Exodus

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Today, we're going to be looking at the book of Exodus, and before we get into the word, why don't we open with a word of prayer.
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Dear God, our loving and gracious Father, merciful, kind -hearted, long -suffering.
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight this evening.
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In Christ's name we pray. Amen. So the book of Exodus is part of the
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Pentateuch or the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, we get to see the author of the
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Pentateuch, his life began. In the book of Genesis, Moses is not the character in the book, but he is given divine revelation from God.
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As you remember last time when we look at the book of Genesis, we got to see two main divisions.
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We got to see four main events, creation, fall, flood, and the tower.
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Then we saw four main characters. We saw Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
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Jacob's name got changed to Israel, and what God begins in the book of Genesis, in picking this one man and giving him this weighty promises to make him a nation, to bless him and that through him, all the nations would be blessed.
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We get to see unfold in the book of Exodus. So in the book of Genesis, we get to see
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Joseph bring all his brothers, his kinsmen, the family of Abraham, the family of Israel into Egypt.
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From Exodus, we're going to see how they become a nation and move forth from here. Now, my goal this evening is once again to give you an outline of the book of Exodus.
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So when you go from here, you have some pegs, a mental pegs in which you can lay out the book.
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And then as you study it, you can see how the various pieces fit together. But while we're doing that,
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I want us to have a focus on Christ. What do we see of Christ in this book?
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And how do we, and this book in particular applies very closely to the life of a believer. It applies directly to our salvation.
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First Corinthians 10 talks about how this is, the events in the life of Israel are meant to foreshadow the salvation that you and I go through in Jesus Christ.
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So as you're listening to what God does in the life of Israel, you want to be thinking what God has done in your life as well.
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And we want to look to Jesus Christ, who is our savior, the savior of Israel and the savior of you and I today.
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Now, if I want to lay out the book, there's a couple of ways, many ways to do this.
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One of them would be rescue. You know, as we think of Exodus, when you think of Exodus, just look at the signpost and say, exit.
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You know, we're getting out of here. That's really Exodus, leaving. Now that's rescue from Israel.
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Then you have revelation from God about his righteousness and his laws.
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And then you get to see something of a rest or the abiding presence of God in the midst of his people.
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So those could be three ways you can look at it. But I think the easiest way for you to remember when you walk out of here is this.
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The first one is the 10 plagues. The second one is the 10 commandments.
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And the third one's a little bit of a stretch, but you can think of it as 10 articles in the tabernacle. 10 plagues, 10 commandments, and the tabernacle.
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10, I'll try to show the math as we go through it. So with that,
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I wanna give you a big meta theme before we dive into the first section, the 10 plagues. When we think of Exodus, not a lot of questions come into our mind because we just normally look back and say, wow,
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God. But when you talk to an unbeliever, a lot of things short -circuit their mind.
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How can these things be? Are these natural phenomenon that are just blown up by people? What about all these sacrifices of lambs?
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We need to call Peter. Maybe we need to, Pharaoh, poor guy.
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Look at all the trouble that he and his nation go through. And by the way, this nation is devastated and they're gonna go to another nation called
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Canaan and those people are gonna be all wiped out. This doesn't compute to an unbeliever.
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Does God just cause suffering and evil? Or is
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God a merciful and compassionate God, as we will see in Exodus 33 and 34?
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Is God a God of peace and justice that works out his righteousness even in these spilling of blood, in the destruction of Egypt?
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And we will see in the end of our, as we get into Joshua, in the depopulation of Canaan as God's people come into the land.
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I'll give you a quick hint and then we'll get into the text. Why was the sacrificial lamb necessary?
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Lambs in their multitude necessary because of sin. Why did
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Pharaoh and Egypt go through these tumultuous times in their land?
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Because of sin. If you wanna think of one nation that just reached the pinnacle of evil in that time, there cannot be anything other than Egypt and we will look at that.
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And then when we later come into the promised land in Canaan what does God say about the land that spits the people out of the land because their iniquity was full and God was executing justice and bringing righteousness even through his judgments.
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So we as believers kind of already know this but I think it's good for us to be reminded of this as we walk through the narrative of history in the book of Exodus.
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With that said, let's look, open your Bibles to Exodus chapter one and right there in Exodus one, one to seven you get to see this continuation from Genesis.
