Genesis 1-Exodus 1
Peace be with you, listening
friends. We greet you in the name of God, the Lord of peace, who wants everyone
to understand and submit to the way of righteousness that He has established,
and have true peace with Him forever. We are happy to be able to return today
to present your program The Way of Righteousness.
We are still studying in the Torah. As you know, the
Torah is the first book in the Writings of the Prophets and is divided into
five sections or books. The first section is called Genesis (Lit. the
Beginning).
In our last broadcast, we completed our studies in Genesis. Today then, we
begin the second section of the Torah, which is called The
Exodus.
The book of Exodus contains the amazing and wonderful account of how God freed
the children of Israel from the bondage of their slavery in the land of Egypt.
Before we get into the book of Exodus, let us review what we have studied in
the first book of the Holy Scriptures. It is crucial that we have a thorough
knowledge of the book of Genesis, because it is the foundation that God has
laid so that we might understand and believe all that is written in the other
books of the prophets which follow.
Do you remember the first verse of the book of
Genesis? It says: "In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth." This is important.
"In the beginning God!" When nothing yet
existed-only One existed. That One was God! Next, we learned how God created
millions of holy angels, by the power of His
Eternal Word and His Holy Spirit. God created the angels so that they might
serve Him and praise Him forever. Among the angels was one with superior wisdom
and beauty. That one was Lucifer, the chief of the
angels. However, the Scriptures tell us that there was a day when Lucifer
became conceited and despised God in his heart. Lucifer and many other angels
began to devise a plan to overthrow God. However, no one can overthrow God. God
cannot tolerate those who rebel against Him (Lit. refuse
His rule).
Consequently, God expelled Lucifer and his evil angels and changed the name of
Lucifer to Satan, which means Adversary. And after God expelled
Satan and his angels, He created for them the fire of hell. The Scriptures say
that on the Day of Judgment, God, the Righteous One, will throw Satan into that
fire along with all who follow him.
Next we read how the Lord created the
world for
the people whom He planned to create. Man {neuter: A human} is the
most important creature of all that God created, because man was created in the
image of God! God wanted to have a deep and wonderful relationship with man.
That is why He placed in the soul of man a mind capable of knowing God,
gave him a heart capable of loving God,
and entrusted him with a will capable of obeying God.
Next, we saw how God placed a
test before
the man and the women whom He had created. God warned Adam saying, "You
are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, for [in the day that] you eat of it you will
surely die!" that is: you will be separated from me forever!
However, we saw how our ancestors, Adam and Eve, chose
to obey Satan by eating from the tree which God had forbidden. Consequently,
the Word of God says: "Sin entered the
world through one man, and death through sin, and in this waydeath
came to all men." (Rom. 5:12) How true it is that "an
epidemic is not confined to the one from whom it originates!" {Wolof
proverb} Because of Adam's sin, we are all sinners. Because of Adam's sin, we
all deserve to die and face God's judgment.
Next, we learned how God expelled Adam and Eve from
the Garden of Paradise because of their sin. However, before He expelled them,
God announced how He planned to send into the world a
Redeemer to
save the children of Adam from the power of Satan and from the penalty of sin.
God, in His wonderful design, had a plan to redeem sinners. His plan was to
send into the world a perfect Man who would not be contaminated by the sin of
Adam. This righteous Man would willingly shed His blood to pay the debt of sin
for the children of Adam. In this way, God could forgive people of their sins,
without compromising His justice. Truly, what God promised concerning the
coming Redeemer was an amazing promise!
Next we saw how God confirmed that wonderful promise
by sacrificing some animals, and making for Adam and Eve clothes of skin. God
was teaching Adam and Eve that "the payment for sin is
death" and
that "without the shedding of blood there is
no forgiveness of sin."
