Exiting Egypt Chapter Two Part 1

Exiting Egypt: Chapter Two –

When We’re Most Like God

By Dennis Lee Part 1

At this time of Israel’s history, hope and despair are in conflict. Israel was moaning under Egyptian oppression, when God’s providence took shape in the form of a baby. Now, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like when Israel was under Roman rule and was crying out for a Savior, and God came down in human form as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.

But we’re talking about the book of Exodus, and so this baby was Moses, not Jesus. But as we said in the beginning, that Moses is to Exodus as Jesus was to the Gospels, and that we’ll see quite a few similarities as we go through our study.

Moses’ birth, like that of Jesus’, is a moment in the history of the world when the light of dawn begins its struggle with night right before the dawning of the day. Israel was in deep despair, afflicted and oppressed under the whips of the Egyptians, and into this dark despair a goodly child was born, and God’s unseen hand of providence began guiding his life.

Now, this word providence means the power of God sustaining and guiding human destiny. What I find fascinating about the account of Moses’ formative years, that is, his childhood years that God is never mentioned in the narrative, but throughout we see His hand directing Moses’ life.

Let’s take a look

Read Ex. 2:1-10

The birth of any child is a miracle, but there are special cases when the miracle of birth coincides with a miracle that God is about ready to impact the world, and such as the case with the birth of Moses.

Considered the anxiety that surrounded Moses’ birth. The Egyptian government had put out an edict that all male babies born to the Hebrew slaves were to be drowned in the Nile River. So, when Moses was delivered, his parents knew that a death sentence hovered over his head, and so, determined that their son was not going to die, they hid him out until they could hide him no longer.

Now, do you see any similarities to Jesus? Herod had put out an edict that all male children up to two years in age in Bethlehem were to be put to death. And so God intervened and removed Jesus from harms way, informing Joseph in a dream of the need to take Jesus into Egypt.

If you hadn’t noticed, the text never identifies the names of the major characters of this story with the exception of Pharaoh’s daughter calling the child’s name, Moses. Other than that, it doesn’t name Moses’ father, mother, or sister, which later we know as being Amram, Jochebed (6:20), and Miriam. It also doesn’t mention Moses’ brother at all, whose name we know as being Aaron. Not even Pharaoh or his daughter are named.

So, what does that mean. Does this say anything to us in our study? And what I believe is that it was deliberate so that the light will shine on the primary actor in this whole drama – God. And when you think about it, that is the way it is in life, with all the anonymous people that come in and out of our lives, but make an impact in one way or another.

And the point here is that they don’t have to be named. They don’t have to be identified, because we know that it was the Lord who used them for a time and a season to work something into or out of our lives.

It’s not about the construction company who built the building, or the person or persons who gave the money for the church to be built. It is the fact that God used these individuals or companies to further His kingdom here on earth. Look at what is written on John Wesley’s monument in Westminster Abbey: “God buries the workman and carries on His work.”

Now, this doesn’t mean that we are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. John Wesley helped to form what is now called the Methodist denomination. You see, while we may be anonymous to others, we’re not anonymous to God, He knows us. He knows all about us. He created us in His image and according to His likeness, and as believers in Christ, we are a integral part of His New Covenant of redemption. The anonymous part is that we don’t know how God is going to use us, but when we obey, then He uses our faithfulness for His Kingdom purposes: Anonymous to others, but not to God.

Let’s zoom in on Moses’ mother. She was a slave. She had to work in the brickyards or labor inthe fields all day. It’s hard for us to even imagine what it must have been like to live in that kind of setting and be subjected to that kind of oppression.

It was tough. It was oppressive. It was beyond our imagination to know or even understand what went on in the heart and mind of Moses’ mother during those months prior to his birth, not knowing and then knowing that if it was a boy that a sentence of death hung over his life.

And then, once he was born, she hid him for three months, but unable to hide him any longer she made a small little ark and laid him in it, and then set it reeds along the riverbank.

It is obvious that we see the natural love of a mother for her child, but we see something more, and that is the faint whisper of God’s providence. She didn’t know then that God was doing something special through her act of faith, committing her child into His hands.

And now consider that the writer of Hebrews catalogues as two of his faith recipients; Moses mom and dad. Those two anonymous parents are now brought into the floodlight of God because they, by faith, chose to hide Moses and not fear the king’s death edict.

But her faith in God went further than merely hiding him out. When she could hide him no longer she built a mini ark and then in an ultimate act of faith, put Moses inside, waiting for God’s provincial hand of guidance.

And so, what lessons can we take with us from Moses’ parents for our lives? What lessons can we take knowing the providence of God in this world we live in?