Overview: Israel in the Exodus

I. Exodus

Let’s start with the title of the book: Exodus

Most people don’t know that there’s an actual exodus pattern that shows up over and over again in the bible.

First, let me define the word Exodus.

James B. Jordan says that “Exodus is a movement brought by God from an old place to a new place. From a worse place to a better place.”

In broad strokes, the pattern has three phases:

Old state - Egypt (slavery, sin, stuck)
Middle state - Wilderness (waiting on the Lord, struggling, enduring)
New state - Promise Land (resolution, strengthened, confirmed, established)

We see two Exoduses in Adam’s story.

Adam 1:
Old state: Adam’s creation
Middle state: Adam watches God create the garden
New state: Adam is moved into the garden

Adam 2:
In Genesis 2, God looks at Adam and says, it is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper for him. And he caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. And when he awoke, Adam was in a new place (or a new state).

Noah:
Noah moves from an old world to a new world. And probably the most famous thing about Noah is his ark. The ark is his middle state.

Abram:
From there we could talk about Abram. Leave your father’s household and go to the place I will show you. And as we know, Abram moved out of the land, along with a substantial amount of wealth, and entered an in-between state. There was a famine in the land.

This in between state is almost always testing and trust oriented. It often looks like death (or flirts with death). There’s usually an opportunity to get into trouble, to doubt God, succumb to some kind of temptation, etc…

Now Abraham goes through multiple exodus. And we begin to see another them in the exodus pattern. Deception and plunder.

Abraham went into Egypt, the Pharaoh attempted to conscript Sari into his harem. There’s some deception going on in this story. Abram tells Pharaoh Sari is his sister. Pharaoh gives him a whole bunch of livestock. But Pharaoh is in the wrong, he’s holding someone that isn’t his to hold. Plagues befall Pharoah’s household. Pharaoh sends Abram and Sari out of the land.

Same thing happens in chapter 20 with Abimelech - another king. Takes Sari into his harem. God visits him in a dream tells him he’s dead if he doesn’t return her to Abram. Abimelech gives Abram a bunch of livestock and servants and sends him off.

By the time we get to Jacob, the pattern is very developed.

Jacob goes through multiple Exodus. He uses deception to plunder Esau’s blessing and birthright. He moves out of the inferior state into the superior state.

He then goes to Laban’s household. And becomes a slave. Jacob is a prefiguring of the nation of Israel. Laban is a prefiguring of Pharoah. Laban deals treacherously with him. He keeps renegotiating their deal — why? Because Jacob gets winning. He is more and more fruitful (And there’s some deception going back and forth). All of this comes to a head when God tells Jacob to take all of his wealth and his wives and flee the land of Laban. Rachel plunder’s Laban’s idol. Laban pursues him. God meets with Laban and tells him, “let my people go.” Laban listens. Jacob flees into the wilderness.

So that’s the Exodus pattern. God moves a person from a bad place to a better place — and there’s always some time spent in a middle place. Sometimes there’s deception involved in leaving the bad place. There is almost always plunder of some kind.

Now here’s why I think its important for you to know about this. That pattern is core to our Christian experience. God moves us from one place to another place with some middle place playing a key role.

As we know, the Exodus is a picture of salvation. The movement out of slavery to sin and into Christian freedom. Ultimately into the New Heavens and the New Earth — the promise land of promise land. And what happens in-between? Sanctification. Testing. Purification. Battles.

We live in the Exodus pattern. Not only in a broad sense but also in countless micro-narratives. God puts his finger on something in your life he wants to change. You have to put off the old way and put on the new way. There’s a middle place, some kind of wilderness, hardship, and usually and opportunity to cheat your way out of the wilderness (which is always a trap). But, if we endure, we wind up on the other side. And not only do we wind up in a better place, we’re richer in wisdom. We take lessons we learned as a kind of plunder.

A lot of times, the plunder is turned into worship. When Adam awoke from his deep sleep, he had a new wife. That was his plunder. He immediately worships the Lord for this gift.

Noah emerges from the ark with the animals (plunder), he sacrifices some of them.
When Israel flees Egypt with a bunch of their gold, they use some of that gold to make the instruments used in the tabernacle.

You're going to go through many Exodus in your life. Some of them you’ll ask God for, some of them will happen without your permission.

Some of them will be rather dramatic. Some will happen almost without your noticing.

You’ll start off as an angry person, or a lustful person, or an addicted person, or a controlling person, or a lonely person. You’ll start to see this isn't sustainable. You can't go on like this forever. You start crying out to the Lord like the Jews cried out to the Lord in Egypt. And in a variety of ways, you’ll move into an in-between place. A place where you learn a new way of thinking, feeling, or acting. This is the hardest spot. This is the wilderness. And eventually, once you’ve learned what you're supposed to learn from the wilderness, God strengthens, confirms, and establishes you. You’re in the new place now. But you’ll probably have some lessons from that old place that you take with you. And you'll worship the Lord with that plunder.

