Bible Survey - Exodus
Vern Peterman · Feb 16, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926417373448

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, we're moving on to Exodus. I want to go through some slides here. This historical timeline you also have on the top of your handout. I think it's handy to just kind of have some here are the round numbers to look at framework. So just Abraham around the year 2000. He lived before that and after it, but anyway, around the year 2000. Moses, 1500. At 1500 B.C. he was still a prince of Egypt. And then you've got David around the year 1000. And then the Old Testament completed around the year 400 B.C. And then Christ, though he was born a few years before The time zero, right? Yes. His ministry in the time of the apostles in the first century. The last apostle, John, going home around 96 AD.

I just have to tell you though, in the year zero, it was a really sad year. Nobody lived then. Nobody lived. This is because year zero wasn't. We put zero in there as just a dividing line, but there was a 1 BC and a 1 AD, but no zero. So the zero is just there to show the demarcation. So anyway, I think that's a kind of a handy sequence and timing outline just for people to kind of get an idea of what lands where. So the Book of Exodus. It talks about after the time of Joseph, the Israelites were then enslaved in Egypt. And so we have that picture.

This is an actual mud brick with one of the pharaoh's marks on it. And the Israelites didn't build the pyramids. They just made mud bricks. For 400 years, they made mud bricks. They didn't build the pyramids. Pyramids were already there, the big ones, already there when Abraham was there. So Abraham sure saw those pyramids.

And of course the book of Exodus tells about Moses and being found by some of the royalty and brought in as a prince of Egypt, though he was Hebrew. The staff at Associates for Biblical Research believe that this young lady right here is Hatshepsut. That's one that's in the records. Her burial temple has been found. Then Moses, at age 40, catches one of the Egyptians beating on a Hebrew slave and goes and does him in. And that gets him in trouble because he was seen. And so he is exiled. I'm sure that the Egyptians, when they set him out, were figuring that he'd probably die out there, but he didn't. He went to Midian and was a shepherd for 40 years.

And then The Lord appears to him in a burning bush, and by the way, that's the angel of the Lord, but it's also a place where the angel of the Lord speaks as God. So, it's one of the things we looked at last week, is the angel of the Lord is the Son of God, and so that's why you keep seeing that pattern, where the angel of the Lord speaks as God. People talk about having seen God. Then that was in Exodus 3. Then Moses goes with his brother Aaron and repeatedly appeals to Pharaoh, let my people go, speaking for God. Notice my is capitalized there. So he's speaking for God. And then 10 plagues. 10 plagues. And you have on a chart on page 2 kind of the table of the plagues and what are the insights for those.

Then Passover, just as the Jews are getting ready to leave Egypt. And in the process, the Egyptians are driven to give the Israelites all kinds of gold and precious metal. And so anyway, they have Passover. Passover was at the time, standing up, which is why you see the picture of them standing there. It was over time, the tradition was, okay we can sit down now, we're not ready to leave. And then they get pushed up against one of the inland lakes there that's now cut through by the Suez Canal.

And so there's Moses parts the waters as the Israelites are at first panicking because they're seeing the Egyptians come after them. Once the Israelites are through, the Egyptians are allowed to come in on dry land. However, they had a very quick emergency swimming lesson in which they failed. and and then that was the end of them they went down the Sinai Peninsula and there on Mount Sinai at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula is where Moses was given the law he actually went up and you know back and forth you know a couple times but he was given the law he was up there 40 days during which time the Israelites were getting you know, jumpy and bored. So they ended up making a golden calf and having a party, which didn't make Moses very happy.

So anyway, Moses got the Ten Commandments, and one of the things, what is the tablet of the Ten Commandments for? Did the Israelites go around looking at the Ten Commandments tablets? Where did they put the tablets? Inside the Ark of the Covenant. How many people were allowed to go in there? Once a year, and the Ark of the Covenant had a lid on it, a solid lid, right? So the tablets were not something that the Jews looked at and studied and observed and worshipped or anything else. Once they got the Ark of the Covenant built, they put it in there and nobody ever saw it again.

It was somewhat like when they first crossed over into the promised land where they erected the pile of stone, something to tell their children about, something as a remembrance. It wasn't the physical object, it was a spiritual reminder that God was with them and God was their leader. And the Ten Commandments were given not because that's God's top ten, or the only ones that matter, or the only ones we've got to keep, or anything like that. The Ten Commandments, those were on the tablets to represent the whole. You can imagine if he had tablets for the whole thing, right?

