My subject this evening out of
Exodus chapter 1 is from freedom to servitude because that's what
happened to the Israelites. They went from a state of freedom,
of liberty, to a state of servitude, and to a state of slavery. Without
any introduction, I want to go right into the message, and I
have four things I want to show you this evening. And the first
of them is this, that Israel is now in Egypt, and they're
in Egypt for a lengthy period of time. It will be in Egypt
for 430 years, but we're not to understand that for 430 years
that they will be in severe affliction and trials and under the servitude
of a very cruel Pharaoh. This Pharaoh who treated them
so awfully, and the one who demanded their servitude, he reigned about
67 years. So out of the 430 years that
they were in Egypt, most of them were not lived. in a state of
servitude or slavery, suffering the rigors and the afflictions
of a people in bondage, most of the years they were lived
in peace and in prosperity, and years in which the nation grew
mightily unto the Lord. Now, they're in the land of Goshen,
in the country of Egypt. They lived in peace and comfort
for a lot of years. How did they get into Egypt?
Well, consider two facts. Number one, they're in Egypt
because of the actions of Joseph's brothers. They are in Egypt because these
brothers, in a horrible way, did some awful things to Joseph. They sold their brother into
servitude. They sold him to an uncircumcised
group of people. And as a result, in time, over
a few, after a few hundred years, they're going to have to endure,
that is their offspring's going to have to endure a number of
years in slavery themselves and in bondage. That is their offspring
will have to suffer for many years that which they afflicted
Joseph with. So the seeds that they sowed,
their offspring will have to reap. For a long time, Joseph was in
bondage. He was sold to the Ishmaelites. The Ishmaelites sold him to Potiphar. Potiphar put him in prison. And after a couple of years,
we know Joseph was exalted to be the right-hand man to Pharaoh.
We know that. And then Pharaoh designated the
land of Goshen as that place where the Israelites would live
and dwell in peace. So they're actually in Egypt
due to the actions of Joseph's brothers, first of all. Secondly, they're in the land
of Goshen because of the actions of God, who was, as it were,
back behind the curtain, governing all things, even the evil actions
of Joseph's brothers. Don't ever forget that the Lord,
as in this situation, it is true in every situation, He is always
running and ruling and controlling all things and all people in
order to bring His eternal purpose to pass. Yes, the brothers did
evil toward Joseph. And now their offspring, as we
get into the bulk of the first chapter of Exodus, their offspring's
going to suffer the sad consequences. But over and behind the actions
of Joseph's brethren, there were the actions of a sovereign God. This is what our Lord had willed.
This is what He had purposed. They will be in bondage to the
Egyptians, and then He will so have them to be afflicted that
they will cry out in their misery unto God, and the Lord would
hear them, and He would redeem them by the power of the blood
of the Passover Lamb. So this is all fulfilling the
purpose of God. You see, it is the Lord's prerogative
to bring good out of evil. And only He can do that. And
He is always working His purpose in all things and in every situation,
for He governs all things. And in governing all of His creation,
He uses everything. Little did the Egyptians know,
little did this new pharaoh who took over, Ramses II, most likely,
who reigned for 67 years, little did he know that the God of the
Israelites was even governing over his actions, bringing to
pass that which was his own sovereign will and purpose. Everyone and everything is being
used by our Lord to bring to pass that which He has ordained. Scripture says, even the wrath
of man shall praise the Lord. And the remainder of wrath God
restrains. The evil that men would do Sometimes
it's the will of God that these things be done, and so they carry
out their desires. They carry out their plans and
their intentions. But if what evil men desire to
do runs contrary to the sovereign will of God, God just prohibits
it from happening. He just stops it. You see, God's
counsel, it shall stand always. And it may be that he, in his
sovereign will, will use evil men to bring about certain circumstances,
as he did Pharaoh, this evil Pharaoh, and those who followed
him, these taskmasters. It may be, please, that he will
use them and that He has ordained for them to go ahead and exercise
their evil purpose, even upon His people, making His people
miserable. But still, in all of it, it's
God Himself who is governing. This evil Pharaoh who took the
throne of Egypt, After all the pharaohs before him, the one
who befriended Joseph, Joseph interpreted his dreams, and the
pharaohs after him, they were always friends to the Israelites. All of those men were doing what
God Himself had ordained to be done, up until and including
the evil pharaoh. and God has raised him up, as
we shall see later in the book of Exodus, the Lord tells Moses
