Exodus chapter 2. At the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burdens of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day. I think I could do every line of that song, because I was taught that song as a child. We sang it in church as children. Exodus chapter 2. Please come this afternoon. I woke up this morning about 5 o'clock and it was raining. It was a good rain, the kind of rain that we need. But it's cleared up now. So please come to the picnic this afternoon. We'll fellowship together. And often we're so constrained for time here, we don't have the time just to sit and talk. So hopefully the Lord will give us that time. this evening. Exodus chapter 2, let's begin at verse 1, and we'll read through the whole chapter. Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. And she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse for the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water. One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. And when he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together, and he said to the man in the wrong, Why do you strike your companion? He answered, Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, Surely the thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian and sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. And when they came home to their father Reuel, he said, How is it that you have come home so soon today? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and even drew water for us, and watered the flock. And he said to his daughters, Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man. And he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom. For he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. And during those many days, the king of Egypt died. And the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning. And God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel. And God knew. Let's pray. Father, as we come again this morning, we thank you for what we have already received in our hearts this morning. Thank you for our prior study. Thank you for the times of prayer with your people. Thank you for the songs of worship and praise. Lord, thank You for fellowship in the assembly of the saints, something that we so desperately need in these hard, hard times and in this difficult land that we live in. I pray, Lord, as we come now to the Word of God, that You would meet with us. I pray that You would teach us what we do not know and grant to us what we do not have. I pray that Your Holy Spirit would just fill and flood this meeting and fill and flood our hearts. I pray that you would take me up in your hands and use me as a vessel that you could pour your message through that your people might be refreshed. Lord, that you might call sinners to yourself. You know the hearts of all men and you know the hearts of these who are gathered here this morning and those who will hear by way of the Internet or by way of the CDs that we mail out. And we pray that you would take this message in your purposes and in your plan and that you would be glorified as you work in the lives of people, Father. Help me today, Lord. I confess my weakness, my inability, my sinfulness, my need. And I pray that you would undertake on our behalf in grace and for your own glory. And we ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen and amen. Well, last week we spent our time together looking at Exodus chapter 1, and when we looked at that chapter, we talked about how the people of Israel came to dwell in the land of Egypt. And we talked about how during that time while they were in the land of Egypt, God was working to fulfill His promise to Abraham, and God was working to fulfill His promise to Jacob. They were there 430 years. They came down to Egypt as 70 persons. And it's believed that after the 430 years in Egypt, they were in the area of 2 million persons. So God in that period of time, while they're in the land of Egypt, grew them to become a great nation of people that He would eventually used to dispossess the Canaanites and give to them the land of Canaan they had promised to their father Abraham and Isaac and to Jacob. We talked about how that as the people grew and time passed on that eventually things changed in the land of Egypt and even though they were welcome when they first came to the land of Egypt over time they became unwelcome in the land of Egypt The Egyptian pharaohs that eventually came to power, they feared the people. They were afraid the people would align themselves with some foreign power and that they would eventually be a rebellion or that they would join in war with some people that might come against them. So he developed two policies to try to hinder their growth into even a greater nation. The first policy was, is a policy of slavery and bondage. And the people found themselves enslaved in the land of Egypt in terrible bondage, working under the hands of taskmasters to serve the pharaohs in whatever they were commanded to do. But when that didn't work and the people still continued to grow and to prosper, even after terrible times of oppression and suffering, the people still were growing and prospering and becoming an even mightier people The second policy that he adopted was a policy of murder. The intent was to murder all the male children whenever they were born so that the people would cease to grow into an even greater nation of people. And it's in that context there that we come to chapter 2 and we have the story of the birth of the greatest figure between Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ. The man Moses, the deliverer, the one that God will raise up and that God will prepare to lead the people out of their bondage in the land of Egypt. One of the great verses in the Bible, I don't know if you've ever called it, but one of the great verses in the Bible is in John chapter 1, where the Bible said the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. There you have the two covenants, the Old and the New. There you have the two greatest figures in the Word of God. Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant, the Lord Jesus, the mediator of the New, and the Better Covenant, as it's called in the book of Hebrews. So here in chapter 2, we have the story of the birth and the early days of Moses, the greatest figure between Adam, the first man, and the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know if you realize it or not, what did it take me, just five minutes to read through this chapter, if that much? But in reading through five minutes in this chapter, we covered an 80-year period of time. We covered the first 40 years of the life of Moses, and the second 40 years of the life of Moses are all covered in this one chapter. Sometimes you need to know that as you read the Scripture, that you may from verse to verse you know, being transported through a long season of time. In chapter 2, from between verse 10 and verse 11, you have 40 years. You have a 40-year period of time that takes place between verse 10 and between verse 11. So what we're going to do this morning, and I hope we can conclude it all, but if not, we'll come back to it in a few weeks. I want us to look at some things that we see in this portion of the Word of God. The first thing I want you to see in this chapter is we have before us the activity and the operation of divine providence. Brother Coughlin years ago, or several years ago, he preached for a week on the providence of God in a church. I don't remember exactly where it was at, but he told me that at the end of that week that someone came to him and said in all their years of going to church, they had never heard a message on providence. How in the world can a preacher be preaching the Bible and never preach about the providence of God? And it's amazing to me how little we think about or how little we meditate upon the providence of God. But here in this chapter, we have one of the great, great illustrations, one of the great pictures of God's providence at work. Now, if I were asked to define the providence of God, I guess this is the way I would try to define it. Providence is God's activity in time to accomplish what He has decreed in eternity. Providence is God working in the events and circumstances of the lives of His people to accomplish what He has planned and what He has purposed from all eternity. And surely, if you're a child of God and you have any concept of God's providence, you can look back at your life and say, God was at work at these different seasons and in these different ways by His providence to bring me to this particular point in my life. And here we have one of the great pictures of providence in the Word of God. Probably one of the greatest pictures. is back in the book of Genesis where we have the story of the life of Joseph and we see God by providence working in the circumstances of the life of Joseph to bring about his purposes and his will and his desired end. And here in the story of the birth of Moses and the early days of the life of Moses, we have one of the great pictures of the providence of God at work. Now let's think about this for a few moments and then we'll move on. Could there have been a worse time and a worse place for the deliverer of Israel to be born? Think about that. He's born in a land that is hostile to the people that He is born to deliver. Not only is He born in the land that is hostile to the people that He is born to deliver, He is born at the exact time that the ruler of that land has begun a policy to murder every newborn baby male that comes into the world who is a Hebrew. And at that time, In the worst possible place, at the worst possible time, in the worst possible context, God in providence brought forth the man that He would eventually use to lead the children of Israel out of their bondage and out of their slavery. That is a mystery of the providence of God. Why didn't God have a couple of Hebrews escape the land of Egypt and go to a safe land? Go to a safe territory and bring forth this child under more favorable circumstances. It reminds you of the story of the birth of our Lord Jesus. who instead of being born in the palace of a king, instead of being born in the palace of a prophet or some great ruler or some great person, he was born in the most humble circumstances and in the most unlikely way God the Father brings forth the Messiah. into this world. What an amazing thing of the providence of God. Now when you think about the birth of Moses, surely he could not have been, when we think about it according to human thinking, he could not have been born in a worse place, and he could not have been born at a worse time. And yet God in providence saw that he would be born, in the land of Egypt at a time when the Pharaohs had determined to kill all of the male children, and yet God still prevailed and worked His purposes and worked His plan. Another thing, we see the providence of God in the actions of His parents. We are told here that even though the king had made a decree that every son that was born to the Hebrews was to be cast into the Nile River, his parents hid him for three months. Can you imagine hiding a newborn baby for three months? Can you imagine how difficult and how stressful that would have been? I mean, can you imagine a lady bringing