GOD IS KEEPING HIS PROMISES
IN SPITE OF APPEARANCES
Exodus 1:1—14
INTRODUCTION
God, in his mercy, gave me a new heart so that
I repented of my sin and trusted in Christ as
my Savior and Lord in the spring of 1975. My
life changed in many ways during those months.
I stopped getting drunk and high and I started
reading my Bible and going to church. I quit
hanging out with one group of friends and began
hanging out with an entirely new group of people.
I decided I was not going to pursue a career
in Forestry or environmental law but I was going
to enter into Christian ministry. As I contemplated
the numerous changes in my life I, like most
new Christians, would often wonder if the gospel
was really true. I would get nervous as I thought
about the new direction my life had taken and
realized all these changes were based upon the
truthfulness of the Bible. I was banking my life
upon the existence of an unseen world and so
I often wondered about how to be sure it was
really true.
One of the early experiments I made was to test
God with my prayers. I vividly remember one day
during the summer of 1975, just a few months
after my conversion. I was using my parent’s
pickup truck to move some things to Stevens Point
where I lived that summer. The pickup had a top
over the bed of the truck. The back lift of the
top had these two supports that when you opened
it were supposed to “catch” and so
remain open. This was an old truck and so the
catches were worn and would often release unexpectedly
and thus the panel would come crashing down upon
your head if you were standing under it. Well,
that happened to me several times in a row while
I was unloading stuff out of the back of the
truck. I was growing very frustrated with getting
hit in the head. Then I remembered that Jesus
had said that I could ask him for whatever I
wanted and he would do it for me. So I asked
him to keep the lift open while I was working.
I lifted it up and it caught and I put my head
in the back of the truck and the lift came crashing
down on my head. Now not only was my head hurting
but I also was confronted with a crisis in my
new faith. Why didn’t God answer my prayer?
Why was he not helping me the way I wanted to
be helped? Was he not strong enough to keep the
lift up? Did he not care about me? Or did he
not exist?
Quite honestly, it was the last possibility
that gripped me the most and caused me to fear.
I’m happy to say that God didn’t
permit me to give into this fear and doubt. He
enabled me to continue pursuing him and so over
the years I have come to understand the nature
of the world I live in and of the God who rules
the world. I have learned that my demand for
God to make the world conform to my preferences
is one of the chief expressions of my own sin.
I live in God’s universe, he doesn’t
live in my universe. He has told us about the
nature of the world we live in and how he runs
his universe so that we can conform to reality,
as it is, not attempt to make reality, as we
want it to be. God has written us into his story.
We are not writing our own story.
While getting hit on the head is a very small
and inconsequential amount of suffering, yet
my experience in that event reveals one of the
things that most often challenges people’s
faith. The experience of pain, evil and suffering
as much as anything causes people to doubt the
existence of God or to make up gods who are either
powerless or indifferent. What we discover in
the story of the Exodus and in particular in
these opening paragraphs, is that the all powerful,
loving God of the universe gives us strength
to endure the suffering that is a part of this
life. Evil and suffering are not evidence that
God doesn’t exist. Rather, evil and suffering
serve the good purposes of God for his universe
and his people. In this opening passage of Exodus
we will discover how it is that God enables us
to live in a world that is full of evil and suffering.
MAIN POINT
God strengthens us to
endure the suffering of this life by…
I. Reminding us of his promises (vv. 1-7 with
dozens of passages in Genesis)
When we read the Bible we must always remember
that these books were not first written for people
living in the U.S.A. in 2004. Moses wrote the
book of Exodus during the forty years the nation
Israel was living in the wilderness. If you will
remember, the nation had rebelled against God
when he commanded them to go in and take over
the land of Canaan. They refused to believe his
promises and demanded to return to Egypt. They
accused God of rescuing them from slavery in
Egypt in order to kill them in Canaan. They said
they would rather be ruled over by the Egyptians
than by God.
At that time, due to the prayer of Moses, God
relented from killing the entire nation immediately
but ordered that they wander for forty years
until everyone who was 20 years old and up was
dead. He wrote this book for the children of
those who rebelled and whom God was going to
bring into the land of Canaan. Exodus is the
recounting of how God brought these people out
of their captivity in Egypt. Exodus 1:1-7, the
beginning of this book, is full of reminders
of all the promises God made throughout the book
of Genesis to Abraham and his descendants. Every
verse is practically quoting some verse from
the book of Genesis with but minor alterations.
