2nd Clue Abraham, Joseph, Moses.
Module 1
Welcome to Common sense Christianity- the second clue…..intro, and then starting with:
Adam, Abraham, Joseph and Moses.
God has indelibly written in History.
Seems pretty strange, but it is true, and forms the second clue that God exists and matters.
God has left a trail in history, showing what He has done……and we can look at His track
record.
He has done this deliberately of course, to give us solid evidence to rely on.
He has also done it to reveal that He is reliable and trustworthy.
He did it to prove to us that what He did was really important.
He did it to give us something that it would be impossible for any man to fake or forge. Only
God could have pulled this off. It’s scope is quite incredible
And we can look back on it. Test it. Chew on it.
You see, God spoke several hundred Predictions and Prophecies to a large bunch of men and
women over a 1600 year period from 2000 B.C. to 400 B.C, and it was written down in a bunch
of books now compiled into what we call the Old Testament in the Bible. In addition, in the New
Testament there are additionally recorded the predictions of Jesus Christ and his apostles, written
down between 50 and 70 A.D.
These predictions were political, military, social and most importantly, about the Messiah, Jesus
Christ, the one who would put into place God’s rescue plan for his children… both His first
coming 2000 years ago, and His second, which has not yet occurred.
These predictions cover every key event of Jesus’ first and second comings…one Messiah, two
comings.
Now, He expected those listening, both then and now, to where possible test the accuracy of
these predictions by using the obvious test; did they come true? He told us that false prophets
can be identified by their predictions not coming true.
You see, God had, and still has, a plan. A plan to deal with the critical issues……which are
firstly our flaws…. our lack of holiness otherwise known as sin, and secondly our separation
from God, who is the centre of everything good. God wants to give us access again to Him, from
whom everything good comes. God’s plan results in eventual complete triumph politically,
militarily and socially at Jesus’ second coming…. more on that later……but we can get God’s
involvement in our lives now too through His presence in our heart and lives by the Spirit of
Christ.
Essentially every key event in the life of Jesus Christ is foretold ….or demonstrated, acted out,
… in the words and lives of the Old Testament Prophets. Every key event. But it was cunningly
disguised……perhaps like a giant riddle, so that only those with genuine hearts would
understand, and to prevent God’s enemies from working it out and ruining it. There is a saying
which is useful here….“The new is in the old concealed, the old is by the new revealed” The
New Testament is concealed in the Old Testament, and the Old testament becomes
understandable in the light of the life of Jesus.
You can see that achieving all this has been quite a balance for God, and He did it so we can
look back and see for ourselves what He has pulled off……God paints a Big picture in History
between 2000 and 400 B.C., which falls together during and after the events in the life of
Jesus…all the disparate predictions over 1600 years form together to foretell God’s brilliant and
flawless plan, which was that God’s own Son was going to come to the planet, live as one of us,
and then deal with sin by dying on the cross . And we can look back on it and understand the
plan, and understand what those who lived before Christ’s first coming tried to comprehend ….
but couldn’t completely…..namely what was the meaning of all those events in the Old
Testament……what God was really getting at.
It is like a giant riddle, written by the hand of God, in History, especially for us, those who
want to know.
Each prophet could made predictions for any of three time frames…….firstly for his own time,
secondly for the first coming of Jesus, and thirdly for the second coming of Jesus ……and
sometimes one prophecy would do 2 or all 3 of these time-frames…..multiple meanings or
fulfilments are possible.
Furthermore, each prophet might also be asked by God to act out some aspect of the Jesus
Messiah story, writing with their own lives as well as with their words. In fact, looking back,
that’s one way we can tell they really were a prophet of God. Some strange things were
requested by God! We’ll see soon.
Jesus himself, whilst on this planet, was constantly referring his listeners back to the prophets for
confirmation of what he was saying,…. to confirm, reveal and explain what was
happening. Jesus clearly saw himself as fulfilling the predictions of the prophets, and that he did
so was a major reason to believe in Him, along with his ethical teachings and his lifestyle. For
example, soon after He had risen from the dead, Jesus appeared to two disciples who were
walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus in Luke 24…….and explained all the old testament
prophecies about himself to them, it was so important He did this before revealing who he was,
so they would not be distracted…… .
