I would like to ask you to turn with me to Exodus 3. Exodus 3.
I think probably this is one of the most familiar Bible stories. All of us—almost all of us, certainly—know it. But there are two things I would like us to take from this, and a few other sections.
We will begin in verse 1—the whole chapter.
And Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian:
and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness,
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush:
and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire,
and the bush was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight,
why the bush is not burnt.
And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,
God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses.
And he said, Here am I.
And He said, Draw not nigh hither:
put off thy shoes from off thy feet,
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Moreover He said, I am the God of thy father,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And Moses hid his face;
for he was afraid to look upon God.
And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people that are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters;
for I know their sorrows;
and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians,
and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey;
unto the place of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite,
and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
And now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto Me:
moreover I have seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh,
that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
Verse 11:
And Moses said unto God, Who am I,
that I should go unto Pharaoh,
and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
And He said, Certainly I will be with thee;
and this shall be the token unto thee, that I have sent thee:
when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt,
ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel,
and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you;
and they shall say to me, What is His name?
what shall I say unto them?
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM:
and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
I AM hath sent me unto you.
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you:
this is My name for ever,
and this is My memorial unto all generations.
Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them,
The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,
hath appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you,
and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:
and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt
unto the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite,
and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
And they shall hearken to thy voice:
and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt,
and ye shall say unto him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us:
and now let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness,
that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.
And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go,
no, not by a mighty hand.
And I will put forth My hand, and smite Egypt with all My wonders
which I will do in the midst thereof:
and after that he will let you go.
And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians:
and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
but every woman shall ask of her neighbor,
and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold,
and raiment:
and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters;
and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
Let us pray.
Lord, we believe Your Word is holy. We do ask, as we sung together just a moment ago, that You would break the Word of life to us. Unless Your Holy Spirit comes into our time together and anoints Your holy Word and breathes life into it, our time will be a waste.
But if You come, Lord, if You will by Your Holy Spirit lift up Your Word and open to our understanding what is behind the written page, then we will have understanding. Speak, Lord, as we wait upon You and as we worship You. In Jesus’ name, we ask it. Amen.
This portion of Scripture is probably, as I said, one of the best-known Bible stories there is. Every one of us, from the first days of our salvation, have heard or read this Bible story.
There are two things that stand out to me in this story, and I hope at the end of the sharing you will know what they are. If you do not, we really did waste time. But there are two things—just two things. It will not be so difficult. This will not be anything you have never heard before, but if we can lay hold of these two things, then I think our time will be profitable.
Our brothers often say they are confused about the titles of ministry, and I can understand that. I will make it easy for you, Terry. These two things, I would like to call “Two Essential Revelations.” That is very simple: two essential revelations.
Then, to make it hard on Terry, a second part of the title: “God’s Encouragement to His People.” I believe, in everything else, that is what this story in the book of Exodus is all about. God has two things to say to His people.
Those two things not only begin here at the very beginning of the people of God, but they carry right through the Old Testament record and all the way through to the end of the age. Now, I do not think we will have time today to go to the end of the age, but we might later.
So I hope you bear in mind that these things are not unique to this story. These two essential revelations are essential in the way God does His work. May the Lord help us, as we begin today, to really lay hold of what these two essential revelations are.
The first thing, though, you need to notice is the context of Exodus 3. The people of God, the children of Israel, are in crisis. There is no doubt about it. They are in extreme crisis.
They are in bondage in Egypt. They are under the hand of Pharaoh. They are exposed and compelled—not by choice, compelled—to do hard labor as slaves in the land of Egypt. Now, this is a crisis. This is a difficult crisis.
Brothers and sisters, one of the first things I take away from this story—and this is not one of the two essential revelations, by the way—is that God loves to move in a crisis.
How often, I think you may be able to confess this just as well as I can, how often God moves in crisis. How often God uses difficulties. How often God uses even darkness and dark places to reveal something more of His glory that He could not otherwise reveal.
I think that is a principle that holds true right through the Word of God, from the beginning to the end. I remember when David said in Psalm 4:1:
In pressure Thou hast enlarged me.
That is a principle. God uses crisis. He can do something in the midst of crisis that He cannot seem to do at other times.
I will date myself with this illustration, but I remember when we were first married—and I know nothing about cooking, so at least I will make a fool out of myself. Linda got this new contraption. It was a pressure cooker.
