All right, we come to lesson number eight this evening in our basic Bible survey course. And our lesson tonight is entitled The Exodus Era. Let's begin by doing a bit of a review from last week. Of course, last week we studied the patriarch era, which was from Genesis chapter 12 through Genesis 50. And if you remember last week, there were four key patriarchs, four key men that we focused on in the patriarch era. Now, who were those four four key men. So Jacob was one of them, right? Definitely. Who else? Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph, right? So Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. So in that order, okay? So these were the four men that Genesis 12 through 50 focuses on. Of course, we saw that God gave this great covenant promise to Abram, and that covenant promise is then is then passed down, as it were, generation to generation through the patriarchs, through the fathers. Also, you had an assignment last week, and that was to find out about how many Hebrew people were in the exodus from Egypt. So we're moving in tonight into the exodus era and studying the exodus era. And so one of the questions we want to look at is, well, how many people came out of Egypt in the Exodus, okay? And so, let's hear your answers. How many people came out of Egypt in the Exodus? Two million? Okay, so that's a very good guess, so a very good estimation. Now the question is, where do you come up with that? Right, so let's look at a couple verses that show that. If you would, turn to Exodus 12. Exodus 12, and let's look at verse 37. And then while we're turning there, John, if you would look up Numbers 1, and verses 44 through 46, and I'll have you read that after we read together Exodus 12, 37. 44 through 46. Alright, so Exodus 12 and verse 37 reads, it says, and the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children. So here it's saying, if you look up a few verses at verse 33, it's saying in the Exodus, this is how many people came out of Egypt in the Exodus. It says about 600,000 men beside women and children, okay? Now, John, if you would read for us numbers one 44 through 46. These are the ones who were numbered. Moses and Aaron counted with the leaders of Israel, 12 men, each of whom was of his father's household. So all the number of men of the sons of Israel by their father's households from 20 years old and upwards, whoever was able to go to war in Israel, all the all the numbered men were 603,550. Right, so 603,550 men, and these were men who were age 20 and up and who were able to go to war. So these are men who could fight and battle. So that means it would not have included the younger men under the age of 20, teenagers and children, and it would not have included old men who couldn't fight. Now, where they cut that off, I don't know exactly. And it didn't count any of the women, right? Okay, and so if there were 603,550 men fighting age that came out of the exodus, you start doing the math, if you double that by how many women, and then you start adding children, then that number quickly rises to anywhere from 1.5 million to 3 million or even more, possibly. We don't know exactly how many it was, but we know it was definitely in the millions of people who came out in the exodus. And that's a pretty amazing number. Could you imagine if you had a line of people, say 3 million people, how long that line would be? the whole line, right? And you think of all the carts and the animals and the possessions and the food, all the stuff that had been carried with them, right? This would have been an amazing sight to see, to see millions upon millions of people all traveling together with their animals and all their possessions leaving out of Egypt. Of course, you know the story in the Exodus, right? After Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go, how Pharaoh would harden his heart and he wouldn't let them go. And then God begins to send different plagues, right? There's 10 plagues that God sends. And eventually after the 10th plague, what does Pharaoh do? He eventually lets them go. But then after leaving, what does he do? He changes his mind, right? Once again, he goes to chase them to stop them from leaving. And of course, there we have the story of what does God do in that case. They get to the Red Sea and so there you have Israel they're backed up against the corner they have the Red Sea at their back and you got and Pharaoh's coming with his army and they have nowhere to go well God makes a way he parks the Red Sea and they walk through on dry land. The point is it's a it's a very large vast number of people that God delivers. Also the next question there on your handout is well how far is it from Egypt to Canaan? How far is it from Egypt to Canaan so how far how far is this trip they're going on about 300 miles right you remember the you remember the map there you see the map over there on the wall you got the Nile River coming up into the Mediterranean Sea and it kind of you see where the Red Sea is out there it goes around up into Canaan that distance there is about 300 miles and that's how far they were traveling And we've made the point before that that's about the same distance that Georgia is from top to bottom, or bottom to top. And so yeah, it's a pretty extensive trip, right? You have millions of people walking on foot, basically from here all the way up to Tennessee. It's a long trip, right? And yet, should that trip have taken 40 years? Now you can imagine that trip taking, you know, I don't know, a couple months, maybe three months, something like that. But it shouldn't take 40 years. And we'll get into, of course, why it took them 40 years to get there. All right, so let's move down in our handout and let's back up and think about the word exodus. The word exodus means a mass departure of people. That's what we're