March 14, 2026 - Exodus 13 & Psalm 59

We read Exodus 13 and Psalm 59, then slow down to see how God builds durable faith through repeated remembrance of deliverance. We challenge our craving for the novel and return to simple rhythms that keep the gospel and God’s steadfast love in front of our eyes. 

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path. 

Transcript

Welcome And Date

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, with God's word lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn. Today is Saturday, March 14th, 2026. Listen intently to God's written word. Exodus thirteen. The Lord said to Moses, Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine. Then Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out. And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give to you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. No leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. You shall tell your son on that day, it is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt, and it shall be to you as a sign on your hand, and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons shall you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, What does this mean? You shall say to him, By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn on my sons I redeem. It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea, and the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt, equipped for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here. And they moved on from Succath and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

For no transgression or sin of mine, O Lord, for no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Awake, come to me and see, you, Lord God of hosts, our God of Israel, rouse yourself to punish all the nations. Spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city. There they are, bellowing with their mouths, with swords and their lips, for who they think will hear us. But you, O Lord, laugh at them. You hold all the nations in derision. O my strength, I will watch for you. For you, O God, are my fortress. My God and his steadfast love will meet me. God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. Kill them not, lest my people forget, make them totter by your power and bring them down. O Lord, our shield. For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride. For the cursing and lies that they utter, consume them in wrath, consume them till they are no more, that they may know that God rules over Jacob to the ends of the earth. Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city. They wander about for food and growl if they do not get their fill. But I will sing of your strength, I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning, for you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. O my strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

If I was going to summarize Exodus thirteen, it would be a repeated refrain to remember. If you notice in Exodus thirteen, there is a couple of different phrases that are said over and over again, even starting in verse three, remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. And even in verse eight, it says, You shall tell your son on that day, it is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt, and it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. Again in verse 14, and when in time to come your son asks you, What does this mean? you shall say to him, By a strong hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. Verse 16, it shall be as a mark on your hand of frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. So a repeated refrain to remember, to remember what God did in the life of the Israelites to rescue them by a strong hand, to bring them out of Egypt. And what an important thing for us to do. Of course, we were not part of the Exodus in the same way that Israel was so many years ago, but the scriptures are replete with so many calls to remember, to remember what God has done. The psalms talk about that, the tell of God's wonderful works to the coming generations. Exodus talks about remembering. Remember, the the first month of the Jewish calendar was the Passover, followed by the feast of unleavened bread, for the whole purpose of remembering, of thinking back and recalling the great works that God did to deliver Israel out of bondage to the Egyptians. And in our lives, too, we are called to remember, to remember who God is, to remember what God has done. And Tyler, so often in the Christian life today, we are enamored with the novel. We want things to be unique. We want them to be fresh. We want fresh insights, fresh and novel thoughts. And yet the Bible just consistently says, just remember. Remember what has been revealed. Remember who God is. And of course, we always want to be learning, we always want to be growing. That's the altro to this podcast. Keep learning, keep growing. But nevertheless, the scriptures tell us simply to remember. And I think, Tyler, that that's a lost art, unfortunately, for modern Christians today.

Building Rhythms To Remember

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah, I agree. And uh I'm I have to be thinking, and I try to put myself in in the sandals of of the characters in our text as we're reading the Old Testament, uh, as we're reading through the book of Psalms. And I'm I'm thinking specifically uh this morning about the uh the Egyptians who after plague, after plague, after plague, are remembering the are remembering the past plague, are experiencing surely the fur the the current plague, and they have to be thinking, is there another one? Is there another one? How many more signs, how many more, how many more acts of power um is this Yahweh going to pour out on us? And at the end of at the end of the plagues and in our next chapter, we're gonna see a little bit of that uh where the Egyptians are are thinking back to the the power of Yahweh, they're thinking back to uh this this other God that they do not serve, uh that they're not they're not gonna remember in the future, they're gonna be judged by him. But it's a great reminder for us to think these these mighty powerful works that God has shown, and specifically as we look to our Exodus text, the the acts that God has done to save and to preserve us, to provide us refuge from our sin, uh, do we remember those? And uh we'd be foolish to not recall, we'd be foolish not to remember these things. And admittedly, we do often forget. So to your point, we don't practice remembering enough, and we would do well to uh to maybe weave it into our schedule, put it into our Google Calendar, find a way, an alarm, a reminder of some way to continue to remember the things that God has done.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Well, in this language of remembering, and specifically the the frontlets between your eyes, a memorial, it shall be a mark on your hand. This is reminiscent of perhaps a more familiar passage to us in Deuteronomy chapter six, which has become known as the Shema. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall teach your children, basically. We often point to that to talk about the important role of parents teaching their children. But that language in Deuteronomy 6, when you walk by the way, when you enter the house, all that kinds of stuff, is also here in Exodus 13 to remember. It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. And even in Exodus 13, with the unleavened bread and the feast, there was supposed to be this regular rhythm of telling their children, you shall tell your son on that day. It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth, for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. And so there was this command, this call to remember, and not just to remember and reflect, uh, but to tell and to share to their children. And the same is true for us today. Just to remember who God is, remember what he has done to recall his wonderful deeds. And we we need to not belittle that or think, okay, well, I already know this, I need to move on. Uh sometimes we can have kind of a, if I can say it this way, we can have kind of a functional Gnosticism in Christianity where we're always searching for what we consider to be the deeper things. Uh and of course, yeah, there are some things that are rich, and even in the scriptures and in Hebrews specifically, it talks about moving on from spiritual milk to spiritual meat. And so there are categories of things that we need to mature and progress towards, but we need to not uh move on from remembering. That's such a vital part of the Christian life, of remembering who God is, reminding yourself of the basic truths of what he has done in and through the gospel, in and through the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and recalling those things, both for your own heart, but also for those around you, for your kids, for your coworkers, for your neighbors, helping them to see it, helping them to remember this is who God is, this is what he has done. And by a mighty outstretched arm, he has delivered us from slavery to our sin. He has rescued us from slavery and bondage. And we need to remember that. We need to recall that. And so let Exodus 13 just be a great encouragement to you not to think of those things as rudimentary, but to think of them as necessary to recall and remember often.

