So Great a Redemption Part 2

What I want to do is I want to go ahead and let you know what we'll be talking about tonight so you can start your notes. But we're in part two of our first of three parts. So we're talking about so great a redemption. So greater redemption. And tonight we're going to pick up where we left off last week and talking about Moses and his call. But we will eventually get to the Passover. Before the evening is over, we will get all the way to Exodus 15, the crossing of the Red Sea. Now, that's a lot of scripture to cover and I will not do it justice.

But what's on my heart is to pick out three themes that really best describe the book so that you are better equipped to study this great book on your own. So, again, I want to ask you to open up your copy of God's word to Exodus, Chapter 12, verses 11 through 13. And I will just read the first verse as it will set us up tonight. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am the Lord and we will turn our direction tonight to this glorious redemption.

So I'll go ahead and start talking about the first. Point of truth tonight, which is the imperfect mediator. I want us to see that Moses was very much an imperfect mediator of the covenant. If you will remember last week, we looked into Moses's life and we looked at his birth and we looked at his call. And to be specific, we saw that Moses was called because a mediator was needed. We saw that there was a redemption that was needed and a mediator was needed. We saw that God had prepared Moses to meet that need through providing for him and protecting him, creating the basket which served as an arc of protection for him.

And God was protecting not just Moses's life, but the entire nation of Israel. God saw the need he provided for the need. But when he finally called Moses, if you remember from last week, Moses gave him five objections. And we saw that these objections all stemmed not really from a sense of self protection. Moses was not scared that he was going to die. He was 80 years old at the time. He'd lived a full life. He had a wife he loved. He had kids he loved. His objections to God came on the theme of insignificance. They all stemmed from a fear of failure. You could say it was his felt insignificance or his incompetence. He said to God, who am I?

He also claimed ignorance. He said, who am I going to say is sending me? He was essentially saying, I don't know enough about you, God. I don't know your character. I don't know your name. He also cited the unbelief of the Israelites. And he said that, you know, they're not going to want to listen to me. And to that God told him to throw his staff down. That was followed by another miracle. He told Moses to put his hand in his garment. And finally, the Lord said, I will be with you. Moses also claimed that he was not the right guy for the job. And he even asked God, can you just send somebody else? This elicited God's anger.

And so I thought it was a good place to begin by looking at this mediator and his imperfections. But after God called Moses, Moses listened. He goes back to Jethro, his father-in-law. He gets his wife and his kids and he says, okay, God, I don't feel like I am up to the job, but I'm going, he resigns to be obedient. And now we get to what I think is for me, at least one of the most challenging, most perplexing verses in all of scripture. So I'm going to ask you to turn with me to Exodus chapter four. Exodus chapter four. And then I will read verses 21 all the way through 24. Exodus chapter four, 21 through 24.

And the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son. Now to the very troubling and sometimes difficult verse, verse 24. At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met him and he sought to put him to death.

Then Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off her son's foreskin and touch Moses's feet with it and said, surely you are bridegroom of blood to me. So he let him alone. It was then that she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision. And I want you to see that this theme of an imperfect mediator follows from earlier in chapter four and really carries us through. Now, if you just read this verse and if you put the Bible down, you may be tempted to think that God is something of a tyrannical bully. You know, Moses didn't want to go in the first place. Moses was 80 years old. He was kicked out of Egypt. He ran for his life.

He spent 40 years being a shepherd in the wilderness. God calls him. He, he really does not want to go. And he finally obeys and at a lodging place when it's time for him to go to sleep and he's resting on his journey to Egypt to be obedient, it says the Lord sought to put him to death. Now we don't know anything else about this. There have been commentators who say it was a sickness. Some have said that this was a Christophany where you see Christ speaking to him or you see other cases where the Lord is presenting a sword. We don't really have that information, but we know two things. He had incurred the wrath of God. Rightly.