Now we know that the Old Testament was documented well before the birth of Jesus Christ,
because of the existence of the Dead Sea scrolls, which are hard copies of the Old Testament,
beautifully preserved, which date from around 100 B.C. and contain full and multiple copies of
the books recording the prophets words. They are in a museum in Jerusalem today. The New
Testament is also well documented.
So let’s take a good look at many of these predictions. I will in this first lecture series focus on
the predictions and demonstrations in The Old Testament of first coming of Jesus, and in a later
lecture, look at the predictions of the second coming in some detail.
End Module.
Module 2
Now, there are far too many clues and predictions that God has left for us to cover in this short
series, so let’s pick out the best ones, the key ones and weirdest ones…..
The very first clue of God’s overall rescue plan was actually given to Adam and Eve
immediately after they fall, but before they are kicked out of God’s presence. They hear not only
the consequences of their actions, but also what God tells the serpent. In Genesis 3 verse 15 the
serpent is told that the seed of the woman will crush your head, and you will strike his
heel. That is, one day, an offspring of the woman (not the man) would crush the evil one and
destroy him, but the evil one will get in a significant blow as well. Adam and Eve would have
thought about this and realised that God was promising to destroy evil one day through one of
her descendants, but it was going to involve significant pain at the least. He would be a human,
and would suffer…. significant pain at the least. A suffering human would defeat evil. This
thought would have given them hope…. Perhaps the expression “no pain, no gain” originated
here….…..
Looking at Jesus, we see that Jesus did not have a biological father, but he did have a biological
mother, being conceived by The Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The bible teaches that
He was at the same time 100% human, and 100% God, although He completely laid aside all His
godly attributes and modelled walking by faith for us. We see that he suffered on the cross, but
God turned this defeat into victory as He defeated the power of evil there, which we can access
for ourselves today. But we do not yet see the final victory over global evil as yet, that will
happen at His second coming. So this first clue is neatly fulfilled by Jesus, although only
partially to date.
The next clue I want to look at is Abraham.
Abraham was asked to something incredibly bizarre by God. It would have been bizarre to
Abraham then, as it still is to us today……he was asked to sacrifice his only son for his sin.
Do you remember the story? Abraham and Sarah had no children, and Sarah was too old to have
any. God has earlier promised Abraham a child. After a long wait, and , by the way , an
alternative human inspired solution that caused problems, The Lord tells Abraham that Sarah
will indeed have a child next year. Sarah overheard, and laughed to herself knowing it was
biologically impossible. This would a miracle son, a biological impossibility at the time, a postmenopausal woman having a baby, no wonder she laughed!
But it happened, and then some time later God said to Abraham in Genesis 22: “Take your son,
your only son, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt
offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about”. Moriah is later identified as the place
where the temple would be built in Jerusalem, the temple mount.
So God provides a miracle son, whom Abraham loves as his only son, and then God asks
Abraham to sacrifice him at the very spot where Jerusalem would be in the future.
Weird ? Totally, because God is well documented as hating child sacrifice with a passion. Child
sacrifice is the main reason for the Canaanites and later the Jews themselves to be judged
severely, and spat out of the Promised Land. It is the biggest sin of them all. If you sacrifice your
kids, the Just God will turn up soon and He is not going to be happy, there are many bible verses
which attest to this. And history confirms that child sacrificing civilizations don’t go well,
perhaps Carthage is a good example, in my opinion. That is one of the reasons in my opinion
why Western Civilization, indeed the whole planet, is in real trouble, as we are practising child
sacrifice once again, this time pre-natal.
Anyway, back to our bizarre story of a Just, child-loving God asking His main-man to sacrifice
his only son, the son who was himself a miracle of conception. As many of you know, God
stopped Abraham mid-stream…..of course…..God would have been the biggest hypocrite ever if
He had let the sacrifice proceed. Abraham then gets blessed personally, and his descendants as
well, but a final enigmatic blessing gets added: Genesis Chapter 22, verse 18….. “and through
your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed…”
But ask yourself, why did God set up this whole event ? Why put Abraham, a kind man, through
this ghastly experience ? It’s a bit like a mock execution……worse as it involves a dearly loved
child!
Now think about what God did with His son Jesus. A miracle birth. His only son, dearly loved.
