God Always Remembers!

Exodus 2: 20-25: "So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His Covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them."

When you think that you have no next move, God is about to make His big move.
So often what we consider to be the worst times is but the last stage of the preparation for the best.
Our sense of hopelessness is the prelude to the birth of genuine hopelessness.

That is the important message of the opening chapter of Exodus.
At the very time the Hebrews were ready to give up, God was preparing Moses.
The last two sentences of Exodus 2 serve as an exclamation point following the excruciating details
of Israel's suffering in Egypt, and of the birth of Moses, his growth, and his identification with his people.
" So God heard their growing; and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, and God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them." (Exodus 2: 24-25)

God always remembers!
Circumstances may point to the limited human conclusion that God has forgotten us.
It may seem that God has had a lapse of memory about our personal plight
or about the perplexities of His people as a whole.

But this scripture tells us that at the very moment we despair, God is arranging a strategy
for our deliverance.
And it is always beyond our wildest expectation, but God is at work.
God had not forgotten His people in Egypt.
When they thought they were finished, the Lord was preparing for both their deliverance and a deliverer.

The people of Israel had been in Egypt for over four hundred years when Moses was born.
After the death of Joseph, their status radically changed from that of honored and privilege guest
in Egypt to one of bondage and servitude.
The Pharoah who had entrusted such great dignity and power to Joseph was succeeded
by cruel rulers who feared the growing number of the Hebrew people.
His concern was that if war came that the Hebrews would side with the enemy
and defeat the Egyptians.
So, they took drastic measures to limit the growth of the population of the Hebrews.

Midwives were commanded to kill the newborn male babies.
When this proved unsuccessful, orders were given to search out the Hebrew male children
and drown them in the Nile River.
At the same time, the labor of making bricks for the ever-expanding building of temples
and cities was increased.
Then they had to gather straw for themselves when it had been provided for the Hebrews.

Life had become intolerable.
Each new Pharoah increased the demand.
Fiendishly, cruel taskmasters were appointed to afflict the people.
But the more they were afflicted, the more the Hebrew people multiplied.
And at the height of the increasingly impossible suffering, a male child was born to a couple
of the house of Levi who was to become a mighty prophet of God.

We are so familiar with the account of Moses' birth and growth that enables us to learn
the wonderful truth of how God prepares us for what He has prepared for us.

We remember how Moses' mother outwitted the Pharoah in saving Moses, and how Moses was saved
by Pharoah's daughter, and came to live in Pharoah's household.
God was working out His plan.
The child was named, "Moses", which means "drawn out of the water."
This was an appropriate name for one whom God eventually would use to draw His people
out of their persecution and suffering.
While the people moaned, God was moving.

In Pharoah's household, Moses was given the best of both worlds.
He was nursed and educated with His Hebrew heritage at his own mother's breast and knee.
His adopted mother gave him the finest training in Egyptian culture and education.
Since the succession to the throne often went through the oldest daughter of Pharoah,
he was groomed to succeed the Pharoah.

That meant that he was provided the academic, military, and leadership education
which would prepare him to rule all of Egypt.
All of the splendor of Egypt was at his command as the privileged son of Pharaoh's daughter.
But all this preparation would be used for a greater purpose.

The training of Moses and his education also provided an immense empathy for the turbulence
that must have brewed within him as the Spirit of God began to raise the question in him
about who he really was.
This turbulence came to a decisive decision when Moses was 40 years old.

One day, he went out to the Hebrew slave compound at Goshen, and saw an Egyptian beating
one of the slaves, and Moses killed the Egyptian.
He thought that no one had observed this murder, but the news traveled fast among the Hebrews,
and finally to the Pharoah.
The die was cast: there was nothing to do, but to flee for his life in the Midian desert.

The desert was also a part of God's plan.
He delivered Moses from all of the entanglements of the Pharoah's court in order to prepare him
to be the deliverer of Israel.
We learn that he was in the desert for 40 years.
During that time, he came under the influence of Jethro, a Midianite priest, who was a worshiper
of the Lord.
Moses married Jethro's daughter, and they had two sons.

As a shepherd of Jethro's flock, Moses learned about the ways of the desert, the travel routes,
and the watering places.
God was getting him ready for the strategic task ahead.

