Exodus. A Review Chapters 1-20

Transcription

1 Exodus A Review Chapters 1-20 The morning of the third day broke with violent lightning and thunder. The ground itself began to quake. Smoke like the smoke of a kiln went up from the mountain, for the Lord was descended upon it in fire. And a sound like the blast of a trumpet began, growing louder and louder until the people ran back ward for fear. Moses! they cried. Speak to us and we will hear. Let not the Lord God speak to us, or we will die. Moses shouted, Don t be afraid. God has come to test you, so that your awe for him may keep you from sinning. But the people ran farther and farther away. So Moses himself crossed the bordering fence and by a steep, stony ascent went into the darkness where God was. He climbed the mountain alone. And when he stood in the rolling blackness of cloud, the Lord God spoke to him, and Moses remembered the glorious words which he heard Ten words. These words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides me. You shall make for yourself no graven image nor the likeness of any created thing, to bow down and worship it. For I the Lord you God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me but showing mercy unto thousands who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy. Six days you shall do all your work, but the seventh is a sabbath to the Lord. On that day none of you shall work for in six days I created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, but on the seventh I rested, and I made that day holy. Honor your father; honor your mother; that your days may be long in the land that I shall give you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor s house or suffer a secret desire for his wife not for his wife, nor his servants, nor his cattle, nor for anything that is his. 1 This morning, since we have finished looking at the Ten Commandments, I want to take a little time to review what we have seen in Exodus up to Chapters 21. Remember Chapters 21 through 23 deal with the Social Laws and Chapters 24 through 30 have to do with the construction of, and service in, the Tabernacle in the wilderness and related items. It is important we take a moment to make sure we have an understanding the background for the time that is spent at Sinai. This necessitates going back to the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void... (Genesis 1:1-2 ESV). Wait, Hold it, I didn t mean that far back! 1 Wangerin, Jr., Walter, The Book Of God, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, p

2 The way the Hebrews found themselves in their current situation, that is sitting at the foot of Mt. Sinai, was that during the reign of Thutmose the 1 st ( BC) they began to be persecuted. Up to this time they had lived well. Then things changed. A handful of people, some seventy in number, had grown into a nation, maybe two million individuals. Egypt no longer remembered its debt to Joseph and his accomplishment in their survival. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph (Ex 1:8 ESV). The Egyptian Government became fearful as a consequence of huge increase in numbers. The primary concern was worry over the political predisposition of the Hebrews. Would they support the enemies of Egypt if invasion occurred? Obviously based on the hostility of the Egyptians, enhanced by Satan, they believed the answer was Yes! Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land (Exodus 1:10 ESV). So Pharaoh set out on a pattern of genocide. He intended to wipe the Hebrews off the face of the earth, meanwhile getting some cheap labor out of them. This is why we noted Satan was directly involved as his desire as always been the destruction of Israel and the failure of God s promises. So, Egypt was a land of great wealth. But of more concern to God, it was an ancient center of idolatry, the worship of many gods. The nation was of a polytheistic bent. This is the source of so much emphasis in this section of the Commandments, worshiping only God, not getting involved with the practice of idolatry 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 (Exodus 20:4 ESV). and this emphasis continuing on into the surrounding passages also include warnings to Israel against idolatry. This became an ongoing problem for the Hebrews. Remember all those who traveled with Moses had been born under Egyptian domination. Therefore, the practice of idol worship would have been part of their environment, something observed on a daily basis. It would have seemed normal, not at all alien, so it was very easy for the children of Israel to fall into the practice. In fact going through the Old Testament we see this is one of the Hebrews major sins. God, in the giving of the Law, provided for this danger. If they actually did accept and strive to obey the Law they would be in less danger of committing spiritual adultery, idolatry. Are there any areas you can think of that, as believers in this country, we may have grown up accepting as normal practice things which are totally unacceptable to the Lord? After all we are told Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world the desires of the flesh and ) 354 (

3 the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:15 17 ESV). One problem area I can think of is that many of today s children may grow up with the attitude that divorce and marital infidelity is a perfectly acceptable way of life. Even in homes that purport to be Christian we find divorce. The parents may well be Christian. But, think of the implications to the children s view of what is right. Consider the results of this on their own lives as they become adults. Are there any other examples that you can think of? As with the Hebrews the Lord has also provides support for us, the Holy Spirit; The Living Word, Christ; and The Written Word, the Scripture. With these we can overcome the temptations in our lives, those picked up from our culture, those not acceptable to Him. The reason the Hebrews had to spend so much time in the wilderness school, is they had to be trained in the things of the Lord. This is not to say they knew nothing of God s standards prior to this time. The problem was that they were acclimated to a way of life that was unacceptable to God and would not meet His demands of them when they finally went into the Promised Land of Canaan. The Lord was taking time out to work with them on the values necessary for their growth. How often are we stuck sitting in the wilderness, because we have lessons we must learn to serve the Lord as He would have us and we are simply to stubborn to accept them. So there we sit. Has there been a time when it seemed you were just sitting in the desert? You know now the Lord was working and preparing you for His service, but then you were unaware of it. Are there any examples that you can share with us? Before God sent the people into the wilderness He chose to raise up a Saviour, one who would lead them out of Egypt and into Canaan. The one He appointed was Moses, who with his mouthpiece Aaron, was called to stand before the Pharaoh and demand the freedom for the nation. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt So I have come down to rescue them and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land So now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 3:7-8, 10 ESV). All the circumstances surrounding this confrontation, were for the benefit of both the children of Israel, the nations they would come in contact with during their traveling, and for future generations, you and me, who would read of God s work. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. ) 355 (

