Sermon Tone Analysis

The consistent message of the Bible from cover to cover is that Jesus came that we might have life and have it to the full (john 10:10).

Now most of us know that this is the message of the NT, but some of us may not be convinced that this is the message of the Old Testament as well.

It’s easy to read the OT and be confused—we see stories of Shepherds, battles, love affairs, poetry, proverbs, etc.

And it’s easy upon a cursory reading to miss the fact that Jesus is the main point of the Old Testament as well as the New.

The Old Testament is essentially God’s master plan to bring Jesus to earth at exactly the right time, and all of time before Jesus’ coming is really preparation and in anticipation of Jesus’ arrival.

We know this because we see lots and lots of times when God predicts or foretells of Jesus’ coming.

These predictions or fore-tellings take on many different forms, but two of the main forms are prophecy and types.

Prophecy occurs in multiple places in the OT when God speaks through a person about a future event, and there are many places where God does speak about the coming messiah.

Today we are going to focus on types—actually on a very specific type of Christ.

A type of Christ is simply an event, that predicts, foreshadows, looks forward to the coming of Jesus, that helps us understand Jesus more.

Today we are going to be talking about , but focusing primarily on Passover.

Passover was a type of Christ.

It is an event that GOd used to tell people beforehand that Jesus was coming, what He would be like, and what He would accomplish.

Today we are going to be talking about , but focusing primarily on Passover.

Passover was a type of Christ.

It is an event that GOd used to tell people beforehand that Jesus was coming, what He would be like, and what He would accomplish.

To give you a roadmap of where we are going: We are going to do a quick recap of last week, and then a fly-by of this large chunk of scripture at 30,000 feet, and then we are going to focus in on Passover and what it means for you and me.

Thus far we have introduced the story of Moses, how God was raising him up as a leader of the Jewish people, how the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, how Moses killed an Egyptian, and then fled into the desert of Midian.

After that, God appeared to him in an unburning bush, and commissioned him to go back to the land of Egypt and be God’s agent of deliverance for the people of Israel but also God’s agent of wrath on unbelieving and hard-hearted Egyptians.

We last left off where Moses had announced to the elders of Israel that God had not forgotten about them, but that he was going to deliver them from the Egyptians, and the elders of the people bowed down and worshipped.

Now we turn to and I am going to summarize the story of through 11 until we get to Passover.

Most of you guys know this story by heart, but it’s always good to go back and look at the text if you can, so I would encourage you all to do this.

After telling the elders of Israel that God hasn’t forgotten about them the Israelites are happy and they worship.

But…before things can get easier, they get harder.

And as we go along, we see, even from this point, the flip-flopping faith of the Israelites.

At the first news of deliverance they fall down and worship, but then, when things get tough, they immediately disown Moses, and want nothing to do with him.

So what happens?

Moses goes into the presence of Pharaoh for the first time and announces the words of God to Pharaoh through Aaron—let my people go so that they may celebrate a feast to me in the desert.

Pharoah’s response is to reject Moses.

He says: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?” Pharaoh rejects Moses requests, and ironically, so begins Pharaoh’s painful introduction to who yhwh is.

He is about to learn firsthand who the “LORD” is that he has rejected.

Not only does Pharaoh reject Moses and Aaron, but he even makes things harder for the Israelites.

He tells them that they not only have to make the bricks for the empire, under slave labor, but they have to go find the materials to make the bricks with.

Of course, the people are crushed by this news, and they blame Moses and Aaron for this hardship which is the result of Moses and Aaron meddling.

Moses is distraught—he turns to God and he says: O Lord, why have you done evil to this people?

Why did you ever send me?

But God responds to Moses, and tells Him some very important things.

He says: 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.’

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(). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

This is the context for really the rest of the book of Exodus.

God is stating very clearly His plan to actively redeem and call out a people for Himself.

This is very important—God’s plan for redeeming the world comes through redeeming Israel.

How do we know this?

Look back at —God calls Abraham into a covenant relationship with Himself, and He promises that He will bless the entire world through Abraham.

God brings the context of this covenant back into play here.

He specifically reminds Moses of just who He is, and why He is acting on behalf of Israel—why He is planning on redeeming the Israelite nation with his covenant in mind.

And why does He want to bless Abraham, and Israel?

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

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The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

God has somehow tied the redemption of the whole world to Israel’s redemption.

And here we get our first clue about the future—God is saying that His plan is bless the entire world through Israel.

God wants Israel to be the vessel through which He brings His redemption into the world.

This is so crucial to understand.

It’s something that the Israelites themselves often misunderstood.

Many times throughout the history of Israel, the Jews forgot that they existed to be a vessel of God’s blessing.

They began to think that they were God’s favorite, and that everyone else was inferior—almost that they could keep the blessings of God for themselves That is why the Jews were furious with Jesus when He spoke of God’s compassion for the Gentiles in .

That’s when Jesus was preaching and he said There were lots of widows in Israel during the famine in Elijah’s day, but God sent Elijah to minister to gentile woman…

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

However, this was a wrong perspective.

God wanted to bring the messiah from the nation of Israel.

If the Jews got this wrong, it’s certainly possible for us to get this wrong.

We can look at Exodus as God simply trying to save His favorite people from slavery.

We can look at Passover as simply a cool moment when God intervened to save people He loved.

However, we would be missing the major point.

It is no accident that God is specifically pointing to the covenant that he made with Abraham some 400-500 years earlier to bless all the nations.

This is our first clue that God’s purpose was ultimately to bring the messiah, Jesus into the world to redeem the world.

And God was preparing the way for the Messiah, even in the days of Moses.

It’s the reason God called Abraham, it’s the reason God allowed the Israelites to become enslaved, and it’s the reason God was going to deliver Israel and create a nation for Himself that would one day lead to the Messiah—so that all the nations of the world—so that you and me—would be blessed.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

So now that we have the context of why God is going to deliver Israel.

We move into the plagues.

I am not going to spend tons of time talking about the first 9 plagues, but I will just say a few quick things:

-God was using the plagues to demonstrate His power in several ways:

-space and time: God often limited the area and effect of the plagues to only occur in certain parts of Egypt but to not affect the land of Goshen.

He also started and stopped the plagues at very exact moments, even allowing Pharaoh to request specific times when He would stop the plagues.

-nature: God had total control over the forces of nature to devastate Egypt.

-other Gods: The plagues were specifically designed to show God’s dominance over other Gods.

12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.

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The Egyptians had specific gods in charge of things like the rain, the crops, the river, etc. God was showing His superiority to those Gods by destroying the things that the Egyptian gods were supposed to protect.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

-Earthly kings and authority (specifically Pharaoh himself): In the same vein, Pharaohs were regarded as divine—the sons of the gods.

By striking down Pharaoh’s firstborn and thwarting Pharaoh’s authority, God was showing that He was more powerful than the any earthly king, even a Pharaoh—who was the king of one of the greatest world powers at the time.

-Earthly kings and authority (specifically Pharaoh himself): In the same vein, Pharaohs were regarded as divine—the sons of the gods.

By striking down Pharaoh’s firstborn and thwarting Pharaoh’s authority, God was showing that He was more powerful than the any earthly king, even a Pharaoh—who was the king of one of the greatest world powers of the time.

After 9 plagues, we see that Pharaoh still wont give in to God or to Moses, and is still hard-hearted, even though the Egyptians are literally begging Pharaoh to give in and let the Israelites go.