[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agape of Abbas Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: As always, I hope that you're able to hear the words of God today, read and that you're able to respond and song worshiping the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now as we open His Word, that you'd be able to hear from the Lord through His Word and that your heart is encouraged, and that our hearts are convicted.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we're here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're here to be convicted and to be called to action and to be encouraged in the faith and to praise the Lord with our thoughts and our feelings as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if those words do not evoke thoughts of praise and of worship, and if those thoughts and the praise, it has no feeling, then something's missing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you just have facts, but you do not feel anything towards God, and I'm afraid that there's a question about whether or not you love the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this morning,
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you please bow your head with me and ask that the Lord would fill our minds with wondrous thoughts about Him, glorious thoughts about Him, and that that would evoke great feelings of praise and of love and of gratitude and of worship and anticipation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a light until our path.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is wisdom that we do not have on our own.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is our guide.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Father, as you are a Holy Spirit, wields it in our thoughts and in our hearts, I know Father that unbelief will be cut away, and that love will grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love for you and love for your people and love for the lost.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Father also, that we will begin to love your appearing, the coming of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: We long for that day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Lord, as we study your word, even in Exodus chapter 2, that are longing for Christ's return, and the glory of the Lord and the earth, and in our families, would increase.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you do this, Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be our joy, in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you would turn with me to the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 2, if you have not already,
[SPEAKER_01]: So in our study so far we have seen that Joseph brings all of the sons and family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob down to Egypt, and there are there for hundreds of years, but there is this anticipation that this stay in Egypt is not going to be forever there going to leave, and God hints at a glorious leaving that He will get glory over the Egyptians, and then last week,
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw how the family begins to grow and they grow so much that there's somewhere between 1.5 2 million people in Egypt before they leave.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a massive group of people, a family, a massive family that got us blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God has poured out his blessing on Israel, but the Egyptians noticed this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost impossible not for them to notice how God is blessing the Israelites.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as they grow and prosper, the Egyptians become afraid, specifically Pharaoh becomes afraid of this people group.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he comes up with his grand plan to just kill off the babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get rid of the baby, the baby boy is what he's focusing on, get rid of them, and what we'll do is we'll curb the growth, the expansion of this people, and we'll weaken them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's this plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we looked at last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: How Farrow ends chapter one with saying to all the Egyptians, if you find out that a baby boy has been born, grab him, take him, throw him into the novel river.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is where we ended last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the book of Acts, right before he's martyr, for his faith, Stephen, says this of Moses
[SPEAKER_01]: This man, God sent as both ruler and redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's thousand, thousand years later, thousand and a half years later, that Stephen's looks back at what we're gonna look at now today and says, God sent this man Moses as both ruler and redeemer into this scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an essential theme and Exodus of God sending a ruler and redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: the theme of the Lord who is providing for his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our passage this morning focuses on the origin story of this human redeemer, the origin story of where God brought, how God brought forth this human redeemer for his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's read the passage together beginning in Exodus chapter 2, verse 1.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm in from the house of Levi went and took as his wife, a Levi woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hit him three months.
[SPEAKER_01]: When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bull rushes and dogged it with the chuman and pitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: She put the child in it and placed it among the reads by the river bank.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe the river while her young women walk beside the river.
[SPEAKER_01]: She saw the basket among the reads and sent her servant woman and she took it.
[SPEAKER_01]: When she opened it, she saw the child and behold the baby was crying.
[SPEAKER_01]: She took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew
[SPEAKER_01]: and Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go, so the girl went and called the child's mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the woman took the child and nursed him.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son.
[SPEAKER_01]: She named him Moses,
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, she said, I drew him out of the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the Lord we've seen has heard the cry of the Israelites.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has seen their suffering, and as the time drew near for their deliverance, he provides a human redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: But first, in our passage, I want us to notice how the Lord chooses women.
[SPEAKER_01]: to be the instruments of His provision, the Lord uses women to be the instruments of His provision.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the Lord the one that's providing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but He delights and choosing human instruments, frail humans to be His instruments divine instruments in His hand for His own provision.
[SPEAKER_01]: a Levite woman gives birth to a son and she courageously hides her healthy boy from the Egyptians who had strict orders.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Egyptians had strict orders.