talking about, mass departure, millions of people in this case. a mass departure of people, especially immigrants. And then when you see the word Exodus capitalized, it is used to describe the departure of the Hebrew people from Egypt. And the events of the Exodus era are recorded for us in the following books of the Bible. So Exodus, of course, is about the Exodus. Then Leviticus, Numbers, and then finally Deuteronomy. So Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy. And the Exodus era includes four major events. Four major events. The first major event we find in the first 18 chapters of the book of Exodus, and that is the actual Exodus. That's where God calls Moses in Exodus 3. He tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let my people go. It records the 10 plagues. It records the Passover event. All of that's taken place, and eventually it records the crossing of the Red Sea and the people departing from Egypt. So all that's found in that first major event, which is the Exodus itself. And then when you come to Exodus 19, let's turn there. We didn't look at that last night, the Hill for Real Men, but let's look at it tonight. Let's turn to Exodus 19. Alright, let's look at verse 1 of Exodus 19. There it says, On the third new moon, after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came to the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain saying, thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you out to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. You drop down now to chapter 20. And here we have God giving the Ten Commandments to. to his people, Israel. Verse 1, it says, And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So you see how that he constantly makes that phrase. You'll see that all throughout the Old Testament. He reminds his people, I'm the one that brought you out of Egypt over and over and over again. And that's something that we should remember as well, right? Because we talked about this and we'll get into it at the end of the lesson, that the exodus, God delivering his people out of out of slavery, physical slavery is a picture of God delivering us out of spiritual slavery to sin, right? So when you think of God's covenant with you and what God has done for you, remember, he didn't leave us in the pit, he brought us out of the pit, he's rescued us from spiritual slavery if we're Christians. Well, every time you talk to God and think about God, you should remember, remember God who brought you out of Egypt in that sense, and we would say who he brought us out of slavery to sin, right? So we should remember that every time we think about God, God has delivered us out of our slavery to sin. So he says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And then he goes on to say, you shall have no other gods before me. God has been so kind to you, you should have no other gods before him. First of all, there are no other gods, right? All other gods are false gods, but you should have no other gods before the one true God. You should not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in them. that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, you should not bow down to them and serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashings of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us lest we die. Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. The people stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. So we see here that God's law is a serious thing, right? God is holy, and we ought to regard God as holy. We ought to regard His law as holy. We are not to trifle with the commandments of God. So God gives the law here. This is Exodus 19. And when you start reading through the rest of Exodus from chapter 20, 21, 22, 23, all the way through, then even into the book of Leviticus, you'll see that what God is doing pretty much throughout all that time is just giving them laws, right? So we just read the 10 commandments. which is the moral law. But as you read throughout the rest of Exodus into Leviticus, you see the other laws that God gives in addition to the moral law. And we'll talk more about that in a moment. Well, now the third major event, so the answer to number two is the law is given. So Exodus 19 through Leviticus, we see that the law is given. That's a major event in the Exodus era. The third major event in the Exodus era is that in numbers 10 through 14, we see that the people of Israel rebel against God. They rebel against God. And then the fourth major event in numbers 20 through 36, we see the wilderness wanderings, the wilderness wanderings. God causes them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years because of their Rebellion. All right, now let's go to the next column there and we'll look at an overview of the books of the Exodus era. So number one, Exodus covers about 430 years of time. And it records from and write small on this one, OK? It records from where Jacob arrives in Egypt to the building of the tabernacle or to the tabernacle being built. So it actually starts with that and it ends with that. So it starts with the time period is when Jacob arrives in Egypt, ending with the tabernacle being built. It also records for us the giving of the law, the giving of the law. Number two, Leviticus covers about one month of time and the basic theme there is the holiness of God. So when you read Leviticus what's going to stand out so so much to you is how holy God is and how it almost is his holiness is almost it's to the point where it's like I can't do anything wrong right there's nothing I can do And so you see how almost oppressive it is in some sense, but it's not oppressive because what it does, God's holiness shows us that we don't measure up, right? And that our only hope is the provisions that God makes for our holiness and