I want to turn to Exodus chapter
2 today. I'm going to continue our study
in the book of Exodus, starting in Exodus chapter 1,
verse 22, which is the last verse of the first chapter of Exodus.
And then we're going to read through chapter 2, verse 10.
I've entitled this message today, Love Finds a Way. And that title hopefully will
become clear as we go through this, Love Finds a Way. The context is very dark. Pharaoh
rules with an iron fist over the nation of Israel and the
land of Egypt. Joseph has died. In total disregard
to Joseph, Pharaoh has enslaved all of his people. And he's ordered
the midwives who care for the Hebrew women during childbearing
to kill the sons born to them. And we saw in these first few
verses of chapter one, the anguish that comes upon us and our life
because of sin and especially the intolerableness that works
religion creates in us and causes us to cry to the Lord and then
his deliverance in his providence and in his saving grace in Christ.
And the midwives feared God, even though the king was stronger. The midwives were the servants
to the slaves of the king of Egypt. But the slaves they serviced
were the people of God. And the midwives, because they
feared God, did not obey the commandment of the king, the
prince of Egypt, the prince of darkness, the prince of the rulers
of this world, but they obeyed the Lord Jesus Christ and they
saved the men children alive. And so now we are here in verse
22. It seems as if Pharaoh has taken
another strategy. He says in verse 22, And Pharaoh
charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born you shall
cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.
To cast into the river obviously was death to the children. Pharaoh
wanted Israel dead. Pharaoh wanted to silence Israel's
God. Pharaoh wanted Egypt to live
and Pharaoh wanted the king of Egypt to be exalted. This is
ever and always the thrust of the rulers of this world, the
prince of darkness, and especially as we see, as we saw in Revelation
11, 8. And I want to turn there with
you to look at this one more time. Look at Revelation chapter
11. I read this with you so you see it in with your own eyes,
because it's important to have these verses anchoring our thoughts
as we look in the Old Testament. Remember, the Old Testament is
all about Christ. And the gospel of Christ is all
about how he saves his people from their sins. But it's also
about the destruction of his enemies and their enemies. And
so we read in Revelation 11, 8 about the dead bodies of these
prophets, he says, and their dead bodies shall lie in the
street of the great city. And you wonder what city is that?
The city which is called spiritually is called Sodom. and Egypt, where
our Lord was crucified." Now, the Lord Jesus was crucified
in Jerusalem, outside the walls of Jerusalem. He's speaking about
Jerusalem and he says, Jerusalem is spiritually called Sodom and
Egypt. That's what we're studying about
here. The king of Egypt commands his people to kill all the sons
of Israel by throwing them into the river when they're born.
And that's the context. The setting is Egypt. The ruler
is Pharaoh. The people of God are in bondage. Things look very bad. Heavy burdens,
endless bondage, hopeless outlook. Salvation by works is pictured
here. Why do I say that? Well, if you
think about it, if Jerusalem was spiritually called Sodom
and Egypt. You also remember and I'll just
I'll just reference this. You don't have to turn there,
but in Galatians in Galatians chapter. Let's see where it says
here, Galatians chapter four, I think it is. It says that. I'm looking at Ephesians, no
wonder I can't find it. Galatians chapter four, he says in verse
twenty six, but Jerusalem. This Hagar is Mount Sinai in
Arabia and answers to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage
with her children. So in the book of Galatians you
know it's about the contrast between works and grace. Between what men do to please
God versus what Christ has done to save his people. And in this
verse Paul reveals that Hagar in the Old Testament corresponds
to Mount Sinai and Jerusalem, which then was physically. And
that's what we just read about in Revelation 11, 8. Jerusalem,
which now is, is that city which is like Sodom and Egypt. But
what was Sodom? As soon as you say the word Sodom,
people know what we're talking about. It's that city where Homosexuality
seemed to be reigning. They perverted the gift of marriage
between one man and one woman, and they exchanged God's holy
and undefiled gift of union between a man and his wife with acts
of perversion that cannot produce life. Sodom exemplifies salvation
