Lesson 18

Book of Exodus chapter 1 is where we'll start. We'll make some pretty good headway through Exodus this morning. Jonathan, would you do me a favor and close that door please? Thank you. Good morning, Gail and Phil. Can everyone hear me okay? I hope the sound is alright. I know y'all can hear, but make sure they can hear me there. Good morning, lakes. There's the Great Lakes. Good morning, Brother Mike. All right, good. They say the sound is good online. Wonderful. All right, Exodus chapter 1 is where we're going to be at this starting off this morning. Exodus chapter 1. [ [ [ [ [ ] So we spent a long time in the Book of Genesis, and we did that on purpose. Genesis is where our foundation is laid. And now that we've gone through Genesis and got all that laid, you'll notice that the chronology of our study is going to advance much more rapidly through God's Word. So Exodus chapter 1, we left off last week just to catch everyone up and get you to remember where we've been. God promised Abraham long ago that his children would be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and they would serve them for 400 years as slaves. All right, we saw how they got into Egypt, that land where they're going to be slaves, when Joseph's brother sold him into slavery, and he went into Egypt and became a slave there. Eventually, because of the famine, as Joseph was promoted to rule over Egypt, all of his brethren, his family, all the Jews, they came into Egypt, lived there in peace, harmony, prosperity, while Joseph reigned. Eventually, though, Joseph dies. And so let's go ahead and look here now in Exodus chapter 1 and look here in verse 5. Exodus 1.5, "And all the souls that came out of the lawns of Jacob were seventy souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already, and Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation." Okay, so everybody that came, that descended from Jacob, remember Jacob is Israel. All of Israel is now in Egypt. Joseph eventually dies, so their connection to the throne has died, okay? That was their protection, their connection, and so now he has died. Look here in verse 7, "And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed, exceeding the mighty, and the land was filled with them." So the Jews were having, these Israelites were having lots of kids. They were prospering by the grace of God. There were many of them. The land was filled with Israelites everywhere, okay? So let's go ahead and look here now in verse 8. "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, new, not Joseph." And that's a problem. Can you see where that would be a problem? He didn't know Joseph. He didn't understand the history of how Joseph, by the grace of God, delivered Israel from famine and starvation. He rises up, got a new young king. He doesn't know his history, doesn't care. And he looks and he sees all these Israelites in his land, and he's thinking, "Man, these guys are going to outnumber us before long. What happens if our enemies were to come against us and they were to join forces with them? Maybe they wouldn't be, you know, a legion to our nation and we'd be overcome." So let's go ahead and look here in verse 9. "And he said that as the new king said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply. And it come to pass that when they fall without any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us and so get them up out of the land. Therefore, they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Islam and Ramses. I believe a lot of the cities that you see that they excavate were actually built by these Jewish slaves. And so they turned them into slaves. They said, "You know what? We're going to keep our thumb on these guys." I mean, the Egyptians had control of the military, kind of like the Nazis with their guns, you know, and they kept the Jews and bondage that way. And so they had the army. Apparently they didn't let all the Israelites in their army. They kept them separate from them. And they were a different class of people. They always looked at shepherds being lower class anyway, and that's what the Israelites trade were. Everyone thinks somebody else is lower class, don't they? So anyway, they made slaves out of these Jews. Verse 12, "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew and they were grieved because of the children of the land." No matter what that king did, it caused these people to continue to multiply. God just kept blessing them. There's so many Jews everywhere. They're like, "What are we going to do with these people?" So let's go ahead and look here now in verse 13. "And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." All right, so what I want you to see is this. Remember all the souls of Israel at this time were born in Egypt. Okay? All the people who originally came from Canaan, they're gone. These are the new generation of Egyptians and a new generation of Israelites. So every one of these Israelites were born in Egypt. They were born into bondage. You see what's happening here? So these Israelites become a picture of you and me. Once again, like Joseph, how Joseph was a picture of Jesus and how he gave bread to those who needed it, like us, and to Jew and Gentile both. And he gained a Gentile bride. We looked over all of that last week. So here we see once again a picture of our salvation, a picture of God's promise of salvation through the coming Savior. And so the Jews here are pictures of us. We are born in bondage to sin. No matter what happens, no matter