"But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."
Exodus 9:16[/b]
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A change in the throne of Egypt gave birth to a new attitude toward the nation of Israel. Viewed as a threat to the national security of Egypt, they were reduced to a state of servitude. When the Hebrew midwives refused to heed his injunction to kill at birth all the male children, Pharaoh enjoined all of Egypt with his murderous plot.
By divine providence, Moses was rescued, reared, and educated by the daughter of Pharaoh. When he was forty Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating one of his Hebrew brethren. Moses fled to Midian and was married to Zapporiah. After forty years God called Moses to be the leader of His people. He went back to Egypt, with Aaron to speak for him.
Exodus 4-12 contains four great truths that are foundational to the whole Biblical record. First, God relates to man on the basis of revelation and confirmation. "And Moses said, but suppose they will not believe me, or listen to my voice""(Ex. 4:1[/i]). Rather than rebuking Moses, God provided miraculous signs to confirm His words. Revelation without confirmation would have left Pharaoh and Egypt justified in their hardness of heart.
The word was preached, the word was confirmed, and those with honest hearts believed.
Second, revelation and confirmation produce a knowing faith. Some view faith as a "doubtful truth." They think that evidence for God and truth can be mounted only so high leaving a gap to be filled by a faith that falls short of confident knowing. God continued to create in His people a knowing faith throughout the Scriptures. Consider Noah (Hebrews 11:7) and Gideon 9 (Judges 6:17) all the way to Christ and the Apostles (John 3:2).
Third, revelation and confirmation encompass all the earth. As is stated in Exodus 9:16, the signs showed to Pharaoh were to show the whole world that God is the only true God. The only hope for Egypt, Israel, and the world lay in the provisions of God"s grace being channeled through the seed of woman (Gen. 3:15) and the seed of Abraham (Gen. 12:3), to it"s completion in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is important to note here that of all the inhabitants of Canaan, only Rahab and her family benefited from the mighty works of God in Egypt.
Fourth, rejecting God"s confirmed revelation leads to death. Even with the sights and sounds of death afflicting every family in Egypt, Pharaoh and his army pursue the nation of Israel. God buried the army in the depths of the Red Sea. In the process of time He encased every faithless Egyptian soul in the tomb of eternal hopelessness.
Preceded by the imposing revelation and verification of God"s being and nature from the creation of the universe, the flood, the proliferation of languages, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to the astonishing works of God in Egypt and the Red Sea. God has left the world void of excuse for their unbelief! They spurned God"s revelation and confirmation, and passed through the gates of death (Job 38:17) in the arms of idols, and entered eternity without hope. Romans 1:18-21[/i].
1. Why did Pharaoh place the Israelites into slavery and decree that all male newborns be killed?
2. How is Moses a type of Christ?
3. Why did God choose Moses to lead His people?
4. What do we read about in Exodus 4:24-26 that seems out of place, but actually shows that Moses was just a man who also sinned?
5. What four great truths are contained in Exodus 4-12 that are foundational to the whole Biblical record?
6. Why did God grant Moses miraculous signs?
7. Upon what is Biblical faith based?
8. What was the purpose of the performance and the preservation of the miracles that were done throughout the Bible? (Mark 16:20 & Hebrews 2:3-4)
9. What was God seeking to accomplish in the display of His mighty power in Egypt?
10. How did the Egyptians respond to God"s revelation and confirmation?
11. How do people today respond to God"s revelation and confirmation?
The Book of Exodus
The Book of Exodus describes the Israelites' plight as a slave race in Egypt, and tells the story of how God broke their bonds, visited stunning cruelties upon the Egyptians in retribution, and made his covenant of cruelty with the Israelites in the desert. This is the book where the Ten Commandments are laid out, as well as a host of ridiculously harsh rules such as "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death". It is also the book where religious hatred is first demonstrated. Not only is it acceptable to murder defenseless children if they are sons of the enemy, but Moses, with God's blessing, murders 3000 people for worshipping other gods.
Exodus 2:11-12 (Moses murders an Egyptian slave owner for beating a Hebrew, even though God would later tell the Israelites that it's OK to keep and beat slaves of their own, as long as they don't die on the same day as the beating. This is technically Moses' violence instead of God's violence, but it is nevertheless revealing because God would pick him to be his chosen envoy after this happened).
[blockquote]One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. 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.[/blockquote]
Exodus 4:24-26 (After God picks Moses as his chosen envoy despite being a murderer, he suddenly decides to kill him. But Moses' wife seizes her son, mutilates the innocent boy's penis with a flint knife, and puts the bloody piece of shorn-away flesh on Moses' feet, presumably while the child is still screaming in agony. This pleases God for some incomprehensible reason, so he lets Moses live)
[blockquote]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.[/blockquote]
Exodus 11:9-10 (God "hardened Pharoah's heart", so that his "wonders may be multiplied in Egypt". In other words, he deliberately made Pharoah refuse to release the Israelites, so that he would have an excuse to show off! The murder of all the first-born sons in Egypt was a cruel, premeditated act, in which God controlled both sides of the equation just so he could demonstrate his power).
[blockquote]The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you -- so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.[/blockquote]
Exodus 2:29-30 (God carries through with his terrible promise, murdering innocent babies for the crimes of Pharoah; crimes of slavery which he would later permit the Israelites themselves to commit without penalty).
[blockquote]At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.[/blockquote]
Exodus 14:2-4,15-18 (God sets a trap for Pharoah and then hardens his heart twice more so that he will fall into it)
[blockquote]"Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think, `The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."
Portrait of God 5