[SPEAKER_01]: You find a baby boy, you grab him, you throw him into the river.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am sure there will be consequences to any israelite who tried to hide.
[SPEAKER_01]: a baby who tried to go against Pharaoh, this dimmy god to the Egyptians, you disobey him, there are going to be consequences.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Hebrews 11, verse 23 in the New Testament, we're told that Moses' parents hid their baby by faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Determining not to fear Pharaoh's
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was not simply maternal affection.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Holy Spirit reveals, this was not only maternal affection.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was also, and even greater, a faith in the God who condemns murder and loves life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So by faith, they hid their child, faith in the one true God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies, I speak to you just for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: My sisters in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Faith in the promises of God is more powerful and more sustaining than maternal affection alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maternal affection is a gift from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But faith in the promises of God is more powerful and more sustaining for you than maternal affection alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: don't even feel maternal affection when they first have their baby because of all of the chemicals and all of the changes in their body that's going on postpartum.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many mothers struggle to feel maternal affection when they first have a baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just a lot going on in the body
[SPEAKER_01]: that by faith in the good promises of God, you can have a rock to hold on to, as your body and your mind and your feelings go through chaos after birth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or even at other times in life, sometimes we just don't even know why we feel the way we feel, where our affections are all over the place.
[SPEAKER_01]: But ladies,
[SPEAKER_01]: faith in the promises of God, looking at God and believing what He says is true, what He promises for you is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives you a rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called, we call it the rock of ages.
[SPEAKER_01]: The scripture is because that comes from a passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Isaiah 26, where he's called the Everlasting Rock, this rock that no matter what tsunamis or storms or hurricane came across the ocean, this rock was never submerged under the waters and never was moved by all the earthquakes in all the waves.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's called the Everlasting Rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me read this for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Isaiah 26 vs 3 and 4.
[SPEAKER_01]: you keep them in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because they trust in you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you see the picture that we are frail humanity, we are all frail.
[SPEAKER_01]: But though we are frail, God is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is saying the one way not to be tossed about by every feeling and thought and temptation and sorrow in life, the way not to be tossed about, like someone who's about to be shipwrecked, the way not to be that way in life is to cling to the everlasting rock or the rock of ages as poets put it, the rock of ages, cling to him, how do you do that, how do you cling to
[SPEAKER_01]: it's by looking and meditating and thinking upon him and what he has promised you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the promises of God that we cling to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't cling to a promise for somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone promises you or promises your brother, a house, wow, I'm so happy for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Praise the Lord for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't hope in that for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You must look in the Scriptures and look for the promises of God, for how He is going to sustain and provide for His people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Any promise to the people of God in Scripture, where it is this open promise to my people, those who come to me in humility and faith, I will do this for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a promise for you, believer, from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: our rock in this life is not our finances.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not our children, even.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not our husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although that is a human type of rock, a lady can cling to is our husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he's a believer, you can truly cling to that as in a human sense, but the eternal rock that is never moved is the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we cling to him by faith in what he has promised us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we look at his word,
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to know what he has promised to us and we cling to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We remind ourselves of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We memorize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We sing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I struggle with memorization.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I don't do it at the same verse every single day, the next day, it starts to flow it out of my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know what sticks to my mind?
[SPEAKER_01]: Songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the greatest joys I've had in recent this past year is discovering some songs where they sing Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just exactly verbatim the words of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: And those passages are now stuck in my mind, and I think they're going to go with me for the rest of my life, as I listen to these songs occasionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I commend to you to plant the promises of God into your heart and mind and let that be what
[SPEAKER_01]: through the ups and downs of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, if we've looked at women who might struggle with maternal affection, you can cling to the rocket ages, but there are some mothers who feel such strong maternal affection and strong motherly instincts that they are tempted, their temptation is to turn their children into the gods of their life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about this for a second, I think there is a good area in between.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a, I don't feel any affection for my child and I'm begging God to give grant me that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're trying to come into the center of the path of feeling right affections towards God and your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's another ditch on the other side where you ditch God, your affections for God, your worship of God,
[SPEAKER_01]: children, where they become the gods of your life, and those who should be pre-eminent above your children, God and your own husband, they are kicked to the curb.
