"Unto Us A Child Is Born"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 2:1-10

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Well this morning we begin Exodus chapter 2 and we'll be here again next week.
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So we're only going up to verse 10 in our time this morning. Of course last week we were reminded of God's great promise to Abraham that his descendants would outnumber the sand upon the seashore and that the time would come, remember when that great darkness fell upon him in his sleep, the time would come that his descendants would be strangers in a land that did not belong to them and they would be subjugated by the
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Egyptians, who now we have revealed, to serve them, to be afflicted by them for 400 years and then afterward the
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Lord God would bring His people out of that land with great possessions. So that was
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God's warning in Genesis 15 which is coming to pass between Exodus 1 and what will follow.
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Of course the first chapter introduced us to this major theme of bondage. The bondage of God's people in the land of Egypt.
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The opposition against God's people at the hands of Pharaoh which ultimately is representative of the enmity that is between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.
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The enmity between the people of God and those people who are opposed to God. Ultimately we see the purpose of Pharaoh in opposition to the purpose of God according to the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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The promises, of course, of God are carrying forth the very hope of not only the people of God but of the world entire.
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The people of God, the Israelites at this time, are meant to be drawing all peoples unto the
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Lord to be a display case, to be salt and light that the Gentiles may come streaming into Zion.
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They also, in the providence of God, will bring forth the promised seed, singular, the
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Messiah in whom all of the promises of God are yes and amen. We saw last week and we continue to see in the background of chapter 2 the contrast between the mercy and blessing of God and the cruelty of Pharaoh.
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God has fruitfully blessed the Israelites and as Pharaoh begins to counteract that blessing with greater cruelty,
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God continues to turn up that blessing so that the fruitfulness continues to have this back and forth, this sway between Pharaoh's brutality and the fruitful blessing of the
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Lord God. Now all of that is backdrop and background as we begin chapter 2.
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A man of the house of Levi went and took as a wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son and when she saw that he was a beautiful child she hid him for three months.
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We find the name of this Levite man as we continue to read in Exodus chapter 6. Moses' father was named
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Amram, son of Kohath. We find that his mother's name is Jochebed.
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Not how it's pronounced in Hebrew, but that's how it'll work in English. We know from the unfolding story that Moses wasn't the firstborn.
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In fact, we discover his older brother Aaron and also here, though she's just called sister, most likely this is
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Miriam. So this family of Amram and Jochebed, we have Miriam, Aaron, and now little
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Moses. Aaron most likely much older because he had been born before this edict had been passed by Pharaoh at the end of chapter 1 where sons would be cast into the
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Nile to drown. Moses was born, we read, and Jochebed saw he was a beautiful child and so she hid him for three months.
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Now we should not think if Moses had been born not so beautiful that she wouldn't have hid him for three months.
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Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what mother thinks that their child, their beautiful little child, isn't comely and handsome and appealing in every way.
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So there's perhaps something more to be said about what this term beautiful means. We'll be circling back to this in a moment.
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Moses was born, Jochebed saw that he was beautiful, and she hid him or almost therefore she hid him for three months.
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The text in Hebrew simply says she saw that he was good, simply the adjective good, he was good.
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But the context seems to signify not good in the sense of ethical behavior, he's only an infant, but perhaps good -looking or comely and so that's where the
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Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew, translates it as beautiful. The text simply says good, the
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Greek interpreters looking at the Hebrew said, oh no, beautiful is the connotation here. When we get to Acts chapter 7 and Stephen is summarizing this part of the story of Exodus, he says, at this time
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Moses was born and was well -pleasing to God. So that's how Stephen understands this term good or beautiful.
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It is ethical in the sense of this birth was pleasing to God, this child was pleasing to the
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Lord, and he was brought up in his father's house for three months. Now perhaps it's mentioned here in part to explain why
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Pharaoh's daughter takes compassion upon Moses. She can see that he's a beautiful little boy and she shows pity to him and even desires to adopt him.
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So not only does she spare him, she actually wants to have him as a son. Maybe that is being front -loaded at this point in chapter 2.
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But I think we're safest to follow Stephen. There's something significant about this birth. He was not only beautiful in form and appearance, but he was well -pleasing to God.
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Three months old and a three -month -old does what three -month -olds do. They cry.
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They start to writhe around a lot. They're not as easy to hide. And, of course, over the course of week after week, eyebrows are being raised, suspicions and fears are being mounted, and we get to verse 3,
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Jochabed can no longer hide little Moses. We don't know the details of how she hid him.
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We don't know if there was a certain area, maybe in the home or maybe outside of the home along the way where she found some shelter, some makeshift way to secure him.
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The point is she comes to the place where she can no longer hide him. She has to take fateful, decisive action.
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Without any reflection on her emotion and the sorrow, the anguish of having to send
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Moses away, we read Jochabed took an ark of bulrushes. These would be papyrus reeds, triangular plants growing on the banks of the
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Nile, famous in the ancient world. Dobbed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.
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Now here's just one example out of perhaps thousands at the time decisions that Israelite mothers had to make under the evil policy of Pharaoh.
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We're zoomed in on Jochabed and this crisis in the family's life, but surely this was played out in household after household, pregnancy after pregnancy throughout the
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Israelites' encampment in the land of Egypt. There's merciless infanticide, that is the government policy, and Israelite parents have to decide what to do.
