Introductory Considerations
1. One of our families favourite summer places used to be the beach, but it is also one of the most dangerous places, as we have found out more than once. One summer day, a number of years ago, we were at the beach, our daugther, Sarah, was out in the water on an air mattress, floating on top of the water. She was probably 5 or 6 years old. She had started off near the shore but she had drifted and she suddenly realized that the shore seemed dangerously far away. Holding onto the mattress with her hands, she tried to stand up, but her feet would not reach the bottom. She did not know how to swim. Thank God that she did not panic but was able to get back on the mattress. But the wind kept on blowing her away from shore. When I saw how far out she was I ran out and safely brought her back to shore.
2. In our call to worship this morning the psalmist talks about deep water. He talks about God who (Psa 18:16) reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.
3. He is not talking about the beach however. Instead he is talking about the deep waters in our lives when we experience troubles and turmoil.
4. In some ways we can think about of our lives as being on an air mattress.
a. We seem to float along with everything being safe and stable.
b. But every so often things change. Perhaps the mattress springs a leak, the waves get to high, or we loose balance and fall off. The winds of change so easily blow us from the shores of safety and stability to deep dangerous waters.
c. This especially happens in this rapidly changing world.
5. We have seen this in our midst. The restructuring of local governments, of hospitals, of the education system have upset things in the past year. Maybe some of us are still wondering how our jobs will be affected. We have buried 5 of our loved ones this year. We have seen broken marriages. Illness have come upon some.
6. We may look forward to the next year with apprehension. We may wonder how far we may float from the shore and how deep the water will be. we may even find ourselves going under.
Teaching
1. The world moved at a much slower pace 4300 years ago than it does now. But the passage before us depicts a pivotal time of change in the history of Israel.
a. We move from the time of the patriarchs to that of the exodus and the subsequent entry into the promised land.
b. There is also a massive change in the lives of the people. They had been experiencing prosperity and freedom, not in the land that God had chosen for them, but in the land of Egypt. But this was soon to change.
2. As we examine the frightening changes that they faced and how they responded to these changes, we are given direction and hope for the known and unknown changes we face.
3. God had promised Abraham and the people of Israel their own land in Caanan. They had come to Egypt in order to escape the famine in their own land. Joseph had been sold as a slave by his brothers, but he ended up becoming Pharaoh’s right hand man. He had ruled Egypt and saved it from the effects of the famine by having Egypt store up grain. Jacob and his eleven other sons came to Joseph in Egypy and settled in the region of Goshen, where they acquired property there and were fruitful, increasing greatly in number. Before he died, Joseph told his sons that God would surely come and take them out of Egypt and into the land that He had promised to his great-grandfather, Abraham.
4. He made them swear an oath that they would return to this land. I wonder if as time went by, they did not forget this oath. We also find it easy to forget the promises we have made to God or to others. "Did I promise that?" after all, things were good for them in Egypt. Why should they leave?
5. In Exodus 12:40 we read that they stayed in Egypt for 430 years. More that 400 of those years were good years, but things were about to change and I wonder if these changes were necessary to draw them back to their own land and to make them keep the oath they had made to Jacob.
6. In vs. 8 we read that a new king came to power in Egypt. This pharaoh was probably Ramses 2, who started a new dynasty and was not related tp those who ruled before him. He did not either care or know what Joseph had done for Egypt. Instead of seeing the Israelites as his friends, he saw them as a threat. He saw how they prospered and worried that perhaps one day they might become so powerful that they might become allies with his enemies, for they lived in an area through which their enemies would probably attack.
7. And so, because of his fears, the pharaoh does three things.
8. First, he took away the freedom the Israelites had. He put masters over them to oppress them with forced labour. He made them build cities in which large granaries were built to store grain for trade and to feed the armies of Egypt. He hoped to weaken the physical strength of the people and to crush their spirit. Certainly it would stop their incraese in numbers.
a. But that is not what happened. Instead of being crushed, the people grew stronger and increased in number. As a result, he forced them to make bricks and work the land. But the more he oppressed them, the more they grew.
Why?
b. First, of all, when you try to oppress a people who have a strong sense of purpose, they become even more determined. They dig their heals in and even if they cannot fight back directly, they become determined not to break. As one song says "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". Adversity can draw us to God and give us a spiritual toughness that enables us to face these deep waters through God.
c. Second, they were God’s chosen people and God strengthens His people. We see this when we look back at the terrible oppression that many people in eastern Europe suffered for many decades.
d. In Romania, a third of the people were believed to be informants for the government. The people were forced to live with little food and heat so that Concesco (Chowchessko) could build his palace. Their life was so poor, that the people willingly died for freedom. Also, their faith remained and grew even though they were not allowed to worship God.
