The Birth Of Moses Has The Making Of A Movie Series

June 22, 2003 Exodus 2:1-10

Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

A couple of years ago Disney came out with a movie called “the Prince of Egypt.” Of course, there was a lot of embellishment and conjecture - like Moses racing through the streets of Egypt on his chariot with the future Pharaoh. It also depicted Moses as being best friends with the Pharaoh when it came time to “let his people go.” It didn’t make reference to his brother Aaron at all from what I remember. But if you can look beyond all that and know the fact from the fiction, I’ll have to admit that it was better done than some Hollywood renditions of the Bible.

The story of Moses is interesting enough - in and of itself, without any embellishment or conjecture. It has drama, dilemma, and even a happy ending. I can see why he has been the subject of many Hollywood movies. Therefore I’m sure that you too will be intrigued as we go to the actual source of this story - God’s Word - and look not primarily at the man - but how God worked through the man - throughout this sermon series on Moses. Today we’ll see how

The Birth of Moses Has the Making of a Movie

I. The dilemma

Any good movie has to usually have some sort of dilemma. ` I haven’t seen Finding Nemo yet, but I think the dilemma has to do with Nemo being taken from his home to live in a fish tank. The dilemma is finding him and getting him back. In Toy Story the dilemma was how two toys would be able vie for Andy’s favor. The dilemma for today was real, however. It involved an evil king who wanted the Israelites - God’s chosen people dead. If you remember the history, Joseph had brought all of his brothers - children of Jacob - also known as Israel - down to Egypt during a famine throughout the land. Since God had used Joseph to save millions of people’s lives, the Egyptians were of course incredibly grateful to him and his family. But Exodus chapter one says, 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. Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he 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.” (Ex 1:6-10) The king decided to have all of the male babies be put to death. But when the Hebrew midwives refused to commit such a terrible sin, Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.

Can you imagine what must have gone through the minds of the Israelites! “What have we done to the Egyptians to make them want to murder our children? All we’ve done is farmed on their land and provided food for them - a job that they detest anyway! Yet now they’re threatening to come into our homes and murder our baby boys!” So what could they do? Exodus describes such a dilemma that Jochabed and Amram - Israelites of the tribe of Levi faced. Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. Instead of being happy about their pregnancies, they had to try and hide it! Since Moses was a fine child - healthy and not fussy, she was able to hide him for three months. Their first reaction was to hide and retreat from the confrontation as long as possible.