Letters to the Churches Bunny Trail Part 2

Okay, we are about to get started. Josh, have we got the recording running?

We're all good? Okay. Those of you who have joined us online, you are able to turn on your videos if you like.

And if you have questions, you can either put them in the chat, and I will do my best to try to get to those questions.

Sometimes I have to leave a few of them on the table. Or the other thing you can do is you can raise your hand.

So I get a notice, like there's a thing where you click the button and you can raise your hand.

Which I think is really cool. And those of you present physically, like Dwayne Clevin just demonstrated, you can actually physically raise your hand.

I can throw things at you. Alright, let's do this.

Let's pray. And then we will get started. Lord Jesus, bless. You have caused all

Holy Scripture to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.

So that by patience and comfort of your Holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen. Okay, so let me check questions real quick here before we get started.

We are going to continue technically, and I'm going to put this in air quotes, technically, working our way through the book of Revelation.

But last week we started a little mini -study on the plagues of Egypt, and I wanted to put it in context.

So we're going to mostly be in Exodus today. That's if Bruce Burns isn't in the house.

I need to check. Anyway, because if Bruce Burns is here, all bets are off. There is a question.

Is Kongsvinger AALC? And the answer is yes. Kongsvinger is part of the

American Association of Lutheran Churches, and the AALC is in full, all -term pulpit fellowship with the

Missouri Synod. So those of you who lament the fact that it's so hard to find a good congregation in your neck of the woods, may

I note this, is that the AALC is a micro -synod. It doesn't get much smaller than we are.

Missouri Synod, there's some substantive numbers of churches there.

They dwarf us by a million to one, something like that. But all of that being said, if you are looking for a local confessional

Lutheran congregation, check to see if there is a faithful congregation of the Missouri Synod in your area.

That's a great denomination. There are also very faithful churches within the

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. And then there's some other smaller ones as well, but I don't always remember how the alphabet soup works.

So if you're thinking, I can't find an AALC congregation. Well, believe me, they're about as rare as the

Sasquatch. So if that being the case, know that you have some other options.

Let's see here. Barb is back. I can hear her laugh, yes. Now she purposely left quiet.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right.

Issues Etc. Yes, Carlson and MJ pointed out that the Issues Etc. website, issuesetc .org, they have a church finder.

And you'll note that just because it's a Missouri Synod congregation, just like every church denomination, doesn't mean that individual local congregations are going to be faithful.

We pastors are tempted just like everybody else. And unfortunately, some pastors give into those temptations to basically curb out sound doctrine in favor of ear -scratching doctrines that will make their churches grow.

And Jen Bennett, by the way, says, Barb, hi. Okay. All right.

So all of that being said here, I'll keep an eye on this over here. And let's see here.

All power of positive confession. Good conversation, by the way, in the chat today. Let's see here.

All right. I just want to make sure I didn't miss anything. All right. Yes. And I got to admit, it was a little bit, kind of a guilty pleasure in singing a

Harry Emerson Fosdick's hymn and repurposing it the way we did.

I just consider that to be poetic justice. All right. All of that being said, let's take a look at the book of Exodus. We are going to take a hard look at the plagues of Egypt.

And the purpose here is to see the crossover between the Old Testament types and shadows and what is prophesied regarding the end times.

And we noted that in the book of Revelation, that the first time around when the judgments came out, we remember that there were seven angels.

How many angels had letters written to them? Seven. And so the idea here, kind of implicitly, is that pastors are to preach the judgment of God.

It's to be part of their preaching and teaching, the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

And by the way, I don't know when he's coming back. It could be on a Thursday. I always say it's a Thursday because nobody expects him on a

Thursday. I've heard people say, well, if Jesus is coming back, he's coming back on a

Friday because that's the day he was crucified. And I've heard other people say, no, he's coming back on a Sunday because that's the day he rose from the grave.

And Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour. And so I say it's a Thursday because no one's expecting it. That's the idea.

So we don't know when Christ is coming back. But we note then that what we see in the book of Revelation is a picture then of the sufferings and difficulties that Christians are made to endure from the time of Christ's ascension until the time of his return.

And then in chapters 15 and 16, starting with the bowl judgments, that we see that God takes these judgments rather than being a third of the earth, a third of the oceans.

Everything gets ramped up to 11. Again, it's a Spinal Tap reference. If you haven't seen it, then

I apologize. But the idea here is that everything then gets pegged all the way to the max in this last time through.

And then once we get through these judgments, and you'll see there's a big connection here between these judgments in 15, 16, 17 that are connected to the plagues of Egypt.

And so you'll note that this is kind of God's template for judgment, if you would, a picture of what it looks like.

Now, I would remind you that the pharaoh of Egypt, I pointed this out last week, pharaohs of Egypt wore a particular headdress, and they looked like a cobra.

