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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Oppression: The Background and the Birth of Moses

I'm Cameron DeBasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Pastor Howard, we are embarking on a new quarter's worth of studies, this time in a lesson entitled simply Exodus.

We're gonna be looking at the biblical story of the Exodus and I was very blessed by the introductory comments in the teacher's edition and probably all the standard edition as well, has a little introduction and overview of the coming quarter study.

And I might just interject here that if you're watching this and you're like, oh, I just have the regular quarterly, I don't have the teacher's guide, You can go to the General Conference Sabbath School app and you can have access to all the quarter leads there Not just the adult quarterly true new and old All the children's divisions, etc are all in there.

Yeah, I can't say good stuff about that app It's loaded explore it a hundred percent for free.

But in this introductory overview The contributor dr.

Yerji Mascala from the seminary is our main author here and he gives an outline of where we're headed.

And I found from it this very helpful insight.

It says, Our plan for studying the book of Exodus during these 13 weeks is transparent.

And then he walks through what to expect.

The book is divided into weekly chapter readings of various lengths, divided thematically for convenience, and then it talks about each week's lesson what it's going to cover.

For instance, lesson 1, slavery in Egypt, the birth of Moses, and Moses' first 40 years, Exodus 1 and 2.

And then from that you can see how each lesson this time is going to be going through sequentially, chronologically, through the study of the book of Exodus, not just looking at themes or in time correlations even though those will be drawn out, but the structure of our study is very clear that we're gonna be walking right through time through the book of Exodus in order.

So this week's title is Oppression, the Background and Birth of Moses.

What it's really covering is Exodus chapters 1 and 2 and all the things we can draw out of it.

All right, well you put together the talking points for this week so let me have a word of prayer and then you can walk us through what we're gonna look at in this Talking Points episode.

Father in heaven, we are thankful for the testimony of your word.

We thank you for these contributors who have put their time and energy into sharing these insights with us.

We thank you for the Word of Truth and the Spirit of Truth.

Lord, we ask now that you would guide us in our presentation today and our teachers in their preparations to teach this lesson that it would be a blessing to your world church and that it would help us to be ready when Jesus comes.

So yeah, so the introduction simply says this week we study the first 2 chapters of Exodus to see the historical background of the life and eventual ministry of Moses.

So we're introduced to Moses we don't get in his ministry but that's coming in the subsequent weeks.

Well, his ministry to the people not the sheep.

He had a whole lot of preparation for ministry and we'll see that in a minute.

But let's look at our 3 talking points, which we have this week.

Number 1, God used Egypt to help establish ancient Israel.

That's coming from Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

A lot of times we look at like, what do you mean God used Egypt?

God, they endured Egypt, but God saved them out of Egypt.

But actually Egypt was an interesting help for the people of Israel and we're gonna see that in a minute.

Talking point number 2, Moses was providentially positioned to save Israel.

That God raised him up at just the right time for the need that they had and this is coming from Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's lesson.

And finally talking point number 3, Israel's history reveals the great controversy.

That's taken primarily from Friday's lesson but that it's not just a story of the Old Testament, you know, a background in ancient history, it's got some big-picture theological relevance and relevance to us today too.

Document number 1, God used Egypt to help establish ancient Israel.

Now as you recall, the history of Israel is, they didn't just rise up as a nation starting off as a great multitude, it started as a promise to 1 man Abraham who his descendants would become a great nation.

We actually have had a lot of insight into that between, you know, from last quarter just how God has used these nations and it's interesting we see this recurring theme where where things don't just, it's not just happenstance.

God is directing, even though he leaves man to his choice, yet he directs matters in such a way as to further his ultimate cause.

And you see there in Genesis chapter 12, he calls to Abraham specifically, says you're gonna be the father of a great nation, he sends him out to a place he never knew, headed to the promised land.

But he doesn't immediately go to the promised land.

The very first encounter is a famine that drives him into the land of Egypt and I don't know if I have a specific text there but you can see Genesis chapter 12 if you got that there.

Well I don't know if we need to oh 10 to 12 yeah let's go through that.

Yeah that's a little bit too long for what we're looking at, but I think 12, 10 to 12 should do it.

Verse 10 says, now there was a famine in the land and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land and it came to pass when he was close to entering Egypt that he said to Sarai his wife, indeed I know that you are beautiful, a woman of beautiful countenance, therefore if it happens when the Egyptians see you, it will happen when the Egyptians see you, that they will say this is his wife etc.

