Who Is the Lord

That I Should Obey?

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Even those with little or no understanding of who God is, recognize this man's name. He has left his mark on history and on religion as probably no other person who ever lived, except for Jesus, Himself. Every Jewish child and every Christian child who has any contact with God's word knows his name. His name is Moses, and he is the living legend God is using to speak to us at the moment. But it did not all begin well, did it?

We have looked at his strange beginnings, his affluent childhood, his dismal failure in his first attempt to deliver his people, his escape to Midian, his forty long years in no-man's-land and in the last lesson, at his miraculous call at the burning bush. It was at that burning bush that we saw God get his attention, speak his name, "Moses, Moses," and there Moses responded, "Here am I, Lord." God advised him to take off his shoes because he was standing in the presence of God, on holy ground.

There God spoke gently to Moses and revealed that He both knew and cared about the afflictions of His children in Egypt, and there our loving God outlined His plan for deliverance. Moses seemed awed, inspired and encouraged until God said, "Moses, there is My plan; you are My man." It isn't difficult to get inspired, even choked up over God's eternal plan of the ages to deliver His children. The problem comes when God fills in the blanks with our name and tells us to go, because we are a part of the solution. It is at that point that we identify with Moses' five arguments with God. These five arguments were:

1- "Lord, Who am I that I should go?" God answered, "You are not going, We are going. Now, let's get going."

2- Moses responded, "Well, who are You in case they ask?" God answered, "I AM the eternal I AM. Go tell them I AM sent you. They will respond, I promise."

3- But Moses reacts with, "They still might not listen. How about a sign, Lord?" God graciously responded with three signs. He turned the rod into a snake, then into a rod again. He turned Moses' hand to that of a leper, then made it whole again. If He needed to, He promised, He would even take water from the Nile and turn it into blood. Then He turns to Moses and says, "Now go!"

4- Moses bounced back like a yo-yo with this argument: "But, Lord, I am not eloquent." God replied, "Who made your mouth, Moses? You go, I will give you the words to speak."

5- Then came our hero's final noble, cry, "No, Lord, send someone else."

It was at this point that God got angry with Moses and unveiled His alternate plan. First, enter Aaron, Moses' new PA system. The plan goes on, with or without Moses. God was going to deliver His people. Still, His first string quarterback, Moses, our tongue-tied Tarzan, would be the reluctant deliverer. To whatever degree he would let God use him; God was going to use him. No more, no less. But though he had humility confused with uselessness, God still had time to teach him what quiet availability was all about. This is because a reluctant, self-conscious stutterer is still better raw material to God than the wild-eyed Wonder Boy of forty years ago. The man who confuses humility with worthlessness can still be taught how to lead, but the man who mistakes usability with importance takes a lot of chipping away to get him back down to size.

So Moses had his marching orders. The wonderful plan of God makes its entrance into the pages of history. The people of God are afflicted. The man of God is selected. The plan of God is injected into the bloodstream of a dying world. It was an injection that was but a prelude to the ultimate cure, the transfusion of eternity through the blood of Jesus Christ yet to come. This lesson will show that while God's plans are perfect, His clock runs to a different beat than ours. As we learned a few weeks ago, to God, the process itself is as vital as the end. So we see develop in this passage, a series of circumstances. This lesson is entitled, "Who Is the Lord, That I Should Obey?" We will cover Exodus 4:19- 6:9. The outline looks like this:

I. The Response of Zipporah To God's Demands (Exodus 4:19-26)

II. The Response of the People To God's Promise (Exodus 4:27-31)

III. The Response of Pharaoh (Exodus 5:1-19)

IV. The Response of the People to God's Delay (Exodus 5:20-21)

V. The Response of Moses To God's Test (Exodus 5:22-23)

VI. The Response of God to Moses (Exodus 6:1-8)

VII. The Response of the People to God's Encouragement (Exodus 6:9)

We will first look at circumstance number one. It involves obedience and circumcision. Our most notable response comes from Moses' beloved wife, Zipporah. We take up where we left off in Exodus 4:19. As we concluded verse 18 it said:

18 Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace."

19 Now the LORD said to Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead."

20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, in order to return to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand.

