Reminded (Exodus 6:2-5)

Application Point:

Believers can trust God’s Word because we live in relationship with Him.

2 Then God spoke to Moses, telling him,
“I am the Lord.
3 I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty,
but I was not known to them by my name ‘the Lord.’
4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan,
the land they lived in as aliens.
5 Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites,
whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves,
and I have remembered my covenant.”

Examine:

compare it to God’s initial call to Moses in Exodus 3.

• v. 2 I am the Lord:
  God called him a second time
  God’s response to Israel’s anger and Moses’s frustration was to announce that
  Moses, Israel, and the Egyptians would see His hand at work
  We might paraphrase God’s words as, “Now watch this!”

• v. 3 Not known to them:
  God had identified himself to the patriarchs as El Shaddai
  which is commonly rendered God Almighty.
  It’s meaning is uncertain, but it is not His personal name.
• vv. 4-5 My covenant:
  God had given Abraham a son, and his descendants had become a great nation.
  But the critical promise here is the land of Canaan.
  God had established His covenant, and He was about to keep His promise.
  He remembered His word, and the time for Him to act had arrived.

• v. 5 Heard the groaning:
  Covenants involve obligations, but God is never pleased by obedience that comes from an ungrateful heart

Ask:

• Why was it important that God repeat what He had essentially said earlier to Moses? (PSG, p. 24)

State:

Many things had changed for the Hebrews since they had arrived in Egypt four centuries earlier,
but God had not changed.
However, He did give them a new name for Himself.

Summarize:

briefly discuss the differences between “God Almighty” (El Shaddai)
and “Lord” (Yahweh).

KEY DOCTRINE

God

There is one and only one living and true God.
He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being,
the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.
(See Genesis 1:1; Psalm 103:19.)

God acts to relieve the suffering of His people.

Ask:

• How can reflecting on God’s work in the past affect our faith in the present and future? (PSG, p. 24)