The Present, the Promise, and the Fear of God
Exodus 1
A lot of you already know the story of how Loanne and I began our marriage. I’m not going to go into detail about it, but to make a long story short: we got married almost twenty-one years ago, a mere nine weeks after we met, and about five months after we got married, we realized that we were completely incompatible with one another. Thus began six years during which we absolutely could not stand each other. Six years in which we’d go to work and feel like we could finally breathe, because we didn’t have to be around one another. Six years of dreading vacation, because that meant being together all day, every day.
Thankfully, God has been good, and we love each other now—I am so thankful God put me in a marriage with this woman. But I still remember that time, and it was sometimes unbearably, difficult.
All of us will deal with something like that in our lives: suffering that seems unfair, or that comes out of nowhere, and that doesn’t seem to let up. Our default mode when this happens is to reject the problem: Christians often say things like, “I know this isn’t God’s will for my life!” We reject the idea that God might actually be doing something in the mess, because we can’t imagine God would be so cruel, and when you’re in the thick of it, sometimes it does seem cruel.
Six years is a very long time to be living with someone you hate. Six years is a long time to be asking questions: God, why would you allow this? Why did you put me with this person? We know how you feel about divorce, but surely this would be a good reason, right? Why would you let us get stuck like this?
For six years, we had no answers. And we still don’t have answers to all of the questions we had. But we have experienced enough to know that there are answers to those questions of why he allowed us to go through all that for so long. We know some of them, and he knows the rest.
The point is, there are answers.
The story of Exodus is the story of God, working out his plan in sometimes incomprehensible ways, for incredibly, infinitely good reasons only he knew at the time.
If you’re joining us for the first time, last week we began a new series on this book of Exodus—or to be honest, it was more of a prologue. We spent last week in Genesis 12, in which God gives a promise to a man named Abraham, and in that chapter we saw a kind of snapshot of the same themes we’ll see all throughout this book. We see God’s majesty in making an impossible promise that he is able to make good on, and his will to use imperfect, broken means to bring about his purposes.
That was a sort of thematic prologue to this book; today we’re going to see an actual introduction—I want to talk quickly about what we can expect from the rest of this book; then we’ll need to bring ourselves up to speed on the story so far; and finally, we’ll look at chapter 1, which sets the stage for everything that will come after.
Part 1: Genesis
Before we get into chapter 1, what have we missed? I said last week that Exodus is the second part of a longer story; we’ve missed part 1, which we find in the book of Genesis.
(We should note that traditionally, and in the New Testament by Jesus himself, authorship of the first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—is attributed to Moses himself. There’s a lot we could say about this, but when it comes down to it, I’m not going to argue with Jesus about who wrote these books, so I’ll just take his word for it and say it’s Moses.)
So what happened in the book of Genesis?
I’m going to go really quickly. Chapters 1-11 basically tell the story of the beginning of the world: who made the world (spoiler: God did), how he did it, why he did it, and what his plans are for it. We actually see almost all of this in the first three chapters of Genesis. We see how men multiply and populate at least a small part of the earth, then God judges humanity for their wickedness and floods the earth, sparing Noah and his family, who start again—people are born, people have kids, the earth begins to be repopulated.
Then beginning in chapter 12, we see the story of the beginning of God’s chosen people. God comes to a man named Abraham, to whom he makes a promise that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and that they will bless all the nations of the world. The only problem is that Abraham and his wife Sarah are quite old, and Sarah is sterile on top of that.
God’s got that covered though: despite their old age, and despite Sarah’s barrenness, God gives them a son, Isaac, who will be referred to later in the Bible as “the child of the promise.”
Then in chapters 12-25 we see that Isaac has a son named Jacob, to whom the promise is extended, and Jacob has twelve sons. The youngest of these sons, Joseph, is his dad’s favorite, and as it turns out, God actually speaks to him: he gives Joseph dreams, and the ability to interpret those dreams. What God didn’t give Joseph, apparently, was tact: Joseph doesn’t hesitate to tell his brothers dreams about them bowing down in submission to him.
They get fed up with joseph and his arrogant dreams. They sell him into slavery in Egypt and tell Jacob that Joseph was killed by wild animals. Joseph is sent off to Egypt and spends many years in prison. But he has something most of us don’t have a lot of the time: he has faith that God had a reason for bringing him there. And pretty soon he finds that reason out.
God’s revelations to Joseph put him in the good graces of the Pharaoh, the kind of Egypt, who releases him from prison and gives him a place of power. Joseph essentially becomes the second-in-command in Egypt. God also lets Joseph know that a massive famine is coming to Egypt and the surrounding countries, and this gives Joseph time to prepare. So when the famine hits, everyone is coming to Egypt to get food to survive—everyone, including Joseph’s brothers.
They don’t recognize him at first, but eventually Joseph tells his brothers that it’s him, and he forgives them for selling him into slavery. Why? Joseph tells them why in Genesis 50.20: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
So Jacob’s entire family, about seventy people, come to live in Egypt with Joseph, and with the Pharaoh’s full blessing.
That’s where we are when Genesis ends and Exodus begins.
