SS07-02-06
“I WILL TURN TO GOD FOR HELP.”
EXODUS 1: 5-7, 8-14; 2: 23-25.
PLEASE OPEN YOURBIBLE TO EXODUS 1.
July is a time of year when many citizens of the United States celebrate the nation’s independence. Many festivities revolve around cookouts, parades, and fireworks displays. For Christians, this also can be a time to reflect deeply on the relationship between freedom and faith.
We cherish our political freedoms as set forth in the Constitution. But where does the underlying notion of human freedom originate? And what does it mean to live a truly liberated life? By looking to the Scriptures for answers to these questions, we’re drawn immediately to passages such as John 8: 36 where Jesus said, “Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.” And we’re drawn to Galatians 5: 1 where Paul echoed Jesus’ declaration by stating: “Christ has liberated us into freedom. Therefore stand firm and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
The lessons in this Study Theme of “My Declaration of Dependence” take us back even prior to the work of Jesus Christ in winning our ultimate freedom from sin by His death on the cross. These lessons take us to the Book of Exodus and to the story of God’s powerful deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. By walking spiritually alongside Moses and the Israelites we can learn that the biblical concept of willful self-reliance and independence from God.
Freedom and faith are intimately connected for Christians. The Bible studies this month will help us make these significant declarations of dependence on God:
I will turn to God for help. (July 2)
I will trust in God’s purpose and power.( July 9)
I will follow God’s leading. (July 16)
I will obey God’s commandments ( July30)
The life question for this lesson is, Where should I turn when faced with a burdensome situation beyond my control?
The Biblical Truth is that God knows and cares about everything that happens to believers.
The Life Impact is to help us demonstrated our dependence on God by identifying a burdensome situation in which God’s care became evident to us and then expressing gratitude to God for caring for us in all situations.
The question is, “May I speak to the Person in Charge?”
In 1875 English Poet William E. Henley penned his best known poem, “Invictus.” A victim of tuberculosis as a child, eventually resulting in the amputation of a leg and a nearly two-year hospital confinement, Henley in his famous ode paid homage to human self-determination. Neither bloody blows of circumstance nor the menace of death and the hereafter would cause him to cry out or cringe in fear. Why not?
The poet asserted the reason in his final two memorable lines---he was master of his fate and captain of his soul.
Henley’s poem idolizes and independent, self-reliant spirit some people find appealing as a code of life. They don’t want to depend on anyone or anything beyond them selves. Applied to the extreme, however, this view rules out believing in God and turning to Him for help even when dealing with situations beyond our control.
We all know how a life can be changed drastically in a single moment. We know that we can neither predict nor control all that happens to us, whether good or bad. We might wish to be masters of our fate, but in truth we aren’t and cannot be.
We are made by God and for Him. Because He is sovereign over His creation, nothing happens outside His field of awareness and control.
Bad things do occur, of course. People get sick. Natural disasters strike. Wicked people grab positions of tremendous power over others’ daily lives. But none of these realities takes away one iota from God’s sovereignty. Not from His sovereign Person as the Maser of His creation. Not from His sovereign presence always and everywhere with His people and not from His sovereign purpose to redeem His fallen creation through His Son, Jesus Christ.
So the good news is that we don’t have to try to be our own gods, as Henley implied in his poem. Instead, we can turn in faith to the One who really is in control no matter what our circumstances.
We repeat, life can change drastically for adults from one day to the next, even from one moment to the next. Usually new circumstances bring unforeseen challenges even if the changes prove beneficial overall.
Sometimes, though, unexpected changes spell fear, uncertainty, and despair. An automobile accident occurs. A crippling disease is diagnosed. A pink slip appears. A marriage falls apart. A loved one dies. Adults faced with such situations often feel overwhelmed and burdened beyond their ability to cope. They wonder if anyone, including God, knows and cares. They need to
Eugene Merrill, who wrote the Bible commentary for our July lessons said, “early in our marriage, when I was pursuing graduate studies, my wife and I often were hard pressed to meet our living expenses. At one especially critical time we had run out of cash, and the cupboards were bare. Moreover, no prospects of relief from any source were in sight on the horizon.
I was invited to preach at a small church but had never received an honorarium there before and had no expectation of one this time.
Sure enough, the church ran true to form that weekend. But on our way out the door a man shook my hand, and in his hand was a 20 dollar bill, more than enough in those days to provide for our needs for another week.
All of us at times feel trapped in situations from which there appears to be no escape. All sense of independence dissolves around us, and we come to see how vulnerable we are. The Israelites felt that way in their Egyptian bondage----helpless and hopeless and anything but self-reliant. God intervened in response to the people’s prayers, and by relying on Him they learned what it meant to experience true freedom. So can we.