Don't miss that fact. If you're not sure, look at the golden headpiece of King Tut.

When he has his pharaoh things on, he looks like a cobra with his thing out. I don't even know what those things are called.

But all I know is that I don't want to be near any of them. I don't particularly like cobras.

And I hear that some of them spit. So it's like, no thanks, I'll pass. So all of that being said, we're going to go back now to Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, and we're going to hear the call of Moses first.

And I can't help it, so I'm not even going to try. We're going to note that the call of Moses works against today's purpose -driven preaching.

It works very much against it. And I've heard purpose -driven preachers try to say that this is an example of God giving somebody a purpose.

And so Moses was created for a purpose. You were created for a purpose. But we're going to note that Moses is not keen on the assignment.

Apparently he forgot to read Rick Warren's book before he heard from God on Mount Sinai.

And we'll also note that here God gives us his name, and his name is I Am. And that name

Christ uses for himself, most notably in the Gospel of John 8, verse 58, when

Jesus says that Abraham saw his day and was glad that he saw it.

And the Jews said, you're not yet 50 years old, yet you've seen Abraham, because Jesus was talking like he and Abraham were like close buddies, they knew each other well.

And Jesus revealed something about Abraham that's not written in the Old Testament. And so Jesus says, before Abraham was,

I Am, Ego Eme, uses the divine name from Exodus 3 for himself, and so they picked up stones to stone him.

But that being the case, because we know that Jesus is the I Am, we now know who is talking to Moses.

Who's talking to Moses? Jesus. And you'll note in the Epistle of Jude, thanks to really good recent archaeological finds, we know from the

Epistle of Jude that Christ, Jesus, is the one who led the people out of Egypt.

Let me show you that real quick, since I'm doing a little prelim work here. In the

Epistle of Jude, and if anyone ever says go to Jude chapter 2, you know that they don't know what they're talking about.

In Jude chapter 2, see, now I'm doing it. Jude, verse 5. Rose, bro, wake up.

Jude says, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt.

You say, what? Jesus saved a people out of Egypt? Yeah, he did. And our earliest manuscripts of the

New Testament that we have, especially ones recently found within the last 15 to 20 years, they all have the earliest versions of Jude.

They don't say God, they say Jesus. Jesus saved a people out of Egypt.

So this is Jesus having a conversation with Moses. So Moses was keeping the flock of his father -in -law

Jephro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God, and the angel of Yahweh.

So whenever you see in Scripture the angel of the Lord, I think it's almost 100%, but maybe

I'll hedge my bets here, 97 % of the time it's actually referring to, this is a pre -incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ, the angel of the

Lord. So the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

Moses looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.

And when Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moshe. Moshe, that's how you pronounce his name in Hebrew, Moshe.

He said to him, 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.

My wife makes me do the same thing, but I don't think our house is holy. I think we're just Japanese or something like that.

You come to our house, you gotta take your shoes off. All right, so take your sandals off your feet for the place in which you're standing is holy ground.

And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then Yahweh 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, the Jebusites. And I always have to do this. You gotta throw on the uptights and the ballet tights.

All right, and now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me. I have also seen the oppression with which the

Egyptians oppressed them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

Now, stop here for a second. Types and shadows, how this works. All right, Scripture is clear that just the children of Israel were baptized in the

Red Sea. We have been baptized into Christ. And so this is a type and shadow. I always like to say, have you ever been to the mall or like one of those really large malls?

We don't have a big one here in Grand Forks. And I'm beginning to wonder if it's gonna be able to survive in the days ahead.

It might become like a really large bowling alley in the near future, but that's a different. It has one restaurant in Spoon Court.

Yeah, so, but anyway, if you've ever been to a large mall, like in Southern California or one of the major cities where you've got multiple levels, when you walk in, there's always a kiosk, all right?

And on the kiosk, they have a map. And on the map, it says, you are here. Now, as a man,

I can never, ever positively confirm that I've ever looked at one of these things because it's against the mail code.

We're not allowed to ask for directions. But all of that being said, the best way to think of it is that here, the story of the

Exodus is like that kiosk map, which says, you are here. So here's how it works.

We all were born slaves. Slaves to whom?

Sin, death, the devil, right? Anyone who sins is a slave to sin,

Jesus says. And that being the case, the Pharaoh of Egypt, the guy with the serpent hat, he is a stand -in for the great serpent, the devil.

We were all born in slavery under the dominion of darkness. And then God, through mighty acts of judgment, culminating in the slaughter of the

Passover lambs, Christ, our Passover lamb, has been slain, the

Apostle Paul says, sets us free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, baptizes us in the

Red Sea of his blood, if you would, and then we spend a generation or about an adult lifetime in the wilderness as we head towards the real promised land, which is what?

