Let me begin our time together in God's word by telling you something of the tale of two books. I really can't get them up on my Kindle, but I have two books that I just got recently. One of them, You Know I Was Expecting, a book by Michael Morales on the subject of the Exodus, Exodus old and new. And that did arrive and I had great joy in reading it. I'm not certain exactly how much of it I can integrate into what we're doing. This really didn't just center upon the account of Israel's redemption from Egyptian bondage, but it sought to see that as one example of a larger theme that meets us throughout the scriptures of God's deliverance of his people from death to life. and ultimately the exodus that Jesus in the new covenant brings through his death and resurrection. But there were insights about the Old Testament redemption from Egyptian bondage, but nothing I can really bring in sort of a systematic way. It just was a joy to read it. And I sent him a note just thanking him for his labors. And he sent me a little thing back and just being glad that it was an encouragement. And it really was. It's an excellent book. And it's more readable than this former book on Leviticus, although both of them are going to go into a prominent place in my own library as something I'm going to consult many times in the future. There's another book, though, that I did get written by an Anglican evangelical by the name of Richard Baucom. And Baucom is known for his studies in the Johannine writings, the Gospel of John. In fact, he's going to be publishing a commentary on the Gospel of John, which I'm very much looking forward to. Bauckham is just an insightful scholar and he brings very helpful treatments of biblical themes and there's a new book that he put out on theology proper upon God. I forgot the exact name of it but the reason I'm bringing it up is that these were lectures he gave at a evangelical seminary in Nova Scotia, Arcadia I believe it's called, and The second one of these lectures deals with the very things we've been looking at in recent weeks, particularly Exodus 34, God's own declaration of his attributes. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundance and loving kindness and truth. And he really gives a great treatment of the subject, but I wasn't able to read it before looking at that passage in Psalm 103 verse 8 last week. But at the end of this paper that's published in this book, Baucom gives a list of other passages where those attributes of God are either alluded to or quoted, cited, and it's a much bigger list than what I had last week when I went through about half a dozen of those other references. And so I wanted you to know as we're getting started this evening, you got off lucky last week. We could have been there for days studying all the different passages of the Old Testament. It truly is amazing and phenomenal how that is a theme that recurs again and again and again. I was very tempted to go back to that subject this evening, but I'm going to resist the temptation because we really do want to make progress on some of the things that were comprising our summertime studies. And the thing that comprises our summertime studies is to focus in upon those things that Israel as a nation received from the hand of God when they came to Mount Sinai, where they entered into covenant with God, and so we're looking at the doctrine of the covenants, and they received from the hand of God the law, the rules, the regulations that govern their lives before God, and then also they received the ritual, they received the tabernacle, the tabernacling presence of God in the tabernacle of meeting and we want to look at all those things and so we began on the theme of the covenant and I told you there was about five different covenants that are important to look at in the scripture which God meets people in terms of the curse and the negative realities that sin brings into the world. And in these covenants, God is doing a work of restoration. The first covenant we looked at, of course, was at the flood, the Noahic covenant that we called a covenant of preservation, that God vows himself, he takes an oath that he will no longer destroy the earth with a flood in the way that he did it, and the bringing of the flood in the days of Noah. and there will be seed time and harvest and summer and winter and God pledges himself for the preservation of the human race until the end. And then we saw in Abraham a covenant of progeny. And again that's on the backdrop of the Tower of Babel and the scattering of the nations that God says he's going to work through Abraham instead of bringing the curse to the nations to bring the blessing to the nations. And it's interesting we saw in Galatians 3 this morning that Paul calls that gospel. that the Holy Spirit or the scripture seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying that in your seed all the nations will be blessed. God says that's gospel. The nations being restored, being brought back to God, that's gospel. And certainly that's gospel in the new covenant. The gospel message, the good news of reconciliation with God, of an ability to come back to God and approach God is brought now through the death and resurrection of Christ. And in a real sense, this matter of gospel to the nations, of restoration to God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, really touches upon this whole theme that we're