Genesis 3.15 is what theologians call the Proto-Evangelium. It is the first preaching of the Gospel to Adam and Eve, and the rest of the Bible is a development of the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. We'll pick up on that as that relates to Moses and Israel and the bondage they're in to Egypt and the Exodus. And this is going to be part one of two, just so you know, this will be part one of two the typology of Moses and the Exodus in redemptive history and It would not have been fair for me to take you into all of the Exodus itself because there's so much in the book of Exodus that's related to the gospel and its details, but let's turn to Hebrews 11 and As we move into Moses and the Exodus, and let's read together Hebrews 11, 23 to 29. Let me pray for us. Father in Heaven, thank You for this blessed opportunity for us to again get into Your Word. We long to be growing in our knowledge of You, Father. We want to grow in our knowledge of Your being and who You are, but we want to grow in our knowledge of Your works as well and Your redemptive works towards us, which are very great. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that all the promises of God are yes and amen in you, that you are the seed of Abraham and the seed of the woman, the one in whom the promises were passed down and who fulfilled the covenant promises for us. Help us open our eyes, remove from us all objections to the truth of who you are and what you've done. Lead us tonight. Send your Spirit, Father. to instruct us out of your word, make us attentive, give us joy and gladness by your spirit, through the gospel. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Exodus 11, beginning in verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. He kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. By faith the people crossed the Red Sea, as if on dry land. But the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. I think it's interesting that in Hebrews 11, and we're not going to look in great detail at all the teaching of these verses, but what we are going to consider is that verses 23 through 29 give us a brief redemptive history from the birth of Moses to the exodus. It's interesting that it recaps several aspects of Moses' faith response to God's call and promises and God raising up Moses to be what Voss is going to call the Redeemer of the Old Covenant. The Redeemer, not only typically, not really, but he is the Redeemer of the Old Covenant. And God raised him up from birth and it's interesting in verse 23 there that when Moses is hidden in Exodus chapter 1 and 2 there at the beginning, that it says in your Bible, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, some translations say a special child. And it's altogether common to find the Puritans talking about God most likely revealed to Moses' mother there was something special about this child. We are reading between the Bible lines, as it were. The word beautiful can also be special or good, there's something about him that made him different. And so there was most likely a word and that would explain why Moses' mother also was so insistent on nursing him and the way God providentially set it up so that his sister would find him among the reeds and then bring him. Pharaoh's daughter would ask if there's a midwife and then how God set it up so that the mom would then teach Moses the Hebrew religion, even as he was living in the palaces of Egypt. So there's a lot there. There's a lot now Moses stands as a giant in Old Covenant Religion so much so that the Jews in Jesus's day were constantly Contrasting what they thought Old Covenant religion was with the one to whom Moses actually pointed by saying we have Moses We have Moses. We have Moses. Are you greater than Moses Moses is the greatest Abraham? We already saw how great he is for the Jews Abraham now Moses and It's interesting that when we talk about Moses, one thing we often do is we detach him from the unfolding of redemptive history. Sometimes you'll find evangelicals especially will pit Moses against Jesus, as if Moses is bad, Jesus was good, Moses was a jailer, Jesus, and Luther even used that terminology. There's a sense where Moses' name can be used as a sort of theological shorthand for the law for the unregenerate person, but I don't think it's always safe for us to do that. The Bible doesn't do that, I don't think. Moses is, in the realist sense, carrying on and carrying forward the promises made to the patriarchs. Now, this is where we start to get into Moses as a type of Jesus. But before we do, let me explain this to you. There were three promises that God gave to Abraham. There were three promises he gave to the patriarchs. They were the big three promises until the Redeemer comes and spiritualizes all that, which we've talked about. Jesus comes and all the promises are eternalized in him. But there's a sense where There's a sense where Moses carries everything forward in the patriarchal promises. Voss says this, for one thing, Moses was retrospectively considered instrumental in bringing the great patriarchal promises to incipient fulfillment. in their external embodiment. Now listen, Israel became in truth a great nation and this was due not exclusively to the rapid increase the organization received through Moses enabled them to attain national coherence. God had told Abraham, we're going to make a great nation out of you. That doesn't happen independent of