9. If we look back at some of the difficult times in our lives, we can see how we grew in character and closer to God.
10. Because his first plan failed, Pharaoh devised a new one. Hhe called in the Hebrew midwives and told them to kill all the male babies as they were being born. This would slowly exterminate the makes and leave only the weaker female slaves, so he thought.
a. To be called before th Pharaoh must have brought fear to the two women. But their fear of Pharaoh was not nearly as great as their fear of God. They would not do this terrible thing that they were asked to do. As a result, God blessed them with children of their own. Pharaoh’s second plan failed
Why?
b. Because the people of God feared and obeyed Him.
c. We live in a world in which we often need to make choices between the ways of the world or God’s way. The hardest thing is to be in a group of people who want us to do something wrong. It is easy to go along with them just this one time. "God will understand!" God does forgive us when we are genuinely sorry for our sins, but we will still reap consequences for the wrong choices we make. And it might reveal to us that we truly have not trusted God and put our faith in Him. And we will miss out enjoying the blessings of following His ways just as the midwives did
11. Pharaoh was not ready to give up, however. He had one more plan. He had to get rid of the Hebrew males, so he ordered that every boy that was born had to be thrown into the Nile River. How many babies died this way, we do not know.
12. This leads us to the story of the birth of Moses.
13. As we read about his birth, God is not mentioned but He is there, caring for Moses. Just as in our lives, He watches over us, even when we do not think of Him.
14. The story of Moses is well-known. A favourite of Sunday School children. A Levite woman gave birth to a son and she saw that the son was fine. This expression in Hebrew meant that his beauty was seen as a peculiar token of divine approval and a sign that God had a special design or plan for him. She hid him for three months, but perhaps his crying grew to loud and she could no longer hide him. So she made a tiny ark, a papyrus basket coated with tar and pitch so it would not sink. She placed the baby in the ark and placed him among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. Kind of reminds me of the air mattress. Pharaoh’s daughter came by and when she saw the basket and the baby she felt sorry for him. Moses’ sister had been hiding and watching. She went to Pharaoh’s daughter and asked if she could get a Hebrew woman to wean the child. Pharaoh’s daughter agreed and she got her mother who ended up weaning her own son. When the boy was weaned, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter.
15. Two times the mother gave up her son. First to the Nile River and then, at the age of two, to Pharaoh’s daughter. The second time must have been very hard.
a. But she knew she was really giving up her son into God’s hands and trusted that He would look after him.
16. So we too need to give our situations to God. To trust Him. To give Him control over the people or things that mean the most to us.
17. We have seen how to respond to adversity. To fear God rather than man. To trust God.
18. What we see here is how God takes the very things that are against Him and His people, and uses them for our good.
a. This third plan by Pharaoh backfired.
b. The river which was to become a river of death became a river of life for Moses. Who would have known that this baby would years later be used by God to bring freedom and life to all the Israelites. Pharaoh tried to exterminate the Jews and his daughter gave them life. While Pharaoh was planning to exterminate them, God was preparing to emancipate them. It was the very murderous edict by Pharaoh that led to the training and preparation of the human deliverer of Israel. In Acts 7:22, Stephen said that Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. By being in the king’s court, Moses learned much that he would later use to lead the people of Israel. What an amazing turn of events! As we said, the very things against us can be used by God to be for us.
19. God’s hand is in all things. At the time of tribulation, we may not understand this, but often we can see this later when we look back.
20. We also see that God is true to His promises. He was taking the first steps in leading the people back to the promised land. What is so awesome is how God does not change and how His plans for us are consistent.
21. In our passage there is much rich symbolism. Symbolism is something that the Hebrew mind appreciated much more than us. They had time to reflect on these symbols. Perhaps we need to spend more time in reflection
a. The story of Moses being in the water and then being rescued reminds us of God’s rescuing His people out of the water and by water. Iit reminds us of a much larger basket, the ark, which gave life to Noah and his family because Noah had remained faithful to God.
b. And later the Red Sea would be a body of water ued to rescue the Israelites and destroy the army of Egypt.
c. It was by this helpless baby that came out of the Nile that God would save His people. Later it was by a helpless baby born in Bethlehem and who was baptized and came out of the Jordan, that God would save His people from their sins.
d. It is water that is used in baptism to signify symbolically (by going into and out of the water) that we are rescued from death and cleansed of our sin.
22. The same God who rescued the people of Israel is our God. His plan for this world includes you and me and nothing can change His plan. Perhaps you are going through or facing changes in your life. Perhaps the world is moving too fast. Perhaps the water seems to deep. Remember we are in His hands and Gid rescues us from all that is against Him and His people.
23. Praise His holy name