going to look at this evening. The theme of the Exodus. Before Israel gets to Mount Sinai and receives the covenant relationship, God brings them out. He brings them out of Egyptian bondage. He brings them out. And the very bringing out, that term, the bringing out, is what the Exodus is all about. We can think of an Exodus as a going out, but actually it's God that's doing the action. God is bringing out the nation. And we have to see this evening, what is he bringing them out of? And what is he bringing them on to? And this really kind of intersects with some of the themes in Michael Morales' book concerning the Exodus, is that it's a more comprehensive picture than just thinking of, well, they were brought out of Egyptian bondage and brought out through the Red Sea and ultimately ended up in the land of promise. Although that, too, is an understanding that Israel was brought out of something into something. It's not just a negative thing. what is the things that they were brought out of? key in upon what issues are involved. And I want to first of all look at something, and I believe this is a word that Michael Morales uses, and it's a good word, it's a prefiguring of the Exodus. Before you come to the book of Exodus, the second book of the books of Moses, again you have the five books of Moses, and really the five books of Moses are five books of the formation and early history of the people of God. And God enters into a covenant with the nation at Mount Sinai. So we called it a covenant of peoplehood that again, in the old, in the book of Genesis, we find God being the God of Abraham. and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. In fact, he comes to Moses and says that's who he is. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he remembers the promises he gave to their fathers. But in each case, God entered into covenant with those individuals. He's relating to the individuals. First one man and a promise of a son and then that son has another son and that leads to twelve tribes. And they haven't yet attained to nationhood. They only attain to nationhood when they come down into Egypt and we're going to look at that. But before they get there, God prefigures what is going to happen. And the first way that happens, this prefiguring, is What we read about in Genesis chapter 12, turn to Genesis chapter 12. Again, the Lord came to Abraham, said, come up out of your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And he obeys. He comes into the land that God was going to give to him and to his progeny, to his seed. But as Abraham comes into the land, passes through to Shechem, he builds an altar. He worships the Lord. He receives, again, the promises. Verse 7, the Lord appeared to Abraham. This is chapter 12. To your offspring I will give this land. So he built an altar to Yahweh who appeared to him. And from there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel, pitched his tent in Bethel. And that's house of God. It's called Bethel because of what happens later to Jacob with the vision that Jacob sees in chapter 28 but here it kind of anticipates this is a probably Luz later called Bethel because of God's revelation as the house of God to Jacob and Bethel's on the west Ai is on the east and there he built an altar called upon the name of the Lord and Abraham journeyed on still going toward the Negev so he's heading south And then we read as he comes into the south, into the Negev, and it's still part of the land of promise. It's still part of the land that God had pledged to give to him. But now there's a famine in that land. And Abraham goes down into Egypt. And what I want you to note is that he's the father of the nation. all of the elements that we read about in the experience of the nation. It's almost as if it's the individual Abraham that is going to experience what his seed later will experience. Famine in the land. That's what led Jacob and his sons to go down into Egypt. And coming into Egypt, he comes into a place where He fears for his very life. You think of the other incident with Abimelech in Gerar, that's in chapter 20. He says he knows that there's no fear of God in the place. They're gonna take my life because they want my wife. And so he agrees with Sarah that he would say that she is his sister and not his wife, lest they would kill him. And in his fear of death and looking to perpetrate this deception upon the Egyptians, and she's taken into the Pharaoh's house, it's for her sake we're told that God dealt well with Abram and Abraham acquires wealth in the land of Egypt, just as Israel acquired wealth. They spoiled the Egyptians. He has sheep and oxen and donkeys and maidservants. Probably this is where Hagar came into his family. Remember, Hagar was an Egyptian slave. And it's probably this visit to Egypt that brought Hagar to be Sarai's a slave girl or servant girl. But then it says that Yahweh afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues. Great plagues come upon the Egyptians. Again, forerunner. A foretaste of what Egypt will experience at the hand of God when the house of Israel is kept in bondage. Now it's just Abram's wife is kept in a harem in Pharaoh's house. But God afflicts Pharaoh and afflicts his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. And so Pharaoh calls Abram and says, why have you done this to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she's my sister? So that I