Exodus1:1-2:10

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So today's reading is from Exodus, chapter one, starting at verse one through to chapter two, verse ten.

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered 70 in all. Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died. But the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful.

They multiplied greatly, increased in numbers, and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become far 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. So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour. And they built pithom and Ramesses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. So the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.

They made their lives bitter with harsh labour in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. In all their harsh labour, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly. The king of Egypt said to the hebrew midwives, whose names were Shipra and Pua, when you are helping the hebrew women during childbirth, on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him. But if it is a girl, let her live. The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do.

They let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live? The midwives answered, pharaoh, hebrew women are not like egyptian women. They are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.

So God was kind to the midwives, and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people. Every hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live. Now a man of the tribe 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 riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds. And sent her female slave 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. So the girl went and got her 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. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Chris, thank you so much for reading for us. Let me add my welcome to that of Neil. I'm Ben, and if we've not met, I'd love to catch up with you over coffee afterwards. That would be really nice.

But we're going to be spending some time looking at that passage. So please do have it open in front of you on your service sheets. And that will be great. I'll lead us in a prayer and we'll dive straight in.

Father God, we've come here from busy weeks. Busy starts to terms, some of us, busyness in extreme heat. And, Father, it's very easy for us to take our eyes from you. And start listening to what's going on in the world around us. Father, I pray that you would not allow us to be distracted.

But we would see you this morning. Father, might it be that as we gaze upon who you are. On your character. That it wouldn't make us so heavenly minded with no earthly use. But rather that we would be so heavenly minded.

That we would live and speak for you here in this world today. For our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

We used to be the good guys, says your friend Lucy as she's chatting to you. We used to be the good guys. You see, it used to be that even if people didn't agree with our Christianity. They at least thought it was a good thing. Now people look at me strangely when I say I believe in God.

Now people look at me almost suspiciously. Your friend Lucy carries on saying, when I was a child, I grew up. And I go along to christian union. At my school, I was known to be a Christian. At work, I could live relatively freely.

But now I look at my children, my grandchildren, and it's so hard for them to, to identify as a Christian. They're on their guard. Can I really say that Jesus is the only way to God?

Lucy looks at you and she says, when I see the church decline in England, when I look at the rise in sort of secularism in western Europe, I ask myself, where is the hope for the future? Where's the hope for the future? She asks, I wonder, what do you say to Lucy? The Book of Exodus is a great place for us to come to. We're starting this series.

It is a book that is all about who God is. It's a book referred to throughout the rest of the scriptures. It's where we get a lot of our language from words like redemption and salvation. They crop up for the first time here in this book and then they're used throughout the rest of scripture. In fact, one writer says this.

He says the Exodus is central to the scriptures, it's central to the gospel, it's central to the christian life. Whatever book of the Bible you're in and whichever Christian practises you're involved in, echoes of the Exodus are in there somewhere. The Exodus is pivotal, because Exodus shows us who our God is by showing us his saving works. Exodus shows us who our God is by showing us his saving works. And so therefore, it's a great place to come to with Lucy.

And it's a great place to come to if you see a little bit of Lucy in you as well. Why? Well, because the first thing we're going to see is that in the midst of suffering, sorry, in the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises. In the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises. Verse one seems an odd start to the book of Exodus, a book full of all sorts of exciting things.

These are the names of the sons of Israel. And yet verse one is actually a quote. Moses is purposefully quoting from the end of Genesis. He's saying, look, what went on in Genesis is carrying on. If you flick back in your Bible, just a couple of pages, Genesis, chapter 46 eight, we see there, these are the names of the sons of Israel.

And it goes on to list the different sons of Israel who went into Egypt. Why does he quote that? Well, because in verse three of Genesis 46, he says this, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you and I will surely bring you back again. You see, Moses wants us to load up these promises from Genesis.

