Thru the Bible

Host: What does God save us? Is it because we go to church? Because we treat people well? Because we are faithful to Him? Welcome to Through the Bible. In this study, our teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee takes us to the Old Testament book of Exodus chapter 2, beginning in verse 21, where we are going to see how God prepares to redeem Israel and discover why He redeems us as well.

I am Steve Shwetz, and I am so glad that you have joined us on the Bible bus for this great study in God's Word. As you find your seat and get comfortable, let's hear from a few of our fellow travelers this time listening and studying with us in Spanish.

Martha from Spain tells us, "I want to thank you for the work you are doing. I learned about you through a YouVersion plan, studying the book of James. Now I have downloaded the app on my phone and I am following the daily study of Revelation. I have also started listening to the Genesis study. Thank you so much, God bless you abundantly."

Jorge in Guatemala shares this, "Since I accepted Christ as my Savior, I have sought to delve deeply into the Bible. But ever since I began traveling on the Bible bus in February 2024, I have been having such wonderful experiences, especially when I discover on the one hand, how glorious the Bible is when explained well, as you do, and on the other hand, how little I knew before. I bless this precious ministry in a very special way and ask God that more and more people will join this excellent program every day."

Host: Now from a listener in the US who didn't leave a name, we hear this, "This is an an excellent teaching program that leads me to love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ more and more, and provides me with tools to, as the word says, be prepared when asked about the reason for my faith in the gospel and the content of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I thank God that I have known you for more than 30 years and that it has been a solid foundation of sound doctrine."

Host: Well, praise God. Praise God that He is using His word to change lives in Spanish in more than 250 languages around the globe as well. So to join our World Prayer Team as we pray for listeners like these, sign up right from our app or go to TTB.org. And let's pray now.

Lord, thank You that You redeemed Israel in the time of Moses and that You still redeem us now. We know that nothing we do makes us worthy of Your salvation. It is only by Your grace and mercy extended to us in Jesus. And so in His name, we pray. Amen.

Turn to Exodus 2 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now we come to the second chapter of the book of Exodus and we put in today at verse 21. Hope you have your Bible and you will turn there. We will begin in just a moment. I hope you have our notes and outlines which we will send to you.

Now we left off last time here in Exodus with this man Moses. We divided his life into three different parts. He lived to be 120, and there are three 40-year periods. The first 40 years, he spent in the court of Pharaoh. We saw that last time, and Stephen said he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

It is the belief of some that this man Moses actually led a campaign up into Ethiopia. He was a man of tremendous ability, of course, and one that was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, which meant that he knew a great deal about engineering. Look at the pyramids and look at the great temples that were built and the great palaces that were built in that day. And the chemistry was terrific. They really knew a great deal about chemistry. The paints they used, the embalming fluid, and they were a literary people. They had a great library.

And Moses was learned in that wisdom, but that did not equip him to serve God. So God put him out on the backside of the desert in Midian. And there you will recall that he met the daughter of the priest of Midian. In fact, the matter is, the man had several daughters, and Moses married one of these women. And there is always been a question relative to Moses' marital state.

I personally feel like that that is one of the things that Moses more or less passes over. I am sure he must have loved his wife, but the record that we have doesn't reveal a very wonderful relationship at all. I would presume that it was not the best in the world. Here is this man now that is down in the land of Midian on the backside of the desert, getting his B.D. degree, backside of the desert degree. And there God was training him to deliver His people.

We are told, though, in verse 21, "And Moses was content to dwell with the man, that is the priest there in Midian. And he gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter. And Zipporah means sparrow. She must have been a little thing. And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land."

"And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them."

Now God is going to come down and deliver the children of Israel now, and Moses has been trained to be that deliverer. Now the question, of course, arises, why did God do this? Now if you have any notion that the reason God did this was because of the superior ability of these people, then I think you would be entirely wrong. And God did not come down to deliver them because he said, "My, these children of Israel are so superior to the Egyptians, and they have been true to Me. They have not gone into idolatry, and they have served Me faithfully."

"And they are a lovely people." May I say to you that God never said that. Because it wouldn't have been true. These people were not faithful to God. They did not serve Him. They did go into idolatry. And you will recall when they got out into the wilderness, they couldn't wait to make a golden calf. Just as soon as Moses got out of sight, why Aaron started making the golden calf for them.

They had gone into idolatry. They were away from God. They were in slavery. Now why would God come down and deliver them? Because they are in a helpless, hopeless position. They are in the position where unless somebody will intervene on their behalf, they are through. They are sunk. Or using the common colloquialism of the day, they have gone down the tube. They are not even salvable. They cannot be salvaged, it would look like at this particular juncture.

Well, then why did God come down? Well, He tells us here, two reasons. God says, "I heard their groaning." The thing that appealed to God was their desperate condition, their hopeless condition. That is what appealed to God. And He saw that, and for that reason, it appealed to Him.