Oh, and allowing him to be sacrificed for our sins at Jerusalem……do you see ? God was
allowing Abraham to model, without the death or pain, what God himself was going to do with
His own son Jesus. Why ? To show us, to write in history in advance what His plan was, and for
us to see, in retrospect, what His plan was! Impressed? It’s Gobsmacking to my mind, every
time I think about it…. it blows me away. And there are lots of these examples throughout the
Old Testament.
Back to the final enigmatic blessing……what does it mean ? We can now see that through Jesus,
the descendant of Abraham, the defeat of sin by the sacrifice at Jerusalem means not just
blessing for Abraham’s biological descendants, but for all the nations. And indeed, there are
perhaps 1000 million Christians globally today, and in the most unlikely of places, like atheistcommunist China, where to be a Christian involves paying a price.
So Abraham’s pain is our gain……that’s love for you.
Next let’s take a look at Joseph, around 1800 B.C.
The story of Joseph’s life runs like a movie……for those of you who don’t know, Joseph had a
really tough time in the first half of his life, before he became the prime minister of Egypt under
the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. He grew up as the 11th of the twelve sons of Israel, who was
Abraham’s grandson. They lived in Canaan, the Promised Land, current day Israel. But his 10
older brothers became jealous of him when he had dreams that they would all bow down to him,
and also the fact that his father favoured him as well. So when an opportunity presented itself,
Judah, one of the older brothers, convinced the others to put him in a hole in the ground and then
sell him as a slave to some passing traders who took him to Egypt.
The brothers told Israel the father that he was dead. In Egypt, Joseph was sold to Potiphar, a
Captain of the Palace guard. Joseph worked hard and was promoted to the top job in Potiphar’s
household, but Potiphar’s wife also noticed Joseph and attempted to seduce him. Upon being
refused, she claimed rape, and Joseph was unjustly hauled off to prison where he remained for 3
years. During this time, two palace servants joined him in jail, the Pharaoh’s butler and baker.
They both had dreams about their futures, which Joseph accurately interpreted, the baker being
executed, the butler being restored to his old job of being the cup-bearer to the king. The butler
did promise to put in a good word for his old prison pal, but forgot, until the Pharaoh himself
was seriously disturbed by two dreams. When no-one else could interpret the dreams, the butler
remembered Joseph, who was promptly summoned from his prison cell, and after being given a
shave and a new set of clothes, with God’s help, interpreted the dreams, which God had sent in
the first place ! These dreams foretold a famine of seven years coming after seven years of
plenty, and Pharaoh promptly made him prime minister of Egypt, second only to him.
Joseph took an Egyptian princess as his wife, and set about building and filling grain stores all
over Egypt. Once the famine started, his family back in Canaan ran out of food, and the brothers
travelled to Egypt to get some, bowing the knee to Pharaoh’s right hand ruler Joseph in the
process. Cutting a long story short, Joseph revealed himself to them as their long-lost brother, but
only after Judah had repented of his original crime by offering to become a slave in the place of
Benjamin, his littlest brother. The happily reunited family then moved to Egypt.
Quite a story. Joseph knew that God was with him, and was controlling events, but why did God
ask Joseph to live such a traumatic and amazing life? Just for fun, to teach him and us the power
of faith, that no matter how bad things get, when you follow God, everything works out in the
end? Yes, definitely, but there’s more……
A big clue that there’s more is the fact that Joseph’s and Jesus’ name share the same origin,
along with Joshua, and it means “God saves”.
God was imprinting into culture and history the pattern of a suffering servant, whose life of
suffering leads to the rescue of others. Every major event in Joseph’s life foreshadows or
prefigures a major event in Jesus’ first coming……let’s take a look.
Firstly, Joseph was sold by Judah for 20 pieces of silver. Jesus was sold by Judas (a later version
of the name Judah) for 30 pieces of silver, which was essentially the same price after 1800 years
of ancient inflation . This sum, 30 pieces of silver, was also foretold specifically 1000 years later
in Zechariah 11 verse 12, around 500 B.C.
Secondly, they were both punished for crimes they did not commit, Joseph got 3 years in jail,
Jesus got 3 days in the tomb.
Thirdly, they were both punished with two others, one of whom was released, one of whom
wasn’t……the two thieves on the crosses next to Jesus are the fulfilment of the butler and the
baker, one went to paradise with Jesus, one didn’t.
