WEBVTT 00:00:00.119 --> 00:00:01.665 Again to everyone here this morning. 00:00:01.665 --> 00:00:07.022 We were gone last Sunday, and just being gone one Sunday makes a huge difference, you feel. 00:00:07.022 --> 00:00:13.305 I just felt very disconnected, and so it just feels good to be back here this morning to worship with you all. 00:00:13.305 --> 00:00:21.664 Before, as I get set up here, I'm just gonna since we didn't really have a break go ahead and just say hi to your neighbor and maybe tell him what you had for breakfast. 00:00:21.664 --> 00:00:26.100 Okay, all right, you guys are loud, but it's a good sound, all right. 00:00:26.562 --> 00:00:36.569 So I want to start off by reading an excerpt from a speech that Frederick Douglass gave that was entitled what to the Slave is the Fourth of July. 00:00:36.569 --> 00:00:47.283 And he gives this speech in on July 5th at a July 4th Independence Day celebration in his hometown of Rochester, new York, in 1852. 00:00:47.283 --> 00:00:58.411 Now I want you all to listen to how he describes his experience of witnessing a procession of slaves being driven to the slave market in New Orleans. 00:00:58.411 --> 00:01:05.370 Mark the sad procession as it moves wearily along and the inhuman wretch who drives them. 00:01:05.370 --> 00:01:12.930 Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths as he hurries on his affrighted captives there. 00:01:12.930 --> 00:01:16.225 See the old man with locks, thinned and gray. 00:01:16.225 --> 00:01:26.533 Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. 00:01:26.533 --> 00:01:35.721 See, too, that girl of 13 weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn. 00:01:35.721 --> 00:01:37.587 The drove moves tardily. 00:01:37.587 --> 00:01:41.097 Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength. 00:01:41.097 --> 00:01:45.290 Suddenly, you hear a quick snap like the discharge of a rifle. 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:48.140 The fetters clank, the chain rattles. 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:55.042 Simultaneously, your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul. 00:01:55.042 --> 00:01:58.108 The crack you heard was a sound of the slave whip. 00:01:58.108 --> 00:02:01.926 The scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. 00:02:01.926 --> 00:02:05.341 Her speed has faltered under the weight of her child and her chains. 00:02:05.341 --> 00:02:09.032 That gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. 00:02:09.614 --> 00:02:11.659 Follow the drove to New Orleans. 00:02:11.659 --> 00:02:13.424 Attend the auction. 00:02:13.424 --> 00:02:15.687 See men examined like horses. 00:02:15.687 --> 00:02:21.669 See the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave buyers. 00:02:21.669 --> 00:02:28.908 See this drove sold and separated forever and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. 00:02:28.908 --> 00:02:35.670 Tell me, citizens, where under the sun you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. 00:02:35.670 --> 00:02:47.444 Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade as it exists at this moment in the ruling part of the United States, the African American slaves in America. 00:02:48.086 --> 00:02:56.248 The story of the biblical Exodus became was a narrative that they clung onto and was crucial for their own survival. 00:02:56.248 --> 00:03:18.823 Plantation owner and Pharaoh these parallels with the Exodus story, the slave and the Hebrew slave, moses and people like Harriet Tubman, the Ohio River and the Jordan River and the Canada and the Promised Land these all became parallels that was deeply embedded in their hope for living life under this American slavery. 00:03:18.823 --> 00:03:23.133 The reason I go I read that this morning was that I've chosen to read on. 00:03:23.133 --> 00:03:29.014 I've chosen to preach through the story of Exodus for my next several sermons. 00:03:29.014 --> 00:03:35.929 I'm excited to preach through this, in part because personally I'm just, I'm way more comfortable preaching from the New Testament. 00:03:36.496 --> 00:03:45.875 But I think there's I'm really excited to dig into Exodus and see what God has for us, for many of us who grew up in the church grew up hearing these stories there. 