Exodus chapter 1. I've been thinking about this
book for a little while. And Lord willing, I want to go
through it. I don't believe we've gone through this. We've gone
through Genesis, but not Exodus. The title of this message is
The Beginning of the Exodus. The word Exodus means the way
out. the way out. You know, God brought
them into Egypt that he may bring them out. He may bring them out
a great nation. He may bring them out with great
substance. And the Lord has brought his church into this world that
he may bring her out. He may bring her out with great
substance, the riches, the riches of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
unsearchable riches of Christ is what we have. Now, the theme
of the book of Exodus is redemption. It's all the way through the
book of Exodus, the theme of it. I mean, I could probably
title this redemption part one. and then go on with that title
every time I bring a message from it, just to be a part two,
three, and so on. But the theme of this book is
redemption. Let's keep that in mind. And this book is rich with
pictures and types of the Lord Jesus Christ and our salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, for example, Egypt
is a type of the world system opposing God's people and trying
to keep them in bondage. Don't lose sight of that. I don't
get caught up in the political landscape and lose sight of what
the real battle is. The real battle is against God.
The real battle is against His people, His church, His Israel. God has an Israel in this world
made up of Jews and Gentiles. Paul said, We are the circumcision
which worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the
flesh. Paul said, Not all Israel is of Israel. You see there is
an Israel in Israel, God's Israel. And then we have Pharaoh, he's
a type of Satan, the God of this world. A new not Joseph, a new
king, a new not Joseph. Israel type of the church traveling
through this world to the promised land. Is that not what we're
doing? Are we not pilgrims? Let's not lose sight of that
We are pilgrims traveling You know when we die, we're not going
to take lands with us or houses with us or anything with us Because
we're just pilgrims We're going to leave everything behind the
only thing we will take with us is what we have in Christ
and So we're just pilgrims traveling
through this life. And then Moses is a type of Christ
as the Deliverer. He's called the Deliverer. And
he's a type of Christ in that he's a prophet speaking to the
people of God or speaking to the people of God on God's behalf.
And then he actually is a type of a priest in that he intercedes
for Israel. He made intercession several
times for Israel. And then we have the manna, which
pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life. Then we have
the smitten rock, which pictures the Lord Jesus Christ crucified,
and out of Him came the Water of Life. We have the burning
bush, God incarnate, a bush that burned, but was not consumed. The whole Godhead, it says, is
in the Lord Jesus Christ, in that man. The whole Godhead dwells
in Him, and yet He is not consumed. We see Christ in that. Then we
have the introduction of the Passover in Exodus, picturing
the death of Christ as a substitute for Israel. We have the application of His
blood over the doorpost. We have the application of His
blood for the security from death. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you when I see the blood. And then we have the eating of
the lamb for our spiritual life and daily strength. They were
to eat the lamb, and they were to eat all of it. All of it. Not just certain parts of it. You know, there are certain parts
of a chicken or a turkey that I like, and other parts I leave
alone. Well, you can't do that with
Christ. You can't do that with Him. It's to eat all of Him.
