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The 2nd Book of God’s Word is our study tonight. The Book of Exodus continues the incredible story of God’s desires for us His creations. Please turn there with me as we uncover within these pages the wonders of Jesus Christ. He is perfectly all we need.
Exodus 1-18: God Reveals His Way Of Salvation. = out of the world. Divine Redemption Has Jesus As Its Perfect Redeemer. God Shows The Way Out… Of Bondage Into Freedom. God Is Showing He Is Powerful.
Exodus 19-23: God Reveals His Way Of Sanctification. = under the word. Divine Morality Has Jesus As Its Perfect Example. The Way Out… Of Ignorance Into God’s Law And Program. God Is Showing He Is Holy.
Exodus 24-40: God Reveals His Way Of Worship. = unto worship. Divine Worship Has Jesus As Its Perfect Focus. The Way Out…Of The World Into God’s Presence. God Is Showing He Is Knowable.
To really get a hold on this book, think with me about what it lets us in on. It is no less than God’s discipleship of an entire nation. Have you ever thought of that?
God reveals his way of salvation. Divine Redemption Has Jesus As Its Perfect Redeemer. God Shows The Way Out. . .Of Bondage Into Freedom. (Exodus 1-18). God Is Showing He Is Powerful.
Transcript
Let’s open in our Bibles to the book of Exodus, and as we turn to Exodus, we’re in the second of probably about five trips through this book. And I want to share with you, I have a twofold purpose, not just to teach to you, and share with you, and encourage you to study this book. That’s always the purpose, but maybe for some of you that are new in the Lord, or maybe this year is one of your first, or among the first times reading through, to teach you about mining great truths out of this book. There’s something about the Old Testament that is so full of pictures of Jesus Christ. I like going to Bonnie’s homestead, her parents’ home, because pictures of my lovely wife turn up all the time. Her parents have all these pictures, and I go downstairs and there’ll be a board that her mother must have looked at by the washing machine. And I go to her old room, and there are pictures over there. And I go into the living room; there are pictures over there. I just love to go there and see pictures of my wife because I love my wife, and I love to know everything that there is to know about her. The Lord has put scattered throughout this book, in some of the most obscure places, pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He says, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have been bought into His family, you so love Him that you want to find all the pictures. You want to see Him in every beautiful perspective that all the prophets, and all the poets, and all of the historians presented because woven throughout all of the books are pictures of Christ, and tonight we’ll see that in Exodus.
But as we go there, I want to remind you we’re in the second book of God’s Word. The book of Exodus has the incredible story of God’s desire for His creatures. Remember Genesis, God started everything and He began with ministering to the whole world, and then He localized down. And by chapter 11, He’s picked one family that He’s going to reveal Himself through—the family of Abram, whom He renames Abraham. And their descendants—Abraham’s descendants, and Isaac’s descendants, and Jacob’s descendants—fan out into the children of Israel, and by the time we get to Exodus, we find Him zeroing in on these people.
Now, you know the outline. I shared it last week, but for those of you that weren’t here or need reminding, the first 18 chapters (that’s where we are tonight) is God revealing His way of salvation, and basically He says, I want to take a group of people, and I want to take them out of the world, and I want them to come into My presence. That’s what salvation’s all about, taking us out of the world. Now, literally, He didn’t jerk us out and take us to Heaven. He’s left us here to live as pilgrims and strangers in this world.
But salvation, God revealing His way of salvation, His salvation is divine redemption. Divine redemption always has and always will have Jesus at the center. And it gets all confusing if you think these people were saved by sacrifices, or by circumcision, or by law because no one has been saved in those ways or ever will be. Salvation has always been the same. The way that Adam was saved, the way that Enoch was saved, the way that Abraham was saved, the way that Moses was saved, and the way that the last saint in the Tribulation will be saved before he is executed by the Anti-Christ, and the way that the last saint in the Millennium will be saved is always the same. Don’t think that dispensations, and covenants, and all the things you hear about theologically mean that people are saved in different ways. It’s always substitutionary atonement. It’s always the lamb taking the place of the sinner, and all lambs pointed to the perfect Lamb. And that’s what we’re going to see in this book. Jesus, the perfect Redeemer; God showing the way out of bondage, the bondage of sin, the bondage of slavery, the bondage of darkness into freedom; and God in salvation, always showing He’s powerful. That’s the emphasis, that’s why it works.
Religions, and false religions, and cults, and they were all. In fact, Bonnie was dropping off one of the children at someone’s home yesterday, and she’d just opened the door of her car, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses were right there meeting her at the door and trying to get her. And they were out, two reasons: one, to work their way to Heaven; the other way to try and work you to Hell. And that’s their twofold thing, and they’ve got to be working because they can never do enough. God says, you never can do enough. I want to show I’m powerful. I want you to see that apart from Me, you can’t make it.
Let’s go through this book, and I want to start in chapter 1, and we’re going to, this is one of the more exciting portions of the Word of God because, especially when we get into the plagues of Egypt, it’s so fruitful.
But to really get a hold on this book, I want you to think about it in the big picture. These first 18 chapters about God revealing His way of salvation. And the first thing that God reveals in chapter 1 is God knows and understands how hard life is. Now, you think nobody knows how hard it is for you. God knows how hard it is for you, and what He reveals here, and I’m just going to point out the verses, He’s revealing to these people, I know how hard it is, I’m in touch with your life.
