The Invisible Hand of God

Today I'm Renewing Your Mind.

The invisible hand of God.

Read the Bible, we realize that God has always been about the business of bringing new people to himself what Peter describes as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, we see God's redemptive plan unfold in the very first pages of Genesis and the culmination of it. In Revelation. In between is one event after another, exemplifying God's promise. This week were going to focus on one of those early evidence, and that the syndrome is a man Dr. RC Sproul considered the most, figuring the Old Testament five are going to start. I hold no series of messages we plan to have 10 of them and they are all going to be focusing on the significance of the encounter that Moses had in the Old Testament with God in the burning bush. I convinced that that episode is a watershed episode not only for the life of Moses, not only for the history of Israel, but for the history of the entire world and what I will be doing in the first couple of lectures is looking at a little bit of the early period of Moses life leading up to that encounter in the burning bush and the last eight messages will be focusing on the theology that is revealed.

That is the knowledge of God that is revealed to us in that particular incident. I'm reading tonight from the new Geneva study Bible. And if you have that were the Reformation study Bible, you will see on the spine. The logo of this Bible which was the symbol of the Protestant Reformation, which symbol is of course the burning bush and so let's begin tonight by looking at the early portion of the book of Exodus in the first chapter in verse eight of chapter 1 we read a statement that is somewhat ominous. It's foreboding.

It introduces a notion of deep and profound concern that sets the stage for all that will follow in the book of Exodus, verse eight reads as follows. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph after familiar with the history that's unfolded in the book of Genesis immediately feel the weight of this statement because the book of Genesis ends where the children of Israel are invited to move from Canaan, where the famine had it so heavily and come now into the borders of Egypt where Joseph was serving as the Prime Minister and this Jewish family was given the land of Goshen as a settling place, but as the years passed, the population of this Jewish group living within the borders of Egypt grew exponentially became a large portion of the population of Egypt, and in earlier days. They enjoyed the favor of the Pharaoh who had promoted Joseph through the level of Prime Minister but now that's all in the past and a new Pharaoh comes to power were told here did not know Joseph and that signals a radical shift in the relationship between the Jewish visitors or immigrants and the host country of Egypt in this new king said to his people look the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we are. That's probably hyperbole weren't that great, but in his eyes he was very much concerned of this growth of the Israelites in their Mets and so he says come let us deal shrewdly with them less, they multiply, and it happens in the event of war that they join our enemies and fight against us and go up on the land so they said we gotta be shrewd here. Gotta be careful on the one hand we don't want them to leak because they are our slave labor force upon which the whole economy depend, but at the same time we don't want them to become so numerous and so strong that if were attacked by another nation that are involved in insurrection and join our enemies and destroy us. So what we have to do is keep them here, but keep them as weak as we possibly can. So now the Pharaoh institutes a program. To that end and listen to what his shrewdness involves therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. The idea here is that I have your their burdens during their period of slavery, the less likely that they will live to old age for the life expectancy of particularly the men among the Hebrews will be shortened figures on the site and they built for Pharaoh supply city specimen Ramses, but the more they afflicted them. The more they multiplied and grew so the exact opposite result obtained the pass from what Pharaoh and his shrewdness had tried to bring to pass and so they were in dread of the children of Israel, so the Egyptians made the children of Israel, serve with rigor. That is, again, they increase the burden they made their lives better with hard bondage and mortar brick and all manner of service in the field and so that all the service they made were made with rigor and what comes next is of enormous significance for the history of the world you see the situation that the Pharaoh has what he's trying to control before we look at what comes next. Someone asked this question, a question that easily would begin an argument among Christian people you think was the most important person in the entire old testament. In terms of redemptive history. I think the single most important person in the whole Old Testament is Moses.

Why not only because he led the people out of bondage in the Exodus, which again was a watershed event for all of history, but also because he was the mediator of the old covenant just as Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant, and he is the one through home.

God delivered the law to Israel and the giving of the 10 Commandments and I think of it this way. No Moses, no escape from bondage. No Exodus probably wouldn't be a surviving Jew on the face of the earth today, because without the Exodus and the leadership of Moses, the Jewish slaves would never have been molded into a nation by God, and they would never have had the law code that was delivered through Moses you can't study jurisprudence in Western civilization without saying the impact of the Decalogue delivered by Moses upon later Roman law certainly on British law and on American jurisprudence. So this man is of enormous significance and the early chapters of the book of Exodus revealed to us an extraordinary Providence by which God in his sovereignty gave the world. Moses, because now the fear of Pharaoh has escalated to such a degree that his new program of shrewdness in order to protect his concerns about this growing strength of these Jewish slaves was to destroy the boy babies that were about to be born in a significant redemptive historical parallel and edict comes out from Pharaoh, not unlike Harrods program in New Testament days with the slaughter of the infants in order to destroy the Christ child. So now in this, the pocket of history.

The Pharaoh issues of the Cree. The destroy the newborn Jewish boys must read what it says to the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was ship brought in the name of the other pool and he said when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women see them on the birth stools if it is a song then you shall kill.

This is not simply a government's sanctioning abortion as wicked as that is that this is a case where a government is commanding. Infanticide the government the king instructs the Hebrew midwives you see that woman giving birth and the baby is a boy. It is your duty to kill it if it's a daughter, then she shall in verse 17, but my favorite words, biblical history, but something comes along that Swarts this decree of the most powerful ruler in the world but the midwives who by the way, I'm sure were intimidated by the power Pharaoh.

How can I not be considered as the most powerful man in the world.