Moses. Moses, in a sense, becomes the one that gathers Israel, as they've multiplied in Egypt, into the nation that God promised Abraham they would become. So Moses is used by God in carrying forward that part of that promise of a great nation. Voss will go on, and I won't read it all to you, but he'll say Moses led Israel to the border of the Promised Land. That was a carrying on. Remember, they promised them a great nation, land. And then finally, God promised Abraham that the nations of the world would be blessed in him, not just that he'd make a great nation, not just that he'd give them land, but that the nations would be blessed. And this is what Voss says. He says with regard to that third promise, that the nations would be blessed. He says it must be admitted that Moses contributed to its fulfillment in a negative fashion only. And then what he's going to say is that before Israel could become the springboard for blessing to the nations, the distinction between true religion and false religion had to be mapped out. And that happens with the conflict between Israel and Egypt led by Moses. So before the nations can be blessed, God has to separate Israel and show what true religion actually is, what divine religion is, so that then the nations could have that in the future. And there has to be this conflict first between true religion and false religion. And so I know that's a lot, but that all could go and be packaged back in those three promises given to Abraham. And Moses is now the instrument in the carrying forward of those in the history of redemption. Let me stop there. Does that make sense? How those three promises were given to Abraham and now they are externally being carried out by Moses, in a sense. Moses, though, is a type. We've talked a lot about typology. He is a type of Christ. And when we ask how Moses is a type of Christ, I think most Christians get that. I think, you know, if you've ever read Deuteronomy 18, where Moses says, a prophet like me, the Lord God is going to raise up and him you shall hear. And he's speaking about the Messiah. Now, he's speaking about every prophet that comes after Moses, but he's ultimately speaking about the prophet Jesus. And so, I think most Christians get that, but there is so much more about Moses as a type of Jesus. Voss is actually going to say, and I think he's right, that Moses is a type of Christ in the offices that Christ fulfills, prophet, priest, and king. Now, this is really helpful. Moses is clearly a prophet, right? Moses is clearly the prophet. Deuteronomy 18, 15, one like unto me. Moses was the one that mediated between God and Israel, giving them the word of the Lord. They were to receive that as if God spoke audibly to them. He is standing as the great prophet between Israel and God. And he's a priest and he functions as a priest before the Aaronic priesthood. Remember, his brother is going to be the first priest and then the Levites are going to come from him. But before that happens, Moses is there on the mountain as a priest. Israel's down there practicing idolatry like they always do. And Moses is up there saying, what? Oh, God, blot me out of your book. You see, when Moses is on the mountain in Exodus 32, 30 through 33, when he's up there interceding with God, that he could vicariously bear the guilt of Israel's sin. He has a picture of Christ. I remember reading that as a new Christian saying, wow, what Moses is doing, that's preparing us for the substitutionary sin bearing of Jesus. Moses couldn't do that. God actually tells Moses. Several places he who commits sin will bear his own guilt But Moses is already functioning prospectively as a type of Christ who would bear the sins of the people so he's prophet he's priest and then boss is going to say he is also in one sense a kingly figure now God is King Yahweh was King and There was no king in Israel till Saul, I know that. But Moses, in as much as he legislated to Israel, had a kingly function to him. He was prophet, priest, and king. And it's amazing because as you go through the rest of the Old Testament, nobody has that much power that God gave to Moses. Nobody has that much status. David is prophet and king. He's not priest. If you ever go through those offices with the different figures after this, no one man ever holds those three offices. Moses really does hold those three offices. And in that sense, he is typologically preparing you for the one that is prophet, priest, and king, Jesus Christ. So he is in his person and in the offices to God called him. He is a type of Christ, but he is also functioning as a Christ type in drawing out of the people the response that they are to elicit and the response we are to elicit to Christ, faith and trust. Faith and trust are the two things. Israel was to have faith in and trust Moses as he functioned as the Redeemer of the Old Testament. If you didn't believe Moses, You wouldn't have put the blood on the doorpost in the Passover. If you didn't believe Moses, you wouldn't have walked through the Red Sea. If you didn't believe Moses, you wouldn't have done the things that Moses told you to do when God told Moses to tell Israel what he wanted them to do. So there was an explicit drawing out of the response of faith And trust on the part of Israel toward Moses. Now, this is really interesting. Turn to 1 Corinthians 10, 1 through 3, because I think the Apostle Paul sees all this and teaches this. This element, especially of the