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Paul Mahan

The Son in the River

Exodus 2:1-10
Paul Mahan February, 1 2023 Audio
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Exodus

In the sermon "The Son in the River," Paul Mahan addresses the theological significance of Moses' birth and rescue as a foreshadowing of Christ's incarnation and redemptive work. He emphasizes that Moses, cast into the river, symbolizes God's divine intervention to save His people, paralleling how Christ was sent into the world to redeem humanity from sin and death. Mahan references Exodus 2:1-10 extensively, highlighting how Moses was hidden and preserved, akin to Jesus' hidden life until His ministry began. He draws connections with Hebrews 11, Jeremiah 31, and the prophecy in Hosea 11 to underscore the themes of sovereignty, mercy, and the hope offered through Christ, which is vital for understanding Reformed doctrines of salvation and grace. The significance of the sermon is that it illustrates how God's providence orchestrated events—such as putting Moses in the river—to foreshadow the gospel and emphasizes the importance of casting burdens upon the Lord, inviting believers to trust in God's sovereign plan.

Key Quotes

“God did? Sent a son. Put him in the river. That's how we're getting out. That's how we’re not going to drown.”

“And she took for Him an ark of bulrushes... Our Lord is the Ark of the Covenant.”

“He gets in it. That’s how. And so like those sons of Jacob, in Adam all die. Every one of those sons of Jacob died, drowned in the river, they died. But in Christ, I made a lot.”

“If you cast yourself on the mercy of the Lord, if you trust, none of them that trust in Him should be destined.”

