Exodus 3

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We’ve studying loved ones the book of Exodus and the reason we are studying it is so that we
ourselves will be able to live by faith – by the faith that God wants for us in our everyday life.
You remember the context of Exodus 3 that we are looking at today. It is the context of the
Israelites being enslaved in Egypt for about 430 years. In that situation they in fact did not
deteriorate but instead went from about 70 people to about 3 million people when they eventually
came out of Egypt into the wilderness.

And it was in that situation that God called Moses to deliver them. What we are trying to see is
what we can learn ourselves about God’s purpose for our lives and his call upon us. You remember the
basis of God’s call in Exodus 3:7. “Then the LORD said, ‘I have seen the affliction of my people who
are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings.”

We said last Sunday that it doesn’t matter how much you feel sorry for the people that you visit in
the stores or how much you feel moved by the dreadful things that go on in our society, God can’t
work through your human sympathy or through mine. That’s because we’re always looking at people from
the effect of a drunken father on the children. Our human sympathy is always drawn out in a
humanistic way as to what the children are suffering or to what the wife is suffering or to what the
husband is suffering.

That isn’t the most dreadful thing about the situation at all. The most terrible thing is that they
are afflicting unbelievable torture upon Jesus, God’s own son, and also upon God’s own heart. That’s
the reality of it and everything else is incidental. You often see ones who did have drunken fathers
or mother’s years later and find that they have recovered remarkably well.

So many things that we think are deeply important in human predicaments are actually very temporary.
The only thing that finally remains is the hurt on God’s heart if that continues to be their
attitude. And so anything that we do has only value and is only real and is only worthwhile and only
effective if it rises up not from our human sympathy or pity for people or our sorrow for people but
if it rises up from God’s own heart.

In other words it’s only God’s passion and compassion if it comes from him into our hearts. He can’t
use my sympathy for Dan or Dan’s sympathy for me. He can’t use that because it is all finally
selfish. It’s always connected with, “I’m glad it’s not me.” Or, “I hope I never get into that
situation.” Or, “He’s my friend and I’m sorry for them because of that.” But the only compassion
that really works, whether it’s China or Africa or India is if it is Jesus’ heart of love for the
people coming out of our hearts. And that’s why we looked at Philippians 3:10. It’s one of the big
differences between humanists doing good and Christian love. Do gooding” is based on outward human
needs and comes from human sympathy and love. And it’s really love of one fallen child for another
fallen child. But God’s love comes from his own heart.

Philippians 3:10: “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his
sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” And it’s only when we are in Jesus ourselves and when
our whole world is bound by Jesus and unlimited by Jesus — I know it sounds so boring but Paul
said it. “I determined to know nothing amongst you except Christ and him crucified.” And you think
that’s bonkers. But that is right. That’s the whole of reality. When our own hearts are bound by

Jesus and soaked in Jesus and saturated with Jesus then is love is able to come out and achieve
through us what God wants to achieve.

I don’t want to drag the thing on but it’s so important to see that in this world all kinds of
people are running around doing God’s work. And they’ve never consulted God. They’ve haven’t a
notion how God feels about things. They are just doing what they think is inside the purpose of God.
But the only thing that really matters is when God himself is able to give us his heart so that he
feels with his heart through us.

It just reminds me of Trollop in one of his novels. He has a daughter saying to her mother, who
doesn’t want her to marry this man, “Mother, if you can see with my eyes and hear with my ears and
feel with my heart then you can judge with my judgment.” And she also means by that not only would
her mother judge with her judgment but she will be able to judge with her mother’s judgment. It’s
the same for us. If we can see with Jesus’ eyes and hear with Jesus’ ears and feel with Jesus’ heart
then we will be able to judge with his judgment. We’ll be able to see things as they really are.

It’s only in the context of reality that God can use us in our lives. So that’s the important of
that. The basis of God’s call is not our compassion but his own compassion. And that’s why he put
Moses on the back of the dessert mountain for 40 years to bring him to that place where he no longer
acted out of his own human sympathy. You remember he did that in Exodus 2:11.

Exodus 2:11– One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their
burdens; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that,
and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day,
behold, two Hebrews were struggling together; and he said to the man that did the wrong, “Why do you
strike your fellow?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me
as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid.

And so human sympathy brings you nowhere and does not enable God to act. So that’s where we left it
last time. It says next in Exodus 3:8, “And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk
and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites,
and the Jebusites.” And you remember it says, “I have come to deliver them.” Only God can deliver
people. You can’t.