Now, I do not think anybody uses pressure cookers anymore, do they? Oh, do they? They still use them. I am not an antique.
With that thing, it was amazing. We could take beans, and what used to take so long to cook—a pot of beans—was done so very quickly with the pressure cooker. It did not take long, and those beans were ready, and they were the best beans you could have.
I remember that. That is my extent of kitchen knowledge. I bet I am the only guy in this room who still does not know where things are in the kitchen. Linda will not let me in there.
But this is a principle: “In pressure Thou hast enlarged me.” In that pressure cooker, God can do something with greater speed, greater efficiency. He can reveal Himself in ways that He could not do before. He can complete His work faster.
I hope you understand that principle. That is a principle of God’s Word. That is not one of the two essential revelations, but that is a principle in God’s Word.
I think you see it all through the Word of God. Think of Job just for a moment. It says of Job—I love this wonderful little phrase in the book of Job—that God spoke to Job in the whirlwind. Amazing. God speaks in the whirlwind.
God uses crisis to reveal Himself to His people. At the end of the book of Job, in Job 42:5, something happened in that pressure. God was able to do something unique in the life of Job:
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth Thee.
Brothers and sisters, that is revelation in darkness. Before, he had this sort of academic knowledge. Before, he had this understanding of God that maybe was not real. I think, if we think about it, that applies to a lot of us here in this room.
But when the Lord met him in the darkness, in the difficulty, in the crisis, and in the trial, something even greater happened. At the end of it, he could say, “I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee.”
We could go on all day. This could be the message, but I do not want it to be. God uses crisis very often to reveal Himself to His people.
Think of Paul. Would you have ever thought it was a good idea to take this champion of faith and stick him in a Roman prison? Would you ever, in your wildest imagination, if you were God, think that was just a good idea? What a waste. What a waste of years.
But do you know? Out of those prison letters came the glorious and highest revelation of God known to man. Out of those dark walls came the book of Ephesians. Jim is sharing with us on the book of Ephesians. Some have called Ephesians the high-water mark of revelation. We see the eternal purpose of God and our being included in it. That came out of trial, out of crisis.
Think of Colossians. They say the letter of Colossians is the highest revelation of the person of the Lord Jesus that has ever been written. It came out of those prison walls.
Think of Philippians. The joy of knowing Christ came out of that darkened dungeon. Think of Philemon—what a beautiful little book. The apostle is pleading for Onesimus, that this slave might be useful. We just might be useful to the Master.
That came out of the dungeon. That came out of the darkness. That came out of the crisis. Brothers and sisters, this is a principle.
So, when we turn to Exodus 3, I think we need to first recognize that they were in a great crisis. If you miss that singular point, you will not appreciate these two essential revelations. You never will.
It is in those circumstances that these things are revealed. They are in a helpless state of bondage. They could not deliver themselves. They were unable to get free. They were bound. That is in the very place that God, in His mercy, reveals Himself.
Now Moses himself was in a bit of a crisis. I think you understand from this story, when we read it. He had tried, in the strength of his youth, to deliver the children of Israel by his own effort.
I think you all know that story. He saw a child of Israel mistreated by an Egyptian, and he took matters into his own hands. He slew the Egyptian, and he buried him in the sand. He took matters into his own hands.
For that reward, he spent forty years in the wilderness tending his father-in-law’s sheep—not even his own sheep. So do you think that was maybe humiliating?
God used that crisis to reveal Himself to Moses in a way He could not do in the courts of Pharaoh. Truly, he learned something there that we need to learn.
So this is the context. I hope you at least understand the— I am accused of long introductions, by the way. I think that is probably an accurate accusation. I accept that verdict. But you have to understand the context, or the revelation does not have as much meaning.
In crisis, the Lord reveals Himself. Moses had tried. Moses had failed. The children of Israel were in extreme bondage, with no hope of any way out. That is the circumstance. That is the whole story.
Then God, in His mercy, appears and reveals Himself to Moses. Here is another—not the essential principle; you are waiting, I am baiting you, we are going to get there—often, in a time of crisis, the Lord reveals what we are, what we are really like.
He took Moses to this strange scene, a scene never comprehended before, perhaps never seen before. He showed Moses this thorn bush. In that thorn bush there was a flame of fire. The strange thing about that thorn bush was that it was not consumed by the flame of fire.