And then the second reason is, He says here that He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God says, "I made a covenant with Abraham, that I would bring his offspring after the 400 years. I would bring them back into the land." God says, "I intend to keep My covenant. What I say I will do, I will do." And God confirmed that covenant with Isaac and then again with Jacob.

Now these are the two reasons that God came down and delivered these people. It was their desperate, hopeless condition. It was that which appealed to the heart of God, and the second thing is, God had made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Now why do you think God has redeemed you? That is, if you are redeemed. Why do you think God has redeemed me? Well, same reason. God found nothing in us that called forth His salvation. He makes it very clear that when He saves us, it is not because any merit is in us at all. Actually, it is without a cause. That is the thing that Paul says in Romans the third chapter, verse 24.

Let me read verse 23. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely." And that word freely means without a cause. It is the same word our Lord used when He said, "They hated Me without a cause." Now you and I are justified without a cause. That is, there is no reason in us. God didn't look at us and say, "My, you know, you are Protestant and you are lovely, and you are superior, and I am going to redeem you."

Fact of the matter is, it is the reverse of that. God saw us in the darkness of sin and ignorance. He saw us hopelessly lost and we were not able to save ourselves. And so we are told here, "being justified without a cause by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

And God saves us by grace. Actually, He doesn't save us by love. He loved us, but love didn't save us. Love provided a Savior. God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that you and I might have a redemption. And we are saved therefore without a cause by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That is the basis on which God saves us today.

And I hope none of you listening in have any notion that God found anything in you that was worthy of salvation. Now I think that a great many people think that, well, God did save me as a sinner, but He saw what a lovely person I would become. Did you know that you never become a lovely person? I hate to say that, but you don't become a lovely person. There is no good in that old nature.

Paul says, "I know within my flesh there dwelleth no good thing." Now will you believe God that there is no good in you at all? My friend, there is nothing in you that is good. Oh, I know that hurts a great many people. That is a shoe that really pinches, isn't it? To think that God didn't find any good in us, and there is never going to be any good in us. That is the reason you and I have to have a new nature. That is the reason for that because, friends, you and I just can't produce anything good.

He found nothing in us, nothing whatsoever. And He never expected that that old nature would ever produce anything good. In fact, He is eventually going to get rid of it. We need a new nature. And that is the thing that caused God to come down and deliver these people. There was no good in them, no good at all. He redeemed them because He heard their cry, and God saw our desperate condition and saved us.

And then God had a covenant. I mentioned it a moment ago in that most familiar verse, John 3:16, long before I came into the world. God, the Father, so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And the Son agreed to come and die, and the Father agreed to save any that would trust Jesus. And He didn't wait for me to get here to talk it over with Vernon McGee and say, "Now look here, boy, what do you think about this plan? If it pleases you, I will go through with it." God didn't do that.

God says, and I want to be brutally frank with you. God says, "Here it is. Take it or leave it. This is My salvation that I offer you." He made a covenant, and anyone that will trust Christ, He will save them. A little Scotch lady who had worked hard, taking in washing, years ago sent her boy away to the university. And he came home for vacation, and that was in the days when the university was going modern and liberal. And so when he came, why he had a few doubts, and he was a little arrogant, you know, but he didn't really want his mother to know too much.

But one morning, she was fixing his breakfast, and she is telling about how wonderful God was to save her, and she knew she was saved. And this young fellow just couldn't take anymore of it. So he said, "Look, mama, you don't seem to realize how really small you are in this universe, and that you really don't amount to very much." Then he gave her quite a lecture on astronomy, how big the universe was, and how little she was. And he said, "Why, if you lost your soul, God wouldn't miss it at all. It wouldn't amount to anything."

Well, she didn't say anything. She just kept waiting on the boy till finally she got everything on the table. Then she sat down, and she said, "I have been thinking over, son, what you said. You are right. My little soul doesn't amount to much, and if I lose it, I wouldn't lose much. And God wouldn't lose much." But says, "You know, if He doesn't save me, He is going to lose more than I would lose." The boy says, "What do you mean?" "Well," she said, "He promised that if I would trust Jesus, He would save me. And He will lose His word. He will break His word. He will lose His reputation and His character if He doesn't make good."

"You are right. I don't lose much, but He is going to lose a great deal." And friends, God is not going to lose a great deal. God is going to make good. And that is the thing that He is saying. Not that the children of Israel are attractive, but He is saying that He has come down now to redeem them because He has heard their cry, and that appealed to Him. There is nothing lovely that appealed in those people, and there is nothing lovely in us that causes Him to save us. And He did make a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and God has agreed to save any that will trust Jesus because it was on that condition that He came to this earth to die. God so loved, and it is that love provided a redemption. And God doesn't save by love. He saves by grace.

