I invite you to turn to the second book of the Bible this morning, the book of Exodus. And what a time to begin this study, I guess. The new movie is out, Exodus, God's plural and kings. And I noticed that Egypt banned it, so they must not have liked it. I hope Egypt, I don't know what they're going to think of my sermon. They probably wouldn't like what I'm going to say about Egypt either. But this is such an important study and so foundational for how we read the scriptures and to understand that this was the crucial event in Israel's history that they were always to look back to and understand salvation. And that's what we're studying in this book. So let's consider this morning the first chapter, the first chapter, chapter 1, Exodus. this is the word of the Lord. These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were 70 persons. Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly. They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 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. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Ramses. 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. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves. And they made their lives bitter with hard service and mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field in all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves then the king of egypt said to the hebrew midwives one of whom was named shiprah and the other puah when you serve as midwife to the hebrew women and see them on the birth stool if it is a son you shall kill him but if it is a daughter she shall live But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this and let the male children live? 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. So God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 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. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. I'm not going to spend a lot of time introducing this book this morning. And the reason for that is because this book has been introduced to you for the past two years. That was Genesis. Genesis really is preparation for Exodus. You've been prepared for this. That's why I wanted to continue it. God, in that book, remember, had shown us in Genesis his development and his plan to save a people in the earth and set apart a people to him and set them apart to him from all the other peoples on the face of the earth. He made promises in that book. He made wonderful promises to a man by the name of Abraham. But there was something that he said in explaining that plan to Abraham back in chapter 15 that really does set the stage for what we have this morning. Remember what he said to Abraham back in chapter 15. Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that's not theirs and will be slaves there. And they will be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve. And afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. It was all mapped out, wasn't it? It was all explained. Well, Exodus is the fulfillment of this. Exodus is the fulfillment and we're seeing this take shape of the promises made to Abraham. This was, as I said, the foundational event in the history of Israel. This is where they learned who their God was, which really we're going to find they didn't really know him. This is where they're going to understand the need for salvation. This is where they're going to understand his glorious plan of deliverance and see him in power pummel one of the most powerful, the most powerful nation and rulers of the world at that time. It was the story of Exodus that the entire Old Testament is about. God wanted his people to get up in the morning and tell their children about it. I want you to tell your children about this event. I want you to impress it upon their minds. I want you to show them and tell them what I did for them. And the reason for that is because it told the entire story of the salvation of Jesus Christ. What a story Exodus is. It's the whole story of the gospel. It's everything you've ever learned and known. The burning bush, God's holiness, the Passover lamb supplied so that they could escape death, being brought through by a powerful deliverer, a savior out into the front of the sea, providing a path so that they can walk through safely in deliverance, passing through the sea, being baptized into the sea, heading out into the wilderness, receiving water from the rock, who is Christ, the New Testament said. Receiving bread from heaven, manna, which Jesus supplied to himself, saying, I'm the true bread. Being brought all the way to the promised land. Which is exactly your story. On a wilderness journey there. A tabernacle dropping in the wilderness to tell them God was with them. Jesus tabernacling among us. And then being brought home. They were brought home. That's the story. It's all here. It's all here. And you're going to see that unravel for you in the next five years. I don't know how long it takes to go through this. As we open up chapter 1, a lot of time has gone by. Fast forward from the last scene in Genesis about 400 years. What is plainly evident is that the Spirit wants us to see in chapter 1 that everything God promised, His blessing has been lavished down this people in Egypt. The very blessing that he had promised and said would happen, it is glorious as we open up Exodus chapter 1. Look at what has happened to the nation of Israel. It has blossomed. She has bloomed. She is full. But that blessing has created the very problem of chapter one the attitude of the egyptians is changed against them and chapter one introduces a severe oppression and persecution that now begins upon israel and if i don't paint this as dark as i possibly can which i believe that's what chapter one is doing it's setting the stage for the glory of what is to come chapter one has to be felt as one of the