A Promise Partially Fulfilled (v. 1-7)
Now in Exodus 1, we see two separate things, and both of them are setting the stage for what’s going to come after. The first is that we see God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at least partially fulfilled; and the second is that pretty soon a significant threat comes against that promise—or so it might seem.
Let’s read again, beginning in v. 1:
These are the names of the sons of Israel [that is, the sons of Jacob, to whom God also gave the name “Israel”] who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. 7 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
So very briefly, we see here that God has been making good on the first part of his promise to Abraham: that his descendants would multiply and become very numerous. Not only did they “increase greatly”; they also “grew exceedingly strong.”
I say that the promise was only partially fulfilled, because there is one big piece missing, which will influence everything that comes after. God promised that Abraham’s descendants would multiply greatly (check), and that they would bless all the nations of the earth from a specific place. God promised to give Abraham’s people the land of Canaan as an inheritance. But now they’re in Egypt, seemingly at home and doing well.
In short, they’re in the wrong place. If God’s promise is going to be fulfilled, something will have to change.
Now, as long as the Pharaoh in power could remember Joseph (or even stories of Joseph), this massive growth from the people of Israel would have been seen as an asset rather than a threat, because the Pharaoh thought very highly of Joseph, and by extension his family.
That positive outlook wouldn’t last forever; as the years passed (about 400 years, we’ll see later in chapter 12), people forgot. Including the Pharaohs themselves.
A Threat to the Promise? (v. 8-22)
So in v. 8 we see this new Pharaoh, and how he perceives the people of Israel. V. 8:
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Now of course this didn’t happen all at once; the Pharaoh sees the people of Israel as a threat, so he subjects them to slavery…and yet they keep multiplying. This multiplication would have taken decades, perhaps even centuries—long enough for other kings of Egypt to come in, continue the policies of their fathers, and see the same threat. No matter how much oppression the people of Israel endured, they kept multiplying. So what was the response? Give them more work. Make their lives harder.
Still, it didn’t work. The people were miserable, but they kept growing.
So eventually another Pharaoh comes to power, and has another idea. V. 15:
15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
It’s important to notice something really interesting here. Almost no one is mentioned by name in this passage—not even the Pharaohs are named here; they’re all referred to as “the king of Egypt” or “Pharaoh”. But two women are referred to by name: Shiphrah and Puah. Moses wants us to remember them, for one simple reason: they feared God more than they feared the Pharaoh. They refused to obey his order to kill all male Hebrew babies. (Apparently his order was that the midwives not let the mothers know that’s what they were doing; they were meant to make it look like the babies were born dead.)
Now, I’m going to just mention this quickly as an aside, because it is not the main point of this passage, but I know many of you will be asking yourselves the question: were the midwives wrong to lie to the Pharaoh? We’ll see later on in this book that one of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not lie.” And yet the midwives seem to make up this excuse for why the male babies are still alive, in v. 19: that Hebrew women give birth really quickly, before the midwives get there.
Some people have found this explanation deceptive on the part of the midwives. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. Maybe Hebrew women did give birth really quickly. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter. The midwives, at that point, were the only things standing in the way of Pharaoh’s plan to kill the children from being executed, so they said what they said in order to remain in a position to protect them.
If that still feels strange to you, change the context. Think of how some families must have dealt with the extermination of the Jews during World War II. No one would fault a family for hiding Jews in their homes, then telling the Nazis that they weren’t there. That’s the right thing to do.
Now you can debate that point as much as you want, but it’s important not to lose the forest for the trees. The author’s goal here isn’t to give a moral evaluation of what the women said, but rather to commend them for their courage in handling such an impossible situation at great risk to themselves. He’s trying to display how God commended them for their courage to protect his people: their fear of God and their courage in the face of the Pharaoh are rewarded by God.
(And isn’t it interesting that later on, another woman would be commended for her courage in facing scandal and shame and possibly even death, for carrying a baby although she wasn’t yet married—a baby that would become, not just the Savior of the people of Israel like Moses, but the Savior of all of God’s people.)
So these midwives do this courageous thing, and many lives are saved. But ultimately, there’s only so much they can do. The Pharaoh sees that his plan is not working, so he gives a command to the rest of the Egyptian people: if you see a son born to the Hebrews, take him and cast him into the Nile.
The Present and the Promise
I know that can be a disappointing end point for today’s message. But even this depressing situation has a lot to tell us about God and how he works.
If you’ve come directly off of reading Genesis, all of this is a fairly surprising turn of events. In Genesis, we spent a lot of time with Joseph, more time than we spent with Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Joseph’s story culminates in the rescue of his family, the people of Israel, from starvation—they are brought into Egypt, and they prosper and are safe.
Then, within a few verses at the beginning of Exodus, it looks like that blessing has turned into a curse. Joseph brought them to Egypt, yes—but now that they’re in Egypt, they’ve become slaves. And by the end of chapter 1, they’ve been slaves for a very long time. The oppression over them was intense and brutal and unrelenting.
Why would God do this? Why would he bring them to safety, only to deliver them over to suffering?
