8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews1 you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
The Birth of Moses
2:1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes2 and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”3
Footnotes
[1]1:22Samaritan, Septuagint, Targum; Hebrew lacks to the Hebrews [2]2:3Hebrew papyrus reeds [3]2:10Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw out
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews1 you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
The Birth of Moses
2:1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes2 and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”3
Footnotes
[1]1:22Samaritan, Septuagint, Targum; Hebrew lacks to the Hebrews [2]2:3Hebrew papyrus reeds [3]2:10Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw out
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:
Hey. As the children leave, please turn to Exodus. We're gonna be in the first chapter starting in verse 8, and we're gonna read through chapter 2 verse 10. And please listen closely. This is God's word.
Speaker 1:
Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.
Speaker 1:
They built for pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Rameses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Speaker 1:
Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of them was named Shiphrah and the other Puah. When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, she shall live. But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this and let the male children live?
Speaker 1:
The midwives said to pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them. So God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, every son that is born to the Hebrews, you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live. Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.
Speaker 1:
The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him 3 months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sisters stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river.
Speaker 1:
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on Him and said, this is one of the Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharoah's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you? And pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
Speaker 1:
So the girl went and called the child's mother. And pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew up, she brought him to pharaoh's daughter He became her son. She named him Moses because, she said, I drew him out of the water.
Speaker 1:
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:
If you would, pray with me. Our father, we thank you for the time that we can gather together and humble ourselves before your word. Lord, what we read here is different than what our eyes glance overall during the week. Lord, so many things vie for our attention, vie for our money, vie for our energy. Lord, I pray here in this place, we would reserve all of those things, everything of who we are for your word.
Joel Brooks:
Lord, for your words are life. We ask now that through the power of your spirit, you would write them on our hearts. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:
Tonight, we're beginning a new series on the gospel as found in the book of Exodus. It's likely gonna last us through February. I feel I have to say this right at the start because right after I announced this, somebody sent me a link. I did not choose this because of the Christian Bale and Ridley Scott movie coming out in December, which, you know, I think it's called was it, Kings and Gods, the Exodus story. I'm not gonna rent out the Edge Theater or things like that.
Joel Brooks:
And we all go there and see it as a church family. Pure coincidence. The reason that I chose to go through the book of Exodus is because Exodus is a foundational book for understanding what we would call the gospel. Now, for some of you, the idea of going to the Old Testament to find the gospel might be a foreign idea to you. Maybe you grew up hearing that the Old Testament is all about law, and it's the New Testament that tells us about grace and about Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
But this isn't the case at all. Now one can only understand the gospel if one truly understands what God is doing in the Old Testament. I would go so far to say as one can only understand the life of Jesus if one understands the book of Exodus first. Those 2 are so intertwined. Now, I confess that the idea that the gospel or that Jesus I was the only youth my age.
Joel Brooks:
So I was in a Sunday school class. It was just me. The result was I really got to know the Bible stories. I know the Bible stories really well. I just didn't have any idea what they meant.
Joel Brooks:
Okay? And I love the Old Testament stories, but I would walk away thinking, okay. The the point of this, if it wasn't just some kind of moral tale, it was, you know, so if I circle around a building 7 times, you know, they'll collapse. Or if I have enough faith, I can part waters. If I have enough faith and I'm brave, I can slay giants.
Joel Brooks:
I can kill a 1,000 people with the jawbone of an ass. I I can donkey, donkey. I was just thinking right out there. Some of you are like, Vocabulary hasn't changed that much. Right?
Joel Brooks:
The jawbone of a donkey. I I would go around thinking, like, if I just had enough faith, I could be like these old testament saints. And, and I I they're they're supposed to teach me some moral lesson. But the idea that these old testament stories teach me about Jesus or the gospel was not something that ever went to them for, and I was so wrong. All of them point to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
Exodus points to Jesus. Perhaps a better way I could put this is Exodus really lays the foundation for Jesus, or Exodus gives us the vocabulary we need to describe Jesus. That's what we're gonna find. We're we're gonna get the building blocks, the vocabulary we need to define Jesus. I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of people use the same words but have really different meanings when they use those words.
