15th September 2025

15th September 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 18:1-27 focus v 1-4)


Message (Alan Burke) 


I have to confess that there are many times that I come to a passage like this and I want to know much more, much much more than I am told. I want to know about Jethro, I want to know why Moses’ had sent his wife Zipporah and his children Gershom and Eliezer back to Jethro. In my mind there are many questions that the passage doesn’t answer but at the same time I know that what matters is not Jethro, Zipporah, Gershom or Eliezar, no what matters is that this is another stage in the unfolding of God’s great plan of salvation that the LORD preached to Satan in the midst of the fall, of the covenant of Grace of one who would come to crush the head Satan’s head (Gen 3:15). 


That being said there is much that we can glean from this passage before us in Exodus 18. We learn more of the wonder in this passage of the promise of God there in the garden and then to Abraham and how he indeed the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting and the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts (Psalm 103:17-18). And also how he has given us leaders to help us as a people, to govern, rule, to teach us in his ways. 


Today we are going to focus on the sons of Moses, Gershom and Eliezar and as we do so we learn a little more about the hope that Moses had for he was a man of faith, he had trusted in the promised Christ that was to come, he was justified through faith alone in Christ alone just as anyone throughout history who has ever been saved or ever will be saved has. We know this wonderful truth from Hebrews 11, where we are told; 24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. (Heb 11:24–26).


We also see that faith in his sons. Firstly Gershom. The name Gershom means ‘a sojourner in a foreign land’ the NIV says alien but the word is sojourner meaning someone without a place to stay, someone without a home. Some argue that this is speaking of how Moses was in Midian, having fled Egypt his home, but if we allow scripture to interpret scripture we see the repeated theme of how we are sojourners. 


Those who are the people of God throughout the scriptures are sojourners for this place is not our home we are sojourners travelling to a better home, to a city whose foundations and builder is God (Heb 11:10).  For we are strangers and exiles on the earth, our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phl 3:20). This is not our home we are just traveling through just like Moses. The firm hope of Moses was not on building a home for himself here and living his life on comfort but that eternal home that awaits all who have faith. 


The name of his second son was Eliezar, saying “My father’s God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh”. Who was Moses’ father’s God, it was the Lord the God of Abraham and it’s what makes what happens in these verses so wonderful because our God is a covenant keeping God, who as we will go on to learn in chapter 20 is a God who shows love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Ex 20:6). 


Let me ask you where is your hope this day? Is it on the here and now, on getting the mortgage paid off, on finding a spouse, on early retirement, good health, a long life? You may have all these things but they will not what we need, what we the sure and steadfast hope in Christ who died for our salvation so that we may have an eternal home, for as it was put to me recently there is no tow bar on the hearse, you can’t take any of it with you. Sadly what we leave behind will be fought over because of the love of money and much of the stuff that we have spent a lifetime accumulating will go in a skip, but what matters is the hope we have through Christ.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q74 What is required in the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment requireth the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others.
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