Returning to Exodus

When we eventually get to Exodus 40:34–38[34] Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. [35] And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. [36] Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. [37] But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. [38] For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys. (ESV)

The story moves from Israel’s filling of the land of Egypt, dwelling in its midst, to the glory of God’s presence filling the tent within Israel’s community.

We will see how Exodus closes with a very important point of comparison…just as the Egyptians could not tolerate Israel filling their land, so too Moses could not remain in the tent once God’s glory came upon it.

Moses had been chosen to alone be the one to meet with God and hear his voice. The word tells us God uniquely met with Moses “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend”

So, when Moses is forced out of the tent when God’s glory comes upon it…it forces us to see the intensity of God’s presence. It shows us God had condescended in an act of grace to reside with the people. Moses had a special relationship with God…speaking to him as a man speaks with his friend…and Moses was able to be in God’s presence and live because God…in his grace…had condescended…he had held back revealing his full glory. We’ll look at it in detail when we get there…but what the Scriptures are telling us is that for Moses to bear God’s presence…God had to condescend…God had to concede to Moses’ creaturely limitation due to his sin.So what we learn here in an important lesson to understand much of the Old Testament and how it is fulfilled in the New Testament:

“The only way for God to dwell among His people, was to condescend to them in grace and forgiveness”

Genesis Part 2

The story of Exodus is, as one author called it, Genesis shaped.

Exodus begins with Israel enjoying the creational blessing of fruitful multiplication. The exodus event is based on God’s promise to Abraham…the creation of Israel by the power of God’s word…just like the creation of the world by that same power.

Genesis begins with God making a dwelling place for his image bearers…Exodus ends with those image bearers making a dwelling place for God in their midst.

But, lest we think the story ends there…we still have a big problem…Israels sin.

So, the question remains…what does it mean for Israel to have this new neighbor move in? The holy righteous eternal consuming fire God?

The book of Leviticus helps answer that question…but that’s for another time.

A Wilderness Gospel

We will continue to approach the book of Exodus with a desire to uncover the meaning of the text as the author intended it for his original audience. Only then will we be able to see the book in the context of the entire Bible and ultimately how the NT looks back on it.

Obviously we will see shadows and whispers of Jesus in this book, and I will seek to help us interpret Exodus in light of its original meaning and its fulfillment in Christ.

Because, Exodus is a gospel story…at the heart of it as we have seen this morning is a human problem…how can people, as sinners, bear the presence of a holy God?

How you answer that question says a lot about what you believe about God and what you believe about people...Here’s the question again…how can people bear the presence of a holy God? If your answer is anything other than “they cannot” then you do not have a biblical understanding of human sinfulness and God’s holiness.

The truth is, God’s holiness and purity is so great that we as sinners would be instantly destroyed in his presence.

So then, how does it work for God to come and dwell with his people as he does at the end of Exodus?

Like we said earlier, only if God condescends in grace…only if God acts in grace and mercy to meet us in forgiveness. Exodus has a simple message: God must act or else we die.

So, as we resume this hot and sandy journey into the desert with Israel…the question looming this morning is how can you bear the presence of a holy God? Because the reality is, one day you will encounter him. This world and all that is in it will one day end…and every human being who ever lived will give an account. So, how can we as sinners, all of us, bear the presence of a holy God? We cannot, apart from the work of Christ. Unless we are brought into God’s presence sheltered in Christ we will forever be the subjects of his divine wrath against sin. So, fellow wilderness wanderer…in whom is your confidence this morning? Your own ability to stand before God on your own merits? Or, have you by faith trusted Christ to stand before you in God’s presence?

We’ve already journeyed some in Exodus, but before we dive right back in…let’s go back and look at some of the footprints in the sand we left behind back at the beginning of the year.

READ 1:8-14

The Egyptians become fearful of the potential power of the people of Israel and worry that they may one day ally themselves with other foreign powers and overtake the Egyptians so they begin a systematic plan to weaken the Hebrews. They begin with enslavement…harsh and extreme enslavement.

But, as the text says the more Pharaoh sought to inflict them the stronger they became. Now, though the text does not explicitly state this…the thrust of the text in context is that the more Egypt inflicted the people....the more God blessed them.

There’s an important parallel there to the church

Egypts fear increases, so Pharaoh ramps up the persecution...

READ 1:15-22

Pharaoh’s solution is common when fear, greed, corruption, and power combine…murder…and especially murder of the helpless and innocent. The intent is to cut Israel off at the knees by killing the heirs…by disrupting the families by killing their first born sons

But, his plan does not work…first the midwives lie to him…they tell him the Hebrew women are different…in fact they say they are like animals. Of course this isn’t true, but they feared the Lord and protected the Hebrew boys.

So, Pharaoh expanded his decree. Instead of sending the midwives to do his bidding he put out the call to all of Egypt…

It is in the midst of this bleak and seemingly hopeless situation that we come to Chapter 2…where we meet the man God would use to deliver his people…Moses.

READ 2:11-15

Its here we begin to see some of Moses’ character come forth.

