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[0:00] This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. Open with me to Exodus chapter 2.

[0:23] Our title for this morning is God's Deliverer and Deliverant. And before we jump into Exodus 2, I want to kind of bring us up to speed with the end of Genesis and the first chapter of Exodus.

[0:43] If you remember how Genesis ends with the Joseph story and he's sold into Egypt by his brothers into slavery. And it goes well for him. And then it doesn't go well for him. And then it goes really well for him.

[0:53] And while it's going really well for him, the rest of the world is suffering under a famine. And he's able to save his family's life as they come to Egypt for food at first. And ultimately, they move their lives to Egypt to live under the prosperity of Pharaoh.

[1:10] And that's where Moses begins. The first word of this book is, And. Not in the English, but in the Hebrew. He begins with and. So this is a continuation of the story that he's been telling so far.

[1:21] And if you notice in chapter 1, verse 5, there were 70 people who came to Egypt in Jacob's family. This is just a big extended family that moves to Egypt.

[1:33] But very quickly, they become a developing nation within the borders of Egypt. Look at verse 7. And three times in this first chapter, Moses is going to use language like this to describe the people of Israel.

[1:56] They were fruitful. They increased greatly. They multiplied. They became great. But in the end of the day, Moses is telling us that God is keeping the promises he made to Abraham. To make his descendants as numerous as the stars and as numerous as the grains of sand by the seashore.

[2:14] And it was good for them in Egypt because Pharaoh was loyal to Joseph. Pharaoh recognized what Joseph had done for him. And so he took care of his family.

[2:25] But verse 8. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.

[2:37] Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from us. And so Pharaoh enslaved them, thinking that he could do some population control through hard labor.

[2:53] They won't reproduce as quickly if they're working all day long. They'll die more quickly. Their lifespan will be shorter if I subject them to hard labor. But look at verse 12. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied.

[3:07] And the more they spread abroad. Pharaoh's plan fails. His plan was logical. And what happens is kind of defying logic. The harder their lives were, the more they multiplied.

[3:20] And so Pharaoh ratchets up his slavery and makes his service even harder. And even that does not work. And so he turns to another degree of wickedness and commands the Hebrew midwives to kill the baby boys.

[3:36] If it's a girl, you can let it live. If it's a boy, you must put him to death. We need less men who are opposed to us potentially. Verse 17.

[3:48] But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. They did not fear Pharaoh, but they simply did what was right.

[4:03] And interestingly, we know these Hebrew midwives' names. Shiphrah and Puah in verse 15. We do not know the name of Pharaoh.

[4:13] We know his title. We know what he did. We don't know his name. And yet these midwives, these enslaved women, are forever memorialized on the pages of Scripture.

[4:27] And so they feared God rather than the king. And Pharaoh, recognizing that his plan still was not working, verse 22, Pharaoh commanded all his people, Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile.

[4:42] You shall let every daughter live. And so now his decree extends not just to the nurses, but to all people living in Egypt.

[4:53] Help us get rid of these people. Help us suppress them. Help us get rid of them. Throw them into the Nile. If you hear of any baby boys being born to the Hebrews.

[5:07] And the Egyptians recognized the Nile as the giver of life, as the source of fertility. And so it became a place of death for the Hebrews. They viewed the river itself as a god.

[5:21] And that brings us to our story of Moses. We'll see this story in chapter 2 and 4 movements. The first one is the birth of Moses. The birth of Moses in verses 1 through 10.

[5:35] Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. And interestingly here, Moses gives us no names.

[5:46] He'll later supply the names of these people. But really in verses 1 through 9, no one is named. We've got this woman. We've got a man, which kind of sounds like Genesis 1 and 2. We've got a boy that's born to them.

[5:57] We've got his older sister who helps him. We've got Pharaoh's daughter. We've got the servants of Pharaoh's daughter. But no one is named until Moses is in verse 10.

[6:09] There's a veil of anonymity to this story. There's something taking place in secrecy here. And it says in verse 2, The woman conceived and bore a son.

[6:25] And this should kind of raise our blood pressure a little bit based on Pharaoh's decree at the end of chapter 1. Pharaoh has a plan for this baby boy.

