From our July 9, 2025, Bible study on Exodus 18.

Quick transcript:

[Nate]
So we are in Exodus, and we’re moving into Exodus 18. We’re really going through Exodus fast compared to like Hebrews, for example. But it’s because, you know, this is narrative.

And so narrative is a lot different from epistle, because the epistles often have a lot of theological content to unpack and to teach through. I mean, you can remember Hebrews, we would take a whole hour to go through several verses. We’ve done that a couple of times here in Exodus.

But really, when you’re dealing with a narrative, you have to take big, pretty big bites of the story at once. Otherwise, you lose context. And so that’s why we’re going through Exodus so swiftly.

But we’re in Exodus 18 now. And so, you know, up to this point, just brief review. You know, things have not been going very well for Moses, not because God had not been faithful.

God was always showing himself to be faithful to his people. But in what sense had things not been going well for Moses? Because of what?

Because of God or because of somebody else? Because Israel, they were grumblers. They were complainers.

They were whiners. And they were discontent and they doubted God. And never forget, when you look at Exodus and you consider, okay, why was Israel grumbling?

It was always because of their doubt. They doubted the Lord’s care for them. They did not trust God to look out for them, to provide for them.

And so because of that, they would grumble, they would complain, they would say, why did you say things like this? Why did you bring us out here to die in the desert? Oh boy, wasn’t it so great when we sat by pots of meat in Egypt?

And so on and so forth, forgetting how awful it had been for them while they were in Egypt. And you know, I thought about it some more. And when you can think about the nature of the Israelites grumbling, it was because they did not know how God would provide for them.

And they weren’t content to just trust him to do so without seeing it. It’s as soon as they could not see or know how God would provide for them, that’s when they began to grumble. Instead of just living by faith and saying, well, I don’t see how God is going to make this happen.

I don’t see the provision, but I trust he will provide, even though I don’t know how he’s going to do it, I’ll still trust him to. It was like, no, unless I can see it and touch it, I’m going to complain and grumble. And we don’t want to be like that ourselves at all, right?

And I see hints of this in Matthew 6, where the Lord Jesus tells us to not worry about, you know, the necessities of life, right? You ever seen the jungle book, right? The basicness, bare necessity, not basic, the bare necessities, right?

Yeah. What am I going to wear? Where am I going to live?

What am I going to eat? All these questions, which yeah, in this fallen world, there’s a thing called scarcity. And it’s a real bummer because it means you can run out of stuff.

You can run out of money. You can run out of food. You can run out of health.

You can run out of time and so on and so forth. That’s scarcity. Uh, and it threatens us with death.

It threatens us with starvation and so on and so forth. And so like Jesus points out in Matthew 6, people, um, when they’re faced with scarcity and those questions, you know, how am I, how am I going to, how are my needs going to be met? They lose their minds.

They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re constantly seized by worry and by anxiety because they, they don’t know. All they see are limits everywhere. They look, there’s limited goods, limited resources.

Yes, Mary.

[Mary]
Just saw something maybe a week ago on Facebook where someone said that anxiety is pride. And it’s like pride that it’s, it’s pride because we think we are owed the knowledge. We’re owed, uh, the information that we want about our future and our provision.

We’re not actually owed that. No, we are. I just thought that was interesting because we could consider this about Israel and they really think there’s something that they get to order God about like that.

[Nate]
Or, yeah, or complain as if they are justified in their complaining because, well, God hasn’t shown us what he’s going to do. He hasn’t told us. He didn’t sit down and tell us how he’s going to take care of all of this.

Instead of saying, well, he, he’s the one who brought us here. And since he brought us here, we’ll trust him to provide for us. Yeah.

So I think worry is, is, is driven by pride. Uh, it can often be driven by self-preoccupation, self, self-concern. It’s never driven by the glory of God, right?

No one worries because they’re concerned about the glory of God, right? Whenever we’re worried or filled with anxiety, it’s because of ourselves typically. And you can be concerned for your kids, something like that.

That’s a little different. But when it comes to those necessities of life, uh, that’s, it’s just selfishness. This is why the Lord Jesus says, don’t worry.

Your father knows you need them. And we should rest in that. We should be content with that, right?

We should, we should not insist on seeing it. It’s like, God, I want you to show me from this point in my life to when I die, show me how you’re going to provide. I want to see it.

It’s like, he’s not going to do that. No, we’re not going to see tomorrow. This is exactly what Jesus says.

Don’t worry about tomorrow because today has enough trouble of its own. So stop trying to look into the future. Stop thinking about the future.

