Moses - Peril of sonship

I'm going to ask you to turn to the Book of Exodus. Now, in all of these meetings today, I am making the big assumption that you are familiar with the background of everything we are looking at, and as a result, will not take time to read all of the relevant scriptures, but just some selected ones. And trusting that your awareness of the stories will fill in the gaps in what I haven't given you.

We're just going to start in chapter number 1 and verse number 13. The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. They made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field.

And all their service were made to serve was with rigor. And the king of Egypt spake to the midwives. The name of the one was Shipra, the name of the other Pua, and said, when you do the office of the midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the stools, if it be a son, ye shall kill him for your daughter, then ye shall save alive.

And then you know what happens. The midwives fear God and do not do as he says. And verse 22, Pharaoh charged all his people saying, here's his next strategy.

Every son that is born, ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter, ye shall save alive. Now, he was telling his people to basically police the Hebrew people. And if they saw a male child, they were just to rip it from its mother's arms and throw it in the river.

Very brutal. Chapter 2, and there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bear a son.

And when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And then you know, of course, eventually the ark in the side of the river and Pharaoh's daughter comes down. And verse 6, when she opened it, she saw the child and behold, the babe wept.

And she had compassion on him and said, this is one of the Hebrew's children. Then said his sister, that would be Miriam, to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse it for me. I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it.

And the child grew. And she brought him under Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she called his name Moses.

And she said, because I drew him out of the water. Now, maybe just one other portion. At the end of chapter number 5, Moses has...this is years later.

Actually, 80 years later, Moses has returned, gone into Pharaoh, told him to let the children of Israel go. Pharaoh says, who do you think you are? And makes the burden on the children of Israel even greater. And verse 19, the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in an evil case after it was said, you shall not minish ought from the bricks of your daily task.

And they met Moses and Aaron who stood in the way and they came forth from Pharaoh. And they said to them, the Lord look upon you and judge because you have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, in the eyes of his servants to put a sword in their hands to slay us. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evilly entreated this people? Why is it thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people, neither hast thou delivered thy people at all, and so on.

Now, God will, I'm sure, add his blessing to the reading of his precious word. As our brother mentioned, we've been looking at the expression or we are looking at the expression, the child grew. The six different occasions that it occurs in our New Testament, and he has mentioned the six people with whom it is linked.

And I also mentioned last night there is a variant seventh also when you're dealing with both Jacob and Esau where it says the boys grew. So that would make seven if we put them all together, but we're just looking at these six, the child grew. I was thinking this morning that dealing with a subject like this, there's a danger of information overload.

And there's so much that we'll be looking at and so many different avenues that we'll be traversing that there is the risk that you'll leave with the result of information overload is you'll learn nothing and you take nothing away because it's just so much. So let me just mention one thing from each section. And if you take nothing else away, if you've got to summarize all that I want to say, I'll just give it to you in a short expression relative to each man.

And if you're able and you have a mind that can take in more, all the better. We looked last night at Isaac. The child grew.

And the major lesson from the life of Isaac and the expression the child grew is he came into all of the blessings God could have for a man as a result of birth, not the result of merit. And we drew the lesson that as the children of God, as sons, we have come into all the blessings that divine love and divine wisdom could give us because we belong to Christ. All of life's spiritual blessings are on the basis of mercy, not of merit.

You do not have to earn God's blessings when it comes to all that he has for us. Ephesians 1, the truth there. We're going to look at Moses now.

And the lesson to take away from Moses is the peril, the peril, the obstacles that have to be faced if a son is going to grow. There are forces arrayed against Moses. Everything would try to hinder Moses from living, from growing, from developing.

And we will see the things that God will use to preserve, to prosper, and to prepare his servant and one who is going to be useful for God. When we come to Samson, we will see the potential, the potential, and tragically, a potential that was never fully realized. And yet, he did some great things, but we'll see the potential and yet the disappointment that is linked with his life.

Samuel would be one of the loveliest pictures in the Word of God, the perseverance. He grew and he grew on, he grew on with the Lord. And we'll see there the life of a man who at the end of life could almost challenge the nation and say, you have known me from a child till now my gray hairs.

Which of you can convict me? Which of you can say I have taken a bride, taken an ox, a man whose life was spotless? When we come to John the Baptist, we will see the purpose, the purpose in sonship. And when we come to the Lord Jesus, we will see the perfection, the perfection of sons. What God intends every son to be was displayed in perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So those really are the take-home lessons from these different lives we'll be looking at. But coming now to Moses, we've already looked at the fact that there was blessing secured to Isaac because of a relationship. And you and I are in the good of all of divine blessings as the result of a relationship.