It’s a common question, isn’t it? Earlier I mentioned the beginning of my marriage with Loanne—this is the same question we were asking. Why give us something so good—a husband, a wife, a new family—only to let it spoil so badly and so quickly? Surely this isn’t your will, God.
The people of Israel were asking that question too, as we’ll see next week. And it’s true that if you only look at the promise God had given Abraham, it seems like what’s happening here in Egypt can’t possibly be his will.
But that’s not true.
When we think about God’s will for the world, we’ll always run into problems if we examine our present instead of his promise. Every promise is about the end result. But to get to that end result, God always has a specific road he's going to take, and he always has a reason for choosing that particular road.
Incidentally, later on in this book we find out one of the reasons why God chose this road for his people. We see it in Exodus 9.15-16, in which God says to Pharaoh (the same Pharaoh who has been oppressing his people for so long):
“For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
As hard as it is for us to imagine or accept, this is God’s ultimate purpose, and that’s why he has brought his people into this particular situation, under this particular ruler. God has brought them to a place where they would need rescuing, so that he could show himself to be that rescuer—to show his power, so that his name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
This is hard for us to accept, because the people’s suffering was long and very hard. But God’s goal wasn’t to make his people happy and comfortable in the present: it was to display his glory, and through this people, to bless all the nations of the world.
Instead of examining the present, we must hold fast to the promise. Just because our present situation isn’t what God promised doesn’t mean it isn’t his will. There is a road to get to the promise, and more often than not, that road is very difficult. But what we see again and again in the Bible is this very simple truth: God displays his glory in rescuing his people.
The Fear of God
We will all be faced with suffering in our lives that we can’t explain. We will all be faced with situations that last much longer than we feel they should, for reasons we don’t understand.
When that happens, we will have a choice to make—the choice the people of Israel will be faced with over and over again in this book: will we fear God, or will we fear our suffering?
It’s no accident that this book begins with great suffering, and with the description of two women who fear God more than the Pharaoh. When the Bible talks about fearing God, it doesn’t mean being afraid of him. It means recognizing his power and his authority to rule over his world.
That might seem terrifying, and it would be—if God wasn’t who he is.
In C. S. Lewis’s book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the children are speaking to Mr. Beaver, who is preparing them to meet Aslan, the great King of Narnia. They are frightened to learn that Aslan isn’t a man, but a lion.
"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
God is not only powerful and sovereign over the world. He is also good. We know this because rather than letting us wallow in our sufferings, no matter how deserved they might be, he joined us in those sufferings. He took on a human nature and suffered with us, suffered for us, in the person of Christ. He lived our life and died our death and was raised to rescue us from our slavery to sin, and declare us righteous before God.
This is why the fear of God need not be a cowering fear, but a courageous fear. It is a fear that recognizes who he is, and that all the help God might give us is less important than God himself.
In our moments of trials, we always look for help, we look for solutions, we search for explanations. But all of those things are less important than him. Ultimately—and this is what Exodus teaches us—we don’t need his help as much as we need him. We don’t need solutions, we need him. We don’t need explanations, we need him.
So we come to him with fear and trembling, because he is the only one powerful and sovereign God over our lives, who has the authority to fulfill his promises, for his glory, as he sees fit. But we also come to him with hope and courage, because we know that he is good, and he does not allow his people to suffer uselessly.
Conclusion
So let me leave you with two ways to begin preparing for and responding to this book, no matter what you’re going through.
Firstly, turn repeatedly to God. (And we’ll see the people of Israel doing just that over the course of this book.) You need him, himself, more than you need his help. Build those muscles now, of turning to him in good times and in bad, in learning that he is trustworthy, in learning that he is wise. You’ll need those muscles strong when those times come, so turn to him now.
Secondly, dig in to the community of believers around you. I say this, in part, because of our particular context, and because of the story of Exodus in general. When Loanne and I went through that terrible period, we were completely and totally alone. We had a church, but there was no meaningful community, no one we could share those things with.
My fear for all of you—and this is one reason I’ll be pointing out these questions of suffering quite a lot over the course of this series—is that many of you will come to Connexion and have a great time, and have good conversations and laugh a lot and even have some meaningful experiences. But then a period of intense suffering will come, and you’ll be alone. Because you will have kept the people of God at arm’s length, seeing them as a group that does you good sometimes, rather than seeing them as MY PEOPLE.
Or someone in the church will suffer, and they’ll be alone, because the people around them in the church (for all the reasons I just mentioned) didn’t invest in them enough to see it.
Don’t let that happen. The story of Exodus is the story of a God and his people. We are his people. If you’re a Christian, your life is no longer separate from the life of God’s people. So dig in. Be present for your brothers and sisters, and let them be present for you. Know them, and let them know you. You’ll need them, and God will work through them, for your good and for his glory.
Over the coming months we’ll see more and more the different ways in which God comes to the rescue of his people, and how he has already come to our rescue, in the person of Jesus Christ. My prayer for this series is that we might grow in our trust in him, and in the joy of knowing that the God who comes to the rescue of the people of Israel is the same God who reigns over our lives today.