybe you have an incurable disease that God has not healed you of. Maybe you have had miscarriages. Maybe you feel lonely, but God hasn't answered your prayer for a spouse.

[7:12] Maybe you have asked God to lift the cloud of depression or anxiety from your mind, but you still remain under its dark shadow. Perhaps you've faced a lot of rejections in your life, many disappointments, perhaps even abuse.

[7:27] So we become, because of these experiences, increasingly pessimistic and cynical as our pains linger unabated.

[7:40] And the Israelites were familiar with that experience. It says here in Exodus 6-9 that they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

[7:53] They had been oppressed for so long, disappointed so many times, that their spirit is broken. That's literally in Hebrew, the shortness of spirit. In the same way, when we're exercising strenuously, you experience shortness of breath.

[8:08] Here, due to the unrelenting oppression of the Egyptians, they're experiencing shortness of spirit. They lack courage. They lack life. They lack vitality. They lack hope.

[8:20] They're anguished and crushed in spirit. But in this passage, the Lord reminds such people that he is the Lord who keeps his promises despite appearances to the contrary.

[8:34] And we're going to see reasons why we can continue to trust in him and hope in him even when you're in those places in your life. First, we're going to see the failure of God's promises in verses 1-23, or the seeming failure.

[8:47] And then we're going to see the fulfillment of God's promises in chapter 6, verses 1-9. It's been two weeks away from Exodus, so let me remind you what happened last time when we were in chapter 4.

[8:58] When God sent Moses to go into Egypt and gather the elders of Israel to tell them about God's plan to deliver them, Moses protested to God in chapter 4, verse 1, Behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice.

[9:11] Despite the fact that God assured him that they will listen to his voice. But of course, when Moses obeys, they actually do listen to him. And Moses is pleasantly surprised.

[9:22] And so at this point, he's kind of on cloud nine. His meeting with the elders of Israel went much better than he anticipated. And now he feels, he and Aaron feel like they're on a roll.

[9:34] So with daring confidence, they march into Pharaoh. And this is what they say in chapter 5, verse 1. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

[9:52] There are a couple problems with this grand announcement. Because first, originally in chapter 3, verse 18, God had instructed Moses to go with the elders of Israel to confront Pharaoh.

[10:04] But here, according to verse 1, he goes by himself with Aaron. And then second, what they say to Pharaoh is not at all what God had told them to say to Pharaoh earlier in chapter 3, verse 18.

[10:14] Because God had told them to say, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. And now, please, let us go on a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

[10:25] much like the way you hold your cards close to your hand when you're playing a game and you don't let others figure out what you're planning or doing. Or like the way an army lays an ambush with the, you know, enduring war to trick an enemy into making a blunder.

[10:41] This was a strategic calculation to begin with a more diplomatic and palatable request of a temporary leave of absence before leaving Egypt permanently.

[10:53] So it was a way to test Pharaoh to show how stubbornly opposed he was to worship of the Lord. But perhaps, in their overweening confidence, Moses and Aaron skip all of that and they go straight to the end game.

[11:07] There's no please, there's no let us go on a three days journey, simply the unqualified demand, let my people go. But they run into a brick wall and Pharaoh responds in verse two, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

[11:27] I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go. The kings of Egypt back then were considered to be gods and they gladly indulged that fancy.

[11:40] As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Rachmir, who served as prime minister under Pharaoh Thutmose III and Amenhotep II in 5th century BC described Pharaoh this way, what is the king of upper and lower Egypt?

[11:52] He is a god by whose dealings one lives, the father and mother of all men, alone by himself, without an equal. The famous Pharaoh, Ramesses, his name means born of Ra, the Egyptian deity of the sun and he claimed to be the, formed in the image of Tatanen, the father of the gods.

[12:14] So considering these realities in Egypt, Pharaoh's disdainful response to Moses is not at all surprising. He's basically saying, who is Yahweh? I've never heard of him.

[12:26] I'm the god of these lands. I'm the one in charge. Why should I listen to him? Pharaoh thinks he's a somebody while the Lord is a nobody.

[12:39] So there's no way he's going to let the Israelites go. And Pharaoh's response aptly captures the heart of human rebellion against God. We have all sinned and rebelled against God in the same way.

[12:52] Even though we were created to worship God and to live for him, we say, who is the Lord? And that I should obey his voice. I do not know the Lord. Rather than acknowledging God's authority as our creator, we declare ourselves to be the authority of our own lives.

[13:09] We live like autocrats who rule our own little victims. As Romans 1.25 says, we have worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator.

