November 8, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Ecclesiastes 5-6

Weekly Memory Verse: Galatians 2:20

Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

Shelley and I are staying in Arcadia tonight, she is going for surgery tomorrow morning.  Please keep her in prayer.  I am having trouble again with the server, I hope to update the way that I am emailing in the next few days.  I will try to set up mailing lists, the problem is that I want to keep the recipient list secure. 

I considered skipping around in the Old Testament, but the tremendous lessons that are coming up in Exodus is very appealing.  I hope that as we continue our Old Testament study that you will enjoy it as much as I am.  The power and the tremendous lessons from Exodus will strengthen each one of us in our walk with the Lord.

Exodus 1:1-22 (NASB95)
¹ Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; ³ Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; ⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵ All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt. ⁶ Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. ⁷ But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them. ⁸ Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. ¹⁰ “Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land.” ¹¹ So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses. ¹² But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel. ¹³ The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; ¹⁴ and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them. ¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; ¹⁶ and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” ¹⁷ But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?” ¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.” ²⁰ So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. ²¹ Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them. ²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.”^[1]

The first few words in the book indicate that this is a continuation of the story that is in Genesis.  The phrase "And these are the names" indicates that this story was not intended to stand alone, but was dependant and built upon the story already told in Genesis.

Exodus 12:37 (NASB95)
³⁷ Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children. ^[2]

Try to picture this in your mind, Joseph brought seventy people into the land of Egypt.  The original language speaks of those seventy multiplying in unusual ways.  they actually became a swarm of people, seeming to multiply and take over the Egyptian land.  They grew in numbers so quickly that they threatened the Egyptians, worried them, and caused them to take drastic steps. The indication in verse 7 uses five words that indicate that the Jews were very fruitful, "were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty so that the land was filled with them."  Increased greatly could also be translated as "swarmed", while exceedingly mighty could also be translated as "numerous" according to the NASB footnotes.  I would liken this to when I was raised in Kentucky, some of the hillbillies had families of thirteen kids or so.  If these people were to come to California, can you imagine what would be said about them? 

As the Jews continued to expand and to take over the land, the Egyptians were faced with a foreigner living in their land that were populating the land faster than they were.  The numbers of the Jews was increasing beyond that of the Egyptians, it raised two fears in the king's head, first that they would be outnumbered, and second that if the Jews were to join forces with the enemies of the land they would be able to overthrow the natural citizens of Egypt.  In the ancient world, strength was in numbers, and the Jews were increasing very quickly.

One desperate attempt to stop the population explosion was to kill all the male children that were born.  When you think about that, it is kind of weird, men may populate the earth, but the women have the children.  If you wanted to pinch off population growth, it would make more sense to kill the women.  On the other hand, the women did not pose as much of a threat militarily as the men did. 

The midwives are an example to all of us.  They refused to kill the children as Pharaoh had commanded, they demonstrated that they respected God more than they did Pharaoh.  As a result of that, God established them and made their lives fruitful. 

The real question that we are faced with is whether or not we believe God enough to make a stand for Him.  What is our position in life, do we allow the masses to dictate our morals, or are we willing to stand alone and make a stand for God.  Notice that the women did not blatantly tell Pharaoh that they refused to kill the children, they did make lame excuses about how that Jewish women bore children too quickly to catch.  God honored their tactics and blessed their lives. It is time that we stand up for the morals that we claim to believe in.  In other words, Christian, put your money where your mouth is, if you claim to be a Christian, live like it in every area of your life.  Then God will bless you way beyond your expectations.

I am going to close here, if you have any comments, please feel free to write in.

Father, as we consider Your word today, open each of our hearts to  receive it.  Give us a boldness to live out your Word and to put it into action in each of our lives.

In Him,

Joe Turner.