darkest chapters in the Bible. If I haven't somewhat accomplished that today, I don't think I've done my job. The first verses here, we have 70 mentioned of Jacob's children, and then the names of the tribes are given. And so what we have and what we're being reminded of up front is God's faithfulness to the promises to Abraham. Here they sat in the best strip of land in Egypt, Goshen. For years, that blessing was poured out on them, riding on the coattails of Joseph's glory. The text keeps telling you over and over, they flourished in number. They flourished in number. Do you see this? They got so abundant. They were so abundant in the land. It just filled up with them. They swarmed the land. Verse seven, the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly. They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. God was committed to his promise to Abraham that he would make a mighty nation, a great nation, that those descendants would be, no matter what was about to happen, as the stars of the heaven and the sand on the seashore. That's the link. That's the link from Genesis to Exodus. It's saying one thing, God's promises are being fulfilled. But chapter 1 presents to us a very bad development in the nation of Israel, in Egypt. Maybe Bob Dylan captured it years ago when he wrote the song, The Times They Are a-Changing. Come mothers and fathers throughout the land and don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand. For the times they are changing. Do you hear a spirit in that? you can't control your children it's all changing get out of the way get out of the way what spirit is that did israel understand what now was happening well this was no longer your father joseph's egypt it all had changed and that's exactly what the text wants to make clear in verse six that as joseph had died the entire generation died there in Egypt, all that generation, and something now is in the works. Something big is going on in the works behind the scenes, and here it begins. Verse 8. Now there arose a new king. Notice it uses the word king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. Who was this? Well, historically, you have a few different choices. There really are two competing views out there as to who this was, but it really remains just two. Thutmose III, you have some who have said Osmosis I. Ahmosis, I'm sure I didn't. It can't be Osmosis. Ahmosis. The thing that strikes me is that God doesn't tell us. I think that's powerful. No name is given to this guy. Why? Here is where I think you have to have some historical understanding of what developed in Egypt with regard to the office of the pharaoh. Do you know what they believe? The Egyptian state was not a man-made political organization, in their view. They believe that when the world was created, Egypt was the God-given government that formed the universal order of things. I mean, we could never imagine things to be viewed that way, but that's exactly what ancient Egypt was like. That's what they believed. And Pharaoh himself was a superhuman being who was appointed by God to take care of the affairs of man. In other words, they believed in a doctrine of succession from creation. Straight succession, very similar to the Roman view of the popes. That the creator of the world had a kingly office and Pharaoh all the way from the beginning was the embodiment of that and continued an unbroken succession of that. Oh, the devil loves that doctrine, by the way. He was called by the Egyptians, Lord of the world and God. When you looked at Pharaoh, do you know what you saw? On his headdress, you saw a symbol of the Ureus. The Ureus meant in Egyptian and in Egypt, the risen one. And the emblem meant that Pharaoh had, the emblem itself, the Ureus emblem, meant that Pharaoh himself had supreme power and authority over, now ready, all gods. and the egyptian monarchy and the earth lo and behold i had to capture it for you do you know what the sign of the uraeus was serpent a serpent a cobra snake would sit on the front of his head and you can imagine when moses walked up little moses the shepherd when he walks up and he looks at this man in his glory and there he is decked out in a ray that he had never seen and there on the front is a cobra ready to strike anyone who would challenge the authority of Pharaoh. Snake to warn everyone, he is Lord over all. Why does this matter? Well, let me introduce you to Satan's Antichrist. Let me introduce you to the Old Testament Antichrist. That's not a phenomenon that begins in the New Testament. And you can learn a lot about the Antichrist and the language the New Testament uses by what developed in the Old Testament. When it says arose, the Hebrew word here, there arose a new king in Egypt. That word there represents something entirely different than what was before. It means to rise against. He was no favor to anyone. Much more going on here than we probably ever have initially considered. This introduces the spiritual warfare on a whole new level as we introduce the book of Exodus. We saw it on an individual level in Genesis. We saw it with Cain and Abel. We saw it with Esau and Jacob. We saw the two lines develop. Now it's cosmic. And what we have is the development of this phenomenon as the cosmic application of what Genesis chapter 3 declared when it said and divided and said, the seed of the serpent. And by the way, I don't find that coincidental. Someone might tell me. I don't find that coincidental that Pharaoh is wearing a sign emblem of the serpent. The seed of the serpent, Genesis 3, will try desperately to strike out and put an end to the seed of the woman who would bear the champion to save God's people. What's Exodus 1? As you open up Exodus 1, putting it in the language of Revelation and all the stuff we're curious about, keep in mind, Revelation will be opened up to you through this book. I believe that. I believe Revelation, Exodus is a very important book to understand that Revelation is borrowing all of the stuff that comes out of these books, especially like Exodus, to explain these phenomenons. What you have in Exodus 1 is the dragon, Revelation 12, standing before the woman who's ready to get birth, ultimately fulfilled on that day of Nazareth. It's an entirely different kingdom that is now presented to us here in Exodus chapter one. You'll notice Pharaoh even alludes to that in verse nine. Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, listen to this language. 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. Does that sound familiar? Here you have a king. Come, let us do this, lest this happen. It's Babel. Come, let us build a city for ourselves and make a name for ourselves. Now let's use God's people to do it in bondage. Boys and girls, if you've studied the history in your classes of ancient Egypt, you're gonna see all sorts of things that are presented to you, but you're gonna study those monuments and those ruins. Guess whose hands put those together? God's people in slavery. This is a tower of Babel-like king using the same language, let's build a city and a name that reaches to heaven. And what it's telling you is the very same spirit that caused the flooding of the world, remember, before the flood, and then what developed after, that God had to prematurely stop, has shown itself, its ugly head, the same spirit of antichrist has shown itself right now in exodus chapter one it's a beastly kingdom it's turned of what revelation says the beast has risen up out of the sea it's now turned in total opposition to the lord and his anointed so what we have now then that's the introduction in terms of the persecutor what we have now and i did have a three-point sermon the persecutor the persecution and the preservation we're now at the persecution of the antichrist i don't know of any application better of second thessalonians chapter two that whenever this man shows himself on the scene of history he will oppose and set himself and exalt himself over all that is called god or that is worship so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself to be God. Here you go. What does he do? In verses 11 through 14, listen to the language. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Ramses. His first tactic of this Antichrist figure was to make them slaves. And notice the language in verse 13. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves. If you were ever to study the history of this awful practice of slavery, you find reoccurring themes in all cultures. Subjugation. subjugation and forced servitude, the favored method of punishment was whipping. Largely because when you beat the slave, he could then still have enough strength to continue to work for you. They say that slaves' backs, and I'm quoting one particular period, appeared as indistinguishable mass of lumps, holes, and furrows by frequent whippings, common proverb being that every slave master was to think of his slave as an enemy. They were branded as animals. Charles Ball was carried away as a slave as a child. And in his description of that, this is what he wrote. But my poor mother, when she saw me leaving her for the last time, ran after me, took me down from the horse, clasped me in her arms, and wept loudly and bitterly over me. My mother then turned to him and cried, Oh, master, don't take my child from me. Without making any reply, he gave her two or three heavy blows on the shoulders with his rawhide, snatched me from her arms, handed me to my master, and seized her by one arm, dragging her back toward the place of sale. He goes on. Some masters allowed each slave a peck of corn per week. And throughout the year, slaves had to grind into meal in a hand mill for themselves. Slaves could possibly have meat once a week. Think about this. Unless bacon became scarce, which often happened, in which case slaves had no meat at all. Clothing was scarce and depended on the slave masters' one. He might be given a pair of shoes, one pair of stockings, one hat, one jacket of coarse cloth, two coarse shirts, and two pair of trousers yearly. Often the clothing given to slaves was not enough to protect them from bad weather. Whatever we've had recorded for us in history about this degrading practice of slavery, Israel's was worse the text is building this up listen to the language he made their lives bitter with hard service it was completely despairing mortar and brick and all kinds of work all day long in the fields no rest and all their work notice the word the translator wanted to capture and I think it's a good word to capture it. They ruthlessly did it. Ruthlessly, ruthlessly. The words tell it. You'll notice how the translation describes it. That word has a sense of they harshly broke their spirits. They broke them down. They organized them into gangs and they set them apart in ancient Egypt and set taskmasters over them that would stand there with large sticks and beat them. and here's the progression what started with slavery moved to what death subjugate and destroy is the modus of the antichrist so he goes to these two chief midwives see the problem is they just keep multiplying i'll come back to that he goes to these two chief midwives who were in charge of helping with the birth And he commands them, he says, I want you, when you, these were the chief midwives, when you go in and you see a baby coming out right on the birthstool, you end the life, you kill it, you slay it. It would have taken a knife and done that. I want you to do this only to the boys, because if you take out the men, we'll assimilate the women into us and end this terrible race. But just put an end to the men, the boys. They can never rise up against us that way. Must have been awful. You know, we don't feel how awful a time it is. I've never known