Desperate For Redemption

REFLECTION TEXT: John 10:10

SERMON TEXT: EXODUS 1:8-22

INTRO / TRANSITION

Last week we launched into our study of Exodus recognizing that there’s much more back story to the beginning of this passage than meets the eye. In case you missed that message, go back and listen or watch it. On our website, on iTunes, or our church app.

With the theme of this series being: FEAR NOT, STAND FIRM, and SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD!, today will challenge that notion as Pharaoh begins to pile on the opposition to God’s people.

We go from bad, to worse, to the unimaginable.

Just this week, we learned in a report from Open Doors CEO David Curry:

CURRY: Well, Nigeria is the real epicenter here, particularly northern Nigeria where you have two very radical groups: Boko Haram, which is associated with al Qaeda and ISIS. ...they’re attacking Christian villages, trying to push Christians out of the north, many of them over the last six to seven years have already gone down into the southern part of Nigeria. 

But with COVID relief, you’ve added an extra filter of difficulty, particularly because some of the food resources, hygiene resources that would typically go to these sorts of impoverished villages in the midst of COVID,

these goods are being distributed by Islamic governors of these Sharia law states and they’re basically saying to Christians this aid is paid for by Islamic taxes, you are a Christian, you are an infidel, we’re not giving you food, we’re not giving you hygiene kits.

(source: Interview Transcript: The World and Everything In It | Sept 10, 2020 | Megan Basham)

This seems hard to fathom, how someone could be so cruel, so ruthless…and yet in our text today, we will see a far more sinister plan executed against God’s people during this incredible time in history.

Exodus 1:8–10 ESV

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.”

You may recall that Israel was in the land of Goshen. This northeastern part of the NILE delta became the womb for the nation of Israel. 70 arrived…the land was full of them by this time.

Egypt is beginning to a time of transition under a new king. They are about to enter a period of great flourishing also, but at the expense of the human toll on God’s people!

Now there arose up a new king—About sixty years after the death of Joseph a revolution took place—by which the old dynasty was overthrown, and upper and lower Egypt were united into one kingdom.

Assuming that the king formerly reigned in Thebes, it is probable that he would know nothing about the Hebrews; and that, as foreigners and shepherds, the new government would, from the first, regard them with dislike and scorn.

This is not the peaceful transition of power as we get to witness on a regular basis in our American history as one President leaves and another takes office in the nation’s capital. No, this is a regime change.

History tells us this new king came after the Hyksos oppression. In the wave of Egyptian nationalism (which included a hatred of the Hyksos) all Semites, including the Hyksos and the Israelites, may have been treated with suspicion.

Notice the perceived threat:

they could outnumber us soon

if they aligned with an enemy, it could be devastating for us

What’s the solution? “Check” their increase and exploit them as a labor force.

Pharaoh, unwittingly, becomes an obstacle to the covenant promises of God.

Genesis 12:1–3 ESV

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

CAUTION: Just a note as we dive in this morning, the modern-day parallels may be immediately clear to you. I’m going to ask you to resist the temptation to jump too far ahead to application so we can all observe what’s going on together.

SO PHARAOH BEGINS THE SINISTER PLAN OF OPPOSITION WITH ENSLAVEMENT

1. SLAVERY

Exodus 1:11–12 ESV

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.

“burdens” - (pr. svah-lote) The picture here is heavy loads, compulsory labor.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 1:11–14

So forced labor was established throughout the Delta area with Hebrews being required to build the royal store cities of Pithom and Rameses

As if slavery isn’t demeaning enough, this is not a positive work experience.

The word for afflict in verse 11 is the same word used for oppressed in v12. It is an oppressive, afflicting, humiliating labor environment. This is not the way work was intended.

God ordained work BEFORE THE CURSE.

Think back on Adam and Eve - even in paradise they were not expected to lounge around. They were to fill the earth and subdue it.

Hugh Whelchel of the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics states:

God came to Adam and Eve on the sixth day of creation and said, “Let me tell you what your job description is. Let me tell you why you’re here. Two things I want you to do. I want you to fill the earth with my images and I want you to subdue the earth. 

Now, the word subdue there literally means to go make the earth an incredible place for human beings to flourish. And that’s what our work is all about. And, see, so work’s not meaningless. And, as you also alluded to, we will do that same work in the new heaven and the new earth. It was true in the Garden. It’s true of us today. And we will be in eternity working forever because work is a good thing. It’s what God has given us, it’s a tool God has given us to bring flourishing to his creation. 

But, like all things God made and set it order and proclaimed good, man has corrupted for his own selfish desires...

This is not God-honoring work that the Egyptians are forcing on the Israelites, but as a people, they have learned from from their heritage to work as unto the LORD...