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Here are these 12 sons of Israel who come into this land and in verse seven you see, the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly.
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They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them.
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You need to remember, what was it that brought the people of Israel into Egypt? There was famine, there was no food and God raised up Joseph, God rescued
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Egypt through this man Joseph who interpreted the dreams that God had given to Pharaoh and Pharaoh trusted
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Joseph and gave him authority over the land and for this people to settle in Goshen and here they multiplied.
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So what was just a family now becomes a nation as they multiply and grew in the sovereign plan of God.
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Now, before we go any further, sometimes we can receive these times of plenty and we can forget that there's a greater purpose that God has in our lives.
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What was it that God promised Abraham? He said, this land of Canaan is what
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I have promised to you and I'm gonna bring you and have your people settle here and this is 430 years later that this whole people of God will get out of that land and while we are in the times of plenty, we can start to lose sight of the long -term promises.
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What is it that God has in our lives and so while we're going through this book, you wanna be thinking this is God's sovereign plan working itself out in the life of this nation.
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Now, what happens in verse eight and beyond sets the circumstances in the life of this nation that will propel that exodus.
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You know, while we're all comfortable here, we're gonna be sitting in the seats. If there is a fire in this room, we'll be quickly looking for those exits and here is the fire that begins as this new
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Pharaoh who comes here, this man who looks at this people, sees them not as a people who are a blessing to Egypt but rather sees them as a threat in times of war and he says,
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I need to subjugate, I need to assert my sovereignty, I need to assert my rule over these people so that I control them rather than I am overrun by them.
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So that's his motive as he comes and says, as you can just scan through the rest of chapter one, this
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Pharaoh decides to enslave these people. He decides to put in hard labor and to break the backs, as it were, of the people.
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In fact, when that doesn't work, he says, now I'm gonna try to kill the babies and so he orders the midwives to kill them but they don't and then finally he says, every male child needs to be drowned.
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So if you're thinking of abortion and the issues that we have here today, this is, you know, multiplied 100 times fold.
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Here is a king who despises the people of Israel.
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God said to Abraham, those who bless you, I will bless and those who curse you, I will curse and here you get to see this evil that is brought upon the people of God will have ramifications and God will bring about justice.
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So that's a context in which you get the Exodus birthed out. God is gonna bring his people out and he does, he has a strong purpose.
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In fact, this morning in Romans nine, you heard how the arm of the Lord was revealed in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and God is gonna bring glory to himself even as he works out his purposes in the life of his people as we read in this book.
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So with that, we now come to Moses. So in chapter two, we get to see this little baby who is just too cute to kill.
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The mom puts him, I mean, that's, I'm not making this up. So if you wanna hear more about the life of Moses, don't just read
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Exodus, read Acts seven where Stephen talks about Moses, read Hebrews 11 where the author of Hebrews talks about the faith of Moses and the purpose of God in Moses' life and Moses' mother who decided this baby ought not to be killed.
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So she puts him in the basket, God rescues him, brings him right into the door of Pharaoh's household and there he grows to be this mighty guy of learning.
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He gets to study things that the Lord will use later when the nation leaves
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Egypt and goes through the wilderness and gets ready to enter the promised land.
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In fact, there is one other way you could divide the books of the
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Pentateuch as a whole actually. It's through the lifespan of Moses.
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Moses spends, actually some of you, maybe some of you were there this morning when I quizzed you, the young ones, 40 years in Egypt before he flees
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Pharaoh for having killed the Egyptian soldier and then spends 40 years in Midian in a different kind of learning and then the last 40 years are as he leads the people out of Egypt and toward the promised land.
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So those are the lifespan as you were, but if you look at the amount of text in the
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Pentateuch, the first 40 years are part of chapter two and the second 40 years is also part of chapter two and chapter three.
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So there's not much given in terms of what happens in the life of Moses because this book, although Moses is a central character, he is a type of Christ as God uses him to redeem his people, the book is not about Moses.
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The book is even not about Israel. The book is about the
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Redeemer of Israel, the Redeemer of Moses, God himself. What you're gonna find is the book begins with the evil in Pharaoh's heart that God is gonna judge, but the people that are rescued from the hand of Pharaoh are just as evil and rebellious as the nation that they were rescued from.
