Well, we've been engaged in a study in our evenings time together this summer that has led us to depart from the book of Ezekiel, which I do hope to return to, but at the rate we're going, it may well be a while. Because I had it in my mind that in light of a study we did in which we gave a distillation of the sort of things that Israel received from God on Mount Sinai. when they met God there, having been redeemed from Egyptian captivity and bondage. And I gave an outline with three R's, that they received a relationship with God, a relationship defined by covenant. They received rules and regulations from God in terms of the Ten Commandments and other laws that were given to guide their life together as they entered into the land of promise. And also they received from God, thirdly, a ritual, that is the tabernacle and its ritual that spoke of the way of approach unto God, that those three things were bound up in of things that God gave to the nation of Israel when they entered into that relationship by covenant with God at Mount Sinai. And I thought it would be good just to open up each of those things, the relationship by covenant, the rules and regulations in terms of laws and commandments, and how they apply to Christians today, and then also look at the subject of the ritual, the way of approach to God. And so that's what I had in my mind and I'm hoping to keep to it. But when we addressing the subject of the covenant, we saw that there were, it's not an easy thing. It's a complex thing because there's all kinds of covenant theologies that theologians put forth. And we attempted to review some of those. And basically to say that it's my own conviction that we're to be focused more on the historic covenants rather than trying to develop some sort of a theological construct. God's entered into covenants with people in history. We noted that there were basically five in number. You have the Noahic covenant, that covenant of preservation. You have the Abrahamic covenant, that covenant of progeny. uh... children descent we have the covenant uh... at uh... mount sinai with uh... mosaic moses the mosaic covenant and what i call that i forgot a perceptual covenant something like that then we have the princely covenant that made with king david the davidic covenant and then the covenant of personal piety and uh... that we have bound up in the the new covenant so uh... those are the things that we're hoping to get through eventually uh... we're we we we've covered the covenant of preservation in Noah, we've covered the covenant of progeny in Abraham, and we're coming on now to the covenant of perceptual covenant, the covenant of commandment, but it's not really that. You know, sometimes we think of the real covenant that God entered into with Moses in terms of law, and we do that quite naturally, because we read in places like John chapter one, that the law was given through Moses and grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And it's our thought to then to say, well, those two things are quite opposed to one another. You have law on one hand and came through Moses. And that has little or nothing to do with us as Christians. And grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. However, the very language of grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ in the new covenant is actually taken from the old covenant. When God revealed himself as a God of grace and truth, when he met with Moses on Mount Sinai and declared his name, the Lord gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and truth. Grace and truth is there in God's own revelation. So grace and truth is really there in the old covenant. And in a real sense, law is there in the new covenant as well. We're said to be under the law to Christ. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Love is not a threat to good works. It's the direction of obedience. It's not opposed to love. In fact, it's not supposed to oppose to life in the spirit. Love moves us in the direction of obedience to law. Life in the Spirit directs us in obedience to law as well. And so law is really not Old Testament and grace and truth, New Testament. And so we shouldn't just think of the Mosaic covenant only in terms of law. There's plenty of grace and truth. In fact, it's the covenant of redemption. It's the covenant by which God had pity upon the people in Egyptian bondage and inclined his heart to them because of his covenant with Abraham and brought them to himself in love and enters into a covenant with them that's predicated on love. So those are things that are clear in that relationship that God had with the nation of Israel. In fact, covenant, we mentioned there's two kinds of covenants from the ancient world that principally I think we need to understand if we would understand the Old Testament properly. And that is that you have a covenant of marriage. We mentioned that and certainly law, love enters into that clearly. is that you went after me in the wilderness as a bride, seeking after the bridegroom. You've forgotten the joy of your spouses, is what God says through Jeremiah. It's a love relationship, and even the relationship of the suzerain to a lesser king. of God. It always spoke of what the people were to do in love to their sovereign. What the people were to do because they loved their sovereign and what the sovereign did to the people in love to them. It was a relationship of reciprocal love. Now, we have problems thinking in that direction because we tend to think of love as an emotional activity. You know, because we have a Hollywood notion of love. rather than a biblical notion of love. But actually love, as Jesus says, is manifested in obedience. It's manifested in keeping commandments. And his love to us is manifested not so much in warm