“This is your mission, should you choose to accept it” – I think Moses must have felt a bit like the folks in Mission Impossible when he encountered the LORD in the desert. To go back to Egypt and lead Israel out of there? To win over his own people and then take on the Pharaoh, with all of Egypt’s might against him? No wonder Moses asked “Who am I?”
As we saw last time, the Lord assured him that he would be with him; Moses would not be going alone – but still he has questions and concerns. We’re going to see that Moses responded to the Lord’s call with 3 questions in the passage before us.
But before we do, let’s just notice 2 general points: firstly, the LORD is big enough to allow us to ask him questions. Some people in powerful positions can’t stand to have their instructions questioned – but not the Lord. You can dialogue with him; he’s not interested in getting us to cringe before him and to do his will in abject terror. He calls us to be his children and to serve him in that relationship. And as our Father in heaven, he can handle the questions.
Secondly, while Moses’ call was unique, we can rightly think through his situation with a view to our own. We are called by God: called to belong to Jesus Christ; called as his church to go and make disciples; and we are called personally to be servants of the Most High God, in a whole variety of ways. It may well be that, in the light of those multiple callings, we also have questions we’d like to ask.
1. Who shall I say has sent me?
The first question Moses asks in v.13 shows that he is concerned about the reception he might get from his own people: if they ask me who sent me, what shall I say?
The answer he is given has been the subject of great debate for many years now: just what does God mean? What is his name? And was this name unknown to Abraham and the other patriarchs?
While we let the scholars sort those issues out, the main point is clear: the God who is speaking to Moses declares, “I am who I am”.
He is not some local tribal deity; this is the eternal ever-living God who is sending Moses back to Egypt. This is the great I AM who is declaring his intent to rescue the Israelites from their bondage and, through them, to further his purposes for the whole world.
“I am who I am” doesn’t seem to be the name itself; that comes later and is now generally translated as Yahweh. What v.14 does is impress on Moses the being of God, the reality that the living God, the eternal I AM is the one who is sending him. No commission could come with greater intensity or authority.
It is the same God who is revealed in Jesus of Nazareth and who has also commissioned the church. We are not peddling an opinion about God as we share the gospel; we are rather taking the words of the eternal God and speaking them to needy men and women.
While that may make us feel even more unworthy, it also gives added strength to our task as the Lord’s people.
2. What if they don’t believe me?
But Moses is still not convinced: “What if they do not believe me?” (4:1). What is he to do then? The Lord’s response is to ask Moses what he has in his hand – a staff – and then to throw it to the ground. It becomes a snake! Pick it up by the tail – it turns back into a staff. Now put his hand into his cloak and take it out again – it’s turned leprous! Put it in and out again – it’s healed.
Signs – signs of power and authority. The snake was a symbol of Egypt’s power (think of those headdresses) but Moses would demonstrate a greater power. The leprosy sign would speak of the Lord’s power to afflict and to heal. And a third sign is told to Moses – he could pour out water from the Nile onto the ground and it would become blood, a foretaste of one of the plagues.
The Lord who is sending Moses is more than able to demonstrate his power and authority. Moses need have no qualms about that!
But what if your friends and colleagues don’t believe you? What signs can we expect the Lord to show to them? Let me just say 2 things on this point.
Firstly, we have in the gospel records all the evidence that we or anyone else needs. Remember what Jesus himself said in Lk 16 to the rich man who was in Hades: it isn’t more signs that they need. And when he spoke to Thomas in the upper room he tells him and us that it is possible for people to believe without seeing signs – and that it is a blessed thing when they do.
That doesn’t mean that the Lord won’t in some ways give some people various signs of his power; that is entirely up to him. But what it does say is that we can go out with his word in our hearts confident that he can and does work through the gospel message, calling people to himself. We don’t need to be hung up on the issue of signs.
Secondly, there is a sense in which our lives function as a sign to others. Paul writes to the Corinthians about their lives being like a letter that all people can read – a letter that bears clear testimony to the gracious, saving power of God. And our lives are to be that too – lives that had been marked by sin and evil now showing the forgiving and renewing grace of God.
Let’s pray that the reality of his saving power will be seen in us and indeed be a sign to others.
3. But I’m not a good speaker!
So the eternal God is sending Moses and will work powerfully by signs and wonders to confirm his status as the Lord’s messenger. But still Moses is unsure. He doesn’t really feel up to the task – “I am slow of speech and tongue” (4:10; which sounds like some kind of speech defect).
Reading Acts 7:22 it doesn’t sound like Moses had a problem with speaking but maybe this is Moses lacking confidence because of what happened in the past. And if truth be told maybe many of us have thought similar things when faced with God’s call on our lives – not necessarily in terms of our speech but simply our fitness for certain tasks. Is that a valid point to bring to the Lord?
It seems not. The Lord’s response is to remind Moses that he is the one who created Moses!
When we feel our weakness and frailty, we must remember that those things are not surprises to God; he does not call us to serve him because he thinks we’re superhuman! The one who calls us into his service will enable us to serve him, despite all our foibles and weaknesses.
Do you notice something that is common to all 3 questions that Moses raises? He constantly thinks in terms of himself going to Pharaoh and not the Lord going with him. It is all a case of ‘I’ and that’s a trap we can fall into. The battle is not ours; it’s the Lord’s – he sends, he equips, he authenticates.
Now, I said that we were going to look at the 3 ways that Moses responds to the Lord’s call in this passage but, actually, there are 4 points to notice. But the fourth isn’t a reasoned response; it is a blunt refusal to do what the Lord has said. Having asked his questions and having received such gracious responses from the Lord, Moses simply says in 4:13, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
At this, the Lord is angry with Moses. Yes, we can dialogue with him and ask our questions and voice our insecurities but, having received his genuine and gracious promises of help and support, to ask him to send someone else is to refuse to trust him. It is sheer rebellion, however much its origin is in our fears.
And, yet, notice once more how gracious our God is. He is rightly angry with Moses but he doesn’t cut him off; he doesn’t dump him but rather accommodates even this response from him. He tells Moses that his brother Aaron is on the way and the Lord will make them into a team – he will give his words to Moses and Aaron will then act as spokesman.
We should not see this as letting us off the hook, as it were. It is never right to refuse our God; it is never wise to anger him through our unbelief. But even when we have done so, even when we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.
What great encouragement to serve him where we are and to say with the hymn-writer, “What he says we will do, where he sends we will go, never fear, only trust and obey.”
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Sermon on Exodus 3:1-12
Moses is a man who is profoundly aware of his Hebrew ancestry. Although he was brought up in the palace of Pharaoh, he has taken his stand with the oppressed Hebrews. He is also a man with a passionate concern for justice; he has shown himself to not only be willing to intervene on behalf of his people but also on behalf of others (Reuel’s daughters).
He seems like just the right sort of man to lead the Hebrews out of the oppression of Egypt, yet his initial attempt to act as a kind of leader of his people was swiftly rebuffed. And here we find him, some 40 years later, miles away from the action, living as an exile in Midian, tending his father-in-law’s sheep.
If Moses is to be a significant player in the history of his people he clearly needs to get back to Egypt. But he has an even greater need that must be met before ever he can lead his own people out of slavery: he needs to meet God. This is God’s world, God’s story, and the Hebrews are God’s people, chosen for the sake of the whole world. Moses needs to be prepared for how God will use him and he needs to directed clearly by the Lord.
That’s what we’re going to see in these verses. As we do so, our eyes will be inevitably (and wonderfully) drawn to think not only of our place before God but of the fact that while he spoke through Moses, the full unveiling of his heart and plans is seen in Jesus.
1. The presence of God
The chapter opens in a quite mundane way – Moses is looking after some of his father-in-law’s sheep and takes them “to the far side of the desert”. Nothing too significant in that – but there is: he “came to mountain of God at Horeb”. Did Moses know it at this stage as the mountain of God? Most likely not; it is probably being called that now from the perspective of hindsight. To Moses, there’s no special reason in play to explain why he chooses to go there.
But in God’s hands, the most mundane place can take on a new and special significance. And the way that happens here is through a very strange sight: Moses sees a bush on fire that isn’t burnt up.
He would often have seen bushes ablaze but they would soon have been consumed; what gets his attention here is that this one doesn’t. This is the Lord himself, getting Moses’ attention. Fire is a sign of the divine presence (and will be on the journey Israel makes from Egypt) but the Lord is not present in order to harm but to heal: the bush is not consumed.
Moses, a broken sinful man, is going to stand in the presence of God and not be consumed, because the purpose of God is to deal with sin and to reconcile humanity to himself. The means for that had not yet been revealed but we have gladly sung of how the sons of ignorance and night can dwell in the eternal light – an offering and a sacrifice, a Holy Spirit’s energies, an advocate with God.