[6:37] She bore a son. And interestingly, Moses in Genesis and Exodus uses that phrase, bore a son, about 18 times. This is like number 17 of those 18. This moves the storyline along and it produces significant characters in the plots of the story that he's telling.

[6:56] And so at almost the culmination of this story, there's a son who is born. And when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

[7:07] The ESV says he was a fine child. The Hebrew just reads, When she saw that he was good, which is Genesis 1 language. God creating and seeing that it was good. She sees that he's healthy.

[7:18] She sees that he's handsome. It would have likely been very evident how a baby would hold up in the ancient world pretty quickly. You could see how long they would survive. And she sees that he's good.

[7:30] She sees that he's healthy. And so she hides him. But what's her plan? Does she have a plan? We don't know. Right now she's just hiding him.

[7:43] She's likely not leaving the house much. She's likely not telling anyone that she's even given birth. She's trying to keep him quiet. Keep him hidden away from the public notice. At this point, she's just trying to extend his life as long as she can.

[8:00] And as Michael read from Hebrews 11, this was an act of faith. But what she's doing is just she's fulfilling her maternal duty. She's protecting her son. She's giving her son a chance at life.

[8:14] Even though it contradicted what the government was asking of her. She was not afraid of Pharaoh. She feared God. And so just did what was right.

[8:26] And she and the midwives are great examples to us. When someone asks us whether they're in government authority or not to contradict God's word and disobey God's word and do things that are wicked, we do not fear them.

[8:43] We just do what is right and leave the results to God. Verse 3 says, So she's hid him for three months, but he's getting louder.

[8:54] It's getting more difficult to hide him. People who knew she was pregnant would start asking questions about how it went. Pharaoh was likely doing sweeps through the streets and going house to house and searching the house to see if there were any newborn baby boys in them.

[9:10] And so when she can no longer keep him safe. She took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. Now the word basket here is the exact same word that Moses used to describe the ark in Genesis 6 through 9.

[9:29] And in fact, that's the only other place in the entire Bible that this Hebrew word is used. Moses is describing this little basket as a little ark. And that just infuses this story with hope.

[9:42] We start thinking, could this be a man like Noah? Could this be someone who gives his people rest? What does God have in store for this baby boy? Noah delivered his family.

[9:53] Noah was given a covenant by God. Could Moses, could this baby be on par with Noah? So she makes him a little ark and waterproofs it with the same stuff that Noah used for his much bigger ark.

[10:06] She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. This would have been the Nile. She just puts it by the bank of the Nile.

[10:18] This wasn't inherently safe. Is this her plan? Is this her long-term plan to save her son? It is a little bit ironic that she did essentially what Pharaoh commanded.

[10:36] These boys have to be put into the Nile. And he was, in a sense. And so perhaps she's trying to give herself some deniability if Pharaoh's men start asking questions. There does seem to be some intentionality with where she places him based on verse 4.

[10:51] And his sister, this is the baby boy's older sister, stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. She's there to report on what happens.

[11:04] What were they expecting to happen? What were they anticipating to happen? Verse 5. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river.

[11:18] It was actually a common practice in ancient Egypt for the royalty to bathe in the Nile River. Which seems kind of gross and weird that it was in public. But again, they viewed the Nile as the giver of life and fertility.

[11:32] And so especially for a daughter of Pharaoh's household, she would want to be fertile. She would want to live a healthy life. And so she would go bathe in the Nile. This was a sacred place for them.

[11:45] But what all of Egypt would soon find out, is that the Nile River that they worshipped was under the control of Yahweh. And not only was this river under his control, but even Pharaoh's own house was under the control of the sovereignty of our God.

[12:03] And Moses' mom likely knows that this is a common practice, a common place for Pharaoh's daughter to go. And she's trying to arrange a meeting between the two of them.

[12:17] She's trying to give her boy a chance at life. And it's still a risk. It's a calculated risk, but it's a high risk. She could be just as much of a snake as her dad is.

[12:28] She doesn't know her. But she's hoping that maybe this will prolong the life of her newborn son. And she saw the ark among the reeds and sent her servant woman and she took it.

