Exodus

The book of Exodus.

6. God Promises Deliverance

Christians will sometimes use the phrase “in the world but not of it” to encapsulate how we inhabit a world that is sinful but we don’t want to be sinful ourselves. Christians disagree about what our attitude should be towards this world. Should we be trying to escape it and focusing on the next world? Or should we stay focused on what’s right in front of us? Should we be politically active or should we keep to ourselves?

The answers aren’t always clear and require wisdom. But what is totally clear is that we must flee from sin and seek the freedom of Christ.

When Joseph was in charge of Egypt, the descendants of Abraham had it good. The family multiplied. But their multiplication over generations represented a threat to the status quo. Eventually, the pharaohs decided to enslave them in order to keep them in check.

Sometimes the people of God are on better terms with the unbelieving civilization around them; at other times, persecution becomes more intense.

But if there is one thing that the book of Exodus should remind us, it is that God does not allow his people to remain in slavery. He keeps his promises, and his promises mean freedom. He sent Moses as his servant to lead the people out and to remind them who their God was.

Exodus 6:2: “God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’”

God remembered his covenant. He always does. And he has made promises to you, too, in the covenant of Christ’s blood. So if there are times when you are suffering, you need to call out to God and he will remember you.

When Pharaoh refused to give up the Israelites, God visited judgment upon the whole nation. It might seem cruel that God would punish a whole people just because their ruler had a hard heart. But that’s the way the world has always worked — we always have authorities who represent us, whose goodness helps us and whose badness hurts us. Just like Adam’s curse sent the rest of his descendants accelerating deeper and deeper into sin, a bad ruler’s sin harms the whole nation. That is why it is so crucial that we trust in Christ as the king of kings — so that ultimately we can live under his freedom rather than the slavery of sin.

For the final judgment of the Egyptians, God took the lives of the firstborn of Egypt. But he told the Israelites to protect their own children with a very peculiar ritual: each family would sacrifice a spotless lamb and put its blood on the doorposts, and death would pass over them.

There’s nothing magical about killing an animal. But this sacrifice was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ. Jesus Christ is the spotless lamb — he was sacrificed for us, and because of his blood we have hope that we will rise again from the dead.

After they ate of the lamb, the Israelites had to flee the Egyptian kingdom suffering under judgment and plagues. But before they went, they took treasure with them:

17. Water from the Rock and the Battle with Amalek

Even though God did so many miraculous things to make them free and wealthy, it didn’t go well for most of the people that were rescued from slavery. Why? Well, even though they were freed from slavery to Pharaoh, they were still in slavery to sin. Many of them practiced idolatry and sexual immorality.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:

1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Fleeing from the Egyptians the Israelites miraculously passed through the Red Sea. God closed the sea on their pursuers and destroyed the army of their enemies. The Apostle Paul called this passage through the waters a ‘baptism.’ The exodus was like their salvation. In the wilderness, they ate bread from heaven and water out of a rock. That was like their communion. All of this was to foreshadow Christ, who is the bread of life and the water of life. (John 6:35; 4:14)

However, even though they received all of these great things, they were still in the end overthrown by sin.

We need to take this to heart for ourselves. God can do wondrous things in our lives — he can give us freedom, wealth, food and drink, but despite it all we can still desire evil. We could be baptized, and we could be taking communion our whole life, but we still may not be pleasing to God — are we putting Christ to the test with our sin? You must repent.

1 Corinthians 10:6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

So many of those liberated ended up being just as evil as the Egyptians who had enslaved them, and were judged accordingly. Don’t be destroyed the way they were.

We know what grumbling is and that we shouldn’t do it. But what does it mean to be an idolater? Are any of us worshiping statues of demons? Are many of us that tempted to fall down and worship images? Well — those who are addicted to pornography are definitely adoring “images” that they shouldn’t be. Those who are obsessed with attaining a certain lifestyle are also worshiping a kind of “image.” It’s all the same kind of sin — giving your heart to lust after the resemblance of something you don’t have, rather than enjoying the God who offers himself freely to you.

Christians today have the opportunity to fall into pride. We can assume that we’re better people than the sinners who surround us just because we know more about the Bible.

12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

Everybody gets tempted, and everybody’s a sinner. In terms of behavior, what sets a Christian apart from a worldly person is that they repent, they flee idolatry, and they worship the true God. Fleeing the sexual immorality, covetousness, and grumbling that characterizes the world, we’re invited to eat and drink of what Christ provides, and enjoy eternal freedom from the kingdom of darkness. That is our exodus. We are on our way out from death and sin.

Our situation might not seem as bad as being a slave in Egypt. We might have nicer food, nicer clothes, and an infinitely more comfortable life than that. But if we’re a slave to sin, then we can’t experience true freedom.

Expanded Thoughts

The speaker or another mentor might want to share a personal anecdote about being freed from sin, perhaps as part of a testimony.

Key Take Aways

Even when things looked darkest, God protected and liberated his people.

What happened to the Israelites foreshadowed what Christ does for us.

Just because God will fulfill his promises to protect his people doesn’t mean you won’t have to face consequences for your sin some day.

Discussion Questions

How does the story of the Exodus mirror the Christian life?

(God calls us out of slavery to sin; we are called to leave the kingdom of the world and to seek the promised land in Christ )

Do you see any ways that our society mirrors Egypt? If we were under pharaoh today, would he think that Christians were a threat? Why or why not?