fuzzies, not so much in sacramental, saccharine, not sacramental, it is sacramental, but saccharine feelings. It's here in His love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God's love to us is demonstrated in His actions. God demonstrated his love to us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. It's not just a feeling thing. There's certainly a feeling component to it, but that's not the heart of it. The heart of it is what God does in sacrificial commitment to his people and what his people do reciprocally in terms of loyal and faithful service that we render to him because he has so loved us and redeemed us to himself. And so both of those relationships, whether we're thinking of a covenant that's modeled after the covenant that a superior great king would enter into a lesser personage who he subdues to himself. Well, God in the gospel comes and subdues us to himself. And he is Lord of all to us. And we bow the knee in allegiance and loyalty and love to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see God's love towards us in our redemption. And we see love that reciprocates in our hearts unto him. And Israel had the same kind of experience of the grace of God, the same kind of experience of the greatness of the love of God toward them. And we see it in the cross of Christ, of course. And our religion is centered in the cross of Christ. We have a cross centered religion. Paul said, I came among you. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him is crucified. He says, it's the word of the cross to those that are perished. It's foolishness, but to us who are saved, it's the power of God. The word of the cross is central to our hopes and to our proclamation. And to our faith, we believe in Christ crucified. Unto the Jews, it's a stumbling block. Unto the Greeks, it's foolishness. But unto us who are saved, unto those who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We have a cross-centered religion. And if we think of that and ask ourselves, well, what was central to Israel's religion? We in this New Testament people of God have a cross-centered religion. centered in Jesus, work of redemption for us on the cross. What's the parallel in the life of Old Testament believers? Well, I would say It's an Exodus centered religion. They had a religion that was centered in the great act of God for their redemption when God in his kindness and pity and compassion and mercy and power delivered them from oppression and bondage, liberating them, bringing them out of Egypt and bringing them to himself. that that's central to the religion of the Old Testament. And in fact, when you look at the Old Testament writings, if you just look at the sheer number of references to the Old Testament, you really see that that's true. It was an Exodus-centered religion. And that being the case, what happens in Exodus in the book of Exodus is foundational. It's vitally important. And it's something I hope to get into with you in the weeks to come. And I'd like to do it kind of quickly. I'd like to sort of just breeze through this stuff. But there are certain things that have kind of slowed me down. First of all, the sheer weight of these matters and the information that scripture gives to us on these matters That's one thing that will always slow us down in any kind of study that we try to make that's trying to be at least full and comprehensive in its focus. The other thing is, I'm waiting for the 18th of August. Put all my cards out on the table. I'm waiting for the 18th of August. And you say, Pastor, why are you waiting for the 18th of August? Well, actually, I've been waiting for the 18th of August since I went to the Banner of Truth conference last year. in Pennsylvania because it was there and I went out there and one of the principal reasons was I was looking forward to hearing Michael Morales, who's a professor of biblical theology at Greenville Theological Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina, and he wrote a book that I've read it two-and-a-half times. I'm going through the third time. I left off doing it, but I'm going to eventually go back and complete it the third time. It's a theological treatment of the book of Leviticus. And I always felt bad that I went through the book of Leviticus with our Sunday school class years ago when I knew nothing. And I hope it was a helpful study, even when I knew nothing. But it's when I read this book by Michael Morales, it's called Who Shall Ascend Unto the Mountain of the Lord, that I began to understand why it was that the Jews teach the book of Leviticus to their children first. What's the first book of the Bible, of the Hebrew Bible, that the young Jewish person learns? It's Leviticus. And, you know, of course, we scratch our heads and say, wait a minute, Leviticus, that's terrible reading. That's hard reading. That's repetition of sacrifices. That's repetition of so many things that's so foreign to us. And yet to the Jewish lad, it was central to his faith. It was central to the whole question of his approach unto God. I know I got certain things right when I taught Leviticus, but I would have gotten so many more things right if I had taught it after reading Michael Morales' book, which for me, it's been revolutionary in my understanding of just the whole unity of the Old Testament Scriptures. Well, what does that have to do with Exodus? What does that have to do with August the 18th? What does that have to do with what I learned last year when I went to the Banner of Truth? Well, it's at the Banner of Truth last year that I learned that Michael Morales had written, or it was scheduled to have written, I guess he was on a contract to write, and it was expected that in 2020, he would come out with two new books. One of them on the book of Exodus, or on