So Exodus chapter number three, let me set the background for you if I can. First of all, it is, have you got the next slide up there? I can't see it on here. Yeah, thanks, appreciate it. All right, so how did we get to where we are? We're gonna leave it up there and not look at it for a few minutes. I just want you to see where we're headed, all right? Exodus begins with the people of Israel, about 3.4 million of them, according to Adam Clark, the Presbyterian commentator in the 1800s. He says that we have roughly 3.4 million Hebrews in bondage in Egypt. There have been algorithms put into spreadsheets with very conservative estimates, handicaps to argue against our conservative estimates to show that in fact you can get from 70 to 4 million in a matter of 200 years without any difficulty at all. So people who try to say maybe the numbers are kind of symbolic in scripture, not really. No, you shouldn't think that. You should think that it means exactly what it says. And when you get to Exodus 12 and it says that there are 603, I believe, thousand 550 fighting men, you should expect that there were some families as well. If you have only 600, if you have 600,000 fighting men, you might say that right on that scripture alone, it's really easy to believe that you have millions of Hebrews. And they are in the land of Egypt, and they are multiplying, and they are multiplying to the point where they are a pest, chapter 1 says. I'm thinking, I'm not sure, I'm praying through Exodus for our next book on Sunday mornings after Luke. So, pray that God will give me wisdom about that, because I want to do the right thing. There's just a ton of great stuff in the book of Exodus. Let's talk a little bit about what's happening. As we talked about at the cookout one month ago on that Sunday night, there was an ordered genocide. We might call it infanticide. We might call it aborticide. The order from the pontiff, Pharaoh himself, that you would have partial birth abortions of all males in the land of Egypt. I say partial birth abortions because chapter one says, when they are on the birthing stool, if in fact that they give birth to a boy, break its neck, basically right there on the spot, kill it. So that is how much the Israelites are growing. We have to get a handle on this, the Egyptians say. The Egyptians are under a different dynasty at this point. not those who knew Joseph, but probably the Hyksos, H-Y-K-S-O-S, dynasty that did not know Joseph, but in fact is in charge now, and they don't know anything about these Hebrews that graced them with Joseph in the years past, who saved them, their entire civilization. Joseph did. And you get to chapter number two and you find out that Moses is actually saved by being put into the second arc of our discussion tonight. We were talking about Noah's, now we're talking about an arc of bulrushes. Moses is put into a little arc. And the first half of chapter two is when his sister just happens, if you believe in such a thing, to be passing by Pharaoh's daughter when she's looking for a nurse to look after this new Hebrew baby boy she found. And so you might notice in verse 11 of chapter 2, Moses is grown. He's about 40 years old. We know that he's 40 years old at this point, I believe, only because Stephen tells us so in a New Testament sermon recorded for us in Acts chapter 7. So Moses is 40 years old and he is basically trying to defend his people. He finds out he's a Hebrew. His mom and his dad train him that he's a Hebrew. You're not an Egyptian. I don't care where you're raised. You remember who you are. You're a Hebrew boy. And he grows up believing that he is actually someone very different than who he's being raised to be. He's being raised to be an Egyptian boy, a son of Pharaoh. Son of Pharaoh's daughter, Hebrews 11 says. But in fact, he comes to the realization that he is so much different. He is a boy and he's a Hebrew. So he goes out and he actually kills a taskmaster in Egypt, who's making life difficult on one of his brothers, one of his ethnic brothers. Moses rises up and kills the man and buries him in the sand. His grandfather, his adoptive grandfather, Pharaoh, finds out about it and is enraged towards him. And Moses runs into what is now northern Saudi Arabia. Then it was called Midian. And he happens in chapter number two upon a beautiful woman named Zipporah. Really, if you want to get down to it, lots of romances begin at wells in the first couple books of the Bible. For example, Rebecca is found at a well in Genesis 24. Rachel is found at a well in Genesis 29. And here's Zipporah, probably a name you were thinking about for your daughter or your granddaughter. I'm not sure what it means. I think it means long name. And her dad's name to beat all is Jethro. So here we have the the seedbed of the Clampett family right here in Saudi Arabia. And I don't know at some point they migrated over to Alright, so then we get to chapter number three, and Moses is tending the flock of Jethro his daughter in chapter three, verse one. His father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Being raised in Wisconsin, and we had a little town there called Mount Horeb, so I didn't know that it was actually in the Bible first. Came to Horeb the mountain of God. So now you have two names for what will be seen later is Mount Sinai, Horeb and the mountain of God. And verse 2, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush. Now let's be instructed here. Let's help ourselves out here. Who is the angel of the Lord according to this passage? I see many of you wonderful people are staring at my face, but it's not written on my forehead. According to these