PLEASE READ EXODUS 1: 5-7.
When God first called Abraham from Ur to the land of Canaan, He promised in Gen 12: 2-3 to make of him a great nation, a people who would bring blessing to the whole world. Later that promised became part of a covenant between the Lord and Abraham who learned that his descendants would not only be numerous but as countless as the stars of heaven and the sands of the seashore. In Gen. 15: 13-21 God forewarned Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather that this multication would take place in the space of 400 years in a land that would become increasingly hostile to Abraham’s descendants. God then would deliver the people from that land and bring them back to Canaan, the land they would possess as an inheritance from the Lord.
The Book of Exodus opens in Exodus 1: 1-5 with the account of the journey of Jacob and His sons and their families to Egypt, a contingent consisting of only 70 individuals in addition to the family of Joseph who was already living there.
You may want to read of Jacob’s journey to Egypt in Genesis 46 where the sons and grandsons of Jacob are all moved. In Acts 7: 14 deacon Stephen, quoting from the Septuagint or Greek O.T. said the five sons and grandsons of Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph made a total of 75 Hebrews in Egypt.
Obvious questions are: Why was Joseph in Joseph in Egypt to begin with? Why did his larger family join him there? The Lord did not reveal to Abraham why his descendants would live in Egypt, but there are strong hints in the stories of the patriarchs that make clear why this was a part of a divine plan of salvation.
First, it was apparent that the Canaanite environment had a corrupting influence on God’s chosen people. Abraham’s nephew Lot settled among the Canaanites and seems to have begun to live like them. Both Abraham and Isaac lied to pagan kings about their wives to save their own necks. Other sons of Jacob were guilty of violating basic standards of familial respect and propriety. Probably much of this is caused by the influence of the wicked people who had settled Canaan.
A second reason for relocating to Egypt was the preservation of Jacob’s family from the famine the Lord knew would come on the land. God allowed Joseph to end up in Egypt, first as a slave and then as a high official in the Egyptian government, not so much a victim of his brothers’ malice toward him as part of God’s plan for his family’s well-being.
After Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, he told them in Gen. 45:5 “Don’t be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. And in his last recorded words to them he said in Genesis 50: 20 “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result---the survival of many people.”
So we read that God spoke to Jacob and said in Genesis 46: 3 “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there.” Then Jacob left Beer-sheba and set out for Egypt, “and all his children with him went to Egypt.” Through Joseph’s wisdom God preserved Israel in Goshen both physically, by providing food and land, and spiritually, by providing for their isolation from the pagan Egyptians until the Exodus and everyone prospered, the Israelites even more than the Egyptians according to Exodus 1: 7.
Although Jacob and his descendants had to move from the Promised Land to Egypt and live there for many years, they prospered as they fulfilled God’s purposes. God also works in our lives in ways sometimes subtle and other times obvious. But however God works, we can be grateful His presence and provisions are never limited by geography or changed circumstances.
The providence and power of God are both revealed. Everything looked dark for Jacob, who had lost his beloved Rachel and thought he had lost his favorite son Joseph.
Things did not look so good for Joseph after his brothers sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God had turned storm clouds into rainbows for Joseph, Jacob, and the others in the family.
Gen. 50: 19-21 gives Joseph’s words to his brothers. After Jacob’s death the brothers feared that Joseph would avenge himself for their sin against him. But Joseph told them not to fear, for although they meant to do him harm, God brought good out of the evil they did.
As we read of Jacob’s relocation in Egypt and subsequent events, God’s providence is visible. Jacob was 130 years old when he arrived in Goshen. The sojourn in Egypt, though it ended badly from a human perspective, was an act of God’s gracious intervention to bring to pass His promises to Abraham. In our own Christian lives what our shortsightedness and human limitations fail to perceive as good are as often as not the out workings of a divine plan that has our blessing as its ultimate objective.
In Gen. 50 the small community of Abraham’s seed, represented initially by Joseph and all his eleven brothers and all that generation, passed from the scene, ut from it sprang a vat people just as the Lord had promised Abraham.
Now known as the Israelites, this band of people became so numerous that the Land of Egypt was filled with them. This does not refers to the whole territory of Egypt, of course, but the land of Goshen, the eastern delta area that had been assigned to them when they first arrived.
By filling the land they were, in a very real sense, fulfilling the creation mandate in Gen. 1: 28 to “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.”
Though the Egyptian sojourn would not long be pleasant, God’s presence and provision are never limited by geography or by changed circumstances. Probably some of you have had to relocate. Realizing God is sovereign must have helped you accept it. The Israelites were fulfilling God’s purposes and basking in His blessing although still living outside the Promised Land.