Stop expecting God to show you or to tell you this is how I’m going to take care of you 10 years from now. Don’t do that. Focus on today, be faithful today and rest in the knowledge that God knows what you need.

And he’s not checked out. He’s not an absentee father. He’s not detached and neglect negligent at all.

He’s not, you know, he’s not a deadbeat dad. In other words, not, not by a long shot. And so, uh, something for us to bear in mind whenever we see that old nasty monster worry and anxiety begin to rear his head in our hearts and say, I know, I know what you are.

And I know what the answer to that is faith. Worship God. Sing the doxology.

Really? I’ve told you that before. Sing the doxology, right?

Give thanks to God. Worship him. That’s a great way to respond to sin in our hearts.

It’s just to engage in the worship of God. All right. Exodus 18.

We’re going to get an idea here of how, you know, of what Moses had on his plate. And now remember, uh, Moses, as I mentioned, did not have the best relationship with the Israelites. They were ready to stone him as he said.

And then God had them fight the Amalekites and Moses was up on the hill raising his army. He needed the other men’s help to keep his arms up. And that was, I would imagine showing the rest of the Israelites.

We need Moses because without him, we can’t win without God’s prophet leading us. We’re going to lose. So we need Moses.

Maybe we should not rumble against him so much, or maybe not at all. Right? So starting in chapter 18, Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. And the, and the name of the other Eliezer, for he said, the God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law. So that’s being emphasized here multiple times. This is who Jethro is.

He is Moses’ father-in-law, right? Came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. And when he sent word to Moses, I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her.

Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And when, and they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way and how the Lord had delivered them.

And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel and that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. So we’re getting an idea here that Jethro was a God fearer. He was a worshiper of Yahweh, not an idolater.

Now had he formerly been an idol or perhaps, but if so here, it’s clear that that was no longer the case. 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 it’s delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.

Now, I know that the Lord is greater than all gods because in this affair, they dealt arrogantly with the people. Who dealt arrogantly with the people? The other gods.

What’s Jethro noticing here in verse 11? What’s he acknowledging? He’s acknowledging that cosmic struggle that was taking place.

If you remember from the outset, as we started to study Egypt, as we’re framing everything, it’s recognizing that this is not merely a political contest between two nations, Israel and the Egyptians. This is a cosmic struggle between God and spiritual powers of darkness, those powers and principalities and the heavenly places that are opposed to the kingdom of God. Here, Jethro is recognizing that, which is kind of amazing.

He’s saying, now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods because they dealt arrogantly with the people. Those gods dealt arrogantly with the people. Isn’t that interesting?

So in Jethro’s perspective, Pharaoh was the representative of his gods and it was the Pharaoh’s gods who through Pharaoh were treating the people of Israel arrogantly. That was Jethro’s perspective. Was he wrong?

No, he was not wrong. There actually were spiritual powers and principalities who were opposing God’s people through Pharaoh. Now, the gods of Egypt don’t exist as Amun-Ra and I can’t remember the other ones off the top of my head.

Those gods don’t exist, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t demonic realities, diabolical spiritual entities that are behind all of that. Idols are nothing, they’re not real. There is no such thing as Amun-Ra, but there are demons, there are powers of darkness, powers and principalities.

Here, Jethro is recognizing that they were the ones who were arrogantly with God’s people. So this gives us clarity as to how the exodus would have been understood in the ancient Near East by those people who were aware of it. That Yahweh had basically exploded on the scene and demonstrated his power and his supremacy over all other gods.

Jethro’s recognizing that here and that’s helpful because Jethro’s perspective would have likely been the perspective of everybody else in the living. Jethro was responding by giving glory to God. I don’t know that all the other nations would have done so, all other men, but Jethro did.

It’s interesting to know how Jethro understood and how he interpreted the exodus, not fundamentally as a political struggle, but as a spiritual struggle, as a cosmic contest between deities. That’s how Jethro understood it. I don’t think he was mistaken in that.

I don’t think he was mistaken in that. As a matter of fact, I would say what Paul says in Ephesians 6, when he talks about the former of God, resonates with what Jethro is saying here. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against what?

The powers of darkness in the heavenly places. We’re still struggling against them. As we seek to disciple the nations as the church, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commanded, that’s who we’re doing war against.

There’s a great exodus happening right now, there has been since Christ’s resurrection and ascension. The exodus is not from across the Red Sea. The exodus is out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.

That is the exodus that has been going on around the world and will continue to go on until the Lord Jesus returns. This is how the book of Hebrews frames it. It sees all this continuity between the word of God.

