Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends… all around the world,
Occasionally it’s good to pull off the busy highway and get a nice ‘scenic overlook’ of the landscape from a large panorama viewpoint. Sometimes it’s helpful to do that in our journey of life isn’t it? Today let’s do that in our journey through the Bible.
Back on July 5th, I started our Genesis journey in Genesis 11 with the “Tower of Babel” story and yesterday we ended the Genesis journey with the death of Joseph. Genesis 12 began the story of Abraham and that would have been about the year 2080bc. Joseph died in approximately 1805bc. The next book in the Bible is Exodus and the next really significant event in Bible history is the birth of Moses, which happened in about 1525bc. Of course the big question is. . . ‘So what happened between the end of Genesis and beginning of Exodus? That’s almost 270 years of time!’ The simple answer is one word: SLAVERY!
The next obvious question is “how did the descendants of Jacob and Joseph allow themselves to become enslaved?” Oh my friends, the answer to that is a very important life lesson for us in 2021 wherever you live in the world in the 21st century! Again it’s one word: COMPLACENT!
The descendants of Jacob simply enjoyed life and became complacent in ‘the best of the land’ in Egypt, to the point they were totally unaware of how things were gradually changing in their society all around them. Months turned to years, generations came and grew old and died and new generations were born, and then suddenly, they were ensnared by their own complacency…bondage, slavery with no way out! We’ll look at Exodus chapter 1 today, and ask ourselves ‘am I living complacent? Are things happening all around me in this world that could actually enslave me and I don’t recognize it?’
But first, I know some of you have been asking for both a map of this season of history where the Genesis & Exodus story take place, and also a timeline to help us see WHEN all these things actually happened in world history. So I’m including a map. Even though it is titled Babylonian and Assyrian Empires which would have been several hundred years later, this is the region for both Genesis & Exodus.
May I invite you to look at several specific points? You’ll notice the city of UR in the lower right corner of the map. That is Abraham’s birthplace and from which he, Sarai and Lot left with his father Terah on their way to Canaan. They stopped in the city of Haran located at the center top of the map. There Terah died, and then Abram, Sarai and Lot continued their journey southwest to what was then called “Canaan”, and the city later known as Jerusalem would be an easy way to find Canaan. You also see Egypt and that of course is where Joseph was sold as a slave, and later Jacob’s family moved to live, and where the book of Exodus opens.
Ok my friends, and here is my attempt at the timeline from Genesis 12 to Exodus 3. . .
Abraham to Moses. . . a timeline
2090bc Gen. 12:4 Abraham begins travel to Canaan
2080bc Gen. 16 Abraham & Hagar have Ishmael as Abraham’s firstborn son
2065bc Gen.21 Isaac born to Abraham & Sarah
2061bc Gen. 21 Hagar & Ishmael sent away from Abraham’s family
2025bc Gen. 24 Isaac marries Rebekah, found by Abraham’s servant at Laban’s
2005bc Gen. 25:26 Isaac 60 yrs old when Jacob & Esau born to he & Rebekah
1930bc Gen.28 Jacob flees to Laban’s home
1915bc Gen.30 Joseph is born to Jacob & Rachel
1910bc Gen. 31 Jacob flees from Laban’s home with all his family & flocks
1898bc Gen. 37 Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers at age 17
1885bc Gen. 41 Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams, elevated to Prime Minister
1876bc Gen. 45 Joseph invites Jacob & family to move to Egypt, 2nd famine year
Jacob moves to Egypt…total of 70 descendants (Gen. 46:26,27)
1859bc Gen. 47:28 Jacob lives 17 years in Egypt before he dies in Egypt
Jacob buried in family cave with Abraham/Sarah, Isaac/Rebekah & Leah in Canaan
1805bc Gen. 50 Joseph dies at age 110, embalmed but NOT buried in Egypt
Joseph lives to see three generations of grandkids (Gen. 50:23)
Joseph’s Egyptian coffin kept in safe keeping until the Exodus
Children of Israel abandon Canaan, enslaved in Egypt
1525bc Exod. 2 Moses is born in Egypt, but not killed by parents
1446bc Exod. 12 1 Million Hebrew slaves flee Egypt…Passover… The Exodus
Moses leads them out, taking Joseph’s coffin with them (Ex. 13:19)(360 yrs)
Ok my “Walking with Jesus” friends, that is quite a history journey, isn’t it? By the way, may I urge you to consider this: the word ‘history’ is actually “HIS story”? That’s right… human history, the history of the universe, in fact ANY history is actually a story being written by the Eternal, Almighty, Holy God, who is Sovereign over all things, at all times, in all places, thus it’s really “HIS story”!