So he begins with summarizing all the promises
that God made to them throughout the first 250
years of their history. He is reminding these
people who are living as nomads and waiting for
people to die of the promises that God made to
his chosen people. Moses reminds them that they
are part of a story that began at creation. Their
history is an account of how God has been saving
his people out of the nations of the world since
the creation of the world.
He connects the story of Exodus to the story
of Genesis first by listing the names of the
sons of Israel who came into Egypt from Canaan,
along with their children and grandchildren.
This list is virtually identical to two other
lists of the children of Israel in Genesis 35
and 46. This family of 70 people who entered
Egypt now becomes a great nation in v. 7. The
language that Moses uses in verse 7 calls to
mind the dozens of promises God made in Genesis
beginning with the very first promise that God
gave to human beings in Genesis 1:26-28. If you’ll
remember that promise was given to Adam and Eve
while they were yet without sin. God blessed
them and told them that it was his will that
they be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
However, our first parents, before they could
experience the fulfillment of this promise rebelled
against God and so God drove them out of his
presence and away from his blessing. The question
at the end of chapter 3 of Genesis is what will
become of God’s promise to make humanity
fruitful so they fill the earth? How can God
dwell with sinful human beings? Or to ask it
from our point of view, how can sinners like
us find our way back into the garden, into the
presence of God? How can we be his people again?
While there are hints given throughout Genesis
1-11, it is in Genesis 12 that we begin to see
that God’s plan is not to restore every
human being to himself but rather to restore
some humans from every nation of humans. But
to do that he begins with one man and his descendants.
In Genesis 12:1-3 God calls idol-worshipping
Abraham into a relationship with himself and
this is what he promises: “I will make
you into a great nation and I will bless you.
I will make your name great, and you will be
a blessing. I will bless those who bless you
and whoever curses you I will curse; and all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This
promise is repeated and expanded many times throughout
Genesis to each succeeding generation of the
descendants of Abraham. God tells Abraham and
his descendants that he will give them the land
of Canaan. He tells them that their descendants
will outnumber the stars in heaven. They will
become like the dust of the earth. They will
be a mighty nation with kings coming from them.
In v. 7 we see the creation blessing given to
the family of Israel. They have been fruitful
and have multiplied until they have become exceedingly
numerous and they now fill the land of Egypt.
This is a clear reference to Genesis 1 and shows
that God is fulfilling his promise to humanity
in the nation Israel.
However, while v. 7 is clearly stating the fulfillment
of some of the promises given to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, yet it is not the complete fulfillment
because the nation Israel is not living in Canaan,
but in Egypt. The promise is only partially fulfilled.
Thus, while v. 7 shows God’s faithfulness,
yet it leaves us with a question. Why are the
Israelites living in Egypt and not in Canaan?
Then Moses tells us that with the arrival of
a new Pharaoh who does not recognize the contributions
of Joseph to the well being of Egypt, the nation
of Israel is subjected to slavery. This certainly
does not look anything close to what God promised.
What Moses is communicating both to the people
of Israel wandering in the wilderness and to
us is that the promises of God, like all promises,
are always looking to the future. Promises always
refer to the future. When a parent promises his
children that he is going to take them to Disney
World, his promise is about a trip in the future.
There will be signs that he is keeping his promise,
like the purchase of airline tickets or the making
of reservations or purchasing of new luggage.
However, the promise is all about something that
is going to happen in the future. This is the
way it is with all God’s promises. When
a man promises to marry a woman he gives her
a ring as a pledge that he will keep his promise
but the promise won’t be fulfilled until
the wedding day.
Moses wants the nation Israel to remember the
promises that God has made beginning at creation
and repeated to their ancestors so that they
will not lose heart while they wander in the
desert and wait for people to die. He wants them
to recognize in their existence as a numerous
people a symbol of God’s faithfulness to
his promises but to also realize that the fulfillment
of the promises is yet in the future. Our condition
is not much different from those Israelites in
that we are waiting for God to fulfill his promises
and while we wait, people are dying all around
us. Our hope and our stability in life is to
be found in only one place and that is the promises
that God has made to his people. These promises
have been made sure by the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. We are heirs of these same promises
because, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1: “All
the promises of God are yes to us in Christ.” You
will never regret the time you have spent meditating
on the promises of God. These promises are the
bedrock upon which our hope and joy and peace
are built. Trusting anyone or anything beyond
the promises of God will only lead to destruction
in your life. Expecting the promises to be completely
fulfilled right now is to set yourself up for
disappointment. The promises will all be fulfilled
finally when Jesus returns. Right now, we experience
only partial fulfillment as signs of the future
that is coming.
