[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good to be together this morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_02]: I invite you to
[SPEAKER_02]: open your vibles to the book of Exodus, we begin in chapter one of Exodus.
[SPEAKER_02]: This morning, I've entitled the message God's plan for his people, like for us to read together,
[SPEAKER_02]: and Genesis, and Genesis, it's our Exodus.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll get over in the right book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exodus chapter one.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob each with his household.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ruben, Simian, Levi, Judah, Issaqar, Zebulan,
[SPEAKER_02]: Dan and Naphtalai, Ged and Asher, all the descendants of Jacob were 70 persons, Joseph was already in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then Joseph died and all his brothers and all their generation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was we look at this listing of the names of the sons of Israel or the sons of Jacob?
[SPEAKER_02]: link back to the end of Genesis as one continuing story, and this story is the story of God's plan for is chosen people.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first word here in the book is a conjunction, it's often translated now or and
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of the translations as I read there in the ESV do not translate that, but it is a helpful word because it shows us there is this continuing story from the end of Genesis and verse 1 says now these are the names of the sons of Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have this this account.
[SPEAKER_02]: And though it's in a separate book, it's meant to flow right into from the previous chapter one that we have here before is covers some 350 years, it's from the time that Jacob and his sons come into Egypt to just before the birth of Moses.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another 80 years will be the Exodus.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that time is a total of 430 years that Israel, the nation was in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_02]: An important truth that we will see again and again in this continuing story is that God has the plan and He is in control.
[SPEAKER_02]: that I see sometimes, that people view what God is doing as a reaction to what man is doing, or that God is reacting to what Satan does, or demons in their work do.
[SPEAKER_02]: As if God would need to adjust his plan, or that he has a plan B, if everything doesn't
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is not, excuse me, this is not the God of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_02]: The God of the Bible is a sovereign God who's working all things according to his plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that as we see in the first 14 chapters of Exodus, Pharaoh, excuse me, Pharaoh is in opposition to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: at this stage, not really aware of it, but he's opposing God in his people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pharaoh, though, is doing exactly what he wants to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: He thinks that he has the power and he's in control, but his God will demonstrate to him and to the world there is what one God and Yahweh is his name.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me, there's mornings, I say, the first thing I want to say now this is in this chapter, God blesses Israel through multiplication, Joseph and his brothers have died, but now he's looking for seven.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly.
[SPEAKER_02]: They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now this... Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to bear with me, sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: This word here increased greatly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a word that is usually used to translate swarm, like a swarm of insects, or some type of animals that cover the land.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's later used here in the plagues of the plague of frogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a swarm of frogs that went over the land
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's the same word that's used here to speak of Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way they were looking to the Egyptians.
[SPEAKER_02]: This looks like they just covered the whole land, that whole region.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you contrast what God is doing here with Israel and compare that to Genesis, it's quite a contrast.
[SPEAKER_02]: and gave him the promise that they were having a covenant.
[SPEAKER_02]: He promises to make of him a great nation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And from that time until his grandson Jacob and his sons go to Egypt, it's about 215 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in all that time, there's only 70 people that go down to Egypt.
[SPEAKER_02]: 75 in some accounts, evidently counting Joseph and his family, that's already there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this is a pretty astounding growth when we consider that later it's revealed in excess that the total number of the men that were 20 years of age and older
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's an estimate of 2 million people that came out of Egypt of the Israelites.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's an astounding multiplication, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Over that period of 430 years, that God took this little handful of people and turned them into a multitude, so that even to the Egyptians, they seem like a swarm of people,
[SPEAKER_02]: of them turning against them.
[SPEAKER_02]: God didn't miraculously blast his chosen people to become a nation.
[SPEAKER_02]: As he had promised to Abraham, and he promised that same promise to Isaac you remember, and then to Jacob when Jacob came back to Bethel, back to Canaan, in chapter 35 of Genesis,
[SPEAKER_02]: God says your name is Jacob.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thus he called his name Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: God also said to him, I am God almighty.
[SPEAKER_02]: Be fruitful and multiply.
