I HAVE HEARD – WEEK 5

When God Sends the Unqualified – Part 2

May 18, 2025

 

EXODUS 6:28-7:7 – On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, ²⁹ the Lord said to Moses, “I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.” ³⁰ But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?”

7 And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. ² You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. ³ But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. ⁵ The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” ⁶ Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. ⁷ Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

 

• • Moses’s lips
  • Pharaoh’s heart
  • And God’s hand

 

PHARAOH’S HARD HEART

 

EXODUS 7:3-4a – But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you…

 

EXODUS 5:2 – “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

 

EXODUS 4:1 – Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”

 

EXODUS 6:12 – But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?”

 

EXODUS 6:30 – But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?”

 

EXODUS 7:2 – “You shall speak all that I command you.” 

 

“We are bidden to preach, but we are not bidden to justify people and make them pious… The Word is entrusted to him; this is God’s will, and this Word he is to proclaim even though no one may want to listen to him.”

Martin Luther

 

“The focus of my resentment was God himself, the one who had called me to this. I had given everything – all my time, all my education, years of ministry and true Christian devotion – and now I was failing.”

Kent Hughes

 

1 CORINTHIANS 4:1-2 – This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. ² Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

 

ISAIAH 6:10 – Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see…and be healed.”

 

MATTHEW 13:14-15 – Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” ¹⁵ For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.”

 

ROMANS 9:18 – So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

 

ROMANS 9:17 – “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

 

GOD’S MIGHTY HAND

 

EXODUS 7:4b-5 – Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. ⁵ The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

 

God’s hand would accomplish:

1. 1. Deliverance for His people
   2. Judgment for their oppressors. 

 

EXODUS 7:5 – The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord…

 

EXODUS 9:20 – Then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses.

 

PHILIPPIANS 2:10-11 – so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.