by works, because salvation by works, like homosexuality, is
religion without Christ. It is a religion that exchanges
the holy union between Christ and His people, which is entirely
by grace, with acts of works that cannot produce life. It
is a religion full of lifeless acts which pervert the true gospel
of the free grace of God in Christ. So you see, Sodom corresponds
to works religion, trying to earn salvation by something in
me, something from me, something I do. And we see even more clearly
here too, Egypt also signifies salvation by works. It represents
two things that stand out, and more actually, the whole world
system. But here it represents idolatry
and bondage. Egyptian bondage led to death
after a fruitless life. Following the same pattern, works
religion spiritually produces a fruitless life before God and
ends an eternal death. It is bondage. Salvation by works
is the bondage of always striving to be saved by something I must
do. Ever trying to secure salvation
by something I contribute. Ever trying to improve or perfect
self by self. Works religion boasts in its
accomplishments. Works religion shuts up the kingdom
of heaven to those who hold to it. And those who hold to it
shut it up against those trying to enter. Now, you can look at one verse
in Galatians chapter two to see this echoed there. Galatians
is a book, I was just reading it yesterday, reflecting on the
similarities of Galatians, the issues there and what we're reading
about in Exodus and Egypt. But in Galatians chapter 2, you
see in verse 4, that because of false brethren, unawares brought
in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have
in Christ, that they might bring us into bondage. Those who saw
that salvation was for sinners entirely with no contribution
from them, but because only of what Christ has done came in
to put in bondage those who said they believed the gospel and
tried to bring them back under that system of always striving
and never achieving salvation. But the true grace of God saves
only by what God provides and finds in Christ. The true grace
of God has overcome the condemnation of sin, and will overcome sin's
power. The true grace of God has overcome
the world at the cross and will yet overcome it, both its philosophy
and its religion, through the rod of the gospel. The true grace
of God overcomes all things by the blood of the Lamb, by Christ's
victory at the cross, and by walking in the Spirit through
faith in Christ's blood and righteousness. So you see that Egypt represents
this bondage. But what is idolatry? Think about it. Idolatry is the
worship performed by men who believe in salvation by works. Idolatry is man worshiping the
works of their own hands. Idolatry makes God in man's image. Idolatry assigns to God only
those qualities and abilities which sinful man approves and
allows. Isn't that true? Idolatry assigns
to God, I'm just trying to find what I just read, assigns to
God only those things that sinful man approves and allows. Isn't
that what an idol is? God must accept the dictates
of sinful man. In idolatry, God can only do
what sinful man allows. He cannot do what sinful man
does not allow. In idolatry, God can only save
as far as sinful man ascribes to Him the ability to save. And
this is something I've seen in idolatry. In idolatry, the free
will of man is absolutely sovereign. Free will is the one unprovable
and unmovable axiom to which all truths must submit in idolatry. In idolatry, unless sinful man
gives his consent, God cannot be God. He will never violate
man's free will. Thus, idolatry and works religion
go hand in hand. Idolatry is the worship performed
by those who hold to works religion. Works done in whole or in part
to contribute to salvation. And Galatians is all about this.
The Apostle Paul is using in the Galatians his arguments to
countervene, to overthrow what the Judaizers had slipped in
to teach to the Galatians, that though Christ saves you, yet
you need to be circumcised in order that you might be better,
in order that you might perfect, be improved, be perfected. But that was not true. He says,
if you are circumcised, Christ profits you nothing. Idolatrous. I mean, works religion
sets up idols and idols are nothing more than what man thinks God
is like instead of taking for what God has said he is sovereign
and holy and just and gracious in Christ alone. Now, looking
at Exodus chapter two in verse one, it says, well, let's reflect
a little bit on verse 22 of chapter one. Pharaoh commanded his people
to throw every son into the river. The river was the place of death. Pharaoh was the apparent ruler
over all things because the children of Israel were under his dominion.