verses, who is the angel of the Lord, and tell me why you believe that. We know it's at least who? God? Did someone say God over here? Thank you, Kim. It might be Jesus, but we know it's at least God. The reason we might think it's Jesus is in just a moment, but why do you believe it's, why do you think the scripture's telling us that it's God? That's good. And we first, so we see in verse two, it's the angel of the Lord appearing to him. And in verse number four, it is the Lord God calling him out of the bush. Do you see that? So at least in this context, the angel of Jehovah is Jehovah. You don't, you say, well that doesn't make any sense to me. Just go with it, just go with it. It's better for you to not try to explain it. And so at the end of verse four, he said, here I am. Now look at verse five. He, that is Jehovah, in the form of the angel of Jehovah, verse two. So, now the reason I say that is because at the beginning of verse four, you see the word LORD in all caps. that is Jehovah. Some people say Yehweh or Yahweh. So for all the Hebrew peers in the room, I'm probably not doing exactly like I'd like and I've got two people in mind when I say that, really three. But what we're talking about in verse number two is that you have an angel of of Yahweh or an angel of Jehovah in verse number two, but yet you have God or Elohim in verse four, also known as the Lord in verse number four, calling him out. And he says in verse five, do not come close. Take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said, now look here, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. I'd like to come back over here for just a moment to what Rick said just a minute ago. Rick proposed that it was Jesus calling out of the bush. Can you help me understand why you think that? Okay, all right, fair enough. We would agree in Orthodox Trinitarianism that God has three persons, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, but we would also say that Father and Son and Holy Ghost are not the same persons. So the question is, why would we believe that That maybe the angel of the Lord is, in fact, the second person of the triune God. And the answer is found in I Am, verse number 16. Forgive me, verse number 6. He said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Now, as weíve already traveled through the book of John many times, we are familiar with this language, because Jesus, when He was to be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, they said, ìWe are here to seeÖî and He said, ìWho do you seek for?î ìJesus of Nazareth.î And He said to them, I am. Yeah, if you have King James or New King James, it might say, I am he. The he is an italics, which means it was provided by the translators. Or how about when Jesus is standing before Caiaphas and Caiaphas says, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed one? And Jesus says, I am. So why in the world did Caiaphas get so angry that he ripped his clothes like a little toddler having an absolute tirade? And the answer is because he couldn't believe that this flesh-and-blood person in front of him was claiming to be the one who spoke out of the bush. Now think that through. All right, let's look at verse 14. Larry directs us to verse 14. And God said to Moses, I am who I am. Very good. Thanks again there, Larry. So if you want to know what God's name actually is, this actually makes it a little bit clearer. I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. So it's even clearer there what Jehovah is saying out of the bush. He's saying I am the I am. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Very helpful. Thank you, Larry. So how old is Moses here? We find out that he's 80 years old now. So just like that, in a matter of a few verses, a 40-year-old man is now 80. And he's been spending some silent years shuffling through the sands of Midian. Now, I hope you can see this in your mind's eye over here and from your perspective. Northern Saudi Arabia and over here is where Goshen is, where the children of Israel are. Both are living in dry places. Both are enduring the drudgery of loneliness, hot desert life. Moses is being prepared by God for 40 years and the children of Israel over here being prepared for a leader. Know this, it's painful, but God usually prepares a leader separately from when He prepares a people. Just take that in, drink it deep. Sometimes we're not even sure what we mean by that, but what is clear is that God always deals with a person and He always deals with a people. And I thank the Lord for all of the hard work that has been done here before God brought what I hope to be a long-term pastor here. And God was preparing, in this case, in this text, Moses for a long time. And at 80 years old, a man who thinks he should be getting senior coffee at McDonald's is now in charge of an Exodus. And he was not thinking, it's time to start a new career. I need a ministry. How about it, God? No, he's trying to avoid it. And if you know the rest of the chapter, he is continually trying to talk God out of his selection. Oh, you've been chosen, Moses. That's unfortunate. I wasn't looking for anything new to do. But now God sends him back. But what I want you to see is how we put this on a timeline. Basically, bottom line, it's been 190 years since Jacob died at the end of the book of Genesis. Now, we know that, and we'll just work from top to bottom, we're told explicitly in Exodus chapter 12, verse 40, that it was 430 years from Abraham's, the promise that came to Abraham until the Exodus. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob was born. Jacob died at 147 years. That's a total of 232 years of time passing between the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 13 and the death of Jacob at the end of the book of Genesis. So when you take 232 from 430, you find out that Jacob has died 198 years ago. And then we could even take a few more years off of that because Joseph was 54 when his dad Jacob died, and Joseph lived another 56 years until he died, Joseph did. So Joseph died at 110 years old according to Genesis 50. And so you take another 56 off of there and you have 142, right? Okay, so 142 years between the death of Joseph and the Exodus. Well, how old is Moses? He's 80. 142 minus 80, there's only 62 years between the death of Joseph and the birth of Moses. So that's important to know. And so a lot of time has passed, basically 430 years since the time that Abraham had anything promised to him. And so why does it matter that God is telling Moses in verse number six, I am the God of your father, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Well, the reason it matters is because of the passage we're gonna get to in the book of Luke in just a minute. See, what difference does it make if Jehovah made a promise to Abraham, and we're told in Hebrews 11, Abraham never received the promise. Well, what difference does it make if God makes promises, but he can never deliver on them? And then God says, I'm also the God of Isaac. Isaac lived to be older than Abraham did, 180 years old when he died according to Genesis chapter 26. What difference does it make if you're the God of Isaac if Isaac's dead and gone and there's no giving him his promises? But then Jacob, Isaac's son, dies at 147. He even says, I'm a young guy, I'm gonna die young, and he dies at 147. He told Pharaoh that in Genesis 47, I believe, when he got to Egypt, he said, young, I haven't even lived up to the ages of my fathers. Abraham dies at 175. Isaac, his son, dies at 180. Jacob, his son, Abraham's grandson, dies at 147. His days were few and full of trouble, comparatively speaking. But they're all three dead. What good is having promise from God if he makes them to people that are not alive anymore? If you get a promise from God and then you die before you get your promise and then you cease to exist, what's the point of having this God? If He is just going to let you live and then die. There is something specific here that is implicit in this passage and explicit in Luke that we're going to get to. And that is that Jehovah doesn't speak out of the bush and say to Moses, I was the God of Abraham. I was the God of Isaac. I was the God of Jacob, but now I'm your God. No, this is a covenant-keeping God. And a covenant-keeping God that can't even keep people alive long enough to give them their promise is no covenant-keeping God at all. He's not worth trusting. But if there's a way for Him to keep His covenant with you until long after you're dead, it's a great idea to trust Him. If, in fact, He follows you through death into the life beyond, He's worth trusting. If death is nothing but a transition, it in fact is not death to die. If in fact you will keep on living even after you die, then cling closely to this covenant-keeping God. That's true. It's at least that. I think you're right, Larry. I think it is a picture of how the fires of turmoil in Egypt did not burn them. They, according to Deuteronomy, they labored in the kilns of Egypt and it did not devour them. And that is a continuing story even on through Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, isn't it? Where the fire did not consume them. And here God appears to be saying he's one with his people who were not consumed in the fires of Egypt. He, like them, was not consumed in the bush. Great point. As it applies to our passage tonight in the gospel of Luke, we're talking about the endless character of our God. About how that death is not supposed to be dreaded. We ought to be very careful about a religion that is so full of folklore that when we have six-year-olds or ten-year-olds, we want them to be fascinated with heaven because heaven's a whole lot better than hell. But, What we don't usually convey to those same young people is that heaven is also better than earth. So we spend six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, get to heaven, get to heaven. You gotta pray this prayer. I mean, I don't say that, but that's kind of the thing. Let's get them saved so that they're ready for heaven. And then 60, 65, 70 years down the road, we do everything we can to keep everyone from going to heaven. Keep them alive as long as possible. Take them right beyond, right beyond quality of life. Now I am all for a long life, but I think that we are fascinated with a fear of death. And it hasn't kept us away from doing it. It's not like it saved us from anything. But may God help us to see that in fact this God, this promising God is worth loving even beyond death. Have you ever noticed how afraid, hmm, Let's take a look at Luke chapter number 20. Luke chapter number 20, please. Luke chapter number 20. We come to this evening's passage. No, don't let that scare you. We still have the same quitting time. Look at verse number 27. Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to him and asked him. Now you must admit, based on the fact that Luke doesn't tell you anything more than this, that he doesn't think you need to know anything more about the Sadducees, or he thinks you already know what you need to know. They were, in fact, a priestly sect, according to Robert Stein in his commentary. They were a priestly sect that descended from Zadok, the high priest under David. In Jesus' day, they were no longer exclusively priestly, but were partly or a circle of priestly and lay aristocrats. They were Greek-made or Hellenistic in orientation, and they catered to the well-to-do. In other words, these were goody-goody religious folks who didn't really believe the Bible. They are people who believed only the first five books of Moses. Keep that in mind because the Lord is about to prove that life happens beyond death from the books of Moses. And so he says, and they say in verse number 27, they deny that there's a resurrection. He came and asked him, this is really actually quite interesting. Again, another question like this morning where they're not really looking to develop in their understanding theologically, they're looking to get Jesus to look like an idiot. Well, Jesus is three or four days before his arrest, his kangaroo trial, and four days before his death. And they say in verse 20, And he dies without children. His brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. If you're wondering where that's found, that's in Deuteronomy chapter 25 verses 5 through 10. And basically they're posing a situation kind of like how skeptics say, if you really believe God can do anything, do you believe he can make a pin so small that angels can't fit upon it? Or can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it? These are the questions that are just hatched out of vacuums of retardation, frankly. And it says that they said, you know, Moses, Jesus told us that if a man, you know, if he dies and he leaves a widow and she has no son to carry on his name and to take care of her, that his brother should do it. And so since, now get this, this is how people ask you questions. Since you're one of those idiots that believes in a resurrection. Verse 29. There were seven brothers and the first took a wife and died without children. And the second took her as a wife and he died childless. And then the third took her in like manner the seven also. And they left no children and died. Last of all the woman died also. And I promise you she was happy about dying after all that. I mean. Let's just suppose that there is such a situation where you have seven brothers and one woman and the woman for whatever reason is chemically unable or would you prefer the scenario that the men are all infertile? In any case, this is one for the books. In one case, it's either a socioeconomic nightmare with psychiatric proportions, this woman can't get it done with seven men, or this is a big problem that we ought to have a discussion with the seven brothers' dad about, first of all, why are they dying so young, and secondly, why they cannot get a woman pregnant. In either case, we have major problems in this scenario. Are you uncomfortable yet? She finally died, verse 32. That's how I would title this sermon if I was looking for one. Verse 33. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her, winky, winky, as wife. Verse 34, Jesus answered and said to them, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Now, a couple things. First of all, notice the very simple end times system of doctrine Jesus has. Not there's pre and mid and post and pan and then there's pre this and no, it's this age and the age to come. Oh, how wonderfully simple. Does your end times doctrine chart look that simple? This age and the next one. And what is between this age and the next one? A resurrection from the dead. How do I know that? Because in verse 35, those who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead. So if you're, if you wanted to have a chart up here of Jesus end times eschatology system, this age, resurrection, that age. Okay, Jesus, I like your system. That seems a little simpler than what I grew up with. And the other thing is it doesn't say that they cannot marry or be given in marriage. And since the context here is reproduction within marriage, and I'm not going to say that's the only purpose for marriage, but Genesis 1 from this morning should tell you that that is a primary purpose in marriage is reproduction. But anyways, since everyone is feeling even more awkward, let's move forward here. It doesn't say that the angels cannot marry or be given in marriage, it says they are not. And you should know from your time in Genesis, particularly chapter 6 and verse 1, that in fact angels can reproduce. if they take part in an audacious, terrible sin. You want more information on that? Genesis 6, 2 Peter 2, Jude 6. In fact, we could argue that it was the cause of Noah's flood was that angels crossed over and bred with humans. If that's a little deep for you on a Sunday night, well, that's why it's not a Sunday morning sermon, right? There's just some things you're not interested in, how should we say, orienting visitors with on their first time with the church. So, we want to be careful not to go further than the passage, but we want to get as far as the passage does. And it says in verse 36, nor can they die anymore for they're equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. So, in a way, those of us who have put faith in Jesus and have received him are sons of God. But that's in John. Luke doesn't use that kind of language. Luke's language he uses the term son of God in that you actually are alive in the next age one who has taken part in the resurrection of the dead and so Look what Jesus does in verse 37 even Moses now don't forget who the Sadducees are They don't want to hear any proof texting out of Joshua forward. They only want Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And they quoted out of Deuteronomy, just like this morning. And Jesus quotes out of the book of Moses back to them. Jesus proves the resurrection. If I were Jesus, and