And then the story unfolds, exactly, He goes into Egypt and he's sojourning there even though his trust supposed to be in the promised land But there's a famine that pushes him there.

We're gonna see these parallels come up later and then he practices some deception when he's there and Pharaoh's household is plagued because of it and they cast him out of there with great riches.

It's interesting we see a number of those that pattern through the Bible that even these great men of faith, I think I'm gonna work this out and have their own concoction and that's part of the whole plan of salvation so we fall into that same situation, but God will be faithful with us as well.

It's very relatable and I'm so glad that he's bigger than our follies, right?

Well, anyway, of course, time goes on, but later on, of course, the children of Abraham, he gets this promise, there'll be a great nation.

But for not just a few years, but for decades, for almost centuries, I mean like long periods of time, the family of Abraham was slow getting started, right?

Finally you have Abraham has Isaac after the whole Ishmael debacle, you know, and then Isaac eventually has Jacob and Jacob has Joseph and his brothers, but by the time we get to the Jacob generation where Joseph and his brothers are in existence, they're still not fully the great nation that God had intended them to be, right?

And we see here that Joseph, in Genesis 45 the story is told, was sold as a slave into Egypt, but later through that process the Lord worked with him and made him great in the land of Egypt.

And if you have Genesis 45, 4 through 8, why don't you read that for us, please?

And my pages are really in the position that they're in.

And Joseph said to his brothers, please come near me.

So they, incidentally, I have to add here, you know, I talked to some people about talking points.

It's like, hey, we watch talking points and they say, how do you do that?

Like, I would have got that meat coming through and we would have cut that out There's 1 take we sit down and this is this is what you get This is real, right?

What you see is what you get these to say right whizzy wig fourth you ate and Joseph said to his brothers Please come near me.

So they came near then He said I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt But now do not therefore be grieved or angered with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve life For these 2 years the famine has been in the land and there are still 5 years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting and God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

So now it was not you who sent me here but God and he has made me a father to Pharaoh and a Lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt." So that's a fascinating insight where Joseph himself says, you didn't send me here, You thought you were doing it, you thought you, but the Lord was overruling all of this still for good.

So he is superintending this process and the Lord sent me here for the purpose of delivering this family, delivering this household for a greater reason, right?

So though he went there as a slave, the Lord put him in a position of leadership and he was able to be a savior for his family.

Thus, in Genesis 47, I'll just read here, the household of Jacob is brought by Joseph into Egypt again.

It says here, 5 and 6, then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph saying, your father and your brothers have come to you.

Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land.

And if you know of any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock.

Then you go down to verses 11 and 12, And Joseph situated his father and his brothers, And gave them a possession of the land of Egypt, And the best of the land, and the land of Ramses, As Pharaoh had commanded.

Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, And all his household with bread, according to the number of their families.

So far from Egypt being this place of abject oppression and slavery, Egypt started off as a very welcoming place.

Joseph went into a position of leadership and God sent him there to be a savior for his household.

Now the trouble is, as we get into the book of Exodus, that now we are...

It tells how that generation died, the Joseph generation died, in verses 6 and 7.

In fact, why don't you read verses 6 and 7 of Genesis 1.

And Joseph died and all and Joseph died all his brothers and all that generation but the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them." Now that is such an interestingly worded text there.

Up until this point, because, and we'll, we don't have time to go into the timeline of it today, but we talk about the 400 years in Egypt they spent in slavery.

02 The Burning Bush

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Going right on through our lesson study of the book of Exodus.

This week we're on lesson 2, simply titled The Burning Bush.

And Pastor Howard, as we've mentioned before, this is a chronological sequential study of the book of Exodus, so we're not like, you know, evaluating themes necessarily, even though things come out of them that we're gonna of course study.

Exactly it's very simple structure and I can tell you I appreciate that.

It's a very clear and easy and hopefully our teachers appreciate the simplicity of that too.

I actually put the talking points together this week.

So could you start us off with a word of prayer, and then we'll walk through our lesson.

Father in heaven, we are so thankful again for the word of truth.

We thank you for the spirit of truth that gives us understanding and spiritual things.

And I pray, Lord, now as we review this lesson, It would be a blessing to those who are preparing to teach as well as the worldwide field that we would all come away from it with a clear understanding of your will and purpose for our lives and your role for us in these last days.

We ask and pray all of this in Jesus name and for his sake.

