"The Sovereigh God Saves His People for His Glory" Exodus

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: As always, it's a joy to be with you today.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you would, please turn with me to Exodus chapter 1.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: Exodus chapter 1.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be beginning a new series through the book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you can think back to 18 months ago, if you were here, we finished the book of Genesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: We did a study for 18 months through the book of Genesis, then we did 18 months through John and now we're back at Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you remember, back to Genesis, how it ended, it ended with a favorite story, a favorite narrative about Joseph and his brothers.

[SPEAKER_01]: You think back on that, Joseph was the son of Jacob, one of the patriarchs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jacob, unfortunately, did not make it a secret at all that Joseph was his favorite

[SPEAKER_01]: the son of his favorite wife, another problem there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for these reasons, his older, 10 brothers hated Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not only that, but Joseph then started having these dreams, where Joseph was being elevated in the dream above his 10 older brothers.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this baby brother keeps running up and saying, guess what, I had another dream.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had another one.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you all about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am being elevated in this dream, above you and even to a degree above my father, in all of the family.

[SPEAKER_01]: For this reason, his ten older brothers hated him.

[SPEAKER_01]: To the point that many of them had murderous hate in their heart, it reminds us of Cain and Abel all the way back in the beginning.

[SPEAKER_01]: But instead of murdering their brothers, which some of them contemplated, they sold him as a slave to Median nitrators who then took him down to Egypt and sold him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Joseph is now as gone from a princelying in the family to now being a slave in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we saw Joseph's story, even when there was hope of something good happening in Joseph's life as a slave, the Lord was clearly with them, and he was clearly a man of integrity and faithfulness and wisdom, though there might have been hints at something good happening for him, his misfortunes continue, so he was then a prisoner in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he is now a imprisoned slave in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't give much worse than this, but

[SPEAKER_01]: One day, Pharaoh has these dreams that are very troubling and he is told that there is a man at a Hebrew slave in prison who is able to tell dreams or interpret dreams.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Pharaoh calls for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: and when Pharaoh hears the interpretation of Joseph and he sees the integrity in his eyes and he hears the truth in his voice and he senses that this interpretation is true that God is warning of a coming famine.

[SPEAKER_01]: There will be seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.

[SPEAKER_01]: when Pharaoh sees the truth and the wisdom of this and that Joseph is speaking the truth and that the gods, the spirit of God is what Pharaoh thinks is in Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: To some degree, Pharaoh believes that the gods have spoken to Joseph and he believes that he appoints Joseph as governor over all of each of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: There would only be one person greater than Joseph and each of them that's Pharaoh himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: So seven years of plenty, Joseph puts away into store houses, the food of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then when the seven years of famine hit the land, his brothers hear that there's food in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this sets the stage for the grand finale of Genesis, his brothers

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a rain dropping down behind me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's ignore that.

[SPEAKER_01]: His brothers come down to Egypt and they stand before the stern Egyptian governor.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't realize his Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: And through this grand finale, his brothers, the people of Israel, the 10 older brothers, which they've now brought their youngest brother, the 12th Benjamin with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They experience in front of this governor, fear, guilt,

[SPEAKER_01]: But then hope, repentance, forgiveness, restoration, and ultimately salvation from starvation is how historians and the family of Israel is brought down to Egypt and Joseph provides for them in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is their savior in a human sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Genesis ends.

[SPEAKER_01]: But just before Genesis ends,

[SPEAKER_01]: We're giving a taste of a going out of Egypt that's about to happen in years to come.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Genesis 46, verse 3, for instance, God says to Jacob, I am God, the God of your Father.

Genesis 46:3

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: For there I will make you into a great nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: I myself will go down with you to Egypt and I will also bring you up again.

[SPEAKER_01]: and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob's going to die in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: But God, in a greater sense of saying, but I will bring you, I will bring your offspring up out of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then in Genesis 50, 24, Joseph says to his brothers, at his death bed, he says, I'm about to die, but God will visit you.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's speaking to the male heirs of the people of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying, God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he

[SPEAKER_01]: Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear saying, God will surely visit you, and when he does, you will carry up my bones from here.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is how sure Joseph was that Israel would leave Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that wouldn't, they do, please, take me with you, though.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'd just be my bones, take me with you, back to Cain and back to the Promised Land.

