As the book of EXODUS begins, the Israelites are being held as slaves in Egypt. And when the time is ready for God to lead them out of Egypt, He calls a man named Moses to free them.
EXODUS is a story of how God protected His people by breaking the chains to captivity they were held under. And that story is just as relevant to us today as we struggle with our chains to sin. If we, as did the Israelites, will truly depend on God, call out to Him in fervent prayer, then God will also act to protect us.
(Note to congregation:) It is suggested that you read 2 CHRONICLES 7:14 several times each day for one full week to fully understand the promises that are given to us in it.
Moses wrote the book of EXODUS around 1440 BC. It is the story of the Israelites deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and his purpose in writing this book was to give the Israelites a constant reminder of God’s power and commitment to His children. We would be well-advised to understand that same meaning today.
To better enable us to transition into EXODUS, let’s spend a quick moment remembering Joseph, the son of Jacob. He has a dream that the whole family will bow down to him. His brothers began hating him even more because they were jealous of the love their father gave to Joseph.
They sell Joseph to slave traders from Egypt when he was about 17-years old, and then tell their father that an animal killed Joseph in the deserts. Joseph had unwavering faith in God, and so God favored Joseph all of his life. He went from a slave, to being wrongly accused and going to prison for years; to being released and finally obtaining the high position of Governor of Egypt; and only Pharaoh had more power than Joseph.
The home land of Jacob & sons is suffering from a famine and so they came to Egypt and asked to purchase some grain so they would not starve. After a tearful reunion with the brothers, Joseph invites his family to come and live with him in Egypt. This all takes place in the latter part of Genesis.
The book of EXODUS is not a new book that begins with an entirely different subject. It is a continuation of the book of GENESIS. It continues the story of God’s people, from one man, to his immediate descendants, and finally to over 2 million descendants.
Chapters 1 & 2 of EXODUS are an introduction to the people involved in this book, and to the events that took place in this book. But the heart of EXODUS begins with events that begin in Chapter 3. And we should ask ourselves why these events and people are important to us today. If we just read this as a history book, we miss the divine application for our lives.
In 2nd TIMOTHY 3:16, the Apostle Paul tells us; ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training righteousness; so that every man of God may be fully equipped for every good work.’
EXODUS begins by listing the names of the sons of Jacob, or Israel, as he is now known. This may seem like a strange way to open a book of the Bible, for they are not mentioned again, and two verses later, we read about their deaths.
A big part of the theme of EXODUS is that God keeps His promises. One of the key verses near the end of GENESIS is when God speaks to Jacob:
This is what God said in GENESIS 46:3: ’I am God, the God of your father,’ he said. ’Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there."
The amazing part of this is an earlier prophecy God made to Abraham in GENESIS 15:13-14: ’Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.’
Those two verses are a great summary to God’s glory in the first one third of Exodus! And it is a wonderful model for Christians today.
God called the Israelites to become a great nation. God has called the church to be “one body” in Christ Jesus in ROMANS 12:4-5.
I have said previously that the Old Testament is a foreshadow, or preview, of places, events, and people that are found in the New Testament. A study of EXODUS will show that Egypt is a model of the world today. Remember that Solomon said, ’There is nothing new under the sun.’
What we find in Egypt in the lives of the Hebrew nation, we can find in today’s world among the lives of Christians.
The first thing we need to realize as we study the Bible is that is it not just a history lesson, but a set of lessons for Christians today. The Old Testament paved the way for Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
In JOHN 5:46, Jesus confirmed that when He said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.’
The Apostle Paul reaffirms this when he was talking about the things found in the Old Testament. In COLOSSIANS 2:17, he said, ’For these things are a shadow of the things that were to come, the fulfillment, however, is all found in Jesus Christ.’
So, if Egypt was an earlier reflection of the world in the way they viewed God, why did God direct the Israelites to go to Egypt?
Again, going to JOHN 17:14-15, we read that God tells us today to be “in” the world while not being “of” the world. All of God’s children, Ancient Israelites and modern-day Christians alike, must live in this world, but we are not to allow ourselves to be like the world. We exist to go into the world and become great witnesses for the glory of Jesus, but not to partake of the worldly pleasures.