Therein lies a lesson for those who face the challenges of relocating, whether by choice or necessity, Even in the best circumstances, picking up stakes and moving to a new place has spiritual implications for everyone involved. Faith is tested by the inevitable uncertainties of moving to a new location and dealing with changed circumstances. Yet no on can know all the future will bring. No family can predict all the changes that will occur after the passing of time. What we can know for certain is that God’s presence and plans for us are not bound by location or by circumstances.
When new circumstances work in our favor, we tend to have little difficulty believing the Lord is with us. In fact, the greater temptations in such a situation are to forget about the Lord or to take His purposes and presence for granted. But how should we respond when God’s presence seems to move behind a cloud? What are we to do when our circumstances change---for the worse? As quickly as one moves from one verse to the next, the Israelites in Egypt discovered their lives were about to go from blessed to bleak.
We don’t know how many years of prosperity the Israelites had before vs. 8, but it must have been long enough for this population explosion. Nothing is said about their faith in God during those years In fact, the first mention of God is in vs.17. We know that some kept their faith alive: people like the family of Moses and the two faithful midwives. On the other hand, we know that for many people prosperity is a greater test of their faith than adversity.
Joshua, who lived through this period in Joshua 24: 15 referred to the gods some of the people worshipped in Egypt. Moses, in Exodus 3: 13-15 worried that the Israelites would not recognize the name of their God. Indeed, many of the people rebelled against the Lord in Ex. 31 by making a golden calf and by refusing to enter the Promised Land at Kadesh-barnea in Numbers 14-15.
PLEASE READ EXODUS 1: 8-14.
People may think that when they trust Christ all their problems will disappear and life will become an unceasing series of nothing but good times. But this is not the picture the Bible itself paints of the Christian life. Jesus told his disciples in Matt. 5: 10-12 they could expect persecution, and Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 4: 12, “when, (not if), we are persecuted, we endure it.” This has been true throughout the church’s history, and the precedent was set even in O.T. times as the Exodus narrative informs us.
Jacob and his family journeyed into Egypt. Several centuries had passed by the time of the setting of the exodus story, and Joseph and his generation had long since been forgotten by the new Egyptian rulers. The beginning of a new era is marked by the advent of a new Pharaoh. He is evidentally not Semitic as he expelled the Semitic Hyksos who had ruled from 1700 to 1550 B.C. This is what is meant by the reference to a new king, who had not known Joseph.
Veiled in this observation is the subtle overtone of disaster. It is not just that Pharaoh did not recollect who Joseph was but that he had no sympathy for nor sensitivity to Joseph’s descendants.
The new regime in Egypt had come to power. The Egyptian ruler began to fear the Hebrews because, as Pharaoh said of the Israelites, they are more numerous and powerful than we are. No doubt this was somewhat of an exaggeration, but the fact is that the Israelites had prospered exactly as the Lord had promised and now were a threat to their Egyptian hosts.
The new Egyptian ruler viewed the growing population of Israelites as a political threat that called for drastic action.
So Pharaoh instructed his leaders and the populace to deal shrewdly with the Israelites lest they should become so numerically superior that in the event of war they would join with Egypt’s enemies, fight against them, and leave the country.
There is a certain ambivalence heel Egypt feared the burgeoning Israelite population on the one hand but were greatly dependent on Israelite labor on the other hand. Only one remedy remained: Israel must be suppressed but not destroyed, terrified but not expelled.
The king’s decision to prevent the Israelites from leaving Egypt flew in the face of God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 15: 14 that after 400 years He would judge their oppressors, and Israel would “go out with many possessions.”
The stage was therefore set for a confrontation between the monarch of the greatest kingdom on earth and the sovereign King of the universe. The outcome was a foregone conclusion but only to those of keenest faith. We find it difficult to trust God, whom we cannot see, in times when the forces of life’s circumstances are so obviously in view. And so Israel must have experienced a crisis of faith in those desperate days when everything seemed to be going wrong. But God had revealed to Abram that his descendants would be enslaved in a strange land for 400 years. God was not surprised by these developments.
Today’s believers are wise to realize they, just as the Israelites long ago, are not immune to unexpected change, injustice, or even tragedy and to appreciate that God is never surprised by their changed situations.
The first measure of the new Egyptian policy was to subject the Israelites to forced labor. They who had been so free and prosperous in the choice part of the land of Egypt must now bend their backs to the commands and ships of taskmasters.
