G'day, Dave here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God for kids,

the podcast where we get to know God as he really is.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you ever treat God like a teddy bear?

Like a soft, cuddly toy that you snuggle into at night?

A teddy bear doesn't have any power.

He doesn't care whether you do what's right or

wrong.

It's just there to look after you whenever you

want it.

In fact, a teddy bear isn't in charge of you,

you're in charge of it.

And it's easy to treat God like that.

In today's passage, God wants us to hear that that's a really bad way to treat him.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a faithful God for kids.

At the end of our last episode, after making all the excuses he can think of, Moses was

finally ready to go back to Egypt.

God's about to rescue his people, the

Israelites.

And Moses is going to say God's words to

Pharaoh.

So at the start of today's passage, in Exodus,

chapter four, verse 18, we hear this.

Then Moses went back to Jethro, his father in

law.

Moses said to him, let me go back to my people

in Egypt.

I want to see if they are still alive.

That isn't the main reason he is going back.

Maybe he feels a bit too weird saying, hey,

God spoke to me out of a flaming bush that didn't burn up.

Jethro replies, you may go.

Have a safe trip.

And then we are told in verse 19, while Moses was still in midian, the Lord said to him, go

back to Egypt.

The men who wanted to kill you are dead now.

So Moses took his wife and his sons and put them on a donkey.

Then he started back to Egypt.

He took with him the walking stick of God.

Okay, we're finally on our way to Egypt.

The Egyptians have treated God horribly.

They've treated him like he's powerless or like he doesn't even exist.

They've beaten up and murdered his people as though their God is a teddy bear on the shelf

who can't do anything.

Now God's going to use the Egyptians to show

his power.

They're going to see what it's like to fight

against the true and living God.

And so this is what the Lord says to Moses in

verse 21.

He says, when you go back to Egypt, do all the

miracles I have given you the power to do them.

Show them to the king of Egypt.

But I will make the king very stubborn.

He will not let the people go stubborn means to not listen to other people, not being

willing to change your mind, even if it is really obvious that you should.

Maybe someone in your family gets stubborn and refuses to eat their dinner.

God's going to show how powerful he is.

It'll be really obvious that it's silly to try

and fight against God, but God'll make pharaoh stubborn so he won't change his mind.

And then God can show his power even more.

Remember, God wants his people and the

Egyptians and us to know what he's really like.

And we're going to see just how powerful he is.

We're also going to see how loving he is.

Because God's also going to use pharaoh to

show how much he loves his people.

The Israelites.

The people who the Egyptians have treated so badly.

In verse 22, the Lord says this to Moses.

He says, then say to the king, this is what

the Lord says.

Israel is my firstborn son.

And I told you to let my son go.

Let him go so he may worship me.

But you refused to let Israel go.

So I will kill your firstborn son.

In those days, firstborn sons were the most important because they would take over all the

family, money and business from their dad.

Just like a firstborn prince becomes king when

his dad dies.

God's saying, all the Israelites are like my

firstborn son.

And now Pharaoh, you'll have to pay the price

for treating them so badly.

The Egyptians have been thinking that their

gods are the powerful gods, their people are the most important.

The Israelites and their God don't matter at all.

They're about to find out just how wrong they are.

On the way to Egypt, we find out more about God.

I have to say this next bit.

I think it could be one of the weirdest parts

of the whole Bible.

Moses and his family are travelling along and

they stop to rest for the night.

And then we read these shocking, weird,

strange words in verse 24.

It says the Lord met him there and tried to

kill him.

Umm.

What? The Lord tried to kill him?

Kill Moses? Why on earth would God do that?

Hasn't God just spent ages trying to convince Moses to go to Egypt?

Isn't Moses at the center of God's plan? Didn't moses beg God to find someone else?

But God refused.

Why go to all that trouble only to then want

to put Moses to death? Well, I think this is what's happening.

It's that God's showing us just how serious sin is.

Sin is when we disobey, ignore the God who gave us life and so the consequence of sin is

that God takes that life away, no matter who you are.

It might have been easy for Moses to think, God's going to punish pharaoh and the

Egyptians.

I'll be safe.

Doesn't really matter what I do.

God's like my teddy bear.

Just like it might be easy for lots of us to think, oh, I'm in a christian family, I go to

church, I listen to a Bible podcast.

It doesn't really matter whether I sin or not.