the theme of Exodus, and one of them on the book of Numbers. And I'm not sure exactly when the numbers book is going to come out, but the Exodus book, I mentioned August the 18th, that's when it's coming out. And I got it pre-ordered. It'll come right to my Kindle as soon as it's released. And I want at least to be able to skim through it before I go through the book of Exodus with you. So it's going to slow me down and I don't want to get too far ahead of things. I do want to have at least some exposure to what Dr. Morales says in this book, because that's such a regard for his insights and understanding as a biblical theologian. So I'm going to slow down a bit, but we're going to address matters that I think of consequence, some matters of importance. And what I thought to do this evening is just give something of an overview of some of the theological themes that you're going to find, or some of the the central realities that we'll find in the book of Exodus. Let me begin with, first of all, asserting that to read through the book of Exodus is to read through a book that heavily emphasizes the absolute sovereignty of God, without question. We're going to run into this matter of divine sovereignty, God's absolute sovereignty, again and again and again. you're going to see his sovereignty over nature in the plagues that were brought upon the Egyptians. I realized there were magicians in Pharaoh's court that were able to replicate some of these plagues, probably just in the way, either of satanic power, I don't know, that's a possibility, but some kind of sleight of hand that enabled them to sort of replicate for the satisfaction of Pharaoh. But it came to the point, a point where They could go no further. And remember what they said. They said, this is nothing but the finger of God. This is God's own finger. Not even his hand. His finger is in this thing. This is divine revelation. This is a revelation of the power of God that he alone possesses, as he alone is sovereign over all of these matters of the natural world. He alone can really turn water into blood, the waters of the Nile into blood. He alone can bring swarms of locusts at his words, summoning them. He alone can turn the brightness of the sun into darkness. He alone can perform these things, bringing hail in this massively quantity and size of hailstones that came upon of the people. He alone can bring this pestilence and disease that came upon of the cattle and the livestock of the Egyptians. He is absolutely sovereign over all created reality. The God who made the world is the God who governs the world, is the God who can enter into the world with his own finger and hand and power and do the things that we read of in the book of Exodus. He alone can open a sea that the people of Israel would go through on dry land. Again, and again, and again, you read the book of Exodus, and Genesis, and the rest of Scripture as well. All of it testifies to the absolute sovereignty of God, but I think in a more pointed way, you see it in the plagues, in the opening up of the Red Sea, in the miracle of the manna, in the way God protected and preserved His people, in the way He revealed Himself on Mount Sinai, that He is Lord of all. He is Lord of all creation. And so as we read it, let's note it and let's bless the Lord, who is Lord of all. But not only is he sovereign over nature, he's also sovereign over empire. The greatest empire of the world was the Egyptian empire. Pharaoh had the seat of authority and power and dominion over all lesser nations that surrounded him. And he was able to, of course, suppress the liberty of the Israelites and to put them into slavery and into bondage and they really couldn't question it. They couldn't lift up their hand in rebellion against him because he was, humanly speaking, the emperor of all the world. And yet Pharaoh says, who is Yahweh that I should obey him? Well, he learned who Yahweh was. He's sovereign over empires and he sets up kings and he tears them down. He's sovereign over the empires of the world. He caused the chariots of Pharaoh to be cast into the sea, triumphing over the greatest empire of the then known world. And then he's sovereign over history. And you see the sovereignty of God over history in that really long before these events of the Exodus took place, God had spoken of it. He had revealed it to Abraham. And it's like what we find happening in the book of Exodus is the fulfillment of the promises of God. We find the God who spoke with his lips, watches over his word to perform it, as Jeremiah says. He's actively engaged in the history of nations, of people and nations, to fulfill the word of his promise. You know, back in Genesis chapter 15, we saw it, I think a couple of weeks back, where God caused the sleep to fall upon Abraham and gave him that revelation. of himself and his purposes. And Abraham is given to know what God intends to do is not happening, happening immediately. No, the possession of the land was not going to be an immediate thing. Abraham himself would not, he don't know a burial ground in the land of Canaan. But the Lord told him, Know for certain, Abraham, that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there. They will be afflicted for four hundred years. But then I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions." What's God doing? Well, He's writing the history beforehand. He's telling Abraham, what his descendants, what his progeny will come to experience in the very events that are written in the book of Exodus. So God's sovereign, sovereign over creation, over nature, sovereign over empire, sovereign over history. And we should note it as we read the book of Exodus. But not only do we see divine sovereignty writ large in the book of Exodus, I think we also see the absolute grace