Transcript The Miracle of the Exodus, Dec. 27 2009

Miracles and Deliverance
Lesson 4
Lesson Text—Exodus 3:7-8
Exodus 3:7-8
7 And the LORD said, I have surely
seen the affliction of my people
which are in Egypt, and have heard
their cry by reason of their
taskmasters; for I know their
sorrows;
Lesson Text—Exodus 3:7-8
8 And
I am come down to deliver
them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out
of that land unto a good land and a
large, unto a land flowing with milk
and honey; unto the place of the
Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the
Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the
Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Lesson Text—Exodus 3:9-10
Exodus 3:9-10
9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of
the children of Israel is come unto
me: and I have also seen the
oppression wherewith the
Egyptians oppress them.
10 Come now therefore, and I will
send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou
mayest bring forth my people the
children of Israel out of Egypt.
Lesson Text—Exodus 6:1
Exodus 6:1
Then the LORD said unto Moses,
Now shalt thou see what I will do
to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand
shall he let them go, and with a
strong hand shall he drive them
out of his land.
Lesson Text—Exodus 6:5-6
Exodus 6:5-6
5 And I have also heard the groaning
of the children of Israel, whom the
Egyptians keep in bondage; and I
have remembered my covenant.
6 Wherefore say unto the children of
Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring
you out from under the burdens of
the Egyptians, and I will rid you out
of their bondage, and I will redeem
you with a stretched out arm, and
with great judgments.
Focus Verse—Exodus 6:6
Exodus 6:6
Wherefore say unto the children of
Israel, I am the LORD, and I will
bring you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians, and I
will rid you out of their bondage,
and I will redeem you with a
stretched out arm, and with great
judgments.
Focus Thought
God is touched by the
problems and difficulties of
His people, and He will rescue
them from oppression.
Introduction
I. The Miracle Man
The biblical account of the
exodus from Egypt, which spans
Exodus chapters 1 through 15,
forms one of the central stories of
the entire Old Testament. The
narrative reveals the God of the
Hebrews seeing the plight of the
Israelite slaves, having compassion
on them, and delivering them from
their bondage.
I.
The Exodus account both looked
The Miracle
Manof the
backward
to the roots
establishment of Israel in the
patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob (who was renamed Israel in
Genesis 32:28 and 35:10), and
forward to the covenant the Lord
would make with Israel at Mount
Sinai. It also pointed forward in time
as a type of New Testament
deliverance or salvation, in which
believers enter into a covenant
relationship with God. (See I
Corinthians 10:1-2.)
I.
The Exodus revealed the
wonderful character of God—
The
Miracle
Man
compassion, love, and mercy. (See
Deuteronomy 4:31; 5:10; Nehemiah
9:17; Psalm 103:8; 145:8.) Indeed,
the Lord was not One who “cannot
be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15). He was
aware of the Israelites’ sufferings,
heard their cries, and revealed His
plan to rescue them.
The Exodus also revealed God’s
incredible power over the Egyptian
false gods. He was in truth “the
most high God” (Genesis 14:18-22).
I.
In the showdown with the Egyptian
deities, God repeatedly proved that
The
Miracle
Man
He was capable of performing
supernatural deeds. He revealed
that He is the God of miracles, able
to suspend or change the laws of
nature, causing fearful judgments
to fall upon the Egyptians and their
land. Through the miracle of the
Exodus, God raised up a deliverer,
His prophet Moses (Acts 7:35), and
endowed him with a miraculous
ministry to lead Israel across the
Red Sea and onward in their
journey toward the Promised Land.
The Israelites celebrated this victory
I. wrought
The Miracle
Man
by God, and
the Exodus
deliverance remains a cause for
celebration today as believers recall
God’s miraculous deeds.
The Miracle Man
I. The Miracle Man
At the beginning of the Book of
Exodus, the descendants of
Abraham were living outside the
Promised Land of Canaan in the
foreign country of Egypt. Through a
series of unusual and trying
circumstances, Joseph—the first
son of Jacob and Rachel—rose to
the position of governor or viceroy
over the land of Egypt (Genesis
41:39-44).