It’s kind of wonderful.

[Jon]
And through the waters of baptism.

[Nate]
Exactly, exactly. Bingo, right? We’ve got to have this biblical worldview.

We cannot have this sanitized, de-spiritualized view of reality where we don’t take these things into account. By sanitized, I mean a view of reality that only takes the visible into consideration and not the invisible realities that are very much at work in the visible world, even though we can’t see them, because that’s not the view of Scripture. Scripture says we are in a war, we’re in a contest, and that contest is with these invisible foes who are seeking to oppress God’s people.

And were doing so until Jesus came and he flipped the script. He changed it up. He turned it all around so that God’s people are no longer on the defensive.

The shepherd came, the king came, went to his throne, and now he’s on the offensive and these powers of darkness are on the retreat. And that’s how we need to think of it, because they’ve been beaten. God beat them here at the Exodus, but Christ has triumphed over them in such an extent that it is not limited to the ancient Near East.

That triumph is extending throughout history and around the world and into all nations, and into all nations. That needs to be our perspective. Because I want to read that one again.

Let me read verse 11 again so it sinks in. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people. And Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, in case you forgot, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God.

And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’s father-in-law before God. Wow! So Jethro is a believer.

He’s worshiping Yahweh. He made sacrifices to Yahweh. And Aaron, who would eventually be the priest of Israel, is coming to eat with him.

This signifies fellowship, peace between Jethro and Aaron. Now it wasn’t inappropriate or unlawful for Jethro to make sacrifices to Yahweh at this point, because the law had not yet been given. The Levitical priesthood had not yet been established.

So there would have been no prohibition against Jethro doing this. So this was faithful, what Jethro did, and he’s honoring the Lord. And we can say here he trusted in Yahweh.

We could say, and speaking in New Covenant terms, that he was born again. He was regenerate. We could say in Old Testament terms his heart had been circumcised and set apart for Yahweh.

All right? The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. Okay, now this gives us an idea of what Moses was doing.

He sat to judge the people. What does this mean? It means that he was settling disputes.

It’s like, wait a second, the Israelites were fighting with each other? Yes. But they’re a bunch of nomads.

What are they fighting about? Right? They don’t have, it’s not like, hey, you know, he got on my grass.

He ruined my lawn. You don’t have any lawns. You’re living in tents.

What are they fighting about? Listen, you take, you get enough people together, and you make them live together, and what’s going to happen? They’re going to fight?

Are they going to have disagreements? Yes, they are going to have fights, especially if you don’t have rules set in place. That’s true for all of us.

There are no rules. Guess what men are going to do? They’re going to make rules up of their own, and then they’re going to fight about whose rules are the right rules.

And then you’re going to, it’s going to be a back and forth. No, no, no, no. Well, I’m going to tell Moses.

All right. Then they all go tell Moses. And it was so bad that Moses was doing it from morning to night.

Were the Israelites getting along? No, not at all. Not at all.

They stopped grumbling against the Lord. They weren’t grumbling against Moses. So apparently they started fighting with each other.

So now they’re fighting, they’re bickering, acting like a bunch of, no offense, junior hires probably, because that’s just, that’s fallen human nature to do these things. We, we need shepherds and we need shepherds because we get into it with each other. And then we need to be corrected so that we work our stuff out and we reconcile instead of continuing to drag out our fights, our grievances and our beefs.

But look at this. Moses is doing this for morning till evening, settling disputes, judging the between the people. When Moses’s father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, what is this that you are doing for the people?

Why do you sit alone and all the people stand around you for morning till evening? Jethro thought Moses was being kind of crazy. And so why are you doing this?

You’re surrounded from morning till evening. I cannot even begin to imagine what that, I mean, you, I would just dread getting up. You know, I go to bed and I say, Lord, just kill me now.

Right? Because you know, some of these guys are going to be repeat offenders. Here they are again, right?

Husband and wife going at each other. They’re showing up, you know, a couple of kids go, who knows? It’s just like, oh my goodness.

He stole my this. He took my that. Who knows?

Moses sitting, having to sit there and navigate all of that and settle all these disputes. That’s what he’s doing from day to day, from morning till evening. And Jethro steps in and says, this is crazy.

I’m paraphrasing. That’s essentially what Jethro is saying here. What are you doing?

What are you doing now? This is important. What we’re reading here is important.

I mean, that’s, that’s kind of an obvious I’m captain obvious right now. Yeah. It’s in the Bible.

Of course it’s important. Thanks pastor. Duly noted.

