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Welcome back to day five of our look through the book of Exodus. Week one,
Exodus chapter five today. We've been walking through these principles for how
you get set free, and they come fast and furious in these first chapters of the
book of Exodus.

Principle number one, someone trusts God. In order to be set free, someone has
to trust God. Principle number two, you recognize what you cannot do.

Moses recognized that when he killed the Egyptian and ran away. Principle number
three, you recognize what God can do, and Moses learned that one in the face of
a burning bush. But then there comes a fourth turning point in Moses's life and
a fourth principle you and I need to learn about being set free.

If you're going to be set free, number four, you have to face your biggest
obstacle. If you're going to break free, you have to come face to face with the
biggest obstacle in your life. That moment you dread, that person you must
avoid, that challenge that you've shunned maybe for years, you have to come face
to face with it in order to be set free.

For Moses, it was Pharaoh. He'd run from that position of power and what it
might do to him 40 years before, and I am certain that he would have liked to
break free without facing Pharaoh. He would have loved it if God had a plan
where he would sneak into Egypt by night.

He would sneak the people out by the power of God and never have to face Pharaoh
again, but it didn't work that way. For 40 years, he'd faced this obstacle or
he'd refused to face this obstacle, and now he's at the point in his life where
he's going to have to face it finally. And in some ways, 40 years isn't so
unusual.

Many people live with obstacles that they're unwilling to face for just as long.
You've got a problem in your heart that you like to break free of, but just for
year after year after year after year, you don't break free. I got to tell you,
it's not going to move out while you're asleep some night.

It's not going to fade off into the sunset, this problem. You're going to have
to face your biggest obstacle. I hate that for me.

I hate it for you. We don't want to have to do it, but it's how God works. You
have to come face to face with the problem, the failure, the fear, and in so
doing, you come face to face with the answer, the opportunity, the faith.

You have to defeat the Pharaoh in your life. Facing your problem. We've been
talking about how to break free.

Now, how are you going to do it? A Christian psychologist by the name of Frank
Fried calls Exodus a book that offers what modern counseling and psychology too
often lacks, the thing that people are looking for a lot of times when they go
to counseling. Exodus, the literal meaning of the word Exodus is a way out.

That's a way out. That's what this book offers us, a way out. This experience of
Moses shows us God's way out in our lives, the way out of temptation, the way
out of that habit, the way out of that fear, but to get there, you have to do
what you don't want to do.

You have to face your biggest obstacle. Now, if that's going to happen, two
things, two things are a part of that. First, you have to face the problem, and
then you have to fight the problem.

First, and this is the beginning of chapter five, you have to face the problem.
Listen to what happened, chapter five, verses one and two. "Afterward, Moses and
Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.

Let my people go so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert. ' Pharaoh
said, 'Who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know
the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.

' There came a point where Moses had to face Pharaoh. " You can talk about your
problem, study your problem, worry about your problem, even pray about your
problem, but the honest truth is the solution will never come until you face the
problem. As you look at the simple way that Moses did this, it reminds us of
some simple things that are a part of facing the problem.

You got to face it with support. It was Moses and Aaron that went, and he'd also
talked to the people before he went. He didn't face it alone.

If you're trying to do it all alone, that's not really facing the problem.
You're still hiding from it. You have to face it with clarity.

They didn't try to send an email to Pharaoh. They didn't text Pharaoh. I know
you couldn't do that in that day.

They didn't send a courier pigeon to Pharaoh. They went themselves. You stop
pretending the problem isn't there.

You stop pretending the problem isn't yours. You stop pretending the problem
isn't serious, and you face it with clarity. They went to Pharaoh, and you face
it with faith.

Let my people go, they said. They didn't go and have some talk with Pharaoh
where they didn't ever bring up the problem. They brought up the demand
immediately, clearly and simply.

In one sense, Moses did not beat around the bush. He remembered the bush. He
remembered the burning bush of God's presence, and he brought that message to
Pharaoh.

A lot of times when we're facing a problem, we just beat around the bush so much
that we never get to what the faith is that we need to face that problem. You
face the problem, and you say, "In the face of that problem, this is what God
wants to be happening. This is what's happening in my life.

A change needs to happen here. " You face it with faith, so you face the
problem. Does that mean you've solved the problem?

Absolutely not. Many people never get to freedom because they never face their
problem. They never even get to this point.

They just pretend that it isn't there. They never admit to themselves or anybody
else that it's there, but once you get to that point where you finally face the
problem, you admit that it's there, does that mean I'm done with it? There is a
huge rush of relief that comes then.

There's a sense of freedom that finally I've shared it with somebody. Finally
I've faced it. Does that mean that the problem is over?

Absolutely not. Facing the problem, many people are still stuck without freedom
in their lives because they've never realized that facing the problem is not
enough. You must face the problem, but then you also have to fight the problem.