Don't have to pray for the spirit, don't have to pray for all of the blessings of Ephesians chapter one. The prayer is that we might have the eyes of our understanding opened, enlightened to be able to appreciate them and to live in the good of them. But I want you to see now the peril, the danger, the opposition that Moses faced relative to his sonship.

There is going to be in your life and mine persistent antagonism, obstacles that are going to be erected to prevent your growing into likeness to Christ. We're gonna be looking at the Egypt world here, but you know the word of God would tell us about the Babylon world, the Egypt world, the Sodom world, the Philistine world. And all of them will seek in one way or another to hinder the people of God.

When you're looking at the Babylon world, the Babylon world would educate. You remember what it tried to do with Daniel and his three companions? Change their language, change their learning, change their looks. All of that was and change their links with God by changing their names.

All that Babylon would do would try by education to change and to hinder everything that would resemble what marked them as the people of God. So Babylon would educate. Egypt, as we're gonna look at, would enslave, and that's what Egypt sought to do, to enslave the people of God and hinder their usefulness for God and growth for God.

The Sodom world would entice with all of its allurement and all of its promises of satisfaction and of enjoyment. And the Philistine world would enroach upon the people of God and seek to claim its territory and make it its own. So let me just look now at the Egypt world.

Three things Egypt tried to do when you're coming to the children of Israel. Number one, they sought to thwart their birth, keep them from being born. Then they sought to trouble their lives.

If we can't keep them from being born, we'll trouble their lives. And if we can't do that, we'll terminate their growth. So can we keep them from being born? Can we terminate growth by casting them into the Nile? And if we can't do that, we'll just put burdens upon them so great that they just cannot possibly have time for anything else.

Now we're looking at sons, so Satan and the world has been unsuccessful. In thwarting your birth, your salvation. But having said that, it will do all that it possibly can to terminate growth.

Reality was there were literally, I would take it, thousands of boys, baby boys drowned. We only read about one that was preserved, and we'll see why he was preserved. But there must have been thousands drowned.

Now I want you to think about why. Why did Egypt say, or why did Pharaoh say to the Egyptians, if it's a male child, drown him. If it's a female child, you can let her be.

Now you may say, well, on the natural level, of course, it would be the idea of preventing an army. It's the men who are going to fight. So now our fear is that if there's ever an invasion, ever a war, they'll take sides with the enemy and fight against us.

Or they'll become so numerous, they'll be able among themselves to rise up. That would perhaps be the Egyptian thinking. But you realize behind that there's another master plan that's going on, right? What would happen? What would have happened had they been successful and all the male children killed? Christ could have never come.

So behind the expediency of Pharaoh killing the male children, there is a master mind that is seeking to prevent Christ from coming. There is behind all that is in this world to hinder you and me, a master mind seeking to prevent Christ being formed in believers. And so Paul would say that he travailed in birth over those Galatian believers until Christ be formed in them, until all that Christ is be appreciated and be reproduced in them.

And so that is one of the great purposes of the powers of this age, to prevent individuals from growing, from enjoying Christ and becoming like Christ, and burdens, and the drowning was for that great purpose. But then if they could not keep them from being born, if they could not terminate their growth, then next best thing, just trouble their lives, just put so many burdens. And when you come to the children of Israel, you read of these three things.

There was bondage, there was burdens, and there was bitterness. Those are the words that the spirit of God uses. There was bondage, and there were burdens they had to bear, and as a result, there was bitterness in their souls.

I need to be careful here because I don't want, I realize individuals have different circumstances. But we live in a society where you could become, if you wanted to, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with education, overwhelmed with work, overwhelmed with responsibilities, and you could become so troubled by all of that.

No time for God, no time for spiritual life, no time for reading and praying every day. And the demands can become so great. There's a tremendous paradox in the sense that every Christian employee should be the best employee in the building, or in the office, or in the company, or whatever it is.

And when you become the best employee, they give you more to do. And the better you do, the more they give you. And the more responsible you are, the more they give you.

And somewhere you have to have boundaries that you establish and have to learn to say no at times, especially individuals in business for themselves. It can become extremely difficult to establish boundaries and to realize that if I allow, if I allow all of this to crowd in on me, what is it going to do to my spiritual life? Lives that were troubled by so much they had to do every day, sun up to sun down. Not time for God, not time for anything at all relative to spiritual things.

And we are in danger of the same thing. Mothers can get in danger of that in the home. You know what it's like having children, raising children in a family, and all the responsibilities, and trying to find time for yourself, it is a tremendous challenge.

Here was the tremendous peril that they faced relative to growth. And you and I will have to face it. From the Babylon world that wants to educate us and make us think the way they think, to change our learning, to change our whole world view.