This is important. Let me explain why it’s important. The reason why it’s important is because God has seen fit the God, the Holy Spirit to record this for us, to give us an example of how his people ought to be led.

This is an example that’s been given to us. So we should pay attention to that. Is it wise to lead God’s people, you know, barring the Lord Jesus, who’s the exception because he’s God incarnate when it comes to mere men, ordinary men like yours truly, is it wise for one ordinary man, one figurehead to lead all of God’s people?

No, not wise, not single-handedly anyway, not on his own. What did you say, Jason? No, apparently not.

No, this, this is not wise. And so it’s like this, this portion where Jethro is coming to Moses to say, Hey, why are you doing it this way? You could arguably see the Holy Spirit not recording this for us, but instead he highlights it and puts it right here in the text, right in the story.

So we see it because there’s something for us to learn from this, right? What Moses was doing was not good. He wasn’t sinning, but this was not a sustainable way of handling things, of dealing with God’s people.

And Moses said to his father-in-law, because the people come to me to inquire of God, when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws. Now that’s an interesting thing, God’s laws. Well, up to this point, God’s law had not yet been given.

And so what laws is Moses referring to here? Well, what we can say about that is that up to this point, certain things were understood, were a given among God’s people, which probably means they had some sort of rudimentary understanding of the law of God that had not been formalized yet as it would be at the giving of the Decalogue, otherwise known as the Ten Commandments. But in all likelihood, the people still understood those things because we know that God’s law has been imprinted upon our hearts.

Even unbelievers know the difference between right and wrong, because God has revealed it to them. And so Moses was aware of these things, and he was a prophet of God. And so we can trust that Moses would have had an awareness of those statutes and laws of God that would have served to separate his people from the rest of mankind.

And so it was those laws that Moses would appeal to as he decided between those who were having disputes. I also want to point out to you in verse 15 that Moses describes the people coming to him in order to inquire of God. Now, as we read it in the English Standard Version, that sounds like they’re coming to him for some sort of prophetic reading, right?

Like, okay, what is God going to do for me this time next week, right? That kind of a thing. I’m inquiring of God.

I want to receive a revelation from the Lord. But that’s not how Moses is defining what he means by inquiring of God. To inquire of God, in this case, was to simply seek the right application of God’s statutes and laws to a particular dispute.

That’s what it meant to inquire of God. So as Moses is framing things, inquiring of God was not a matter of looking for some sort of special revelation from God. It was a matter of turning to God’s statutes and laws in order to do the right thing, to handle a dispute in a godly way.

That’s what it meant to inquire of God. Something important for us to note there. How do we go about inquiring of God?

We turn to his law. We turn to his word. That’s how you inquire of God.

You turn to those faithfully, rightfully, and ordained elders or leaders he has placed over you among his people who have been given to the church in order to help you understand his word and understand his law. That’s what it means to inquire of God. Very practical and very ordinary.

What Moses was talking about here was not some sort of super-duper spiritual experience. Oh, I’m going to go inquire of the Lord, and the heavens are going to open, and light’s going to shine on me, and I’m going to do these signs and wonders. No, it’s, hey Moses, I’m inquiring of the Lord.

What does his law require me to do in this situation? That’s inquiring of God. Yes, Jason.

[Jason]
So is it fair to say, I mean, this, to me, is the first instance clearly laid out of a sort of Presbyterian structure of government. Yes. And then you see this in the New Testament with the Jerusalem Council, this idea of courts of appeals and higher obstacles.

[Nate]
Yep.

[Jason]
You can trace it back. This would be, in my mind, as far as I understand, first really laid out.

[Nate]
I would say that I think we see a kind of primitive form of Presbyterianism here. They had a prophet there, which is not ordinary. We don’t have much.

Yes. Structurally, right, I think this is a kind of primitive Presbyterian structure. And then again, you see it, I would argue, followed in principle in Acts, Acts 15 of the Jerusalem Council, where you don’t have one man who is single-handedly handling a dispute within, among God’s people.

What you have are a number of leaders who have been duly appointed according to the word, and they are working together in order to settle disputes. And they’re accountable to one another. They’re not just these autonomous entities that are disconnected from one another floating around out there.

They’re all united to one another and accountable to one another. And they’re coming together to make decisions and to deal with disputes. And I would say, well, yes, this is where we get the Presbyterian form of church government.

It’s what we get it from. This idea of checks and balances, of cooperation, of having courts of appeal. This is where we derive it from, is here, Exodus 18, and then in Acts 15.