our salvation. And so we saw last week or last night, I should say, we looked at the story in Leviticus 10 of Nadab and Abihu. Now, what happened in that story? Y'all remember last night? So Nadab and Abihu, these were the sons of Aaron. And they were offering the strange fire on God's altar. And what happened to him? God killed him on the spot, right? Killed him dead. And then it says, what does God say to the people of Israel to Aaron about what he what he did to his sons? They'd have been about it. He says, I will be regarded as holy among you. It says that Aaron held his peace was always been amazing to me. The Aaron who just saw his sons killed. be able to hold his peace in that moment. Which is good. He should be should hold his peace in that moment, right? But let's go to number three. Numbers covers about 39 years, give or take. And it records the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea. Of course, the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea was when Moses had led Israel basically to the edge of the promised land. And they send in 12 spies to map out the promised land to see what's over there. And you remember the story, right? 10 spies come back and say, oh, there's giants in that land. There's no way that we can take this land. And then two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, come back and say, oh, this land is amazing. It's flowing with milk and honey. It's beautiful. It's more amazing than we ever thought possible. Let's go in and take it. And of course, the people of Israel listen to who? The ten, not the two, right? And so they listen to the ten and they say, we're not going to go in. We're too scared, too afraid to go in. And so they rebel against God. They will not go in. And because they rebel against God, what does God do? He causes them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. And he says to them, because you have done this, everyone in this generation will die. You will not go into the promised land because you rebelled against me. And he calls them the wonder until all of that generation dies. Interestingly enough, the two from that generation that do get to go to the promised land are who? Joshua and Caleb. So those are the only two of that generation who are allowed to go into the promised land. Number four, Deuteronomy covers about one month of time, history. Sometimes that book is also called the Upper Desert Discourse. Upper Desert Discourse because it consists of three sermons delivered by Moses on the plains of Moab. And Deuteronomy literally means second law. Moab. So why do we have the book of Deuteronomy? Why was the law given a second time? The word Deuteronomy means duo, duet, two. Nomos is law, so it's second law, right? So why do we have the law given a second time? Right, because the law that was given earlier, back in Exodus 19 and forward, that was given several, several years earlier, right? Well, now you have a new generation that's grown up and that older generation is dying off. And right before they go into the promised land, this is right before this is right when Moses is about to die. OK, so that generation is passing away. And so you have this new generation that's grown up where they were either little babies or kids or weren't even born yet when the law was given the first time. So now Moses gives them the law a second time before they go into the promised land. And so, which is why, if you read the book of Deuteronomy, told you this last night, that it's gonna sound very familiar, right? You're gonna be like, I thought I read this in Exodus and Leviticus. Well, it's because you did, right? And so, that's why you see that repetition in Deuteronomy. Which is a reminder to us, how often do we need to hear the law? Often, right? We need to have it repeated to us. And what about our children? They need to hear it, right? What about their children? One of the things we'll notice next week as we study, because next week we'll get into what's called the conquest era. Well, not so much next week. It'll be the next week when we get into the judges era. You see that this new generation goes in. They conquer the promised land. They divide up the land into the 12 tribes. They're doing great, right? And then it seems almost immediately as you move into the book of Judges, they begin to fall away. It says all the people began to do what was right in their own eyes. In other words, they were living their life how they wanted to live their life, not according to the law of God. And so what we see is it doesn't take very long for people to forget God's law. Within one generation, the law of God can be forgotten. And so we see why the law of God has to be continually proclaimed and taught. With that in mind, turn with me to Deuteronomy. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and let's look at verse 4 together. Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 says, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Does that sound familiar? Who quotes that in the New Testament? Jesus does, right? Remember the guy who comes to Jesus and says, what's the greatest law? Well, what does Jesus quote? Right here out of Deuteronomy 6. He says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. So how often should you be talking about the law of God to your children? All the time, it says, right? You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So the point is, the law of God, the word of God, the gospel is something we should be thinking about all the time. And we should always be teaching it to our children, right? If we have children, they should grow up hearing the law of God, the word of God, the gospel every day of their lives, right? It should become normal to them. And I would encourage you men on that. I don't know all of your family situations. I don't know all