When I was a child I was fascinated by the film, ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, the story of one man’s bid for freedom from the famous island prison. More recently was the ‘Shawshank Redemption’, a film that is well worth watching. Perhaps the most loved film in this genre is ‘The Great Escape’, staring Steve McQueen, and based on a 1943 breakout from a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.
In each of these films the escape depends on the ingenuity of the escapees and a certain amount of luck. The escape that we are looking at in this chapter is entirely different, it doesn’t depend on the escapees or on luck—God orchestrates the whole thing! As for the size of this escape, this is not about the freedom of just one individual or a small group but of a whole nation.
Introduction: (chapters 1-2)
In the last sermon we looked at the promise/covenant that God made with Abraham. There we claimed that this promise forms the backbone of the whole of the Old Testament. But as we read the opening chapters of Exodus we might think that God has forgotten this promise. Abraham’s descendants have not become a great nation (although they are multiplying in number) and they have not yet taken possession of the promised land, indeed they are not even in the promised land. As their stay in Egypt turned into slavery it must have seemed that fulfilment of God’s promises is becoming less and less likely.
Yet, as we noted in the last chapter, the circumstances that stand in opposition to God’s promises merely serve to underline that their fulfilment can only be achieved by the supernatural power of God. In the Exodus we will see the LORD free his helpless people with ‘an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgement’ (6:6).
The situation for the slaves goes from bad to worse when the Pharaoh orders the killing of all the Hebrew baby boys that are born. It is against this background that we read of someone who will have a special place in this story. Through the ministry of Moses God will redeem his people. In this sense the role he plays reveals and foreshadows the nature and work of Christ. When we read of how Moses was placed among the reeds, found by Pharaoh’s daughter, given to his mother to nurse, and later adopted by the princess we are witnessing the ‘overruling of the powers opposed to his kingdom so that they cannot hurt the one chosen to mediate God’s plan of salvation’.
Moses is given a Hebrew and an Egyptian upbringing in preparation for his ministry. The next stage of his preparation will be in Midian, where he takes refuge after killing an Egyptian. However the end of chapter 2 brings us back to Egypt. Verse 23-25:
During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
Of course this does not mean that God ever forgot the covenant, ‘but rather that he is about to act on the basis of these promises.’ What we are about to witness in the book of Exodus is God’s covenant in action.
‘I AM WHO I AM’: (chapters 3-6)
God begins the rescue operation by appearing to Moses in a burning bush at Horeb (another name for Sinai). He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (verse 6)—who in grace made his covenant with them. He is about to act upon that covenant by freeing his people from Egypt.
He commissions Moses: ‘So now, go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt’ (verse 10).
But what if the Israelites do not believe Moses when he returns to Egypt and claims to be God’s chosen for this task? God reassures him on two grounds. Firstly, Moses ‘will identify the God who has spoken to him as ‘I AM’ and as the God of their fathers (3:14-16). Secondly, Moses is given some miraculous signs which he will be able to repeat to persuade the Israelites of his mission (4:1-9)’.
Let’s think about this divine name for a moment. ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent you” (verse 14). While this affirms his existence, much more it means his active presence. But with what sort of action does God affirm his active presence? Verses 16-20—he is the God, who delivers his people, who keeps his promises and who overthrows his enemies.
The third person singular of ‘I AM’ is ‘he is’. God says of himself ‘I AM’ his people say ‘he is’. The Hebrew translated LORD in verse 15 is YHWH (the Hebrew has no vowels—translated Jehovah in some older translations, but better pronounced Yahweh) which means ‘he is’. Whenever you read ‘the LORD’ spelt with small capital letters here and elsewhere in the Old Testament it is a translation of the divine name. Yahweh, the God who makes and keeps his promises.
Moses returns to Egypt and convinces his brother Aaron and all the people of his God given task. But when he goes to Pharaoh and issues God’s command, Pharaoh responds by imposing even harsher condition on the captive people, who are in turn annoyed with Moses.
Then God gives Moses one of the great covenant statements of the Bible. In it he says, “. . . say to the Israelites: I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you . . . I will redeem you . . . I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God . . . (6:6-7). As they experience release from slavery they will know God in a new way as the God who keeps his covenant.