This is the biblical example. Does it require everyone to be Presbyterian? I don’t think it requires.

I don’t think scripture mandates as a hard and fast commandment, Presbyterianism. But I do believe scripture exhorts us to do something like this when it comes to the governing of God’s people. So for this reason, I don’t think personally, I don’t think independent churches are a good idea.

That’s not to say I don’t think they’re true churches, not at all. I think you can have a true church be an independent church that doesn’t have any accountability outside of its own leadership. I don’t think that can be a true church.

I don’t believe it’s a wise approach to governing the church. Because you want to have those layers of protection, like Jethro is going to argue here with Moses. So why are you doing this all on your own?

You need to spread this out. And you think about this for our congregation being part of a presbytery. That’s what we do.

If we get faced with a really big issue, we’re not left on our own. We’re able to appeal to our brothers in presbytery to say, we need help. We need a committee to help us sort this out.

We call it a committee, but you have to come up with some kind of term. So we use the term committee. A committee is just a few other elders from the presbytery who temporarily form a committee in order to come alongside another congregation, help them figure stuff out when they’re going through something thorny.

It’s also protection for congregations, because if congregations have elders who are flaking out, Lord forbid, the congregation can turn to presbytery and say, help us out. Our elders are flaking. Can you help us?

So there’s protection built in there. There’s accountability. There’s courts of appeal.

And I think this is the structure. Where do we get that from? Did this come about back in the 18th century when the United States was founded?

No, Presbyterianism existed prior to that. And I would say it’s rooted ultimately in Exodus 18, like you suggested, Jason. Where do we get the Presbyterian ideas from?

The idea of Presbyterianism right here. And then again, we see the church in principle doing the same thing in Acts 15. So it’s like, well, why wouldn’t we do that?

Why wouldn’t we follow that same approach that is commended to us in Scripture? Moses’ father-in-law said to him, what you are doing is not good. I love that.

It’s not good. So we have that recorded in Scripture. What Moses was doing is not good.

Is it good or not good for a church to have one pastor and no other leaders? Not good. Yes, Jon.

[Jon]
I wonder if the earlier chapter emphasized his status, his father-in-law, his older man, so that way when he sees, he corrects Moses.

[Nate]
Yes.

[Jon]
He corrects the prophet. He does. He says, hey, prophet of God.

And he’s just very bold and he’s right.

[Nate]
He’s correct. Yeah. And he’s not, you know, he’s helping Moses.

He’s not beating him up. He’s saying, you’re going to burn yourself out. You can’t keep this up.

This is not good. This is not good for you. It’s not good for the people.

[Mary]
Well, everybody gets to see Moses as a man under authority.

[Nate]
Yes.

[Mary]
And not just under God’s authority.

[Nate]
Yeah. That’s a great point, Mary. Yeah.

Because he’s listening to his father-in-law. He doesn’t object. His feelings aren’t hurt.

He doesn’t go home and cry to Zipporah. Oh, you’re dead so mean. No.

He said, oh, you got a good point. Okay. We need to do it differently then.

Also, as leaders, something for us to learn here is you can’t think of everything. Moses was a prophet of God, and he didn’t think of what Jethro had to say to him. He needed Jethro to tell him.

So it’s always something that leaders in God’s people, among God’s people, have to bear in mind. You’re not going to think of everything, which means you have to be open to outside counsel. You have to be willing to listen to others.

We might see things you don’t see. We might have a better way. We might see improvements that can be made, and you can’t be so proud.

You plug your ears to what others have to say. You got to have open ears and realize I don’t know everything. I can get something wrong.

I might be missing something. So I’m ready, willing, and able for good advice, good counsel, constructive criticism, so that we can stop doing things that are not good and do things that are good, right? So what you’re doing is not good, right, said Jethro to the prophet, and Jethro could get away with that because he was older and he was Moses’ father-in-law.

You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. Excellent advice, Jethro.

And this is his number one reason for why what Moses was doing was not good. He simply did not have the capacity for it, did not have the capacity, could not bear up under it. It was not going to hold together for very long.

He saw that. Now obey my voice. Oh, okay.

Speaking of authority, he’s asserting some authority here. Now obey my voice. I will give you advice and God be with you.

You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Notice again, taking my time walking through this, but it’s important to have our expectations shaped by scripture. Did Jethro tell Moses that it was his job to fix everybody?

What was Moses’ job according to Jethro in verse 20? Warn them, make them know the way and that they must walk the way they must walk and what they must do. That’s it.