00:03:45.875 --> 00:04:15.520 They were stories we heard as children of the ten plagues, of Mount Sinai, of the crossing of the Red Sea, and even now when I, when I hear those stories, I still picture the colorful children's illustrations and I think that colors the way we view and we read some of these Old Testament stories of the children of Israel, but so we tend to gloss over them without really slowing down enough to to see what's what, what God has for us, what those stories point to. 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:17.189 So why Exodus? 00:04:17.189 --> 00:04:23.668 For one, I love, love the story of the, the whole story and how it points forward to the hope that we have in Jesus. 00:04:23.668 --> 00:04:29.422 But I think if we fully want to understand the gospel of Jesus, we must understand the story of Exodus. 00:04:29.622 --> 00:04:30.786 The think it was Philip. 00:04:30.786 --> 00:04:32.009 Yeah, it's Philip Reichman. 00:04:32.009 --> 00:04:33.654 He says in his in his book on the Exodus. 00:04:33.654 --> 00:04:36.435 He says Exodus is the gospel of the Old Testament. 00:04:36.435 --> 00:04:44.235 It's crucial to our understanding and foundational to our understanding of redemption, things like morality, even the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. 00:04:44.235 --> 00:04:50.387 We learn about the Passover of the Tabernacle and the law that was given to to God's people. 00:04:50.387 --> 00:04:51.557 Exodus is. 00:04:51.557 --> 00:04:54.163 The word Exodus is taken from the Greek. 00:04:54.163 --> 00:04:56.307 Actually the Greek translation. 00:04:56.435 --> 00:05:02.127 The first part of Exodus is X, it means out, and hadas is a second part of Exodus, meaning road. 00:05:02.127 --> 00:05:04.495 X meets out and then hadas means road. 00:05:04.495 --> 00:05:09.747 So it's the road out of and it's, I guess, exodus the road out of Egypt. 00:05:09.747 --> 00:05:10.396 It was written by. 00:05:10.396 --> 00:05:22.713 Traditionally they say it was written by Moses and it's a story of how God forms of people that start off in slavery in Egypt in leads them out of Egypt and forms a kingdom of priests and a people for his own glory. 00:05:22.834 --> 00:05:31.579 Now I'm I want to sort of look at cover the book of Moses in like three, or the book of Exodus in three sort of movements, and I'm borrowing this from the Bible project. 00:05:31.579 --> 00:05:41.855 What, as a way of sort of thirty thousand foot view of the book of Exodus first is From Exodus 1 through 14 is the story is the movement of Israel's enslavement and their deliverance. 00:05:41.855 --> 00:05:47.327 And then the second movement is Israel's journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai. 00:05:47.327 --> 00:05:50.004 That's covered in Exodus 15 through 19. 00:05:50.004 --> 00:05:56.267 And Lastly, israel's covenant, the law and the Tabernacle will cover that then in Exodus 20 through 40. 00:05:56.267 --> 00:05:57.654 So I don't know how long this is gonna take. 00:05:57.654 --> 00:06:00.875 I remember one of my first sermon on the book of James. 00:06:00.875 --> 00:06:03.223 I preached on like the first half of verse one. 00:06:03.223 --> 00:06:11.725 Someone after afterwards came up to me was like so that was like verse 1 a, like his next Sunday gonna be verse 1b, and we made it through that in about a. 00:06:11.725 --> 00:06:13.954 I think it was a little over a year, but we're no rush. 00:06:14.336 --> 00:06:23.495 I think there's a lot of stuff in here for us that we can learn from, for that, that we can learn about who God is and and our walk and our story in that are part of that story. 00:06:23.495 --> 00:06:25.923 So what questions should we ask for questions? 00:06:25.923 --> 00:06:33.160 I think that we should ask as we sort of move through this, because there's so many layers to these Old Testament Narratives of God's people. 00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:37.985 First one is the theological what does this story teach us about God in the world? 00:06:37.985 --> 00:06:43.095 Secondly, christological how does this story point us forward to Jesus? 00:06:43.095 --> 00:06:46.795 Thirdly is a thematic what biblical themes are reflected in this story? 00:06:46.795 --> 00:06:48.543 And I think we'll find that there's these. 00:06:48.543 --> 00:06:54.903 These biblical themes run, run through this story and there's some really profound concepts and themes in the story of Exodus. 00:06:54.903 --> 00:06:58.735 And fourthly, practical what are the practical lessons that we can learn from the story? 