The Exodus | Tim Bollinger

Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go, and they leave Egypt under God’s mighty hand. This long-awaited deliverance fulfills His promise to Abraham’s descendants. As they depart, God’s people begin a new chapter as a redeemed nation, set apart to follow Him into freedom.

Transcript

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Hi, and thank you for listening to this message from Shepherd's Gate Church, located in Kelby Township, Michigan. To learn more about Shepherd's Gate and to access more content, visit Etsgatechurch.org.

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Man, if you came in today and you were discouraged and dismayed, I hope that you are sensing the spirit of the Lord in this place and the joy and the blessings that He is giving us. Amen. I mean, think about this. Our church just spent just sent over 200 people down to a homeless shelter in Warren for an entire week. And you guys love those people. You guys are the ones that funded the food that they ate and all the other things that we were able to give them to bless them. And now as we prepare for our big immersion weekend that's coming up the first weekend of June, if you're new to Shepherd's Gate, uh what we do is we actually go out as a church all over Metro Detroit. We actually don't even have service on that Sunday because we want our people out serving. And so over 500 people will go out and serve all over the place. And we're on the on the heels of that, and it's going to be exciting to see that. We had a baptism. Jack got baptized this morning at 9 a.m. and now seeing all these new members come in. I just don't know if there's anything else that God can do to bless us. Do you know that? I mean, he's just so awesome. So can we give him praise this morning? Now, if you are new to Shepherd's Gate, one of our favorite things to do is walk through books of the Bible. We happen to be on the second book of the Bible, Exodus, and this is the 12th and final week of Exodus part one, and we're actually going to end chapter 12. So it just happened to work out that way here at Shepherd's Gate. And so if you haven't been with us, all of our previous messages are online. But last week the sermon ended in kind of a sober way because you have Moses, who was called by God, and then God gave him his brother Aaron, have been going to Pharaoh, who had enslaved the people of Israel, the people of God, for over 400 years. And God sent them a series of plagues, nine plagues, to try to wake up Pharaoh and get their attention. And no matter what God threw at them, Pharaoh would not relent. He would not let the people of Israel go. And then last week we looked at that tenth and final plague where God killed the firstborn of every single household. And it's kind of one of those reminders for us of how real our God is. And you might be thinking to yourself, wait a second, God killed people. Yes. And yet we see this with Noah's Ark when God flooded the earth and he saved Noah and his family. We see this with Sodom and Gomorrah. There's other passages in the Old Testament. And oftentimes people will think about those things or they'll look at those passages and they'll say, Well, this is why I don't believe in your God. This is why I don't believe in the God of even the Old Testament. He just seems like he's angry. And I would submit to you that the more you read Scripture, the more you dig into it, what you actually see is a good and gracious and patient God. The fact that they gave him nine plagues to try to convince him to turn his mind around and to and for Pharaoh to put his faith in God, and yet those nine plagues didn't do it. It took till the final one. I would submit to you that our God is actually a very patient and loving God, and that he gives people chance after chance after chance after chance to humble themselves and to believe in him. Amen. Now we're fortunate enough to live this side of the cross where thankfully God is very patient with us. Because we screw up all the time and we make mistakes, and God yet in his grace and his mercy forgives us over and over and over again. And so if we were to go there again this morning, you can imagine the magnitude of this moment. There wasn't a house where someone was not dead. And so this is all happening in the middle of the night. Even Pharaoh is affected by this. And so he goes and he summons Moses and Aaron. And he finally says, Okay, your God got my attention. You can go, you can leave, get out of here, be gone. I don't know if there's more devastation that's heading this way, but I know now that I don't want you part of my kingdom anymore. And not just Pharaoh, but all of Egypt was really uh was really wanting them to leave. I mean, they were helping them pack their bags because they didn't know is there gonna be an 11th plague? Is there gonna be a 12th plague? Did God just start with the firstborn and now he's gonna move to the second or to the third? Is he gonna wipe out all of the Egyptians? I mean, you can imagine the sense of fear these people must have had living in this moment. Now, the next verse is really interesting, and those of you who have your Bibles and you have them open, you're probably already reading ahead because it says this after telling us of all this darkness and destruction. So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. Why are we talking about bread? Like, what's going on with this passage? If you were here last week, you know that I read a lot of the passages that talk about bread and unleavened and leavened bread, and I specifically didn't highlight any of them because I knew I was going to be diving into those scriptures and those passages more this week. And so the question is well, what's the significance of leavened and unleavened bread? Anyone know? Anybody ever done a deep dive on this? And to kind of help us out, I'll bring us into our day and age because for whatever reason, uh there is a there's a real popular movement that's taking place with bread. And some of you have become obsessed with making a certain type of bread. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Wow, did you see how loud that was? So where are all my sourdough people? Where are you at? Okay? Okay, how many of you you're sitting next to a sourdough junkie, crazy person, that has gotten a starter from a friend and they're growing, you know, starters in the back of the refrigerator, like they're plants or something, like they got their own meth lab back there. I mean, this is crazy. Some of you have even moved on from loaves of bread that you've posted on your Instagram to show that you can actually do this. Now, some of you are even, you know, into the world of making sourdough muffins. Some people are making sourdough donuts. I mean, when is this going to end? And I just want you to know uh that I have become obsessed with sourdough bread. And the reason is it's because my Instagram doctor, I follow this guy, it's great, I don't have to pay him a single dime, and I believe every word he says, and because he's on Instagram, why would he lie? He said you should only eat sourdough bread. And so when I go to a restaurant and I say, Do you have sourdough bread? and they say no, I actually get angry. What do you mean you don't have sourdough bread? Get with the times. You are killing people with white and wheat and rye and bagels and muffins. But think of this. What is the significance of what's happening here? You have to flash back to what I read last week, which was this God giving instructions and saying, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your house. So I want you to think about this. They're not even allowed to have it in the pantry. They're not even allowed to hide some starter in the back of the fridge. All of it has to be removed from their house. Imagine if I did this and said, every one of you that have these sourdough starters, you have to completely remove them from your house. Some of you would stop going to church here. And then it says, if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh, what does it say? You're cut off from Israel. Doesn't that seem really harsh? That seems a little crazy. Like, is this the God you worship? First he's killing people, and now he's telling people that if you don't remove the leaven, then you're cut off from Israel. And when God makes rules and commandments, he expects his children to follow them. Sometimes we don't like the scriptures that give us boundaries in our lives. Sometimes we want to twist and distort certain passages to make us feel better about maybe some sins that we have committed. And yet God is the creator, God's the writer of scripture. God always knows what's best for us. And in this moment, he's doing this for a specific reason. He is always tying things to himself. And so for them, leaving without this leaven is very specific. It's for purity. It was part of them realizing that God wanted to be uh in their lives and to remove any obstacle between him and them. And so what he's doing with this whole idea with all of this bread is he's taking a physical, visible element that we can touch, that we can create, that we can taste, that we can digest, and he's turning it into a spiritual matter. And he's saying, I am taking this physical element, it is so important to me, I want you to know that I'm gonna take it to another whole level and how spiritually important this is to you and all of Israel. Secondly, and this is the part I find fascinating, is that there's an urgency to this. Just like we looked at last week when he told them to go get the little tiny cute lamb and to kill it and to sacrifice it and to make sure everybody eats it and it's completely consumed. And all of the slow eaters out here were like, man, that's crazy. Like people were like, come on, hurried up, hurried up, hurried up. They weren't sitting around the table like trying to enjoy a nice six-course meal because they knew the angel of death was coming. They knew that they had to follow through what Moses and Aaron told them to do. And so there's this urgency to this passage and this meaning as well. Now, when it comes to this whole idea of the feast of the unleavened bread, which is what Jesus celebrated 1400 years later with his disciples, that is a week-long festival. And it's a week-long festival because it ties back to the passages that gave them the instructions of what to do in Exodus. Passover that Jesus celebrated with the disciples in the upper room, that we're about to celebrate on Monday, Thursday, is a specific night. And there's all sorts of things tied into that specific night that tie back to Exodus, and that's what we spent the bulk of our time on last week. Now, look at what it says next in the verse. This is crazy. The people have Israel also did what Moses told them to do. They went and asked the Egyptians for their silver and gold jewelry and for their clothing. So, time out here. Just imagine this. These people have lost their loved ones. Babies have been lost, teenagers have been lost, adults have been lost. Whoever the firstborn was in their home has been lost. Now you have the Israelites knocking on their door saying, Give us your gold and silver, because that's what Moses told us to do, and give us your clothing. It's hard for me to even wrap my mind around this moment and what is taking place. But the scriptures tell us that they actually had the favor of the Egyptians. The Egyptians were starting to realize that all of their false gods and the faith that they put in Pharaoh was all come, was coming, crumbling down, and that there must be something bigger and greater out there. And it literally says they plundered the Egyptians. Which is kind of interesting when you rewind just back to the World War II era, when Nazi Germany was going and persecuting Jews and taking all of their possessions, every last one of them. And yet rewinding even further back in history that God is orchestrating what is happening here and giving them instructions to do this very thing. Now it says the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Sukkoth