21 And the LORD said to Moses, "When you get back to Egypt, you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let My people go.

22 "Then you say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is My son, My first-born'.

23 "So I said to you, 'Let My son go,' but you have refused to. Behold, I will kill your son, your first-born."

24 Now it came about at the lodging place along the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.

25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and threw it at Moses' feet and said, "You are a bridegroom of blood to me."

26 So God let him alone and she said that because of the circumcision.

So they are ready to leave. God has given Moses last minute instructions. Moses packs his belongings and crowds his family into the world's first Volkswagen. I say that because the Bible tells us that he mounted them all on one donkey. Verse 24 tells us that they stopped at an inn somewhere along the way. A near tragedy occurred there. God appeared in some form, we don't know how, maybe an angel with a sword drawn, but the issue at stake was something simple. The issue was Moses' continued ability to breath. You might call it a matter of life and death. The underlying issue was Moses' disobedience to the matter of circumcision.

Back in Genesis 17:14, God had made a specific sentence of death on anyone who neglected to obey the command of circumcision. Of course, in the case of children, the judgment fell upon the parents, first of all, always on the father. Now Moses, apparently out of deference to his Midianite wife, who we can see from this passage was repulsed by this idea, had neglected to obey where Eliezar was concerned. Here God arrests him, stops him and says, "I must slay you." Was God being unreasonable? It would seem so to the natural mind. But the answer would have to be scripturally, definitely not. There were at least four reasons God had act. These reasons were:

1- Circumcision was a sign of God's covenant with His people. It was the expression of the renunciation of confidence in the flesh. It was, as it was with all of God's principles of life, as much as what it stood for as the act of obedience itself. God had to act.

2- Subsequently, it was a stated law with specific consequences. God had already pronounced the sentence years before and if He ignored it now, it would make His Word of no effect. God had to keep His Word.

3- Moses was to be God's leader. Leadership involved example. God does require more implicit obedience and more intense accountability from those who shepherd the flock, the flock of the church and the flock of the family. If Moses didn't have to obey such a critical command, how could he demand such obedience from his followers?

4- This was a time of great crisis. The whole of history would hinge on the events that were about to unfold. Throughout all of history when God's people stand on the threshold of battle, God turns the mirror of His commandments back into their face and says, "Take inventory." To march into the battle, the encumbrances, the weights, the besetting sins must go.

This was such a time in history. Today is such a time in history. Even now the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is receiving its orders from God's selective service board. Such orders carry with them an entrance exam, an inventory, and a call to get right, so that we can get ready. Moses apparently was rendered helpless, so Zipporah grudgingly complies in what seems to be an act of outer obedience, but inward bitterness. At any rate, Moses sends Zipporah and the boys back to Dad. They were to remain there until Israel arrived at Sinai. Moses proceeds toward Egypt alone. As Moses proceeds, he meets his long lost brother. Genesis 4:

27 Now the LORD said to Aaron, "Go meet Moses in the wilderness," so he went and met him at the mountain of God and they embraced.

28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD that He had sent him and all the signs He commanded him to do.

29 Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel;

30 and Aaron spoke the words the LORD had spoken to Moses and performed the signs in the sight of the people.

Here we have instant fellowship between two brothers who had been separated for nearly 80 years, raised in two different cultures. But, they were brothers still, brothers by birth and brothers by the common calling they had in God. Thus it was a grand time of reunion. Moses' first job was to bring Aaron up to date and tell him everything God had said and done. Then they arrived in Egypt and called all of the elders of Israel together. You might call it a Freedom Rally. Aaron did the preaching. Moses, you remember, was tongue-tied. Either Aaron or Moses, which one the passage doesn't tell us, demonstrated God's wonders. You remember the snake and stick routine along with Jehovah's instant cure for leprosy. Both go back to Exodus 3, and were for one reason. God told Moses, "These miracles are that they might believe." Let's go back now to Exodus 4:

31 So the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, they bowed and worshipped.

Here we have the first step of real belief. When they heard that the LORD was concerned, they bowed and worshipped. Now you file that in your memory for future reference. They heard God promise to deliver them and saw God perform miracles. On the basis of what God could do for them, they believed. It was a very shallow kind of belief, as we shall see in a few minutes. It was a belief that was based on what God can to for me rather than who God is. It tends to shatter beneath the blows of life, but it was all they needed at this stage of the battle and it was all God had to work with.