how hard we try, we can't make ourselves live that perfect righteous life that we would like to live. We're still in bondage to sin. No matter how hard we try, we are still sinners. That's what the Israelites were. They were born in bondage to a world system, to a kingdom that hated them and that sought to destroy them. We are born into the kingdom of this world that's ruled by the devil, who hates us and seeks to destroy the people God created. It's the same thing. So Egypt now is a picture of the godless world system. Pharaoh is a picture of the god of this world, the devil, who rules over the fallen, rebellious world system, a system that is in opposition to the kingdom of God. Makes sense? It's a kingdom, but it's a rebellious kingdom. It's not a righteous kingdom. It's not a legitimate kingdom, but it's a kingdom nonetheless. Let's go ahead and look here now. Not only were they in bondage to serve, but we're going to see here they were in bondage to die. Look here now in verse 15, "And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Sheprah and the name of the other, Puah. And he said, 'When you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the stools," that is the birthing stools, "if it be a son, then ye shall kill him, but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.'" So he put out an order for all the little Jewish boys to die. He was trying to make sure to keep the nation weak. Verse 17, "But the midwives feared God and did not, as the king of Egypt commanded, but save the men and children alive." All right? Well, the king of Egypt wasn't going to have that, so he was going to go out and seek to destroy these little boys. Verse 22, "And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, 'Every son that is born, ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.'" Just drown those little boys, just throw them in the river and kill them. All right? Now let's go ahead and look here. At this time, would you say that Israel needs a savior? They need to be saved from the wicked kingdom that seeks to destroy them. They need to be saved from the bondage they were born into. You see now how they are a picture of us. We are born needing to be saved from a kingdom that seeks to destroy us and from the bondage of sin and death that we were born into. The story of the Israelites is the story of me and you, but we're not in bondage to Egypt. We're in bondage to this godless world system. All right? Now let's go ahead and look here and -- good morning, Gabriel. Good to see you, dear brother, on here in North Dakota. Chapter 2 now, if we'll look here, "And there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bear a son. And when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months." She's like, "This is a pretty little baby boy God has given me, and I'm not going to let anybody get him." So she hid that boy for three months. All right? Verse 3, "And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an arc of bull rushes, and dobbed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off to wit or to know what would be done to him." All right? So they take this little boy, and they've got a river here, and they got flags, the flags, we call them cattails here, okay? They probably don't look like that over there, but it's basically the same concept. You've got these little aquatic vegetation growing here around the river. And so Mama takes some bull rushes, she takes some plants, and she dobs it, and she makes a little arc out of it, just like the Noah's Ark, but on a really tiny baby scale. And she makes this little water-resistant arc, and she says, "I mean, they're coming searching these kids. I can't keep hiding this kid everywhere, you know? I mean, they're going to eventually find us out. I've got to do something with this kid when they come by looking to destroy these babies." So sister takes the baby, puts the little arc with the baby in it, in the bull rushes, hides it there so that nobody will see it, and they're going to try their best to save this little child. They're really at their wits end. What do we do? She puts the baby there, and she stands afar off, and she hides, and she watches. Make sure that it doesn't sink. You know, is the baby going to float away? What are we going to do with this child? We're just going to keep an eye on it, do the best we can. Verse 5, "And the daughter of Pharaoh, that is the king's daughter, came down to wash herself at the river." Now this is the providence of God. "And her maidens walked along by the riverside." So the king's daughter's bathing in the river. Her servants are just out taking a stroll, you know, walking around and talking while their mistress is over here bathing. "And when she saw the arc," I'm sorry, verse 5, let's start over, "and the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she saw the arc among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it." So there's Pharaoh's daughter over there. She goes, "Oh, look at that. What is that there in the bull rushes and the cattails?" She goes over there and gets that thing for me. Let's see what that is. Well, they go over there and they get it out. They don't know what's in there. Verse 6, "And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and behold the babe wept." Well, man, that's all you need right there. You got a woman, she opens it up, and there's a baby inside, and the baby cries. Well, naturally, her female instincts kick in, and she wanted to hold that baby and take care of it. Verse 6, "And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and behold the babe wept, and she had compassion on him, and said, 'This is one of the Hebrews' children.' Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, 'Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?'" Now, this is smart. The little boy's sister comes over, runs over, like, "Oh, I just happen to be along here. Look, should I go get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you and take care of the child for you?" Verse 8, "And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Go,' oh yeah, that's a good idea, go get one. And the maid went and called the child's mother." How about that? Now, the child is under the protection of Pharaoh's daughter, and her mother gets the boy back, alright? But the child belongs to Pharaoh's daughter legally now. And so, verse 9, "And the Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, 'Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thy wages, and the woman took the child and nursed it.'" So now, God has worked it out. So, this little boy's mother not only gets to keep her child in spite of the law to kill the boy, but now Pharaoh's paying her to have her child in her house. How about that? "I'll give you your wages, just nurse them for me." Alright? What a deal. That's our God, okay? Verse 10, "And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, because I drew him out of the water." Alright? And so, Moses means to draw out. And so now, we have this child in Pharaoh's house, and his name is Moses. Moses is going to be the deliverer, the savior of the children of Israel. God is going to use Moses. In fact, Moses was born for the purpose of saving God's people from their bondage to that evil kingdom and to their service to it. This is a picture of the coming Savior, Jesus, also being born to deliver us out of our bondage. You see, Moses now becomes a picture of Jesus. They are both deliverers or saviors of their people, okay? Now, let's go ahead and move forward. I don't know how far we'll give, but I hope we can finish the story. So, basically, here's what happens. As Moses grows up, his mother nursed him. His mother taught him very important things about being an Israelite, taught him very important things about the promise that God gave to Abraham, their ancestor, and to save the world from their sin. And Moses, as he grows up, he hasn't forgotten these things. Oh, he's in a very privileged position. He could have stayed right there and ended up ruling Egypt as Pharaoh's daughter and taking Daddy's throne, kind of like Joseph did in a way. But as he looks out, he has compassion on his own people as he sees them in bondage and mistreated by the Egyptians. Let's go ahead and look here now in verse 11. "And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew, one of his brethren. He looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." So, he says, "I'll take care of this Egyptian." He looks one way, he looks back and forth like that. He kills that Egyptian, buries him, covers him up in sand. That's one less Egyptian. That's going to get my people. And so another day he goes out, verse 13, "And he went out on the second day and behold two men of the Hebrews strove together." In other words, now he sees two Hebrew people fighting each other. It's like, my goodness. "And he said to them that did the wrong, to him that did the wrong, wherefore smite as thou thou fellow." Why did you hit him like that? "And he said, 'Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? And tendest thou to kill me, as thou killest the Egyptian?' And Moses feared and said, 'Surely this thing is known.'" Uh-oh. So, I want you to see what's happening here. Jonathan, pay attention now. I want you to see what's happening here. Moses, remember how Joseph came to his own brethren and they rejected him? Moses now comes to his own people. Don't smite him. Look out how they respond. "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" He came into his own, his own received him and said, "Same thing." All right? And they said, "Were you going to kill us like you did that, Egyptian?" And then Moses thought, "Uh-oh. I didn't think anyone saw me. I better get out of here." Well, it was known and eventually Pharaoh sought to kill Moses. What Moses had to do? He had to run. So, being rejected by his own brethren that he came to, he had to leave. He leaves Egypt. When he leaves Egypt, he ends up marrying a Gentile woman. Notice the same pattern with Joseph. Joseph is rejected by his brethren. Joseph then is given Pharaoh's daughter. No, excuse me. Joseph is then given an Egyptian bride. And so, Joseph, having come into his own, his own received him not, Joseph then gains a Gentile bride, just like Jesus being rejected by the Jews now has a Gentile church, a Gentile bride. Moses does the same thing. He gets rejected by his brethren. He goes out and he gains a Gentile bride. All right? In fact, it was the priest of Midian. If you look in chapter 2, verse 16, Exodus 2, 16, "Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away. But Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock." Oh, Moses is a hero now. And so, the priest of Midian is, he's going to end up giving one of his daughters to him. And so, after Moses ran the people away and watered their flock, verse 19, and they told their daddy, and they said, "An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and also drew water enough for us and watered the flock. And he said unto his daughters, 