took her from my wife. Now then, here's your wife, take her and go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him. And they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. Abraham and all that he has goes out. They experience an exodus. And they experience an exodus really because God brought them out. And he brought them out of a land in which Abraham was very fearful of his life. Egypt was a place where God was not known, where he was not honored, he was not loved, he was not worshipped, he was not served. It was a land without the knowledge of God and the knowledge of their gods, the Egyptian gods, made them expert at one particular thing, death and dying. I mean, we think of ancient Egypt, and what do you think of? You think of the pyramids. What were the pyramids? The pyramids were mausoleums in which their pharaohs were buried. And they were buried in these mausoleums with the Egyptian Book of the Dead planted there to give the pharaoh instructions on how to navigate his way through the afterlife. They had no certain hope. They thought they could in some way preserve the body through mummification, that he would have a, they would put his sarcophagus with all kinds of things and ornaments and valuables and food so that in the afterlife he would thrive and he would do well. They were experts at death. In a real sense, Egypt is a land of the dead. It's a land of people that do not know God. It's a land of people that are in enmity with God, where death reigns in unrighteousness, where death reigns in rebellion. And the exodus that Abraham experienced was away from the possibility of death at the hands of Pharaoh. to come back into the land that God had promised for him and his descendants throughout the generations. Coming back into a place of the knowledge of God and the place of where God's presence was known and manifested. him, bless the nations, giving him this large progeny, the most multitudinous is the stars of the heavens and the sand of the sea. We see that in chapter 15, God is going to make it clear to Abraham that these promises that he's given to his progeny, the promise of the land, the promise of blessing, is going to be certain and sure because God who promises and takes oaths and he passes through the pieces of the severed animals. It's a done deal. God's gonna keep his word. God can sooner go out of being before he would forsake his committed promises to Abraham. But notice, when Abraham is given this vision of the God who goes through the pieces, When he's told to sever the animals, it goes on to tell us, as the sun was going down, this is in verse 12, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to him, Yahweh said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years. Here we find a prefiguration of the history that Israel as a nation is going to experience. They will be afflicted for 400 years but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they will come out with great possessions. This is Abram came out with great possessions from Egypt so the nation will as well. And as for you, you will go to your fathers in peace. You'll be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, well, 400 years, actually, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. So God's given mercy still to Canaanites, but he's going to put the descendants of Abraham in a nation where they're going to be afflicted, in a place of Again, not their land, not the place where God has said this is the place where the blessing will be. Rather, this is the place where the curse is. This is the place, again, of a realm of death. And this deliverance God will bring is out of the land of death. And now when you come. to the book of Exodus in which the things that are prophesied with respect to the affairs of the nation as they come to be fulfilled in the book of Exodus. Again, I do think you see the note of death that is a very prominent thing. Abraham's descendants there is a note of blessing that really begins. Again, Exodus is really a continuation of the Genesis story. In fact, all these books, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, they all begin with a construction in the original that's called the vav consecutive. In other words, you have the word and. And this happens. And these are the names. In other words, this is the continuation of the story. You use a Vav consecutive in historical narratives. When you say, this happened, and now this happened, and then the Vav consecutive brings you to the next event. And that's exactly what you have here. We're just moving on to the continuation of the story that is told of Jacob's sons going out of Joseph becoming great in Egypt and of their prospering in the land of Egypt. We read about the death of Joseph and a promise as well. He's not going to remain in the land of death. He's going to be brought into the land of promise. And as the story is told in verse seven, it says, but the people of Israel, and here's the words that remind you of Genesis one, the creation story. The people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly. They multiplied. They were fruitful and they multiplied. They were exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them. And the word for land is really the same word for the earth. They replenished the earth. They filled the earth. at least the earth that was there in Egypt. great multitude that God raised up in terms of the