forth a child and then she was For three months she was always trying to conceal that this child had been born and that this child existed and that he was alive. And not only that, after the three months when she realized that she could hide the child no longer, they placed him in a little box that had been dogged with tar and put him in the Nile River among the reeds there on the side of the river. And when you think about it, this is a strange thing that his parents did. But we don't have to wonder why they did it or how they did it, because the book of Hebrews tells us exactly how they did it. The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews that they did it by faith. The Bible tells us that by faith, when Moses was born, he was hid for three months by his parents and they did not fear the king's wrath. They did not fear the king's edict. They did not fear the king's command. What an amazing thing. You have two slaves The parents of Moses, they have a child born to them, and somehow they do not allow the child to be murdered and thrown into the Nile River. They hid the child for three months, then they placed the child in this little bitty ark, put him in the side of the river, and had their daughters stand by to see what would happen to the child. It's a very strange story. It's a very odd story. But we're told in the book of Hebrews that they acted in faith. Now that tells me something. Because the Bible said faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So surely God had spoken to them in some way, and somehow, probably imperfectly, whenever this baby was born, they realized there was something special about this baby. God had a plan for his life. So when they took this young baby in their arms, they looked at this child. Somehow God had communicated to their hearts. He had a purpose. He had a plan. His hand was upon the life of this child. So they acted in faith. They did not fear. fear the King's commandment. They did not fear the consequences of their actions, but they spared the child's life. They kept him hidden for three months. It was more than just the love of the mother. It was more than just the love of the father. It was more than just nature. It was the work of God in their hearts, and that's why they acted so strangely and so uniquely in the case of this child. God must have spoken to them, He must have revealed Himself to them, and they believed God and they acted in faith, so the child that normally would have been murdered and thrown into the Nile, the child's life is spared for three months. So not only do we see the providence of God in that, think of this, we see the providence of God in the place that they chose to hide Him. Back in chapter 1, verse 22, the Pharaoh had commanded that all the male children were to be drowned in the Nile River. So is that the place you would hide a baby you want to keep alive? In the Nile River? Pharaoh had said, whenever you find one of the Hebrew male children, throw it in the river, that it will drown, it will die. And that way we can keep this people from becoming a greater nation. Now, if that had been what I had heard had been commanded, would you have taken your baby and placed it in a little box that had been made watertight so that it would float and then set it in the edge of the Nile River? Would you have done that? No. But the reality is that God took the place that would have meant sure death And God saved the deliverer alive out of the place that would have certainly meant death. We see in it the very place where Moses would have been drowned is the very place where he was saved, where he was rescued, where he was delivered, and we see in it the providence of God. Another thing, we see the providence of God in the fact that He was placed in this little basket. In the King James Version, this little basket is called an ark. There's a reason this little basket is called an ark in the King James Version, and that's because it's the same word as the ark that Noah built. And the ark that Noah built is a picture of our salvation in Christ. The wrath of God was going to fall upon the world and only those who were in the ark would be saved from the wrath of God. So Moses and his wife and his three sons and their wives, they go into the ark and the Lord shuts the door behind them and they are saved from the wrath of God. The ark is a picture of our salvation in Christ. And it's interesting that Moses as a child is placed in a little ark, and in that little ark he is saved from the wrath of the king of Egypt. It's a picture of our salvation in Jesus Christ. Do you think that's an accident? Or might that be the providence of God? Not only this, think about this. We see the providence of God in the fact that the person that saved him is the daughter of the person that commanded him to be killed. Pharaoh is the one that commanded the death of all of the Hebrew males. And it was Pharaoh's daughter who discovers the baby in the river and is moved with compassion when the baby cries, and she is the one who spares the child's life. Isn't it interesting that Pharaoh, he is so determined to kill all of the male children so that no deliverer would ever arise, And his daughter spares the only one that God had chosen that would be the deliverer and would lead the people out of the land of Egypt. It's a picture of the providence of God. What about the arrangement of his care? This is so neat. They place the baby in the side of the river. And the Bible said that Pharaoh and her maidens come out and she's going to bathe in the river. They discover the ark. They open the ark. It's a baby. And just so happens that Miriam is standing over Moses' sister. She's