[12:46] And so the servant girl goes and gets this little ark and carries it or floats it back to Pharaoh's daughter. And Pharaoh's daughter opens it in verse 6. When she opened it, she saw the child.

[12:59] And behold, the baby was crying. What will she do? She knows what her dad has decreed concerning this baby boy.

[13:12] She took pity on him. And said, this is one of the Hebrews' children. She has motherly instincts that Yahweh gave her.

[13:26] She doesn't know who Yahweh is. She doesn't worship him, but she can't escape the way that he's created her to be. She's filled with compassion for this weeping child who's been seemingly abandoned to try to avoid her own father's maniacal decree.

[13:44] No one can escape the way that God has created us as male and female. This is innate within us. Watson, our newest son, was born on March 4th.

[13:57] On March 11th, the next Wednesday, I was preaching to our students on Wednesday night, but I was showing pictures of our family, now that we're a family of six with four kids. And we were putting pictures up on the screen, and immediately, I could tell.

[14:10] I wasn't looking at them. I had my back turned so I could face the screen. But immediately, I could tell where all the girls were sitting. It's like, oh my goodness, he's so cute. There's just an eruption of noise. And the guys are like, looks like a baby to me.

[14:22] Like, you knew your wife was pregnant. Why are you surprised? There's just an immediate compassion, an immediate warmth that comes from ladies, especially when they see a crying baby.

[14:34] And this is true even of Pharaoh's own daughter. And she knows what happens. She said, this is one of the Hebrews' children. This boy was supposed to die a while ago, and here he is in front of me.

[14:50] But the plan actually has even more layers than that. Verse 7, Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, and this is so bold, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?

[15:09] This is Miriam, Moses' older sister. She was likely about 5 to 12 years old at this time. Ladies older than 12 would have been expected to work and be slaves in Egypt.

[15:23] And so she was still free. She was still a child. And so she couldn't have been more than 12 years old. She was set there to see what would take place with her baby brother.

[15:33] And she boldly and shrewdly offers to help. She was likely coached up by her mom on how to react.

[15:45] And she sees that Pharaoh's daughter doesn't just drown her brother. She can likely, she's close enough probably to hear what she's saying and to hear the compassion in her voice.

[15:59] And so she boldly and wisely offers to help. It wouldn't have been suspicious at all for a young girl to be down by the river.

[16:09] And so Pharaoh's daughter, verse 8, said to her, Go. And so the girl went and called the child's mother.

[16:21] How crafty this was. How thought through this was. Pharaoh's daughter wouldn't have known that this baby boy and this little girl and this lady were all connected.

[16:33] She wouldn't have known they were all in the same household. And yet Moses' mother and father have done well in providing a life for him, at least a chance at life.

[16:45] Our kids are not too young to be trained to value what's good and resist what's evil.

[17:00] She wasn't even a teenager yet. And she knows what's right. She knows how to wisely and boldly resist evil when it's encountered.

[17:10] Our kids are not too young to start learning these lessons. So train them well. Calibrate their consciences with great care and precision. Teach them to view the world the way that God does.

[17:24] Verse 9, And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, So this is the child's mother. 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.

[17:39] This is highly, highly ironic. Pharaoh, the all-powerful son of the gods, the most powerful man in the world at the time, issues a decree that his own daughter disobeys, that his own daughter disregards completely.

[17:59] This Hebrew mother who was supposed to lose her newborn son now is the one that gets to raise him up and to nurse him in her own home. And not only does she get to keep him, but she gets a government check for doing it.

[18:11] What a sweet gig that is, just being a mom and getting paid by the government. Pharaoh has no power here. Yahweh is in control of this story from start to finish.

[18:25] Verse 10, And so Moses' mom likely had him for three to four years.

[18:38] They nursed for longer in the ancient world. And she brings him back to the Egyptian princess, and Moses became her son.

[18:49] And so a further irony is that not only does this boy survive, not only is he raised up by his own mother, and likely the formations of his convictions are formed, we are Israelites.

[19:03] Our God is Yahweh. He is the one who saved us and created us. Not only are those ironies there, but he's going to grow up around Pharaoh's table. God is going to raise up the deliverer for his people in Pharaoh's own home.

