God Knows

Dr. Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor

Exodus 2:11-2:25 | September 27, 2015 -

September 27, 2015
God Knows | Exodus 2:11-2:25
Dr. Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor

Please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 2:11-25. There are pew Bibles in front of you if you don’t have your own. I encourage you to follow along, not only as I read the passage, but as we work through it. The only authority that I have is insofar as I am speaking from this book, so you’ll want to see what if what I’m saying comes from here.

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock. When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon today?” They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.” He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. Exodus 2:11-25

Compared to our beloved Pastor Ben, who is now in Philadelphia at Proclamation Church, I have not been in very many musicals in my life. I’ve only been in one, which is many fewer than him and (if I’m not mistaken) one more than Pastor Jason.

I was in my senior year in high school, and my friends and I decided (on a lark) to try out for the musical. We had never done this before, since we were into track, cross-country, and other sports. So I tried out, and (lo and behold!) I got a part in “Once Upon a Mattress: the Princess and the Pea”. I was assigned the role of the jester. I’m very happy that this was before smartphones and video recordings of everything. To my knowledge, no video footage exists of this enterprise. You will not see the peach and lime green tights that I had to wear, nor the attempt at soft-shoe dancing that I tried to do. It’s best left to your imaginations—and I wouldn’t even leave it there. Just be done with it. That was my one and only foray into acting.

I had always heard the expression “behind the scenes”, or “back-stage”. It was really true that when you were back there, no matter how calm it was out front and with the lights off, there was chaos and commotion backstage. People were moving here and there, to and fro. People were hiding out in the closets, trying to change outfits for the next scene. Others were wheeling out the props to get ready for the next act. Still other people were going over their lines and tuning up their songs. There was all sorts of activity going on behind the scenes.

Exodus is a great story of divine deliverance, but it often didn’t look that way. For centuries, the stage of God’s providence seemed dark and empty, with nothing going on. For 430 years, the Israelites suffered as slaves. Think of how many years African-Americans suffered as slaves in our country—horrendously at times. This was for four centuries, and it seemed for all the world that if there even was a God, he was not paying attention. The scene in front of them was dark and empty. But behind the scenes, God was at work.

In this passage, we see two pictures. You can even think of them as two scenes behind the scenes. The first is of God preparing Moses, an imperfect man of faith and action. The second of a God who is never unaware of the plight of his people. I want to look at both of those. What’s going on behind the stage if you could pull back the curtain? When all seems dark, quiet, and bare, yet God is planning something.

Picture 1: God Prepares an Imperfect Man of Faith and Action

The first picture is of God preparing an imperfect man of faith and action. On the face of it, this looks like a simple story. It just fills in the details of Moses’ life: how he got to Midian, got a wife, and had a kid.

In verse 11, you see where things start to go wrong (or at least seem to) for Moses. When we left him last week, although he had been left in the water in a basket and had his life threatened, yet he was picked up to quite a wonderful position: he was now raised as a son in Pharaoh’s household. Now he has grown to 40 years old. He went out to his people and saw their burdens.

In particular, he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating one of the Hebrew slaves. It says that “[h]e looked this way and that…” Perhaps he was looking for someone else to come to the rescue and help the slave. Or perhaps he was looking this way and that because he didn’t want to be seen in what he was about to do. So he went and intervened. We don’t know if he was just trying to break up a fight, or if he went there with premeditated murder in his mind. Whatever the cause and whatever the case, he went out and killed this man. Now, where do you bury a body in Egypt? Well, there’s a lot of sand, so he dug a hole and put the man in the ground.

The next day, he went out and saw two Hebrews squabbling. So he tried to break it up, but they didn’t want to hear anything of it. If you could translate the Hebrew into 5-year-old, the man basically said, “Who made you the boss of me? You’re not a prince or a judge. Are you going to kill me like you killed that guy yesterday?”

Somehow, word has spread. Think about it: the only person who knew what Moses had done was the man whom he had saved. Rather than going back and thinking, “Lord, thank you that this man saved my life. I don’t want to get him in any more trouble,” this man instead goes and spreads the word. Maybe he was so excited that he told his people, “You’ll never believe what happened to me today.” More likely, he himself was fearful because he was with an Egyptian official who was now missing. People knew that this official was mad at this Hebrew, and now he’s gone. Who’s going to be the one to blame? So maybe he began spreading the word. Maybe he even let the Egyptians know: “I want you to know that I didn’t do anything, but there is a man—one of your people, it looked like—who killed him.”