Then Exodus 3:9 is important. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I
have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.” That’s important because that took
place back in Exodus 2:23. “In the course of those many days the king of Egypt died. And the people
of Israel groaned under their bondage, and cried out for help, and their cry under bondage came up
to God.” As far as they were concerned nothing had happened. They were still in slavery, miserable
and nothing had changed. But God had heard. In Exodus 3:9 — “And now, behold, the cry of the people
of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.”

God knew even back when they were in bondage and felt nothing was happening. In fact God knew back
in Exodus 1:11. “Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens; and
they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses.” Back then God knew. He knew back in verse
13. “So they made the people of Israel serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard
service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field; in all their work they made
them serve with rigor.” God heard up in Heaven their cries.

I think we are all the same. How long Lord? How long will I have to go through this? How long will
it be like this? And all the time God knows all about it and has already planned for our
deliverance. Even in the midst of our miserable and unhappy situations, God has already made plans.

I don’t know if you all remember but there were some wild newspapers that came out in the midst of
the Jesus days the early 70’s. But I remember very well one that had an excellent picture. It was a
picture done by a famous painter I think. It showed a quiet English countryside and it showed all
the people going about their business and then it showed Heaven up above and Hell. There was a huge
battle going on and Jesus was fighting on behalf of all the people down here. They didn’t know
anything about the fact that up above Jesus was fighting for them against the powers of the enemy.
It’s the same with us.

Down here where everything seems just normal and God doesn’t seem to be working, up above he’s
working on our behalf and everything is being laid out for us. So it’s so good to know that in the
midst of your situation God has already seen it and begun to work. The forces are in place to
deliver you and move you onto the next step.

We are people who live in two worlds. We live with our feet on this earth but we live with our heart
in God’s hands up in Heaven. That’s how so many of the old saints and servants were able to suffer
so much because they all the time were living in Heaven confident and saying, “Father I know that
you have already delivered me.”

There is so much to say. But when everything was black in Egypt that is when God said, “I have
heard…” God’s already heard your cry and he knows. And so in verse 10 he says to Moses. “Come, I
will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” ?But
Moses said to God, (and it’s the cry that thousands of us have echoed) “Who am I that I should go to
Pharaoh, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?”

And that’s a great stage to come to. It was so different from back there in Exodus 2:11. “One day,
when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens; and he saw an
Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. “He looked this way and that …..” And that was Moses
able himself to do it. He’s grown up and totally able to do it. And in that condition God can’t use
any man or woman. If you think you are able for it then God can’t use you. It’s only after 40 years
in the wilderness, looking after sheep that Moses was finally able to say, “Who am I that I should
go to Pharaoh?”

I know there are several of us here who have said, “Who am I?” That’s exactly the qualification
needed for God to use you – when you feel that you can’t do it. You’re right that you can’t do it.
It’s not so much that you can’t sing or speak or write. All those things are unimportant. The thing
is that you can’t deliver people. You can’t deliver people from bondage. You can’t by your clearest
explanation convince that lady in the store that Jesus is real. You can’t do that. It’s impossible.
Only God can do that.

That’s why when Moses expressed his own inadequacy; he was talking for all the rest of us that have
inadequacies. I do think that it’s important to see that the article you wrote is a good one. And
your singing is also good. So you can do those human things. It’s not inadequacy about those human
things. Those are incidental. You shouldn’t even think about those. But the important thing to see
is that your article can’t touch one heart. Only God can convince a heart. And your song cannot

touch one heart.

It’s not a matter of raising your article or your song to the level where it can achieve something.
It’s not that that achieves anything. In a way you could be tossing dice and if your heart was right
with Jesus he could use your heart to deliver people. So it’s there that you are inadequate. You’re
not able to deliver people or help them. And when you are aware of that then God is able to use you.

You said it in regard to your selling. In a way you feel helpless. All you can do is get yourself
into the store and get your presentation made. So you get yourself in there and make your
presentation and low and behold some other power seems to move the people. And that’s what it is.
It’s absolute consciousness of your own inability to change people spiritually. And that’s what
Moses experienced.