On the surface, here is what we have: a mighty God, a shaky leader and a people with only surface allegiance, ready to take on one of the world's mightiest empires. It doesn't sound like a good match does it? It does sound to me like God's typical army. The key is the power of God. Now begins chapter 5 of Exodus and a whole new chapter in the life of Moses. He must actually come face to face with Pharaoh.

1 And afterwards Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.' "

2 But Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice that I should let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go."

Underline Pharaoh's response in verse two. Now we don't know for sure, but it is probably safe to assume that Moses, God's reluctant errand boy, was shaking all over about this time. You can just hear him say, "Aaron, my brother, you can just go on without me. I have a headache. I hate to miss the fun, Aaron, but I will just rest up here at the Cairo Hilton for a few months, you just keep me informed." But scared or not, Moses and Aaron were ushered into the presence of the courts of the king. There they were to see pure elegance and awesome respect surrounding the throne. Surely Moses' mind must have raced back to his childhood, his years as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, to his crucial decision forty years before, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the children of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. He esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches than all of those in Egypt. All that stood before him could have been his, but he had chosen the better way.

Now Moses and his brother stood before the king and his subjects. They quoted the Word of God, "Thus sayeth the LORD," Aaron said and he seemed to say it with authority, "let My people go." Pharaoh's answer must be one of the most honest in all of history. He answers them with a question. He says, "Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?" Then he makes this profound observation, "I do not know the Lord, so I won't let Israel go"

Who is the Lord that I should obey, I don't know the Lord. This is the response of a hostile world rebelling against being Christianized without knowing Christ.

So often a man or woman will come to you and weep before you with a broken heart for an unbelieving friend who has a broken marriage, a shattered job, wrecked finances or an immoral habit out of control. They have tried to communicate to that non-Christian about God's perspective of marriage and submission and principles of financial freedom. They have talked about God's concept of moral bondage. They look into semi-glazed eyes and see no light at all. They just can't understand. "They just don't listen," they complain. Of course not. What does the Scripture say? 1 Corinthians 2:

11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is within him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.

12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of which is of God that we might know the things freely given to us of God,

13 Which things also we speak, but not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.

16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Now let's take a look at a cross-section of the minds of three people. The first is an unbeliever with a natural mind, the second, an immature Christian who has the mind of Christ, but has not been given the chance to grow (or has not taken advantage of it) and a more mature Christian who has the mind of Christ in control of much of his life. Let's imagine that these same three people work where you do. They are all having trouble with their marriages, and you sit down with each one of them to explain God's perspective of marriage.

You tell them that marriage is a portrait of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church. Then you tell them how God intends it to be a permanent relationship, evidence of the security of the believer. You tell them how the husband is to love the wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. You tell them how he is to give up his rights, turn the other cheek and go the second mile. Let's imagine that your performance is a combination of Billy Graham, John McArthur and Chuck Swindoll all rolled into one. You are so impressed with what you said that you are ready to go home and make your own marriage even better. It was great. Beautiful.

There is just one problem. Chances are that you will get three responses from these three guys. Guy number three, Max Mature gets both convicted and excited. He knows that it is God's way and he just needed encouragement in applying it to his own marriage. The Holy Spirit touches his heart and chances are good that he will follow-up and God will honor His word.

Guy number two, Craig Carnal isn't so moved. He knows that it sounds right and he has heard it before, but what about his rights? Isn't this carrying that Christian bit too far? What about his wife, Susie Spiritual? She is not perfect, you know. He vacillates with one ear to the Word and one ear to the world. He may come around, but it will probably take time.

Guy number one, Andy Unbeliever makes the church scene now and then. He considers himself a Christian because he lives in America. He considers himself a pretty good Christian because he has never been to jail. First of all he doesn't even understand the terms you use. What do you mean by the "bride of Christ"? He didn't even know that Jesus was married. What do you mean "give up your rights"? What do you mean "eternal security"? If you are going to give him counsel, what not talk in English? Then secondly, he cannot relate to the principles you shared. Marriage is a give and take thing you know. Why should he give while she takes? Then thirdly, he doesn't have the capacity to do these things even if he tried. So the best you can do is frustrate him. How can he love his wife as Christ loved the church if the love of God doesn't dwell in him? You say, "Thus saith the Lord," He answers in one way or another, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey? I don't know the Lord."