God’s name is more than just a title it expresses his character, his character which is revealed in his acts to redeem his people. ‘If we want to know who he is, we must watch him act in history on behalf of his people.’
Salvation by substitute: (chapter 7-12)
When Moses had appeared before Pharaoh in chapter 5 and delivered God’s command to set his people free, Pharaoh replied with contempt: ‘Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go?’ (5:2). He is about to find out!
In chapters 7-11 God sends ten terrible plagues against Egypt. Each plague demonstrates the mighty power of the LORD, and the powerlessness of the so-called gods of Egypt. Each time Pharaoh stubbornly refuses to let the Israelites go until the last plague which breaks his resistance. On that dreadful night, God passes through the land in judgement, and every first-born Egyptian son is killed. That night is the Passover.
While the night of the Passover was a night of sorrow for the Egyptians it was a night of salvation for the Israelites. In his grace God had provided them with a way of escape. Each family was to kill a lamb and put its blood on the door-frame of their house. Moses explains in verse 23, ‘When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the door-frame and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.’
We see an important principle here—God saves by substitution, an innocent lamb dying in their place. In this, ‘we are being prepared for a greater act of deliverance, of which the Passover is just a shadow.’
That greater act of deliverance is achieved by Jesus on the cross. He is called ‘the Lamb of God’ (John 1:29), his death takes place at Passover time (Matthew 16:19; John 19:31), Paul explicitly declares, in 1 Corinthians 5:7, ‘Christ, our Passover lamb, has been crucified.’ And so we too can be rescued from God’s judgement by the death of a Passover lamb.
Salvation by conquest: (chapters 13-15)
There is one great drama left before the Israelites are free of the Egyptians. God’s power is again going to be demonstrated at the Red Sea (14:3-4).
The natural way out of Egypt would be along the well trodden road through the Philistine countryside (13:17). However God does not lead the Israelites that way, but rather through the wilderness to the shores of the sea, where they set up camp (14:2).
Back in his palace Pharaoh has a change of mind: ‘What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” (14:5), so he sends his army to pursue them and they soon catch up.
Now the situation looks hopeless, they have been led up an apparent blind alley, hemmed in by the desert, blocked by the sea, and now trapped by the mighty Egyptian army.
As Pharaoh approached, and as the Israelites saw the Egyptians marching after them, they were terrified. They cry out to the LORD, and say to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out to the desert to die?’ (14:11-12).
Moses answers their complaints, verse 13-14, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today . . . The LORD will fight for you; you need only be still.’
And so it happens. The waters are driven back, the Israelites go through the sea on dry ground, but when the Egyptians pursue them they are drowned (14:21-28).
Once again this act of salvation foreshadows what God has achieved through the death of Jesus. Before we came to faith we were enslaved to the powers of sin and the devil, but God defeated them through the cross and has set us free. Paul writes in Colossians 2:15, ‘. . . Having disarmed the powers and authorities [evil spiritual forces], he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross’.
Conclusion
At the beginning of the book of Exodus it might appear that God’s covenant promises to Abraham have amounted to nothing. However it is on the basis of these promises that God brings his people out of Egypt (2:23-25; 6:1-6). In doing this he reveals his character as being one who is absolutely faithful to his covenant commitment. He is the LORD, the covenant keeping God.
Rather than going straight to the promised land, the LORD bring them to Sinai (where he had appeared to Moses in the burning bush). There he declares, ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself’ (Exodus 19:4). He has acted upon the ‘people’ part of his promise. In the exodus God begins to fulfil his promise by forming Israel into a ‘unified, distinct nation which is on its way to the promised land’.
What about us, how does this relate to us? Firstly it tells us something about the LORD. The first question that we should ask when we come to the Scriptures is ‘what does this show us about God?’ It tells us that he is faithful—he is faithful to his covenant and does as he said he would (see Genesis 15:13-14). Secondly it shows something of his salvation. The LORD, the covenant-keeping God invites us to be a part of his covenant people. He is willing to rescue helpless people like us who are unable to rescue ourselves. The Passover Lamb, Jesus has been slain that we might escape his judgement. On the cross disarmed the powers and authorities that we might know his freedom.
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