Exodus 2

Well, please turn with me to the passage we read earlier, Exodus chapter 2. We begin this morning a new series looking at the book of Exodus.

It's our custom if you're new to the church to work through books of the Bible and we turn to Exodus. Exodus is a wonderful book. It's a wonderful account of how God's people were brought out of slavery in Egypt, were formed into God's people at Mount Sinai, and were given instructions about how to live and worship as God's people.

And throughout the book, there are many pointers to our rescue from sin through Christ's death and our new life in him. As well as being an accurately recorded and instructive history book, it's also a book that teaches us about our God, what he's like, and how we are to relate to him.

So as we read and study it over the coming weeks, we do so that we may know the Lord our God a little better and know what it means to live as his redeemed, rescued people in this world.

Many times throughout the Old Testament, God's people were directed back to the Exodus to remember what their God was like and what he requires of his people.

Now, you might be wondering why Katie read chapter 2, when normally we work through books of the Bible chapter by chapter. So, what happened to chapter 1?

I was already asked that already this morning. Well, the answer is that we were meant to look at chapter 1 last week, but because of a misunderstanding, we didn't.

And so, this morning, we're looking at chapters 1 and 2. Don't worry, we're not going to be too long. Because these two chapters actually serve together as an introduction to the whole book.

A Slow Beginning was the title I wrote down, first of all, when I read these chapters. Because they're really covering about 350 plus years.

Whilst the rest of the book, from chapter 3 on, 38 chapters, cover about two years. But I have another title, we're not using that one. Chapter 1, covering about 300 years, is really the setting for the scene of what's happening in chapter 2.

So, glance quickly at chapter 1. The first five verses of chapter 1 were taken back to the days of Joseph. You know the guy with the multicolored dream coat?

Who was sold by his brothers to Ishmaelite traders, carried off to Egypt, where eventually he became prime minister. He was put in charge of a massive famine relief program, which was the reason why the whole family, 70 of them, we're told there at the beginning of the verse, came to settle in Egypt, where they were welcomed, and initially they prospered.

Over the years, these Israelites, these descendants of Jacob, were exceedingly fruitful, and multiplied greatly. It became so numerous, verse 7 tells us, that the land was filled with them.

That means they're part of the land. However, by verse 8, now 300 years after Joseph, a new king came to power, and he was very concerned about this great number of foreigners in his land.

If war breaks out, they'll join the enemy, they'll fight against us. We can't have that. So he set about to oppress them, first of all, with forced labor.

They were building great store cities for him. The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. And so, they were made to work even harder.

Verse 14, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly. The king then tried to systematically get rid of the baby boys. He told the Hebrew midwives, when attending a Hebrew woman's birth, to kill the boys, but to let the girls live.

Well, that didn't work. So then he ordered his own people to throw every Hebrew baby boy into the river Nile.

And that's the situation at the end of chapter 1. Can you imagine how the people of God must have been feeling?

God, their God, had rescued them from famine, had taken them to Egypt, where they'd prospered, the numbers had increased greatly, but now, they were being so oppressed, worked so hard, their boys were being killed.

Things just seemed to go from bad to worse. And to make things even worse, there was no word from God. What was God doing?

Did he not care? And so, this is my title for this morning. What is God doing when things get tough?

What's God doing when things get tough? You know, we can hardly imagine what Christians in North Korea or China, Ukraine or Gaza, what they're thinking today, where life is so hard.

And it must seem to them that God is doing nothing. Some of us here this morning, well, we're not facing hard labor.

We're not having our children killed. But in very trying ways, we are feeling really up against it. life is really tough.

And we can't see any future hope. There's that debilitating illness, that chronic pain you've been enduring for years.

There's your marriage, or your kid's marriage, that's really struggling. And you wonder how long things can go on as they are.

Or your child is proving a real handful at the moment. And to make matters worse, God seems so distant, silent, inactive.