After that, we learned about Adam's first two sons,
Cain and Abel. We saw how Abel offered God a lamb without blemish and
slaughtered it, thus symbolizing the Redeemer who was to come into the
world and die for sinners. As for Cain, he tried to approach God through his
own efforts, offering Him what he had cultivated. Consequently, the Scriptures
say: "the Lord accepted Abel, but He did not
accept Cain." Why did God not accept the sacrifice of
Cain? Because God's law did not say: "the payment
for sin is good works!" Rather, it
stated: "the payment for sin is death!" and "without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin." God pleaded with Cain to
repent and accept the way of righteousness that He had ordained, but Cain
became furious, and killed his younger brother, Abel.
Most of Adam's descendants followed the footsteps of
Cain, so that by the time of Noah, the Scriptures say that God "saw
how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." Because of man's wicked
heart, God purposed to send a flood to wipe out rebellious sinners. In that
corrupt time, only Noah believed God, which was why God told him to build a
large boat, which would be a refuge for all who entered it. God was patient with
sinners for a long time while Noah was constructing the boat. However, no one
repented and entered the boat, except Noah and his family.
Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The
prophet Abraham descended from Shem. We read how God commanded Abraham to leave
his father's house and go to the land of Canaan (Palestine). God planned to
make of Abraham a new nation from which the prophets
of God and the Savior of the world would come forth. That
is why God said to Abraham, "You will be a [door of]
blessing…and all nations of the earth will be blessed through you." (Gen. 12:2,3)
Thus, Abraham became the father of Isaac in his old
age, just as God had promised. Isaac then became the father of Jacob, and
Jacob, whom God renamed Israel, became the father of twelve sons. And from the
twelve sons of Jacob originated the new nation which God had promised Abraham,
the nation of Israel.
In the past three programs, we have been looking into
the captivating story of the sons of Jacob, particularly the one named Joseph,
the eleventh son. The elder brothers of Joseph hated him, but God blessed him
and made him the ruler over all the land of Egypt. After that, a famine fell on
Egypt and the whole land of Canaan, causing great misery. As a result, Jacob
and his sons had nothing to eat. When Jacob heard that Egypt had grain, he sent
his sons there. We then saw how Joseph made himself known to his brethren,
forgave them, and called his father and all his family to move and settle in
Egypt. Thus, at the end of the book of Genesis, we see that the
children of Israel were no longer in the land of Canaan which God had
promised Abraham, but in Egypt. However, all this
happened to fulfil what God had told Abraham a long time previously when he
said to him:
"Know for certain
that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own,
and they will be enslaved and ill-treated four hundred years. But I will punish
the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great
possessions." (Gen. 15:13,14)
God Himself had his hand on all that happened to the
children of Israel. Why did God allow Abraham's great grandchildren, the
Israelites, to settle in Egypt, when He had promised them the land of Canaan?
Because God intended to show forth His glory and His power through what would
happen to the Israelites in the land of Egypt. God planned to deliver the
children of Israel by His awesome power, so that
everyone might know that He is the King of kings; Lord of lords, the Almighty!
Now, listening friends, in the few minutes that we
have left today, let us read from the first chapter of the book of Exodus. The
Scripture says:
(Exodus 1) 6Now
Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7but
the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly
numerous, so that the land was filled with them. 8Then a new
king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9"Look,"
he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for
us. 10Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become
even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against
us and leave the country."
11So
they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they
built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12But the
more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians
came to dread the Israelites 13and worked them ruthlessly. 14They
made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds
of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them
ruthlessly.
15The
king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16"When
you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool,
if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." 17The
midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told
them to do; they let the boys live. 18Then the king of Egypt
summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have
you let the boys live?" 19The midwives answered Pharaoh,
"Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give
birth before the midwives arrive."
20So
God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more
numerous. 21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them
families of their own. 22Then Pharaoh gave this order to all
his people: "Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let
every girl live."
This is where the first chapter of the book of Exodus
ends. In the will of God, in the next broadcast, we will get into this
extraordinary story and see how God called a man and prepared him to deliver
the children of Israel from the hand of Pharoah, the wicked king of Egypt. Do
you know the name of this man? Yes, it is Moses--the prophet of God, Moses.
Thank you for listening….God bless you. And remember:
"Everything that
was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and
the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." (Rom. 15:4)
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