Psalm 59 Refuge And Steadfast Love

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Great encouragement, Pastor Josiah. Thank you for that. And uh, I'd like to draw our attention now to Psalm 59 and uh another psalm where it seems like it seems like uh David is is on the run again. Uh, he is being pursued, he is um, he's being watched, and the discomfort is getting turned up once again for David. He's crying out to the Lord, and he's uh at the end of our psalm, he's going to remember, he's gonna remember the strength that God provides. He's gonna remember the fortress that Yahweh is to him, the refuge that he provides in his day of distress, the strength that he provides. And uh as a result of all these things, from being pursued, from being harassed, from being laughed at, uh, he is someone who finds his hope and his strength in the God of his salvation, the God who um who promised him uh from his line, from his lineage, from his seed, a uh one who would take the throne one day in the eternal kingdom, take the an eternal throne. And uh, if you were in life groups this week, we reflected on that and even were challenged to see the gospel through the promise given to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7. And uh, what an encouragement to see that God's plan is always working. The the syllabus of God's plan over history is always unfolding to the T. Not a not a dot on an eye is missed, not a cross T is missed. And we see David continuing to uh to look to God who shows him steadfast love, and and he is truly a faithful God.

Closing And Resources

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah, I love that connection, Tyler. And even in verse eight of Psalm 59, there is this kind of repeated refrain and verbiage from Psalm chapter two. I don't know if you caught that, but it says, But you, O Lord, laugh at them, you hold all the nations in derision. Um, that's quoted specifically uh from Psalm chapter two. If you can think back to Psalm 2, where there's this anointed, the the nations are raging, the peoples are plotting in vain. But in Psalm 2, verse 4, it says, He who sits in the heavens to laugh, he laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. And so David is kind of reflecting even on that truth from Psalm chapter 2, in connection to his enemies who are howling like dogs and prowling about the city. There they are, bellowing with their mouths, with their swords in their lips, for who they think, who will hear us. They're taunting and jeering and laughing. But but you, O Lord, David says, you're gonna have the last laugh. You laugh at them, you hold all the nations in derision. And as a result of that, in verse 9, oh my strength, I will watch for you. For you, O God, are my fortress, my God and his steadfast love will meet me. God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. And of course, ultimately, from a messianic perspective, how we can triumph over our enemies is Christ, in Christ. And even Hebrews talks about that. Um, we're quoting from the Psalm, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. We have victory over our enemies because of what Christ has done for us and ultimately for the way in which he will judge in the future. And so there's that hope that we even talked about where we can pray for the justice and the judgment of God while simultaneously holding intention the twin truth of praying for men to confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. Because whether in this life or the next, every tongue will bow, or every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So we see that here in Psalm 59. And even just if we connect this to Exodus, of course, uh David's reflecting on being delivered from his enemies, and in a sense, it's continuing to pray that that would happen. But uh, Exodus is the reminder to reflect on God doing just that, delivering from their enemies, and to do that with regularity and consistency. So we hope those basic truths would uh not feel so basic, that they would feel necessary and essential to just a vibrant Christian life uh and a vibrant Christian maturity. We hope that that's something that's encouraging to you today. Well, thanks for joining us on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.