Exodus chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. Now 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. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 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. And his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And the Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. So the girl went and called the child's mother. And 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 older, 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. Acts chapter 7 verses 17 through 22. But as the time of promise drew near when God had granted Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive. At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house. And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And he was mighty in his words and deeds. Brothers and sisters, this is the word of the Lord. Most merciful God, we come to your presence and we do indeed thank you for your word to us. And now we pray that that which we have read with our eyes and heard with our ears might be imparted to the depth of our souls by the power of your Holy Spirit. Instruct us, we pray, from on high, that we might gain a deeper knowledge of your great truths, that we might gain a deeper knowledge of you, our God and King, that we might gain a deeper knowledge of this great salvation you have granted us. through our Lord Jesus Christ, for we pray that as we study your word, the word made flesh might be raised up among us, that we might find ourselves strengthened in faith, built in character, that we might find ourselves even now being made more like our Savior, as we are sanctified according to his blood by your word, because of your very great promises to us. And so we ask these things in his holy and precious name. Amen. Please be seated. As we know, God is in the business of saving people. This is what he does. He does many other things, but saving people is the primary activity that he accomplishes in this world. The salvation of people is the theme of the scriptures from the very beginning to the very end. This is why the scholars have called it redemptive history, because the history of mankind really is the history of God redeeming his own from generation to generation, from century to century, from millennium to millennium. From the fall of man in the garden To the new heavens and the new earth, everything God does is in some measure purposed to bring about his will in the complete salvation of his people for all eternity. But interestingly, when we consider the salvation of our God, we find that the salvation he brings throughout history is rarely done so directly. By that I mean the way he most commonly affects such salvation is through an agent, through someone else, through a savior as it were, someone who stands in his place on earth as his representative in authority and power. Noah was a savior of humanity during the flood appointed by God To write out his judgment in the ark, Joseph was the savior of his family during the famine that came over the land. During the time of the judges, Othniel and Ehud and Gideon and Jephthah and Samson and others were, were saviors that were raised by God to save his people from whatever oppression they were undergoing at the time. Saviors in their own day, freeing God's people from those who came against them. And of course, we find David and others throughout Old Testament history. All of these were saviors in the sense that God raised them up in order to save his people from one thing or another. In all of these cases, God affected the salvation, he was the author of it, and it was his might and his power and his spirit that brought about the fullness and fruition of it, but God did so through his chosen representatives. And so what we find in human history is God is in the business of saving his people, but he is in the business of saving his people with a savior he raises. He does not show up in front of us in fullness of might and glory and save us instantly. We will see that at the end of our salvation when it becomes consummate. But until then, we recognize this pattern of God throughout history to save his people through other people. This pattern serves to point us not only to God working in history through his appointed means, but also that each of these saviors are a type of the one true savior, that each of them in their own right points to Jesus Christ, the savior that God has anointed to bring about the fullness of salvation for his people, not only from that which is earthly and oppressive, but from the eternal oppression of sin and death. the saviors God raises throughout history prefigure the saving work of the one true Messiah. They are not the savior. We know that title is reserved for Jesus Christ alone. But they are little as saviors as it were whose service to the Lord foreshadowed the service of Jesus the son who would be the perfect complete and ultimate savior of all of God's people. But until that time Until Christ did come, God saw fit to save his people through men, through prophets and priests and kings, men who faithfully did his bidding on earth as they ministered to the people of God. And this morning we find the birth of one of those men. In the midst of an Egypt that was oppressing the people of God, ruthlessly bringing them down, in the midst of an Egypt and a Pharaoh actively murdering the children of Israel, we see the birth of one of these men that God would raise up. For if anyone needed the saving grace of God, it was the great grandchildren of Jacob in that day. Those who were being ruthlessly oppressed by the Egyptians as they dwelt in that foreign land. Those whose children were being thrown into the Nile River as the Egyptians tried to suppress their numbers. Those whose grief rose to the heavens as they watched their young being slaughtered before their very eyes. Our text begins in chapter two, verse one, then with no knowledge of how long the Egyptians had been killing Hebrew boys. We are told this was the edict of the king at the end of chapter one, but chapter two does not give us the timeline, and so