No? The Ark of the Covenant would be a lot bigger, yeah. And since the way that they communicated back then was through memorization, that would have been really easy to memorize. Yes, yep. Memory, in our culture, we say, well if I can look it up, I remember it, right? But in a lot of cultures, and I found this true in Uganda, but it's what you say and committing things to memory in other cultures is a whole different mindset about that.

So here was the tablets, but Moses also went through and did public instruction. on you know this here's the law and here's the law and here's the law and they gave it again in Deuteronomy. Deutero means two right? And Deuteronomy gave it again. Public instruction. So the people didn't sit around with scrolls. They had them but the people didn't sit around with scrolls. They listened. It was an oral culture that listened even though they were able to read just fine.

And then the book of Exodus ends with the tabernacle being constructed. But what do you do with the tabernacle that you've constructed? That's where Leviticus comes in, and here's the instructions to all the priests about here's what you do now that you've got this tabernacle. Okay, so let's take a look at your handout. We'll kind of leave it there.

We have at the top there the historical timeline, and I think it's just handy to have these kind of round number figures to look at to put things in sequence. For example, you say, where was Joshua? Well, that was right after Moses. Here's 1500. So you can put things in a framework here and have an approximate timeline. The other thing that's handy for Exodus, if you remember the number 40? You've got a really good way of staying on top of what the book's about. Reason? Moses spent 40 years as an Egyptian prince. He spent 40 years as a shepherd in Midian. And all that was just training. Because at 80 years old, then he began 40 years leading the Israelites.

Which is not an easy job. Not an easy job. Oh, I'm sorry. Pardon me. I'll have to fix that. Scratch that. It should be Exodus. We didn't catch that. Exodus is, remember, 40-40-40 for Moses' life, and then 40 chapters in it. And by the way, there's also 40 pillars in the tabernacle with 40 sockets, right? Top and bottom. And then Moses was also on Mount Sinai for 40 days. As if there isn't enough. And the number 40 keeps cropping up. Not just here in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but on through the Bible. Christ's Temptation. Why 40?

Well, numerologists say it denotes a kind of period of testing or special instruction or something like that. Yeah, let's think about that. You know, why do we have, you know, the months were originally set around a lunar calendar, you know, 48 days in the lunar month. And so our month of February, except for leap year, is set at that number. But typically a lunar calendar and a week then is a division of four of the lunar calendar. So you start to have some kind of sense of, okay, I get how this fits together.

What is 40 in nature? Is there anything that's natural in nature that points to the number 40? How long did it rain at Noah's flood? Yeah, you start to think about it, 40 is a God-selected number. 40 is a God-selected number. And when you see the 40, I can't say that the chapters in Exodus there because God selected 40 per se, but 40 is a number frequently appointed by God, and I think that's one of the things we can look at here. But anyway, it's a good handle. 40 days? Yes. Yeah, it's a God-appointed number, not a naturally occurring number.

Now, let's go down, the bottom part there says the people of Israel. The people of Israel had grown from 70 descendants of Jacob. That's what it says there when they're down there in Egypt. And I put in there, a.k.a. Israel. Jacob was named Israel by God. At the time of Jacob's death, to 603,550 men 20 years old or more. And that was from a census at the end of Exodus. Exodus 38-26.

Now, when I say that, these are fighting men 20 years old or older. Obviously, someone who was injured and whatnot wouldn't be counted. So it doesn't count women, children, those under 20, anything else. There is some debate over whether that figure is Properly interpreted so just note that because because if you think about it and we're talking about two or three million Israelites if this number is to be taken literally Two or three million Israelites surviving out in the desert for 40 years also passing over see a raise in one night?

Yes. With cattle and all of their pets? Yes. So there is some questioning of, boy, is this feasible? One thing that I think it would say is that their survival out in the desert requires God's miraculous provision. It's just required. Whether you take this number at face value or cut it to some lesser value, It takes a lot of water and they've got livestock with them, so you got some kind of grass and whatnot. They were provided with manna at different times, provided water miraculously. A large flock of feral quail, which by the way tastes pretty good, a large flock of feral quail came in their path. And so you have different provisions.