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And you always wanna look at Exodus and Leviticus as twin books.
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Exodus shows the salvation as the people are rescued physically from Egypt and it pictures the salvation, the justification that we get.
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You wanna think of the Passover lamb and how we are saved and then Leviticus, we're gonna unpack the more technical aspects of this book as we look at what the sacrificial system is all about.
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How is it that God sanctifies his people? So as we are being made more holy, next time we will be looking in the book of Leviticus.
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But in Exodus, we just get to see that we have a great God, a savior God who rescues his people.
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So in the beginning chapters of Exodus, we get Moses who's rescued. Moses, who gets to see his people oppressed, has righteous indignation and kills this soldier and he thinks his arm of flesh can rescue.
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But what he soon realizes is he is now a fugitive. Moses, this murderer and fugitive, has to run from the law and flees from Egypt.
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And there in Midian, where he is just a shepherd, not really, no longer in the royal palaces, no longer enjoying the pleasures and Hebrews 11 talks about this.
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He did not count these pleasures as worthy and here God would teach him a different kind of lesson and with that we come to Exodus chapter three.
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And in Exodus chapter three, we get to see a very interesting event happen, a key event in the turning point of this book.
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So Exodus three, end of verse one.
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Moses comes to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.
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He looked and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
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So God here appears and it uses angel and we get to see
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God speaking through this book. In verse four, the Lord Yahweh saw that he had turned aside to see.
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God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses, and he said, here
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I am. And then you know, God talks about the place on which he is standing as holy ground and he says,
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I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And this reminds
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Moses of the covenant that God had made to the nation of Israel, to the people of Israel in the person of Abraham and God is here to redeem his promise.
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In fact, if you move up to the end of chapter two, you get to see the people of God in verse 23, cry out to God for help.
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And in verse 24, God hears their groaning. He remembers his covenant and God saw,
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God knew and God acts on behalf of his people. So here you get to see
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God revealing his purposes. Here is what I'm going to do, do Moses. Moses, you thought you could rescue the people.
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It failed, you fled. You are here now as a wilderness and nobody and in a no man's land and I'm gonna take you and you are gonna be my agent as I bring the people out of Egypt.
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And you get to see this interesting dialogue. Moses is like, oh, anybody else but me Lord. But God provides for Moses' weakness and sends
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Aaron and he sends him to the people. But there is one thing that I wanna point out in this text and I think this is helpful for us to remember.
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In verse 13, Moses says to God, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you and they asked me, what is his name?
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What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who
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I am. Say this to the people of Israel.
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I am has sent me to you. What is the name of God? Remember, this is 400 years that these people have been in Egypt that the knowledge of God and then the people of God, they know that they are descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and this is the
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God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they need to bow down to and this is the eternal God, the self -existent
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God. And this God will come down in human form in the person of Jesus Christ.
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And in the Gospel of John, you get to see Jesus talk about the I am, I am, I am,
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I am. And the people are reminded of this powerful encounter that Moses had with God in the bush as it preceded the redemption of Israel out of Egypt.
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And likewise, Jesus will be the one who will provide redemption for everyone who would trust in him.
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So with that, we come now to Pharaoh. So Moses comes back, the people are initially not so sure, but they say, okay, we will do this.
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We look forward to God's redemption. But what happens when God prophesies?
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Moses, Pharaoh is not gonna say, okay, I'll let your people go. He is gonna be hardening his heart and I'm gonna harden his heart and I'm gonna show my glory through the stubbornness of Pharaoh as I show who
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I am as a God of heaven and of earth. Now, from Pharaoh's standpoint, it's pretty straightforward to say.
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You remember what, this is the original Pharaoh in Moses' time had died, this is the next Pharaoh.
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And here is this man who has this enormous economy, he is the most military, his military, his political power, his economic power, everything is transcendent.
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He has absolute domain over the land and he has this massive group of people that provide for him free labor.
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And he has power, prestige, and he has no need to negotiate or give in to the request that comes from these
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Israelite people under Moses. So he is gonna assert his sovereignty and he's gonna do it freely.
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He's not gonna just say, oh, I'm gonna have this bargain with God, I'm gonna act in such a way so that God's glory may come through.
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He is gonna exert completely fully his evil will in resisting the will of God and he's gonna see both the hand of God in his midst.