Fourthly, they both were dramatically taken from their holes in the ground to the right hand of
power in a single day, something unique in history I suspect, …….Joseph to Pharaoh’s right
hand, Jesus to God’s
Fifthly, their actions resulted in their families being rescued……Joseph’s from famine, Jesus’
from sin.
Sixthly, both were considered dead, but turned up alive.
Finally, they both married foreign brides, a thing usually forbidden for the Jews…..Joseph
married an Egyptian which represents Jesus marrying the foreign or non-Jewish church.
So God was once again showing what he was up to when He led Joseph through his tumultuous
life. Once again, it was for our benefit, to demonstrate God’s long-term plan concerning The
Messiah. Joseph knew what he doing was important, and that God was with him, although he
probably didn’t know that it was adding to the certainty of future generations, including us. His
life would confirm to them and us that God is profoundly in control of the lives of those who
love and follow Him. Indeed, Joseph prefigured the suffering of the Messiah himself.
And Joseph also prefigures the second coming of Jesus where “every knee will bow, and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”, Philippians 2:10.
Are you seeing how God has buried the truth about Jesus into history yet ? It’s more than
brilliant. And there’s plenty more.
Moses…….
There’s plenty in the Moses and the children of Israel story. God put a ton of stuff in there for us
to look at, and none of it is there by random accident ! Have you noticed that we should ask why,
instead perhaps of how when it comes to God ? It reveals his motivation, and lessons for us
today about how God works…..
I will assume you know the gist of the story. The descendants of Israel are still in Egypt about
400 years after Joseph, but instead of being welcome, they have been turned into slaves. Moses
is sent by God to rescue them, using 12 terrible plagues. Their subsequent escape and adventures
as they travel to the Promised Land fill no fewer than five books of the bible. God does a deal
with them, (that is, strikes a covenant), that if they keep His standards known as the law, He will
look after them. But if they don’t, they are on their own, and worse, God will be against them.
Everything that happens to them has importance, but I am only going to pick out the highlights…
The Jews are stuck in Egypt, slaves to an evil King, who will not let them go. Jesus tells us that
we are slaves to sin, and cannot escape.
When Moses was born, an evil King, the Pharaoh killed all the Jewish boys. The same thing
happened around 5 B.C. when Jesus was born, King Herod the Great killed all the boys in
Bethlehem, as had also been predicted in Jeremiah 31:15 around 600 B.C. One might consider
the significance of the abortion rate in our own time as a potential clue about the second
coming…..
When Moses tried to help his fellow Jews by sticking up for them, resulting in the death of an
Egyptian oppressor, he was rejected by the Jews. Jesus was also rejected by his own people, as
was also predicted by Isaiah around 700B.C. in the famous suffering servant passage of Isaiah
53….”He was despised and rejected by men…”
Moses walked away from the power and the pleasures and the sins of Egypt, and spent 40 years
in the desert. Jesus sought no army, nor a political throne, and spent 40 days in the desert.
Moses brings 12 plagues on Egypt, resulting in great destruction prior to the departure of the
children of Israel. In the book of Revelation at the end of the Bible, God replays these plagues
prior to the children of God joining Him at the second coming.
Next, Moses leads his people out of Egypt. This symbolizes leaving the sinful lifestyle of the
world. The sequence of events is important. Firstly the Israelites are asked to eat bread with no
leaven in it. Leaven is the yeast that puffs up the bread when it is baked, and it symbolizes sin,
the secret pervasive ingredient that pollutes humanity. The Israelites were asked to remove the
sin from their bread, and lives, as it were. The first preaching of Jesus in Matthew 4 is a call for
repentance, the turning away from sin, which is the same thing. This is also symbolized in John 2
by Jesus clearing the temple of crooks.
Secondly, Moses told the Israelites to put an unblemished lamb’s blood across the top of their
doorways, which protected them from the Angel of Death that killed every first born Egyptian
son. Jesus’ blood sacrificed on the cross achieves the same result, protection from the inevitable
consequences of sin, which is death. Jesus describes it to Nicodemus in John 3 as being born
again.