And yet God blessed them. And this place, I just want you
to keep this in mind, the river there signifies that the sons
would be killed who were cast into the river. But notice in
verse one, there went out a man of the house of Levi, and took
to wife a daughter of Levi. The man's name was actually Amran,
and he was Moses' father, and the wife's name was Jochebed,
who was Moses' mother. Both were Levites. Now, in the
Old Testament, and you can read this in several places, I'm not
going to have you turn to, but in the Old Testament, the Levites
were a special tribe. There were twelve tribes in Israel,
one for each son born to Jacob. One of them was Levi, and that
tribe was dedicated to the Lord. They were consecrated to the
Lord by God Himself. God sanctified. He separated
them. He set them apart for Himself. He chose them, and He said, they're
mine. They're mine. Jochebed and Amran
were Levites. They were sanctified to Him.
Even so, all believers are sanctified to the Lord. They're called saints.
The word saints means the sanctified ones. They're sanctified in Christ
Jesus. They were sanctified by the will
of God, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. And God
chose them for Himself, and He sanctified them to Himself. All
believers are chosen by God, and they're sanctified to Him
in eternal election, in redeeming blood, and by His life-giving
operation of His Spirit, giving them faith in Christ and regeneration. Now, in Exodus chapter 2, in
verse 2, we see the next thing that happens. This woman, Jochebed,
conceived, and she bare a son. And when she saw him, that he
was a goodly child, she hid him three months. In Hebrews chapter
11, verse 23, it says, By faith, by faith, Moses, when he was
born, was hid three months of his parents. By faith. What is
faith? How does faith come? Faith comes
only by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Amram and
Jochebed heard the Word of God. Because they heard it, and God
meaning not just hearing it with their ears, but hearing it and
creating faith in them, they believed what God said. And what
God had said is what He had said to Abraham. He told Abraham in
promise, I'm going to take your descendants into Egypt, but they're
not going alone because I will go with them down to Egypt. And
then he says he gave him a promise and I will surely bring them
out again. And not only did he say, I'll
bring them out, but he says when they come out again, they're
going to come out. They're going to be waited and
it's going to wait until the fourth generation because the iniquity
of the Amorites is not yet full. So God would make a great nation
of them, He would be with them, and He would bring them up again.
And when God brought them down into Egypt, He promised that
He would bring them out again. Amram and Jochebed believed God's
promise. They believed that God was going
to deliver them. God had revealed it. I don't
know how God revealed it, but when Moses was born, they saw
that he was a goodly child. In Acts 7.20, Stephen in his
sermon says that he was exceeding fair to God. Exceeding fair actually
means beautiful. He was beautiful to God. They
looked at Moses. They heard what God had said
in his promises. They understood that God was
going to deliver Israel from Egypt by Moses. I don't know
how they did it, but they understood that. They put their faith in
God's grace. in God's goodness, in His promise
fulfilling faithfulness. Now, faith always hears the gospel. The gospel says that Christ is
beautiful to God. The gospel says that what God
thinks of Christ, He thinks of all His people who are in Him. Faith comes to God in Christ,
knowing that Christ is beautiful to God. How is Christ beautiful
to God? How beautiful is Christ to God?
First of all, He's beautiful to God because He loves righteousness
and He hates iniquity. He's beautiful to God because
He does everything that pleases the Father. He's beautiful to
God because He loves His people and lays His life down for them.