people are to respond to Moses. typologically the way that we are to respond to Christ. Now, let me say this. Israel was to put their faith and trust in Christ, the Son of God, the one that would come. They were to put their trust in Jehovah. They were to believe in the Redeemer to come. So it's not that Moses took his place, but Moses stood in the place of Christ, as it were. The Pope wants to stand in the place of Christ. He doesn't get to. Moses got to in the Old Testament. Now, notice in 1 Corinthians 10.1 what Paul says. He's writing to the New Covenant church. He's writing to a predominantly Gentile church. He says, I want you to know, brothers, that all our fathers... Notice how he sees continuity between Israel and the church. He's writing to New Covenant believers. He's saying, all our fathers were under the cloud. All passed through the sea. All were baptized into Moses. in the cloud and in the sea. Now, what I want to focus on is that Paul sees something in the Old Testament narrative of the people being identified with Moses by faith and trust. Just like in baptism, people are identified with Jesus. We are baptized into union with him. He is our representative. Moses functioned in that way. The people were to believe and follow him. And so when they went through the sea, when they went through the cloud, Paul could say they were baptized. in the cloud and in the sea into Moses. This is what Voss says. He says, just as in baptism an intimate relation is established between the believer and Christ based on the saviorship of Christ, even so the mighty acts of deliverance, divine deliverance, wrought through Moses pledge Israel to faith in him. Now, don't get me wrong, we're not saying they were saved by faith in Moses. Again, this is all in the typical preparatory level. I hope I've laid that foundation enough that the whole Old Testament in one sense is typical. It's all preparing us. And there's always something higher behind that. How do I know that? Because Hebrews 11, what are we told? What are we told about Moses and Egypt? And what motivated Moses? What was it that motivated Moses in Hebrews 11? Faith, faith in who? Faith in Christ. Look at verse 26. He considered the reproach of Christ. greater treasures than the riches of Egypt. Well, somebody could say, well, he didn't he didn't know about Christ. He didn't know about Christ the way we do. But they knew Messiah was coming. They knew God had promised in Genesis 315 to send a redeemer, the seed of the woman to crush the serpent. They knew that God was separating a people through whom that redeemer would come. They knew that God promised Abraham that redeemer would come. Moses had those promises. He's seen the reproach of Christ, the coming Christ, greater treasures than the riches of Egypt. And so Moses was looking beyond himself. As Israel put their faith and trust in Moses, they were looking, they were to be looking beyond Moses to the coming Christ. He was, in one sense, just like the sacrifices that Israel would perform later on. They weren't saved by the blood of bulls and goats, but as they obeyed God and sacrificed in repentance and faith, looking past that sacrifice to the coming Redeemer, they were saved. Just like we're safe trusting in the crucified one who has come and so I Think in this way we see something of the greatness of Moses interesting also that when Moses is a boy as a baby You have that kind of parallel that he's born and then this evil power that Satan stood behind, tried to destroy all the little boys in Egypt. What was going on there? What was Satan doing in trying to destroy all the baby boys in Egypt? Yeah, stomp out the seed of the woman. Male child comes, the Redeemer comes, Satan's done. And so Pharaoh, just like Herod, seeking to stomp out all the babies, and yet God is preserving. Preserving Moses, preserving Jesus, actually preserving Jesus in Egypt, just as he preserved Moses in Egypt. So you have the birth parallels of Moses and Jesus. and you have the the Redeemer function of Moses and Jesus and you have the relationship of the people to the Redeemer relationship between Israel and Moses and believers in Christ and as this develops out you have Moses as a in a sense conquering and battling against evil that lay behind the Egyptians, the way that Christ went to the cross to triumph over principalities and powers, making a show over them. And so that leads us really to the question of the situation of Israel and Egypt. In the Old Testament, there is no greater act than the Exodus. That's the biggest work that God does. It is seconded, it is matched and superseded by the work of Jesus at Calvary, which is the true Exodus. They are the two great acts of God in human history. Never going to be any greater act of God. After creation and before consummation in the exodus in Egypt, in the exodus at Calvary. That's it. And this one's preparing us for that. And everywhere through Israel's history, God is constantly saying, remember what I did to Egypt. Remember how I brought you out with a strong arm. Remember what I did. Always reminding and then looking forward. If you read in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, you'll often find these prophecies, these messianic prophecies, talking about the coming Redeemer and the New Covenant, what's going to happen in the New Covenant. And God is always speaking about the blessings of the New Covenant and what we have in Christ under the figure of what