The Scripture say the midwives feared God before God fearing women who had more reverence and fear of offending God than they had of offending Pharaoh without that fear in the providence of God again, no Moses, no Exodus, no law that the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded in this is an act of civil disobedience that receives the blessing of God because we are always to obey the civil magistrates unless they command us to do something that God forbids or forbids us from doing something that God command and then this case they were commanded to kill these babies which would violate the character of God in their own consciences and so they disobeyed the Pharaoh. They did not do what the king commanded them, but saved the male children alive. Pharaoh gets wind of this, listen to this.

He he calls the midwives in thwarting the why have you saved these babies, why have you not done what I told you to do so. How the midwives respond they respond with all righteous life. There are such righteous lies.

We understand the biblical ethic that there is a sanctity of truth and we are to speak the truth whenever we possibly can. But the principle is this that we are always to tell the truth, to whom the truth is due. That is where always call the tell the truth the whole truth, not by the truth in the case of justice. But if the enemy crosses your borders and wants to know where your company is bivouacked not obligated to reveal that secret information. If a murderer comes to your house and wants to know where your child is and you know that his intent is to kill him. You're not required by God to tell him, always hiding in the event this was a godly deceitfulness which receives the full blessing of God. By the way they said the Pharaoh. They were not like Egyptian their lively they give birth before the midwives even come to no longer labor. For these ladies that I will never ride the lever where they have the baby before the midwives can even get there. Therefore, we are told God dealt well with the midwives. God bless these women for their brave disobedience and dissent from Pharaoh's program and so the people multiplied, and they grew very mighty.

And so it was because the midwives peered God, the God provided households for them and so now Pharaoh commanded all his people saying every son who was born you shall cast into the river and every daughter you shall save alive, not just of Joe's everybody on them to get them one way or another we read a man of the house of Levi. One took a wife of the daughter of Levi, so the woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child. She hidden for three months.

She had her baby and she knew that if this little boy be discovered by the law by the soldiers of Pharaoh that her child would be put to death associated to him for three months but you can keep the six week old baby somewhat quiet. By the time their lungs develop and by the time they become three months older cries cannot be silenced and so people will begin to take note that there is an infant year and that cannot be continually hidden when she cannot longer hiding. She took apart the same word that is used for Noah's Ark, she took an arc of bulrushes for him dabbed with asphalt and pitch built this little vessel and put the child in it and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank. She consigned her baby to the benevolence of God to his sovereignty and his problem.

She knew, I am no longer able to keep this baby safe. I have to let them go and I have to put them into the hands of my God that my God will save his life. Protect them from the wrath of Pharaoh, so she built this little boat and set it adrift in the Nile to put it in the reeds where it still remain hidden. Had the baby's older sister go and watch and see if anybody would come along if anyone would rescue the baby.

Then, in the providence of God, a woman came down to babies at the river. She wasn't looking for Hebrew babies to adopt.

She just went down to the river to Bay wasn't just any lady.

It was Pharaoh's daughter can imagine the terror in the heart of Moses sister when she sees the daughter of Pharaoh approaching the reeds were that little arc is hidden with her baby brother on the she's coming closer and closer and closer, and it's Pharaoh's her maidens walked along the Riverside and she saw the ark among the reeds associate dispatcher made to go there. What is that that thing when she opened she saw the child and the child began to cry Jim's package. She didn't expect to find in recent years, a three months and the baby looks up at her Pharaoh and start the week. So we read. She had compassion on him, and said this must be one of the Hebrew children. Just say this has to be one of the Hebrew babies are reported to my father and have the soldiers come and dispense for this drop note she had compassion. This was a woman and her natural instincts when she finds a baby in the baby's crying is for her to feel for that baby into picked that baby up and hold that baby and try to comfort that baby she doesn't know anything about the 10 Commandments are the Exodus she's holding the mediator of the old covenant in her arms. She's a woman having compassion on the baby.

The spin set adrift. Moses sister said the Pharaoh's daughter. So I go on call nurse for you from the Hebrew woman that she may nurse the child for you and Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go ahead. She went called the child's mother Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child and nurse him for me and I will your wages.

Take this little baby and take care of it for me. I'm going to adopt this baby and I'll pay you if you will nurse this baby Amy this is my baby's course on their specific sent child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She called his name Moses where I have drawn him out of the water. This is how lifebegan will be 80 years.

From that moment until Moses will make a living God. I we can see how God is directing Moses life, from the very beginning your listing to Renewing Your Mind on this Monday. Thank you for being with us.

Lively web and that we will continue Dr. RC Sproul series Moses and the burning bush tomorrow. Our study today reminds us of God's sovereignty. Even though Pharaoh sought to destroy all the Hebrew baby boys.

God preserved Moses and today you and I as Christians can see our connection to this remarkable providence, we invite you to request this entire series for your donation of any amount. The 10 messages will give you a deeper understanding of God somebody in saving his people find us online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us with your gift at 800-435-4343 since the coronavirus pandemic began a few months ago we heard leader ministries have made many of our resources free to either stream or download and we hope they been a blessing to you. So many people have responded.

For example, over a two month period beginning back in the middle of March. More than 430,000 study guides were downloaded. In fact, the study guide for this series is available right now is a free download. You can find it at Lincoln here.work. We're thankful for the opportunity to serve the body of Christ in this way and it's why we appreciate the generous financial support of listeners just like you who helped make it possible tomorrow. Dr. Spruill returns with another message from his series, Moses and the burning bush is one thing for me to stand up against a few shepherds on one was a for me to stand up to an Egyptian meeting.

One of the sleigh to whom I go to Pharaoh and say let my people.

We hope you'll join us Tuesday for Renewing Your Mind