[19:19] God's providential control is limitless. He controls absolutely everything. And I want you to note the central role that women play in this story.

[19:34] Women are central in providing and sustaining life. We have the Hebrew midwives.

[19:45] Not fearing Pharaoh, but preserving the lives of these Hebrew boys. We've got Moses' mom and sister. We've got Pharaoh's daughter and Pharaoh's daughter's servant girls. And this is true in our church today.

[20:00] We are complementarian, so we think that men and women have different but complementary roles in the church and at home. But that does not mean that women are pushed to the sideline of ministry or pushed to the background of the home.

[20:15] If my family didn't have Lacey, we would not live. I've only got so much McDonald's money in my pocket. And I'm not even 100% sure I could do laundry.

[20:27] I can fold it and put away with the best of them, but we've got a lot of buttons on our washer that I don't know what they do. And if our church didn't have godly, self-controlled ladies who feared the Lord, our preschoolers would revolt and declare their independence.

[20:43] We would be a failed state by lunchtime. There's like 200 of them, but that's the energy of at least 2,000 full-grown people. But praise God for women who fear the Lord and live boldly, who resist evil, who do and uphold what is good.

[21:00] Our church needs that. Our families need that. And this Egyptian princess names Moses. And she names him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.

[21:15] So this is actually an Egyptian name. It's given by an Egyptian lady, but it actually has Hebrew connections. And so she, even in naming him, is calling him an Egyptian name, but it has connections to the Hebrew language, likely honoring his Hebrew heritage.

[21:32] And so the Egyptian word Mos is, it means son of. So tutmos, ahmos, even Ramses is a different variation of the word Mos. It means son of.

[21:43] So Ramses, son of Ra, one of their gods. The Hebrew word Moshe means to draw out. And so she is saying, this is my son that I drew out. This is my son that I drew out of the water.

[21:55] And there's so much hope at this point in the story, but Moses is only four years old. Who is this preschooler going to grow up to be?

[22:06] Is he going to be an Egyptian? Or will he be an Israelite? What will he do with this safeguard he's been given through early life? And I think we'd do well to pause here and recognize that there would have been hundreds of Hebrew families who did not have a Moses story to tell.

[22:27] Hundreds of families would have watched their son be drowned or have their son ripped out of their arms and tossed into the Nile. What would they be thinking during a time like this?

[22:38] It's a very dark time, very difficult time, very easy time for people to say, where is God? What is he doing? When is he going to act? How long will he let this injustice go on?

[22:50] It's a dark time, but Moses at least is preserved. And that moves us secondly to brotherly compassion. Brotherly compassion in verses 11 through 15.

[23:04] One day when Moses had grown up, according to Stephen in Acts 7, he would have been 40 years old at this point. He would have received a world-class education in Egypt in reading, writing, mathematics, praise God, astronomy, music, and he would have known multiple languages.

[23:26] This education would have turned Moses into a genius. And it's that brilliant mind that God would use to write the first five books of the Bible. It's that brilliant mind that would compose this Torah, the first five books that's a literary masterpiece.

[23:45] And so whatever you've done for education, whatever you're doing, don't discount a high caliber secular education. The Lord can use that for his kingdom.

[23:55] The Lord can shape you and sharpen you through that and use it to advance his kingdom. Moses would have been in excellent physical condition as well as part of this education. And so he was fit to be a king.

[24:08] He goes out to his people or literally his brothers and looked on their burdens and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brothers.

[24:21] Seeing a slave get beaten wouldn't have been right, but it may have been acceptable or excusable. But seeing one of your brothers get beaten is a different story. And so verse 12, he looked this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

[24:41] This would have been a very shallow grave that he dug just to hide the Egyptian's body, not to honor it. Is Moses a murderer? That's a common interpretation. I don't think so.

[24:54] If we think of murder as something like the unlawful, premeditated killing of an innocent person, I don't think that's the case here. And I think some translations do a better job than the ESV here, but he sees an Egyptian literally striking one of his brothers and so he struck the Egyptian.