that's going on with that. I don't know what's going to happen when you graduate from the program. And if you even have children in your home, I don't know all those circumstances. But one of the things about men is this. You may be convicted that, well, I need to be teaching my wife or my children the word of God, right? I should be leading them spiritually. Well, it's going to be really hard to do that if you haven't been a good spiritual leader in the past, right? You're going to feel like a hypocrite doing that. It's going to feel really awkward, right? Well, be prepared for that, okay? That's going to happen. You're going to feel like, who am I to be leading my wife or children because look how I've lived my life. But do it anyway, right? Because God says to do it. You are required to lead your family to the Lord, okay? And so do your best in that. If you fail to do it one day, don't be like, well, I'm giving up, right? No, do it the next day, right? So stay diligent and be prepared for the reality that the enemy is going to whisper in your ear and say, who do you think you are trying to lead some other people to the Lord? But do it anyway, okay? I give you that encouragement and that exhortation. All right, let's go now to, lastly, to the law, that section of the law. Since the law given to the Israelite nation consisted of three parts, we call this the three-fold division of the law. And what is those three parts of the law, as it were? We have moral law. You have the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial. All right, so we got three types or kinds of law that are given in the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant. Oftentimes, it's called the Mosaic Law. All of it together, it's the Mosaic Law, but we can divide it up into these three parts. Now, why is it important to divide it up in three parts? Is that something we just come up with on our own, or is it something that comes from the text itself, from the Bible itself? Absolutely. So when we think of the moral law of God, right? Well, for example, we read the moral law together, right? Has it always been a sin to have another God before the one true God? Was that a sin before Moses? Absolutely it was, right? Has it always been a sin to kill, to murder? Yeah. So that law, the moral law of God is eternal in that sense, okay? Meaning it's not bound to any one particular covenant or any one particular period of time. So the moral law of God is an eternal law. We can also call it a natural law because it's something that is true in nature. For example, No matter what culture you go to, even cultures who don't have the Bible, right? And that culture, guess what's probably going to be against the law? Murder, stealing, adultery, right? Lying, these things are going to be against the law. Why are those things against the law in places who don't have the Bible and who never had the Ten Commandments? Because the Bible tells us that this law right here, the moral law, this natural law, has been written on the heart of man. Everybody everywhere knows that it's wrong to break those commandments, this moral law of God. So that moral law of God is true no matter what time period it's in, okay? So it's pre-Mosaic covenant, Old Covenant, during the Old Covenant, and after the Old Covenant, right? We have the moral law, okay? But we also saw that God can also give what's called positive laws in addition to the moral law, okay? So I gave you an example of a positive law when God made a covenant with Adam in the garden, right? So Adam would have been required to keep this law, right? But God gave him an extra law. What was that extra law? you shall not eat of the tree of the good not of the good and evil. Right. And the day that you eat of that tree, you shall surely die. So he gave him an extra law or a positive law. Right. OK, well, no matter no matter what covenant arrangement God has with a particular person or people group, God can give additional or positive laws in addition to the moral law. And so when we look at the old covenant or the Mosaic covenant, we see that God gave additional civil and ceremonial laws that were these applied only to Israel under the old covenant, okay? But now, the old covenant has passed away, right? You read the book of Hebrews. It says that the old covenant has passed away, and now we're under what's called the new covenant, okay? So therefore, these laws no longer apply to us because these were positive laws given under that covenant. Well, now that we're under a different covenant, right? These laws don't apply to us anymore, but these laws do apply. Now, why do these laws still apply? Because it's an internal law, right? It's not bound to any one particular covenant, okay? Which is why, and this is why people for, and we gave the example last night, right? People who are who are anti-Christian or anti-Bible, they'll try to make the argument, well, you can't say that homosexuality is a sin because, well, it says in Leviticus that homosexuality is a sin. But it also says in Leviticus that, you know, if you eat shellfish or shrimp, that's a sin. If you wear clothing with two different types of fabric, that's a sin. If you trim the edge of your beard, that's a sin. And they'll say, well, you know, you don't take the Bible seriously because you're eating shrimp and you wear clothes with mixed fabrics and you shave your beard. Therefore, you're not really a true Christian, right? Because you don't really take the Bible seriously. And we talk about, well, how do you answer that person? How can I say to a person, yes, homosexuality is a sin and no, eating shrimp is not a sin? Well, it goes back to this, right? Because homosexuality falls under what commandment? 