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All the people in Egypt, in fact, throughout the land, will get to see who God is in the person of Pharaoh resisting
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God and getting to see the power of God. So with that, let's quickly look at the 10 plagues that happen and how this power struggle, if you will.
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We talked about the tug of war thing and here is Pharaoh thinking he's got all the power, not realizing that who's on the other side is
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God Almighty and God is gonna show him that there is no man who can withstand
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God's sovereignty. And so when Pharaoh begins, he's gonna start with power and his prestige and soon he's gonna start negotiating and ultimately he's gonna capitulate as he realizes that this is someone he cannot contend with.
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So the 10 plagues that you have here, if you look at Exodus chapter seven, we get to see the first plague, the water turning into blood.
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And in fact, you can look at each of the Egyptian polytheistic gods that are worshiped and God shows himself not just as a
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God of Israel, as a local deity, a God just of this people in this land, but rather a
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God of heaven and earth. His rule transcends into all nations into this most powerful nation in the land at this point in time, this
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Egypt and its gods, God is sovereign over. So you have the water that turns into blood that it stinks and Pharaoh's heart is hardened, verse 22 of chapter seven.
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And then the second miracle, the second plague, frogs that over power the land, frogs that are meant to stay in the water come into the land, they come in such copious quantities that Pharaoh recognizes that this is just horrible.
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He looks for relief, he promises freedom. In fact, if you look in chapter eight, verse eight, he starts to bargain.
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He says, plead with the Lord to take away these frogs and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the
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Lord. You get to see already his power starting to crack. He thought he was all powerful, but he is not. And then in verse 15, once again, you see that when he gets a respite, he hardens his heart.
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And then you look at the third plague, the lice or gnats or mosquitoes, these gnats that come from the dust.
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And these things, once again, come into the land overpower them, but Pharaoh's heart once again is hardened in verse 19.
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The magicians actually said that they have been trying to reproduce these miracles, these plagues, and they were successful until now, but when it comes to the gnats, they say this is the finger of God.
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They recognize that this is God acting, but Pharaoh's heart is hardened and does not listen.
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And once again, if you look at verse 19, as God had said, here is this, what we studied as concurrence in Sunday school a while back, here is
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Pharaoh freely and completely giving no reign to his wickedness as he lives out his desires.
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And God sovereignly also will harden Pharaoh's heart. In fact, when you look at the terminology that is used, you get to see the active hand of God hardening
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Pharaoh's heart in the end of the last five plagues and God decreeing that sovereignly even before the plagues begin.
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And through this, especially in the first five plagues, you get to see how Pharaoh's heart is hardened as he willfully and stubbornly refuses to see and acknowledge the
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God of heaven and earth. And then you have the land with flies, once again, in chapter eight, verse 28, you get
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Pharaoh bargaining. I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord, your God. And then he says,
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I'm negotiating. I won't give you the whole deal. I'll give you part of it. Don't go too far away. And once again, he is hardened.
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And then in the fifth plague, livestock in chapter nine, verse six, these are diseased and dies.
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And Pharaoh, once again, in verse seven is hardened. The sixth plague boils chapter nine, verse 10, these covered both man and beast.
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Once again, Pharaoh's hardened. And then in the seventh plague hail, and here there is a warning.
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God tells the people there is a hail coming. And those people in Egypt who recognized already everything that God is doing say, you know, maybe
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I ought to listen. And they bring their cattle in and they are safe. Whereas those who don't lose their cattle and everyone loses their crops.
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Once again, Pharaoh begs at this point, his demeanor changes from this powerful king to one who recognizes he needs help and relief.
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In verse 27 of chapter nine, you get to see this plea that Pharaoh has. Once again, he promises freedom, but he is hardened.
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And then you have the locusts that take out everything that is left. One more bargaining from Pharaoh and he reneges on his promise.
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And then you come to the ninth plague, which is the thick darkness that covers the land. And here you get to see as the culmination of the plagues come to place, all the people in the land have seen that this is the hand of God, but Pharaoh is completely blinded to the danger, the precipice that he's standing on.
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And with that, we come to the final plague, the death of the firstborn in chapter 12, verse 29.
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In chapter 12, verse 29, we get to see this judgment of God.
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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 of the firstborn of the livestock.