That passage we read in 1 Corinthians says that the unbeliever can't receive spiritual truth because he doesn't even understand it. He can't understand it because it is de-coded and applied by the Holy Spirit and he doesn't have the Holy Spirit, not yet anyway.

The other illustration so often used is the radio illustration. Suppose you have an AM radio in your car. You hear about this neat FM station. You get in your car and you twist the dial until it breaks off in your hand, but you can't get the FM station. Why? Is it not being broadcast? Sure, the airwaves are full of the signals. You can slip your hand out the window, grab a fistful of air and slam it against the dash and say, "FM!" But nothing happens. Why? There is no receiver and no capacity to translate those kinds of signals into sound. But, you buy an FM adapter that plugs into your radio and right away through the same speaker you've got it. What did you do? You converted it.

My friend, Pharaoh's problem is an old one. He didn't know the Lord. He knew about Him. He knew about His people. But he didn't know the Lord. He had never personally been plugged into God and been converted. Nicodemus had the same problem. "How can I get the benefits of the Kingdom?" he asked, "What do I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered, "You must be born again. You must receive the Holy Spirit, then you can be spiritual and do spiritual things." The problem is that we want to Christianize men and God wants to convert them. We want them to live the Christian life. God wants them to have the Christian life by having Christ.

You may be one of those who has been struggling and frustrated, trying to live like a Christian when in effect you have never become one. That is like trying to race in the Indy 500 with no wheels. You can make a lot of noise, but you are not going anywhere. Pharaoh's question was a good one. "Who is the Lord? Why obey somebody I don't know? I couldn't if I wanted to." The answer is to meet Him, to acknowledge the need of Him. The answer is to receive Him into your life once and for all. He will convert you. He will give you a whole new receiver. He will give you a new antenna with the capacity to take those garbled signals from the airwaves and turn them into beautiful music and understandable concepts. If you don't have Christ in your heart, you can ask Him in right now. Take a moment and ask God to convert you and take the receiver of His Spirit and place it into your life so that you can have His signal forever. You may pray something like this:

Dear Lord, I can't obey You. I don't know you. Right now I acknowledge that I don't. I acknowledge that I am a sinner and am in need of a Savior. I want Jesus Christ to come into my heart. Here He is now. Thank you Lord. Amen.

So Pharaoh knew not the Lord, and thus to obey the Word of the Lord made no sense to him. Instead, he was incensed that he was asked to. The result was a bitter pill. Aaron and Moses responded with these words. This is a paraphrase for the sake of time.

"Pharaoh, let us go. You will avoid the judgment of God." Pharaoh responded, "I think you guys are labor trouble makers. All you are trying to do is strike for shorter hours and easier work. Now move along." The same day, Pharaoh called in his foremen and give them new labor laws. The first was to leave the Hebrew quotas as they were. They still had to make the same number of bricks. The second was to not give them straw to make the bricks. They had to gather their own straw with the same quota. In verse nine, Pharaoh tells them to work so hard that they won't have time to think about God. So in verse 10-14, the taskmasters execute Pharaoh's plan. As you can expect, God's children were crushed. In verse 15, their leaders come with a bargaining session to Pharaoh:

15 The foreman of the sons of Israel came to Pharaoh and said, "Why are you doing this?

16 "There is no straw given to us, yet you keep saying, 'Make bricks.' You are beating us; but it is your own fault.'

17 But Pharaoh answered, "You are very lazy, that is why you are wanting to sacrifice to your Lord.

18 "You go to work. I will not give you any more straw, but I will expect the same amount of bricks."

19 The foremen of the sons of Israel could see that they were in trouble.

20 When they left Pharaoh's presence, Moses and Aaron were waiting with open arms.

21 They said to them, "May the Lord look upon you and judge you. You have made us smell in Pharaoh's sight. He wants to put a sword in his hand to kill us."