On Wednesday night, we looked at Jesus up in the mountain praying, and He is up there praying for His disciples. And as He looked down, He saw they were having a hard time rowing against the wind, and so He walked down from the mountain, walked across the water, and came by their boat. He wanted them to invite Him into the boat to solve their problem. That’s exactly what God does. He knows all about our problems, but He doesn’t crash the party or the problem; He waits to be invited in. And that’s what we’re going to see. Look at verse 11, therefore they set taskmasters. These are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 12 tribes who have multiplied into hundreds of thousands of families. There were 600,000 families, 3,000,000 Jews, from one man’s 12 sons, in 400 years! That’s amazing. That is God multiplying them. And these people, as you know, were the slaves of Egypt. And so, this Pharaoh set taskmasters, verse 11 of chapter 1 of Exodus, over them to afflict them, okay. Bad life, okay. Look at verse 12, but the more they afflicted—see emphasis on afflict. God knew what was going on. He knew about every whipping, He knew about every horrible treatment that they got. Look at verse 14, they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick. They were slaves building his treasure cities.
Now, look across to chapter 2 verse 23, now it happened in the process of time the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel—listen—groaned because of their bondage. God knows about our troubles. God knows and understands the bitterness of life. God understands our affliction. Look down at verse 24, so God heard their groanings, and God remembered His covenant. Now, when life’s hard, when you’re having a hard time, God will always respond in accordance with His Word. That’s the neat thing. We know the map. We know the plan. We know the way that God works.
Keep going across to chapter 3 verse 7, and the Lord said: I have seen the oppression of My people, 3:7, those were in Egypt, I’ve heard their cry because of the taskmasters. Listen to this: I know their sorrows. See, God is not distant. All the gods of the nations are distant gods. They’re remote; they’re removed. The god of even some of our forefathers in America that were deists was a kind of a clock-winding god that just wound everything, and just stepped back, and is impersonal. That’s not the God of the Bible. That’s the god of false teaching. That’s the god of Satan. That’s not the God of the true living God. He is a God who is very much in touch. He knows our sorrows. He knows our needs. He knows our heartaches. He hears our cries. He knows how bitter life is. Verse 9, now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me. God, He not only hears all of our cries and all of our bitterness, and trials, and struggles. Sin also rises up before Him. That was in Genesis. We’re not covering that tonight, but He says that your sins are coming up in my face. And so, there’s a dual mechanism. God is so aware of the sin of mankind, but through it all, He’s listening to the cries of His people, and He’s very much in touch. Chapter 1 and these other verses I showed you is all about God knows and understands the bitterness of life.
Secondly, the second major point of this book, not only does God know and understand all the bitterness of our lives on Earth, but secondly, God has provided a deliverer. He doesn’t just know there’s problems; He’s made a way out. See, that’s the good news, and that’s why we should go everywhere, and that’s why we should share it. I was over at Mervyn’s the other day with Bonnie, and there was this poor girl lamenting how hard school was, and everything else, and how long you work, you don’t make much money, and all this stuff. And it was a perfect opportunity to share with her there’s a way out! Not, we don’t give her ten dollars an hour, she’s only making six. We’re not talking about that! That’s a temporary fix! A way out of what you heard Laura Garrison say tonight. That was a beautiful testimony. We make it very hard to join this church, but we make it very sweet. It’s very hard because you have to give a public testimony, but when you give that, you immediately become a part of everybody’s life and the family, because we listen and we relate to that, and it touches our lives. And what she said is she had bitterness of soul, and discouragement, and depression. And God heard that and provided a way out, and that’s what chapter 2 is about. God provides a deliverer.
Now, look at chapter 2 verse 1, and a man of the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, that’s chapter 2 verse 2, and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months. And when she could no longer hide him—you know the story—she put him in this little ark, little pitched ark, and it was a beautiful thing. They made it of reeds, and they put this gunk on the outside, and put a little lid on it, and put it out there in the reeds where Pharaoh’s daughter was going to bathe herself in the sacred bloodstream of Osiris, which is what they thought the Nile was. And they hoped that she would bump into this baby and adopt it. And even Moses’ name, Moses means drawn out.
They used to, and it’s sad, I don’t know why they’ve stopped this, but in the old-fashioned Bibles, and I always look for this in used bookstores. They used to, in the back, have this little thing that told what every Hebrew name means. All those Hebrew names are not just, they aren’t like, we call each other, my name’s John. What does that mean? John? That’s not what it means in Hebrew. It means ask of God, and Samuel means received of God, and those things, they had a meaning. And every, Noah means comfort, Moses means drawn out, and there’s so many names that mean something. Here he’s drawn out, and he goes into Pharaoh’s home.
But look at, that’s, by the way, verses 1 through 10 are 40 years. Look at, God distills his life in verses 1 through 10 of chapter 2. That’s the first 40 years of his life. Look at verse 11, it came to pass, when Moses was grown—he was 40 years old—he went out to his brethren. He knew he was a Jew. He had been nursed by his mother, and raised, because Pharaoh’s daughter looked for someone to raise this child, and so his mother got to raise him. She indoctrinated him in the ways of God. He knew who his brethren were. So, he leaves the palace one day. And by the way, Stephen tells us all about it. He was a graduate of the great universities of Egypt. He was a great speaker. He was a powerful man. He was eloquent. He didn’t like to admit it, but Moses was an amazing man. In fact, Josephus, the 1st century historian, told in his writings that Moses was also a general and had led the armies of Egypt against Ethiopians and had decimated them. He was a local hero in Egypt, but he was also a Jew, and God was calling.
And he saw, verse 11, an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So, he looked this way and that way. Now, what’s the problem with that? He looked everywhere, but what? Yeah. You ever done that? Then you go ahead. You always know it’s wrong. If you ever look both ways and don’t look up, what you’re doing is wrong. Remember that. And that’s what was wrong. Look what, he looked this way and that way, when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Now, you know God really changed his life.