tribe, the 12 tribes now becoming this massive population group, this massive nation that is created during this period of their bondage in this land of oppression and of death. And then we're told that there arose a new king over Egypt who did likely was not the pharaoh of all of egypt there was a group of people that actually came from what's called the law which is that area that it goes today from all lebanon uh... through to uh... syria down to jordan uh... that whole rate areas called the law and uh... the peoples that populated that area, they began to settle into Egypt in what is called the Nile Delta. It's a place that was very What's the word I'm thinking of? Agriculturally, it was lush. It was productive of great growth. It was the breadbasket, really, of much of the ancient world. And it was there that Israel settled in that area of the Nile Delta. called the Hyksos and the Hyksos were the 15th dynasty of Egypt and as they reigned in the north eastern part of Egypt there was other dynasties that reigned in the rest of Egypt and so it was kind of divided but it was in that area really that went from the Nile to the Sea of Reeds or the Red Sea we usually think of it In that area, if you look in the map of the ancient world, or even the modern world, and you look at the Nile on one hand, at the western part and you move to the Red Sea and then up from the Red Sea there is that area where the Sea of Reeds, the Yom Suf it's called, that's the place where Israel dwelt, probably when the Hyksos ruled the land. So they had their capital city in the northern region of Goshen. Now a pharaoh, a new king, Because they weren't from the Levant. The Hyksos were defeated and they no longer ruled. And Egypt became unified under other dynasties and under other pharaohs. And it's probably this change that took place that brought the people of Israel out of favor with the pharaohs that were now ruling the land. And they thought that the people of Israel, being blessed of God, being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth, that they now had become a threat. The people of Israel, they say, they're too mighty for us. And come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply and war breaks out. And so they put them under bondage. They afflicted them. They made them to build their cities and their their buildings and they put taskmasters over them and they made their lives bitter with hard service and mortar and brick and all kinds of work in the field and all of their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves and so they were brought under bondage their lives were made miserable And then we read that wasn't enough, just to overwhelm them, to oppress them, to make their lives miserable. Now Egypt was going to do what Egypt does best, bring a reign of death over the nation. And in a real sense, what you have from chapter one, to chapter 15, which is the song of Moses, where he casts the rider and the chariots into the sea, God destroying the armies of Pharaoh, that you have really a tale of two rivers. You have the tale of the Nile, and you have the tale of the Red Sea, or the Sea of Reeds, where the armies of the Egyptians were destroyed as Israel went through on dry ground. What happened in both of those bodies of water? Well, death happened in those bodies of water. At first, the pharaoh sought to have the midwives put to death the children of the Hebrews when a son was born. Son is born, just put him to death. And it's interesting that though the pharaoh never gets named, we don't know which pharaoh this was. His name is never given. We're not told it was Ramesses I or Amenahot II or whatever the ruler was in the time when Israel was there. He is never named. He's like not that important. He's not the hero of the story. But the midwives are named. We read about Shifra and Puah, who defied Pharaoh and would not kill these children, these midwives that made up this excuse. Hebrew women are just too lively. You can't get to the child and put him to death without being exposed. But yet, what's the alternative that Pharaoh comes up with when the midwives aren't doing what he wants them to do? Well, verse 23 says, Then Pharaoh commanded all of his people, Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile. You shall let every daughter live, but every son you should cast him into the Nile. You go to the chapter 15 when they have the Song of Moses. It's said that God is the God that casts. the armies of Pharaoh, the horsemen and the rider, into the sea. Pharaoh cast the children of the nation into the sea. God cast the very armies of Pharaoh into the second river, into the Sea of Reeds. And when you have the Count of Moses, the Count of Moses and his birth is that he was, of course, born to this Levite family. And she conceived, she bore a son, she saw it was a fine child, and she hid him for three months. Just not gonna let him know that we have this son that was born to us. But once she could hide him no longer, what does she do? Well, she makes a blanket, and out of, interestingly enough, reeds, bulrushes, reeds, Suf is the Reed Sea. She makes this arc of reeds, and then she daubed it with bitumen and pitch, kind of reminds you of the building of the ark. This is in fact called an ark, the same word that's used with Noah's Ark, an ark of protection, an ark of preservation through water. And then she put among the reeds by the riverbank. And it's