Exodus: God Redeems
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Introduction
Introduction
The Fall - Perfect Creation, Consequences of sin
The Flood - Judgment & Salvation
Abraham and the covenant
Abraham and Isaac - Penal substitutionary atonement
Jacob and Esau
Joseph - Egypt
Egypt - Slavery
1. A Nation Enslaved
1. A Nation Enslaved
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Exodus 1:1-14
God keeps His promise - v7 the people of Israel were fruitful and increase greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them
Egyptian king feared Israel - v12 “the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves...”
Subjected them to slavery
Even commanded them to kill the first born sons
As numerous as they were - hopeless
The more they tried in their own strength, the worse their situation became
They even started t
Accepted their
Parallel
Parallel
In many ways, the plight of the people of Israel reflects the state of the world today
Slavery
Human trafficking
Human trafficking
Economic slavery
Slavery to idols
devices
money - even ministries built around the idol of money
self image (selfies)
All only symptoms of the real problem - Slaves to sin
Born in sin - enslaved to sin
We sin because we are sinners
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
We sin because we are enslaved to sin
All corruption and evil in our world today is a symptom of the world’s enslavement to sin
Everything we try in our own strength makes the situation worse
World wars are proof of that
Politics hasn’t solved anything
More and more we have seen culture turn away from God and to what seems best in our own minds
Degenerating society - divorce, abortion, sexual perversion
Nobody is immune to it - all are slaved
No innocent victims
Israel weren’t innocent - they were turning on each other
2. The God who Keeps Covenant
2. The God who Keeps Covenant
Exodus 2:23-
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
Salvation comes when we turn our eyes and trust away from ourselves and towards God
God remembered His covenant with Abraham and his descendants
On THAT basis, God acts
The people of Israel haven’t got any virtue in God’s eyes that would make God deem them worthy of redemption
God acts on the basis of His promise
The Psalms speak constantly of God’s faithfullness
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations”
“For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations”
Ps 89:
but I will not remove from him my steadfast love
or be false to my faithfulness.
I will not violate my covenant
or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
“if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
So on the basis of His covenant with Abraham, God comes to the rescue of the people of the promise - to Abraham’s descendants
So on the basis of His covenant with Abraham, God comes to the rescue of the people of the promise - to Abraham’s descendants
As in the case of Noah, God chooses a mediator between Him and His people - He chooses Moses
Deut
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your 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 at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
Exodus 3:4-
3. The God Who Redeems
3. The God Who Redeems
And so begins the redemption of Israel
At first it didn’t feel like redemption
Moses asks Pharoah, Pharoah makes life tougher
God hardens Pharoah’s heart
Their redemption would be more than a decision to up and leave - that would be impossible
Their redemption will require God to act on their behalf - a miraculous intervention
Parallel
Parallel
Again, this reflects our reality
Enslaved to sin, we cannot redeem ourselves
The very fact that we are enslaved means that we don’t even desire to be set free
“as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”
- desires and passions of our flesh
It is going to take more than a decision - and even if we could make the decision, the sin that enslaves us will not let us go
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
So our only hope for salvation doesn’t come from within ourselves
It doesn’t come from turning over a new leaf (New Year’s resolutions always fall flat)
Try as you might to be morally perfect, we don’t take long to fall back into old habits
We will always fall back to acting in a way that is consistent with our nature
Our hope is not in our own abilities then, but in God
We rely on God to act on our behalf
Our hope the
We rely on God to come with a divine intervention, a miraclous intervention
(John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)
As we will see: Israel’s redemption was 100% the divine intervention of God
It was not the result of a nation standing up together to fight against the evil Egyptian regime, and winning by physical strength and numbers
Our salvation
They needed God to act on their behalf
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Our redemption from slavery will never be the result of a human act - not even a decision
John 1
Our redemption begins with God who acts in mercy and grace and comes to our rescue - not on the basis of our virtue, but, on the basis of His promise
3. The God Who Redeems
3. The God Who Redeems
But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”
Exodus 6:1:
God begins to reveal His strength
So begins the 10 plagues
Water turned to blood
Frogs
Gnats
Flies
Livestock die
Boils
Hail
Locusts
Darkness (3 days)
The death of the first born sons
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 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. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. 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.
At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”
Exodus 12:3-
Exodus 12:29-
Judgement comes to the wicked in the form of death
The Lord comes in judgement against Pharoah and all of Egypt
The Lord is holy - He is not to be mocked
He is going to come in judgement
But Israel are spared. Why?