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And you get to see this cry, great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.
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And then in verse 31, he summons Moses and Aaron by night and said, up, go out from here, from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, go and serve your
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Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks, your herds, as you've said, and be gone, and bless me also.
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So here you get this God displaying his power in the life of Pharaoh and in the
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Egyptians until they say, you can leave. And so that brings us the first part of the book of Exodus.
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Here is a power encounter where Yahweh demonstrates that he is completely powerful, not just over nature.
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These are not just miracles. You know, there are descriptions of how these happen. There are winds that come up and bring these, the flies into the land, and then they take them out.
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So all these things, God predicts, he brings forth, and you have to think about it. How is it that these things happen, that there were so many of these happening in time?
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God makes all of these happen and brings them according to his sovereign will, accomplishes the work that he has in his direction of history, and then he showcases himself as God, that these people would know who
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God is, and they would bow down before him. And the people of God would get to worship him with awe and reverence.
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And in fact, not just the people in Egypt and the Israelites, but people throughout the nations.
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As the people hear of what God does, they're going to be trembling as they recognize that there is a
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God who lives among the people, who works for his people, and this is the true God who is sovereign over heaven and over earth.
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Now, there is one thing I skipped, and that is in chapter 12, you get to hear the
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Passover. The last plague is powerful in its magnitude, but it is also powerful in the manner in which it is executed.
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Here you have the angel of death, you have death coming through the land, and God rescues his people through this means of the
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Passover. You have the lamb that needs to be slain, and the blood posted on the lintel, and that is a guarantee of protection for the people who would trust in God.
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Jesus is our Passover lamb.
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When John the Baptist looked at Jesus in John chapter one, he said, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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As Jesus celebrates the last Passover with his disciples, he would soon die on the cross, and in his death, he would accomplish that blood sacrifice once and for all.
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It is finished, and he will accomplish redemption for his people.
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And then you, so let's keep moving on. So it's not just here, and if you look at chapter 13, you get to see the presence of God in leading his people through, but in verse chapter 14, it's not just the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, but God deliberately moves the people in the desert so that Pharaoh says, hey, you know what?
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I made a bad deal. I lost all my slave labor. I was overwrought with the grief and sorrow, and now it's time for me to go get these people who are just wandering in the wilderness and capture them again.
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So he gets his elite troops. It calls the chariots here. If you wanna think of it, chariots at that point in time in military were like the most sophisticated weaponry.
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Here were these guys with these wheels with spokes, and nobody could withstand them.
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That's why they were the leading nation. You can think of, I don't know, the mother of all bombs, whatever it is that we have today that is able to execute military power.
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You know, hey, I have this weaponry. I can actually execute again. Let me do this one final stance and make up for all the loss that Egypt has had, and that's what
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Pharaoh's thinking as he heads down towards the people, and the people are hemmed in between these mountains and the
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Red Sea, and God says, I'm gonna show you these people, 400 years who were over you.
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You will see them no more, and then you know the rest of the story. Moses raises his hand.
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God opens the sea and takes the people through, and Pharaoh thinks he can go and get them, but instead,
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God destroys his army through the waters, and in fact, as you read through 1
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Corinthians 10, you get to see how the people who followed walked through the
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Red Sea. 1 Peter talks about this walking through the water as God rescues his people. Now, you would think right here after seeing chapter 14 and chapter 15 where the song of praise as people just see this amazing way in which
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God has rescued them that they would be a people who are filled with gratitude. How many of you can look back at your day of salvation and say,
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I remember how wretched I was and how grateful I was for my king, and then you look back at the years that followed and those times when that heart of gratitude was replaced with a heart of selfishness and with choices that brought dishonor to your
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God, and that's really what we see in the book of Exodus. In the end of 15, you get to see people complaining against their
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God because the water was bitter and God provides. In chapter 16, the people once again complain.
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Verse two, the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
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And then God says, I am about to rain red from heaven and he provides manna, not just one day, but through their entire 40 years that they will be in the wilderness.
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And God is a God who provides for his people. And in chapter 17, you get to see something very, very interesting.
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So once again, there is a time when there is a need for water and instead of praying to God and asking for God, the people quarrel with Moses.
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And as the people thirsted there for water and grumbled against Moses, Moses cries out to God and God says, pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the
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Nile and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb and you shall strike the rock and water shall come out of it and the people will drink.