Look for just a second, keep your finger here and look at Hebrews 11. That’s in the New Testament all the way near the end. Just go [Sound Effect] to the end. It’s page 1,059 in my Bible, but I’m not sure where it is in yours. And this is, let me see, 27. Here we go, Hebrews 11:27. This is talking about Moses. It says, by faith he (Moses), Hebrews 11:27, forsook Egypt. And this is a whole biography of him in the New Testament, which is wonderful. There’s another one in Acts 7. Verse 27 though says, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king—listen—for he endured as seeing Him who is what? He learned! You know what? God took him through a crisis. He took him through a look-this-way-look-that-way-and-blow-it crisis where he got in a lot of trouble. And all of a sudden, what’d he learn? And he never forgot it the rest of his life. He learned before he did anything, he looked up. That’s one of the best lessons in this book. You want to really be successful in life for God? Get out of this living only on this level, and look up, and see God, and see Him who’s invisible. See Him who is in your apartment, who is in your car, who is in your computer time, who is in your phone time, who is on all of your vacation is the uninvited Guest. Who is with you everywhere, who is with you at work, and when you do your finances, and when you live your social life, and when you have your private life, He is there. And you know what a saint that is being sanctified by the Holy Spirit is like? They know He’s there, and they live in light of His watching.
Back to chapter 2 of Exodus. He looked this way and that, and bad stuff. But Pharaoh finds out, and so verse 15, when Pharaoh heard of this matter—that his adopted son had murdered an Egyptian—he sought to kill Moses. I personally believe Moses had gotten a bit too popular. He was eloquent, brilliant, conquering, handsome the Bible says, amazing man. And so, I think Pharaoh was just looking for a way to get rid of him. So, he sought, he found the ground, and so he sought to kill him. But Moses fled the face of Pharaoh and he dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well. Isn’t that amazing? Now, we get down to verse 25, 40 more years have gone by. Isn’t that amazing? Just like that [Snapping Sound]. I mean, time with God just goes right by, but He inhabits all of it.
Now, look at chapter 3 because God is providing a deliverer, and God had to teach him some lessons. And so, He had to take him out of Egypt and out of all the hubbub into a very desolate place, into the backside of the desert, to teach him some lessons. And let’s see the lessons. Moses, verse 1, was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. He got married along the way there. His father-in-law, Jethro, was the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. He didn’t know it was God’s mountain, but he was coming there. He had a divine appointment. Verse 2, and the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. I read all kinds of commentaries. You know what they were about? Discussing what kind of bush it was. They were just, they went on and on. They said, there are terebinth bushes, and there are sage bushes. And I thought, the Holy Spirit of God is precise, and He didn’t name the bush because God is saying a very profound thing here! He’s going to teach Moses a lesson. He’s going to teach Mr. Ivy League from Egypt University some lessons. And what He’s teaching them is who and what God uses in life. And God humbles this man.
Let’s read the whole story. So, he looked, he was a curious shepherd. There’s not a lot to do out there. We, not every time, but every other time when we go on Holy Land trips, we take people out into the desert. We take them in this half-track, an army vehicle. And you drive out there, and you get out so far, it’s absolutely quiet, and you turn off the vehicle, and you let everybody go out and sit on a rock. And most people, they can’t take it very long because it’s too quiet. It’s disconcerting out there; there’s no sound. And you find people humming and looking for other people. It’s very unnerving to be in absolute quiet. And Moses was an absolute quiet, and God was dealing with him. And so, there wasn’t a lot to do out there, so he saw this bush burning. He thought it was very interesting. He didn’t know what it was. He thought maybe lightning had struck. He didn’t know what was going on. Maybe somebody else was out there, they had a campfire. And so, he went out, and he walked up, and he walked to that bush, and he looked at it, and it was just blazing, so he stood there. He went to university; he knew laws of, at least some of the laws of physics. And he knew that matter changes when it’s consumed by fire and it oxidizes. And nothing happened! Look what it says: and the bush, verse 2, was not consumed. And Moses says, wow, I’m going to turn aside, and I’m going to take some time. I’m going to see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So, when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and He said, Moses, Moses! And Moses talked to the bush. Isn’t that interesting? He said, here am I. And then He said, don’t draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet. This is where we get that chorus, “We’re Standing on Holy Ground.” For the place where you stand is holy ground. Lesson number one. What kind of a bush was it? Look back. It was a burning bush. What kind of bush was burning? It doesn’t matter. God can use any bush. The important thing was that it was what? Burning.
I wonder tonight if you don’t think, oh boy, our missions conference was great, but I could never be [local missionary]. I could never be, the [local missionaries]. I could never be Bob Provost. Do you know God uses bushes? The important thing is not the kind of bush but that He is able to burn it, consume it, use His power to flow out through it. And Moses had to be humbled here because Moses was going to do great stuff. And what Moses learned is God can use any old bush. It’s whether or not you’re able to yield to His using, and God was providing a deliver for His people, but He didn’t want the general. He didn’t want the eloquent Ivy League man. He didn’t want the handsome, successful guy. He wanted a humble shepherd from the backcountry. Did you ever notice that God doesn’t use the great and the mighty? We think of that. As soon as some football player says he gets saved, he’s immediately a celebrity in the church. And yet the old janitor that’s been on his knees for 50 years that knows God better than that football player will ever know God, we never invite him to speak. Because we’re totally twisted in our comprehension that God uses the weak and the insignificant so that all the glory goes to whom? God. Because if He uses the eloquent, and the mighty, and the rich, and the powerful, and the high, then they get the credit. God provided a deliver.