When he calls Moses, the first thing the Lord tells him is to take off his sandals because the ground he’s standing on is holy – and it is holy for no other reason than that the Lord is there. His being there changes everything; Moses is in the presence of greatness, of the Creator, the One who has promised to heal and save. Nothing less than absolute reverence is appropriate here. Moses covers his face, afraid to look at God and he is right to do so.
The God who is appearing to Moses in this strange way then discloses to Moses who he is: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God if Isaac and the God of Jacob.” There is a real note of continuity here and the hope that promises made long years before will now be taken up and fulfilled.
All of these points that confront Moses here converge in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he comes, he can tell his disciples that if they have seen him they have seen the Father; he is the personal presence of God in the world, the only one who by rights can look into the face of his Father without flinching, without irreverence.
Peter falls at his feet because he sees in Jesus something of the awesome holiness of God. Yet Jesus’ aim is not to consume Peter but to commission him. He has come so that all the promises of God might be ‘yes’ in him.
But that isn’t all. He commissions not just the 12 but all his people. We, too, are confronted in the most mundane places and on the most ordinary of days, with the startling discovery of the presence of God. He takes the initiative and calls us to faith in his Son and then service for his Son.
What qualifications do we need to serve him? What can prepare us to live for him? Strangely, a sense of our utter inability to do so, the keenly-felt sense that we are unworthy, that in the presence of genuine holiness we are, as Isaiah puts it, “undone”.
2. The concern & commission of God
But why is the Lord calling to Moses now? “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt”. That almost reads as though it is a response to an unspoken question. Maybe that’s what’s been going through Moses’ mind as he shepherded the sheep in the desert these long years: where is the Lord? What will become of his promises to Abraham?
If those questions were indeed in Moses’ mind, if they had been in his prayers, the answer is given with great clarity and strength of purpose: “I have heard…I am concerned…I have come down to rescue…and to bring them up”. Everything God promised Abraham has not been forgotten or shelved; the divine purpose was being worked out down these long years and now is the time for him to act.
Do delays indicate that the Lord is uncaring and ready to break his promise? Never; Peter reminds us that the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises but he works to his own timetable. His ways are above ours and hard for us to comprehend but what should never be in doubt is his concern for his people and for his plans to rescue this world from sin.
3. The promise of God
In the light of this extraordinary call to go back to Egypt as the Lord’s agent in the deliverance of his people, Moses’ response is to say in v.11, “Who am I?” His response may not be overflowing with faith in God but it at least shows a commendable humility – far better than if he’d said ‘Well, I’m your man!’
With his past history in Egypt no doubt in mind (both in terms of the Pharaoh and the Hebrews), Moses stands in great need of reassurance from the Lord. His question is met by a gracious and powerful promise: “I will be with you”.
The life-history of Moses shows just how fully that promise was answered. It also discloses that the sign promised here also came to pass as Moses returned to Horeb with the people when they had left Egypt.
The God who calls us to be his partners in the work of the gospel can be trusted to the full. The promise given to Moses was reiterated by the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples (and, so, to his church) in Mt. 28:20 – “I am with you always”. Emmanuel; God with us. It’s what Moses was promised, it’s what we also discover to our delight.
If the Lord was going to be with Moses, how much more was he with Jesus in his role as Messiah. All the way through his life, Jesus was conscious of the presence of his Father. We see in him no sign of the hesitancy that Moses shows here – “I stand with the Father who sent me” (Jn. 8:16); “the Father, living in me…is doing his work” (Jn. 14:10).
But a day did come in his experience when the presence of his Father was painfully absent and Jesus felt utterly alone and forsaken. Yet, in the strange but wise purposes of God, that was the very moment when prisoners were set free, when the guilty obtained their pardon, when evil was defeated and God’s plans to save were delivered.
At the end of the day, the presence of God, his concern for his people and his promise to help are all summed up in Jesus and made real in and through him.
As we consider our call to serve God in our day, personally and collectively, it is vital that we fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. He calls and he equips; he humbles and he heals; he makes real both the presence and the power of God. That is ever our greatest need and it is fully met in Jesus.
He seems like just the right sort of man to lead the Hebrews out of the oppression of Egypt, yet his initial attempt to act as a kind of leader of his people was swiftly rebuffed. And here we find him, some 40 years later, miles away from the action, living as an exile in Midian, tending his father-in-law’s sheep.
If Moses is to be a significant player in the history of his people he clearly needs to get back to Egypt. But he has an even greater need that must be met before ever he can lead his own people out of slavery: he needs to meet God. This is God’s world, God’s story, and the Hebrews are God’s people, chosen for the sake of the whole world. Moses needs to be prepared for how God will use him and he needs to directed clearly by the Lord.
That’s what we’re going to see in these verses. As we do so, our eyes will be inevitably (and wonderfully) drawn to think not only of our place before God but of the fact that while he spoke through Moses, the full unveiling of his heart and plans is seen in Jesus.
1. The presence of God
The chapter opens in a quite mundane way – Moses is looking after some of his father-in-law’s sheep and takes them “to the far side of the desert”. Nothing too significant in that – but there is: he “came to mountain of God at Horeb”. Did Moses know it at this stage as the mountain of God? Most likely not; it is probably being called that now from the perspective of hindsight. To Moses, there’s no special reason in play to explain why he chooses to go there.
But in God’s hands, the most mundane place can take on a new and special significance. And the way that happens here is through a very strange sight: Moses sees a bush on fire that isn’t burnt up.
He would often have seen bushes ablaze but they would soon have been consumed; what gets his attention here is that this one doesn’t. This is the Lord himself, getting Moses’ attention. Fire is a sign of the divine presence (and will be on the journey Israel makes from Egypt) but the Lord is not present in order to harm but to heal: the bush is not consumed.
Moses, a broken sinful man, is going to stand in the presence of God and not be consumed, because the purpose of God is to deal with sin and to reconcile humanity to himself. The means for that had not yet been revealed but we have gladly sung of how the sons of ignorance and night can dwell in the eternal light – an offering and a sacrifice, a Holy Spirit’s energies, an advocate with God.
When he calls Moses, the first thing the Lord tells him is to take off his sandals because the ground he’s standing on is holy – and it is holy for no other reason than that the Lord is there. His being there changes everything; Moses is in the presence of greatness, of the Creator, the One who has promised to heal and save. Nothing less than absolute reverence is appropriate here. Moses covers his face, afraid to look at God and he is right to do so.
The God who is appearing to Moses in this strange way then discloses to Moses who he is: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God if Isaac and the God of Jacob.” There is a real note of continuity here and the hope that promises made long years before will now be taken up and fulfilled.
All of these points that confront Moses here converge in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he comes, he can tell his disciples that if they have seen him they have seen the Father; he is the personal presence of God in the world, the only one who by rights can look into the face of his Father without flinching, without irreverence.
Peter falls at his feet because he sees in Jesus something of the awesome holiness of God. Yet Jesus’ aim is not to consume Peter but to commission him. He has come so that all the promises of God might be ‘yes’ in him.
But that isn’t all. He commissions not just the 12 but all his people. We, too, are confronted in the most mundane places and on the most ordinary of days, with the startling discovery of the presence of God. He takes the initiative and calls us to faith in his Son and then service for his Son.
What qualifications do we need to serve him? What can prepare us to live for him? Strangely, a sense of our utter inability to do so, the keenly-felt sense that we are unworthy, that in the presence of genuine holiness we are, as Isaiah puts it, “undone”.
2. The concern & commission of God
But why is the Lord calling to Moses now? “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt”. That almost reads as though it is a response to an unspoken question. Maybe that’s what’s been going through Moses’ mind as he shepherded the sheep in the desert these long years: where is the Lord? What will become of his promises to Abraham?
If those questions were indeed in Moses’ mind, if they had been in his prayers, the answer is given with great clarity and strength of purpose: “I have heard…I am concerned…I have come down to rescue…and to bring them up”. Everything God promised Abraham has not been forgotten or shelved; the divine purpose was being worked out down these long years and now is the time for him to act.
Do delays indicate that the Lord is uncaring and ready to break his promise? Never; Peter reminds us that the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises but he works to his own timetable. His ways are above ours and hard for us to comprehend but what should never be in doubt is his concern for his people and for his plans to rescue this world from sin.
3. The promise of God
In the light of this extraordinary call to go back to Egypt as the Lord’s agent in the deliverance of his people, Moses’ response is to say in v.11, “Who am I?” His response may not be overflowing with faith in God but it at least shows a commendable humility – far better than if he’d said ‘Well, I’m your man!’
With his past history in Egypt no doubt in mind (both in terms of the Pharaoh and the Hebrews), Moses stands in great need of reassurance from the Lord. His question is met by a gracious and powerful promise: “I will be with you”.