I know you’ve had a tough job or two in your love. I recognize that your current job may not be your passion or dream job. I will concede that many of us in here with any number of years or diversity of work experience can name some extremely difficult bosses we’ve had (some of us may even have been that boss at one time).

BUT, it is highly unlikely this morning that any of us in this room can relate to what we’re reading about here.

Pharaoh thought he had them, but they flourished in the midst of opposition. (we just read in v12)

“the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.”

So PHASE 2 of THE SINISTER PLAN OF OPPOSITION RAMPS UP WITH RUTHLESS PERSECUTION…IT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS...

2. Savagery

Exodus 1:13–14 ESV

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.

This would be akin to “cruel and unusually harsh conditions”.

This was the beginning of a long and cruel season for the Israelites. The Egyptians abuse the Israelites as slave labor for construction projects and for agricultural projects and then credit all of its creation to their own genius and acumen.

Exalting Jesus in Exodus Redemption and Mission

The injustice we read about here bears some resemblance to our day. People of power continue to abuse the weak for their own devilish reasons. Some report upwards of thirty million slaves in the world today (NotForSaleCampaign.org). Tragically, human trafficking is now the second largest organized crime in the world. What motivates this atrocity? Two of the main roots of this evil include sexual perversion and financial greed. Despite the existence of injustice like this, we believe that God remains a God of justice standing on the side of the oppressed. God’s people should also aim to glorify Him by imitating His character.

The injustice we read about here bears some resemblance to our day. People of power continue to abuse the weak for their own devilish reasons.

Some report upwards of thirty million slaves in the world today (NotForSaleCampaign.org). Tragically, human trafficking is now the second largest organized crime in the world.

What motivates this atrocity? Two of the main roots of this evil include sexual perversion and financial greed.

Despite the existence of injustice like this, we believe that God remains a God of justice standing on the side of the oppressed. God’s people should also aim to glorify Him by imitating His character.

Despite this incredible act of cruelty against God’s people here in Exodus, we also see a powerful result from their persecution:

By keeping the Israelites enslaved, the new Pharaoh actually helped preserve their identity as a close-knit community. Charles Spurgeon comments:

[I]n all probability, if they had been left to themselves, they would have been melted and absorbed into the Egyptian race, and lost their identity as God’s special people. They were content to be in Egypt, and they were quite willing to be Egyptianized.

To a large degree, they began to adopt the superstitions, and idolatries, and iniquities of Egypt; and these things clung to them, [for years afterward], to such a terrible extent that we can easily imagine that their heart must have turned aside very much towards the sins of Egypt.

Yet, all the while, God was resolved to bring them out of that evil connection. They must be a separated people; they could not be Egyptians, nor yet live permanently like Egyptians, for Jehovah had chosen them for himself, and he meant to make an abiding difference between Israel and Egypt.

PREACH: Church we are called to be separate!

We must resist adopting the superstitions, idolatries, and iniquities of any culture…

In his book, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, W. Ross Blackburn translates verses 13-14 more literally as:

“And the Egyptians forced the sons of Israel to serve with violence. And they caused their lives to be bitter with hard service, with mortar and with brick and with all kinds of service in the field. In all their service with which they served in violence.”

Deuteronomy gives us a glimpse of how tough it was...

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 1:11–14

This slavery in Egypt was like being in an “iron-smelting furnace” (Deut. 4:20)

The evil, brutal savage form of slavery escalates…as Pharaoh recognizes he doesn’t need ALL of the Israelites.

Which brings us to Phase 3 of his SINISTER PLAN OF OPPOSITION…State-Sponsored Genocide.

3. Slaughter

Exodus 1:15–16 ESV

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.”

“Birthstool” is a difficult word to translate.

Some say it means a “stone”—meaning they would give birth on a stone.

Some say it means “a basin,” where they would wash the baby off, implying that one would drown the baby.

Another option is that the “stones” represent “what you look for to see if it is a boy” (Russ Moore, “Exit Strategy”).

Whatever it means, the command is clear: kill the boys. It seems that he is attempting to slow the growth of the Israelites and to make them fear him.

(Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Exodus (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014))

When Pharaoh issued this death warrant, he became an enemy of life.

He was trying squelch God’s creation mandate (which we covered last week), where God told his people, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

Pharaoh also became a type of enemy of Christ by opposing God’s special plan for sending a savior.

From the very day that Adam and Eve first sinned, God had always promised to send his people someone to save them from their sins—the offspring of a woman, a son to crush Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15).

God’s people trusted that promise, waiting in hope for the coming of the Christ. Whether he knew it or not, Pharaoh was a “seed of the serpent” that God had promised would strike at the heel of the woman’s seed. By trying to prevent the Savior from ever becoming a man, Pharaoh became an antichrist.