Let me just share a few things you might not have thought of. Jesus Christ was a lot like Moses in His life. Now, we’re comparing a perfect God in human flesh with a sinner, but they were a lot alike. Both were born to poor parents. Both were born to poor parents while a tyrant was reigning. Both were preserved in their infancy while others around them were destroyed. Both of them spent many years in humble toil, one as a shepherd and another as a lowly carpenter. Both demonstrated their calling by God by performing great miracles. Both fasted for 40 days in the wilderness, and both rejected the easy path. Moses rejected calling himself the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Jesus rejected Satan’s temptation, which was very similar, the easy path. Both made the sea obey them. Moses split the Red Sea. Jesus calmed, on several occasions, the Sea of Galilee. Both had faces that shone with glory. On Sinai, Moses glowed. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus pulled back His veil of flesh briefly and showed God flowing out through Him. Both fed thousands miraculously. Both were very meek, but both were eventually rejected by the nation of Israel, and the two divinely authorized lawgivers, the greatest and only ones that the world has ever seen, were not really listened to.
Jesus was a lot like Moses, but the Bible says Jesus was superior to Moses. Moses’ miracles were only ones of judgment. Moses never did anything positive. He just [Sound Effect]; Jesus healed, and helped, and lifted. Christ was so superior. Moses couldn’t lead Israel into the land. Jesus leads us to Heaven. Moses was a servant. Christ said, I am the Son. Moses was just for the Jews. Jesus said, My redemption is for all the world. Moses manifested the law. Christ manifested grace. God will put His words in His Prophet’s mouth, and if anyone will harken to Him, God will hear them. And Jesus was greater than Moses, it says in Deuteronomy 18.
Chapter 1, God knows and understands the bitterness of our life. Do you believe that tonight? Remember, He is walking right beside you in your problem, right beside me in my problem. He just wants to come in the boat, and He’ll solve, not take it away! Take us through. Secondly, God provides a deliverer, and Moses was a perfect one. Jesus is the ultimate and perfect One. But God also sends His servants, and I want you to notice in verse 12 that God is taking this servant that He called and He’s going to use Him. Now, you have to be careful. Like Scott said tonight, watch out what you pray. I would say, watch out what you sing too, okay? Because I think of all the hymns. All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I surrender all. He might just take you up on that. He might just take you up on when you say, all I am, all I have, all I’ll ever be, I give all to Thee.
God took Moses up. Look at verse 12. I better start in verse 10. Come now, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, God says to Moses, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Now, you want to, you had the right idea, but you did it in the wrong way. You wanted to deliver them, but you thought you were going to kill the Egyptians one at a time. He said, I’m going to show you how to do them all at once. When we rely on our own methods, Moses, it would’ve taken him lifetimes to get them all. He was going to bury them one at a time in the sand. God said, I’ll just use the sea. I’ll bury the whole army at once. Just do it My way. God says, My way is so much better. You just get a piece of it, and you try and do it in your own strength, and you try and go forward in your own strength. It’s so frustrating. It’s so hard. He says, stop all that. He says, humble yourself. Realize it’s not you, it’s Me, and yield to Me, and I’ll do great things. And that’s what He’s saying. Verse 11, but Moses said to God, me? Chapter 3 verse [11], who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? And so, God said, I will certainly be with you. And by the way, that’s all we need.
Here’s a little lesson. I heard it from an old man a long time ago. You and God are a majority. How do you like that? If you’re the only Christian you know in your class, if you’re the only Christian you know in whatever spirit, at work or whatever, you and God are a majority. You don’t have to worry that there’s more of them than you. You, all alone, plus God are the majority. And God says, all you need. And what a great verse to have: I will be with you. Wow! And this will be a sign for you that I’ve sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, He said, you’re going to bring them to that mountain right there, and you’re going to worship Me there. He says, and when you get them there, when you get 3,000,000 people out of Egypt, cross the sea, into the desert, and when you’re bowing before that quaking mountain of fire—we’re going to see next time—He said, you’ll remember this moment when I told you I’d do it.
What a bad response, look at Moses. Moses said, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel, verse 13, and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me, and they say to me, what is His name? What will I say to them? He says, I don’t know anything about You. All I know is You burn bushes and they don’t burn, and You tell me to take my sandals off. I don’t know anything about You. And you see a servant has to not only be willing; a servant must experience Christ personally and intimately.
I had a great opportunity this afternoon. The phone rang, and Bonnie says, oh, somebody’s on the phone you need to talk to, and I talked to the first pastor of the church I grew up in, Lyle Hoyt, just an old timer and still serving the Lord. He was back for the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the church, and he wanted to talk to me. And I thought, wow, he called me! And it was so sweet to hear him talk about all of God’s hand in his life and how God had been faithful. But when we were talking, he’s getting into computers, so I think he had an ulterior motive he wanted to talk to me about software. And so, I was talking about software and he said, what do you think of all that? And I said, I see a problem. I said, I’m in the transitional generation. I was still brought up to read this book, and I read it over and over again. I hold the Bible, I underline the Bible, I mark the Bible, I have a whole collection of Bibles. And I just can’t get away from it. It’s just everywhere, I travel, everywhere. It’s always very close to me because I can’t get enough of it. But I said, the next generation of pastors, and I’m seeing them in seminary now, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with computers or cathode ray tubes, but you know what? They rarely touch this book. They rarely mark in it. They rarely see smudges from tears. They rarely see the pages yellowed and torn because they spent so much time there. Everything is very much cut-and-paste. And I said, I see that a lot of them are very soon going to be trafficking and passing out secondhand knowledge because you can do a scan and find out what everybody said about anything and not know anything about it yourself.