about 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children. And this is just the way the Bible counts things. You see this in the New Testament when Jesus is feeding the 5,000, it was 5,000 men. And so if you add the women and children, that there was more likely 20,000 plus people that when Jesus took and performed that miracle, there was a whole lot of people in attendance that day. And so with these 600,000 men, uh most scholars will tell you that there were somewhere between two million or more Israelite men, women, and children. How many of you would love to be Moses and to lead two million people and all of their possessions out of each? Doesn't that sound like a fun job? And I'm sure nobody complained. I'm sure nobody had an alternate idea, and nobody said, maybe Moses, it's been over 400 years, maybe we should just sleep on it one more night. Because all of the passages that I'm reading you today are all happening within hours of themselves. So not only are these people losing their lives, they're going and getting the gold and silver from the Egyptians, they now have to pack up all of their belongings because Moses is telling them, we are getting out of this land. Now, how many of you you really like moving? Like moving's your thing. Like you're squirrely, you can't stay in one house or one state or have one job for a very long period of time. Anybody like that? Are you okay? This might help. Is anyone sitting next to somebody that's like that? That usually helps out some of the people in the room. When I was a senior in high school, my parents decided they were gonna move to Arizona, and I was preparing to go off to college actually in Minneapolis, and so they sold the house that I had been born and raised in. And uh my dad bought the biggest U-Haul you can buy and put all of all of their possessions in there, and he had the little trailer that you pull with one of the cars. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to help them move because I was starting college. And so, my brother, who's 18 years older than me, he had the privilege and distinct honor of driving with my dad and taking them to Arizona. I mean, can you imagine Michigan to Arizona? Now, they lived in Arizona for several years, and all of a sudden they decided that they were gonna move to Virginia. And wouldn't you know that when I got the call and they said, hey, do you want to help us move from Arizona to Virginia? I was actually not available. So my brother had to fly out to Arizona and help them move from Arizona to Virginia. Then they retired. And like all good parent grandparents, they wanted to be close to their grandkids, right? Everyone, everyone believes that? And so they actually moved from Virginia to Michigan, and they were coming to be with my brother's kids and to be with my kids. And wouldn't you know I wasn't available to help them move? And yet they go to this church and they're members of this church and they still love me, which is great. Just think of this. Over 400 years. You imagine the amount of crap that they have uh collected at this point? You imagine trying to pick and choose what you're actually gonna pack, and they're on foot, what they're gonna pack up. Not only do they have their own possessions, they have the silver and gold and clothes from the Egyptians. I mean, this just must have been mass chaos. Then it says this there's a mixed multitude that also went with them and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. So, first of all, it's not just the people of God, it's not just the Israelites, others, whether they're foreigners, sojourners, there's even the possibility of some Egyptians that were like, I'm not staying back here in Egypt with Pharaoh. He clearly doesn't have any control over this kingdom. I'm jumping on the mad wagon with you, and I'm getting out of here. I don't know where you're going, but it's got to be better than staying here in Egypt. And so they have this whole mix of people that are with them on this journey. So you just imagine the confusion and the communication and moving so many people in one fell swoop and giving them absolutely zero time to pack their bags. Then we're gonna go back to bread because the next verse says they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had bought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened. Because things are happening so quickly, they didn't have time for their sourdough to rise. Right? They don't have time. We gotta get out of Dodge, we gotta get out of Egypt. And so they did exactly what they could do, and they took the unleavened bread with them. Then it tells us the exact amount of time that they were in slavery because it says the time the people of Israel lived in Egypt was what? Don't you think 400 years was enough? Anyone think 400 is enough? Like, God, what's with tagging on an extra 30 years? Four centuries and then some? And there's another time in the history of the Bible that sometimes is a head scratcher because if you didn't know this, the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament is around 400 years. God goes silent for four centuries until John the Baptist shows up on the scene. And the reason I highlight those things is because for us, and especially for us as Americans in the culture that we live in, and how easily uh we have access to technology and how we want things on demand and we want things in real time and we want things here and now, sometimes we don't fully appreciate God's greater timeline for all of humanity. God's got all the time in the world. And if God wants to unfold his time and his plan for us over hundreds of years, guess what? You just need to embrace that. That we play a small part in the greater plan of how God is redeeming the entire world and all of mankind to himself. Says that at the end of the 430 years, on that very day, okay, so this is all happening. Remember, this is happening within hours. All the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of Egypt. So it's happening