Introduction
Today’s sermon is not the sermon I intended on preaching. So ignore the passage that’s in the bulletin, though we will briefly touch on that. I had planned to get us all the way through the Exodus story today, from the plagues, to the Passover, to passing through the Red Sea. But, that proved to be far too much ground to cover. And, as I dug into God’s Word I found it to be flowing with riches, even in the most unlikely of places. So today we’re only going to make it right up to the Passover. But, I believe what we we’ll see today is gospel rich, as well as convicting.
What we’ve seen so far is that God is faithful and gracious even when we aren’t. And God in His grace has made a Covenant of Grace for His people. From Adam and his household, to Noah and his household, to Abraham and his household, and now Moses and his household, and the whole of Israel, the whole household of faith… God has laid claim to a people, He has marked them out as His own, given us abundant gospel promises, and called us to walk in faithfulness to him. And that’s what we’re going to see today in God’s Word. So let’s start in Exodus 4:18-31.
Context
As we saw last week, Moses was confronted and commissioned by God upon Mt. Sinai. Because of His covenant faithfulness to Abraham, God called Moses to go to Pharaoh and command him to let His people, Israel, go. They had been in bondage for 400 years, but the time had come for them to be led out of slavery, and led into the promised land. But in his weakness, Moses tried to bow out, saying that he couldn’t speak well enough to obey God’s call on his life. But the ever-existing God of the universe, who is totally sufficient in and of Himself, from whom and to whom and for whom are all things, assured him that He would be with him, and along with that He granted that his brother, Aaron, could be of service as well. But all Moses truly needed was the LORD. Moses simply had to trust and obey, to walk in covenant faithfulness, and he would find that the LORD would fully keep His Word.
Exodus 4-11
Now, picking up where we left off, in Exodus 4 we see that that’s what Moses seeks to do. After leaving Mt. Sinai, starting in Exodus 4:18 we’re told, “18 Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, ‘Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.’ And Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.’ 19 And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.’ 20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. 21 And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me.’ If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”
Here we see a few things: we see Moses is committed to obeying the Lord; and we see God is committed to saving His people. But even then, God tells Moses that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart. No doubt, in his sin, Pharaoh’s heart is already hard; but, as Moses preforms the Miracles of God and as the plagues are unleashed, Pharaoh will more and more see the truthfulness of who God is and his need for Him. But, Pharaoh is not a member of God’s true covenant people. In fact, he’s a heathen God-hater. So, God says He will harden his heart still. And as we know, He does so in order that He would get the glory over Egypt and Pharaoh.
God says that Israel is His first born son. And that might not sound right to you given that elsewhere God’s Word calls Adam God’s son; but this is right and good for God to say because Adam, along with Able, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, and now Moses, and so many in between, were all sons of God because they were all a part of His chosen covenant people. They were all offspring of Eve, who were not only born, but born again by God’s grace, and who were thus a part of God’s chosen people Israel, just as we are. That’s why the church is called the Israel of God in Galatians 6:16. God’s people, His family who are rightly under His Covenant of Grace are all children of promise, offspring of Eve, and thus sons of God. And because we are all saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and thus united to the true and only begotten Son of God, we are all seen as His firstborn sons.
Remember that Christian. Because Jesus is the true firstborn Son of God you are not a second class citizen of the Kingdom of God, but you are a true member of the family of God. If you are united to Christ by faith, you are true sons who are true heirs; heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. And the sons of God have rights—rights to worship and walk in faithfulness to our God. Which is why God is commanding Pharaoh to let His people go. And if he doesn’t let God’s firstborn son, Israel, go, then God will kill all of Egypt’s firstborn sons, including Pharaoh’s. Which might sound unjust to you, or extreme, but the infinitely holy God of the universe has rights of His own… rights to do as He will with His creation, especially sinners like us. We see that in part in what happens to Moses next.
When Moses was on his way to Egypt, we’re told in 4:25-26, that, “24 At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood,’ because of the circumcision.” This passage seems odd, and for that reason most people skip right over it. But, we shouldn’t skip over God seeking to put to death the very person He commissions to go to Egypt to free His people. So, what’s going on here?
Notice, Moses, his wife, and his son are on their way to Egypt when they are confronted by God. Obviously, this is not the first time Moses has been confronted by God. Last time God appeared to him in the burning bush, calling him to take off his shoes because the ground on which he tread was holy ground because the holy God of the universe was there upon it. And now, that same holy God is about to take Moses out. But why? Well, the answer is given in his wife’s actions. Moses, a Jew, a son of Abraham, had failed to keep covenant with God properly by failing to circumcise his son. Moses is the one whom God chose to lead His people out of slavery so that they could walk in covenant faithfulness to the LORD, but he himself is not walking in covenant faithfulness to the LORD or leading his household rightly. And if he does not repent God is going to take him out.