This is an oddity in the wilderness. There are thorn bushes everywhere. They are a dime a dozen. But always, in the heat of the desert, in the heat of the wilderness, when they are ignited—poof—they are gone.
The strange thing that held his attention at this revelation was that this thorn bush was not consumed. God put something in the thorn bush that made it last, and continue to last, and continue to last.
Now, here I think the lesson is: Moses, you are a thorn bush. You may not like that. You may not like God calling you a thorn bush, but you are a thorn bush. If you do not believe it, let some of the people around you tell you how prickly you are.
Even the sweet ones of us, like myself, are prickly. We are all just a thorn bush.
Moses, you thought you were this prince of Egypt. You had all the learning of Egypt. You had all the riches of Egypt. You had everything—the courts of Pharaoh. You had all the talent as a general. But you know what you really are, Moses? You are a prickly old thorn bush. That is the best you are.
Now, I hope this does not hurt your self-esteem this morning. I hope that does not depress you too much. But our estimation of ourselves and God’s estimation of us are two different things.
It is not to kill us or crush us. It is, in one sense, but it is to bring us into a greater revelation of Who He is. Moses, you are not what you think you are. You are a prickly old thorn bush. In a moment, you would be consumed.
But there is a difference, Moses. This is the difference: “I want to put something in that thorn bush that will not consume it, and that will make it stand out and endure forever.” That thing He wants to put in us is His own very life. That is the difference.
We are a thorn bush. We are a prickly old thorn bush. But God, in His mercy, has chosen to put the fire within the thorn bush. This is the secret to the Christian life: it is not us.
God had to take Moses out, take him to the mountain in the wilderness for forty years, and take him around with his father-in-law’s sheep. Can you imagine people coming up and saying, “What do you do for a living?” “Well, I have got my father-in-law’s sheep.” How humiliating that was for this great prince.
Brothers and sisters, when the Lord begins to reveal Himself, He begins to show us what we are. Then He can show us Who He is.
Moses did not get the story. He said to the Lord in verse 11, “Lord, who am I? Who am I?”
Moses was thinking about Moses. I think most of us—if you are honest, and you have to be honest—do we not spend most of the time thinking about ourselves? “Well, Lord, who am I?” Moses was missing the point.
This is the essential revelation. Now we are there. Moses, it is not who you are; it is Who I am. Do you understand the difference? Moses, it is not who you are; it is Who I am.
When the Lord appeared to Moses, He said, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses still was not getting the issue. He said, “But Lord, who am I?”
Moses, that is not the point. The point is Who I am.
Moses then said to the Lord, still stumbling on himself, “But what will I say to the people when I go to the people? If You can use me to deliver them, what do I say to the people?”
And He said, “Say this one thing: ‘I AM THAT I AM’ has sent you.” That is the revelation, brothers and sisters. That is the revelation of God.
He is not altogether interested in us seeing who we are. It is a way to an end. He is not always interested in us seeing our limitations and our failure. Some people stay there and never get out.
The endgame of God is for us to see Who He is. You understand? Brothers and sisters, I think this is a vital revelation: the I AM has sent you. I AM THAT I AM.
This is the glorious, unlimited name of God. He said, “This is My name forever. This will be a memorial forever.”
Think of it. I think God could have done a better job describing Himself. Do you not think it would have been more appropriate for Him to say, “Moses, tell them the Deliverer is coming”? Do you not think it might have been the right thing to say, “Moses, tell them the strong arm of God is coming”?
“The Deliverer”—that would have been right, at least it seems to me. But He said, “No, no. This is the essential revelation. Tell them the I AM is coming.”
Why is that so important? Because it is God in His unlimited fullness. I AM. Just think of it: I am everything.
Think of it in New Testament terms. When you go into the New Testament: “I am all, and in all.” Brothers and sisters, what God wants to reveal to us is all that He is.
Not just that He is some aspect for us to lay hold of. Not just that He is our deliverance. Not just that He is our peace, our love, or our grace. The essential revelation is this: I AM THAT I AM.
That is good news. What encouragement that is to us. Some people have said, “That is a blank check.” I always struggle a little bit with that. I think it is a little demeaning, but you may not, so I will say it.
God is everything—unlimited in fullness. He is omniscient. He is omnipotent. He is omnipresent. He is everything. This is the essential revelation that God brought for the children of Israel to understand. This was their beginning.