7th commandment right which says thou shalt not commit adultery and we know that adultery we saw that the commandment the 10 commandments were really categorical that they have different categories and so the 7th commandment it includes all sexual sins right which includes fornication for example bestiality, homosexuality, adultery, all sexual sins fall under the category of the seventh commandment. And so therefore, we can say that today, yes, homosexuality is a sin and no, eating shrimp is not a sin. And so eat all the shrimp you want to, but don't be homosexual, right? And we can we can make that claim from the scripture because we understand this idea of the threefold division of the law. You understand that? So don't don't don't let people try to pull that one over you on you. OK, when somebody says that, they don't understand what they're talking about. So be aware of that and be prepared to answer that with scripture. All right. So we've already answered the question of why did the law need to be given again to the people in Deuteronomy because we saw that that first that generation died out and there was a new generation and so the law was given to them again. So let's now move to the summary of the Exodus era and let's move through this fairly quickly. I want to I want to show you one other thing that I didn't show you yesterday evening. So let's walk through this summary on the back. It says got the fill in the blanks of Moses. was raised up by God to deliver who? The Hebrew people or Israel, the Hebrew people from their bondage in Egypt. OK. The people crossed the Red Sea and came to Mount Sinai where God gave them the. Or the law, right? It can be argued that this is when they officially became a nation, right? Because to have a nation, a nation must have laws. Part of the law God gives them is written on two tablets, right? Two tablets of stone, and it's called the Ten Commandments or the Moral Law. After receiving this law, the Hebrew people traveled north to Kadesh Barney. That was a staging ground where they were going to go into the Promised Land. So that's where they camped and they asked that. That 12 spies. Be sent into. Canaan, the promised land. Moses sends these 12 spies. And 10 bring back frightening reports that there are giants in the land. But here in this news, the people rebelled against God. Because of the rebellion, God sentences them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Finally, God allows the Hebrew people to come again to the borders of the promised land. At this time, Moses preaches three sermons, which are contained in the book of Deuteronomy. At the end of which Moses dies and Joshua becomes the leader of Israel, not of the Israel, but of Israel. Now, how does the Exodus era declare the gospel? We talked about this some last night, but how do we see the picture of the gospel in the Exodus? Right, so we very clearly we'll get into it another lesson later on, but the very definition of salvation is deliverance, right? And so God delivers his people from this bondage from this slavery in Egypt, which is a picture of what God does when he saves us, right? He delivers us out of out of spiritual death and bondage and slavery to sin. Now I want to show you one thing before we before we close out, and that is Somebody turned to Hosea chapter 11. Hosea 11 in verse one and if somebody else could turn to Matthew 2. Verses 13 through 15. OK. So who has Hosea 11? Okay, so it says when Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called my son. So what we have the prophet Hosea, what is he doing there? He's looking back to the Exodus, right? Okay, remember Jacob, his name got changed to what? Israel. And his 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel, right? And so when God delivers the people out of Egypt, he's delivering who out of Egypt? Israel, right? And Israel, it means God's son, right? So Israel is God's son. He delivers them out of Egypt, okay? So the prophet Hosea is telling us to look back to that and remember that. But now somebody, if you would, read for us Matthew 2, verses 13 through 15. You got it? When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. He said, take my child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you for it. Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Cyrus, and so was fulfilled what the Lord had said to him through the prophecy. Out of Egypt I called my son." their quotes from where he quotes Hosea 11 one, right? And he says that when remember when Jesus was a baby and Herod wanted to kill all the children ages two and under and so Joseph and Mary took Jesus and they fled from Israel and they fled to Egypt and they stayed there until Herod died and they came back. Well, what Matthew is saying here is that this was to fulfill Hosea 11 one. that out of Egypt, I called my son. Well, what did what did Hosea call God's son in Hosea and Hosea 11, one Israel, right? Right. So what is and so what is that saying to us about who Jesus is? Jesus is the true Israel. He is he is the true son of God. He is the fulfillment of who Israel was and was supposed to be about Israel pointed toward to. So the point is, when God delivers Israel out of Egypt, That's a picture of us pointing to the reality that one day God is going to deliver his son Jesus out of Egypt. And the point is everything you read in the Old Testament about Israel is to be pointing us forward to the coming Messiah who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. And so as God has delivered his son, the Bible also tells us that if we are united to Jesus, if we are in union with him by faith, that we also will be delivered. And so we need to understand that as we read and study the book of Exodus, or the Exodus era, that's pointing forward to Jesus Christ himself. And we are to be united to Christ if we also would have deliverance. So that said, I'm gonna ask Will if you would close us in prayer. Germany followed.