Introduction To Exodus

Exodus as the Story of the Church and Abraham's Children 1:16

Well, that's what God did with the Jews. And at the same time, we miss this. The book of Exodus is not simply the story of some other ethnic people. Rather, it is the story of us, you and I. If we have the faith of Abraham, then we're Abraham's children.

And if you and I are Abraham's children, then Exodus — Exodus is our story. Across 10 weeks, we're going to see Exodus is the story of us, is the story of the church. All right, let's dive right in and see how this is so.

The Covenant Continues: Israel Fruitful and Multiplying in Egypt 1:45

“But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.”

— Exodus 1:7 (NKJV)

Let's look at verses one through seven, the very start of this book, chapter one, verses one through seven. I'm going to read this text, and as we usually do, I'm just going to work our way through as time would allow. Verses 1 through 7. Now, these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt.

Each man in his household came with Jacob. There was Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All those who were descendants of Jacob were 70 persons, because Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph then died.

I like how God is just a matter-of-fact. Joseph is dead. Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all of that generation. But, but the covenant continues.

But the children of Israel were fruitful, and they increased abundantly. They multiplied, and they grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. All right, let's stop there.

From Genesis to Exodus: Escaping Famine into Egypt 2:33

As we said a few moments ago, the book of Exodus continues the historical record that we found in Genesis. You have Genesis, and you have Exodus, and the one story feeds right into the — But second, Exodus picks up at the time where Genesis left off. God's people, as you remember, at the end of Genesis, they'd gone into Egypt in order to escape a famine.

If you remember the narrative at the end of the book of Genesis, a famine had hit Jacob and his family in the land of Canaan. And so they looked for supplies and help. Where? In Egypt.

And so they reached out. Ten of the eleven brothers initially reached out to Egypt, and they got connected with Joseph. And as the story goes, Joseph ultimately recognizes these as his brothers. And after a bunch of palace intrigue, he invites them to come and stay, and so they do.

The family moves into Egypt in order to escape the famine that otherwise would have consumed them. So they move to Egypt for a significant amount of time, a time that's so long that Joseph dies, and the brothers die, and everyone of that generation dies, which is what we see here in the first few verses.

Now initially, when God's people had been in Egypt, things had gone well, right? Initially, things had gone swimmingly, honestly. There had been a great time for all at that point, when they had been in Egypt. Under Joseph's initial protection, and even for a season thereafter, the people, they had been given a good land, a good stead, they were blessed for a great multitude of time, after Joseph's death even.

And verse 7 says that as a result of the blessings that they received, verse 7 says that they were fruitful and they multiplied, which is the dominion mandate that we see elsewhere in Scripture. They were fruitful and they multiplied, and they began to fill the land. So, so far, so good. So far, the story's going well for God's people.

But in due time, as we see in verse 6, Joseph dies. He reaches the age of 110, as we see in Genesis chapter 50, and then he is dead. Now, the ensuing generations would die off as well, and that brings us to verse 8.

The Rise of Pharaoh, the Greatest Villain of the Old Testament 4:28

In verse 8, there's a change in the winds. In verse 8, there's foreboding news. What news is that? Let's look together.

Verse 8, now there arose a new king over Egypt, And he did not know Joseph. There arose a new king over Egypt. With these simple words, we see the entrance to the greatest villain of the Old Testament. Bum, bum, bum.

There rose a king, and he did not know Joseph. Now, who is this guy? What king is this? What pharaoh is this?

Well, honestly, there's a lot of debate over what pharaoh this was. According to the noted theologian Cecil B. DeMille, the pharaoh named Ramses was the pharaoh here. Now, others don't agree with Cecil B. DeMille. They would say Amenhotep or a guy named Thutmose or Tutankhamen, who you know as who?

King Tut. So there's a number of different guys. Honestly, I'm not even covering all of them. There's a number of different people that think, well, maybe it was this pharaoh or that pharaoh, what have you.

What's fascinating is the Bible doesn't even bother to name this guy, which to my view is a case of divine irony. Here's the reason why. Of all of the cultures of antiquity, of all of them, can you guess what culture's leaders put the greatest primacy on being remembered in the years to come?

Egypt. Pharaohs wanted to be remembered. That's why they built all these pyramids and all other things. Pharaohs wanted to be remembered after they were gone.

It was really, really important to the pharaohs that they be recalled at time after, which is why they had all these building projects and the like. They built shrines for the namesakes. They wanted to be remembered. And because of that is wonderful divine irony that God in scripture doesn't even bother giving the name.