He says in John 10, 17, The Father loves me because I lay down my
life for the sheep. And it was in Matthew 17, 10
where He says, This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Hear him. So Christ is beautiful
to God because of who he is and what he's done. But how beautiful
is Christ to God is that as beautiful as he is, every believer is beautiful. Is that beautiful to God? And
this is something that we can't really fully appreciate, but
this is what faith teaches us, that when we come to God by Jesus
Christ, God looks at His Son and receives from His Son all
He requires of us, and with the admiration He has for His Son,
He admires His people and loves them in Him. This is something
that God does because of what Christ has done, but also in
the new birth. God gives to us, by His Spirit,
His new nature, His divine nature, and He finds beauty in what He
has done in us. And this is exactly what God
is saying here. In Exodus chapter 2, when Moses was born, corresponding
to our being born again by the Spirit of God, God looks at His
people. For Christ's sake, He says, they're
beautiful to God. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, He
says that God has chosen the base things of the world, things
which are despised, things which are not. in order to bring to
nothing things that are, that no flesh should glory in his
presence. Then he says, But of him, of
God, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made to us. And
he describes all these beautiful things, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. And now wisdom is Christ's wisdom. He has made our wisdom. He understood
the will of God. He went about to fulfill it and
did fulfill it. By His knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. And so it's His wisdom, it's
His righteousness, His obedience. He sanctified Himself that we
also might be sanctified. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. All these things make us beautiful
to God. Song of Solomon 4.7 says, Speaking
about the church, he says, Thou art all fair, my love, there
is no spot in thee. I don't know about you, but when
I read that, I just relax. He says in Ephesians 5, it's
the same thing. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also
loved the church. and gave himself for it, that
he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish." That's beautiful, isn't it? In
Revelation chapter 21 too, it says, And I, John, saw the holy
city, New Jerusalem, Coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared
as a bride, adorned for her husband." My wife and my daughters like
to watch this program on TV about wedding dresses. I find absolutely
no interest in it. But they like it. And I'm not
sure exactly why. Maybe they like to see the wedding
dresses. I remember we were looking at
some pictures a week or so ago. My wife and I got married. My
wife spent all this time and work to make herself as beautiful
as possible. She was already pretty enough,
but Christ has made his people beautiful by his work. All his
work. It says in Song of Solomon 1.5,
the church confessing, I am black, but comely. In 6.1 he says, Whither
is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? And in Song of Solomon
7.6, he says, How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for
delight, speaking to the church. In Isaiah 61.10, the church says
this, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be
joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments
of salvation. He has covered me with the robe
of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. All of this
beauty God places on His people. And this is what is speaking
about in Exodus chapter 2, foreshadowing in pattern Moses' birth. Moses
was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He would deliver His
people, Israel, from Egypt, just as Christ would deliver His people
from the bondage of sin and death and the law and Satan and the
world and the flesh. all the enemies of God Christ
would deliver us from by his own death and so Moses too and
when God By His Spirit, taught Amran and Jochebed, their child
Moses was a goodly child, exceeding fair to God, beautiful to God.
Not only is He teaching us how Christ is beautiful, but He's
teaching that at His birth and in our birth, we are beautiful
to God. All that is said here about Moses, remember, points
to Christ. But remember, this is also teaching
the children of Israel here at this time that what happened
to Moses God was going to do for them through Moses. They
were in bondage. Moses was born right in the context
of the worst kind of bondage. His brother Aaron, three years
older than him, perhaps even delivered by the midwives, just
before that time, saved alive, who knows how, just a few years
old. And then he is born. And when
he's born, He's delivered from the most powerful king of Egypt
by the providence of God, the care of God over Israel and over
Moses. And God is teaching them through
all of these historical things, you can count on it, God is going
to fulfill His promise of grace, His purpose of love. And so when
Moses was born, they see that he's a goodly child. They hide
him three months because they believed God. And then something
strange seems to happen. It says in verse 3, And when
she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes,
and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child
therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river's bank. Why
did Jochebed hide Moses in the ark? Why did she put him in the
river? Well, we know from Hebrews chapter
11 verse 23, she hid him for three months because she believed
God. But in believing God, what was
she doing with her son? I mean, it's a strange thing
to do. She knew that he was going to
be thrown to the river and perish. So she built this thing called
an ark. And on the outside, it looked,
I would think, ugly, daubed with slime. It says here that she
jobbed it with slime and with pitch. And she put him in the
ark, and then she put the whole thing in the river. Maybe it
was even camouflaged. I don't know. It certainly wasn't
bright and colorful. But putting him in the river
was the place of death, was it not? Isn't that the very place
that Pharaoh said, take your sons and cast them into the river?