Moses becomes burdened for his people’s burden. He becomes angry when he sees one of the Israelites being mistreated by the Egyptian, so he kills the oppressor and hides the body.

This is the first of three incidents in this chapter where Moses stands up for the oppressed.

Was Moses justified for the killing? Its hard to say here at this point…as a ruler he likely had some real power over this Egyptian....it could also be said he was being used as an instrument of justice in the hands of God…we don’t know for sure other than Moses’ need to make sure no one saw and make sure he hid the body…so there was obviously some guilt there which does lead me to believe he knew striking down this Egyptian was a risky undertaking.

The next day he sees two Israelites arguing and one of them clearly in the wrong. So, he breaks up the fight and reminds the men they are family…sons of Jacob. So, again we have an instance where Moses is standing up for the litttle guy, for the oppressed.

But, Moses’ worst fear has come to be…the Israelite makes it clear it is known of the killing of the Egyptian.

What I find interesting here…as Moses flees to Midian…is that Moses is clearly willing and able to stand up to oppressors…but not Pharaoh…he is willing to put his neck on the line to save people…but Pharaoh he is fearful of. I think thats an important plot point going forward....though he will not face the same individual Pharaoh…the king of egypt is the very one he is fleeing from and the one he will have to face again.

But, in these final verses of Chapter 2 Moses brings into the spotlight the acts of God

Time is passing…and in that time many Pharaohs come to power and die and the affliction of Israel continues.

The people groaned for their affliction was great…and they cried out to God for deliverance. The people of Israel were weak and desperate…they were crying out in agony for God to rescue them.

Exodus tells us God hears their cry and remembers his cov. The text isn’t saying God had forgotten…when Scripture tells us God remembered something it is an action according to his word. In other words he is fulfilling his promise in real time.

God’s cov. with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was going to be seen in action as God begins the deliverance of his people as he promised to make them a strong people and settle them in their own land. Now they are sojourners being oppressed…one day they will be at home and a strong, powerful people.

We realize the oppression of the people went on for years…so, we come to an important footprint we left...

Before God delivers His people, He brings them to a place of weakness and dependency to display His Glory

As a church in the reformed tradition we place a lot of emphasis on God’s sovereignty and God’s ultimately purpose of bringing glory to Himself. God’s greatest purpose is bringing himself glory…and that’s how he accomplishes it in us…by displaying his glory through our weakness and dependency.

Israel was strong and growing…they were so formidable that the greatest nation in the world at the time…the strongest and most powerful…Egypt was growing fearful of them.

If Israel had been given the promised land then…what would be the temptation? To boast in their strength…to overrun the land of Canaan in conquest proudly displaying the strength of themselves as people. Strong and formidable…but sinners…and what do sinners do? They sin…the flesh wants to boast in itself...where would God fit in in their conquest?

So God allows Egypt to inflict this hardship…God has not lost…he has not taken his eye off of Israel…he allows all that happens for his glory.

In fact, God allowing these many years of hardship is actually an act of His mercy…because he allows the people of Israel to get torn down in weakness and dependency.

As Ch. 1 opens, they are strong…they are mighty....as chapter 2 closes they are weak…they are hopeless.

Its there…when all human hope is abandoned that God steps in gloriously in a major display of his power, his grace, his love, his tender mercy.

And you know, it is no different for us. If we think ourselves strong...

We Contribute Nothing to Our Salvation

If you contribute anything to your salvation..if any little part remains yours what you have is not salvation but a strategic partnership…and heres the thing…God does not deal in strategic partnerships…he shares his glory with no one.

When God delivers us from sin…he delivers us from our helplessness and hopelessness…but we must know we are hopeless and helpless.

The Bible tells us all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…no one is righteous, not one…that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. And as dead people alienated from God…we are helpless and hopeless

Yet, God displays his glory, his power and his might…he grace and his mercy in saving sinners as sinners…saving the hopeless and helpless out of that state...

God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we are yet sinners Christ died for us.

And God wants to display His glory through your weakness...

As we progressed in the story we came to the well-known passage where God reveals himself to Moses in a burning bush.

The Great I AM

3:13-15

Have you ever been asked to do something and it is all you can do to come up with excuses not to do it?

Moses already anticipates trouble ahead. He knows when he goes down with this message his own credibility is shot…who is he to bring a message from God?

Moses anticipates trouble not only from Pharaoh, but also his own people. They’re going to want to know the name of God, he says.

Remember, Israel’s God is unlike any other…but they really don’t know much about him. He hasn’t spoken in some time…the patriarchs of their family are long dead. Further, they’re living in a polytheistic society…they have gods for all sorts of things…and they all have names.

So, God answers Moses I AM WHO I AM (I AM WHAT I AM) (I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE)

Central to Exodus…and honestly central to the OT and the NT for that matter is the restoration of proper worship. Worship is important to God…and God expects and demands to be worshipped how he desires.

That vein runs through this chapter as well…look back at verse 12...

I will be with you…God is with Moses in this deliverance…God is the one acting…Moses is his spokesman…but look at the ultimate pinnacle of this deliverance…you will return to this mountain in worship.

