Ex 6:2, God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am the Lord… 
	We are dealing with the statement of God to Moses concerning the revelation of God as The Lord, Yahweh, the I Am. This was something that was the all-encompassing aspect and nature and character of the God of Israel which overshadowed everything that had been their understanding of Who God was and what He had done and would do. This was the ultimate expression of all the hopes and dreams and concepts and fulfillment of the people of Israel in terms of their history and heritage and promise. God was showing Himself as the One Who had called unto them through the patriarchs of old. Everything in which they had put their faith and trust was centered in this revelation of the Great I Am as the Lord God Almighty Who would deliver them and make them His Chosen Nation on this earth. 
	That was why God was so specific in His instructions to Moses in terms of speaking to the leaders of the sons of Israel. As we saw last time, in verses 6-8 of our reading of this 6th Chapter, God was showing Himself as the Savior and the Deliverer and the Redeemer of His people. Ex 6:6-8, Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, 'I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 'Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 'And I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord.'" 
	We continue, then, with the following statement from these verses. 'Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 
After God declared that He would bring them out of their bondage to Egypt and that He would redeem them unto Himself, He then promised them that, as Yahweh, the I Am, the Lord God Almighty, He would make Himself known to them as their God. They would be His people and He would trust them with the revelation of Himself in a living relationship that would open His heart unto them in a manner which they had never before known. He would be their constant source of life and health and sustenance and protection and guidance. All the fundamental realties of the nature and the being of God would be opened to them in the course of His continual essence of lovingkindness and tender mercy and amazing grace covering them day after day after day. All they would need they would find in Him as they learned to know and to trust Him and to rely upon Him as their God.
	Then, God ended this section with the following reiteration of the great promise so given to the patriarchs, beginning with Abraham: 'And I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord.'" Not only would He be their Deliverer and Their Redeemer; not only would He bring them into a living relationship with Himself in which He would supply everything they needed, but they would receive the revelation of Himself as The Living Lord God Almighty unto them. He would faithfully execute the every provision of His great pledge to bring them into the Promised Land through His Omnipotence, and His Omnipresence, and His Omniscience. He would lead them into the fulfillment of His every faithful work through the fact that He was the Lord, as so emphatically reemphasized to Moses.  
	God was making it very, very clear Who He was and what He was about to do. There would be no question, when He had completed His mighty work and deliverance, that He was the I Am, The Lord, and there was no other beside Him. He, Alone, was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He was the Only True and Living God and these were His people unto whom He was going to show Himself and faithfully manifest the fullness of what was involved in being made His Chosen People. It was imperative that they would know Him in this glorious reality as The Lord God. He chose to shower them with all the loving attributes and blessings of Himself as had never before taken place with an entire nation. He told Moses, as recorded in verse 3, that even the early patriarchs did not know Him in the manner in which He was about to show forth all His glory and His honor and His power. Ex 6:3, and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them. 
	Inherent in this knowledge of God as Lord is the fact that He was taking the rightful and just position as the Sovereign Lord God Almighty. He was going before them as their Supreme Ruler, the King of His people. His Lordship would be in evidence to all the surrounding nations as His people were brought out of captivity and given the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. 
	It was in that place as the Supreme and Almighty Ruler and Lord of His people that God then charged Moses to speak to Pharaoh as instructed in Ex 6:28+29. Now it came about on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "I am the Lord; speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I speak to you." 
Moses was to deliver the message to Pharaoh as the appointed emissary of God for the sake of His chosen nation. No longer would Pharaoh be permitted to subjugate the people of God. This was the Supreme Ruler Who would free His people from the slavery under which they had been forced for those 400 years in which they had finally developed into a nation. 
	As we read later in this Book of Exodus, after the first nine plagues in which God showed the power of His might and His Sovereignty over all the elements of this earth for the sake of His people, Pharaoh still refused to acknowledge Him as the Lord of Heaven and earth. Rather, that earthly king chose to defy the Lord God and His power and His might and His wisdom and His Sovereign purposes to the ultimate destruction of all the first born of Egypt. Ex 12:12+13, 'For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments — I am the Lord. 'And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 
	The Supreme power of the Hand of God for the sake of His people would be seen on that night of the Passover as the Angel of the Lord struck down every first born in every house not covered by the blood of the Passover lamb. His people were safe and secure from the wrath of their Lord Who would go forth with vengeance in order to establish the release of His people from the hands of their Egyptian oppressors. 