standing over somewhere. She witnesses this. She runs up to Pharaoh's daughter and she says, Oh, do you want me to go find a Hebrew lady that can nurse the child and take care of it for you? And she said, Yes, go find me a Hebrew lady. So guess who she goes to get to care for Moses? His own mother. Someone uniquely qualified to care for Moses. It's the first case of welfare. We've got her paying for the mother to raise her own child. She says, take him and I'll pay you. You raise him up for me and I'll pay you. Take him and I'll pay you your wages. So she gets Moses' own mother. You know, they come and they're all coy about it. They don't tell the whole story. And she gets to raise her own child and she gets paid for it. And guess what his own mother must have done? As she suckled him on her breast and as she bounced him on her knee, she must have told him about the God of Israel, which he would have never heard had he been bounced only upon the knee of Pharaoh's daughter. There we see the providence of God, the amazing providence of God. Another thing, and we'll move on, is we see the providence of God is in His education and His elevation. Now, we're going to go to some of these places. in the New Testament, but that's the reason we need to read the whole Bible and not just part of the Bible, is because there are facts in this story that are supplied in Acts chapter 7 in the sermon by Stephen, and in Hebrews chapter 11 there are facts that are supplied that are important to the story. And one of the facts that's supplied, one of the things that Stephen says about Moses, is that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds. Moses, not only was he cared for by his own mother up to a certain point in his life, and undoubtedly instructed in the truth of the God of Israel, he was also, because he was raised as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, he was also exposed to the best education worldly education that could have been given him at that particular time. Now, do you think that that's going to help him when he comes and confronts Pharaoh and stands against Pharaoh and he comes to lead this people out of the land of Egypt? Well, surely it was important. Surely it was an act of providence that he would be cared for by his mother and be given the truth of the God of Israel, but it was also an act of providence that he would be taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and would be mighty in words and in deeds. Surely, if he's going to go to Egypt and lead the people of Israel out, eighty years later, he needs to know something about the people and the culture of Egypt. So God is preparing him. And let me say something to you about providence. God, when He's working by providence, will be preparing you for things you don't know He's preparing you for. He'll be teaching you things that you don't know why you need to know them. He'll be doing things in your life that will be puzzling to you. And there may be many years between the lesson learned and when the lesson is applied in your experience And you understand that's why God did that so many years ago. The providence of God. You look at the story of Moses and you see the operations of divine providence. Number two, you look at the story of this chapter and the story of Moses and you see the operations of divine grace. Now, I told you that there are 40 years between verse 10 and verse 11. We're told about the birth of Moses and the story of how that he was rescued and wasn't killed in the first 10 verses. But then, when you go to verse 11, begins the story of his middle years. By this time, he's 40 years old. We know that from the book of Acts and what Stephen says, and we know it also from the book of Hebrews. Now here in Exodus chapter 2, all we have before us is the story of how that one day he goes out, he's watching his people suffer under the burdens that they are bearing, and he watches one being beaten by a Hebrew. And he rises up against the Egyptian that was mistreating the Hebrew, and he kills him. And he attempts to conceal it. And then the next day he goes out and he sees two Hebrews, that are fighting and disagreeing, and he confronts the one who is in the wrong, thinking that they will receive his reproof, only to find out that he is rejected by his own people, and the one who is in the wrong says, who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me like you did the Egyptian you killed yesterday? And when he discovers that his murder has been made known, He is filled with fear and when he finds out that Pharaoh knows and Pharaoh wants to kill him, he flees the land of Egypt and he spends 40 years in the land of Midian. But I will say to you, as I said a moment ago, that's why it's so important that we read the whole Bible. Because there are facts supplied in the book of Acts and in the book of Hebrews that the writer of Exodus has chosen not to supply for us. Go with me to Hebrews chapter 11. And I want you to see what is said here about Moses. It's an amazing thing. Hebrews 11 verses 24 through verse 26. Verse 24, Hebrews 11, "...by faith Moses, when he was grown up," and he's 40 years old at this time, "...he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin, He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward." Now, I don't know if we even fathom how amazing those three verses are. Because Moses, in these verses, he repudiates everything that Egypt held for him. Some historians believe that Moses was in line to become Pharaoh. That he would have become Pharaoh, the ruler of the most powerful nation on earth at that time. But notice what's said here. By faith, when he was grown up, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. In those few verses we see that there came a point in the life of Moses that he repudiated in Egypt everything the natural man is motivated to live for. He gave up power. He gave up prestige. He gave up position. He gave up pleasure. He gave up possessions. Listen, it was all laying in front of Him. He was the grandson of Pharaoh. He was the adopted grandson of Pharaoh. He may very well have been in line to have ruled the land of Egypt. But there came a point in his life where he repudiated every single bit of it. He said, no, I will reject the power, the offer of power. I'll reject the pleasures. I'll reject the possession. I'll reject the prestige. I'll cast it all aside and I choose to be identified with this people who are the people of God and I would rather suffer with them for a season than to have everything this world has to offer because I know eventually there will be a reward. Men do not do that unless God is at work by divine grace in their hearts. Men do not do it. Men live for the now, not for the then. Men live for pleasure, not to suffer. Men live for power, not for dishonor. What an amazing thing! And the only explanation for it is the operation of divine grace in his heart. Stephen said in the book of Acts that when he was 40, it came into his heart to visit his brethren. God was at work in his heart. God was revealing himself. God was calling. God was awakening. God was preparing. God was dealing. And Moses said, you know, I'm not going to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter no more. I would rather be mistreated with God's people than to enjoy these temporary pleasures of sin. I would rather be identified with the reproach of Christ than to have all the wealth and the glory of Egypt, because I know there will be a reward. I am going to tell you, men don't do that unless God is at work in their hearts. Do you understand when we preach the gospel what we are calling upon people to do? Do you ever think about it? Do you understand that when I stand up here every Sunday morning, and Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and as we live our lives, do you understand what we're calling upon people to do? We're calling upon people to do what they can't do apart from divine grace. Listen, we're calling upon people to reject this world's offer of glory and honor and power and gratification and wealth and riches and pleasure and sin. The world comes at us and says, listen, it's all yours. Eat, drink, be merry, lust and live it up. That's all there is to life. And the more you can grab of it, the better off you'll be. And the gospel comes and says, no, there's a heaven, there's a hell, there's a judgment, there's an eternity. And you have to be willing to deny yourself to repudiate this world to gain the world to come. There is a reward for the child of God. You say, if we in preaching the gospel are calling upon people to do what they cannot do by nature, how can we ever hope that anybody would ever receive the gospel? The only hope is if God awakens their hearts and brings life to the dead. and saves their lost, dead soul. It's the only hope. See, the problem is the church today thinks they can raise the dead. So we keep messing with the message, dumbing it down, And we keep tinkering with the means, and all we do is get religious people who have never been made alive. I asked Kim here a while back, I said, do I believe what I believe? My question was, You're an observer of my life. Do I really believe what I say I believe? Because the problem is in modern day America, we have all these fair weather believers. But the minute something in their life runs contrary to what they say they believe, They chuck their belief system and alter it all around and do what they want to do instead of what God has commanded. Moses, at 40 years old, he walked into his own adopted mother. and said, thank you for all you've done for me, but this is not for me anymore. This is not for me. I can almost see her saying, what do you mean? You could be Pharaoh. And like a good mother, what would she have probably said? What are you going to do with your life? Well, I'm going to go over here with this bunch of slaves. What are you going to do with your life, Moses? After all I've done for you? After all I've given you? After all of the opportunities that I have placed before you? What are you going to do with your life? I'm going to go over there and be identified with that bunch of slaves that my adopted grandfather wants to destroy. Why? Because they're the people of God. And by God's grace, I'm one of them. I'm one of them. Moses, do you know what it will cost you? It will cost me everything, but there will be a reward. Moses, do you know what this will mean for you? It may mean that it costs me everything. But there will be a reward. I would rather be identified with this despised, hated people and follow the living God than to have Egypt or a thousand more Egyptians piled up on top of it. Because I know there will be the reward. Now what can do that in a human soul but the grace of God? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. So if you are willing to repudiate this world and all of its offers and all of its lies, Because you have your eye on the Lord Jesus. If you're willing to suffer with His people, if you have respect to the reward, you know what you ought to do? You ought to bow your head before the King of Heaven and say, you alone are responsible for what has happened in my heart. You alone are responsible for the transformation of my life. Well, that's half of it. We'll get to the other half later. We're going to take the Lord's Supper.