It's either whole Christ or no Christ. Whole Christ or no Christ. One or the other. It's the sovereign
Christ or no Christ. And this is just mentioning a
few things that's in this book. It's so rich. And Exodus is really
a continuation of Genesis. Genesis is the beginning. This
is how it all started. Then we have the fall in the
garden. Here's the way out. Here's our way out. And in Genesis,
or in Exodus, so much of Christ is revealed, probably as it may
be, more than any other book in the Old Testament. We have
Aaron, the priesthood of Aaron, and all the things that he wore,
and all they symbolize. We have the tabernacle, all the
furniture in the tabernacle. All of that symbolizes the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's so much that symbolizes
Him in this book. But this is a continuation really
of Genesis. In Genesis, God called Abraham
to leave his father's house and go to a land that He would show
him. So he and Sarah packed their bags and headed out on a journey. And it says, "...not knowing
where they were going." You see, the Scripture says, "...the just
shall live by faith." We don't have a roadmap saying this is
what's going to happen today, this is tomorrow, your life is
planned out and here it is. No, one day at a time. One day
at a time, one step at a time, by faith. And the just live by
faith. They live by faith on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You see, we live on the object
of our faith. It's not faith itself we live
on. It's the object of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
afterward, God promised Abraham that he would have a son, 100 years old. He was going to have
a son, him and Sarah. After Sarah's womb was dead,
God said, You're going to have a son. And Abraham believed God,
and it was counted to him for righteousness because he believed
God concerning that seed that God promised. And that seed is
the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that. And he told Abraham
he was going to have a son, and Abraham had a son just as God
said he would. Isaac, and Isaac had Jacob and
Esau, and then God called Jacob. He carried on His promise, His
covenant with Jacob. And Jacob had the twelve patriarchs,
and a nation is born. That nation, that nation right now over there
in the Middle East, Israel. That's the only nation on this
earth that can literally run its genealogy back and claim
God started this one. God started this one. And the church, the church can
claim God started this one. This is not religion. This is of God. The church is
not a religion, she's a LIVING ORGANISM, she's a REAL LIVING
PERSON! The Lord's a Bride! The Lord's
a Bride! Now you remember back in Genesis
15, when God spoke to Abraham of his seed, He told him that
his seed was going to go into bondage for 400 years! And they were going to come out
with great substance! Now between verse five and seven,
there's about 215 years goes by. And it says after this, that
Joseph died in verse six. It gives the names of the sons
of Jacob that makes up the 12 tribes of Israel, makes up the
nation of Israel. And it said, and Joseph died
and all his brethren and all that generation. Let's learn a lesson here. I
try not to let things just go by When I read the Word of God,
I try not to let things just things like this just go by These
are things that I think about Let us always keep before us
this truth all Generations come and go This was one of the very
thoughts I had when I conducted my father's funeral and I conducted
my mother's funeral. My thought was this, this generation
is about gone. And I was telling one of my brothers,
I don't know if it was my brother or my sister, I said, that generation
is pretty much gone, we're next. That's what I told him. I said,
we are next. Now one may die before the other,
God knows that, but as a general rule, one generation comes, and
they die, and then the next one comes up, and then they die. Let's always keep that before
us. Ecclesiastes 3.19, For that which
befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, Even one thing befalleth
them, as the one dieth, so dieth the other. Yea, they have all
one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast.
For all is vanity. They all die. They all die. You know, we've had 10 dogs.
And we buried, I think we had 11 dogs. We buried 10 of them. And I told Vic, I said, I want
Gus to be the last one. She said, no, I want another
one. I said, you know that this one's probably gonna outlive
us. Somebody else gonna have to take it. We've outlived all
the others, but I got a feeling the next one, it may outlive
us. We're getting to that point. We all have to die. And to the
believer, that's a blessing. It's a blessing, isn't it? It's
the best day of our lives. I know we're going to meet it
with, because it's never happened. You know, we've not been to the
other side, except through the word of God, which is good enough. But it's the best day. As Solomon
said, the day of one's death is better than the day of one's
birth. And he's speaking there of believers, not unbelievers.
That's not a good day. But some things I just want us
to point out here in this first chapter. And the first lesson
to learn is this, God is good for His Word. He's good for His
Word. You know, the Word of God says
in 2 Corinthians 1 20, For all the promises of God in Him are
yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Everything
God has promised, everything God has said, it will happen. And it will happen exactly as
He said it would. What God has promised, He will
perform. Everything is right on schedule.
Everything is right on schedule. Not a minute late or a minute
too soon. Everything is right on schedule,
right to the split second. God is bringing about His eternal
purpose. And then another lesson we learn here in Providence is
how God controls all things for the good of His elect. You know this, this world is
just not running along. It's under the guidance, the
decrees, the power, the command of God. You know that this earth
stays in orbit by the Word of His power? That's what it says. By the Word of God's power, everything
stays in its place. The stars are still in the place
where He put them. This earth is still where He
put it. The four seasons come around
every year. And it will until God puts an
end to it. When God declares, time shall
be no more. But until then, by the word of
His power, the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, it'll stay in orbit. And it'll keep producing. It'll
keep producing. Everything's right on schedule.
And then we have, as I said here, God's providence. God sent the
famine that led them to Egypt. You know, famines don't just
happen. It's just not a weather phenomenon. It doesn't just happen.