God said He would surely bring the Israelites out of Egypt to be reconciled back to Him. And Christians today are given the same promise by Jesus in;
JOHN 14:3: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
The Israelites had faith in God. They believed God would keep His promise at the right time. And God did! If you begin studying the Bible regularly with a seeking heart, you will eventually find people who differ in how many people were in Egypt when Jacob’s family got there.
In EXODUS 1:1, it says that Jacob had 70 descendants. And then it says Joseph was already there. In ACTS 7:14, it tells us that there were 75 people. Why is there a discrepancy in the number of people?
The writer of EXODUS did not count Joseph’s family, including his sons Ephraim and Manasseh, or their children. Read 1 CHRONICLES 7:14 & 20.
Here is an overview to give you an idea of how God keeps His promises. The land is now filled with over 2 million Israelites. From this time until the time of the new Pharaoh, the Israelites lived in peace. But when he came into power, the Bible says he did not know about Joseph. He was either not born yet, or was too young to hear about the many great things Joseph did for Egypt, so he enslaved the Israelites because he was afraid of their potential power.
I want to do a side-by-side comparison using them and Americans today. But to do that properly, I have to start by telling you that for the first couple hundred years they lived in Egypt, they had it made. Let’s talk about how;
1. THEY LIVED THE GOOD LIFE
The Israelites lived in relative comfort for hundreds of years. And during this time, they didn’t have that many needs, so they relaxed and enjoyed life.
Americans have lived in relative comfort for hundreds of years, too. And the same thing has happened to us; we have turned towards the fun things of this world and away from the eternal things of God.
If you read the entire Old Testament, and then read history from then on, you will never see one instance where a nation lasted very long after they turned away from God. The moment they start pulling away from God is the moment they start falling apart, first in internal conflict and then in external conflict. America is on the apex today. Will we fall towards God or fall away from Him?
Let’s spend a moment talking about how the Israelites experienced;
2. THE PERSECUTION
Jesus told us that we will be persecuted because He was persecuted first.
In 2 TIMOTHY 3:12, Paul says ‘ … everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted.’
Why would a loving God allow bad things to come into our lives? The answer is found in; JAMES 1:3 ‘ You know that because the testing of your faith develops perseverance.’
If everything in your life is going great, and you have no needs or problems, you will not be able to desire anything that will make it better, and you will not need to depend on anyone to help you out. If you don’t depend on anyone, you will never be able to develop any faith in them.
And God wants you to develop a true and lasting faith in Him, but even though we have hard times, we must be aware that if God does not change our circumstances, He will change us so we won’t succumb to the circumstances. But we must exercise our faith in Him first by being devoted to Him in action and word, not just word.
In EXODUS 1:9-10, the Pharaoh said; ‘Because the Israelites are more numerous and stronger than we are, let’s deal with them shrewdly, otherwise they will continue to multiply and if war breaks out, they will ally themselves with our enemies and fight against us and escape out of the land.’
In that same chapter, but in verse 8, we read where the new Pharaoh did not know Joseph, even though Joseph had been the 2nd most powerful man in the nation for many years. Under Joseph’s guidance, the earlier Pharaoh had become very prosperous, and so he allowed Joseph and his people to live in peace and comfort.
And here comes a new Pharaoh who had the attitude of ‘what’s he ever done for me?’ Every time we see trouble in history, we will find that same kind of attitude. In Stephen’s account of the book of ACTS, he makes it clear in the original text that when “another” Pharaoh came to power, it meant a Pharaoh of a different kind. Maybe one from a different lineage or belief system. At any rate, there were good ones and bad ones; and the new Pharaoh here turned out to be very bad for the Israelite.
But God kept blessing His people. When others see God blessing you and you talk to them about Him, they will react in one of two ways. They will be interested in what you are telling them, or they will become negative and start being jealous of how you have been blessed and they haven’t.
And this is what we see start to happen in Verse 10. It says, ‘Let’s deal with them shrewdly, or they will grow against us.’
The jealousy found in verse 9, becomes the paranoia and panic found in verse 10. Jesus even commented on these feelings in JOHN 15:19: ‘If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.’