Like the psalmist, you're saying, how long, Lord? How long? Like the Israelites, you may well be wondering, what is God doing when things get so tough?

How long? Is that you this morning? Is that where you're feeling? Well, as we look into chapter 2, it's my prayer that we'll see some answers to that very, very real question.

In fact, God's not mentioned in chapter 2 until the very end. but we'll see that throughout the chapter, he is doing things.

He was at work. God is at work. All the folks there in Egypt didn't see it at the time.

we are privileged to see what they didn't. Maybe we won't see, maybe what God's doing at the moment in our lives, but looking back, we trust we can.

I suggest, I suggest God was doing three things at that time. First of all, God was first preparing his deliverer.

Preparing his deliverer. It all began with the birth of a baby boy. The very target of the king's cruel plans. Verse 1, Now, a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman.

Now, we know, we know their names. In Numbers 26, we're told they were Amram and Jochebed. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

Now, they already had two children, Aaron and Miriam. But the couple are introduced like this because the birth of this son was to be so important.

First, it might appear that it was just another Hebrew boy and we might be thinking, well, it was a bit risky to have another child in these circumstances, especially when they already had one son who was alive.

But it seems clear that this was no ordinary child. We read, when Jochebed saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

That's not an easy thing to do when Amram was having to work so hard and if the baby was discovered by an Egyptian, he'd be in the river. And Amram himself, no doubt, would be severely punished.

But Mother Jochebed seemed to have recognized something special about her son, which made it even more unbearable to think of throwing him into the river or allowing anybody else to do it.

Verse 2 tells us, she saw that he was a fine child. And here I suggest we see the first indication of God's mysterious working, of God's overruling, we might say.

Amram and Jochebed were people of faith. I think it's significant they're both of the tribe of Levi. But Hebrews, the book of Hebrews makes that really plain.

If you turn to Hebrews chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 23, we read this. By faith, I say they were people of faith, by faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

Now, I don't want to read too much into what it says in verse 2, when they saw that he was a fine or beautiful child. It could be translated. I guess most mums think that their baby is beautiful.

Well, maybe not at first, but Hebrew says he was no ordinary child, but the Hebrew word translated fine here is the word that's translated good several times in Genesis chapter 1, you know, creation, when God saw that it was good, when God saw that it was good, when God saw that it was very good.

was God beginning to do something new through this child? So as well as bringing this believing couple to have a baby at this time, somehow the Lord revealed to them that this child was special and had to be hidden and they were given faith and courage to hide him.

But then when necessity drove after three months, Jacobet obeyed the letter but not the spirit of Pharaoh's edict and actually committed her child to the waters of the Nile.

She put him in the Nile, didn't she? But she was putting him in a papyrus basket caught in with tar and pitch. It's sometimes called and translated an ark.

What does that remind you of? Surely of Noah's ark in which Noah was safe from the devouring water.

His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen and then it just so happened that Pharaoh's daughter went down to Nile to bathe and it just happened that she walked along the riverbank at that very point where the baby was hidden.

Well it didn't just so happen did it? No, no. Can't we see God at work behind the scenes? You know I like to think that cruel Pharaoh said to his daughter that morning, daughter why don't you go down to the river at such and such a time and bathe?

And off she went. Just the right time. And as she walked along she happened to see the basket among the reeds where mother Jochebed had placed it. she sent her female slave to get it.

She opened it up. A baby, an Israelite baby and just then he was crying. And again I like to imagine the Lord telling the baby to cry at that very moment.

And the princess felt sorry for him. This is one of the Hebrew babies she said. And she knew what ought to happen to that Hebrew baby. But somehow she couldn't bring herself or her slave to do it.

Who would have imagined that the daughter of such a cruel man could be so feeling? Don't you see in all this, in all these coincidences the Lord was at work over ruling what happened.

Just then the baby's sister Miriam who'd been watching stepped up. Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? What courage to do that.

Did she too have faith that God was in charge? I like to imagine the family praying together that morning before they set off with the papyrus basket.