amid the reeds of the river bank that it's Pharaoh's daughter who draws him out, who brings him out from the Nile, which was the place of death, the place where the children of the Israelites were being cast, that they might die. And Moses was on the bank of the river in the midst of the reeds where he's drawn out from death by Pharaoh's daughter. There's a sense in which we're given a picture that Moses, who was going to be the one who led the nation out from being drawn out from Egyptian slavery and Egyptian bondage. First, Moses himself experiences an exodus from the place of death, the Nile, the firstborn where the male children were being cast. He's drawn out by Pharaoh's own daughter. And he's brought out of death into really adoption as Pharaoh's daughter's child, to be raised in Pharaoh's palace, to be raised as perhaps an heir to great riches. We're told he forsook the riches of Egypt because he chose to be afflicted with the people of God. But he was brought out of death, you might say, into life. And again, that's a picture of and Exodus, but it doesn't last for long because when he comes to years, when he's grown up and he understands who he is as an Israelite, he goes out to his people looking upon their burdens and he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. and one of his people. And he goes and he looks in all directions, doesn't see anybody around. And so he struck down the Egyptian that was beating one of his people. He was looking to be something of a rescuer, a deliverer of his people in bondage. He hid the body of the Egyptian in the sand. And when he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the rung, why do you strike your companion? He's not trying to not only rescue the afflicted people from their bondage at the hand of Egyptian taskmasters. No, he wants to lead the people into some kind of unity as a people of regarding one another and not fighting with one another. And their answer to him is, who made you a prince and a judge over us? And they asked, do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. So now he again is in the place of death. He's in Egypt, exposed to death. He was drawn out from death, out from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter, but now he's been exposed because he sought to be Israel's deliverer. when in a sense at this point God was not prepared to make him the one who would lead them out of deliverance. And so Moses is now in Egypt facing death again. And what happens then is he fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. He went out. He again experienced an exodus out from Egypt into the land of Midian where he sat down by a well. He marries a wife. He has children. He tends the flock of his father-in-law. until it's God's time to take this man who's already experienced, you might say exodus, out of death into life. Now he's going to lead the nation in a similar picture. And I should have mentioned one thing also that connects the two rivers. Remember Moses is taken out from the river, drawn out by Pharaoh's daughter. as he's on the bank in the middle of the reeds. And that goes back to the sea of reeds, the Yom Suf, the second river in which the bodies of the Egyptians were cast up on the bank. And you have all this similar language going on, so we're meant to relate the two, that Moses first experiences exodus. He first experiences deliverance. First experience is being brought out from death into life and now God's going to call him to lead the nation. And it's an interesting thing that there's a sense in which as you come to the new western midnight is that Jesus comes to bring and he seeks to of the exodus he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. That's the very word that's used. He's going to bring an exodus about. He's the one who brings a new exodus in the sense of which Jesus himself first experiences that deliverance from death to life in resurrection to lead a people on a similar path. of moving from death to life through the power of his death, burial, and resurrection. That's a story to be told later when we get to the new covenant. But back here in the covenant that God's going to make with Noah, I'm sorry, with Moses, this covenant of peoplehood, Moses, the leader, experiences exodus first. And now he's sent by God to be the one who will lead the people on an exodus as well. And of course, it begins with the fact that in the many days that the king, I'm sorry, during those many days, when Moses is that stranger in a foreign land, the change of dynasty, the king of Judah, The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry for rescue came from slavery, came up to God. And God heard their groanings and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. And so everything he's going to do in this covenant he makes with the nation through Moses, in a real sense, builds upon the covenant he already made with their fathers, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We don't have a picture that God was doing one thing back there with the patriarchs, and what he did with the patriarchs has nothing at all to do with what he did through Moses and the Exodus. No, no. It's the same God who entered into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, they become a people. Upon the promise of progeny now fulfilled as a nation, God is now going to meet them in their burden and in their need, and he's going to bring