[SPEAKER_02]: A nation and a assembly of nations shall come from you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And King shall come forth from your loins.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the land which I gave to Abraham and to Isaac, I give to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I will give the land to your seed after you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we could ask, with this promise, what is Israel doing in Egypt?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is going on?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why are they in Egypt?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this a detour in God's plan?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or is God reacting to factors of the weather and the pharaoh
[SPEAKER_02]: situation that's just out of his control.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, certainly not.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as the scripture clearly demonstrates, this is part of his plan that he's already revealed to Abraham.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go away back to chapter 15, we see there that God is ahead of time, already told Abraham that this
[SPEAKER_02]: Genesis 15 verse 13 and 14 says, then God, this is when he ratifies the covenant, then God said to Abraham, no for certain that your seed will be so generous in a land that is not theirs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved.
[SPEAKER_02]: And afterward,
[SPEAKER_02]: they will come out with many possessions.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Israel being in Egypt was God's plan for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would be a place where God would grow them and multiply them as a people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they would be able to multiply without becoming integrated
[SPEAKER_02]: into the other nations, or into the other peoples of Canaan.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we saw that this was a constant danger.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a constant danger with the sons of Jacob.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go back and remember what happened in Genesis, there was always this danger of them taking wives.
[SPEAKER_02]: of the Canaanites, these different pagan beliefs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when they came to Egypt, they settled in this area called the fertile Delta area, the land of Gosha.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that area was somewhat isolated from the Egyptian and their culture culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: Genesis 46 tells us that this was Joseph's plan for them, that they would be settling in this area.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to read for you, Genesis 46, verse 33 and verse 34.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what it?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just continuing a problem here this morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when it will be, when Pharaoh calls you and says, what is your occupation, then you will say, your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth until now.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we and our fathers that you made live in the land of Goshen for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.
[SPEAKER_02]: So God brought them there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he multiplied them in that region.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was this built-in isolation in a sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was an animosity between the culture of the Egyptians and that of Afera, we got some something here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see if it helps or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, God's plan involved this multiplication is growing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the second aspect of God's plan for them was sanctification.
[SPEAKER_02]: A holiness, we could say, that they would be a special people unto God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Notice in our text in verse 8 and down through verse 11,
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where the problem come in for the telenoversial and a new king arose of region who did not know Joseph.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said to his people, behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we, come let us deal wisely with them, or shrubly, and translate.
[SPEAKER_02]: that they also join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and go up from the land.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they appointed taskmaskers over them to afflict them with hard labor and they built for Pharaoh, storage cities, and fight on, and ram cities.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Fero, he's looking at the situation in his new Fero, it's evidently a new dynasty.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not sure exactly which Fero this was.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that it was a new dynasty that's coming out of air of the hiscos of a dynasty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: So he thinks this is a good move, a shrewd, you could say, move, to take advantage of the people.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we can see that his wisdom was according to the wisdom of man, according to the wisdom of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: James 3 verse 14 says, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, the scribes, Pharaoh doesn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, do not be arrogant, and so and lie against the truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: This wisdom is not coming down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.
[SPEAKER_02]: But his plan didn't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of weakening and halting the grove of the Israelites, it made them stronger, and they just kept increasing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Verse 12, looking at text, it says, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied,
[SPEAKER_02]: so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so verse 13 goes on to indicate that even though if this plan was at work and he just doubled down and made it even more difficult, made the slavery even more harsh, but that also didn't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: but he cannot win in this battle because he's fighting against the one in the only true God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we see him turning now to more desperate measures, more evil measures for 15, says then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of them whose name was Sifra and the
[SPEAKER_02]: And said, when you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see then, sorry, and see them upon the birth stool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if it is a daughter, then she shall live.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's any doubt about the depravity of man.
[SPEAKER_02]: And fantasize, the killing of helpless babies is proof thereof.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was a direct attack upon God's plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: God had planned to bless the world through the seat of Abraham.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the culmination of that plan would be becoming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ,
[SPEAKER_02]: And although it's not stated here, we can safely assume that Satan is at work here in the background through Pharaoh with an effort to defeat God's plan of the coming and promised Messiah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Man really has not changed, we've just become more sophisticated in our ability to kill the unwanted babies.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've made it legal, we've made it simple.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now take the life of the unborn by taking a pill.
[SPEAKER_02]: but God has not changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is the one that gave life and he has invested in man, his own image, and his own worth.
[SPEAKER_02]: That worth, that image of God, it extends and includes the unborn.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has personhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: God knows that person in Jeremiah chapter 1, God speaks to Jeremiah in verse 5 and says, before I formed you in the innermost parts, I knew you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And before you came out from the womb, I set you apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have given you as a prophet to the nations.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even today, with advancement of science, we know that life begins at conception.