00:06:58.735 --> 00:07:02.475 The reality is is that the people we're gonna learn about are people like you and me. 00:07:02.475 --> 00:07:09.728 They're people with the same tendencies, the same temptation temptations, the same, the same passions and longings and desires and hopes. 00:07:09.728 --> 00:07:15.954 There are people like like you and I, and I think that's a beauty of this story that God makes of people for himself, out of them. 00:07:16.257 --> 00:07:19.055 So, before we actually dig into the text of Exodus 1. 00:07:19.055 --> 00:07:37.086 I want to look at a little bit of background context and this story Really begins in in Genesis and it feels like like the feeling that you get sometimes if you happen to jump into a movie that's already started and it's like a fourth of the way done, or you pick up a book and you start reading the story Like like five chapters in it doesn't. 00:07:37.086 --> 00:08:08.660 In order for it you to make sense of the story, you have to understand what came before, what started, how it started, and that's the story of the Exodus starts in Genesis really, and the last part of Genesis, especially with, with Joseph and how God redeems the, really like the tragic story of Joseph and his slavery in Egypt and how he's he's risen to power, the second most powerful man in Egypt and God uses him to be a blessing to for his family is ultimately his father and his brothers and their families move to Egypt and Settle, settle down in Egypt. 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:22.800 The opening verse, first verse of Exodus, says these are the names of the sons of Israel who came To Egypt with Jacob, each with his household, and this, this verse, is an almost it's almost a direct quote of Genesis chapter. 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:32.227 I think it's 40, 49, where he lists the same names and I think it's just a clue or a hint as to as to this, this link with Exodus and Genesis. 00:08:32.227 --> 00:08:35.065 So Genesis 50 it ends with the death of Joseph. 00:08:35.065 --> 00:08:37.754 Joseph remained in Egypt, his father's house. 00:08:37.754 --> 00:08:44.095 He lived until he was 110 years old and then he passes away, moves on and his family continues to live in, to live in Egypt. 00:08:44.095 --> 00:08:46.903 So we're gonna go ahead and read verses one. 00:08:46.903 --> 00:08:48.227 Well, all of chapter one. 00:08:48.227 --> 00:08:49.331 That's what we're covering today. 00:08:49.592 --> 00:08:50.375 Exodus, chapter one. 00:08:50.375 --> 00:08:52.091 I'm gonna be reading in the ESV. 00:08:52.091 --> 00:09:05.528 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household Reuben, simeon, levi and Judah, issachar, zebulun and Benjamin, dan and Naftali, gad and Asher. 00:09:05.528 --> 00:09:08.140 All the descendants of Jacob were 70 persons. 00:09:08.140 --> 00:09:10.004 Joseph was already in Egypt. 00:09:10.004 --> 00:09:13.964 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. 00:09:14.304 --> 00:09:17.416 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly. 00:09:17.416 --> 00:09:22.006 They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. 00:09:22.006 --> 00:09:31.943 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. 00:09:31.943 --> 00:09:40.897 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. 00:09:40.897 --> 00:09:44.986 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. 00:09:44.986 --> 00:09:48.644 They built for Pharaoh store cities, python and Ramses. 00:09:48.644 --> 00:09:52.904 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. 00:09:52.904 --> 00:09:55.558 And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 00:09:55.558 --> 00:10:04.388 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. 00:10:04.388 --> 00:10:07.624 In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. 00:10:07.717 --> 00:10:21.919 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Sheprah and the other Pua, when you serve as midwives 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. 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:28.139 But the midwives feared God and did not do as a king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 00:10:28.139 --> 00:10:33.182 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them why have you done this and let the male children live? 00:10:33.182 --> 00:10:40.980 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. 