The life-history of Moses shows just how fully that promise was answered. It also discloses that the sign promised here also came to pass as Moses returned to Horeb with the people when they had left Egypt.
The God who calls us to be his partners in the work of the gospel can be trusted to the full. The promise given to Moses was reiterated by the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples (and, so, to his church) in Mt. 28:20 – “I am with you always”. Emmanuel; God with us. It’s what Moses was promised, it’s what we also discover to our delight.
If the Lord was going to be with Moses, how much more was he with Jesus in his role as Messiah. All the way through his life, Jesus was conscious of the presence of his Father. We see in him no sign of the hesitancy that Moses shows here – “I stand with the Father who sent me” (Jn. 8:16); “the Father, living in me…is doing his work” (Jn. 14:10).
But a day did come in his experience when the presence of his Father was painfully absent and Jesus felt utterly alone and forsaken. Yet, in the strange but wise purposes of God, that was the very moment when prisoners were set free, when the guilty obtained their pardon, when evil was defeated and God’s plans to save were delivered.
At the end of the day, the presence of God, his concern for his people and his promise to help are all summed up in Jesus and made real in and through him.
As we consider our call to serve God in our day, personally and collectively, it is vital that we fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. He calls and he equips; he humbles and he heals; he makes real both the presence and the power of God. That is ever our greatest need and it is fully met in Jesus.
Sermon on Exodus 2:11-25
1. Moses preserved
Moses was a special child, a “fine child”, one through whom all the indications are that the Lord will act to save his people and, so, to bring blessing to the world.
But who is Moses for such a task? And look where he is – adopted as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. There’s very little chance now that he will ever be what he could have been. He’s been under the influence of Pharaoh’s lot, learning their ways, being “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” and, under their tutelage, he had grown to be “powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22).
So that’ll be the end of him then. With that kind of life he’ll be Egyptian through and through. He won’t remember his early days as a Hebrew, let alone want to be known as one. That’s what happens when people get abandoned to a godless system.
Or is it? In v.11 we’re told that when he was older (and Acts 7:23 tells us he was 40 at this point), he decides to go out to where his own people are and sees them at their hard labour. Twice in this verse the Hebrews are described as “his people” and his action in defending the Hebrew being beaten shows that this is how he sees things – they are his people.
However it has happened, the Lord has preserved Moses through those long years, has preserved within him a sense of identity with the Lord’s people. That’s quite remarkable.
Jesus has purposely left us in the world. He knows how dangerous a place it is; he knows how strong and subtle our spiritual foe is. Yet he is confident that we can and will be kept by the power of God. That isn’t making light of the dangers but it is recognising that what really counts is the Lord’s ability to keep us.
We may not be able to change the situation – for ourselves or our children – but we can have confidence that the Lord will keep us. It will no doubt mean, on our part, hard work to take every thought captive and to learn the ways of the Lord but he is able to help us.
2. Moses prepared
But although he has been preserved during those long years in the palace, many long years of preparation for his work as the leader of his people still lie in front of him. Moses already has a clear sense of justice; he is already marked-out as someone who acts to rescue others, but those traits need honing.
That preparation takes many forms but, before we look at the details, notice that this is often how it is with us in our walk with the Lord and our service for him. He takes and uses what we go through to refine us, to mature us and to equip us to be more useful in his service.
Precisely how that might be worked-out for us won’t necessarily be immediately obvious; we need to trust the Lord, since he knows what he’s doing. In his wisdom, he will cause all things to work together for our good, for the blessing of his people and his work in the world.
i) Conflict with Egypt – Moses has been kept by God down the long years of childhood, adolescence and into full adulthood. He knows whose he is, who his people are and takes his stand for them.
But the very act of taking that stand puts him on a collision course with the royal family of Egypt with whom he has had such close acquaintance over the years. Moses kills an Egyptian who was ill-treating a Hebrew and, in return, the Pharaoh seeks to take his life, presumably because Moses’ act has shown whose side he is on.
This is an early indication of the struggle that Moses will go through with the Egyptians. The same pattern emerges in the life of Jesus, the true Saviour to whom Moses points. From his birth, our Lord was opposed and his life under threat. But he came “to destroy the devil’s work” (1 Jn 3:8). It was not a battle that he was going to shun; rather, he was ready for our sakes to take his stand.
We may not be called to significant positions of leadership but taking your stand for the Lord will impact your life by bringing you into the struggle between good and evil, between the Lord and Satan. It is never wrong to take that stand but it must be taken with our eyes open. And it is worth remembering that early battles often set the tone for what is to come, helping to prepare us for it.
ii) Rejection by his people – The next aspect of Moses’ preparation probably came as a real shock to him. Having saved a Hebrew, he intervenes in a fight between two Hebrews but his leadership is not welcomed. The short exchange in v.14 prepares both Moses and us for the rejection he was often to suffer at the hands of his own people. His leadership of them, although ordained by God, was not going to be without its difficulties.
How much we see that in the life and ministry of Jesus. John tells us that he came to his own but his own did not receive him. The Saviour of the world was despised and rejected by the very people who ought to be waiting for him.
This alerts us to a fact that we may know very well: life within the family of God is not necessarily going to run smoothly. But even the bumps in our relationships can work good things in us – Num. 12:3 tells us that “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth”. How did he come to possess such humility? No doubt in part through such experiences as this in Ex. 2:13f.
In God’s hands, hard times within the family of God can lead to real spiritual fruit, but only if we submit ourselves to the Lord.
iii) Suffering & Sympathy – Notice also how Moses seems to embody in his own experience what Israel is going through and will also later experience. He is in conflict with Egypt, as we’ve seen; he flees to Midian and is like an alien in a strange land, much as Israel is in Egypt; he will encounter God in the desert and is there for 40 years.
Moses is being prepared by the Lord to be a faithful and sympathetic leader. Such suitability is not achieved overnight. There is great wisdom in the Lord’s preparation of Moses.
And even more is that seen in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus. The writer of Hebrews tells us that he learned obedience through suffering and in that way was equipped to be merciful and faithful high priest. In God’s hands, the same became true for Paul (2 Cor 1) and can also be true of us.
3. God remembers
Moses has been preserved and is being prepared to be the Lord’s servant in the rescue of Israel. Things are not hopeless for the people but the grounds for that hope are not mere inferences from the text; in vv.23-25 we are directly told why there is hope for Israel – “God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant”.
These are tremendously important words, not just for Israel but for the whole world in every age. The God who called Abraham and promised to make him a blessing to the nations, who has promised to be the God of his people and to be in intimate relationship with them, has not forgotten them. Judged by sight alone, it might be thought that he has forgotten them but that is far from the case.
His promises and purposes stand and stand for all time, however dark the situation. He is the God of compassion, of genuine, loving concern. His people’s distress matters deeply to him and he will act to deal with it; his desire to rescue the world is so deep and profound that he will let nothing stand in its way.
Just as Moses has been prepared for his future service, so these verses prepare us for the Lord to take centre stage and act. Thus far, he has been working things out from behind the scene; in ch.3 his presence will be made known to Moses in the most dramatic way.
But as well as preparing us for that, these verses give us much to mull over in terms of our own experience as his people. His promises stand and so we can take our stand upon them. Our suffering is not hidden from him; he is not too busy to care, nor too distant to see.
And he remembers not only the covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac and with Jacob but he ever has before him the new covenant made in and through his own Son and sealed by his blood on the cross. Can the Lord fail to help us? Can he forget his church? Can he refuse to hear our cries? Only if he can ignore the shed blood of his Son – which he cannot and will not ever do. Whether our tears flow easily in public or whether our distress is profoundly personal and private, the Lord sees and cares. We can, therefore, commit all our way to him, with great hope and in eager expectation.
Moses was a special child, a “fine child”, one through whom all the indications are that the Lord will act to save his people and, so, to bring blessing to the world.
But who is Moses for such a task? And look where he is – adopted as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. There’s very little chance now that he will ever be what he could have been. He’s been under the influence of Pharaoh’s lot, learning their ways, being “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” and, under their tutelage, he had grown to be “powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22).
So that’ll be the end of him then. With that kind of life he’ll be Egyptian through and through. He won’t remember his early days as a Hebrew, let alone want to be known as one. That’s what happens when people get abandoned to a godless system.
Or is it? In v.11 we’re told that when he was older (and Acts 7:23 tells us he was 40 at this point), he decides to go out to where his own people are and sees them at their hard labour. Twice in this verse the Hebrews are described as “his people” and his action in defending the Hebrew being beaten shows that this is how he sees things – they are his people.
However it has happened, the Lord has preserved Moses through those long years, has preserved within him a sense of identity with the Lord’s people. That’s quite remarkable.