God would not have sought to. Correct this problem if he was not intending to deal with it. This was not, oh, God wasn't fully aware of who he was calling. And now I called this guy, so I guess I just have to deal with it. This was a God who was rightly angry. And not only was God going to correct this issue, but we also know that the issue was with Moses's disobedience, because when the child, when his children were circumcised, then the wrath of God relented. So what this tells us is that this was an area of disobedience in Moses's life, specifically in his family and some historical work can maybe help clarify some of this for us.

Let's take a look at Sepora for a second. Sepora was Moses's wife. Her father was a priest of the Midianites. If you know something about Midianites, they are actually descendants of Abraham. Abraham had two wives. You might think Sarah, who you know, and Hagar. Hagar was not his wife, it was his concubine. So he had the Israelites descend from his wife, Sarah. He had the concubine. He gave birth to Ishmael. Actually he was the first born and Ishmael's sons become the Ishmaelites. But after Sarah died, he married Keturah. And Keturah gave birth to six sons and the fourth son was Midian.

Now, when Moses leaves Egypt and he's fleeing for his life, he finds Midianites. He finds in a sense the closest thing to his family. He finds the closest thing to Abrahamic people. Now we would have, we would expect Moses was circumcised. His parents would have circumcised him before they sent him on the ark in the Nile River. That would have happened very early on because they prolonged putting him on the river. It says that and when they could hide him no longer. That gives us the impression that Moses was with his parents well beyond the eight days. We've got to believe Moses was circumcised.

And any child in Moses's excuse me in Abraham's household would have been circumcised. Ishmael was circumcised. All of his Isaac was circumcised. And so the sons of Keturah would have been circumcised as well. So the Midianite people knew something of circumcision. However, it becomes apparent that over time, the Midianites began to step back from this eventually they turned into the Israelites enemies. In a few generations, they actually would be used by Balaam. This was a strategy to pull them away from Yahweh through marrying outside and marrying pagan people. So the Midianites eventually turned pagan.

But Jethro, who was their priest, would have helped Moses. In fact, he helped Moses by teaching him the principle of delegation. He helped Moses by teaching him you can't judge all of these cases by yourself. You've got to spread the wealth and spread the load around. So what we see here is an apparent spiritual disconnect between Moses and Zipporah. What she says, you are a bridegroom of blood to me, quite literally means you are a bloody husband for me. And she says it twice. It's almost as if the whole matter of circumcision was revolting to her and disgusting to her.

So what we have is the set apart people who would become people of the circumcision married a woman who, as it appears, hated circumcision. So I want us to think about this. What would happen, husbands, if you are leading your wife and she's just not where you are spiritually? What would happen if you are trying to do what the preacher is encouraging you to do by leading your family spiritually, talking about the Bible, praying about the Bible? And what would happen if your wife then was a key in the disobedience of your family? What we see here is Zipporah and Moses weren't on the same page and how they govern and lead spiritually.

I got to believe that Moses being circumcised, you know, he struck down an Egyptian guard because he was harming his own people. He had a burden. I have to believe in his heart, he wanted to be set apart and wanted to be of the people who are set apart. This was an issue, I believe, that was spearheaded by his wife. I think it shows some spiritual passivity. Speaking to the husbands for a second. I believe Moses might have been a little spiritually passive. He certainly didn't think much of himself spiritually. He didn't think God could use him. He said, who am I?

And there might've been some areas where he could have just been a better leader. As a shepherd, he worked away from home quite a bit. It's a very practical matter, but perhaps you're not a husband and perhaps you're you're not one who feels that his spiritual efforts are frustrated. I want you to mark this down and take this note that your disobedience affects your family. That lesson is evident, whether you're Moses or Zipporah, whether you're a husband, whether you're a wife, whether you're a college student, your disobedience will impact the entire family. So I don't want us to read this and think, look, there's, there's God, the bully.

He is, temper is getting the best of him and he's about to kill the guy that he called and convinced to go into ministry. Here's something else. God is aware of your hang ups when he calls you. He's aware of your hang ups when he calls you. God was aware of this issue when he called Moses. It could be that God had to almost kill Moses to get Zipporah's attention. So God lays out the template that husbands lead and that women follow husbands. It's our responsibility responsibility to lead. Wives, it's your responsibility to follow.

