Exodus begins with chains. The gospel begins with love.
But in both stories, God moves through history with one purpose — to bring His people out of slavery and into His presence.
Every miracle in the Old Covenant was a rehearsal for the grace of the New.
Every shadow in Moses’ story finds its light in Jesus Christ.
Let’s walk that road — from Egypt to Emmanuel, from bondage to indwelling, and watch the God of the Exodus become the God-with-us.
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1. Bondage and the Cry
Israel’s story begins not with faith but with groaning. The people labored under Pharaoh’s whip. Their cries rose through the smoke of brick kilns, and Scripture says, “God heard their groaning.”
Every deliverance begins there — with the cry no one else hears.
Before there was a Moses, there was a God who remembered His covenant.
In Egypt’s furnace, God was already forming His purpose:
> “I have seen, I have heard, I have known, and I am come down to deliver.”
That is the heartbeat of grace. We cry out from bondage; God comes down to redeem.
Centuries later another people, bound by sin and shame, cried for deliverance. And again God came down — not in thunder but in flesh.
Just as He once sent Moses to confront Pharaoh, He sent Jesus to confront the greater Pharaoh — Satan himself.
Both were born under death decrees. Both escaped murderous kings. Both grew up in obscurity until the appointed time.
Both heard God say, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him: Let My people go.”
But Jesus’ mission reached deeper — not to liberate a nation but to rescue the whole human race.
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2. The Blood and the Door
The night before deliverance, God gave Israel a strange command:
“Take a lamb without blemish… kill it… and put its blood on the doorposts.”
When the angel of death passed through, the blood would mark those covered by faith.
That night the chains of Egypt began to loosen.
The Passover lamb became the heart of Israel’s story — a yearly reminder that redemption comes through substitution.
And centuries later, on another Passover night, John the Baptist looked up and saw Jesus walking toward him and cried,
> “Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.”
At that moment, every drop of blood in Egypt found its fulfillment.
The lambs of Exodus pointed to the Lamb of Calvary.
When Jesus hung on the cross, the doorposts of the world were painted red.
Death still walks every street, but when it sees the blood, it must pass over.
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3. The Sea and the Separation
After the blood came the journey. Israel stood at the edge of the Red Sea — Pharaoh behind them, water before them.
It was the perfect trap.
But God delights in dead ends.
With a blast of His nostrils, the sea split open. Israel walked through on dry ground; Pharaoh’s armies drowned in the same path that saved God’s people.
Paul would later write,
> “They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”
The crossing was more than escape; it was baptism — the line between old life and new.
When Jesus stepped into the Jordan River centuries later, the same symbol unfolded again.
As He rose from the water, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and the Father spoke.
Egypt is always behind us. Jordan is always before us.
And every baptism is our Red Sea — where the old master loses his claim and the new covenant begins.
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4. The Wilderness and the Bread
Freedom doesn’t mean comfort. The wilderness proves that.
Israel rejoiced at the Red Sea but murmured at the first dry mouth.
God answered with bread from heaven — manna, white as frost, tasting like honey.
Each morning it fell fresh; each day it was enough.
But Jesus said something stunning centuries later:
> “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; My Father gives you the true bread… I am the Bread of Life.”
He was telling them: I am your manna.
You hunger for more than food; you hunger for Me.
In the wilderness, they gathered flakes of bread.
In the upper room, we gather broken pieces of His body.
The manna sustained their journey; the Eucharist sustains our souls.
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5. The Rock and the Water
When the people thirsted, God told Moses, “Strike the rock.”
He lifted his rod, struck, and water gushed out — life from stone.
Paul later wrote, “That Rock was Christ.”
The first time, Moses was told to strike it.
The second time, he was told to speak to it — but in anger, he struck it again.
For that act, he lost the right to enter the Promised Land.
Why so severe? Because the pattern mattered.
Christ would be struck once for our sins. Never again.
From then on, we need only speak to the Rock — call on His name — and living water flows.
When soldiers pierced His side, blood and water flowed together.
The Rock was struck, and grace poured out forever.
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6. The Mountain and the Law
Three months after leaving Egypt, Israel camped at Sinai.