to tell Pharaoh, for this same purpose I raised you up. I put
you on the throne, that my power may be known and may be spoken
of throughout all the world. We're speaking of God's power
here this evening. about something that happened
thousands of years ago. But our Lord is always fulfilling
His will and His purpose in everything that happens. His counsel shall stand. You see, the judge of the earth
will always do what's right. And He uses everybody and everything
in order to bring His counsel to pass. A Bible doctrine that
we know is the doctrine of the absolute providence of God, which
is why I had us to sing that very first song tonight. And
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. It's
the Lord Himself who brings all things to pass, and He makes
all things work together for the good of His children. And we would do well, people
of God, those of you here who know the Lord, those of you who
are watching who know the Lord, we would do well to always remember
the providence of God is always at work bringing to pass that
which He has predestinated. I wrote an article for the Bulletin.
I wrote it the day before yesterday. It will come out this coming
Lord's Day, about predestination and providence. Predestination
took place before time ever began. God foreordained all things. Well, what is the providence?
Providence is God working out his predestinated purpose and
doing it in time. And it would be beneficial to
all of the people of God, me and you and all of you who are
watching. It would be beneficial to us
and we would be so much more contented with life, with circumstances,
even with difficult events, we would be so much more contented
if we could remember that back behind the curtains, as it were,
back behind the scene is our great, sovereign, holy, heavenly
Father governing all things according to His purpose, even in your
life and in my life. Nothing happens by accident.
All things happen at His will. And we know this. We know the
providence of God in our minds. What is providence? It's God
bringing to pass that which He has purposed to do. That's Him
working out His will. And we know this in our minds.
We've had this talked to us for a number of years, but lots of
times what we know in our minds, we don't rely upon it in our
hearts. When time comes, we need it.
And we tend to forget. The Lord is always looking out
for His children. It doesn't mean we're going to
have a smooth passage all the way to the Promised Land. The Israelites didn't, and they're
a type of the church. But here's what we are assured
of. The angel of the Lord will be
with us. He will be the pillar of fire
for us at night, and the pillar of cloud for us by day. And He
will lead us, and He will take us safely through to the land
of promise. You see, I would liken this,
how Israel arrived in Egypt, I would liken it to, or use it
as a picture of, how our Savior came to die. Number one, the wickedness of
men. Enmity against God. Hatred against
the Son of God. Wicked men did what they desired
to do. All through his life they wanted
to kill him, but it wasn't the right time in God's timetable. And then at the right time that
God ordained, the evil one entered into the heart of Judas. And
Judas made a deal with the false religionists. And then the civil leaders joined
in with the religious leaders. And all of them were involved
in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. But always, and here's the second
thing about the death of our Lord Jesus, not only due to the
weakness of man, but that was the purpose of God. Our Lord Jesus, He was the Lamb
who was slain from before the foundation of the world. He must lay down His life for
the sheep that God gave Him in the covenant of grace. This vast multitude that God
gave to him, assigned to him, for whom the Savior was the surety,
this vast multitude is a sinful multitude and something's got
to be done to honor God's justice and law and hatred of their sin. In steps the substitute. Christ
our Lord. He had to die. Who put Him to
death? Well, I know the Jews did and
the Gentiles did. Make no mistake about it. God
put Him to death. You read once again Isaiah 53. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. Thou hast put Him to grief when
Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin. He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days. And the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in His hands. We read in Acts 4 that all of
the enemies of our Lord converged together to do the most awful
deed that's ever been done in this world. And yet when they
put Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, when they sentenced
Him to die the death of a felon, they were fulfilling the everlasting
counsel of God. For so God had willed that His
Son must die for your sins and for my sins. It's the purpose
of God at work. And I say again, and I'll just
say it a little bit differently, children of God, one of the most
tragic mistakes that we can make is look at any circumstance in
life and forget about the purpose and the providence of God. And once you forget, about the
purpose of God and the providence of God in any circumstance of
your life. It doesn't matter what it is.