The new earth. So the types and shadows here matter. They're very important, and getting that kind of worked out makes it so that you can say, wait a second,

I've been grafted into Israel. This isn't their story. This is my story.

This is your story. You're part of this, all right? So rather than Moses leading us out, it's

Christ who has led us out. He's the one who has come to save us. That's the big picture here.

All right, so then it goes on to say, come,

I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am

I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? Now, you'll note he's not keen on the assignment, and here's where the purpose -driven part comes in.

Okay, over and again, purpose -driven preachers will tell you that God has a purpose for which he's created you, and he will reveal that purpose to you only if you humble yourself and intentionally obey

God and earn the right to hear from God what your purpose is, okay?

You're gonna note here that Moses did no pre -prior preparation. He's still on Egypt's most wanted list.

Every Saturday night in ancient Egypt, on television, they said, have you seen this man?

He murdered a fellow. Okay, he's a flat -out murderer, all right?

He's done nothing to deserve to have God reveal his purpose to him, and so you'll note there was no preparation.

He wasn't sitting in the lotus position going, um, and hoping that God would speak to him.

Instead, God finds this murderer hiding in exile on the backside of Midian, herding sheep, evading the

Egyptian authorities, and God comes to him and says, I'm sending you to set my people free from slavery, and Moses doesn't go, praise

God, this is a great thing. It's about time my purpose was revealed to me.

No, what does he say? I don't wanna do it. I don't wanna.

This does not sound like piety to me. Okay, he's sas -talking

God here a little bit. He says, whom should I go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

So God said, but I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Moses said at this point, and you're gonna note here,

Moses doesn't seem keen on the assignment. All right, if I come to the people of Israel and I say to him, the

God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask, all right, what's his name? What shall I say to them?

And God said to them, I am who I am. There we get the name I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel.

I am has sent me to you. And God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel.

Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them,

Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, has appeared to me saying, I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt.

I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the

Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Eptites, and the Balatites, and a land to a land flowing with milk and honey, right?

And they said, they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt, and you shall say to him,

Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Note here that God gives specific commands to Moses to name his name and to say, quote,

Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. And so you'll note in our English ESV, we have the word

L -O -R -D. This drives me nuts, okay?

It just drives me bonkers. This is why when I see L -O -R -D in all caps,

I use God's real name. God did not say, go to Pharaoh and say to him,

Adonai, the God of the Hebrews, has sent us to you. Adonai means Lord. God said, tell him

Yahweh sent him. You'll note that becomes a vital part of the exchanges then between Moses and Pharaoh.

And so, and now please let us go a three day's journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our

God. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.

And so you'll note here, there's a little bit of a theme that has a crossover then into the book of Exodus, is that scripture makes it clear that the devil knows that his time is short, and he's really full of malice and wrath and raging right now, because he's not going to let us go unless compelled by a mighty hand, and that's the hand of Christ.

So we can see the judgments then play into the book of Revelation, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

So I will stretch out my hand, I will strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it, and after that, he will let you go.

So you'll note, this is, again, it has a crossover, and if you know your Old Testament, and you're reading the book of Revelation, you sit there and go, oh, you see the penny drops, the light bulb goes on, you can see the crossover, because in the days immediately before God brings the people of Israel out of Egypt, and by the way, we've all been grafted into Israel because we're in Christ, you have all these signs and wonders and judgments, same thing for the end of the earth, in the days before the return of Christ.

So I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, when you go, and you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, for clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and your daughters, so you shall plunder the

Egyptians. Now, if you've ever spent any time in the charismatic movement, they are always prophesying of the big wealth transfer that's supposed to take place, that somehow your pagan neighbors are gonna show up at your door and go, would you like a wheelbarrow full of money, okay, and here's all of our gold and our silver and our diamonds,

I don't know why, but I just wanted to give them to you. Okay, so when

I was in the charismatic movement, they were prophesying that all the way back in the late 80s, okay, about the great wealth transfer that's supposed to take place.

This is a complete misappropriation of this text from Exodus 3. I assure you, your neighbors are not gonna show up and give you all of their stock portfolio.

It's not happening any time in your lifetime, so just forget it, okay, but you get the idea.

Next chapter, chapter four. Was that a hand, yes? I don't have the answer to the question.

The question is, why did God offer him a three -day option? Okay, God's not in the negotiation. I don't have an answer to you.

Here's the thing, I don't know why unless I have a text that says why. I just know what the original offer was and then that since Pharaoh didn't want to play and there was no negotiating with the terrorists that he is, that it resulted in something completely different, okay, but I don't know why.

Yeah, right, all right. So Exodus chapter four now, all right. Let's see here.

All right, let me check questions here. Oh, the uptights and the ballet tights, Robin Hood men in tights, yes.