I would almost think that our world view has changed drastically. You think of how many messages every day you are bombarded with that carry with it the mentality, the values of society around us. From billboard advertisements, to radio advertisements, to newspaper headlines, to glossy magazines, and whatever it is, wherever you go, you're constantly reminded.

And constantly told what is right, and what really has value. And the result is we live in a society that worships at the altar of appearance, of accomplishment, at acquisitions, at attainments. And our society has made us think exactly the same way.

It may come as a surprise to you, maybe it isn't, but the fastest growing sector of the medical industry, putting Obamacare aside for a moment, and we'll talk about that later if you want. The fastest growing sector of American medicine is plastic surgery. And insurance doesn't cover it.

Insurance doesn't cover it in the least. People pay out of their pockets. Because we worship at the shrine of appearance.

And we'd all like to look better, and we all think, if only we looked better then. And so people run and gladly pay exorbitant sums because of, it's just one of the many things. I mean, you can think of it, but the danger then that we become so occupied and so constrained by these things.

I have to leave that, I should tell you, just so you know where we're going with this. We'll try to finish about ten of, take a ten minute singing break, and then we'll go from 11 to 11.45, and then break for lunch in the will of God if we can condense all of this. So I want you to, not only the persistent antagonism from the world, but I want you to think of the preserving activity of others.

Before ever, before ever, Moses was able to begin to grow. Others had to be involved in his preservation. Now we could go a long way with this.

Let me just speak about the need of faith, the necessity of wisdom, and the nurturing ministry of a mother. Maybe I should put it another, let's go at it a different way. I want to talk about parental responsibility and pastoral responsibility.

Parental responsibility, we're not looking now at responsibility in terms of just raising your children prior to being saved, I'm speaking about parents with saved children. Parents whose children have professed, you have a tremendous responsibility. In the end, everyone stands on his own, no excuses, can't blame your parents for making wrong choices, can't blame the elders that they weren't good.

But on the other token, both parents and overseers have responsibility when an individual gets saved to begin to influence them for their preservation. Moses would have never made it had it not been for Amram and Jacob. Remember how Hebrews 11 begins the life of faith of Moses? It doesn't begin with Moses' faith.

It says, by faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents. So there were those, when Moses was born, that realized this child has potential for God. Dear parents, if God has given you a child that has professed, that child has potential for God.

And to begin to realize that I bear responsibility for the preservation of this child. You've done everything up to this point in time to prepare them to be used of God. And now it is your responsibility.

We could take the whole meeting just looking at Proverbs. Let me just give you three or four lessons from the book of Proverbs. Number one, to prepare them for the choices of life.

Preparing them for the choices of life. Proverbs 1 begins, and Solomon speaks to my son, if sinners entice thee, you are going to face peer pressure. And he is warning him about peer pressure and having to make choices and looking ahead at the consequences of those choices.

And so the first thing he begins to impress him with is the necessity of making right choices in life. But then also he reminds him of the crises he will face in life. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.

Things will happen in life. Things will occur in life. And they could throw the person who is not prepared for them.

But to make our children aware of situations that may occur, that don't always fit the storybook ending of happily ever after, and preparing them for that, and strengthening them for the crises that will occur in life that can so easily stumble others if they're not aware that. Let me just put it this way. One of the greatest benefits you can do your children is teach them that life is not fair.

It isn't. Life is very unfair. You don't have to live long to see that.

To see that good people have bad things happen to them. And bad people seem to get away with all kinds of things. And you just sit back and wonder where's justice? Well, there will be ultimate justice, but life is not fair.

We've all seen the, at least I saw it a lot of times in my own practice. You see the couple that have worked and saved and look forward to retirement and he retires at 65 and a week later he drops dead of a heart attack. And a wife that was looking forward to years of retirement and enjoying the fruits of their labor and saw a dream, it's gone.

Life is not fair. Preparing our children for the choices of life, for the crises of life, for the challenges to their faith, that they are going to be challenged every turn of the way, challenged relative to their basic belief in God, challenged relative to the way of salvation, challenged relative to assembly truth. They're going to face all of those challenges and parents have a responsibility to prepare them for all that they will face in days ahead.

But then as well, there is the responsibility of those who would lead the people of God, just because a young believer is sitting in the back row looking on does not absolve shepherds from caring for those newly born sheep, those lambs, and so wisely and carefully and skillfully bears responsibility for the welfare. Paul spoke of himself, didn't he, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. He took both the position of being a nursing mother, as a nursing mother cherishes her own children, and he spoke as a father who exhorted each one of them. So both as a mother and father, he dealt with them in shepherd care and sought to strengthen and help the believers.