It doesn't matter how big it is or how little it is. How important
it may seem to be or how insignificant it may seem to be. When you forget
that, when I forget that, we've made a tragic mistake. And we will reap then the results of a lack of faith
in our Lord. You see, with the Israelites,
the Lord had promised Abraham that they would be in the land
of Egypt for 400 years. And they were. In fact, 430 years. with the last few of them being
lived in misery. I mean misery, a misery that
we've never known. With somebody ruling over you
and demanding you to work without pay. Making life as cruel as it could
possibly be. And they lived in that misery.
If you read in Acts chapter 7, Stephen talks about it. Stephen
talks about it. And he also says in Acts chapter
7 that the Lord delivered them in His time. Remember my messages Sunday?
Zechariah. The Lord remembers. Berechiah. The Lord what? Anybody remember? Blesses. Edo. That was Zechariah's grandfather. And he remembers and blesses
in his time. Not in your time. Now, don't
you know that the Israelites, as soon as this Pharaoh took
the reins of Egypt, and he started cracking the whip over them,
they said, Lord, help us now. It's not time yet. It's not time
yet. Help will come in this time. It's something else I want to
show you here. What is the reason that the Lord
had these people suddenly be governed and ruled over by a
tyrant? What's the reason? Well, it was necessary. You say,
why was that? I mean, things were going so
good. The nation's growing. If children,
grandchildren, great-grandchildren, fertile lands, great crops, herds,
cattle, sheep, happiness, joy, everything's going great, why
would God send this awful, ruthless ruler to govern in Egypt who's
going to be a horror to the children of Israel because they got too comfortable
there. You see, Goshen was not the land
of promise. They were, man, this is really,
we got it good, don't we? Here's my family. Boy, we're
prospering. Everything's going good. What about the land of promise?
Land of promise? We've got the land of promise
right here around us. You've grown too comfortable. And God can make us uncomfortable
real quick. And he did. He disturbed their
comfort. Why? They began to worship, some
of them, Nihilus, who is the god of the Nile River. They began
to join in with the Egyptians in their idolatry. The Lord said, wait just a minute. Not so fast. You've grown too
comfortable. This is not the land of promise. of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
we read they looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. Not these people, though. They're
quite content. We've got it good. So the Lord
is going to have to loosen their grip on the land of Goshen. And he has a way of loosening
our grips on our comfortable, easy, smooth lives. He can upset the apple cart just
in a real hurry. but he always is acting for the
good of his children, which brings me to consider this. Secondly, we see here the certainty
of death. And I'm just going to mention
this, but look at verse 6. Joseph died. Joseph died? He was the one who
provided for them. This is the one they looked to.
This is the one God mightily used. He ruled for their good. He enjoyed the friendship of
all of these pharaohs. And the Israelites enjoyed the
rule of the pharaohs because of Joseph. And when Joseph died, I'm sure
that his family felt like our world has come to an end. We
have all of this because of Joseph. No, they didn't have it all because
of Joseph. They had it all because of Joseph's
God. God used a man and then took
that man away. Be reminded, the men that God
uses are only men. They're not God. Don't ever put
one man in the stead of God. Don't elevate a man to a position
he has no right to hold. Don't put him up on a pedestal,
we would say. No man. Because man at his best
state is altogether vanity. That includes Joseph. Joseph died, watch this, verse
6, and all his brethren, all his brothers died. And then, all that generation,
death, death, death. It's like one writer said, Years
ago, he wrote this. He said, there's a coffin upstairs
but a cradle downstairs. That's what happens. The old
die off and there's a young one to take their place. No wonder the psalmist said,
thou hast made my days, not my years, but my days like a hand
breath. Four fingers as a hand breath. That's how they measured. That
was the smallest measurement, a hand breath. James says, what is your life?
