Chapters 5 and 6 tell of the first meeting of Moses and Aaron with Pharaoh. When we become Christians, most of us have a pretty good idea in our minds of how the Christian life ought to go. We live in a technological age and we think of things working well, efficiently, on time, and in a predictable fashion. And we think that’s exactly the way the Christian life ought to go. It’s a little bit like driving a car: when you get into a car, turn the switch, step on the gas, you ought to move forward. Well, it doesn’t always work that way in the Christian life. We think we are doing the right things. But there seem to be setbacks and discouragements. And when that happens, and it happens quite often, we become discouraged. Many of us then wonder what’s gone wrong. 

That brings us to the next part, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is mentioned as a second ground for the petition. It's part of the covenant because the Father committed Himself to do that with Jesus before the incarnation. It's part of His eternal agreement with the Son, but it's more than that. Certainly the way it's presented here in this great benediction shows that it is a demonstration of the power of God in accomplishing our salvation. The resurrection is proof that He's done it. It's a firm foundation for saving faith.

However, the most serious war of all, though we seldom give attention to it, is the warfare of the human heart against God. We are against God and His rule because we want to rule ourselves. It's what sin is all about. So when we read a phrase like "the God of peace," this isn't any merely placid or serene sentiment that the author is talking about. This is a phrase that says God is a God of peace because He's made peace. He's done it through Jesus Christ. That's a wonderful thing, indeed.

The second sign God gave him was a leprous hand. He was to put his hand inside his cloak, and when he pulled it out it had turned white with leprosy. When he put it back in again, it was cured. I suppose the power of that came from the fact that the Egyptians were very fastidious about personal cleanliness. They didn’t want defilement, and leprosy was the ultimate defilement. So here you have a revelation of a God who is able to inflict with illness and also to cure. Later on in the plaques, we are going to find out that the gods of Egypt who were supposed to do that were unable to do it. They were powerless before God. 

When God revealed Himself to Moses by saying “I am,” the very fact that he said “I” indicated how personal He was. That’s a very important thing to bear in mind because when we are talking about God, we are not talking about some cosmic force. You can’t worship a force any more than you can worship gravity. God reveals Himself here to be a person who is able to interact on the personal level with Moses, a human being.