I think that the miraculous provisions that are described were probably samplings of what actually took place. Yes, the same sandals and clothes for your whole life, you know. Yes, yeah. Yeah, a number of miraculous things. I think what you have to say, some people will say, well, there's a whole bunch of miracles in here and that's just not possible. Alright, they're discounting the possibility of miracles. The reality is, they're not going to make it through here as described, even with a lesser number, without God's miraculous provision. Yes? One of the things that I think is, I don't recall where I heard this.

One of the things I think is interesting is that the scripture describes Christ as sustaining the universe. But Christ sustaining the universe means that everything is supernatural, not everything is natural with a few interventions. So if we have a perspective of the universe, not just periods of time where God does miraculous things in sustaining and orchestrating everything, that it makes the supernatural in Exodus or anywhere else in Scripture natural. Is that the thing that we perceive and understand through the time-space containment? God is the one who holds everything together through Christ. One of the things we said early on was there are five kinds of revelation and one of those is God's providence, which includes God's provision, right? And it is definitely necessary for them to survive.

Let's look at the top of page two. We have the plagues and the exodus from Egypt. So Moses, accompanied by his brother Aaron, demanded of Pharaoh, on behalf of God, so he's speaking for God, so let my people go, where the my is capitalized. Pharaoh's refusal brought a plague upon Egypt, and the plagues being a direct undermining of the Egyptians' approximately 700 gods.

And that's not just you know, a guess or thinking, it's Exodus 12.12. It says the plagues were directly aimed at Egypt's gods.

You have the insights of the ten plagues in the chart on the top part of page two. When you think of these plagues, does anything particular come to mind? What are your thoughts when you see these plagues here? Anything strike you about those plagues?

You can imagine Pharaoh, you know, these are a direct assault on his gods, on Pharaoh's gods. And the Egyptians had about 700 of them. And what there tended to be for each of these plagues, and looking at it closely, is a god, a primary target god, and then multiple subsidiary gods. that are involved in the attack here with the plagues. And you see all these things, they appear to be natural phenomenon. They appear to be all just natural phenomenon gone crazy. Just natural phenomenon gone crazy.

Water to blood, frogs, lice. You don't mind a few frogs here and there, right? But when they're everywhere so bad that they're just disgusting, that's a different matter. Where you can't walk without stepping on them, that's a different matter. And frogs were one of the symbols of their deities. Are you saying there was like a god of lice and a god of blood? Yeah, the thing is that they looked at the Nile River as that was one of the things they held sacred. And so now to have their river now turned to blood, that's a problem, right? The lice thing, it's not that they had a god of lice, but the gods that kept things under control. So a God in charge of life is probably the better way to say it.

Yes? Well each one of those obviously really affects their economy and their ability to supply. And then obviously the last one is their ability to procreate. So this is dealing with economy and life for them. Yeah, that's right. This is economy, this is life, this is the social structure. And the firstborn was like, boy, this one really got the honors, right? This one really got the honors. So God says, okay, I'm going to go right after that one.

Yes. And the Nile River is so important to everything that existed in that particular area. That was their life and economy. There would be no Egyptian civilization were it not for the Nile River. Otherwise you just got a bunch of sand. Wasn't there a book that was done on this by Randall Price? Does that sound right? One of the archaeologists. I'm thinking of several different books.

There's been some books that were written talking more about Yes Yes, there have been there have been books articles and that kind of thing been written about this And we could get quite absorbed with it, but the bottom line is I think God was going directly for the gods of Egypt just assaulting them Okay right below this chart finally Pharaoh grants that the people of Israel can go after he loses His firstborn and all the rest of Egypt does as well The Israelites observed the first Passover, gathering up their things and leaving the next morning."

So this is Exodus 12, right? The pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night continued from the time of the crossing of the sea. So there's Exodus 13. When Pharaoh has second thoughts, he sends troops after the Israelites who are at this point up against the sea, likely a shallow inland lake. and then cut by the Suez Canal right now.

At this point the Lord, through Moses, parts the water and the Israelites travel across on dry land while the Lord holds off the Egyptians with a pillar of cloud. When the Israelites have all crossed, God withdraws the cloud in order to allow the Egyptians to be in pursuit. Once they get in the midst of the sea, their chariots miraculously malfunction. It wasn't just that the water came in and drowned them, but their chariots were malfunctioning, and the Egyptians were claiming their God is working for them, because they couldn't explain why isn't my chariot working like it's supposed to. So, their chariots miraculously malfunction, and God has Moses act to close up the sea over the Egyptians.