God demands to be worshipped…he created human beings for that purpose…to bring him glory.

Now, our fallen finite minds may bristle at that…that kind of demand may appear to be some kind of great cosmic ego.

But, that’s where God’s revelation of his name comes into play. God will tell Moses on that very mountain that they are to have no other Gods before him and that his name is to be revered…but what does that name say about worship?

It tells us God’s desire to be worshipped is pure…in fact the demands God makes to be worshipped by his creation is the most pure of all demands…it speaks to the very relationship between creature and creator.

God alone is deserving of worship because he alone is self-existent. Who are you? I AM Huh? I AM WHO I AM. Who else can say that but a self-existent supreme sovereign almighty God?

I can’t answer that question that way..who am I? I’m a son, a husband, a father, a created being. I’m not self-existent…no one is. And isn’t that one of the biggest lies of our postmodern world? This tendency toward self-definition…be your own person…let no one else define you…you are who you are. What a bunch of nonsense…the very point here is that only God has the right of self-existence…all of us are dependent on him for everything. Even the most hardened militant atheist still borrows every breath from the hand of God.

God demands worship…and God delivers people in order to make that happen. That is what salvation is ultimately about…its not ultimately about you…its about God…its about His demand to be worshipped and he has delivered a people that they might give him praise and glory.

Thus far we have been reminded...“The only way for God to dwell among His people, was to condescend to them in grace and forgiveness”

And “Before God delivers His people, He brings them to a place of weakness and dependency to display His glory”

Now we see: God condescends to reveal Himself so that He would be worshipped.

God begins to roll out his great plan…but at the heart of that plan is a promise of worship…the people will be delivered and they will gather before their God on this mountain.

God’s revelation to Moses was the beginning of the Exodus…the great deliverance…the pinnacle of the Old Testament promises…the testimony that the people of Israel would tell for ages to come…the God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. But, even that great deliverance was only a shadow…only a precursor to the greatest deliverance.

The Greater Deliverance to Come

This was not the last time God and Moses would meet on this mountain…in fact, many many years later God meets Moses on a mountain, an entirely different mountain 1500 years later.

Mark tells us in

Mark 9:2–8

[2] And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, [3] and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. [4] And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. [5] And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” [6] For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. [7] And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” [8] And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only. (ESV)

Their presence there was proof that the entire Old Testament was pointing to the culmination of God’s redemptive plan up to this point in Christ. As Matthew puts it in Chapter 5 verse 17…Jesus had come to fulfil the law and prophets. Isn’t this amazing? The heroes of the Old Testament were there, speaking with Jesus. The tense used for talking here indicates an ongoing conversation. What were they talking about? Well, Mark doesn’t give us any details but Luke tells us here…they were talking about Jesus’ departure.

The greek word used there is exodus. Yes, Moses himself was talking to Jesus about the exodus…not the Jew’s leaving Egypt, but the Son of Man leaving his earthly ministry to return to his heavenly throne. Luke’s use of this word then is intentional, he wants the reader to connect the exodus of the Jews.

Luke 9:31 NLT They were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.

One writer noted: “Jesus had work to do. He had something to accomplish, something both Moses and Elijah knew about because it was prefigured in their prophetic ministries. Furthermore, their own salvation depended on the work that Jesus needed to do. Like all the other saints of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah were saved by grace through faith in the Savior whom God promised to send. Now their Savior was about to do his saving work. Is it any wonder that this was the topic of their conversation?

The Great Deliverance to Come

In Exodus God reveals himself to Moses in a burning bush…but in the fullness of time God’s ultimate revelation of himself came as the second person of the Trinity took on human flesh and stepped into our world.

Paul writes in

Colossians 1:15–23

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

[21] And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [22] he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, [23] if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. (ESV)

What’s the point? God has revealed himself in Christ for the ultimate purpose of redeeming us for worship…see? to present us holy and blameless and above reproach before him!

God condescends to reveal Himself so that He would be worshipped.

God demands worship from you today, everyday…but as we have learned he first must condescend in grace and mercy…in forgiveness…that we might be healed, restored, reconciled to him. In the past he appeared in things like burning bushes but today he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ fully and finally.

The writer to the Hebrews reminds us:

Hebrews 1:1–4

[1] Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. [3] He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, [4] having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (ESV)

The excellent name of Jesus is that he shares a name with the Father and the Spirit…this Triune God…three in one whom we proclaim today is the only God worthy of your worship because he is the only God period. The self-existent one…perfect and pure in every way calls you as his creature to come to him in worship.

That can only be done by faith in his work of salvation through Jesus Christ. So, let us rejoice for the revelation of God has come in His Son Jesus…the radiance of the glory of God…the exact imprint of His nature…the image of the invisible God…for whom all things were created through and for....trust in faith in the finished work of Christ…and worship!

We’re now re-equipped to dive back into Exodus next week where we left off. We come to the point of the story where God brings devastating plagues against Egypt for Pharaoh's refusal to let his people go. I’d encourage you to read Exodus 1-6 sometime this week to even more refresh those passages in your mind as we move forward.

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