Exodus Overview-The Book of Redemption.

 Virtually all sermons are based on either a verse or several verses of scripture, sometimes reflecting a topic and in some cases even a lengthy portion of scripture like a paragraph or a chapter.   It’s also usually the way we read our bibles, I suspect most people read verses in sequence after all that’s the way the Bible is printed, or they read a chapter, or if they’re real ambitious they read more than one chapter.

 It’s obvious from just looking at the Bible on a superficial level the Bible is written in books. The Bible is not a book, it is a library of books, 66 of them to be exact. At the time they were written in every case without exception they were written as a unit with no chapter divisions and no verse divisions, all of that was put in later, in some cases hundreds and hundreds of years later after the Bible was written. That format has become so entrenched in people minds that when the Bible that some have tried to print it in other forms it just has never caught on. That’s the way we think of the Bible but when it was written each of these books was written as a unit  so to really understand any book of the Bible with one or two exceptions you need to initially understand the book as a whole, which is rarely talked about and rarely done.

 I remember very well in the early part of my theological studies many years ago we had to create a 300 word abstract of each and every book of the Bible and that has held me in good stead ever since. In fact, I expanded upon that format in my introductory First season of the BPDP where I did 66 short, 6 minute episodes covering each of the 66 books of the bible. However, what I want to do today as a sort of preparation of our time together over the next 2-3 month studying the book of Exodus is to give you a sort of overview of the whole book.

 In this opening episode I have the rather ambitious plan of going through the whole book in one and try and show you the big picture, the helicopter view so to speak. So, where do we start? Well, the first thing I would say is that anytime you look at a book of the Bible the first question you should ask is, what is the subject of this book.

 The standard answer a lot of people give is that the subject of Exodus is, “redemption”. I agree with that statement so let’s establish that for a second, I’ll get to the text in a minute, but I’m interested in the message of the book so let me probe that for just a second and let me ask, if the subject is redemption, then why did God save us. Why did God redeem us? Some might say we’re saved so we don’t go to hell. That’s a popular one but let me point out a problem with that narrow view of salvation. Is that why God saved us? Is it because had he not we would have died spiritually. Is that the reason why God saved us? I’ve actually asked people that over the years and the most common answer I get, the standard answer, is that God saved us so we can serve him. Let me give you what I think is a better answer, sometimes the answer I get is, I think God saved us so that we could be conformed to the image of Christ.  Romans 8 says that, “We were predestined to be conformed to the image of his son”. God wants us to be like his son Jesus. All interesting answer, right, however, I think that the book of Exodus gives an answer to the question of why God redeemed better than any of these others. 

 Earlier I said the subject is redemption, so the question is already in the book of Exodus, why did he redeem us, and I think that book properly understood is giving an answer to that question, it may not be the total answer, but it is really close to being the complete answer to that question. So, let’s look at the whole book of Exodus to answer the question of why did God redeem us?

 Number one is that we going to look at the book all at one time and number two ask what’s the subject, and what’s the why behind that subject. As I said I think the subject is redemption. But the real question that arise out of that statement is what the point is, the purpose of redemption.

 To put those two things together we’re going to look at the whole book to try and see the purpose of redemption, and with that in mind we need to decide how to divide the book of Exodus. There are several different ways to do that. When you travel through the book of Exodus it becomes immediately obvious that there’s a geographical development in the book. For example, they start in Egypt. For the first 12 chapters they are in Egypt, then they get delivered from Egypt and they are in the wilderness. 

In chapter 13 through 18 they travel from Egypt down to Mount Sinai, and then beginning in chapter 19 they are at Sinai and all the way through the rest of the book they remain there. One way to look at this book is to see it in its geographical development, there in Egypt, then they are wandering in the wilderness, and they’re at Sinai.

 Another way to look at the whole book at one time is to see the type of material that is in the book. What I mean by that is this, in chapter one through chapter 18/19 there is history. There’s the whole history of the plagues and the Passover and the journey from Egypt to Sinai.  Beginning in chapter 20 you could say there is a covenant, and we see God legislating the way people should live, there are 10 commandments given and there are laws given regarding the Tabernacle, all the pertaining to a covenant that God makes with his people.  So that’s another way to divide the book. However, I would prefer to say that each book of the Bible was written to convey a message and that that message can usually be summarized in one sentence or two. So, while what I just said, I believe is true, I think that what we really need to do is look beyond the geography and look at the literary type of material to get at what is the message of this book. In order to do that I am going to suggest that there are three divisions to this book and I’m talking now about the message of the book. We know the subject already, but what is the message of the book? 

