Exodus- "The Way Out"

Moses said, "We have a problem, because they're not going to believe me when I go up there. I was there forty years ago and they're not going to believe me."

And God said, "All right, here is what I want you to do. I have three signs for you. The first sign involves that rod in your hand. Throw it down."

He threw it down and it became a snake. Then Moses turned and left. It scared him. God said, "Pick that snake up by the tail." And that was a sign.

Then He said, "If they won't believe that sign, put your hand in your vest next to your heart." And he pulled it out and it was leprous.

He said, "Put it back in there," and it was cleansed.

Then He said "If they won't believe those two signs, here's the third sign. I will turn the water to blood."

What does that mean? First of all, what Moses did with the rod is a picture of what Jesus our deliverer is doing to humanity.  Psalm 110:2 talks about God's people being the rod, who will come out of Zion. So it's talking about a people. God takes a people.

Here's Adam, at the beginning, and is a perfect man. He is the rod of God. Then he's thrown down because of sin and he becomes a serpent. But Jesus, our heavenly Moses, is going to pick the end of that serpent up, which is the end of the body of Christ the end of man and He is going to lift it up. Then Adam is going to turn back into a rod.

Did you follow that? We are being lifted up. He is catching that snake at its end, speaking of the end years of humanity at the end of six thousand years. Jesus, our heavenly Moses, will lift us up and that snake will turn back into the rod of God.

That is a picture of what Jesus did in His redemption also, because of Adam's deed. Jesus allowed Himself to identify with sin and was then raised up. He said, "If they won't believe that, they won't believe anything."

Jesus talked about this in Matthew 12. He said, "The only sign you're going to get is the sign of Jonah, for as he was in the belly of the fish, three days and three nights, so also shall the Son of man be." Matthew 12:40.

So that is a picture of Jesus, also. It portrays what happened two thousand years ago at the cross.

Then came the second sign. It was as though He said, "I'm going to take a hand in this matter."

Moses is a type of Christ and God is going to take Moses' hand which represents the five-fold ministries of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher. And he is going to remove the sin from them. It's the same thing. They were right in the eyes of God, then they fell, and they will be made right again.

He said, "If they don't believe what happened two thousand years ago, I will raise up an ascension-life gift ministry that will be clean because of that ministry. If they won't receive those two ministries, there is no hope for them and I will take their life away." You see, the water that flowed through the Nile was the Egyptians' very means of existence. And turning it into blood is indicative of taking one's means of existence and turning it into death.

He said, "If they refuse the death, burial and resurrection if they refuse the sign of a cleansed ministry then there is no hope for them."

The third sign is, I will turn their means of life into death.
 

Chapter 5 provides the demands that Moses made upon Pharaoh. Here's is what he said.

He said, "Let the people go three days into the wilderness."

You see, it takes three days to get to the wilderness. From Egypt, it took three days to get to the Red Sea and then journey over into the Promised Land.

He said, "We want to go three days into the wilderness and worship there."

This pictures the desire of us all. What Jesus is saying to all of us today is, "If you will go three days with me, I will bring you into the Promised Land." In fact, we already have journeyed three days with Him. We simply have to see it.

You have been drawn into His death and His burial and His resurrection. Those three days were already traversed by the members of the church. You already went there with Him.

God wants us to backtrack and not only see what happened to Him, but what that means to you. There is a three day journey that all of us need to travel. When we made Jesus our Lord, we were delivered.

Here is the principle. The response by King Pharaoh to that was not, "Ok, that's all right with me." No. He increased their labor! He made it worse! He said, "We'll not gather straw for you anymore. You will now get your own straw."

And here is the response of the flesh, the devil and the world to the announcement of the rest that is at the end of three days.

How many of you know that there is a rest at the end of the death burial and resurrection?

As soon as you purpose to reach this rest, the flesh and the devil immediately rises up against the thought of it. We think that there is something we must do in our own strength to achieve a rest. So, we end up doing more work, more labor and more labor. The demand to go three days and three nights similarly stirred up the King to put more work on them.
 

In the 6th chapter we have the seven "I wills" of God.

The first "I will" is read here:

Verse 6 Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,

The second "I will" is:

"And I will rid you out of their bondage."