And the other promises that you see in Genesis, places like chapter 15 where he says that you're going to become a great nation in Egypt. They will. Well, let me read it for you. Genesis 1513. Know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated there.

But I will punish the nation. They serve as slaves and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. You see, Moses wants us to load up these promises as we head into the opening chapters of Exodus. Why? Because there we're going to see that in the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises.

Oh, and there is quite some opposition here, isn't there? Did he see it? A new king, verse eight, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. This king is a king who, as we go through the book of Exodus, he and his successors, the king, the pharaohs, are seen in Exodus almost as not just opposing God, but almost as having this kind of demonic opposition of God coming to stand for and showing all opposition to who God is. And so he starts opposing God's people.

He starts by playing the race card. They're coming here, they're making our lives a danger. They're going to take over. That's what he says. And his racism becomes a national policy of racism.

Verse nine. Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come. We must deal with them shrewdly. Now, we're not quite sure what he actually wants.

Does he want them gone? Well, he doesn't want them to leave the country. At the end of verse ten, what does he actually is confused. What's not confused is his dislike for God's people, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be working. And so verse eleven, what happens?

They put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour. They built pithom and ramesses as store cities for pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. You see, one man's racist attitude becomes national racism, institutional racism. And as they see this race that they don't like increasing, what happens?

They fear them. Xenophobia. Did he see that? Verse twelve. The more they were.

Sorry. Verse yeah, twelve. The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. So the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and so this enslavement becomes forced. Think labour, think labour camps, think the gulag.

Some writers say that even the way in which verse 13 and 14 are written, make it sound like the lashes of the whips. And they worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labour in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. In all their harsh labour, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

But it doesn't work. And so from labour camps, the opposition increases to infanticide. At first, it's a quiet word there. Pharaoh takes aside some midwives and says, hey, do you know what these baby boys, let's do away with the boys. Girls can live, but you can just do away with the boys.

Kill them. Let's do it on the quiet. These wonderful midwives fear God and not pharaoh. And so it doesn't work. They continue to multiply.

And so from infanticide comes all out racial cleansing. Verse 22. Pharaoh gave this order to his people. Every hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the nile, but let every girl live. Imagine for a second what it must have been like to have been an israelite in those days.

There you are working under the sound of whips, where the work is too much and the resources are too little, where the pain is high, the death toll is high.

And then you go home to a place where everybody hates you, where every self respecting egyptian person would see it as their civic duty to take your son and drown him in the nile. Imagine what it was to live in those conditions. Where is the hope? Where is the future when that is your reality?

And yet, in the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises.

What is it in verse ten that pharaoh is scared of? He doesn't want them to become more numerous. And yet, what's the repeated phrase? Verse seven, the Israelites exceeded were exceedingly fruitful and multiplied greatly. Verse twelve.

The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.

Verse 18.

Sorry. Verse 20. The people increased and became even more numerous. You see, Pharaoh, with all his power, wants to drive out these people. They cannot increase.

They can't increase. But God says, I promise that they will increase and so they will. In fact, this is so often God's way of working, isn't it? There he is in the New Testament. What does Jesus promise?

I'll build my church. The gates of hell won't prevail against it. And then what happens in the book of acts? In the book of acts, people look at it and they say, we don't want this to increase. We don't like this idea of this Christianity increasing.

In fact, in acts chapter eight, we see that on that day a great persecution sets out against the church of Jerusalem. And what happens? Acts eight carries on. Those who've been scattered preach the word. Wherever they went happened in the early church.

Emperor Nero. I don't want those christians increasing in number. I'm going to kill them out. I'm going to use them as candles to light my garden. What happened?

Christianity spread around the known worlds at that time. It happened in the reformation. People looking at the idea of receiving grace for free, of being right with God for free, and they said, we can't make money out of that. We don't like this reformation. Let's shut down this reformation.

And never did the reformation spread as much as when it was being persecuted. We are here today believing in the free grace, the free gospel of Jesus, because. Because when the church is oppressed, it grows. Think of China under chairman Mao. I don't want Christianity to increase, so I'll cast out all the missionaries.