[25:15] He did to the Egyptian what the Egyptian was doing to the Hebrew. I think this was an act of justice. And again, Moses is a government official. He can bear the sword.

[25:26] And that's how Stephen interprets it in Acts 7. He says this was an act of deliverance. This was a sign to Israel of their deliverance. And I think we can say finally, someone who has compassion on their brothers.

[25:42] Cain killed his brother Abel. Jacob and Esau were always battling it out. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery and then lied about what happened to him.

[25:54] But here's a man who has compassion for his brothers. And he goes out the next day, verse 13, and behold, two Hebrews were struggling together and he said to the man in the wrong, why do you again strike your companion or your neighbor?

[26:09] And so Moses is saying, this is what the Egyptians do. Why are you doing this to your brother? This is not right. And verse 14, the man in the wrong answered, who made you a prince and judge over us?

[26:23] Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? And so this guy clearly does not know who Moses is, clearly doesn't recognize him as an Israelite. And Moses recognizes that the thing is known.

[26:38] He thought he had done what he did in relative secrecy. He looked around before he acted. And yet it's become known. And so it says, Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known.

[26:53] Verse 15, when Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian.

[27:06] And he sat down by a well. Some people would say he ran because he had a guilty conscience. I'd say it's just smart. He needed to get out of Dodge and so he got while the getting was good.

[27:17] And he goes to Midian. And he sits down by a well or literally sits down by the well. This would have been the primary well in the land of Midian.

[27:28] This is an ancient version of HTO or Wild Hero. This is where people go to get their drinks. And as he sits down, our story moves along thirdly to banishment from exile.

[27:40] Banishment from exile. He sits down and just as soon as he sits there, says, now the priest of Midian had seven daughters.

[27:51] It's a lot of weddings to pay for. And they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. But, verse 17, the shepherds came and drove them away.

[28:04] And so once they had done all the work of drawing the water and filling the troughs, the shepherds would come in and drive these ladies out and water their flocks. And so they got the benefit of the work without doing the work. They were lazy and rude.

[28:16] But Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. He protected them and he also served them. And we might ask, why couldn't Moses just mind his business?

[28:31] I mean, this is what got him in trouble and kicked out of Egypt in the first place. He could have just kind of stayed back and thought, I can do more good with the authority of Pharaoh behind me than I can stepping into this domestic dispute between brothers.

[28:46] He could have thought, I'm new to this place so let me just kind of lay low. I don't know the culture. I'm outnumbered here. I don't really know how things work. But again, he was not afraid.

[28:57] He just simply did what was right. This takes quite a bit of bravery. He's outnumbered by these men, unfamiliar with local customs. He's clearly a foreigner to their land.

[29:10] But he just does what's right. And again, he must have been physically fit because he single-handedly drives out these shepherds and their flocks. This is the third time that Moses has stepped into an unjust situation and tried to rectify it.

[29:27] There's the Egyptian beating his brother. There were his brothers fighting. And then thirdly, these Midianite girls being taken advantage of. And verse 18 says, when they, that's the daughters, came home to their father, Ruel, or Jethro, as he's elsewhere called, he said, how is it that you've come home so soon today?

[29:46] So this was a daily occurrence. It would take them a long time to be able to have access to the water for their flocks. And they said, verse 19, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.

[30:02] It's ironic that they identify him as an Egyptian based on what just happened to him in Egypt. He got run out of town. But based on his language and likely his appearance, they assume he's an Egyptian.

[30:15] No one knows who this guy is. No one can properly identify him. And Jethro says to his daughters, verse 20, then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread.

[30:27] He's like, ladies, we've got to get to know guys like this. Bring him over for dinner. Let us get to know him. We can't let guys like this get away around here. And so Moses saves the day and is invited over for dinner.

[30:40] And so if you're a gentleman looking for a wife, now you know what to do. Those are your goals. Verse 21, Moses was content to dwell with the man and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.

[30:56] His act of salvation won him a bride. And verse 22, she gave birth to a son and he called his name Gershom. For he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

[31:12] That word Gershom sounds like sojourner or immigrant or refugee. This is how he names his son. But what foreign land is Moses referring to?