And that was enough. But it was not Moses’ job to make anyone do those things because he couldn’t. His job was to tell them what to do, to inform them about what God’s law said.

See, this is what you ought to do. That’s the most that Moses was able to do. And that’s all that anyone could expect from him.

They could not expect him to make them feel better. They could not expect him to fix their problems and they could not expect him to fix them. All that he could do is say, this is what God has said in his law and his statutes.

This is what you are doing. It’s not good. This is what you ought to do instead.

That’s it. Pastors and elders have to remember this because you know something, that’s all we can do. We can’t fix people.

Did you all know that? We can’t fix anybody except ourselves and that barely. We can’t fix marriages.

We can’t fix broken relationships. We can’t fix bitterness, unforgiveness, unrepentant sin. Can’t fix any of those things.

That’s hard to deal with sometimes because you really do want to fix people. You really just want to reach into their hearts and say, you know, whatever button you got to push, push the button and they’re fixed. Wish you could do that.

Wish you could do that. You can’t. And you know what happens when you try to do that?

You wear yourself out. Doing, trying to do the impossible, what’s impossible for man anyway. And so, yes, Heather.

[Heather]
If, and who would enforce, like say, if they had a dispute over something, if they found something that violated boundaries, finding that physical violation?

[Nate]
Great question. I would entrust that there would have been some sort of enforcement if there was theft or if there was any other kind of overt crime that had been committed, that there would have been some sort of enforcement. You know, that would all have, that would all eventually be laid out formally by God’s law, right?

Now, who would have done the enforcing? To the best of my knowledge, maybe we’ll come to it later on in the text, but I can’t think of a place in Exodus where that is established. These were the enforcers.

Maybe. It could have been. And it probably would have worked like this, kind of like the Wild West.

You get a posse who’s appointed, right? And so you would have Moses. Hey, you and you get him, right?

He’s bad, dude. Yeah. You big guy.

Yeah. Bubba grab that guy, you know, get that big old six foot eight Israelite, you know, come over here, pick him up by the scruff of his neck, put him over there. He’s in timeout or whatever, you know?

And then when it was divided among the other men who are over the tens and the 50 or as we’re going to see those gradations, those guys probably would have said if it wasn’t going to be kicked up to a higher court, then they would have. Picked out some guys, hey, get him. I’m imagining that’s how it would have worked because you would have had judges in the Old West who would appoint.

They deputize men to go get bad guys, probably deputizing going on by these men of authority. I would guess, but that’s just a guess. That’s what I would have done.

You know, at that point, I would deputize some guys. If I had the authority to deputize, say this guy’s a bad character, you need to go get him. All right.

So verse 20, that’s all the animal could expect of Moses. We have to remember that we have to remember that when, and I included myself when it comes to what we expect from the elders and pastors that God has appointed within the church, because they really basically are doing the same thing. Isn’t that amazing?

It really hasn’t changed between the covenants. The shepherds of God’s people are, for all intents and purposes, doing pretty much the same thing. The content of what they’re teaching has expanded exponentially compared to what Moses had to say.

We have a lot more to say now, but we’re here on Sunday morning, so you realize what’s happening. This is happening. You’re being warned about statutes and laws.

You’re being made to know the way in which you ought to walk and what you must do. And we are all being told those things from the word of God. You’re being told this is who God is, this is what God has done, and this is how you should respond, and this is how you should live.

That’s what’s happening every Lord’s day in the context of the Lord’s service. And to me, that’s a great comfort and reassurance to see this continuity that has persisted among God’s people all the way from here in Moses’ day to now. This has been going on among God’s people to one extent or another, where you have his elders, his shepherds, shepherding his people in this way.

And that’s wow! Thousands upon thousands of years this has been going on, and it hasn’t stopped, and it won’t stop till the Lord returns. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands of hundreds of fifties and of tens.

You know what it sounds like right there? This sounds a little bit like qualification for elders, doesn’t it? And 1 Timothy 2.

How so? Well, able men from all the people who fear God, who are trustworthy, and who hate a bribe. What kind of man hates a bribe?

A just man. A man who is more concerned with the law of God and the glory of God and the good of his people than he is concerned with his own enrichment. As a matter of fact, as you look through the New Testament, and we consider everything the New Testament says about false teachers, what are they more concerned about?

Money. Money. Will false teachers take a bribe?

Oh, you bet they’ll take a bribe. You can get them to dance and whistle and say anything you want to if you stick enough money in their pockets, for sure. They’re the false teachers that Paul warns us against in 2 Timothy 4, who satisfy people’s itching ears.