Did it work? Did it hack? There are more christians today in China than there are here in the UK.

You see, in the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises. God keeps his promises. We can have confidence that God will continue to build his church. One Baptist preacher once said this. He said the church probably never increased at a greater ratio, as when her foes were most fierce to assail and most restitute to destroy her.

Why? Well, because in the midst of opposition, God uses what seems to be weak to mock what seems to be strong.

It seems to be weak to mock what seems to be strong. What is it that the mighty pharaoh is worried about? He's worried about the boys, isn't he? Twice to the midwives and then to his people. Kill off the boys, let the girls live.

Lived at a time when to be female was to be often overlooked, to be looked down on, to be seen as weak as not a threat. And yet, through this chapter, what do we see again after again after again? In fact, uniquely, God uses women.

Women who mock. Who mock this great, powerful pharaoh. In fact, what's hilarious is there's all sorts of ink that's been spilt on which exact pharaoh this is. And nobody could be quite sure, is it this one or is it that one? But we know exactly which hebrew midwives we're talking about here over 3000 years later, on the other side of the road, the other side of the wall world.

Not just road with talking about Shipra and Pua. Aren't we Shipra and Pua who fear God and not pharaoh?

Interestingly enough, and this is a bit of an aside, but it's really cool. So I wanted to share it with you. What you've got here is you've got Pharaoh, who's seen to be this kind of satanic figure as we talked about in the past. And remember how Genesis starts. Along comes Satan, and he deceives and he deceives the woman and then the man, and they are deceived.

They eat the fruit and they fall here at the start of redemptions. This story, this great picture of redemption, what happens? It is the woman who is protecting the saviour, protecting the seed of God's people. The very curse that we see, the promise of Genesis three, your seed will crush Satan's head. Here we see it beginning to come about, as faithful women are there, trusting God and not bowing to this picture of opposition.

It's amazing. It's a reversal, but it's also wonderfully powerful, because here you've got shipper and pua. And, yes, what they tell pharaoh sounds like a lie, but what they tell Pharaoh is a lie. That kind of shows that he's a few bricks short of a pyramid himself. You see here, they say, do you know what, Pharaoh?

The hebrew ladies, they're so physiologically different that they don't need midwives. In fact, hey, Pharaoh, I know that we're two hebrew midwives, but do you know what Hebrews don't need? They don't need midwives. I mean, what does Pharaoh think that shipper and Pooh would do all day? Just sit around drinking tea?

No, he's being shown. He's a mockery. What an idiot.

But also, what bravery of these women to make a mockery of the most powerful man in the world. We prayed before the start of the service. One of my prayers is that God would raise us up to be a church of shipwreck and pooers, people who would fear God and not the world around us. But it's not just shipper and Pua. There's Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world.

He wants to eradicate all of the baby boys. And there's his own daughter, sending her female servant to go and save a hebrew boy. There's Pharaoh, who's busy building his store cities. And there's jochebed, Moses mother, building a little ark. That's the word, actually, that's used there, building a little ark, so that.

Yeah, she'll put her child in the nile, but protect it. There's Moses sister, Miriam, wisely and quickly taking the very resources of Egypt to pay for the upkeep of her own brother.

It's amazing. You see, in the midst of opposition. God uses what seems weak to mock what seems strong. And again, that's so encouraging to us, isn't it? Because don't we sometimes, or often feel weak, feel overlooked?

God dignifies those who in that time, were not often given dignity. God uses those who are often overlooked. God uses those things that seem, in the eyes of the world, weak. And that's a massive encouragement to me because there are times when I feel like I feel so weak. Maybe you've been there with colleagues where they're laughing at the idea of believing in a God who's actually in control.

And you feel weak, as you say. Actually, I believe that. I trust that I'm a Christian. Maybe you sit down and you try and read the Bible with your family at family Bible time, and it's just chaos all the time. You think, what's going on?