With that said, the salient point to verse eight is this, that whoever this Pharaoh was, he didn't know Joseph. He didn't know Joseph. And that implies that he felt no sense of empathy or obligation to Joseph's descendants.

The Oppression and Enslavement of God's People 6:36

All right, let's look at verses nine through 14 now. And this Pharaoh, this king, whoever this guy was, he said to his people, verse 9, he says, look, the people of the children of Israel, they're more and they're mightier than we. Come therefore, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they were to multiply, and it were to happen in the event of a war that they were to join our enemies, and that they were to fight against us, and then go up out of our land.

Therefore they set up taskmasters over to afflict them in their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, and mortar and brick, and all manner of service in the field.

And their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. It's repeated because the emphasis is on how hard and how brutal and how uncomfortable this service was. All right, in these verses, in verses 9 through 14, we see that this new Pharaoh, he's going to change the arrangement that the people, that the Jews had with the Egyptians.

There had been a certain arrangement that had gone for a period of time, and it probably altered somewhat across the centuries here, but he's going to change it significantly. Now why would he do that? What's the reason for doing that? Well, the pretext for this change in verse 9 was the threat that the Jews, if we keep letting them grow and they're fruitful and multiplying, they'll overtake the land.

And he says, no, we can't have this. He says, look, if the Jews become so fruitful and multiply, they'll outnumber us. And honestly, what will happen is that the Hittites up to the north, you know, they want to come in and mess with us anyway. And if they come mess with us, and then they find the Jews are willing, complicit with that, we might find ourselves outnumbered in our own land.

We've got to act. We've got to do something. So the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh, he sees a threat in the people of Israel, and he determines to act.

Pharaoh's Ambition and Forced Labor 8:28

That's at least part of his motivation. With that said, Pharaoh probably didn't understand Egypt's history as well as he should have before making these choices. He didn't look back at Egypt's own history and recognize that so long as the Jews had been within his borders, things had honestly gone very well. As long as God's people were there, God's provision had been there.

Now the Pharaoh, evidently he didn't know that, or pay attention to that, or read the history books, or he didn't care. So what did he care about? Well, like all the pharaohs, we mentioned it before, he cared about his namesake. He cared about his ambitions.

He cared about his building projects. He cared about expanding Egypt's might and authority during his reign. And because he looked around and said, you know, I really want to make Egypt great, you know, we're going to really improve Egypt and the like. When he looked at the Jews, then he saw a source of forced labor, of compelled labor that might expedite his vision.

So on the one hand, maybe he saw them as a threat, that's certainly what he said. But beyond that, you also get a sense he looks around the things he wants to do, and he says, you know what, these guys, we use these guys, we've really put them to work. I mean, they've been working before, but we really turn the screws here, we really put them to work with vigor or rigor, remember that came up multiple times, and then we'll really, we'll really be able to build.

So this is his desire, and this is the labor that verses 12 through 14 describe. And verses 12 through 14, whatever relationship the Jews had up to this point becomes far worse, and now it's depicted as flat-out enslavement in order to assist Pharaoh's building projects.

The Covenant Foretold: God's Promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 10:03

Now let me ask you a question. Do you think anyone could have seen that coming? The answer is yes. Let me explain why.

You know, if you were to look way back at Genesis, I mean way back, Genesis 15, this is early in the book. This is the time God's making covenants with Abraham, who's the first Jew, the first Jew. God's making a covenant with Abraham back in Genesis 15, and God's talking to Abraham about what the future's going to bring.

The descendants, as many as the seashore, and the stars in the sky, and the land of Canaan, the promised land, all those different things. The future's so bright you have to wear shades, but something's coming. Something's coming, and the people, the very people that will be descendants from you, at a certain point they're going to become enslaved by four nations.

Genesis 15, God warns Abraham about Egypt a long time before it happened. He said this, he said, no, certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that's not theirs, and they will serve them, and they will afflict them for 400 years. Centuries earlier, God had told Abraham, the father the Jews, the first Jew, what would happen.

Now Moses would have known this outcome too. I mean, he's the one who wrote Genesis. With that said, Moses also knew that even though this season would occur, that in time God would deliver His own. Because right after God told Abraham about the Jews' affliction, right after He warned him about what was going to happen.

He also told Abraham, he says, you know, the nation I'm talking about, the nation that they're going to serve, the nation they're going to be enslaved to, I will judge it. And afterwards, my people will come out with great possessions. The time's going to come, Abraham, when the people, they're going to be enslaved in a foreign land, and they're going to be there for a long time.