During a devastating famine, God
providentially used Joseph to spare
I. Abraham’s
The Miracle
Man
offspring from extinction
by bringing the people of Israel to
Egypt and sustaining them there
(Genesis 45:5-11).
The stay in Egypt would prove to
be a very long four hundred years,
as God had prophesied in a dream to
Abraham (Genesis 15:13). At first,
the Israelites enjoyed favored status
with the Egyptians (Exodus 1:7).
However, a new king assumed the
throne, “which knew not Joseph”
(Exodus 1:8), signaling the
beginning of troubles.
In response to their remarkable
growth in population, the king
I. placed
The Miracle
Man
the people of Israel under
“hard bondage” (Exodus 1:14). The
Pharaoh forced them to work in
slave labor camps on massive
building projects, such as the
construction of the cities of Pithom
and Raamses (Exodus 1:11).
In an attempt to control their
budding population and suppress
any chances of an uprising, Pharaoh
hatched a diabolical plan.
Through infanticide carried out by
the Hebrew midwives, he could
I. eliminate
The Miracle
Man
all their male babies
(Exodus 1:15-16). When the
midwives foiled this plot, he enacted
a second plan by a giving a general
order that all Hebrew male babies be
“cast into the river” (Exodus 1:22).
By now, the circumstances of the
Israelites were spiraling downward!
A. Saved from the Water
A. Saved
from
the Water
Exodus
2 narrates
the account of
a family from the tribe of Levi who
responded to this horrifying edict
with remarkable faith. The mother,
Jochebed, gave birth to a male baby
and hid him from the Egyptians
(Exodus 2:1-2). When she could no
longer conceal him, she placed him
in a small ark along the banks of the
Nile. The baby’s sister, Miriam,
“stood afar off, to wit what would be
done to him” (Exodus 2:4).
A.
In a bizarre yet providential twist
of circumstances, the princess of
Saved
from
the
Water
Egypt, Pharaoh’s daughter,
discovered the child. At the
princess’s behest, Miriam
summoned her mother to nurse the
child. Ironically, Jochebed would
receive government funding to
nurse her own baby who had been
ordered to be drowned! The child
was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter
and lived in the royal court.
A.
Because he had been taken out
from the reeds along the Nile,
Saved
from
the
Water
Jochebed named him Moses
(Hebrew, Mosheh), which,
according to Strong’s Exhaustive
Concordance, means “drawing out”
or “rescued.”
When Moses was grown, he
visited his oppressed relatives
serving under Egyptian bondage
(Exodus 2:11). Seeing them abused,
he decided to take matters into his
own hands: he murdered an
Egyptian who was beating a
Hebrew.
A.
Then he tried to break up a fight
between two Hebrews, “for he
Saved
from
the
Water
supposed his brethren would have
understood how that God by his
hand would deliver them: but they
understood not” (Acts 7:25).
When they rejected his efforts at
being the referee, Moses recognized
that the murder he had committed
was now public knowledge. With a
royal edict out for his arrest, he fled
to the region of Midian where he
lived as a fugitive until he was
eighty years old (Acts 7:23, 30).
A.
During this time he stayed with
Reuel (referred to as Jethro in
Saved
from
the
Water
Exodus 4:18), the priest of Midian,
and married his daughter, Zipporah
(Exodus 2:21).
While Moses was living out the
“riches to rags” saga of his career
as a shepherd in the desert of
Midian, things were not faring well
for the Hebrews back in Egypt.
Continually exploited by their
Egyptian overlords, they “sighed by
reason of the bondage, and they
cried, and their cry came up unto
God by reason of the bondage”
(Exodus 2:23).
A.
When “God heard their groaning,”
He “remembered his covenant with
Saved
from
the
Water
Abraham, with Isaac, and with
Jacob” (Exodus 2:24). Their
predicament had not escaped God’s
notice, and He was determined to do
something about it (Exodus 2:25).