we're not sure how quickly upon the edict this happened, if months and months or even years had passed. But the assumption, as we turn to chapter two, verse one, is that it had been an ongoing occurrence. And so we recognize that as the subtext of this scene that is set before us. And what we find in this scene is an Israelite man and an Israelite woman, Levites particularly, or Amram the husband and Jochebed the wife, as their names are given to us later in chapter six. married and conceived, got pregnant, and lo and behold, had a baby boy, a son. And yet recognizing that they had a son, they hid their son. They hid him for three months. From the get-go, they conspired with one another and the midwives, those who had been faithful, most likely, as we learned in the last chapter. They conspired to hide the baby boy until such time as he could not be hidden any longer, whether because of his growth in stature or because of the strength of his lungs, whatever the reason. At the point he was three months old, it was becoming very difficult to hide him. And so when they could no longer do so, Hebrews chapter 11 tells us by faith, Jochebed, his mother, constructed a basket in which to hide her son. A basket that would be constructed in such a way that would also carry her son on the river without sinking so that he might float somewhere to be cared for. And so she took great care to make this basket of bulrushes, to daub it with the substances that would seal it against the river so that it would not become saturated or sink. And she put the child in it, we are told, and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank. And as she did so, his sister, whom we know from the later scriptures, whose name is Miriam, watched. from a distance, and so we have this image of a weeping mother setting her son in a basket on a river and stepping back, and the sister perhaps flitting through the bulrushes as she watches the basket run down the river waiting to see what would happen. And while this might seem odd to us, in that day, interestingly, this was the standard way of leaving a baby on the steps of a fire station, as it were. We have that tradition in our own culture and in other cultures of the West that for a woman who could not care for her child, there have historically been places to leave it, whether at the steps of a church or a fire station or even a hospital. Historical record attests to us that this was the common way to dispose of an unwanted child in that day and age, not just in Egypt, but throughout the ancient Near East. in the hopes that the child would be found and raised by someone else. This was not securing the death of a child, but the hope that the child would be found and raised. And so, as the scriptures tell us again in Hebrews, in faith, Jacob did just that. She set her son upon the river to give him a chance at life, believing that God would preserve him and that God would use him. As we consider this, the irony of the situation should not be lost on us. For it is the river that was the death of the other children of Israel. It was the Nile that was swallowing up all of the other young boys. It was the Nile that they were being cast into according to the edict of the Pharaoh. And yet it is on that same Nile River, that Nile River which caused the death of so many of his kindred. It was that same river upon which Moses rode safely in his little basket. that he might be delivered from the wrath of Pharaoh, and that he might ultimately grow in wisdom and in strength, as we are told, one day to take his place as an appointed savior of the people of God. And so Moses is floating on the Nile River in a reed basket. The reed basket, interestingly, which is called in the original Hebrew an ark, In fact, the only two instances in the Old Testament the word used for ark are found are here and in Genesis chapter 6. Where God commanded Noah, in verse 14 of Genesis 6, make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and outside with pitch. Note the similarities between the two. An ark was built In faith, pitch was used to seal it against the leak so that it would not sink. And both arc and basket floated upon the water, as they were meant to do. But more than just these similarities are found, however. As we consider these things, we find further parallels. Parallels that the Israelites would most likely see as well. Noah was saved from the wrath of God by being enclosed in an ark that did not sink. Moses was saved from the wrath of Pharaoh by being placed in an ark that did not sink. Noah was saved by the grace of God that he would be a savior of sinful humanity. Moses was saved by the grace of God that he would be the savior of an oppressed and tormented people. And the waters that brought judgment and death in both cases were the waters that brought life in both cases. For Noah was saved from the wrath of God by floating upon the waters of the flood. And Moses was saved from the wrath of Pharaoh by floating upon the waters of the Nile. The very thing that was meant to bring death brought life. by the grace of God. And as Hebrews 11 reminds us, both Noah and Moses were saved by faith. Moses was saved not by his own faith at first, but by the faith of his mother. The faith of one who knew the stories, the one who knew somewhat the history of her people, his mother who gave him up in faith, set him in the basket and set him in the waters by faith. And then a mother who was blessed by God to be able to raise her own child in the household of Pharaoh. As we see in in verses seven through nine, his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And so here we have the daughter find the young baby. And as she looks at it, Miriam jumps in. Hey, I can find somebody to nurse the baby if you want to raise it. Pharaoh's daughter, it sounds good to her. Sure, go, she said. So the girl went and, of course, got her mom, which was Moses' mom. and brought her into the Pharaoh's household, brought her to the Pharaoh's daughter, and the Pharaoh's daughter gave the child to his mother and said, nurse him for me and I will pay you. And so the woman took