Well, she sort of did that, didn't she? She sort of cast him there,
but didn't cast, gently put him there and put him in this little
arc. And having put him there, we ask the question, which seems
obvious, why would she do that? Well, outwardly, it's clear that
she did it because she wanted to preserve her son. She loved
her son. But looking at it from the eyes
of faith, she's doing more than just simply trying to preserve
her son from the river. She's actually committing her
son into the hands of Almighty God so that God can deliver him
from the river, isn't she? She's taking her son and relinquishing
him to God's care by putting him in the ark so that at some
point in God's good will, he might deliver Moses from the
river. She believed God was going to fulfill His promise. She saw
that Moses was a beautiful child, goodly child, exceeding fair
to God. And so she commits him to the
place of death in order that by his deliverance from death,
he might be saved, she might be saved, all Israel might be
saved. And this is the gospel. This
is what God has done for us in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ
had to come. He was He had to be sent by His
Father. It was God's good pleasure. It
says in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10, it seemed good to Him. Let me just take a look at that
with you. Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 2. I said 10.
I think I meant to say 2. Hebrews 2.10. He says, It became
Him, that's God the Father, for whom are all things and by whom
are all things. In bringing many sons to glory,
what seemed good to him? To make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. You see that? Now, overlay that
gospel truth over this passage. It overlays over several passages
of Scripture. It seemed good to God to make
the captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings, and
by so doing, to bring many sons to glory. God the Father did
that. And what did He do? He sent His
Son. And He didn't just send His Son,
He sent Him in the form of sinful flesh. It says in the likeness
of sinful flesh. He humbled Him. He who is God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, humbled Himself. He came in the form
of a man, as a servant, in order to do the will of God. And the
will of God was that he should suffer, and in his suffering
he would bring many sons to glory. And so Amram and Jochebed placed
their son in this ark. And the ark was daubed with slime
and pitch. And she put it in the river,
the place of death, and Moses was there in the ark. And then
we read on. We'll amplify these things in
a moment here. In verse 4, And his sister, that
would be Miriam, stood afar off to wit what would be done to
him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came to wash herself at the river,
and her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she
saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the
babe wept. And she had compassion on him
and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said
his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a
nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
In other words, the baby couldn't live without a mother's milk. And Pharaoh's daughter said to
her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother, her
own mom. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto
her, Take this child away, nurse it for me, and I will give thee
thy wages. And the woman took the child
and nursed it, and the child grew. And she brought him to
Pharaoh's daughter, and he, Moses, became her son. And she called
his name Moses. And she said, This is what his
name means, because I drew him out of the water." Out. of the water. Miriam, Moses'
sister, older sister, older than Aaron, obviously, because she
was able to interact with Pharaoh's daughter. She was very creative,
wasn't she? I always remember this story
when I was a child, hearing about Miriam going to Pharaoh's daughter
and saying, hey, do you need me to find a nurse for you? For
this baby that you want and save from the river? And she said,
sure. And she says, okay. And she brings
mom. That seemed a fairly quick-thinking,
creative thing to do. But that's what faith does. Faith
works by love. In Galatians chapter 5, around
verse 6, I think it says, faith works by love. And that's what
Miriam had too. She had the same faith as her
mother. Miriam looked at her brother,
her baby brother, placed in his ark, and she also had committed
him in obedience to her mom and in obedience to God, to the river
in the ark. And she watched. She waited.
She wanted to see how is this child going to be saved by God
from the river. She waited. Just like, if you
remember in the New Testament, Simeon. Remember that old man,
Simeon? God has shown to him, you're
not going to die until you see the Lord's Christ. And when Jesus
was born, He took him up in His arms. And he looked at him and
he said, Now let your servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation. That's what God did. He sent
his son. He is our salvation. And so the
women, when they saw the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the tree,
those women who ministered to the Lord Jesus Christ watched
and they watched the place where they took him and laid him and
the next day after the Sabbath day, they came early in the morning
because they loved the Lord Jesus and they wanted to find out how,
what is going to happen to Him, what is God going to do. And
all throughout Scripture you see this. When Elijah and Moses
appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, they said,
they spoke to Him about His decease. And don't you know that when
Elijah and Moses spoke to Him of His decease, don't you know
they would have said, With the Apostle Paul, I'm crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet, not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me." They spoke of his decease. And
so, John the Baptist, when he saw the Lord Jesus Christ, behold,
the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. That's
what God's people do. They commit themselves into the
hands of God's deliverer that God would deliver him out of
death and in his deliverance would deliver them in him. And
they see the love of God in Christ that he would give himself. Moses's
mother, laid him in that ark, covered with slime and pitch.