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Certainly they wouldn't have made it easy for the Egyptians to come and take their children and cast them into the river. There probably were a lot of children that were smuggled, hidden, put away in secret.
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There would have been many tears and many prayers that went up surrounding these little Israelite boys. Jochabed cannot keep him hidden, and so she builds an ark.
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There's three places in Scripture where we find this term, ark. This is the second time that we see the ark.
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Of course we've had Noah's ark, we have Jochabed's ark, and at some point later we'll see the ark of the covenant.
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Three times we see ark, and with it the connotation of a vessel made for safety.
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A boat or a coffin in some cases. All of this is front -loaded in the idea of an ark.
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Now it's significant, we're going to talk about the ark in a moment, but it's significant to keep in mind, though there's no reflection on Jochabed's emotion, we can infer just how painful it was for her to act in faith and let
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Moses go by the river bank. This is Jochabed's sacrifice.
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Abraham, very similarly, made the sacrifice of Isaac to the Lord. In an act of faith, the writer of Hebrews says,
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Abraham offered up Isaac knowing what God had promised to him and knowing that if his son was sacrificed, then
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God would surely raise him from the dead, because this was the child of promise. Now Jochabed doesn't know that Moses is the one upon whom the hope of Israel is resting.
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We read of no angelic declaration, it seems just to be a mother doing what she can to help her little son survive
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Pharaoh's cruel grasp. And yet it's no less a sacrifice, and perhaps we're meant to see the
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Abrahamic nature of it. Jochabed, by an act of faith, gives Moses to the
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Lord, even like Abraham gave Isaac to the Lord, and like Abraham, she receives him back.
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She gets her son back, as we'll see. But notice that she builds an ark. Moses, of course, writing this account, wants us to see the significance of this term.
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We're meant to be drawn back to Noah. In terms of biblical theology, we're once again brought to see the symbolic nature of the ark as a vessel of salvation, a vessel of safety.
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And just as in Noah's day, the ark carried the hope of the promised seed.
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The whole world flooded, death and destruction under the furious wrath of God.
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The entire globe, that blue cloudy marble that we think of in satellite imagery as some of us were reminded yesterday morning.
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All of that, silent and submerged, except, if you could barely see it, coasting over the flood waters, an ark.
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And in that ark, a family. And in that ark, the promised seed and all the hope of the world bound up.
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Now we have an ark coasting over the waters of the river under the hope of the threat of Egypt.
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God's about to unleash His wrath. Within this ark, in Exodus chapter 2, lies all the hope of the promised seed.
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Moses' safe passage through the Nile here is also meant to draw our mind toward Exodus 14 when
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God will bring all of His people through the Red Sea to safety. The ark here, of course, protects
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Moses from the jaws of the evil serpent seeking to devour the promised seed.
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And here, of course, the serpentine ruler Pharaoh is looking to eradicate
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Israel in terms of God's purpose and promise for the world. For believers, we recognize the ultimate ark is the
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Lord Jesus Christ Himself in whom we are placed so that we can safely make it through the wrath of God, safely saved from the clutch of our murderous enemy.
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So as in Noah's day, he and his family were saved though all the world was drowned in the wrath of God, those who are placed in Christ by the will of a loving
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Father, just like Moses was placed in the ark by the will of a loving mother, are ultimately saved from the floodwaters that threaten all of creation itself.
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Exodus 2, beginning in verse 4, his sisters stood afar off to know what would be done to him.
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It seems that Jochebed had cried all her last tears, prayed all of her last prayers at the riverbank and couldn't bear to look at the basket anymore, and she had to leave.
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But the sister, again, most likely Miriam, she can't stop staring at the basket.
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You get the sense that she would have to be dragged back into the home. Maybe mom and dad don't notice.
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They're busy consoling each other, gripping each other as they weep into their shoulders. Moses is in a basket, and their mind's never to be seen again.
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But there's the sister watching over her baby brother. What will happen to him?
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And the daughter of Pharaoh comes down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked along the riverside, and when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it.
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And when she opened it, she saw the child. And behold, the baby wept.
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So she had compassion on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.
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The thing that strikes me, even before we get to Pharaoh's daughter, is the fact that the sister was watchful.
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It had only been three months, but in those three months, this sister had become very fond of her baby brother. Surely she would have helped
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Jochebed in the task of hiding away and making sure she had been trained, you never mention anything about this boy to your neighbors.
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You hide any and all evidence that we have a baby being smuggled and hidden away under the shadow of Pharaoh.
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She had been very concerned about her brother, knowing perhaps that his very life was on the line, and maybe her whole family's life was on the line if they were to be discovered.
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And of course, maybe she's putting her baby brother at risk, but she can't help watch to see what would happen.
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I'm reminded of this just having not quite three months, but getting there ourselves.
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And when we took Callum home, it's worn off a little bit lately, but at least for the first few weeks, whenever Callum woke up from a nap, it put the girls in a crisis mode.
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If he started crying, Mom! Mom! Hurry! Hurry! Help him! It must have been the burning instinct of Miriam.
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You can't leave him. We have to help him. We have to do something. So she's intently watching, watching over her sibling.
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Here's a word to siblings. It's the cold, cruel, godless cane who says, am
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I my brother's keeper? Yes.