But rest assured that if you, if you're following is not an act of following, if you're not really seeking to do your best to follow God, then yes, your husband could be disciplined for this. It's a heavy burden that I carry knowing that I will give an account for everyone in my family, such as more. I will give an account and brother Chris will give an account to every person that we led in our church. So I want you to see the first point of truth that is that Moses was an imperfect mediator, but a mediator, he was, and God chose him.

The second point of truth that I want us to see tonight, we see a perfect judge, a perfect judge, and for this, I want us to go back to our Exodus 12 passage. God is telling Moses what is going to happen. He says, for I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. In verse 13, I am the Lord. Two things out of this. I want you to see. I want you to see that God is a perfect judge over Egypt. God is a perfect judge over Egypt.

I was blessed to teach our youth a curriculum as answers in Genesis curriculum in which we were taking the young people through the Bible in three years. And we got to this in year one of this journey. And in that teaching curriculum, they outlined that there were 10 gods in Egypt and that each of those gods were represented in the plagues. Now, if we go into greater study, what we find is that it's actually more than just 10 gods, but there were 10 gods that were very well known and each of these were targeted in the plagues.

So because we don't have time to read from chapters four all the way to 12, what I thought we would do is I would just go through and tell you these, these deities that were worshiped. And I think this gives us some perspective because what God says to Moses is I am going to judge the gods of Israel. Excuse me. I'm going to judge, to judge the gods of Egypt. And this will help us to see that God is perfectly just. He is the perfect judge. You know, the number three stands for completion. The number seven stands for perfection. You put them together and you get the number 10, you have perfectly completely.

A number that represents both perfect and complete. And so when God judges 10 gods, this is a perfect and complete judgment. And that's important to note because there is one plague for every one of the 10 commandments that also is important. So I'm just going to run through these, these deities to give you an idea of God's complete justice. You had Hoppe H A P I this was the Egyptian God of the Nile. This Egyptian God was thought to be a water bearer. So when God tells Moses to raise his staff and to change that God will change the water, the Nile, the blood, what is he saying?

I am greater than every other God that you worship, especially your God of the Nile. Little G. The second deity history tells us Egyptologists tell us was Hecate H E K E T the Egyptian goddess of fertility. She was also thought to be a God of water. And he kept the Egyptian goddess had the head of a frog. What was the second plague frogs? What's interesting is that when God tells Moses to send frogs from the Nile river, just as he kept was thought to be the God of the water. Guess what would have happened? They would have prayed to their God. And guess what happened? Nothing. Cause head cat was not a God as we know.

God was ruining Hecate worship because God is greater than the things we worship in this earth. Third, the God Geb G E B Geb. And I'm saying God in that little G sense, but this was the Egyptian God of the earth. The Egyptian God Geb was over the dust of the whole earth or so they thought. So what was the third plague dust? You remember dust covered the entire world. Excuse me. It covered the entire whole of Egypt, the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived. It was not impacted by these plagues. Fourth, we had capri. K H E P R I. This was the Egyptian God of creation movement of the sun. And rebirth. This God had the head of a fly.

So when God commanded that the fourth plague allowed flies or gnats or bugs around the whole course of Egypt that got their attention. Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love and production. Usually this Egyptian goddess was depicted with the head of a cow. Notice that all of these gods claim to have some power over nations over nature. And God is humiliating them. And I want you to know this. So when you go back and you read the plagues, you'll see that God is a perfect judge. We also see Isis. This is the Egyptian goddess of medicine and peace. So the plague of ashes turned to boils. The Egyptians had boils on their skin.

Undoubtedly they would have prayed to Isis and they would have gotten no relief. It was only when Moses prayed for them that these went away. Seventh nut in UT, the Egyptian goddess of the sky. So when God allowed hail to come down, you'll notice that the God of of nut was humiliated. God is getting justice. You know, the hail storms would have been so severe it would have ruined their entire crops. So here you have their livelihood of fish from the river destroyed their livelihood of cattle destroyed their livelihood of. Crops destroyed from hail. And eighth Seth was the Egyptian God of storms.