'And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him that we may eat bread.'" Verse 21, "And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter." So, there you go. Now Moses has a Gentile bride. Eventually, Joseph's family bowed the knee to him and accepted him as their Savior and ate the bread he had to give. In the same way, eventually, Moses' brethren are going to accept him and allow him to deliver them from the hand of Pharaoh and their bondage. Okay? So, let's go ahead and look here now in chapter 3. Verse 1, "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb." Let's look on our map now. Now, here is Canaan - this is where they're from - here is Egypt. Moses is now on this peninsula between Egypt and Canaan. Alright? And so, if you'll see this little mountainous area right here, it says Mount Sinai. Alright? So, that is called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the mountain of God. It's called the in the Bible. That's what it's referring to as Mount Sinai. Moses comes to this area over here and the Mount of God, and let's look and see what happens. "Even to Horeb verse 2, 'And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.'" What a strange sight! Moses looks off in the distance toward that mountain. He sees this bush on fire, but the bush isn't burning up. And Moses, verse 3, "And Moses said, 'I will now turn aside and see this great sight, while the bush is not burnt.' And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, 'Moses, Moses.' And he said, 'Here am I.' And he said, 'Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest his holy ground.' Moreover, he said, 'I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said," This is beautiful now, watch, "The Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, where I know their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them.'" Isn't that beautiful? When the Lord Jesus Christ was born, that was God saying, "I am come down to deliver them." Isn't that amazing? God is coming down to deliver them. How is God coming down to deliver them? Through Moses. How did God come down to deliver us? Through Jesus. Through a baby that everyone was trying to kill, that God miraculously protected. And through the most unlikely source. Here, Moses' mother was trying her best to save Moses. The most unlikely source, not realizing that God sent Moses to save her. You see? Isn't that amazing? That would be amazing. Now let's go ahead and look. He says, "I am come down to deliver them," verse 8, "out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land, and a large, and to a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Parazites and the Hivites and the Jebusites." Now watch. The 400 years of slavery is over. It's time for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham to bring them up after that 400 years of servitude, and to bring them back to the land he promised, the land of Canaan. The Canaanites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and all that. I want to bring them back up here, okay, to the land that I promised. The land God promised here, moving them from a land of bondage and death to a land of freedom and prosperity. That is a picture of God using Jesus, like Moses, to bring us from our bondage to sin and death and the kingdom of this world, and deliver us to life, liberty, freedom, eternal life, forgiveness of our sins forever, and God's kingdom. That's what this is a picture of. As we're watching this picture unfold in this story, as we see how God used Moses to deliver the Israelites, we will learn how God used Jesus to deliver us. All right? Watch. Man, this is good. Here we go now. Let's go ahead now. Let's go to verse 12. And he said, "Certainly I will be with thee, and this shall be a token of thee. When I have sent thee, when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." In other words, I promise you, Moses, you're going to bring them out of Egypt. I'm going to bring you right back to Mount Sinai again, and you're going to worship me here. All the people, you're standing here alone right now. When I get through, all the Israelites are going to be standing here with you, and you're going to worship me here again, okay? So let's go ahead and look here now in verse 13. "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them?" Now that's sad, but after 400 years living in a pagan country, the name of God had been lost among the people of God. They knew the stories, maybe, but what name do it give them? How sad. But let's look and see what God said. Verse 14, "And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you." What kind of name is that? "I am that I am." Well, here's what it means. "I am." The word "am" is a form of a, it's a "be" verb, okay? If you said, "Are you Richard?" And I said, "I am." I am Richard. This is who I am. It's my being, okay? Yesterday I was Richard. Today I am Richard. Tomorrow, God willing, I shall be Richard. It's a form of being, okay? With God, he always is "I am." What he's saying is, "I am the God who exists in and of myself. I am the self-existing God." He is perpetual existence. There never was a time he wasn't. There'll never be a time when he's not. God was, God is, God shall ever be. He had no one to bring him into being. He simply has always been. He is the self-existing God. So literally that's what God is saying here in the Hebrew, "He that exists in and of himself, and thus by him all things exist." We got our existence from him. Everything that was made that