Exodus day 4
Transcript
00:00Knowing God Moses raises a series of objections to the
00:05Lord's call, starting with his sense of inadequacy, who am I?
00:11The Lord in effect replies to this.
00:14What matters is who am I?
00:16Christians should never pray to lose their sense of inadequacy but rather to fill their
00:20inadequacy with the adequacy of the God who promises to be with them.
00:25This is, in fact, the significance of the puzzling and enigmatic name the Lord gives
00:29himself, I am who I am.
00:33As things work out in Exodus we could spell out the name like this, I alone know who I
00:37am.
00:39You are dependent on what I revealed to you.
00:42In every situation I will show you that I am what you need.
00:45And indeed so it was.
00:48They needed a Deliverer and a Redeemer to bring them to God.
00:51The Lord revealed himself as Deliverer and Redeemer.
00:56Indeed this became, throughout the Old Testament, the basic definition of I am who I am the
01:01God who overthrows his foes and saves his people.
01:05It remains a bit of a mystery why Moses thinks people will ask him the name of the God he
01:09has met.
01:11Some suggest that maybe asking for the name is equivalent to asking, what revelation of
01:16God do you bring?
01:18This seems to me a bit roundabout, and I wonder if, through all their Egyptian years, the
01:23Hebrews had kept secret their God's name and, at the crucial moment, they could use
01:28it as a test.
01:30If Moses really had met the God of their fathers, he would be in on the secret, and knowing
01:35the name would authenticate his mission.
01:38This is in line with Jesus' command, Take heed what you hear, and John's injunction
01:43to not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, 1 John 4.
01:491.
01:50Because false prophets abound.
01:53It means subjecting everything to the test of scripture, what is written in the law.
01:58What is your reading of it?
02:00Reflection.
02:01Jesus also said, Therefore take heed how you hear.
02:05Bible reading has got to be more than moving the bookmark on a page.