[SPEAKER_01]: This mother begins doing everything in the vein hope that their children will appreciate him and love them forever in return.
[SPEAKER_01]: Parents, moms, you know the pain of not being appreciated
[SPEAKER_01]: Like an ungrateful child, is that a shock to us?
[SPEAKER_01]: That children would grow up and be ungrateful sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That actually is not, shouldn't be a shock to us, because they are sinners as well, children grow up sinners.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is a vain hope to raise your children in the hopes that their appreciation for me and their love for me is what's going to sustain me through life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a vain hope, an empty hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, when a mother makes her child an idol of her heart and is elevating that child to try and get that child to love them and return, it is actually a form of self worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm feeding this child.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm clothing this child.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm taking this child to all their games.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm buying them the best birthday presents.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to do all of these things so that they love me.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's in fact a form of self-love or idolatry, which happens in our story today.
[SPEAKER_01]: But whatever, whether you're struggling with a lack of maternal affection or attempted to idolize your children and we will be tempted, ladies, you are going to be tempted if you have children, there will be temptation.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be a temptation to push them to the side because I need my space or there'll be a temptation to make too much of them so that they make much of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will be tempted, but no matter what your current temptation is, by faith, you can be chosen instruments of God in the lives of your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: For God's glory, for the good of your children, and for your eternal joy, the temptation itself will come.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as you cling to the promises of God and aim to walk this balanced road of saying, I do love my children, but I love God more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mother's, can you say that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the way you're living?
[SPEAKER_01]: I love my children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when I don't feel like it, even when I change six netbeasts today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm feeling exhausted and I'd love just to hand them off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love my children, but I love God more.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is how you can be a chosen instrument of God for the good of your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: The glory of God and that is how you will experience joy as a mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise you will feel like you are banging your head against a wall when in parenting and being a mother and being a wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Aim for the right affection.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love my children.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love my husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I love God more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those put together will help you clean to the rock of ages and you will not be tossed about by the storms of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: God delights and choosing women as his instruments of provision.
[SPEAKER_01]: Aim for that delight in that hope in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies, you can be an instrument of God in God's hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: for the good of those around you and for your own joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He chose Moses's mom, that's in our story today.
[SPEAKER_01]: He chose Moses's mom, and he also chose Moses's older sister.
[SPEAKER_01]: She patiently watches over her baby brother while his basket lay caught in the reeds so that if you've seen any movies of the basket Moses was in being tossed up and down through hit by hippos and crocodiles and going over waterfalls and then it comes and floats into the nice cool waters our calm waters where ferris daughter is that's not really what's happening it makes for a really good movie though and the kids love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not really what our passage says.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that Moses's mommy carried the basket.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure it was waterproof and he'd be safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then cause it to be caught in the reads on the river bank.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that specifically with the goal of hoping that someone would come along and find her baby who would be allowed to raise her baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the picture we're given in our passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Moses' older sister is used by God.
[SPEAKER_01]: She stands, watching over him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the Lord gives the older sister wise words to speak to Pharaoh's daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then gives her quick feet to run and fetch her mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then grants her the joy of being his servant for good.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a little girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's probably not even a teenager yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God has given her this joy of being His instrument as a young lady, as a child, the Lord delights in choosing women as instruments of His provision.
[SPEAKER_01]: And throughout history, the Lord has delided in this, He has delided in choosing women.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether they be mothers or sisters in Egypt, like in our story, or a woman in
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all right, not the first time this is happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I just have the phone?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all right, I'll keep going.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the power comes back on, it comes back on.