anything like that. A slave life. I haven't known concentration camps. But you see the potential, don't you? Have we forgotten Hitler? Have we forgotten what this world is really like? Under the sway of the devil, babies in this country are killed at the stool all the time. And we're really being reminded that a cosmic battle is going on here in Exodus chapter 1. That the world is really lying under the sway of something that we don't give enough credence to. That there is something behind that animates the spirit of this world that is bent on destruction. You know Satan, it says in the New Testament, the whole world lies under his sway. How else do you explain the phenomenon of men coming into a building and just shooting up people in the name of God? It's not of him. Remember back in Genesis when this famine came? Pharaoh at that time, under Joseph, which was a strange irony, all of Egypt was made slaves of Pharaoh. don't think they're free they were already captured they were already under his tyranny but now his aim is god's people you know his desires to enslave you boys and girls i said to one of the elders the other night you know when we get to one of the plagues the plagues are going to hit pharaoh so hard that at some point you know what he's going to say Okay, Moses, you and the older ones can go. You keep your children here. Oh, he wants your children. Bob Dylan captured it. He roams around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour next, and his goal is you, to murder you. Don't think that's not his goal. Exodus shows us the reality we all hate to think about. You see, we've predominantly enjoyed in this life the Lord's hand of, And I want you to give glory to him for this. Hand of restraint on all this. That's what you've enjoyed. That's what they enjoy. He puts his hand and he stops the restraint. That's why it's such an offense when some of this stuff happens that they say, well, where was God? God's been stopping this stuff for I don't know how long and he let you taste what would happen if he just went like this for a minute. There's a demonic realm and there's a devil and it's very real and there are real demons backed behind real actions. You'll look at that tonight. And the ultimate goal of it is you. And that's what all the visions in Revelation are opening up for us. That's what the visions in Revelation are describing for us. This cosmic battle on the earth seen through heavenly eyes. But here's the question I struggle with this morning. Here's the question I struggle with. It's this, why? I mean, here's what's hard about this as i was reflecting on this sermon this week you're you're given so much you're raised up nobody had ever witnessed prosperity like this on the face of the earth here they are the best strip of egypt sitting in the best land of goshen powerful egypt's everything and all of a sudden it all changes to break their spirits i i printed this we're going to sing this here in a minute i want you to look at verse four this is a cry of the psalmist in psalm 102 of a general a persecution and affliction doesn't tell us exactly the circumstance but look at verse four all day my foes their taunts repeat those filled with anger curse my name i food with daily with tears and ashes mixed listen to this for you on me in anger frown you raised me up to throw me down you think israel felt like that do you ever feel like that i have no doubt this is a real struggle of many saints and it seems that god takes us up and then cast us down. I mean, fill them with all these blessings, multiply them, and the real struggle is what is God doing, right? And then one day gone. Does it have to be like that? I could interject here, and I think Psalm 102's intention is that, a million circumstances of struggle and sorrow and affliction that might go right there. Right there. Why? Let me give you three reasons why God lifted the hand of restraint and let the spirit of the Antichrist and this phenomenon take shape. What was Israel's danger? You ever seen those t-shirts, life is good? Life's good. Life is so good. I kind of want to spit on those things. Life's good. Life's good. Life's good. Here's the problem. Then Joseph, this is Genesis, settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded, they had possession. Here's your problem. Could Canaan be any better than that? Could the promised land be better than that? No, no way. No way! Here's the first problem. You'll never long to go home. You'll never long to go home if you're not tested and tried and afflicted. Why would you want something that seems inferior with all those problems out there with the nations in Canaan? And you've got really good now. And you see, sometimes it needs to be taken away. The very thing that needs to happen is a realization, you know, that I have kind of accepted a lie, and we all struggle with it. best life is now. And that we have something else held out for us that doesn't even compare, a real land of Canaan, a real place where there's no more misery and sorrow, you'll never long for it without hardship. That's one of the reasons I come up with. Second is this, God wants to make you separate from this world. One old writer said, one of God's greatest enemies is his good gifts. Why? because we make them idols and worship them do you think we have a drive to be separate and stand for much when we're always full all around them in egypt and you're going to see this you know what's amazing about the plagues yet we haven't thought about this about the plagues they're hitting a specific god of egypt everyone's bowing to the idol gods of egypt and israel's sitting there were they very separate from it obviously not because as soon as they got out into the wilderness and started a worship service, they created a bull calf and said it was Yahweh. It got into their hearts. All the Lord knows that it's pretty easy to