Most important of all, the Lord was preparing who would trust Him completely.
The elegant life in Egypt was replaced by the endless hours of silence in the lonely desert.
All the self assurance in Moses had to be drained away.
All the dependence on human skill and cleverness ingrained by his Egyptian training
for the responsibilities as the Pharaoh-designate had to be redirected to a new dependence on God.

Moses was emptied of all his pride, and now, he could begin to ask the right questions.
When you think about the long years that Moses spent in the desert, you begin to feel the questions
that must have been on his mind, and that he was so anxious for answers.
Who was this God of his people?

Jethro had probably introduced him to the name, El Shaddai, the all-powerful God.
But that probably raised other questions.
If this God is all-powerful, and if He has made a covenant with His people through Abraham,
why doesn't He do something to help his suffering people in Egypt?
And the answer to that need was the ultimate part of the lonely shepherd's preparation
to be the deliverer of His people.

Many people come to the place where their assurance that God cares and will do something
to help them is questioned.
They think, and maybe even say, "If He really is all-powerful, where is He when we need Him?"
This question indicates that what is really needed, and what Moses needed
was an authentic encounter with God.

And this happened on that decisive day toward the end of Moses' time of silence in the desert.
While tending the flocks on the western side of Mount Horeb, he was astounded
to find a bush that was burning, but was not consumed by the fire.

Moses watched that bush with fascination and amazement.
He had seen the sum of the desert cause spontaneous combustion of the dried bushes before,
but this one burned and burned, and yet, was not burned up.
While he stood transfixed by the startling sight, a voice spoke out of the bush.
The voice was commanding, demanding, and undeniable.
" Moses! Moses!" The Lord called.

Moses was slow of speech, and stuttered at that time of his life.
You can almost hear his amazed, stuttered response:
"He-e-re I i- i a - am."

The Lord had gotten his attention!
What will it take for God to get our attention?
There are times when it takes a catastrophe, and there are times when it only takes an amazing blessing.
The burning bushes of God are all around us.

God's signature is written all over the natural wonders of earth.
There are people in whom God is aflame with love and radiance.
There also excruciating problems in which God is our only hope.

The desert time of waiting and wondering is always rewarded with a burning bush
especially suited for our personal needs.
What will it take for you?

Right now, God could be calling your name out of that bush.
Do you hear it?
If you do, then answer it by saying, "Here I am!"
Answer now, not later, when you've heard what the Lord has to say.
But answer now indicating that you trust Him, need Him,and want Him.

In response to the attentive, awe-struck openness of Moses, the Lord revealed His essential nature.
He had gotten to the very heart of Moses in the long years of silence, and now could expose
His true nature to Moses.
He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He had heard the groaning of His people, and He was ready to deliver them,
and Moses was to be the agent of that deliverance.
Confrontation with God is now turned to consternation.
"How, Lord, how?"

Moses knew the military might of the Pharaoh and of his dependence on the Hebrew slaves
and his determination to continue the expansion of the grandeur of Egypt.
The most impossible thing that Moses could ever imagine was that he could ever get
the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Think about what Moses thought.
What was the most unimaginable possibility that the Lord could suggest for you?
Picture it!

The answer to the question of Moses had been, "Why didn't God do something about the plight
of His people" was about to be answered.
Moses would be the one to whom his own prayer would be answered.
An authentic encounter with God always involves us, and the answer.
What we want God to do for us, He waits to do through us.

And we respond with fear and trepidation, "Who am I? How could I ever do that?"
And we can't!
But with the Lord with us, we can!
The Great I Am makes things happen in spite of us.
God takes us as we are, and He never gives up!

Moses went back to Egypt with the words of God ringing in his heart.
The task ahead was humanly impossible, but he had had an authentic encounter
with the God who could do the impossible.

Now, let us remember this amazing message.
God never forgets us.
He hears everything that we ask and think, and we can be sure of that.
And when we least expect it, or deserve it, or have the courage to believe it,
God comes to us and assures us that He will deliver us.

What we think is the end is only the beginning.
We are not finished because God is not finished with us!
He is preparing us for an exodus.

We must press on with the heat of our burning bush and its radiant assurance in our hearts.
The sure sign that we have had a burning bush experience is that the fire has leaped into us
to set ablaze the dry kindling of our hopelessness.

We can go into our Egypt with an "I Am" centered courage.

"God never forsakes, He never is gone,
So count on His presence and darkness and dawn.
Only believe, only believe;
All things are possible, only believe.
All things are possible, only believe"

Sermon adapted by Dr. Harold L. White