There is no such thing as a purely objective history.
The historian has to make decisions based on his or her worldview, and motivations for writing
It’s why you can read different histories of the same person that come to vastly different conclusions about that person.
Then there is the fact that if you were to write a complete history of say Abraham Lincoln it would take more 56 years to read…his age when he died.
You have so many other factors that make up his life other than just ticks on the clock…what he felt and thought in each moment, what was happening in the world around him.
If you read a history of Abe Lincoln focused on his younger years, versus his middle years, versus his Civil War years…you would think you were reading about three different men.
Then it gets even more subjective when the author attempts to tell us what history “means” and how it applies to today.
The quote “History is written by the victors” has been attributed to Winston Churchill.
There is some truth in this, but by and large it is not true…not at least over the long course of history.
History tends to be self-correcting to a degree.
History is important to read and understand…and though it is written through human perspectives and has human error it does teach us things that are true about what happened and why it happened.
However, one history is unique in that it is without error and its perspective is not tainted by human limitations.
When we read the historical book of Exodus it is different…it is a theological history, and the data that we have, the historical facts…have been given to us by God.
It’s not subjective, God has no opinions, he has only perfect knowledge.
An opinion is a view formed about something, not necessarily based on fact.
God knows all facts; his knowledge is complete.
He knows every thought Lincoln ever had; in fact, he could tell you the count of every hair on Lincoln’s head at any point in his life.
This is not because God is petty, running around keeping count of everything.
God is perfect.
His knowledge is complete and immediate…he doesn’t have to try and recall things, he doesn’t learn new things, he knows all things completely from eternity past.
Pondering this may help you understand Job’s final humility and his realization that he didn’t need for God to tell him “why”.
God is really smart, and he knows all that has happened…and he is sovereign over all things.
We have in the book of Exodus and the Bible as a whole…the divine interpretation of the meaning of the historical events.
We know what happened…we know why it happened…we know what it means now.
But you have read Exodus in light of the whole revelation of God…the entire Bible is a single story.
That is one benefit of reading the Bible through in year.
Here’s a simple outline of the book of Exodus:
- God Saves Israel from Egyptian Bondage (1-18)
- God Gives Israel His Law (19-24) I
- God Commands Israel to Build the Tabernacle (25-40)
Longman III, Tremper. How to Read Exodus (How to Read Series)
The first five books of the Bible, called the Torah, The Book of Moses and the Pentateuch (5) were originally a literary whole.
Genesis prepares the reader for Exodus, the founding of Israel as a nation, part of the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham in Genesis.
Genesis ends with the family of God in Egypt away from the promised land.
Exodus begins with Joseph’s death and then many years in the future the Israelites, still in Egypt, had vastly multiplied in number, and had become persecuted slaves.
Like with Job there is no evidence that their suffering was because of their sin.
We aren’t told why they are there other than it was God’s plan.
Genesis 15, centuries earlier, God told Abraham that this would happen:
“Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. But you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”,
Sure enough, this is exactly what happened…no surprise.
Finally, at God’s appointed time, he acts, Exodus 2.
After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 and God saw the Israelites, and God knew. (was concerned, took action)
Exodus 2
What form did this action take?
He revealed himself to a man and called that man to a task.
Chapter 3, Meanwhile Moses is tending sheep on Mt. Horeb, also known as Mt. Sinai
God tells Moses that he had been selected to deliver the people and bring them to worship him at this very mountain.
Moses gets his call from God in the place where God would later give Israel the law and reveal himself to the people in the form of a much larger display of fire, not just a burning bush, but a mountain shaking display of God’s glory.
It is also the place where Israel will remain, here at Sinai, the entire book of Exodus, a full year.
Let’s read, chapter 3.
Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. 3 So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?”
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
“Here I am,” he answered. 5 “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, (and the other “ites”) Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9 So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, 10 therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.” Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM., This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation. ”
Here again we see the three levels of history on display.
God’s plan for the world
They would now return to the land of Canaanites, Amorites, etc.
One reason Israel had been in Egypt for 400 years is that God was being patient with the people in the land of promise…we read in Gen 15:16…God gave the people all that time to repent.
“Their sin had not reached its full measure.”
God’s plan for his people
God remembered his covenant with Abraham.
God selected Israel in order that they would make him known to all the peoples of the world.
For his own purposes he had taken them to Egypt through an amazing chain of events…Joseph, famine, all that great drama of the end of Genesis.
Now he was taking them back to fulfill his promise of a people and a place.
God’s plan for a single man
This guy with an amazing story…Moses who barely escapes death as an infant.
Raised in the palace…has a murderous temper…now middle aged and tending sheep in the hills of the Sinai Peninsula.
Encounters God and is given his great calling and his response is…
“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
He is thinking, I’m done with politics…I will stay off the grid, sheep are easier to deal with than Egyptians.
Guess again…you are about to enter into your true vocation…all before this has been preparation.
Do not despise the day of small things, the prophet wrote…they are the days that prepare you for what is to come.