Sermon Transcript

Auto-generated transcript • May contain errors

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I spoke with Brother Gabe this
afternoon. He said he's preaching from Isaiah
26 tonight, the first four verses. That will keep him in perfect
peace. He said, I know what hymn you'll
be singing. I picked that hymn before I spoke
with him. Exodus chapter 2. Don't you just marvel at God's
Word? I never cease to be amazed at
it. And the Word speaks so clearly of Christ the Word. The Word
made flesh. Nothing speaks more clearly than
this chapter. Every chapter we look at, we
think, this is so clearly the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this will
be a blessing just looking at the tide, but I hope that we
can see something of ourselves like being like these children
cast into the river. Think about that. Just try to enter into that.
Drowned him. Dead. Dead. Weeping and wailing. Rachel weeping
in virtue. And so you know what God did?
Sent a son. Put him in the river. Put him in the river. That's
how we're getting out. That's how we're not going to
drown. That's how we're not going to stay dead. I just told you
the last end of this message. He's called drawn out. Drawn out. Hebrews were in Egypt. This old story begins with a
man and his wife in Egypt. They have a child. She conceives
and has a child in Egypt. By her Lord, the gospel begins
with a man and a woman. The woman having a child, a virgin,
shall conceive and bear a son. Call his name Wonderful Counselor.
And because of the fear of Herod, they fled to Egypt. The Lord told them to. Why? He
said, I've called my son out of Egypt, Hosea 11. So this man
and his wife, they're in Egypt. All the sons of Jacob are there.
All of them were there. We looked at that last time we
were together. This is such a picture of Christ.
Now look at verse 1. There's a man of the house of
Levi and took the wife and daughter of Levi. This man was a priest. His wife was the same tribe of
Levi, you know. So this man was a priest. John
the Baptist was a priest. His father was a priest, a Levitical
priest. Well, you say Joseph and Mary,
they weren't of the House of Levi, I know. They were House
of Judah. Why is that? Because Christ is
a different kind of priest, after the order of Melchizedek, an
eternal priest. The Levitical priest is over.
But our priest ever lives. He's in the Holy of Holies right
now. He is the Mercy Seated. That's another message. But this
woman conceives and bears a son. Well, Israel's deliverance began
with a son being born and so did ours. So did ours. His name's drawn out. Drawn out. Verse 2, this woman conceived
and bare a son. She saw him, he was a goodly
child. Goodly child. Hebrews 11 says
that very thing, doesn't it? She saw he was a proper child. So she hid him three months,
a goodly child. Amram and Jacobed are his parents'
name. Amram means high people. Jacobed
means Jehovah saved. So they had a child, a boy, a
man child, and she saw that he was It's special. I know every
mother thinks that. Others think that about their
son. A father thinks that about their daughter. But Moses was,
wasn't he? Why? Because he represents someone
who really is special. A proper child. One born of a virgin, the Son
of God, who came. Truly the only goodly child ever
born, wasn't he? Truly. I love to think about
Mary and Joseph observing him as a child. He's perfect. And you mothers,
when someone, when you had a child, they would ask you, you'd say,
he's a good, she's such a good baby. She's a sinner. Your child's a sinner. And they're
going to start showing it real quick, but not this one. Think
about that. Mary could have said, he never
cries. He never lifts up his voice.
I know he's hungry. And she said, he's countinous.
His cheeks are always ruddy. And you look into his eyes, it's
like looking in a dove's eyes by the rivers of water. That's
how fitly set. Oh, this child, Mary said, he's
a goodly child. He is the Lord Jesus Christ,
even as a child, a young man, young boy, 12 years old. So this
man, this woman saw that the child was a goodly child and
they hid this child for three months. The child was hidden. Our Lord Jesus Christ stayed
hidden for three decades, 30 years, didn't He? What was He
doing? He's like David. Remember, David
was the king. David wasn't crowned king until
he was 30 years old. What was David doing? Keeping
the sheep. Going about doing good. So was
our Lord. Though hidden to the eye of man,
not to God, and not to the few, like his mother who observed
him in all things. The child that was hidden has
to be put in the river. Put in the river that other children
might live. The sons of Jacob. Verse 3, she
could no longer hide Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ was hidden
for 30 years, but you can't hide the Son very long. He's going
to shine. He's going to come forth. And
she took for Him an ark of bulrushes, that's reeds. She took an ark. An ark is a vessel, a vessel
to contain something. Oh, oh, the vessel that our Lord
Jesus Christ took and what was in that earthen vessel, the Son
of the Most High God. She took for Him an ark of bulrushes,
that's reeds. This particular read is papyrus. We get the word paper. This read
was used for making paper to write things upon. Are you with me? That he's in
this ark made of paper for writing. It's like he's a book. The word. I understand, too, that some
lightweight vessels, ships, were made out of this bullrush. That fits. She took this ark
and dogged it with slime and with pitch. What is slime? Slime is just the filth of this
earth, the filth of the river, slime. You've been in a pond
or by the river, it's awful, it's nasty. And she daubed this
with slime. Our Lord Jesus Christ was cast
into this world and this filth of the world. You know what this
world must have been like to our Lord as soon as He came into
it. Vile. He knew everybody's thoughts.
It's vile to us. Try to imagine what it's like