we can all just thank God that I'm not, but if I were, I might have tried to fix the wrong thing here. I might have tried to get them right on their bibliology and said, you know you can believe the whole Bible, right? I mean, have you considered all the proofs? Do you know what they're discovering now in archaeology? Are you thinking at all about how the science is proving true in the book of, you know, in the book of Isaiah? Or how about Joshua chapter 10, when the sun stands still? You know that that can be done, right? You know, they're finding... I probably would have gone down the wrong trail with them. Jesus focuses on the part of the Bible they do believe. And he says, even Moses, even Moses showed in the burning bush passage, verse 37 says, and the word passage is in italics in the New King James. I don't know if it is in your Bible, but the idea is that they did not have chapter and verse divisions. And so how did they identify portions of scripture? Well, they identified them that way. Hey, in the burning bush portion. Hey, in the burning bush passage. And that's what Jesus does here. He doesn't say, well, if you'd open your Bible, I mean, goodness, just crack that King James open and go to the book of Exodus. It's not that hard. He says, in the burning bush passage, Moses showed. Now, if Moses is showing, who does Jesus think wrote the book of Exodus? He thinks Moses did. So Jesus is affirming not only the trustworthiness of the book of Exodus, but he's also confirming for us the authorship of the book of Exodus. He says, Moses showed in the burning bush that the dead are raised when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And look at Jesus' argument here. He's not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him. So Jesus is proving the fact that all people who are right now dead are in Christ, toward God, still alive. And the fact that they're still alive means that there must be a resurrection. Now here's how this works. We'll do this out of Moses as well. Do you remember when man became a living soul? When God breathed into his nostrils, You know, there's this teaching today in the church, we've got to shuck. Now, I learned that in the South, so don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. We've got to be willing to break free of this notion that our bodies are unholy and we can't wait to get rid of them. We're waiting for glorified bodies. We're not waiting to be disembodied spirits free from humanity. We will forever be human. And according to the creation of our souls in Genesis 2-8, God breathes into our nostrils the breath of life. And we became a living soul. In other words, God's breath plus our bodies equals a soul. So, when is a person no longer human? Well, that doesn't happen. There's this little intermediate state between the time that you die and the resurrection day, but you should expect to have a body again because you will forever be human. Now, I hate to bust your... Stay nice. stay. I'm trying. I'm staying nice. I'm trying to be nice. Here we go. So we're not intended on being gods. That is heresy. We're never going to be gods. God will not share His glory with any other. Besides Him, there is no God. We will forever be human beings to the point where we have an ethnicity in the kingdom to come. Revelation 7 says all kindreds, tongues, peoples, nations are around the throne in Revelation 7. Isn't that true? So there are some parts of our humanity that are preserved. Now if that's true, what is Jesus saying here? The fact that those who have the covenant keeping God as their God, that fact means that they're still alive because God is not the God of the dead. That means that Abraham was alive when God appeared to Moses in the bush. Because I am the God of Abraham. Isaac was alive when God spoke to, out of the bush to Moses, even though it was hundreds of years later. Isaac is still alive. Why? Because God is the God of the living, not of the dead, says King Jesus in verse number 38. Jacob, though he had died 198 years earlier, he was still alive. Why? Because God is not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living, says King Jesus. And all of that tied up with our real anthropology, our humanness, means that the fact that if you die today, Andrew, and I'm not trying to speak that into your life, but if you die, God is still your God if he's made a covenant with you and you with him. And therefore, he is still your God when you die and when you wake up in his presence, 2 Corinthians 5, 8. And the assurance that he made you a man through your father Adam, Genesis 2. The fact that he took the breath of life and through your body made you a living soul means that the fact that you are still human, even though temporarily disembodied, guarantees a resurrection. Because you still need a body. This is why we do not mistreat the human body. It is God's idea. And our sore knees, our aching back, our muscles that are inflamed, they are not to be ultimately hated. They are to be, among other things, a reminder of the age to come. where you will never need a neck fusion, where you will never need a meniscal repair, where you will never need stitches on your head, where you will never need a cancer removed. Our God, who is the God of the living, by virtue of the fact that he does not forget you when you go through death's door, guarantees that you will live again in a perfect body. And so, what is their response? Verse 39, some of the scribes answered and said, yeah, good answer. That's what we were thinking. Verse 40, after that they dared not question him anymore. They dared not. In Jesus' name, amen. You're dismissed, thank you.