Joel Brooks:
So if I were to throw out the word liberal, instantly, everybody here, they've got liberal defined. It's just a person who believes, you know, politically left to them, you know, wherever they are. But if they're left to them, they are a liberal. And so if I were to throw out the name like it is, you know, Mitt Romney liberal, someone would say yes and others would say no. And but yet, they both think that they would know what the word liberal meant.
Joel Brooks:
So we're using the same vocabulary, but we're having different meanings of the word. And so I think there's definitions, theological words that we use every single Sunday that people have vastly different definitions of. If I were to ask, do you believe in the sovereignty of God? I were to throw out that term. I bet 99.5% of you would say, absolutely.
Joel Brooks:
I believe in the sovereignty of God. Then if I were to ask you to do to define what you mean by that, I bet we'd have a pretty wide range. We have the same problem when going through the rest of the theological words we find throughout the bible. When I was in college ministry and I was preparing college students to go on a mission trip, I'd always ask them, alright. What I need for you to do is to define the gospel for me without using any word that ends in t I o n.
Joel Brooks:
You're not allowed to use the shuns. Okay? So you can't use salvation, redemption, sanctification, revelation. You can't use any of those Christianese terms that that we like to use. And people and I was like, so I want you to just go ahead, share the gospel with me.
Joel Brooks:
And students would find this so hard to do. And I bet you would too. I mean, Jesus could explain the gospel to where a child can understand it, but but we're like, we need all this the the all the Shawn words. Much of our Christian vocabulary, all of those Shawn words need to be defined. And I think one of the places that we define these words is going to Exodus.
Joel Brooks:
Words like salvation, redemption, freedom, phrases like blood of the lamb, all of these will come from this book, Exodus. This is where they are first mentioned. Exodus is gonna give us the vocabulary we need to understand our faith. So if you don't have a good understanding of Exodus, you're gonna have a very limited understanding of Christ. And I'm not exaggerating on this.
Joel Brooks:
I could pull from a number of texts. Let me just pull from 1. If you want to turn to Luke chapter 9, you're welcome to turn there. Luke chapter 9, a very familiar story. It's a story about the mount of transfiguration.
Joel Brooks:
And beginning in verse 28. Now about 8 days after these sayings, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up to the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. His which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. I'll just stop there.
Joel Brooks:
We know this story. We know Jesus. He goes up to a mountain Moses there. I mean, why would they be there? What were they talking about?
Joel Brooks:
I mean, it's really interesting that Moses also climbed up a mountain. We'll we'll get to this story later. He climbed up a mountain. His face was transfigured at one point, shine bright in glory. Verse 31 here says that the topic of their conversation was that Jesus was talking about his departure.
Joel Brooks:
His The the word departure literally is the Greek word for Exodus. They're talking about the Exodus. Jesus is talking with Moses about his own exodus. The exodus for Moses was all the plagues, and it was the parting of the Red Sea, but the exodus for Jesus would be the cross. The exodus for Moses gives us the visual of of judgment being poured out on sin and the plagues, and it gives us this visual of redemption.
Joel Brooks:
But it's on the cross that we see Exodus with a capital e. Moses Exodus with a little e, pointing to the real redemption, the real freedom from slavery. Those things we find at the cross and the exodus Jesus provides there. And so we see this just here, the whole story of Moses, the whole exodus there is a foreshadowing of what we find when we look at the life of Jesus. So as we come to understand what God is doing through Moses and the Exodus, we come to understand Christ and his work.
Joel Brooks:
We also come to understand who we are. We're gonna learn a whole lot about who we are as we go through this book. I love this one. The commentaries that I read, it said this. If you were to ask a Hebrew who lived 3000 years ago, that's when the Exodus was happening.
Joel Brooks:
If you were to ask a Hebrew 3000 years ago to tell you their story, he'd probably say something like this. Well, I was lost in my sin. I was a slave. But God had compassion on me. I called out to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he heard my cry, and he saved me.
Joel Brooks:
He didn't judge me. He didn't punish me. No, he delivered me through the blood of the lamb. And now that I am set free, I can experience God and I can worship him as he takes care of me, as he guides me through all my life. And he is now leading me to the promised land where there will no longer be any tears or sorrow, but only joy.
Joel Brooks:
Now that's what a Hebrew would say living 3000 years ago if you were to ask them their story. Let me ask you, if you're a Christian, would you say anything different from that? Anything. I mean, we were lost. We were in bondage to our sin, yet God had compassion on us.