If there's a famine, God sent it. If there's an abundance of
rain, God sent it. Weather does not just happen. It happens by the decree of God.
The temperature of every day. This is why we have to learn
about complaining about it being too cold or too hot. Because
the temperature of every day to the degree is determined by
God Almighty, isn't it? So to complain about it being
too hot is to complain against God. I have to catch myself doing
that. Because I realize I'm complaining
against the Lord. It's His weather. It's His sun. It's His heat. It's His cold.
By the breath of God it says frost is given. So don't complain about the frost
on your window in the mornings. Just scrape it off. It's so. Now it says here that another
king, a new king, and in my reading I found this out, and most everyone
said this, that this new king was a king of a different order,
a new dynasty. They think this is where the
shepherd kings came in and started ruling Egypt. And this new king
came in and actually took over the throne. And this new king,
this other king, did not know Joseph. He didn't know Joseph. And so another king here that
did not know Joseph, he reigned. And you see, God set him up.
God sets up kings and brings down kings. We know from the
Word of God that God said, I set you up, Pharaoh, to demonstrate
my power in you. That's why you're on the throne.
You're going to fulfill my purpose. You know it says God hardened
his heart and it said Pharaoh hardened his heart. And we know
that all that God needs to do is leave a person alone and sin
will harden their heart. It has a hardening effect on
us. And we see here also in this
chapter and through this book, especially as he brings him out
of Egypt, We see how the wrath of man praises Him. Did He not
say that in His Word? The wrath of man shall praise
Me and the rest I will restrain. He makes wars to cease until
the ends of the earth. Once they have served His purpose,
He puts a stop to it. Men think they signed peace treaties,
God stopped it. He stopped it. The wrath of man
will praise Him. All are doing God's bidding at
all times. everything, all serve His eternal
purpose which He purposed in Jesus Christ, He said before
the world began. Unless you really understand
that, you can't worship God. We really cannot worship God
until we understand who God is, and we understand His power over
all things, His purpose, His eternal purpose which He purposed
in Jesus Christ, which is written in the Scriptures. And if we
don't see that, we've not yet worshiped God as God. All serve His eternal purpose.
This new king had no idea. He had no idea that God put him
on the throne. Did Nebuchadnezzar, did he know
that God put him there? God stole him, He put him there.
He made him that great nation, didn't it? Old David Kinesh went
out on his balcony and popped his suspenders and said, look
what I've done. And God put him out to pasture
until he learned, no, this is what God has done. You didn't
do anything. God used you. He's the potter,
I'm the clay. This new king, he had no idea
that God put him there, that He might demonstrate His power
on him and His grace on Israel. You know, the cross is a perfect
example of the purpose and power of God,
isn't it? Satan and men did what they wanted to do, against the
Lord Jesus Christ. You by wicked hands have taken
and crucified the Lord of glory." You did what your wicked hands
wanted to do, but now listen in Acts chapter 2 verse 23-24,
Him being delivered, the Son of God, who's He talking about?
Being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. This happened long before the earth was created. This counsel
that God brought His Son into, This covenant of grace that God
made with His Son concerning a multitude of sinners no man
could number. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, you've taken Him by wicked hands and
crucified and slain. God let you do what you wanted
to do. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death,
because it was not possible that he should be holding of it. Death
can't hold an innocent man. It can't do it. Isaiah 46 10 God says He's declaring
the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things
that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I
will do all my pleasure and we know the scripture says it pleased
God to make you his people it was his pleasure to make you
his people and in doing so though he had to deliver up his son
in our stead put him to death Suffer, suffer what I deserve
to suffer. Sin deserves suffering. Sin does
not only deserve death, it deserves suffering. And our Lord took
it. God in human flesh, God in human
flesh took my sins, made them His. He was made to be sin for
us who knew no sin. And we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And look here, in verse 12, the
more they were afflicted, the more they grew. Pharaoh, this
new king, his imagination got carried away with him. And he was afraid of them, and
it says here in verse 12, they put them under hard bondage,
they made them serve with rigor, but it says, the more they afflicted
them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved
because of the children of Israel. This happened in the books of
Acts. When they afflicted the church, the more they afflicted
the church, the more it grew. I think Zion is in more danger
when she's at ease than when she's under affliction. Afflictions
are like birth pains to the church. It's the way we grow spiritually.