Fight the problem. There are tremendous lessons we're going to see in these next
chapters of the book of Exodus from Moses about how you begin to fight a
problem. Too many of us have faced a problem without knowing how to fight it.

The truth is there are some barriers that you're going to have to break through
to achieve victory. There are, as we walk through these next chapters, we're
going to see three or four specific barriers in my life, your life, that we have
to break through as we face a problem. And the first one, if you don't realize
it's going to happen, it takes you by storm.

It surprises you. You face a problem, you say, "I'm going to beat this one. "
And the first barrier you have to face is intensification of the problem.

Listen to what happens in verses 6 to 9. "That same day Pharaoh gave this order
to the slave drivers and foremen in charge of the people. You are no longer to
supply the people with straw for making bricks.

Let them go and gather their own straw, but require them to make the same number
of bricks as before. Don't reduce the quota. They are lazy.

That's why they're crying out, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God. ' Make the
work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.
" Pharaoh hears this demand from Moses, "Let my people go," and he says, "Let
them gather their own straw.

" The problem immediately seems to intensify. It gets worse. The slavery gets
worse.

The burdens are increased, not released. When you face a problem, at first,
things often seem to get worse, not better. There's the immediate joy that you
face that fear, but then all of a sudden there's the, "Oh no, what's going to
happen?

" Or there's the reality of, "Now I've got to do something about this. " Moses
had the feeling. He had to have the feeling that many of us have had when we've
begun to attack a problem, a habit in our lives.

"Lord, aren't we moving in the wrong direction here? I faced this temptation,
and now it seems like the temptation is greater. " He faced intensification, and
in Moses's life, we can learn from him here, this intensification included two
things that you and I are going to face.

You see it in verses 20 to 23. When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and
Aaron. This is the people of Israel.

When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and
they said, "May the Lord look upon you and judge you. You have made us a stench
to Pharaoh and his officials, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. "
Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Oh Lord, why have you brought trouble upon
this people?

Is this why you've sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name,
he has brought trouble upon this people, and you've not rescued your people at
all. " Immediately, Moses faces, because the problem intensifies, Moses faces
these two accusations in this intensification.

Accusation from without, and accusation from within. Accusation from without
criticism. The people of Israel come after talking with Pharaoh and learning why
Pharaoh was doing this to them, and they accuse Moses.

They face criticism. This is the "I told you so" club. This is the "It will
never work" club.

This world is full of critics and sadly lacking in those who take actions. It's
easy to be a critic. It's lazy to be a critic.

So they come and they criticize Moses. He faces this accusation from without,
and you do too. You say, "I'm going to change.

I'm going to change this habit. I'm going to change this in my life. " There are
those in your life, they may not say it, but even just in the way they look at
you, the way they turn their eyes down, the way they shake their head a little
bit, the little smirk on their face, they're saying, "It'll never work.

" You face that just because you've been willing to say, "I'm trying to trust
God with this one. " You face the accusation from without, and then you face the
accusation from within. Discouragement.

Moses says to God, "Is this what you sent me here for? You sent me here to make
it worse. " What we have to understand is if we face a problem, that means that
we put ourselves in a position where we are now fighting the problem.

As long as you agreed with going along with that habit or that fear or that
hiding in your life, as long as you agreed with not doing that thing that God
wanted you to do, you didn't face any difficulties because you were living apart
from freedom. There's something about slavery, as horrible as it is, there's no
decisions to be made for a slave. You just do what you're told.

There's something about slavery that can keep you stuck there, but the moment
you say, "I'm going to start to fight it," you feel the intensification because
now you're moving upstream rather than downstream. Until you realize that,
you're going to always be discouraged as you fight for freedom in your life, but
once you realize that, you realize, "Okay, I'm in a fight now," and you realize,
"I can't do this on my own. I can't swim upstream on my own.

God, I need your strength in this moment. " So let's ask for his strength right
now. Lord, as we begin to think, as we study through the book of Exodus about
what you want to change in our lives, how you want to make us different, how you
want to set us free, and even as this week we've begun to trust you, to tell
others, to begin to fight the problem rather than just put up with the problem
and live with the problem.

Lord, we feel the intensification. So instead of giving up, instead of trusting
ourselves, we want to trust your strength right now. We trust your strength.

We trust your strength in this fight. Give us power that we don't have. In
myself, Lord, I might make it a day, a week, a month, but in you with the
support of your people, Lord, I believe you can do something new in my life.

You can do something new through my life in the lives of others. I put that
trust in you right now. In Jesus' name, amen.

Join us next week. We're going to start in Exodus chapter 6, so we're going to
see in these chapters next week that God has much more to teach us about how to
fight our biggest obstacle and how to see victory even as we face that biggest
obstacle to being set free.