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Yes, you are. Yes, you are your sibling's keeper. Yes, you are an example.
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Yes, you are an intercessor. Yes, you are an influence.
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In more ways than perhaps any of us realize, we are our brother's keeper. Here's a word to siblings.
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Are you watchful over one another? You sisters, are you watchful over your sisters and brothers?
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You brothers, are you watchful over your brothers and sisters? Are you concerned like Miriam was concerned to see what would happen?
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What's going to happen? His very life is on the line. How much more?
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Souls are on the line. I say this as a brother. I have a sister. I wish
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I had Miriam's heart toward my sister. It's a word to siblings.
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Before we even get to Pharaoh's daughter's compassion, we see the compassion of Moses' sister.
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Do we have that kind of compassion on our family members? When you're little, you spend so much time together, and you irritate and annoy each other and tease each other, and you have to share and do all these things.
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You better work really hard to maintain something of unity before you get old and begin to drift apart.
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I'm speaking here from experience. And perhaps there's other people in this room that could say the same thing. Life and relationships, marriage and different directions, they only bring further and further estrangement.
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You are right now as close to your siblings as you will perhaps ever be. Are you watchful over them?
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Are you using the influence and example you have while you can? Are you present enough in their life to yield it unto the
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Lord, whatever He's pleased to do with it? There may be a day that you'll wish you had been more faithful, but you just don't have the opportunity.
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You're just not welcome in the same way anymore. The Lord God is working in His providence, and He's ordained
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Pharaoh's daughter to pass by with her maidens. At the very moment, the ark is resting among the reeds on the riverbank.
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And of course, Pharaoh's daughter is oblivious, as all of God's enemies are oblivious to the larger providential outworkings of God's purpose.
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She ends up hosting the very doom of the Egyptian empire. Pharaoh is trying to wipe out the
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Israelites, and yet within his very palace is the nuke, the nuclear weapon that will topple his entire empire.
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But we should say this about Pharaoh's daughter. She had compassion. There's xenophobia, racism, rife within the
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Hyksos rulers of the Egyptian empire, and she has every reason to just say, oh, look it, one survived the drowning,
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I guess we'll take it from here. But instead, she has pity. She recognizes this is one of the
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Hebrews, but she takes pity on him. We admire that.
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Even people who are unregenerate can show great compassion. Sometimes there are people who don't know the
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Lord that show God -like compassion in ways that even well -meaning Christians don't care to show.
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Perhaps Pharaoh's daughter's example should put some Christians to shame. She has compassion in an area where there's really no requirement.
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Not an eye would be blinked if she just let the baby be. She could think, that's compassion enough.
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I'll just let him be. I'll pretend I didn't see him. Look how fair -minded and compassionate I am. But she actually cares for him.
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She raises him. She adopts him. She takes compassion all the way. Christians have something to learn from the compassion of Pharaoh's daughter.
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There are a lot of non -Christians that are fully engaged in taking in orphans and adopting and seeking to adopt.
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That used to be the domain of Christians in the ancient world. There were no adoption agencies.
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There were no forms of welfare in society. If you didn't have connections, if you didn't have security in the form of men and women and relatives that could support you and protect you, you were on your own.
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And it was the Christians who went and rescued exposed infants. It was the Christians who had an eye for the widow and for the orphan.
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This is godliness as far as James is concerned, unstained by the world. This is pure religion.
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Something that we have lost, and we have outsourced and exported our opportunities to show this kind of compassion.
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And I think with it, we've outsourced and exported the possibilities of the gospel. Then a sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, what a bold little girl, shall
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I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women? She sees what's taking place, and she sees the opportunity.
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She sees perhaps the delight on the face of Pharaoh's daughter, and very quickly she's able to say, shall
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I go and fetch a nurse? And Pharaoh's daughter said, I have one right on the top of my mind that would be perfect for this little boy.
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And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. And so the maiden went and called the child's mother.
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So Jochebed receives her sacrifice back in full. Again, no reflection on the emotions of the moment.
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She has just been pulled away from the shoulder of Amram as they're weeping and praying for God's protection.
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It's almost like Peter knocking on the door as they're praying for his release. Please protect him, Lord. I pray that someday, somehow, we may see him again or at least have some proof that he survived and he's doing well.
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Father, please show him mercy. And there's Miriam perhaps pulling on the rope. Mom, Dad, you won't believe what's happened.
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It's enough, honey. We just need to be alone right now. We're grieving right now. You don't understand.
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Moses is coming right back home, and it's out in the open now. Pharaoh's own daughter has saved him.
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Take this child away and nurse him for me. This is the command, and I will give you wages. Hey, Mom, more good news.
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You know how you were secretly trying to hide and nurse him and hope that no one even heard his little cries? Well, now you can openly nurse him.
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In fact, Pharaoh's going to pay you for it. In -home work. Isn't this like every homeschooling mom's dream?
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Can you ladies imagine if you got paid to nurse? How wonderful. So the woman took the child and nursed him.
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Again, no reflection on the emotion, just the details here, but we can only imagine. Talk about prayers of rejoicing.
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Prayers of gratitude. And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
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This is all setting up everything that will follow in the rest of Chapter 2. We know ultimately that there's going to be a showdown between Pharaoh and Moses.
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Pharaoh representing the serpentine kingdom, opposition to God in the form of a satanic power and principality.