It's a vapor. It's a vapor that soon passes
away. But I'll go quickly because I
want to get all this in. Here's the third thing, the growth
of Israel. And one verse, it's really quite
amazing if you think about it. One verse sums up the growth
of the whole nation. Verse 7, look at how Moses is
led by the Spirit of God to give descriptive words of their growth. Watch it. And the children of
Israel were fruitful. and increased abundantly, and
multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled
with them." My, what growth. I thought about this today when
I was studying this. When did all of this growth,
This multiplication. When did it happen? After Joseph died. Joseph is one of the greatest
pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. After Joseph died, then the Lord
multiplied the nation. What happened after our Lord
Jesus died? After He laid down His life for
His people. After He gave His blood a ransom,
the ransom price for us. His beard rose again the third
day. Forty days later, He ascended. What happened then? Multiplication. The Lord added to the church
daily, such as should be said, 3,000 all at once. And a little group of 120 all
of a sudden, due to the death of one man. One man who is the
God-man. Now the church starts to grow.
And so it was with Joseph. After his death, the nation began
to just swell. And after our Lord's death, sinners were saved by the mighty
power and grace of God. Let me get to the last thing
here. from prosperity to servitude. And that's the title of the message,
but this is my last point that I want to deal with. And really
it covers from verse 8 to the end of the chapter. From prosperity
to servitude, from a time of plenty to a time of leanness,
from days of happiness to days of sadness. From days of having great things
to days of life being absolutely miserable. You know, this Pharaoh, he's
a picture of Satan. And Egypt is a picture of the
world. And neither Satan nor the world are friends to grace. And don't you be mistaken by
the world. The world that's around us. I'm
talking about the civil world, the governing world, and the
religious world. They're not a friend to grace.
They're not a friend to God. They're not your friend. Not
if you believe the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace.
Not if you believe the Word of God. See, we're not aligned with the
world. And the world is at enmity against
the Lord's people. And Satan is at enmity against
us as well. This Pharaoh, he used subtlety
and he used craft. He's crafty. And he thought,
if I make life miserable, miserable for the Israelites, well, the
weak will die off, the women won't be so strong
to bear children, and they'll go back to a state of being more
dependent upon us. What he didn't know was, verse
12, that the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied
and grew. And I'll tell you this, that's
the way persecution works with the church. The more the world persecutes
the church, they just throw fuel on the fire. And it grows. I remember when
I was in Bible college, professors would teach against
sovereign grace. And some of us began to ask,
what's that? So we go to the library, to the
college library. Wow, here's the works of John
Gill and John Calvin and all the Puritans, all of those great
minds of the past begin to read. And we found out, we found out
that what those men were teaching was the Word of God. And the more the school fought
against the truth, the more the truth flourished. You can't defeat the cause of
God. Neither Pharaoh could do it,
nor the Egyptians could do it. And the Lord used the cruel and
crafty means of Pharaoh, the natural enmity of Pharaoh and
the Egyptians to hate his people. The Lord used that to do what? To humble his people. To bring
them to the point that they were so low, they were so defeated,
The afflictions were so great, they then looked up and said,
oh God, help us! Ah, there was the purpose of
God being fulfilled. You see, troubles, trials, afflictions,
persecution, What's the reason for those? You say, well, God
controls all things. How does He control those things?
What's the purpose of those things? Anything that brings us to the
feet of our God in total dependence is good for us. And I don't care
what it is. It may be painful to the flesh.