But the Lord Jesus Christ actually gave himself. Look at Psalm chapter
69, Psalm 69, verses 1 and 2. He gave himself for our sins.
In Galatians chapter 1, 4, it says he gave himself for our
sins to deliver us from this evil world, just like Moses was
chosen by God to deliver his people from that evil kingdom,
Egypt. But in Psalm 69, 1, he says in
prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ, there's no question, but this
psalm is speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, Save me,
O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep
mire where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me." What is he saying here in this prayer?
He's saying that because he stood as a man for his people under
the law, born of a woman, made sin, that the iniquities of his
people under the law, caused him to know the curse of the
law in his own soul. He himself felt that shame and
filth before God, our sins caused, and deserved his wrath. And so
he describes the sense of that awful feeling under the wrath
of God, and he says, the waters, like a drowning man, are come
in unto my soul, and I sink in deep mire. There's no standing.
And then in the same psalm, in verse 14, he says, Deliver me
out of the mire and let me not sink. Let me be delivered from
them that hate me and out of the deep waters. And then in
Psalm 88, if you want to turn over just a few pages, similar
words are used describing the floods, the water and the mire,
he says. And we'll just read through this
whole psalm, Oh, Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried day
and night before Thee. Let my prayer come before Thee.
Incline Thine ear unto my cry, for my soul is full of troubles. My life draweth nigh unto the
grave. I am counted with them that go
down into the pit I am a man. I am as a man that has no strength. Just like a baby would. No strength. And yet a man, and yet facing
this death. He says, free among the dead
like the slain that lie in the grave. How free am I? As free
as a dead man. like the slain that lie in the
grave, whom thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off
from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest
pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lies hard upon me,
and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Thou hast put
away mine acquaintance far from me. Thou hast made me an abomination
to them. I am shut up. I cannot come forth. Mine eye mourneth by reason of
affliction. I have called daily upon Thee,
I have stretched out My hands to Thee. Wilt Thou show wonders
to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise
Thee? Shall Thy lovingkindness be declared
in the grave, or Thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall Thy wonders
be known in the dark, and Thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness?" But notice how Christ trusts His Father even
unto death. "'But unto Thee have I cried. O Lord, in the morning shall
my prayer go before Thee. Lord, why castest Thou off my
soul? Why hidest Thou Thy face from
me? I am afflicted and ready to die
from my youth up. While I suffer Thy terrors, I
am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me.
Thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily
like water. They compassed me about together.
Lover and friend, hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance
into darkness. And now look at one more Psalm
in Psalm 40 and verse 12. He says the same things, only
he reveals here the sense why this is his cry. He says in Psalm
40, verse 12, for innumerable evils have compassed me about. Like water, like entangling weeds
that choke me, he says, mine iniquities have taken hold upon
me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs
of my head, therefore my heart faileth. You see, when Moses
was committed to the water, he was put in the ark, but God sent
his son to die and Christ took our place under the wrath of
God, bearing our sin. And He Himself took those sins
into His own body. It says He bore our sins in His
own body up to the tree. He died the just for the unjust
that He might bring us to God. It seemed good to God to make
the captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. And
this is what God did, and this is what I believe this passage
of Scripture is teaching us that God committed Moses to the river,
but in the ark, just like Christ was committed to death in his
human nature and in his divine nature, he was delivered because
God raised him from the dead. And that's the next point to
make here, is that even though Miriam loved Moses, and obviously
his mother, Jochebed, loved him, And in the same way, believers
love the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it was his death
that was their salvation, and it was his resurrection that
is their life. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 one
more time here with me. We read this as we started, but
I want to just remind you of what the gospel argument here. Look at verse 13. This is the
gospel. Remember, Paul said, this is
the gospel. I've declared it to you. It's
about how that Christ died, according to the scriptures, how he was
buried and that he rose again the third day, according to the
scriptures. Now look at verse 13. But if there be no resurrection
of the dead, then Christ is not risen. Then is Christ not risen?
