Exodus

1. Exodus The story so far...

2. “The word of the LORD came to Abram... ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” Genesis 15 “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” Genesis 17

3. “They put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour... The Egyptians used them ruthlessly” Exodus 1 “If it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live”

4. “She got a papyrus basket... Placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile” Exodus 2 “Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you”

5. “One day after Moses had grown up... ...He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that, and seeing no-one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand... Exodus 2 ...Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian”

6. Now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt “The angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush” Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out of Egypt Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them? Exodus 3 "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." C S Lewis - Surprised by Joy

8. Moses answered, ‘What if they do not believe or listen to me and say, “The LORD did not appear to you”?’ Then the LORD said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ ‘A staff,’ he replied. The LORD said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. The LORD said to him, ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.’ So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ‘This,’ said the LORD, ‘is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has appeared to you.’

9. “The LORD said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do”

10. “Then the LORD said, ‘Put your hand inside your cloak.’ So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous – it had become as white as snow. ‘Now put it back into your cloak,’ he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh. Then the LORD said, ‘If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second...

11. “If you listen, listen obediently to how God tells you to live in his presence, obeying his commandments and keeping all his laws, then I won’t strike you with all the diseases that I inflicted on the Egyptians; I am God your healer” Exodus 15:26 The Message

12. “Then the LORD said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”

13. “O LORD, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith” “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

14. “[God] called Moses to a position of faith – to go into this work not expecting to be a different man but expecting a sufficient God...” “...He met Moses’ insufficiency with his own sufficiency, and called Moses to believe the promises and to demonstrate the obedience of faith” Alec Motyer

16. “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” ...Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses and he said... “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he sees you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.”

17. “The Lord’s forethought anticipates our needs”

18. “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” ...Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses and he said... “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he sees you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.”

19. Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, ‘Let me return to my own people in Egypt and see if any of them are still alive.’ Jethro said, ‘Go, and I wish you well’

20. “The hearts of kings are in thy rule and governance, and thou dost dispose and turn them as seems best to thy godly wisdom” Book of Common Prayer

21. “At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,’ she said. So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said ‘bridegroom of blood’, referring to the circumcision.) “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendents after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendents after you, the covenant you are to keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised.” Genesis 17:9-12

22. “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love” John 15:10 “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice” 1 Samuel 15:22

23. Conclusions

24. ‘Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,’ bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. Hebrews 3:5-6 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”

25. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. Hebrews 11:24-26 Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Hebrews 12:2