Jesus has purposely left us in the world. He knows how dangerous a place it is; he knows how strong and subtle our spiritual foe is. Yet he is confident that we can and will be kept by the power of God. That isn’t making light of the dangers but it is recognising that what really counts is the Lord’s ability to keep us.
We may not be able to change the situation – for ourselves or our children – but we can have confidence that the Lord will keep us. It will no doubt mean, on our part, hard work to take every thought captive and to learn the ways of the Lord but he is able to help us.
2. Moses prepared
But although he has been preserved during those long years in the palace, many long years of preparation for his work as the leader of his people still lie in front of him. Moses already has a clear sense of justice; he is already marked-out as someone who acts to rescue others, but those traits need honing.
That preparation takes many forms but, before we look at the details, notice that this is often how it is with us in our walk with the Lord and our service for him. He takes and uses what we go through to refine us, to mature us and to equip us to be more useful in his service.
Precisely how that might be worked-out for us won’t necessarily be immediately obvious; we need to trust the Lord, since he knows what he’s doing. In his wisdom, he will cause all things to work together for our good, for the blessing of his people and his work in the world.
i) Conflict with Egypt – Moses has been kept by God down the long years of childhood, adolescence and into full adulthood. He knows whose he is, who his people are and takes his stand for them.
But the very act of taking that stand puts him on a collision course with the royal family of Egypt with whom he has had such close acquaintance over the years. Moses kills an Egyptian who was ill-treating a Hebrew and, in return, the Pharaoh seeks to take his life, presumably because Moses’ act has shown whose side he is on.
This is an early indication of the struggle that Moses will go through with the Egyptians. The same pattern emerges in the life of Jesus, the true Saviour to whom Moses points. From his birth, our Lord was opposed and his life under threat. But he came “to destroy the devil’s work” (1 Jn 3:8). It was not a battle that he was going to shun; rather, he was ready for our sakes to take his stand.
We may not be called to significant positions of leadership but taking your stand for the Lord will impact your life by bringing you into the struggle between good and evil, between the Lord and Satan. It is never wrong to take that stand but it must be taken with our eyes open. And it is worth remembering that early battles often set the tone for what is to come, helping to prepare us for it.
ii) Rejection by his people – The next aspect of Moses’ preparation probably came as a real shock to him. Having saved a Hebrew, he intervenes in a fight between two Hebrews but his leadership is not welcomed. The short exchange in v.14 prepares both Moses and us for the rejection he was often to suffer at the hands of his own people. His leadership of them, although ordained by God, was not going to be without its difficulties.
How much we see that in the life and ministry of Jesus. John tells us that he came to his own but his own did not receive him. The Saviour of the world was despised and rejected by the very people who ought to be waiting for him.
This alerts us to a fact that we may know very well: life within the family of God is not necessarily going to run smoothly. But even the bumps in our relationships can work good things in us – Num. 12:3 tells us that “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth”. How did he come to possess such humility? No doubt in part through such experiences as this in Ex. 2:13f.
In God’s hands, hard times within the family of God can lead to real spiritual fruit, but only if we submit ourselves to the Lord.
iii) Suffering & Sympathy – Notice also how Moses seems to embody in his own experience what Israel is going through and will also later experience. He is in conflict with Egypt, as we’ve seen; he flees to Midian and is like an alien in a strange land, much as Israel is in Egypt; he will encounter God in the desert and is there for 40 years.
Moses is being prepared by the Lord to be a faithful and sympathetic leader. Such suitability is not achieved overnight. There is great wisdom in the Lord’s preparation of Moses.
And even more is that seen in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus. The writer of Hebrews tells us that he learned obedience through suffering and in that way was equipped to be merciful and faithful high priest. In God’s hands, the same became true for Paul (2 Cor 1) and can also be true of us.
3. God remembers
Moses has been preserved and is being prepared to be the Lord’s servant in the rescue of Israel. Things are not hopeless for the people but the grounds for that hope are not mere inferences from the text; in vv.23-25 we are directly told why there is hope for Israel – “God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant”.
These are tremendously important words, not just for Israel but for the whole world in every age. The God who called Abraham and promised to make him a blessing to the nations, who has promised to be the God of his people and to be in intimate relationship with them, has not forgotten them. Judged by sight alone, it might be thought that he has forgotten them but that is far from the case.
His promises and purposes stand and stand for all time, however dark the situation. He is the God of compassion, of genuine, loving concern. His people’s distress matters deeply to him and he will act to deal with it; his desire to rescue the world is so deep and profound that he will let nothing stand in its way.
Just as Moses has been prepared for his future service, so these verses prepare us for the Lord to take centre stage and act. Thus far, he has been working things out from behind the scene; in ch.3 his presence will be made known to Moses in the most dramatic way.
But as well as preparing us for that, these verses give us much to mull over in terms of our own experience as his people. His promises stand and so we can take our stand upon them. Our suffering is not hidden from him; he is not too busy to care, nor too distant to see.
And he remembers not only the covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac and with Jacob but he ever has before him the new covenant made in and through his own Son and sealed by his blood on the cross. Can the Lord fail to help us? Can he forget his church? Can he refuse to hear our cries? Only if he can ignore the shed blood of his Son – which he cannot and will not ever do. Whether our tears flow easily in public or whether our distress is profoundly personal and private, the Lord sees and cares. We can, therefore, commit all our way to him, with great hope and in eager expectation.
Sermon on Exodus 2:1-10
At the end of Romans 11, Paul declares,
God’s ways are full of mystery and glory. Here in Exodus 2 we see something of that. His people, Israel, are oppressed in Egypt. The Lord has staked the future of his creation on his plans to save through them but they are in deep trouble: the new king is working them ruthlessly, has tried to make sure their male children don’t survive (and been thwarted by the Hebrew midwives) and, finally, orders that all male children be thrown into the Nile.
The scene demands that we ask, ‘What will the Lord do now?’ Are his plans to save and heal his creation going to drown in the Nile?
1. The LORD will save through a special child
The beginning of ch.2 suggests that the Lord is not finished yet. A child is born to a Levite family and is straightaway marked out as a potential deliverer of the people, in at least 2 ways.
i) His mother sees that he is a “fine child”. But doesn’t every mother think her baby is lovely? This is something more. The phrase “she saw he was a fine child” is very reminiscent of the statements in Genesis 1 that the Lord saw that it was good (fine = good).
ii) And that point is further stressed when we’re told that his mother hides him in a pitch covered basket and puts into the Nile. What is very significant here is that the word translated ‘basket’ only occurs elsewhere in Genesis 6-9 where it is usually translated as ‘ark’.
The link back to Noah is very clear and deliberate and says to us that this child is destined to be rescued from the water and, just as with Noah’s deliverance, it will have significance for all humanity.
But that significance will only ultimately be realised in and through another special child marked-out by God as the deliverer, as the saviour of the world. Noah and Moses were never really capable of taking on sin and evil and overcoming them; Jesus could and did.
2. The strange ways of the LORD
This child is marked-out as a potential deliverer of his people. How will the Lord preserve him? Where will he be hidden until his time arrives? Who will train him in God’s ways, ready for that role?
The great irony is that Moses is drawn from the water by Pharaoh’s daughter and is given back, for a time, to his mother. But then, when he is older, he is taken into Pharaoh’s household and grows up there as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter
Not only is this deeply ironic but it seems intensely fragile, too. What if Moses is discovered to be a Hebrew? He’s in Pharaoh’s palace, right at the centre of the evil opposition to the Lord’s purposes of mercy and grace. You can’t get much more vulnerable than that.
Here is the Lord who works in surprising ways, whose ways are higher than ours, whose plans often seem to be at risk and yet whose power is made perfect in weakness (remember the cross).
How much the church must always remember this – her situation is often very weak (even when it seems strong). On the margins, lacking strength, in a hostile world – but the Lord knows what he is doing. He can be trusted, as he works all things together for good for his people and for his plans of salvation.
3. The Real Deal
Moses’ situation seems unique but, in terms of literature, it isn’t. As more discoveries of other literature from the Ancient Near East have been made, it’s been noticed that there are many stories of children being born and exposed to the elements - take, for instance, The Legend of Sargon:
Now, if there were other well-known stories of this type and if those stories were known to be legends and myths, why is the Lord doing this with Moses? Why not cause him to be delivered in a way that doesn’t resemble those myths?
The fact that this story has similarities with other accounts doesn’t detract from its power and relevance. In fact, it heightens it. You see, the Lord is showing that he is the real deal and makes that point in ways that people can readily connect with and in ways that directly challenge their thinking about the world.
Paul does something similar in his preaching in Acts, as he sees what is around him and what stories the people tell and how they see the world. He uses it to tell the real story of God and his Son.
And, of course, we see this most wonderfully in the incarnation of Jesus – the Lord coming to where we are, living our lives, speaking our language (as it were), sharing in all our joys and sorrows.
