“Beginning With Moses, Part 6” by Romans
Youtube Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
We are continuing our Series "Beginning With Moses." On the Road to Emmaus, Jesus caught up with and spoke with two disciples who were sad and perplexed about the arrest, crucifixion and resurrection reports about Jesus, the One Whom they "trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21). In response to their sadness and confusion, Jesus opened the Scriptures to them. We read, “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
Since our Series is called “Beginning With Moses,” perhaps the first Installment of this Series should have been the material that I am going to cover, today. We are going to review and examine the life of Moses to see the many things we are familiar with and take for granted, are actually astounding types, or prophetic foreshadowings of the birth, life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
1.) Moses' birth and infancy took place under a hostile Gentile rule:
Exodus 1:8-15 "Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.
They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him...”
Was there a counterpart in the New Testament when Jesus was born? Think! When Jesus was born, Herod, who was not a Jew but, rather, bought and paid for his position of rulership by bribing Roman officials, reigned as the King of the Jews, and he was under Caesar.
Matthew 2:1-3: "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
2.) There were edicts issued at the time Moses was born that ordered the deaths of all the male Jewish babies. We read in
Exodus 1:22: “Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
I ask, again, is there a counterpart of this execution order that directly affected Moses' order that we can apply as a foreshadowing to the life of Christ right after He was born? Are the lights coming on, yet?
We read in Matthew 2:16-18: “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men...
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”
3.) Moses and Jesus each were placed in peculiar and unusual objects that served as their beds: First, where Moses in concerned, we read in Exodus 2:3: “But when she {Moses' mother} could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch.“ Certainly that was not a typical bed or crib for a baby.
Luke 2:6-7: “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” It never occurred to me that the manger where Mary placed Jesus was an unusual bed for a baby.
Since I had no working knowledge of life on a farm, I just thought for decades that, before the modern manufacturing of cloth cribs, that a manger filled with straw was where all babies were routinely placed. What a shock it was when I found out that a manger is a feeding trough for farm animals. And then I realized how humble Jesus' arrival on the earth truly was.
As a side note, I recently heard for the first time that when the shepherds arrived at what we would call "The Manger Scene," their impression of what they were seeing with Jesus lying in a manger, was unlike how anyone else would have reacted: In a sermon, I heard that when shepherds identified a lamb without spot or blemish, they would separate it from the rest of the flock by lying it in a manger! So when they saw Jesus similarly identified, their reaction to seeing Jesus predated John the Baptist's reaction by three decades: "Behold the Lamb of God..." (John 1:29a).
4.) Moses and Jesus were both miraculously spared from their respective Kings' death sentences. Let's pick up where we left off earlier in Exodus 2, "But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him...
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children” (Exodus 2:3-6).
And, as with Moses, Jesus was spared from being a casualty of the King's death sentence. We read in Matthew 2:13, "When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
5.) Both Moses and Jesus were raised by women who were in the blood line of a royal family: "Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it.
She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother” (Exodus 2:5-5).
And what of Jesus' mother. How was she lineage traced to a royal line? The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and said, “Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:30-33).
To further confirm that Mary was a descendant through a royal blood line, the New Testament contains two genealogies for Christ, one of Joseph's genealogy, and the other of Mary's genealogy. Both blood lines can be traced back to King David, Joseph's in Matthew 1:1-17 through David's son Solomon which further sealed Jesus' legal place in the royal dynasty, and Mary's lineage in Luke 3:23-38 through David's son Nathan, which confirmed Jesus' blood line back to King David.
6.) This next point is probably my favorite because it is such a subtle and profound foreshadowing, and it reveals so much thought and insight on the part of whoever the minister or author was who brought it to my attention. It is not my own insight, and I wish I could give its author credit. It is this: Both Moses and Jesus were raised in the houses of men who were not their natural and biological fathers.
"Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses,a saying, “I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:9-10).
We also read of Moses in Acts 7:20-21: “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.”
Matthew 1:18 and 25: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit”
25: "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”
Jesus was raised in Joseph's house, and everyone that knew His family thought of Joseph as His father, when in reality He was not. Even Jesus' genealogy through Joseph in Matthew's account qualifies Joseph's being Jesus' father. It says, “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli” (Luke 3:23).
We read in Matthew 13:54-55: “And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? …”
7.) Moses and Jesus were both Divinely chosen Deliverers: Of Moses, we read in Exodus 3:7-10: “And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows...
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.”
Where Jesus is concerned, we read of His selection as the Deliverer when John the Baptist identified Him in John 1:29 : "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
And also in what is probably the most familiar verse in Scripture we read in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
In Jesus' first recorded sermon which He delivered in Nazareth, we read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” ( Luke 4:18-21).
The New Testament names both Jesus and Moses as a deliverer: In Acts 7:35 we read, “This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.” And then in Romans 11:26, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:”
8.) Both Moses and Jesus left highly exalted positions to suffer with and for Israel:
Of Moses stepping down from his position of power we read in Exodus 2: 11-15: "And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?
And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.”
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews adds these details regarding Moses: “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible...
Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned” (Hebrews 11:23-29.
Of Jesus stepping down from an exalted position, and then also suffering for His people, we read in Philippians 2:4-8:
"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
9.) Moses and Jesus were both shepherds: We read of Moses in Exodus 3:1 "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb." And of Jesus, in His own words we read in John 10:11: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
10.) Moses and Jesus were both alone with God for forty days and nights: Of Moses we read in Exodus 24:18: "And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.”
And of Jesus we read in Matthew 4:-21: "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.”
11.) Each of them were rejected as Deliverers at their first advent: Of Moses' rejection by the children of Israel we read, "And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known” (Exodus 2:11-14:).