Thirdly, God provides a miracle enabling the Israelites to enter and exit the Red Sea by passing
through the water, on a pathway with a wall of water on each side. Notice Pharaoh’s army enters
the same pathway, but does not come out, drowning as it collapses on them. This is a symbol of
Baptism. God baptised them. The Israelites did not even get wet! Notice everyone goes down
into the water, representing dying…..but only those who trust in God come back up, representing
being resurrected with Him. Noah had a similar experience……everyone goes in, only those
who trust in God come back out. The Egyptians and Noah’s wicked, violent mockers all died.
Similarly, after Jesus had taught Nicodemus about being born again, Jesus then supervises his
disciples as they baptise in John chapter 3. Water baptism symbolises the spiritual reality of
dying and of being born again of water and of the Spirit.
Fourthly, the Israelites and Moses travel 3 days into the desert, about 1.5 million of them, plus
their animals, and much of the gold of Egypt too, by the way. They run out of water,
unsurprisingly, and God instructs Moses to strike a rock with his staff, which results in a massive
flow of water sufficient to water the whole crowd……. A terrific miracle, water from a rock
smashed by a wooden staff, but what does it represent? Jesus states in the next passage of John,
in chapter 4, that He would give living water, a spring of water welling up to eternal life to those
who ask him for it. John identifies this water as the Holy Spirit in John Chapter 7. Remember
that the cross was wooden, and that Jesus’ body was smashed on the cross, leading to Jesus
sending the Holy Spirit, the living water. Moses’ actions symbolise these things exactly.
So God performs three sensational miracles to rescue the children of Israel, each of these
miracles illustrates something important in the process Jesus sets up to rescue us from sin, as
recorded sequentially in John’s Gospel Chapters 2, 3 and 4.
Moses subsequent travels through the wilderness of the desert represents living with God in this
world, and that God protects and provides… for example, the manna (the bread) symbolizes the
Word of God. The Cloud and pillar of fire they followed represented the presence of God.
Battles are won by prayer. Whinging and complaining ends badly……
Finally, after many adventures and lessons, they enter the Promised Land, entering under the rod
of Joshua, another “shadow” of Jesus…this represents the point that no-one can enter heaven
without passing under the authority of Christ Jesus……
Through Moses, God set up the temple, which we are told in Hebrews is a replica of the real
dwelling place of God in heaven. The respect and honour God receives in the temple parallels
that in heaven. The Law and Ten Commandments is given, representing God’s standard, the
failure to keep this standard is called sin, and results in bad consequences, plenty died when they
blew it. The idea that sacrifice can pay for sin is also introduced by Moses. These basic concepts
God wrote into the lives of this small nation whom he parked in the centre of Asia, Europe and
Africa, in a place of prominence. They were meant to display the positive outcomes of following
God and his high personal standards of love described in the first two commandments. Many did
notice, and many non-Jews received miracles. Indeed, some now famous women married into the
nation- Rahab the harlot at Jericho and Ruth, the great-grand-mother of King David are notables
in that regard, and they were so highly regarded that they were included in the ancestral line of
Jesus.
We have seen how Jesus followed the process illustrated by Moses. Jesus also fulfilled the
sacrifice requirements of the Law, once for all time for all people, and you can read about this is
the book of Hebrews and Romans in the New Testament. Then, the temple is destroyed in 70
A.D. , as predicted in the book of Daniel chapter 9 around 500 B.C, as it is no longer required.
Now God had actually announced through Moses that some-one like Moses would turn up later.
God actually asked the Jews to watch out for someone in the pattern, who would follow the
same groove, so to speak. The verses are recorded in Deuteronomy 18 verse 15: God would
“….raise up a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth….If
anyone does not listen to my words……I myself will call him to account.” Talk about a big clue
!
Moses with the Israelites modelled many of the purposes and actions of Jesus Christ, and
introduced the key concepts about how to gain access to God, this access that was lost by Adam.
These were all laid down 1500 years before Christ was born. God did it carefully, purposefully
and openly, and documented it all, to give all those looking back the ability to comprehend
God’s actions both with Moses and then with Jesus, and to realise that none of it was an accident,
a fluke, or a careful trick by men. Moses’ life was a giant shadow of the real thing, Jesus
Christ. His purpose was to enable us to see and recognise Jesus as the real deal. A deal that only
God could have set up. Moses was a “shadow” of Jesus Christ.