Moses’ wife takes action and circumcises their son immediately, and takes that which was removed, with the blood, and touches it to Moses’ feet, acknowledging that the one whose very feet had tread on holy ground before the Lord was marred by sin and in need of a blood sacrifice and atonement. Circumcision, like baptism, was a sign and seal of the Covenant, a sign and seal that pointed to the righteousness that is received by faith and proclaimed that the one who received the sign was not their own, but belonged to the Lord. The cutting off of the flesh showed that they had been cut out of the world and into God’s covenant community. It marked them off from Adam and his sin, and tied them to Christ and His righteousness. It was a sign and seal that pointed to our sinfulness by birth and our need for new birth, the circumcision of the heart that comes by grace alone. And Moses’ son had not yet rightly been brought into all of this, all because of Moses’ unfaithfulness.
No doubt, there was much influence here from Moses’ wife because she was a Midianite by birth, and not a Jew. She likely resisted Moses’ effort to raise his children in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. Women, be careful. The men in your life love you and want to please you. You likely have more influence over them than you realize. But men and women, and boys and girls, we must all remember that the One we must seek to please about all is the LORD. Make sure your love for and desire to please the LORD trumps all else. Because one’s person unfaithfulness does not excuse another’s.
Moses should have led his wife, but like Adam he passively let sin creep into his household. Moses should have led his family in faithfulness, but instead he led in unfaithfulness. And if Moses would not lead his house rightly he was not fit to lead God’s house rightly. God was not going to have the one whom He called to lead His people lead them in unfaithfulness. But, the moment his son is circumcised and the blood is applied to Moses, the Lord relents. I said last week that God cares about covenant theology, and here we see He cares about the sacraments as well. Things like circumcision and baptism matter. Just ask Moses, who almost died because of his failure to place God’s covenant sign and seal upon his child.
That child belonged to God before he belonged to Moses, and yet Moses failed to give that child back to God by marking and sealing him with God’s prescribed covenantal sign. In this action, in this sin of omission, Moses belittled God, His Covenant of Grace, and His gracious promises. Some see things like circumcision and paedobaptism as presumption upon God because the child has not yet professed faith, or come to the age where they can make an outward personal choice or public commitment to the Lord. But that’s not how God works. God decides where we are born and who we are born to. He gives us life and breath and everything, and He ordains the when, where, and how of our lives. We had no choice in who are parents are, or what country we were born in and what laws we were born under. You didn’t have to invite Texas into your heart to be under the laws of this state. Texas got into your heart without your permission. And so it is with the Lord and His covenant obligations on His people. But, obeying God’s commands and placing God’s covenant sign and seal upon one’s child is not only obedience, and it’s not presumption, but it’s an act of leaning on the promises of God.
Moses belittled God by not obeying Him and not entrusting his child to Him. Moses belittled God’s covenant by not keeping His covenant obligations and properly raising His child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And Moses belittled God’s covenant promises by not trusting that if he walked in covenant faithfulness and led his child in the way of the Lord that God would bless it. As we’ve seen in Deuteronomy 7:9, God promises that He is, “the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations…” It is not presumption to believe that and act upon it. It is faith. It is obedient faith. And Moses’ failure to walk in obedient faith almost got him killed.
It is interesting that Moses is the one whom God almost killed. God told Abraham that any male eight days old or older was to be expelled from the covenant community if they weren’t circumcised, or refused to be… And being expelled from the covenant community was the equivalent of being declared covenantally dead, much the way a spouse would be who sinned so greatly against their spouse that the marriage ended in divorce (as if the marriage itself had died)… or for us, the way an unrepentant sinner is who comes under church discipline and is excommunicated. It’s a covenantal death. But here it’s Moses, not his son, who is faced with death… and not just covenantal death, but physical death as well. And that’s because he is the head of his household. As we have seen again and again, God doesn’t merely deal with individuals, but with households. So, Moses has to answer for how he leads his family. And here he has not led well. But as soon as his wife Zipporah circumcised the child that all changed.
After the circumcision she told Moses, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” Her son’s blood had kept Moses from perishing. No doubt, Moses and his wife had both sinned against the LORD here by not properly raising their son in covenant faithfulness, but as the head of the house that sin was coming down first and foremost upon Moses. And yet, the moment the blood is shed and then touches Moses, he, and really he and his family are pardoned. He is a bridegroom of blood because it is by the shedding of blood that he is saved. So, through this act Moses isn’t just saved, but their marriage and their family is saved as well. It’s as if it’s the wedding day all over again and they get to start again. And of course this all is meant to point to the reality of the gospel.
