PROVIDENCE: HISTORY IS THE RECORD OF GOD'S UNYIELDING PURPOSES

PROVIDENCE: HISTORY IS THE RECORD OF GOD'S UNYIELDING PURPOSES Exodus 1 March 4,  2001 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory There's a great story that came out of the NFL two seasons ago. John Madden was in Philadelphia to announce a football game one weekend when he noticed a special telephone near the Eagles' bench. He asked a nearby player what it was used for and was told it was a hot line to God." John asked if he could use it. The player told him "Sure, but it will cost you $100." John scratched his head, then thought "What's a hundred bucks, I need a little help calling this game. " He pulled out his wallet and paid $100. Johns play-by play was perfect that week. > The next week John was in Tennessee when he noticed the same kind of phone near the Titans' bench. He asked what the telephone was for and was told, "It's a hot line to God! If you want to use it, it will cost you $100." Recalling the past week, John quickly pulled out his wallet and made the call. John's broadcast was flawless again. > The next weekend John was in St. Louis at the Trans World Dome when he noticed the same kind of telephone by the Rams' bench. He asked Kurt Warner "Is that the hot line to God?" Kurt said, "Yes, but the call will cost you 35 cents." John looked incredulously at Kurt and said. "Wait a second, I just paid $100 in Philadelphia and Tennessee to use the same line to God! Why does St. Louis only charge 35 cents?" Kurt looked at John and replied, "In St. Louis, it's a local call!" 'Ever feel like God is a very long distance away? Are you ever tempted to think that what He promised you will never come true? What about those times when everything you see and all you experience scream at you, "God has left on vacation!"? It's tough, isn't it, to keep on believing in God's goodness when things are tough. Let's go back in history about 4,000 years and see how a group of expatriate slaves handled some miserable circumstances in light of God's promises. The immediate descendants of Abraham, that great man of faith, found themselves in a difficult place, even though they were the heirs of God's great promises. They were children of Covenant The book of Exodus is a sequel to the book of Genesis. Genesis ended with the death of Joseph, son of Jacob. Exodus picks up some 350 years later. By now all the sons of Jacob (the great, great grandsons of Abraham) had died. Jacob and his descendants had been promised by God, and reminded many times, that God had made a covenant with them All the way back at Genesis 12, when God first called Abraham out of the wicked environment he lived in and told him to strike out into the desert to a place He would show him, God promised Abraham he would have descendants that would be so numerous the only thing you could compare their numbers to would be the stars of the heavens or the sands of the earth. He told Abraham He would make his name great, that He would bless his people with their own land that his nation would be a blessing to all the other nations of the earth. Through an involved history we won't detail this morning, Abraham's descendants ended up in Egypt, under the great Pharaoh, and with favored status. God had blessed them as He promised and they were numerous. Exodus 1:1-7 - "Now these are the names of the children of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad, and Asher. The descendants Of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, But the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly, and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them." Because of His covenant with the people of Israel, God had fulfilled most of His promises by now. The people were a great nation numbering up to three million. God began that growth by miraculously providing Abraham and Sarah their son of promise when they were 100 years old. He had made their name great-though not as great as they would be in a few years, and they had great favor with Egypt, thanks to Joseph. But they did not yet have the land God promised them-a land of their own. The promised land God had shown Abraham was four hundred miles to the north and here were the people Israel down in Egypt. It might have been easy for the people to forget the covenant God had made with them. After all, up until now, things had been pretty easy in Egypt. God had pretty well fulfilled three of the four covenant promises. "Hey, we're doin' OK!" But God had not forgotten. And he was about to reveal His faithfulness to His covenant people. But it wasn't going to be easy. Do you remember the last time you were in a time of relative ease? Everything was pretty much fine; you knew God had plans for your life, but for now it was more of a coast. You had all you felt you really needed, and you thought, "Hey, we're doin' OK!" But, deep inside you knew you were growing too comfortable with the life of little challenge, and you felt the comfortable but dangerous encroachment of complacency coming over your life. You knew you were not being the disciple you wanted to be; there was no urgency in your living, no fire, no sense of faith adventure. What could shake you out of this state of near lethargy and back into the thrill of boundless growth and ministry? What would it take to get you another step closer to the fulfillment of all God promised to do through you? Well, if