The challenge for us as the church is to learn from the ways of the Lord. He is the real deal and we need to be able to show that in ways that are readily accessible to those we speak to. That means being attentive to their lives and the stories they tell about the world and its meaning. That’s a demanding but necessary task because it involves what John Stott has called ‘double listening’ – to the world (to understand it) and to Scripture (to confront the world).
4. People in God’s place
I’ve been speaking about what the Lord is doing here through the birth and deliverance of Moses but it might be fairly asked, where is the Lord? He gets no name-checks in these verses, not until 2:23 in fact; so how can we speak of his work here?
Firstly, he is at work through Moses’ mother. She gives birth and because she sees he is “a fine child” she decides to hide him and then to put him aboard his mini-ark. Moses’ mother is being reported as acting in the place of the Lord, doing his will, furthering his plans for the whole creation (yet without actually being conscious of that).
The second person through whom the Lord is at work is Pharaoh’s daughter. In vv.5,6 she comes down to the Nile, sees the baby, hears his cries and takes pity on him. Fast forward to 2:23-25 and 3:7,8 and it becomes clear that she is acting just as the Lord does with his people. Her actions regarding Moses are paralleled by the Lord in his actions for Israel.
The Lord who could have chosen to act in some spectacular and supernatural way to rescue his people Israel is, instead, remaining behind the scenes for now and acting through Moses’ two mothers (birth and adoptive).
This is something that happens consistently through the Bible and is equally as true today. The Lord acts to further his purposes of blessing through people like us. We may not at times realise it but just knowing that he works in that way invests the whole of life with the deepest significance. As Paul tells us, our work for the Lord is not in vain because Jesus was raised from the dead.
Briefly, there are two other points that flow from these observations.
5. Women in God’s service
Up to this point in Exodus, all the Lord’s work has been carried out through women – first the midwives, then Moses’ mother and sister and then Pharaoh’s daughter. That is significant.
Some people read the Bible as being very negative in its view of women and their place in God’s service. Others say that Jesus improved the situation but that the OT was dreadful. Yet all the way through the Bible the Lord shows the highest regard for women and all along uses them in profound ways to further his saving purposes.
It is true that the Bible identifies different roles in the home and in the church but in no way are those differences of role intended to suggest that women are lesser subjects in God’s kingdom or that they have a minor role to play in his saving purposes for the world. That simply is not so and passages like this show us how deeply valued by and valuable to the Lord women are.
6. Pagans in God’s service
But notice something else about one of these helpers. Not only is Pharaoh’s daughter a woman (obviously!) but she is also a pagan, a worshipper of false gods. And yet she is capable of acting with genuine compassion, taking her stand against the evil designs of her father (and how risky that must have been) and is singularly used by the Lord to further his work through rescuing Moses.
What does all this tell us? It reminds us that the Lord is sovereign in who he chooses to use to further his plans and it also reminds us that the Lord’s people do not have a monopoly on good behaviour. Pharaoh’s daughter is not acting out of love for the God of Israel but the very fact that she acts in line with his will shows that he is at work in her life in what is termed common grace.
That is a valuable lesson for us to learn as we live in a world that is hostile to God and frequently to us also. Not all people will be so; they may even be used by God both to help us and to challenge us in terms of our own compassion (or lack of it). Listen to how one writer puts this point:
As much as we need to take to heart that we’re in a battle, we need also to take to heart this point and learn to see the world and our life in it through the multi-faceted lens of Biblical revelation.
God’s ways – surprising, yet wise and powerful. He is worthy of our love, our trust and our service
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36; TNIV)
God’s ways are full of mystery and glory. Here in Exodus 2 we see something of that. His people, Israel, are oppressed in Egypt. The Lord has staked the future of his creation on his plans to save through them but they are in deep trouble: the new king is working them ruthlessly, has tried to make sure their male children don’t survive (and been thwarted by the Hebrew midwives) and, finally, orders that all male children be thrown into the Nile.
The scene demands that we ask, ‘What will the Lord do now?’ Are his plans to save and heal his creation going to drown in the Nile?
1. The LORD will save through a special child
The beginning of ch.2 suggests that the Lord is not finished yet. A child is born to a Levite family and is straightaway marked out as a potential deliverer of the people, in at least 2 ways.
i) His mother sees that he is a “fine child”. But doesn’t every mother think her baby is lovely? This is something more. The phrase “she saw he was a fine child” is very reminiscent of the statements in Genesis 1 that the Lord saw that it was good (fine = good).
ii) And that point is further stressed when we’re told that his mother hides him in a pitch covered basket and puts into the Nile. What is very significant here is that the word translated ‘basket’ only occurs elsewhere in Genesis 6-9 where it is usually translated as ‘ark’.
The link back to Noah is very clear and deliberate and says to us that this child is destined to be rescued from the water and, just as with Noah’s deliverance, it will have significance for all humanity.
But that significance will only ultimately be realised in and through another special child marked-out by God as the deliverer, as the saviour of the world. Noah and Moses were never really capable of taking on sin and evil and overcoming them; Jesus could and did.
2. The strange ways of the LORD
This child is marked-out as a potential deliverer of his people. How will the Lord preserve him? Where will he be hidden until his time arrives? Who will train him in God’s ways, ready for that role?
The great irony is that Moses is drawn from the water by Pharaoh’s daughter and is given back, for a time, to his mother. But then, when he is older, he is taken into Pharaoh’s household and grows up there as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter
Not only is this deeply ironic but it seems intensely fragile, too. What if Moses is discovered to be a Hebrew? He’s in Pharaoh’s palace, right at the centre of the evil opposition to the Lord’s purposes of mercy and grace. You can’t get much more vulnerable than that.
Here is the Lord who works in surprising ways, whose ways are higher than ours, whose plans often seem to be at risk and yet whose power is made perfect in weakness (remember the cross).
How much the church must always remember this – her situation is often very weak (even when it seems strong). On the margins, lacking strength, in a hostile world – but the Lord knows what he is doing. He can be trusted, as he works all things together for good for his people and for his plans of salvation.
3. The Real Deal
Moses’ situation seems unique but, in terms of literature, it isn’t. As more discoveries of other literature from the Ancient Near East have been made, it’s been noticed that there are many stories of children being born and exposed to the elements - take, for instance, The Legend of Sargon:
Sargon, the mighty king, king of Agade, am I.
MY mother was a changeling, my father I knew not.
The brother(s) of my father loved the hills.
My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates.
My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me.
She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid.
She cast me into the river which rose not (over) me,
The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water.
Akki, the drawer of water lifted me out as he dipped his e[w]er.
Akki, the drawer of water, [took me] as his son and) reared me.
(from The Legend of Sargon (c.2300BC)
Now, if there were other well-known stories of this type and if those stories were known to be legends and myths, why is the Lord doing this with Moses? Why not cause him to be delivered in a way that doesn’t resemble those myths?
The fact that this story has similarities with other accounts doesn’t detract from its power and relevance. In fact, it heightens it. You see, the Lord is showing that he is the real deal and makes that point in ways that people can readily connect with and in ways that directly challenge their thinking about the world.
Paul does something similar in his preaching in Acts, as he sees what is around him and what stories the people tell and how they see the world. He uses it to tell the real story of God and his Son.
And, of course, we see this most wonderfully in the incarnation of Jesus – the Lord coming to where we are, living our lives, speaking our language (as it were), sharing in all our joys and sorrows.
The challenge for us as the church is to learn from the ways of the Lord. He is the real deal and we need to be able to show that in ways that are readily accessible to those we speak to. That means being attentive to their lives and the stories they tell about the world and its meaning. That’s a demanding but necessary task because it involves what John Stott has called ‘double listening’ – to the world (to understand it) and to Scripture (to confront the world).
4. People in God’s place
I’ve been speaking about what the Lord is doing here through the birth and deliverance of Moses but it might be fairly asked, where is the Lord? He gets no name-checks in these verses, not until 2:23 in fact; so how can we speak of his work here?
Firstly, he is at work through Moses’ mother. She gives birth and because she sees he is “a fine child” she decides to hide him and then to put him aboard his mini-ark. Moses’ mother is being reported as acting in the place of the Lord, doing his will, furthering his plans for the whole creation (yet without actually being conscious of that).
The second person through whom the Lord is at work is Pharaoh’s daughter. In vv.5,6 she comes down to the Nile, sees the baby, hears his cries and takes pity on him. Fast forward to 2:23-25 and 3:7,8 and it becomes clear that she is acting just as the Lord does with his people. Her actions regarding Moses are paralleled by the Lord in his actions for Israel.
The Lord who could have chosen to act in some spectacular and supernatural way to rescue his people Israel is, instead, remaining behind the scenes for now and acting through Moses’ two mothers (birth and adoptive).