the child and nursed him. Again, the irony of this situation is almost overwhelming. The boy decreed to be killed by Pharaoh, raised in Pharaoh's household, by his own mother, his mother who was paid by Pharaoh's daughter to raise him. Not only was she able to raise him, but she was able to benefit from it as well. And further irony, as we know, that one day the one being raised in the household of Pharaoh would be the one who would bring an end to Pharaoh and his tyranny, the one who would ultimately lead the people of God to freedom. Well, as the people of God, with a biblical understanding of sovereignty and providence, we obviously do not believe in coincidence. Such a scene as this is almost too fantastic even for a movie plot. As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction. And before us is the truth of the Word of God. with the careful working out of each aspect by the sovereign hand of a mighty father in a way that would bring about the salvation of his people to his eternal glory. And so we see such a story as this, and we marvel at the intricacies of this. We marvel at something that that which people may call fate could never do. For what we find here is a fantastic story with threads reaching back into to the earlier histories, and obviously threads reaching forward for the ultimate redemption of God's people that would come through a greater Savior than Moses. For this is how God works, orchestrating every aspect of history for the redemption of his people, to save his people. In his perfect time, He raised up Noah. In his perfect time, he raised up Joseph. In his perfect time, he raised up Moses. And in his perfect time, he raised up our ultimate savior, Jesus Christ, the righteous. For Galatians four, verses four and five tell us, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. Romans 5 verse 6, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. The timing of God is impeccable. It is perfect. He raises up those who would deliver his people in the day and hour that they are to be most effective according to his will. And so as the people of God suffered under the oppressive hand of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, God was working, God was working very minutely in great detail that he might bring about the salvation of his people. And that in doing so, he might point to all of his people from Moses' day and onward to the great salvation he grants us through Jesus Christ our Lord. And while we may not understand the winds or the wise, and we look to our own world, and we wonder at the timing of things, we do understand, according to the scriptures, that God's timing is always perfect. We understand that even in the midst of great evil and great persecution, God is always working out his plans. He is always working out the details for the salvation of his people. We understand that even as the devil plots to devour the people of God, God is planning our salvation. That as the author of Hebrews tells us, Christ might save to the uttermost those who look to him in faith. For as Hebrews 3 tells us, Jesus Christ is worthy of more glory than Moses, for he is a superior savior, redeeming his people, not only from earthly bondage and temporal oppression, but from bondage to sin and the oppression of death itself. Jesus Christ saved by his father, not from Pharaoh, but from a like minded King Herod who would have him killed. Jesus Christ, the greater Moses, who who came to grant the people of God full redemption and salvation to the uttermost. Jesus Christ, he who is our ark, who carries us through the wrath of God Almighty, that which devours the sinner. Jesus Christ, who delivers us safely through the flames of judgment and the fires of eternal damnation. Jesus Christ who brings us to our eternal resting place where we will know God and be known by him for all eternity. Ours is but to believe, to look to Him in faith, and to trust. To trust in His Word. To trust in His work on our behalf. To trust in His perfect timing. For He will never fail. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. He will guide us and He will guard us to the very end when we finally join Him in eternal glory. For what God raises Moses to do for His people Temporally, God has raised Jesus Christ to do for us eternally. And Jesus Christ stands in that place of Savior, the Savior of Moses, the Savior of Noah and of Joseph, of David, of Samuel, of all of those who who came after Moses. Jesus Christ stands as the savior of all of those who believe on his name, past, present, and future. For God has orchestrated every facet of our salvation and indeed all of human history to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter one tells us that is the purpose of all things, to unite them in the one Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And God has orchestrated the minutest of details. So many times people speak of the sovereignty of God and they speak of it as some ethereal sort of, well, God's pretty much in control. But what we find in this passage is God is intimately in control, which is part of why when we confess the first Answer of our catechism we say that not a hair can fall from our head apart from his will. God has orchestrated every facet of our salvation and all of human history at its end serves the creator in the redemption of his people. For the pinnacle of human history is found at the cross in the empty tomb where our merciful and gracious father raised up our savior. Not only raised him up in his perfect time to be born of a virgin, but raised him up on the cross between heaven and earth. For Jesus Christ, our Savior, came to live as one of us. And then to die as one of us. To be raised from the dead as one of us and to ascend into heaven as one of us there to secure all of the blessings of salvation for all of God's people forever. Truly He is, as we confess in Heidelberg I, by the power of the Holy Spirit, working out all things for our salvation, for our good and for His glory, as He redeems His people to Himself through our Savior Jesus Christ. To whom be honor and glory now and evermore. Amen.