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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brody-thibodeau/the-i-am/
I'd like to read in John's Gospel, chapter 8, please. That is the Gospel of John in chapter 8. We'll begin our reading at verse number 29. He, it says, that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him.
As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
They answered him, we be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth ever.
If the son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Now to verse number 56, please. Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, thou art not yet 50 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. And then they took they up stones to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Now Old Testament, please. The book of Exodus in chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3, verse number 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.
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. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight why 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 off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is 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, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt.
And I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and large onto a land flowing with milk and honey onto the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hevites and the Jebusites.
Now, therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is, come unto me. And I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt.
And Moses said unto God, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, certainly, I will be with thee. And this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee.
When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers has sent me unto you.
And they shall say to me, what is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you.
And God said moreover unto Moses, thus shalt thou 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 has sent me unto you. This is my name forever.
And this is my memorial unto all generations. Try and adjust my light. If I were to perhaps summarize my message for this morning, it might be in the words of a children's hymn that we often sing or used to sing in Prince of Rhode Island.
When Moses and God's people from Egypt's land did flee, you sing that one here in Iowa? Their enemies behind them and in front of them the sea. God raised the waters like a wall and opened up the way.
The next line, and the God that lived in Moses' time is just the same today. What I would like to do is I would like to draw the parallels between Exodus chapter three and John chapter eight for us so that we are really continuing, perhaps in the vein of thought that our brother John brought before us last night when he brought us to Moses and the announcement that there would be a prophet raised up like unto Moses and that they would hear him.
And he drew the parallels between the life of Moses and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the prophecies concerning Christ in the writings of Moses. And what we're going to do in continuing with that is we're going to look at the discourse that the Lord Jesus Christ had with those men in John chapter eight and how any man like those men who knew the Old Testament of their Bible would remember all of the different writings concerning the Christ, would remember even the account of Moses on the Mount Horeb when he saw the bush that burned but was not consumed and he heard the voice of God.
Any man reading those scriptures and then hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus would recognize very clearly what the Lord Jesus was saying when he said, before Abraham was, I am. Before Abraham was, I am.
Of course, there are seven different metaphorical I am statements in John's gospel that you could go through and you could get some different practical implications from. You could get some devotional thoughts from them and you could learn lots about the Lord Jesus.
We were already praying this morning a couple of different times about the bread of life and that's the first one, isn't it? In John chapter six, after feeding the multitudes, he uses that as an illustration really to say I am the bread that has come down from heaven.
The bread of life. He will speak words in the context of giving a blind man sight when he says, I am the light of the world and that is full, of course, of implications theologically and devotionally.
He's going to talk about being the door of the sheep. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. He will tell them that he is a good shepherd and that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
It's then at the graveside of Lazarus that he says I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
I always love to quote those last words. Believest thou this? I find sometimes, my brethren and sisters, that we know, but we don't believe. Believest thou this? Then, of course, in chapter 14, he's going to say I am the way, the truth, and the life.
And chapter 15 brings you to I am the vine and ye are the branches. I am the true vine. Each one of those can be traced from the Old Testament where they would have their origin in the character of Jehovah.
But there are at least three, maybe more, I am statements that are not metaphorical. In fact, maybe there are more than that. Let's think for a second. In John chapter four, when the Lord Jesus is revealing himself to that woman at Samaria's wayside well, as we sometimes sing, we often quote the words that he says to her, I that speak unto thee am he.
And at that point, of course, she leaves her water pot, having found the Messiah, the one who could satisfy, but like none other could satisfy, she goes into the town and says, come see a man that told me all things that ever I did.
Is not this the Christ? But literally, when the Lord Jesus said, I that speak unto thee am he, he was saying this. The one speaking to you, I am, I am. And I can't help but think of her mind. I know that she didn't know the scriptures like those Pharisees knew the scriptures, but I can't help but think of her mind going back to the Old Testament, maybe even to the rock from which the water came in the wilderness and it all comes together now.
It all makes sense to her now. Living water she has received from the I am. If you go to chapter six, there's those men and they're on the sea and they're in the storm and the Lord Jesus comes and he says, it is I, be not afraid.
He's really speaking beyond their minds now and he's trying to reach their hearts, but literally, what is he saying? He is saying, I am, stop being afraid. I am, stop being afraid. And their minds go back to the Jehovah of the Old Testament of whom it is said in the Psalms, he can still the waters, I am.