This is something that happens consistently through the Bible and is equally as true today. The Lord acts to further his purposes of blessing through people like us. We may not at times realise it but just knowing that he works in that way invests the whole of life with the deepest significance. As Paul tells us, our work for the Lord is not in vain because Jesus was raised from the dead.
Briefly, there are two other points that flow from these observations.
5. Women in God’s service
Up to this point in Exodus, all the Lord’s work has been carried out through women – first the midwives, then Moses’ mother and sister and then Pharaoh’s daughter. That is significant.
Some people read the Bible as being very negative in its view of women and their place in God’s service. Others say that Jesus improved the situation but that the OT was dreadful. Yet all the way through the Bible the Lord shows the highest regard for women and all along uses them in profound ways to further his saving purposes.
It is true that the Bible identifies different roles in the home and in the church but in no way are those differences of role intended to suggest that women are lesser subjects in God’s kingdom or that they have a minor role to play in his saving purposes for the world. That simply is not so and passages like this show us how deeply valued by and valuable to the Lord women are.
6. Pagans in God’s service
But notice something else about one of these helpers. Not only is Pharaoh’s daughter a woman (obviously!) but she is also a pagan, a worshipper of false gods. And yet she is capable of acting with genuine compassion, taking her stand against the evil designs of her father (and how risky that must have been) and is singularly used by the Lord to further his work through rescuing Moses.
What does all this tell us? It reminds us that the Lord is sovereign in who he chooses to use to further his plans and it also reminds us that the Lord’s people do not have a monopoly on good behaviour. Pharaoh’s daughter is not acting out of love for the God of Israel but the very fact that she acts in line with his will shows that he is at work in her life in what is termed common grace.
That is a valuable lesson for us to learn as we live in a world that is hostile to God and frequently to us also. Not all people will be so; they may even be used by God both to help us and to challenge us in terms of our own compassion (or lack of it). Listen to how one writer puts this point:
What is our proper posture toward an unbeliever? There is more than one biblical model. The model of "opposition" is certainly well known and has ample biblical precedent. This model, however, is not deserving of universal application. We share with others the love of Christ, who was a friend to sinners. In doing so, we bring the good news to them in many different ways, which is something that God's people are called to do. But do not be surprised if in the process the Lord uses these same people to change you. Our neighbors, coworkers, and relatives are not so much projects to be won, notches on our salvation belt, but people who are created in God's image and whose lives are in God's hands. They, too, may be his instruments for purposes we cannot fathom. It is his will to employ many facets of his creation for his sake and for his glory. (Peter Enns, Exodus, NIVAC, p.76)
As much as we need to take to heart that we’re in a battle, we need also to take to heart this point and learn to see the world and our life in it through the multi-faceted lens of Biblical revelation.
God’s ways – surprising, yet wise and powerful. He is worthy of our love, our trust and our service
Sermon on Exodus 1:8-22
The Lord’s great project to rescue his fallen creation from the baneful effects of sin did not cease with Joseph and his brothers. Ex. 1:1-7 has shown us that the Lord was with the people of Israel in creational blessing in order to achieve his saving purposes for the whole world.
But nothing is ever quite so straightforward. Everything looks to be in place for the deepening and widening of that blessing and for the liberation of the creation from its bondage to decay but, hold on, not so fast. There’s a great problem looming in v.8.
1. The cosmic conflict
A new king is on the throne, “who did not know Joseph”, which also means he did not know the Lord and was not in tune with the Lord’s purposes. The Pharaoh of Joseph’s day welcomed his whole family and knew, to some degree, that God’s blessing centred on this people. But this new king knows nothing of that and the upshot of his ignorance is going to be trouble.
Sin and evil are not going to be overcome without a great struggle. And whether his new king is aware of it or not, that struggle is of cosmic proportions and is going to be centred, in earthly terms, right under his nose in Egypt.
The Lord has blessed his people and is determined to make them a blessing to the whole world. But sin is not going to go quietly; Satan is not going to lie down and be a good boy. The very reason why there is a need for redemption – the presence of sin and evil in God’s good creation – will mean the most intense battle and a great burden of pain and suffering.
In just a few words, the opening of this book has set the scene for the rest of the Bible story. We’re dealing with a broken creation that is under the power of sin and death. To loosen that grip and rescue the creation is going to mean the LORD God doing battle with all the forces of evil and chaos.
And it is at the point where that clash takes place that the church ever finds itself. We need to understand that the battle has come a long way since those days in Egypt; in fact, the most decisive victory has been won by Jesus on the cross and nothing has ever been the same since. But until his return in glory, the war will continue; the outcome is not in doubt but still there is a fight to be fought and a race to be run.
We said last time that this opening chapter raises the issue of identity for us and here it is again. As the Lord’s people we are engaged in a holy war, in a cosmic struggle to see his good and gracious purposes for the world enacted. That means an approach to life that is ready to engage, appropriately, in the struggle.
2. Cursing those who are blessed
So, because he did not know Joseph, the new king feared the people of Israel and began to oppress them, enlisting the help of his own people against them. The battle lines have been drawn.
In vv.11-14, life got very uncomfortable for the people of Israel. They found themselves at the eye of the storm in the cosmic battle and suffered as a consequence. It is not possible to be the Lord’s agents of blessing in the world and not be called upon to suffer in order to take forward those gracious purposes.
Israel discovered that and were often reluctant to shoulder the burden. But the greatest pain was born by our Lord Jesus and not unwillingly. It was in him that the pain reached its most intense expression, it was in his life and ministry that the conflict came to be seen most clearly (just look at the number of demons he encounters).
Yet the calling to be agents of blessing in the world does not end with Jesus: “as the Father sent me, so I am sending you” he tells his disciples. And in his ministry Paul is conscious that he is filling up in his body what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body (Col. 1:24). We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to find the same being true in our own experience.
As the Lord blesses us as his people and seeks to further his purposes both in and through us we will find that trouble seeks us out, because the world, like this new king, does not know the Lord and does not know his people (as John tells us in 1 John 3:1).
But this trouble for Israel doesn’t thwart the Lord’s purposes back there in Egypt. Their almost miraculous growth in numbers was both the sign of his blessing on them and a signal for the battle to commence. And when the heat came down, he continued to bless them – “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread” (1:12).
Trouble will not cause the Lord to leave the field or go soft on his purposes. As Israel was oppressed, so she grew. How often that has been seen in church history and can be expected to be seen in our own day, too.
3. Delivered by midwives!
But, as you might expect, the continued blessing of God on the people of Israel leads the new king to ‘up the ante’. He goes to the Hebrew midwives and orders them to kill the boys they deliver but to spare the girls. Again, the nature of this threat to life shows us that this is a conflict that has at its heart the very future of the creation and God’s purposes for it.
No doubt the new king made his point to the midwives with all the eloquence of power and intimidation, but they were not cowed. We aren’t dealing here with skilled politicians and diplomats but normal everyday women – but women of faith. When the Lord’s purposes are being challenged, it doesn’t necessarily require a national leader to sort things out; what counts more than anything is faith in God. That’s what we need to have.
Well, these valiant ladies refused to obey the king and allowed the boys to live. When the king demanded to know why they told him that the Hebrew women were so strong they’d got it all sorted before they could get there (they were lying, of course).
So, the battle is plain for all to see and so, too, are the tactics the Lord’s people are to use: deception. Really? Well, the Lord certainly blessed Shiphrah and Puah, giving them families of their own.
No doubt there are many who would want to take issue with what I’ve just said. Surely lying has no part to play in furthering the Lord’s purposes in the world? Are we to lie to potential converts and tell them that following Jesus is a pain-free experience?
What are we to say about this incident? Isn’t lying wrong? Shouldn’t they simply have told the truth and trusted the Lord to save them? I think there are a number of things to bear in mind here. This is what we might call a no-win situation for the midwives and they choose to do the lesser of two evils. The reason they do so is out of reverence for life, which is a reverence for the Lord of life.
They weren’t told by the Lord to lie but, in this complex and highly pressured situation, it was, in its own way, an expression of their faith in the Lord. The same would later be true of Rahab when she lied about the spies and was commended for her faith.
It’s all too easy at this distance and in our safe and cosy environment to debate the rights and wrong of this sort of behaviour but there are times when life is very complex, when we are faced with less than attractive options on all hands. What we must not fail to see in these women is their genuine commitment to life because of a genuine commitment to the Lord. The fight is sometimes very messy and we may as well acknowledge it.
But there’s only so much these women can do; the battle is far bigger, far more intense. Although we can see that the Lord has been active in blessing his people, so far he has stayed firmly behind the scenes. The question could fairly be asked, where is the Lord? And that becomes even more urgent when in v.22 Pharaoh orders that “every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile”.