I believe, as the people of God, this is the essential revelation that we need. This is the first revelation. Do we really have an apprehension of Who He is, or are we always thinking about who we are, like Moses?
Do we really have living revelation of the I AM? Brothers and sisters, the result of that revelation will be loosening from bondage. The result of that revelation will be being brought into the fullness of God. The result of that revelation will be seeing Him as He is.
When you begin to see Him as He is, that is liberty. That is the essential revelation.
“What shall I say to them?” Tell them this one thing: “I AM THAT I AM.” That is all they need to know. If they know that, they have everything.
So, when we come to this very familiar story, we need to see that this is the essential revelation from God. The first thing is, “I AM.” But then there is another thing.
He says to them in Exodus 3:15, “Say to the children of Israel, ‘The God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.’”
Our brother shared about that this morning. I do not know what you think of that, but to me, that is one of the most precious revelations in Scripture. Look at the times He repeats that thought in this one chapter.
This great I AM is not only the awesome God, full of all intelligence. He is not only the great I AM, but He is our God. Is that not good news? Is that not encouragement?
He knows you by name. He is the God of Abraham. He is the God of Isaac. He is the God of Jacob. He is the people’s God. Is that not good news?
To me, that is the most encouraging news. Sometimes we can get fixed in these thoughts that God is so great, and God is so holy, and God is so distant and so above us that He has nothing to do with us. How can He?
But it is quite the other. When you look at the Word of God, He is our God. He is the God of Abraham. He is the God of Isaac. He is the God of Jacob, and He is your God. That is good news. That is the encouragement He brought to the people of God: the God of your fathers.
Now, what is the second essential revelation? Brothers and sisters, let me back up. I cannot emphasize enough this first essential revelation. Of all our needs, as the people of God, in whatever crisis or wherever we find ourselves, the one thing we need is a fuller revelation of the great I AM.
If we do not get a continuing and fuller revelation of the great I AM, we will never discover the liberty that we have in the Lord Jesus. This is God’s essential revelation.
But the second revelation, to me, is another great encouragement. He says to Moses—there are two more words. In Exodus 3:17, look at this:
I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt.
He says in Exodus 3:20:
I will put forth My hand, and smite Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in the midst thereof.
Then, in Exodus 3:21:
I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.
And it shall come to pass: you will not go out empty. This is the second essential revelation that we need as the people of God. It is in these two words: “I will.”
How encouraging that is. You have got to understand, if you take out the context, it may not mean as much to you. But here is Moses, who tried with all of his effort to deliver the people of God, and his reward was forty years with his father-in-law’s sheep.
There is one word that God has for us: “I will do it.” Do you understand? That is an essential revelation.
I think often we are thinking, “What do we have to do? What does He want us to do?” But the essential revelation—if the emphasis in this story is right—is, “I will do this.”
Moses, you tried. Step aside. See the wonders that I will perform. Moses, you made the effort. You had the right thought; you had the wrong means. I will bring you out of bondage.
Brothers and sisters, to me, this is the most glorious encouragement in Scripture. I think often, as the people of God, we are always thinking what we have to do.
I believe it would transform our lives if we had this second revelation and heard God always say, “I will do it. I will do it.” What a difference.
So now you know. We finally got there. These are the two essential revelations.
Now, this is not just in this beginning of the history of the children of Israel. This goes right through the history of the children of Israel and right through into the New Testament.
Probably what we will do is look at the Old Testament part today, and another time, God willing—if you let me speak again—we will look at the New Testament portion. But let us concentrate on the Old Testament.
Turn with me to Jeremiah 31, and let us look at God’s encouragement and His revelation once again. These are verses you are familiar with: Jeremiah 31:31.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel,
and with the house of Judah:
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
Notice the connection.
Which My covenant they brake,
although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,
saith the Lord:
I will put My law in their inward parts,
and in their heart will I write it;
and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people.
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor,
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord;
for they shall all know Me,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord:
for I will forgive their iniquity,
and their sin will I remember no more.
Once again, as we come to Jeremiah’s prophecy, we need to understand context. Context is everything when you read this prophecy.
No man had a more difficult mission than the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was one of those who was born in a time when he had to speak all of God’s judgments against God’s own children.
Can you imagine, for a moment, if that were your ministry? I think we would probably run you all out together on a rail. But this was Jeremiah’s lot. He had the privilege to speak all of God’s judgment to the children of Israel.