and goodness of God. The absolute grace and goodness of God. Again, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, but it was in the world before the coming of Jesus. Because, again, the triune God governs his world. You know, there's a sense in which we understand because of the redemptive accomplishment of Jesus and his ascension to the throne of the universe, we can say he rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the wonders of his righteousness, as we sing at Christmas time. But he ruled the world with truth and grace, even at the time of the exodus. And you see it in the fact that God comes to the people in bondage, under servitude, under taskmasters, under mistreatment, and he comes as the great liberator of his people. He comes to redeem from bondage. He comes, as it says often in the New Testament, with the hand of his power, with his mighty power to bring them out of Egyptian bondage. And so what he does in the book of Exodus is clear. The people cry out to him out of bitterness of soul, out of the bondage that they are experiencing. God heard their cries and God responded in grace and in power as liberator. And you'll see that scenario again and again and again. It becomes something of a model of how God addresses his people Israel. They sin against him in the book of Judges and what does he do? Well, a nation, a foreign nation comes and takes him into captivity and out of the out of the misery of their heart and minds and souls, they cry unto God, and God sends a deliverer. God sends a savior. Well, we see it first happening here. God sent Moses. God sent his righteous servant Moses to be the one through whom he would bring the people out of bondage. And not just to bring them out of bondage, but to bring them to himself. You see, the liberation is not just from something, it's to something. It's not just from the misery of captivity and bondage. It's to the joys and blessedness of coming into the divine presence. It's coming to know God, it's coming to walk before God and live unto God. That's the great blessedness of Israel, the great blessedness of God's people. And our liberation is not just from a negative, it's to the positive. bliss of knowing God. And I wonder if we understand that, because so much of what we speak about in terms of redemption and deliverance is deliverance from sin in its totality and all that sin has done. And oftentimes, because we're good Reformation people, we tend to emphasize the guilt aspect of it. We tend to emphasize the judge and his declaration that we're made righteous through faith in Jesus Christ. We're justified by faith. And that's true. That's a blessed biblical truth. But it's not the only biblical truth. It's not the only biblical truth. Because that work of redemption in Christ not only brings us into a new status, a new legal standing, but it also reconciles us with God. It opens up a way of approach. It opens up a way of access because in a real sense, the whole story of the Bible from Genesis to Exodus to the new creation is a story of how sin brings us away from the presence of God and how God's redemptive work in the world brings us back to him. I think you see it in the book of Genesis, and I'm getting off topic, I know, but stop me if I'm getting really boring, okay? Raise your hand to say pass, move on to other things. This is kind of boring. But you know, when you read the Old Testament, you read the book of Genesis, you see what Genesis has happening is that from the time of the sin in the Garden of Eden, there was casting away from the presence of God. In the Garden of Eden, they were in the presence of God, weren't they? They walked with God, it would appear in the cool of the day. Eden was a place where God put a garden of delight for man, his image. And God dwelt there in Eden. God had an earthly abode there in Eden. That's where his special presence was. I know God fills heaven and earth. God's omnipresent, he's in every place. But there was a special presence of God in Eden. And man enjoyed close proximity to God in that place of his special presence, in the garden of the light that God made in Eden. And when Eve took the apple or the fruit and ate of it, and Adam took along with her, what happened? They were cast out of the garden. They were cast out from the place of the delightful intimacy of the presence of God. And they're outside now of the gates of Eden with the cherubim, with the swords, turning every which way, guarding the way of the tree of life. way of free approach to God again. Yeah, there was worship that took place, but that worship took place outside of the garden, outside of Eden. And the whole story of what God does in his redemptive work of Exodus in the Old Testament, and also the work of Jesus in the New Testament, which is also in the sense of Exodus, a redemption. Jesus spoke with Elijah and Moses, interestingly enough, on the Mount of Transfiguration. And actually the word that's used, sometimes it's translated, speaking of his departure, or I don't know whatever the translations are, I can't think of them, but it's actually the word for Exodus. Jesus spoke with Moses, representative of the law, Elijah, representative of the prophets, on the Mount of Transfiguration. He said, what did they talk about? They talked about the exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. So he went to the cross, he died in Jerusalem to accomplish an exodus. And that's an exodus that leads us out of bondage and servitude and captivity, but it brings us into liberation where we're able to draw near to God. We're able to be brought back to God. The whole story again of the book of Genesis is people going east of Eden. Remember Cain, his brother, and he went to the east and built a city and called it after one of his sons, I