4 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did (1 Corinthians 10:1-6 ESV). The Plagues showed God s power over the so called gods of Egypt. He showed the people of the day that He was the one true God, over all. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them (Exodus 7:5 ESV). As God later told Israel He did not intend to share honors with anyone/thing else. I the LORD your God am a jealous God (Exodus 20:5 ESV). As we see through out scripture the polytheists had no objection to accepting the God of Israel as being real, after all didn t all nations have their own gods? God had no intention of accepting this premise. As God, He had no intention of being equated with the invention of fallen minds. And in a world which wants to believe all religions are of equal value, when we reinforce the truth, there is no other way to Him other than Christ, we also find a high level of hostility. This same problem would occur at a much later time when Rome allowed Christians to believe as they wished as long as they also sprinkled some incense to Caesar. Even today some of the cults hold a similar position. They say they aren t incompatible with Christianity. Among some that hold this view are Unitarian Universalism, Bahá'í Faith, and groups such as Masons, etc. What does God say, the same as always, He must be followed as Scripture requires, or He isn t being followed at all. Whoever is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:30 ESV). As we ve seen you are either for God or against Him. There is no middle ground. Moses stood before Pharaoh warning him that the people had to be let go to worship their God. And so God s program would be carried out Pharaoh s heart was hardened and the Plagues fell on Egypt. The result of this was, of course, freedom for the Hebrews. Additionally, we saw the establishment of the Passover celebration. This is the practice that pictures the mercy of God in His freeing of the nation. And more importantly and amazingly hundreds of years before the events, His plan for a Saviour, for Christ, for His death as the sacrifice for humanity s sins, and resurrection. Another thing the Hebrew people should have been learning at this time was total dependency on God. God was the one that Who them from the Land of Egypt. He fed them in the wilderness and provided the water they needed to survive. They had to be totally dependent on Him. But often their attitude had been one of angst and kvetching Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger (Exodus 16:3 ESV). ) 356 (

5 The people missed the food, the security of Egypt, even if that meant they would have had to continue as slaves. The known bad can often seem preferable to the unknown good. They didn t have the necessary confidence in the Lord. But using circumstances God gave them the opportunity to grow in their trust of Him. The fact they often didn t succeed was a statement about them not God. Do we depend on the Lord to the extent that we should? Why do you think this is a problem for us? Are there any ways you think that we can grow in the area of God-sufficiency versus self-sufficiency? God demonstrated His sufficiency to Israel by the use or the signs and wonders involved with His freeing them from bondage. With us the sign of His presence is our Salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Do you think if we had observed the kinds of miracles in our lives that these people did, we would be better at recognizing the presence of the Lord in our lives? If you look at the Hebrews, it is right after their release from Egypt, the crossing of the sea, and the slaughter of the army following them that they complain to Moses about wanting to be back in Egypt. The issue for people isn t what God did as much as their willingness to trust Him. So, God brought the people to the foot of Mt. Sinai. It is here he gave them the Moral Law, that is the Decalogue. Here He will also provide the social order. As with the issue of idolatry, God had to establish a system under which they would live, a system to separate them even further from the practices of Egypt those in the land. Clearly our situation is similar. We have to separate ourselves from the idols of this society. We have to remove ourselves from the practices of our pre-salvation lives. Our lives are not dependent of the perceptions of others, but on pleasing God. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10 ESV). We are not to be of the world, but of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, as you will see if you read further in the Old Testament, when these people finally get into the land, they soon were involved with the pagan practices of the locals. How often do we find ourselves living the same way as those in the world around us? As we focus of the next sections of Exodus we will look at the way God provided direction for the Hebrews, preparing them to be able to walk in His ways as they enter into Canna. In addition we will see God provides the way of grace, a way in which they can see His future provision for their failure to meet His standards. As we look at these passages we will continue to apply them so we can develop a greater understanding of God s will for our lives, and grow in our desire to please Him. 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. Therefore let anyone who ) 357 (

6 thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 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 (1 Corinthians 10:11 13 ESV). When the Lord had uttered these ten words, Moses climbed down the mountain and took a stand before the whole congregation of Israel and told them what God had said. The people said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do,. We will be obedient. So Moses built an altar for God at the foot of the holy mountain. He also raised twelve pillars there, one for each of the sons of Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel. 2 But wait, that s for next time! 2 Wangerin, p ) 358 (

7 Exodus A Review Chapters 1-20 Genesis 1:1-2 Exodus 1:8 Exodus 1:10 Exodus 20:4 1 John 2:15 17 Exodus 3:7-8, 10

8 1 Corinthians 10:1-6 Exodus 7:5 Exodus 20:5 Matthew 12:30 Exodus 16:3 Galatians 1:10 1 Corinthians 10:11 13

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