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And Moses being the very mouthpiece of God, the one whom God speaks with face to face. It is the enmity that God has put between the seat of the serpent and the seat of the woman at the highest echelons of the ancient world.
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It's the showdown. But before Moses can get there, and this is often a truism in the
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Christian life we'll talk about next week, he has to go out to the wilderness for a while. He's not prepared yet to be able to face and oppose
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Pharaoh. But the working is here, and it is clear.
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Moses will be brought up with all of the sophisticated learning and cultural capability of an
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Egyptian palace. And of course, she names him as well. She called his name
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Moses. So here, Pharaoh's daughter names this little
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Hebrew boy, her adopted son, Moses, because I drew him out of the water.
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So in God's providence, Jochebed becomes the wet nurse for little
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Moses. Moses, in God's providence, will now be raised in the very house of Pharaoh.
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And he receives this name, Moses. And it's very significant that that's mentioned here at this juncture in redemptive history.
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She drew him out. Moses means to draw out of. And the idea is being drawn out of the water.
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Of course, water being ultimately this picture of death, the flood judgment, or the chaos water.
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So drawn out, and implicit within that, his name is implying drawn out from the water, drawn out from death.
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Very significant detail and recorded because Moses ultimately is going to find shelter under Pharaoh's roof.
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He's drawn out and sheltered away from that environment which would seek to destroy him.
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In the same way God draws his people out of the world which would seek to destroy them and allows the world to, in some ways, provide for their needs.
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We see that with Moses and his life. But more importantly than that, Moses is drawn out of death so that he can save his people.
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In the same way our Lord Jesus Christ was drawn out of death on the third day unto the salvation of his people.
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Applications, and I have three this morning. Three things that we see in verses one through 10.
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And the first is as much an application as an encouragement. We'll be discussing tonight, if you come to the study on the 1689 tonight, we'll be discussing the first paragraph in chapter five on divine providence.
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And we certainly see that here in chapter two. We see the glory of God's providence.
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Now this was a major theme when we came to the Joseph cycle within the book of Genesis. God's providence was front and center.
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It's undeniable that one of the major themes of Joseph's life is the careful, precise workings, often secret, confusing workings of God's providence.
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And in the same way we see that here in Exodus chapter two verses one through 10.
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God is always working in providence. He's always, in ways perhaps unnoticeable to us, he's always accomplishing his ultimate ends.
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Secretly preparing vessels that he has prepared beforehand for glory. For their appointed work in due time.
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He loves to, at an unexpected time, in an unexpected way, bear his might, show forth his power, not share his glory with another.
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And we see that very clearly here with Moses. We see the presence of God in the life of Jochebed and Amram.
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We see the presence of God in his family. What a family. Miriam, Aaron, Moses. We see his power and his glory.
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Only God could put an infant in an ark and go from the household of a slave into the palace of an
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Egyptian. I love what Alexander McLaren has to say. God's chosen instruments are immortal until their work is done.
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It seems to us so precarious. Moses is so vulnerable. There's no way he could make it even through a single night.
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But God's chosen instruments are immortal until their work is done. No matter how forlorn may seem their outlook, how small the probabilities in their favor, how divergent from the goal may seem the road that leads them to it,
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He is watching them. Listen to this. All around that frail ark, half lost among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose.
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All things serve His will. The current in the full river, the lie of the reeds that stop it from being borne down, the hour of the princess' bath, the direction of her gaze, the cry of the child just at the right moment, the impulse welling up within her heart, the resolve, the diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the mother's breast, the safety of the palace, all of these and a thousand more trivial and unrelated things are spun into the strong cable which
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God draws slowly by His sure yet secret purpose. That's the providence of God.
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Do you know that that same providence is at work in your life? Have you been able to discern a few strands of that strong cable of how
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God has brought you to this place at this time in your understanding of Him and His Word?
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In the relationships that you have, in the things that stand before you, even in the difficulties that lie ahead.
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Moses is going to have to face a number of difficulties. Do you see the providential hand of God? Do you trust
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Him? We certainly see the tender care of God the
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Father in the way that Jochebed cares for her son. Can you imagine how delicately she placed him in the ark?
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How carefully she tried to make it as secure as possible, even though it seems so futile, so hopeless?
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That's just a faint reflection of God the Father's care, a faint reflection, a paltry imitation of how
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God is toward His children. We see, secondly, so first, we see the glory of God's providence.
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Second, we see the faith of Moses' parents. Let's not get too carried away with Moses before we highlight
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Jochebed and Amorim. We see the faith of Moses' parents.
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It's so fascinating when we get to Hebrews chapter 11 and it's the gallery of faith, and of course
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Moses is very prominently described in Hebrews chapter 11, and of course every figure that's highlighted has the same recurring refrain, by faith, by faith, by faith.
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And we start in verse 23, by faith, Moses. Okay, what did
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Moses do by faith? How did Moses act in faith? What great steps did Moses do in faith?
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Well, listen, by faith, Moses, when he was born, okay, that's not really what he did, was hidden for three months.
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Okay, well again, that's not really Moses acting in faith. By his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command.
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It's by faith, Moses, but every act of faith in verse 23 is the faith of the parents.
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It's the faith of a mom and dad hiding their son. It's the faith of a mom and dad praying,
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Lord, we know that we'll be executed if this is found out, but we will not disobey You. We fear
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You more than we fear Pharaoh. How has this been a recurring theme?