We talk about training “left of the bang” in terms of resilience…the bang being the next “hard.”
We also train “left of the bang” in terms of God’s calling…the bang being the next opportunity to be found faithful in more.
Jesus said, faithful in little comes before faithful in much.
Moses is not inspired, though he is terrified.
“O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
This is both incredible and encouraging.
Moses: “I am not a good speaker”
God: “I made your mouth.”
Moses: “Can’t you find someone else?”
Who is the common denominator in all this?: God’s plan for the world, God’s plan for his people, God’s plan for a single man?
God.
The one who said, tell them “I am who I am” has sent you.
This is a statement of ultimate self-sufficiency and self-existence…all things, except God are contingent, dependent.
He is the only fully independent being.
All things are created, God alone is eternally existing.
He is always constant, present, sufficient.
Revelation 1:8 ” “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’”
When Moses and Aaron deliver the message to Pharoah he responds with “Who is the Lord that I should obey him, I don’t know this God.” (Ex 5:1)
It is downhill from there for Pharaoh.
God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, and Pharaoh hardens his own heart.
More of the mystery of God’s sovereignty and human choice.
The people are rescued through the sea and arrive, just as God said they would at Mt. Sinai.
There they camp there for a full year and they get the law, establishing them as a nation.
Nations only exist with laws.
Then they will need a place, nations without a place are called refugees.
This, because of their sin…will have to wait another 40 years.
Let’s go now to Luke 24…a heartwarming story of Two unknown disciples who encounter the resurrected Jesus.
My reason for going there is so you will hear Jesus tell us what the purpose of the book of Exodus is…what it ultimately means.
13 Now that same day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus, which was about seven miles, from Jerusalem. 14 Together they were discussing everything that had taken place. 15 And while they were discussing and arguing, Jesus himself came near and began to walk along with them. 16 But they were prevented from recognizing him. 17 Then he asked them, “What is this dispute that you’re having with each other as you are walking?” And they stopped walking and looked discouraged. The one named Cleopas answered him, “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that happened there in these days?”
19 “What things?” he asked them. So they said to him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet powerful in action and speech before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. 21 But we were hoping that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel. Besides all this, it’s the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women from our group astounded us. They arrived early at the tomb, 23 and when they didn’t find his body, they came and reported that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”
What’s happening is these disciples of Jesus…not part of the inner 12 are having a debate over the meaning of some historical events.
Events that literally just happened.
This sounds familiar doesn’t it…you can read 10 articles telling you 10 different meanings of some event from last week
We need God to tell us what it means.
What what means?
Everything means…life, death, salvation, history, purpose.
Verse 25
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.
The Entire Bible is about Jesus.
Let’s do a brief survey of how the historical events in the Exodus prefigure, or point us to Jesus.
Following his baptism, where Jesus went under the water of the River, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, just as Israel spent 40 years there…that is no coincidence.
He was tempted three times.
- After fasting for many days, the devil challenged him to turn stones into bread.
Jesus refuses quoting Deut. 8:3, “Man doesn’t live on bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
This is from Moses final sermon to Israel challenging them to not disobey God as their fathers had in the wilderness.
They had become hungry, afraid God would not provide…and they turned against God.
- The devil takes Jesus to the top of the temple and challenges him to throw himself off and God will catch him.
Jesus quotes again from Moses’ sermon “Don’t test God”…contrasting himself with disobedient Israel who constantly tested God in the wilderness.
- Then the Devil tells Jesus to bend his knee to him and he will give him the kingdoms of the world.
Israel had bowed to a false God, the golden calf…right after God had redeemed them from slavery.
He promised to make them a great nation, who would be blessing to the kingdoms of the world…but they wanted to return to slavery in Egypt.
Jesus for a final time, cites Moses with…”Worship the Lord your God only.”
Satan offers the world to those who will bow to him…he only delivers slavery and death.
In the Lord’s most famous sermon, the sermon on the mount….he fills out the law of Moses.
“You have heard it said, don’t murder…I say, don’t even be angry in your heart.”
Moses was given the Sinai Covenant on a mountain…Jesus gives the new Covenant on a mountain.
The New Covenant is written on Hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Moses went up on the mountain to meet with God to receive the Ten Commandments.
When he comes down he has to wear a veil for a time because his face continued to reflect the physical glory of God.
Jesus also went up on a mountain and met with Moses…but Jesus not Moses was primary.
Luke 9.
Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Notice the Lord’s appearance, sound familiar?
What was Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah about? “His departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem”.
How do you “accomplish a departure”…it’s a strange use of words.
“I am going to accomplish leaving this room in a few minutes.”
“Okay, Terry, that’s quite an accomplishment.”
The word for departure that Luke uses is an unusual one for someone leaving somewhere…but Luke does it for a reason…he uses the Greek word: “exodos”
He is about to accomplish his exodus.
How would he accomplish this? Through his death on a cross.
His Exodus through the cross would accomplish our freedom.
The final judgement of God on Egypt was the death of the firstborn.
Only those who had posted blood from a lamb over their doorpost was saved from this judgment.
Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, is the Passover lamb.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and John said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! John 1
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 1 Peter 1
Hebrews 2:14-3:3
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. 3 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.
Jesus is the new and better Moses.
Moses was a real guy; he did real things…God gave us true truth about his life.
God also told us what it all meant.
It was all part of one story, a story that begins and ends with Jesus.
Two weeks in Job and two weeks in Exodus will serve to focus our attention on God’s greatness and our great limitations.
God is great, we are not.
Job came to that conclusion.
Moses, knew his limitations…but God said, “I have no limits, I have called you.”
We cannot hope to understand what we are looking at when we look around at the world, if we don’t see God ruling in sovereignty over it all.
We look at White House inaugurations where the current “in crowd go to see and be seen.
If the vote had gone a different way, an entirely different crowd would have had their day in the sun…but just wait, four years is not very long.
We look at Super Bowls where you can buy a 30 second ad this year for 8 million dollars or a cheap seat for about $4000…where another “in” crowd will go to see and be seen.
But in a very few years new players will be on the field, old players will be broken down or dead.
The stars in Washington and in the NFL will all someday be laying in a bed far from the limelight…staring at a hospital monitor…beeping off their final seconds.
What will they see, when they look at that monitor? A life wasted and over or a life spent and about to truly begin.
Last week we looked at the verse: “We fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen.”
Will the see the unseen God in all that we look at?
All of history points to the eternal plan of God, revealed in the life, death, resurrection and return of Jesus.
Your life purpose is to be found in him.
There is no truly thriving or resilient life apart from him.
William Earnest Henley was a 19th century British poet.
At 16 he had his left leg amputated because of complications from an illness.
A few years later he was told he would need to have his right leg amputated as well.
He was treated by Dr. Lister, who pioneered antiseptics.
The antiseptic mouthwash Listerine was named after him.
HIs leg was saved but it took multiple surgeries and years of painful recovery.
From a hospital bed he wrote the poem…Invictus…Latin for “unconquerable”
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.
This poem is utter folly, it could have been written by Pharoah.
The last lines mock Jesus in the sermon on the mount. Where he said.
“Straight is the gate, and narrow the way that leads to life and few find it”
Henley wrote: I don’t care how straight the gate, or if my sins are kept on scroll…I am master of my fate.
There is no meaning in his life or his suffering…he is in the clutches of circumstance.
It is not God’s purposes that are bringing about greater ends…he is bludgeoned, beaten up, by change.
Yet, he says…my bloody head is unbowed.
He was a man who endured much suffering and is to be acknowledged for his skill as a writer and for his resilience.
But in real life Henley did not live with this unwavering confidence, history tells otherwise…no one can.
He died, like all men do…he lived to see 53 short years…he was not Invictus…death conquered him.
He was not the master of his fate nor the captain of his soul.
Any more than the unknown Pharaoh, who stood proudly against a timid Moses and said, “I don’t know this God.”
Pharaoh was not Invictus…he is dead.
It’s all bravado, mere empty words in the mouths of proud men and women…who are, as Job said, “Dust.”
Christ alone is Invictus…he alone is unconquerable.
He has conquered, sin, hell, and death.
We bow our knees, and we give our lives to him.
As we read the stories of individual people, like Job or Moses…we remember that the larger story is the work of God through the ages to bring about the accomplishment of his purposes in Christ.
Now, with that in mind…your life matters.
Job, Moses, Abraham Lincoln, the people on that plane or helicopter are not just cogs in God’s cosmic machine.
There are three levels of human history…the nations, a people, individual people.
God cares and is engaged with all levels…down to your level and mine.
Psalm 8
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
God is majestic, his glory is set above the cosmos
When we consider what he has done we should marvel that he is mindful of us at all.
As we learned from Job, we should never pretend to think we are God’s peer
But the point is Psalm…is that this great God is mindful of us.
Yes, must keep God’s glory preeminent…but we must remember that he wants to get glory from our lives.
I don’t want you to get the impression that God doesn’t want you to dream, to accomplish, to set and achieve goals…he certainly does.
I’m afraid that the takeaway from the past couple of weeks is that
Life is just…suffer, keep your head down, keep your mouth shut…then die.
No…
The tension must be kept…Moses experienced great privilege, responsibility, great experiences of God, great heartache…he lived a great life.
Not perfect…but he walked closely with God.
He accomplished God’s purposes for his life.
Sure, he failed…but he experienced God in this life…then in God’s time he died.
You will suffer; you will die…now as long as God gives you breath…embrace life as he gives it to you.
Christians cannot become cynics…we have hope as an anchor for our soul.
This is nothing God honoring about living a joyless, suck it up and suffer till you die, kind of life.
That is not the point of Job.
Seek to achieve, impact the world around you, be faithful in the little, suffer well…all of it is part of a faithful life.
Don’t be selfish and don’t be cynical…just be faithful with what God calls you to.
Guard your heart, watch your life and doctrine closely…then go be found faithful in all that God gives you to do and become.