God strengthens us to endure the suffering of
this life by…
- Reminding
us of his promises
- And by…
II. Reminding us that he not only knows about
but ordains our suffering (vv. 8-14 with Gen.
15:13)
For anyone who is familiar with the story of
Genesis, vv. 1-7 will on one hand be a confirmation
of God’s promises but on the other hand
they will be puzzling because the fruitfulness
of Israel and the “spreading out” will
be in the wrong place. However, while vv. 1-7
are puzzling, vv. 8-14 are shocking. The shocks
that are delivered in these verses come in rapid
succession. First, a Pharaoh comes to power in
Egypt who does not know about Joseph and all
the good he did to Egypt. How can that be? Egypt
continues to exist as a nation due to the work
of Joseph. If it were not for Joseph, Egypt would
have crumbled under the weight of the seven-year
famine. It was due to the work of Joseph that
the Pharaoh’s of Egypt were wealthy. He
is the one who obtained all the land of Egypt
as the possession of the kings of Egypt and who
set up the system where every tenant farmer had
to pay 1/5th of his produce to the Pharaoh for
the privilege of working the land. What arrogance
and what ingratitude has been at work so that
a Pharaoh can come to power without any knowledge
of the debt that he owes to Joseph and Joseph’s
family, the people of Israel?
The next shock is the racism, greed and slander
of the Pharaoh. The Israelites have done nothing
to harm the Egyptians but have only benefited
the kingdom of Egypt. The Egyptians have no reason
to fear the Israelites. However, we find in this
king a full-blown racism that was hinted at in
the history of Genesis. He slanders their character,
making up a scenario that has never happened
and for which there is no evidence it will ever
happen. Here is a perfect statement of what is
true of all racist people. There is an irrational
fear and hatred of others simply because they
are different. Then there is a spreading of slander
and rumor to malign and vilify the other group
so that the majority seeks ways to oppress the
minority. Stereotypes are repeated until they
are believed as truth. Racism and the oppression
of minorities always are promoted through the
repetition of rumor and stereotype. How do you
think the German people participated in the murder
of 6 million Jews? How do you think that the
Hutus in Rawanda, in mass, participated in the
butchery of a million Tutsi’s in a six
month period in 1994? How else do you think that
discrimination and oppression continues in the
U.S. against black men and women? “We can’t
let those people live in our neighborhoods or
join our churches or come to our schools, they
will ruin everything.” We white folks are
gripped by an irrational fear and hatred of the
black and Latino and Asian communities that are
growing in our own country. We perpetuate the
rumors and believe the stereotypes and form impenetrable
walls to keep “them” away and in
their place. We forget the contributions that
people of color have made and continue to make
to our society. Let me say that racism isn’t
just a problem that exists somewhere else. It
exists among us. I have heard more than a few
of the racial stereotypes repeated by many of
us. We each one must face our irrational fears
and prejudices and acknowledge them for what
they are—sin and repent of holding onto
these unjust and slanderous thoughts and attitudes.
We must seek to welcome those of different races
and cultures into our community and our church
and be a force for acceptance, rather than agents
of oppression.
The third shock we receive is that the talk
turns to violence. That is what always follows
the propagation of racial hatred. The Pharaoh
convinces his people that the innocent people
of Israel are to be feared and if not dealt with
will certainly harm them. Therefore, they unjustly
enslave them. The majority population, with no
evidence to support their assertion but only
guided by blind and ignorant racist propaganda,
enslave the entire population of Israelites living
in their midst. For no reason other than an unjustified
fear that they might be harmed, the majority
establishes a system to oppress and control the
minority population. In doing so, they reap enormous
financial benefits to themselves. Cities are
built at a fraction of the cost because of the
free labor provided by the slaves. Not content
to merely profit from their servitude they treat
them ruthlessly and make their lives bitter.
There is no such thing as happy slavery. This
is a systematic, brutal and violent oppression
of one people by another people.