This is Exodus 14. The provision of man, it begins with Exodus chapter 15, And water is made to come from a rock in chapter 17. So then, let's take a look here, the next part, the giving of the law of Moses to the building of the tabernacle. After the initial celebration, the Israelites head toward Mount Sinai at the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula. Moses is up on Mount Sinai for 40 days, starting in Exodus 19. Well, the Israelites keep their distance. Remember, they are told to stay away. They're told to stay away.

So the content of the Ten Commandments is given for the first time in Exodus chapter 20. Those things are repeated. As a matter of fact, the Ten Commandments are either quoted or referenced in the New Testament in various places and ways. But they're given for the first time there in Exodus chapter 20.

Moses comes down with the law, but the Israelites have, by Aaron's hand, made a golden calf and begun pagan festivities. So that's Exodus 32. After Moses' scolding of the Israelites, Moses proceeds to reveal to them some of the law that he had gotten from God on Mount Sinai.

In Exodus 35-40, the tabernacle is funded by contributions from the Israelites and work is begun on its various components. Finally, being complete and ready for assembly is recorded in chapter 40. Leviticus then continues with the standard practices and rituals for the priests, among other events and details.

So when you look at Exodus, imagine if you were one of the Jews, you've been practicing and getting really good at making mud bricks. And then this Moses guy comes along and says, we're getting out of here. After four centuries of being enslaved and getting really good at making mud bricks. After four centuries, he says, we're getting out of here. And so then initially they go through moments of terror and then immense relief. And what great satisfaction to see the sea just kind of close up over the Egyptians, right?

And then they get down the Sinai Peninsula and, you know, there's not a lot of water. At one place they stopped and the water was bitter, so that's not so good, right? And you got all these people and you got livestock and, you know, this is a tough place. I worked with a fellow who was stationed on the Sinai Peninsula as I think his position was kind of like with the UN or something, you know, as Just kind of watching over things make sure every everybody stays peaceful and he says in the shade. It's a hundred and thirty Regularly, you know, this is cooking So and and there's a lot of dry stuff Now the the the climate may well have changed. It's more dry and hot now than it once was, but nonetheless, it's a rather difficult place.

So now, we have the God of Israel here. God is called various names in Exodus. In Exodus 3-6, It's the I Am, the God of our Father, the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Let's talk about this I Am. What's this I Am talking about here? Feel the footnote? Doesn't that mean the eternal present?

Yeah, here's I Am, and the Greek Old Testament has that as Ego Emi, which Jesus says again and again, in all four Gospels, but especially the Gospel of John. Especially the Gospel of John. Seven different metaphors. I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd, etc. Those are ego-ami. So one thing is the ego-ami here, it's a claim to deity. And it says something else.

The I am is not just I am right now, right? But I always am. And Jesus quoted this when he was correcting the Sadducees who did not believe in a resurrection. And he said the present tense here proves the resurrection because he is in the present tense, he says, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I am even now. Even now, yes.

Okay, I think I talked to you, and I forgot what your answer was, once before, but Paul, in Romans, also refers to himself at one point as Ego Emi, or Emi, and does that mean that he's referring to himself as spiritually? When it, notice, it was grammatically possible for anyone to say Ego Emi. So we shouldn't, like cookie cutter, just automatically say that it means deity. But it can be used, and this was Paul's context, it can be used to put the emphasis on I. The emphasis on I. Because the I is built into the verb. And so when you add another one to it, it's literally I am. So even a spiritual I, right?

Well, in other words, what he would do, what Paul would do, is he would say, I am, to emphasize the focus upon himself. And that would be in contrast, if I'm talking about God, or other people, or different situations, and I want to make sure that people have, I'm talking about me here. I, I am, he would put it that way. When Jesus spoke and used I, I am, when he spoke, he put it together with various kinds of Old Testament figures.

I am the bread of life. I am the bread come down out of heaven, right? This is manna, right? So when he uses it there, he connects it up with an Old Testament figure. He's not just simply in contrast to somebody else making a claim. But putting the emphasis on himself is in contrast to others. Context. Yes, context.