00:10:40.980 --> 00:10:48.427 So God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew strong, and because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 00:10:48.427 --> 00:10:56.318 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 Quite. 00:10:56.339 --> 00:10:57.482 The opening to this book. 00:10:57.482 --> 00:11:04.302 There's a lot that happens here and we start off with Jacob's family prospering in Egypt. 00:11:04.302 --> 00:11:05.787 Genesis 10 ends. 00:11:05.787 --> 00:11:23.780 They settle down and in chapter 40, 46 of Genesis, pharaoh invites Jacob's family to settle down in Egypt and he says Come, settle in the best part of Egypt, in the most fertile land of Egypt, and that was the land of Goshen, which they believe was part of the Nile Delta. 00:11:24.142 --> 00:11:33.549 And I guess when you think of Egypt today, I'm just curious what you think of like, what it looks like, the geography, what's the first like, what's the first picture that popped into your mind when you think of Egypt? 00:11:33.549 --> 00:11:35.376 Anyone, sorry, I heard just. 00:11:35.376 --> 00:11:37.621 I heard just a dollar, or what's that? 00:11:37.621 --> 00:11:38.725 Pyramids and camels, okay. 00:11:38.725 --> 00:11:39.366 Anybody else? 00:11:39.366 --> 00:11:43.761 Desert sand, okay, yeah, like hot pyramids, desert sand. 00:11:44.101 --> 00:11:53.394 So I wanted to look at pictures of Egypt and where Jacob's family would have settled down and I just did a little Google map search here of this. 00:11:53.394 --> 00:12:04.995 This is just a random how a city along the Nile, but you can really see the contrast here of what the land around the Nile River look like versus the desert and the wilderness that was out beyond that. 00:12:04.995 --> 00:12:22.285 What would happen is that every year during the rainy season and it still happens today, where the Nile would flood up to like I think it was, like I've heard like up to 20 miles away from the, from the, from the riverbanks, and that flooding caused this green growth to basically made it the one of the most fertile farmlands of the world. 00:12:22.285 --> 00:12:22.847 I think it was. 00:12:22.847 --> 00:12:36.793 Marty Solomon with the Bayma podcast says that, according to a report that was done a couple of years ago I think it was, it was the Nile Delta is the second most fertile farm soil of in the world. 00:12:36.793 --> 00:12:39.825 Actually, you zoom out a little bit further and that's that's what you get. 00:12:39.825 --> 00:12:45.202 It's just like this dark green, lush, surrounded by wilderness, desert, hot, what we think of as Egypt. 00:12:45.202 --> 00:12:50.703 And this is even further out and all the way up to the top left there you see sort of a big green, a big green area. 00:12:50.703 --> 00:13:01.726 That was the, that's the Nile River Delta where a bunch of rivers converge, and according to a couple of different sources, goshen would have been in that, in the right, like in the right hand corner of this green area. 00:13:01.726 --> 00:13:04.961 So they, they were given the most fertile land. 00:13:04.961 --> 00:13:13.248 They were prospering and as a result of this we see a couple of clues that point us back to Genesis, some echoes of the Genesis story. 00:13:13.248 --> 00:13:15.120 First of all, the creation mandate. 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:17.605 We see a fulfillment or a working out of that. 00:13:17.975 --> 00:13:25.644 Verse seven of Exodus says but the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them. 00:13:25.644 --> 00:13:33.780 And that's an almost a direct paraphrasing or wording of the command, the first command that God gives Adam after he creates Adam and Eve. 00:13:33.780 --> 00:13:39.340 He says be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, have dominion over every living thing and every, every creature. 00:13:39.340 --> 00:13:43.399 We see this working out here Like life was going really good for Jacob's family. 00:13:43.418 --> 00:13:48.357 This time we see a past promise of that God had given to Abraham, fulfilled here. 00:13:48.357 --> 00:13:50.523 He had told Abraham in Genesis 17. 00:13:50.523 --> 00:13:52.267 I should just turn to that, don't mind. 00:13:52.267 --> 00:13:54.543 Genesis 17, verses one through six. 00:13:54.543 --> 00:13:57.514 God promises that Abraham will have many children. 