Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - God's Response to Doubt | Torah | Exodus 5

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Is it okay to have doubts and questions about God? Is there a "right" way to doubt? How should you handle questions? How should you bring challenging questions to God? In today's episode, Tanya looks at Exodus 5 to answer some important questions about doubt. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Exodus 5 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth, and right now we're in the book of Exodus. What do you think about people who have doubts and questions? And how do you respond when people have doubts and questions about God? How do you handle your own doubts and questions? You probably have them. Are you in a community that welcomes those conversations?

Are you a person who comes alongside others when they're struggling? to see or know or understand or believe God. We could let Moses teach us a few things on how to confront God with challenging questions. As we saw in the burning bush, Moses isn't afraid to ask God the hard things. He also isn't afraid to tell God how he feels about his past, his personal qualifications, and his public perception. When God told Moses to get up and go, because he was sending him to the Egyptians who were opposing his people. Moses didn't jump up and run toward Egypt. He asked God,

who am I that I should go? And when God told him that he would be with him and give him signs to prove that Moses questioned, suppose I go and tell them you sent me and they ask who you are, then what? Well, this is exactly what happened when he went to Pharaoh, so we can thank Moses for asking this question, because that's where we get one of the most awesome and distinct descriptions of God and his entire written word when he answered, I am who I am. Tell them, I am has sent you. The book of Exodus is like a window to the way people thought about mankind then and the way we think about ourselves and others today. Like Moses' time, humans are still quick to judge by social class abilities and connections

to power and wealth. But the Bible doesn't leave out stories about people who ask questions and express their doubts. But it does often use their questions to teach us more about God. and the way he responds to our own doubts and questions. So today we pick up in Exodus 5, with the nation of Israelites who were being deeply oppressed by the Egyptians. They were under Egyptian rule and captivity, and the Israelites were subjected to forced labor. They were working in primitive brick factories,

and it was meant to subdue and control them and their growing population. So they were packing clay and straw into brick molds and loading them into kilns for baking. The process was out in the sun and the fields. It was sticky. It left their skin burnt and chapped by the sun and the heat from the kilns. Their bodies were weary and broken from the long days.

And even the children were forced to carry bricks from the fields to the kilns where they would be dried for use. Now, it must have seemed that God wasn't listening or watching, that he wasn't caring for them in these hot, hard, sticky, dark days of slave labor. But after an encounter with God at the burning bush, Moses returned to Egypt to offer hope. And Moses and Aaron gathered the Israelites elders and told them everything the Lord said about Pharaoh and their coming Exodus. And Moses performed the signs the Lord had given him and the people believed and they had hope. They believed God did care for them. Exodus 431 says, And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped. So in chapter 5, Moses and Aaron were empowered and encouraged.

Not only did God call and equip them, but now the people believed in them. They were feeling pretty confident when they went to Pharaoh, and they said, Release the Israelites. Now, when that didn't work, they backed up and decided to ask nicely, can you please let our people have a break for three days so they can go worship and make sacrifices to God? Otherwise, he'll bring plagues upon us and on you and trust us. You don't want that.

Now, even though God told them it would be a process and that he would harden Pharaoh's heart, they must have been surprised and incredibly discouraged by Pharaoh's quick mockery. In Chapter 5, Fairo responds, Who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and will not let Israel go. This wasn't a humble searching kind of doubt from Pharaoh. He wasn't just denouncing the existence of God, but he was proclaiming an active defiance against God.

See, mention of God or any higher power felt like a threat to Pharaoh. He thought that if Israel had time to think about someone other than him that was worthy of worship, then surely they didn't have enough to do. So he would fix that. Not only were they going to have to continue to make the same quota of bricks every day, but he made it so they also had to source their own straw. He would no longer supply it. people with limited power can get really angry when people doubt them.

We see echoes a fair as response in our history and in our world even today. And an effective strategy to deal with perceived threat or resistance is to cultivate division among the people, among the oppressed themselves so that they begin to blame one another. They can even become so confused and distorted by their oppression that they come to view earlier phases of their oppression as favorable. Well, see, all of this unfold with the Israelites prior to the Exodus. The way God responds to our doubt is evidence of his true power. He doesn't need us to know he is powerful to be so. He doesn't need to prove his power to have it. He is. He is power.

He is the definition of power. He is the creator and giver of power. Remember what he said. I am who I am. Now, come before Pharaoh or someone grappling to prove their power and you'll get I'll show you followed by oppression, division. Come before the Lord and he says, come with me and I'll show you. I'll show my power on a cross.

I'll give you my power to love and serve others. Now in Exodus 5, Moses had reason to ask God hard questions. He tried to do the right thing and he just made it worse. We have some friends in the situation. They're following their God-given, skill and a passion, and they're moving to a new location that's going to make life much harder for them. And there's no turning back because ties have been severed in their former location, so they have to go. How hard will it be? And why would God give them these skills

and lay these plans on their heart if it's going to be so difficult? And sometimes it's just hard to see. And that's where we are for a moment in this chapter of Exodus. Moses and the Israelites at the end of chapter five cry out to God. Why, Lord? Why have you brought trouble on this people? Moses says, is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all. They are suffering. And the suffering of the Israelites in Exodus echo the words from the cross. My God, my God, why? Jesus cried out in the agony of separation from his father, as all of the of the world fell on him.

Jesus knew the why, and so do we. And we read about it in the first verse of the next chapter of Exodus, which begins, Now you will see what the Lord will do. I think the Bible is showing us that if we have doubts, we are normal. I'd like to suggest that we take less time fixing people's doubt and more care showing them Jesus, that we say, but God will less, and sit in the lamenting with people. a little bit longer. There's time for God to show himself, but maybe it's in the next verse. God doesn't seem to be as rushed to tie everything up with a neat little ribbon that says

God is good on the top, like we are. He's much more involved in showing us his goodness when we are ready. Does this idea of doubting or questioning make you nervous? It shouldn't. Just because we are following Jesus, it doesn't mean our minds stop thinking like human minds. God created us gave us the ability to think and question and converse and formulate and reason. The best place to do this is in his word and in community. Don't let your questions go unnoticed or ignored. Don't stifle them. Look to the Psalms for inspiration and pray like David with true honesty.

Copy his words if you have to. And talk to other believers about what you're thinking. When a fellow church friend heard that someone in his life was struggling with believing God, he said to him, okay, I'm here with you, but will you just keep coming to church with me while you figure it out? Now, Jensen's going to pick up tomorrow and tell us how the Lord made his real and true power so evident to the Israelites. But for today, let's thank Moses for teaching us how to sit in the middle for a bit. Unlike Pharaoh, God is faithfully patient with us, as we learn more and more about his true power.

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