Is there anyone we can believe anymore? As the impeachment trial goes on, and as different lawyers make mutually exclusive claims, how can we possibly know who is telling the truth? And as yet another Federal election season is upon us, we’ll hear all sorts of candidates making improbable promises and attacking their opponents with ever-increasing venom. For whom should we vote? And once they get into office, how do we know they’ll be able, or even willing, to keep their promises?

It’s easy in times like these to fall into cynicism, to believe that everyone is lying. And the more times we are disappointed, the harder it is for us to believe that anyone can be trusted. That seems to be the situation in which the Israelites found themselves in Exodus 6:9 – their spirits had been broken so severely that they couldn’t muster up any hope in Moses’ promises of deliverance.

But the good news is that when God makes promises, we can believe Him. And why? Because of Who He is – the Lord. The name God uses for Himself means something like, “The One Who Is,” or “The Self-Existing One.” God’s existence doesn’t depend on anyone or anything else because He made everything else that exists.

And this Almighty Creator has made promises to people throughout history. In verse 4, He reminds the people of the promises He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the mention of their names should have given the people hope for the future. For after all, God had told the Patriarchs that He would make their descendants into a great nation – and at the time of Moses, the children of Israel had come to comprise 600,000 men, not counting women and children (see Exodus 12:37). They themselves were thus living proof that God is faithful to His Word.

And God would indeed go on to keep the rest of the promises He made in today’s passage. He would release the people from slavery in Egypt, by accomplishing mighty miracles (v. 6). And He would bring them to the land of Canaan, as He promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 8). Yes, ours is a promise-keeping God, a God we can trust.

And that’s important because of the last promise He made to the people – that He would take them to be His own people, and that He would become their God. That is a promise He still extends to all who will shake off our cynicism and trust in Him, accepting the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf and bowing the knee to Him as Lord. Will we take Him at His Word, and give ourselves to the One Who made us for His glory?

Exodus 6:2-9 (ESV)

2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD.
3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.
4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.
5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.
6 Say therefore to the people 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 slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.
7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'”
9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.