WWUTT 2587 The Promise of God Through Moses (Acts 7:17-29)

Stephen is standing in the Sanhedrin and he speaks to the people about Moses. Those people think that they're keeping the word of Moses. Stephen says you actually stand opposed to it and anyone whom God sends to you.

When we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Stephen’s Defense Before the Sanhedrin

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts. We come back to the speech of Stephen in chapter 7 and we're on to the portion where he speaks of Moses. It's going to take us a couple of days to get through the Moses section of this sermon, but I'll begin by reading verses 17 to 29.

Hear the word of the Lord. But as the time of the promise was drawing near which God had assured to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until another King arose over Egypt who did not know about Joseph.

It was he who deceitfully took advantage of our family and mistreated our fathers to set their infants outside so that they would not survive. It was at this time that Moses was born and he was lovely in the sight of God and he was nurtured three months in his father's home and after he had been set outside Pharaoh's daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son and Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was powerful in words and deeds.

But when he was approaching the age of 40 it entered his heart to visit his brothers the sons of Israel and when he saw one of them being treated unjustly he defended him and took justice for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian and he supposed that his brothers understood that God was granting them salvation through him but they did not understand.

On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together and he tried to reconcile them in peace saying men you are brothers. Why are you treating one another unjustly? But the one who was treating his neighbor unjustly pushed him away saying who made you a ruler and judge over us?

Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? At this remark Moses fled and became a sojourner in the land of Midian where he was the father of two sons. And we'll get at least that far today.

God’s Promise to Abraham and Israel’s Growth in Egypt

This covers Exodus chapters 1 and 2 in the section of Stephen's speech that we are reading. Now Stephen here in talking about Moses is actually giving a defense of himself. He is of course drawing the people's attention to the way that they behave that they are like their fathers who would put the prophets to death who would reject those who had been sent by God.

And we're starting in the account of Moses here by hearing about these two men who were quarreling with one another and rejected Moses though Moses would have been as a savior to them to set them free from the slavery that they were under in Egypt and the harsh tyranny even the genocide that was happening by Pharaoh king of Egypt throwing the sons of Israel into the Nile.

Moses could have been their deliverer, but they rejected him even when he rescued them from the oppression of Egyptians. They still rejected him. So of course is Stephen is talking about that here. He's drawing their attention to the fact that they behave like these two quarreling men who will not consider Moses to be some sort of judge over them.

But the other thing that Stephen is doing in this speech, especially in calling to mind Moses is giving a defense of himself because if you will remember at the end of chapter 6 they were saying of him that he was blaspheming Moses.

This was act 6 verse 11. They secretly induced men to say we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. Well, what you're going to see here in chapter 7 will in this part of the sermon anyway is Stephen actually holds Moses in high regard consider what he said in verse 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was powerful in words and deeds.

I'm going to make another comment about that here in just a moment. But he had great reverence for Moses and it's not he who puts aside the word of Moses. It's these men whom Stephen is rebuking who cast aside the word of Moses and the word of God Moses said that there was a prophet who would come after him and he was referring to Jesus Stephen says that was about Jesus of Nazareth the one whom they put to death.

And so again Stephen drawing their attention to the fact that they were like their fathers who would reject the prophets who actually would not listen to God's word though. They claim they with zeal are defending the word of God.

They actually are not listening to it and seeking a righteousness that is of their own and not the righteousness of God as Paul talks about in Romans chapter 10 verses 1 through 4. So let's come back to this portion of the speech.

You could divide this into two parts the Exodus one part which goes from I believe verses 17 through 21 and then the Exodus 2 part which goes from verses 22 to 29 and then we will pick up there tomorrow with the Lord addressing Moses through the burning bush and that's in Exodus chapters 3 and 4.

The Time of the Promise and the Exodus from Egypt

So once again back up to verse 17, but as the time of the promise was drawing near which God had assured to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in.

Egypt.

Now that could be read two ways. In fact, the time of the promise was drawing near which God had assured to Abraham. God had promised that Abraham's descendants would receive this land the land of Canaan the promised land and the time of that promise is drawing near in which God is going to rescue his people out of slavery in Egypt and give them that land that was promised to the descendants of Abraham.

So that's certainly one way to read it and is really what is meant here by the promise. It's the promised land, but it could also be understood in the way that God had said to Abraham that the evil of the people in the land of Canaan had not yet reached its apex for which God would judge them and drive them off the land.

He said to Abraham that would come generations later 400 years later. And so now that time has arrived both when God is going to give the promised land to the descendants of Abraham and God is going to punish the people that live on that land.

It's taken several centuries, but now as the children of Israel are over a million strong and living in Egypt. God is going to bring them into the land to judge the Canaanites and inherit the land of promise.

The the Israelites who are the Israelite men I should say who would carry the sword and wage war against the people in the land of Canaan numbered over 600 ,000. We get to that in the book of numbers when census a census is taken to count every man who is capable of war from the age of 20 and up.

So God is going to use them even though they would be the underdogs in these conflicts. God would put the fear of the Israelites in the hearts of the people who dwelled there because of their sin and wickedness against God.