As we see this violent and vicious oppression,
having read the book of Genesis, the question
that is forced upon us is how can this evil happen
to God’s people? God told Abraham that
any nation that cursed his descendants, he would
curse. God promised that he would protect the
descendants of Abraham and that he would bring
them safely into the land of promise, the land
of Canaan. How can the people of God be enslaved
by a pagan nation? How can they be treated ruthlessly
and their lives be made bitter? Where is God?
How can he permit such atrocities to be carried
out against a people he has promised to guard
and bless? We will come back to these questions
repeatedly in the coming weeks. We will be given
very direct answers as the story of Exodus unfolds.
However, at the beginning of the story we are
simply having the fact of the suffering described
without any reference to God’s purposes
in this text. However, as we’ve seen, this
opening is very tightly connected to the book
of Genesis. In the book of Genesis, we were told
about this suffering.
Turn back to Genesis 15. This occurs some 300-400
years before the slavery described in Exodus
1. God told Abraham that this slavery was going
to happen in vv. 13-16. This slavery is part
of God’s plan for the salvation of the
Israelites. In a way that we don’t fully
understand, the evil that the Pharaoh and the
Egyptian people do to the Israelites is serving
God’s good purposes to save his people.
Don’t miss this. The Pharaoh does evil
and so do his people. The Israelites are suffering
real pain. Yet, in the mystery of God’s
providence this suffering is for a good purpose.
We saw this exact same thing in the death of
Jesus as we went through the end of Matthew’s
gospel. Jesus told his disciples repeatedly it
was God’s will that he suffer. He frequently
quoted the OT to show this was God’s eternal
plan. The Jewish religious leaders, Pilate and
the Roman soldiers all did evil to Jesus yet
the evil they did served God’s good purposes.
God didn’t do the evil, the human perpetrators
did. However, their evil acts served God’s
good purposes. Jesus and the other authors of
the NT repeatedly claim that the OT Scriptures,
of which Exodus 1 is a part, are all about the
sufferings of Jesus and the glories that follow.
The story of the Israelites here, is the story
of Christ who suffered unjustly in order to fulfill
the good purposes of God. This story of the suffering
of Christ and of his people followed by the glories
of resurrection is our story as well.
When we are in the midst of suffering, we must
remember that God causes all things to work together
for the good of those who love him. When we are
in the midst of suffering, we must remember that “these
have come so that our faith, …may be proved
genuine.” We must remember, when the circumstances
of life go wrong that “those who suffer
according to God’s will must commit themselves
to their faithful Creator and continue to do
good.” This slavery comes upon the Israelites
not because of anything they have done. The Pharaoh
and his racist, greedy people cause this slavery.
However, this slavery is part of God’s
good plan to make a people for himself to the
praise of his own glory. God has told us this
story so we can see his hand in our story and
not be afraid. Notice how God, in the midst of
the suffering, reminds of his faithfulness. In
v. 12 we are told, “the more they were
oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread;
so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.” While
the Israelites are the ones in slavery, the Egyptians
are the ones who are fearful. God continues to
fulfill his promise to make them fruitful. Here
we are given a hint of his power to curse those
who curse Israel. He fills the Egyptians with
dread. So in our suffering, God assures of his
faithfulness and his promises in numerous ways
so that we will not lose heart.
God strengthens us
to endure the suffering of this life by…
- Reminding us of his promises
- Reminding us that he not only knows about
but ordains our suffering
- And by…
III. Reminding us of how he has brought others
safely through suffering (vv. 8-14 with Gen.
36-50)
There are two ways that Moses, in recording
this story reminds us of the ways in which God
brought others into and through suffering. First,
vv. 8-14 are loaded with words that were used
in Genesis to describe the betrayal and slavery
of Joseph in Egypt. His brothers for no reason
betrayed him, just as Pharaoh betrays the Israelites
for no reason. He was enslaved unjustly and his
work enriched those who were his slave masters,
just like the Israelites. He, like Israel, flourished
in his slavery but as a result, the wife of Pothiphar
made his enslavement worse. In short, when we
read of the enslavement of the nation Israel
we are to think of the slavery of Joseph and
remember how God faithfully brought him out of
his slavery and made him the most powerful man
in all of Egypt. He ruled over his slave masters
by the work of God.
Second, this story was first written down for
the Israelites in the desert. This is their story.
They are called to remember the slavery they
once endured and how God delivered them from
their slavery and brought them out of Egypt.
They ruled over their slave masters. Even though
they are now in suffering again, they can remember
how God safely brought them out of the slavery
of Egypt. We are called upon to remember as well
how God delivered Joseph and the people of Israel
so that we will not grow weary and lose heart.