When those people come to take him, perhaps you think I'm wasting your time. I enjoy these things and you'll enjoy them someday too. In the garden of Gethsemane, when they come to take him by force, you'll remember that there's a mob of people that come with Judas and they come with staves and they're really with that mob mentality there to accost him and arrest him.
And the Lord Jesus says, whom seek ye? And they say, Jesus of Nazareth. And what does he say? I am he, literally, really, what does he say? I am. And at that moment, those men went backward and fell to the ground.
I think contextually, you would have to narrow down the semantic range of that word, fell down to the ground. But I take it not that they went backward and with that saying that it was so overpowering that it knocked them backward.
I take it that in the context, they went backward and because of the statement with absolute authority, I am, they fell down in obeisance to him. I think really it is a fulfillment of the scripture, every knee shall bow.
There's coming a day, we know that those men didn't have their wills bowed to the Lord Jesus, but there's coming a day when even sinners who will not bow their will are going to bow the knee. I hope we understand that, that sinners who refuse Christ will exist in eternity with a will that is direly against God, but they will bow their knee.
Why? Because to the great I am, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The fourth one is the one that we read here when he says before Abraham was, I am, I am.
But let's go back to the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, we find Moses on the backside of the desert. And I would take it that this is after the 80 years that John brought us to last night. Moses is keeping his father-in-law's sheep and Moses has now become that nobody that we have heard about, a man now in humility.
He sees the bush that burns, but it's not consumed. I can't help but think that when Moses was afraid to look upon God, later on we're going to see that Moses desires to see God when he's in the wilderness with the children of Israel and God says, no man shall look upon me and live.
This was quite an event. Here's what happens with us sometimes. I'll not preach for a minute, I'll just talk. We look at these fantastic accounts and we relegate them almost to Sunday school type stories.
There was a man who was keeping sheep, who heard the voice of God coming from a burning bush that was not consumed. This was not an everyday occurrence. This was an appearance of Jehovah himself to an ordinary man, a man who had grown up in the palace, yes, but a man who had acted an impulse and killed a man and here he was after being on the backside of the desert for all that time, God appears to him because God is going to use him and God is going to raise him up to be the deliverer of his people.
That's tremendous. Don't stop telling it in Sunday school, by the way, but don't forget the absolute power that is in this message, the power that is in this account. Moses is now going to have the authority to go to the children of Israel with a word from the I am as a result of this experience.
But as he's discussing or as he's having a discourse with the Lord, there's something that comes to the forefront that I want to get practically for all of us and that is no matter how consuming, no matter how holy, no matter how righteous, no matter how high Jehovah is, he cares for his people.
I want you to see it in verse number seven. It says here, I have surely seen the affliction. I have seen the affliction of my people. He's coming to Moses now but he's always been watching. Think of that.
He's not saying to Moses, I'm going to look and see. He's saying, I have seen. I have always seen the affliction of my people is the idea. He looked upon them. Don't you know, don't you know that he looked upon them when there rose up a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph and the affliction and the oppression began to the point where the Egyptians and Pharaoh were fearing that the nation was growing so big they had all of their sons thrown into the river.
Don't forget, never forget, God saw it all the time. He saw the affliction. He saw the oppression. I can't help but think about the tender character of Jehovah. I believe my brethren that God shows us grace.
God has shown us grace and God continues to show us grace in our sin and our sinfulness. That God shows us mercy, kindness in our oppression, in our affliction and no matter what, the Lord's people might be going through today.
Remember, it's not like God chooses today to look upon your affliction. God has always seen you. God always sees you. He has seen. In verse number seven, it also says, I have heard their cry. Now, if you were in the land of Egypt and you were one of the children of Israel and you were constantly being oppressed from morning till night with very little rest, wondering if the safety of your children was, or the safety of your children was at risk every time that you woke up in the morning, knowing that your wife now is expecting a child and if that child is going to be a boy, that boy is going to be thrown into the river.
There would be a constant cry up to God, wouldn't there? And when they got so weary that they couldn't even cry to God, according to chapter two in verse number 24, the Lord heard their groanings. So it's not just the audible prayer.
This should touch all of us, by the way. It's not just the audible prayers of these people when they could somehow articulate the sorrow that they were going through, the heaviness of heart and the weight that was on their shoulders as they didn't know what was going to happen next.