It tells us elsewhere, different words are used whether you're looking in Acts chapter 7, whether you're looking here in Exodus, or you're looking in Hebrews chapter 11. But the end result is the same. When Amram and Jochebed saw Moses, they saw a goodly child.

They saw a child who was fair to God. They saw a child that God could use. Now, I would take it that since it was by faith, God had revealed to them that there was something special about Moses.

But I would like to think that as we see a young person saved and look at them. We can see someone of tremendous usefulness for God. Someone who could be used of God in a mighty way.

Both a sister or a brother. To see that young individual and just try to nurture them and preserve them and protect them, and to do all we can to further and foster their spiritual growth for God. But God also, there was providential dealings of God as well.

And we can't dwell on that too long. Just mention that God provides growth. Isn't it amazing that this is one of the great ironies of the word of God, isn't it? That a mother gets paid for nursing her child.

God has a way, I would almost say it reverently of having a bit of a sense of humor. Here's this great Egyptian nation, this great pharaoh. And you know what overthrew pharaoh? The tear of a baby.

The moment Moses cried, pharaoh was as good as dethroned. It's all it took, just a baby crying. And when she saw the baby weep, she had compassion.

She knew who the child was. This is one of the Hebrew's children. This child should be dead.

But it moved, it touched her maternal instincts. And just the tear of a baby overthrows an empire. And she saves the child, gives the child to her mother, and that mother nurtures and nurses that child.

It reminds you of 1 Peter chapter 2, as newborn babes desiring the sincere milk of the word. You are going to be preserved. I know we touched on this last night.

We'll touch on it again. We can't get away from it. The word of God and its preserving effect and its value to young believers.

You are going to face all kinds of isms, all kinds of thinking. And what is going to preserve you is getting back to the word of God and having your values readjusted. That's really the teaching of Romans chapter 12, where we are told to, I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

And he says, be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by what? By the renewing of your mind. Have your mind readjusted. We need constant readjustments in our thinking because of what we are exposed to, and the preserving ministry here then of the word of God and of the power of God, and as well of the people of God.

I thought that Moses owed tremendous debts to a number of people. He owed a debt to Joseph, didn't he? Joseph was the savior of the nation down in the land of Egypt. And Joseph was fairly famous.

And he owed a great debt to Amram and Jochebed, who were somewhat well-known. But he owed a great debt as well to two people who were unknown, Shipprah and Puah. I think they're pretty well unknown.

I don't think any of you have named your girls Shipprah or Puah, have you? I would not suggest a Puah. That will come in for quite a bit of, but Shipprah may not be bad. But anyway, what I wanna say just is, Joseph, I'm sorry, Moses owed a tremendous debt to a previous generation.

Always avoid chronological snobbery. You know what that is? That's thinking that our generation knows more and is better than the previous generation. We are better in technology.

We are better in information overload. There's a lot of areas in which we may excel, but spiritually, I'm not sure we have any leg to stand on to think that we are better than any previous generation. We owe a tremendous debt to a previous generation that bought truth, paid for it dearly, has left us a tremendous legacy, both in writing and in our own practices and in the opening of the word of God to us.

So we are a people who owe a tremendous debt to a previous generation. So all of that was part of what led to the preservation of this man. But I want you to think as well that as this child grew, and we're gonna take some pretty big leaps in his life.

I want you to think of the painful afflictions, the painful afflictions that God used for his blessing as well. I want you to think of the discipline of delay, the discipline of delay. At 40 years of age, it came into Moses' heart that God was going to use him to deliver the people of God.

He would have to wait 40 years more before that would be accomplished. Having an exercise is a wonderful thing. That's where things begin.

But at times, God allows delays. I read, if I read right in the life of Jacob, when Joseph was born, it came into his heart to go back to Bethel. And you remember the story there with Laban and the agreement as far as.

So he had to wait at least seven years, I would take it, perhaps six, seven years to have that exercise fulfilled. Moses here waiting 40 years to have an exercise fulfilled. You see, Moses had the wrong time, and he had the wrong tactics.

He thought it was gonna be by his sword, and he had the wrong terms. He thought it was gonna improve the lot of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt. God wanted them out of Egypt.

And I can just, maybe my imagination is too vivid, but I can just imagine at the Red Sea, when Moses is bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. And they come to the Red Sea, and Hieroth, and so on. And the armies after them, and the sea in front of them, and closed in by the wilderness, and so on.