This week the little introductory comment simply says this week we study God's call to Moses in Exodus 3 and 4.

So to get to our understanding, you know, we just saw the beginning of the Moses experience in the opening of the book of Exodus, and now God is calling him to ministry and 1 of the things I'm we're not to our talking points yet but I am I am reaffirmed in the relatability of the Moses experience where God is talking to him and he doesn't just always do everything right he you know has resistance he has questions and the Lord works with him So there's gonna be a lot of life application I think we can take from this week's lesson.

All right, well why don't you tell us what our talking points are this week?

Well we have 3 talking points this week, as is our custom.

Talking point number 1, God keeps his promises and hears his people.

You know, I need to stop and interject a little bit.

I've been in a number of Sabbath school classes.

It's always funny to me a little bit when you've had this happen, you go into a Sabbath school class and somebody's like, oh, I love talking points.

And then they go through the lesson Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, which is not wrong per se.

The only thing I would say is we've done, I think I've done 4 talking points once, said no that was a mistake.

Anybody who's ever taken a homiletics class, isn't it generally like don't use more than 3 points?

Yeah, usually 3 because it just confuses it.

So I know there are teachers who can actually, you know, most of the classes we've been in somebody walks through the lesson and like, yeah, sorry we made it halfway through Monday.

I know people who will go all the way through Friday but they have to go at such a clip that you really don't get much substance out of anything.

Okay, and it's like, oh there, pat myself on the back, I got through the whole lesson.

It's not the point, folks, and we just did a training with teachers, and I told the teachers it is not your job to cover every last thing in the lesson.

That's why it's there for people to study.

Pick out some things that you can spend a little bit of time on.

So I know that there are people who will, you know, just keep on whatever and, you know, But I would encourage, you know, there's a reason that we usually will go with 2 or 3 talking points so that you can actually unfold some things.

Yeah, that quality experience of a Bible study in your class.

And I know it's a temptation to wonder, well, there's so much good stuff.

But try to focus on the things that are going to be especially relevant to your own Sabbath school class where you can really dig in a little bit and have some good conversation on it.

So again, that first talking point is that God keeps his promises and hears his people.

We're gonna see who God is in this calling and what he's expecting of his people.

Number 2 is that humility is good but obstinance is not.

Moses is a humble man but almost to a fault and maybe it's some relatable material there too.

And finally number 3, obedience is a condition of salvation.

Now that's gonna be, can be a little controversial sometimes, I'm not saying it's the cause of salvation, but it certainly is an expectation that God has for us.

God keeps his promises and hears his people.

If you could turn to Exodus chapter 3 and why don't you just read the first, let's say, first 7 verses there.

Exodus 3 verse 1 says, Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.

And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush.

So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.

Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.

So when the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am.

Then he said, Do not draw near this place.

Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

Moreover, he said, I am the God of your 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.

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows." Now we're going to get into Moses being in the desert in the wilderness, what he's gained about.

But let's start with talking about God in this.

First of all, it was God who tried to get Moses' attention, right?

It wasn't Moses calling out to God, I'm ready for leadership.

God is taking the initiative here, as he always does, whether it's creation or redemption, God acts first.

Yeah, it strikes me that Moses, he waits until Moses turns aside.

It's almost like, you remember Jesus walking in the water and as if he would have walked by the disciples until they invited him into the boat.

So there's some interaction there between the human will and...

And the interesting you bring up Jesus, it's just like Jesus in the New Testament.

It is very much like Jesus do this and we'll see why in a minute.

But here we have God through the burning bush, you know, experience here, giving the attention to Moses, and God calls to him out of the bush, hey Moses, he's like, psst, come here, he gets his attention, he calls him over, and then he speaks to him from the bush and he tells him who he is, right?

And number 1, he introduces himself by saying, moreover, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Well, this phrasing, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, That's covenantal language.

We haven't seen this now in Israel's experience.

It's been a long time since Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have been on the scene at this point, but God is still that same God.

I'm the God who dealt with Abraham, Isaac.

The 1 who called Abraham way back then is now the God calling to you.

So basically the implication, before we even get to deliverance and go to Pharaoh is a connecting chain from that previous experience, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now it's generation you.

And so Moses is called here and so God is calling him first of all because he's the God of the same covenant, the same covenant simsum effectens, the same God.

And then he adds the other verse, verse 7, and the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because they're taskmasters, for I have known their sorrows.