It was time for God to judge those people but this all happening in the fullness of time that God had set. So the time of the promise drew near all of these things. God has set these times. It's not God looking into the future and saying, okay, here's when the Canaanites are going to get really bad and here's when the Israelites are going to groan in their slavery and I'm going to draw them out and give them the promised land.

God's not looking through time to see when the appropriate timing of these things would take place. He has set these times. He has set these dates by which these things are going to happen. So as the time of the promise was drawing near not not when the time was drawing near it's like okay now it's time for me to enact my plan.

No, it's when God had set that these things would occur. So as the time of the promise drew near which God had assured to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in Egypt verse 18 until another king arose over Egypt who did not know about Joseph who we read about yesterday.

Now, this is a direct quote. In fact from Exodus chapter 1. It says in Exodus 1 7 the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty so that the land was filled with them verse 8 and a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph and he said to his people behold the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we come.

Let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply and it be in the event of war that they also join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and go up from the land that was a common thing whenever one nation waged war against another they would recruit the slaves of the land that they were waging war against and say hey if you fight with us, we'll set you free and so Egypt is now worried that the Israelites have become so mighty that if someone wages war against Egypt will the Israelites are going to side with that nation that wars against us.

So we must control the population. So Exodus 1 11 Pharaoh appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labors and they built for Pharaoh storage cities Pithom and Ramses this this is what's happened to the Israelites as they're being further enslaved but the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and the more they spread out so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.

So the Egyptians brutally compelled the sons of Israel to slave labor and they made their lives bitter with hard slave labor in mortar and bricks and in all kinds of slave labor in the field all their slave labor which they brutally compelled them to do.

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives and he said when you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and you see them upon the birth stool if it is a son you shall put him to death but if it is a daughter then she shall live.

But as you know this account the midwives shrewdly dealt with Pharaoh in return and they said we we are unable to do the thing that you ask because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can come to them.

So God was good to the midwives. Exodus 1 even tells us their names Shifra and Pua who would have been like two women who were over all the midwives. It's not like two women could have possibly dealt with.

You know all the thousands of women that were probably giving birth to babies in any given year. So these are the two midwives who were kind of in charge of all the midwives and God was good to them and the people multiplied and became mighty.

So then it says in verse 22 this is the very end of Exodus chapter 1 Pharaoh commanded all his people saying every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile and every daughter you are to keep alive.

And this is how the Egyptians are supposed to deal with the Israelites. Now I mentioned that because the way that Stephen explains this here he doesn't say that the boys were supposed to be cast into the Nile which is what Exodus 122 says every son that is born who is in Israel is to be cast into the Nile.

But what does Stephen say about it. Let's keep going here. So in verse 19 Pharaoh deceitfully took advantage of our family and mistreated our fathers to set their infants outside so that they would not survive.

Well what did we see in Exodus 122. Every son who was born you were to cast into the Nile. Okay but notice something about that Pharaoh doesn't give that order until after the midwives are unwilling to play with Pharaoh.

When when the midwives deal shrewdly with with Pharaoh and don't follow his orders they don't kill any Hebrew children at all. They say when we see the women on the birthstool they they give birth so quickly so the the child is already born.

And it's past the time that you said that we were supposed to put them to death. So it could have been that that order that Pharaoh gave to those midwives in the beginning was to put the child outside and when that didn't work then he gives this order to cast them into the Nile.

So it's not that Stephen says one thing and Exodus says something else. Stephen's quoting Exodus he's been quoting from the Pentateuch this whole time that we've been reading about his sermon here. He is very knowledgeable of the scriptures as he is preaching this in the Sanhedrin.

So he's not mistaken about what Exodus says but rather gives us even a few more details regarding what we read in the book of Exodus. And it could have been in the Jewish tradition at that time there were other writings that gave those kinds of details which we don't have record of anymore because those books would have been destroyed with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple that happened in 70 AD.

But this could have been a part of other Jewish writings at that particular time. Now Moses when he was set outside he was put in a basket in the bull rushes as you will remember along the bank of the Nile Pharaoh's daughter found him took him away and nurtured him as her own son.

And Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was powerful in words and deeds. So like I said Stephen has a high regard for Moses. He doesn't blaspheme the words of Moses at all he reads and interprets the story correctly.

Whereas these teachers in the Sanhedrin they're the ones that actually twist the words of Moses and the Word of God. They have zeal for the Word of Moses but it's zeal without knowledge again as as Paul says in Romans 10 3 they have a zeal for a righteousness that is their own rather than for the righteousness of God that is by faith.

And so they're the ones who are not reading the Word of God correctly. Stephen is reading it correctly and interpreting it to them correctly. And when he says here that Moses was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was powerful in words and deeds.

Understand something about Moses. He was an extremely gifted leader and orator. And he was even before God him to go back into Egypt. Of course he did everything that he did in the strength of God because he was 80 years old by the time he goes back into Egypt.

And Stephen's gonna mention that when we go through this speech by the time he goes back and tells Pharaoh to let my people go so that my people may come out and worship me. But the whole time Moses was a very smart man educated in ways that the Israelites were not educated.

