Now let's go back to Exodus 6. I want you to see the confidence that rings from God, that He is able to complete what He starts.
Who can stand before Him? Does He have the ability? Does He have the power? Does He have the wisdom to complete what He sets out to do? He says, I appear, I established, I heard, I remembered. I will bring you out. I will rid you of their bondage. I will redeem you. I will take you for a people. You shall know that I am God, and I will bring you into the land. I will give it to you. Are you beginning to get some kind of an idea why they wrote of salvation in the past tense? They had faith in it, that what God says He will do, He will do. It was as good as done, if they would just live by faith, and yield.
Did you notice God's agency? I tried to emphasize it. Hearing the cries of the patriarchs' descendants, God Himself takes the initiative to rescue them, to free them and redeem them. He chooses to take them as His people and He does not just leave them defend for themselves once they are free. He then visibly leads them as we know by the pillar of cloud and fire to the Promised Land and just gives it to them as their inheritance. He does not mention it here, but He also gave them water, He fed them, He protected them from the sun, He made their shoes and their clothes last, and He promised to fight all their battles. As we are fond of saying, all the Israelites had to do was walk.
"Who's going to stop Me?" is what He is saying. "You puny two and one-half million recalcitrant—stubborn, stiff-necked—Israelites aren't going to stop Me from doing what I want to do." I added that, of course, but that is the sense. He gave it in a very encouraging and positive way. Oh brethren! If God is going to save you, nobody can stop Him! Why make it hard on yourself? Why not just yield, rather than force Him to use more stringent measures to get us to submit?
Here God promises to bring them out of their bondage and, of course, we understand this also applies to you and me, to bring us out of our bondage. This time, though, He is getting to the root of the problem. The last time provided an analogy. The last time gives us an example we can look at and learn from. This time, with you and me, He's playing for keeps and He's getting to the root of the problem. The problem is in us. It is in our minds (remember Romans 8:3).
I want us all to notice that God solemnly promised to do all these things, culminating in Him giving them the land, bringing them to it. Put into other words, God predestined them to make it, and they didn't make it, even though He solemnly promised to do so.
What God is doing here is establishing Himself as Israel's Savior, first of all to Moses, by proposing all that He would do for them in order to relieve them of the burden of their slavery. He did all that He said, and He thus became Israel's Savior by breaking Egypt's power to hold them in thrall.
We are all familiar with these verses, but I just wanted us to note the clear word that it is God who is doing all the work, and at the same time teaching His anointed to take on the mantle of responsibility that will lead to His honor and glory as He is expanding His Family.