 It seems to me that the first movement, so to speak, the first great division of the book is the one that shows us and tells us about God redeeming Israel from Egypt. That goes from the first verse of the first chapter through chapter 18 verse 27.

 That’s the First Division, I’ll give you the other two when we get to them but first, I want to take a minute and discuss this First Division. This is about what’s going on in the hundreds of years before God appeared to Abraham Isaac and Jacob. That was all in the book of Genesis, he promised them that he would give their descendants the land of Israel, but since then hundreds of years have gone by and in the meantime the children of Israel end up in Egypt. All that is in the book of Genesis, so when Exodus opens they are in Egypt and they have become slaves in Egypt and they become a very large tribe/nation. They are a huge tribal nation by the time we now reach Exodus. Many estimate that they had a population of probably about 2 million people. So this is a large group of people but there in slavery, they’re in bondage literally. 

 Moses at this point as a young man see the mistreatment  one of his fellow Israelites and in an outburst of anger kills an Egyptian and because of that he has to flee Egypt, in fear of his life. So, he leaves Egypt, and he goes to what is called Midian which is now identified as the area around Mount Sinai which is in the Sinai Peninsula, right next to the land of Egypt., and whilst there, God appears to him in the burning Bush. 

 Most people know that story, so I’m just highlighting key points as we go through the book of Exodus, in that God appears to Moses in the burning Bush,  and out of that burning Bush God spoke to Moses and he said you are going to go back to Egypt, and you are going to become the deliverer of my people. What an amazing call of God, what an honour and what did Moses do he objected, and he objected a lot, the objections go on for two chapters. 

 He objected because he said, I lack authority,  I don’t think or speak clearly. He said the people are not going to accept me, they won’t listen to me. Moses had all kinds of excuses, but for him the big one was his inadequacy or his lack of ability to speak and find the right words. At which point God said, alright, I’ll use your brother to help with the talking but you are still going to be the one to lead my people out of Egypt. So, Moses reluctantly goes back and he Lord says to him look I want you to know my power my sovereignty and I’m going to be with you and that’s why you need to go. I am going to be with you, so go and deliver my people. Does that sound a bit like what Jesus called us to do, go into the world and make disciples remember that baptizing them in the name of the father son and Holy Spirit.

 Lead people, disciple them teach them, what’s the last verse in the Gospel of Matthew? The Great Commission it is called.  Eventually Moses agrees and goes to Egypt. Now he just got to persuade pharaoh to let his people go, and this is where we get the story of the 10 plagues. The Nile turned to blood, plagues of frogs, lice, bats and flies. There was a plague of a disease on the cattle, and  boils appeared on both men and animals, I had a boil once on my leg, when I was a child, today we would just give someone a course of anti-biotics, but I went weeks being told to wash it with salty water, before I ended up in hospital and the lanced it and gave me anti-biotics and it felt better within 24 hours. It was extremely painful, I’ve never had one since, thank God. Any way a plague of boils doesn’t sound much fun. Destruction also came in the from hail and swarms of locusts and then finally darkness and the deaths of the first born. There were 10 plagues in all, but why did God use plagues, well there are in fact a number of answers. Firstly each one of these individual plagues were symbolically an attack upon the individual gods of the Egyptians. 

 One Old Testament scholar I read called H E Friend said.

 “The Egyptians were just about the most polytheistic people known from the ancient world even to this day we are not completely sure of the total number of gods which they worship most lists includes somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 gods and alongside in excess of 1200 or so what were called demi-gods.

 Egypt was filled with Pagan idols and these plagues were to demonstrate that the God of Israel was greater than the gods, (small g),  of the Egyptians. That was one purpose, another purpose of the plagues that stated in the text is that first and foremost God wanted the Egyptians to know who he was. I’m not going to take the time to have you turn to all these verses  today, we get to that in the main sessions, but I want you to just listen to one verse, chapter 9 verse 14, “That you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.” The purpose of the plagues was to glorify God’s sovereignty and at each level of plague Pharoah could have surrendered to the authority of the one true God, instead of which we see his heart grew steadily harder and harder. Part of the purpose of the plagues was to give certification as to the authority of what Moses and Aaron were telling Pharaoh that the one true God, was saying, was commanding him, to let his people go. Moses was saying, because I represent the Lord God of Israel who is the all-powerful sovereign God of the universe you should let God’s people go, and when Pharoah consistently rejected that message God then said, via Moses, l am giving you a demonstration of who I am, how about some boils and frogs etc.