But in due time, they're going to come out. In due time, I'm going to send and deliver. They're going to be taken out of bondage. And when they come out of bondage, they're going to come out with great possessions, which is interesting, because that's exactly what we're going to see when we get a little further into our study.

So the point is this. Way back in Genesis, in Genesis 15, you see the whole plot line for the book Exodus in the book of Genesis. What God told Abraham was the basic plot points for what would happen centuries later in the book Exodus. And even though we see great oppression that would come, it would not last forever.

The Depravity of Pharaoh and the Faithful Midwives Who Feared God 12:19

Now we've talked about the Pharaoh's intentions to oppress God's people, to enslave them. Unfortunately, that was only part of his evil plan. The next few verses here, Pharaoh's going to double down on his wicked intentions. Verses 15 through 22.

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and you see them on the birth stools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him, but if it's a daughter, then she shall live.

But the midwives, they feared God, and they did not do the thing that the king of Egypt had commanded them, and they saved the male children alive instead. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive? And the midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women, they're not like the Egyptian women, they're lively, they give birth before the midwives even get to them.

And therefore God dealt well with these midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them. And so Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, every son is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.

The First Hitler: Scapegoating and the Extermination of a People 13:33

All right, in the first half of chapter one, Pharaoh demonstrated his depravity. Remember we called him the greatest villain in the Old Testament. Well, he demonstrated that in the first half of chapter 1, when he enslaved all God's people. He enslaved a whole people group, and he castigated them as enemies.

It's not just that he enslaved them, he castigated them as enemies of the people. And that wasn't the worst of it. In order to stop, here in the last half of chapter 1, in order to stop them from being fruitful and multiplying, he decrees all male children, all male babies will now be put to death.

Now, let's presume for a minute that it played out just so. Well, let's presume that from there on out that all male children had been put to death. Taken to its logical extreme, this would have ultimately led to the extermination of the Jews as a whole. God's people, God's covenant people would have been wiped out if this had been allowed to continue.

And that would have been an outcome that Pharaoh, he was just fine with. There was a commentator who said that in a sense you could argue that Pharaoh was the first Hitler. In both Egypt and in Germany, the Jews were portrayed how they're portrayed in both cases, as enemies of the people, enemies within.

And then their deaths, their deaths were portrayed as good and necessary for the well-being of the motherland. In both cases, the Jews were scapegoated. 20th century Germany, and way, way back here in the book of Exodus, the Jews are scapegoated for domestic problems, to the degree that their deaths, even deaths of babies, was considered just good policy, good policy in order to build a more vibrant Egypt and the like.

In a sense, all the centuries later, Hitler was just borrowing from Pharaoh's playbook. In fact, a lot of nations tried to borrow from Pharaoh's playbook, because a lot of nations came against Israel with Israel's extermination in view. Egypt's animosity, Germany's animosity towards the Jews would be replicated in the Old Testament by the Philistines, by the Amorites, by the Moabites, by the Hittites and the like, later on by the Assyrians, by the Babylonians, by the Greeks, by the Romans, basically everybody had the same intention.

The Preservation of Israel and the Faithfulness of God's Covenant 15:42

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever met a Philistine? Have you ever met an Amorite, Hittite, Jebusite, what have you? Why not?

Assuming you haven't, why not? Why haven't you met one? Well, the obvious answer is this. Because they're gone.

You haven't met an Amorite or a Hittite or a Jebusite or what have you because there aren't any. They are gone, buried with the sand of time. Pharaoh, this Pharaoh, all Pharaohs are dead. Same is true with the Caesars, as is their empire.

All the nations that enslaved Israel, they're gone there, they're buried in the sands of time. However, you know what, the Jews remain. All these entities, all these nations, which almost in every case were more powerful than the Jews, they're all gone. Israel remains.

Do you think that's an accident? The Hittites, Amorites, the Philistines, Jebusites, Amorites, what have you, all the ites, they are gone, buried in the sands of time. The Greeks, the Romans, Babylonians alike, gone, gone, gone. Israel still there.

Not an accident. Why? Because God made a promise. God had a covenant with His people, a covenant He would protect and preserve.

And although they would undergo difficult seasons, I mean, look what God told Abraham way back in Genesis 15. Although difficult seasons would come, God would always preserve a remnant, a remnant that He would continually, even up into the 20th century, restore into the very same land he told Abraham they would have. Accident?