Thunder rolled. The mountain smoked.
God descended in fire, and the people trembled.
He gave them tablets of stone — the Law — written by His own hand.
The covenant was sealed in blood as Moses sprinkled the people and read, “This is the blood of the covenant.”
Centuries later, in an upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus lifted a cup and said,
> “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”
Do you see it?
Moses sprinkled blood on stone and people; Jesus sprinkled His own blood on hearts of flesh.
Sinai’s thunder becomes Calvary’s mercy.
At Sinai the people stood afar off; at Calvary the veil was torn, and we are invited near.
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7. The Glory and the Veil
When Moses came down from the mountain, his face shone with reflected glory.
The people were afraid, so he covered his face with a veil.
But Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, that glory was fading.
When Jesus stood on the Mount of Transfiguration, His face shone like the sun — but this time, no veil was needed.
The glory was not borrowed light; it was His own.
A bright cloud descended — the same cloud that once covered Sinai — and the voice of the Father said,
> “This is My beloved Son; hear Him.”
The old command was “Obey the Law.”
The new command is “Listen to the Son.”
Grace doesn’t abolish obedience; it transforms it.
We obey now not out of fear but out of love.
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8. The Tabernacle and the Indwelling
In Exodus 40, when the tabernacle was finished, the cloud filled it with glory.
No one could enter — not even Moses — because the presence was overwhelming.
But that glory did not stay trapped in curtains.
John opens his gospel with,
> “The Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us.”
Jesus became the living sanctuary of God’s presence.
And when He ascended, the glory didn’t depart; it descended again — at Pentecost — as fire resting on every believer.
Sinai’s fire frightened them. Pentecost’s fire filled them.
The same presence that once dwelt in a tent now burns in human hearts.
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9. The Wilderness and the War
Between Sinai and Canaan, Israel battled Amalek.
Moses lifted his hands on a hill; as long as his arms were raised, Israel prevailed.
When his hands fell, they faltered.
So Aaron and Hur held up his arms until the victory was complete.
Centuries later, another Man stood on a hill — arms outstretched — and the final enemy fell.
Moses sat on a stone; Christ hung on a cross.
As long as His arms remained extended, salvation prevailed.
Every lifted hand since then is just an echo of that hill.
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10. The Joshua Connection
Moses led them to the edge of promise but could not take them in.
Only Joshua could.
In Hebrew, his name is Yehoshua — the same name we translate Jesus.
By divine design, it had to be Jesus who brings us into rest.
The Law can show the way; only Grace can carry us across.
What Moses began, Joshua completed.
What the Law demanded, Christ fulfilled.
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11. The City and the Spirit
Hebrews 12 says, “You have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Not you will come — you have come.
Right now, we live in the wilderness between two worlds — the already and the not yet.
But our citizenship is in heaven.
Our worship joins angels around the throne.
Our souls are already tasting Canaan.
The Spirit within us is the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day.
He guides, protects, and fills the camp with glory.
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12. The Presence and the Promise
The story that began with chains ends with communion.
From a burning bush to an empty tomb, from Sinai’s thunder to the still small voice of the Spirit — it’s one continuous revelation:
God is not content to dwell near us; He came to dwell in us.
The Exodus was never just about escape.
It was always about presence.
He brings us out so He can bring us in.
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APPEAL
Maybe you’ve left Egypt but you’re still wandering in the wilderness.
Still haunted by Pharaoh’s threats, still living on yesterday’s manna.
The good news tonight is that Jesus didn’t just die to get you out — He lives to get you in.
In this moment, the same cloud that covered Sinai now hovers here — not to condemn, but to invite.
The same fire that fell on the tabernacle wants to fill your heart.
He whispers your name: “I have brought you out to bring you in.”
Let Him.
Let the Rock you once struck now speak peace over you.
Let the blood on your doorpost remind you: You belong to the Lamb.
Let the wilderness be the place where you finally trust the Bread of Heaven.
And when you do, you’ll discover what Israel could only glimpse —
that the glory of God is not behind a veil or above a mountain,
but alive in the heart that says, “Lord Jesus, dwell here.”