00:13:57.514 --> 00:14:03.476 I'm not going to read all of this, but down, sort of down through this some paraphrasing, he says things like multiply greatly. 00:14:03.476 --> 00:14:06.080 He should be a father of a multitude of nations. 00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:08.648 I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 00:14:08.648 --> 00:14:12.265 I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations". 00:14:12.539 --> 00:14:17.149 So, jumping back to Exodus, we see that promise that God is making starting to be fulfilled. 00:14:17.149 --> 00:14:19.866 It says the people of Israel, and the land was filled with them. 00:14:19.866 --> 00:14:21.306 They increased and multiplied greatly. 00:14:21.306 --> 00:14:23.748 So an interesting fulfillment of God's promises there. 00:14:23.748 --> 00:14:25.283 So some of that farmland. 00:14:25.283 --> 00:14:27.509 This is what that looks like. 00:14:27.509 --> 00:14:29.267 You see the pyramids in the back there. 00:14:29.267 --> 00:14:36.890 But then you see this green, lush fields of I don't know what all is growing there, but just dark green, lush, beautiful farmland. 00:14:36.890 --> 00:14:43.046 Almost looks like Myron's fields in Wannachary, gohio, but just another picture there just beautiful, beautiful fields. 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:47.148 Keep this good life in mind as we continue on in the story of Exodus. 00:14:47.148 --> 00:14:55.844 And when the people of Israel, when they go out into the wilderness and they start complaining about hunger and all these different things, this is what they have in mind, this is what they've left. 00:14:55.844 --> 00:14:58.845 This is what they're going to have in mind the good life back in Egypt. 00:14:58.845 --> 00:15:03.807 All right, so moving on here in verse eight, here is where things sort of take a nosedive. 00:15:03.807 --> 00:15:08.005 And if you picture a graph, just a line graph, like it's like life is pretty good. 00:15:08.005 --> 00:15:18.486 It's like this graph is like maybe right up here and verse eight comes in, it's just like it starts a nosedive and by the time we're done with chapter one we're going to be at the bottom of that chart. 00:15:18.486 --> 00:15:26.450 Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph and he said to people behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 00:15:26.450 --> 00:15:28.967 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them. 00:15:28.967 --> 00:15:30.144 That word shrewdly. 00:15:30.379 --> 00:15:33.910 I guess I heard this thought from Tim Mackey with the Bible project. 00:15:33.910 --> 00:15:45.769 He says that this is almost an echo of the snake in the garden that comes into the garden that was where there was shalom and peace and the snake enters a picture to cause chaos and to ruin God's creation. 00:15:45.769 --> 00:15:51.551 We see the same thing happening here and a picture of Pharaoh as the snake who enters the picture. 00:15:51.551 --> 00:15:55.605 Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. 00:15:55.605 --> 00:15:57.606 They built for Pharaoh's store cities. 00:15:57.820 --> 00:16:09.586 The Pharaoh's role in Egypt and this was I heard this idea from Ray Van Rilan was the Pharaoh's role was to maintain order and to maintain the cosmic order. 00:16:09.586 --> 00:16:20.986 And every day it was his responsibility to be part of the rituals, to make sure the rituals in the places of worship would happen and as long as those were happening, the sun would rise and set every day. 00:16:20.986 --> 00:16:30.647 And it was his responsibility ultimately to make sure that order in the universe and in the land was kept, and anything that threatened to come in the way of that was not okay. 00:16:30.647 --> 00:16:35.725 Anything that came in the way of Pharaoh maintaining order in the land was subjected to his tyranny. 00:16:35.725 --> 00:16:39.129 So we see the story go from this to this right here. 00:16:39.129 --> 00:16:55.850 These are just some fascinating images found in Egypt today, and this is almost a universal picture, in many different ways, of the might of Pharaoh and you can't see the stick there, but he's holding a stick and it's a symbol of his power, of his might and his responsibility to maintain order in the world. 00:16:56.120 --> 00:17:03.929 We see the Hebrew people, jacob's sons and his family, go from the good life to the tyranny of this new Pharaoh that rises to power. 