Joel Brooks:
God rescued us. And it was all because of the blood of the lamb that we were spared and judgment did not fall on us. And we've been forgiven, we've been freed, and now we can worship Jesus, and he guides us, and he is leading us to the promised land. He's leading us to a place of endless joy. We could both describe the same thing.
Joel Brooks:
Now and what you need to see is that as we look at the people of God in Exodus, their story is our story. It gives us the lens that we need to understand what's going on in our life as Christians. So the best way to understand our salvation is to understand their salvation. Well, the book of Exodus, we'll just jump right in. It begins where Genesis leaves off.
Joel Brooks:
Yeah. The sons of Jacob, they're in Egypt. Remember Joseph's descendants there? He brought in all of his brothers, and then they've multiplied. 400 years have gone by.
Joel Brooks:
And now all these sons of Jacob have grown to a multitude. They're they're so great. Pharaoh is now scared of them. This fear of all of these Hebrews, makes the Egyptians, enslave them. And actually slavery is the dominant theme throughout the book of Exodus over and over again.
Joel Brooks:
Actually, 97 times you're gonna hear the word serve or slave. It's the theme of Exodus. And so you need to see it all through the the light of that word. And so the the key question that I want to keep coming up as we go through Exodus is this question, who is Israel going to serve? Who are they going to serve?
Joel Brooks:
And when you look at verses 12 and 14 of chapter 1, it certainly looks like they're going to serve Egypt. Look at those verses again. Look at verse 13 Or sorry. We'll go all the way verse 12. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.
Joel Brooks:
And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel, so they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service. In mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field In all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. I've yet to find a really good English translation of this, that shows that the words work and the word serve are the exact same word in Hebrew, the word. Really, you can read this text like this. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel serve as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service And mortar and in brick and all kinds of service in the field and all their service, they ruthly made them serve as slaves.
Joel Brooks:
Now translators, they don't write it like this because you kinda get an f in English. There there's a reason we have synonyms, but sometimes you can miss the point that the author's pounding in this idea of who were they serving, who were they serving, who were their taskmasters. And it's Egypt. This is the theme of this book. It's about taking a people from serving pharaoh and oppression and a bitterness and taking them over to serving God in joy and in delight.
Joel Brooks:
Something I have to be very careful of, and I wanna be sure I'm clear about this. You cannot think of this book as a declaration of independence. It's not. It's actually a declaration of dependence upon God. Not of just freedom, but of dependence upon God.
Joel Brooks:
The Israelites are moving away from pharaoh, but they are moving towards a dependence upon God. Now, I bet if you were to go up to an average Joe on the street, your name's Joe, you're not average, but I'm just gonna say average Joe on the street. And ask them, what did Moses say to pharaoh? I mean, most people have like the most nominal knowledge of the Bible would say, let my people go. I mean, we have songs about that.
Joel Brooks:
I've seen cartoons about that. I picture Charlton Heston in the 10 Commandments saying, you know, let my people go. That's what we think. That's what Moses said to Pharaoh. The problem is Moses doesn't say that to Pharaoh.
Joel Brooks:
He says, let my people go that they may worship me in the wilderness. God doesn't wanna just free the Israelites. Here. Here's freedom. Just just enjoy your freedom.
Joel Brooks:
K. Now now go out and be free and make it on your own. He says, no. I'm freeing you for a purpose to serve me. I'm freeing you from that service to bring you into this service.
Joel Brooks:
Not just to be free. They're free to someone, free to God. You know what Moses understands here is really quite profound. He teaches that every person is a slave to someone or something. Every person is a slave to someone or something.
Joel Brooks:
But God intends to free you from that, and to make you do what you were created to do, and that is to serve him. But everybody's serving somebody. You're either serving money or serving power. Some of you are serving the approval of your parents, serving recognition, serving affection, serving sex, serving your work, but every person serves. Every person is a slave.
Joel Brooks:
This is how you know what you serve. Whatever controls your ability to have happiness or joy, Whatever controls your ability for joy is what you serve. It's the master of your life. So, so ask yourself what thing in my life, if it were removed, would leave me joyless? What thing is that?