Then God assures Moses and us in Exodus 3:12. He said, “But I will be with you; and this shall be
the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you
shall serve God upon this mountain.” I used to wish that I had lived in the time of Moses when you
could get a sign like a rainbow. I felt if I had that I could blast ahead. I did have some
conviction about that wish because I knew we were to walk by faith and not by sight. I thought maybe
Moses had a bit of an advantage because he was allowed to walk by sight. But then when you read
this, “when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt…” you realize that God wasn’t going to
give any signs until AFTER he has brought them out of Egypt – not BEFORE. It’s a sign that would
come after the event that Moses would serve God upon this mountain.

Exodus 24:4-5—“And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD. And he rose early in the morning, and
built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of
Israel. ? And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed
peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.” And that’s when he and the people served God on that mountain
that he discovered in the days when nobody knew about him. But it was a sign to him after the actual
event. In actual fact he was required to walk by faith in the present situation. So that was the
call.

Maybe it would be good to look at God’s part and man’s part. Exodus 3:13 –“Then Moses said to God,
“If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’
and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” It’s really important for you to see
that it wasn’t a big deal whether he called God, Baal or Jehovah or Elohim or black and white…
that’s not the purpose of the name. When they talk about a name in the Bible it’s always referring
to the nature behind the name. And so Moses is saying what kind of person will I describe you to be?
What kind of person are you?

What this teaches you and me is that what people want to know is God’s nature. They want to know
what he is like and to do that you must know what he is like. You must know him yourself. I still
remember the pneumonic I learned at age 21 before I went into the ministry. It’s H-A-R-L
—Holiness, Almighty, Righteousness, and Love. That’s God’s nature.

So theologically it’s easy to describe God’s nature. But that’s not what this means. It doesn’t
mean that you’ve to know HARL. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got to describe God’s nature to people
intellectually and mentally. It means you’ve got to know God. You’ve to know his holiness yourself
because of your own dealings with him. You’ve to know his almightiness yourself by personal

experience because of your dealings with him. You’ve to know his righteousness yourself because that
will all come through your nature.

The store owner isn’t going to come up to you and ask what God is like so you can answer: well, He’s
holy, he’s almighty, and he’s righteous …. No! They have to touch God in you. Do you remember the
old saint that went into a room with someone and that person said to him, “Your life rebukes me.”
And that’s what it means.

To go to people to fulfill God’s purpose means his nature has to be your nature. You need to know
God in the quietness of your own heart. That’s why Moses spent 40 years in the dessert. I don’t know
how much time you spend alone with God but probably until we do a lot of that we don’t know God and
his nature does not become ours. It seems that it’s those long hours spent with God, sometimes in
states of predicament in your own life; it’s then when God’s own nature becomes your nature. You
come before people and they know God is in you. They can see God, they can touch his nature and they
know what he’s like.

School teachers often say children don’t do what you say but they do what you do. They don’t listen
to your word but they listen to your character. Children can read us better than the adults who have
learned to play the game with each other. But children can read your nature. They actually know your
nature. That’s why children can see through parents faster than anybody else. They know what really
makes the parent tick. They don’t listen to the outward show. In schools we always knew that anybody
but a flawless character would be spotted by the kids right away. Those classes would be chaos
because they knew they could push the teacher and he wouldn’t react against them. They knew they
could push him over the cliff and he still wouldn’t say anything.

It seems that what people do in the things that matter. They know your character when they come into
the store. They can see the kind of person you are and can receive God from you according to the
depth or shallowness of your character. That’s what all this altercation is about with knowing God’s
name. It was “what is your nature like? What is your character?” It’s really because Moses saw this
in his dealings with God that he was able to know this.

And so God says what his character is. Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” The footnote
says, “For I am what I am or I will be what I will be.” And in a way it could be the present tense
or the future tense but what it means is I am continually. I am what I am now and I will be what I
will be. I am self-existent and I am continuously the same. And I am forever. And there is in me no
time and no passage of time. I am the same all the time. That’s what gave the word Jehovah.

God was saying, “I am here all the time. I see everything in one great eternal moment and I am
continually in one situation and in one state. I am perpetual peace and perpetual rest right now and
always.” In other words God sees everything in one moment. If we could ever grasp that it would
bring us great peace. It takes revelation from God to bring it home to our heart but it would save
us from all worry and anxiety because it’s the heart of our faith in God.