In verse 11, we find that the Egyptians put harsh supervisors over them to make sure they were bogged down in hard labor. They ended up building Pithom and Rameses as store cities for the Pharaoh, but in verse 12, we see that the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread.
In verse 12, we find that this made the Egyptians hate them even more and to make it even harder on them. They were finally ordered to make bricks and other very hard duties to satisfy the hatred of the Egyptians.
But something else was happening that would eventually work for the Israelites. As they toiled so heavily in the fields, they were becoming physically stronger, and as they grew stronger, they Egyptians grew weaker because they no longer had to do the work. All they had to do was depend on the Israelites to do it for them.
In addition to that, the more they were persecuted, they more they became unified as one nation again. That is just like the Church – it has grown larger and stronger during times of persecution than it has in times of peace and comfort.
So how does one cope with this type of persecution? How do you go from one day to another, or take it for one more month? As I said earlier, they may have gotten away from focusing on the Lord, but they did believe in Him. And when things got really bad, they waited on God to keep His promise of someday leading them out of captivity.
The Pharaoh’s jealousy and hatred grew even more. In EXODUS 1:22, we see where he says, ‘All sons that are born to the Israelites are to be thrown into the river and drowned, but all the daughters you may let live.’
How could anyone feel so much hatred in their hearts that they would take newly born babies and just toss them in a river to drown and float away?
The answer is those people were filled with the pure evil that emanates from Satan. It is so wicked and ungodly that Paul makes a point of taking spiritual warfare very seriously!
In EPHESIANS 6:12, Paul teaches us; ‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers; against the authorities; against powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’
Let me say to all who believe that most of this is just a story. If you doubt for one moment that Satan is not real, try opposing him. You will be petrified at the attacks that start coming your way. Attacks on your body, your mind, your family, and even your very life. As any pastor or missionary that preaches the word of Jesus and you will find a person who has been attacked in the most wicked of ways.
The primary goal of Satan is to do whatever he can to thwart God’s plans. And the best way he can do that is to attack God’s people. If our faith is not mature enough, we will fall victim to Satan’s attacks. That is why God allows us to have problems; to solidify our faith for the day when it will actually save us.
3. THE PRAYERS
Let’s close our study on EXODUS 1 by talking about how God promised the Israelites two things; to make them a great nation, and to lead them out of Egypt. We see in chapter 1 that He did, indeed, make them a great nation, but as EXODUS 1 closes, they are still waiting to be taken out of Egypt.
It all comes back down to God keeping His promises in His time, not ours. We are a people of convenience – ‘God hurry up! What we are going through is really inconvenient!’
God, however, is a God of purpose. ‘It will serve My purpose better if it is done then instead of now.’
God told Abraham that his people would be in captivity for 400 years, and they knew the time was about up. The trouble is, Satan knew it was about up, too. Hence, his increased attacks upon them. (Satan caused them to suffer hard labor as slaves, the killing of their baby boys, etc.)
I have said that everything in the Old Testament is a foreshadow of what is yet to come in the New Testament. Here is a very good example of that.
God promised the Israelites that He would lead them out of captivity. He waited what seemed an eternity to the Israelites, but He did come and keep His promises. As it turned out, it was at the best time, too. Any earlier, they would not have been physically as strong and they would not have been as focused on God as a nation of one people.
In the New Testament, Jesus has promised to come back and get us, too. But He delays and we ask ‘why.’ The reason is that He wants to make sure every person has a chance to accept Him as Savior. If He comes back too soon, some may not have that chance. But when He does come back, it will be at the perfect time for His glory.
Here is a good prayer for Christians to pray:
Father, help us to put our full trust in You, especially during our times of trials and tribulations. Help us to focus on your promises to us, as seen in the Bible, and not on the troubles we encounter as we walk on this earth. You offer us every thing we need in this life, but to receive them, we must live according to Your standards and not our standards. Let us seek Your rewards by being willing vessels and being obedient unto Your commands. We ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.
We look forward to your joining us next Wednesday as we approach the heart of EXODUS, which is found starting in chapter 3.
