Exodus 18

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. In this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus. So glad to be with you today. We are at Exodus chapter 18. While we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray.
Father, it is a amazing blessing to sit at your feet, to learn from you, to follow after you. We pray now that you would please bless us. Let us understand your word and pray that would not just be historical stories, but that you would teach us through it. Teach us to love you. and teach us to follow after you. In Jesus's name. Amen. OK, so we are at Exodus chapter 18. This is a great story, by the way. I'm a huge fan of this one. All right.
And Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses's father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Then Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses's wife, after he had sent her back. With her two sons, of whom the name of one was Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger in a foreign land. And the name of the other was Eliezer, for he said, The God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. Now he had said to Moses, I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and your two sons with her.
So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other about their well-being. And then they went into the tent. And Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake.
All the hardships that had come upon them on the way and how the Lord had delivered them. Then Jethro rejoiced for all the good which the Lord had done for Israel. whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and who has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods, for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, he was above them. Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt offering and offered sacrifices to offer to God. And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God.
And so it was on the next day that Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening. So when Moses's father and father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, what is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone? And all the people stand before you from morning until evening.
And Moses said to his father-in-law, because the people come to me to inquire of God, when they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another, and I make known the statutes of God and his ways. So Moses' father-in-law said to him, the thing that you do is not good.
Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. for this thing is too much for you. You are not able to perform it by yourself. Listen to my voice. I will give you counsel and God will be with you. Stand before God for the people so that you may bring the difficult cases or the difficulties to God.
And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. But moreover, you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter shall bring to you, but every small matter they shall themselves judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you.
If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all the people will also go to their place in peace. So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. So they judged the people at all times, the hard cases they brought to Moses. But they judged every small case themselves. Then moses's father moses let his father-in-law depart and he went to his own land well We need to ask ourselves our three ABC questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this and C, what are we called to do in response to these words? So, what's this about?
Well, Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, he comes and he's bringing Moses' wife and two boys with him. His boys went to go see Papa, you know, they went to go see him and now he's bringing them back and he's hearing all about what God has done. All the amazing things the Lord has done. Pardon me. And he tells them all about what the Lord had done to Egypt. And Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake. And then he also tells them about all the hardships that have come since then. And notice Jethro's response in verse 10. "'Blessed be the Lord who has delivered you "'out of the hand of the Egyptians "'and out of the hand of Pharaoh, "'and who has delivered the people "'from under the hand of the Egyptians.
"'Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods, "'for in the very thing in which they have behaved proudly, "'He was above them.'" He says, you know, they were really proud in their son, God. And he defeated that. They were really proud in being able to defeat people in war, and God defeated them in the Red Sea. They were really proud of their Nile River, and God changed it into blood. They were really proud of their fertility, and God destroyed their crops. Jethro is amazed, right? He worships God. He realizes, man, it's the Lord. It's the Lord who's the God above all gods. And so this is this beautiful interchange between Moses and his father-in-law. And then the scene changes. on the next day.
This is just a visit from his father-in-law. I love just the reality of this story. I mean, when Olivia's mom and Mr. Spencer, my father-in-law, would just come and visit And they would have different insights. They would see things that we didn't see. And they would be able to just kind of say, you know what, Brian, the kids keep doing X, Y, and Z. You might want to think about these rules. Or we noticed this kid, you might want to go have him see the doctor. We're worried about this in his life.
And that's what Jethro does here. He's just there. And early in the morning, Moses say, I got to go to work. OK, well, can I go with you? Yeah, sure. So they go. Moses is working all day long from the wee hours of the morning till late at night. He's wearing himself out. There's only so many days that you can pull those long hours. And he's spending all day long, and there's a backlog of justice, right?
There's all these people who are waiting to talk to Moses. All these people are bringing their problems to Moses. And he's the only one. who's going and taking the cases to God and then coming back to them and this is gonna not only wear out Moses but eventually this is gonna wear thin the people as well.