Okay, then, so that's one. The next one, the God of Israel, and then the God of the Hebrews. And by the way, there was something that we said previously I want to get back to. Hebrews, okay. The term, there are three terms for the Jews or the Israelites or the Hebrews, those three terms, okay. Hebrew is actually used first.

And it's thought to be from the name Eber, Abraham's descendant. So you'll find that first. And then the next one is Israel, where towards the end of Genesis, God names Jacob Israel. And then the last term to be used actually is Jews, and that had to do with Israel's later period where Judah was a prominent tribe. So that's how they got that name. basically along with and after the Babylonian exile. So Hebrews is the term that came first, then the Israelites, and then the Jews later.

Alright, so here, Exodus 7.16, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, when you see the capital letters in the New American Standard Version, that's the name Yahweh. We have that there on the footnote. God's personal name, Yahweh.

Now in terms of speaking of the Trinity, the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, God is called the Father for the first time in Deuteronomy 32.6, but here in Exodus 31.3 and 35.31 it talks about the Spirit of God, so the Holy Spirit is referenced twice here in Exodus. But that brings us to the next one, the Son, and actually the Son is identified, when you look at the various symbols and manners of speaking, a number of times in Exodus. So if you were to say, between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which of those three is emphasized the most in Exodus?

It's the Son. So that's the next point. We've got a bunch of bullets to take a look at. He is the I Am in Exodus 3, 6 and in the Gospels. He is the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, and that's the one reference in Exodus to the angel of the Lord. Last Sunday's angel of the Lord inset goes over the reasons why we say the angel of the Lord is the Son, the second person of the Trinity. He is the Passover lamb and the blood on the doorways.

1 Corinthians 5.7 says Christ is our Passover.

He is the manna, the bread that came down from heaven, John 6.41. He is the end of the law.

Here's the law and Christ is the end of it, Romans 10.4.

The law was given as a tutor to lead us to Christ, so Galatians 3.24. He is the rock from which water flowed.

One of the things we said as we went through 1 Corinthians chapter 10 is that we learn from the law because, in 1 Corinthians, also in Romans, it says these things were recorded and happened for our instruction. So what these people were going through, they had no idea at the time, I'm sure, what these people were going through and all that happened there out in the desert, it happened and it was recorded for our instruction. So the law is for us to learn from. It's intended by God for us to learn from. And think about this, if those things happen for our instruction, are things happening to us for our instruction? Or other people's instruction? Yeah, that's true. Things are happening to us for our instruction. How many times do you think they might have said, why did we have to go through this? Yes!

Oh, I'm sure they griped and groused and all that, you know, because if you look at it, here we are out in this hot, dry desert, you know, and the stuff we used to get back in Egypt, we can't get here, you know. We used to raise crops and actually have things grow, and how are you going to raise crops out here? And one of the things they said they missed was the leaks. They missed the leaks.

And by the way, this isn't the only incident where water was brought out of a rock. There's another one later on, after Exodus. And I would not be surprised if those were just samplings of the times that God brought water out of the rock, but at least those times are recorded.

As the Passover was a memorial for the Jews in looking forward to Christ, the Lord's Table is a memorial for us looking forward until He comes. So here are the Jews, they're doing the Passover, and essentially it's pointing to Christ. They're looking forward to the time of Christ.

Christ, on the night before He is betrayed, gives the Lord's table as something that we would do in the church, and He says, do this in remembrance of Me. And as you see the end of the passage 1st Corinthians 11. How long do we keep doing this? Until He comes.

So the Jews had a looking back and a looking forward. We also have a looking back in the Lord's table and a looking forward. So a remembrance and an anticipation. They had that in the Passover. We have it as well. A remembrance and an anticipation until He comes. Okay, then Aaron was the first high priest in Israel. Christ is our first and only high priest in the heavenlies. We've been seeing that as we go through Hebrews here. The tabernacle was a tent where God dwelt, but Christ tented among us.

Let's turn to John 1.14. Get your Bibles out there.

Let's turn to John 1.14. Can somebody read that for us? flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, for the praise and truth."

That word dwelt is actually the verb tented, and the tabernacle is basically a tent. So here The tabernacle is a place where it represented God's dwelling among them. And now here we have Christ being described as having been tented, as John writes it, tented among us. So it's not just dwelt, but he is the tabernacle walking among us. Tabernacle walking among us.