Yes, yes, go, said the princess. And Miriam went, and who did she get? Her mom, the baby's mom.

Take this baby and nurse him for me and I'll pay you. Isn't that amazing? She's not only got her baby back, she was allowed to have him, she was also paid to bring him up at home.

And again, I'm not imagining this but imagine Moses' mom carrying the baby out, like this little girl here, carrying her out in the street.

Oh, that's a lovely girl you've got there. Jacobed? Oh, no. Because no boys would be allowed out, would they?

That's a lovely girl you've got. No, no, no. This is my son. Oh, well, you better hide him quickly or the Hebrews will find him. Certainly not, she said.

He's the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. They can't touch him. And for three years, Jacobed and the rest of the family had the joy and privilege of looking after him, praying with him, teaching him about the Lord.

Stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the wonderful story of Joseph and how the Lord had prospered them in Egypt. Lessons that would have such a profound effect on this young child.

Let me say a word just to parents and grandparents of very young children. It's never too young.

It's never too young to tell them the stories of the Bible. So here's the first thing the Lord was doing, preparing his deliverer.

He was nurtured in a God-fearing home. Nurtured in a God-fearing home. Well, the time came, verse 10, when the child grew older that Jacob had to take him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son.

She named him Moses saying, I drew him out of the water. Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw. And, you know, that's all we're told there in Exodus, isn't it?

But we do know what happened in the palace. So now turn with me to Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7. Here's Stephen's speech to the Sanhedrin just before he was martyred.

A speech that he takes them right back through their history, pointing to how they had continually turned their back on God, resisted the Holy Spirit, he says, killing prophet after prophet, then doing the same to Jesus.

But at verse 20, he refers to this period in Moses' life. Look at verse 20. At that time, Moses was born. He was no ordinary child.

For three months, he was cared for by his family. It's placed outside. Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

All we're told in Exodus is that she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. Here we're told that he was educated in all the wisdom of Egypt and was powerful in speech and action.

Isn't that something? Here's this Hebrew lad, who should have been drowned at birth, not only preserved and nurtured in a God-fearing home, taught the scriptures, then taken to the palace of the king and educated in the finest university of the day, in the leading city of the greatest nation of the world at that time.

Surely God was at work behind the scenes. According to Kenneth Kitchen, one of the world's leading authorities on ancient Egypt, he tells us that education in Egypt at that time would include reading and writing of several different scripts, mathematics including geometry, letter writing and administrative achievements, astronomy and artistic appreciation, training in building, archaeology and many other skills.

The Hebrew historian Josephus tells us that Moses was trained as a military man of great ability. He apparently led an Egyptian force into Ethiopia and brought the whole region into subjection to Egypt.

See what's happening? This didn't happen by chance. The Lord was at work overruling what happened, preparing his man to be the future deliverer of his people.

He was trained in all the wisdom of Egypt. Can you imagine how God's people, the Israelites, must have been feeling?

Oppressed, with hard forced labor, getting rid of the baby boys, unaware of what was happening at that time, thinking that God was doing nothing, thinking that God was angry with them even.

God's not able to rescue us now. But something was happening, wasn't it? God was at work, overruling in the ordinary things of life. God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

He hides himself so wondrously as though there were no God. He is least seen when all the powers of ill are most abroad, says the hymn.

And we need to remember that when we're faced with hardship and difficulties and trials we can't understand, when we see what's happening in the Ukraine and Gaza, when things are happening in your life which are so hard, God seems so distant.

God is in charge. He knows what he's doing. But, God is never in a hurry. Back to Exodus 2, we read in verse 11, one day, after Moses was grown up, but that next verse in Acts chapter 7, says, powerful in speech and action, when Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people.

40 years. He was there in the palace until he was 40. 40 years those folks were waiting.

And all the time, God was preparing his man. but God hadn't finished yet. We might be thinking that all this training would make him a great deliverer for God's people.