He did in Egypt. In a sense, God parted the sea and created a highway for his people. He'll talk about the highway that he prepares for his people. He always uses exodus imagery throughout the prophets, and it's helpful when you read that A lot of people have a hard time understanding what is this talking about? He's talking to Israel and I don't get this. Always think, how is this fulfilled in Christ in the New Covenant? Because it's always used as a figure to speak about what Jesus accomplished. and the spiritual blessings we have in Him. So, our redemption is the great exodus. We know that from Luke 9.31. At the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah show up with Jesus, and Luke tells us they talked with Him about His exodus. which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And there's hints and allusions everywhere until, and we'll come to this next week, Jesus is on the cross, not one of his bones broken. He's the Passover lamb. You know, Paul will tell us Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. What is that? That's the exodus, the Passover and the deliverance. So, we are led out by greater Moses. We have a greater Passover lamb. We are led through, out of bondage, and this is the big point tonight, to the enslaving power of Satan and sin. We are led out of bondage to Satan and sin, and we are led towards the promised land, and into the promised land. And so, everything that happens to Israel from their bondage to their coming into the promised land in the book of Joshua when they finally get all the land at the end of the book of Joshua. That is all a mini historical picture of the history of redemption for everybody now. That's a little earthly historical picture of what every true believer experiences spiritually. We go from bondage to the promised land, through the exodus, and all of that is the death of Jesus on the cross. We'll talk more about how the baptism in the sea and the baptism at the cross are parallel, but for now just keep that in mind. What we want to talk about is the two enslaving powers that Israel was in in Egypt. And the first is the enslavement to a foreign power. When Israel is in this land and God separates Israel from Egypt and there's an intentional separation, and Egypt is selfish and they are, the Egyptians are self-seeking and they dominate these people regardless of their welfare. They want to use them. And Israel's not innocent. We'll come to that next. But they're being enslaved. And what lays behind the enslaving power of Egypt is Satan. Now, I want to read to you this, because this is very helpful. Va says, The kingdom of evil, headed up in Pharaoh, embraces first of all the human element of paganism. Probably, however, the account does not mean to confine it to this. Sin is, at every point, more than the sum total of purely human influences it bears upon its victims. Let me explain that. Sin came into the world, yes, because of Adam's disobedience, but there was something behind the temptation. There was a devil from the beginning. Before there was human sin, there was a devil who had fallen, who tempted our first parents, So we can't blame the devil for our sin, but it's always more than the sum total of human experience There's always outside evil influence that lay behind that sin and so boss is going to say Listen, this is the big verse or I'm sorry. It's not a verse. It's a line sentence. That's a big mistake a religious demonic background is thrown back of the figures that move across the canvas. A religious demonic background is thrown back of the figures that move across the canvas. As you view Pharaoh, as you see his magicians, as you see the whole host of the army of Egypt oppressing the Israelites, what lays behind them, that canvas, is demonic forces and power. This is not Pentecostal stuff, this is Bible stuff. God will always talk in Leviticus of the demonic gods that Israel served in Egypt We'll come to that in a minute but Pharaoh himself is a type of Satan and boss will actually say that the Egyptians no less than then Moses and and God's working in Israel art is typical Pharaoh is typical of the evil one Genesis 315 what two figures are there? the seat of the Seat of the serpent, seat of the woman, the two kingdoms clashing. Satan lies behind all of the fallenness of the world. When the New Testament talks about principalities and powers, sometimes it's referring to governments, but largely it's referring to the evil one behind the governments. In the book of Revelation, you have Satan's kingdom and Christ's kingdom coming to a head. obviously Christ is already conquered at the cross, but you see that the warfare coming to this culmination, and where is most of the persecution against the seed of the woman, those united to the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ? It's coming from the nations of the world, persecuting the church. So, all the way back at the beginning of Israel's history, you already have this two-seed power struggle, and, you know, some historians have actually noted that Pharaoh wore crown with a serpent on it, that he was in every respect a type of the evil one. And the evil one lay behind him and his hatred for God was aimed at God's people. That's the big reason the world hates God's people, because they hate Jesus. They hate Jesus because they love the evil one and they're of the evil one. And so you can't ever dismiss those two things. And that's helpful because