[SPEAKER_02]: For a long time, people were told the lie that the unborn is just a growth.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just tissue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the American College of Pediatrics,
[SPEAKER_02]: With the body of scientific evidence, this is their statement, quote, they concur with the body of scientific evidence that co-operates that a unique human life starts when the sperm and egg bind to each other in the process of fusion of their respective membranes and a single hybrid cell called a zygot or one cell embryo is created.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's when life begins.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can look at any society and get a good determination of their moral condition by seeing how they treat the helpless, how they treat the unborn, the newlyborn, and the old, and their infirmity.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those of us,
[SPEAKER_02]: We are believers in Christ, we should hold fast to the principles of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_02]: We should not be swayed or moved by popular opinion in the wisdom of man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us speak the truth, and let us be bold in the claims of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_02]: We see in verse 17 that these Hebrew women did not need modern sites to know that the
[SPEAKER_02]: All they needed was the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at verse 17, the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when it becomes evident that these boys are being allowed to live, they're not dying.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pharaoh brings these two women back to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know why just the two, no doubt there were many midwives, among so many of the Israelites.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they were, maybe they had been appointed and given positions over the others, we're not sure, but he brings them back and questions them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says to them,
[SPEAKER_02]: and verse 18.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this?
[SPEAKER_02]: And let them male children live.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they answer the verse 19 because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women.
[SPEAKER_02]: For they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives come to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's often assumed to be just deception there, not the truth, but we really don't know how much of that is true.
[SPEAKER_02]: It may very well be that God blessed the Hebrew women to give birth more quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It may just be that these midwives not wanting to obey the Pharaoh just took their time getting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: In any case, we see the Lord's blessing of these midwives and giving them families of their own to show His approval because they feared the Lord and obeyed Him instead of the Pharaoh.
[SPEAKER_02]: So their faith was put to the test in a very real way.
[SPEAKER_02]: He had all the power to execute and to do as he pleased, but God's in control.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can fear God more than we fear man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Verse 20 says again, the people multiplied and grew very mighty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so although the Israelites are in this terrible situation, they're put under this hard
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't seem to have any options, and now this decree and the command to kill the babies.
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like they're hopeless.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're not hopeless because they serve the one and only God who's all powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he is blessing them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so although they're in this situation, it is evident that God is with them, and that God is blessing them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanna bring this message to an end with thinking about this matter of suffering.
[SPEAKER_02]: And why God allowed them to come under this persecution
[SPEAKER_02]: And he relates to how, why God allows difficulty in our life to trouble suffering.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine that the Israelites are in this situation asking the same kind of questions that we might ask when we face some difficult situation, and that is why, God, why are you
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes we can look back and see what God was doing but sometimes we cannot even after the fact understand what God was doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we cannot see and when we do not know God wants us to trust Him and to live by faith.
[SPEAKER_02]: Trust Him that He is with us and that He is sovereignly working
[SPEAKER_02]: We can learn from what happened here with these Israelites in their suffering.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was God's purpose we could ask?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is God doing in this enslavement, in the brutality that they experienced?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, first of all, the land of promise was not Egypt.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, it was Kenan.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what God had promised.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was not God's will that the Israelites remain in Egypt, God had sent them there, but he did not want them to remain there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in those early years, you can imagine that this family of Israel, Jacob, everything was going well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine that they had everything they wanted.
[SPEAKER_02]: They had the best of the land.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the fertile Delta area before the minerals and so forth, settled from the river now that come down into that region and it was the best of farming land, the best of the grazing land.
[SPEAKER_02]: They had peace.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no enemies that came against them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They had protection.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they had everything they wanted.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no more wandering around, like they were doing in Canaan, fighting and getting in trouble with different people.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of the problems they had in the past.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can imagine that after this first generation of the sons died, the Jacob and his brothers, and his time passed, the promise of God
[SPEAKER_02]: The thought of Canaan could easily drift out of thinking, and would seem less important.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, God could have sent a Savior to lead them out of Egypt, but would they have wanted to go?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, while would you want to leave when you had such a perfect environment?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why would you want to go to Canaan?
[SPEAKER_02]: and fight wars against the chain of knights.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we see God, God blessing his people through suffering.