Tommy called me and he read this and mentioned this to me yesterday.
And I thought that's a good point, I'll put up my notes. It's the
way we grow spiritually. You know it says in Hebrews 5.8
that though he were a son, the Lord Jesus Christ, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. Our Lord could not
accomplish our salvation without experiencing our suffering and
suffering unto death, even the death of the cross. Are we any
better than He? No. And then we see here the
imagination is evil and that continually. Remember in Genesis
6-5 when God looked down and He said the imagination of man
was evil and that continually? Well here we get an example of
it. This new king that did not know Joseph, he let his imagination
get carried away. It just carried him away. He
imagined things that were not so. But what stood out to me
is he imagined these things that were not so, but what he was
afraid of was his own self. See, he came in and took over.
He was afraid, they might do that to me. In other words, they
might be like me. They might decide to take me
over. The imagination is just, unless God gives us a mind, the
mind of Christ, a spiritual mind to meditate and think upon Him.
Have you found your imagination to be worse than things really
are, usually? They usually are, aren't they?
And a lot of times you think worse of somebody than what the
situation really is. It's just our evil imaginations. In Israel's bondage though, Israel's
bondage started with an injustice of a bad king. Usually that's
where bondage starts, with injustice. But the new king made one great
mistake. He never considered God in all
this. He never considered the God of
Israel in any of this. But we have this. We have this
story here in Exodus that you and I may see more of the redemptive
will and glory of God in the person, in the face of Jesus
Christ. That's why we have it. That's
why we have the Old Testament. We have a better understanding
of Christ crucified through the lens of the Old Testament, don't
we? When we can go back, like here in Exodus, we can go back
and go through here and see the Passover land. And then Paul
says, Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. How he connected
that. It was in a eunuch that Philip
went and preached to. He took him, he was reading in
Isaiah 53, and it says he, from the same scripture, he preached
Jesus. And I have no doubt he went step by step and showed
him out. He's our sacrifice, he's our substitute, he's our
satisfaction, he's our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification,
our redemption. And that eunuch said, I believe,
I believe, I believe you're right. I believe that's who it is. I
believe he's the son of God. So we have a better understanding
of God's redemptive will and glory through the lens of the
Old Testament. Now that we have Christ, Christ
has come, we have the New Testament, we have the Epistles, and then
when you take it back in the Old Testament, man, it makes
it so rich! The Word of God is so rich in
truth and light! You know, it's good to read with
the light on, isn't it? I tell you, when I read, I like the
light to be as bright as I can get it. And when we read the
word of God, Christ, our light can shine on this and we can
say, I see, I understand. I understand. Cause I tell you,
there's a long time I didn't understand. I didn't see it all.
I saw nothing. I saw nothing in Christ. No interest
in Christ. He didn't mean anything to me,
but now he's everything. He's everything. He's my life.
I don't have a life without him. And then we see here in verse
13 and 14, we see that Satan and this evil world are cruel
taskmasters. Look at this, 13 and 14. And
the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor,
all because the king imagined that they were getting too strong,
they might turn on us, so we better do something. But God's
hand is in this. You see, God knows how to wean
us from this world. He knows how to wean His people
from this world. You know, when God saved us, everyone here,
when the Lord saved you, He still left that old nature in you,
didn't He? To contend with that warfare. We still contend with
it. We still have it. They made their
lives bitter with hard bondage, and that old nature makes my
life bitter. It makes it so bitter at times. Paul said, that which
I would do, I do not, and that which I would not do, that I
do. They made their lives bitter
with hard bondage in mortar and brick, and in all manner of service
in the field. This life to a believer is tough. It can be tough. And all their service wherein
they made them serve was with rigor. Rigor, that's that old
nature we still have. SATAN AND SIN ARE ENSLAVING,
THEY ARE ENSLAVING. GALATIANS 5 17 FOR THE FLESH
LUSTETH AGAINST THE SPIRIT AND THE SPIRIT AGAINST THE FLESH
AND THESE ARE CONTRARY ONE TO THE OTHER SO THAT YOU CANNOT
DO THE THINGS THAT YOU WOULD Oh, don't you wish you could
worship God in spirit and truth this morning without sin? Don't
you wish you could love Him as you ought to love Him? Don't
you wish you could wake up in the morning and have such a thankful
heart and just thank Him? Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you! Instead of a little trial comes
along and we get upset, being out of shape. Oh, my, sin and
Satan are enslaving. and then there's a real enmity
between the seed of the woman and the seed of satan you know
there is a seed of satan you go back in Genesis back in Genesis
3.15 listen and I'll put enmity between thee and the woman and
between thy seed thy seed and her seed the Lord Jesus Christ
and those in Christ it shall bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel but listen What did Christ call the
Pharisees? You're of your father, the devil.