So God is going to keep his deal no matter what, but in addition, he's sensitive to the Christ, sympathetic to the woes of his people who are crying out.

He recognizes their circumstance and he says, okay, the covenant is times up now, they're calling out to me and I'm gonna respond so now he's come at just this time to call Moses to be a deliverer.

So you brought up this idea that it's just like Jesus it's interesting because it says the angel of the Lord spoke to him from Bush And of course we understand that in the Bible an angel doesn't necessarily mean a winged being who lives.

And here, this seems to be 1 of those instances where the angel of the Lord is the angel who is the Lord himself.

The messenger that God sends is none other than Jesus Christ.

There's a couple of passages we're going to look up.

If you want to look up Genesis 22, we'll see that experience and we'll look up another 1, Genesis 31.

But basically the premise is the same way that God gets the credit for creation, though it's Jesus who was sent to do the work, the same thing is true in the work of redemption.

Of course, God is our Redeemer in a general sense, but specifically it's Jesus Christ who is sent to be the messenger and the relator to the creation that he made.

So we see that for instance look at Genesis 22 and the experience where the Lord calls to Abraham first starting with verse 11.

03 Rough Start

We are on our third lesson now of this quarter study on the book of Exodus.

There are so many lessons that we can apply to our lives plus just great doctrinal review that we can go over in this history and so I love this study and this week we are looking at the next installment.

Pastor Howard you know we're going through this lesson series in a very sequential, orderly, chronological way.

So we just looked at the burning bush and Moses' interaction with the Lord and getting him to be the spokesman, you know, the messenger that he wants him to be here in Egypt, And now we're studying how he's received in Egypt, first by his own people and Pharaoh and their interactions.

And so that's where the next chunk of our story, next installment comes this week.

And we're coming back to this room from being out and about a little bit.

I was just out with a great group at Advent Hope Sabbath School in Loma Linda.

Got this special little memento to show I was there.

And it is a, the whole thing is a Sabbath school.

And you know, we're Sabbath school guys, so shout out to them.

We went to do a week of prayer in the beautiful Fountain View Academy.

And hello to all of our Canadian friends and all of our international students and staff who were there at Fountain View Academy.

We had a really good time and it's really interesting no matter where you go, Sabbath school and growing the church and sharing our faith is on people's minds and as it should be so it's exciting to be part of the Lord's work in all these different capacities.

So anyway, I even met somebody in the hotel out there who watched his Talking Points.

Well, I hope they were favorable and they're like, boy, we had to talk with you.

We had to know people actually use the resource to further the cause of Christ, that's our purpose here.

It's not just to gain more information about the Bible but things that we can help so we can help other people to know the God that we serve.

And we see that in this week's lesson actually.

So speaking of this week's lesson, as I mentioned it says this week's lesson examines Moses' return to Egypt and initial interactions with Israelites and Pharaoh as recorded primarily in Exodus 5 and 6.

So Moses returns in 4, 5 and 6, and we get a toe into 7, but basically 5 and 6 is where we're headed this week.

So I actually put the talking points together.

If you would be so kind as to give us a word of prayer, I'll then walk through the lesson.

Father in heaven, we are so thankful for your Word and the privilege we have to study it together.

We want to pray a special blessing on this presentation of talking points as well as all of those who will be teaching this particular lesson that they would be able to teach it through the power of the Holy Spirit, that it may be a blessing to the practical experiences of those who hear it and that we would shine as the lights in this world that you intended us to be to herald the way, prepare the way for the coming of Jesus.

Okay, as is our tradition, there are 3 talking points drawn out from this week's lesson.

So on the talking points, the official General Conference Sabbath School app, which we've talked about, If you go to the lesson, and they don't have this 1 up yet.

We're recording ahead of time, but I'm gonna take 1 from the last quarter.

If you scroll down to the bottom, there are our Talking Points outlines right there.

We talk about the Talking Points outlines and we refer to them and some of you still like, I don't know where to find them and we try to put it in.

You go to that app, Talking Points and Boom, there are our outline notes.

So between the website and the YouTube channel and the downloadable app there that's completely free, we're taking every excuse for preparation out of the way.

You've got a quarterly, a teacher's quarterly, you've got extra help.

That's what I'm saying is everyone can prepare, however you want.

I read that as every excuse for preparation being every excuse not to worry about preparing.

No, no, I'm saying it's like when you go to prepare, you've got every resource at your fingertips so they should have great Sabbath schools is my point.

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