Now there was the response of God's people, they turned on God's leaders. They assumed that God was not going to deliver them at all. It had all been a smoke screen, a mirage, a box of empty promises as far as they were concerned. They had just gotten caught up in the emotion of the hour. The miracles were impressive, the promises were encouraging, but Moses and Aaron just didn't understand. How could they? They weren't out there finding straw and making bricks while sarcastic Egyptians yelled at them, "Where is your God now that you need Him?" The people thought that Moses and Aaron had just made things worse with the spiritual stuff they were telling them. Moses did what a good leader should do when the people were rebelling, he went back to the Lord.

22 Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, "O Lord, why hast Thou brought harm to Your people? Why did you ever send me?

23 "Ever since I came to Pharaoh, he has done harm to Your people. You have not delivered Your people at all."

Moses' perspective still had a long way to go. But at least he was honest with God in asking why. In verse 23, he told the Lord that he had done what the Lord had said, and things only got worse. In verse 22, he told God that He brought His own people harm. "Why did you send me?" he cried. The inference was "Why did You send me if You weren't going to keep Your Word?" From Moses' perspective, he had obeyed and then things got worse. From God's perspective, things were right on time. If Moses had paid careful attention to the Word of God, he would have known it. He didn't need to be surprised. Back in Midian, God had warned him that Pharaoh's heart would be hardened at the mere mention of God. He told Moses that it would take a series of catastrophes to break him. Moses was getting the heat from the troops so he gave the heat to God. "Lord why?" he asked. "We did what You said and things got worse, Lord why?" That is an extremely popular complaint from people who are trying to obey, but are unfamiliar with the ways of God.

They enter the ramp on the freeway of deliverance and expect God to have them arrive overnight at the Promised Land with the wind at their backs and the "Praise The Lord" banners waving in the breeze, having arrived to live happily ever after in a world of make-believe spirituality with cardboard Christians. But it doesn't happen. That freeway is a dead end street that leads to Frustration Village through Bitterness Road. If you start living life God's way, chances are that circumstances may get worse. You may encounter new problems, new conflicts, new decisions.

God's way is the slow way. It is not an instant experience or a perfected process. It takes time to change character. Usually it takes testing and trouble. God will take you down the back road, the out of the way route, down what looks like a dead end until by faith you drive through it. It may be called death to self or death to a vision. He will take you past Two-Mile Island where you have to yield the right of way and wait even as the Hebrews were waiting.

You will need refueling from time to time, and you will have to stop at a Supreme Filling Station. Don't worry, your bill has been paid in full. You will drive through storms and learn to stop at the road side park and rest along the way. You will pass over a bridge that is under water so that His tow truck of love described in Jeremiah can pull you through without even getting you wet, "They will not overflow you!" God promises.

He will take you through the deserts of life and the only water you will have is the Water of Life. It may even be through the deeper valley where few men ever go. But He will take you as well up Mountaintop Drive and Miracle Ridge and will wind your way up Maturity Lane, eventually into the Promised Land. He hasn't failed you. He will deliver you. Daily, He will deliver you through the experiences of life, and eventually He will deliver you into the eternity of eternities, but the circumstances, the yielding, the resting, the refueling, the deserts, and the rivers are all a part of the process.

When the children of Israel saw the miracles and heard the promises, they joined the team. When they learned they had to pay their dues, they screamed at the coach. The coach banged his head against the locker and said, "Oh, Lord, why?" As usual, God patiently answered our frustrated leader in chapter 6. Read verses 1-8 and take special note of verses 6-8. Oh, the faithfulness of God. He knows His ways are higher than ours. He knows how hard it is for us to understand. Again and again He listens to us say, "Lord, why?" Again and again He says, "Because I AM. I AM the LORD."

Have you ever wondered why God keeps repeating the same things over and over again in scripture? It is because we keep asking the same questions over and over. Have you ever had a yam sandwich? Moses got an I AM sandwich in chapter 6:6-8 special delivery from God's Delicatessen of Promises. It goes like this:

I AM the LORD. I will bring you out. I will deliver you. I will redeem you. I will take you for My People. I will be your God. I will bring you into the land. I will give you the land to possess it. I AM the LORD.

