Wednesday UPLIFT Series on Moses

Wednesday UPLIFT Message Series: Moses, God’s Leader & Liberator

 When:  7:00 to 8:00 PM

 Where:  East Room (Behind Worship Center Stage) 

 Speaker:  Ronnie Norman

On Wednesday, May 24 & 30 and June 6, Ronnie will continue his message series walking through the life of Moses and the Exodus story.  Much of the New Testament includes references from the exodus story and puts it into the context of Jesus and his ministry. 

Moses was quite a man.  Exodus 33:11 says: “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend …” 

That’s quite a tribute to be called the friend of God.  The story of Moses constitutes about one seventh of the whole bible, and it is two thirds as large as the New Testament.  It’s a story of a man who took a race of slaves and molded them into a powerful nation – which altered the course of human history.

As the story unfolds, God reveals exactly WHO HE IS through his absence and his presence, his silence and speech, his action and inaction, his wrath and mercy, through his judgment and his grace.

The life of Moses is theocentric. God is the principal character in the story of Moses.

Moses was a reluctant leader, but he became the greatest lawgiver in human history.  The law God gave him on Mt. Sinai endured for fifteen centuries, and to this hour is the basis of our western judicial system. 

In the chamber of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., a statue depicts the face of Moses.  It is so situated that the Speaker of the House, when he or she stands to preside, must look directly into the face of Moses! 

Moses’ life was full of antitheses in that he was the child of a slave and yet was raised as the son of a queen.  He was not a gifted speaker and yet he conversed with God.  He died alone on Mt. Moab and yet appeared with Christ in Judea. 

Moses authored five Old Testament books and his life, though far from perfect, was used by God because he was a person of faith.  Your faith will be strengthened and your hope reinforced through this Wednesday night UPLIFT Bible study series because the life of Moses points to and underscores the ministry of Jesus to us today. 

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” John 3:14

“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.” John 5:46

 “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’?” Mark 12:26

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE LIFE OF MOSES
The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament).  It is authored by Moses and begins approximately 400 years after the ending of Genesis.  The word "Exodus" means "departure” or “exit”.   

Called through the burning bush, Moses reluctantly agreed to be the Israelite leader.  It was during this time that God revealed himself to Moses as "Yahweh", the God who is "there when you need Him."   Moses returned to Egypt along with his brother Aaron and began the rescue attempt.  He was met with stiff resistance from the Egyptian Pharaoh. 

This brought about a series of 10 plagues.  The first two were duplicated by the Egyptian magicians, but the third one was not.  An understood message from the first segment of plagues was this:  The gods of Egypt are no match for the God of Israel.  The next six plagues communicated clearly that "Israel's God is incomparable" and that "He is at work even in Egypt."

Even after nine plagues the Israelites were still in bondage.  The tenth plague was that of the "death angel" passing over the homes of Israel.  This event was the first of many Passover meals and marked the end of Egyptian slavery.  Israel was now allowed to leave, although Pharaoh's mercy was to be short-lived.  His military chase ended in failure at the Red Sea. 

For the next three months Israel wandered in the desert wilderness until their encampment at Sinai.  During this time, they proved to be expert complainers as they whined about everything from the food to God's care.  Although Israel had been cared for and delivered by the mighty hand of God, their faith was shorter even than their memory.

KEY THEOLOGICAL THEMES FROM THE LIFE OF MOSES

I AM YOUR GOD AND YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.  This is the essence of God's relationship with Israel.  This was His covenant with them, to have a special relationship through which they would serve as "priests" (Ex. 19) to a watching world.  In essence, Israel would bring God to man and man to God.  They would be the people through whom God would become known to all the world. 

THE NAME “YAHWEH.”  Introduced in the book of Exodus as God speaks to Moses, this name reveals a certain character of God to us.  In Exodus 6, God said that the Patriarchs never knew him as Yahweh, but that Moses and others will.  Basically, it is a name of constant supervision and provision.  It tells us that our God is "always there when we need him."