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And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
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Now, this is a moment once again, where the people, Pastor Dave would say this, the people have been taken out of Egypt, but Egypt has not been taken out of them just yet.
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And that's what Leviticus is about as the people are gonna get sanctified. They are still in the mindset of the land that they came out of and they are complaining.
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And what is it that they're really complaining about? They're complaining about Moses because he's their representative that they can see before them.
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But ultimately they're complaining against the God who just mightily rescued them out of Egypt saying, this
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God is incapable of providing for our needs. We are grumbling, gungusness, right?
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Pastor Mike's talked about this a lot. This is their heart attitude. This is all they, they had forgotten the great powerful redemption that they've experienced coming through the
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Red Sea from the plagues. And instead they were caught up in thirst questioning the character of God.
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One of the commentators said they were upset with Moses and they would have liked to get rid of him.
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And if they had long enough arms, they would have tried to get rid of God as well. And so here
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God symbolizes this work. And in fact, the rock that we are talking about here in 1
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Corinthians 10, four, this rock is Christ. He is the one who is with them in his very presence providing for them.
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And this striking of the rock symbolizes what it is that the people really want to do.
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But God is a gracious God. He is merciful, he's compassionate, he's slow to anger and he will provide for them even in the midst of their rebellion.
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And they will get to see that their God is a God who provides. So with this whole section, we've gotten to see the 10 plagues and the rescue that has happened.
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Let's now move on to the next section, which is the 10 commandments. In chapter 19, you get to see the
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Mosaic covenant. This is a conditional covenant that God makes to these people. The people are no longer in the presence of Egypt.
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Pharaoh and his armies, they will see no more. They're out here in the wilderness and God makes a covenant with the people, but it is a covenant that they need to obey.
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And the people willingly say, yes, we will do all that God asks of us. And so in chapter 20, you get to see the 10 commandments.
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And what is the most important of all the commandments? Verse two, I am the Lord. I am
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Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. It is the person of God, the
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Redeemer God, on the basis of which these people are to obey the revelation of God.
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God says, I am the God who has rescued you. I am the one who has redeemed you. And now I'm going to tell you what it is that pleases me.
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Here is my law that you are now covenanted to be my people and to follow me.
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Now, when you think of the 10 commandments, let me just say this right off the bat.
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No one has been able to keep those 10 commandments except Jesus.
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Jesus, as the perfect man, is the only one who's been able to fully and completely keep the law of God as exemplified in the 10 commandments.
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Jesus would then summarize all of the law and the prophets in those two really weighty commands.
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That is to love the Lord, your God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. We as believers are not under the
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Mosaic law. We are not required to keep the law as it is given in the 10 commandments.
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You have to listen to me very carefully. And in its outflow. So you're going to look at the next several chapters that are going to break it out in the life of Israel.
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What is it that they are? How does these 10 commandments work themselves out in the life of the people?
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And every single one of them that comes forth from here can find at least one or two of the 10 commandments as its root, as it works out in application.
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Now, what is it that the believer today is called to do? Every single one of these commandments is repeated in the
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New Testament for the life of a believer. So you don't need to necessarily go to Exodus 20, but you have the entire
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New Testament talking about the law of God that is revealed in much greater precision and color and definition in the
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New Testament. In the 10 commandments, you have, you shall not murder.
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And what is it that Jesus tells us when he talks about those two laws, love God and love your neighbor? If you were to call your brother,
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Raka, if you had anger against him, you have already broken this command. There is a much greater clarity as the law that is revealed in Sinai to the people of Israel is now given in much greater clarity in the person of Jesus Christ.
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We've got to see the one who has fulfilled all of these commands and shown us what it means to live a life that is pleasing to God.
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So I want you to just keep that in mind as we go through the 10 commandments. So you have the first four commands that relate to God.
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No other gods before me, verse three. Do not make a carved image, bow and worship them.
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Do not take the name of your God in vain, verse seven. And remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.
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In fact, except for the Sabbath law, everything else is repeated in the
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New Testament. And these are things that talk about how do you honor God with your life and with your worship?
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You must keep him and him alone as central. And in fact, in chapter 19, you have the covenant. Chapter 20 to chapter 32, you get to see the 10 commandments and the working out of the law that is given to Moses.
