Bible Reading: Exodus 3

Stephen continues his speech by turning to the events recorded for us in Exodus 3.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Perhaps you’re the only Christian at work, school, college or in your family and it seems an impossible task. Or maybe you hear statistics about the church in the UK and you think it has no future. Or perhaps you are just struggling to hold life together, it’s one thing after another; pressure from work, family, friends, your marriage is not what you dreamed it would be. Everywhere you look you feel overwhelmed. Or maybe it’s the future; as you look at it with all its swirling uncertainty you think I’m not sure I can take it.

Exodus says to us ‘You are not alone!’, God’s people in Egypt feel like that; hard pressed, in slavery, victims of ethnic infanticide. Moses feels like that he’s gone from Egyptian Prince to wanted fugitive to shepherd – about as low as you can get from an Egyptian viewpoint. He’s tried to rescue Israel, tried to stand up for his oppressed people and what has it got him, rejection, exile, and a warrant for his arrest.

But Exodus is not a pity party, the consolation isn’t that there are others worse off than us – let’s be honest that isn’t really any help, it just adds another layer of guilt. The hope in Exodus is not in knowing Israel, not in knowing Moses but in knowing God. Exodus isn’t primarily about Israel it’s about God. These chapters aren’t primarily about Moses but about God. God’s name, God’s character and God’s plan, God’s rescue of his people according to his promise.

This is what we need, to have our eyes lifted to see God, his grace, his power and the privilege it is and the security it brings to belongs to his people.  That is what Stephen is trying to show the Sanhedrin.  How they have shrunk God, he isn't confined to the temple, he isn't limited by their thoughts on the law.  His plans and purposes are bigger, brighter, better.

God determinedly and deliberately reveals himself to Moses, God gets Moses attention, and tells him his plan to rescue his people and his purpose so that they will worship him. And the bombshell is in the final sentence “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

How does Moses respond? “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.” Moses has a history with Pharaoh, has been rejected by Israel, and is top of the Egyptian FBI’s most wanted list. But it isn’t pragmatism that leads Moses to say this; he doesn’t feel he can do it.

I think we need to be careful not to condemn Moses, and it’s easy to do isn’t it God speaks to him out of a burning bush, God has saved him for just this purpose and now God says ‘Go!’ and Moses says ‘I think you have the wrong man’. But we need to slow down on the itchy trigger finger, in case in condemning Moses we condemn ourselves. How often has God said to us go and we have responded ‘Who am I that I should...’ share the gospel with my work mates or family, go on a short term mission, encourage so and so, speak to...

And what does God do here? How does he answer Moses? God doesn’t condemn Moses; he doesn’t remind him of the ark, or his rescue, or his privileged education. In fact God says to Moses who you are doesn’t matter who I am matters. Do you see that? (12) "And God said, ‘I will be with you...I have sent you... you will worship God on this mountain." Moses you are right you can’t do it, but I can.  How often do we need to learn just that lesson, it is who God is that matters.

And God reveals who he is to Moses(13-22). Moses basically asks who are you? God tells Moses his name (14) “I AM WHO I AM.” Names matter in Exodus, Moses means drawn out, Gershom means foreigner, in a sense the name reveals the person and their history. Here God is saying “I AM WHO I AM”, there is nothing you can compare me to, there is nothing I am like, I AM God, incomparable to anything else I have made.

I AM is Yahweh, it is God’s name, the great creator and sustainer of the universe reveals his name to Moses, it is translated LORD in the rest of the book. Moses you don’t need to know you, you need to know me!

But who is Yahweh? (15f)He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He’s the God of the covenant, the one who called and gave promises of a people, place, plan and protection. He is the God who has kept his promises, who has proven that there is no one like him and that he is worth trusting.

He is the God who knows and acts; three times in ch3 God reveals his plan to Moses to keep his promises(v8, 17, 22)to free Israel from slavery, to bring them out of Egypt and into the promised land. And it is God who will do it “I have seen... I have promised... I know... I will...”(16-22).

Moses doesn’t need to know who he is he needs to understand who God is, because God is going to save his people.

Know God, this same God who reveals himself to Moses and says know me trust me, is the God who we call Father. Who goes even further so that we know him through Jesus Christ, and then dwells in us through his Holy Spirit. When we feel overwhelmed or fearful or weary we need to know God, who has rescued us and made us his children and who promises security is in knowing him not in circumstance.

Bible Reading: Exodus 2

Next Stephen moves on to consider Moses as he answers the charge of blasphemy against the Law and the Temple and therefore against God.  His point remains the same, it is not him who is guilty of blasphemy but the religious leaders who have rejected Jesus the fulfilment of all scriptures hopes and promises.  This morning I want to focus on Exodus 2v1-10.

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 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. 3 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. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 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 female slave to get it. 6 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.

7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?’

8 ‘Yes, go,’ she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 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. 10 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.’

Chapter 1 of Exodus ends with Pharaoh commanding all the Egyptians to throw Hebrew boys into the Nile, it’s a cliff hanger, in ch1 we see God work to frustrate everything Pharaoh does to stop Israel growing, so how will God respond to this? What will God do?

Chapter 2 opens with a birth of a baby and there is a tension inherent in the question every parent asks; what is it? You can imagine the mixed emotions at the answer ‘It’s a boy!’ Because that answer means this new born baby is a criminal, he is a fugitive, he is born onto death row! And with those words the parent’s world is changed forever, now they have a huge decision to make – what do they do with him?

