The Gospel According To Moses

Introduction

1. Well, there’s a new pirate movie out...

I’m sure most of you have heard about it...

Pirates of the Caribbean 3...

It has become a record breaking movie...

So far, as of Tuesday, after only 5 days...

it had made $160,831,171.

With all this interest in all things pirate...

I came across a pirate joke and I thought I would share it with you...

A pirate had a wooden leg, a hook on one arm, and a patch over one eye.

Someone asked him how these things happened.

He said that a whale bit off his leg,...

a crocodile had chewed off his hand,...

and a bird dropping hit him in the eye.

The other guy replied that he understood about the wooden leg having had his original bite off by a whale,...

and the hook was there to replace the hand the crocodile had chewed off,...

but a patch over the eye just because of a bird dropping ...

that he didn’t understand.

The pirate said...

“Aye...when the bird dropping hit me in the eye, that was me first day with the hook.”

2. Gospel means “Good News”...

The word “gospel” is only found in the New Testament...

and it is always a reference to the Good News about Jesus Christ...

We have the 4 Gospels in the New Testament...

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...

They are called “the Gospels” because they tell the story about Jesus...

3. This morning, I want us to share a passage of Scripture from the Old Testament...

This passage of Scripture contains some “Good News” for the Children of Israel...

But it also is a foreshadow of the Good News we have in Jesus...

With that in mind, I want us to explore “The Gospel According to Moses”1...

Read Text: Exodus 6:1-8

I call this the Gospel According to Moses because Moses is the writer...

Much like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the Gospel writers in the New Testament...

Only, instead of the freedom from sin found in Jesus Christ...

Moses is telling the story about freedom from Egyptian bondage...

In this passage of Scripture, we have 7 “I wills” of God...

7 times, God says, “I will”...

1. First, God says, “I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.”

A. The Children of Israel were under Egyptian bondage for a long time...

They were a displaced people...

for over 400 years (Exodus 12:40)

They were under bondage for so long...

that was all they knew...

that was their life...

And yet, now God tells Moses that they will be freed!

That certainly would be welcome news...

Good News...

And, coming from God Himself...you can take that as Gospel!

B. Compare that to Jesus Christ...

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says,

“Come to me,

all you who are weary and burdened,

and I will give you rest.

Many people today are under bondage...

they are under a yoke...

perhaps the yoke isn’t slavery...

But it another kind of bondage...

2. The 2nd “I will” of God...I will free you from being slaves to them,

A. The Egyptians became harsh taskmasters...

the work load upon the Hebrews had increased...

Exodus 5:14 says,

“The Israelite foremen appointed by Pharaoh’s slave drivers

were beaten and were asked,

"Why didn’t you meet your quota of bricks...?"

The Egyptian leaders were demanding the impossible...

and then beating the Israelites when they couldn’t deliver...

The Israelites complained to Moses...

and Moses went to God...

And that’s when we come to this beautiful passage of Scripture...

The Gospel of Moses...

B. Sin can be a harsh taskmaster as well...

living a life of sin takes its toll...

sometimes it is obvious to the eye...

you can look at someone and see that they have really been “through the mill”...

And the Good News in all this is, again, found in Jesus Christ...

Colossians 1:13-14 says,

God “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness

and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

3. The 3rd “I will” of God says...I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

A. All three of these “I wills” speak of redemption and deliverance...

“I will bring you out from under the yoke”...

“I will free you...”

and “I will redeem you”...

B. In the time of Jesus...

Zechariah sang a song about Jesus...

and in that song, he sings

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because he has come and has redeemed his people.

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David

Luke 1:68-69

C. God redeemed the Hebrew Children with great miracles...

and great judgments upon the Egyptians...