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We already saw it with Shiphrah and Puah last week, the fear of God rather than the fear of the ruler.
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We see it here again with Amram and Jochebed. They did not fear Pharaoh, but they did fear
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God. This decree, it was repulsive to them.
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They wouldn't entertain it for a moment. They would not defy a command of God.
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They would not let their son be drowned, taken from them. They defied the king. And in order to defy the king, they had to trust in the
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Lord. And sometimes trusting the Lord looks like defiance to the state.
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We talked about that again last week. We spoke about that a little bit with Wang Yi and Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdao.
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Many more examples today in the headlines today. Now please notice this.
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They did not fear Pharaoh. They were trusting in the Lord, but it was not easy. We see the faith of Moses' parents, and we see that this act of faith wasn't natural.
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It didn't all just line up for them to just start coasting their way and gliding along in their trust upon the
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Lord. You could not have met Jochebed and Amram on one of the streets of Egypt and just seen them smiling and whistling and hopping along.
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Excuse me, excuse me, what's gotten into you? Oh, we're just trusting in the Lord. We know somehow it's all going to work out and be marvelous.
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I wish you had faith like us. I doubt that's how they were feeling. You would have seen them with dark circles under their eyes.
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They would have been hiding their gaze from everyone. Heart palpitations, high blood pressure, lack of sleep.
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And sometimes that's what faith looks like, brothers and sisters. It's not easy.
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Notice that God didn't send an angel? This is the one on whom all of the promises currently rest.
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If Moses doesn't deliver Israel, then the promised seed of Israel is cut off from history and therefore the hope of history.
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But God, even though all of that is resting on Jochebed's infant boy, all of the promises of God, the promises confirmed to the woman in Eden, shown by the faith of Noah and down through all those who called upon the name of the
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Lord, confirmed in promises made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, all of that has now filtered down to this infant boy.
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And God doesn't send an angel to take him up to heaven until he's an adult. God doesn't say, hey, don't worry.
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I've got a plan. This is all going to work out. He doesn't do any of that. It's a crisis for them.
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It's an act of faith for them. That's what Hebrews 11 .23 is saying. By faith they did these things.
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Not by sight. Not by reason. Not by instinct. Against all that. It was an act of faith.
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She has to get creative. How many crumpled up post -it notes were there about what to do?
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What can we do? Before it was like, I guess we're just going to have to build a boat and put him on the river. She has to continually cast herself on the
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Lord. Keep reminding herself that though she's not always feeling this way, she knows that God would never leave her or forsake her.
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And he's a help to those who trust in him. It doesn't always feel that way when you're walking by faith.
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You feel forsaken. You feel that God's not there to help you. The faith of Moses' parents is more than just risking the wrath of Pharaoh.
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It's a faith acting according to God's desire and God's purposes. They know that the most evil thing they could do is allow
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Pharaoh to get hold of their boy. To kill their boy to spare their own necks. Their whole lives are being lived sacrificially.
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That's an act of faith. They're putting their lives on the line for the sake of their son's life.
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It's something natural. It comes to apparent. Jesus says, there's nothing greater than a man who lays down his own life for the sake of his friend.
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Even then you'd find someone who would lay down his life for the sake of a friend, but to find a man who would lay down his life for the sake of an enemy.
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They're willing to take the route of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. They will not bend the knee to this dictate from the evil tyrant.
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And in God's providence, we also see the faith of Moses' parents in the way that they were able to raise
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Moses. They were able to have an influence for at least a short period of time before he was taking up residence within the
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Egyptian palace. For those early months and years, maybe more years than is typical for modern babies,
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Jochebed was the central influence in the life of Moses. All of Moses' early training and identity was a direct result of the faith of his parents.
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It was the faith that we find evident in Miriam and in Aaron, but here chiefly even in Moses. We don't know, again, the number of years, but it was at least long enough for her to give him the most basic training that we could see last him for the entirety of his life.
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What a word to mothers here. What a word to mothers here in Exodus 2.
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She has this short little window of time to have Moses' ear and to have
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Moses' mind and his burgeoning imagination and his beating heart and his steps and his activities.
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She has the influence and she knows it's short, so she will not waste a day before he's taken from her and brought into the
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Egyptian palace and she can only come as a visitor to see Pharaoh's daughter's son.
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Theodore Epp writing on this says, it was doubtlessly under his mother's care that Moses began to trust
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God for salvation. She must have impressed on him the need for the
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Israelites to be delivered and the promise that had been given to Abraham that indeed after 400 years they would be delivered.
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Again, perhaps not knowing that she was speaking to the very deliverer, she was stoking his heart and his imagination to understand who he was in light of God's people and God's lineage and God's promises, reminding him often that God had promised to bring
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His people out of that land and return them into the land He had promised them. What a godly woman.
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There ought to be more Jokabeds. Why are there so many Sarahs and other random names like that? Where's the
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Jokabeds? This is the kind of name you want your daughter to have. I was reading this week
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W .A. Criswell. I don't often read him, but he's such an interesting preacher. And I love how he reminded me of Augustine.
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He brought up Augustine's mother, Monica, another very godly woman in church history.