to Him. And then she covered this ark
that the child was in, the son was in, with pitch. Pitch. That's the tar of a tree, a wounded
tree, an evergreen. Tar and sap. And covered this
ark with, Our Lord. Our Lord is The Ark of the Covenant. Our
Lord is the Ark of Noah. Our Lord is the mercy seat upon
which the blood was poured. Our Lord made propitiation. Our Lord made atonement. Atonement by His blood. Our Lord
was literally covered in His own blood. And so are we. His blood. Covered. Pit. Our Savior. Our Redeemer. And
then she put him in the river. She laid him in the flags down
by the river. That's Reed's also. Reed. She put this child in the river.
Well, every son before this, you read with me, every son of
Jacob was cast in the river. And so God, in His sovereign
mercy and sovereign grace and sovereign purpose, all-wise purpose,
had this son to be born. And how is He going to save the
rest of the sons of Jacob? By putting this son in the river. Our Lord was put into this world,
this river called the earth, slime, the dung heap. How does He get us off the dung
heap? He gets in it. That's how. And so like those
sons of Jacob, in Adam all die. Every one of those sons of Jacob
died, drowned in the river, they died. But in Christ, I made a
lot. There's no record of any more
children dying after this son was born. Now, like I said Sunday,
do you want to tell me that babies don't go to be in glory with
the Lord? All these children cast into
that river. My, my. Let's see if I can find
it. I didn't write it down. Jeremiah.
Go over to Jeremiah. Maybe 46. Maybe 46. No, 30, 31. Let's see if I can find it. Let
me write it down. It talks about Rachel weeping
for her children. Somebody, if you know where you're
telling. What? Fifteen? Oh, I was in Isaiah. Jeremiah 15. 31. That's it. No wonder I couldn't find Isaiah
31. Okay, here it is. Verse 15. A voice was heard in Ramah. Lamentation,
bitter weeping. Rachel, Rachel weeping for her
children. She refused to be comforted for
her children because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, refrain
thy voice from weeping, thine eyes from tears, thy work shall
be rewarded, saith the Lord. They shall come again. Who? These children from the land
of the enemy. There's hope in thine hands,
saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again that are on
the border. You know where they're coming
again from? From glory, to meet with the Lord, to meet us in
the air. Full-grown children. I take strong
issue with anybody who says otherwise. Thy work shall be rewarded. There's
children cast into that river. Our Lord cast His Son into that
river to bring us out. All right, now go back to the
tape. His sister, Miriam, 13 years old or so, says she stood
afar off and watched this, watched her brother, watched the son,
to wit, wondering what is going to happen, what will happen to
him. He thinks she's worried. You
think Amram and Jacobet are worried? Oh, man. You know what you mothers
need to do? Cast your children upon the Lord. Take them to the Lord and leave
them there. Cast your burden upon the Lord.
Cast your children upon the mercy of the Lord. Like Job said, they
may not be praying for themselves, I'm praying for them. That's
what you need to do. Cast yourself, cast all your
cares upon the Lord. But Miriam was Moses' older sister. She was his blood kin, bone of
his bone, flesh of his flesh. And she stood at this time far
off, not knowing. Not knowing. She was wondering
what's going to happen. What's going to happen to the
son? Do you know that the daughters of Abraham, when our Lord was
crucified, listen to this. In Luke 23, it says that when
our Lord was crucified, it reads, all his acquaintance, And the women that followed him
from Galilee stood afar off, beholding these things, wondering
what's going to happen to him. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. You wait. You're going to see
what's going to happen to him. He's got to live. Moses has got
to live. That child, that son's got to
live, doesn't he? If he doesn't live, history won't
be saved. Too wet, wandering. So she's
a far off. And I thought of this, Ephesians
2, it said, you who were one time Far off. I brought nine. Miriam's gonna
come close. She's gonna see for herself.
The son lives. Oh my. So look at this. Verse five. The daughter of the
king, Pharaoh, just so happened to be passing
by. The daughter of the king came
down. Here's the first thing I thought
of. She came down, it said. Came down to wash with their
maidens. Now go to Psalm 45 with me. Psalm 45. I'll not have you turn
too many places, but this is so good. Psalm 45. You know,
when you come to Christ, you're going to have to come down, aren't
you? Everybody who comes to Christ must come down. When you see
Him crucified, when you see Him cast into the river, when you
see Him made sin for you who knew no sin, when you see Him
dogged with His own blood, yeah, it'll bring you down, Lord. All
pride will bring you down. Pharaoh's daughter. Not many
wise men, not many noble called. Here's one. God's so merciful
in it. Tender mercies over all the world.
Pharaoh's daughter. Every kindred. There were Herodians
that believed Christ. Have you read that? Many Herodians
of the family of Herod. Believe Christ. You see how that
salvation really is of the Lord? How that He and He alone can
break down the enmity? And yet He's so merciful out
of every kindred. Pharaoh was a cruel tyrant, cruel
to God's people, yet God saved his... I believe this woman was
saved. Many of you have probably watched
that movie, The Ten Commandments. It's probably the best movie
ever made, most scriptural movie ever made, and that stands to
reason because it was made 70 years ago. But it depicts Moses,
that Egyptian mother is going with him out of Egypt. I can
see that. She loved Moses. He was her son. She's not going to leave him.
He said, Lord, if you ever fall in love with Christ, He's not
going to leave you and you're not going to leave Him. And He's