[13:21] We did not see fit to acknowledge God as God. But Pharaoh's denial, I do not know the Lord, anticipates the refrain of chapter 6, verse 7, which says, you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

[13:37] Knowing God is a major refrain throughout the book of Exodus. Again and again in the book, the Lord says to the Israelites, you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

[13:48] And again and again, he says to the Egyptians, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel. So already, Moses here gives us a clue to this reality that they will come to know the Lord.

[14:05] Even though Pharaoh's asking who is the Lord, ironically, in this passage, God is named by his personal name, Yahweh, over and over again.

[14:17] Remember that whenever the word Lord appears in all caps, it's a translation of God's personal name in Hebrew. So in chapter 6, verse 2, the Lord reiterates how he has revealed himself to his people as Yahweh, but Pharaoh, on the other hand, is never named.

[14:34] Not in this passage and not anywhere else in the book. Pharaoh thinks he is somebody and that Yahweh is nobody, but the reality is exactly the opposite. The Lord is known and he will be known, but Pharaoh remains unknown to the readers of Exodus.

[14:53] The Lord will be remembered forever, but Pharaoh will be forgotten. And before long, Pharaoh himself will come to this conclusion. He will soon learn that he, the Lord, and not himself, is the authority in Egypt and everywhere else.

[15:10] And when he learns this, Pharaoh's unqualified no in this instance will be changed to an unconditional yes. The same is true for us, whether you know the Lord or not.

[15:25] Whether you acknowledge him or not. The day is coming as prophesied in Habakkuk 2, verse 14, when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

[15:39] The day is coming when we will have no choice but to acknowledge the Lord as God. Every knee will bow before him. Every tongue will confess his name and swear allegiance to him.

[15:51] The choice before us is whether we will do it as his willing subjects now or as his subdued enemies later. If you don't know the Lord, this is an opportunity for you to heed his word because he's speaking now from it.

[16:09] And after getting this hard no from Pharaoh in verse 2, we see Moses and Aaron kind of walking back their bold proposition of verse 1 and qualifying their demand in verse 3.

[16:20] 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 lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.

[16:35] So now they're saying something closer to what God had originally commanded them to say in chapter 3. So gone is the bold, thus says the Lord. And now they explain meekly the God of the Hebrews has met with us.

[16:49] Oh, you don't know the Lord? Well, he's the God of the Hebrews. You know them. You know us. You're slaves. Gone is the triumphant.

[17:00] Let my people go. Now they say, please let us go on a three days journey into the wilderness. That's not too much to ask, is it? But that's not all they say.

[17:12] Moses and Aaron also add their own touch. They portray the Lord as this vindictive deity who would punish the Israelites with pestilence or with the sword if they fail to go out into the wilderness to offer sacrifice.

[17:27] Look at what they say. Lest he fall upon us. The whole time in this verse us refers to the Israelites, not to all of Egypt. So he's saying, have pity on us, Pharaoh.

[17:38] It's not because we really want to do this. Our God is a little temperamental, you see. Prone to lose his temper. He might kill us if we don't go out into the wilderness.

[17:51] Please let us go. But Pharaoh doesn't budge. It says in verses four to five, but the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work?

[18:03] Get back to your burdens. And Pharaoh said, behold, the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their burdens. The Jews are a sizable workforce and Pharaoh doesn't want any supply chain issues.

[18:18] He wants enough bricks for all the building projects that he is working on. And this response shows just how oppressive of a tyrant Pharaoh really was.

[18:29] He treats Israelites like cattle. Their only value to them, to him is their labor. He doesn't care how heavy their burdens are. He's upset that Moses wants to make them rest from their burdens.

[18:41] This word rest is the verbal form of the Hebrew word for Sabbath. Later in Exodus 20, in the Ten Commandments, God will specifically command them to rest.

[18:53] Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. And then in Deuteronomy chapter 5, where the Sabbath command is repeated, Moses specifically gives this rationale for the command to rest.

[19:14] Quote, You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

[19:28] Pharaoh is a cruel and selfish master who demands work seven days a week. But the Lord is a gracious master and he commands his people to rest.

[19:41] God says we should not work all the time. Why? Because we're not slaves anymore. Who or what, if I may ask you, is the Pharaoh that you are enslaved to in your own life?

[19:55] Are you living for people's approval or for the applause of man? Do you want to accomplish big things in life so that you can finally be recognized?

[20:08] So you can prove yourself to others? Who is your Pharaoh? Are you living to please or satisfy other people? If we serve any other master but the Lord God who promises us rest for our souls, then we will be run into the ground.