00:17:03.929 --> 00:17:07.605 So we see in verses 11 on, they set taskmasters over them. 00:17:07.605 --> 00:17:11.646 We see this escalation of oppression that happens in the children of Israel. 00:17:11.646 --> 00:17:23.749 They start off by being enslaved, and in Pharaoh's mind and it even makes sense to us, I think, today and it were the very practical problems of trying to have a nation where there is order. 00:17:23.749 --> 00:17:30.227 We think of problems that come with a huge increase in population Deans you just came back from Greece. 00:17:30.227 --> 00:17:34.969 That's a huge problem there in the chaos that can happen when a huge population comes in. 00:17:35.180 --> 00:17:51.865 We see that happening with Pharaoh and you can see the fear that that brought up to him, the fear that he thought of when the children of Israel increased in number, and this caused a lot of fear for him, and I think he took that fear and he used it to justify the oppression that he caused on them. 00:17:51.865 --> 00:18:01.066 He had this fear that the children of Israel would grow so strong that they would basically take over or that they would leave and flee Egypt and join another power. 00:18:01.066 --> 00:18:26.027 So, as a result of this, they basically took an asset people that were an asset to their nation and that asset all of a sudden became a threat to his power and to the order of the nation and with the slavery subjecting them to slavery, he had free labor and he was able to continue doing his thing and growing strong while subjecting Israel to, or the children of Israel to, to slavery. 00:18:26.027 --> 00:18:32.018 Verse 13 and 14, I think, really brings us to focus, and you see a repeat of wording here. 00:18:32.018 --> 00:18:38.233 So they actually in verse 12, it says the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, the more they spread. 00:18:38.233 --> 00:18:47.318 You see this, like Moses having this idea that if I just subjected them to slavery, that will take care of my immigration problem, that would take care of my population problem. 00:18:47.318 --> 00:18:57.321 They won't have time to have bigger families, they won't have time to have more children, to raise families, so I'm going to get free labor and my population problem will take care of itself. 00:18:57.321 --> 00:19:04.156 But God, in his sense of humor, I think he, I don't know, I'd like to think there was a miracle behind this and that God allowed them to continue, keep growing. 00:19:04.210 --> 00:19:07.799 It says the more they were oppressed, faster they grew, the more they increased. 00:19:07.799 --> 00:19:13.317 And so it became this vicious cycle that more oppression caused even more increase in number. 00:19:13.317 --> 00:19:19.061 And it comes to the point where he is that the Egyptians are working them ruthlessly. 00:19:19.061 --> 00:19:28.116 Verse 13 says 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. 00:19:28.116 --> 00:19:33.318 And then it repeats that same wording again In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. 00:19:33.318 --> 00:19:37.059 So it's like this all out slave labor, basically. 00:19:37.059 --> 00:19:44.955 When that doesn't work, you see him, you see the Pharaoh increase or escalate the oppression of God's people. 00:19:44.955 --> 00:19:50.481 It goes from slavery to he transitions to murder. 00:19:50.869 --> 00:20:04.257 Moving on in verse 16, he tells the Hebrew midwives, he says 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. 00:20:04.257 --> 00:20:14.902 But the midwives feared God and did not do as a wife, as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 00:20:14.902 --> 00:20:25.479 So he goes from slavery to now OK, I can't keep up with the population problem, I'm going to subject them to murder, I'm going to take care of the population problem myself. 00:20:25.479 --> 00:20:33.623 And he starts to command the, I would say like the private killing of these baby boys. 00:20:33.623 --> 00:20:45.278 And there's a beautiful, I guess, lesson here with these midwives that there are times when God calls you and I to stand up and get in the way of evil. 00:20:45.278 --> 00:20:48.498 And you see these two midwives do that in this story. 