However it happened, word spread quickly. Pharaoh already knew by the next morning. Moses knew that he had to get out of there. By verse 14, the story of this exodus again turns on fear. We’ve seen it before. Pharaoh was afraid, so he enslaved Israel and made their lives bitter. Shiphrah and Puah were not afraid, so they saved the children. Moses’ parents were not afraid, so they saved Moses. Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter were not afraid. Moses was afraid, though, so he ran away. In God’s providence, it was all part of his plan to deliver his people.

He ran away to Midian. Midian was in the desert, several days journey southeast of Egypt. The Midianites were distant relatives of the Israelites through Abraham’s second wife, Keturah. Sometimes they were enemies, and sometimes they were on friendly terms.

He met a man there—a priest named Reuel. You may be more familiar with his other name, which shows up in the next chapter: Jethro. Sometimes, he’s also called Jether, and—just to make things more confusing—he’s also called Hobab. If you think you’ve got a lot of nicknames, this guy has more. Reuel was probably his family name and Jethro was likely his first name.

Moses found Jethro, and he found him a wife: Zipporah. Moses stayed there and had a son. Later, in the Mosaic law, there will be a statute against mixed marriages between Israelites and non-Israelites. That specific command was about the people in the land which they came to inherit, because they didn’t want the idolatry that would inevitably come from those mixed marriages. This is a different situation. It’s not in the land, so it seems that Moses is not in violation of the law that he will later set down.

When we come to the end of the chapter, we find that Pharaoh has died, which invites the possibility that Moses may be able to return, but it does not make things any better for the plight of God’s people.

It’s easy to think, “Oh, that’s interesting. This gets us up to date on Moses’ life. He ended up in Midian and got married. He’s out there for a while. He has a kid. That sounds good.” But there’s more here than meets the eye. While the Israelites languished in slavery, God was preparing Moses. He was an imperfect man—a murderer!—but he was a man of action and faith. It took great faith on Moses’ part to leave the household of Pharaoh and identify with the Hebrews.

Keep your finger in Exodus. I want you to go to Hebrews 11, the famous chapter containing the Hall of Fame of Faith, with all of the heroes and heroines from the Old Testament. There’s quite a bit here about Moses:

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. Hebrews 11:24-28

Immediately, you might have a question about verse 27: “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king…” But we just read (in Exodus) that he was afraid. The best explanation is that verse 27 is talking about the second time Moses left Egypt. Indeed, verse 28 goes on to talk about the Passover at the end of the Exodus, so it seems that this is a reference to Moses leaving Egypt with the people for the second time, when he was not afraid and had encountered the invisible God at the burning bush.

The point of Hebrews 11 is to show the faith it took for Moses to leave the household of Pharaoh behind. In some real way, even though we can see it more fully on this side of the cross, Moses understood that there was a reward coming to him that was greater than his inheritance in Egypt. He understood that it was better to be mistreated with his people for a time, so as to not forfeit eternal life. He left the very heart of power in the most powerful empire in the world at that time. I mean, he was in a pretty good spot: being raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, probably open to the best education, best food, and best stuff in all the world. Yet Moses left it behind.

In Exodus 2:11, it’s striking that we have a reference to “his people” twice. He had it on his heart to visit his people. He saw the Egyptian striking the Hebrew, one of his people. Moses is identifying with them. “These are not just slaves. These are not just some other people being oppressed. These are my people. I’m one of them.”

At some point in his life, he learned he was a Hebrew. Maybe the difference in appearance was obvious. Interestingly, when he was in Midian, he was mistaken for an Egyptian, so he had acculturated and had the hair, the style, or the clothing of an Egyptian. Maybe he remembered being nursed by his mother—which would have been for three or four years in that culture—and remembered who he really was. Maybe Pharaoh’s daughter explained to him what had happened. Maybe he had contact with his sister Miriam. But at some point, Moses understood that, though he was raised as an Egyptian, these Hebrew slaves were his people.

Think of all that Moses had lost. He went from living in a royal household in urban Egypt to living as a foreigner in a rural Midianite tent—from the privilege of a prince in the greatest nation on earth to the obscurity of a fugitive criminal out in the Sinai wilderness. If you were writing Moses’ biography at this point, you would say that he had made some poor life decisions: “Really, Moses? You had so much. You had been given so many advantages. You were at the best preschool, the best boarding school, and the best university. You were on the fast track. You had all the opportunities and advantages, and you squandered it—for what? Just to kill an Egyptian and throw him in the sand?”