them on this exodus. But first he has to call their leader. And so he appears to Moses, of course, at the burning bush. Moses having tending the flock of his father-in-law Jacob, led them out to Horeb, the mountain of God. And this is pivotal that we have to understand that where Moses was, was in the vicinity of the mountain to which he would lead the people of Israel to. And so we're asking the question, not only what they were brought out from, but also what they're brought to. And this helps us to understand this, that God appears to Moses at Mount Sinai, or sometimes it's called Mount Horeb. Moses beholds a bush and a flame of fire in the midst of the bush. And looking, he beholds that the bush was burning, and yet it was not consumed. This was a sight that you just don't see. When fire is burning a bush, it consumes. And then it moves on to the next bush. But here's a bush that's just not being consumed at all. Although a fire is raging all about it. And so Moses says, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And he finds that it's God who is in the bush. Again, the God who revealed himself in terms of the smoking pot and the flame of fire, the God who was going to lead the nation and the pillar of fire by night. He appears in terms of fire, the God who comes on Mount Sinai in the midst of fire and lightning and thunder in this real manifestation of himself in terms of his power. He appears in the burning bush to Moses and he calls Moses by name, Moses, Moses. And his reply is, here I am. And then God says, do not come near, take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Now we find something new here. We find something that we never saw in the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis really only defines one thing as holy. One thing that is set apart by God. You know what that was in the book of Genesis that God set apart as holy? It wasn't any place. It wasn't any geographic location. It was a day. He blessed the seventh day and he made it holy. God created sacred time in the book of Genesis and the creation narrative. So there was a sacred time for people to meet with God. But there wasn't any given location where people were to meet with God. Well, of course, the Garden of Eden was the place where God was and they walked with God. But after the Garden of Eden and after the time of the flood, there was no such thing as any sacred locality. There was no sacred place, no sacred place. Again, Abraham went through the land and he came to Shechem. He built an altar there. He moved on, built an altar at Bethel. There are different places he would build an altar. He would worship God. He would offer sacrifice. But there was no one place. Now, God says, this is holy ground where you're standing. Now, what makes holy ground? What makes anything holy? Well, it's the presence of God. There was nothing about that piece of territory, a piece of real estate that was in any permanent way a holy place. It was a holy place while God made his presence manifest. And that's why Sinai becomes a holy mountain. This God made his presence known there. That's why the tabernacle becomes a holy place because God dwells in the tabernacle. In fact, the whole picture of holiness in terms of holy space or holy places is in direct proximity to the presence of God. So in the tabernacle where you have God's own presence in the holy of holies, the Shekinah glory revealed there, that's called the holy of holies, the most holy place. It doesn't get any holier than that because that's where God is. And then as you move out from the holy of holies, you have the next compartment of the tabernacle that's just simply called the holy place. It's a holy place. That's the place where the priests go to do the service that they're called to do of putting the showbread on the table and lighting the lamps and burning incense. Only the priests could go into that place. So in the outer court, that people can gather there. You don't have to be a priest. You can come with your sacrifices to sacrifice on the altar of burnt offering that was out in the outer court. It was a holy place, but it wasn't like the holy place in which only the priest could go, and it wasn't anywhere near to the holy of holies where only the great high priest could go once a year. You see the picture? You get closer to the presence of God. That is how holiness is defined. that is space set apart for God in terms of consecration and commitment and the recognition that you need to take the shoes from off your feet. Now I don't know if the practice was in ancient Near East temples to take the shoes off of your feet when you entered into the temples of their gods. You know, Islam does that in their mosques. You have to remove the shoes from off of your feet. I'm not certain that that was the practice, but yet where Moses stood, Moses was told to take the sandals off his feet. You're standing on holy ground. And something similar was told to Joshua when he saw the the commander of the Lord's hosts in Joshua chapter 5. That's the only other place where God says, take the shoes or the sandals from off your feet for the ground upon which you stand is holy ground. It was when Joshua saw that theophany of the commander of the Lord's host. And so at this holy place where God himself is there in theophany in a burning bush, It does not get consumed. And the flame and fire of his presence is made manifest. God