Joel Brooks:
That's your master. Shows what your joy is dependent on. And let me tell you, if your master is anything other than God, for 1, it is like sinking sand, and it will go away. And it will prove to be an evil task master at some point. It's interesting.
Joel Brooks:
Americans, you know, give me liberty or give me death. You know, we're we're we're the ones who like we celebrate our freedom more than anybody, our independence more than anybody. And so we really like to deny the fact that every person is a slave because we really think, no, everybody is free, but it's not true because whenever you tie up your joy to getting recognition or your joy to to having that perfect home, that perfect kitchen, finding that spouse, your joy is wrapped up in that. You're not free. Even if you think, well, all I really want is the ability to make my own choices.
Joel Brooks:
That's all I need. Well, then you're enslaved to your own freedom. A few years ago, and I'm sure it's changed since then, but I went to a Winn Dixie, and I counted the number of cereals. Alright. I know.
Joel Brooks:
This is what I get paid to do. So I I I go there and I mean, just Cheerios. Okay. Now, I mean, there's there's multigrain Cheerios. There's kinda like the Fruit Loop imitation Cheerios.
Joel Brooks:
There's the lightly sweetened Cheerios. What else? What other kind of chocolate Cheerios, the the banana nut Cheerios. Yeah. Y'all know them all.
Joel Brooks:
Wow. Right. There there's there's a lot. And so I just went I just wanted to count through all the different types of cereal there were and just like a rough count. And I'm sure I didn't get them all.
Joel Brooks:
There was 203 different types of cereal, at the Winn Dixie. And I went over to the potato chip aisle, and I was like, forget it. You know, I'm not I'm not gonna count these. Yeah. How many times do you walk up and down the cereal aisle and you're like, what is the perfect, you know, cereal for me?
Joel Brooks:
I do need just the right amount of sweetness. You know, it can't have too many sugar and too much sugar grams, you know? And so you you spend forever just thinking through those things, but you're free to make all of these choices. How many times do you, you know, you get on Netflix and you're scrolling through? You're like, you've gone through a 100 movies.
Joel Brooks:
You're like, there is nothing to watch. Nothing. This stinks. You know? It's it's time for you to go out to eat with some friends.
Joel Brooks:
You're like, where do you wanna eat? You know? I don't know. Mexican? Chinese?
Joel Brooks:
I don't know. Italian? Gosh. There's no place to eat or I mean, what? Gosh.
Joel Brooks:
And you sit there forever wasting, like, 30 minutes just trying to decide of all the plethora of restaurants everywhere where you're going to eat. Tell me, is that freedom? Is that real freedom or are you enslaved to your ability to have to be able to make your own personal choice in everything? Think of all the time wasted in making those decisions. I'd say Americans as a whole are enslaved to their prosperity.
Joel Brooks:
I was thinking this when we had everybody over, and we were talking about how we would reach the poor. Dwight was leading that discussion. The truth is this. If you only owned 2 winter coats, only 2, and you saw somebody shivering in the cold, you'd likely give them 1. But when you own 10 and and you could go into your closet and you could think, well, this one matches, you know, the this is my light colored pants.
Joel Brooks:
This one matches my dark colored pants. This is more that kind of in between jackets when it's kinda cool in the morning, but it gets kinda hotter later. And you start going through all of these things. You know you know who you give to? How many?
Joel Brooks:
None. The the the more you get, the more you're enslaved to it. Whenever deceive yourself and think, you know, the more I get, the more generous I will be. It's actually statistically proven the exact opposite. The poor you are, the more generous you are because you're being freed of those things.
Joel Brooks:
In America, our prosperity enslaves us. I'm sure as I've been going through these things, some of you were thinking, I really would like to, a matter of fact, I have tried to free myself from these things. I've tried to free myself from materialism. I've tried to, to live a, a more simple life. I've tried to free myself from a need, from approval, but you haven't been able to do so.
Joel Brooks:
Let me tell you why is you just want to be freed from something, but not freed to something. You just wanna let those things go, but you're only freed from those things to God. I was talking to a former neighbor. He was an alcoholic, and he was like, he really wanted to be freed from that. And he said, I've I've tried Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
Okay? I was like, well, there's your problem right there. Because anybody who says I tried Jesus wants to get free from something. You got to trust Jesus. That's being freed from something and giving your life to him.