[SPEAKER_02]: God use suffering to prepare them for his salvation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he would show to them and to the world that he is the mighty God, the one and only God.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a spiritual application for us, as we think about unbelievers around us, they will not turn to a Savior until they know that themselves are lost, until they realize and the Lord moves upon their heart by the Word of God and the Spirit of God to convict them that they are in bondage.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're in bondage to the world, to the flesh, and to the devil.
[SPEAKER_02]: and hopelessly lost in their sin, and the only hope that they have is in the salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ provides.
[SPEAKER_02]: So many times the Lord will use trouble, suffering, difficulty, to work in people's lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we too as believers, we are also prone to forget the promises of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're also often inclined to become independent, self-sufficient.
[SPEAKER_02]: And forget, we must depend upon the Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes God brings difficulty into our lives to wake us up, to the reality, and to draw us back unto Him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is that the people of promise were to be set apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were to be holy people, set apart unto God.
[SPEAKER_02]: If God had left them in the ease of Egypt, they would have most likely in time just completely lost their identity as God's special people.
[SPEAKER_02]: began to take wives from the Egyptians and the Egyptians to enter Mary and to adopt their culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we see that as a real problem and in fact we can see that it was already happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the short amount of time before this persecution began, it
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can see it later in the life of Israel, when they're in the wilderness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even after God is given them the law and demonstrated His power and He's up on the mountain and His demonstration of His power and glory and giving Moses the law and Moses comes in and gives them the law and they commit themselves to it and say, all that the Lord has said, we will do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Moses has to do is be gone for a little while as he's with the Lord up on the mountain.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next is 32, we see that they turn away from the Lord, they reject Moses' leadership.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stephen, in the New Testament, Acts chapter 7 gives testimony and puts it this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, talking about Moses, and our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: But rejected him, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt, that's the phrase, who wanted you to see.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their actions to go after the false worship and build a golden calf was turning back in
[SPEAKER_02]: to Egypt, saying to Aaron, make for us God's who will go before us for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone has said, Exodus is about God getting his people out of Egypt and getting Egypt out of his people, so that's the element of truth there, isn't there, as we see how God
[SPEAKER_02]: This is really a reoccurring theme in the life of Israel, as we continue to follow the story we see that time and time again, God turns the heart of His people back to Him through suffering and difficulty and persecution.
[SPEAKER_02]: And throughout church history, suffering and persecution has been one of the ways that God has purged and cleansed His church.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Paul gives testimony.
[SPEAKER_02]: to the hope that he has in his suffering.
[SPEAKER_02]: And two Corinthians four, I just want to read you a couple of verses there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Verse 16, two Corinthians four, 16, he says, therefore we do not lose heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, he thinks about what God is doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: His hope that he has in the resurrection,
[SPEAKER_02]: And what God is doing among the Corinthians by His testimony, by His ministry, of preaching gospel, He says, I do not lose heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
[SPEAKER_02]: For our momentary light affliction.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're going through the trouble, it doesn't seem momentary, and it doesn't seem light.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what Paul is doing, he's comparing that to eternity with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says our momentary light of friction is working out for us, an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.
[SPEAKER_02]: contrasted the momentary with the eternal and the light with the heavy, the weight of glory.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also Peter, you know, close with Peter's statement, his confidence, he's talking about the living hope that he has in being with the Lord, the promise of God, the one Peter
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, in this, in this hope, you rejoice.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're now for a little while.
[SPEAKER_02]: If necessary, you have been greed by various trials.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that the tested, genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is test buffer, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_02]: God has called us to that purpose that we might give glory and praise unto Him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And many times as we experience in life, the here and now, we'll have trouble and trial and God wants to grow us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants to sanctify us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants to get glory to Himself through us.
[SPEAKER_02]: through those problems, through those difficulties, through those trials.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we go through them, trusting Him, not pretending like there's no trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a fake or a false kind of life.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a life that acknowledges the trouble and the difficulty and struggle.
[SPEAKER_02]: But one that, through that,
[SPEAKER_02]: Father, help us to live that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Help us in this week when we face some setback or something that doesn't go according to our plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or it might be a more serious trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: It might even be a death or an illness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or some outcome that's tragic.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I pray in all of those scenarios,
[SPEAKER_02]: might look to you in faith, believing and knowing that you're in control, and that we can trust you, and that we can depend upon you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you, and praise you, and Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_02]: Amen.