Then we have here, the tabernacle is an illustration and a shadow of heavenly realities. including where Christ dwells and represents us as our High Priest. The law defines righteousness for the Israelites, and Christ not only defines righteousness, but is righteousness. See, the law defines righteousness, but Christ is righteousness. One of the things that we say repeatedly here at Holly Hills is we're not under the law, we're not even under one law, How could you possibly say that?

What's to keep me from going hog wild? We're to walk by the Spirit. Okay. So we're to walk by the Spirit. So how does righteousness get lived out? It's the very life of Christ. Yeah, it's Christ's very life living through us that is going to live out that righteousness. It is not up to us. That's the reason we say We're not under law, and we emphasize that because if I try to live out the law on my own, then I will not be relying on Christ's life to be righteous. That's why we caution against trying to follow the law as a means of attaining righteousness. is when we do that, that is not Christ's life living through us, and that's what God intends.

So that's why in Galatians 2.19 it'll say we died to the law and then I've been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me. Christ does the living in me. Okay, take a look at, on the back, We've got a graphic here and it shows a lot of the parallels between the introduction of the law to Israel by Moses and the introduction of grace to the church by Christ.

What you see in the top there is the first Passover feast while they were still in Egypt on the night when they were getting ready to go and then it is a four-day period until they're crossing the sea. And then that is the beginning of Israel's baptism into Moses. The baptism into Moses, that insight is given 1 Corinthians 10 verse 2. So this is the beginning of Israel's baptism into Moses. Below that what you see is the Passover that is the Last Supper. is also the introduction of the Lord's Table, and then you have four days later, from death to life. Death to life, resurrection of Christ, and this is the beginning of the Church's baptism into Christ. So what you see there is a lot that is parallel and a lot that is in contrast. Israel's baptism into Moses has them under the law entirely, all 613. Our baptism into Christ is what has us died to the law. So the baptism into Moses puts them under the law, all 613. Our baptism into Christ has us died to the law.

That's Romans 7, 4-6 and Galatians 2. So, something parallel, yes. Something radically contrasted, very much so. What else do you see there is in parallel? We have the 50 days, right, between the two, is also in parallel. You have the giving of the law, is number 5 there on the top chart.

And by the way, did they get the Spirit with that? This isn't, do you want fries with that? What's that? They weren't given the power to carry it out. That's right. They were not at all empowered to do it. They were just told, do it. Right? 613 laws, no empowerment, none whatsoever, just you do it. And what happens if you don't? Your expression, you get to see stones up. Yeah, you get to study stones up close. If you have no empowerment to do it, here is this huge law.

And one of the things we'll be emphasizing briefly in the main services is there is absolutely no place in the entire Bible from Moses in Exodus all the way up into the New Testament, there is no place that allows anybody to pick and choose among the laws. There is zero. We took two Sundays to go through where the Old Testament said all the laws each and every one yes Everybody was supposed to watch everybody else.

That's right Everybody's supposed to watch everybody else and and your failure to do so made you guilty right even your failure to You know, if the stones are called for, your failure to pick up the stones is breaking the law. So somebody says, I follow the Ten Commandments. Oh, I see. You stone people, you know, because that's a part of the Ten Commandments. You stone people who don't do these things.

And so, just one person reporting was all that it needed? No. One of the things we'll see in the main service, two or three witnesses were required, okay? But everybody had a responsibility. And when stoning was the conclusion, the witnesses had to throw the first stones and then everyone else is supposed to join in. So yeah, everybody's watching everybody else. That's the job.

Yeah, you're watching this guy and watching that guy. And then the other thing is making sure you get two or three witnesses. So you wouldn't just say, I saw you. That's no good, right? Because you've got to have two or three, so you'd go and call somebody else. Yeah? It's interesting because that was the Nazi policy. Yeah? It was? Yeah. Everybody watched everybody else? Everybody watched everybody, yep. Yeah, it is a kind of a totalitarian system. It really is. And I think the law has to be ominous.

We can't do this, I'm going to snip out and just do the 10 or 9 or 11 or whatever I'm going to do. We can't snip it out because then we'll not understand how huge grace is. One of the reasons the law was given is so that we'll understand the magnitude of grace. And so trimming the law down and saying, I'm going to pick this one, this one. I can remember 10, but I can't remember 613, however people think they're going to do it.