And I can almost imagine God saying to Moses, Moses, just stand by me here for a minute, okay? Remember Moses, 40 years ago, you tried to deliver the children of Israel, and you killed one Egyptian, and you buried him in the sand, and you really didn't do a very good job of it, right, Moses? Now, Moses, watch me. I'm gonna bury a whole nation, and you're never gonna see them again. I'll do a much better job than you did.

And Moses watches as the Red Sea engulfs them, and buries the entire army. And it says the Israelites saw them again no more. See, God can do a much better job in his time.

Moses had to learn the discipline of delay. And so there are things you are praying about. And there are things that you are burdened about.

And there are things that you think would be so right if only God would do them. And sometimes God allows delays to develop his servants. He knew the discipline of delay.

He knew the discipline as well of disappointment. Here he is, 80 years of age, and he's got a call from God, a revelation from God, the burning bush, the charge, the command to go back and to go into Pharaoh and say, let my people go, they may serve me in the wilderness. Everything is scriptural, right? I mean, who of us have had a burning bush experience and have had God speak in such clear, unmistakable terms as to what we ought to do? And Moses goes in, and Pharaoh says, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? And he calls in the taskmasters, and you know the story.

They now had to make brick without anyone supplying them with the straw. They had to get the straw as well as the brick. And life is getting worse for the Hebrews.

And the Hebrew taskmasters or the Hebrew governors go out, and they say to Moses and Aaron, why'd you bother? Ever since you came, things have gotten worse. Ever been disappointed? Ever tried to serve God, and you're moving on the word of God. You're moving on an exercise God has given you.

And what you're doing is scriptural and right and according to God, and yet everything goes wrong, and everyone complains, and people condemn you. And people, that's where Moses was. Talk about disappointment.

I mean, here, this was his life's work, right? This is what God had called him to do. This is why he was preserved. This is why he was, and he is facing his life's work.

And it seems to be crumbling and falling apart. Learn that God shatters our dreams to give us better realities. God shatters dreams to give better realities.

And Moses had this dream of going in and just saying, here we are, let us go. And suddenly, he'd be leading the people of God out like a great triumphant statesman. But it's the exact opposite.

And then we find this lovely expression that punctuates itself through the life of Moses. I think it occurs seven times, Moses returned unto the Lord. The resource for sons amidst all that would oppress, all the obstacles of usefulness for God, Moses returned unto the Lord.

And Moses said, why hast thou and so forth? You know the story. We'll have to leave it there. He knew the discipline of delay, the discipline of disappointment.

And if we had time, the discipline of discovery, you can look at that yourself. The various signs, the serpent, the hand in the bosom showing leprosy, so there'd be opposition without, opposition from within. All of that he had to learn before he could move forward for God.

But I wanna come, just for the last couple of minutes, not just to the painful afflictions that developed him, but also the personal awareness, the personal awareness that spurred him. His very name, his very name, drawn out of the water, would remind him that he was, he was an object of grace. What should move us, not so much in what we do, but in wanting to know more of Christ and being more like him, is an awareness that grace has been shown to me.

Was it John Newton, the man who wrote Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound? He kept a room in his home. His old, the clothes he wore as a slave trader, when he plied the Indian Ocean and so on, kept it all there. And over it was a text.

Remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt. Constant reminder that once he was a slave of sin, but amazing grace had saved him. So the name, his very name, the consciousness of grace.

He had a clear sight of God. Hebrews 11 tells us he endured as seeing him who is invisible. A clear sight of the God that the world did not see.

He had as well consideration for the reward, the recompense of the reward. Nothing wrong with going in for a reward, because it is something that will be for his glory eternally, not our own. He made some choices.

We mentioned last night about the importance of choices. Coming back to it again now, the importance of choices. He chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

For he esteemed the reproach of Christ, greater riches, choices that were made. Mentioned last night, mention it again. Divine providence governs our circumstances.

Faith governs our conduct. Put another way, faith governs our conduct. Faith governs our choices.

And when your little life and mine is over, what we are in the end is going to be determined by the choices that we make every day. The everyday choices we make, whether it's how we spend our time, where we spend our time, who we spend our time with, we could go into all of that. But just to mention that right now, a consciousness of grace, the clear sight of God, consideration for the reward, the choices that he made day by day in his life, and he was compelled by a divine revelation, he saw the future.

May the Lord help us each as we are faced with many, many obstacles to growth. A world that would enroach on every moment of our time and claim and demand all of our energy and all of our mental faculties so that we are wasted when it comes to giving anything to God. May we recognize the need to make wise choices and like Moses, to see him who was invisible.

And make choices in light of eternity and not just of time. Now, we'll close this meeting in prayer. We'll sing a few hymns and as close to 11 as we can, we'll commence once again.

Shall we pray?