The Gospel in Exodus: Experiencing God – A Matter of the Heart

What does it mean to experience God?  Do we have to see a burning bush or the parting of the Red Sea?  Moses’ experience of God at the burning bush changed him forever, and thru his life the Hebrew people and the entire world were blessed.  However, the Hebrew people during the Exodus story also experienced God, but were not changed.  And Pharaoh and the Egyptian people’s experience of God might be characterized as somewhat negative.   So what does it mean to experience God, and what determines the quality of our experience?  How can we make sure our experience with God is positive, resulting in positive life change that is permanent and lasting?

“The Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”  (Exodus 4:21)

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

“Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face—even Jacob.” (Psalm 24:3-6)

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”  (Proverbs 4:23)

“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”  (Jeremiah 17:10)

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”  (Ephesians 4:18)

“Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and saw My works for forty years. “Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways’; as I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”  (Hebrews 3:7-11)

The Exodus story illustrates that we all experience God during our lives.  But the quality of our experiences can differ dramatically. Moses, Pharaoh, the Egyptian people, and the Hebrew people all experienced the same miracles, but were affected by them differently. The primary thing that determined the quality of their experience was the condition of their heart.  Each of them represents a different heart attitude that we often have towards God.

Pharaoh represents the hard-hearted response to experiencing God. The Egyptian people represent the cowardly, indifferent heart. The Hebrew people represent the unwilling, stubborn heart. And Moses, Joshua, and Caleb represent the open, willing, and trusting heart. Our experience of God depends on the condition of our heart.

The hard-hearted “Pharaoh” response to experiencing God makes us a curse to ourselves and to everyone around us. Pharaoh’s hard heart not only caused his own personal suffering, but he dragged the Egyptian people down into suffering as well. He became a curse to himself and his people. When our response to God is hardness of heart, we too become a curse to ourselves and to those around us, dragging them down with us. We not only hurt ourselves with this heart attitude, but we lead others to do the same.

The cowardly and indifferent heart of the “Egyptian people” response led to their suffering as well.  They could have risen up and opposed Pharaoh.  They could have joined the Hebrews.  They could have refused to go along with Pharaoh’s schemes as the midwives did.  But they did not. Instead they followed Pharaoh, their leader, and suffered the consequences.  Dennis Prager points out that “individuals initiate mass evil, but they need the collaboration of many people to carry it out”.  We have seen this truth in our modern times in North Korea, Communist China, and Putin’s Russia to name a few.  Following the herd is okay as long as the herd is headed in the right direction.  But when that is not the case, it is time to either oppose or get out.  We are not to go along with evil.  It takes a brave heart to stand up, stand out, and stand firm, but that is what we often have to do when our culture, country, people, or leaders are headed the wrong way.  To fail to do so often results in complicit behavior followed by great remorse. The German people at the end of World War II exemplify the remorse that is felt at the end of this heart response.

The obstinate and stubborn hearted “Hebrew people” response to experiencing God makes us a curse to ourselves.  The Hebrew followers of Moses were not given the blessing of entering the Promised Land, and instead died off in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 1:26-40).  When our response to God is distrust and stubbornness of heart, we too become a curse to ourselves and fail to experience the full blessing of God personally.  Those around us are not necessarily affected negatively by our response, for example their children were allowed to enter the Promised Land without them.  But we become a curse to ourselves, and an object lesson for others.  Our life serves as a warning rather than being an example to be followed.

The willing, open hearted “Mosaic” response to experiencing God makes us a blessing to ourselves and to those who follow us.  Moses’ open and trusting heart resulted in the deliverance of his people, and his rise to biblical fame.  He was a blessing to himself, to his people, and ultimately to the entire world. When our response to God is openness of heart, we are blessed and become a blessing to those around us, lifting them up with us, often even becoming a blessing to those who we never even know.  There is a great verse regarding trusting God that truly captures the heart attitude required to fully experience God in our daily lives.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

God performs miracles around us every day, and yet most deny His very existence, if not verbally, then by their actions.  We see the miracle of creation, the miracle of birth, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of the micro-universe, and we continue to deny that God’s hand is in it, even though it is obvious.  We have recently gone so far as to deny our very birth, whether we are made male or female by God, following the culture instead of God just as the Egyptians followed Pharaoh.  Our experience of God depends on our heart’s response to Him.  We respond either as Pharaoh, the Egyptian people, the Hebrew people, or as Moses did.  The choice is ours to make.  We all experience God during our lives, and the quality and type of experience we have is determined by the condition of our heart.

Where is your heart today?  How are you responding to God’s miraculous works around you?  Are you being swept away by the cultural delusions of our day, like the Egyptian people were, or are you standing up, standing out, and standing firm in truth and reality?  Are you grumbling at God about anything right now, as the Hebrew people did in the wilderness, or are you appreciative of God’s provision in your life?   Are you hard-hearted like Pharaoh, or do you have an open and trusting heart towards God like Moses, Joshua, and Caleb?  What would it mean for you to let God completely change your life as He did in Moses’ case?  In what areas of your life do you completely trust God?  In what areas are you not trusting Him today?

There is one “God experience” that is available to all, and that is Jesus, the modern day “burning bush” of God.  Jesus is the miraculous experience that is available to us all today.  His birth, life, death, and resurrection changed the world forever.  The condition of our heart determines how we respond to Him.  How we respond to Jesus is the single most important thing in our lives. To have a relationship with God, we must be born again, and Jesus is the door through which we can enter into that relationship, by faith.

If we have an open and trusting heart towards God, we will believe the gospel, repent of our sins, and be born again. If we are hard hearted like Pharaoh, we will ‘bow up’ and reject Jesus’ claims, dying in our sins.  If we are following the crowd, as the Egyptians did, we will be swept away by peer pressure and the culture around us, being carried farther and farther from God as time goes by.  If we are stubborn and obstinate, like the Hebrew people were, we will miss out on the blessings of God, dying in the wilderness rather than enjoying the fruits of a “Promised Land” life while we are here on this earth.

Have you been born again?  Do you experience God daily?  Why or why not?  Moses was moved to action by his experience at the burning bush.  How have you been moved to action by your experience(s) of God?  We are encouraged to “Seek the Lord while He may be found; to call upon Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)  Eventually God gave up on the generation of Hebrews in the wilderness, and decided that none of them would enter the Promised Land except for Caleb and Joshua.  Is God calling you now to show faith?  Is He calling you to be born again?  I encourage you to act on this experience, and not take it for granted as our ancestors did in the wilderness.  Turn to Him now, ask Him into your heart.  Trust Him.  Jesus cried out saying, “Repent and believe in the gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand” when He was here.  He is still crying out with these words.  Will you respond to Him today with an open and willing heart?   If you do, you will begin to learn for yourself what it means to experience God, and your journey towards the ‘Promised Land’ will begin.

Lord Jesus, I come before you today and ask that you would give me an open and willing heart.  Teach me to trust You fully with all of my heart, and to not rely on my understanding of things.  Do not let me be hard hearted as Pharaoh was, nor cowardly as the Egyptian people were.  Do not let me become obstinate and stubborn, but keep me willing and obedient to You and Your word. Grant me the faith of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, that I may trust in You no matter what I face in this life. Come into my life and change me forever, as you changed Moses at the burning bush.  I pray these things in Jesus name, amen.

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”  (John 3:14-21)