Now grace is love in action. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and talk about love. God didn't do that. God has demonstrated His love to us today. Now, will you notice the last verse, "And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them."

Now we come to the third chapter of the book of Exodus. Now in the third chapter, we have this very arresting story of the burning bush. It is the call of Moses and the second 40 years in Midian now comes to an end, and this burning bush is the turning point, of course. Now let me begin reading at verse 1. Now this is chapter 3 of Exodus. Have you ever noticed the great chapter 3's of the Bible? I have often wanted to run a series on the great third chapters of the Bible.

But there are so many things I have never been able to get around to preach on that are in the Word of God. Genesis 3, John 3, Romans 3, and here is Exodus 3. And it is the burning bush. Now, will you notice, "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 the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

Now that bush has always, frankly, been considered a picture of the nation Israel. They have been in the fire of persecution from the very beginning. Here they are in it right now, down in the land of Egypt. And down through the centuries, that has been their experience. They have been in the fire, but like that burning bush, they have never been consumed. And isn't that interesting? Other great nations that have never gone through the fire as they have, have already disappeared.

By the way, when was the last time you saw a Midianite? He is down in the land of Midian. Have you seen the flag of Midian? Do you know anything about the government of Midian? I must confess that I know nothing about this. It is gone. It is disappeared, friends. But the burning bush is certainly typical of these people.

Now, will you notice, "And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush." And here, the angel of the LORD, in my book, in the Old Testament, is none other than the pre-incarnate Christ. Now I am not even prepared to debate that. There are certain convictions that I have come to in my ministry that I just don't go back and debate them anymore. I am not prepared to debate whether 2 + 2 = 4. They told me that at school. I accepted it. Then working on that supposition now for over half a century, and it has worked out all right. So if you don't think 2 + 2 = 4, you go to somebody else to argue it and don't come to me because to me, 2 + 2 = 4. And the angel of the LORD in the Old Testament is the pre-incarnate Christ.

If you haven't come to that point, then I am not prepared to argue with you, although I think I could give you my argument. But the important thing is to get the great message that is here. Now, will you notice, "And behold the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

"And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush." I thought it was the angel. It was. Well, didn't the angel call? Yes. Well, then why does it say God called? Because it is the Lord Jesus, friends, and He is God. And He said, "Moses, Moses." And He said, "Here am I." And He said, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

Here is a man brought up in the court of Pharaoh. Trained in the culture and civilization of that day, and it was a great one. He has spent now 40 years in the wilderness, and he has had a great training out there, but you know he doesn't know enough to take off his shoes. Doesn't know enough to do that. How many people today, they are learned in the wisdom of this world, but they are so ignorant of God, so ignorant of His Word. And now he has to be rebuked and told to take off his shoes. "Take off your shoes: for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

God now is teaching him a great lesson that has to do with the holiness of God. "Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." Now, when we say that he could look upon God, he could look upon the revelation of God. The Lord Jesus, when He came to this earth, actually was veiled in human flesh. It can still be said, "No man hath seen God at any time."

"The only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, He hath exegened Him." He has led Him out in the open where now you can know God, and the only way you can know Him, of course, is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we read, "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."

God, when He redeems, He does not only redeem from something, but always unto something. We have been saved from sin unto heaven and unto holiness also. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Host: Isn't it amazing how Israel's redemption story parallels our own? Well, if you would like to understand more about God's grace in saving us, you can click on "How Can I Know God?" in our app or at TTB.org. You can also call 1-800-65-Bible if you would like a few of these free resources by mail. And for those of you who already know the Lord but maybe want to go deeper yourself, well, I have a couple of suggestions.

First, sign up for our monthly newsletter. You can receive it by mail or digitally, and it features more great teaching by Dr. McGee, as well as helpful tips for applying what you learn and encouraging stories of how God is using His word to draw people to Himself. Here at home, as well as around the world. And you can receive it digitally by signing up at TTB.org too, or call 1-800-65-Bible if you would like it mailed to you each month.

Second, you can get our app or visit TTB.org and download our free Bible companion for Exodus. It's a super helpful resource and prompts to follow the scripture passages and Dr. McGee's teaching really make it simple. The clear summaries of what we have learned are great, and then at the end of each lesson, you are going to find reflection questions to help you think through and apply the teaching, whether on your own or with a small group. Again, both of these resources, they are available anytime at TTB.org or call 1-800-65-Bible if we can answer any questions you've got.

And when you are in touch, would you tell us how you listen to Through the Bible? However you hop aboard the Bible bus, you know we love to hear it. That small bit of information is also a big help to us as we follow God's lead in taking His whole word to His whole world. So thanks in advance. I am Steve Shwetz, and I will meet you back here next time as together we go through the Bible.