00:20:48.498 --> 00:20:51.518 They tell and they basically said they feared God. 00:20:51.518 --> 00:20:53.256 And they said no, we're not going to go along with this. 00:20:53.256 --> 00:21:04.156 And the picture that I get is this is a famous picture Most of you have probably seen it in Germany where this whole group of men are saluting Heil Hitler, except this one guy in the circle right here. 00:21:04.156 --> 00:21:06.156 He's got his both arms crossed like that. 00:21:06.156 --> 00:21:15.897 And that's sort of almost the idea that I get behind these two midwives that say no, we're not going along with this, we're standing up to evil, we're not going to go along with the work of Pharaoh. 00:21:15.897 --> 00:21:25.662 And so Pharaoh says fine, if you're not going to do that all the way in the end of the chapter one, because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 00:21:25.662 --> 00:21:32.017 You see him, god, blessing them for getting in the way of evil and and standing up to the power of Pharaoh. 00:21:32.017 --> 00:21:39.880 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. 00:21:39.880 --> 00:21:43.500 So he couldn't get his midwives to kill these young boys, these Hebrew boys. 00:21:43.500 --> 00:21:50.019 So he issues an all out and all out public I would say genocide of these Hebrew baby boys. 00:21:50.019 --> 00:21:56.413 He says then Pharaoh commanded all his people is no longer just the midwives, it was all Egyptian people. 00:21:56.413 --> 00:21:58.500 Take these baby boys, throw them into the Nile. 00:21:58.829 --> 00:22:04.022 I think there was a picture of Satan's hatred for life and for God's plans here. 00:22:04.022 --> 00:22:12.601 In his book on Exodus, philip Reichen says wherever there is a reign of terror or a culture of death, satan is trying to destroy the work of God. 00:22:12.601 --> 00:22:27.162 The slogans change, but the sin remains the same, whether it is Adolf Hitler and his final solution for eliminating the Jews, or Communist China, and it's one child, one family policy or the pro-choice movement in the West. 00:22:27.162 --> 00:22:30.779 Opposition to life is always hatred of God. 00:22:30.779 --> 00:22:44.923 The idea I think the main idea that I want us to get from this text and the opening story of Exodus is this idea of Pharaoh the tyrant and being such a clear parallel of Satan as a tyrant, of Satan as a slave driver. 00:22:45.150 --> 00:22:54.119 Satan enslaves mankind to sin, much like Pharaoh enslaved the children of Israel in Egypt, satan has enslaved mankind to sin. 00:22:54.119 --> 00:23:00.903 John 8, 34, jesus says truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 00:23:00.903 --> 00:23:14.321 And Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, god may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. 00:23:14.321 --> 00:23:16.297 Satan enslaves mankind to sin. 00:23:16.297 --> 00:23:30.501 When we, as we go through this, and we hear Pharaoh come up again in the story, parallel that one, a draw, is this parallel to the way that Satan has enslaved humanity through the fall to his tyranny, his rule, his power. 00:23:30.501 --> 00:23:34.914 And We'll see how this plays out a little bit later in the following chapters. 00:23:35.085 --> 00:23:37.713 Secondly, satan wants to destroy God's creation. 00:23:37.713 --> 00:23:39.951 He wants to destroy God's creation. 00:23:39.951 --> 00:23:47.817 You saw Pharaoh go from just merely slavery to escalating it all the way to the killing of the Hebrew baby boys. 00:23:47.817 --> 00:23:50.433 And I think in the same way, sin in our own lives. 00:23:50.433 --> 00:24:05.453 When sin gets ahold of us, when we start to engage sin, it often starts off small, in small ways, but it escalates, it grows until it goes from merely small sin in our minds to death. 00:24:05.453 --> 00:24:09.695 James says that sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. 00:24:09.695 --> 00:24:13.675 Paul says in Romans the wages of sin is death. 00:24:13.675 --> 00:24:16.894 We see the same idea here in the story of Pharaoh. 00:24:16.894 --> 00:24:23.931 Peter says in 1 Peter, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. 00:24:23.931 --> 00:24:27.776 Satan wants to destroy God's creation and he's in that process. 00:24:27.776 --> 00:24:34.974 So that's where we're going to end today, in the end of chapter one, and it's a cliffhanger and that doesn't feel good at all. 00:24:35.306 --> 00:24:41.756 The reality is that we're at the bottom of the story here, like it couldn't look any bleaker than it does right now for the children of Israel. 