So the plague of locusts sent from the sky would have disrupted their local economy as well and humiliated their God Seth. Ninth, you possibly have heard of this deity. Ra are a people still wear the, the eye of Ra and have no idea what it means, but it is a pagan symbol, hearkening back to the God of the sun. So three days of complete darkness was a judgment of this sun God. And finally, the 10th. Deity that was attacked and was humiliated was Pharaoh. Pharaoh was worshiped.

If you look at the pyramids in Egypt, this is the reason why these elaborate pyramids were constructed because the Egyptians believe that Pharaoh, when an anointed king, became half God. And at his death, he became full deity. And so he deserved everything in his in the afterlife that kings deserve in this life. And so the 10th and final plague was that of the Passover. So God tells Pharaoh through Moses, he says, let my people go, or I will take your first born. He is saying that the final plague will be a complete and perfect judgment over the idolatry of Egypt.

Now, before we sit here and identify with the Israelites and think, look at those really bad Egyptians, I want us to get some perspective. God was not just the perfect just judge over Egypt. God was also the perfect judge over Israel. I want you to know that the Israelites were sinners. The Israelites needed a savior just like the Egyptians. And that should give us some perspective because if we're not careful, we will sit in the house of God and we will look at those who are worshipping idols.

They're worshipping the idols of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, and we will be so comfortable in our holy huddle that we will not see that we are in need of a savior. So I want us to note that Israel had a perfect judge over them as well. Our third major truth tonight is a perfect redemption. Perfect redemption. If we go back into Exodus chapter 12, I will read verse 13 again. The blood shall be assigned for you on the house where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

I want you to see two things about this perfect redemption. I want you to see that this redemption involved a perfect sacrifice. God told them that there had to be a sacrifice. That the angel of death would be sent through the land. And that this sacrifice had to be slaughtered. This needed to be a spotless lamb. That would be a lamb of highest value. This would be a lamb without broken bones. This would be a lamb who would have been the highest marketed value that you had. Your best lamb. This would be slaughtered and the blood of this lamb had to be smeared on your doorpost.

Now I want you to see that throughout Egypt, many people heard this cry. Egyptians knew about the Passover because anything at this point in time, anything that was said by Moses in front of Pharaoh would have been front page news. People at this point had been very humbled. In many cases, the scripture tells us that the people of Egypt esteemed Moses. By the time you get to the 10th plague, they were very, very attentive. So this you think of a gospel call is going out. You need the blood of the lamb. People heard of it. This is not just a perfect sacrifice, the spotless lamb, but it's also a perfect substitute.

If you look at Exodus 12, 13 in the second half of this verse. I will pass over you. No plague will befall you to destroy you. When I strike the land of Egypt, see the Israelites were just as much of sinners as the Egyptians. And if you're here in church tonight, you're just as much of a sinner as someone outside of church. The only thing that we have is the mediator of Christ. And if his blood is not covering you, then you have no hope at all. I want you to see that holiness can never ignore sin no matter where it's found. Because God is holy, he's got to punish sin. What about the angels?

Remember the angels that sinned in heaven, Lucifer and one third of the angels. Did they ever have a chance to repent? Was there ever a revival? Did God ever give them an invitation to repent of their sin? They had no chance. The minute they rebelled, it's an eternity in hell. And so what we see with this is that those of us who hear the gospel call rely on a perfect substitute. The Israelites are children of wrath. Ephesians 2, 3 tells us this. And God made no exception even for his own son. Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 21 that Jesus was made sin for us. And when Jesus was made sin for you and I, do you know what that means?

It means God would have to crush him too. So Jesus was the perfect sacrificial lamb. And when the father substituted your sin for his holiness. And when Jesus saw you and loved you, but he saw the father and saw the father's deserving wrath upon him, he willingly drank that cup. So what we see here is that Jesus is the perfect substitutionary mediator. And so when you see the Passover lamb, you ought to see Christ. In fact, in a sense, God puts the Passover ahead of Christ. So we look back and remember Christ. The last thing I want us to see tonight is that this is a complete redemption.