Anyone who can advocate for abortion and continually participate in, what can only be described as the wholesale slaughter and infanticide of millions of babies for the sake of their own selfish agenda, is an enemy of LIFE and an enemy of CHRIST.

But GOD had a remnant, that will risk their lives to stand in the gap for the voiceless and the defenseless.

Exodus 1:17–21 ESV

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.

The seventeenth-century Puritan William Gurnall put it well when he wrote, “We fear men so much because we fear God so little”.

These midwives are an example of how we can act with courage when we trust in the promise of God and reverently fear the God of the promise!

The voiceless and vulnerable are still crying out for an advocate today - someone to stand in the gap for them. Men and women and boys and girls all over this nation and the world are doing just that. Loving life…loving Jesus…and crying out for babies lives to be spared - not because it’s a political issue; it’s a biblical conviction.

Quick note: These women are critical linchpins to Bethlehem. Without the midwives, you have no Moses, no Exodus, no David, Mary, or Jesus.

They are so important - THEY are mentioned by name; Pharaoh isn’t - that’s critical because the Pharaoh’s loved to have their names all over their cities and accomplishments…but the only names remembered…worth mentioning are those who were feared the LORD and protected life.

We see the midwives rewarded with children, a blessing from the LORD at a time when newborn children are supposed to be killed.

This reminds us as church that: THE CHURCH IS OBLIGATED TO OBEY GOD BEFORE MEN!

If a government commanded that no one was allowed to present the gospel to others, Christians in that country would have to disobey because Christ commands us to witness for him (Matt. 28:19–20).

Such was the response of the disciples in Acts 5.

If a government ordered mandatory abortions for its people, Christians would have a duty to resist. God will not countenance his people committing murder (Exod. 20:13).

This is a general principle for how a Christian is to live: it is to be on the basis of God’s Word.

But the savagery and slaughter continues...

Exodus 1:22 ESV

22 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.”

Maybe you’re like me, and you wonder how barbaric a whole society would have to be to allow this to happen.

Tony Merida gave 2 likely reasons the Nile method was choses:

First, it was convenient. Everyone lived on the Nile, and the clean up would have been easy. The Nile was a source of water and a conveyance for sewage, for the mighty current took away waste.

Second, the Nile was viewed as a god, so this shifted the blame. Egyptians viewed the Nile as a giver and taker of life; thus, they might have thought they were doing the will of the gods.

Too often in our own lives, CONVENIENCE leads us away from the will of the LORD. And, though we likely don’t consider a river a god, too often have we engaged in what can only be described as “acts of worship” with lesser gods: Sports, Politics, Entertainment, Career…etc.

Listen to this insight from Joseph Exell (1892)

A bad king will make a wicked people:

He will influence the weak by his splendour.

Terrify the timid by his power.

Gain the servile by his flattery.

Gain the simple by his cunning.

Sometimes gain the good by his deception.

—---

Pharaoh appears in archaeological records with the snake on his crown. It takes us back to that promise in Genesis 3:15.

Pharaoh lived out the serpent role by killing boys.

Egypt was the enemy of God, and God must deliver Israel so that “they may worship [Him]” ( Exod 9:1).

This story shows us a cosmic, spiritual battle, not just a battle between Moses and Pharaoh.

SLAVERY…SAVAGERY…SLAUGHTER Devices of the enemy himself.

Jesus said in John 10:7-11

John 10:7–11 ESV

7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

But without a big “reach” we can all understand spiritual slavery.

1 Peter 5:7–9 ESV

7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

In a hymn entitled, We Were Pharaoh’s Bondmen, John Newton would write:

Beneath the tyrant Satan’s yoke

Our souls were long oppressed;

’Till grace our galling fetters broke,

And gave the weary rest.

Jesus, in that important hour,

His mighty arm made known;

He ransomed us by price and power,

And claimed us for His own.

Now, freed from bondage, sin, and death,

We walk in wisdom’s ways;

And wish to spend our every breath

In wonder, love, and praise.

Ere long, we hope with Him to dwell

In yonder world above;

And now we only live to tell

The riches of His love.

Society may convince you that Christianity is a matter of event attendance or a matter of preference in a pluralistic/relativistic age…do you prefer this “faith” or that “faith”? As if through some mental assent, you could pass from death to life.

But CHRIST has paid the ransom for your soul (as it were), with his own precious blood, to free you from your slavery to sin (which makes a terrible taskmaster).

Are you walking in wisdom’s ways?

Are you wishing to spend your every breath in wonder, love, and praise?

OR are you, too…desperate for redemption?

PRAY & TRANSITION TO MUSIC