[SPEAKER_01]: If not, that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we did this for a year or two before.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's nothing new.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So moving back to our thought here, throughout human history, the Lord is delighted in choosing women as instruments of his provision, whether they be mothers or sisters in Egypt, like in our story, we're looking at this morning, or a woman in Jericho with a promiscuous past, think about when the spies go into Jericho,
[SPEAKER_01]: who is used by God to spare their lives and then God blesses this lady in the future of Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's a woman who is a forbidden Moabite, think of Ruth, or slave girl of name and or the new queen of an empire, Esther.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether a teenage virgin and Bethlehem, Mary, or a woman who was too old to have children in the Gospels,
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord delights and choosing to provide through women who live by faith in the goodness and the trustworthiness of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the Lord's delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: He delights using women of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying this morning, he has no place for men.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just emphasizing that though the Lord does use men in mighty ways and he uses them as his kings and prophets and priests.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want my sisters and Christ to know today that the Lord delights in using women of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will delight in using you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please aim for that in your life, hope for that in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let that be a growing desire in your life that the Lord would be able to use you as a holy instrument in His hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: a lady who is cling to the rock of ages, who is not being tossed about by every single thing that comes her way in life, but instead is a lady who knows that the Lord is her help in her guide.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lady who believes the words of God, who knows the words of God, deeply inner soul, and who believes them and clings to them, the Lord would delight in using you.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can he use you?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have children, then you are an evangelist in your home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There should be no greater evangelist to your children than that mommy in that home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is a husband also an evangelist to unsaved children who are young?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in most cases, it is mommy who has most of the conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: who does most of the correcting during the day, ladies do not lay down this great opportunity to be an instrument in God's hand for the good of your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third eternal good, not just whether or not they get into Stella and Bosch or they go to Oxford or they go to some other fancy university who cares.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies, may you raise your children to know God, fear God, and love Him, serving Him all their days.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is how your children will be set up for eternal life now and forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please, do not forsake this amazing opportunity and calling to raise children.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if you don't have children?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if you're chance to influence your children as long past.
[SPEAKER_01]: is God done with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as he has given you breath, he desires to use you for his glory in this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he does that, do not fear, he will fill you with joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: When God uses you for his glory, he fills you with joy, though it'd be difficult or painful, there is a joy that is greater than just happiness or comfort.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is eternal joy promised from God for those who love him and who serve him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, ladies, be encouraged, be convicted to go out and desire to be an instrument in the hand of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Lord will also choose to glorify His name through women who do not fear Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Women who idolize the created world will also glorify the Lord, but not by their own choice and not for their own good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, they will glorify God by their own destruction, their own judgment for the rebellion.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our passage to the Lord chooses Pharaoh's daughter, a pagan princess to deliver Moses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her motherly affection was directed toward him, and she made him, her son, training him in all the ways of the Egyptians, offering him all the pagan pleasures of Egypt, tempting him to forget the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Hebrews 11, 24, through 25, looking back all the way from the New Testament, tells us that by faith Moses
[SPEAKER_01]: When he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: He refused.
[SPEAKER_01]: Choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we know that is what Pharaoh's daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moses is adopted mother, what
[SPEAKER_01]: what she offered him, all the pleasures of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: She determined to set him up for success as an Egyptian, which means to worship their gods, to delight in their pleasures.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Women may oppose God or ignore God, but in the end, every woman on earth will glorify God, whether by your joy in him or by your own destruction and judgment before him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the two options for women who have ever lived.
[SPEAKER_01]: To glorify God, by enjoying him and delighting in him and serving him,
[SPEAKER_01]: or glorifying God by being judged and destroyed by Him in castaway.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much better is it to glorify God by being a chosen instrument for His glory and your own good?
[SPEAKER_01]: Those things can never be separated for the believer.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the woman of faith, the glory of God means her good.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are told.
[SPEAKER_01]: Romans 828 that we all know.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is so obvious that everyone in the church should know this for we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are promised that when we enter into the new heaven and the new earth, when we see Jesus' face,
[SPEAKER_01]: And we leave this world behind that this world will be but a vapor, a breath, a moment, something to be easily forgotten because of the glory shining on our face.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the good promise to every woman of faith, how much better it is to walk with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: knowing that as you glorify Him with your every thought and every breath and every word that He is filling up your joy now and forever and you can begin experiencing it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Scriptures are full of promises for the joy of believers who are here now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying happiness and wealth and comfort.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, being a believer is very uncomfortable at times.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is joy for you, as you cling to the rock of ages, a joy that cannot be shaken because the rock cannot be shaken.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much better it is to serve the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next in this narrative, we find that the Lord mocks His enemies, that's my second point.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord mocks His enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is full of the use of mockery to get a point across.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, like with Elijah and the prophets of Baal,
[SPEAKER_01]: Blunt insults are used to mock pagan gods and priests.