[31:24] We'd assume he's referring to his time in Midian, but he doesn't specify that. He speaks in the past tense. He's currently in Midian, but he says, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. I think here he's acknowledging that he's not even at home in Egypt.

[31:38] That's not where he truly belongs because he's an Israelite. The Lord has given them land and it's not in Egypt. And so he was exiled from his exile. He was kicked out of the place where he was already in exile and names his son accordingly.

[31:54] I've been a sojourner in a strange land or in a foreign land. And as we just kind of step back and survey the landscape, Moses has received a world-class education and is now a shepherd in the desert.

[32:10] Moses grew up as a son of Pharaoh and he recognizes that I'm put here to deliver my people. But so far, the only salvation he's brought is to seven Midianite shepherdesses from some bully shepherds.

[32:26] Why this waste? Seems like a disappointment. And now he's settled down and married and has kids and a stable job.

[32:37] He's 80 at this point, according to Stephen, probably thinking about retirement. What is the Lord doing? What does God have in store for him?

[32:50] Why this providential salvation after birth? Why the education? Why the compassion that he feels for his brothers? Why this waste? And what do you think Moses was thinking?

[33:03] Shepherds were actually abominations to the Egyptians. And so I'm sure he's kind of laughing to himself like, look at me, I'm a shepherd. What is going on? What is the Lord doing with him?

[33:15] We asked at the end of verse 10, would he be an Egyptian or would he be an Israelite? Is the answer neither? Is he going to be a Midianite? He's content to dwell there.

[33:25] He's married one of the Midianites' daughters. He's been identified as an Egyptian pretty much his whole life. Now he's married to a Midianite. If he wanted to disassociate with God's people, this would have been the perfect witness protection program.

[33:42] Who will he be? He's not four years old anymore. He's 80 and we still don't know who he's going to be. And just like names were absent in verses 1 through 9, God has been strangely absent from this story.

[33:58] We can see his hand weaving this story together, but he's not mentioned at all. Where is he? What is he doing? He's been quietly providing behind the scenes.

[34:11] And think of some of the strategic benefits. Moses would know how business was done in the Egyptian courts when he goes back to deliver his people. He's shepherding his father-in-law's flock through Midian and one day he would shepherd his heavenly father's sheep through the wilderness as well.

[34:26] But he's 80 now. We learn that God is never in a hurry. He's like SGA on the basketball court. He gets where he wants to go and no one can stop him.

[34:40] God is never in a hurry. He's doing exactly what he wants when he wants to do it and nothing can thwart him. He still has so much in store for Moses. And so, if I can speak to my older friends, you are not too old for the Lord to use you.

[34:57] You may think, I don't have as much energy, I don't have as much money, I don't have as much time, I don't have as much health as I used to. Moses was 80 and God really hadn't even started with him yet. He would live to be 120 but by 80, the Lord hasn't really gotten going with him yet.

[35:14] I love this passage. We have a very young girl helping Moses survive his infancy and we have a very old Moses that the Lord was just getting started with. God can and has used someone your age before to fulfill his purposes in this world.

[35:32] And speaking of God, where has he been? Fourthly, God. Verses 23 through 25. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.

[35:51] It was customary that when a new pharaoh came in power, he would liberate all the slaves from the previous administration. But that's not the case here. He continues to enslave them and so Israel groans.

[36:03] They cry out for help. In verse 23, their cry for help is interpreted by God as a prayer. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

[36:16] This is what the Spirit does for believers. He takes our groanings that are too deep for words and intercedes for us on our behalf. And Moses has been strategic in not mentioning God to this point in the story and now it just comes flowing out of him.

[36:35] My kids love to play hide and seek and Charlie struggled to grasp the concept initially and I would count, say, ready or not, here I come. As soon as I'd walk around the corner, he would jump out and say, boo!

[36:48] And I was like, no, you're supposed to hide until I find you and it would happen again and again and again. He was just so excited he couldn't contain himself any longer. And that's kind of what happens to Moses here.

[36:59] He's restrained this use of God's name and here it just comes flowing out of him. Their cry for rescue came up to God and he doesn't use pronouns here. He says God every time. God heard their groaning.