Thank God that when we face a
dilemma, we can call upon God and
He hears and responds. (See Psalm
4:1-3; 18:3-6; 50:15; 55:16-19; 86:67.)
B. Called from the
B. Called from the
Wilderness
Wilderness
God’s response was to
commission and send a man, the
very Moses who had miserably
failed on his own to enact the
Hebrews’ deliverance and whom
they had rejected when he tried to
intervene in their conflicts. (See
Exodus 2:11-15; Acts 7:35.)
While leading bleating sheep
along “the backside of the desert,”
Luke
1:38
and after arriving at Mount Horeb,
Moses witnessed an amazing
sight—a burning bush that was not
burned up by the fire. A voice
addressed Moses from the bush,
commanding him to remove his
sandals, for he stood on “holy
ground.” The voice identified
Himself as “the God of thy father,
the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob”
(Exodus 3:6).
God explained that He knew the
Hebrews’ situation and was about
Luke
1:38
to respond by equipping and
sending Moses to Egypt to deliver
them. (See Exodus 3:1-10.)
In the ensuing dialogue, Moses
revealed his unwillingness to
participate in God’s grand scheme.
In essence, Moses protested, “Not
so fast!” He supplied God with a list
of objections as to why He had
mistakenly picked the wrong man
for the job!
Moses implied that he was
insignificant, that the people of Israel
Luke
1:38
would not listen to him, and that he
was disqualified for the position
because he lacked eloquence. (See
Exodus 3:11; 4:1, 10.)
Answering the first objection, God
told Moses who He was and assured
Moses that He would be with him. After
the second objection, God used Moses
to perform two miraculous signs: (1)
turning a rod into a snake and then
back into a rod and (2) having his hand
turn leprous and then restored whole—
demonstrating that God’s power would
accompany him.
After the third objection, God
reminded Moses that He was the
Luke
1:38
engineer behind the human voice
and would be with him. After that
reminder, Moses flatly refused to go
along, insisting that God send
someone else. God acquiesced by
allowing Aaron, Moses’ brother, to
serve as his spokesman. (See
Exodus 4:2-16; 6:28-7:2.)
Most all individuals who have
experienced God’s call have felt
inadequate for the task. People have
responded in different ways to the
Lord’s call.
Some rejected it, some questioned
it, and some willingly obeyed. The
Luke
1:38
prophet Jonah fled in the opposite
direction. Zacharias dubiously
questioned the angel’s proclamation
about his soon-to-be-conceived son.
Mary compliantly replied to the
amazing announcement of God’s
intentions for her to bear the
Messiah. (See Luke 1:38.)
Luke 1:38
“And Mary said, Behold the
handmaid of the Lord; be it
unto me according to thy
word”
(Luke 1:38).
Lukewe1:38
Although
may not feel up to
the task required by the call of God,
we should respond to His call with
willingness and faith, knowing that
He will be with us and He will
empower us (Luke 1:37).
C. Sent to the Pharaoh
C. Sent to the Pharaoh
After much persuasion, Moses
reluctantly agreed to God’s original
intention to send him to Pharaoh to
secure the release of the people of
God (Exodus 3:10). Returning to his
father-in-law, he practiced a version
of the line on him (“Let me go”
Exodus 4:18) that he and Aaron later
would use repeatedly with Pharaoh:
“Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1;
7:16; 8:1, 20-21; 9:1, 13; 10:3-4).
Granted permission by Jethro to
return to visit his people, Moses
C. brought
Sent tohisthe
Pharaoh
family with him,
recruiting Aaron along the way
(Exodus 4:18-28).
The pair of brothers rehearsed
the plan to the Hebrew leaders
before demonstrating their Godgiven miraculous powers before the
people. The reaction by the people
of Israel was unanimously positive.
They were convinced God had
commissioned Moses and Aaron,
and they were relieved that their
crisis soon would be over.
They graciously “bowed their heads
and worshipped” (Exodus 4:31).
