Exodus 7:1-7

Verse 1 is quite an amazing statement, "I have made you like God to Pharaoh". Moses is mediating God's will to Pharaoh. In the same way we represent Jesus to the world. We are his ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor 5:20), so we we do not hold this position to do what we like, but have to fulfil it in obedience to Christ. Aaron would be his prophet.
Then God says that He will harden Pharaoh's heart. This does not mean Pharaoh has no responsibility for his actions, God is just telling Moses what will happen. Sometimes people will reject God's word, and when they do this their hearts become hardened. God's response would be to increase the judgements and eventually they would be forced to let the Israelites go, and they would know that the Lord is God.
Moses and Aaron obeyed God. Note that they were also getting on in years at the time, yet were to live for another forty years or so.
See the role that Moses had in God's plan. We too have a role in God's plans. We can easily let troubles and worries bog us down. We need to beware of this (Matt 13:20), and lift our eyes to focus on, and look for, the greater purpose that God has for our lives. Your life is about more than you.

Exodus 6:9-30

Moses had received the word of God, but when he delivered it to the Israelites they did not listen to him. In fact they could not listen to him "because of their discouragement and harsh labour". Sometimes people are so bound up, so discouraged, that they cannot receive the word of God. 

God tells Moses he has to go and speak to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was the one keeping the Israelites in slavery, and he was the one that needed to be dealt with. Jesus said that first the strong man needs to be bound up before his goods can be taken (Matt 12:29). Sometimes when people do not listen to what we say we need to look behind the refusal and see what the source of the refusal is.

Moses is not convinced that God's plan will work. Why? Because of his "faltering lips". Moses is still looking to his own abilities, instead of God's abilities. This is despite having had personal encounters with God. We need to realise that it takes time to unlearn our old ways of living and thinking, and to renew our thinking (Romans 12:1,2). One experience or encounter with God is not enough.

Exodus 6:6-8

Moses is to declare to the Israelites that God is going to free them from their yoke of slavery. He would redeem them with "an outstretched arm" (ie His acts of power against Pharaoh) and acts of judgement. So why did God allow the Egyptians to increase their oppression of the Israelites in the first place? Perhaps it was to make them aware of the position they were in. Maybe they had got used to living under oppression, so the oppression needed to be increased in order for them to realise their situation. This may seem crazy, but it happens. It is amazing what we can get used to. God wants to bring us out into complete freedom.

The Israelites were set free by acts of judgement against Pharaoh, we were set free by acts of judgement against our sin, ie by the cross.

"I will take you as my own people and I will be your God". Salvation is not about getting things (healing, deliverance, etc), but about coming into a relationship with God. This will involve practical blessings, but the relationship is the key. It is vital that we know that it is God who saves us. Why is this? Why does this matter? Because we need to know that God is the source of our life, nothing and no one else. If we live as if anything else is the source of our salvation we will go wrong.

Exodus 6:1-5

"Now you will see what I will do ..." Moses was quite understandably rather downcast about the situation, but God knew what He was doing, and now He would demonstrate His power. If you are in a situation where it seems that God has let you down, or is not doing anything, do not despair, you may be about to see God's power at work in a way you never imagined.

See now how things develop. Before the release of power, there is the new revelation of God to Moses. See that there is continual revelation. The incident of the burning bush was only the start of God's revelation to Moses. No matter how dramatic (or undramatic, for that matter) conversion experience, or subsequent experiences of God we have had, there is always more.

See also, that although Moses is receiving new revelation, what God is going to do is based on two other things as well: (i) the promises He made in the past to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and (ii) His current concern for the people. God's revelation to you will not be the only reason He is acting, His concern and vision goes way beyond you. God's plan for your life involves much more than just you. It has a place in history (both what has gone before, and what is yet to come), and His plans for other people.

Exodus 5

In obedience Moses goes to Pharaoh and tells him that the Lord wants him to let the Israelites go so that they can worship Him in the wilderness.

Not surprisingly Pharaoh is unimpressed. Moses says who God is, but Pharaoh still refuses and tells the people to get back to their work. We should not be surprised when godless people pay no heed to the word of God.

Pharaoh then commands his slave drivers to make the people make bricks without straw. Straw was used as a binder to make the bricks stronger. Pharaoh was a bit of an idiot as it was hardly to his advantage to have the Israelites make second rate bricks, or to make it harder for them to make bricks, but people will do stupid things. It is a mistake to always expect people to act rationally. Indeed people will sometimes be motivated by hatred against God's people, as we see here, and most horrifically saw in Nazi Germany.

The people had to work all the harder to make the same number of bricks, and were beaten by the slave drivers when they did not manage it.

The Israelites went to Pharaoh to complain about this, and when he refused to yield, they turned their anger against Moses. So Moses' attempts to free the people have so far resulted only in more suffering for them. Not surprisingly Moses asks God what is going on, and why He hasn't rescued His people.

We need to realise that there is a power struggle to set people free. We can be frustrated because sometimes we will act from the best motives, and act in a godly way, yet things only seem to get worse for the people we are trying to help.

Exodous 4:24-31

"At a lodging place on the way the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him". 

Now what is going on here? His wife, Zipporah realised that it was because Moses had not circumcised his son, so she took action to put this right, and Moses life was spared.

Now, given all the trouble that God had had persuading Moses to go on the mission, and now that he was finally on his way, God would just be relieved that things were under way. Or, if this was so important, why did He not deal with it before sending Moses? 

In our own lives we can sometimes find that God seems to bring things up at the most inopportune times. Maybe as you are preparing to preach God will suddenly raise an issue in your life and this needs dealing with now. These may be issues that have hung around for ages, why couldn't God have raised last week, or last year, or wait till next week? Why now?

Well, the long and the short of it is that I have no idea, but two things I know are: (i) when God does raise an issue in our life we are going to get no peace until we do deal with it, so the sooner we accept the situation and get on with it the better; and (ii) when we go to a new level (as Moses was doing here), a new level requires a new degree of holiness, and things we may have "got away with" before can no longer be tolerated.

God met Aaron and told him to go and meet Moses. Then they went to the Israelite leaders, told them what God had said, and performed the signs. The leaders believed and worshipped God.

Exodus 4:18-23

Moses went to his father-in-law to seek permission to go back to Egypt. We might think it odd that he did this, having been told by God to go back. Surely that was the end of the argument? When God tells us something we do not just ignore all human relationships and authorities, instead we are to respect them. If they go against God's will then there might be difficult decisions, but we are to respect and honour them. In fact Moses received wise advice from Jethro later on in his life.

God knew the fear that would be in Moses heart, so he assured him that all those who wanted him dead were themselves now dead. God knows our fears, and actually does much more to take account of them than we ever imagine. Likewise, most of the things we fear will never happen. A good bit if advice is never to make a decision based on fear.

God makes it clear to Moses that Pharaoh will be hard-hearted, and will only relent after the first-born plague has happened. He also reminds Moses that he must perform all the wonders that God has empowered him to do. This might seem an odd thing to say, but we have a terrible habit of quickly reverting to living out of our own strength and wisdom, instead of using all the resources that God gives to us.