Are you and I willing to forfeit our privileges and power in order to identify with those that the world considers ugly, disreputable, and cringeworthy—especially our brothers and sisters in Christ?

A few weeks ago, I was flying to a meeting. I had to get off the plane and go straight to this meeting. I also had to wear a suit for the meeting. I don’t wear suits most Sundays, and I don’t wear a suit during the week unless something really bad or really good is happening. Somebody’s probably getting buried or getting married. So I had a suit on, got up early, and drove to the airport.

When I got there, I found out that I had been bumped up to first class. I’ll tell you that I like it when I get bumped to first class. Don’t judge me—I didn’t book it, but I was put there. So I was sitting in first class in my suit and tie, getting all my peanuts and cookies (as many as I wanted) before the rest of you. I could get a bottle of water, a banana, or whatever you get up there in first class. I confess that I was tempted to feel like I was a pretty important person. “I kind of like this. Look at all these other people in suits. They’re probably flying to really important meetings too—to buy stuff, sell stuff, and make big decisions! These are the kind of guys who have to walk through the airport with a Bluetooth headset on because they’re so important, and stuff is happening every second.” So I’m up there with them, and feeling pretty special.

It was the same day that Kim Davis was put into prison. You’ve heard about her. She’s the clerk in Kentucky who went to jail for refusing to sign a marriage license. Set aside gay marriage, because that’s not the real point of this illustration. Set aside what she may believe about some doctrines, because it sounds like she belongs to a church that has errant views of the Trinity, although I don’t know what she personally believes. Set aside even whether you think what she did was right and courageous or whether you think she should have just resigned instead.

The fact of the matter is: if you listen to her, she talks about Jesus all the time. I saw her interview this week, and it was “Jesus did this. The blood of Jesus did that, and I’m washed clean. I have my Savior.” And in my head, I’m thinking, “Couldn’t you sound a little more sophisticated?” Isn’t that terrible? What would I do if I were on that show? I’d want to show off that I’m a smart guy who sits in first class in a suit.

When she talked about Jesus, she seemed like a very genuine, articulate—well, Jesus Freak. I wonder what I would have sounded like. I wonder how easily I would have left all the nicely dressed, important people in first class to be mistreated alongside the professing Christians in our society whom the world considers ugly, bigoted, and simple minded. Would I have made that switch, or would I have said, “You know what? I’ll sit up here and I’ll pray for you”? Moses, by faith, left all of that. Think about the privilege and power. Some people in this church have set it aside. I’m with them.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite movies was “Glory”. I think we saw it every single year in junior high and high school history class. I think the teacher thought, “This would be good for my week’s planning. Watch ‘Glory’.” It’s a good movie. Robert Gould Shaw (a white colonel) led the 54th Massachusetts, the first all-black regiment in the Civil War. There’s a powerful scene in the movie, which is true to life, where the black soldiers received their checks and found out that they were paid a fraction of what the white soldiers in the Union army were paid. So they ripped them up and refused to be paid. Then Robert Shaw, the white colonel, ripped up his check in an act of identification with his own men. He too would refuse to be paid until Congress allocated the same pay for the black regiment as they did for the white regiments in the Union army.

Robert Shaw died in the attack on Fort Wagner. So did many of his men from the 54th. As an insult, he was buried in a common grave with the fallen black soldiers. Normally, they would’ve taken out an officer and provided him a more honorable burial, but they didn’t see fit to do so because he was leading a black regiment. His family, who were prominent and wealthy New England abolitionists, considered it an honor for him to be buried with his men. Rather than trying to find his body and give it a proper burial, they considered it to be fitting for him to die there with the men of the 54th, whom he had readily identified with.

In our world, it will likely cost you something to identify as a Christian. You know what? There are Christians out there who are embarrassing. Sometimes, we say, “I’m not a Christian. I’m a Jesus-follower.” Or, “I’m not a Christian. I’m a disciple of the Way.” Or, “I’m not a Christian. I live according to the way of a Nazarene carpenter.” All of those are true statements. There are some biblical terms there. But don’t use them if you’re trying to get out from under the insult of being identified as a Christian. That’s a challenge in your classroom and your workplace. Let’s be honest: it’s not just a challenge for young people, but for adults to say, “Yeah, I’m a Christian. I’m one of those people whom you think are silly and bigoted. I am, and I’ll be identified as one.”