Never mind, I can't even start saying that. Yeah, right. All right, is it true that when we read as I am that I am, that it could also read from the

Hebrew I will be what I will be? Not exactly. So here we'll note that the I am, the haya here is like a noun form of the name

Yahweh. So you've got the I am kind of as a title and then Yahweh itself. It's better to kind of put it along these lines because it's hard to translate.

You can roughly translate Yahweh as the self existing one but even that kind of misses it because when

I translate it, I translate it as the one who is's, okay, which makes no sense, okay, because the verb to be, is,

I am, was, were, okay, the verb to be, that's kind of the gist of it is that God is saying that I, and so I use the words of like other places.

God is the one who is, who was, who is to come. He is the big iser, okay. Does that help or does that just confuse everybody?

He uses a second language. Yeah, I took grammar at DeVry.

Anyway. All right, so all right.

God is the verb to be, got it. Okay, right, Victor, you get it. God is the ising, he is, right.

He's kind of like the verb sum in Latin which means to be. To be, right, he is to be, that's right.

Is he the big is? He's the big is, right. You guys are there, okay.

God is past, present, future, he's everything, right. All right, so here we go then.

All right, Moses answered, but behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice and they will say

Yahweh did not appear to you, which by the way is not a illegitimate complaint, okay, because have you noticed all the people that are coming to us today, the

Lord has told me and I'm getting a download from heaven right now that he's releasing breakthroughs in the season that's coming ahead and Trump is gonna be re -inaugurated as president in March.

Okay, yeah, God didn't send you. Okay, so here's what happens then.

So the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand? And he said, a staff.

And he said, throw it on the ground. So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses ran from it, which is a smart thing to do by the way.

But Yahweh said to Moses, put your hand and catch it by the tail. So he put out his hand and caught it and it became a staff in his hand that they may believe that Yahweh, the

God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you. Now this is where we begin to get the concept of what are called sign gifts, all right, because it's a pretty big claim when somebody says that they're sent from God.

And you'll note then that a miraculous sign is given to Moses, not one, but two, and actually three, three signs to validate that he was sent by God.

And these are not magic tricks. These are bonafide miracles. So you'll note then in scripture that when we look at the miraculous in scripture, when the charismatics in the

NAR says, the Bible is full of miracles. No, it's not, all right, it's not.

How many miracles did Abraham perform? Isaac, Jacob.

Okay, even Noah didn't perform a miracle. He worked a long time with a hammer and large pieces of lumber and stinky, smelly animals.

All right, there was no miracle, yes. That's the big miracle that God did not just say, that's it, you're done, we're done.

Okay, right? So when we look at miracles in the scripture, we're going to note that they serve a function.

Who is the first author of scripture? Moses, Moses is the first author of scripture.

He was given sign gifts to show that he was from God. And how many books did he write?

Five, all right, first five books of the Bible. Who wrote the rest of the

Old Testament? The prophets or the school of the prophets or the son of the prophets, all right.

And when it came to the prophets, how many of them were miracle workers? Just a couple, most notably

Elijah and Elisha. All right, how many miracles did John the Baptist perform?

Zero, all right. So you'll note then that miracles are actually very rare in scripture.

This is why we refer to them as sign gifts because they validate the person sent by God.

And since it's the school of the prophets that put together the rest of the Old Testament as we know it, it's vital that they had some sign gifts that went along with them to validate that they were actual prophets of God.

And so we see that in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. And then for the most part, miracles kind of just go by the wayside.

How many miracles did Jeremiah perform? Right, you get the idea.

So then after the prophets, who are the next miracle workers? Jesus, and Jesus like way outstrips everybody when it comes to the miracle department.

And then after that, his apostles. And the apostle Paul, by the way, says that in one of his letters that the signs of the apostles were performed in your presence.

So there's a category then that the apostles of Jesus Christ, they performed miraculous signs that validated that they were sent by God.

So think of it this way. Back in the time of the Reformation, the

Roman Catholic Church was really not very keen on Martin Luther and the

Lutheran Reformation. They were not keen on it at all. And one of the Roman Catholic bishops challenged the

Lutherans, and specifically Martin Lutheran says, what miracles do you perform to prove that your message is true?

To which Luther said, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Right?

And the apostles which preached the same message we're preaching. The miracles that validate the message that we preach, they're found in the

Bible. So should you expect Roseboro to be a miracle worker?

No way. Although I would say that if my wife saw me cleaning the house, she would think that somehow the prophets had come back to life.

Just saying. So there's miracles and then there are miracles.

That second one is in the other category. Okay, so don't expect to see that anytime soon. So that being the case, we can see here the foundation of what are considered to be sign miracles.

So we continue then reading. All right, so Moses had a staff. Oh, I need to make a note here.