the same night, and you're gonna tell this account for generations to come. You are gonna pass this down to your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, yada yada yada, all the way up to 1400 years later when Jesus reinstitutes the Lord's Supper. Now, the second part of this, the second part of today's message, which is the last half of chapter 12, gets into some interesting text. And it'd be real easy, once again, for us to just skip these texts and be like, well, they're just kind of weird or whatever, and let's just gloss over and end this. And that's just not the way we work here at Shepherd's Gate. We believe that all of Scripture is benefit beneficial for us, and it all speaks to the person in work of Jesus. And so I'm going to read these passages and then we're gonna break them down and explain them together. Verse 43 says this and the Lord says to Moses and Aaron, This is the statute of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. So what is God doing here? And why is God putting parameters around the Passover meal? And this passage honestly can so easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted. We see the word foreigner. So we know that there's people that are part of this group that are leaving with them, and some of them have actually put their faith in God. Some of them believe in God, and the visible sign that God required was circumcision. So they were willing to be circumcised, their household then would be covered under this, and then they could participate in the Passover meal. Now, when you see this word slave, most of us go back to the period of time that we're most familiar with, which is usually uh back to the Civil War era here in America. And this is a completely different set of circumstances and when they use the word slave. Slave in the Old Testament, what often would happen is people would voluntarily go to another family and say, I want to serve you, I want to work for you. I will for whatever reason they don't have wealth of their own or they're they've fallen on hard times. And so they voluntarily submit to another family and they make an agreement with that family and say, I'm gonna work for you for X amount of days, weeks, months, years, whatever the agreement is, and then after they serve that period of time, then they can go back and be free. And the reason they're doing that is because they're relying on that family to feed them and protect them and to let them be part of what it is that they're doing. And so when he says this, these are people that are part of that, but have also put their faith in the one true God. Now, if there's just people that are long for the ride, if there's people that don't have their faith and trust in God, then they're not welcome at the Passover meal. So he's taking the Passover meal and he's saying this isn't just a symbol, this is a very important thing that we honor throughout time. And then he just gives additional instructions. It shall be eaten in one house, right? They're all in one house to be. Together. You shall not take any of it outside the house. So whatever your family unit is, whatever that is made up of, you eat it in that home, and you do not break any of its bones. And this is going back to the little cute fluffy lamb. Don't break any of the bones of the lamb. When you kill it, you sacrifice it, you eat it. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. This is a direct connection to Jesus. And this scripture is used over and over again throughout Scripture. In fact, Psalm says this about Jesus. Not one of them will be broken. Now, stay with me, okay? Because the Gospel of John, when you get John's account, he tells us exactly what took place when Jesus breathed his last breath and said, It is finished. It actually tells us that the Romans were in a hurry to kill Jesus and the two thieves that were hanging on the cross. It was the Sabbath the next day, and they just wanted to get it over. They didn't want to have to deal with them anymore. And so the way that they would hurry up the execution was by breaking their bones, specifically their leg bones, because as you're hanging on a cross, you're using your feet to be able to breathe. And if you break the kneecaps, you break the bones, then the person can't stand up anymore, and their lungs would fill with blood. And so that's exactly what they did. They went to the two thieves. They're still alive. They break their kneecaps, their bones. And when they get to Jesus, what they find out is he's already dead. And just to make sure that he's dead, this is when you get the spear that's then placed in Jesus' side. And so John tells us that the reason that happened was so that the scripture would be fulfilled, not one of his bones would be broken. Everything, going back to the Old Testament, everything a fulfillment of prophecy. It's the same thing, if you remember last week, we're talking about the hyssop that was dipped in the blood, and they would put it on the doorpost. When Jesus hung on the cross, they also took the hyssop and they put it in vinegar and they touched it to his lips because he said, I thirst. And again, he's just fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy. Over and over again, that's what Jesus does. And so many of you have probably seen images like this. This actually comes out of the 1600s. It's a guy named Peter Paul Rubens who painted this, you know, picture. And those of you that go to museums, those of you that are in art and you love that kind of thing, so many depictions of this incredible moment that we are about to celebrate as a church as we do approach Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. Now it goes on to say this if a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all the males be circumcised. Hey, you want to come to the Passover meal? This is the requirement. And all the guys in the room said, We're so glad that this is not a requirement anymore, okay? Then he may come near and keep it, and he shall be as a native of the