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Augustine, the brightest mind of his age, perhaps the greatest influence in Western intellectual thought, perhaps the greatest in philosophy, in literacy, language, all sorts of ways.
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But of course he had a very depraved life, and he was very capable, very...
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He had all sorts of prowess and opportunity ahead of him. If he could leave this sort of backwater of Carthage in North Africa and go to Rome, then he could really hit the big times.
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And of course his mother knew his debauchery and his pride and his youth, and she thought, if he ever leaves,
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I'll never bring him to the Lord. She often wept. She constantly prayed for him. Monica would always intercede, and the day came when he sailed away.
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And of course she protested, and she wept, and she prayed.
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And the bishop at Carthage assured her as she communicated with him, there's no way that the child of so many prayers could ultimately be lost.
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That's a godly woman. Somehow a mother coming constantly to the throne of God, interceding for her wayward son, knowing that as things stand presently, he's utterly captive to the way of the flesh and the way of the world and the deception of the enemy.
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And she just intercedes, and she intercedes, and she intercedes. And in the mysterious design of God, he's so pleased at these intercessions that he answers them.
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And Augustine's life is remade, and he becomes a new man in the
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Lord Jesus. Criswell is talking about this, and he says, there's these men that appear in the Bible just suddenly.
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Here they are. And what's left out are these formative, silent years in between the text, these formative, silent years, these times around the dinner table, these morning catechism questions, the offshoot, the prayer at night, the prayer when you're just driving around and you catch a glimpse of your child in your rearview mirror and you just offer up a prayer to God.
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These formative and silent years, and he says, when these men just show up on the Bible, these giants in church history, they just show up out of nowhere.
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What's left out is the fact there's a godly woman who is shaping and praying, molding and making the life that we then see.
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And we certainly say that's the case with Moses. Who is Moses without Jochebed?
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Just some Egyptian brat. You mothers ought to look very carefully at the example of Jochebed.
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She had every excuse to think, I have no time, no influence. I'm just happy he's alive.
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And maybe you feel, you're in that season of life, you feel, I don't have time, I don't have influence. I'm already at my wits' end.
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There's really not much more I can do. You can do what Monica did. You can intercede. You can do what
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Jochebed did. You can say, while there's any time, it's time enough for me to intercede, to pray, to shape, to weep.
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So Moses, we look at Moses and we look at the faith of Moses' parents. The benefit of a godly home, and you children ought to hear that too.
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Don't make it a burden for your parents to shepherd you toward the Lord. It's not well for your soul.
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If you would be blessed of the Lord and you would come to know
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Him and grow in Him, don't make it difficult for your parents to point you to Him. Understand that though every mom and dad are imperfect, and we all are parenting you with the baggage we have, and the wounds and the warts that we have as well.
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We're sinners, just like you children are sinners. But at least see something, however inconsistently imperfect, at least see something of the genuine, sincere desire that you would come to know the
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Lord, and don't resist it. Don't resist it. Augustine, later in life, he became the one that wept like his mother used to weep when he thought what
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I put that poor woman through, and how long I kicked against her, and how
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I wished that I had heeded her from my earliest days. How much more joy there would have been, how much more blessing would have attended my way, how much more warmth and light and life
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I would have had, and my mother would have had in me. The benefit of a godly home, the glory of a godly heritage.
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Some of you here this morning, you're ground zero. You didn't have that.
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You're trying to do that. You don't even really know what it looks like. You've never had that example in your life. You look around you and you see people that go a few generations back, and that's encouraging to you, but it's also kind of stinging a little bit.
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You didn't have that. And in its place, you have the vacuums and the voids, and all the things that went wrong.
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And you're trying to figure out how to counteract that in your own life, in the way you're conducting your marriage, and you're bringing up your home.
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Now take heart. Take heart. The window is short and the barriers are high, but seek the
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Lord. Seek the Lord. Know that you are beginning a great work of God, laying down a godly heritage, overturning decades, maybe centuries of darkness in the history of your family.
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And God, by His grace, has chosen you to begin breaking light into what had been previously dark.
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Don't take that lightly, and don't spurn it. What's the worst thing that Jochebed could have done?
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Pray, please spare my son. Spare him, Father. And then see him spared and nurse him, and then just be like,
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I'm so relieved, and this is great, you get to go to a palace and literally save him from Pharaoh and then just voluntarily give him back to Pharaoh.
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Here you go. This is great. Better life than I could give him. She fights tooth and nail for every inch of influence in Moses' imagination.
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She fights for it. What's the worst thing that you could do as a mother? And I realize there's situations, there's circumstances.
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We're all at different places and we all have different things that we're facing, so please don't hear this as sort of,
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I'm putting on my fundamentalist suspenders and saying, you better get your house in order. I'm not doing that. I'm saying this from a place of compassion.
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Don't pray for God to save your children from the clutch of Pharaoh and then voluntarily give them to Pharaoh.
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Fight for every inch of your child's mind and heart. The window is short and the influence is brief, and the cement begins to harden.
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And some of you, as our brother even was sharing earlier in prayer, some of you, if you're shown mercy later in life, that mercy comes with deep regret.
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And even then, it's only if you're shown mercy later in life. It's not guaranteed. Do you see the high and holy calling of parenting?
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Remember when Abraham was walking with the Lord, with the sort of angels in Genesis 18, and God teasing out this intercession from Abraham, says, shall
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I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? Since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, because I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they would keep the way of the
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Lord. Do you see the high and holy call of parenting?