Moses forewent all of that power in Egypt to be identified with his people. He was a man of faith and also of action. We see here what Moses was like: he was assertive, imposing, passionate for justice, generous, helpful, and acted without looking for personal reward. Did you notice that Moses intervenes three times in this passage about an act of injustice? First, about the Egyptian beating the Hebrew; then, about a Hebrew wronging another Hebrew; and finally, for the seven daughters of Jethro who are being oppressed by these shepherds.

Moses was doing more than looking for a fight when he tried to rescue his countrymen. He didn’t just want to save the man who was being abused, all the Israelites who were being abused.

Let me show you one other New Testament passage. Turn to Stephen’s sermon (Acts 7). He rehearses the history of Israel prior to being martyred, and it’s fascinating that he takes a whole paragraph out of his sermon to talk about Moses killing the Egyptian. You’re probably thinking, “You have all of this history to tell! Why camp down on this story about Moses killing the Egyptian?” But there is a point to it.

“When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
“This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. Acts 7:23-29, 35

Stephen fills out a little more of what was going on here. It wasn’t just that Moses happened to be walking, saw something nasty, became enraged, and killed the man. No, he went out with it already building up inside of his heart. He wanted to go and really see: “What are my people going through, as I live here in comfort?” When he saw them, he wanted to avenge the Hebrew, so he struck this man. But he thought that this would rally the people—that they would see that he hadn’t come to just free them from this one taskmaster. Rather, “If we come together, we can be delivered from all of these taskmasters!” He was ready to be their redeemer.

They weren’t ready for him. It says that they rejected him. They tattled on him and got him exiled. How striking that he was welcomed by the Midianites and turned away by his own people! The Midianites appreciated his act of justice. “Where is the man who saved you and watered the flocks? Let’s give him a meal!” His own people didn’t appreciate it. By the end of Exodus 2, Moses is a failure as a citizen of Egypt and as the deliverer of his people. He’s unwelcome in his birth nation and in his adopted nation, so he’s hanging out in some far off place with people who don’t even know the true and living God.

One commentator says, “His character, as we have seen, was clearly that of a deliverer. His circumstances, however, offered no support for any calling appropriate for that character.” Do you see, Christians, how Moses is preparing us to find an even greater deliverer to come? He will be rejected by his people, just like Moses. That other deliverer will also leave his privileged position as a Son of the King, will leave his power, authority, and the riches of heaven, and will come to be identified with a mistreated people. Jesus suffered and died. Just like Moses, he came to set his people free, and the people preferred darkness rather than light, saying, “You’re not the boss of me. Give us Barabbas.”

At the moment (in Exodus 2), Moses is the one who needs the preparation. The Lord is getting him ready for bigger things. God has a way of doing that. He did it for Israel, as part of their 40 years of discipline before they entered the Promised Land. He did it for Paul, after his conversion, with the time he spent in Arabia. He even did it for Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, with 40 days in the wilderness. Here we have Moses himself taking 40 years just to get ready.

It takes a long time for God to get us ready sometimes. You don’t want to be like Luke Skywalker. Leaving Yoda and the Dagobah system before he should have headed out. He was so eager! “I’ve got to go to Cloud City and save all my friends!” You’re not ready, Luke! Yoda’s falling off your foot. You can’t lift a thing out of the swamp. You need more work!

Don’t think that God is wasting your time, even when your life is not at all in the place you thought it would be. I never thought I’d still be in Michigan. I never thought I’d still have this job. I never thought I’d still be up in the middle of the night with this crying child! Lord, what in all the world can your purpose be for this child to keep crying? But God doesn’t waste our time. He’s up to more than we know. He doesn’t work on your timetable, but if you belong to him, you can be sure that he is always working for you. Somewhere out there, in some obscure, far away place like Midian—or maybe even Lansing—God may be raising up a great hero of the faith, because the people whom God uses most are usually the ones whom he puts in the wilderness first.

“Moses, I have great things for you. I want you to take 40 years, just to grow up. Then I want you to take another 40 years out in the wilderness. Then come back and we’ll talk about what you’re going to do for me.” God was preparing this imperfect man—a man of action and faith—to be a deliverer of his people.

Picture 2: The God Who’s Aware of His People’s Plight

While all of that was happening—while Moses killed a man, fled to Midian, met a wife, and had a son in 40 years, God was aware of the plight of his people. It wasn’t only for those 40 years, but for four centuries. Look at the end of Exodus 2:

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. Exodus 2:24-25

Don’t you love verbs? In those two verses are four of the most stunning, beautiful, remarkable verbs you’ll ever find: God heard, remembered, saw, and knew. This is the first occurrence of the word “remember” in Exodus. It’s a very important word in the Bible. God is often said to remember the recipient of his covenant, or remember some covenant promise that he made. This language occurs more than a dozen times in the Old Testament. The word “remember” is not used literally, as if God zones out and wonders, “Where did I put my keys? What did I say to Abraham to Isaac…and to who?” He’s omniscient! He doesn’t forget or lose track of things.