[SPEAKER_01]: This going out is what Exodus records.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we are going to be studying together.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to record this epic going out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it is far more epic and glorious than Jacob or Joseph could have imagined because in Exodus, God determined to reveal to the world his power to save.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're going to be looking at.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Exodus, God determines

[SPEAKER_01]: to reveal to the world his power to save.

[SPEAKER_01]: This theme is so clearly emphasized in Exodus that it is rightly named the message of the book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And up on the screen, this is my suggestion for how we can remember the message of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Exodus, the sovereign God saves his people for his glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be put on display over and over and over again throughout this book.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sovereign God saves his people for his glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this morning,

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not even going to jump into chapter one, verse one, as usual.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to spin the rest of our time here together looking at the message of Exodus, so that we don't miss it as we go into the weeds, into the individual narratives, into the individual characteristics of God, they're being displayed, his power, his might, his faithfulness.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we look at these things and months to come, I want us to keep this in mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: The message of Exodus is that the sovereign God saves his people for his glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the Lord and prayers we study as for.

[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, thank you for the Book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is a joy, Lord, to study your Word, and to see your glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: I pray, Lord, that you will be with each one of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are many here today who did not feel well enough to come, but are still here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there are many who are not here today because they are ill and in bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there are others, Lord, who are so discouraged or torn down by life that they are not here as well for that reason because of the way that they feel in their hearts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, Lord, I pray that your promise would be fulfilled, that as we come to the fountain of your word and ask you and plead with you to fill us with the joy of seeing the glory

[SPEAKER_01]: that you will keep your promise to us, and that you will fill us with joy and wonder as we see and experience our God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you do this by the power of your word, wielded by the Spirit in Jesus' name?

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: So first, we're gonna look at the sovereign God in the message of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's three parts.

[SPEAKER_01]: The first is the sovereign God.

[SPEAKER_01]: The word sovereign typically means absolute authority in a specific fear, that's a general definition for the word sovereign or sovereignty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolute authority in a specific sphere.

[SPEAKER_01]: Humans have been appointed as sovereigns over kingdoms or empires.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we've also seen that evil spirits have been worshiped as God to have sovereign power over land, sky, sea, peoples, even the spiritual realm.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have humans who are given a form of sovereignty.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we have supernatural sovereigns that men around the world, men and women, nations, families, entire communities, worship, evil spirits who have been considered sovereigns of a spiritual realm.

[SPEAKER_01]: These spiritual sovereigns controlled the sun, moon, stars, rivers, the rivers flow, the rain,

[SPEAKER_01]: fertility crops and even the afterlife, and we see both of these happening in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have Pharaoh who is this dimmy god figure that people were supposed to worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was the sovereign of Egypt, and then we also have in Egypt these gods, this multitude of gods, they had so many gods, and they had sovereign power over different given elements

[SPEAKER_01]: The each had their areas of absolute authority over human beings in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in Exodus, the world is going to hear a different name, especially the Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Egyptians are going to hear the name of a different God, the God who has largely been forgotten in the world at this time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this forgotten God will claim that he is the sovereign God over everything in existence, whether it is beast, man, or even spiritual beings.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to see in chapter five that when Pharaoh first hears the name of the sovereign

[SPEAKER_01]: Who is Yahweh that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

[SPEAKER_01]: I do not know Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_01]: This would have been the common response throughout the world as someone heard the name of the sovereign God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who is Yahweh?

[SPEAKER_01]: But in Exodus, God is going to demonstrate to the known world that He has absolute authority.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the God, these sovereign, with absolute authority over wind and water, fire and hail, beast and bacteria, light and darkness, life and death itself, He is sovereign over it all.

[SPEAKER_01]: In some, this sovereign God has absolute authority over even Pharaoh, Egypt's dimmy God, the most powerful man, the most mighty man alive in that time, and this God is sovereign over the gods of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what's going on in Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is not just

[SPEAKER_01]: tearing down Pharaoh and Egypt's pride.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is also humiliating the gods of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: The evil spirits who claim power and wielded their power over this nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, Yahweh, is sovereign over the gods of Egypt the most numerous and powerful gods known to that nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is sovereign

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the first part to the message of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is the sovereign God.

