The Book of Exodus
The first inspiration for this series was the College of Preachers/MTS Preaching Conference with David Jackman in 2008. As a result, we developed a series for St Paul's Shellharbour. I think we might have done six sermons, and I did the first 5. I then developed this into a 10 week series for the morning congregations at Warragamba and Mulgoa, which I preached over 2011 Term 2.
The bible study we used in our small groups for preparation is Bryson Smith's, Getting to Know God, in the Matthias Media 'Pathways' series. Unfortunately it only covers Exodus 1-20. There is also a very helpful virtual 3D Tabernacle tour which we showed the congregation at St Paul's Shellharbour.
Breakdown
Here is my breakdown for a 10 week series through the Book of Exodus:
Exodus 1-4: Yahweh will Rescue his People: The Call of Moses
Exodus 5-11: Yahweh Proves his Power: Pharaoh Plagued
Exodus 12-15:21: Yahweh's Saving Judgments: The Passover and the Exodus
Exodus 15:22-18:27: Yahweh's Probing Provision for his People: The Wilderness Wanderings to Sinai
Exodus 15: Notes From David Jackman Conference
Exodus 19-24: Meeting Your Maker at a Mountain means a Mediator is Mandatory
Ninth Commandment
Tenth Commandment
Exodus 19-20: Notes From David Jackman Conference
Exodus 25-27, 30, 35-38, 40: The Tabernacle: Sacred Space
Exodus 28-29, 39: The High Priest: Sacred People
Exodus 31, 35: Yahweh’s Calendar in Exodus and the Sabbaths: Sacred Time
Exodus 32: Old Covenant Sin and Wrath: The Golden Calf and it's Consequences
Exodus 33-34: Old Covenant Revelation and Glory: Moses Meets Yahweh (almost) face to face
I hopefully will publish a separate series on the Ten Commandments in due course.
Introduction to the Book of Exodus
From notes taken from the David Jackman conference. Why Preach Exodus?
Firstly, we need to learn about God. Exodus is a great place to go to see the character about God revealed. YHWH is our God. God is teaching us about himself in Exodus. He is the hero and centre of the story.
Secondly, we need to see how God has revealed himself in history. The book of Exodus can teach us biblical theology.
Thirdly, we live in a reader-response age. The danger is that we load things into the text, and turn them into simple morality lessons. Now, the things written beforehand were written for our learning, so there are examples of moral living in the book of Exodus. But primarily, the OT is God teaching us about himself. For example, many consider that Noah was rescued because he was a righteous man. But the text first says that Noah found grace before the Lord. Salvation is by grace. So we must beware of a moralising tendency in dealing with OT narrative.
The Purpose of the Book of Exodus
What is the theme or purpose of the book? What is the distinctive teaching of this book? Why is this book in Scripture? The book of Exodus is the story of the progression of the children of Israel to become a nation as a united people of God, the family of God under the rule of God on the way to the land. Elmer A Martins believes that the key to the whole OT theologically is Exodus 6:2-8. If so, it is also the key to Exodus.
In Exodus 5:22-23, Moses has questions of accusation, and a complaint against God. Moses is not destroyed, but God’s reply deals with his complaint.
2 Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, "O LORD, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all."
In Exodus 6:2-8, God provides the answer to what he is doing in allowing things to get worse before they get better.
2 God spoke to Moses and said to him,
"I am the LORD. 3
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty,
but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.
4 I also established my covenant with them
to give them the land of Canaan,
the land in which they lived as sojourners.
5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel
whom the Egyptians hold as slaves,
and I have remembered my covenant.
6 Say therefore to the people of Israel,
'I am the LORD,
and I will bring you
out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
and I will deliver you
from slavery to them,
and I will redeem you
with an outstretched arm
and with great acts of judgment.
7 I will take you to be my people,
and I will be your God,
and you shall know that
I am the LORD your God,
who has brought you out
from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
8 I will bring you into the land
that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
I will give it to you
for a possession.
I am the LORD.'"
God here says three times, "I am the LORD" and makes it clear that he is making himself known to Moses. Prior to this, Moses and Israel didn’t know the content of this name. But now God gives the meaning of this name: YHWH means a covenant redeemer and deliver. The almighty God is the covenant rescuing God, demonstrating his covenant faithfulness, his rescuing grace, and that God is personally involved with his people. God will do what he has promised to the fathers.
A thematic approach to the book of Exodus might be to look at the themes of salvation, community, the knowledge of God, and fellowship with God. The salvation or deliverance theme culminates in the Passover. The nationhood or community theme culminates in being drawn together at the foot of the mountain. Concerning the knowledge of God, there are four great revelatory passages in the book of Exodus: 3:6-22; 5:22-6:8; 19:4-6; 34:6-7. The relationship and fellowship with God theme culminates in the tabernacle.
Biblical Context
The big picture of Exodus is conditioned by Gen 12:1-3:
ESV Genesis 12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
How is the promise going when we get to Exodus? What stage has the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob reached? In Exodus 1, the sons of Jacob are multiplying and growing in number, so that Egypt was filled with them. The great nation is beginning to be formed, in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. However, are the Israelites blessed? At first glance, it seems that they are not blessed, Exodus 1:11-14.
11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. 13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: 14 and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigour.
It is difficult to say that this is ‘blessing’, though it will turn out that way. And there is still no land by the end of Exodus. And during Exodus, the people think that wandering in the desert is worse than being in Egypt. So there is no world wide blessing yet through , but God is faithful, so it is on it’s way.
A Division of the Book of Exodus
A twofold structure is Exodus 1-12, the great escape, followed by Exodus 13-40, the life of pilgrimage.
