Exodus 1-6 Calling And Commissioning Of Moses Series

Exodus 1-6

Calling and Commissioning of Moses

Manuscript

A number of years ago, actually, 10 years ago, Marcela and I were on our honeymoon. We were backpacking around the Middle East and on one leg we caught a ship from Israel to the island of Rhodes in Greece. We thought it would be a Greek cruise, after all it was a Greek ship, and it was a cruise – sort of, but the cost of the ticket should have told us it wasn’t really what most people think of as Greek cruise! Anyway – at least the ship was Greek, and it had signs in Greek on it. One sign was like this: ΕΞΟΔΟΣ - by the way – that’s the Greek letters for “Exodos.” There were these signs around the ship saying “Exodus”! Wow – that’s pretty exciting, a Biblical ship! I wondered where the signs for Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers and so on were… and then I realised why there were signs for “Exodus.” They actually weren’t being biblical, because “Exodus” is just the Greek word for “Exit”! They were the exit signs - the exodus signs. Today we start our series on the book of Exodus. And that’s all “Exodus” means – “exit.” Exodus is the story of the exit of the people from Egypt. Not just from the country of Egypt, but their exit from slavery, from oppression, from poverty, in order to become the God’s people. It’s a story about a group of people who lived a long way from us on the other side of the world, and who lived a long time ago – about 3500 years ago.

Now - what does a story about a group of people who lived 3500 years go on the other side of the world have to do with me? Well ,it has a lot to do with you, as we shall see. Exodus is the continuation of the history that we looked at in Genesis last year. Exodus is the history of God’s redemption of a group of people from slavery, who He not only rescued from slavery, but made them His special people. He gave them His laws, His way to live and showed them His character – which we’ll see as we go through Exodus. The history of the redemption of Israel from Egypt was a forerunner, or type, of our redemption in Christ. The people of Israel who He redeemed were the ancestors of Jesus Christ our Saviour, who redeemed us from slavery to sin. And the Law that God gave Israel formed the basis of the ethics that Jesus gave us, which we’ve been recently looking at in the Sermon on the Mount. Exodus is important – and very relevant.

Today we are going to look at the first 6 chapters of Exodus which deal with the birth, calling and preparation of Moses - the man God sovereignly chose to lead his people out of slavery. But before we look at Moses, let’s recap where we’ve been in Genesis and how this leads into Exodus. Remember Genesis begins with God creating the world. God made people to live in perfect fellowship with Him. God made people with everything they needed, and without sorrow, pain or suffering. When God made people, death was not on the agenda. But then – remember what happened? Our forebears Adam and Eve believed the devil instead of God, and obeyed the devil instead of God, and in so doing, sin and death entered the human race. Adam and Eve’s kids weren’t any better. One of their sons killed the other, and the human race just spiralled out of control into a spiral dive of sin. It got so bad that God sent the judgement of Noah’s Flood and then at the Tower of Babel. And even after these fresh starts it didn’t take long for the human race to once more enter the spiral dive of sin. And then, God called a man, a man named Abraham. He gave him a promise – not just for him, but for his descendents – and for all humanity:

Gen 12 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

All the families would be blessed, not just the physical descendents of Abraham by birth as we read in Galatians 3:7-9:

Gal 37 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.