you're like 999 out of every thousand believers, you probably did not have the self-discipline to shake yourself into revival. But God knew what it would take, didn't He? And you didn't like it, did you? God is relentless about getting His purposes done, and He is resolute about fulfilling His promises in your life, too. So He uses that most effective strategy of all, that enemy of inertia, that death-knell for indifference, the knock-out punch for self-satisfaction. He calls it "CHANGE". The people encountered Change and Conflict This development is introduced in verse 8: "Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt." You will recall from your Bible history notes that Joseph was the one who won favor with the Pharaoh of Egypt. But when this new Pharaoh came to power, probably Ramses I, he was not beholden to Israel at all. In fact, he was quite alarmed by the dramatic growth of these people from 70 to nearly three million in the past three and a half centuries! Ramses was about to introduce "change" into the Israelites vocabulary. And this would be a tumultuous experience for God's people. Change is inevitable, but we're seemingly never ready for it. It throws off the equilibrium of our lives. Someone wisely commented that the only one who truly welcomes change is a baby with a wet diaper. Change - it can bring significant pain. Whether the loss of a loved one through death, or the death of a relationship through divorce. A sudden job change, a devastating diagnosis, a bad business report, and now your world has turned topsy-turvy. Your sense of satisfaction and security instantly gives way to fear. You feel all alone, helpless, out of control. The essence of the life of faith is not certainty, but trust. Life is always changing, though in many ways it remains the same. An old proverb says, "You never step into the same river twice." Life is like a river-it is always moving, changing adapting to the times and circumstances. But for the God-related person, there is never need for insecurity. Why? Because God never changes. His purposes are guaranteed, His character is reliable and His promises are faithful. There is no greater friend through turbulent times than the Rock of Ages! You can trust the God of Covenant, Who deposited His promises in your life and Who will deliver on them! Back to our story, we find the Israelites now facing a new king. And this king will not be their friend. Exodus 1:9-14 - "'Look,' [the king] said to his people, 'the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, 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.' So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They 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." Where there was once contentment, there is now conflict. Just about the time you think everything is pretty copascetic, there arises "a king who knew not Joseph". Now Pharaoh was a nervous fool. He reacts to a perceived threat by going overboard with control. "We must deal shrewdly with them." Never mind justice or kindness. Please notice the contrast here. The ungodly react to what they perceive as threat by tightening "control" on people. The godly trust in the Lord and cope with change very well, because they know where they're going. They're going with God, wherever He goes. The Israelites had no union steward to turn to, they had no recourse really.  So, in a sense, they had to resign themselves to their new circumstances and simply trust the Lord. The long years of ease and tranquility had allowed the people to multiply. But now the period of conflict will stir them out of their comfortable nests. Were you ever so attached to something that it became your source of comfort and security? Than you had it snatched away from you? How did God use that experience? That's right-He taught you that He is a loving, but jealous God, who does not want to share your devotion for Him with anything else. When change and conflict meet us head on, it is wise to remember that all the circumstances of life and the kingdom are ultimately in God's hands. He is getting His purposes done in the world and in our lives simultaneously. In 1945, a young associate pastor named Cliff married his fiancée, Billie. They had almost no money, but scraped enough together to take a honeymoon. They took the bus to an out-of-the-way place where there was a nice hotel they had heard about from a friend. When they got to the hotel, and as the bus pulled away, they were told the establishment was now a rehabilitation center and not available to overnight guests. So they hitchhiked to a grocery store several miles down the road. The owner was sympathetic to their situation and let them stay in a room over the store. When he understood they were Christians, he referred them to a friend with a nicer place to spend the rest of their honeymoon. During the week their host invited them to attend a youth rally at a nearby Christian conference center. The regular worship leader was sick that night, so Cliff was asked if he would take charge of the music for the service. He agreed, and led the time of singing before a young evangelist named Billy stepped up to preach. Cliff Barrows met Billy Graham that night, and shortly afterwards the two of them formed a ministry team that has preached the gospel throughout the world for 50 years. When things don't work out the way you think they should, God has something better