Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Slavery has been a part of the human experience on planet earth almost from the beginning for many different reasons. In the case of Israel, the entire Bible book of Exodus is the remarkable story of God’s deliverance of the entire nation of Israel from Egyptian slavery and God’s subsequent several months of instruction of them regarding how to live as the ‘chosen people of God’.
Did you know that as part of God’s initial explanation to Abraham of the Covenant of Land and People which we’ve been tracing for the past several days, God predicted these centuries of slavery for Israel? Genesis 15:13,14 “The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions…”
I don’t know exactly when the calculation of those 400 years begins, but it would either be with Joseph being dragged into Egypt as a 17-year-old slave, or Jacob moving there with his entire family 23 years later, to escape the famine. I do know when this 400 years of living in Egypt came to an end, and so do you! That of course is the famous “Passover” night when God’s angel of death passed over Egypt and the eldest in every family died if there was no blood on the doorposts. Remember?
Moses had been instructed by God to tell the Israelites to prepare to leave Egypt by packing their belongings, asking their neighbors for gifts, killing a lamb for their last meal in Egypt, taking some of that lamb’s blood and painting the outside door frames to their homes. (Exodus 12) Of course I’m sure you remember this event was preceded by 9 other plagues which God sent on Egypt to demonstrate His unlimited power over all things and His ability to protect His people even in the horrificness of those natural disaster plagues. (Exodus 7-11)
We concluded our time together yesterday looking at the harsh reality that Jacob had failed his family by not insisting they return to God’s Covenant Land after the famine was over. Jacob lived 12 more years in Egypt before he finally died. (Gen. 47:28; 49:29-50:14) 12 years of procrastinating! Jacob had insisted that his son Joseph take responsibility to lead a funeral process all the way back to Canaan, to the family ancestral burial cave where Abraham & Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob’s wife Leah were buried.
Joseph fulfilled his father’s request and Jacob’s body was buried there. But as soon as that funeral responsibility was complete, Joseph and the entire family, and the Egyptian funeral procession returned to Egypt and their very comfortable lives in the ‘best of the land of Egypt’ which Pharaoh had provided them. (Gen. 47:5,6)
Joseph would have been about 57 years old when his father Jacob died, and Joseph lived to be 110 years old. (Gen. 50:22) Joseph, like his father Jacob, celebrated God’s Covenant of Land and People made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s sons. But as Jacob had procrastinated by not leading his family back to that Covenant Land, Joseph did the same for the rest of his life, while he lived in Egypt. Soon all Joseph’s siblings and wives had died, and as time passed no descendant of Jacob’s had ever seen, nor could they even find their way back to that land of Canaan. Also, none of them had any desire to go back, for their life in Egypt was simply too good… until!
Until a new Pharaoh came to power who knew nothing of the story of Joseph or his ancestors, and yesterday we saw in Exodus 1&2 that this Pharaoh enslaved ALL Israelites in Egypt. That slavery became brutal and lasted many, many generations. But slavery was not successful in deterring the population explosion of these Israelites, so the Pharaoh passed a law that all newborn Israelite baby boys would be killed immediately upon birth. Those close enough to the Nile river would be thrown into the river to drown. (Exodus 1)
It was in that terrible time an Israelite woman gave birth to a son and the midwife who helped her simply could not kill the baby. A basket was made, and the baby boy was set afloat on the Nile River. The Pharaoh’s daughter was down by the river and seeing the basket, had her servants draw it to shore. (Exodus 2) She loved the baby, named the baby Moses, and took the baby home to the palace to be raised as an Egyptian Prince! Once again, by God’s miraculous intervention, Egypt had an Israelite in the palace! The last time it was Joseph, second in authority to the Pharaoh. This time it was Moses, a young prince growing up in the palace under the watchful eye of the Pharaoh, training the boy to be a great world leader! Oh my, are you sometimes amazed, my friends, at what creative ways God works to accomplish His purposes?
Prince Moses knew his birth heritage and one day he killed an Egyptian slave master for ruthlessly beating an Israelite slave. (Ex. 2:11-15) Moses fled for his life and found his way to Midian where he was taken in by a man needing some shepherd help for his animals. One day while Moses was out with the sheep a bush caught fire but was not consumed and a voice called his name! (Exodus 3)
“Moses, Moses, take off your sandals, the place where you are standing is holy ground. I am the God of your father Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. I have indeed seen the misery of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So, I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land INTO a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey...” (Ex. 3:1-8)
This moment in history is one of the most significant in the Bible and in the history of the nation of Israel. As far as I know this was the first time Moses had an encounter with the God of the Israelites. Do you see how God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Do you see God referring to the Covenant of Land and People which He had made with Abraham? Do you see God promising to deliver the Israelites FROM their Egyptian slavery but also to bring them INTO a good land?
God was declaring that finally the Israelites, God’s Covenant People, would arrive in the Covenant Land God had promised Abraham 500 years before! Their deliverance from Egypt, their escape through the God provided Red Sea water tunnel, their survival in their desert journey to Mount Sinai with God providing them water and food in the desert, and guiding them with a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, is the amazing, breathtaking story of Exodus 3-19. Two years ago, in our “Walking with Jesus” journey, we traveled along with Moses and these nearly 1 million fleeing Israelites, so I won’t repeat that journey at this time, but you can find those studies in our Daily Archives.
Finally, they arrived at Mount Sinai where they spent several months with God as He explained what it would mean for them to live as God’s Chosen people in a wicked and violent world as God gave them their code of ethics and morals with the 10 commandments and other God given laws. God explained to them a unique worship experience for His people and a Tabernacle where the Ark of the Covenant would be kept which contained those 10 Commandment tablets of stone.
For several months these Israelite slaves and Moses met with God at Mount Sinai, learning that God did not see them as slaves but as His Covenant people and God was preparing to lead them to the Covenant Land where their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their families had lived.
Today let’s pause here reflecting, as I’m sure they did, on the harsh reality that their generations of suffering in Egypt as slaves was due to the failure of their ancestors to believe God and follow God’s guidance. Would they make the same mistake, or would they trust God and follow Him into their land of promise?
I wonder about your life journey and mine which has brought us to where we are today? What lessons have we learned and how are we positioned to follow God into the future He has for us? I’ll meet you right here tomorrow and we’ll find out what God did next for these Israelites. And here’s a great song to help us as we reflect!
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 1-3.
Choose below to read or listen.
Exodus 1
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Exodus 2
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Exodus 3
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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