They do that for money, and that’s why Moses says, he’s got a guy who won’t take a bribe. They’ll stand their ground. You won’t be able to pay him off, because that’s what’s required in these men.

They have to be just men who won’t move, who won’t be bribed, who won’t back down. So it’s important for us to pay attention here, because these qualifications really, they’re still in place when it comes to the men who lead God’s people, right? They should be able men.

What does able mean? Well, able man means that they’re competent, right? They’re not 40 living in dad’s basement, right?

That’s not an able man. That’s a dependent man. So these need to be independent men who are taking care of their own business, who are not in a position where they are so dependent on others.

And why would that be? Why would you not want a man who is in a constant state of dependency on other people? Why would you not want him in a position?

Yes, Audra, because you would be dependent upon him. Yeah, you would be dependent upon him. And if he’s dependent on other people, he’d be weak.

And he’d also be more inclined to take a bribe, because he’s not able to take care of himself. He’s not able to do that. And so, because of that weakness, he’s going to be easier to manipulate.

He’s going to be easier to bribe. He’s going to be easier to poke and prod. So you have to have able men who can take care of themselves, who aren’t going to be afraid of other men.

I mean, that’s really what we’re talking about here. Being able men, men who aren’t going to be afraid of other men, men who cannot be intimidated. And it’s important to recognize not all men are able men in that sense.

Some men can be intimidated. That’s okay. That’s fair.

Every guy is made and built different. You just have to make that distinction so that you’re not putting men in leadership who are easily intimidated, because if they’re easily intimidated, you can’t depend on them. You need men who are not going to run from a fight, who are not going to back down, who are going to stand their ground.

You’ve got to have the character to do that. Not going to run when the heat goes up. We’re going to stay put.

They may have to be men who fear God. So they have to be godly. They have to honor the Lord.

They have to be men who are already living according to God’s laws and statutes. That’s how they have to be living their lives. Not sinlessly, obviously, not perfectly, but that needs to be what characterizes their lives.

Godliness. They fear the Lord. They need to be trustworthy.

So in other words, you have to be able to depend on them. You have to be able to trust in them, that they’re not going to backstab you, that they’re not going to abandon their post, that they’re not going to fail you. And these men, and only those men, place over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.

Now let me say something else here. That right there is establishing a kind of status. Obviously, a man who is placed over thousands is going to be of higher status than a man who is placed over tens.

Now what’s this tell us? Well, it tells us that the men who are going to be chiefs among the people had to be men of such character that their pride could bear being given a lower status. So you could not have egomaniacs in this role.

You had to have men of humility, who are doing this not for their own glory, not for their own status, but for the glory of God and for the good of his people. They’re doing it because they want to serve the Lord by serving his people. And so it doesn’t matter to them whether they’re over thousands, hundreds, fifties, or tens.

It doesn’t matter. They’ll go where they are assigned and they’ll fulfill their mission. They’ll stay at their posts.

They’re not so concerned with the status for themselves. That’s being a trustworthy man. That’s being a just man.

Yes, Jason. The man over a thousands. Correct.

That would not have been trustworthy. That would have not been fearing God, being a coveter like that. Because then you’re not going to do well over the tens you are ruling over because you’re too busy coveting and longing over being a man placed over thousands.

And let’s be honest, the guy, if there was a guy like that, who was over tens and just pining away to be placed over thousands, he doesn’t know what he wants. He has no idea what he’d be getting himself into if he actually got what he wanted and found out, you know, it was better when I was just over tens. Yeah.

Oh, the days of tens. Now I’m over thousands and I really regret it. Which is usually how I think it goes, right?

It’s like, it’s got to, you know, you have the right man to take that spot when he recognizes it’s a sacrifice. Oh, you’re being promoted. Yes.

Well, why don’t you jump in for joy and click in your heels? Because I know what I’m getting into. I need to go take a nap.

That’s right. I need to go with some whiskey because I’ve been promoted. Yay.

But these are the men who are going to be placed over God’s people. They’re called chiefs here in the English Standard Version. Chiefs among God’s people to help judge, to help bear the load of settling these disputes among the lowest people.

And what’s interesting is that, you know, even in our civil government, we follow basically a similar structure. We don’t have one judge in the state of Indiana that settles every case, do we? We have a number of judges, a number of districts at the federal level and at the state level and in the county.

You have county government, you have city government, county government, state government, federal government, all these layers. Why? Because not any of the levels of government in the civil realm can do it all.

So you have to spread out the workload. And that’s effectively what they’re doing here. And that tells you that Western civilization, as it exists today, has been largely informed by the Word of God.