They who had been chosen to be the servants of the Lord must now build cities for another lord, for pagan Pharaoh. Amazingly enough, however, the more the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites, the more the latter multiplied and spread. The oppression ironically brought about the opposite of the intended effect.
Rather than diminishing the Israelites and making them cower in terror, the persecution resulted in their blessing, causing the Egyptians to be terrified. It has been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Israel also came to see that tribulation in the cause of righteousness, and, in line with God’s purposes, produces untold blessing and benefit to those willing to pay the price.
One fruit of a sinful disposition is the inability of the sinner to see the futility of opposing the sovereign ways of Almighty God. The Apostle Paul, prior to his conversion, encountered the risen Lord on the road to Damascus where he intended to persecute believers. Jesus asked him the penetrating question, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” He then said in Acts 26: 14, “It is hard of you to kick against the goads”
Little could Pharaoh know that his opposition to the program and people of the Lord would be so futile. Nonetheless, he stepped up the oppression, working the Israelites ruthlessly and making their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar, and in all kinds of fieldwork.
Pharaoh had assumed that hard labor would reduce the Hebrew birth rate, but was wrong. The population growth continued.
The Israelites glorious days of luxury and ease had give way to years of bitter suffering and despair. But the worst was yet to come. In a last desperate measure, Pharaoh in Ex. 1: 15-22 ordered the death of all male children born from that time on. An order that had direct consequences on Moses’ family and on his birth and infancy.
The first plan was to have the Hebrew midwives kill the male babies. This plan failed because the two midwives feared God, more than they feared Pharaoh.
The second plan was the command to throw the male babies into the Nile River. I suppose the crocodiles would kept the river clean.
This section raises important questions not only for the Israelites of old but also for Christians today: Where is God when things go terribly wrong for His people? Why does He allow such evil to occur and to go on for so long? How can believers continue to trust in Jesus during times when every day seems more bitter than the day before?
In his book “Where is God When it Hurts?” Philip Yancy descried a conversation he had with Christian Reger, who spent four years as a prisoner in Dachau concentration camp during W.W. II. Reger, a Christian and a member of the branch of the German church that opposed Hitler recalled that at one time during his imprisonment he abandoned all hope in a loving God.
Then one day through a small act of kindness by a fellow prisoner Reger was reminded of God’s presence. “God did not rescue me and make my suffering easier,” Regar explained. “He simply proved to me that He was alive, and He still knew I was here.”
We may never understand fully why God allows evil and suffering to strike the lives of His people. Gleaning insight from the Scriptures, students of the Bible have posited several possible reasons. Knowing scriptural reasons for suffering in general can be helpful, yet when suffering strikes close to home, we may still struggle with questions such as “Why me?” And “Why now?”
One question we need not struggle with is “Where is God?” God may have appeared inactive as His people suffered day after day under the ruthless schemes of Pharaoh, but God was doing more than seemed apparent. In the face of Pharaoh’s diabolical plan to kill Israelite infant boys, God protected the one who would become the Israelites’ deliverer.
We too should realize that we are not immune to unexpected change, injustice, or even tragedy but that God is never surprised by our changed situations.
PLEASE READ EXODUS 2: 23-25.
Exodus 2: 1-22 shows that God was preparing to act on behalf of Israel, but they didn’t know about Moses and his destiny. For that matter, neither did Moses at this stage of his life.
The narratives of the biblical accounts often compress events in such a manner that readers might be unaware of the passing of time. After Moses “grew older” he lived in the palace of the Egyptian king and enjoyed all the privileges of royalty. (Heb. 11: 23-26). After he reached adulthood, Moses saw an Egyptian foreman beat an Israelite slave and sensing his kinship with the slave, retaliated by slaying the Egyptian. Fearing the Egyptians would hear of this act, Moses escaped into the Sinai desert and ended up in the land of Midian. There he found refuge in the home of a Midianite priest. By then Moses was 40 years old, so the Israelites had suffered under the oppressive regime for all those years in addition to the time before Moses birth.
Even so, the end was not yet in sight, for Moses remained in freedom.
The number 40 is commonly used in the Bible to speak of times of judgment, persecution, and testing.
The flood waters rained on the earth for 40 days in Gen 7: 12; Israel was consigned to wander in the desert for 40 years in Number 14: 34; and Jesus suffered temptation at the hands of the Devil for 40 days in Luke 4: 2
Israel’s plight in Egypt was doubly grievous because for 80 long years and more they had languished under brutal Egyptian oppression with no sign of relief. They might well have asked about the Lord’s ancient promises to the patriarchs. Was He dependable after all? Could He be trusted to bring to pass the deliverance He had promised? If so, how long must they wait?