Joel Brooks:
He won't be tried. He will be trusted. You have to hold on to him. You're freed from that for a purpose. Now we can see from this text here that God's clear desire is to free us from bondage.
Joel Brooks:
I wanna see that in the as as the chapters unfold, but it doesn't happen the way you at first think. You know, for starters, I don't know if you noticed, but God is remarkably absent in the first couple of chapters of Exodus. And you look and you really don't see him anywhere. The Israelites, they're in the midst of terrible oppression, yet God's nowhere there to be found. But you don't see God anywhere.
Joel Brooks:
Know that you're in good company. That's how this story starts is God is not present. The only time he's even mentioned is just with these two Hebrew midwives, and it just says that god gave them children. That's it. But there's no miracles.
Joel Brooks:
There's no displays of power. There's no burning bushes yet. All you have is cries for help without any answer. And And what you have to do is through faith, believe that God is working behind the scenes already. He's moving in a quiet and unexpected way that we don't see yet.
Joel Brooks:
He he works in a really unexpected way here. You can see this in the 5 women that are mentioned in these first couple of chapters. These 5 women, the first two women I want us to look at her Shifra and Pua. One of y'all needs to just name your child one of these names. Alright?
Joel Brooks:
Shifra and Pua. Just putting it out there. I've heard names. It's not odd. These 2 women were they were Hebrew midwives, which means that they're the lowest of the low low in society.
Joel Brooks:
We we have little bumper stickers everywhere. Free the midwives kinda goes with this whole theme here. That's not what it's talking about. Midwives here are seeing very respectable positions. Here, not at all.
Joel Brooks:
They were the lowest of the low. 1st, they were Hebrews, which meant they were slaves. 2, they were women in a male dominated culture. 3, they would have been barren. You became a midwife if you yourself could not produce children, so you would help others produce children.
Joel Brooks:
Let me tell you, in this day, it's I mean, it's it's today as well. A lot of us find our identity and the ability to find have children, but much more in this day. If you could not have children, you're really looked down upon. And that's why you go to the Bible and you'll find people going, give me children or let me die. That's their prayers to God because they feel so worthless if they don't.
Joel Brooks:
Now think of these slaves, these women. They are childless, and every day, they are reminded of that as they help others have kids. They're the lowest of the low of the low. Yet it's these powerless, these oppressed women, they are the first to stand up to the most powerful man in the land, pharaoh. And I love the way that the author, he he he brings out how God sees the situation.
Joel Brooks:
He names these 2 women. He gives them names. Pharaoh doesn't have a name, but these women have a name, And I love it. And you go through all these different commentaries, through the book of Exodus. And they, the one thing they can agree on is that none of them can agree on the name of who this pharaoh was.
Joel Brooks:
Nobody knows who this pharaoh really is, what his name was. I love that. 3000 years go by, we don't know this guy, but we know these 2 helpless oppressed women by name. Their fame has outlasted the mightiest man in the land. You see, God does not look at people like we do.
Joel Brooks:
He doesn't look at the powerful. He doesn't look at the rich, the intelligent, and think, now that's a person I think I can use. It doesn't work that way. I I mean, he proves it. Every time you know somebody who is really good musician but doesn't know the Lord, almost every time they become a Christian, their music stinks.
Joel Brooks:
I mean, have you noticed that? It just you know, it always goes downhill. I'm thinking God's like, finally, I found somebody really worthy. But then it goes down. God usually, he just, he finds people who are the lowest of the low of the low.
Joel Brooks:
The people who seemingly have nothing to offer, and he makes them something beautiful. Just like these 2 Hebrew midwives who are nothing. He is drawn to the oppressed. You see that throughout scripture. You see that in Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
When Jesus came, who was he drawn to over and over? Those who had absolutely nothing to offer. These women have names. Pharaoh and all his power, all his riches is utterly forgotten. The next women that we see, the next woman is Moses' mom.
Joel Brooks:
Moses's dad is introduced in 21. That's his entry and his exit. We don't ever hear from him again. But it's his mom who now takes center stage, and she is the one who, you know, who gets Moses and sees him as beautiful. And then one of the most creative acts of defiance and obedience to pharaoh's order, she does throw her child into the Nile, but just in a basket to save him.