00:24:41.756 --> 00:24:57.214 They're enslaved, they're losing their sons and, like the Hebrews, like these Hebrew slaves in Egypt, in the same way, spiritually, I think, we're left longing, waiting for someone to deliver us, someone to deliver us from the bondage of Pharaoh. 00:24:57.214 --> 00:25:03.698 And the reality is that today our world is longing for delivery from the bondage of Satan. 00:25:03.698 --> 00:25:15.796 Satan has this world in his bondage, in the chains of his lies, in the chains of sin, and our world is longing for relief from that. 00:25:15.796 --> 00:25:27.555 And many of you know what it's like to be in the bondage of Satan, to be under Pharaoh's stick, be under his tyranny, his rule, and you know what life is like living Pharaoh's system. 00:25:27.555 --> 00:25:41.025 You know what it's like to live Pharaoh's system being enslaved, being in bondage, and some of you know what it's like to see that grow and progress and escalate until it takes you to a place where you would rather die than live. 00:25:41.025 --> 00:25:43.192 The reality is that, as a people. 00:25:43.192 --> 00:25:48.656 This world is longing for relief from this system of Satan's tyranny. 00:25:48.656 --> 00:25:51.374 The reality is that there's only one who can save us from that. 00:25:51.374 --> 00:25:57.106 There's only one who can save us from the tyranny of Pharaoh, the tyranny of Satan, and we'll see that. 00:25:57.106 --> 00:26:16.455 The birth of a deliverer, the story of Moses coming being born in the next chapter to rise up and lead his people out of Egypt, much like a parallel of how Jesus came to deliver us from the yoke of sin and the slavery to Pharaoh, to Satan. 00:26:16.455 --> 00:26:28.972 Isaiah 61 is a prophecy concerning Jesus, and later Jesus actually quotes this the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. 00:26:28.972 --> 00:26:37.314 He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and a release from darkness for the prisoners. 00:26:37.314 --> 00:26:44.734 Our world is looking for relief from Pharaoh's ways, from Pharaoh's system, from the bondage that is Satan's way. 00:26:45.145 --> 00:26:49.888 At the closing of the speech that I read at the introduction, frederick Douglass his speech. 00:26:49.888 --> 00:26:53.917 He here again talking about American slavery. 00:26:53.917 --> 00:27:09.951 He closes with a poem by William Lloyd Garrison and while this is talking about American slavery, the slavery of the African Americans in America I think there's some interesting parallels here that paint a picture of what life is like under Satan's rule. 00:27:09.951 --> 00:27:21.217 God speed the year of Jubilee, the wide world war, when, from their galling chains set free, the oppressed shall vilely bend the knee and where the yoke of tyranny like brutes no more. 00:27:21.217 --> 00:27:26.376 That year will come and freedoms reign to man, his plundered rights again restore. 00:27:26.376 --> 00:27:37.285 God speed the hour, the glorious hour when none on earth shall exercise a lordly power, nor in a tyrant's presence cower, but all to manhood's stature tower by equal birth. 00:27:37.285 --> 00:27:42.958 The hour will come to each, to all, and from his prison house the thrall go forth. 00:27:43.204 --> 00:27:52.069 Satan is a tyrant that wants to destroy God's creation and many of you know what it's like to be freed from that through the deliverer Jesus, through the saver Jesus. 00:27:52.069 --> 00:28:00.875 There might be some of you here today who are in chains, who are in bondage and who are living under Satan's power, and there's only one who can save you and that's Jesus. 00:28:00.875 --> 00:28:06.371 There's only one who can free you, who can break those chains, who can break those chains of sin. 00:28:06.371 --> 00:28:12.673 In closing I'm going to ask, sean, come forward If you could lead, veiled in Darkness, judea Lea. 00:28:12.673 --> 00:28:13.888 I think it paints such a. 00:28:13.888 --> 00:28:37.025 It's a Christmas song, but it paints a picture of the way that this chapter one ends, of children of Israel looking forward to deliverer, someone to deliver them, to bring freedom, to break their chains, and I think it paints such a beautiful picture of how all of creation and humanity was looking for a savior, looking for a deliverer, and we'll close with that song, then that's okay.