going to bring you out. But Pharaoh's daughter, she's
an Egyptian. She's the enemy of God's people.
And you, one time, were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath He reconciled. with her maidens. So the king's
daughter came down to the river with her maidens. Look at Psalm
45, verse 9. The king's daughters were among
thy honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand
the queen, and go and vote for her. Hearken, old daughter, and
consider and climb thy deer. Forsake thine own people, and
thy father's house, so shall be king. Greatly desire thy beauty,
he is thy Lord. Worship thou him. Verse 13, the
king's daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought
gold. She shall be brought unto the
king in raiment of needlework. And the virgins, the maidens,
her companions, are with her. See how everything is written
as a prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ. So she came down, this
woman who was somebody. She was great. She was rich.
She was well known. It's fame and fortune. Yet she
came down to wash. To wash in the river. All must.
You come to Christ, you come down. When you come to Christ,
you come to wash, don't you? Wash. You come to Him to have
Him wash you from your sins in His own blood. There is a fountain
filled with blood. That's the only one. Drawn from
Emmanuel's veins. And sinners that plunge beneath
that blood lose all their guilty stains. And I have to believe
this is representative of baptism. Baptism. This woman is going
to own the Son. She's going to confess the Son
before the King. This Son, I want Him. He's mine. And the King is going
to give Him to her. Do you know who Solomon's first
wife was, the son of David? Do you know who his first wife
was? Pharaoh's daughter. Did you hear that? Maybe you
didn't hear that the first time. Pharaoh's daughter came down. Solomon's wife. The son of David's
wife. Pharaoh's daughter. Shulamite.
The ark down in the river. She sees this ark. Chapter, verse
5. She sees this ark. She's walking
along by the riverside. Oh, the sovereign, amazing mercy
and grace and providence of our God. It was her hap to this day
come down to this exact part of this river where the Son,
the Savior, was to be found. Like Ruth of Olney, her hap was
to lie on the field that belonged to her kinsman, Redeemer. And
this woman came down, her hap was to walk on the part of the
river where the sun and the ark was. And she saw it. She saw
it. And she said in verse 5, and
she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
Go get that ark. Fetch that. Oh, so sovereign
love and fetching grace of our Lord had fetched us, like old
Mephibosheth. And you know, when he fetches
us, like old Phillip, the Lord found Phillip, remember? He found
Phillip. Phillip wasn't looking for him.
But he found Phillip. You know what Phillip went and
did? He went and found Andrew. He said, we found him. He fetched
Andrew. He said, we found him. The Lord
fetches us and we lay hold of him. We lay hold of him. She laid hold of this ark and
brought it to her. And she opened it. As a child. A child. What was in that ark? The Son. The Son cast into the
river by His Father and Mother. What was in the Ark of the Covenant? The Word. Christ, God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. It says in verse
5, verse 6, Behold, the babe wept. I don't think this child
wept up until this time. It had to be hidden. Somebody
else may have found it and said, you're supposed to kill these
children. You know, Moses, just like our
Lord, was pursued from a child like this. And how many children
died in Bethlehem when our Lord was born for his sake? But the babe wept at this time.
The son wept. How long did that child stay
in this ark? It doesn't say that. How much time went on between
verse 4 and verse 5? It doesn't say that. Could have been three days and
three nights. Could have been. I kind of believe
it was. Imagine that poor child. If that were your child, think
about it. Imagine in the darkness, alone, miserable, uncomfortable,
suffering. That's exactly what our Lord
did. We can't even imagine. We can't enter into what our
Lord went through on Calvary's tree. Alone, in darkness. The sun did not shine when Christ
was hanging on that tree. And he was left alone with them. He's the Ark of the Covenant,
isn't he? Inside the Holy of Holies. She opened the Ark. And in that
Ark was a child. Behold, that babe wept. Our Lord
Jesus Christ as a man, He wept, didn't He? He wept. So the woman,
it says in verse 6, she had compassion on Him. She had compassion on
him. She said, this is one of the
Hebrews. This is one of Hebrews' children. She had compassion on him. Our God, when He gives you a
sight of His Son, As I said, this proud woman, this rich woman,
this woman who was known all over, yet when she saw this son
in this ark, it broke her heart. This son broke her heart. When
she saw the son, her heart was broken. An enemy of God sees the son
and it breaks the heart and fills with love and compassion and
gratitude, and lays hold of the Son, lays hold of eternal life. And she said, what a prophecy
this is. This is one of the Hebrews. Our Lord became us. One of us. We have not a high
priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmity.
He took not on Himself Nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham.
Flesh and blood, like us. He's one of us. He'll put in
this world, and cast in the river of this world, and the river
of death, like we will. We're coming out. He came out. Well, look at God's... Look at verse... Then said his sister, well, Miriam
was watching afar off. Now she comes nigh. She comes
nigh. See, he was afar off, came nigh.
Now this is a king's daughter. But John, she comes boldly, right
up to the woman next to the throne to find help. Now, she says to Pharaoh's daughter,
shall I go call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women so she may