God’s remembering always involves moving toward the object of his memory. For God, to remember is to act; to forget is to refuse to respond. Let me tell you: if you’re going to be a Christian, you have to understand what God remembers and what he forgets. He remembers his covenant. He remembers his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What did he promise them? Three things: “I’ll give you land. I’ll make you a great nation. I’ll be your God, and you’ll be my people. I haven’t forgotten that!”

He remembers his promises, but he forgets your sins.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Jeremiah 31:34
“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25

Are you confused about what God remembers and what he forgets? You’ve got it backwards if you think, “God doesn’t remember me or the promises he made. All this stuff in the Bible is nice for them, but none of it’s true for me. God has forgotten me. He’s left me.”

Some of you conceive of a God who always remembers your sins. He’s making a list and checking it twice. He’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice. If your god is no better than Santa, you’re of all people most to be pitied, because there is a much better God. He doesn’t have a list that he’s checking. Some of you think of God that way. No wonder he’s such a miserable tyrant of a God to you, because you know that God is always there! “Ahem! Remember? Remember what happened—that thing you said and that stuff you did? Remember 1989? Not the album, but the year, and remember what happened there? Remember what you said last week? I didn’t forget that! You remember? No, you’re having a good week? Well, you don’t deserve any more good weeks.”

Some people think we have a God like that—one who’s always nitpicking and saying, “Ahem, ahem, ahem. I think we shall recall what you did when you were in college.” We have a God who never forgets his promises, but who takes our sins and buries them in the wonderful, merciful ocean of divine forgetfulness.

Then we come to the very end of Exodus 2. It’s one of my favorite verses in all of the Bible—so simple, yet so surprising:

God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. Exodus 2:25

Knew what? It’s very unusual to not have some indirect object after “know”. That’s why some people want to translate it passively, as in “He made himself known.” The NIV translates it as, “So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” That’s not what it says. Here’s the Hebrew: “wayyar [see] ’ĕlōhîm [God] ’eṯbənê yiśrā’êl; [the sons of Israel] wayyêḏa‘ [knew] ’ĕlōhîm. [God]”. “Elohim” is the word for God. That “way-” part is the word for “and”. “-yêḏa‘” is the word for “know”. There’s no object there. It just says “wayyêḏa‘ ’ĕlōhîm.”—God knew.

When I was in Junior High, my grandmother died. it was the first time that anyone close to me had died. She was in her seventies, went in for surgery, and didn’t come out. I remember crying and weeping. My dad has always been a big guy—and he was even bigger when I was smaller. I don’t remember anything he said. I don’t remember if he even said anything. He just gave me a great big hug, and my face could just melt into his flesh, and he held me there while I cried. I knew that he saw, heard, remembered, and knew. Sometimes the most powerful thing that you can do to help others in the midst of suffering is not to say much, but to show up, see what they see, hear what they say, remember, and simply whisper, “I know. I know. I’m sorry.” Not that you know exactly, but you know.

God has not done anything to save his people at this point. He’s got a plan. He’s got Moses and the midwives. He’s got a lot of things happening, but for four centuries it looks as if the stage is bare, empty, and dark. But here is what we know: God saw, heard, remembered, and knew. I don’t know what suffering you’re going through or how long it will last. I don’t know all that God is doing or why he hasn’t given you the relief that you’ve been pleading for. But I do know, on the authority of God’s Word, that God knows.

Sometimes, that’s the best thing we can know. When you cry out to him, day after day and year after year for a lifetime, and you wonder where he is and what he is doing—just like they probably did for four centuries—he hasn’t forgotten. He hasn’t missed your prayers, closed his eyes, or stopped his ears. He knows. Whatever you are going through: act, believe, and know that God knows. There is more going on backstage than you realize.

Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, would you use this word as the right word of challenge, exhortation, and comfort? Help us to believe and act like Moses. Even more importantly, help us to know that you know, and that you are the same God for us as you were for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Help us know that the same God who saved his people from the Exodus will save us from our sins—that the one who seemed to be delaying for so long will show up in the right moment and lead us home. In Jesus’ name, amen.