This is the essence of his letters. Let us make it easy, because I do not want to belabor this point, but you have to make this point. This is the issue: as a testimony, the children of Israel totally failed.
Now, that is not an exaggeration. If you read Jeremiah’s letter, you begin to see the degree of that failure. God even calls His own children a harlot. “You have been unfaithful to Me.”
He does probably the hardest thing that God has ever done or ever imagined. He takes His own people and says to them, “I am going to send you into captivity, into bondage, and beloved Jerusalem, and all of the testimony of God that began when you came out of Egypt, will be taken away.”
Can you imagine? That is a crisis. That is what Jeremiah had to do. That is what Jeremiah had to speak.
I wonder what we do when the testimony fails. What is our reaction? What is God’s revelation is even more important.
In the midst of those dark ashes comes this section in Jeremiah 31, where the Lord says, “Behold, days come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
“Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day of My taking them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they broke.”
Now, that is testimony not of success. That is testimony of abject failure.
I do not know about you; I will make a concession. At least I can confess up here. Sometimes I avoid reading Jeremiah. Sometimes I avoid reading parts of Isaiah. Maybe you are more spiritual than I am and you do not have that problem, but the judgment is just too much for me to take.
I think, “Lord, You brought these people out with Your outstretched arm. You saved them to be a testimony unto all the nations unto Yourself, and then You obliterate them. You send them into captivity.”
I do not know about you, but human reason seizes upon me, and I think this is a bad decision.
But brothers and sisters, the Lord has something to teach us. It is when the testimony fails that He moves by His own hand. That is good news.
They had left the great I AM. They had forsaken the I AM. He said, “You have gone after idols.” That is what you have done.
But the Lord does not cast off forever. The mercy of God revealed in Jeremiah 31 is that, in the midst of the testimony of God failing in their midst, He says, “I have a new thing that I will do.” That is good news.
That is the encouragement we need to take in this crisis. You begin to read this section, and seven times God uses the words, “I will.”
If you read it, you will notice the absence of “thou shalt.” When you read the old covenant, go back to when Moses gave the covenant, the operative words—the words said again and again—were “thou shalt.”
There is a different word here. The word is, “I will.” Is that not good news, brothers and sisters? Maybe this is not as encouraging to you as it is to me, but this is incredibly encouraging to me.
Because I know that even if we fail, He remains faithful. I know that when the testimony was in jeopardy, God did not abandon these people forever.
God did not say, as I probably would, “Be done with you. Raise up a new people.” No, but, “I will make a new covenant”—listen to these words—“with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah.”
All He says over and over and over again is, “This is the essential revelation: I will.” Do you understand that? Oh, that ought to encourage us.
Again, I do not know if it means to you what it means to me, but it seems to me that this is God’s Word in the deepest crisis His people had ever faced: “I will. I will do this.”
Look at a few places here, and we will come to an end with this. In Jeremiah 31:31, He says:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will make a new covenant.
I hate to tell you this, but we are good contract breakers. God keeps the contract.
That is one thing, being a businessman, I have noticed. In this age, people do not keep contracts. People break their word. People’s word is not good. You can come up to me and say, “Oh, sure, I will do this for you.” Tomorrow: “Who, me? You mean you are talking to me?”
We are great contract breakers. But brothers and sisters, this is God’s Word. This is the essential revelation: you may have forgotten the I AM, but I am not going to forget you. I will make a new covenant. That is the encouragement He gives us.
If you go down, you will notice it is seven times. I think there is a particular emphasis there. Seven times—perhaps being the perfect number—God had to convince His people of what He would do.
In Jeremiah 31:33, He repeats Himself:
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord:
I will put My law in their inward parts.
Now, that is the problem. You may not like that phrase, “inward parts,” but that was the problem with the old covenant. It was on the outside. The old covenant said to us, “You shall do this.” If you do not do this—if you violate in any one area—you have violated the whole law.
But here is the encouragement that comes from God: “I will put My law in their inward parts.” Is that not good news? There is something now inside. There is a capacity inside of us, by God’s own hand.
It is sort of like—this is a terrible illustration—but it is sort of like God puts the microprocessor chip inside. You think you can do what God requires? You can, now that He puts it inside. This is His Word.
Not only does He say that, He says, “I will write it upon their heart.” God knows that it is a heart issue.
We are praying for our young people. Now, I hope I am not singling you guys out. I want you to know that. Young has a broad definition. I happen to consider myself still young.