nurse the child for thee? Now, every type is not perfect. No type is perfect.
That's why there's so many. Okay? Now, we don't need... The Lord needs to nurse us, not
vice versa. Our Lord never asked for anything
when He was on the earth. Didn't ask for water, didn't
ask for bread. Well, one time, after he arose, after he arose,
did he have any meat? Before he arose, he knew that
he didn't have any meat. And he was showing them how you can't
provide anything. I have to provide it for you.
And after he arose, he said, do you have any meat? And they
said, right here. And he ate it to prove that he's alive.
But he said in Psalm 50, if I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you.
cattle on a thousand hills of mine that made money, all the
gold and the silver. So this type is not perfect,
is it? But she called, she asked Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go
call a nurse, that she may nurse the child? Now, there it is, Jeremiah 31, it's
written there right there. God's sovereign, amazing providence
and salvation. A little before this, everybody
in the sons of Jacob in Egypt are in great sorrow, in darkness, in trouble. And now there's hope. There's
hope because the sun and the ark is casting the river. And
they come to find the son that was cast in the river, and they
open it, he's alive. That's Christ, crucified, buried. Three days later, he's alive. And because he lives, we shall
live also. This is truly marvelous though,
isn't it? It's all a picture of Christ.
That's why it happened exactly the way it did. It's also a picture
of God's amazing sovereign providence. Truly, all things work together
for good to them that love God, who are called according to His
purpose. Omron and Jacob had thought that they didn't know
what was going to happen to their child, and they cast their child
on the mercy of the Lord in the river and wondered what was going
to happen to him. If you cast yourself on the mercy
of the Lord, if you trust, none of them that trust in Him should
be destined. There's no man's scripture, our
Lord said, has given father, mother, or left father, mother,
homes, lands, children for my sake, that he won't be rewarded,
repaid a hundredfold with life eternal. So this poor mother and her husband,
they cast this babe into the river, and here comes Pharaoh's
daughter, the enemy, the enemy of God, who's killing all the
sons of Jacob. And this woman finds this Hebrew
child, and she knows it's a Hebrew child, and she said, we're not
going to kill this one. We're going to keep this one. This one's going to live. I love
this one. And she takes this child to Pharaoh
and asks him, can I keep this child? It's a Hebrew child. Somebody put it in the river.
And you know what Pharaoh thought. Oh, what's one child? What can
this little child do against me? Sure, keep the babe. He says, in fact, I'll give you
plenty of servants to help you raise him. But Miriam asked to find a nurse,
and Pharaoh's daughter, and God in great mercy said, Pharaoh's
daughter said, go find me someone. So Miriam went and found Moses'
mother and brought her back. She thought she had lost her
son. She got him again. What's the Scripture say? Cast
your bread upon the waters. You see it again after many days.
Christ, the bread of life. Oh, what a picture this is of
how our Lord gives us favor in the sight of
the Egyptians. Quite often, doesn't it? The
Egyptians are enemies. The world, they're enemies of
God and God's people. But sometimes, often, quite often,
Like when the children of Israel were leaving Egypt, it says they
loaned them all their, gave all their jewelry to them. They're
not going to see that again. Here, take this. Why? Well, they needed, the children
of Israel are going to need some. And so the Egyptians did that.
How marvelous is our Lord's sovereign providence in giving us favor
inside of the Egyptians. But mostly, this is such a picture
of God's sovereignty over all. A king's heart is in the hands
of the Lord. Like the rivers of water, he
turneth it when the weather's sober, he will. The light is
cast in the lamp, but the whole disposing there is of the Lord.
Pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth, the enemy of God's
people, raises up the deliverer. Satan He can't do, he's not doing what
he will, he's doing what God will let him do. And everything Satan does is
fulfilling God's will and is good for God's people. You know that? I remember reading
when I was just a boy, a young boy, a young believer, how this
old preacher said, Satan is always assaulting God's people
with his hammer, with his blow. He said, but with every blow
that Satan strikes against God's people, he sweats at the task
of conforming them to the image of Christ. In other words, he
strikes Adam and says, oh, I didn't mean that to happen. Here, oh,
that's not what I intended. That's a marvelous statement. And surely as Pharaoh watched his son grow in his house,
surely he that sits in the heavens was laughing. When the child grew, Scripture
says, our Lord grew in wisdom, stature, and favor. God amended. That's amazing to me, how Christ,
who is wisdom, could grow in wisdom. How He's a Son, yet He
had to learn obedience. Explain that. I can't. Our Lord
grew up in this world as a child. My, my, my. She brought him into
Pharaoh's daughter, Miriam, and turned that boy over like Hannah
did Samuel. Remember that? He became her son. And Pharaoh's daughter named him
Moses. Again, the lot is cast in the
lap of all disposings of the Lord. She may have drawn out.
Drawn out. And our Lord, because He was crucified, buried,
and drawn out, He's going to draw us out in Him. of this river,
this world called sin and death. He's our Savior, like Moses. Okay, stand with me.
Paul Mahan
About Paul Mahan
Paul Mahan has been pastor of Central Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, Virginia since 1989; preaching the Gospel of God's Sovereign Grace.
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