What will become of his people now? The stage is nicely set for a deliverer to arise and for the Lord to show himself clearly in the lives of his people. Just as in the fullness of time, he sent forth his son to be born of a woman...
But nothing is ever quite so straightforward. Everything looks to be in place for the deepening and widening of that blessing and for the liberation of the creation from its bondage to decay but, hold on, not so fast. There’s a great problem looming in v.8.
1. The cosmic conflict
A new king is on the throne, “who did not know Joseph”, which also means he did not know the Lord and was not in tune with the Lord’s purposes. The Pharaoh of Joseph’s day welcomed his whole family and knew, to some degree, that God’s blessing centred on this people. But this new king knows nothing of that and the upshot of his ignorance is going to be trouble.
Sin and evil are not going to be overcome without a great struggle. And whether his new king is aware of it or not, that struggle is of cosmic proportions and is going to be centred, in earthly terms, right under his nose in Egypt.
The Lord has blessed his people and is determined to make them a blessing to the whole world. But sin is not going to go quietly; Satan is not going to lie down and be a good boy. The very reason why there is a need for redemption – the presence of sin and evil in God’s good creation – will mean the most intense battle and a great burden of pain and suffering.
In just a few words, the opening of this book has set the scene for the rest of the Bible story. We’re dealing with a broken creation that is under the power of sin and death. To loosen that grip and rescue the creation is going to mean the LORD God doing battle with all the forces of evil and chaos.
And it is at the point where that clash takes place that the church ever finds itself. We need to understand that the battle has come a long way since those days in Egypt; in fact, the most decisive victory has been won by Jesus on the cross and nothing has ever been the same since. But until his return in glory, the war will continue; the outcome is not in doubt but still there is a fight to be fought and a race to be run.
We said last time that this opening chapter raises the issue of identity for us and here it is again. As the Lord’s people we are engaged in a holy war, in a cosmic struggle to see his good and gracious purposes for the world enacted. That means an approach to life that is ready to engage, appropriately, in the struggle.
2. Cursing those who are blessed
So, because he did not know Joseph, the new king feared the people of Israel and began to oppress them, enlisting the help of his own people against them. The battle lines have been drawn.
In vv.11-14, life got very uncomfortable for the people of Israel. They found themselves at the eye of the storm in the cosmic battle and suffered as a consequence. It is not possible to be the Lord’s agents of blessing in the world and not be called upon to suffer in order to take forward those gracious purposes.
Israel discovered that and were often reluctant to shoulder the burden. But the greatest pain was born by our Lord Jesus and not unwillingly. It was in him that the pain reached its most intense expression, it was in his life and ministry that the conflict came to be seen most clearly (just look at the number of demons he encounters).
Yet the calling to be agents of blessing in the world does not end with Jesus: “as the Father sent me, so I am sending you” he tells his disciples. And in his ministry Paul is conscious that he is filling up in his body what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body (Col. 1:24). We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to find the same being true in our own experience.
As the Lord blesses us as his people and seeks to further his purposes both in and through us we will find that trouble seeks us out, because the world, like this new king, does not know the Lord and does not know his people (as John tells us in 1 John 3:1).
But this trouble for Israel doesn’t thwart the Lord’s purposes back there in Egypt. Their almost miraculous growth in numbers was both the sign of his blessing on them and a signal for the battle to commence. And when the heat came down, he continued to bless them – “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread” (1:12).
Trouble will not cause the Lord to leave the field or go soft on his purposes. As Israel was oppressed, so she grew. How often that has been seen in church history and can be expected to be seen in our own day, too.
3. Delivered by midwives!
But, as you might expect, the continued blessing of God on the people of Israel leads the new king to ‘up the ante’. He goes to the Hebrew midwives and orders them to kill the boys they deliver but to spare the girls. Again, the nature of this threat to life shows us that this is a conflict that has at its heart the very future of the creation and God’s purposes for it.
No doubt the new king made his point to the midwives with all the eloquence of power and intimidation, but they were not cowed. We aren’t dealing here with skilled politicians and diplomats but normal everyday women – but women of faith. When the Lord’s purposes are being challenged, it doesn’t necessarily require a national leader to sort things out; what counts more than anything is faith in God. That’s what we need to have.
Well, these valiant ladies refused to obey the king and allowed the boys to live. When the king demanded to know why they told him that the Hebrew women were so strong they’d got it all sorted before they could get there (they were lying, of course).
So, the battle is plain for all to see and so, too, are the tactics the Lord’s people are to use: deception. Really? Well, the Lord certainly blessed Shiphrah and Puah, giving them families of their own.
No doubt there are many who would want to take issue with what I’ve just said. Surely lying has no part to play in furthering the Lord’s purposes in the world? Are we to lie to potential converts and tell them that following Jesus is a pain-free experience?
What are we to say about this incident? Isn’t lying wrong? Shouldn’t they simply have told the truth and trusted the Lord to save them? I think there are a number of things to bear in mind here. This is what we might call a no-win situation for the midwives and they choose to do the lesser of two evils. The reason they do so is out of reverence for life, which is a reverence for the Lord of life.
They weren’t told by the Lord to lie but, in this complex and highly pressured situation, it was, in its own way, an expression of their faith in the Lord. The same would later be true of Rahab when she lied about the spies and was commended for her faith.
It’s all too easy at this distance and in our safe and cosy environment to debate the rights and wrong of this sort of behaviour but there are times when life is very complex, when we are faced with less than attractive options on all hands. What we must not fail to see in these women is their genuine commitment to life because of a genuine commitment to the Lord. The fight is sometimes very messy and we may as well acknowledge it.
But there’s only so much these women can do; the battle is far bigger, far more intense. Although we can see that the Lord has been active in blessing his people, so far he has stayed firmly behind the scenes. The question could fairly be asked, where is the Lord? And that becomes even more urgent when in v.22 Pharaoh orders that “every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile”.
What will become of his people now? The stage is nicely set for a deliverer to arise and for the Lord to show himself clearly in the lives of his people. Just as in the fullness of time, he sent forth his son to be born of a woman...
Sermon on Exodus 1:1-7
We’re beginning to study the book of Exodus together this morning. It is a very significant book, both in terms of the OT and also the NT. Not only is it the book in which we discover many famous stories but many key biblical themes emerge in the course of it – the redemption of God’s people, the forming of the nation, the nature of God, the worship of God, the place of the law and so on.
Any decent Bible dictionary will give you a whole list of such themes. It’s a long book, complex in some ways, with much that needs to be pondered carefully. We begin today by taking the first 7 verses.
1. Back to the future
The opening of the book of Exodus forms a very deliberate link to what has gone in Genesis. In Hebrew, the book opens with the word ’and’, showing that it’s a continuing narrative that we have here, another chapter in the story rather than a completely new one. And that point is made even more strongly in the opening words which are a direct copy of Gen. 46:8.
A book that has a great story to tell, and is always moving forwards, starts with a backward look. It reminds us how Israel got to be in Egypt but, more than that, it raises issues of identity and purpose.
One of the great advances in technology in our day has been the ability to remain connected wherever you are. The opening of this great book teaches us that we live connected lives, that the story of God’s plan with this world is single, not multiple.
They were not – and neither are we – the first generation of God’s people. They were not – and nor are we – a discrete generation, unrelated to the past and disconnected in the present. There is a much larger picture to see and to live within. Exodus is one part of a larger story and so are our lives.
We must, therefore, learn to both think and pray in terms of that larger reality. It would be all too easy to simply see our Christian experience as something that makes us happy, helps us to get through life and guarantees us a home in heaven come the end.
But the opening of this book, and the Bible as a whole, condemn that kind of approach to life as a Christian. Our thinking, living and praying must not be parochial. We need to see the larger picture – by which I don’t just mean what God is doing now in other places but rather the whole sweep of Bible history as it unfolds God’s purposes.
Does that figure in how you approach life as a Christian? Is that how you see your life and the life of the church? Does it show in your praying?
This is the point Jesus makes when he tells us to make God’s kingdom our first concern and not to worry unduly about life’s necessities, to let him give us what we need as we need it.
So, remember your connection to the larger picture and begin to understand your life and the life of the church in that light.
2. Connected to the God of creation
That Exodus continues the story begun in Genesis is quite clear and these opening verses make that point in no uncertain terms. But the connection with Genesis is more explicitly a connection with the God of Genesis who is the great creator. And that point is made here too, again with great clarity.
Look at vv.6,7 – Joseph and all his brothers died (a bit like the reports back in Gen. 5) but that wasn’t the end of the Israelites in Egypt – far from it. In an almost miraculous way, they increased and “became exceedingly numerous”.
The terms for population growth compete for space in verse 7, there’s just so many of them. And what is especially notable is that those terms directly relate back to what we read in Genesis – check out 1:28; 9:1 and 1:21; 8:17 (for ‘swarm’).