came into existence came into existence from him who self-exists, okay? There has to be someone who exists in and of themselves, right? In other words, you would just keep saying, "Well, where did God come from?" "Well, then where did that come from?" "Well, then where did that come from?" God exists in and of himself. So he said, "That's who you tell them. I am, sent me unto you." All right? Now, let's go ahead and move forward. I don't think we can get into the whole story. We'll have to finish this up next week. But let's go ahead and move forward here and go to verse 15, and God said, "Moreover unto Moses, thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you, this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." Now, why does God keep saying, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? Why does God keep saying that? Why doesn't he just say, "I'm God. I'm the God created, everybody's God"? Why does God keep referring to himself? He was their God. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. They were godly men. That's true. Anyone else have any other ideas? They were. I'm sorry? Yeah, well, think about this. That's it. That's the answer right there. That's the answer right there. He's connecting his relationship to them to the covenant that he gave to Abraham. "In you, all the families of the earth will be blessed." Then he passed that down to Isaac. If you'll notice, he doesn't say, "I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Joseph." No. He never passed the covenant down to Joseph. He says, "I'm the God of Abraham." Then he passed that covenant down to Isaac. Then he passed that covenant down to Jacob, lastly. Then from Jacob, his name was changed to Israel, and now we have the children of Israel. He's saying, "I am that God that made this covenant with Abraham, and since I made that covenant with Abraham, I reiterated that covenant to Isaac. I then reiterated that covenant again to Jacob, your father, from whom you all came. I am now here to fulfill that promise to Jacob's seed, as I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Our relationship to God, our knowledge of God, must be based upon the covenant God has made." Make sense? People can say, "Well, we need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." Oh, I hate when I hear people say that. Like somehow we're just going to hold hands and skip through the daisies all day long with them. Or, "We need to surrender our heart to God," and all those other things. You cannot approach a holy God apart from his covenant. There has to be some means by which God can take an unholy man and join him to a holy God. There's got to be some way where that unholy man is made holy, some way where the forgiveness of trespasses can be put away. That is through the covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which he first made in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Understand that. A person can go to church their entire life. A person can say, "Oh, I believe in God and I serve him every day. I pray to him every day." Apart from the covenant that God gave Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you cannot know God. You cannot be accepted by God. Apart from that covenant, you are still in bondage to sin, Satan, and death. The only way to get out of that bondage is through the promise of a Savior God made, which is typified by Moses, which was typified by Joseph, which was typified by Isaac, having that animal replaced, and the animal died instead of Isaac upon that altar, which was typified by the animal that God slew instead of Adam and Eve and shed that animal's blood and clothed them with the innocence of that animal. That's the only way we can be accepted by God. Now, using Moses to deliver these people and telling them, "This is all about the covenant that I'm going to deliver you, and the deliverance that you're going to get is all about the covenant that I gave Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." That being the case, how God delivers them through Moses is going to illustrate how he delivers us through the Savior. It's going to illustrate what God meant by telling Abraham, "In you all the nations of the earth will be blessed," because in bondage in Egypt, there's no blessing. That's a curse. The only way for us to be blessed is if God delivers us from the curse. He told Adam, "Cursed is the ground for your sake." The only way we can be blessed is to be delivered from the curse, and the only way for we can be delivered from the curse is through the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now God's going to illustrate to them how that covenant works. Next week, God willing, when we come back in here, we're going to watch in precise, vivid detail how God delivers these people from their bondage, and man, as it unfolds, it is so good, so good. It is, I would say at this point, the most vivid picture of salvation we could possibly see in the Old Testament, okay? And one I look back to all the time with great, great joy in my heart. All right, we'll stop there today. We are actually finishing up on time. We almost usually go past the time. So it's almost a quarter till. I give you time to use the restroom and everything, but just to remind you, if you go next door, please go through, don't go through the side door, go through the front, just in case Brother Shepherd's still teaching in there, so I won't interrupt. Thank you. God willing, we'll see you all online, next door, and thanks for tuning in.