Children of God ought to be living above the bondage that the world is living in! Can you say "amen" to that?

The third "I will" is:

"And I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments."

"I will" number four:

7 And I will take you to me for a people,

Five:

"And I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians."

8 And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob;

and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord.

It's one thing to be brought in, it's another thing to have that land given to you!
 

Chapter 7 has a lot of powerful principles in it, but I want to look at the next few verses.

And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.

Of what is the snake a type? It's a type of sin. It's no problem for the world to duplicate that. They brought their magicians and they threw their rods down and their rods became snakes. They then had a roomful of them!

The difference between the two snakes was that Aaron's rod swallowed up all the other snakes and then turned back into a rod.

The picture is clear. While Jesus was made to be sin, He swallowed up our sin and did away with it. That was unique!

Right before Pharaoh's very eyes was the plan of redemption. Jesus, the rod of God, would fall to the place of sin. He would be made sin for us, and in doing so, would swallow up sin and again be made the rod of God in the resurrection.

Aaron's rod was the first Kingsnake. It eats up other snakes.

At this time, Moses was eighty years old and Aaron was eighty three years old. Two old men came walking out of the wilderness with nothing but a stick. This was the instrument of God's deliverance. Both men were of the Tribe of Levi, which was the third son of Jacob. The number three is indicative of resurrection.

I tell you that the Word of God brings relief to you if you will meditate upon it and apply it to your present situation. We preach a message to you here about a deliverance that has been accomplished for you. Our message is to those who don't want religion, but truly want God.

People in the church-world, who have very little relationship with God, are truly in bondage. People are hungry to be taught. What does God need to bring deliverance to the Christian nation?

Here were two old men and they are walking into Pharaoh's court and all they had was a stick. They were ages eighty and eighty three years old. They walked up to the King and they said, "God said, let the people go." The very thought of these two men demanding this of the Pharaoh sounds absolutely foolish, but God takes the foolish things of the world and confounds the wise. That is what He is looking for. He is looking to take the "nobodies" the people who have never done anything, or haven't necessarily made any mark in the Christian world, and make them into giants in the world. God can save by many or by few.
 

Chapter 7 deals with the plagues and we want look at all of those now. I just want to mention the first plague. It was the turning of water into blood. Isn't it interesting that the first miracle in both the Old and New Testaments was turning water into blood. However, in the old it speaks of death and in the new it is life.

Jesus turned water into wine, which is indicative of the blood of Jesus. But it was to give life. Moses turned the water into the blood of death.

In these plagues, God systematically took all the natural life away. When you turn from God and reject God, you hold back the people of God from Him even your own family.

What does the Bible say the world is going to experience? There is a parallel to this in the book of Revelation. You find a plague of frogs, flies, boils and sores, thunder and hail. The only people that were affected by the thunder and hail were the people in the field.

Matthew 13 reads that the field is the world. So there is a place of safety out of the world. You better get in a house, a local church, and out of the world system.

Locusts and darkness are also in the book of Revelation. The beginning of the Bible is just like the end of the Bible. It's just one message.

Then the plague of the death of the firstborn.

The Passover shows us the blood over the door. Blood was also splattered over the side post and the door post. To do so would produce a double cross. There are two crosses seen that speak of the lamb dying as you and for you. It speaks of His death and your death happening on the same cross. It's a double cross.
 

Here's the thought. When the death angel came through the land he was looking for one thing. He was looking for the blood. He wasn't looking for your perfect life or the amount of money that you gave to the Church. He was looking to see if there was blood on the door post.

If he saw the blood then he passed by, because there had already been a death there.

The Holy Spirit's question to us today is: Have you allowed that blood to be put upon your life?

If you have been experiencing a death to everything that is life in your life, then will you come to the Father? Will you let Him come into your life and change your life?

God will not let your "old man", your Adam nature, live. He drove Adam out of the garden before he could eat of the tree of life. Why? Because sin had to be dealt with. Since Jesus dealt with the sin problem, He died as you and me and now the Tree of Life is open to all who will come. It has been open for two thousand years. We must eat of it now. We must partake of his bread and wine that He offers us now. We must let our minds be renewed to who we are. We must experience that death that Jesus died as us, then it will be Christ living in us and through us. It will no longer be I, but Christ who lives in me.