It was actually the groanings that could not be uttered, that Jehovah heard, and he never missed one. He never missed one. You know, we do have a high priest touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but we also have the Spirit of God and he makes intercession for us.
According to the scriptures, with groanings that cannot be uttered. Sometimes I look across an audience like this and I see a lot of young people. It's good to have you here. The older people, no one's old.
We're all just older, getting older. And I wonder sometimes if the young people ever think about the groanings. Sometimes, my brethren, we think this way, that as we believers who have experienced more of the disappointments of life, the heartaches, the sorrows, that enter into the teaching of our great high priest and the groanings that cannot be uttered, but I believe that there are young people here today who are serious about living for God.
There are times when you're trying to make a decision, times when you're charting a course forward, times when you know that what your heart has set on, and you have to turn from, you also cry out to God.
Remember, he hears each cry and he hears each groaning. But there's more. He says, I know their sorrows. Now, the word for know here is more than just that he's aware. Now, I'm aware that you people are here in the audience.
It affects me somewhat, but not tremendously. The word here is not that God is aware of their sorrows, it's that he understands. The word is that he understands. So he sees their affliction, and he always seen, and he hears their cry and their groanings, and he doesn't miss one, and he understands their sorrows like no one else could understand.
I may be taking a bit of time here. Is that clock accurate? In Prince Edward Island, it's only 10 to nine. So perhaps I'll go by PEI time for a couple of minutes. No, it's beyond that, it's lunchtime in PEI.
I don't even know where I am. My, my. You see it? Jehovah cares. Pharaoh didn't care. And while the people were going through it, they didn't understand. And it could very well be that they could have talked to each other, and some of them could have said, last night, I went through this, and I was thinking this, and I'm thinking about just trying to make a run for it.
I'm thinking of giving up on living in this type of condition. And someone else might say, well, try and keep moving along. You know, we're all in this together. But everyone had different feelings, and everyone had different circumstances.
And while they all might have been in the same boat when it came to that, nobody really understood how each other felt. But there's a Jehovah in heaven, and he is absolutely holy, and he is absolutely righteous, and yet he looks down at his people who are being afflicted, and he sees their affliction, and he hears their cry, and he knows their sorrow, like no one else knows.
That's the God who is going to raise up Moses to deliver his people. But there's another phrase that I want you to get in this conversation. It's in verse 16. When God says, I have surely visited you.
I have surely visited you. Now, now you're Moses. You're Moses, and God, the Jehovah has come, and he has spoken to you. He says, I am the God of your father, Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And immediately now you're thinking about Abraham and his altars. You're thinking about Abraham's final altar when his son was on the altar, and God delivered, Jehovah delivered the son of Abraham by a perfectly placed ram.
And you're thinking that Jehovah is able to deliver our firstborns, aren't you? And you think about Isaac, who's not the man of the altars, he's the man of the wells. And as you think about the wells, you think about the refreshment in the wilderness.
You think about the spiritual refreshment for our day. But now Moses is thinking not only is God able to deliver our firstborn by the blood of a lamb, but God is able to give us the water in the wilderness that we need.
I would take it that Jacob is the man of the pillars, the man of the pillars that commemorate his dealings with God as God brought him back into the land, and he could be sure that God was going to get him into the destination that God had promised.
I am the God of Abraham, I am able. I am the God of Isaac, I am able. I am the God of Jacob, I am able. And I have surely visited you. Who's that? But Joseph, it is the same word that Joseph used when he was dying and he spoke of his bones.
He said, you'll take my bones up. Why? Why? God will surely visit you. Don't miss it, my brethren and sisters. Don't miss it. 400 years had come and gone, fulfilling the promise that God had made to Abraham that his seed would be down there for 400 years oppressed in Egypt.
The 400 years had come and gone, and now God is going to raise up a deliverer, a deliverer in honor of his promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, a deliverer in honor of that statement that Joseph would make.
I will surely, God will surely, Jehovah will surely visit you. Here it is, it's all coming together. As the Jehovah, the God who keeps his promise, now says, I'm going to raise you up as a deliverer. This deliverance is going to be by blood.
This deliverance is going to be by power, but this deliverance is going to be by the Almighty himself. You see it, don't you? It's going to be in honor of his promise after the 400 years. He's going to raise up a deliverer who will deliver by blood and will deliver by power.