Joel Brooks:
And when we see Moses next, we see Moses's sister, the next woman on the scene. She watches, and she follows this basket all the way to where pharaoh's daughter came to bathe, the 5th woman. And it's pharaoh's daughter who actually defies her father's command, And she sees this Hebrew child and she doesn't kill the Hebrew child, but she has compassion on the child. You have Moses's sister who then takes a risk, and she breaks the social boundaries of the day. And she, a Hebrew slave, actually addresses a princess.
Joel Brooks:
Not only addresses her, but gives her advice. Hey. I I mean, I know somebody who could take care. Why don't why don't you do this? You didn't do that, but she took a risk.
Joel Brooks:
And amazingly, pharaoh's daughter listened to that advice and followed her. But when you go through the first couple of chapters, notice there are no heroic men at all. There's only women. And all 5 of these women had the same qualities. They had compassion and they took risk.
Joel Brooks:
They had compassion and they took risk. They were very unlikely candidates to be used by God, used to save Israel, but it's exactly the type of person that God chose. God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. He chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong, and we see him doing that here. Now remember, in these first couple of chapters, we don't see God.
Joel Brooks:
He seems to be absent, but I want you to kind of take a step back, and I think you really can see him at work behind the scenes, especially when you look at pharaoh. Notice how everything the most powerful man in the land does works against him. Everything. He decides to put taskmasters over Israel. But in verse 12, it says that the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they grew.
Joel Brooks:
How does that work? It worked right here. Pharaoh tells the Hebrew midwives to kill all of the male children, but they wouldn't. And not only that, God then blesses the midwives to have children of their own. Pharaoh gives the command to have all the babies, male babies thrown into the Nile.
Joel Brooks:
But because of this very command to do this, an Israelite the Israelite who will eventually free all of the Hebrews from slavery, an Israelite comes to his very own doorstep and is gonna live and be raised in the palace. He is inviting in the very person who will bring about his destruction. And yet in all of this, we don't see God out in the open. It's just behind the scenes. But all of these players seem to be doing his bidding without even knowing it.
Joel Brooks:
Now do you see how that's a real comfort to us? I I hope you do. When life is just absolutely throwing its worst and you don't see God anywhere, just take a step back and trust. You know what, God? Behind the scenes, you are working all of these things for my good.
Joel Brooks:
You have promised that even if I can't see it. Even when I look at the most powerful agents around me, the most powerful forces that seem to be bent on destroying me, I know that you're using them for my good. We see that here. This whole story lays the foundation for the gospel. We'll end here.
Joel Brooks:
It sheds light on the story of Jesus. Don't walk away. Please don't walk away hearing from this. You know what? The point of this story is you need to have compassion.
Joel Brooks:
You need to take risk. Don't walk away thinking, you know, you need to free yourselves from whatever sins you have. The point of this is it all goes to Jesus who is necessary for any of these things to happen. I mean, doesn't the story of Moses just sound somewhat vaguely familiar to those of you who were in Sunday school about a guy who came 1500 years later, in which there was a evil ruler bent on destroying all of the children? Yet there's a child who miraculously escapes.
Joel Brooks:
He'll become the deliverer. And not only that, if we had gone through and read chapter 2, you would see that in the story of Moses, Moses was first rejected by his people and then went out into the desert where he then was empowered by God to come in. Does that sound familiar? Somebody coming to his own and was rejected by them. Somebody who went out into the wilderness, empowered by God to free his people.
Joel Brooks:
This story points to Christ. It gives us the vocabulary we need, the foundation we need to understand the true exodus that he provides for us. Pray with me. Lord, I know in this introductory sermon, there was a lot to digest, a lot thrown out there. Lord, but even as I was going through that, that just really wet my appetite for what is to come.
Joel Brooks:
Lord, I pray that every week, you would build in us a greater and greater anticipation for you, Jesus. And I pray you begin giving us that vocabulary we need to where we might worship you in spirit and in truth. And Jesus right now in this moment for those who were serving harsh task masters, Task masters that might look beautiful on the outside, but Lord, that have oppressed them to no end. Who they turn to for joy, but has only given them bitterness and sorrow. Lord, right now, I pray that you would begin freeing them from that.
Joel Brooks:
They would have their own exodus. They'd be freed from those things to you, Jesus. We don't wanna try you. We wanna trust you in this moment. We pray this in your name.