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Jochebed and Amram saw the high and holy call of parenting. He has known us in order that we would command our children and our household after him to keep the way of the
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Lord. That's the calling that came with us being called into the
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Lord. You cannot say, Lord, I give my whole life to you, if not everything that's attached to your life comes with that, including the relationships that you're directly responsible for.
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And of course there's going to be all sorts of opposition, all sorts of fear, many barriers along the way.
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Sometimes you're going to be wide -eyed, dark circles, sleepless, with high blood pressure, and your child's in an ark on the riverbank.
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But you walk by faith. Why? Why? Because the Lord has called you to commit your children and your household after you to keep the way of the
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Lord. And the last point, and I'll be briefer here.
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We see the glory of God's providence.
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That was first. Secondly, we saw the faith of Moses' parents. Third and last, we see the hope of Israel's Deliverer.
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The hope of Israel's Deliverer. With the bondage of Egypt, this major theme in the book of Exodus, we're brought to see more of the fall and the results of the fall.
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We certainly saw the spread of sin in Genesis 1 -11 all the way up to the burgeoning
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Tower of Babel and God's judgment upon that as the nations are scattered and divided. We saw the sinfulness of man and the prowess of man building empires and with empires subjugating and tormenting those that were underneath the crush of the marble and the boot.
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What had once been a perfect society of righteousness in the land of Eden. The society was just Adam and Eve.
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That was the only righteous society there's ever been. Sorry to disappoint the Marxists, but there's only ever been one perfectly upright society.
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It was in Eden before the fall. But after the fall, the mind of man is darkened.
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The will of man is blinded. The affections of man are disordered. Man's will is stained and plagued by sin.
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And now the will is in a profound bondage. And because the bondage is in the will to the lust of the flesh, now even there's physical bondage.
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It's the outflow of the bondage of Pharaoh's heart that he's putting the Israelites into bondage.
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Now where is the Israelites' hope in all of this? Where is the hope?
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Hope does not come with Israelites checking their daily blog roll and finding some motivational thought for the day and just reminding themselves the power of positive thinking is going to make the difference.
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Hope does not come with padding your resilience, finding some self -reliance, mustering up ways to get by through hard times, stiff upper lip, keep your head up.
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Hope doesn't come with Israelite men gathering around tables, devising new strategies to somehow counteract the harshest aspects of Egyptian subjugation.
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Ultimately, the only hope is in the promised deliverer.
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That's the only hope. The only hope is an infant boy crying for milk in a basket on the banks of the river.
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That's the only hope there is. Apart from that, there is no hope.
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With the fall, we see God's curse on sin, but we also see that that's not the ultimate end.
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In fact, that's just the beginning of God's plan to respond to human sin, to show mercy and bring forth redemption.
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And all of that redemption always rests upon God's promised deliverer.
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It's no different in Exodus 2 than it was in Genesis 3 .15. All of the hope of redemption, the only hope there can be in this life and in this world, is in a promised deliverer.
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In Exodus 2, we see so clearly the serpentine kingdom extending its reign of terror.
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Nations and rulers. The Psalms 2 scenario. Nations and rulers plotting in vain, seeking to overthrow that whom
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God had promised. Whether it be Pharaoh or Ahab or Jezebel or the murderous
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Herod. Behind all those who place themselves on the side of the serpent in opposition to God, generation after generation,
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God is the one who put that enmity there between the serpent and the promised seed. But notice this.
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The entire design of redemption. The entire scope of Genesis 3 .15
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to Revelation 22 rests upon a promised deliverer. There is not anything that God's people can do to muster up hope from within.
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It must come from the Lord. Ultimately, the only hope is in God's promised deliverer.
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God's redemption is bound to a deliverer. And with the birth of Moses here in Exodus 2, we behold the greater deliverer yet to come.
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The child given not just for the Israelites' redemption in ancient Egypt, but for all of Israel's redemption throughout human history.
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A son that is born to deliver God's people from bondage. Genesis 3 now taking a further step into redemptive history with Exodus 2.
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Another big step to come until we get to the beginning of Matthew. It begs the question, if all of the hope of redemption is bound to a promised deliverer, and with Moses we have a form, a symbol of the
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Son who was born to deliver from bondage, the child that is given to bring forth redemption, it begs the question this morning, are you still in bondage to your sins?
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Are you still in bondage to your sins? John 8, verse 32.
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Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, if you abide in My word, you're
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My disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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They answered Him, we're Abraham's descendants. We've never been in bondage to anyone.
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I'll pause there. Some of the men yesterday, we were talking about the need for church history.
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There's generally ignorance to even American history, if not world history, among people today.
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We have more resources to discover history than at any point in human history up until now, and at the same time, we have less knowledge, less common knowledge about history than perhaps any other point in history up until now.
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Now you can Google or Wikipedia everything, and for that reason, we don't know anything.
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If you think I really need to know it, I'll just look it up if I want to, which means we don't really want to at all, because, you know,
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TikTok. Well, there is a need for church history.
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There is a need for general American history, and these disciples should know Abraham's descendants were literally the ones in bondage.
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We're Abraham's descendants. We've never been in bondage. Meanwhile, Roman soldiers are on top of the Antonia Fortress.