Have y 'all ever heard Rick Warren's TED Talk? Okay. Okay. It's worth the watch if for no other reason than it'll turn your stomach sour and make your eyes roll back in your head.

Because Rick Warren, at the time when his purpose -driven life was all the rage, was invited to do a

TED Talk on being purpose -driven and he preached from this text. I can't even say preach because a

TED Talk's not a sermon. Rather than tell everybody, Jesus bled and died for your sins, okay?

Instead, he takes this text and he says that Moses' staff represented his identity and that God was asking

Moses to lay down his identity and only when you lay down your identity will God give you the ability to raise it back up again.

Yeah. It's really bad. You know what? Now that I'm thinking about it,

I really should do a retro fighting for the faith. I remember reviewing that and going, ugh, it's so painful.

It's really, really bad. For a recap. Yeah, a revisit. As a dog returns to its vomit.

Fighting for the faith autopsy. Yeah. All right. Okay, one was

Melchizedek. Okay, let's see here. Off topic, who were the three men talking to Abraham in Genesis 18?

Okay, good question, by the way, Dana. All right, so the question is who were the three men talking to Abraham?

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It's an appearance of the Trinity. And I don't have time to fully explain that now, but that's your short answer.

It was all three persons of the Trinity. And you can tell by their inner dialogue with each other, okay, because they were talking to each other as equals and they weren't angels in the truest sense.

So we actually have a theophany not only of the Son of God but also the Holy Spirit and the Father. Keep that in mind.

But that's really what that's about. Dana, I'm glad that's what you thought, because if you, always, and again, that text is one that I always point out to people.

Just read it and ask yourself, why does this sound so weird? Because it doesn't make any sense. Their dialogue is kind of odd.

It only makes sense if you recognize that that's an appearance of the Trinity itself. All right, moving on here.

All right, so put out your hand. He caught it and it became a staff in his hand so that they may believe that Yahweh, the

God of the Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has appeared to you. That's the purpose of the sign.

It has nothing to do with Moses' identity. So again, Yahweh said to him, put your hand inside your cloak.

And he put his hand inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, put your hand back inside your cloak.

So he put his hand back inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.

If they will not believe you, God said, or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.

And if they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the

Nile, pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.

Hmm, God turning earthly elements into blood. Hmm, hmm, anyway.

All right, all right. But Moses said to Yahweh, and here, this is hilarious. Oh, my

Lord, and now he uses the word Adonai, okay? Oh, my Lord, I'm not eloquent, either in the past or since that you have spoken to your servant, and I'm slow of speech and of tongue.

Okay, no, Moses is trying to find any reason possible to say, I don't want to do this, okay?

And he's trying to find a way to bow out and for God to go, oh, yeah, I forgot all about that. I'm sorry, I picked the wrong guy, okay?

So then Yahweh said to him, who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, Yahweh? Now, therefore, I will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you shall speak.

But Moses said, oh, my Lord, please send someone else. Yeah, yeah, this is,

I mean, this is underwhelming, this is. So what does the leprous hand represent?

I would note that in the writings of the Church Father, you're going to get several different pictures of it. One of the common ones is that leprosy is a view of our sin.

Leprosy is oftentimes kind of a type and shadow of physical depiction of sin and its consequences, and God healing leprosy or making things whole again is a sign of his way of forgiving the consequences of sin and restoring us.

It's a sign, if you would, of God ultimately going to restore all of us sinful lepers that we are in the resurrection.

That's really the sign, that's kind of the meaning behind it. All right, all right, so now, so you're gonna note here that Moses don't wanna go, send someone else.

So the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Moses and he needed to see God. By the way, you don't wanna make God mad. That's not a good thing.

He says, all right, so God said, all right, is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well.

Behold, he's coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he'll be glad in his heart. So God already arranged this, because Aaron's on his way, all right?

So you shall speak to him, put words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.

He shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him and take in your hand the staff with which you shall do the signs.

So Moses went back to Jethro, his father -in -law, and said to him, please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.

And Jethro said to Moses, go in peace. And Yahweh said to Moses and Midian, go back to Egypt, for all the men who are seeking your life are dead.

All right, so Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride a donkey and went back to the land of Egypt and Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

Now, let me keep going on here because there's something coming up that's a little confusing.

So then Yahweh said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says Yahweh, Israel is my firstborn son. I say to you, let my son go so that he may serve me.

If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son. So the consequences of not listening to Yahweh on the part of Pharaoh are laid out at the outset, at the beginning.

Now comes one of the more complicated little bits here. At a lodging place on the way,

Yahweh met him and sought to put him to death. We're talking about Moses here. And this is a real tough nut to crack.

So Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin, touched Moses' feet with it, and said, surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.

So he let him alone. It was then that she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.

So here's kind of the best that scholars can put together, and this is a really rough synopsis of it.