So that’s a little bit about the title of this book. That’s the Exodus pattern.

II. Sons of Israel

Now let's move on to the first verse.

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: — Ex 1:1

I want us to focus on this phrase, “sons of Israel.” It is used 169 times in the book of Exodus.

John Calvin begins his institutes by writing, “Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves”

If you want to know who you are, you have to know about this name Israel. Do you know where that name came from and what it means?

Remember old Jacob fleeing from Laban? He's in the wilderness. He’s anxious about having to face Esau. Who, as far as Jacob knows, wants to kill him. So he’s all alone in the wilderness and he cries out to God for deliverance.

And how does God answer his prayer? Genesis 32:24-28

And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

So the name Israel means “wrestles with God.” Isra comes from the Hebrew word for strive, contend, wrestle. El means God.

Who are you? You are one who wrestles with God.

To some extent, the whole Exodus pattern is one big wrestling match. But especially the middle portion — the wilderness. The in-between place.

Think of the Joseph story. He starts off with a promise from God that comes in the form of two dreams. Both dreams mean the same thing. Joseph will be the head of his household. Everyone in the household will eventually serve and obey him.

But the bulk of the story is Joseph bouncing around in the in-between state. This is where Joseph does his wrestling with God. As a slave, in Potiphar’s house, in the prison. Only at the very end of the story do we see the promise come true.

The middle state is where you learn to trust God. And where you become qualified to enter into the promise God gave you. That’s the wrestling time.

That’s the time where you begin to doubt the whole plan.
That’s the time where you can be tempted to accuse God.
That's the time where you begin to wonder if the old place wasn’t so bad after all.

Most of the Exodus story takes place in the wilderness. By the end of chapter 12, they're out of Egypt. For the remaining 28 chapters, they’re in the wilderness wrestling with God just like their father Jacob did.

But unlike Jacob, who endured through the struggle, the people kept wanting to give up.

In chapter 14, Pharaoh pursues them to the Red Sea. They appear stuck.

They say, “Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (14:12)

In chapter 15 they arrive at a place with bitter undrinkable water.

“And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” (15:24)

In chapter 16 they have no food.

“And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (16:2-3)

In chapter 17 they have no water.

“Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (17:2-3)

Each time they were ready to give up. When they should’ve done what Jacob did, saying, “I will not let go of you until you bless me.”

Turn with me to Hebrews 10:32-39

Here the writer of Hebrews is trying to keep these new Christians on track. He wants them to keep hold of God and not let go, not shrink back to their former state.

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened… (leaving the old place)

, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. (Wilderness)

They held on to God.

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

And the writer of Hebrews is trying to encourage them to keep doing so…

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Throughout the Bible we see the distinction between false Israel and true Israel. False Israel lets go of God in the wilderness. True Israel endures and says, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

What’s going on in your life? See any Exodus patterns there?

Addiction to get rid of?
Desire to marry or build a family?
Struggling with your health?
Working hard and still struggling financially?
Raising a child with special needs?

You could give up. You could grumble. Or, you could grab hold of God and say, “I won't let go until you bless me.”

You have need of endurance.

Moses and Our Better Mediator

Now in the Exodus story, the people of God would’ve gotten nowhere without Moses serving as their mediator and intercessor.

It was always Moses who pleaded with the Lord on behalf of the people. He fought against Pharaoh to secure the people's freedom. He interceded with them when they were backed up against the red sea, when they came to the place of bitter waters, when they ran out of food.

Moses’ mediatorial role is best pictured in Israel’s first battle. There they encountered Amalek, kind of the Amalekites. Exodus 17 tells the story

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. -- Ex 17:8-13

Christ is now our better mediator and intercessor. And unlike Moses, he never grows weary in interceding for us.

Hebrews 7:25 says, “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Moses was a good mediator. But he could do nothing about the people’s hearts. He couldn’t deliver them from their spiritual amnesia. They kept getting delivered and they kept forgetting that God had been faithful to them. He couldn't give them faith.

But the lord Jesus has free access to your heart. He can teach you how to wrestle. He can teach how to hang on to God.

After all, Jesus underwent the ultimate Exodus. The cross being the ultimate kind of middle-place. Suspended between heaven and earth. There he refused to let go of God. He endured the cross, forsaking its shame for the joy set before him.

He bound the strong man and plundered his house.

And we are his prize. We who were once in the domain of darkness have been brought into the kingdom of light. We who were once enemies have become true sons of Israel.

And it is through Christ that we enter the promised land.

So whatever you’re going through now. Or will go through in the future. Understand this.

You have need of endurance. And Christ will give you strength.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. — James 1:12

To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. — Romans 2:7

I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. — Revelation 3:11

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, — Hebrews 12:1

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. -- Galatians 6:9

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. -- 1 Peter 5:6-10

Don’t grumble. Don’t give up. Grab hold of God.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.