And now we come to the New Testament. It's been 400 years. You see it. 400 years since God had spoken to the nation through the prophet Malachi. Significant? I think so. 400 years had come and gone, and now God is going to raise up a deliverer, a deliverer who is going to redeem by blood, a deliverer who is going to redeem by power, a deliverer who's been raised up by Jehovah himself.
You see, when it comes to our redemption, we have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We are aware of that and we are cognizant of it, of course, from the scriptures, and we know that we have not been redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.
But I hope we understand that we have also been delivered by power, just as the Lamb that was slain in the land of Egypt with the blood placed on the lintel and the two doorposts was the redemption price.
Then God moved in absolute power when he parted the Red Sea, and he took them from being on that side in the land of Egypt, and he placed them on an entirely new ground. They were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and the power of God to remove them from Egypt.
We have been redeemed by the blood of our Lamb and the power of God that has taken us from underneath the dominion of Satan, the dominion of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.
We have been redeemed by blood and by power. But you will understand, before Moses is raised up to deliver, before there is ever a Lamb that is slain, and before there is ever a Red Sea that is parted, God is now going to reveal himself in a name.
His character is going to be connected to this name when he says, tell them, I am has sent you. And now in our New Testament, in the book of John, we have the same thing happening, right? I've already outlined it, the deliverer being raised up to deliver by blood and to deliver by power.
But on the eve of this deliverance, the Lord Jesus begins to speak with words that will display the character of God in a name. And that name is the same name that Moses heard. It is, I am, I am. Now, in order to get it, you have to understand that these people said, we be Abraham's seed, and we've never been in bondage to any man.
What were they saying? They were saying, here you are, you're coming along, and you claim to be this, and you claim to be that, but you're talking about setting us free, the truth setting us free, and the son setting us free, but we're not in bondage.
And the Lord Jesus says, oh, yes, you are. You may not be in bondage to Pharaoh. You may not be in servitude to Egypt, but you are a slave of sin. And the Lord Jesus had come not to deliver from the bondage of an oppressive government.
He wasn't even coming to deliver from the emperor or from the Caesar and from the oppressing Romans. He was coming to deliver from the oppression of sin, to make people free from the law, free from sin, at liberty to serve God like they had never been at liberty to serve before.
That's why he says, if the son, therefore, shall set you free, you shall be free. Indeed, to serve God, they didn't believe that the bondage was real, but it was. They didn't believe that the Redeemer had come, but he did.
And he was speaking with them. You know what I find remarkable about this is that while Moses turned away, she didn't wanna look, was afraid. And at a later time, Moses couldn't look because no man could see God and live.
Here were rebellious creatures, and they were looking into the face of the Lord Jesus Christ and according to the Lord's own words in John 14, he that has seen me has seen the Father. They were looking into the very face of God and they lived.
The conversation continues. The parallels in their mind were drawn. They didn't believe it, but they knew what he was saying. I don't believe for a second that these men were ignorant when the Lord Jesus was speaking in these terms.
They knew their Bible. They knew what the rabbis taught. They knew about this prophet that should come. And then he says, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, was glad. That gave them the springboard to say thou art not yet 50 years old, and yet thou hast seen Abraham.
The use of the emphatic pronoun throughout John chapter eight is really enlightening. If you go through Newbery's Bible, you will see that he helps you with that. But the use of the emphatic pronoun gives us a little bit more flavor to the conversation.
They are incredulous at times in their accusations. And he says, verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, and everyone stopped. And their hands at this point are reaching. Not for their Bibles now.
Their hands at this point are reaching for stones. Why? Why? Because if he says what they think he's going to say, they're going to call it blasphemy, and they're going to stone him. Why? Because they know that if he says I am, that he's claiming to be Jehovah.
Here's where you need to be practical. There are people who will tell you that the Lord Jesus never claimed to be God. Those people don't understand what the phrase I am means. Before Abraham sprang into existence, literally, before Abraham had his beginning, I continued to be what I always was and ever will be.
Before Abraham was, I am. Now, sometimes I think in these terms. Or I am. Has he changed? Has the man who walked on water ever changed in character and power? Has the man who says, I am, be not afraid, ever compromised in his compassion and mercy?
Has the man, the I am, who said, I am the resurrection and the life, ever changed his mind on a future resurrection day? Has the one who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, ever let down a sinner who has come to him?
I would say, by wrapping up again with the hymn that I quoted at the beginning, God raised the waters like a wall, opened up the way, and the God that lived in Moses' time is just the same today.