Word of Salvation – Vol.48 No.45 – December 2003
Waiting , Waiting, Waiting – Or: Waiting for Deliverance
Advent Sermon by Rev P Abetz
on Exodus 4:29 – 5:21
Scripture Readings: Exodus 1:6-14; 4:29 – 5:21
Suggested Hymns: BoW 250; 520
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of my pet hates is ringing up a business or Government department and being put on hold. I hear those familiar words: all our operators are busy at the moment. Your call is important to us, please hold. Often I think – If it was that important to you, you would employ a few more staff. Another thing I hate is when I am in a hurry, and I get to every traffic light just as it is turning red.
Waiting is not an easy thing. We want action. And we want it NOW! These days a tradesman who does not have a mobile phone finds it hard to stay in business. People want to know NOW when you can come to fix their leaking pipe.
Advent is about waiting. Waiting for God to fulfil his promise to bring about the redemption of His people. Today we will look at the lead-up to the Exodus from the perspective of God keeping his people waiting for the promised deliverance.
1. Waiting for deliverance in Egypt
The Israelites had come into Egypt as a family group of just 70 people, but now they were very numerous. Out of fear that they might turn against them during a war, the Egyptian Pharaoh had enslaved them, and used them ruthlessly by forced labour, building cities and making bricks. Because they continued to increase in numbers, the Egyptians had every baby boy thrown into the Nile.
The oppression was horrendous. Then Moses reluctantly comes on the scene. God had told Aaron to go and meet Moses in the wilderness (Ex 4:27). He met him at the mountain of God and Moses told Aaron everything God had told him to say and do (Ex 4:28).
Moses and Aaron then gathered the elders of the Israelites, explained to them how God had called Moses, and how God was committed to liberating them from their slavery and bringing them into the land which God had promised the descendants of Abraham.
Just in case they might not want to believe what they were being told, Moses performed miraculous signs in front of the people (Ex 4:30). He threw down his cane and it turned into a snake, and then picked it up by the tail, and it became a cane again. He put his hand into his coat, and it came out leprous. He put it back in again, and it came out healthy. And then he took water from the Nile, and poured it on the ground, and it became blood. The people believed that Moses was indeed the person sent by God to liberate them. In fact we read that they bowed down and worshipped YAHWEH out of thankfulness for his concern about them (Ex 4:31).
Now that Moses had secured the support of the Israelite leaders, the time came for him to go to Pharaoh. He told Pharaoh, “This is what YAHWEH, the God of Israel says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert’.” (Ex 5:1). Pharaoh slights God by saying, “Who is this YAHWEH, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know YAHWEH, and I will not let Israel go” (Ex 5:2).
So, here, Pharaoh defies YAHWEH, because he is convinced that he is more powerful than any other god. And so he tells Moses and Aaron to tell the people to get back to work. Pharaoh is so annoyed! He’s fuming.
That same day he issues the order that the Israelites still had to produce the same number of bricks as before, but would not be provided with the straw for making them. It did not take long before the Israelites were not meeting their production targets. That resulted in the Israelite overseers being beaten up by the Egyptian officials.
The Israelite supervisors appealed to Pharaoh to review the situation, but he was not at all sympathetic. He called them lazy, and said that the reason they wanted to go out and sacrifice to YAHWEH was only because they were lazy. The Israelites realised they were in trouble. Moses and Aaron were waiting for the supervisors to come out from their audience with Pharaoh.
This was just a few days after they had bowed down and worshipped God because of His interest in them, and His concern for them. And now they called on God to bring judgment on Moses and Aaron for their dumb idea of taking the people out of Egypt (Ex 5:20).
Can you see what happened?
The pain of still harsher treatment by the Egyptians made them forget that they wanted to be liberated from slavery. They lost sight of the big picture. In those few days, their hope of liberation had given way to despair at the impossible task of gathering straw and still making the same number of bricks.