land, but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. Again, God's rules, not mine. God makes a command, they should follow it. But it shows you the level of seriousness that God attributes to the Passover meal. Knowing this and knowing what it was that Jesus instituted in the Last Supper, as Paul, one of the early church fathers, was also training and teaching the church in Corinth how serious holy communion is, as this holy communion is here at Shepherd's Gate, how seriously we take this meal. And if you've been a part of Shepherd's Gate, you know that even at last week that we always put our communion guidelines on the screen. Well, why do we do that? Because we want everyone to know what we believe as a church. And we say, you are welcome to the table of the Lord if you believe that Christ is present in communion because he says, This is my body, this is my blood. And we also say you have to be baptized. And people will say, Well, why in the world do you have to be baptized? I'm gonna explain that in a moment. Because this is what Paul told the church that as you prepare to receive Holy Communion, which is our Passover meal, everyone ought to do what? Examine themselves. You're not bringing animals in here to sacrifice. And we all say, Thanks be to God. You have the responsibility to confess your sins, to make sure you understand that you are a fallen, sinful person in need of God's mercy. And you examine yourself before you eat the bread and drink from the cup. And people will often ask, Well, how do I know if I am saved? How do I know if I am forgiven? And you ready? Here's the answer: you've been baptized. Because in baptism, God is the one that does his work. God is the one that saves us. And so we never, ever, ever put our relationship with God based on how we feel. Well, I feel God or I don't feel God, or I feel forgiven, or I don't feel forgiven. That's not how it works. We base what our relationship with God is based on the word of God. And he says, as a baptized believer in Jesus, that he has claimed us as his own. Does that make sense? You're awfully quiet this morning. All right, good. Because it says this there short, therefore, there shall be one law for the native and one for the strangers who sojourns among you. So he's just saying, this rule applies to everyone. It's kind of simple. Either believe in God, you're invited to the Passover meal. Don't believe in God, you're not invited to the Passover meal. That's how to simplify it. And then finally, this is it, this is the end. All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. And can we just pause there for a moment? Is that not a miracle in and of itself? You're gonna tell me not one knucklehead said, I'm not really interested. I think I'm gonna stay back and see if there's another plague coming. I think I, you know what? I need an extra data pack. I'm okay paying the three million dollars that Delta's gonna charge me for the second bag, it's fine. I'll catch up. You guys go. No, it's crazy. All the people. You're moving all of these people out of Egypt. And what I found fascinating that I learned this week is do you know that this is the 70th anniversary of when of when they made the movie with Charlton Heston? Did you guys know that? And they're gonna be releasing it in select theaters. I think they heard that Shepherd's Gate was doing the book of Exodus, and they said, We should totally put this back in theater so people can go watch this dude part the Red Sea, right? So, those of you that want to do that, check that out. It goes on to say the Lord brought the people up out of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, by their host, which just means he's bringing them out by their tribes. And then ready for this? Da da. The Exodus. We finally got them out of Egypt. Go ahead, you can clap for that. And now Moses is super happy, and all the people are super happy, and all of you that have read into chapter 13 on know that the way this all ends is nobody complained, they didn't get in any trouble, they didn't worship any false gods, and they went right into the desert, right to the promised land, and everyone lived happily ever after. Amen. If only it was that easy. So just so you know, we will actually pick up Exodus part two, the Sunday after Labor Day. So that's when we will pick up doing part two, is in September. We have other sermon series and other things that we're gonna be doing as a church. And so uh we would invite you to not wait and come back September. We would invite you to come back each and every week as we continue to open God's word and let him speak to our hearts. Amen? All right, will you bow your heads and close your eyes with me this morning? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you. God, even for some of these tough texts sometimes that we don't always know how to handle or what to do with, but yet, God, we see you at work that each and every time you are always pointing forward to yourself and the work that you have done so freely and gracefully for us on the cross, and God coming out of that tomb and declaring victory over sin, death, and the devil. God, I thank you for the new members that we received this morning and just the opportunity to have them join our family. And God, even now, as this week, uh we prepare for Holy Week. The one week, eight days in the calendar of the church year that is set aside to honor you and to worship you and to really slow down our lives, to once again allow you to draw us close to you. So, God, I do pray for our services that are coming up, for those that are going to be involved, for the guests that we're gonna see come through our doors. God, our heart's desire is for those that don't know you to come in faith in you. God, those that feel far from you will know the mercy and grace that you give us through your Son Jesus Christ. God, we do ask for blessings upon all of those things that are coming up. We love you, we thank you. In your name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

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