A threefold structure is Exodus 1-12, the rescue, Exodus 13-24 , the pilgrimage by which they come to the Mountain, and Exodus 25-40, the presence of God and the people’s relationship to God in worship.
The following is a more detailed division delineating 8 sections, and it is on this division that my own series of 10 sermons is fundamentally based.
Exodus 1-2: The Overture
Pharaoh tries to deal shrewdly with the situation of the supposed threat that Israel poses, but he always gets it wrong, because Pharaoh thinks that he is in charge in Egypt. God is really the one who is in control. Pharaoh is outwitted by Miriam, the midwives, and even his own daughter. Whatever the Lord purposes will be accomplished. God's providential over-ruling in Moses’ birth shows that God is in control. Moses had a 40 year apprenticeship in the desert when he shepherded the flocks of Jethro in Midian. Then God gives him the job of shepherding his people.
Moses life is divided into three 40 year periods: first, in Egypt, second, in Midian; and third, leading God’s people. For the first 80 years, it looks like YHWH is not doing anything. But YHWH is at work. God is preparing Moses, his man, for the job. God heard, remembered, saw, and is about to act.
Exodus 3-4: The Divine Revelation
There is clearly a link between chapters 3 and 19. In Exodus 3:12 we read:
ESV Exodus 3:12 He said, "But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain."
The first occurrence of the word ‘holy’ is in the story of the burning bush. Holiness presupposes that there is non-holiness. The law shows that there is unholiness. Sacrifice is necessary to reconcile unholy people to a holy God. Law and Sacrifice are necessary to bring sinful people into relationship with a holy God. The holiness theme continues in chapter 18, with a mountain on fire, and the whole nation being told that they can come near, but only so near. So there is a distance between God’s chosen people and the holy God.
YHWH reveals his name in Exodus 3:14.
Exodus 3:14-15 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God is the eternal, present tense, God.
What YHWH is doing with Moses as one man, YHWH will also do with the nation. Moses is reluctant to do God’s will, but God in his mercy unilaterally imposes his will on Moses. That is what the covenant God does. Moses reluctance is dealt with by God revealing more and more of himself. YHWH is winning Moses over to see that there is no way apart from doing God’s will. Moses has no-where to go except to obey.
The battle lines between God and Pharaoh are drawn in chapter 4:
Exodus 4:22-27 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, "Let my son go that he may serve me." If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'" 24 At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, "A bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.
Through the blood of the circumcision, Zipporah saves her husband and receives him back. Moses' son is uncircumcised, and Moses needs to obey God and put his son through circumcision, and thus back into the covenant made with Abraham and his seed. Clearly, Moses has to be obedient to covenant principles before he goes on covenant business. Thus, if we are going to be a minister of the gospel, we have to be Christians first.
Exodus 5-11: The Contest With Pharaoh
Pharaoh is worshiped as a god in Egypt, but YHWH is really in control, and God demonstrates this fact, to demonstrate his glory.
Exodus 9:34 - 10:3 34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses. ESV Exodus 10:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD."
Pharaoh hardens his heart, his heart is hardened, and God hardens his heart. Pharaoh is responsible, but YHWH is sovereign, and God is hardening the heart of Pharaoh. All of this is to bring the people out of Egypt and to dem
Exodus 12-15: Passover and Deliverance
The passover lamb teaches Israel penal substitutionary atonement.
Exodus 12:13 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
The sign is a sign instead of you. Your blood will be spared because the lamb's blood is sheltering the house. No one comes into the people of God in OT or NT unless they shelter under the blood of the substitutionary sacrifice that God provides. Israel is saved from the wrath of God by sheltering under the blood. God also delivers his people from his enemies – Christus Victor as well as and through Penal Substitutionary Atonement!
Exodus 15:22-19:2: Journey to Mt Sinai
The people of Israel are being taught that they must trust God. The provision of water, manna, and the defeat of the Amelekites, all teach the need to trust YHWH. Chapter 18 introduces Jethro again, to marvel at God’s works and to provide advice. Chapter 18 is a surprising chapter. It is not just management theory, saying that the leaders should delegate. Moses needs to reveal God’s word to his people, and God prepares the people for hearing God himself and receiving the law. The miracle is that Moses listens to his father-in-law.
Exodus 19:3-24:8: The Giving of the Law
The giving of the Law is the high point of the book. God gives the instructions to Israel to build the tabernacle. God wants his presence among the people, represented by the tabernacle. The tabernacle is a tangible visual aid about God living among his people
Exodus 32-34: The Golden Calf
Israel turns it’s back on God and opts for a visible representation that they make up. Their hearts have gone back to Egypt. But the theological understanding of God is given in a key passage, Exodus 34:6-7:
Exodus 34:6-8 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."
Chapter 40, continued in Leviticus
The cloud descends on the tabernacle and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. But then Moses cannot go in. In Leviticus 1:1, straight away, God tells Israel how they must approach God. An unholy people can only live with a holy God in their midst through bloody sacrifice and obeying God's commands.
New Testament Appropriation
How much should we take the NT controls on the OT into our preaching and exegesis of the Old Testament?
We should do this completely, but we need to be careful that we are not teaching the NT control, but the OT passage. The passage in Exodus should be preached, but the God ordained commentary should be used and referred to.
For example, Elijah was a man just like us, homeopathos, and not a superhero (James 5). We should always be governed by the NT because of our doctrine of Scripture.
The way the story is put together will often give you clues about the emphasis of the passage. Let the OT text speak for itself as much as possible. We sometimes bounce too quickly into the NT text because we haven’t done the exegetical work on the OT text. Thus, as we immerse ourselves in the text, we will find all sorts of things coming out of it.
< Previous on Genesis Next on Leviticus > Sermon Script Index