You're the seed of Satan. That's why they hated Jesus Christ
so much because of that enmity that between Satan's seed, false
religion, and God's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ and everyone
born of Christ. There's a real enmity there. It said of Cain, he was of that
wicked one, the devil, born in the same family, by the same
parents, Cain and Abel, same parents. But one was of Christ
and the other one was of the devil, in the same family. That's
why the Lord said that many of your enemies will be they of
your own household. They'll be your own household
turn against you. But what Israel didn't realize
at that time was that God's gonna deliver them with a great deliverance
out of bondage. And we have the privilege of
seeing this and relating it to us spiritually in Christ, delivering
us out of the bondage of sin, Satan, curse of the law, and
sooner or later, and sooner for us here than later, because I
don't care how young you are, it's still not very long, we're
gonna be delivered from the very presence of sin. and Satan. Note the hatred Satan has here
for God's people, and I'm going to close. Verse 15-16, And the
king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of
the one was Siphra, and the name of the other Pua. And he said,
When you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, you kill
those males. As soon as they are born, you
kill them. Every now and then God lets us
see human nature, what it is. He said, you put them infants
to death. Then you shall kill them. But
if it's a daughter, you let her live. Herod did this when he
heard of Christ, didn't he? All the children, two years old
and under, he had them killed. He had them killed. You want to see what human nature
is, here it is. Ray brought this out after the
service Thursday night. Ray said, if you really want
to see human nature, just go to Calvary. Just go to Calvary. You want to see humanity, you
want to really see humanity unrestrained. If you want to see unrestrained
humanity, go to the cross. There stands an innocent man.
Pilate said, I find no fault in him. He said it twice. There
was no one who could give a charge against Him. And yet they put
an innocent man to death, the worst death they could put him
to death, the death of a criminal. They nailed him to a cross. That's
humanity. You by wicked hands, Paul said. Now that's humanity.
That's humanity. That's all those who give to
charity and all those who do what we call good things. They're
all standing there crying, crucify Him, crucify Him. Give us Barabbas, a murderer. Take a murderer over the Son
of God. That is a true picture of humanity. That's it. Right
there. Unrestrained. Unrestrained. But there's a good, there's a
light here for us. There's a light. We have an act of faith. And
it comes from the least place you would think it would come
from. Two handmaids, their names are
mentioned, two handmaids, midwives, two midwives. Here they are standing up against
the king. Verse 17, but the midwives feared
God. They feared the right person.
Their fear of God was so strong that they did not fear the king.
And they knew they were probably going to die. They knew that
king, when he called them in, you know they thought, he's going
to kill us. He's going to behead us. Whatever
he's going to do, he's going to kill us. But God's not going
to let that happen. And the Lord dealt well with
the midwives. In 2021, therefore God dealt well with the midwives,
and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty, and it came
to pass, because the midwives feared God, He made them houses,
gave them families. He blessed them, and they had
families. Pharaoh charged all his people saying, every son
that's born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter
you shall save alive. But here we see, These midwives,
exercising faith in God, they feared God. That's the best thing
that could be said about anybody in this room. You fear God. You fear God. And God will deal
in mercy with those who fear Him. Those who fear Him have nothing to fear. You have
nothing to fear if you have a right fear of God. Like these midwives,
they stood there before the king. That was sure death. That was
sure death, but they feared God more. I'd rather die at the hands
of a man than die eternally at the hands of God. Well, that's the beginning of
the Exodus. Lord willing, we'll go through it. You pray and ask
God to open these scriptures to me as I study. I want to be
able to give you what's in him. All right.