(2)They decide to hide the boy, and they do for 3 months. Three nerve shredding months of trying to pre-empt cries, of shushing baby whenever there was the tramp, tramp of Egyptian soldiers boots on the road outside, trying to make everything seem normal, telling Miriam that no matter how excited she was to have a little brother she must not tell anyone. Every day living in fear that today would bring the fatal discovery, every cry or sound bringing terror and uncertainty.

And then final (3)the day comes when he just can’t be hidden anymore, what should they do? Well, in one sense they obey Pharaoh, Moses is thrown into the Nile.  But first they make a basket – even in that action we get a hint that God has a special plan for this baby, and through him for his people. The word basket can also be translated ark. This word for ‘ark’ is only used 27 times in the Old Testament, 25 times in the Noah story and twice here. And just as in Genesis this ark is waterproofed with pitch, and just as God saved Noah and his family through this ark so God will save Moses and through him his people and all people.

But whilst we know this, the parents didn’t and the tension continues. The ark is put in the Nile and of all the people you wouldn’t want to find it Pharaoh’s daughter finds it. Can you imagine Miriam’s heart pounding as Pharaoh’s daughter looks in and exclaims “This is one of the Hebrew babies”, what on earth will happen next! Surely Pharaoh’s own daughter will simply drop him in the Nile!

(6)But “she felt sorry for him”. God is sovereign, God is overruling Pharaoh again, and the extent of God’s overruling is amazing. (7-10)Pharaoh’s daughter pays Moses mum to raise Moses, and then takes him into the palace where he is educated and treated as a prince. And it is Pharaoh’s own daughter who names Moses, a name commemorating his rescue, saved for God’s purpose and God’s plans.

We need to be careful in applying a passage like this, it would be easy to put ourselves in Moses shoes or his parents and conclude that God saves his people, and therefore God will deliver us from any trouble we face. But that would be wrong! Because not only would it ignore the message of the rest of the bible but it would be to ignore the context here. (2:1-10)Focuses on one family in the big context of(1:22) this decree to kill all Hebrew boys. In other Hebrew families there is no rescue like this.

The focus is on this family because Moses will be greatly used by God to save his people. Not because God promises this protection from conflict with a hostile world for all his people.

God does not promise his people that they will never suffer, but that suffering will never eradicate his people. Just as Jesus does not promise we will never die for the kingdom of God but promises that the kingdom of God will never die and is worth dying for.

Even in the face of such implacable opposition God is working to save his people, who are secure because they are his people and part of his plans. Trust God.  What a thought to take into our day!

Spotting parallels in Exodus 2

Exodus Two is a brilliant chapter and as I've studied it this week I've seen an amazing number of parallels with other bits of the Bible and with later chapters of Exodus.
1. "Ark" the Hebrew word translated basket in v3 and 5 is the word ark, it appears only 27 times in the Old Testament, 25 times in the story of Noah and twice in these verses.  It gives us a glimpse of how God will rescue Moses through the water, as he will later do with the Israelites.

2. Moses rescue of the Israelites and Jethro's family has many parallels with God's.  Moses sees the Israelites suffering as does God, he strikes an Egyptian as God strikes an Egyptian, and his rescue of Jethro's daughters is described as being rescued or saved and delivered just as God will describe his rescue/deliverance of the Israelites.

3. Like Joseph Moses is rejected by his brothers and sent into exile.

There are also the obvious parallels with Jesus birth, though Jesus is the Saviour whereas Moses is saved to mediate God's salvation.

God is faithful to his people through his people

One of the things which really struck me as I studied and preached Exodus 1 was the naming of the two midwives.  Verse 15 is written in such a way that the names could not be given and nothing would be missed, so you have to ask why are the names of these two ladies included.  This is made even more apparent when you consider Pharaoh's name is not given just his title.

God remembers his faithful people, as Shiprah and Puah go about their job fearing God not Pharaoh, trusting God even with their lives as they disobey Pharaoh's mandate to kill baby boy Hebrews.  God does not forget them and God does not want his people to forget them, hence the recording of their names.  They are great examples of those who live by faith.  And a great encouragement to us that God is faithful to his people through his people - he will eventually send Moses to deliver his people, called, anointed, set apart to be Israel's mediator.  But he also works through the everyday faithfulness of his ordinary people to delivery his people.  What an encouragement that is to us as we go into work or labour at home.

That first morning buzz

This morning is the first day back in the saddle after two really encouraging and stimulating weeks studying Ezekiel, and then two weeks holiday - during which our fourth son (Elijah Benjamin) was born.  Sometimes you hear people talk about dreading going back to work after a break, but this morning it is with a real excitement that I'm starting work on the book of Exodus which we will be preaching through this term in the mornings. 

In fact so excited am I by Exodus that its been hard giving other people chapters to preach because I just want to preach all of it because it is so rich in terms of the vision it gives us of God, his character, his grace and his sovereignty.  I'd much rather have to work hard to give others bits to preach because I'd love to than be willingly giving them passages I want to avoid.  Exodus is just such a great book because it reveals so much about our great God!

Here's how we are dividing the book up:

ch 1 - God's people in trouble
ch2 - How not to rescue God's People!
ch3:1-4:31 - A Great God and a Fearful Leader
ch 5:1-21 - Who is this God?
ch 5:22-7:7 - God will be know and Save
ch 7:8-10:29 - God Revealed
ch 11:1-13:16 - God Redeems his People
ch 13:17-14:31 - God Glorified
ch 15:1-21 - The Futility of Opposing God
ch 15:22-17:16 - God and a Whingeing people
ch 18 - A Mystery Worshipper