C. Sent
to
the
Pharaoh
Eager to see his people released,
Moses the diplomat booked an
interview at the Egyptian palace and
made his appeal clear: “Thus saith
the LORD God of Israel, Let my
people go, that they may hold a
feast unto me in the wilderness”
(Exodus 5:1). However, Pharaoh
was not as enthusiastic as they had
hoped. He was anything but thrilled
with Moses’ and Aaron’s petition.
Pharaoh suspected that the
seemingly audacious request to
C. travel
Sent“three
to thedays’
Pharaoh
journey into the
desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD
our God” (Exodus 5:3) was merely a
diversionary tactic to get some time
off, or worse, an effort to escape.
Pharaoh dealt with the request
by increasing the workload of the
slaves. They were to complete the
same amount of work in the same
allotted time as before, but now
they had to gather their own straw.
It was an impossible task.
C.
When they were unable to fulfill
their obligations, the Egyptians
Sent
to
the
Pharaoh
beat them with whips. When the
Israelites realized they were in a
worse situation than before, they
blamed Moses and Aaron. It is
easy to blame others when we
suffer difficulties in life. On the
other hand, Moses and Aaron
complained directly to God that the
plan was not working. (See Exodus
5:6-14; 20-23.)
The Miracle Ministry
II. The Miracle Ministry
This was the predicament God
had been waiting for. Humanly
speaking, it was an impossible
situation. After Moses’ and Aaron’s
efforts to free the slaves had failed,
God was about to show what He
could do! A series of miraculous
signs and judgments were about to
begin that would challenge the very
existence of the Egyptian gods and
leave the Egyptians demoralized and
their land devastated.
II. The
Miracle
By the
time GodMinistry
was finished,
Pharaoh would be so exasperated
that he would boot the Hebrews out,
literally begging them to leave. (See
Exodus 6:1; 11:1; 12:31-33.)
A. Miracle Signs
A.InMiracle
an attemptSigns
to demonstrate
God’s power and secure the release
of the Hebrews, Moses and Aaron
performed a supernatural exploit
with Aaron’s rod, which Pharaoh’s
wise men and sorcerers were able to
duplicate up to a point (Exodus 7:812). Since Pharaoh was
unimpressed and his heart
hardened, the Lord instructed
Moses to set in motion the first of
ten hard-hitting plagues, or signs,
against Egypt.
The signs grew in intensity and in
the level of their destruction,
A.
Miracle
Signs
showing the futility of resisting
God’s will.
The miraculous signs were as
follows. The first sign entailed the
turning of water into blood, which
caused the fish to die and rendered
the water undrinkable. During the
second sign vast quantities of
frogs invaded the land. The third
sign featured pesky lice, whereas
the fourth included swarms of flies.
At the fifth sign, the Egyptians’
livestock was struck with an acute
A.
Miracle
Signs
pestilence, whereas in the sixth
sign people were struck with boils.
The seventh sign brought severe
hail that, among other things,
destroyed the flax and barley
crops. Locusts invaded Egypt
during the eighth sign, destroying
whatever remained from the hail.
The ninth sign brought a
frightening darkness throughout
the land. Finally, the tenth sign
involved the grievous death of the
firstborn in each unprotected
household. (See Exodus 8-11.)
God designed these signs to
challenge all the Egyptian gods,
A.
Miracle
Signs
including Pharaoh himself, whom
the Egyptians considered to be
divine. Each sign was aimed at a
particular aspect of Pharaoh’s
supposed sovereignty over nature
and his kingdom. As John Sailhamer
has observed in The Pentateuch as
Narrative, the signs revealed “an
unmasking of Pharaoh’s claims to
deity and his claim to rule the
universe.
Pharaoh was, in effect, taking credit
for something in which he had no
A.
Miracle
Signs
part, and the signs that Moses
performed demonstrated that
unmasking to both the Egyptians
and the Israelites.”
God’s purpose was to show both
the Hebrews and the Egyptians that
He alone was the Lord (Exodus 6:68; 14:4). Through these signs, God
clearly displayed His power and
presence. Although Pharaoh
claimed not to know the Lord, he
was given several firsthand
opportunities to witness the glory of
the one true God.