We are praying for young people. The chief matter is the heart. If God can get the heart, He has got everything.
What is the old saying? “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I do not know if that is true. Some of us might look like that, but I do not know if that is true.
But God knows this one thing: the heart is essential. He will write it upon our heart. That is good news. That is encouragement.
Then He says:
I will be their God.
Oh, hallelujah. He does not abandon us. He is our God. He is not ashamed.
I love that verse. I have used this illustration before. I always change the children; they do not know really who it is. They get angry with me and tell me afterwards.
But when my kids became teenagers, something wild happened. I do not know what went into their brain, but they changed all of a sudden. It was a transformation overnight. They had a mind of their own.
One day, I realized we went to the mall, and they said to me, “Dad, would you walk over there? We do not want to be seen with you.”
I thought, “Boy, what do you mean you do not want to be seen with me? What is this? I should have pulled the plug a long time ago. You are here because of me. What do you mean, you do not want to be seen with me?”
“Just head over there, Dad.” I realized it was not cool to be seen with your dad. I do not know, maybe Mom is okay, but Dad—that was not a cool thing.
I remember one day I was meditating on Hebrews, and that verse in Hebrews 2 says of the Lord Jesus:
He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
If anybody should be ashamed of me—kids, do not take it personal—if anybody should be ashamed of me, it should be the Lord Jesus. But He is not ashamed to call me His brother.
“I will be their God.” That is encouraging. That is the essential revelation.
Not only that, it says in Jeremiah 31:34:
For I will forgive their iniquity,
and their sin will I remember no more.
What a glorious thought. It does not matter what we have done. It does not matter. God pardons all of our iniquity.
Do you know that sweet assurance of sins forgiven? I am telling you, the night that hit me, a load was lifted off me that I could not imagine. Even though I cannot sing, I sang to the top of my lungs the whole evening, because the Savior met me and He pardoned all of my iniquity.
What a day of liberation that was. I still remember it.
“And their sin will I remember no more.” I think most of us have this little lockbox where we remember everybody’s sins.
I will tell you something: this is a particular problem with couples. Oh, you get a little marriage counseling free. This is free. This is just on the side—a little deviation here, you know.
We all remember one another’s sins. There is a lockbox, and in the heat of the crisis, in the heat of the moment: “And you remember when you did…” That has never happened to me, by the way.
We remember one another’s sin. Is that not amazing? The righteous God will remember ours no more. Is that not amazing?
I do not even have instant recall. As a matter of fact, the older I get, the more I forget. Do not worry about what you say to me today; I will forget it by next week.
But God, Who never forgets, never remembers. Is that not encouraging? This is the essential revelation.
Brothers and sisters, in a crisis, God wants to meet us and reveal what He is like. It is often in the darkest times—I do not know what you are going through; you do not know what I am going through—but it is often in the darkest moments that we meet God in a new way.
It is often in the furnace that we, like those friends of Daniel, see the fourth man in the fire.
There are two essential revelations which I believe God has for His people. One is Who He is. He says to us, “This is My memorial name forever: I AM hath sent you.”
Do you know Him as the I AM? That is the revelation we need.
But it does not stop there. God says, “You cannot do anything to really please Me,” but He has this to say—two little words: “I will.” What encouragement that is.
What encouragement that is. Brothers and sisters, this is God’s encouragement to His people in their darkest crisis. I believe the principle holds true for us today—that this is His Word for us today—because He never changes.
“I AM THAT I AM.” And, “I will.” I will, again and again, I will.
Shall we pray?
Lord, we do not know if it has been expressed adequately what is on Your heart this morning, but we leave it to the Holy Spirit to make real to us what we cannot say.
Oh, Lord, You have brought us through much. You deal with us as individuals. Your tender mercies often allow crises in our life. But Lord, we are not alone in those times. We praise You. That is the difference between us and those in the world: we are not alone.
We ask You, in those moments and when we walk with You, that You would reveal Yourself to us as the great I AM—that our focus would not be on what we are not, but on what You are.
Lord, we pray, as we walk in this life with You and go through many things, that You will open the eyes of our heart, and we will see this essential revelation: “I will.”
Oh, how that will carry us through the day.
We thank You for Your Word that we can share this morning. We pray that You will make it living to each of us. If You have anything otherwise to say, You will speak to our hearts individually by the Holy Spirit.
For we thank You and praise You in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.