The gospel is the good news about the person and work of Jesus, the good news that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came to earth and took on flesh as a man—the God-man who is 100% God and 100% man in one person—to live the perfectly obedient God-glorifying life that we all have failed to live, and then die the sacrificial wrath-absorbing death we all deserve to die. He is the true Son who has His blood shed for us. As we hear each week in the Lord’s Supper, the cup that we drink is the cup of the New Covenant in His blood. He lives for us, He dies for us, and then He rises from the grave in a death-defeating justifying resurrection, so that all who look to Him by faith would not perish, but would have eternal life. He is the true Son who saves us by His blood. And He is our true bridegroom of blood who saves His bride the church. So, this imagery of blood and bridegroom of blood is a picture of the gospel and new beginnings, but so too is the circumcision itself.
Like baptism circumcision was an initiatory rite into the covenant community, it signified an inward reality, it pictured the death of the old man of sin, it represented repentance, regeneration, justification by faith, a cleansed heart, and union and communion with God. It indicated citizenship with God’s people, separation from the world, and can lead to either blessings or curses depending on ones faith and faithfulness. Circumcision pointed to the need for regeneration, showing that natural birth wasn’t enough. Outside of the grace of God the male reproductive organ only produces sin and death. That’s why circumcision was applied there. And as the heads of their households, men were the ones who were called to bear that mark and reminder that they, in and of themselves, were not enough.
But circumcision also pointed to the need for a blood sacrifice, especially the perfect sacrifice of Christ, who is enough. It pointed to the need of a circumcised heart, to the new birth that only Christ can give, and the obedient faith He gives to those whom He causes to be born again. And, as I mentioned earlier, just as the flesh is cut away so too are God’s covenant people cut away from the world and brought into union and communion with God and His people. Which is why, if any in Abraham’s house refused to be circumcised they were cut off from God’s people. None of them had the choice of being in covenant with God or not. They had the choice to either be covenant keepers or covenant breakers. Children of Abraham, and children of Moses were to be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord as covenant keepers. They were to be circumcised at eight days old. But, all who refused to be circumcised were in that sense refusing to trust and obey God, and therefore were to be cut off from God’s people because they were being unfaithful to the covenant they were already in. And this is the same reality we see in baptism: those who are not baptized are not in right covenant communion with God and His people and therefore are cut off from taking the Lord’s Supper… at least until they are baptized and walking in faithfulness.
Moses was to lead God’s people out of Egypt and into the promised land, but he could not properly lead them into covenant faithfulness if he and his family were walking in unfaithfulness themselves. As I said earlier, God’s people, the sons of God have rights—rights to worship and walk in faithfulness to our God. Which is why God is sending Moses to command Pharaoh to let His people go. And if he doesn’t let God’s firstborn son, Israel, go, then God will kill all of Egypt’s firstborn sons, including Pharaoh’s. And in this scene with Moses and his family, it seems Moses has been preventing his own firstborn son from rightly worshipping God and walking in faithfulness, and almost perishes for it. But, as soon as they repent, as soon as they trust and obey, as soon as they were washed in the blood as it were, they are pardoned.
Instead of wrath and fury God pours out His mercy and grace upon them. And so it is for us. The moment we trust in Christ we are washed clean by the blood of Christ, and are thus forgiven; and not just forgiven, but counted righteous in Christ. As the bride of Christ we are united to our bridegroom, to our husband, and what’s His is ours and what’s ours is His. He takes away our sin and He gives us His righteousness. It’s the great gospel exchange that all with true faith benefit from. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Unlike Moses, who at first was a bridegroom leading his bride into unfaithfulness, Christ is the true and better bridegroom of blood who leads us into perfect righteousness, and gives us a true new start, enabling is to walk in covenant faithfulness, by His grace. That’s the reality that we are all walking in if we are looking to Christ by faith. And that’s the reality that Moses was now walking in, and was to lead God’s people in.
After this scene we’re told in Exodus 4:27-31 that, “27 The Lord said to Aaron, ‘Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.’ So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. 29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.” So, now we’re getting on track. Both Moses and Aaron are now going about God’s business. And this is God’s business. This is Him keeping His covenant with His people, and carrying on His Covenant of Grace.
In Exodus 6:2-13 we’re told, “2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, 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. 7 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. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’’ 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. 10 So the Lord said to Moses, 11 ‘Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.’ 12 But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?’ 13 But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.”
Notice Moses calls his lips uncircumcised. After the scene we just saw we know he means unholy and unfaithful. He doesn’t think that he can properly serve and glorify the Lord because he doesn’t speak well enough, but Moses tends to forget that Israel’s hope is not in him but in the Lord who is always faithful. Indeed, as we see here, His deliverance of Israel is a part of His covenantal faithfulness to Abraham.