Because in obedience to the Lord, they ate the lamb without blemish and painted the blood on their doorposts
But why did God tell them to do all that?
Why kill the lamb and eat it?
Why paint the blood on the doorpost?
Surely God knew which houses belonged to Israel?
God is teaching Israel again - and us - that God is holy, and their must be an atonement for sin in order for their to be forgiveness
The first real image of this is in the command to sacrifice Isaac, but the ram is sacrificed instead of Isaac
The first glimpse of a substitute that dies in our place
Here, the lamb without blemish is the substitute
And the blood of the lamb is the covering that protects Israel from the wrath of the Lord
But why kill the innocent lamb if God already knew He was going to save Israel?
He had already promised to save them, why then still kill the lamb?
Because the Lord is holy, and Israel was not
Parallel
Parallel
We often forget what this means - or we don’t understand it
We will often say things like, why does God allow evil to continue in this world? I imagine Israel may have been asking the same question
Why doesn’t God come now in judgement and strike down all evil doers?
The only reason we would ever ask such a question is because we naively think we are not among the evil doers
We think that we are innocent when we are not
Or we think that God will simply overlook our sins because we think our sins are not as bad as those of others
Wewant God to come in judgement, only because we don’t think He will be coming against us
We want God to come in judgement and destroy all murderers, but we forget that Jesus has said if you are even angry with someone you are committing murder in your heart
We want God to come in judgement and destroy all rapists, but we want God to overlook the fact, that every time we have looked at a woman in lust, we have raped her in our hearts
Yes, let’s call it what it is
If God were to come in judgement against all sinners and evil doers, none would be spared
Why Kill the Lamb?
Why Kill the Lamb?
Because if not for the blood of the innocent lamb painted on those doorposts to cover their own sin...
... then when the Lord came that night, He would have been obligated to His own holiness and justice to strike down even the Israelites
Why did Jesus have to die?
Because the Lord is again coming in holy anger and justice against sin
And we have sinned
Every one of us have sinned against God and fallen short of His glory
And if not for the death of the Lamb of God, and the blood of the Lamb which not only covers our sin but washes it completely away, we would have no hope of surviving his judgement.
God Redeems
God Redeems
So praise God for the cross, and give praise to the Lamb who was slain!
“For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.”
Now this
4. The Response of Faith
4. The Response of Faith
So how then can we escape the wrath that is to come?
Must we then sacrifice a lamb as well? And paint the blood on our doorposts?
The passover lamb that the Israelites killed wasn’t itself able to take away their sins - but it was a shadow of the real passover Lamb
Hebrews 10:10-
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”
then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Do you understand who God is?
Holy
Just
Do you understand who we are?
sinful
deserving of judgment
What must we then do?
As the Israelites did - cry out to God to save you
Believe
Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
Exodus 4:
Repent and believe the Gospel
Israel was saved:
Because God remembered His covenant to Abraham and kept His promise
Because they believed His promise
Because in faith, they obeyed His commandments
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation.
Hebrews 11:1
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.
By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.
Hebrews 11:23-
Would you be saved?
Would you be saved?
Cry out to God in repentance
Believe His promise of redemption to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ
In faith, walk in obedience
Now I know a lot of what I am saying will get me into trouble with some people
On one side, there are many who believe that our redemption hangs on our faithfulness to keep God’s commandments
This isn’t true
Our redemption has nothing to do with our own ability or faithfulness
Our redemption has everything to do with God’s faithfulness to keep His promise to save all who trust in Him
We are not saved by doing, we are saved by believing and trusting in the once for all, finished work of the Jesus
“if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”
On the other side, there are many who believe that, because we are saved by the works of Christ and NOT our own works, we must never give the command to be obedient.
Both objections can be answered with Exodus
Because apart fro the actual exodus of Israel out of Egypt, Exodus is famous for something else: the giving of the Law to Israel on Mount Sinai
And notice the timing of the giving of the Law
It is given to God’s people AFTER they have been redeemed!
That tells us two things:
They were not saved by obedience to the Law
Even after they were saved, God still calls for their obedience
Why did Moses obey God?
Why did Moses and Israel obediently do all that God commanded them to do with the passover lamb?
In fact, why did ANYONE in the OT do what they did?
says they did so in faith.
Do you desire salvation?
Then call out to God in repentance and ask him to save you
Thrust yourself entirely on Jesus and his promises and hold to him in faith
and the result of faith, my friends, is that you will obey His voice.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
John 10:27-
Rev 5: