Title: QM (Quiet Mode)
Text: Exodus 1:8-2:10
Thesis: Faith trusts God when God is quiet… especially in a noisy world.
Back Story
This is the story of the enslavement of the Israelites and the birth of Moses. Exodus 12:40-41 states: “The people of Israel lived in Egypt for 430 years. In fact it was the last day of the 430th year that all the Lord’s forces left the land.” In his address to the Council in Acts Stephen summarized the hand of hand at work in Israelite history from Abraham to Jesus Christ at which point the Jewish leaders drug him out and stoned him to death. But in Acts 7:6 Stephen reaffirmed the historical record that the people of Israel had been oppressed and enslaved for 400 years.
On July 4th we celebrated the birth of our nation… this year we are 238 years old. It has been 238 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That is a long time. But 150 plus years before that things were astir.
Transition: Today we are living in the year 2014… 400 years ago it was 1614. These are some things that happened 400 years ago in what we now call The United States of America.
Slide 3
1607 - English found Jamestown, Virginia
1608 - French found Quebec
1609 - Spanish found Santa Fe
1613 - A Dutch trading post is set up on lower Manhattan Island.
1619 – Dutch delivered the first slaves to Virginia
1620 - November 9, the Mayflower ship lands at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with 101 colonists.
1620’s - Puritans settle in Massachusetts
400 hundred years is a long time in the United States and it is a long time in Egypt. One might wonder where was God for all those long, long years of oppression and enslavement?
Introduction
My first smart phone was a Motorola Android or Droid. My second phone was a Droid. I loved my Droids. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which is built on an Android platform so it is essentially a Droid. I think what I like most about my phone is the screen size and clarity. The thing I like least about my phone is that it does not say, “DROID!” when I get a notification.
The smart phone has changed my life in many ways… mostly good ways but not all. It simplifies my life but also complicates my life. It is not only good for calling, I can text and email on my phone. I Google. I can check the weather on WeatherBug. I keep my clock and calendar in the palm of my hand or my pocket. I have apps to read The Week and USA Today as well as newspapers from around the world every day with a touch on the screen. I have GPS. Facebook. My phone keeps my list of contacts. I have YouTube, Note pad, A Tools app with a calculator and Polaris Office and a bunch of other stuff I don’t know anything about. It is a Camera and photo Gallery. At a touch I access Goodreads. I have the Kindle app so I can read from my library on my phone. I use the Amazon app. I can bank and pay bills on my phone. And a bunch of other stuff too…
The up side is if I keep my phone charged it works 24/7/365. It is tireless. It is working all the time. And as it works it lets me know what it is doing. It rings, it dings, and vibrates. It also does a little trill thing. Whenever I receive any input it notifies me… 24/7/365. The downside… consequently the more people who have my number or email address can reach me at will… an amazing number of people seem to wait until bed time to get in touch so I can take whatever they have on their mind to bed with me. The more notifications I wish to be made aware of, like late breaking news on CNN or Covnet… the more noise it makes. And sometimes it makes noise at the most inopportune times, like 3 a.m. or during a meeting or when I am trying to get some work done.
Fortunately I do not have to either have my phone on or off… the device has “Quiet Mode.” On Quiet Mode the thing does not move or make so much as a peep. But… despite its silence the phone is busily doing what it does. It receives calls and texts and email. It receives notifications. It keeps time. It keeps my calendar. It maintains all the stuff I will need when I go to Settings and turn off the Quiet Mode.
Keep that in mind.
The question that initially comes to mind as I read this text is to ask, “Where is God when life happens?”
I. When Life Happens
So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves… they were ruthless in their demands. Exodus 1:8-14
At the invitation of Joseph, the Israelites arrived in Egypt and enjoyed the good will of the Pharaoh. But eventually that Pharaoh died as did Joseph. For many years they had lived and thrived in the Land of Goshen but eventually a new Pharaoh came to power who had no historical knowledge, did not know Joseph and perceived the Israelite people as the threat so he enslaved them.
That is an example of when life happens. Of course when life happens it is easy to forget that mostly good things happen in life. It seems a few days in hospice can overshadow a lifetime of health, loving relationships and enduring friendships, a meaningful career and a lasting legacy. But when we say, “life happens,” we mean something has changed that is not good and in saying, “life happens,” we intend to lessen the blow.
A. Life is for the most part predictable.
If you are watching a movie on television and there is a helicopter scene you can predict that it will explode. If there is a scene with a walkie talkie you can predict that the talkers will lose contact and there will be a bunch of static. You can predict that if there is a scene where someone is carrying a bag of groceries there will likely be a loaf of French bread sticking out of the top of the bag. If there is an airplane scene someone will shoot a gun making a small hole through which everyone in the plane gets sucked out that hole.
We like the Israelites live pretty predictable lives. We get up in the morning, grab a bite and go to work. We come home later in the day and crash for a couple of hours and go to bed… then do it all over again the next day. We celebrate birthdays and commemorate deaths. We recreate and we relax. We take walks and go shopping. Life is predictable until you predictably go in for your annual physical and discover you have cancer.
B. Life can be predictably unpredictable
Based on the perceived perversity of the universe Murphy put it this way, “If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.” They say the adage as we know it was derived from an earlier Murphy statement, “If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then he will do it that way."
At any rate, life was going along just fine for the Israelites. They were living in a choice part of Egypt. They were prospering. Life was good. And then life happened. “So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves and were ruthless in their demands. And they worked the people of Israel without mercy.” Exodus 1:8-14 There was a new normal for the Israelites living in Egypt.
Where was God when the Egyptians were working the Israelites without mercy?” Where is God when life happens?
In Exodus 2:23 it is clear that the Israelites were not passive about their situation. It says years passed and the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out to God…
Years passed and they continued to groan… we westerners do not readily buy into the idea of years passing before we are heard. We think of God as an ATM… we drive up, insert our card, punch in our pin, select withdrawal and walla, out pops some money.
We think God should be like a fast-food drive-thru. Last week I made a pass through the Sonic drive-thru. There were several cars in front of me. The lady immediately in front of me had a couple of dozen children in her SUV and it turned into the eternal order as she ordered and then changed her order and then as she was about to drive away she decided she would upgrade the drinks to Route 44’s or whatever.
When dealing with God we should be able to place our order, pull up and pick it up at the window. Boom! Done! We ordered and God gave! None of this “where is God” stuff works with impatient people.
As the text unfolds the storyline becomes even more dire and we might well wonder, “Where is God when life goes from bad to worse?”
II. When Bad goes to worse (If you think that was bad, it gets worse!)
Then the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt gave this order, “If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” Exodus 1:15-22
The new Pharaoh eventually grew increasingly uneasy as the Israelites continued to thrive under the thumb of slavery and fearing their ever increasing numbers posed an even greater threat, he decided a little genocide might serve to stop their population growth. The pharaoh ordered the midwives to make sure no baby boy survived at birth.
When the midwives failed to kill every newborn boy at birth he made a decree demanding that every newborn Hebrew boy be tossed into the Nile River. Now there is another new normal for the Israelites.
That’s an example of when bad goes to worse. As if slavery were not enough… now all little boy babies were to be tossed into the Nile River at birth.
To go from bad to worse a bad situation has to become an even worse situation. Going from bad to worse is worse than being caught between a rock and a hard place. Going from bad to worse is like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Going from bad to worse means your situation is going downhill fast and picking up speed.
I think I first heard of the Ebola Virus in 2005 when it broke out in The Republic of Congo and moved on to Gabon and Guinea. More recently a strain of the virus has broken out in West Africa… In Guinea 406 have died and counting; in Liberia 624 have died and counting; In Nigeria 5 and counting; and in Sierra Leone 392 and counting. That is a catastrophic example of how life happens and then things go from bad to worse.
Things simmered in Ferguson, Missouri for years. Then a young man smokes a little weed, robs a quick mart and goes for a walk down the middle of a street. A policeman asks him/told him/ordered him to walk on the sidewalk. There is a confrontation that none of us saw but the young man is dead and the policeman’s life is forever messed up. A city goes into an uproar. Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson fly in. There are protests then riots and looting… Things go from bad to worse very quickly. Just when we think things cannot get any worse… they can and sometimes do.
Closer to home, we’ve all had similar scenarios in our lives. My brother Al had an ache in his arm and shoulder for a year. During his annual physical this year his doctor pronounced him in great shape and asked if he had any concerns. Al said, “Yes, my shoulder hurts.” So there was a little physical therapy. His shoulder still ached. So they did an X-ray and found lesions on his upper arm. So they did an MRI and found lesions on his upper arm, his rib cage and both upper thighs. From an ache to bone cancer to radiation and chemotherapies to knowing there is no cure… you can only knock it down and hopefully into remission. And if all goes well you can live quite a while…
Where was God while all those little boy babies were being tossed into the Nile River. Where is God when things go from bad to worse?
At this point the biblical account becomes very personal. It is about a specific mother who is at her wits end and desperate to save her son. Now the question once again becomes, “Where is God when things get desperate?”
III. When desperate times call for desperate measures… like a leap of faith
When she could no longer hide him, she made a basket of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. Exodus 2:1-10
Moses’ mother placed him in a basket in the Nile River… Why did she do that? Her placing Moses in a basket and floating him among the reeds along the river bank was nothing less than a leap of faith.
A leap of faith is a point at which we believe that the possibilities outweigh the risks. And if we are acting in faith in accordance with God’s will all things are possible.
“It is often beyond our ability to explain why God chooses the timing God does. Even looking through the eyes of faith it “takes practice and maybe some imagination to see the activity of God in troubled times.” (Hoezee)
I doubt Moses’ mother was entertaining any such lofty thought… my guess is that she believed her baby was a “special baby” and kept him hidden for three months. I rather doubt the other Israelite mothers who tossed their sons were thinking their sons were not special and therefore good for nothing but tossing into the river. But the story is about Moses and how God was quietly orchestrating his story and history.
She believed Moses was special and she was desperate to keep him alive at great risk. She hid him and then in a leap of faith… believing the possibilities outweighed the risks, placed him in a basket and floated him among the reeds along the Nile River bank.
How many times have you prayed a prayer of desperation? When we reach the end of our rope and resources, desperate times call for desperate measures. By desperate measures, I don’t mean we rob a liquor store to pay the bills or buy a kidney harvested to be sold on the black market. I mean we have nothing left but hope and a prayer. So we put it out there and leave it in the hands of God. Still wondering, “Where is God when we have reached the point of desperation?”
It is an interesting and ongoing question. Hebrews 11 is known as “The Faith Chapter” in the bible. It is the story of God’s people, all of whom lived by faith, trusting that God would keep his promises. The believed that even though they could not see the end, it was there and it was real. “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about the things we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:1
The chapter is a long list of people who lived and died believing God was and would be faithful to them. The end of the chapter honors those people this way, “All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us…” Hebrews 11:39-40
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves when life happens and when bad goes to worse and we are so desperate all that is left is to thrust ourselves into the care of God that this is not all there is! Be long-sighted rather than short-sighted. One day is like a thousand years to God… life unfolds differently in the mind of God.
Conclusion
In our text today it would seem that God was both unaware and unavailable for 400 years. But in “Quiet Mode” God was aware and working. Once again, “It is often beyond our ability to explain why God chooses the timing God does. Even looking through the eyes of faith it “takes practice and maybe some imagination to see the activity of God in troubled times.” (Hoezee)
In Exodus 2:23 it says, “Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help and their cry rose up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.”
Years later, in a conversation with Moses (that baby boy placed in a basket in the Nile River as a leap of faith) God said, “I have seen the oppression of my people and I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. I am aware of their suffering. Yes, I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land.” Exodus 3:7-8
For me faith comes down to understanding that I simply do not know and perhaps cannot know what is in the mind of God. Someone even went so far as to say, “Human beings have no business, let alone competence in trying to figure out the intricacies of how and why things happen.”
When Job got all testy God used up 4 chapters at the end of Job to put him in his place. God began his confrontation in Job 38 with these words, “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words?”
In Isaiah 45:11 God seemed to be a little irked when he said, “I am the Holy one of Israel and your Creator: Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?”
One passage I turn to when I am absolutely at a loss in understanding the way things are is Isaiah 55:8-9 where God says, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Even when God is in “Quiet Mode” be assured God is on the job. God is at work even if we aren’t getting any rings or dings or notifications.