The account in Exodus emphasizes the lengthy nature of God’s movement on Israel’s behalf, perhaps to make the point that His ways, though certain, are not always swift, at least from the human perspective.
After a long time, the king of Egypt died, we’re told. The king in view is obviously the one from whom Moses had escaped 40 years earlier. The Pharaoh’s death did not alleviate the sufferings of the Hebrews; for he was replaced by the Pharaoh of the exodus, who continued to afflict the slaves. The same kind of words are used to describe the Israelites plight under this new Pharaoh: Israel groaned by reason of the bondage. But they also did something mentioned here for the first time. They cried out and that cry came up unto God.
They cry out is an action that is born out of wretchedness and gives expression to their agony, but at the same time the word can be used for filing a legal complaint. Their cry for help is born out of the pain and misery of their desperate situation, but it is not turned inwards, to see if they can themselves alleviate their situation, nor is it turned to Pharaoh and the bureaucracy of Egypt. They knew that they were being wronged by Egypt, and that there was only one source of assistance that could be effective against that regime. They cried out to God. No doubt some of the Israelites had been doing this for a long time, but now many set up a cry for help.
The death notice is intended not only to explain how Moses was able to return to Egypt but to show how limited and weak are the powers that seek to frustrate the purposes of the eternal God. Pharaoh was dead, but God was very much alive! Moreover, He was able to accomplish what He sets out to do and does so in response to the prayers of His people.
So intense was the sufferings of the Israelites that their prayers were almost beyond words. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out. Sometimes we find that human speech is inadequate to express the deep-seated struggles and needs of the human heart. Paul referred to the whole creation in Rom. 8:22 that “has been groaning together with labor pains until now, “ and in a most remarkable counterpoint said in vs. 26 that “the Sprit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.” What we cannot articulate, God can understand; and what we cannot do for ourselves or others, God is able to accomplish.
Of all the theological imponderables of our Christian faith, none is more mysterious than prayer. What difference can prayer make, and why are some prayers answered almost instantly while others must wait God’s response for many years?
For a century or more Israel had suffered at the hands of cruel despots without any relief from God. Would it never end? But now their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor. It seems almost as if Israel’s burden had become the Lord’s burden. And unless and until He stepped in to bring things to a close, His people would remain oppressed in a helpless condition.
God hears and answers prayer: He heard their groaning and undertook measures to come to Israel’s relief. However, God’s answers to prayer are not arbitrary, unrelated to His larger goals and purposes. Every response He makes is in line with His plan, all the parts of which must take their rightful place according to His own time and pleasure. God heard their groaning, but He did so in connection with the fact that He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The answer to prayer was linked to great promises made in the past.
On he occasion of God’s giving the covenant terms to Abraham, the Lord had said that after Abraham’s descendants experienced 400 years of oppression in a hostile land, He would bring them out with many possessions. The same promise was reiterated to succeeding generations by drawing attention to the land of Canaan that would become their possession for the ages to come.
The time came at last for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for Israel. He heard their groaning…He remembered His covenant; He saw the Israelites, and He took notice. When the point comes that God takes notice, things begin to happen.
God steps in and brings to pass the fervent desires of His saints, when those desires are understood to be part of a larger plan God is working out in history and in the ages to come.
We have all felt at times that God is deaf to our please. Even Paul struggled with this when he asked the Lord three times to remove a certain thorn from his flesh. When God didn’t do it, he learned that God was more than able to take care of his infirmity.
With Paul we must come to experience that God’s grace is sufficient in times of waiting and that in His own perfect time He will hear our groanings and remember His promises to us. Then we can express gratitude to the Lord God for His caring for us in all circumstances. That’s what it means to depend on God.
The great truth that is seen here is that God knows and cares. A closely related truth is that God responds to prayers. He gives us many good things, but the best things come from Him when we pray.
Many people in our world do not believe these basic truths. They claim that God either does not exist or if He does He does not know or care about the plight of oppressed and afflicted people. Sometimes people of faith are tempted to have the same kind of doubts. They wonder why God doesn’t answer their prayers for relief.
God delivers us more often than we are aware He is the Giver and Sustainer of life. He knows about and cares for you and me, and we should not despair when we find ourselves in burdensome circumstances. The great lessons from today’s Scriptures are, (1) all of us are vulnerable to bitter experiences, (2) God knows and cares about His people, (3) In response to our prayers and in His own time and way God will answer our prayers.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM EXODUS 3 AND 4 WE WILL EXPRESS OUR DEPENDENCE BY PROMISING TO “TRUST IN GOD’S PURPOSE AND POWER. <altav@swbell.net>