John, please post the attached for Doves.
The Lord is coming soon.
Anthony
EXODUS - A teaching by brother Deoram Bolan
CHAPTER 1: SEPARATION AND
"THE ROAD OUT"
The Book of Exodus, the
second book in the Bible, is very deep in spiritual meaning. It falls into two
distinct sections, the historical and legislative. Chapters 1 through 19 are connected with
the history of a people in bondage and with the birth of a leader who would
deliver them. It is also connected with that people's emancipation from the land of Egypt
and their journeys in the wilderness until they came to Mount
Sinai. Following their arrival at Mount Sinai,
God outlines for His people His way of life for them. He enters into covenant
relation with them and gives them the Law. The Law is seen in its threefold
category - the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial Law. The moral Law was for
the individual, the civil Law was for the life of the nation, and the
ceremonial Law was for the religious life of the people. Associated with the
Law were the priesthood and the Tabernacle. All of these details are full of
instructions for us who are God's people.
The word Exodus comes from two
Greek words - Ek, which
means 'out of or from,' and odus,
which means 'a road or traveling way.' The word Exodus, therefore, means
the 'road out' or 'departure.' The Book
of Exodus deals with the departure of the Israelites from the land of Egypt. This word can be seen in Exodus 19:1:
"In the third month,
when the children of Israel
were gone forth out of the and of Egypt, the same day came they into
the wilderness of Sinai."
Notice "gone forth" - that's the word for
Exodus. Thus, this word, Exodus, is used in the New Testament in relation to
the Lord Jesus Christ when Moses and Elijah appeared to Him on the Mount of
Transfiguration and spoke of His decease
which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem (Lk. 9:30-31). The word "decease"
is the same as the word "departure" or "Exodus." It spoke
of His sacrifice on the cross, when He would leave this world temporarily and
go to the unseen world, Hades, and then come back again from that realm and be
reunited in His physical body - this time a resurrected and glorified body.
Exodus is the second book in
the Bible. The first book is Genesis,
which is the book of beginnings, and speaks to us of the elect
or chosen of God. When you study the Book
of Genesis, you see God choosing certain individuals and
bypassing others. For example, God chose Abel over Cain, and He chose Shem, of
the three sons of Noah, to father the race-line through which the Messiah would
come. Shem was blessed above the other two sons. We also see God singling out a
man after the Flood whose name was Abraham, who was to be a father of a nation.
God sovereignly chose him out of all the men in that day. We also find that God
passed by Ishmael and chose Isaac. Ishmael was the firstborn; yet Isaac was the
chosen son, and God chose him to be the promised heir. Then God passed by Esau,
the firstborn, and chose Jacob. Then God saw fit to choose Joseph and bypass
Reuben, the firstborn of the twelve sons of Jacob. God chose Joseph to be the
instrument to His people, as well as Egypt and the surrounding nations.
He promoted him to be second only to Pharaoh in the Throne of Egypt. Reuben,
who was entitled to the blessings of the firstborn, was passed by as God chose
Joseph. Similarly, when we consider Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, we see
that God set aside the first born, Manasseh. He was blessed by his father; but
Ephraim, the second-born, came in for greater blessings (Gen. 48:19).
So we see God bypassing the
first and choosing the second. Why? A truth of God was illustrated in these
examples - that which is of the first is earthly, and the second is greater
than the first. If you search the Scriptures, you will see that all of God's
seconds are greater than God's firsts. We read of the first man, Adam, in 1 Corinthians 15:22 , 45, and then we read of the
second man, the Lord Jesus. Of the two, who is greater? We read of two
priesthoods - the Levitical and the Melchizedek priesthoods. The Melchizedek
priesthood was greater. We read of two veils that were in the Tabernacle. The
second veil brought the High Priest into the Holy of Holies; yet through the
first veil, the priests were only brought into the Holy Place. Here we see God illustrating
His sovereign grace and His choice of the ones who would be instrumental in
doing His Will.
So, in the "book of
beginnings," we see God choosing different ones for salvation. But in the Book of Exodus, we see Israel's deliverance from Egypt. Viewed
with the perspective of teaching, we see that it deals with the matter of
redemption. In Genesis, God chose those who would come into redemption, but in
Exodus, we are shown how God saves.
Leviticus
is the third book in the Bible; it shows for what we are redeemed.
Redeemed people will be a people who will worship God. Leviticus speaks of the
walk of the Christian and the walk in the wilderness, how to worship God, and
how to be kept from the pollution of sin. That is why there were laws given in
the Book of Leviticus - laws concerning
worship, God's provisions, and His holiness. Then the Book of Numbers speaks of the walk and
the warfare of the child of God. It is connected with numbering, for every
Hebrew male son who had attained the age of twenty years was conscripted into
the army (Num. 1:3). He
became of age for warfare at twenty years of age. We are numbered in Numbers to fight! God is
telling us that He wants His Church to come of age; He wants us to enter
redemption, to worship Him, and to be occupied in warfare. For the Bible says,
"We wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual
wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12
We need to be taught how to
fight as soldiers of the Cross. We need to know how to endure hardness as good
soldiers of Christ (2 Timothy
2:3). The
Bible says we are to put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6: 11 , 13).
By breaking down the various
chapters of Exodus, certain themes can be
easier for us to remember. There are five divisions of the book:
Chapters 1-6 speak of the need for
redemption, because the people were enslaved. Redemption means 'buying back' or
'to loose.' It involved property and persons. Redemption involved land that was
sold by the owner which he did not have the means to recover. When he could
recover the land, a blood brother had to pay the money to bring it back to the
one who lost it. Then, if an individual was a slave (the Israelites were slaves
in the land of Egypt), he needed a "kinsman
redeemer," one who was related to him by blood, to bring him out of
bondage. The "Redeemer" word means that this relative had the money
or price to pay for his brother to be loosed from slavery. Redemption is
prominent in the Book
of Exodus.
The need for redemption is seen in these chapters because the
Israelites were slaves in the land
of Egypt.
Chapters 7-11 speak of the power and the
might of the Redeemer. You can't have redemption without a Redeemer.
Nor can you have salvation
without a Savior. You can't have creation without a Creator and you can't have
effect without a cause. Having seen the need for redemption, God shows us the
one who can redeem and that is He Himself. He shows us His power and might to
redeem in the evidence of the ten plagues that came on the land of Egypt.
Chapters 12-18 speak of the character of
redemption and how this redemption came about - by blood and by power! We see
how they celebrated this redemption after they had been brought out of Egypt.
Chapters 19-24 show the duty of the redeemed.
Those who have been redeemed have a responsibility to obey the laws of the
Lord, Who was the Redeemer.
Chapters 25-40 speak to us of the provisions
made for us for the failures of the redeemed. God knew that His people were
weak and would not be able to obey all that He said. But God was not a hard
taskmaster. God, in love, gave them the solution to their failures. He gave
them the Tabernacle and its provisions for the sins of the peoples when and if
they failed Him.
The key verse in Exodus is Exodus 15:13.
"Thou in Thy mercy
hast led forth Thy people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in
Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation."
So we see how all the thoughts here about redemption are brought
together and how God in mercy reached down to redeem them and to bring them to
His holy habitation which was symbolized by the Tabernacle in their very midst.
[For more portions of this book, please go to the blog at http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_news.asp?sourceid=brotherbholan
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