They're not listening. Nobody really wants to be doing this. Just feels so pathetic.

Maybe we're the only Christian in our family and we're praying for them again and again and again and trying to hold out Jesus to them. And we feel. We feel so weak. Maybe we talk about Jesus, a guy a couple of thousand years ago who died on a cross. It sounds pathetic.

Yet God uses what seems weak to mock what seems strong.

Because finally, and very briefly, in the midst of opposition, God raises up a saviour. This is a saviour who identifies with his people, his people in the past. Here is Moses and he's placed in an ark. Ring any bells? Yeah.

Yeah, we've seen that before, haven't we? We've seen as Noah was placed in an ark, as Noah was saved, whilst others would drowning. As Noah went on to become a leader of his nation, so will happen with Moses. In fact, Moses doesn't just identify with his people in the past, he identifies with what's going to happen to his people in Exodus as well. See, here is Moses, the slave child from a slave race.

He becomes an adopted child of the king. Just as God's people are slaves and will become a kingdom of priests, here is Moses who's saved through others drowning, just as God's people will be saved through the Red Sea. Here is Moses who takes the very wealth of the egyptian people for free, just as his people will do that. Here's God raising up in the midst of opposition a saviour, and a saviour who casts a very long shadow. Because just as God raised up Moses, he raised up another saviour, one that you know very well this was a saviour.

Who himself escaped infanticide through the power of Egypt, who was called out of Egypt. This is a saviour who identified with his people as he was baptised in the Jordan, harking back to this very event.

But he didn't just identify with them by being baptised, did he? This is a saviour who identified with them enough to go to the cross, as we'll be remembering in a few minutes time. And there. There is where we see that in the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises, isn't it? There is Jesus nailed to a cross, surrounded by such opposition.

Hebrews twelve tells us that surrounded by such opposition from such sinful men. What did he do? He went to the cross, scorning its shame, and he prayed, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. In the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises.

In the midst of opposition, God uses that which is seemingly weak to mock the strong. There a pathetic man with no dignity on the side of the road, just another crucifixion. This day, even the people around him are mocking him. There, a man who can't even summon enough strength to lift himself up and fill his lungs with air. There, a pathetic, dying man.

But there, one. One who on the cross, defeated the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them at the cross.

There we see that in the midst of opposition, our opposition to God, he raises up our saviour.

You see, the Book of Exodus is a great place to go to with somebody like Lucy. Because the book of Exodus takes me to a God who looks at me and says, even in the midst of your opposition to me, I'll keep my promises. I will raise up a saviour. It's a great place to come to if you're worried about the world around you. He says, even in the midst of opposition, I'll keep my promises.

I sent a saviour. And so later, as we come to communion, let's remember that God. God is the God who keeps his promises, who sends his saviour. And let's stand with shipwre and pua and countless others throughout generations and fear him and not the world around us. Let me lead us in a prayer.

Father God, thank you so, so much for the book of Exodus. Help us as we go through this book, to find in you a God whose promises are true. Wherever we are, whatever we do, would we find in you a saviour who is strong to save us? And would we look to you and fear you and not the world around us, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

In the midst of opposition, God keeps his promises.

So we're going to take a moment, and if you feel able, please respond with the words which will appear on the screen. I'm going to ask you some questions, and if you answer them, then you are proclaiming where you put your trust. So let's declare our faith and trust in God, Father, son and Holy Spirit.

Do you believe and trust in God, the Father, source of all being and life, the one for whom we exist? We believe and trust in him. Do you believe and trust in God, the Son who took our human nature, died for us and rose again? We believe and trust in him. Do you believe and trust in God, the Holy Spirit who gives life to the people of God and makes Christ known in the world?

We believe and trust in him. This is the faith of the church. With our faith, we believe and trust in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

And now Rachel's going to come and lead us in prayer.