So we know then that Moses has had sons with his wife

Zipporah. And apparently not all of their sons are circumcised, which has something to do with Zipporah because she's the one who has to relent.

So you can kind of read between the lines a little bit here, fill in the data. Moses and his wife couldn't see eye to eye.

And so one of their sons is circumcised, the other one not so much. And Zipporah was the one who didn't want that to happen.

And so in order to be proper as Jews, sons of Abraham, circumcision was part of that covenant.

They can't go back to the children of Israel for the purpose of then saying God has sent us and then having one son circumcised and the other one not.

So this is in defiance against the Abrahamic covenant and the sign of that particular covenant.

And so Zipporah has to be the one who relents because she's the obstacle in this case.

And so you'll note here that being put to death had something to do with the fact that this kid was not circumcised.

So Zipporah was the one who ended up doing it herself. And you can tell she did it grudgingly because at the end of it, she takes the foreskin.

Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. That's the best we got on that one. That's the gist of it.

So it would have been inappropriate for Moses to be leaving the people of Israel with an uncircumcised son.

And so Zipporah was the one who was the obstacle.

All right, moving on now. So Yahweh said to Aaron, go into the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God, kissed him.

And Moses told Aaron all the words of Yahweh with which he sent him to speak, all the signs that he had commanded him to do.

And then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke, so notice who's doing the speaking here.

Aaron's doing the speaking. Aaron spoke all the words that Yahweh had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people.

And the people believed. And when they heard that Yahweh had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and they worshiped.

And here's the fun part, because this is in the types and the shadows, here's the thing. Yahweh has visited us in Jesus Christ.

He has seen the affliction that we are under, under the dominion of darkness, sin, death, the devil. And we bow our heads in worship of Christ who has come to rescue us from this land of, note here,

Egypt, air quotes. Egypt is a stand in here in the types and shadows for the world we find ourselves in.

And then you'll note that in the book of Revelation, when we get into the later parts, it's not gonna be

Egypt that's mentioned per se. It's gonna be the other great pagan nation, Babylon.

So in the types and shadows, Egypt is one picture, Babylon is the other. Babylon is the picture of the people of God in exile, not able to go to their homeland yet.

And you sit there and go, well that sounds like us too. Yes, have you ever noticed we're in exile here under the dominion of darkness?

And we're not yet in the kingdom of Christ physically. He's in among us by belief, but we are not physically there.

So we are presently dispersed in the nations and we are in exile. So those are your big two words,

Egypt and Babylon, but we're focusing on Egypt at the moment. And we're doing good on time,

I can't believe it. All right, Exodus 5. Afterwards, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, thus says

Yahweh. Notice, they invoke God's name. Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

But Pharaoh said, who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice and let

Israel go? I don't know Yahweh. And moreover, I will not let Israel go.

And then they said, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our

God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. But the king of Egypt said to them,

Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.

And Pharaoh said, behold, the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their burdens.

So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and of the foremen, you shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past, let them go and gather straw for themselves.

But the number of bricks that they made in the past, you shall impose on them and you shall by no means reduce it for they are idle.

Therefore they cry, let us go and offer a sacrifice to our God. Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.

Did Moses and Aaron speak lying words? No. All right. So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, thus says

Pharaoh, I will not give you straw go and get the straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.

And I think this is a nice little picture here, right? You'll note that being a Christian doesn't make your life easier.

It makes it much more difficult. All right. Go and get your straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.

So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. The taskmasters were urgent saying, complete your work, your daily task each day as when there was straw.

And the foreman and the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, they were beaten and they were asked, why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday as in the past?

And then the foreman of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, why do you treat your servants like this?

No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, make bricks. And behold, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people.

But he said, you are idle. You are idle. That is why you say, let us go and sacrifice to Yahweh.

Go now and work. No straw will be given to you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.

The foreman of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, you shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.

So they met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them. And as they came out from Pharaoh and they said to them,

Yahweh, look on you and judge because you have made a stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us.

Again, this is a type and shadow of the suffering and the persecution that we Christians face for our confession of Christ.

We are a stench in the nostrils of the devil. And so he chooses to make our burdens pretty heavy.

Sounds like corporate America. Yeah, it does and there's a reason for that. There's a reason for that. So then

Moses turned to Yahweh and said, oh Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people and you have not delivered your people at all.

And now God's about ready to stretch and unleash, all right?

So Yahweh 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.

So God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name

Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them. I give them the land of Canaan and the land in which they lived as sojourners.

Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptian hold as slaves and I have remembered my covenant.

So say therefore to the people of Israel, I, Yahweh, I am Yahweh and I will bring you up from under the burdens of the

Egyptians. I will deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

With a what? Outstretched arm? Hmm, that sounds like, you know,

Jesus on the cross, right? You can kind of see the double entendre in some of these things, clearly pointing off to Christ.