[SPEAKER_01]: The second part to the message of Exodus is that God saves his people.

[SPEAKER_01]: God saves his people.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are several words used for the concept of saving in the book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: In our English Bibles, keep an eye out for these words.

[SPEAKER_01]: The words save, which means to rescue from harm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Keep an eye out for the word deliver, which means to pull out the danger deliver, keep an eye out for the word redeem, redeem.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is to reclaim or literally buy out.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all said the idea of ransom to buy out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, as I studied Exodus, what must be, I think, God's favorite phrase in the book of

[SPEAKER_01]: is the phrase, bring out.

[SPEAKER_01]: He repeats it over and over again saying, I will bring you out.

[SPEAKER_01]: He brings them out and then he looks back and he says, I am the God who brought you out of your slavery, of your burden, of your oppression, and Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Exodus 6, for instance, for 6, this passage uses nearly all of these saving words,

[SPEAKER_01]: Exodus 6 or 6 says, I am the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

[SPEAKER_01]: For seven, I will take you to be my people and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will give it to you in the fourth possession, I am the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the Lord is a saving God.

[SPEAKER_01]: But notice that this passage also emphasizes that God is physically saving the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because of his promise to do so, of his promise to make them his people and to give them the land of Canaan.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Genesis, God chose to enter into a covenant relationship with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, this physical, say, salvation from slavery and Egypt springs from God's covenant, keeping love.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what motivates the Exodus, his promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is not because of the impressiveness, or the holiness, or the goodness of the Israelites that God comes to their aid.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is not what's happening here.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is not because of them that he is saving.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is saving because he said he would.

[SPEAKER_01]: He promised he would.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Old Testament calls this God's covenant, he being loved.

[SPEAKER_01]: He set his own heart on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: He loved them and he came as their savior.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is why he's saving.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Deuteronomy 7 for 6, the Lord makes this abundantly clear, Deuteronomy 7-6.

[SPEAKER_01]: For you Israel are a people holy to the Lord your God, the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and shows you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery,

[SPEAKER_01]: It will be repeated over and over again in the Pentateuch, that God is saving them with His mighty hand, and He is bringing them through the wilderness, and into Canaan, not because of them and their holiness.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually despite their grumblings, despite their unbelief, despite all of their weaknesses, despite all of their impurity, despite all of that God says,

[SPEAKER_01]: I will bring you out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will save you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the message of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sovereign God saves his people.

[SPEAKER_01]: But why did God enter into this covenant relationship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

[SPEAKER_01]: And why did God choose the weakest of the peoples of the earth to be his?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not who I'm would have chosen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would have chosen the mightiest, the bravest, the most loyal, maybe.

[SPEAKER_01]: The ones who kept the rules the best, I love rule keeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It makes my heart glad, sometimes in a good way, and sometimes in a not very helpful way.

[SPEAKER_01]: That God did not choose that nation or that people.

[SPEAKER_01]: He chose the weakest.

[SPEAKER_01]: He chose a nation of slaves.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had been slaves for so long at this point that it really was their identity.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this generation that came out of Egypt, the vast majority of them could never shake that self-identification of slaves.

[SPEAKER_01]: They kept thinking and acting as slaves.

[SPEAKER_01]: and why did God then, as he says, raise up a hard hearted and proud Pharaoh to oppress this weak people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why does he do this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, what is the purpose of all of this?

[SPEAKER_01]: The third part to the message of Exodus answers this question.

[SPEAKER_01]: God has ultimately done everything for his own glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: The heavenly beings proclaim around God's throne that Yahweh is holy, holy, holy.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means if we're going to say it in English to where we can understand it clearly, it really is emphasizing this repetition three times.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is holy, holy, your holiest.