And Moses said, I don’t know You. How can I serve if I don’t know You? And here’s the last thing we’re really going to be able to cover tonight is God’s school in training Moses about Himself. Let me read to you, and then we’ll go through it because Moses is 80 years old, and he is still teachable, and he still wants to know God. And that’s why I was impressed with my pastor that called me this afternoon. I made the mistake of asking what he preached about today. He re-preached the sermon to me long distance on the phone. He was so excited. He gave me all of his points, gave me all of his illustrations, and started applying it to me. And I went, oh, thank you! I said, I’ve got to study my own sermon tonight. I can’t preach yours, can’t do secondhand stuff! But I said, Pastor Hoyt, you’re still excited about the Lord, and you’re still discovering. He says, you bet I am. His glasses are literally three quarters of an inch thick. He has the thickest glasses I’ve ever seen. He has to have big, wide black frames on them. The kids think they’re really cool. Some people like them that way; he needs them that way. They’re that thick, and they have magnifying glasses that go over them. He really doesn’t see well, but he says, you know what? He says, I can’t stay away from the Word. And he just got called to do an interim pastorate out on the Wisconsin-Michigan border near the Upper Peninsula, out in the middle of nowhere. He said, I can’t wait. He said, I’m leaving on Monday. He said, I can’t wait to go teach the Word of God.
Look at Moses being taught by God, and this is all we’ll be able to get to tonight. And God said to Moses—it’s about the only Hebrew I can remember—hayâ ‘ašer hayâ. You had to learn that in Hebrew class. How do you like that? I’m speaking in Hebrew to you. You know what that means? I am the self-existent One. He says this in English, I AM WHO I AM. What He’s saying is I am constantly ever self-existent. He said, I have no beginning. I have no end. I have no middle. He said, I’m just, I inhabit all the time.
In fact, I was thinking about that on the way over. This really boggles me. To God, time is like when we look at a map. And when we look at a map, when you travel, you see Tulsa’s there, that’s the past. This is where we’re going, that’s the present. And that’s where we’re going to get, that’s the future. And you look at the map, and you go, okay, that’s our trip. When God looks at time, He sees all of it before Him. He sees the beginning of time, He sees the end of time, and He sees everything in between. And God inhabits all of it equally. Do you understand that? God does not have a yesterday or tomorrow. He ever is in the present because He’s in eternity, and eternity is above time, and He’s standing there or hovering there. He is a Spirit looking down, and all of time it’s just like a little piece of paper on the desk. He’s looking down at it, and He sees the past, the present, and the future, and everything that you and I have ever done, and everything that Gangas Khan ever did, and Adolf Hitler, and the greatest of all the servants of the world, positive and negative. God looks at that and everything they’ve ever said, done, thought, been, whatever is all equally present before Him. Their sin is in His face if they sinned, and their righteousness is a sweet smell to Him. And did you know that’s how our lives were apart from Christ; the sin was in His face? But the neat thing is on His little map, He has whiteout, permanent whiteout, and He permanently takes away our sin so only the good stuff remains. And He never remembers any of the bad, and that’s what I AM means.
And so, He takes Moses to this little school, and He says, tell the children of Israel, verse 14, I AM, hayâ, has sent me to you. Therefore, God said to Moses, thus shall you say to the children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Remember, Jesus quoted this to show the resurrection. He said, I’m not the God of the dead. I’m the God of the living; they’re existing right now contemporaneously, even though they all had died. I’m the God of Abraham, I’m the God of Isaac, I’m the God of Jacob. And He sent me to you, and this is My name forever, and this is the memorial to all generations. He says, go get them and tell them.
Real quickly, God revealed His name of names to Moses in the bush. He says, you know what? The greatest thing you need to be a great leader, a great servant, My servant, do you know what you need? Most of all, you don’t need to worry about your eloquence from the University of Cairo. You don’t need to worry about your military genius on the fields of Ethiopia. You don’t need to worry about all of your good-looking muscularity because you’re so handsome. What you need to do is humbly get to know Me. Remember what it says in Jeremiah 9? Great verse, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but he that glorieth, let him glory in this. What? That he understands and knows Me. God’s just looking for a few people who will tune in to His channel and who will pay the price to get to know God.
God is the most jealous of all in the universe. Nobody’s more jealous than God. That’s one of His eternal names. I am the Jealous God. And God says, you can’t “okay, okay, I’ll tune in a little bit here, but I still want this. I’ll tune in a little bit. I’m coming. Oh, but I want this.” He just cancels your cable right then. You don’t get it. God’s jealous, and He says, you’ll seek Me and find Me when you seek for Me, what? With all your heart. All your heart. You don’t need to go away to school to get to know God. You just need to give Him your whole heart, your full attention, not half, not a token, all. He says, if you want to be great, I want to reveal to you My name of names.
Now, you can close Exodus now and go to John, and we’re going to close in the book of John because this event was so important, Jesus used it as the foundational part of His ministry. Turn to John 8:58 with me, please, and that’s where we’re going to finish up tonight. And Jesus is talking. I’m going to back up, oh boy, to 54 of John 8. Jesus answered and said, if I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It’s My Father who honors Me, and that’s whom you say is your God. Yet you haven’t known Him. See, the greatest thing in life. That’s that chorus, the greatest thing in all my life is knowing You, loving You. He said, you don’t know God. That’s the greatest thing we can do in our life. If you want to be happy at the end when life’s over, say that I have come to know God. I know Him. Remember what John says? He says there are the little children, they know their sins are forgiven. There’s the young men; they’re beating the devil down. But there are the fathers that know Me. You know what spiritual maturity is? It’s knowing God personally. Not just what Charles Stanley says about Him, not just what your study Bible—your new study Bible—says about Him, not just what the latest fad in Christian literature is, but you have come to experientially know God yourself.
