The Scriptures

Apart from Jesus Christ, no person in history has made such a deep or lasting impression on the world as Moses. Moses was the great lawgiver and emancipator of Israel. He is described in the book of Revelation as the servant of God, and he had a remarkable history. He was born to Jewish parents in a land that was not their own, where they were slaves. He was educated in the court of the mightiest empire of the day, one of the mightiest empires that has ever existed in history. He was heir to all of the wealth, prestige, and legendary pleasures of Egypt. And yet, when he was 40 years old, he elected to identify himself with his own oppressed race. He was driven out and had to flee from Egypt.

Moses lived to be 120 years old. And roughly speaking he had 40 years in each place. When he was 40 years old he had to run away, and he spent 40 years in the desert as a shepherd. God met him at the burning bush and called him to be the deliverer when he was 80 years old. And then he led the people for 40 years. It has been said that Moses spent 40 years in Egypt learning something. He spent 40 years in the desert learning to be nothing. And then he spent the last 40 years of his life proving God to be everything. I think that’s a good way of putting what the Christian life is all about. Some of us don’t prove God to be everything, because we never learned that we ourselves are nothing. And when we come to that point, then we are ready to have God work through us. And that’s what He did with Moses.

The tie between Exodus and Genesis is closer than is apparent to most of us in our English translation. For one thing the Hebrew text of Exodus begins with the word “And.” We don’t write that way in English so the translators don’t begin it that way, but it actually says, “And these are the names.” Numbers and Leviticus begin this way. What he is saying, of course, is that the story that’s about to begin now in Exodus is not a new story, although it’s a new chapter in this continuing story of redemption. Rather it’s a continuation of what God began to do when He first called Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, out of Ur of the Chaldees.

Now I would like us to look at that call to Abraham, because it gives us an outline of what’s coming. Next time, we’re going to see a little bit more about the condition of the people in Egypt, and after that the birth of Moses. I want you to see that what we find here in these books—Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—is what was prophesied very clearly by God to Abraham, and recorded for us in Genesis 15. This chapter describes what was probably the most significant day in the whole life of the patriarch Abraham.

Do you want to get to know God better? God wants you to get to know Him better. Tell Him that you would like to get to know Him better, and you will find that He will reveal Himself to you, as he did to Moses.