[20:31] We will have to work without rest. In the Academy Award winning film Chariots of Fire, there's a poetic contrast between two gold medal winning Olympic sprinters, Harold Abrams and Eric Little.

[20:46] Harold Abrams runs for himself so he works tirelessly and even though he is incredibly successful, he feels empty and can't shake off this feeling of existential crisis.

[20:59] He says in the movie, and now in one hour's time, I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor four feet wide with ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence.

[21:13] But will I? Eric Little, on the other hand, runs for God. And when he finds out that the opening heat for the hundred meter dash is set for Sunday, he decides that he will not run on the Sabbath, not even in the Olympics.

[21:32] And so he skips the race and goes to church. I'm not necessarily endorsing that, but that was his conviction. I respect him for it. Why?

[21:44] Because he doesn't need to prove himself. He doesn't need the Olympic gold medal to justify his existence so he can rest.

[21:55] He ends up winning the gold medal anyway in a different event that was not even his best event. Only God can give rest for us from our burdens. You cannot justify your own existence.

[22:06] You must find your identity and fulfillment in God, in Christ. You cannot save yourself. You must believe in Jesus alone for your justification and salvation.

[22:19] Our gracious Lord, and Master, he's offering us rest from our burdens. But are you living like a servant of the Lord or like a servant of Pharaoh?

[22:30] The previous Pharaoh in chapter 1 thought that he could control the fast-growing Israelite population by keeping them under his thumb, under slavery.

[22:41] And this new Pharaoh's mentality is no different. He thinks the best way to keep the Israelites and put them back to work is to double down and be even harsher with them. So it says in verse 6-9, the same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, you shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks as in the past, let them go and gather straw for themselves.

[23:03] But the number of bricks that they made in the past, you shall impose on them. You shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, let us go and offer sacrifices to our God. Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to the lying words.

[23:19] So straw, during those days, was added to clay because straw is this, you know, fibrous, linear fiber that makes the brick more, I guess, stable instead of crumbling apart.

[23:33] And so that's why they put straw in there. And Pharaoh had a store of straws, but they are now refusing to give the straws. And the result is predictable. The Israelites failed to meet the quota, but then they get, the foremen get beaten up and it's the demand of them to bring the same amount of bricks.

[23:52] And notice how they make this announcement, the taskmasters. They say, thus says Pharaoh in verse 10. It's the exact contrast from verse 1. Thus says the Lord.

[24:06] There's an ongoing tension and conflict here in this passage between the Lord God and Pharaoh who is the anti-God. And Pharaoh's decree exposes his cruelty.

[24:17] It says that the Israelites in verse 12 have to scatter throughout the land together, stubble for straw. So stubble is what's left over after the harvest for straw is already done. The leftover part, the small part that's over.

[24:29] So that means the Egyptians already took all the straw. They harvested it all, put it in storage, and now they're refusing to give it to the Israelites. Instead, they're making, sending them back out to go get the leftovers.

[24:41] No wonder they can't find enough straw. And not only that, they're turning the Israelites against them. Notice that they appointed Jewish foremen to oversee the labors.

[24:53] They're from the people of Israel. They beat the foremen demanding that they bring, they produce the same number of bricks so that they themselves are forced to crack the whip on their own people to save their own backs.

[25:07] And the desperate Jewish foremen cry out to Pharaoh in verses 15 to 16, why do you treat your servants like this? No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, make bricks, and behold, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people.

[25:24] Notice how sadly servile the Israelites are in this verse. Three times, they reiterate their loyalty to Pharaoh by describing themselves as your servants.

[25:37] That's the noun form of the Hebrew verb that means to serve or to worship, and that's the word that God will use repeatedly, starting in Exodus 7, 16, to say, let my people go that they may serve me.

[25:51] Running through the book of Exodus is this overarching question, whom will you serve? Will the Israelites serve Pharaoh or will they serve Yafu'e? And at this point, they are decidedly choosing Pharaoh.

[26:07] We're your servants, Pharaoh. But these verses also make clear that they're choosing the wrong person because it says in verse 15 that they cried out to Pharaoh. And you saw Pharaoh's harsh response.

[26:21] But remember what happened earlier in the book in chapter 2, 23 to 24, when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, he said that their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God and God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

[26:40] God saw the people of Israel and God knew. That's what happened when they cried out to the Lord. They were heard, they were remembered, they were known by God.

[26:53] But when they cry out to Pharaoh, they get nothing but harsh oppression. Who are you crying out to for relief in your own life?

[27:05] In the pains and struggles of your own life, who are you crying out to? Are you crying out to the Lord who is attentive to even your faintest groans? Who is listening to you?