[37:10] God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew. God hears his people. I don't know what you're going through.

[37:23] You might have some difficulty you're facing. God sees you. He hears you. Even when you can't fully articulate a prayer, he hears you. He knows what you're going through and he remembers his promises here in Exodus 2.

[37:39] Not as though he forgot, but they're at the center of his attention now. He's going to act on what he has spoken. He could not forget his covenant people any more than Moses' mom could forget him.

[37:52] God remembers his promises and he remembers his people. God is always at work even when we can't see it.

[38:04] He perplexes us. He keeps us waiting longer than we would like. He is beyond us, but we cannot say that he is inactive. And sometimes we can't see him working because we always expect his work to be miraculous and happy.

[38:20] But oftentimes his work in our lives is meticulous and painful. But in fact, even the fact that the Israelites are enslaved here is a sign of God's faithfulness because he told Abraham in Genesis 15, your people will be enslaved in a foreign land for 400 years.

[38:38] God's promises don't mean that his people will never suffer, but that his people will never be eradicated.

[38:51] We might die for the kingdom, but the kingdom itself will never die. So many Hebrew lives were lost here, but they still existed. His program was still moving forward.

[39:02] This text, this story, introduces us to Moses who would be the human instrument that God uses to bring his people out of Egypt.

[39:15] His name was Moses because the Egyptian princess drew him out of the water and one day, soon, God would use him to draw out his people through the water. And on that day, it would not be Hebrew boys dying in the flood.

[39:30] It would be the entire Egyptian army. Yahweh is in control. Pharaoh has no power here, even in his own country. But as great as Moses was, as significant as Moses was, he himself understood his life being a projection of who another prophet would be.

[39:49] He saw his life as a pattern that would one day be fulfilled and expanded by another one coming from his people. In Deuteronomy 18.15, he tells the Israelites, Yahweh your God, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you.

[40:07] Listen to him. He understood that the Messiah would come and he would be like him, but he would be so much greater than him. And it's because of that expectation we can say rightly the Old Testament is Christ-centered.

[40:21] It points us to Christ. It projects us onto Christ. Christ. And even in the way that Moses records the story of his own birth, sets us up for who Christ would be.

[40:35] Both baby boys, Moses and Jesus, were rescued from a tyrannical ruler at birth seeking to kill them. Both of them sojourned in Egypt. Moses was born there.

[40:45] Jesus and his family fled there for safety. Before their public ministries began, they were preceded by about 400 years of silence. Israel had been enslaved in Egypt about that long.

[40:59] Malachi prophesied about 400 years before the birth of Christ. Both of them, it's told of their birth story and a little bit about when they're about three or four and then it skips to their public ministry, their public service to God.

[41:15] Both of them preach from a mountain. Moses from Sinai, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Both of them were rejected by their brothers both of them had their identities mistaken. Moses was always thought to be an Egyptian.

[41:27] Jesus was never thought to be the Savior by the people who should have recognized him. Both of them left the riches that were rightly theirs to become slaves. Moses didn't count the riches of Egypt comparable to the sufferings of Christ and Christ left his heavenly throne next to the Father to take the form of a servant.

[41:47] Moses instituted the Passover. Jesus is the Passover. Moses led the Exodus Jesus through his death and resurrection leads a second Exodus not out of Egypt but out of sin and death.

[41:58] Both of them were given covenants by God. Moses the old Jesus the new. The Lord delights to use what is weak in this world to shame the strong like the birth of baby boys and these enslaved women who are of no account.

[42:15] But Jesus isn't just the leader of his people. He's the God of his people. And he's not just the leader of his people or the God of his people. He's the sacrifice itself that pays for their sins.

[42:28] So let us learn to read the Old Testament this way and how it predicts and prefigures Christ. He is glorious and he is worthy of all our honor and praise. He is sovereign.

[42:40] And the meticulous sovereignty and providence that led to Moses' life being preserved is the same providence that's caused you to be here this morning. How will you respond to Christ's word?

[42:52] How will you respond to his work? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the riches of your word. We pray you'd plant them deeply in our hearts.

[43:05] It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Father, we pray you'd love you.

[43:20] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[43:30]  Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.