So, Jesus says, you don’t know God. You haven’t known Him, verse 55. Verse 56, here’s a bombshell: your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and he was glad when he saw Me. And the Jews said—they were listening—they says, you’re not even 50. And they’d even missed it; he was only 33. He must have worn Himself out in the ministry. He says, you’re not even 50, you saw Abraham? And Jesus said—and here He is quoting this—most assuredly, I say unto you, before Abraham was. And then he says, yeah, I AM, quoting what? The personal, intimate, covenant name of God.
Now, this is what Christ’s ministry is all about. The ultimate statement of being, the only foundation, the only cause, the only purpose for life. Jesus claimed to be the I AM. This is the great deity thing. Jesus, by the way, was the One talking from the bush. Jesus was the Angel of the LORD. Jesus was the One that was in the pillar and cloud that took the children of Israel out of Egypt. Jesus is the One that split the sea. He’s the One that rained down the manna. He’s the One that put the water out the rock. Jesus is God. Isn’t that neat? You don’t have an Old Testament God and a New Testament God; you got one. There’s only one God eternally existing in three persons. There are not three Gods, one. Monotheists, one God. Jesus isn’t a God, and the Holy Spirit’s a God, and God the Father’s a God. We don’t have three Gods. We have one God. That’s too big for our little minds, but it’s true; and I don’t understand it, but it’s true. We have one God in three persons.
But when He came to Earth, God the Son stated His ministry in the Gospel of John using this little text, and I just want to show you what I mean. Okay? Turn back to 6:35 of John, and I’m going to just show you Jesus giving lessons in how to know Him because we’re not in Horeb, we’re not in the backside of the desert. None of you are from Egypt, probably, tonight, but all of us can get to know Jesus personally. And He says, I want to reveal Myself to you. That’s My desire. I want you to know Me. And one of the ways we know God is understanding Him through His name. And His name is I AM. I am what? Look at 6:35. He said, I AM, what? Bread of Life. You know what He says? I want to sustain you, and if you live without Me, you’ll only be unsatisfied and hungry. Hey, go out to the world. They’re all hungry and unsatisfied. They are! They’re flitting from one big thing to another. They’re just living for the fluff, and the puff, and whatever, and the glitz, but they’re unsatisfied, and they’re hungry for something. Jesus said, I’m the Bread of the World, the Bread that will feed the world. I’m the Bread that will give life to the world. He says, I’m the One that came to sustain you.
Look at chapter 8 verse 12. A second time He introduces Himself. He says, not only am I the One that wants to sustain you and satisfy you, but He said, in John 8 and verse 12, I am the what? The Light of the World. He says, I’m the One that wants to illumine you. Apart from Me, there’s only impenetrable darkness, and if you never get the light here on Earth, you’re going to live in darkness forever. People don’t like darkness for very long. They like to hide their sin, but they don’t like it for very long. It’s awful to be in the dark. One time Bonnie and I were in an elevator in Los Angeles when the power went out. We were stuck and the motors were, they had a little electrical fire, and it shorted it out, and we were stuck in an elevator filling with electrical smoke. It was awful! Good thing to know the Lord in times like that, and all others. We don’t like darkness; it’s unnerving unless you know the Light of the World.
Look at chapter 10. By the way, we got out, we’re here tonight. John 10 verse 7, most assuredly, I say unto you, I am the what? I’m the Door. He says, I’m the One that will admit you into life, and apart from Me, you only are going to live in hopeless exclusion. You can’t get in except through Me. That’s why this ecumenical spirit in the world is damning so many souls because they say there’s many ways to God. And Jesus says, no, there’s not. There’s only one, through Me. I’m the way to God. I am the Door of the Sheep. Verse 9, He says the very same thing, I am the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved. And that’s the only way to be saved.
Chapter 10 verse 11, He says another one, not only I’m the bread of life and I’m the light of the world, and I’m the door of the sheep, but in verse 11, He says, I’m the Good Shepherd. He says, I’m the One who will care for you. I’m the One, that without Me, you’re just going to be wandering around, and you won’t know where to go. You’re going to be aimlessly wandering through life. How many people do you meet that just, they don’t know why they’re here, they don’t know where they’re going, they don’t know anything. And how much they need to have the confidence of knowing why they’re here, their purpose in life, where they came from, their origin, and their destination. And Christ says, I provide all that. I’m the Good Shepherd. He said, I’ll care for you, and you’ll never wander again.
Look at chapter 11 verse 25. The most stark need human beings have is we’re going to die. And Jesus says, I am the Resurrection. I’m the only One that can get you out of this mess. You are terminal. By the way, all of us have a terminal illness tonight. It’s just, some of you don’t know it yet, but we’re all going to die. How many people with cancer, they tell them, you got six months left. That’s comforting because you get your life together. It would be nice if all of us lived for three months left, or six months, or one year left, and we should live that way all the time because we all are terminal. Just some of us know it better than others. Chapter 11 verse 25, He says, I provide you life. And apart from Me, there’s only endless dying. You know how awful it is to think about dying here on Earth apart from Christ? Can you imagine dying endlessly? Awful stuff.
Chapter 14 verse 6, the sixth time He describes Himself—6:35, I’m the Bread of Life; 8:12, I’m the Light of the World; 10:7 and 9, I’m the Door of the sheep; 10:11, I’m the Good Shepherd; 11:25, I’m the Resurrection and the Life. Chapter 14 verse 6, we know this so well. I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. Nothing like the Lord Jesus. He guides us; apart from Him is only endless lostness. You ever been lost? I’ve been lost all over. I’ve been lost. I’m always, Bonnie tells me I’ll try everything before I stop and ask directions. I’ll drive this way for an hour, drive that way for an hour, look in the map, stop and look and try and look at the lay of the land and look for big landmarks. But then finally, she’ll stop and roll the window down and ask the farmer walking by the street, and he’ll tell us where to go. That, men are like that, or some men are like that. Jesus says, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. I will guide you. You won’t be lost in life.