Pharaoh repeatedly proved,
however, that he was not interested
A.
Miracle
Signs
in this revelation, and consequently,
his heart hardened after each
plague. The account of the plagues
demonstrated Pharaoh’s
stubbornness and his refusal to
acknowledge and concede to the
true God of the Hebrews. Rather,
Pharaoh kept insisting on exalting
himself (Exodus 9:14-17).
B. Miracle Judgments
B. Miracle Judgments
While the Exodus plagues
demonstrated God’s power to both
the people of Israel and the
Egyptians, they were also
miraculous judgments aimed at the
unrepentant Egyptians. The Lord
had long before announced to
Abraham that He intended to judge
the nation that would enslave and
afflict His people (Genesis 15:13-14).
By
time of the
fourth Exodus
A.the
Miracle
Signs
judgment, the people of Israel were
not directly affected by the plagues,
showing that God’s judgment was
reserved for the Egyptians. God
separated Goshen, the territory
where the Hebrews lived, from
Egypt, and thus He exempted the
Hebrews from experiencing the
worst of the plagues (Exodus 8:22;
9:6, 26).
The Bible reveals that God’s
people will experience some
A.
Miracle
Signs
measure of tribulation in this life
(John 16:33); however, those who
live godly lives and remain saved
will ultimately escape God’s final
judgment. For example, Noah was
spared from perishing in the great
Flood and Lot was rescued from the
destruction of Sodom. (See Genesis
6:8; 19:12-17; Hebrews 11:7; I Peter
3:20; II Peter 2:5-7.)
In the Book of Revelation, we see
that just before the destruction of
A.
Miracle
Signs
Babylon, John heard a voice from
heaven that commanded God’s people
to avoid the city’s approaching
judgment: “Come out of her, my
people, that ye be not partakers of her
sins, and that ye receive not of her
plagues” (Revelation 18:4). In the final
judgment, God will separate His
people from the ungodly, for “the Lord
knoweth how to deliver the godly out
of temptations, and to reserve the
unjust unto the day of judgment to be
punished” (II Peter 2:9).
The Miracle Exodus
III. The Miracle Exodus
In the aftermath of the tenth
plague, in which death visited every
house of the Egyptians (Exodus
12:30), the Egyptians essentially
expelled the Hebrews from their
land. Ironically, Pharaoh, who had
obstinately refused their departure,
now insisted that they leave
(Exodus 12:31-32).
III.
After following the Lord’s
The
Miracle
Exodus
instructions
for each
family to
celebrate the first Passover by
killing an unblemished lamb,
applying its blood to the doorposts
of their homes, and eating its
roasted flesh, the people of Israel
headed out of Egypt (Exodus 12:113). They came out carrying great
plunder, for at the Lord’s command
(Exodus 3:21-22; 11:2) they had
borrowed precious articles from the
Egyptians (Exodus 12:35-36).
III.
According to The Nelson Study
The
Miracle
Exodus
Bible,
these items
served as
payment for their years of unpaid
servitude and were later used as
raw material in the construction of
the Tabernacle and for making the
priests’ garments (Exodus 25:1-9;
35:20-28).
A.
Baptized
in
the
Cloud
A. Baptized in the Cloud and the
and
the
Sea
Sea
God divinely directed and
protected the fleeing Hebrews as
they made their way from Egypt to
the Red Sea. They certainly were
not alone. By means of “a pillar of a
cloud” by day and “a pillar of fire”
by night, God’s presence went
before them as they journeyed
toward the Promised Land. (See
Exodus 13:17-18; 21-22.)
A. Baptized
in Pharaoh
the Cloud
and his
the
Again,
hardened
heart, and he reneged on his
Sea
decision to release the Hebrews. In
hot pursuit of the fugitives,
Pharaoh and his army overtook
them near the Red Sea. To protect
His people, God moved the cloud
between them and the pursuing
army. The cloud served as a
protective barrier, shielding the
Hebrews from harm. (See Exodus
14:5-10; 19-20.)