Figuratively speaking, what are ways that we can “plunder the Egyptians” — that is, take the best that the unbelieving world has to offer and use it to serve God?

20. The Ten Commandments

Review: When God rescued the Israelites out of Egypt, how did it go for them afterwards?

Have any of you ever broken the law? Likely most of you are law abiding citizens. We all know there are terrible consequences if you break the law: being brought to court, being fined, even imprisonment. We fear the law of the land and try never to break it. And yet, we break the law of the God of the universe constantly. Why? Why do we fear the government more than we fear the almighty God? Because we think we can get away with it. Because we convince ourselves that God isn’t watching us.

God gave his people a code of law through Moses. Most famously of all his decrees, he gave the ten commandments.

Exodus 20:1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Why does God hate idolatry so much? Because humans can only truly love one god at a time. If we are serving some other god, then we are not serving the Lord of Lords with our whole heart. God demands the whole heart.

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet… anything that is your neighbor's.”

Do you do any of these things? Then you need to confess it as sin to God and stop it.

18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”

Why is the ‘fear of God’ so crucial for us? Well, when we don’t fear God, we trespass against his will, and then we get mired further and further in the curse of death. That’s not what God wishes for us.

And yet, we break those commandments all the time. Even if we haven’t murdered anyone literally, Jesus said that we murder someone in our hearts whenever we get angry with them and hate them — and the heart is what God cares about.

Part of being a man means knowing the chain of command. At the top is God. If you can’t respect that chain of command, then everything else is going to fall apart sooner or later.

24. The Covenant Confirmed

Exodus 24:7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”

Of course, the Israelites promised in a covenant to follow all of these commands. God had them make an ark out of gold that would hold the stone tablets that carried the law. He showed them how to build the Tabernacle, a moving tent that would symbolize a house for God as he dwelt with them as they wandered. That’s what keeping the covenant is all about — so that God’s glory will dwell with us.

But, despite their promises, they immediately started sinning and making gods for themselves as soon as Moses turned his back. It’s tragic, but that story should remind us of ourselves — we repent, we promise God that we will obey him, and pretty soon we find ourselves wandering back into our sins.

Giving into temptation for forbidden fruit, murdering one another, worshiping other gods  — all sin involves serving things other than the true God. If we were busy serving the true God at all times, we wouldn’t get so mired in sin. But God wants us to be ruling over our sin. Recall Joseph. He resisted temptations to sin, and suffered for false accusations, but then God placed him in charge of a kingdom, and blessed his whole family through him. That’s the sort of thing God can do for us, as well, if we are only willing to fear him and to rule over our sin. And that is the same pattern - Jesus resisted temptation, suffered under false accusations, and followed God’s will humbly in all things no matter how much he suffered. He was placed on a heavenly throne where his name is greater than any other name, and his reign has no end.

At the end of the day, though, it is not a mere transaction. It is not as if by completing enough good works that God will reward you merely because of how good you are. God rewards us graciously because of how good he is—even though we don’t deserve it, he provides us with many good things.

Even though we have sinned, thankfully, Jesus hasn’t, and he offers up his perfect obedience in our place. But if our job as Christians is to reign with him, that means reigning over sin. Deep down, everyone wants a piece of what Jesus has — eternal life, an eternal throne. But if we disbelieve God and do not fear him, we become convinced that the way for us to get a chance at power, or some other kind of pleasure, is by climbing our way up the ladder ourselves and doing whatever it takes to get what we want the way we want it. A silly and tragic way that humans waste their lives: he is offering it all to us freely! We have to trust, and suffer in patience just as Christ did. He kept the covenant perfectly, which is why we can trust that God will dwell with us forever.

The Christian’s relationship to the law of Moses is different from the Israelite’s.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

While Jesus in his sacrifice abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances (2:15), we were still created in him for good works. Though we were once strangers to the covenants of promise (Eph 2:12), through Christ a new covenant has made, and we can now have hope that we will receive the greatest blessings.

Ephesians 2:18: For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

God no longer dwells in a tabernacle in the desert or a temple in Jerusalem, but he dwells in the body of believers. Some Christians spend their lives craving for access to wealth and status. Do you live in the belief that you have immediate access to the living God, the source of all wealth and all glory in the world? The living God is right at our doorstep and because of our little faith, we find ourselves chasing after the vapor of worldly recognition. We must humble ourselves because of this sort of hypocrisy. We have the answer to everything we could ever desire right at our fingertips, but when we doubt and disbelieve God’s goodness, we are rendered powerless. We must pray that God will write his law upon our hearts so that we can be free of sin.

Expanded Thoughts

The speaker can share the story of a time where they broke the law — either the law of the land or God’s law. What were the consequences? How was it made right?

Key Take Aways

God gave us commands so that we wouldn’t sin.

Since we sin even with the command, God gave us his Son.

Now we need to reign over sin together with God’s Son.

Discussion Questions

If Christians do not inherit eternal life through good works, how do we think rightly about the Old Testament law?

What does it look like to walk in the good works of God through the Holy Spirit rather than through ordinances?

Of the ten commandments, which ones are the hardest for you to obey? Remember that Jesus said being angry with your brother was like committing murder in your heart.