 That’s what’s going on in that part of the book of Exodus and part of the point is that the Lord wants pharaoh to obey him, so he gave him ever increasing supernatural signs that he may obey him. Well of course Pharoah doesn’t respond and finally the Lord redeems Israel by the death of the first born. The principle established is this, God declares all the first-born males are going to die and the only way to get out of this is to sacrifice a lamb without blemish, kill it, and put the blood on the doorpost of the house. Then when the angel of death comes through if there’s blood on the door then death will pass over that house. The Passover event happens, that’s where we get the Jewish Passover from. Remembering an event, reminding people loudly and clearly that your household could only escape death by the death of an innocent lamb.

 The New Testament tells us that Jesus is our Passover lamb, that he is the Lamb of God, and that takes away the sin of the whole world. He was the innocent one who died in our place that we might not die and experience  death and separation from God. So, Jesus is our Passover lamb and death passes over us by because of the blood of Christ. 

 By blood and power they get delivered from Egypt, but they then Pharaoh almost immediately changes his mind and comes after them and Moses looks at the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army behind him. The world’s first metaphor of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, but he just says stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. I am sure most of us have seen the clip from the movie, Moses raises his hand and the waters’ part and the children of Israel go across. Bit when the Egyptian army follows, the waters come back together, and the Egyptian army is whipped out. But God’s people are redeemed, they’ve been delivered from Egypt, taken out of Egypt and into the wilderness.  Then what is the first thing they do, they complain. “You’ve brought us out here to kill us off here, we’d be better off in Egypt”. So here these redeemed people, who should be grateful, they’ve been delivered from slavery after all, and they get to the wilderness and all they want to do is gripe. At this point we have the first major division of the book of Exodus, it can be summarized in one simple sentence. God redeemed Israel out of Egypt. So, he raised up a deliverer, Moses, who eventually persuaded Pharaoh by way of ten plagues to let his people go. He delivered them across the Red Sea and out of slavery. So, the point of all of that is, God’s redeemed Israel, he delivered Israel out of Egypt and that is the first 18 chapters of Exodus.

The second half of Exodus then follows in that Moses who will now receive the law. Now chapter 19 is sort of a preparation for the giving of the law in chapter 20 where we see the giving of the 10 commandments one, of the most famous passages in all of the Bible, and for that matter in all of world literature. It has been said that the influence of these 10 statements on western morality and law is beyond calculation. They have come to be recognized as the basis of all public morality, world-wide. The basic division of the 10 commandments is that the first five have to deal with our relationships with God, and then the last part dealt with our relationships with each other. Our neighbours and families. If we love God, we don’t kill, we don’t committed adultery, we don’t steal, and we don’t bear false witness, tell lies about other people. But as Christ later will summarise it all, it’s love God and love your neighbour, that the greatest commandment because it keeps all the other commandments. To say the same thing another way it’s reverence for God and respect for your neighbour. Our judicial and legal system is based on this Mosaic law to this day. Our whole judicial system is based on the Judaeo-Christian ethic of the Bible, rooted in the mosaic legislation and first contained within the ten commandments. Even today the laws of our societies are based upon principle established here. One other point worth making, that law still stands in statute, it is still defining sin and wrongdoing to this day, but the way it is administered under the New Testament since the coming of Christ has changed. This is very important, we’re not under the Mosaic law in quite the same way today.

 Romans chapter 12 tells us that, “Love fulfils the law”. So, if you just go love your neighbour, you’re going to automatically fulfil the law. Because if I love you, I’m not going to kill you, if I love you I’m not going to steal your property, or slander your name, or even want what you got because I want what’s best for you. Love fulfils the moral law, and we are given that moral law in Exodus chapter 19 through 22. Then from chapter 22, verse 18 we are given the civil law, where various provisions of the Mosaic law deal with our relationship to other people. That is what is called the civil law, and the point of it is that we are to treat each other with justice and righteousness.