I think not. You ever want proof that there's a God, just pick up a globe, draw a circle around Israel on the map. Rand McNally sometimes has better theology than some others. Exodus is the demonstration, as we look forward, Exodus is the demonstration that no matter what would befall God's people, that God would look after them, that He would protect them, that He would insulate them.

And He made no such promise to Egypt. He made no such promise to the Philistines. He made no such promise to any of these other nations. But He made the promise to Israel, and He's kept it to the point where all these centuries later, after undergoing oppression and exile and holocaust, they are still there.

That defies every expectation that the authors of history could ever assign to this small nation-state. Not an accident. God made a promise.

The Birth of Moses and a Mother's Trust in God's Providence 18:11

God has fulfilled it. Let's flip now to chapter two. Throughout our whole study, we're going to see God makes promises and God keeps promises. Let's see how the promise continues to be kept.

Let's look at chapter 2 for a few moments. Let's look at verses 1 through 10 to see what would happen next after Pharaoh attempted to deal with the Israelites. Verses 1 through 10. Now a man of the house of Levi went and took as a wife a daughter of Levi.

So the woman conceived and she bore a son, and when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, she daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, laid it in the reeds by the river bank, and his sister stood afar off to know what would be done.

Then, then the daughter Pharaoh came down to bathe the river, and her maidens walked alongside the riverside. And when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to go get it. And when she opened it, she saw the child, behold, the baby wept. So she had compassion upon him and said, this is one of the Hebrews' children.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse for you from among the Hebrew women? Does she mean nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said, her go. And so the maiden went and called the child's mother.

The maiden went and called Moses's mother. Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew, and then she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.

And so she called his name Moses, saying, because I drew him out of the water. All right, back in chapter one we saw Pharaoh's plan to kill all the Jewish infants, and at the start of chapter two we read of the birth of a particular infant that was born under this edict. Now what child was this?

Well, this is Moses. Verse one says that a man and woman of the house of Levi, they had a son, and after attempting to hide this child for three months or so, ultimately they're compelled by circumstances to place them in an ark, and then send the ark down the river. Now, any parents in this room, put yourself in the shoes for a moment, especially the mothers.

You have a child, this beautiful wonderful child, and for three months you get to hold this child every day and every night. This is your child. But then, through the edict of an evil individual, an evil state so to speak, you're forced to give this child up, put him in an ark made a bulrush, and send him down the river.

This had to be heartbreaking. This had to be heartbreaking. It would appear that Pharaoh's noose had tightened over these months, causing Moses' mother to do the unthinkable for any mother, any parent, to put a child in the river just as Pharaoh's decree, verse 22, had ordered.

The Ark of Bulrushes: Surrendering a Child to God's Providential Hands 20:57

Well, that said, notice in verse 3 that she made an ark. Remember, Pharaoh said, okay, all these kids, throw them in the river. Well, she did put in the river, but she did so by preparing an ark. And that's significant for a lot of different reasons, one of which is because when you hear the word ark, you think back to Noah's ark.

Well, Noah's ark was a vessel, an instrument that was crafted and created in order to harbor and protect God's people from that which would otherwise have killed them, otherwise had drowned them. Well, in this case, we see the same thing. She crafts something in order to harm and protect this child as she sends it forth into the world, so to speak, into the tides or rapids there in the river.

Now, stopping for a moment, do you think Moses' mom did the right thing here? You don't have to answer, but just think about it. Did Moses' mom do the right thing? Did she do the right thing by turning Moses over to the decree and edict of Pharaoh?

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. I don't think she was turning Moses over to Pharaoh's decree or edict. Rather, I think at this moment, circumstances compelled her to have no other option than this, but to turn her child over into God's providential hands. It wasn't a function of tossing the child into the river.

It wasn't really a function of Pharaoh. At this point, circumstances gave her no other option. If the child was to survive at all, she knew it could not be under her watch. And out of love for the child, she takes the child and she gives it back to God, so to speak.

That which has been entrusted to her the past three months, she prepares as best she can this ark and place it in the waters, the streams of which are directed by God Himself. And she turns her son over to the hands of a providential and a good God. You know, there are parents in this room that can relate to this to an extent.

What do I mean? Well, even though Moses was only three months old, every parent in this room will face the day when you send your child out into the world. Every parent knows or will know the experience of just having to trust God for their baby. To trust God that He will do something good with the child He's given them.

For what is a short season, whether it's three months or 18 years or what have you? Every parent understands that sensation of taking that which is precious to them, that which has been entrusted to them for a season, and giving that child to God's providential hands, knowing that they have to step back or recede to an extent.