That was not at all ever intended. The Old Testament on into the New Testament says every single one. The law essentially shut the people up into sin and made them slaves of sin. It didn't make them realize that they were sinners and the only salvation would be in God's grace. Yeah, think about it. Under the law, and the consequences are so intense, under the law, you are constantly thinking about the law, thinking about what people are doing wrong. And just continuously doing that.

Why? Because if you, let's say I just, you know, I saw somebody do something, but I didn't say anything and, you know, just kind of let it go. Or other people are stoning this guy, but I didn't. Well, guess what? Yeah, you're next. So, I mean, it will drive you to go around just constantly watching other people and, you know, constantly watching yourself. And it actually says in the law, and great fear will come upon the people. Yes?

How did anybody survive? Because nobody can be perfect. Oh boy. Well, and that's why Paul called it a ministry of death and a ministry of condemnation. Okay? 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Yes, that's correct. Strong boundaries. Yes. Yeah, not every sin left us owning.

We'll see in a passage in the main service here in Deuteronomy where they would eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Poke out somebody's eye, you're going to get an eye poked out. You knocked his tooth out, you're going to get a tooth knocked out. There was a lot about moving boundary stones, and you had a pit that wasn't fenced, and the cattle fell in. Yeah, you have to have a parapet on the roof.

All sorts of restrictions, so as was mentioned, it wasn't all stony, but perhaps What you're saying about the law and following it might be some of the basis for Jesus' comment about judge not lest you be judged for the judgment you are measuring others. You're saying you should be judged the same way and to take a look at the log in my eye as opposed to the splinter in my brother's.

Here in the top one, the law is external, no empowerment. you do it. On the bottom one, the giving of the Spirit, there is no law, but Christ's character, and you are empowered. It's the opposite. Both are aimed towards righteousness, but one is a radically different mode of life than the other. In giving of the law, I'm constantly looking at myself and other people. In the giving of the Spirit, I'm constantly looking to the Lord. Constantly looking to the Lord.

And that's a radical difference between law and grace. There's also a big difference in the time. I mean, the giving of the law was during a period of time where you didn't have a lot of books, you didn't have the scripture to look at, you didn't have the internet that you could go to and research all these different happenings in the Bible and to know what the truth was. I mean, if you really look at it that way, it was a way of putting out the information so that there was no way you could make a mistake.

It's there. It's memorized, but you know what it is. Have you ever been at some kind of a lecture or something like that and you're just kind of drifting in and out of focus on it? I had differential equations one summer and it was warm after lunch And the instructor taught in a quiet monotone. He spoke in a quiet monotone while he was writing on the board and he talked to the board. And it was just awful. But you imagine this.

I don't care what temperature it is or what time of day. You're talking about getting stoned and knocking out eyes and teeth and things like that. That kind of keeps you awake. And so here Moses went, here's the law, and this law, and this next one, and this one, and you shall do this, and you shall do all the laws, every one of the laws, again and again emphatically, and this one, and this one, if you do not, and you shall have no pity. You shall not show mercy. That'll get your attention. Yeah, kind of astounding.

And yet here we turn around, to the giving of the Spirit, and we're not under the law, we're not under any single law, it's Christ's very life and righteousness to live this out. It's empowerment, not lists. Empowerment, not lists. It's life, not a ministry of death. So, while you see the parallels between the two items, life is radically different. When we're talking about, not here's the list, but here's the empowerment. And here's the motivation.

Instead of my focus under the law being on watching myself and watching other people, just boy, because if I do something wrong, it's going to be bad. Instead, my focus is on the Lord. Looking to Him. Beholding Him. So that's one reason I have this on the top of this bullet list of God the Son, Jesus Christ, is beholding the Lord Jesus Christ in Exodus. Beholding Christ. As we go through Exodus, we see Christ from beginning to end.

And you know what makes a lot of sense? Because the Father is not specifically mentioned until Deuteronomy. The Spirit is mentioned a couple times. But when we look at this, we see roughly a dozen different indications of Christ. About a dozen different indications of Christ. There's a lot to behold there. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word, thank you as we go through this, we see the law, we see great deliverance, we see that you did miracles, sometimes in events like the crossing of the sea, sometimes in a constant process, the sandals and the clothes never wearing out, and the manna given. And yet, through that, we see Christ and it gives us all the more a sense of the need for grace. Not just a little bit of grace, but great grace. And we thank you for that amazing grace. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.