in our experience, we are by nature children of disobedience, sons of the evil one. By nature, all of us are enslaved, not first and foremost to our personal sin. That's a big thing we usually want to rush to. But we are actually, first and foremost, enslaved to the evil one. The whole world is under the sway of the evil one. We walk according to the prince of the power of the air. He has everybody bedazzled. He's got everybody just caught up in his demonic sway and allurement. He's got everybody hypnotized by nature, all of us. And so we have a bondage and Jesus will often say to the Pharisees, you're of your father, the devil, and you do the deeds of your father, the devil, and you're a slave and spiritual bondage. is everywhere likened to physical slavery. It's used under the figure of slavery in the New Testament constantly. So first, enslavement to foreign powers. Secondly, enslavement to personal sin. Now, this is a really important thing because I've wrestled over the years with I understand that the exodus and God's deliverance of Israel out of bondage, that that's a picture of our redemption. And I've always understood it was a type, I think even as a child I understood that, that it was a physical, historical type of the gospel, a picture, a preparatory picture of the gospel. But what I struggled with was, was it more than that? Was there a spiritual deliverance? for Israel in the Exodus. I always struggled with that. I understood there was a physical. But then as you read the rest of the Old Testament, God's dealing with Israel in the spiritual plane. Yeah, I mean, he's sending in nations to oppress them. I think actually this is important. Israel was not innocent. Israel was not an innocent victim. Now, they were being victimized. They were not innocent victims. Remember the 10th plague? God's going to destroy all the Israelite firstborn if they don't have the blood, not just sending the plagues on Egypt. They're going to fall on Israel. Why? Because Israel deserves judgment. Well, what's Israel doing spiritually in Egypt? They're worshiping demon gods. How do we know that? Because they make a golden calf at the foot of the mountain. Where did they learn that? In Egypt. God will actually say in several places in the Old Testament, Joshua 24, 14 and Ezekiel 23, 8 and following, that Israel served idols in Egypt. that they were doing what their neighbors were doing. They had learned the ways of the Egyptians. They were just as idolatrous. They may have been worse at times. And Voss speculates, and I had never heard this, but I think he's right, that Israel actually was probably being judged by the enslavement they were enduring at the hand of Egypt. Now, why would Voss say that? I mean, the Bible doesn't say it per se. It doesn't say it explicitly. Why do you think Vas would say Israel was being punished by God in the enslavement in Egypt? What would lead us to say that? Yeah, but I mean, I could hear a lot of objections to that. The Bible doesn't say that. Well, they were his, but I mean, where else in the Old Testament do we see God doing similar things to Israel? Everywhere. Every time Israel sins. The whole book of Judges. Then another nation came in. Then another nation. Until finally, God gave them the big judgment in the Babylonian exile. So everywhere in God's dealings with Israel, after the Exodus, every other time, when they got to this point of heightened idolatry, God sent in a devouring nation to oppress them. He called them locusts, consuming locusts. Chewing locusts, devouring locusts, all these armies of other nations that look like locusts. Egypt is the first of those in Israel's history. And Israel is enslaved because of their sin, because of their idolatry. We have no reason to think otherwise, because when they come out, they are at the height of idolatry. They make a cast at the foot of the mountain. Israel needs personal redemption from sin. And what God is doing in the Exodus is He is redeeming His people from the bondage of sin and idolatry when He brings them out of Egypt. Not just to oppressing outside forces, Satan and demonic powers that hate God and hate God's people, but personal sin. He is redeeming them from the idolatry of Israel. And where does he take them first after the exodus to the what? Foot of the mountain to worship, not idolatrous worship, biblical worship. God-ordained worship, true worship. So you can see how there's more than just a physical redemption going on for Israel. There's actually a spiritual redemption. That's a very big point because that becomes the springboard for us understanding how we, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, have experienced deliverance from foreign powers, Satan and the hosts of demonic forces, and personal sin in which we were enslaving ourselves and by which we were calling down punishment and judgment from God. And we are redeemed. We undergo an exodus from those things and we become true worshipers of God. Think of all those verses. in the New Testament where, and I love Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians is probably my favorite, where Paul says, remember how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. And transferring us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, from the power of Satan to the kingdom of the Son of His love. There's all this language in the epistles where Paul, really I think, is using Exodus imagery teaching these spiritual realities.