This pattern of the suffering of God’s
people and then the deliverance of God from the
suffering is the pattern we are to remember as
well. Ultimately, whenever we are in the midst
of suffering we are to remember our Lord Jesus
whom God abandoned on the cross but whom he raised
from the dead, three days later. We must remember
how Christ endured this suffering in faith and
then how God glorified him at the resurrection.
This is our story and we can endure the suffering
God sends to us just as Jesus endured the cross.
This is what Peter tells the suffering Christians
to whom he wrote his first letter. “Dear
friends, do not be surprised by the painful trial
you are enduring as though something strange
were happening to you but rejoice that you participate
in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be
overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” We
can endure by meditating on the suffering of
Jesus and remembering his resurrection and his
coming glory.
In addition, God has given us the stories of
others, through the centuries who have endured
great suffering and remained faithful. Beginning
with the first Christian martyr, Stephen and
the other apostles who endured great suffering
for the sake of Jesus we have 2000 years of stories.
I want you to know that I am not just making
this up. God intends that we remember those who
have gone before us so that we will not lose
heart. In Hebrews 12, after recounting the endurance
of hundreds of believers in chapter 11, the author
says to us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded
by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw
off everything that hinders and the sin that
so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance
the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith,
who for the joy set before him endured the cross… Consider
him who endured such opposition from sinful men,
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” We
are to remember those who have gone before and
fix our eyes on Jesus, hanging on the cross and
enduring because of the joy set before him so
that we will persevere through the suffering
sent to us.
I am not talking theory. I cannot tell you anything
more practical than this. As most of you know,
two years ago God sent upon our family a great
sorrow. Our oldest son, Jared, suffered a profound
and disabling brain injury because of a skiing
accident. I sat by his bed those first nights
in the hospital, waiting to see if he would live
our die, weeping. Yet, in my tears I was rejoicing
in the suffering of Christ and the glory that
followed. It was the knowledge of Christ’s
suffering that strengthened me in our suffering.
Over the days and months and now years that have
followed, it continues to be the source of my
greatest comfort that Jesus endured the cross
for the joy set before him. So I endure this
suffering by remembering how God delivered Jesus
from his suffering. I do it remembering that
Jesus endured for the joy set before him. I endure
by remembering how God delivered Joseph and Israel
from their suffering. I do it by remembering
how God enabled John Owens, the great Puritan
pastor, to remain faithful to Christ even as
all 11 of his children died by the age of 21.
I do it remembering the faithfulness of John
Patton who went as a missionary to the New Hebrides
with his new wife, Mary. I remember how he suffered
when she died a year after they arrived and then
their month old baby died. I remember the faithfulness
of Joni Erickson-Tada who broke her neck as a
16 year old teenager and who for the past 25
years, as a quadriplegic, has faithfully followed
Christ and served her Savior, looking to the
reward. I remember how God has faithfully delivered
his people from suffering so that I will not
grow weary and lose heart while my boy sits motionless,
blind and unable to speak.
I do not talk of our suffering to gain your
pity or your admiration but to tell you that
there is no other way to live this life. Everyone
in here has experienced suffering, is experiencing
suffering or will experience suffering. It is
God’s will for his people that we suffer
loss. It is my goal, as your pastor to equip
you to live as faithful Christians in the midst
of suffering. I am trying to prepare you for
reality so that you will not abandon Christ when
it comes. I am urging you to seek Christ now
so that when the day of trouble comes to you,
you can stand. God alone determines what kind
of trouble will come to you but you can be sure
that it is coming. If you are not seeking Christ
before it comes, you will not stand when it comes.
You must remember the promises. You must read
the whole Bible, listen to God’s story,
and not make up your own story. You must remember
how God delivers people through and out of suffering,
not prevents all their suffering.
God strengthens us
to endure the suffering of this life by…
- Reminding us of his promises
- Reminding us that he not only knows about
but ordains our suffering
- Reminding us of how he has brought others
safely through suffering
© Copyright
2004 John Swanson.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute
this material in any format provided that:
(1) you credit the author,
(2) any modifications are clearly marked,
(3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction,
and
(4) you do not make more than 1,000 copies.
If you would like to post this material to the web, or if
your intended use is other than outlined above, please contact
River Hills Community Church, 2843 West Court Street,
Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943. mail@riverhillsonline.org
|