[SPEAKER_01]: It does not get any holier than Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_01]: This means he has utterly set apart from what is common.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the purest and the rarest being in existence.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about diamonds or gold, these or rubies, these things we think are pure and rare and beautiful enough inestimable value, think about that for a second.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are just shadows.

[SPEAKER_01]: of the holiest nature of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the purest and rarest being in existence.

[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, He is of the greatest value.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you witness Him in His holiness, it should fill us with the greatest amount of delight.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you see a diamond that is pure and cut properly, it is delightful to look upon.

[SPEAKER_01]: We like, we like looking on beautiful things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a taste of the delight we should experience when we see or experience God's onlylessness.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's how holy it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: But unfortunately,

[SPEAKER_01]: because God is so set apart from what is common, and is so pure and rare.

[SPEAKER_01]: It also means he has hopelessly unapproachable for sinful humanity, hopelessly unapproachable.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in the Scriptures, we see that God in His grace and mercy has freely chosen to reveal Himself to sinful men.

[SPEAKER_01]: Though he is holy, holier, holiest, he has chosen to reveal himself in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: This divine revealing is what we call the glory of God in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is holy, and when we experience it, it is glory in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Isaiah 6 verse 3 makes this clear and hopefully will help clarify if there's any confusion in your mind between his holiness who he is and his glory is revealing.

Isaiah 6:3

[SPEAKER_01]: The heavenly beings around Yahweh's throne proclaim in Isaiah 6 verse 3.

Isaiah 6:3

[SPEAKER_01]: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

[SPEAKER_01]: The whole earth is full of His is it holiness?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it says, the whole Earth is full of His glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's His merciful revealing of Himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is hopelessly unapproachable to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in His mercy and grace, He shines His glory into the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that we might experience Him, know Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is His merciful resolution to humanity.

[SPEAKER_01]: and God in the world is revealing His glory or His holiness.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in Exodus, the Lord proclaims that He will get glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has determined that in the Exodus, He is going to reveal much of His holiness in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: He will be seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: heard, tasted, felt, and experienced.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that all may know that he is the holiest.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is none like him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is the one and only.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about this for just a second.

[SPEAKER_01]: In that time, Egypt was an essential trading center for the known world.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a powerhouse.

[SPEAKER_01]: it conquered.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was known.

[SPEAKER_01]: People knew of Egypt, that knew of its God, that knew of its Pharaohs, and knew of its power.

[SPEAKER_01]: People came in and out of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: God has chosen this place to put on public display his holiness so that his fame will go out to the families of the earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says as much in Exodus 9 verse 16, this is one of many places where he makes this goal clear in the book of Exodus.

Exodus 9:16

[SPEAKER_01]: He says to Pharaoh, for this purpose, Pharaoh, I have raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why Exodus exists.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it happened, and that's why it's recorded for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is determined for all the families of the earth to know his name, which is who he is that he is the holiest.

[SPEAKER_01]: But why should God and his glory concern us?

[SPEAKER_01]: that you are getting glory, that's we know you deserve it, but why should that concern us?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why should we care if God reveals his holiness?

[SPEAKER_01]: How is his glory good news for us when it shines on us?

[SPEAKER_01]: When we taste it, when we feel it, why is this good news?

[SPEAKER_01]: His glory shining on us,

[SPEAKER_01]: His glory being experienced is good news for humanity because humanity was designed all the way in the beginning by God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Humanity was designed to delight in the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to experience the purest and rarest and most valuable form of delight, a human can feel or experience, it will be found in and through the glory of God, his revealing of himself to what he has made.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a absolute truth claimed in Scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: The more we believe that truth claim of Scripture, the less the world will have a pull on our hearts.

[SPEAKER_01]: The more we doubt this truth claim, the more the world will get its claws around us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the more we will live, sinful lives because we are living an unbelief that God is the purest and the rarest and the most alike filling of all experiences.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we will instead chase after the lies of the devil and we will worship what God created rather than the creator.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the definition of sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's worshiping the created being rather than the creator who made all these good things so that we might delight in His glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: One, there are different ways that we can experience the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can experience the glory of God in marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can experience the glory of God when you are in a tickle fight with your child.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know that?