believe. East of Eden, the land of Nod, that's where he went. And the people of the Tower of Babel, they went east. Why? Because the presence of God was west. The presence of God was in Eden. And they're constantly moving away from the presence of God. And the whole story of redemption from Egyptian bondage is the story of not only deliverance from captivity that sin brings, but it brings us back to God. It brings us back to his presence. And that's what Sinai was about. I'm thinking of the way in which God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush. Turn, if you will, to chapter three of the book of Exodus, where God appears at the burning bush. And he tells him that he's gonna go to Pharaoh. and he's going to tell pharaoh that the god of his people, look at verse 10, he says, come, I will send you to pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to god, who am I that I should go to pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? It's interesting, it's the first time of the descendants of of Jacob are called the children of Israel. They're constituted now as a people, as a nation. And God says they're going to be now brought out by the hand of Moses. Go to Pharaoh and tell him, I will bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I? I read that before, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. You're going to bring the people out of Egypt and you're going to serve God on this mountain. And of course, it's Mount Sinai that's being spoken about. That's the place where Moses was, this mountain. This is the place where God himself will come and he will dwell in his special presence from the mountaintop and speak to his people. And remember, Moses himself went up into the glory cloud to Commune with God and receive from God the Ten Commandments written on tables of stone and receive from God the instructions with reference to the tabernacle and receive from God the book of the law that he would bring to the people. It was in that relationship of intimacy and nearness and he was able to approach God. God admitted him into his very presence. And he's showing a way back to himself, a way back into his presence, a way back into close proximity and nearness to God. That's really displayed on Mount Sinai. And then in the tabernacle that follows that also is to picture this whole matter of how we approach God. This is all revealed on Mount Sinai, the way back to God, the way back into his presence. not only that our guilt will be expunged and our judgment that our sins deserve will be canceled out, but also admittance into his favor and admittance into his friendship and admittance into his presence and his fellowship. So God is the great liberator. It shows his grace and his goodness. And he's also the great legislator that he gives to Israel a law. And again, we think of the law in terms, perhaps, of the burdens of the pharisaic law that was laid upon the people of Israel. And Jesus said, that was a burdensome yoke. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me and I will give you rest to your souls. And Jesus speaks of a yoke that's easy and a burden that's light, but it's still a yoke and it's still a burden. In other words, we're not saved just to live as we please and to do as we want and to have no concern to bring our lives subject to the living God. It's not a question whether law is given, it's a question of which law? And who's the law giver? And what is his intention in giving us the law? Well, the law God gave to Israel is celebrated as a good law. Book of Deuteronomy says that you'll be the envy of the nations. The nations will look at you, the people of Israel, and say, what nation is like this? It has, first of all, a God so near to us. But also what nation has laws like this that are so wise and just? Israel's law was to be the envy of the nations because it was filled with wisdom. It was filled with what was just and right. that there is to be the sanctity of God himself, to have no other gods before him. There is the sanctity of his worship. We're not to be making graven images. There is the sanctity of God's name. We're not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. There is the sanctity of the day of worship that he is appointed. We're to remember the Sabbath day and we're to keep it holy. There is the sanctity of authority in home with our parents, that we learn authority that's ultimately going to be over us in state authority or church authority. We learn it in our homes. Honor your father and mother. Honor authority that's appointed by God, that's placed over you. That's a good law. There's also the sanctity of human life. We're not to murder. There's a sanctity of the marriage relationship where God set boundaries upon the marital union that we're not to adulterate that marital union. There's the sanctity of human property. We're not to be thieves and stealing what is not our own. There's the sanctity of truth. We're not to bear false witness. And then there's a sanctity It's governed in the command not to covet. It says coveting is not something you ever do with your hands, maybe a little bit with your eyes. It's something that's done within the soul. It's the sanctity of the heart. It's the sanctity of the heart being kept for God and given to God that's governed by this law that we call the Ten Commandments. It's a good law. It's a wise law. It's a beneficial law. And we're only hurt when we don't honor it, and we don't obey it, and we don't keep it, and we don't seek to regulate our lives by this good and holy law that God's given to us as his people. And I would suggest that redemption from Egyptian bondage didn't cancel it out. No, it conferred it. It conferred it. You're liberated. You're free now, not to be under Pharaoh's law, not to be subject to