So yesterday we concluded the Genesis story by looking at the death of Joseph, the prolonged process of Egyptian embalming of his body, and placing it in an Egyptian sarcophagus. You’ll recall Joseph had given strict instructions to his descendants to NOT bury his coffin in Egypt, but keep it in storage until one day in the future when finally Jacob’s large family would leave Egypt and return to their God given Covenant land of Canaan, which is in part, modern day Israel. Let’s pick up the story in Exodus 1:6 “Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.”
Please take note of something important. While I showed you in the timeline that 360 years passed between Joseph’s death and their exodus out of Egypt… the descendants of Jacob sustained their identity as “Israelites”. During that long time intermarrying with Egyptians was unthinkable. While I’m sure they assimilated into Egyptian culture and spoke the Egyptian language, it was important each of them could trace their lineage back to one of Jacob’s 12 sons, and because God had changed Jacob’s name to Israel (Gen. 35:10,11) they were called “Israelites” or “the children of Israel”.
Secondly, one of the important parts of the Covenant God had made with Abraham and then reaffirmed with Isaac and then Jacob was that a ‘community of nations’, almost innumerable, would come from them. So when Exodus 1:7 speaks of their population growth while in Egypt, this was in fulfillment of God’s Covenant promise. And the phrase ‘community of nations’ refers to the 12 tribes of people descending from the 12 sons of Jacob. So it shouldn’t be difficult for us to put ourselves among these Israelites in Egypt in, oh let’s say about the year 1750bc or so. Life is good. Families are large, farms are bountiful, food is plentiful, and the Israelites have assimilated well into Egyptian culture while retaining their own identity as Israelites.
But the Pharaoh who had known and trusted Joseph was long, long gone. New Pharaoh’s have come and gone, and things were changing in Egypt…but the Israelites didn’t notice! They were living in COMPLACENCY! May I ask, is that happening in your society? Are moral values or ethics or what is clearly right and wrong changing in your society and does anyone notice? Are attitudes toward God and the Bible and Christians changing in your society and does anyone notice?
Then it happened, everything suddenly changed in Egypt. Exodus 1:8 tells us a new Pharaoh came to power who knew nothing about the Joseph story. All he knew was there were an awful lot of these Israelite people living in Egypt and he said to his Egyptian officials “Look, the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. We must deal with them shrewdly or they will become even more numerous and if war breaks out they may join our enemies and fight against us…” Can you imagine the closed door senior leadership meetings taking place with the Pharaoh in his palace? And the Israelites don’t have the foggiest idea! But this one phrase describes the dramatic and sudden change: “So the Pharaoh put slave masters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor…” (Ex. 1:11)
In recent generations we’ve seen this same thing happen in our world. It happened in Europe with Hitler in the 1930’s & 40’s as Jews were slowly enslaved and then killed. It happened in Cambodia with Paul Pot in the 1970’s. Remember ‘the Cambodian killing fields’? It happened in Uganda with Idi Amin in the 1970’s. And it has been happening in Syria in recent years with Bashar al-Assad. Brutality by leaders against people in their own countries is horrific and yet it is a consistent part of human history isn’t it?
You’ll recall I pointed out that Jacob badly failed his large family by NOT leading them back to Canaan from Egypt, after the Joseph era famine was over. But Joseph equally failed Jacob’s rapidly growing family by NOT leading them back to Canaan in his generation. And before long no Israelite alive knew anything about Canaan other than old stories told sitting around the fire at night, and no one had any desire to leave the ‘best of the land’ of Egypt and return to Canaan. Finally complacency turned to slavery and then there was no option, no escape and for a very long time there was only the misery of bondage.
All the while Joseph’s coffin was over there, in the back room of someone’s house, as a constant reminder of failed leadership, as well as their collective abandonment of Canaan, God’s Covenant promised land. All the Israelites had, generation after enslaved generation, was the thought that somehow God was aware and would someday do something to help them, even though they knew they had enslaved themselves!
May I invite us to look around, wherever we live in the world. Is that a description of the current conditions in your society? May I invite us to look at our own lives, our own complacency and consider the times in which we live? What attitudes, awareness and actions should we consider before it may be too late, my friends?
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 1:6-11.
Choose below to read or listen.
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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 262.441.8785
“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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