What is this meant to convey to us?
i) Blessed by the creator – This note about the amazing growth of the people of Israel in Egypt is clearly meant to say that the Lord was with them and was blessing them.
His blessing was not limited to the former generation who we learn had died, nor was it limited by their location in the pagan land of Egypt. Egypt had its fertility gods but true fertility is seen to come from the LORD alone.
The people of Israel belong to the Lord who made both heaven and earth. That is a key point in the whole Bible storyline that, sadly, we often neglect and fail to do justice to. If you check out the main statements of faith of evangelical churches, there is very little about creation. That’s a great shame because everything flows from that starting point. We can talk in great detail about what the Lord has done to save but who is the Lord that saves? The great Creator God!
The whole thing starts with creation and ends with new creation; the God who saves is the God who made everything in the first place. And he was clearly present in power and blessing with his people in Egypt.
Their story is the story of the Creator God promising to bless them and to make them increase in number – that certainly is coming true in these verses. But the promises also included land which is yet to be fulfilled and so the stage is set in these verses for the exodus from Egypt and the journey to the promised land.
ii) Purpose – But this connection with God’s purposes in creation that these words deliberately echo also says something else to us. It makes the point that “what God is doing with Israel’s descendants has meaning for the whole family of humankind.” That is a vital note to grasp.
I heard someone speak not so long ago on a part of the Joseph story where Joseph was managing the food crisis in Egypt. The speaker made the point that Joseph was placed there for the sake of Israel, which is exactly what Joseph himself said (Gen. 45:5-8). But the speaker went on to say that God didn’t care about Egypt, he was only interested in Israel, that the Lord’s great concern in this world is with his elect people.
Now, I’m a great fan of the biblical doctrine of election – I don’t think it’s anything to be shy about – but I do question those statements.
Election has at its heart being chosen in order to engage in mission (do a study of the biblical material and you’ll see what I mean). Did God care for Egypt? Yes, most certainly – check out what God says through Isaiah at 19:16ff – it’s a remarkable statement of intent and of genuine care and concern.
And this passage before us makes the point that God’s purposes for all creation are going to be fulfilled through his people Israel (which ultimately is what happens in and through Jesus). Why was Abraham chosen? To be a blessing for the whole world. And here are Abraham’s descendents in Egypt, swarming over the land in creational blessing.
At this time, there is going to be a great struggle and the need for a great deliverance from Egypt but, ultimately, that redemption is going to result in Egypt, too, sharing in the Lord’s mercy.
The Lord who we will see redeeming his people from Egypt in this great and profound book is the Creator of heaven and earth. One writer expressed this point very helpfully: “Because God is a God of life and blessing [as seen in creation] God will do redemptive work should those gifts ever be endangered or diminished.” And so, “Israel is God’s starting-point for realising the divine intentions for all.”
We need to see that as our purpose, too. We’re in the world for the sake of the world, a light for the nations, a city set on a hill – not to thumb our noses at the nations but to invite them to come under the shade of the Lord’s shelter. That’s why you’re in your family, in your workplace, in your neighbourhood.
This grasp of our identity and purpose as the Lord’s people must shape and sharpen our thinking and praying.
May the Lord bless us and make us a blessing to others.
Any decent Bible dictionary will give you a whole list of such themes. It’s a long book, complex in some ways, with much that needs to be pondered carefully. We begin today by taking the first 7 verses.
1. Back to the future
The opening of the book of Exodus forms a very deliberate link to what has gone in Genesis. In Hebrew, the book opens with the word ’and’, showing that it’s a continuing narrative that we have here, another chapter in the story rather than a completely new one. And that point is made even more strongly in the opening words which are a direct copy of Gen. 46:8.
A book that has a great story to tell, and is always moving forwards, starts with a backward look. It reminds us how Israel got to be in Egypt but, more than that, it raises issues of identity and purpose.
One of the great advances in technology in our day has been the ability to remain connected wherever you are. The opening of this great book teaches us that we live connected lives, that the story of God’s plan with this world is single, not multiple.
They were not – and neither are we – the first generation of God’s people. They were not – and nor are we – a discrete generation, unrelated to the past and disconnected in the present. There is a much larger picture to see and to live within. Exodus is one part of a larger story and so are our lives.
We must, therefore, learn to both think and pray in terms of that larger reality. It would be all too easy to simply see our Christian experience as something that makes us happy, helps us to get through life and guarantees us a home in heaven come the end.
But the opening of this book, and the Bible as a whole, condemn that kind of approach to life as a Christian. Our thinking, living and praying must not be parochial. We need to see the larger picture – by which I don’t just mean what God is doing now in other places but rather the whole sweep of Bible history as it unfolds God’s purposes.
Does that figure in how you approach life as a Christian? Is that how you see your life and the life of the church? Does it show in your praying?
This is the point Jesus makes when he tells us to make God’s kingdom our first concern and not to worry unduly about life’s necessities, to let him give us what we need as we need it.
So, remember your connection to the larger picture and begin to understand your life and the life of the church in that light.
2. Connected to the God of creation
That Exodus continues the story begun in Genesis is quite clear and these opening verses make that point in no uncertain terms. But the connection with Genesis is more explicitly a connection with the God of Genesis who is the great creator. And that point is made here too, again with great clarity.
Look at vv.6,7 – Joseph and all his brothers died (a bit like the reports back in Gen. 5) but that wasn’t the end of the Israelites in Egypt – far from it. In an almost miraculous way, they increased and “became exceedingly numerous”.
The terms for population growth compete for space in verse 7, there’s just so many of them. And what is especially notable is that those terms directly relate back to what we read in Genesis – check out 1:28; 9:1 and 1:21; 8:17 (for ‘swarm’).
What is this meant to convey to us?
i) Blessed by the creator – This note about the amazing growth of the people of Israel in Egypt is clearly meant to say that the Lord was with them and was blessing them.
His blessing was not limited to the former generation who we learn had died, nor was it limited by their location in the pagan land of Egypt. Egypt had its fertility gods but true fertility is seen to come from the LORD alone.
The people of Israel belong to the Lord who made both heaven and earth. That is a key point in the whole Bible storyline that, sadly, we often neglect and fail to do justice to. If you check out the main statements of faith of evangelical churches, there is very little about creation. That’s a great shame because everything flows from that starting point. We can talk in great detail about what the Lord has done to save but who is the Lord that saves? The great Creator God!
The whole thing starts with creation and ends with new creation; the God who saves is the God who made everything in the first place. And he was clearly present in power and blessing with his people in Egypt.
Their story is the story of the Creator God promising to bless them and to make them increase in number – that certainly is coming true in these verses. But the promises also included land which is yet to be fulfilled and so the stage is set in these verses for the exodus from Egypt and the journey to the promised land.
ii) Purpose – But this connection with God’s purposes in creation that these words deliberately echo also says something else to us. It makes the point that “what God is doing with Israel’s descendants has meaning for the whole family of humankind.” That is a vital note to grasp.
I heard someone speak not so long ago on a part of the Joseph story where Joseph was managing the food crisis in Egypt. The speaker made the point that Joseph was placed there for the sake of Israel, which is exactly what Joseph himself said (Gen. 45:5-8). But the speaker went on to say that God didn’t care about Egypt, he was only interested in Israel, that the Lord’s great concern in this world is with his elect people.
Now, I’m a great fan of the biblical doctrine of election – I don’t think it’s anything to be shy about – but I do question those statements.
Election has at its heart being chosen in order to engage in mission (do a study of the biblical material and you’ll see what I mean). Did God care for Egypt? Yes, most certainly – check out what God says through Isaiah at 19:16ff – it’s a remarkable statement of intent and of genuine care and concern.
And this passage before us makes the point that God’s purposes for all creation are going to be fulfilled through his people Israel (which ultimately is what happens in and through Jesus). Why was Abraham chosen? To be a blessing for the whole world. And here are Abraham’s descendents in Egypt, swarming over the land in creational blessing.
At this time, there is going to be a great struggle and the need for a great deliverance from Egypt but, ultimately, that redemption is going to result in Egypt, too, sharing in the Lord’s mercy.
The Lord who we will see redeeming his people from Egypt in this great and profound book is the Creator of heaven and earth. One writer expressed this point very helpfully: “Because God is a God of life and blessing [as seen in creation] God will do redemptive work should those gifts ever be endangered or diminished.” And so, “Israel is God’s starting-point for realising the divine intentions for all.”
We need to see that as our purpose, too. We’re in the world for the sake of the world, a light for the nations, a city set on a hill – not to thumb our noses at the nations but to invite them to come under the shade of the Lord’s shelter. That’s why you’re in your family, in your workplace, in your neighbourhood.
This grasp of our identity and purpose as the Lord’s people must shape and sharpen our thinking and praying.
May the Lord bless us and make us a blessing to others.
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