He was raised in the house of Pharaoh. He had many of the same teachers that a son of Pharaoh would have had and he was powerful in words and deeds. He was a great speaker. I mentioned that because you probably hear about Moses that he was a stutterer.

When we get to the conversation between God and Moses in the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3 Moses tries to talk his way out of going back to Egypt because he's afraid he doesn't want to be put to death.

And one of the things that he says to God is that I'm a man of faltering lips and so it's because he says that we have many many teachers have kind of taken that out of context and extrapolated it out and have seen.

Oh see Moses was a stutterer. He actually wasn't a gifted speaker. No he was. He was a very powerful speaker. He was just being chicken and God though he was angry with Moses because Moses was making these excuses still had mercy on him.

And so what. The way God set up the arrangement was that Aaron would speak on Moses behalf and God would speak to Moses. Who would speak to Aaron. Who would speak to Pharaoh. So in this way God said you will be as God to Pharaoh and Aaron will be as your prophet.

So that ends up working out in the providence of God to be a very powerful exchange in the in the movies that get made about Moses it's always Moses directly addressing Pharaoh. But it was never that way in the accounts that we have through the rest of the book of Exodus it was Aaron who would address Pharaoh and God would speak to Moses who spoke to Aaron.

So in this way it would serve that that Moses would be as God to Pharaoh. So Pharaoh would never directly interact with Moses. Pharaoh was beneath Moses in this way and probably held it in great disrespect when he saw the exchange working like this.

Why doesn't Moses just directly talk to me. Why do I have to talk to you Aaron his brother. So Moses was a great speaker. And eventually he does find his courage given to him by God. Of course. But the way that he addresses Israel and is powerful in word and deed before Israel he is renowned and regarded as one of the greatest orators of all time especially in the history of the children of Israel.

So his stuttering was just an excuse. He wasn't really a man who stuttered. He was a powerful speaker. But when Stephen says he was approaching the age of 40 it entered his heart to visit his brothers the sons of Israel.

And when he saw one of them treated unjustly he defended him and took justice for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. I don't know if you're familiar with the movie Prince of Egypt it's the animated feature that is the the story.

It's actually a remake of the old Charlton Heston film the Ten Commandments. Prince of Egypt is not taken directly from Exodus. It's actually taken from the Ten Commandments film so and they just you know did a new version of it an animated version of it for kids.

But in the Prince of Egypt movie Moses doesn't know he's Hebrew. And he actually discovers this when his brother and sister Aaron and Miriam tell him about his mother and that's when he discovers oh I'm actually Hebrew that never would have happened.

That is not the way that would have gone because there was enough ethnic distinction between an Egyptian and a Hebrew that Moses knew he was Hebrew and Pharaoh's daughter. Of course raising him up in the house of Pharaoh it would have been known that this was a Hebrew child he was nursed by his mother before weaned and then being raised in the house of Pharaoh so he knew who he was.

And Stephen is drawing that out here as well. He he goes and he sees his own kinsmen being treated unjustly and he stands up for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed that his brothers understood that God was granting them salvation through him but they did not understand.

And on the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together and he tried to reconcile them in peace saying men you are brothers why are you treating one another unjustly. But the one who is treating his neighbor unjustly pushed him away saying who made you a ruler and judge over us.

And it was like it's like this guy was going judge not lest you be judged. You know Matthew 7 1. Before Matthew 7 1 was written do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday. And at this remark Moses fled and became a sojourner in the land of Midian where he was the father of two sons.

Moses Rejected by His Brothers

And Moses was in Midian for 40 years before the Lord addresses Moses through the burning bush and tells him to go back into Egypt where he is going to address Pharaoh and say thus says Yahweh let my people go.

And that's where we will pick this up tomorrow. But the key thing we take away from this is recognizing that Moses tried to help his people but he was rejected. And my friends the Word of God is helping us in our temptation.

And when when we're struggling with temptation when we are being led astray by the wiles of Satan or otherwise when the world looks attractive to us when we think that what God has given to us is not enough and I have to have this other thing in order to be satisfied.

God's Word convicts our hearts and leads us in the direction that God would have us go. And God has sent people to us to convict our hearts and lead us in the path of righteousness. If somebody a brother or sister in the Lord has to confront you in your sin you must search the scriptures and search your heart and see where you have been in error letting the Holy Spirit convict your heart that you would repent of that sin and come back to the path of righteousness.

Do not reject the one who would admonish you correct you with goodwill. For it should be all of us all the desire that is within all of us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly righteously and godly in the present age looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

That's Titus 2 12 and 13 that should be our desire. So if someone corrects you in your sin and directs you in the right way to go according to what God's Word says do not reject that word. Be thankful for the one who is looking out for you confess your sin before God repent and do the things that are pleasing unto the Lord.

Heavenly Father we thank you for what we have read and I pray that we would not be like those who rejected God's Word and those who brought that word to people but rather we would listen and we would be shaped by it.

We would listen with spiritual ears and we would be conformed to the image of Christ as I often say from Psalm 23 lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. It is in Jesus name that we pray.

Amen.

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