And God's saying, no, I treat sin seriously, no matter who you are, even if you're Moses.

So what's Moses done? He's ignored God's command to do something.

Hundreds of years before Abraham, the first Israelite had struggled to trust God.

And so God had commanded that he and every boy and man in his family had to cut a little bit

of skin off.

It was called circumcision.

You can ask your parents about it later.

But every time they looked at this, it should

have reminded them to trust God.

They usually did it eight days after the boy

was born.

Moses, though, hasn't done it to his son.

He's ignored God.

Why would you have to listen to a teddy bear?

Moses has treated God's words like they don't matter, which is especially bad when you think

he's going to Egypt to tell everyone God's words.

Thankfully, kindly, mercifully, God doesn't put Moses to death.

Moses wife, Zipporah comes to the rescue.

This is what it says from verse 25.

Moses is lying there dying.

And then we read, but Zipporah took a flint

knife and circumcised her son.

She took the skin and touched Moses feet with

it.

Then she said to him, you are a bridegroom of

blood.

To me, Zipporah said this because she had to

circumcise her son.

So the Lord did not kill Moses.

Like I said, one of the weirdest parts of the whole Bible.

I dont really understand everything thats going on here, but I do think theres a hint of

something wonderful, something exciting.

Because while the passage tells us that all

our sin deserves death, Moses doesnt die.

And theres a hint, just a hint, that it has

something to do with blood.

Someone elses blood.

Moses son.

And so God didn't kill Moses.

I think that's a hint that points us forward to another time, a time when another son, the

son of God, Jesus, bled to take away the death of other people.

That way everyone who trusts him as king and saviour will get life, not death.

Are you seeing how God's not like a teddy bear.

Teddy bears don't care about whether you sin or not.

They don't ever punish people for disobeying.

They also don't love anyone.

You can love them, but they can't love you back.

They don't have any power.

They can't save anyone.

The Israelites are about to be really excited that God is not a teddy bear.

Remember, God sent Moses brother, Aaron, to meet him and go back to Egypt with him.

Well, we read about that in verse 27.

It says, meanwhile, the Lord said to Aaron, go

out into the desert to meet Moses.

When Aaron went, he met Moses at Sinai, the

mountain of God, and kissed him.

Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had said

to him when he sent him to Egypt.

And Moses told him about the miracles which

the Lord had commanded him to do.

Okay, the team's together.

They travel down to Egypt and remember that the Israelites had cried out for help.

They had no idea if anyone would answer.

They were desperate.

They were scared.

They felt alone.

So imagine their excitement when they hear the news that Moses and Aaron have to tell them.

Let's hear it from verse 29.

So Moses and Aaron gathered all the elders of

the Israelites.

Aaron told them everything that the Lord had

told Moses.

Then Moses did the miracles for all the people

to see.

So the Israelites believed.

They heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their troubles.

Then they bowed down and worshipped him.

Did you hear what the Israelites have realized

here? They know now that God's seen them in their

trouble.

He's concerned about them, in their pain.

And he's done something to bring it to an end, to rescue them, to save them.

And so, in their happiness and excitement, they believe God, and they bow down and

worship him.

God's seen us in our trouble.

He's seen us in our sin.

He knows what he'll have to do to us if we

keep ignoring him or treating him like he doesn't matter.

So in kindness and care and love, he's already sent his son to die in our place.

Not so that we can be forgiven and just keep on ignoring him, but so that we can now live

for him, trust him, obey him, so that we can have life forever with him.

Do you treat God like a teddy bear? Someone you go to if you need a bit of comfort

or a snuggle, but then you put back on the shelf?

Or do you treat him like the powerful king of the universe?

The one who's in charge of you, not the one who you're in charge of.

Do you treat him as the powerful king and so work to live his way?

Love him.

Obey him.

Love other people like he wants you to.

Obeying your parents, caring for other kids

even when they're smaller than you, using kind words rather than rude words.

When you do mess up and sin, and we all do that, do you say that matters?

And I need to speak to God about it.

Ask him for forgiveness.

Ask him for help to change.

God isn't a teddy bear, but he is really,

really good.

And if you stick with him, know him and treat

him as he really is, you'll know that same happiness that the Israelites felt when Moses

arrived.

As for Moses, he's about to speak to Pharaoh

and discover just how badly people can treat God.

But that's a story for next time.

See you then.

Thanks so much for listening, adults.

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