And here’s the last one, 15:1, the last one of the school of Christ. He says, I am the True Vine. He says, I’ll make you productive. He said, if you’re not hooked to Me, you’ll just wither, you’ll always be running out, you’ll always be weak and fruitless. But if you are knit to Me, He said, I’m the True Vine. He said, I’ll give you life and fruit and make you productive. That was Moses’ challenge to start the last 40 years of life, and he served God for 40 years, and nobody knew God like he did. He knew God face to face. And guess what? We tonight have the same access to God Moses had, and you here tonight can know God face to face. Get to know Him as the Bread of Life, you’ll starve to death eternally without. Get to know Him as the One who is the Light that will lead you in the right way, the One who is the Door that will get you into the sheep fold, the One who is the Good Shepherd who will lead you through life, who’s the Resurrection and the Life, the Way to God, and the One who is the Vine to give you nourishment. Tonight, the greatest thing in life is to know God. The greatest thing in serving God is to first know Him. And when God wanted a great leader, Moses, no greater leader has ever been on this planet among humans. The first lesson is get to know who I am, you can do anything else in life.
Let’s just bow and thank the Lord for His Word before we go on to our special reports, and sendoffs, and all the rest tonight. O Lord, the greatest thing in my whole life is knowing You, and the greatest thing we could ever do is get to know You. And I pray that tonight through Moses’ life, the book of Exodus, your inspired Word, we would be hungry to know You, O God. Great things are coming. When we look in the book of Exodus, the Tabernacle and its wonders, the plagues, and You’re stomping the false gods of Egypt. But before all those lessons, there has to be an internal choice to get to know You. I pray that You would tonight knock at every heart door here. And for some who have never come to know Christ, help them just to say, O Bread of Life, apart from You is endless starvation. I want You tonight, O Christ. You who are my substitute, my Lamb in my place, the sacrifice, I accept Your payment. Oh, salvation is so simple. It’s like a drink of water, but it begins a life in relationship with You. And for the rest of us who already know You, may we say, I want to know You intimately and experience You, O God, and help us to go into Your Word with that type of attitude this week because You’re jealous, and You want all of our attention. Help us to give that to You this week so we can grow knowing Christ. We thank You for what You do, and the blessed and wonderful name of the great, self-existent, eternally existent Jehovah I AM that I AM revealed to us the express image of Your person in God in Jesus, God the Son. We love You. Thank You for letting us know You tonight. In Your precious name we pray, amen.
The 2nd Book of God’s Word is our study tonight. The Book of Exodus continues the incredible story of God’s desires for us His creations. Please turn there with me as we uncover within these pages the wonders of Jesus Christ. He is perfectly all we need.
- Exodus 1-18: God Reveals His Way Of Salvation. = out of the world. Divine Redemption Has Jesus As Its Perfect Redeemer. God Shows The Way Out… Of Bondage Into Freedom. God Is Showing He Is Powerful.
- Exodus 19-23: God Reveals His Way Of Sanctification. = under the word. Divine Morality Has Jesus As Its Perfect Example. The Way Out… Of Ignorance Into God’s Law And Program. God Is Showing He Is Holy.
- Exodus 24-40: God Reveals His Way Of Worship. = unto worship. Divine Worship Has Jesus As Its Perfect Focus. The Way Out…Of The World Into God’s Presence. God Is Showing He Is Knowable.
To really get a hold on this book, think with me what it lets us in on. It is no less than God’s discipleship of an entire nation. Have you ever thought of that?
God reveals his way of salvation. Divine Redemption Has Jesus As Its Perfect Redeemer. God Shows The Way Out. . .Of Bondage Into Freedom. (Exodus 1-18). God Is Showing He Is Powerful.
- God KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS THE Bitterness of Life (1)
- God PROVIDES A Deliverer (Exodus 2) Moses’ 1 st 40 years in Pharaoh’s palace. Christ was like Moses in His life.
- Both were born of poor parents under a tyrant; were preserved in infancy, whereas others were destroyed.
- Both spent many years in humble toil (shepherd, carpenter).
- Both demonstrated their calling by miracles.
- Both fasted forty days in a wilderness.
- Both rejected the easy way: Pharaoh’s daughter, Satan’s temptation.
- Both made the sea obey them: Red Sea, Sea of Galilee.
- Both their faces shone with glory: Sinai, Mount of Transfiguration.
- Both fed thousands miraculously; were very meek.
- Both were rejected by national Israel; They were the only two divinely authorized lawgivers that the world has ever seen.
Christ is superior to Moses.
- Moses’ miracles were ones of judgement; Christ’s, of healing.
- Moses could not lead Israel into the land (Matt. 28:18; Heb. 10:19-20).
- Moses was the servant; Christ, the Son (Heb. 3:1-6).
- Moses was for the Jews; Christ’s redemption is universal (1 John 2:1-2).
- Moses manifested the law; Christ, grace (Heb. 7:19; John 1:17).
- God will put His words in this prophet’s mouth; and if any hearken not to Him, God will require it of him (Deut. 18:18-19).
- God sends HIS SERVANTS (Exodus 3-6)
God chooses Moses (3:1-12) Moses’ 2 nd 40 years in the desert of Midian.
God reveals His Name of Names in the bush (3:13-22) SEVEN I AM’S OF CHRIST in JOHN. John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” NKJV This is the ultimate statement of being the only foundation, cause and purpose for life. Now in John’s Gospel, seven times Jesus said I AM THE. These seven can be stated another way:
- BREAD OF LIFE (6:35) – He sustains us, apart from Him is only unsatisfied hunger.