speaks, God speaks. And now the attention is off of what Moses saw. And now the attention is upon what Moses hears. God speaks his word to Moses. He says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face. He was afraid to look at God. His ears were open, but his eyes were closed. God says, I've surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, and I know their suffering, and I've come to deliver them out from the hand of the Egyptians to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. That's the ultimate place of destiny. It's the inheritance. It's the place that God had promised to Abraham and his seed. That land that he said, look, from the east, the west and the north and the south, all this land will be for your seed. God says, I'm going to bring you into that promised land, that land that's a good land, a broad land, a milk and honey filled land, the place of the Canaanites, the place of the people who God gave space to repent. But now they're going to be judged and they're going to be supplanted. The Lord says, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me. And I've seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. God's going to bring them out. He's going to do it by the hand of Moses. And Moses says to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? And God simply says, 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. So you see, there's actually two places of destiny, two places where they're gonna be brought to. They're gonna be brought out of death. and they're going to be brought to the mountain of God first. That mountain where God himself will be present, God will enter into covenant, God will give them the law, God will give them the tabernacle of his presence. And once they have that tabernacle of his presence, the God of the burning bush, in the holy of holies, in the tabernacle dwelling in their midst and he becomes the central reality that will move with them and go with them until they're brought into the land of promise and in the land of promise God says there's going to be a place where I'm going to establish for my worship and that becomes Mount Zion where the temple is built the permanent shrine the permanent place where the people come to worship God And so the picture is they're brought out of death to God, to the presence of God, to the enjoyment of fellowship with God, the close proximity with God, to a God who will be with them and among them, who will walk in their midst and they will know the reality of his grace and of his presence. So it's not just coming out of the place of death, out of the place of bondage, out of the place of servitude, out of the place of oppression, but it's coming into the orbit of his favor, the orbit of his friendship, the orbit of his fellowship, the joys that they will know as the covenant people of God who says to them, I will be a God to you and you will be my people. And of course, God comes with the plagues. And in the plagues, of course, many of them are the assertion of divine sovereignty over all of the aspects of Egyptian life and the fact that the Egyptians worshipped gods that they thought were the god of the Nile or the god that controlled the Sun or the god that had sovereignty over this that or the next and God says I'm gonna reveal my glory I'm gonna show that I am God indeed that he brings these plagues upon the Egyptians and he's gonna harden Pharaoh's heart that he won't let his people go until He will bring the final judgment, which is the death of the firstborn. Again, the reasoning for this is that God says about Israel, Israel is his firstborn son. And what did the Egyptians do to God's firstborn son? They cast him into the sea. They put them into servitude and slavery, put task masses over them, made their lives miserable, brought them to call out out of their oppression. And God's going to reveal the fact that he is God and that he is favoring this people. He's going to make a distinction between the Egyptians and Goshen upon the people of Israel and the people that he's going to judge. And he's going to bring them out that they might worship him on the mountain and they might come into this relationship of favor. So this is what proceeds. the covenant that God enters into with the nation, it's God bringing them out of death into life. And so we need to understand that to recognize it's this exodus, it's this transition from death to life, from servitude to freedom, that qualifies this nation to become a worshiping nation, to become a nation who will render They do service and obedience as a covenant people who will know love and loyalty because of what this God has done for them. Again, it's not a question that Israel, by the stuff of their own wisdom or ingenuity or morality or anything that pertained to them, brought themselves into getting God to do something for them. What God does, he does unconditionally and freely. Again, he came to eight, uh, we didn't really dealt deal with the fact is, is, has sent me, what will I tell the people about your name? And God declares with respect to himself, he uses a name as the form of a verb to be. We don't know if it's I am who I am or I will be who I will be. But in either way, God's saying I'm independent of human conditioning. I'm not going to be subject to your whims and your desires. I freely work to the fulfillment of my own will and my own purposes. I'm not a god who's under your domination