[27:15] Who is responding to you? Who hears you and sees you better than anyone else in the world? Or are you crying out to man? And since Pharaoh won't listen to them, the distressed Israelites confront Moses and Aaron in verse 21.

[27:32] The Lord look on you and judge because you have made a stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants and have put a sword in their hands to kill us. And then Moses turns around and blames God, attributes evil to God in the same way he attributed evil to Pharaoh.

[27:50] So it seems like the situation is getting only worse. It seems like God's promises have faltered and Moses asked, why did you send me here in the first place?

[28:01] But the Lord assures us in chapter 6 that his promises have not failed. Earlier in chapter 3, 19 to 20, God said that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand so I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it.

[28:19] After that, he will let you go. He says the same thing here in chapter 6, verse 1. He says, 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 hand.

[28:36] It's a little ambiguous here whose strong hand they're talking to. It could be referring to the Lord's strong hand. Because of the Lord's strong hand, the Pharaoh will let the Israelites go and drive them out. That's how a lot of translations have it.

[28:47] But the ESV intentionally leaves it ambiguous and I think that's good because it could also be ironic. Later in Exodus chapter 12, 33, it says that the Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste for they said, we shall all be dead.

[29:05] And the word translated urgent there is the exact same word that's translated here as strong. So they were strong. The Egyptians were strong with the people to send them out of the land in haste because they're so afraid of further punishment that might come to them.

[29:20] So remember what I said to you a few weeks ago that one of the frequently used titles for Pharaohs back in those days was the Lord of the strong arm. And so here, that very title, that very reputation is being challenged.

[29:36] The strong hand of Pharaoh is not going to be used to keep the Israelites enslaved, but instead, he will use his strong hand to release them.

[29:48] Instead of keeping them in his iron grip, in his strong hands, Pharaoh will have no choice but to send them away. I think this is a great image. Imagine like an arm wrestling champion, like Matthias' brother is an arm wrestling champion, and he imagined this, you know, enormous forearm with bulging biceps, and then he starts arm wrestling someone else, and his opponent is so strong that this champion just is getting thrown around like a rag doll.

[30:24] That's what's happening here to Pharaoh. The Lord of the strong arm used to liberate the people of Israel. That's what mighty king Pharaoh is going to look like.

[30:38] That's what the so-called God king is going to be reduced to. He will be thoroughly defeated and humiliated. And what follows in verses 2-8 is a remarkable set of reminders and promises by God.

[30:50] In verses 2-5, God reminds Moses of the four things that he has already done. He says, 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.

[31:04] Second, I established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Third, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves.

[31:16] And fourth, and I have remembered my covenant. So four things God has already done. And then in verses 6-8, God instructs Moses to tell the people of Israel that he will specifically fulfill all of his promises.

[31:29] And there's seven powerful I will statements. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

[31:44] I will take you to be my people. I will be your God. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession.

[31:56] And note well that from the beginning to the end, the whole speech is about what the Lord will do and not about what Moses and Aaron will do. Only the Lord can deliver Israel from their slavery and bring them into the promised land.

[32:10] Salvation belongs to the Lord from the beginning to the end. And this idea is reinforced by the repetition of the phrase, I am the Lord.

[32:22] Look at that. What God says to Moses begins with the assurance, I am the Lord. And what God says to the people of Israel, begins and ends with the same phrase, I am the Lord.

[32:33] And then smack dab at the center of what God says to Israel is the only statement of what the people will do and it's this, you shall know that I am the Lord, your God.

[32:46] That's the heart of what God is trying to communicate here. And why is God so emphatic about this? God, we get it. We know who you are. Why does he say it over and over again?

[32:57] We find the reason in verse 3, I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty. But by my name, the Lord, Yehovah, or Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them.

[33:12] This is an allusion to Genesis 17, 1 and Genesis 35, 11 where God reveals himself to Abraham and Jacob respectively as God Almighty or El Shaddai.

[33:23] And in both of those contexts, the name of God is connected to making the Israelites, the patriarchs, fruitful and multiply. And that's a promise that's already been fulfilled as we've seen in the first few chapters of the book of Exodus.

[33:40] But it's not that the patriarchs were completely unaware of the name Yahweh. God did reveal himself as that to them at two specific points in Genesis 15, 7 and Genesis 28, 13.

[33:53] Again, to Abraham and Jacob respectively. And interestingly, in both of those instances where God reveals himself to them as Yahweh prior to the Exodus, that name is connected to his promise that they will enter into the promised land.