Of Jesus' rejection by His own people, we read in John 1:10-11, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” In addition, Jesus spoke of His being rejected in a Parable, “But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14).
12.) They were both resisted and challenged by members of their own family: We read in Numbers 12:1: “And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.”
In John 7:2-5, we read: “Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world. For neither did his brethren believe in him.”
13.) Moses and Jesus both endured the murmurings of the people they served: We read of Moses' experience in Exodus 15:22-24: "So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?” (Exodus 15:22-24)
Also in Exodus 17:3, we read, “And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?”
The murmurings against Jesus were at least as severe against Him as they were for Moses. First, in John 8:48, we read,
“Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” We also read in John 10:19-20: "There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?”
14.) Moses and Jesus were both almost stoned: First, of Moses, we read in Exodus 17:3-4: “And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.”
Where Jesus is concerned in regard to His detractors wanting to stone Him, we read first Jesus words that incited the stoning response: “If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying...
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by” (John 8:54-59).
In a subsequent hilarious example of Jesus' use of sarcasm in response to the mob wanting to stone Him, Jesus asked in John 10:32, “Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?”
15.) Moses and Jesus both had direct contact with God: We read of Moses in Exodus 33:11, “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.”
Of Jesus' direct contact with God we read Jesus' own words, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:26-28).
16.) Moses and Jesus both radiated God's Glory: First in Exodus 34:29-30: “And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.”
Where Jesus radiated God's Glory, we read in Matthew 17:1-2: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.”
17.) Moses and Jesus were both Intercessors: Where Moses in concerned, after the Children of Israel fashioned and worshiped a golden calf inciting the Wrath of God, we read in Exodus 32:30-32: "And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin...
And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” Notice, that Moses is not only making intercession on behalf of the Children of Israel, but he is also offering his life in exchange for theirs, which is certainly a foreshadowing of Christ.
Where Jesus makes intercession for us, we read in Hebrews 7:22-25, where we read: "By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."
Of this intercession, the Sermon Bible tells us: “The intercession of Christ the strength of our prayers. Christ intercedes for us chiefly in two ways. I. First, by the exhibition of Himself in His Divine manhood, pierced for us, raised, and glorified. His five blessed and holy wounds are each one a mighty intercession on our behalf. The glorious tokens of His cross and passion, exhibited before the throne of God, plead for us perpetually.
His very presence in heaven is in itself an intercession for us. His sacrifice on the cross, though perfected by suffering of death only once in time, is in its power eternal. Therefore it stands a Divine fact, ever present and prevailing, the foundation and life of the redeemed world, before the throne of God.
II. But, further, we are told in Holy Scripture that He intercedes, that is, that He prays for us. This is a vast mystery of inscrutable depth. As God, He hears our prayers; as our Intercessor, He prays in our behalf. While He humbled Himself "in the days of His flesh," He prayed as a part of the work He had to do; it was for the accomplishing of the redemption of the world; for the blotting out of the sin of mankind.
This prayer of humiliation passed away with the sharpness of the cross, to which it was related, of which it was the shadow. The prayers which He offered, being yet on earth, were a part of His obedience and suffering to take away the sin of the world. All this, therefore, is excluded from His intercession now in heaven. When He entered into the holy place He left all these tokens of infirmity outside the veil.
What then remains? There remains yet both His intercession as the High Priest, and as Head of the Church, for the body still on earth. And in this there is nothing of humiliation, but all is honour and power; it does not cast a shade upon the glory of His Godhead, unless it be humiliation for the Word to be incarnate at the right hand of God. There is here (1) a great warning for the sinful.
Christ’s intercession is day and night prevailing over the kingdom of the wicked one. (2) Great comfort to all faithful Christians. We should (a) make the intercession of our Lord the measure of our prayers. (b) Make His intercession the law of our life. We ought to be what He prays we may become. H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 255. References: Hebrews 7:24, Hebrews 7:25.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 269. Hebrews 7:24-28.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 372.
Salvation to the uttermost.
I. Christ Jesus is able to save to the uttermost: for there is no degree of guilt from which He cannot save. It would be a hard question to decide which is the worst form of human guilt. But we owe it to the power and grace of Immanuel to repeat that broader than human transgression is the Divine atonement.
II. But not only can Jesus save to the uttermost extent of depravity,—He can save to the uttermost hour of existence. Both truths may be abused, and both will be abused, by the children of wrath, by those who because of abounding grace continue in sin. But still we must state them, and up to the last moment of life Jesus is able to save.
III. Jesus saves to the uttermost, because He saves down to the lowest limits of intelligence.
IV. Jesus can save in the utmost pressure of temptation. He saves to the uttermost, for He ever intercedes; and but for the intercession faith would often fail. No sheep can be snatched from the bishop of souls; and interceding for the poor panic-stricken one who has ceased to pray for himself, the Saviour brings him back rejoicing—saved to the uttermost.
V. And Jesus saves to the uttermost because, when human power can proceed no further, He completes the salvation. "Lord Jesus, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," has been the oft-repeated prayer of the dying Christian in clearer and more conscious hours.
And "Father, I will that this one whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am" had been the Mediator’s prayer for him not only before he came to die, but before he was born. Is not this the Saviour whom we need? the mighty Advocate of whom alone it is said, "Him the Father heareth always," whose intercession has all the force of a fiat, and whose treasury contains all the fulness of God. J. Hamilton, Works, vol. vi., p. 242.
There are many more ways that Moses' life and ministry was a foreshadowing of Jesus' Life and ministry. God Willing, next week I will finish the list of those things. I invite all of you join me at this same place and time.
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Beginning with Moses, Part 6”
This Discussion was presented “live” on August 30th, 2023
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