And trusting God, watch over my son, watch over my daughter. May your good and abiding love that you've shown me all my days hold true and be sustained upon my child as they go out in the circumstances that I can no longer shelter or shepherd them from. That is difficult. If you've had to do it, you know it.

That's difficult. And so this mother, this three-month-old, this is what she's doing. She says, God is good. God's in charge.

God is sovereign. God has ordained these circumstances. I don't understand them. I don't like them, but I know He can do that which I can no longer do at this point, and that is protect my child.

The Doctrine of Providence: God Confounds Pharaoh's Scheme 23:57

So she sends him into the river. In verses 5 through 10, we see that God responds immediately. God responds. It's not like she dropped the child off, and about a week or a month later, God came along and said, oh, look, a baby.

What to do? The moment she hands this child over, who is God's anyway from the get-go, but the moment she hands this child over, figuratively he's speaking, God's arms are right there. And in this case, God providentially directs everything. The time of day that she did it, who would be down the riverbank, the tide of the river, the weather that day, everything was directed in a providential fashion that would allow this basket to go right to the arms of she who would take care of this child the best and the most.

And that would be the daughter of Pharaoh. The daughter of Pharaoh. God used this unbearable, unthinkable situation to bring about, honestly, the best possible end they could hope for at this moment. God uses this incredible twist of fate with the river and the water and all that different stuff to put Moses right where he needed to be.

Now, is there irony in this? Absolutely. This is highly ironic. You know, God loves to act ironically, so to speak.

He loves to confound our expectations of what He'll do, and He loves to foil the plots and schemes of evil men. And that's what we see in verses 5 through 10. God ironically confounds Pharaoh's own scheme by doing what? By sending the deliverer of God's people into Pharaoh's own house.

God looks down at this whole circumstance, and God determines to confound and flip on its head Pharaoh's scheme and his plans by sending the very deliverer of God's own people into Pharaoh's own house. That's not just ironic, that's genius, that's genius. And the reason it's genius is because Moses is now in the one place where Pharaoh's death edicts can't touch him.

You get that? He's in the one place that he will be protected. If some other Jewish lady down the stream had found him, go, look, a baby, he would have been in the same amount of danger, right? But, but this child is now in the hands of she who was in the greatest position to protect his child of anyone, the daughter of Pharaoh.

Moses would grow up in this circumstance protected. And furthermore, thank you to God's sovereignty, he was in a place where he would be able to witness the way Egyptians worked, the way Pharaoh worked, the way that the court worked, all of that, which undoubtedly helped him years later when he had to march right back into Egypt and say, let my people go. everything he learned back then was helpful to that future declaration.

Exodus as a Microcosm: God Delivering His People to Dwell with Them 26:37

All right, as we wrap up here this morning, let me offer one closing thought. Chapter one of Exodus has really some dark and difficult components. It starts with the death of Joseph. You get Joseph, he's dead.

But a few verses later, God's people are all enslaved. There's oppression and the like. And then, as if that's not bad enough, then there's this edict thrown down upon all male children that ultimately, ultimately, if God had not intervened, would have led to the extermination of the Jews as a whole. If you start in the book of Exodus, you'd say things look pretty bad.

Exodus 1, these dark components. Exodus 1 also involved the Pharaoh's plan to build an empire by using and abusing God's own people to accomplish it. Now, by the time we get to the end of the book of Exodus, here's the spoiler alert. By the time we get to the end of this study, nine weeks from now, by the time we get to the end of the study, the end of the book of Exodus, everything is going to be flipped on its end.

Everything is going to be different from what we just read. By the time we get to the end of the book of Exodus, Pharaoh will be dead. God's people will be free. And that's just for starters.

By the time we get to the end of the book of Exodus, Pharaoh's building project, the building project that starts this book, it's going to be gone. It is going to be an afterthought, and it's going to be replaced by a different building project, God's building project, by which He is going to build what?

The tabernacle. The building project that Pharaoh, the greatest villain in the Old Testament, said, hey, let's do this. That's going to be an afterthought. But God's building project to build His tabernacle would ultimately be a picture of the temple yet to come.

That was just getting started by the end of this book. The last half of the book describes the construction of God's tabernacle, a place where God would not oppress the people who constructed it, but rather would meet with them there. In that sense, in many senses, Exodus is a microcosm of the Bible's whole story, the story of God delivering His people in order that He might dwell with His people.

Let's pray