2006 Latin American Bible Study MeetingApril 21, 2006, EveningNow the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.  Exodus 12:13Moses Is Sent back to EgyptIn the Bible, there are many passages of deep significance in regard to Moses. In John chapter 5, Jesus said of Moses, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (verse 46). Also, in Romans chapter 5 it says, “from Adam to Moses.” (verse 14) The period from Adam to Moses was before the Bible was recorded.So far, we have been taking a careful look at Jesus Christ through the books of Genesis and Exodus, both of which were written by Moses. When we consider the long period from the time of Adam until now, we can see that the man by the name of Moses truly made his mark within that history. In the book of Exodus we find an account of how the family of Jacob, having moved down to Egypt and stayed there for about four hundred years, became a great nation and then escaped from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. We have considered Joseph as he appears at the end of the book of Genesis as an image of Jesus, and Joseph’s older brothers who appear as an image of the Jews who will recognise Jesus at the end. Yet, when we turn to the book of Exodus, we can see that the Israelites were subjected to terrible hard labor as they lived their lives in bondage. In Egypt, they made bricks and did all kinds of work in the fields. Originally, the Israelites were a nomadic people who raised livestock. When Jacob’s family moved down to Egypt through Joseph, the pharaoh gave them the land of Goshen and there they took care not only of their own animals but also the animals of the pharaoh. By the time four hundred years had passed, however, these people had become slaves. This is an image like that of the period in Old Testament times just before Jesus was born when the prophesies had come to an end and there were four hundred years of darkness in the history of Israel. This was a time when sin was rampant in the land of Israel and the people were under the rule of Gentile powers. Herod, who ruled over the land of Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth, was a descendant of Esau who long before had sold his birthright to Jacob. There is something strikingly similar about the situation of Israel as seen through the book of Exodus and that of Israel as seen through Matthew’s Gospel. In Egypt, the Israelites were making bricks and mortar and working in the fields. The ground had been cursed because of Adam, but the Israelites had left their work of raising livestock and were working in the fields and making bricks. The people who gathered long ago in the land of Shinar said, “Come, let’s bake bricks and build a tower whose top is in the heavens.” They made bricks with their own hands and wanted to use them to build a tower whose top would reach to the sky. (see Genesis 11:1-4) This incident of the tower of Babel presents us with an image of man’s heart when it becomes arrogant. This was the situation of the Israelites. Such were the times in which Moses was born. At that time, the Israelites, who had been living a life of bondage in Egypt, had given birth to large numbers of children and so the pharaoh commanded that if any of the Hebrew women gave birth to a male child, the child was to be cast into the river. Similarly, when the wise men from the east came to the land of Israel and asked, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him,” King Herod, upon hearing these words and on the basis of the time the star appeared, ordered the killing of all the male children of two years old and younger in Bethlehem and its districts. Nevertheless, Jesus was born into this world, just as Moses was also born into this world. Images appear in the Old Testament like shadows. Moses’ parents put him in a basket of bulrushes and laid it in the reeds by the riverbank. The pharaoh’s daughter found the basket of bulrushes and Moses grew up as a prince of Egypt. Nevertheless, it was Moses true mother who nursed him, taught him to speak, and gave him an education. She was brought in as a wet-nurse and raised him.One day when Moses was about forty years old, he went out to see the Israelites about whom he had heard and been taught by his mother. When he saw an Egyptian beating one of the Israelites, he attacked and killed the Egyptian. Then the next day, he saw two Israelites fighting with one another. When he tried to stop them fighting, one of them said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”. Realizing that what he had done was no secret, he fled to the land of Midian, and there he spent forty years. Then one day when Moses was about eighty years old, the Angel of the Lord suddenly appeared before him in the midst of a burning bush. God said to him, “I will send you to the land of Egypt to bring my people, Israel, out of there.” So Moses asked how he should introduce God to the people, and God said he should say, “I AM has sent me to you.” God referred to Himself saying, “I AM WHO I AM.” Then God said, “I am the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Let’s turn to Exodus chapter 3.Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”  verses 13-14In the book of Ecclesiastes it says, “For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happ

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