I will take you to be my people. I will be your God and you shall know that I am

Yahweh, your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

And that's not a postage stamp sized piece of property in the Middle East, that's the new earth. Hebrews 11 makes that clear.

I will give it to you for a possession. I am Yahweh. So Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.

Is it any different for us? No, it's not. That's kind of the whole point of the story. All right.

Oh, all right, let's see here. All right, so Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, typology, they rode to Egypt.

Uh -huh. Out of Egypt I have called my son. My son.

You'll note that Jesus' earthly father, not biological father, is named Joseph. And Joseph takes them to where?

Egypt, right? All of these are callbacks to the Exodus. You can't properly understand the

New Testament without a good grounding in the Old. All right, next thing, question.

That you mentioned this, what's a really easy way to reconcile the fact that the Christian life is hard and persecution is to be expected, but that Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light?

So Eric, here's the idea behind it. It's a good question. And this is where, as Christians, we always have to make what are called proper distinctions.

We have to rightly divide the word of truth. So when Christ is talking about, come to me all you who are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, it's in the context against the

Pharisees' religion of self -righteousness, of earning your salvation by your works.

Jesus is saying, come to me and I will give you rest, not because he's trying to help us avoid persecution, but because he is the one who's carried our sins for us.

He gives us salvation as a gift. And the big picture, if you would, of what salvation is, is the

Sabbath rest. And I would see Hebrews 4 there. So the idea then that persecution and suffering are not in contradistinction to the fact that Christ has given us rest.

The question is, what is Christ giving us rest from? Rest from saving ourselves by our works.

In fact, I always like to say that since the Sabbath, we have to keep it, and the Sabbath is a type and shadow of our salvation by grace through faith apart from works,

I am the biggest couch potato when it comes to my salvation. I got my feet up, I'm holding a beer in my hand, and I refuse to lift a finger when it comes to my salvation.

I'm gonna just sit there and veg. I am doing nothing. Totally trusting in Jesus. And we all say, that's kind of weird.

Yeah, well, that's the idea here. Jesus has done it all, so I'm gonna rest. But then as a

Christian, then, I understand that persecution, suffering, slander, oy, that's all to be expected.

And what does Christ say in that regard then in the Sermon on the Mount? Blessed are you when people say all kinds of manner of evil against you falsely for my name's sake, for great is your reward in heaven.

So the idea then is that those are two different types of, you have to make a distinction to what

Christ is talking about. The one doesn't cancel out the other. The one is talking specifically in a particular context towards something, whereas the other is dealing with something else.

So you get the idea? All right, good. Now comes the next fun part. So Yahweh said to Moses, go in and tell

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, let the people of Israel go out of his land. But Moses said to Yahweh, behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me.

How then shall Pharaoh listen to me? For I am of uncircumcised lips. But Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

Now you get a note here. Moses, looking by all worldly standards, is Moses a success at this point?

He's a complete flop. I mean, as far as prophets go, people sent by God at this point,

Moses is like a complete washout. He's a hack. I'm sent by God, we believe you.

And now they're suffering and it's like, they don't even like me anymore, God. Right? So just when everything looks like it's going to go to hell in a handbasket, that's the great part where God steps in, right?

Because who's really taking the people of Israel out of Egypt? It's God, it's not Moses, right? So then it goes on and lists the heads of their fathers.

So you'll note that the ancient Israelites, they're in 12 tribes, but there's 13 names.

Keep that in mind, 12 tribes, 13 names, because you've got the half tribe of Manasseh, the half tribe of Ephraim. And then they have heads of their different clans within their tribes.

And I'm not going to list these all out because I don't think it's going to be helpful for me to do all the linguistic gymnastics working our way through those

Hebrew names, all right? But we continue. So these are the

Aaron and Moses to whom Yahweh said, bring the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts. It was they who spoke to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt, this

Moses and this Aaron. And on the day when Yahweh spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, Yahweh said to Moses, I am

Yahweh, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you. But Moses said, behold, I am of uncircumcised lips.

How will Pharaoh listen to me? Which is not an illegitimate complaint, but the point is that God's now going to work.

And we'll get into the first part of this here. So Yahweh said to Moses, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother

Aaron shall be your prophet. By the way, have you noticed here that this gives us the theology of who a prophet is and what a prophet does.

A prophet is one who speaks for another. A prophet is one who speaks for God.

Keep that in mind, okay, that's what prophets are. And you can always tell that somebody isn't a prophet of God when they speak for God, certain things are gonna happen and they don't happen, you know,

Trump being president again. Anyway, you get the idea. So Yahweh said to Moses, see,

I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother

Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land, but I will harden

Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you.