But God knew best. He knew there was more work for Moses. There was more work to do in Moses' life. And so he brought him now at the age of 40 to the place where he made a crucial decision.

He was brought to decision time. verse 11. He went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. It's clear, you see, that Moses hadn't forgotten his godly upbringing.

He couldn't forget the stories of his ancestors way back to Abraham, God's promises to him then. No doubt his mother had told him of her conviction that he was a fine, a good child, the one through whom the Lord was going to do something special.

And reflecting on his miraculous preservation and on his training so far in all the wisdom of Egypt, his evident leadership skills, was he to be the man to lead God's people out of Egypt?

So going to watch his people at their hard labour, it wasn't sure the first time he'd seen his people in distress. was he trying to work out a way to deliver them himself?

We'll go back to Hebrews 11 again, thank you. Hebrews 11 and at verse 24. By faith, when he had grown up, that's the same phrase, when he was 40, Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.

So here's the Lord at work again in Moses' life. Yes, he had everything, all the pleasures and wealth he could wish for, a position in his country, authority over others, but he refused because all these he saw were fleeting.

He didn't really belong in this world. He was one of God's people and his fellows were in a desperate state. Could it be the Lord who brought him to this position for such a time as this?

And so he made a decision. He was going to identify with the people of God and turn his back on the fleeting pleasures of the world around him. The Lord brought him to make a decision.

But having made the decision, he made a real mess of it, didn't he? He saw an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew, looking this way and that and seeing no one. He killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

I don't know what he intended to do next. But the next day he was out again. Perhaps he was trying to rally his people. Of course they wouldn't have recognized he was an Egyptian, they thought.

They saw two Hebrews fighting. Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? He asked. Who made you a ruler and judge offer us? Are you thinking of killing me or you killed the Egyptian? He'd been seen.

What I've done must have become known, said Moses. Acts chapter 7 explains because he says, Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

He decided to identify with God's people, people, but he took things into his own hands. He'd made his own plans. He's thinking he was a great leader, but he couldn't do it.

And as soon as Pharaoh heard of it, he tried to kill Moses and Moses had to escape to Midian. But amazingly, the Lord hadn't finished with Moses.

Moses. He was still God's man. There was more work to do in Moses. And again, we see the Lord's mysterious overruling.

He fled to Midian, a region near Canaan. He sat down by a well. It just so happened that the daughters of this priest of Midian came at that time to that well to draw water for their father's flock.

Some shepherds came along and drove them away. Moses, probably still in his Egyptian dress, strong fellow, came to the girls rescue and watered their flocks for them.

The girls returned home to their father, Ruel, later called Jethro. He asked them, why have you turned so early today? Well, it just so happened that there was an Egyptian guy who rescued us and even drew water for our flock.

Oh, invite him, give him a meal. And Moses agreed to stay with the man who gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage and in due course Zipporah gave birth to a son who Moses named Gershom, which sounds like the Hebrew for a foreigner there.

He said, I've become a foreigner in a foreign land. Now, see what God was doing? He was humbling Moses. He was bringing him to an end of himself, still overruling the circumstances of his life, giving him a home and a wife and a child.

And in all, the Lord was further training Moses. Yes, all the wisdom of Egypt and his leadership skills were going to come in so useful. But he needed to realize that he couldn't do anything by himself.

He had to learn to be a shepherd, to care for sheep, to lead them through a barren wilderness. That's what Midian was like, looking for food and water, which was so essential for Moses for the days ahead.

He was being trained as a shepherd and there's no indication that Moses himself had any clue now what God was going to do with him.

I become a foreigner in a foreign land. Did he expect to stay there? Again, thanks to the Acts 7 passage, we discover that the whole episode in Midian was 40 years.

again. God is never in a hurry, you know. 40 more years, the people waiting. Thinking of Moses, I heard it said years ago that Moses spent 40 years thinking he was a somebody, 40 years learning that he was a nobody, and then 40 years seeing what God could do with a nobody.

God's never in a hurry, but God is at work in hidden mysterious ways, preparing his deliverer.

The second thing that God was doing, not only preparing his deliverer, he was also preparing his people, and that we read about in the end of the chapter in verses 23 and 24.

In 23 we read during that long period, I guess during those days, 40 years, when Moses was in Midian, the Israelites were constantly being oppressed without any indication that God was doing anything about it.

But then we read the king of Egypt died. Now, perhaps with the death of this cruel king, the Israelites thought conditions would improve.

Apparently not. they were still groaning under their slavery. It's often said that time is a great healer. But time proved to be no healer.

The people of God in Egypt did it. During that long period, when Moses was in Midian, the plight of the children of Israel remained the same, and they still groaned under their slavery.

Sometimes when leadership passes into new hands, many dangers come in its wake, but such political upheaval was no solution for the Israelites.

Their oppression continued. Despite the death of the king who initiated it, they groaned still. They had a new king, but still the same old sorrows.

So what was God doing now? What was it that made all the difference? Well, I suggest that the wording of verse 23b is important.

It says, the Israelites groaned, or moaned, and they cried out, or shrieked. Those two words suggest the burdensomeness of their lives, mourning as they reacted to their trouble, grumbling, and its hurtfulness, shrieking in reaction to their affliction.

They were bitter, they were angry, they were complaining. But then we read, next word, this seemed, and this seemed to be the decisive change, read, they cried out for help, and their cry went up to God.

Their inarticulate mourning and crying out became a prayer, a cry to God for help. This was what God was doing.

God was at work bringing his people to pray. Maybe it had taken all that time to bring them to that point of crying out to God in desperation.

See, when time brought no relief, when political change brought no improvement, prayer, prayer, made all the difference. For it seems that this marked the beginning of their deliverance.

Prayer brings God right into the situation. Look what we read. God heard, God remembered, God looked on them, God was concerned about them.

It wasn't that God had been deaf or blind or had forgotten, not at all. God heard in the sense that his people had caught his undivided attention.

God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God had made those binding promises to Abraham. Make him a great nation, give him a new land.

And remembering, in the Bible, remembering is a covenant word. It means deciding to act in order to fulfill a covenant. It's not the promise to Abraham had slipped God's mind.

It's not that he got distracted by other things. Remembering here means God is about to take the next step in the fulfillment of the promise. God looked or saw, God reviewed the situation in which the people found themselves.

And having reviewed it, God was concerned. Or, the Revised Standard Version translates it, he knew, God knew. And to know there means more than just registering the facts.

To know someone in the Old Testament implies entering into an intimate relationship with them. In Genesis, Adam knew his wife. It means entering into the deepest, most personal intimacy of mutual knowledge.

So, God being concerned for them means that he felt their pain. he was wanting that intimate relationship with them and was going to bring that about. Prayer made all the difference. Even though there was no immediate change, they were still suffering.

Moses was still immediate. There was no flashing lights or discernible declaration from God that the prayer had been heard.

But now, God was about to intervene. The promised prepared deliverer was about to come. God had been preparing his people.

I said at the beginning that Exodus has many lessons to teach us about our God. And the third thing God was doing here in these chapters, he was teaching his people then, and only by looking back they would see it, and he's teaching us today lessons about himself.

God is teaching his people about himself. And the first lesson, which is clear in God's dealings and preparing of Moses, is that God is always at work, even when it doesn't seem like it.

God is overruling, and all that happens, he is sovereign. That's what we call it, the sovereignty of God. God is always in charge, working out his purposes, often in mysterious ways, even in the most desperate of situations.

You know, there's a lovely, wonderful verse in Romans 8, 28. We know that in all things, all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes.

God works in all things. An older saint once said to me, there are no such things as coincidences, they are God incidences.

And many of you older believers can give examples of God mysteriously working. Here's my example, I've told the community group about it the other day, it's just 60, you know, you're students, it's just 60 years ago, this month, maybe this week, that I first went up to university in Glasgow.