I Corinthians 10:1-2
“Moreover, brethren, I would
not that ye should be
ignorant, how that all our
fathers were under the cloud,
and all passed through the
sea; and were all baptized
unto Moses in the cloud and
in the sea” (I Corinthians
10:1-2).
What was about to happen next
became a cause for great
Icelebration
Corinthians
10:1-2
among the Hebrew
ranks. With the band of travelers
trapped at the western shore of the
Red Sea, at Moses’ command the
waters parted and the Israelites
crossed over on dry ground. As they
walked across the sea, the water
formed walls on either side of them.
Like the protection they had
experienced with the cloud cover,
they now received a deliverance
foreshadowing New Testament
water baptism (I Corinthians 10:1-2).
God had again performed a miracle!
B. Saved from Egypt
B. Saved
from
Egypt
The persistent but doomed
Egyptians were not ready to give up.
Following the people of Israel
across the parted Red Sea, God
thwarted their plans by removing
their chariot wheels and bringing
the suspended waters back upon
them (Exodus 14:23-27). The
Egyptian army perished in the sea!
As Moses had truly predicted, “The
Egyptians whom ye have seen to
day, ye shall see them again no
more for ever” (Exodus 14:13).
C. Saved from the
C. Saved from the
Pharaoh
Pharaoh
With the destruction of Pharaoh’s
army, the immediate danger was
over. However, an even greater
reality was at hand. They were now
free! No longer under bondage as
slaves to Pharaoh and his overlords,
they could continue on to Mount
Sinai to meet with God and bring a
sacrifice to Him. This had been their
request to Pharaoh all along. (See
Exodus 3:18; 5:3; 8:27.)
C.
God had judged Egypt and had
Saved
from brought
the Pharaoh
miraculously
His people out
of terrible and oppressive
circumstances.
As the people of Israel surveyed
the dead Egyptians along the shore
of the Red Sea, they marveled at the
great deliverance that God had
wrought (Exodus 14:30). Awestruck
by His power and protection, “The
people feared the LORD, and
believed the LORD, and his servant
Moses” (Exodus 14:31).
C. Saved
from
the
Pharaoh
They broke out into worship,
singing a song of deliverance to
commemorate this momentous
occasion (Exodus 15:1-19). God had
miraculously rescued them from a
life of bondage.
C.
What an even greater experience
Saved
from
the
Pharaoh
we enjoy
today
when
we are
delivered from slavery to sin
through the power of God! When we
repent of our sins, are baptized in
water in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins, and
receive the Holy Spirit of God with
the initial evidence of speaking with
other tongues, we experience a
miraculous deliverance from our
former life of sin. What a glorious
exodus that is!
Conclusion
C. Saved
fromtothe
Pharaoh
Reduced
slavery
in a foreign
nation, the pathetic cry of the
Hebrews had not gone unnoticed. A
loving, compassionate God
delivered them by raising up a
miracle man, Moses. God
providentially rescued Moses from
certain death as an infant, allowed
him to be raised in the Egyptian
palace, and later—after Moses had
spent many years in the
wilderness—called him to return to
deliver his people.
C.
Equipped with a miraculous
Saved
from
the Moses
Pharaoh
ministry,
God sent
to
Pharaoh to secure the release of the
Israelite slaves. Obstinately
refusing to comply with Moses’
request, Pharaoh saw his kingdom
ruined around him by God’s
judgments. After the death of the
firstborn of the Egyptians, Pharaoh
ordered the Hebrews to leave. He
soon pursued them, however, to the
Red Sea, where his army was
destroyed.
C.
Even today, God notices our
every cry
for help
(Hebrews
4:15).
Saved
from
the
Pharaoh
He knows our emotional and
physical pain. He sees all our
oppression. We can call on Him and
He will hear and deliver us (Psalm
4:1).
The greatest experience today is
New Testament salvation in which
we receive our own personal exodus
from the bondage of sin. Through
water and Spirit baptism, we
experience new life in Christ Jesus
(II Corinthians 5:17). Thank God for
our miracle of the exodus!