[34:10] And that promise is not yet fulfilled. And I think that's the reason why there's this emphasis on the name of God because the times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the era of promise.

[34:21] But now is the time of fulfillment. Those patriarchs lived as sojourners in the promised land. But you, the Israelites, will now live as owners and possess it as your own.

[34:35] And it's the name, the Lord, Yahweh, that guarantees the fulfillment of these promises. It's like, it's a declaration. I am the Lord. It's like God's signature on the dotted line.

[34:48] He's telling the Israelites, you can go and cash this check in the bank because I am the Lord. Why? Do you remember what the name means?

[34:59] It means, I am who I am. It can also mean, I will be who I will be. It's timeless. And that's completely intentionally communicates God's presence in the past, presence, and the future.

[35:13] He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He was and is and will be. So another way to describe God is that He is unchanging. He is faithful.

[35:25] He is always true to Himself and to His promises. And that means His promises, His words, never fall to the ground. So the name of the Lord suggests that He is not only a promise maker, but He's also a promise keeper.

[35:42] And likewise, the name Yahweh, which means I am who I am, is derived from the Hebrew verb to be, and that's connected to God's promise to Moses in chapter 3, verse 12, I will be with you.

[35:55] That's the very meaning of God's proper name. God's name is God with us. He is the God who is with us. That means He has bound Himself up irrevocably with His people by the covenant.

[36:12] This is why over and over again throughout the scriptures, God's people appeal to God's deliverance saying, for the sake of your great name do such and such. Psalm 25, 11, for your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt.

[36:26] Psalm 31, 3, for your name's sake, you lead me and guide me. Psalm 143, 11, for your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life. Why does the psalmist think that pardoning his guilt and leading him and preserving his life is for the Lord's name's sake?

[36:43] Because the name of the Lord is on him. Because he belongs to God's chosen people. Ezekiel 20, 44 is particularly helpful here where the Lord says, you shall know that I am the Lord when I deal with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways, not according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel.

[37:11] He acts for the sake of his holy name. Let's say that your father agrees to sign, to be a cosigner on your mortgage loan. If you default on that loan, your father must assume legal responsibility to repay that loan.

[37:30] Because his name and his credit is now on the line. In a similar way, it falls on the Lord's name to bring Israel into the promised land.

[37:44] Because he has made a covenant with his people and said, these are the people on whom my name rests. Perhaps some of you are in a similar season in life like these Israelites in Egypt.

[38:01] You have a broken spirit, maybe a prolonged sickness, repeated failures and disappointments, persistent loneliness, and you're doubting God's goodness. But despite all appearances to the contrary, remember that the Lord is with you.

[38:17] His name is on you and that means His promises to you are guaranteed. And so he says in verse 6, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

[38:32] The word redeem, what does it mean to redeem? What does it mean to be a redeemer? A redeemer in Hebrew is literally the family protector. A redeemer was the nearest relative of a person who becomes poor and loses all of his property and has to sell himself into slavery.

[38:52] And if that happened to your relative and you're the redeemer, it was the redeemer's responsibility to go and pay the debt, redeem your relative so that he can be free and so that he can live in the land that God has given him.

[39:07] So this is literally what God is saying He's doing for us. His people, we have sinned against Him. We have a deficit. We are under slavery to sin. We have lost what was given to us and yet God says I will redeem.

[39:22] I will pay. I will sign because my name is on that people. I'm so grateful that that's the basis for God's promises to us.

[39:39] Can you imagine if it were up to us how often we sin, how often we fail God, how often we fall short of His glory?

[39:50] If it were up to us, you think God can be faithful. If it depended on us, you think God can deliver us time and time again but it does not depend on us.

[40:03] The assurance, the basis for our deliverance is not you are worthy, you are lovely, or you are righteous. righteous. No, it is. I am the Lord. I am the Lord.

[40:15] That's why I will deliver you. That's why I will save you and that's why I will redeem you. That's what God has done for us in Jesus.

[40:32] So He's called our Redeemer. He paid the debt that we could not pay. And because of that, because our Redeemer died on the cross for our sins, because our Redeemer signed the check, we are now stamped with the Spirit of God.

[40:59] It's God's declaration on us paid in full. my sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

[41:21] Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. Let's pray. God, we thank you.

[41:43] God, thank you that even though we are fickle, that you are faithful, that you are unchanging, and that your name is the Lord, Yahweh.

[42:00] God, because of that, you deserve all glory, all praise, all honor, all of our lives, all that we have, all that we are belong to you.

[42:15] You are our gracious master and you give us rest for our souls. Thank you.

[42:27] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.