taskmaster's laws. Now you're free to serve God in accordance with his laws. that are wise and good and holy and helpful and ultimately beneficial to all who keep those laws. You see, you have the absolute sovereignty of God in the book of Exodus. You have the absolute grace and goodness of God. And then you also have... I wrote something down here that I really can't read or understand what in the world I said. That's what sometimes happens when I write things down. Well, let's put it this way. We find in the book of Exodus the great event of redemption from Egyptian bondage and the fact that that becomes the central event in the life of the people of Israel. Again, if the cross is central to our lives as God's people, We also see this redemptive act of God as being central to Israel's life before God. In a sense, it changes absolutely everything. Let me give you some suggestions as to how this redemptive act of God changes everything for the people of Israel. First of all, it changed their calendar. That is something that actually changes your calendar. And that's something that's kind of parallel to what happens with Jesus when we begin to mark the days and the years from the birth of Jesus. And I know we talk today about before the common era and after the common era. Well, no, no, no, no, no. It was before Christ. that dated time prior to the, at least we thought his birth, but we got about four years wrong. Actually, when we began to mark time from the birth of Christ, it's probably four years too late. So his actual birth maybe was 4 BC. But nonetheless, the birth of Jesus and the coming of Jesus was such a monumental event. It changed the calendar, actually changed the calendar, and it changed the calendar for Israel. New Year got changed. You ever wonder why, in the book of Exodus, I think it's in chapter 12 in God Institutes, the Passover, he says that this will be the beginning of the year for you. I don't have the reference. Maybe it's Exodus 12. Let's turn to Exodus 12. Let's see if we can find that language. God's going to change New Year's for Israel. He says in Exodus 12 beginning with verse 1 Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt this month shall be for you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the year for you and tell the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to his father's houses a lamb for his household and we have the Passover being the first month for the nation of Israel. Say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Isn't there a holiday that Jews celebrate called Rosh Hashanah, which means the beginning of the year? Isn't Israel's new year in the fall? Isn't it usually in September they celebrate Rosh Hashanah? You all know that, right? They celebrate Rosh Hashanah in September. along with Yom Kippur, so 10 days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Because you see, in the national life of Israel, in accordance with their, we might say their secular calendar, it was Rosh Hashanah that becomes the first month of the year. But now here with the redemption that God's affecting for his people in Israel, there's a new calendar. There's a sacred calendar. There's a calendar in which the feast days and the fast days and the celebratory days, which largely focus upon the reality of the exodus, now comes to birth. And this becomes the new year. in a religious sense, in a sense of the celebration of the feast days of the Jewish year. And we have all kinds of years. We have a fiscal year that begins in October for us. Of course, the year for me begins with the start of the baseball season. People call opening day when they go out and have the license to shoot a deer. Me, opening day has always been the first day of baseball. So we have ways in which we all have points of departure from which a new year begins. But for Israel, in terms of the celebratory days of remembrance that God gave to them, it's marked with the exodus, it's marked with redemption from Egyptian bondage and then it's an interesting thing that even the other festivals that Israel was to celebrate in one sense many of them have clearly a reference to deliverance from Egyptian bondage for instance the tabernacles that you dwelt in tents that's why God says you to keep this holiday it's a festival of tents but it's also in other iterations of Keep the Festival of Booths, it's an agricultural festival. It's a recognition of the harvest. The first harvest and the final harvest, that's what separates Tabernacles from the Feast of Weeks. It happens seven weeks later. But those are agricultural festivals that begin to take on exodus meanings. Now let me give you an idea of how that's done. Look at Exodus 23. Look at Exodus 23. Chapter 23. And I think it's beginning around verse 14. And here it says, 3 times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. And then God begins with the feast of unleavened bread as I commanded you. And that's in conjunction, of course, with the Passover that you keep get keep unleavened bread out of your home. He says you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. So the festival of unleavened bread is when you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. Now there's another feast. It's the feast of the harvest. Have the first fruits of your labor of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year. When you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor, three times a year all of your males shall appear before the Lord." And that is connected, I think, really with the Feast of of Tabernacles, at least in the other passages it is. You have those three major festivals. And sometimes they're viewed as harvest festivals, and sometimes they're infused with significance that arises out of redemption from Egypt. And the whole