And so Jethro says, hey bud, I need to tell you this, but this isn't good for you, right? This thing you're doing isn't good. And Moses keeps the fifth commandment here, right? He doesn't say, ah, you know, you're just a Midianite. What do you know? You don't know what you're talking about. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, he doesn't do that at all. He leans into what his father-in-law has to say. So, okay, well, what is it? And he's so, He says he's gonna wear yourself out. He says, listen now to my voice. I will give you counsel and God will be with you.
And he sets up a hierarchical structure of judging. You're gonna have a whole bunch of judges and those are gonna be judges over tens. and then a whole bunch of judges over 50s, and then a few less judges over 100, and then over thousands, and then you. So you're gonna have this whole hierarchical system of judging until you get to the very tippy top, and then you get the most difficult cases. But when it's just an easy case, when it's just a boundary marker line, When it's just one of these cases that don't need a lot of attention, somebody stole somebody's matzo bread, let the lower courts take care of that. You don't need to worry about that, Moses. Somebody else can be taught the statutes and the laws and they can judge. Moses receives this, right?
And he says, that's great. Okay, wonderful. Got it. And he implements a system. He's gonna teach the judges God's law, His statutes. Now the interesting thing is, we actually don't have that yet. We still got way two more chapters. But do you see how the Lord is slowly Setting things up here. The Lord has been.
Moving the people closer and closer to Sinai, closer and closer to that time in which he's going to give them the law closer and closer to that time when he's going to establish his covenant. With Moses and the people. As a peculiar covenant. A law not that's going to justify them. I just were justified by faith. But he's gonna bring them to this place where they'll function as a corporate body.
So what's this about? It's about a system of justice being implemented. A system of judicial bureaucracy. of a hierarchical nature. Very similar to the U.S. Supreme Court system where there's all the local courts and then appellate courts and then state supreme courts and then the Supreme Court. And so this is what this is getting at.
What's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I have in my Bible verse 19, sorry, verse 10 through 11 underlined. verse 10 through 11. And then I have verse 14 underlined. I have verse 17 underlined. And I have verse 26 underlined. Those are the verses that I think get at the very heart of this, but maybe you can help me out. Help me reduce this down. What would you underline? Last seed calling, what are you called to do in responses?
Well, I think one, there's a whole bunch we can learn here about wisdom. There's really a need for a plurality of judges. There's no one guy who has the answer for everything. And so having a plurality of judges, of leaders who are able to share their wisdom and their insight, there's also a leadership principle here, right?
Moses is not so proud that he's unwilling to listen to his father-in-law. And he's not so proud that he thinks he has to hold on to all the authority and all the leadership in Israel with a death grip. No, he's able to empower those under him, teach them, train them up, give them the law, and allow that to come from the bottom up. He's able to develop the leaders under him. But I think we can also trust that God is also a God of justice.
That God does care about those who have been offended, the poor, the needy, the widow, the fatherless. He does care about injustices. He cares about when somebody has been harmed. He cares about when somebody has been stolen from. He cares about when somebody has been slandered. He cares about false testimony. He cares about these things. He's a holy God. But he also has done something greater now. See, Moses was a tippy top. But even he had to bring it to God. But we have a great high priest who is our judge.
It is Jesus Christ, the Messiah. who is the one who will come again to judge the living and the dead. And he cares about you and your suffering, the injustices you have faced, the things that you are going through. And so we can take our prayers and petitions to him, to plead with him, just like the people at this time could. So we trust We trust in God as a God of righteousness and a God of justice. And in Jesus Christ, he's proved himself to be even more so.
Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we pray that you would make us a people of truth and justice. We pray, Lord, that you would make our land, whichever country we might be living in, to be filled with righteous judges who know what is good and what is evil, who judge with equity according to the law, who are above bribery and corruption. Please, Lord, give us judges. Give us just judges. that we might see equity even in our days. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. And I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.