	Even at that point, after a short period, Pharaoh then proceeded to pursue the nation of Israel with his horses and chariots in order to bring them back under his hand of slavery and oppression and torment. God went before His people in the security of His Sovereign might both in front of them and behind them with the final purpose at hand for the Egyptians and the Israelites to be seen by the peoples of the land to which they were being led. Everyone would know, for certain, that God was the Lord God Almighty, the Great I Am and the Lord God and Sovereign King of the Children of Israel as the army of Pharaoh was destroyed by God, Himself. 
Ex 14:18, Then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I am honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots and his horsemen." When that great army was drowned in the Red Sea, Egypt could no longer deny that God was exactly Who He said He was, the Sovereign Ruler of the Nation of Israel who proceeded forth from the waters of that Red Sea, through the wilderness, and ultimately into the Promised Land. 
	The Children of Israel were reminded over and over again by Moses and Aaron and Joshua that they had only been delivered because God, the Lord God Almighty, chose to bring about that great salvation from the hardships and the woes and the horrible tribulations of their Egyptian captors. As they would choose to obey and honor God, so would they find that He would go before them wherever He lead them and that He would be their God and their Lord. 
All the nations of the earth would tremble at the sight of them because they were the people of the Lord God Almighty. Deut 28:9+10, The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in His ways. So all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of you. 
	This fear pervading the rest of the nations as the Israelites were being lead forth by God was voiced by Rahab to the spies as Joshua was preparing to capture the city of Jericho. This is recorded in Josh 2:9-11 …"I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And when we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. It was very evident to all the peoples of the land that God was going before His people and that these nations were going to be defeated, not by the might of men, but by the power of the Lord God Almighty, Yahweh, the God of the Children of Israel Who ruled both heaven and earth!
	Many years later, the Prophet Jeremiah would give an account of just how awesome and powerful is the Lord God Almighty in all His dealings with His people and with the other nations of the earth. Please open your Bibles to Jer 10:6-12 as we want to read it together and to rejoice in the truth of Who God is as He shows Himself mighty for the sake of His Name in His people as the Eternal Lord and King. 
Jer 10:6-12, There is none like Thee, O Lord; Thou art great, and great is Thy name in might. Who would not fear Thee, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Thy due! For among all the wise men of the nations, And in all their kingdoms, There is none like Thee. But they are altogether stupid and foolish In their discipline of delusion — their idol is wood! Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, And gold from Uphaz, The work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith; Violet and purple are their clothing; They are all the work of skilled men. But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation. Thus you shall say to them, "The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens." It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens. Amen.
	The Kingship of the Lord God over His people was theirs to enjoy and to appreciate for as long as they so chose to honor and to obey Him. He was covering them with all His love and His mercy and His grace and His might as they would respect and observe His commandments. His Law was given for the sake of their peace and their fulfillment and their safe-keeping from all the harm and the foolishness of the rest of the nations. They were privy to the heart of the One and Only Lord God Almighty, and yet they had to be encouraged over and over again not to seek after those things of this realm which had so entrapped and ensnared the other peoples and nations.
	In Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 2-6, The Lord made it very clear what He expected from His so blessed and privileged people. Ex 20:2-6, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before Me. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 
	Next week, Lord willing, we will see what developed as the nation of Israel chose rather to seek after their own ways and their methods and their own desires. They wanted to be just like the rest of the nations, thus spurning the joy of their relationship with God as their Lord and King, Who had given them everything as so promised to the patriarchs. Still, in spite of their faithlessness, God chose to let Himself be known as the I Am, The Lord God, the Sovereign ruler of Heaven and earth, to those who did remain focused on pleasing and serving Him above all other gods. So be it!
God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am the Lord… Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Deut 28:2-6. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. Amen.