 So, the first major division of the book is where God redeems his people, the second major version of the book is he gives them the law, fist moral, then civil, but we’re only at the end of chapter 24 and we got 15 more chapters. We got chapter 25 to 40, so what’s the third division of the book? 

 The system of worship, so to speak, a series of guidelines of how we should approach God,  and for that we are told about something called the Tabernacle. God says to Moses come up to the top of the mountain again, I want to talk to you again. So Moses goes up to the top of the mountain and God says, what I want you to do and he gives what effectively is a blueprint for this thing called the Tabernacle. He lays out this Tabernacle and all it is, is a blueprint that goes from chapter 25 to chapter 31:18, and he starts with what is called the ark of the covenant. We will get int the details of this as we work through the appropriate chapters later when we shall be introduced to all these objects and the meaning behind the concepts they represent later.

Things like, the courtyard, the brazen altar, the place where you sacrificed an animal. The lavar, where the ceremonial washing took place, the tent which was called the Tabernacle and the two compartments within it, the holy place with the showbread the Candelabra the lampstand and the altar of incense. Then the veil behind which was holy of Holy which only the high priest could enter into, and then only once a year. The place where God takes up residence.  God is going to come down and meet with his people and he is also going to travel with them and take them to the promised land.

 And with that you got it the sum of the whole book of Exodus.

 So, the subject of the book of Exodus is redemption, and a number of authors say that, but that’s not the only subject of the whole book because if that’s was all it is then the book could have ended at the end of chapter 12, because it’s in the chapter 12 they’re redeemed they’re delivered from Egypt. I’m going to suggest that the subject of the book of Genesis may be redemption, but the purpose of the book of Exodus goes beyond just redemption. I’m going to suggest we take a step further and recognise the subject may be redemption, but this book wants to tell us what the purpose of our redemption is. God wants to redeem his children for a purpose, so what’s the purpose? Let me try and say it in one sentence.

 God wants to redeem people, to give them his word, and his personal presence.

 That’s the overview of the whole book in a sentence. It’s  subject, it’s theme, if you like, is redemption, but it’s purpose is it to tell us that God wants to deliver us from bondage so that he can give us his word and his personal presence and that’s a picture of exactly what God not just then, but he is still doing it today by the blood of Christ. God still delivers us from sin but then as well as wanting to give his law, his word, he wants to give us his indwelling logos, his Spirit, which we then apply and act out as mentioned in the Great Commission by going to all the world and make disciples.

How do we manifest the Holy Spirit? Primarily by going out and  preaching the gospel. We preach the gospel, they hopefully respond, we then baptism people, and then we teach them all things that God has revelled to us and them in His word. Discipleship. God wants to save us, he also wants us to make a public declaration I want you to go out into the world in faith, and remember I am with you always even to the end of the age. Gods purpose is redemption, his purpose is to saves and he saved us so that we might never need to be separated from him. He saved us  so we could serve him, he saved us so that we could be and become more like him, as revealed to us through his son Jesus. 

 I think we need to add one more thing to the list, probably the most important thing of all. God saved us just so he could meet with us, just so he could come down and live in a tent with us, so he could have fellowship with us. God wants to get to know you, and that I believe captures the true meaning and purpose of the book of Exodus. Why, because it ends with God living in a tent meeting with his people. If you go through your day, your week, or your entire  life without fellowshipping with the Lord, you have missed the very purpose for which God saved you. He wants to be with you through life’s journey,  he wants to walk with you, he wants you to talk with you .

 Some preachers are very good about laying obligations on people, and laying commands on people, and there are those things in the Bible, I’m not denying that, but beyond all of that, first and foremost it’s about a relationship with the Lord, and the book of exodus vividly illustrates that for us. God is saying, I just want to have a relationship with you, I’m willing to come down and share a tent with you, to travel with you and talk with you and let you live your life with me. Not just this temporary four score years and ten, but always and forever.  That is the subject, no the purpose book of Exodus, God now lives with His people.

 I think a lot of people envision God as living in a tower looking down like a judge or a policeman upon us, but the message of the book of Exodus is he wants to redeem so that he can share his word with you, his wisdom and his very presence with you. He doesn’t live in a tower he lives with you in a tent that’s the point of life, God wants to walk with you along the road of life with you always and forever.