[SPEAKER_01]: They're laughter, they're joy at playing with their daddy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even though they can barely breathe, they're saying, please don't stop, don't stop, and they're so disappointed with its over.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the gift of God that's supposed to spark our thinking and our feelings about our heavenly Father who loves us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can experience the glory of God here at church.

[SPEAKER_01]: as we worship in together, as we forgive one another, even though we're undeserving, as we love one another, even when we don't have to, if there wasn't a God, we don't have to love one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're all broken and we all fail one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if we choose to love one another anyway, you get to see the glory of God shining through that person's life when they love you.

[SPEAKER_01]: you get to feel the delight, the taste of the light of God loving you, the you are unworthy of love.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is why the glory of God is good news for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's because we were designed to delight in the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And every good thing in this world,

[SPEAKER_01]: is proclaiming the glory of God and is pointing your heart and your mind and your emotions back to the God who made it all for your delight in His glory that you might praise Him and thank Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But because of sin, because of our fallen condition, His glory doesn't automatically

[SPEAKER_01]: It always brought Adam and Eve joy when God walked in the garden with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every time they ate a piece of fruit that wasn't forbidden, every time they walked in grass, every time they spoke to one another, their marriage was always a delight to them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when God visited them in the garden, Adam and Eve were always filled with delight.

[SPEAKER_01]: But after the fall,

[SPEAKER_01]: His glory, his revealing himself, his walking in the garden with him, no longer brought them delight.

[SPEAKER_01]: What did they do when God walked in the garden to come visit them after they had sent?

[SPEAKER_01]: What did they do?

[SPEAKER_01]: They ran and hid, because of just the sound of his feet on the grass.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a sign that his glory was coming.

[SPEAKER_01]: They ran and hid because the glory of God to sinners now brings the promise of judgment and death.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because we know he is holy, holy, holy, yes, and we cannot stand in his presence.

[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot live in his presence.

[SPEAKER_01]: His presence brings judgment and death in therefore humanity.

[SPEAKER_01]: naturally runs and hides from any signs of God's terrifying holiness.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is in the heart of all fallen men.

[SPEAKER_01]: But God, being rich in mercy promises to purify those who approach him in humility in faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: God has made away.

[SPEAKER_01]: God in the Old Testament, in Exodus we will see makes away

[SPEAKER_01]: for his people to be purified so that they could approach him without judgment and death.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the second half of the book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to focus on God's providing a way for his people to be purified, so that they can once more delight in his glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: once more delight in his glory as he dwells with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we will see in the second half of the book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the sovereign God saves his people for his glory, which is the best news that Israelites could have hoped for, in which the Old Testament repeatedly and continually points back to as good news.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you can already sense

[SPEAKER_01]: that the book of Exodus and these themes and truths that are developed in this book are foundational for the Christian faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you can already sense that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even our Christian vocabulary finds much of its original definitions and illustrations in Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about the words Save,

[SPEAKER_01]: the Passover Lamb and atonement, baptism through the Red Sea and the bread from heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: Many, because of this, have labeled the Book of Exodus the gospel or the good news of the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because for thousands of years hereafter, God and His prophets will point back to Exodus and proclaim, saying,

[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember the Exodus never forget the Exodus where Yahweh saves his people for his glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Never forget.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you think on this remember, fear him and love him.

[SPEAKER_01]: For he has made a way for you to delight in his glory once more, if you approach him in humility and faith, that is the message of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my hope is that we all rejoice as we study it together in the God who saves for his glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for your salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: O Lord may you awaken our hearts and fill our minds and emotions Lord as we think upon your great and mighty salvation in the Book of Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: How you brought your people out with a mighty hand, oh Father, please awaken us to praise and worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please Lord, I beg you, cut away.

[SPEAKER_01]: our unbelief, please Lord fill us with faith that you are holiest, the rarest and the purist, and that we were designed to delight in you, Lord much of our Christian failures, are because we do not believe that truth as we should.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please Lord, may we delight in all things through you and in you, our Creator and our God and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and our King, may we delight in you rightly and may the book of Exodus Lord as we study it for the next few months be a great tool Lord to delight