or your control. I am who I am and your work and thankfully he is who he is as we see in further revelation on Mount Sinai, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth, a God who's totally free but utterly predictable as well. This we know his nature, we know something of his character, and we know that God does not deny himself. He operates in keeping with who he is. But it is an interesting thing that Moses has to say, who shall I say is sending me? It's almost as if when Moses goes down to Egypt to deliver the people, he realizes this is a people that does not know God. This is a people that has no personal awareness of the God of their fathers. He's been long forgotten. They've been dwelling in the realm of death. And even though the people are brought out of the bondage of Egyptian servitude, They never actually came to life in God's presence. Again, when God appears on Mount Sinai, their first reaction is, we don't want God to talk to us in this way. Moses, you go up in the mountain, you get the word from God, and then you bring it to us. It doesn't seem as if at any point there was any love for God, delight in God, desire for God, although formally they said that whatever the Lord says, we will do. It was just formal, signing on to something that God offers them without any love and commitment. And a real story of the true exodus or the new exodus or the ultimate exodus that comes in Jesus is that it's not just something external. It's not just something that moves you from one earthly dominion to another earthly dominion. It brings you into the orbit of a heavenly dominion. of the reality of the indwelling of the Spirit of God and into the fullness of liberation that the gospel comes to bring. And so this is a typical exodus, a typical being brought out from exile unto God that is external. It has to do with a nation which many individuals that comprise that nation were hard-hearted and stubborn and full of rebellion and sin. Be it God is intent upon having a people. And Israel is going to comprise that people who come into covenant with God at Mount Sinai. Well, that's the qualifications to enter into covenant with God. You have to be a people of the Exodus. You have to be a people brought out of exile, brought out of death, brought into life, brought into out of bondage, brought into liberty. And it's with that kind of people that God enters into covenant. And so next week, we're going to look at the covenant itself as it's enacted upon Mount Sinai. And then we're going to move on to the Davidic covenant and then the new covenant. the law and the sanctuary. So that's where we hope to go. Anyone have any questions before we conclude this evening? Have I muddled things up for you or made things somewhat clear? We have the leader of the people who experiences an exodus. We have the people that experience an exodus. It's an exodus that's a typical exodus that brings them out of the external bonds that they were in. but doesn't bring them into the fullness of joy and liberty that the gospel comes to bring. But it does present something of a model of the work of Jesus, that Jesus himself is the first to experience exodus and his death and his resurrection. And we in him become dead to sin and alive unto God. We become a people who are liberated, a people who are brought out of death and into life. Well, I hope that's been helpful to some extent to set something of the boundaries and something of the prefigurement. And God willing, now we're going to look at the covenant God enters into with the people who've experienced exodus when we gather next Lord's Day evening. Why don't we conclude with prayer and then we'll just kick some things around together as Mike looks to make a coffee. So let's pray. Father, we're thankful once again for the Lord's Day. We're thankful we can come aside and really address matters so amazing in their scope and matters so wondrous to consider that you are this kind of God who does fulfill your commitments and your promises. You have a plan for the gathering of the nation that is not just a nation brought out of external captivity. but a nation that's brought into true spiritual freedom through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're thankful for that new Exodus. We're thankful that we are a new Exodus people. We're thankful that we can gather on the first day of the week, the day of resurrection, and we can reflect upon what we've been given to be a people brought from death unto life, brought from bondage into freedom and to perhaps in greater clarity of understanding, learn more of what you have done for us that we might live more lives more fully with gratitude and praise with a sense of obligation of what we owe to you. Dear Lord, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. We're debtors to your grace. Help us to live in that fashion. We're thankful again for your goodness and presence and love and commitment to your people as we've again sought you. We're thankful that you are drawn near in the word by the power of your spirit. And Lord, as we have met you today in this time of worship, We pray that those realities of drawing near to you would be our continual experience in the week that is before us. So give us grace in whatever we do to acknowledge you in all of our ways and look to you to direct our paths as we ask these things through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.