God is keeping His promises and advancing His Covenant of Grace in and through Moses and the redemption of Israel. The Israelites did not know Abraham personally. This is all happening 400 years after God established His covenant with Abraham. But because God laid claim to Abraham and his household, and made covenant promises that would continue for generations, these Israelites were born into this covenant, and God is going to show them that He keeps His promises. Indeed, as He said, “[He] will take [them] to be [His] people, and [He] will be [their] God, and [they] shall know that [He is] the Lord [their] God, who has brought [them] out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” That’s who the God of the covenant is. And those are covenant blessings He’s promising there. That’s the same type of covenant blessings we see for us in the New Covenant.
In Hebrews 8:10-12 we read, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” God is the covenant keeping God who keeps His promises, and the ultimate way He keeps His promises is by giving His people the gift of Himself. We are His people and He is our God. We are His people whom He brings to Himself. He is faithful to His people. And whatever weaknesses Moses has are not going to get in the way of God’s faithfulness. Nor is Pharaoh for that matter.
In Exodus 7:1-6 we read, “7 And the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4 Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. 5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.’ 6 Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them.”
God is going to make this happen. Moses and Aaron are simply instruments in the Redeemer’s hands. And ultimately so is Pharaoh, as God is going to use him to magnify His glory. After giving sign after sign, and plague after plague, God is still going to hold back His grace from Pharaoh, in order to magnify His glory through the Passover and the miraculous deliverance of Israel from Egypt. And that’s what we see next.
After God turned the waters of Egypt into blood, unleashed plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, diseased livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness, in Exodus 11:1-10 we see there’s one more plague that will fall upon Egypt. There we’re told, “1 The Lord said to Moses, ‘Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.’ 3 And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people. 4 So Moses said, ‘Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, 5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. 7 But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ 8 And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.’ And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. 9 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.’ 10 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.”
In this whole situation God is dishing out justice to Egypt and mercy and grace to Israel. And this is right and good for God to do. God has already told Moses who He is… the God who is… the great I AM. And as He will tell Moses later in Exodus 33:19, He is Yahweh, the LORD… And He will be gracious to whom He will be gracious, and He will show mercy on whom He will show mercy. He is, “the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7). God can show His covenant people mercy and grace because justice fell, or in their case would fall, on Christ instead of them. He doesn’t merely clear the guilty, He takes our guilt upon Himself and atones for our sin. Justice is served in and on Jesus on the cross. And as for everyone else, all outside of Christ deserve death and hell, so God can do them no wrong. It is all just.
As we’ll look at next week, justice is pored out upon Egypt, but mercy and grace are poured out upon Israel. Egypt is led to the slaughter while Israel is led into freedom and life. Yet, as we know all too well, as Paul says in Romans 9:6, not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Many of them fall away and desire the pleasures and treasures of Egypt over the mercy and grace of God and the blessings of eternal life. But may we remember, as we read earlier in 1 Corinthians 10:6, “these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”
Conclusion
Beloved, every single one of us are walking in some sort of unfaithfulness to the Lord. We are all prone to wander. We might not be in as open rebellion as Moses was, as Pharaoh was, or as many of the Israelites were. But we are sinners nonetheless. But what we have seen today is that God saves sinners. God gives new life. God gives new starts. We must repent and believe. We must turn from our wicked ways, look to Christ, and seek to walk in covenant faithfulness. To you husbands and fathers, you must led your households rightly. To you wives and mothers, you must submit and follow rightly. Children, you must honor your parents. For us all, we must honor the Lord and submit to His law and gospel above all else. We must look to, trust in, and obey Christ. We must stand upon Him, and Him alone.
There’s an on going theme at work in what we’ve seen here today, and over the last few weeks for that matter: you and your family are a much bigger deal than you realize. Yes, it’s an election year, and everyone tends to be focused on politics and the like. And those are important, and have their place. But don’t miss God’s MO. God works through ordinary people, even through the covenant faithfulness of ordinary families. Men, your role as a man of God matters more than you know. Your faithfulness matters more than you know. Women, your role and faithfulness as a woman of God matters more than you know. Children, who you are and how you behave as children of God matters more than you know.
God had called Moses to an extremely important task, but the importance of that task did not trump his faithfulness to the Lord or his faithfulness to his family. So many people want to change the world or be a part of something bigger than themselves, but what we have seen today is that that starts with us. It starts with our families. It starts with our homes. If you want to make an impact, if you want to change this world for Christ, start by taking the same stand that Joshua did in saying, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” We must, as individuals, as households, and as a church, stand on Christ the solid Rock. That is our only hope; and that is this world’s only hope. So may we seek to walk in covenant faithfulness to Him, come what may.