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Really? Do you not think this is bondage still? How then can you say to us, you will be made free?
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You see, they don't see the need. How can you say that we will be made free? What do you mean we'll be made free?
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We don't need to be made free. What does Jesus say to them? Most assuredly, in better translation, truly, truly, it's
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Jesus' way of saying, okay, stop thinking, stop thinking about what you're going to ask next and just listen, listen, listen to what
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I'm about to say. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.
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A slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
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There are people sitting in this room today that are essentially in the same position as these people who believe
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Jesus, believe that the Bible's true, not really sure how they relate or where they fit, and they would pose the same question, what do you mean
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I need to be made free? No, we all sin, we all struggle. I'm really no different than anyone else here.
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I know the Bible's true. I want to be a Christian. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. Truly, truly,
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I say to you, a person who commits a sin is a slave to sin. A person who makes a practice of sinning is a slave to sin.
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If the son makes you free, then you're free indeed. Not free with question marks.
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Not free with flaws. Not free where I think I am, but most people don't know that I am, or they don't think I am. If the son makes you free, then you are free indeed.
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So have you been freed from the bondage? Have you looked to the Deliverer who is to come? Unto us a child is born.
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Moses was born symbolically to lead his people out of bondage. Ultimately, that was just about what
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Isaiah 9 was predicting. Unto us a child is born. One greater than Moses is here to deliver us not from the bonds of Egypt, but from the bonds of our own sinful flesh.
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And all that comes with that bondage. He has come as our Prince of Peace, mighty God, everlasting
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Father, sitting upon the throne of David to order and establish justice and judgment from that time forward forever.
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Ultimately, our only hope is in the promised Deliverer. So have you put your hope in him?
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Last point I want to make, and then we'll close. Remember Moses' description.
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Moses' self -description. This is an autobiographical note. He was a beautiful boy. The text simply says he was good.
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It's an odd detail, right? And words are not wasted in ancient writing like they are on text message threads today.
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Words are not wasted, especially in inspired scripture. The connotation was he was good -looking, but there's more going on there than that.
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Remember, Exodus is just simply coming away from Genesis. We're meant to read Genesis and Exodus together.
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And where do we have that look at it's good? Where do we see something begotten and then declared it's good?
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We see that in Genesis 1, throughout Genesis 1. And the rabbis don't miss this at all.
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Ben Jacob basically says, Jochebed looked upon her child with a joy similar to God looking upon creation.
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He had, as it were, born creation, made all that is, ex nihilo.
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And he said, it's good. It's good. Like a mother bringing forth the child and saying, it's good.
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It's beautiful. And we're meant to see with the creation of humanity and the sort of recreative theme.
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Remember, we're also tied into Genesis because of the ark. So we go back to know in the ark, we think of the whole world that God repented of making and how he submerged it all under the flood of his judgment except for the household upon whom the hope of a promised deliverer was resting.
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But then through that, he created a new humanity. So the Noahic Covenant is essentially just confirming, as it were, a recreation.
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Let's try this again now with a new family, one that knows me. And there'll be a sacrifice for sin.
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And so there's this recreative theme that emerges after the flood. So we're tied into Genesis 1 creation.
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Humanity emerges and God says, it's good. That's the birth of Moses. With the ark, we're tied in again.
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Here's this recreative theme, a new hope, a new humanity. Israel will be redeemed and brought forth by this little one.
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So it's not really, Exodus 2 is ultimately not really just about Moses, but it's also representing the birth of a people of God, the birth of a nation that will know
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God, that will have his law given to them. And that ties us in all the way to how God will form a new people again, made new in Christ Jesus, the
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Spirit writing the very law, not on tablets of stone externally, but in our very hearts according to Ezekiel 36.
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So here we see not only, symbolically, the Savior of God's people being born, but we see
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God's people being born in seed form in the person of Moses. Their slavery finally being brought to an end.
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Their Savior bringing them safely into rest. The ultimate point is this.
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One greater than Moses has come, full of grace and truth.
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Can you imagine what it would have been like to be an Israelite and see what
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God had done? Being taught and understanding something about what
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God was revealing about the plagues and then being instructed about how to conduct the Passover and then being rushed out, jewelry being thrust into your hands as you're marched out of land.
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You walk through the tunnels. Could you imagine if you were to turn around in the middle of the Red Sea, looking past the walls of the ways and you look up and here's
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Moses, the interceder, the man who speaks with God.
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Can you imagine what you would have felt for him? Carrying your little ones in your gold, looking toward the land ahead, and you look back and here's this deliverer, his arms outstretched.
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Amazing. The admiration, the awe. Moses, the deliverer.
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This wouldn't have been someone that you met at the diner and said, let me buy you a cup of coffee. This would have been like, clear the room.
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We're not worthy to be in this room. One greater than Moses is here, full of grace and truth.
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Not walking us down a corridor of the Red Sea with his arms outstretched, but while we were yet enemies, spitting and holding spears, his arms outstretched to deliver from a much worse fate than drowning.
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What kind of admiration and awe should you have for him? The providence that the
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Father has brought in your life to bring you to know him. To bring you here this morning to hear his word.
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What kind of mom and dad should you be? What kind of sibling should you be in watchfulness over your brothers and sisters?
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Look to the deliverer, full of grace and truth. Unto us a child is born, and if the