In other words, he says to the Corinthians, he says, if you
say there's no resurrection, Of the dead, when you're thinking
about yourselves and perhaps your loved ones, when you're
thinking about that, if you say there's no resurrection, then
you have to understand Christ isn't risen. And he goes on in
verse 14, if Christ be not risen, the conclusion from that argument
is our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain. You've
believed nothing. You believe the lie. What we
preached is a total lie. We work and labor for nothing.
Verse 15. Yea, and we are found false witnesses
of God. We have deceived men and women
and represented God falsely because we are saying Christ rose. Because
we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he
raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. Four. If the dead rise not, then is
not Christ raised. But, and if Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins. Then they also
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
But, now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first
fruits of them that slept. You see, he's saying here, if
Christ isn't risen, you're in your sins, your faith is empty,
you believe the lie, and you will not be raised. But he says
the fact of the matter is, Christ did rise. Moses' name meant drawn
from the water. Moses was actually taken out
of the water. The conclusion of that is that
not only did Moses, was he saved, But Israel was going to be saved
because he was delivered from the water. And God is trying
to teach us Christ rose from the dead. Because He rose from
the dead, His people must also be delivered from sin. They must
also be delivered from death. They must also be delivered from
their enemies. And He goes on in 1 Corinthians
15 later. He says, He is able to subdue
all under Him, under the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only things
in this life, but things in the world to come. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death, for He has put all things under
His feet. He's able to subdue all things
to Himself. So, the Lord Jesus Christ is
our captain. He gave Himself. He suffered
under the wrath of God with our sins, and He was delivered by
God. God sent... He raised Him from
the dead. Now, in Exodus chapter 2, cleverly,
Miriam suggests to Pharaoh's daughter to go get her mother,
and she nurses him, and she becomes Pharaoh's son. And that's kind
of a different story we're going to be getting into next time.
But here, what I want to focus on is, first of all, the purpose
of God to save His people. He purposed to save them by sending
a deliverer. He purposed to save them out
of weakness. Here's a baby, an infant, with
no power, no strength. And it looked even weaker when
they put him in this ark. It was an earthly looking thing,
pitch and slime from the slime pits. They would put it around
there. And so when you look at the ark,
you would think there's nothing there. But inside was the very
deliverer of God's people. And so when you look at Christ
on the outside, there was no beauty that we should desire
Him, but God has used Him. He's not just a man. He's God.
And God used him in his body to save his people from their
sins. What a glorious picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
what an endearing picture, because Christ gave himself for our sins.
And so we can see why Jochebed and Nerium loved their son, loved
their sister. She loved her sister, and Jochebed
loved her son. This is teaching us about how
God's people love the Lord Jesus Christ because of what He's done
for us. There's nothing more glorious
than that God would deliver us in the deliverance of His only
begotten Son. That He would so save us that
the salvation of His Son from death would be the salvation
of His people. That is a victory that we share. That is a redemption that God
has provided because of His promise, because of His faithfulness and
His goodness and His grace. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
we would so trust the Lord Jesus Christ. We would commit everything,
every part of our salvation in life and in death. We would love
Him, we would be owned by Him, and we would love to have it
so. Thank You for providing a Savior,
a Deliverer, a Redeemer. Thank You that He gave Himself.
Thank You that when we saw Him as nothing in Himself, like the
thief on the cross, by faith we can say, Lord, though all
the world should see You in weakness, crucified in shame and having
apparently no power, we can say with our whole heart, Lord, remember
me when you come in your kingdom. We pray that, Lord, that you
would remember us. Give us your Spirit. Make us
beautiful by Christ's beauty. Receive us for His sake. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.