We’re getting this from Scripture. And so our society is more Christian and more biblical than we realize in its foundations. So it’s like we said, we’re not Christian society anymore.

Well, in our roots, yes, we are. Yeah, we are. The very structure of our society is Christian.

Yes, Jason.

[Jason]
I believe it would be the northeast corner block. It’s hollowed out and they have, I think, God’s law in there.

[Nate]
I did not know that.

[Jason]
Up on the top floor, there’s pictures and documentation of what they put in there.

[Nate]
Really? And they put God’s law in there. And why would they have done that?

Because God’s law is the basis for our law. And that’s understood. That’s understood.

Thanks for pointing that out, Jason. But it’s important for us to recognize that, because this is something we want to preserve. Amen?

Are we a Christian nation? Not nearly enough. That’s what I’ll say.

Yes, but not nearly Christian enough. We need to be even more Christian than we are. But we are Christian, down in our roots.

And let them, all these chiefs of thousands, hundreds of fifties and tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you and they will bear the burden with you.

If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace. Ah, see, so Jethro, there’s a lot of wisdom here. This would be good for God’s people.

They will go to their place in peace. Stuff will get dealt with sooner rather than later. And there’ll be peace among God’s people.

And also look in verse 22, you have the notion of appeal here. Every great matter they shall bring to you. So there’s a prioritization being made here.

Moses is kind of the Supreme Court. Only the great matters get brought to him. But mostly everything else is handled down at the local level, in the lower courts.

You know, that’s exactly how we work at Presbytery. Presbytery, within CREC, we have three levels. You have the local level, among the local elders.

99% of all judgments are handled at the local level, because that’s how it ought to be. Then a few have to get kicked up to the presbytery level. And then even fewer have to get kicked up to counsel, which is the highest court within the CREC.

And the word of counsel was final, right? But only the great matters are kicked up to counsel. Everything else is handled either at presbytery or down at the local level.

And like I said, most of them are handled at the local level. When we have a dispute come up here, we don’t call presbytery right away and say, okay, we got a problem. Presbytery’s first question to us is going to be, well, what have you done about it?

Oh, we called you. Like, hold on. It’s not how this works.

I will not be able to endure. If you keep calling me our presiding minister, I should say, who represents presbytery, you can’t be calling me with all of your disputes. You’ve got to handle them.

And it’s only if they get really big and nasty, okay, come to presbytery then. Is this making sense to everybody? And then you have peace.

You have peace in the churches. There’s peace in the church because your elders are handling stuff and your elders have peace because they know, okay, if we get something big and sloppy thrown in our hands, we can ask for help. We’re not just stuck with it on our own.

And the congregation knows, okay, our elders have help and so do we, right? We don’t just have our own elders. We also have all these other men in our presbytery.

And beyond our presbytery, we have all the other men in the whole denomination. Who we can turn to and depend on. That’s a comfort.

It’s like, we’ve got all these protectors, all these judges who are paying attention, who are a phone call away to provide help and oversight. That should give us peace. That should give us peace and knowing those things.

Just like it would have given peace to Israel here to have these chiefs among them, to settle disputes and to judge between them. So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. That’s great.

Moses didn’t argue with him, didn’t put up a fight. It made sense. It was really undeniable.

Like what Jethro was saying, how could you argue with that? There’s just no arguing with it. And Moses saw that he had the humility to say, yeah, let’s do it.

Why not? There’s no good reason to not do this. This is excellent advice.

Let’s go ahead and do it. Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times.

Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. Then Moses let his father-in-law depart and he went away to his own country. And there you go.

We’ll stop there for tonight because it is eight o’clock on the nose. Any thoughts or questions? I believe that is it for Jethro.

Zipporah and Gershom and Eliezer. Yeah.

[Jon]
What you are doing is not good.

[Nate]
Yeah. So we need a Jethro presbytery maybe. Huh?

Yes, Jason.

[Jason]
Oh yes.

[Nate]
The giving of the law.

[Jason]
Yeah. Wow.

[Nate]
Yep. Big deal. And a big point of contrast between the old and new covenants.

Because if Hebrews 12, you have not come to this mountain. This is not the mountain you’ve come to. You’ve come to a very different mountain.

Give me goosebumps to even think like that. It’s like, wow. We forget how privileged we are to live in the new covenants on this side of the, of the incarnation and ascent and death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus.

And to know the things that Moses did not know. Any other thoughts or questions? All right.

We’ll stop there. Thank you, everybody.