Because all of us love living in Goshen when times are good. But when times are good, we tend
to forget who sends the good times. And the Lord has a way of reminding
us of who He is, and of what we are, and that this is not
our home. This world is not our home. Our
home's in glory. That's where the family's at.
That's where the father is. That's where our elder brother
is. That's where we're going. We're just pilgrims. So don't
get too comfortable here in the land of Goshen. Don't get too comfortable. There's a wilderness to go through. before we get to the land of
promise. Let me show you one more passage
of Scripture. Psalm 105. Look at Psalm 105. And I'll take you to this and
then I'll stop. Psalm 105. Verse 16. What the psalmist is doing, he's
recounting, reviewing the history of Israel and God's dealings
with them. Psalm 105, are you there? I'll start at verse 16. Moreover, he called for a famine
upon the land. Who sent the famine? It wasn't
the devil, it was the Lord. He called for a famine. He break
the whole staff of bread. Notice, the Lord is doing all
of these things. Okay? That's what you need to
remember. He sent a man before them, even
Joseph, who was sold for a servant, whose
feet they hurt with fetters, He was laid in iron. Until the
time, there's that time again, in His time. The Lord remembers
and the Lord blesses in His time, not your time, but in His time,
until the time that His Word came, the Word of the Lord tried
Him. The King sent and loosed Him.
even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. He made
him lord of his house, and ruler of all of his substance, to bind
his princes at his pleasure, and to teach his senators, his
elders, the officials, to teach them wisdom. Israel also came
into Egypt." So we've read that. And Jacob sojourned in the land
of Ham. And he increased his people greatly
and made them stronger than their enemies. And he turned their
heart." Whose heart? The heart of Egypt. God turned
their heart to hate his people. I'm telling you, God's behind
the scenes in all of this. He's always governing. Never
forget that. When times get difficult and
afflictions seem to kind of roll over you, and you say, Lord,
I don't know how much more I can take. Remember this, it's the
Lord who sends them to fulfill His purpose, whatever it is.
He turned their heart, the heart of Pharaoh, the heart of Egypt. Who put that Pharaoh on his throne?
The Lord did. And the heart of the king is
in the Lord's hands. As the rivers of waters, he turneth
it whithersoever he will. And the Lord put this hateful
man, this spiteful man upon the throne in Egypt and turned his
heart so that he dealt subtly with his servants. That is, as
we read back in Exodus 1, wisely. He thought he was using great
wisdom. And it was a terrible time. But then what did God do? Verse
26, He sent Moses, His servant. Listen. You have to just watch and wait
and be amazed as you see God fulfilling His purpose. What
are we going to do, the Israelites said? Life is so hard, it's so
tough, it's so difficult. What are we going to do? Oh Lord,
what are we going to do? Just wait. He's got a man. He's got a man. that He's going
to use. And He's going to raise Him up
and He's the Deliverer. And what about us? In our dilemma? In our fall? What did the Lord do? He sent
a man. The God-man. And He's going to take care of
everything. He did. He did. He was our Savior. He is our
Savior. Our friend who sticks closer
than a brother. The Savior of sinners. He came
to do what nobody else in heaven or earth could possibly do. Lay
down His life for His people and then take that life up again. Don't worry. Be encouraged. I
know, lots of times it isn't easy.
Of course not. The Lord's not going to have
us get real comfortable down here. I'm thankful for the times
of of the Goshen when the crops are good and life is smooth and
family is all well. We appreciate those things, but
don't forget who's given those things. And then when trials
come, don't forget who puts the evil Pharaoh on his throne. It's always our Lord. who governs
all things to fulfill His purpose of the salvation of His true
Israel. And He will make all things work
out for good. And what is the theme of the
book of Exodus? It is redemption. Redemption. Which brings us to
sing our last song, which is 475. Redeemed. Redeemed. Let's stand and sing
verses 1 and 4 of 475 Redeemed. Stand together.