in mind-for you and for his kingdom! Sometimes we have to get "moved" in order to be better positioned for our part in the purposes of God. As long as we are happy in Goshen, we will not yearn for Canaan. So (and here is the severe part), God will devise methods, and use the methods of the enemy to graciously tear from us our security blankets and our sentimental attachments to earthly things, for the greater purpose of having us fully committed to Him. The people learned new levels of Commitment Exodus 1:15-21 - "The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiprah and Puah, '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.' The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, 'Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?' The midwives answered Pharaoh, 'Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.' So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own." These two midwives are the heroines of faith in this chapter, aren't they? Shiprah and Puah, it says, "feared God" more than they feared the wrath of Pharaoh. When you have that kind of commitment, no matter what the circumstances are, you invite God to move in power in the midst of those circumstances. If you fully trust Him, He will bless. It says, "God dealt well with the midwives." Here's an insight that we need to glean from this story. God was going to get His purposes done. His strategy was apparent by the time the new Pharaoh came to power; that strategy was to first build the numbers of His people to make them become a mighty nation. And He did it. Incidentally, He simultaneously fulfilled one of His promises to His people to make their numbers great. When Pharaoh reacted-and the enemies of God always react when God is moving to accomplish His purposes-God uses His committed people-those who have learned to trust Him through thick and thin. These two brave God-loving women were faithful and committed. And look how the continued multiplication of the numbers of His people is laid side-by-side with the blessing of the midwives: "(verse 20) "Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty." When we are committed to Him, not only does He bless us, but He grants us the even greater blessing of being an active part of the accomplishment of His will on earth! As we will see with Ramses and his son and successor, God deals ruthlessly with those who oppose His plans. God is quite stubborn about His purposes getting done, but He never forces anyone to cooperate with Him. Now, only God can do that: get His will done, while honoring the will of many who refuse to do His will. Beyond that, He actually uses our wrong decisions in getting His purposes done. Let me illustrate with the most dramatic example in all of history. It was the will of God to send Jesus as the Savior of the world. It was then the will of Satan to not allow Jesus to be that Savior. So, thinking he had the plan all figured out, Satan tries to stop Jesus by tempting Him to take the worldly route. That didn't work, so he used the religious establishment to try to frustrate His teaching. He failed again, because as inspired by hate and jealousy as they were, the religious leaders were no match for the divine wisdom of Jesus. So Satan hatched the ultimate plot. He would use the lechery of Judas, combined with the anger and insecurity of the establishment, as well as the indifference of Rome, and he would have Jesus put to death. That would stop Him from accomplishing God's purpose! But, in fact, Satan played right into God's hands, because, as it was written by Isaiah 600 years earlier: "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and . . . make his life a guilt offering . . . and the will of the Lord will prosper" (Isaiah 53:10-11) All of history is the record of God's unyielding purpose. He is moving inexorably toward the close of this age. And He will win. The devil and all his angels, Revelation tells us, will be cast into the lake of fire. And right behind them all those who refuse to trust in Jesus Christ. This present heaven and earth will be destroyed and He will create a new heaven where His committed ones will live with Him forever. A very distressed 38 year old woman approached her pastor one day and said, "Pastor, to put it simply, I want to be married. I'm approaching 40 and I think it's time God showed me the husband He wants me to have." The wise pastor tried to be sensitive and diplomatic, and reminded her that God had a perfect plan for her life and she could not improve on the will of God. She shot back, "I'm not trying to improve on it; I just want to get in on it!" God's great purpose doesn't need improvement on our part. It just need our "getting in on it." Trust that He is working out His will when you face adversity. Within weeks of her birth, Fanny Crosby developed an eye infection. Her physician treated it poorly and she was blinded in both eyes within days. She harbored no bitterness, though, against the doctor. In fact, she once said of him, "If I could meet him now, I would say thank you, over and over again for making me blind." She said her blindness was a gift from God that helped her write the over 8,000 songs and hymns that came from her pen. Later she said, even if she could receive treatment for her blindness she would probably refuse it. She said, "Do you realize that the first person I'm going to see is Jesus?!"       [Back to Top]