The fact that they had seen the miracles that Moses could work, which pointed to the fact that YAHWEH did indeed have the power to liberate them, that somehow meant nothing. Even Moses was confused. He says to God, “Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” (Ex 5:23).
The Israelites and Moses were not happy about having to wait for God to act. They wanted to be freed from their slavery NOW. Not tomorrow.
Like us, they are impatient. They did not like to wait. And they certainly were not prepared to see things get worse before they were liberated. But God kept them waiting. This waiting helped them to learn some important truths.
Firstly, they needed to learn that it was not their efforts, but God’s grace that would liberate them and allow them to occupy the land of Canaan.
Secondly, God was setting up a situation in which He would demonstrate to Pharaoh, the Egyptians, the Israelites, and indeed, the whole world, that He, YAHWEH, was indeed far more powerful than all the gods of Egypt. The Egyptians believed that Pharaoh was not just their king, but also their god. They believed that he was responsible for maintaining the life-giving Nile River and for the sun’s daily rising.
When Pharaoh resisted the call of God to let the people go, then God sent ten plagues. These plagues were not just given by God to force the issue. Rather, God sent the plagues to demonstrate that Israel’s God, YAHWEH, was in control of the cosmic order and not Pharaoh. Later, when the Egyptian army was closing in on them at the Red Sea and God rescued the Israelites by drowning the Egyptian army, it was a powerful reminder that God was more powerful than the gods of Egypt.
Thirdly, they needed to learn the truth that God always comes through. But in His time. These events are a powerful demonstration that God does things in His own time, not in ours. God keeps His Word. He is faithful. But He works to His own schedule, not ours!
It was a lesson the Israelites needed to learn, that God will always bring His plans to fruition, despite every form of resistance – even sometimes using the opposition of men to advance His purposes.
The Israelites felt that they had waited so long to be liberated from slavery in Egypt and to enter the promised land. While the Israelites probably thought of their being liberated from slavery in Egypt as an end in itself, God saw it differently.
As far as God was concerned, it was part of His promise that through the descendants of Abraham the whole world would be blessed, for through the line of Abraham, an even greater Liberator than Moses would come. One who would not just liberate from slavery to other human beings, but one who would liberate people from slavery to evil. The Exodus pointed to the liberation that Jesus Christ would bring.
But before we go further, let’s pick up on some of the lessons here. God has called us to advance against the kingdom of Satan. To claim all of life and the universe as belonging to Christ. God has promised the destruction of Satan’s kingdom and because of Christ’s victory that is now inevitable. But how quickly don’t we give up and forget our calling to make disciples of all nations, when we face opposition?
How quickly don’t we lose our focus? If there are internal difficulties in a church, it is so easy to focus on ourselves. And our focus becomes: I want to be comfortable. But we were not called to be comfortable! We were called to advance the kingdom of our Lord. We are called to occupy the land of the kingdom of darkness, for that land rightfully belongs to our Lord Jesus.
Like the Israelites, we want to take the easy option. They just wanted Pharaoh off their back. They wanted straw again for making their bricks. That was an urgent need. So often the seemingly urgent things take our focus away from what God wants us to be doing.
It is interesting to note that once God fulfilled His promise to bring the Israelites into the land of Palestine, they very quickly turned from the God who had freed them from their life of slavery and misery in Egypt. It seems they wanted their God to look like the familiar gods of Egypt and Canaan.
So while YAHWEH was creating a nation that would reflect His moral likeness, the Israelites were busy trying to create a god in their image. And that led to disaster for the Israelites – both nationally and personally.
2. Waiting for the Messiah
Part of the disaster that came upon them was that God allowed them to be taken into exile to Babylon. There they began to long for the promised Messiah, who would usher in the Messianic age of peace, prosperity and liberty, as outlined in Isaiah 9:6-7. And during their time of waiting, they unfortunately had developed a picture of what kind of Messiah they wanted. They envisaged him as a political Messiah who would lead them to renewed independence.
By the time that Jesus was born, God hadn’t spoken through prophets for over four hundred years, and the people were frustrated that they were still under the rule of Rome. The people were starting to wonder – when will the Messiah come? Why is God silent?