stand for nothing when you've got it good. I'm concerned about this one in America. I'm concerned about it for me, that we don't stand for much for anything. And, you know, do we share our faith? Do we talk to anyone? Do we stand for what's right? Are we afraid today of offending everyone? Oh, you can't criticize anything because we're going to offend somebody. Come on, we have tons of American idols and you know what? God's going to do a lot of criticizing in Egypt. The persecution did what? It made a clear line of demarcation separation as to who was God's and who was not. And that's what you see in this chapter two little women two little weak women defeat Pharaoh in this section that is glorious to me think of the power revealed here Pharaoh comes to them and says you go and you kill on the birthstool this is God in Egypt you understand you don't defy God in egypt and you know what they said the text makes clear they feared the true god and wouldn't do it and they took a stand against him only god's power could produce that and he pours it out in the midst of hardship only god's glory and strength could produce that so if they stand up for him and you know too many i think it wrecks continuity when you start asking well did they lie listen i don't think they lied at all i think it was true i think in the midst of persecution God's blessing was so abundant that as soon as they got before they got there these women were popping out babies left and right I mean that they were lively women they were pushing these babies out and they didn't even need a midwife and they were coming that fast that's what was going on that's the multiplication what an encouragement in the midst of affliction that then God pours out his spirit and blessing and power and strength like you've never known it before to stand up for the fight Katrina to stand up for the fight listen to Spurgeon the church probably never increased at all uh never increased at a greater rate than is when her foes were most fierce to assail and most resolute to destroy her history's proven that true. I've got one more and we'll close. What did this begin to produce in Israel? Groaning. Everyone look in the next chapter at verse 23. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant. Oh, that's loaded. Remember back from Genesis. Every time you get that word, watch out. God remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew what was happening. They had not been crying out for deliverance, and guess what started happening? They started crying out for deliverance. Remember Revelation 8? When cries start happening, they go up into, if you will, the nostrils of God, and then He's ready to throw fire back on the earth. That's Exodus. There come the plagues. What happens? In the very next chapter, a Savior is born. In the very next chapter, a persecuted Savior is born. The one God would send to plummet and plunder Egypt and bring them out with a strong hand and a mighty arm. God was ready to send His Savior in the midst of this kind of hardship and affliction. God was ready to show the face of His Savior. And you know, that's the story, isn't it? Exodus 2 is Matthew 1 and 2. We live in a hostile world. We enjoy God's blessings and protection, but I want you to know we're not home, and we forget that, and we forget that a great cosmic battle is going on all around us, and the bigger story here is this this morning. You need a savior. You've got to be brought out of this. You've got to get out of this, and you can't get out. This is not just them. This is us. We're stuck in slavery. We're stuck in slavery to our sin, and we're stuck in slavery to the prince of the power of this heir, those who works in the sons of disobedience. It's a greater story going on here. And chapter 2 comes and says, So the woman conceived and bore a son, and they called his name, let me interject, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins, their slavery. And that's why you come to something like Romans. Thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin. You've become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you become slaves of righteousness. The greater story this morning and the battle that we're in is something we have to understand. We all need to be freed. And God did it. Heidelberg won. What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I'm not my own, but belong body and soul and life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who has done what? Fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and set me free from the tyranny of the devil. That's Exodus 1. Some of you have been subject to horrible things in this life, beatings, attacks, hatred of the world. We live among these things. God's answered you today. So what do I say in closing? Don't love Egypt. Don't love the world. Everything it represents is perishing. God's plagues are coming on it. And it will rise up against us at times. And I don't know what that's going to look like, but it can look like this. Don't be troubled, said Jesus. Jesus told you plainly these things would occur. And that what's going to happen on the earth is because these plagues are coming, men's hearts are going to fail them because of what? Fear. You see that on the news every night. But he said, when you see these things, lift up your head, rejoice, because your redemption draws near. And that, beloved, is the story of Exodus. Heavenly Father, we are grateful to study this and to see your power put on display. All the gods of the peoples are idols, but our God lives and reigns forever and ever and has answered us in our distress, our sin, and our misery, and we're so thankful that you sent your Son in the fullness of time to come get us out, to rescue us. And today we praise you for the redemption that has been given to us. For we are free. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.