motive of keeping these festivals is you've been redeemed. by the hand of God from Egyptian bondage. redemption from Egypt took place, people ordinarily would celebrate harvests. They would celebrate agricultural events. The first harvest comes in, well, you give praise to their gods. It was probably something already instituted and already known. But now, because of redemption from Egyptian bondage, it's to take on a new meaning. It's to take on a new significance arising out of redemption from Egyptian bondage. Even the dietary laws are rooted and motivated in many, many of the other laws. But look at Leviticus 11.45. Leviticus 11, chapter 11 and verse 45. You have the end of the dietary laws that separated unclean from clean animals, what you could eat or couldn't eat in terms of kosher diet, in terms of what was permitted and not permitted. And in verse 45, at the end of this whole list of what you could eat of land animals, what you could eat of swarming things like insects, something you could actually eat, what you could eat of fish and the rest, it concludes upon the note, For I am, this is verse 45, for I am Yahweh who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You therefore should be holy as I am holy. You to learn these laws of cleanness, of what's clean and what's unclean. You to make a distinction between them because I've delivered you. I've brought you to myself. And so everything gets infused with this reality. We are a people of the Exodus. We are a people whose identity is rooted in the reality of the Exodus. There's a verse, there's a lot of verses along these lines, but I was looking at this one in particular, in the book of Amos. Book of Amos, look at the prophecy of Amos in chapter two. You have Hosea, Joel, Amos. was Amos chapter 2. I think it's Amos chapter 2. And here it is. Now, this is being written hundreds of years after the Exodus took place. It's written by a prophet from the Northern Kingdom. Sorry, from Tikal. It wasn't from the Northern Kingdom, but he ministered to, primarily, the Northern Kingdom before the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity by the Assyrians. motivation for hearing the voice of the prophet and humbling themselves before God was in verse 9. Yet it was I, he says, who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars. Again, the Amorite were the Canaanites, the people of the land who they destroyed, the Nephilim, the big people, the giants that the spies were afraid of. No, I was the one that destroyed them. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. And also it was I who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Wait a minute, wait a minute. They weren't brought out of the land of Egypt. That happened to their forefathers centuries before. Yeah, but I brought you, he says, to the nation of Israel. It was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you 40 years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up some of your sons for prophets and some of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel? declares Yahweh. See, even people hundreds of years later, they identify themselves. We are the people of the Exodus. Just as we are the people covered by the blood of Christ. We are the people for whom the cross is God's power for salvation. Even though it happened thousands of years ago, it still is God's power today. We are a people whose lives are framed by, governed by, the reality of the death of Christ for our sins. And then something else interesting that occurs is that this matter of the redemption from Egyptian bondage, this exodus, not only colors their calendar and their festivals and their dietary laws. I should also perhaps mention the weekly Sabbath. You know the change that exists between the first giving of the law in Exodus chapter 20 when God says remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember what it says in Exodus 20? It says for in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth therefore and he rested the seventh therefore the Lord commanded you to to keep the Sabbath day. It's all motivated in creation. God created in six days. He rested the seventh. Therefore, be like God and rest the seventh day. But in Deuteronomy 5, in the second giving of the law, it says we're to reserve the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And then it goes on to say four. You were in bondage in Egypt, and I, the Lord your God, rescued you with a high hand and a mighty arm. Therefore, you to keep the Sabbath day. So, redemptive motivation comes in to the keeping of the Sabbath day. It's not only a remembrance of creation, it's a remembrance of redemption. Again, the fact of the Exodus governs all of life. And even in terms of the ethics of the nation is governed by the, just like the cross in the New Testament. You know, Paul can't can't command the people of God to do anything, it would seem, that's not somehow related to the cross of Jesus. He says, husbands love your wives. All right, leave it at that. Paul can't leave it at that. He says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. It's command that's rooted in and governed by and infused with the reality that we learn love at the cross. You can't even love your wife properly apart from the cross of Jesus. You can't even give to the needy. in a way that you should, that's not also motivated by the cross. In 2 Corinthians chapter 8, Paul says, when he's encouraging the people to liberality in the giving to the collection for the needy saints in Jerusalem, that's a matter of giving money, separating your dollars for the sake of other people. And he says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, for though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor. that we, through his poverty, might be made