God tells Moses to relax; that everything is on schedule. The I AM is in perfect control. "Moses, I will snatch you up and carry you as My prized personal possession. I will be responsible for you. I will be available to you. I will give you the abundant life you ask for. I will let you live in the sheer beauty of it. I AM the LORD, Moses. If you fully understand that, you would never again ask Me, 'Why?' You would never again accuse Me of leading you astray. Sure, things will get worse. I am leading you out to lead you in. You didn't think Satan would roll over and die, did you? We have a fight on our hands, Moses. But remember, the battle is not yours, it is Mine," God tells Moses.

So Moses was refreshed and revived from his contact with God. He returned to the people to explain the problem to them. The problem was that he had been alone with God and changed his perspective. They had been out making bricks and they were not in a good mood at all. Let's look:

9 So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they wouldn't listen to Moses because they were despondent and because they were in bondage.

The King James Version that they hearkened not. They were in love with the God of deliverance, the God of signs, the God of action, the God of circumstances, a God who prospers their business, makes them healthy, gets rid of their enemies, waves a magic wand and makes it all okay. God's man, however, progressively falls in love with a God of silence, a God of delays, a God of deeper purposes, a God of slower ways. Above all, God's man never doubts God's Word. He knows for certain that God keeps His promises, always. He has never once failed. But he knows, as well, that God may not use our road map. He probably won't slip us on the freeway of instant circumstances and speed us home. If you decide to do it God's way, it may get tougher for awhile. A lot of you know what I mean. It doesn't mean God's Word has changed. It may simply mean that He wants to take you the back way so that you can get to know Him.

That is the process of deliverance, getting to know Him, the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. It involves being willing to become conformed to His death in order to experience His life. Wouldn't you just want to take Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel and shake them and jar them a little and say, "Calm down. God is. God is in perfect control." Maybe we have missed the point. Maybe we ought to say it to ourselves instead. Maybe we ought to end this lesson by reminding ourselves quietly that God is and God isÊin perfect control.

Dear Lord, forgive us. We're just like Moses and the children of Israel. We want to get where you're taking us; we just don't want to take your route to get there. Please forgive us. You alone know the terrain. You alone know our hearts. You alone can take us where we need to go. Dear God, we give ourselves to thee, this moment, once again. If we need forty years in the desert, so be it. You are the Lord. We must obey. Amen.

For Focus and Application

1- Reread Moses' five arguments with God. Bring them into today's world. Ask yourself how and when and why you have used the same arguments when God was dealing with you. Why do they seem so ridiculous when Moses gives them and so "natural" when we do?

2- Describe God's anger with Moses. What was the problem? Why does God get angry? How does God's anger differ from ours? What was Moses saying to God when he refused to speak for God?

3- Why did God's anger reoccur in Exodus 4:24? What was Moses refusing to do? What was it saying to God?

4- Was Moses measured by a higher standard than others with respect to his obedience? Why? What Scriptural basis do you find for this? Can you find a modern-day parallel?

5- Are you surprised that Moses and Aaron were immediately reconciled and had fellowship after 75 years of separation?

6- What was the basis of their faith in Exodus 4:31? Why does this kind of faith falter when the heat is on? Why didn't God just write them off and raise up a new people? Can you liken this kind of faith to today's Christian world?

7- Read Pharaoh's answer again in Exodus 5:1-2. Why does this question sound so familiar to us?

8- Memorize I Corinthians 2:14.

9- Consider the issue discussed on pages 8 and 9. There are three people you know who need marriage encouragement. One is a non-believer, one an immature believer, and one a growing Christian. Why must you approach their marriage problem differently? How would you approach the non-believer? What if you were not sure he or she was a Christian? Would you assume they were? Why is this so vital in Christian counseling?

10- What was Pharaoh's response to God's request? How did the children of Israel respond? Who did they take it out on? Find a modern-day parallel.

11- Consider Moses' argument with God in verses 22 and 23. How patient God is. Have you ever said that to God? What was your problem?

12- Moses was learning to be a leader. What qualities did he lack at this point? How was God going to save His people with this kind of leadership? Why didn't He give up and start over with someone else? Aren't you glad?