John 8:56 – This is Jesus speaking — Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw
it and was glad.” It makes no sense apart from “I AM what I AM”. Abraham lived almost two thousand
years before Jesus. How could Abraham see it? Even the Jews saw that. John 8:57 –The Jews then said
to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them in the next verse, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” My

mind just reels at that. It’s even ungrammatical. And that’s it. It makes fun of all tenses. There
are no tenses in God. There is just one great present, eternal moment. Jesus is when Abraham was.
Jesus was right there all the time.

Now you know the importance to us in Psalm 139. If God is at all times, if he is absolutely eternal
and that is final reality and there is no such thing as time – present and future and past – then it
makes possible what we read in Psalm 139:13-16.“For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit
me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are
thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee, when I was being made in
secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in
thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was
none of them.”

That’s what God being “I AM” means. He saw all our life before it was yet lived. And he loves us and
he knows all that’s happening to us now. But he knows what is going to happen to us next week. He
knows what’s going to happen to us at the moment of our death and God is at peace so why should we
worry? Why should we have a moment of worry? If God our Father loves us so much that he gave us his
son Jesus, if he knows all that is going to happen to us and he’s at peace then we shouldn’t have a
moment’s worry or hesitation about our future.

And it’s that foreverness that comes home to people in your life – that sense of eternity that comes
home to people. People know whether your part of the flotsam and jetsam of this world, whether you
are part of the worry and anxiety or part of the change of the uncertainty or part of the terrible
fear of this world or whether your stable, steady and like a rock. And that’s what loved ones feel
from you. Only when you know your father like that will you sense that.

It takes away from you all flutter when you reach Friday with $400 in sales. It takes away all
flutter from you when the bank fails. It takes away all flutter from you when you get a flat tire.
It takes away all flutter in the heart when someone takes an attitude to you that you didn’t expect.
It takes away from you all flutter when you reach Friday with $400 in sales. It takes away all
flutter from you when the bank fails. It takes away all flutter from you when you get a flat tire.
It takes away all flutter in the heart when someone takes an attitude to you that you didn’t expect.

It takes away all that uncertainty and weakness and dreadful fiddler on a roof life. And that’s why
it’s vital to know God yourself and to know him in your own heart so that he can in fact declare his
nature. I’ll just go very quickly so that we can finish the chapter.

Exodus 3:15-18—God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of
your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: this
is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Go and gather the
elders of Israel together, and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to
you in Egypt; and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, to the land of
the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land
flowing with milk and honey.”

And here’s the glorious thing. When you begin to do what God tells you to do which is pretty much
become like him, let his nature dwell in you so that others can see it, — when you do that, all you

have to do is go through the door of the store and God does everything else. And here it is in verse
18. “And they will hearken to your voice….” God will give them ears. “And they will hearken to your
voice. I just saw the importance of that when Irene was reading the lesson.

Isaiah 6:9-11 — And he said, “Go, and say to this people: ‘Hear and hear, but do not understand;
see and see, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut
their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their
hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” In other words it’s God that looks down upon people and sees where
their will is really going and then in the light of that makes their ears heavy so that they cannot
hear. And it’s God also that enables people to hear. “And they will hearken to your voice…” God
gives ears to store owners.

Exodus 3:18-20 — “And they will hearken to your voice; and you and the elders of Israel shall go to
the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, we
pray you, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our
God.’ I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I
will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all the wonders which I will do in it; after that he
will let you go.”

God will motivate people. If you are thinking how will I make them hear and how will I explain?
That’s not your business. God will enable them to hear. God will motive them. All you’ve to do is
become like God and let his nature dwell in you. It goes even further in Exodus 3: 21a – “And I will
give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.” He’ll take care of your reputation. He’ll
establish your position of respect in the eyes and ears of the people who are listening to you.

Exodus 3:21b – 22 —“and when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her
neighbor, and of her who sojourns in her house, jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you
shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; thus you shall despoil the Egyptians.”

God will provide prosperity for you. So whatever God calls you to do he will make people hear, he
will motivate people, he will give you favor in their sight and provide for whatever you need. And
all we have to do is obey God’s call. But most of all during whatever 40 years he gives us get to
know God. Do you know God or do you know about God?

Remember how Paul said it in Philippians 3:10. There is only one way. We hate to think of it but
there is only one way. “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection…” And how did he come
to that? It’s in Philippians 3:7-11—“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of
Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I
may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that
which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know
him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

There’s only one way to know Jesus and that is to go through whatever suffering and whatever
deprivation he asks you to. Then you know him in your heart. Let us pray.