Has it ever hit home to you what it means to say God who loved me and gave himself for me

is me and gave himself for me is almighty! If we could live that faith, what a revolution at our church, in our families, at our work, it would be freedom,

joy, hope, power, because the one who loved us and gave himself for us is infinite in power.

What does it mean to belong to our all powerful God.

That's the question John Piper answers from Exodus 522 through 6-8 in this episode of Light

and Truth. This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on

September 30th, 1984.

Let's pray together. I pray, Father, that the truth of your

holy word would not merely be understood but would be tasted in the heart with that special supernatural sense mediated by the regenerating and renewing work of the Holy Spirit.

And that what we taste will be the humility of reverence and the awe of recompense and the all of recompense and

the peace of refuge in the shadow of the Almighty. In the name of our king we pray Jesus Christ, Amen. In Exodus chapters 5 and 6, Moses and Aaron have just accepted God's call to go down and release the people.

And the response that they get from Pharaoh is found in chapter 5 verse 2 where he says

who is the Lord that I should heed his voice and let Israel go I do not know the Lord and moreover I will

not let Israel go. Instead of letting them go he makes their bondage severe, they have to make bricks without straw

or find their own. And so the foreman of the Israelite work crews assembled together and they come

to Moses and say, you put a sword in the hands of Pharaoh to slay us.

And so Moses cries out to God in verse 22 of chapter 5 like this.

O Lord, why hast thou done this evil to this people? Why does thou ever send me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he has done evil to this people, and thou hast not delivered thy people at all.

And then God very patiently responds in chapter 6 verse 1.

Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will send them out,

yay with a strong hand he will drive them out of the land.

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