Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do) please open them to Exodus.

We’re going to look at chapters 1-2 this morning which is another way of saying: we have a lot of ground to cover.

I hope you took a moment this week to read at least Exodus chapter 1 and hopefully Exodus chapters 1 and 2.

Again, I’d love for you to have a Bible open in front of you this morning.

If not, the text will be on the screen and you can follow along.

Last week, we read verses 1-5—verses that introduce us to part of the cast of characters:

Exodus 1-5

These verses connect the book of Exodus directly to Genesis, which ends with the death of Joseph (which took place around 1805 B.C.)

In fact, the first verse of Exodus repeats the words of almost exactly:

It should be clear to us, first off, that these are a people with a history.

The first word of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible is one that most of our English versions leave out.

It’s the word And.

Most people say that starting a sentence with the word and is probably not proper..

And yet, in this instance, it connects this story back to Genesis and the history of God with His people there.

At then end of Genesis, we’re left hanging, wondering what it looks like for these people who are now living in Egypt.

We just have to turn the page and pick up in Exodus where we left off in Genesis.

And these are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt...

These are a people

These are a people with a history and a people with a destiny.

God has made His covenant with Abraham, promising to make him into a great nation, that through this people all nations on earth might be blessed.

Exodus is a continuation of God’s relationship with this people and His grand purpose for them, with them, in spite of them.

If there’s any wonder what God’s up to, if you’re tempted to think that God is absent, that He’s forgotten His people, that the Lord must not care—if you’re tempted to believe that (especially as we read ), just flip back and read , , , .

Because of the Lord’s faithfulness and kindness and mercy, these are a people with a destiny, a future full of hope.

Per the promises of God, the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, Isaac, Abraham grow—and I mean really, really grow.

70 souls (v. 5) had made their way to Egypt, sustained by the hand of God—the God who put Joseph in place in order to ensure the well-being of his family; 70 souls is a subtle, seemingly unimpressive number, but it’s a clear and powerful reminder of the faithfulness of God to His promises.

The God who told Abraham that his offspring would be like the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach, well…that God knew what He was talking about.

We will read in chapter 12 of Exodus that as the people of Israel left Egypt, journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth:

Exodus 12:

Can you say, “Exceedingly fruitful”?

They really got to work, like bunny rabbits these folk.

That’s quite the increase in number: 70—>600,000 men, besides women and children.

This incredible fruitfulness proved to be a problem, and not just for the person in charge of the diaper bill.

The new king, the new pharaoh, plays on the fears and base instincts of his people.

Always an effective strategy.

So...

What do you do when there are too many people you don’t like living around you?

One option is to enslave them, oppress them, work them ruthlessly.

And so it is.

The Israelites are resident aliens living in Egypt.

It’s not hard to fathom the Egyptians’ hostility toward them.

In his commentary on Exodus, Douglas Stuart writes: “For any land or major portion of land to be filled with people of external origin and [external] allegiance is bound to threaten those who regard themselves as the land’s rightful citizens.

In a fallen world, hostility to foreigners is unfortunately a common human sin.”

Now, I’m not about to get political—church is not the place to do so.

I will never tell you what to think politically.

But I will encourage you to think Biblically.

And Biblically speaking, we are commanded to care for, to love, to welcome the foreigner.

For instance, the Lord commands His people:

Leviticus 19:

Leviticus

What the Egyptians do in mistreating the Israelites is wrong, and not just because we might want to take sides with the Israelites.

It’s wrong, no matter who is perpetrating injustice against whom.

“In a fallen world, hostility to foreigners is unfortunately a common human sin.”

What the Egyptians do is wrong, and not just because we might want to take sides with the Israelites.

It’s wrong.

The pharaoh sets out to control the Israelite population.

He’s after a reduction in numbers.

Notice the repetition in verses 11-14—oppress them…oppressed…worked them ruthlessly…made their lives bitter...harsh labor…harsh labor....worked them ruthlessly.

What we read and the repetition of what we read tells us the situation is intolerable.

hostility to foreigners is no surprise

Israel was involuntarily having to serve, work for, live for, be under the control of Pharaoh.

reduction of numbers

Slavery and harsh labor didn’t have the desired effect; the text tells us (v.

12) the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread—certainly this is the hand of God, providing, keeping, and blessing the Israelites.

When slavery and harsh labor didn’t have the desired effect, the unnamed pharaoh/king of Egypt set out a plan of genocide: “If we can’t force them into submission, we’ll start a systematic extinction program:

The repetition tells us the situation is intolerable.

Now, we could spend some time talking about the ethical dilemma presented by the actions of the midwives.

This account of the midwives can be found in every Christian ethic book and class on ethics.

If you’d like, we can have a discussion sometime about graded-, non-conflicting-, and ideal-absolutism.

But there is too much for the time we have.

Let me try to sum-up the issue at hand:

It appears that the midwives lied or, at the very least, stretched the truth.

Another option is that they didn’t lie (though a majority of theologians and ethicists believe they were lying).

So they lie, and God blesses them; He’s kind to them.

The ethical issue is: is it okay to lie if it saves a life (or many lives as the case may be)?

Does God overlook the “lesser offense” (re: graded absolutism)?

Again, if you want to grab a cup of coffee and have a conversation regarding ethical dilemmas, I’d love it.

Hit me up.

We can nerd-out together.

The point for us today—the overarching theme here—is the heroic resistance of these two women.

This is an example of “We must obey God rather than man.”

These two midwives are honored for their courage and bravery.

They resisted doing this evil thing, even at the command of one who could take their very lives.

The text honors these woman, recording their names—Shiphrah and Puah—while the pharaoh goes unnamed.

These women, Shiphrah and Puah, did something for us: thanks to them Moses lives, the people of God are able to escape from Egypt; from the line of those who were enslaved in Egypt comes this fellow named David, and then, eventually, Jesus.

I, for one, am grateful for their heroic resistance.

What about you?

Pharaoh's attempt at infanticide (killing the babies) is thwarted by two, lowly midwives.

Better yet: pharaoh’s plan is thwarted by the Sovereign Lord who looks out for His own, preserving them in a strange land under a ruthless dictator, causing them/allowing them to prosper, to increase and become even more numerous.

Heroic resistance

—>Think about what’s going on here:

Enslavement.

Ruthless and harsh servitude.

Future at risk.

Systematic plan in place to kill the next generation.

The people of Israel need redemption; they need rescuing.

They need someone to save them.

To put it lightly: things are not going well for them.

They need redemption—rescue, saving,

So where is He?

Where is God in all of this?