When in God’s good time the Messiah did finally come, the religious leaders did not recognise Him. The problem was that they had it all figured out as to what God needed to do. But again, God is not bound by our ideas of what He should do.
The Messiah came in the person of Jesus some 2000 years ago. God had ordered the events of history so that this would be an opportune time. By coming at that time, the Gospel message was able to spread rapidly throughout the developed world. Yes, God knew what He was doing.
Jesus, the Messiah came that human beings might be brought into a restored relationship with God. He did what was required – paying the penalty for sin, inaugurating the kingdom of God. And now all who believe in Him can turn to him and begin to live in relationship with God and be citizens of his kingdom.
But the Kingdom has not yet come in all its fullness. For that we must await the coming again of Jesus (Mt 24:30).
3. Waiting for the return of Jesus
Just as the Israelites were waiting to be liberated from slavery in Egypt, and the Jews in exile longed for the coming Messianic age, so we, today, await the return of Jesus.
How patiently are you waiting? Some Christians have given up hoping that Christ will return. Some people in the early church had expected Jesus to come back in their lifetime. They gave up their jobs, and just sat around waiting for the Lord to return.
Peter tells us that in the last days “scoffers will come who will say, where is this coming he promised” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
Over the last few hundred years there have been many within the Christian Church who have said that since we have waited 2000 years, Jesus obviously did not intend us to think of His return literally. So they have chosen to reinterpret this figuratively. They see the return of Christ in terms of us making the world a better place. So the return of Christ is no longer something that God does, but something that we need to achieve.
Others long for his coming so much that they are not focussed on building the Lord’s kingdom anymore. They are just marking time, waiting for the Lord to come. But we do well to heed 1 Thessalonians 4:11, which says, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind you own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
How are you waiting for the Lord’s return?
When we see horrendous evil, like terrorists flying planes into the World Trade Centre, or when we see the carnage of suicide bombers in Israel, or when we see the horrendous consequences of the myth sweeping southern Africa that when you are infected with aids and have sex with a virgin then you will be cured, resulting in thousands of little girls being raped, then we can cry out in frustration: Lord Jesus, why don’t you come back now and bring your kingdom to completion; bring all this evil to an end.
We can easily become impatient with the waiting. We need to ask ourselves – are we prepared to leave the time of Christ’s return to the Lord and in the meantime rejoice that we can proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes?
The apostle Peter wrote in his letter that we should not see the seeming delay in the Lord’s coming as a reluctance on His part to keep his promises. Rather, it is something that reflects God’s grace and mercy. For Peter tells us: “The Lord is not slow in keep his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
So let’s not be too harsh on the Israelites in Egypt for losing the focus on the liberty that God had promised. They were suffering. Any suffering is hard to take, and it is hard to watch. Suffering, or fear of suffering, can easily make us lose our focus for the kingdom.
By the same token, we can be so comfortable that we lose our Kingdom focus because we are so preoccupied with pursuing our comfortable lifestyles.
Conclusion:
Where are you at? How is your life shaped? What shapes our church life? Are we busy, seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness (Mt 6:33)? Or are we so busy with our own lives that we are indifferent to those who still live in darkness?
Are we so comfortable, because we know that Jesus died for us, and has purchased a place in heaven for us, that we forget our calling to be kingdom builders?
May this advent season serve as a reminder to be diligent for the Kingdom as we await the coming again of Jesus.
Let us pray:
Open our eyes O God, to see that nothing can successfully work against your purposes. Grant us the patience and the trust to be at rest in the security of knowing that you have all things in your hand, including the timing of the coming again of our Lord Jesus, when your kingdom will be brought to its final completion, and all evil will be banished. Father God, let the seeming delay in Jesus’ return serve to remind us afresh that our being in relationship with you is a gift of your grace. Help us to see more clearly our own responsibility to use this time of waiting to call others into the glorious liberty of new life in Jesus.
Amen.