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And Moses at the end of this grand revelation, as he's bringing down the commandments and the regulations and the instructions for following God, as he comes down, we'll see that the people who covenanted in chapter 19 have already broken the very first command to not bow down before other idols.
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So the people will once again abandon what they thought they could do because they cannot.
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But these laws will showcase the character of God. They will show the righteous requirement of God, what it is to be a people of God and follow after him.
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And so you have the first four commands talking about relationship to God. And then the last six commands talking about relationship to our neighbor or love to our neighbor.
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Verse five, honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land. So that's verse 12. And then you have, you shall not murder, verse 13.
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You shall not commit adultery, 14. You shall not steal, 15. You shall not bear false witness, 16.
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And you shall not covet, verse 17. These provide the basis of our human society today.
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What is it that, how is it that we are to live our lives today? Here is God revealing his divine commands that showcase what is good.
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And it is on the basis of God's revelation that we who are made in God's image can flourish as we live out our lives.
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But it is impossible for us on our own to keep these commands. But rather we have Jesus Christ as the forerunner who fulfills it on our behalf, provides us his righteousness so we are considered justified.
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And then he empowers us by his spirit so that we can follow with a willing and full and joyful heart to keep this in our lives.
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So what do you see here in these several chapters that follow Exodus 20 is the working out of what that means for the nation of Israel while they are following after God.
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But we come to chapter 32 and you get to see this golden calf that the people make.
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These people rebel willfully. You can almost picture this. Here is Moses up 40 days in the top of the mountain.
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They can see the fire, they can see the cloud and yet you get to see what is the nature of our hearts that it would want to make
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God's of our own making. I have seen a golden calf in Egypt and that's what I would rather see, something that I can tangibly touch rather than the
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God of heaven and earth who rules from heaven. And so what we see then is this intimate conversation between Moses and God as God talks about the righteous requirement of the law that he has just given of destruction of these people and Moses interceding on behalf of the people.
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And once again, you get to see the type of Christ as Moses prays for these people as Christ prays on our behalf today.
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You get to see the discipline that is brought about as Moses comes down, he sees this chaos that is reigning in the camp and the people of Levi respond to the call to bring judgment upon those who have run amok.
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And what is it that they have done by worshiping these false idols and indulging in revelry, they have brought shame upon the name of God and those who would, and there is death that happens in 3000 people who die because of this sin.
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And then you have an atonement that is accomplished as Moses once again in chapter 32 verse 30 prays to God, these people have sinned a great sin.
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But now if you will forgive their sin, if not, but now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out from your book that you have written.
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But the Lord said to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out from my book, but now go.
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And you get to see this heart of Moses or he almost reminds you of Paul in chapter Romans 9 to 11, talking about this heart that he has for the people of God that they would be forgiven and that they would have a right relationship with God.
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Now, right in this midst of this catastrophe, you can think of Exodus 20 with the law and all this grandeur.
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It was not just the outworking of the law, but there is something much more transcendent that is given. We'll get to this in a moment.
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And Moses coming down and what he sees here is a people who have rebelled once again, gone away, and then
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God forgiving and restoring the people, even in his judgment. But in chapter 33, you get to see something really, really beautiful.
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As you get to see the heart of Moses, he has gotten to see the hand of God through all of these, the plagues and the
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Red Sea, and even in the provision in the wilderness. And he says, I wanna know you. I wanna see your glory.
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And God is gracious and compassionate and hides him in the rock. Once again, he cannot see God face to face, but in the end of chapter 33, while my glory passes by,
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I will put you in the cleft of the rock. I will cover you with my hand and I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.
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One of the commentators called this the afterglow. You know, this is just Isaiah six, you know,
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I undone, I won't undone you Moses, but you get to see the afterburner kind of thing.
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You know, it's like zooming past. And so in chapter 34, you get to see the name of God in verse six.
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The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving for iniquity and transgression, but no means clearing the guilty.
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And you get to see this nature. What is it in the heart of God? We have a God who loves, who is compassionate, merciful, and that's the
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God that Moses gets to see. And the people of Israel will get to worship.
