Exodus 1,2
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.
As you should know, there are five books in the Torah
which God's prophet, Moses, wrote. In our last program we finished the book of
Genesis, and crossed over into the second book which is called Exodus. Our prayer to God is
that He will enlighten our minds and our hearts in all that we read in this
profound book that is full of valuable instruction.
We have already seen how the second book of the Torah
begins where the first book ends. Thus, we saw how the descendants of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, that is, the Israelites, settled in Egypt, far from the land of
Canaan that God had promised to give them.
In the first chapter of the book of Exodus we read:
(Exod. 1) 1These
are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with
Jacob, each with his family: 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3Issachar,
Zebulun and Benjamin; 4Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5The
descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. 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.
Let us pause here. More than three
hundred years had passed since the death of Joseph. Another Pharaoh
was reigning over Egypt, a king who had forgotten all that Joseph had done for
the people of Egypt. This Pharaoh oppressed Israel terribly, making them his
slaves. How hard he made them work! Perhaps the Israelites thought that God had
forgotten what He had promised their ancestor Abraham about their becoming a
powerful nation. However, God hadn't forgotten a thing! God was, in fact, in
the process of fulfilling what He had promised so long ago.
Truly, God is faithful! He keeps His
covenants! What God promises to do, He will do, even if man thinks He is slow! God
was the One who conceived the plan to create a new nation from which the
prophets and the Redeemer would come forth--and nothing would hinder the
accomplishment of His plan!
You remember that when God first revealed His plan to
create that new nation, He started with an elderly couple, Abraham and Sarah.
When Abraham was one hundred years old, he begot Isaac; Isaac begot Jacob; and
Jacob begot twelve sons who produced the tribes of Israel. When they moved to
the land of Egypt, they numbered seventy people. But now, after some three
hundred years, they had become a great multitude, more that a million people! Did
God do what He had promised long ago? Did God make of Abraham a new and vast
nation? Yes, He did! God is faithful, and cannot go back on His Word. He is
worthy of glory forever!
In today's reading, we see how Pharaoh oppressed the tribes of
Israel, making them his slaves. However, we also see that every time Pharaoh
tried to dominate and diminish the tribes of Israel, God would cause them to
flourish and multiply. Thus, the Scriptures record that Pharaoh became very
angry and gave this command to the Israelites: "Every
boy that is born you must throw into the Nile!" (Exod. 1:22) What do you
think about this? Who was leading Pharaoh in this wicked plan? Satan, that's who! Why did
Satan want to oppress and destroy the people of Israel? Because Satan knew that
God had promised to send into the world a Redeemer who would deliver the
children of Adam from the power of sin and hell. And Satan knew that this
coming Redeemer would descend through the nation of
Israel!
That is the reason Satan incited Pharaoh to persecute the people of Israel and
even attempt to wipe them out by having all their baby boys thrown in the Nile
river.
But God, who is stronger than Satan, planned to use a
man from within the tribes of Israel to deliver His chosen people from the hand
of Pharaoh. Do you know the name of this hero? Yes, it is the renowned prophet
of God, Moses {Musa in Arabic}. But Moses
parents, Amram and Jochebed, were also heros
because "they were not afraid of the
king's edict." (Heb. 11:23; Exod. 6:20). In the second chapter of the
book of Exodus, we read about the early years of Moses' life.
The Scripture says:
(Exod. 2) 1Now
a man of the house of Levi (Levi was the third son
of Jacob) married a Levite woman, 2and
she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he
was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3But when she
could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and
coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among
the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4His sister stood
at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5Then Pharaoh's
daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were
walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her
slave girl to get it. 6She opened it and saw the baby. He was
crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew
babies," she said. (The Egyptians called the people of Israel Hebrews.)
7Then
[Miriam, the sister of the baby, who was hiding among the reeds,] asked
Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse
the baby for you?" 8"Yes, go," she answered. And
the girl went and got the baby's mother.9Pharaoh's daughter said to
her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So
the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10When the child grew
older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named himMoses,
saying, "I drew him out of the water."
This is the story of the birth of Moses. Think of it!
While other male babies were being killed, baby Moses was being nourished by
his own mother and protected by Pharaoh, the wicked king! God had His hand on all that
happened in the life of Moses. God planned to use Moses to deliver the children
of Israel from their slavery. How deep is the wisdom of God, far surpassing the
wisdom of Satan or man. Do you know where Moses grew up after he was weaned? He
grew up in the house of Pharaoh who, as you know, was oppressing the people of
Israel! Yet God intended to use Moses to deliver the Israelites from the hand
of Pharaoh. God, in His plan, chose to use the daughter of the cruel king to
protect Moses. God knew that the king's house would be the safest and best
place for Moses. God also knew that there were many things Moses needed to
learn and understand so that he would be properly prepared to lead the children
of Israel. Thus, the Scriptures say: "Moses was
educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and
action." (Acts
7:22) But Moses still had much to learn.
The Scripture says:
(Exod. 2) 11One
day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people
were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew,
one of his own people. 12Glancing this way and that and seeing
no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13The
next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the
wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" 14The
man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of
killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought,
"What I did must have become known." 15When Pharaoh
heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to
live in Midian.
Thus, we see how, at first, Moses tried to deliver the
children of Israel by his own power. However, that is not how God wanted it
done. God wanted to use Moses as an instrument to liberate the children
of Israel. Israel's deliverance was not to
come from Moses, but from God. Moses, in himself, was only a man, and
had no power to free the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh unless God
gave it to him.
Thus, the Scriptures tell us that, for forty years,
Moses lived in the desert, in land of Midian. God had many important lessons to
teach Moses in that hot and dry wilderness. There is a verse in the Word of God
which says: "Whoever can be trusted
with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with
very little will also be dishonest with much." (Luke 16:10) Before God
could commit to Moses the weighty task of shepherding the whole assembly of
Israel, Moses first needed to show himself faithful in little tasks. Thus, the
Scriptures relate to us that, there in a land far from Egypt, Moses became a
shepherd, got married and had two children. For forty years, Moses was a
faithful shepherd. There in the desert-while Moses was shepherding his
father-in-law's flock-God was preparing Moses for the day when he
would shepherd the nation of Israel. God had great plans for Moses and His
people Israel!
Next, the Scriptures say:
(Exod. 2) 23During
that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their
slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up
to God. 24God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25So God looked on
the Israelites and was concerned about them.
The children of Israel remained slaves for a very long
time. Oh how great was their oppression! But God had not forgotten them. God
planned to deliver the people of Israel from their slavery. We might ask: Why
did God plan to free the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh? Was it
because they were better than others? No! The Israelites were sinners, like the
people of Egypt, like all people. Why then did God
have such special plans for the children of Israel? Simply because of His
faithfulness and His
mercy. Let us read again the
last verse. We read: "God heard their groaning
and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and
with Jacob (Observe God's faithfulness!). So
God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them (Observe
God's mercy!)." (Exod. 2:24,25)
Yes, God, in His faithfulness and mercy, remembered
His covenant which He had made with Abraham when He said to him,
"I will make you
into a great nation. You will be a blessing…and all peoples on earth will be
blessed through you." (Gen. 12:2,3) "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)
In the next lesson, Lord willing, we will see how God
appeared to Moses in a very unusual way and called him to go to Egypt to
deliver the Israelites from their slavery, just as He had promised Abraham long
beforehand.
Thank you for listening….
God bless you. We bid you farewell with this word from
the Psalms:
"Give thanks to the
Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.…He
remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded, for a thousand
generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to
Isaac." (Psa. 105:1,8,9)
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