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah stands there and mocks the priests who are chanting and calling out to their pagan god to send down fire from heaven to burn up this sacrifice and nothing is happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: All we're hearing are the chirping of the crickets and he mocks them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says maybe he's off hunting or maybe he's going on a trip or maybe he's relieving himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's mocking their God, mocking these pagan priests and the Scripture is full of this mocking of God's enemies to get a point across our narrative this morning picks up on a more subtle type of mockery.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called, we call it irony.
[SPEAKER_01]: The irony of what's going on is supposed to mock the enemies of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, in the use of the word river or
[SPEAKER_01]: We were just told an Exodus chapter 1 verse 22 that Pharaoh commanded all the people of Egypt to throw the Hebrew baby boys to their death in the river or the Nile.
[SPEAKER_01]: These words are so similar, they're almost exactly the same word, the word river or the word the Nile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Toss them into the river.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now in our passage, we're told that Moses's mom puts her son in the river to save his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: the river or the Nile becomes the way of life and casting a baby boy into the Nile becomes the first step in Israel's deliverance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pharaoh thought he would destroy them.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is going to save them by a baby boy put into the river the Nile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second.
[SPEAKER_01]: God appoints Pharaoh's daughter to unwittingly say the Hebrews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about this, Hebrews.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Pharaoh is saying, I'm going to kill them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to slaughter them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to defeat them and it's Pharaoh's daughter who saves the Hebrews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her actions ensure that Israel's Redeemer is fed, clothed, and educated for the very purpose of casting off the tyranny of
[SPEAKER_01]: third, Moses's mother is a slave.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're told that the Hebrews were all being treated like slaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet Moses's mother is offered wages to nurse her own baby boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you think about the irony of it?
[SPEAKER_01]: not only was Moses not put to death by Pharaoh, but instead the treasury of Egypt actually pays a slave to nurse her own baby boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the God we serve who brought that about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fourth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pharaoh's daughter gives this baby boy a name that will boast of how the sacred Nile River gave her a son, this river was sacred to them and you can imagine her thinking in her mind that the gods are granting me a son and I and my graciousness and going to save him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This name she gives her son is a boast in her gods and
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, think with me a verse 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse 10, we're told that Pharaoh's daughter named him Moses, because she said, I drew him out of the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, Pharaoh's daughter drew him out of the sacred waters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether Pharaoh's daughter spoke this name in Hebrew, we can't know for certain.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is clear?
[SPEAKER_01]: is that the name Moses doesn't mean I drew him out.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the meaning of Moses of the name Moses.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is another Hebrew name she could have given him that would have meant I drew him out.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what Moses means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead Moses' name means he who draws out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He who draws out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moses' name didn't praise Pharaoh's daughter or their gods, instead his name promised that Moses would be God's human redeemer who would draw Israel out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even in his naming, she got it wrong because God knew what he would do and God would get it right.
[SPEAKER_01]: The wicked plots against the righteous and nashes his teeth at him, but the Lord lasts at the wicked for he sees that his day is coming Psalm 37, verse 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the irony in our passage this morning as God mocks his enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, the Lord in our passage redeems through babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: the Lord redeems through babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're reminded in this passage that throughout the unfolding story of salvation of the world, the Lord has chosen to redeem His people through the birth of babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I am tempted to go down a rabbit hole and start talking to you and preaching to you and proclaiming to you the joy of having children and having the privilege of being a father who fills the his quiver full of arrows like a soldier going off to war is what scripture tells us children are like arrows in the quiver of a soldier that's how men should
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not the point in this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this passage, the point is instead that in the story of salvation, God has redeemed his people through babies in order to humble the proud, mock the mighty, and instruct the wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is why God has used babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord told us he was going to do this all the way back at the fall of humanity, saying to the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
[SPEAKER_01]: He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the first promise of this mighty clash between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, a baby would be born of a woman who would be the snake crusher.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes God, in this Old Testament, would give shadows of this baby who would redeem humanity a shadow of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Genesis 5, verse 28, a baby is born, and God reveals to his father that this baby is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis 5, 28, we read, when Lamek had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name, Noah, saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: He hoped that Noah would be this Redeemer,
[SPEAKER_01]: There's one that would bring them relief from the work and the painful toil of their other hands in the cursed ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Noah only saved his own family and those animals got sent him alive.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a redeemer of humanity of sorts, but he was only a shadow.
[SPEAKER_01]: and short lived.
[SPEAKER_01]: He only saved his own family, and as soon as they exit the arc in plant a vineyard, we see that wickedness survived with them on the arc in the hearts of Noah and his family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in Exodus, another child is born whose name means he who draws out.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one who will redeem
[SPEAKER_01]: But even Moses at the end of his life would admit that he was only a shadow of the one to come, saying to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 18, saying to them, looking forward, saying, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from among your brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is to him, you shall listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knew.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not the one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knew there was one to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: And 1500 years later, a baby is born in Bethlehem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And an angel announces about this baby, you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh saves.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Jesus means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh saves.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: which God promised all the way at the beginning from back at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: The baby who had crushed the serpent's head, and the baby who had ultimately bring his people relief from the painful toil of their hands, not just in the cursed ground, but the painful toil of trying to be right with God through my own works.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can anyone do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: can be right with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: No woman, no child.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one can be right with God through the painful toil of their own hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus came.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He says, I have come to give you rest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come to me, all who are weary, heavy, late and come to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rest in me, I will carry your workload of sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will carry it to the cross for you, and I will abolish it once for all, for all who believe, who come to Him in humility and faith, that is how you can receive relief from the painful toil of trying to work your way to God,
[SPEAKER_01]: is by coming to Jesus in humility and faith, bringing nothing but your guilt, your debts, placing them at the feet of Jesus and saying, Lord, pay my debt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no other way of escaping the painful toil of my heart and mind and hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, I will carry it for all those who come in faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: For all who come believing that you cannot do it on your own, you must have the Son of God slain for you on the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is how you can be relieved of your labor to pay your own debt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is the only way.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've come by faith, you are born again believe or your debt is paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are set free.
[SPEAKER_01]: You no longer work to pay off a debt.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't pay for your sin and you can't repay Jesus for the good work he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot pay him back.
[SPEAKER_01]: All you can do is be set free.
[SPEAKER_01]: and work freely for the master that is worthy of your devotion, of your love, and of the rest of your joy in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's worthy of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give it to him freely, not as an attempt to repay some debt.
[SPEAKER_01]: The debtor's ethic is a terrible way to live, to try and live the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can only live the Christian life as a free child of God who delights in your redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the only way to live the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Moses, Jesus, the baby who was born would also be spared by God when King
[SPEAKER_01]: Moses is a foreshadowing of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was spared by God from harrant, though all the baby boys of Bethlehem were slaughtered.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like Moses, this baby would be protected and raised in Egypt for a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joseph takes the family and he flees to Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once again, Egypt
[SPEAKER_01]: until God called His Son out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're told that in Matthew 2, that Jesus leaving Egypt going back to Cainin to the promised land to Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew 2, we're pointed all the way back to how
[SPEAKER_01]: The Israelites were called out of Egypt by God.
[SPEAKER_01]: God says, I have called my son out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exodus 2 is a glorious shadow of how the Lord will mock his enemies by providing a redeeming baby through women of faith, so that no man may boast in his presence when he delivers his people from their bondage to sin and death.
[SPEAKER_01]: For God has chosen, we're told in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 27.
[SPEAKER_01]: For God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: God shows what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
[SPEAKER_01]: God shows what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are.
[SPEAKER_01]: so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together, and I'm going to pray over you Psalm 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: May the Lord answer you in the day of your trouble.
[SPEAKER_01]: May the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
[SPEAKER_01]: May He send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion.
[SPEAKER_01]: May He remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices, how you serve Him with your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: May He grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans if they're in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: May we shout for joy over your salvation and in the name of our God, set up our banners,
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed, He will answer Him from His holy heaven with the saving might of His right hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm, trust, and chariots, and Psalmin horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.
[SPEAKER_01]: in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh Lord save the King as He did the Lord Jesus and may He answer us when we call to Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.