Coming from out in the country, Lancashire, out to a farm, way out in the country, coming to Glasgow was bad enough, but coming to a downstairs room in Mary Hill where you couldn't see the sky from the window, it was desperate.

And I was, that first night, I was really very homesick, very lonely. Anyway, all I knew I was sharing a room with another vet student.

I was doing a vet course at the time. I was fine. Went to bed that night, pretty miserable. Woke up the next morning to discover that my roommate, who had appeared in the night, discover that he too was a Christian, and in fact he was the only Christian in that whole year of 60 vet students.

He'd not been long a Christian. He said himself he was just right for going off the rails. And wonderfully, the Lord, the Lord had brought us together. We became firm friends, and we remained, I saw him just on Friday there, we're still friends, after 60 years.

Coincidence? No, this was God at work. And I'm sure other examples of that. But when things get tough, and it was a good time, but when things get tough, and you wonder what God is doing in your life, remember that he is at work.

He is sovereign. second and third lessons come in those final three verses. And they're lessons that are repeated again and again throughout the Bible.

The first is this, God is faithful. He is faithful. So when the people eventually prayed and were told that God heard and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and Jacob, and we said remembering the covenant, is God acting to fulfill the covenant.

Just think of that covenant for a minute. Remember a few months ago when we looked at the life of Abraham, remember that God made that solemn binding agreement, that promise, he was going to make Abraham into a great nation, he was going to make him a blessing, and he was going to give him a land, Canaan.

300 years now, 300 years after Joseph, they might have increased in numbers, yeah, but they were far from being a great nation.

The new king was doing his best to limit their growth, and as far as the land, Canaan, well Canaan was miles and miles away, and they had no hope of returning there.

But God is faithful. He always keeps his promises, and within just a few years, he God, having heard their prayer, God was leading them out of slavery, he was forming them into his nation at Mount Sinai, and then eventually they were to go to Canaan for themselves, their land.

God, and looking back, they would see that, but at the time, it was difficult. looking back, they see that God is faithful. And our God, our God, is the same, promise-making, promise-keeping, faithful God.

On the night before he died, Jesus spoke of the new covenant in his blood, shed for many for the forgiveness of sin. You see, God has promised to forgive us in Christ, to make us his children, and he is faithful.

You might be wondering, at times, has God forgotten me? Am I really a Christian? Why is God not doing something? Remember, God is faithful, and he will never go back on his word.

And the third lesson, we see in the last verse, that our God is compassionate. He is compassionate. God looked on the Israelites, and was concerned about them.

He knew them. He wanted them as his own. Isn't that amazing? The God of creation not only heard their complaints and their groaning of this bunch of slaves, but he looked down on them.

He was concerned for them. He felt their pain and anguish. He knew them. He wanted them as his people.

God is a compassionate God. He loves us. He loves his people. He wants an intimate, knowledgeable relationship with them.

Nothing attractive about a bunch of slaves in Egypt, was there? Nothing to commend them. But they were his covenant people, and he loved them.

Why? Well, because he loved them. There's a verse in Deuteronomy that says, the Lord didn't set his affection on you and choose you because you were no numerous other people, for you were the fewest of people.

But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, and he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, because he loved you.

And there's that most quoted verse from Exodus in the New Testament. Moses is asking what God, what do you really like, God? And God said, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

Our God is a gracious, compassionate God. And he still is today. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

So when things get tough, and you wonder what God is like, remember, he is sovereign, he's in charge, he's at work for the good of those who love him.

Remember, he's faithful, he always keeps his promises. And remember, he's compassionate. He loves you. He loves you. He really does.

Trust him. Let's pray together. Father God, help us, especially when things are tough and when we wonder what you're doing.

Help us to remember that you are always at work, overruling in all things for the good of those who love you, that you're faithful. You'll never go back on your promises.

And you really do love us. So help us to keep on trusting you. For Jesus' sake, amen.

Amen.