Well, what kind of assignment is that? Okay, right? So here's the plan, ready?

You're gonna go say, let my people go, but they won't. All right, okay.

So then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, watch this, by great acts of what?

Judgment. That's what we're seeing in the book of Revelation, that God is going to bring his hosts of Israel, you and I, we've been grafted into Israel, right?

Bring out all the believers, all who have the same faith as Abraham. He's gonna bring them out of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

That's how you get what's going on in this last part of Revelation. So then the Egyptians shall know that I am

Yahweh when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

This has eschatological implications in the types and shadows. So Moses and Aaron did so.

They did just as Yahweh commanded them. Now Moses was 80 years old, and Aaron was 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Great, they're octogenarians. So God is sending guys that should be in the nursing home to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Great, all right, okay. So how are we doing on time? Okay, yeah, we'll do this one.

So then Yahweh said to Moses and to Aaron, when Pharaoh says to you, prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, take your staff, cast it down before Pharaoh so that it may become a serpent.

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and they did just as Yahweh commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret art.

For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

Still, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as Yahweh had said.

Now, a little bit of a note. We know the names of two of the magicians of Egypt. Two. Do you all know the names?

Jannas and Jambres, all right? Now, I want to talk about this, and we'll kind of end off on this thought right here, and we'll pick up from this point next week.

So if I were to do a quick search for Jannas and Jambres, I should find it in the Epistle of Jude. Hang on a second here.

Not the Gospels. I want the Epistles. Ah, here, 2 Timothy. My apologies. All right, here we go. 2

Timothy. Listen to these words. Just as Jannas and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth.

Men corrupted, mind disqualified regarding the faith. Jannas and Jambres. Where did

Paul get those names from? Answer. From what's called the Book of Enoch.

Now, it's important to note that there are two extra -canonical works that give us some, some,

I mean, sketchy historical background for what's going on in the

Old Testament. One is called the Book of Jasher. The other is called the Book of Enoch. All right?

Neither one of them are scripture. Both are interesting. Both are interesting.

They're worth the read, but you can't consider them scripture, so they're extra -canonical.

And I would note that in the Book of Enoch, which I think is hilarious, if you know the story of the Book of Enoch, after the fall of humanity, so Adam and Eve, after they fell into sin, the angels had a conversation amongst themselves because human women became ugly compared to what they used to be, and so it was the angels who invented makeup.

What? I'm not making that up. Makeup? You're not making that up? No, I didn't make that up about the makeup.

Yeah, according to the Book of Enoch, it was the angels who came up with the idea, why don't we put a little bit of red on your lips and put some blush on your cheeks to kind of tidy things up a little bit here so we can blame the angels, apparently, on makeup.

So they were the ones who brought us Maybelline. Anyway. Revlon. Revlon, Maybelline.

It's all them, okay? But I don't think they drove pink Cadillacs. I'm just saying.

Anyway. So it's from those books that we get

Janus and Jambres, these names. But here's the issue. You cannot say

Enoch or Jasher are canonical. They are not inerrant. There's clearly myth and legend in these things, and they are an interesting read.

I do particularly find that the Book of Jasher is helpful in understanding more of the details as it relates to what the earth was like prior to the fall.

There's some oral tradition that was written down in Jasher. It's also interesting to note the

Book of Jasher's back details regarding the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it's worse than we ever imagined, the best way

I can put it. So if you want to know, then, as Christians, we can read extra -canonical books to help fill in some data, but we can never push on it and say that's from Scripture.

Scripture's sufficient, but these books help. So that's where the Apocrypha comes in.

It's an extra -canonical book. It's very beneficial to read. It's not Scripture. Also, I would note that if you're looking for extra -canonical works to help understand some of the history behind the

New Testament, Josephus' works are extremely helpful as far as giving us the history of the

Jewish people and what happened in Jerusalem in 70

AD with the Roman Empire sacking Jerusalem and then destroying the temple. So those works are also very helpful.

Book of Jubilees, it's in that same, I've kind of put Jubilees in the same category as Enoch. All right?

So these are interesting books. They are interesting, but you never ever work them into Scripture unless Scripture works them in.

So you'll note here we have an example of details that are found in an extra -canonical book being put into canonical

Scripture, but that's all you can do. I've run across people who argue that because Janice and John Breeze are mentioned here, that means the

Book of Enoch is Scripture. No, it's not. Angels inventing makeup. Yeah. Raises an eyebrow.

Yeah, yeah. Could you imagine? Could you imagine? I mean, what would the social justice feminists do with Christianity if we were out there preaching as a doctrine that the angels invented makeup?

Oh, man. It's bad enough as it is, all right? Well, they already do that, so.

All right. This is where we're going to leave off today, and thank you guys for the questions and the good discussion, and we'll pick up next week.