- LIGHT OF WORLD (8:l2) – He illumines us, apart from Him is only impenetrable darkness.
- DOOR OF SHEEP (l0:7,9) – He admits us to life, apart from Him is only hopeless exclusion.
- GOOD SHEPHERD (l0:ll) – He cares for us, apart from Him is only aimless wandering.
- RESURRECTION AND LIFE (ll:25) – He provides us life, apart from Him is only endless dying.
- WAY, TRUTH & LIFE (l4:6) – He guides us, apart from Him is being endlessly lost.
- TRUE VINE (l5:l) – He makes us productive, apart from Him is only continual withering.
God challenges Moses (3:23-6:30) to start the last 40 years in God’s service by offering God’s First Challenge to Pharaoh (4:27-31; 5:1-23; 6:1); God’s plan is to deliver Israel On Eagles’ Wings (6:2-9; see 19:4); God’s Second Challenge to Pharaoh (6:10-30; 7:1-13)
- God DEFEATS HIS ENEMIES (Exodus 7-11)
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The 2nd Book of God’s Word is our study tonight. The Book of Exodus continues the incredible story of God’s desires for us His creations. Please turn there with me as we uncover within these pages the wonders of Jesus Christ. He is perfectly all we need.
- Exodus 1-18: God Reveals His Way Of Salvation. = out of the world. Divine Redemption Has Jesus As Its Perfect Redeemer. God Shows The Way Out… Of Bondage Into Freedom. God Is Showing He Is Powerful.
- Exodus 19-23: God Reveals His Way Of Sanctification. = under the word. Divine Morality Has Jesus As Its Perfect Example. The Way Out… Of Ignorance Into God’s Law And Program. God Is Showing He Is Holy.
- Exodus 24-40: God Reveals His Way Of Worship. = unto worship. Divine Worship Has Jesus As Its Perfect Focus. The Way Out…Of The World Into God’s Presence. God Is Showing He Is Knowable.
To really get a hold on this book, think with me what it lets us in on. It is no less than God’s discipleship of an entire nation. Have you ever thought of that?
God reveals his way of salvation. Divine Redemption Has Jesus As Its Perfect Redeemer. God Shows The Way Out. . .Of Bondage Into Freedom. (Exodus 1-18). God Is Showing He Is Powerful.
- God KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS THE Bitterness of Life (1)
- God PROVIDES A Deliverer (Exodus 2) Moses’ 1 st 40 years in Pharaoh’s palace. Christ was like Moses in His life.
- Both were born of poor parents under a tyrant; were preserved in infancy, whereas others were destroyed.
- Both spent many years in humble toil (shepherd, carpenter).
- Both demonstrated their calling by miracles.
- Both fasted forty days in a wilderness.
- Both rejected the easy way: Pharaoh’s daughter, Satan’s temptation.
- Both made the sea obey them: Red Sea, Sea of Galilee.
- Both their faces shone with glory: Sinai, Mount of Transfiguration.
- Both fed thousands miraculously; were very meek.
- Both were rejected by national Israel; They were the only two divinely authorized lawgivers that the world has ever seen.
Christ is superior to Moses.
- Moses’ miracles were ones of judgement; Christ’s, of healing.
- Moses could not lead Israel into the land (Matt. 28:18; Heb. 10:19-20).
- Moses was the servant; Christ, the Son (Heb. 3:1-6).
- Moses was for the Jews; Christ’s redemption is universal (1 John 2:1-2).
- Moses manifested the law; Christ, grace (Heb. 7:19; John 1:17).
- God will put His words in this prophet’s mouth; and if any hearken not to Him, God will require it of him (Deut. 18:18-19).
- God sends HIS SERVANTS (Exodus 3-6)
God chooses Moses (3:1-12) Moses’ 2 nd 40 years in the desert of Midian.
God reveals His Name of Names in the bush (3:13-22) SEVEN I AM’S OF CHRIST in JOHN. John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” NKJV This is the ultimate statement of being the only foundation, cause and purpose for life. Now in John’s Gospel, seven times Jesus said I AM THE. These seven can be stated another way:
- BREAD OF LIFE (6:35) – He sustains us, apart from Him is only unsatisfied hunger.
- LIGHT OF WORLD (8:l2) – He illumines us, apart from Him is only impenetrable darkness.
- DOOR OF SHEEP (l0:7,9) – He admits us to life, apart from Him is only hopeless exclusion.
- GOOD SHEPHERD (l0:ll) – He cares for us, apart from Him is only aimless wandering.
- RESURRECTION AND LIFE (ll:25) – He provides us life, apart from Him is only endless dying.
- WAY, TRUTH & LIFE (l4:6) – He guides us, apart from Him is being endlessly lost.
- TRUE VINE (l5:l) – He makes us productive, apart from Him is only continual withering.
God challenges Moses (3:23-6:30) to start the last 40 years in God’s service by offering God’s First Challenge to Pharaoh (4:27-31; 5:1-23; 6:1); God’s plan is to deliver Israel On Eagles’ Wings (6:2-9; see 19:4); God’s Second Challenge to Pharaoh (6:10-30; 7:1-13)
- God DEFEATS HIS ENEMIES (Exodus 7-11)
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- Mears, What the Bible is all about, p. 36-37.
- John Davis, Moses and the God’s of Egypt , p. 873. Davis, p. 109.4. Davis, pp. 128-130.5. Mears, What the Bible is all about, p. 36-37.
6. Davis, p. 109.
7. Davis, pp. 128-130.
8. Mears, What the Bible is all about, p. 36-37.
9. A.M. Hodgkins, CHRIST IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES, p. 20-23.