Although Moses was an imperfect mediator, God is the perfect judge who planned a perfect redemption and a complete redemption. I wish I could go through, we had enough time to go through the, the wondrous way in which God executed the final judgment. I could talk about the Pharaoh's chariot and the wheels of the chariots coming off. I could talk about how God sent them a very long way out of Egypt. He gave them a right turn down into the desert. It was really into the middle of nowhere. So Pharaoh's heart was hardened at this point and Pharaoh has a change of heart. He gets his entire army, follows the Egyptians. He follows the Israelites.

It's a beautiful story of God protecting his children and executing judgment. But I think the best way to go through this is just to look at what happens when they cross the Red Sea, when the last Israelite puts their feet on dry land and they turn around and immediately God causes the water of the Red Sea to crush Pharaoh and they're watching it. They're literally watching it. I taught through Exodus to our campers once and I told them three cubic feet of water. I told them how much that weighs. If you know a three cubic feet are basically you take three feet this way and three feet this way, right? And three feet that way.

If you were to have a square that filled it with water. Trey, you want to know how much you think that weighs? Right. Well, unless I'm off, three cubic feet is a ton. Now think about the Red Sea. You think about the the power that God has to punish. Could he have done that? And just so also so you know, you know how long this took? The 10 plagues from the time Moses got there to the time he brings him over the Red Sea a year. You probably would not have wanted to be in Israelite going through a year. Why does God stretch it out? He could have delivered him like this.

Sometimes when we see people dealing with their salvation, we've seen them deal with God chasing them down for years. A person's individual salvation experience is not always quick and God will not save everybody the same way in the sense that some people hear the word and they repent and some people are under conviction for a long time. And some. But the point is we've got to let God do his work his way. But one thing I need you to know and I need you to see is that the minute this water crushed Pharaoh's armies. The scripture tells us the war was over.

At that moment, their slavery, the sin of Egypt, their bondage, all those hard days, 400 years they lived in this. And in a moment, it was it was victory and the minute a person gets saved. So for us, the analogy is that we are saved and then we get baptized to represent our salvation. The blood of Christ purchases it. So for the Hebrews, the blood on the doormantle was essentially the purchase. God's purchasing through the blood of his son represented in the lamb. He purchased them out of slavery. He buys them off the auction block and then baptizes them in the Red Sea and then completely delivers them from their sin and their bondage.

I thought it'd be most fitting to read the song of worship that they sing at their deliverance. So if you would turn to Exodus chapter 15. I will read this and encourage you to read along. This is a song of deliverance. It's a song of God's greatness. It's a song of God's goodness. And I want to read this for us. Then Moses and the people Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. A horse and his riders he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength in my song and he has become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise him. My father's God, I will exalt him.

The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them. They went down to the depths like a stone. Your right hand, oh Lord, glorious in power. Your right hand, oh Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. You send out your fury. It consumes them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils, the water piled up. The flood stood up in a heap. And the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil.

My desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. You blew your wind and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like you, oh Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic and holiness, awesome and glorious deeds, doing wonders. You stretched out your right hand and the earth swallowed them. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. Thought that would be fitting to praise the Lord with that song. God is eternal and he is just as capable of saving you here tonight.

If you be in need of salvation, he is just as capable of delivering you from any bondage in which you might be enslaved. Tonight, I think it's fitting to conclude with these three reminders. God is sovereign over your weakness. God can call you and God can equip you and he can use you. God also provides the perfect substitute. We can't worship the Lord apart from Christ. And Christ is enough in our worship. And God also fights our battles. There's any conflict you find yourself faced in. It's important to remember that God fights. Although Moses was the mediator, Christ is our mediator.

They just had to sit back and wait on God and they had to let God win the war in his own time. And that can be tough. They saw God fight Pharaoh for over a year and in a second it was over. And this is important for us to remember that we may press hard in battle for many days, but God is the victor. Well, I want us to conclude tonight in just a time of prayer.