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Now, in chapter 35, you get to see the covenant renewed in a sense, as the people respond with willing hearts to everything that was revealed in, you now have the, in the end of chapter 34, you have the covenant renewed and you have contributions for the tabernacle that the people willingly and wholeheartedly bring forth.
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Now that brings us to the third part. So we've seen the 10 plagues, we've seen the 10 commandments, and that brings us finally to the tabernacle.
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In already in the regulations that were given, there was instructions to the tabernacle.
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And here you get to see how this is all worked out and the tabernacle itself is built and it is made ready for the people of God to worship their
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God in their midst. And I'd like you to just imagine this. I think roughly you can think of four coats of the tabernacle in a base and a football field.
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It's pretty huge. And if you think of a rectangular piece of a courtyard, which has got pretty much linen and boards that are holding it up, you have an entrance to that door, which has a curtain.
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And as you enter the curtain, the first thing you see is the altar, the altar of burnt offering.
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So that is the means in which atonement is made. So God provides for this means, because in the other end, that's where the people are entering.
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And in the other end, you have the tent. And in the very end of the tent, you have the holy of holies. If you want to think of the layout, you have the court, courtyard, you have the tent and the tent is divided into two.
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You have the holy place and the most holy place or the holy, holy place. And in the holy, holy place, you have the
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Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat and the cherubim that symbolize the presence of God as a cloud comes and rests upon it.
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So you have God and you have the people and between them, you have the provision that God has made. You have the sacrifice that needs to be made in the altar of burnt offering.
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You have the bronze labor or bronze basin of water in which you have purification and cleansing for the priests.
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And then you have the veil that enters into the tent. And as you think of the tabernacle,
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God dwelling in the midst of his people and you think of the word tabernacle itself or the tent, what you ought to be thinking of is
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John 1, 14. John 1, 14 says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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He lived among us. And in the Greek it's kainos, which is he tabernacled among us.
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This is really everything you look in the Old Testament of the tabernacle ought to point to your heavenly worship.
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And it all points to Jesus Christ because it's only in the person of Jesus Christ we have access. He's the one who dies on our behalf.
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He's the one who provides purification. And then as you come into this holy place, you see on the right side, the showbread for the 10, 12 tribes.
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You get to see on the left side, the seven, the candlesticks, the lamp stand.
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And you get to see how the people of God were meant to be a light unto the nations. And then you see right in front of you before the most holy place, because you have a veil that is separating the holy place from the most holy place.
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You have the altar of incense, which symbolizes the prayers of the people. Morning and evening, the priests would come here. We'll get to see all of this in the rest of the
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Pentateuch as it is worked out. But you get to see how morning and evening the prayers are made.
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And the priests can only come thus far and no more because there is a veil. And through the veil, once a year, the high priest alone can go through.
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And that we sang the song, the veil was torn when Jesus died on the cross.
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The people had this symbol when they sacrificed the lamb for their sin, that God had somehow covered their sin.
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What they didn't know was the cost of their sin was not just that one lamb. It would be the cost, the son of God himself.
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That he, the perfect man, who is fully God, would die a horrible death on their behalf, on your behalf, in order that you and I can have access, not just into the courtyard, not just into the holy place, but into the very throne room of God that no
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Israelite, other than the high priest, had access to. You want to look at Hebrews 9 as you look at what this means.
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Hebrews 9 unpacks the tabernacle for us and shows us how Christ is our great high priest who has entered heaven on our behalf and intercedes on our behalf for us.
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So as we look at the book of Exodus, I don't want you to just be thinking of the exits. Exit from the world as God saved you.
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Exit from your trials as God's hand is powerful in your midst to rescue you. But rather, you want to be thinking of the revelation of God.
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You get to see the will of God, what is pleasing to him as his righteous law is revealed.
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And you want to revel in the presence of God in your midst as we have a God who dwells among us.
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Let us pray. Our loving and most gracious Father, we thank you that through the pages of scripture, through the lives of the
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Israelites, you have shown us your character and your power and your goodness. Help us, oh
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Father, even today in the various places where each of us are. If there's anyone here who does not know you, we pray that you would rescue them.
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If there's anyone here who's struggling in their walk, I pray that, Lord, you would show yourself powerful and empower us.
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And I pray, Father, that you would make us a people who sing forth like Moses did in Exodus 15 of your almighty power at work in each of our lives in order to bring you all the glory and honor.