rich. He can't even give without a cross-centered ethic, a cross-centered motivation. He's encouraging the Philippians to be humble and other-oriented. He says, have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. of Christ and see what he did. Although he was in the form of God, he did not have equality with God, something to be grasped that he humbled himself. He took the form of a servant, made in the likeness of man, and in fashion as a man he became obedient unto the death of the cross. God highly exalted him, gave him the name that's above every name. That's the model for service. Even as Jesus said, I came among you as one who serves. You serve one another in that way. I didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many. You learn the pathway of service in the light of the the death of Christ, the humbling of Christ, Christ serving us in terms of bringing us God's salvation. And it's also true that the Exodus takes that place. I have passages galore. Look at Exodus 22 and verse 20. There's a number of these that kind of sound similar to this, but we'll look at just this one. If you want more, I'll share them with you. But in Exodus chapter 20, 22, I'm sorry, 22 in verse 20. It's not actually the one I wanted. Oh, here it is, 21. The Lord says, you shall not wrong a sojourner or oppressor for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child If you do mistreat them and they cry out, I will surely hear their cries, like God heard the cries of the oppressed people in Egypt. My wrath will burn and I will kill you with the sword and your wives will become widows and your children fatherless. Well, you want to avoid that, but also you want to remember that you were servants. You were in bondage. You cried out to the Lord for his deliverance. Don't mistreat people. Show them the kindness and mercy and care that God showed you when you were sojourners and strangers in a strange land. God brought you out and brought you to himself. Treat the sojourner and the stranger the way God treated you when you were sojourners and strangers. So you see how it's all going back to the experience in Egypt, to the redemption from Egypt. And the ethic of the nation is formed in the light of that. This is the kind of people you are to be. because of the way God treated you, you are to treat others in that same way. Well, I have more to say. I have more than I wrote down. But I'm not going to do it because I think I've already taken you out by now. But I hope this is just something that's helpful just to see the centrality of the experience of the Exodus in the life of the nation of Israel. And just how also that sets up the centrality of our redemption in the New Testament, very similar to the way it does to Israel's redemption in the Old Testament. Again, they're separate redemptions, but they're connected in terms of the theme. We were slaves to a taskmaster, to an empire and an emperor, far worse and far more cruel and heartless. than any human empire. In fact, it's the power behind all human empires in a real sense, but I'm not Christian, it's Satan himself. It's the prince of darkness himself. And Jesus has delivered us from that. He's delivered us from that oppression. He's delivered us from that servitude that we were once under, that we might again be freed to serve him, to go out in the wilderness and to worship and to serve the God of our redemption. And that has that parallel theme in the redemption that Israel experienced in the Old Testament. So again, I don't want to wear you out, but I thought it was necessary, or I thought it would be helpful to go through at least some of those themes. And I have more, but I'm not going to take it up tonight. We'll save it for next week as we look forward to the 18th of August when I get the book that I desperately want to get and read that I think will be of great help, hopefully not just to me, but to you as well in understanding the theme. Let's pray. Father, it is with thankful hearts that we come to you as a redeeming God, as a God who in power and pity looks upon your people and the woe that we're in because of sin. And you do not disregard us, but you draw near to us and you provide redemption. We thank you for that redemption that was a typical redemption that you affected in the life of the nation of Israel. that you called your son out of Egypt and you brought them to yourself that they might worship you and they might go out to you in the wilderness and become your people. and become the recipients of your laws and your worship and the inheritance that you purpose to bring them to. And we're thankful, Father, that you provide similar blessings to us as your people, that you bring us to be your worshipers, you bring us to be those who have your laws and commandments that we might imitate you and show our love to you in lives that seek conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ, that you present us with the hope of inheritance to come, of a new heavens and a new earth, and wherein righteousness dwells. We're thankful, Father, that you are pleased to bless us with these blessings that Israel possessed in the Old Covenant and come to be transferred over to us as those who enter into the blessings of Israel through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. So be pleased to receive our praise and thanksgiving for our time in your Word tonight. Be pleased to to uphold us throughout the remaining days of this week. He'll give us grace to serve you with gladness and joy. Give us to be able to be kept in your grace and walk in your ways. So again, we're privileged to gather as your people Wednesday night for prayer next week as we worship you, Lord, preserve us, we pray by your mighty power as we come and we ask for these mercies in Jesus name. Amen.