This Week's Sunday School Lesson, God's Ways And Thoughts Are Far From Ours". Exodus 1:7-22, (/1/2019

GOD’S WAYS AND THOUGHTS ARE FAR FROM OURS

Exodus 1:7-22

THE GROWTH OF GODS FAMILY    

V:7-10.  but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9 "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

A. God promised Abraham an limited number of descendants.

   1. Racism is common for those who hold themselves better than

       others.

   2. When we look at other nationalities as different than us, we

       fail to realize that we all descendants from Adam and Eve.

   3. We are all equal in His sight.

B. Racism only highlights our differences and not our worth.

   1. The blessing of God are not limited to man degrading

       thoughts.

   2. We are blessed because we belong to God.

THE GOOD

A. God has a plan for us includes good and bad.

    1. God promised Abraham a promise land that occupied by

        people who were the keepers until God replaced them.

    2. God also promised Abraham that his descendants would be

        slaves for 400 years.

B. God orchestrated   the jealousy between the sons of Jacob

     who sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt.

   1. Joseph because of his faithfulness rose to second in

       command next to the king pf Egypt.

   2. God orchestrated  a famine in promise land that sent

       Jacob and the rest of his families into Egypt.

  3. God allowed the Israelites to grow up and prosper inside

     a foreign land.

  

THE BAD THAT WORKED FOR THE GOOD

V:11-14 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

A. God put a king in Egypt to mistreat the Israelites.

    And put them into slavery.

   1. The king didn’t know that slavery would draw the

       Israelites together and cause them to depend on their

       God.

   2, Instead of slavery making them weak, it made them

       stronger.

B.             The oppression was, further, education. We can say nothing certainly as to the teaching which Israel received in science, art, letters, or religion. Some debts, no doubt, accrued in all these departments.

1.  Probably the alphabet itself was acquired by them, and some tinge of acquaintance was made by a few with other parts of the early blossoming Egyptian civilization.

2.   But the oppression taught them better things than these.

3.   Pressure consolidates. Common sorrows are wonderful quickeners of national feeling.

4.  The heavier the blows, the closer grained the produce of the forge. Not increase of numbers only, but tough   

             knit consciousness of their unity, was needed for their

             future.

GOD GOT PEOPLE IN HIGH PLACES WORKING FOR YOU.

V:15-19 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

  19. The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

A.  Israel grew under its oppression.

     1. The pressure which was intended to crush, only condensed.  

         "The more they afflicted them, the more they... grew."  

         So the foiled oppressors glared at them with a mixture of

         awe   and loathing, for both feelings are implied in the words

          "were grieved."

    2. It is the history of the nation in a nutshell. The same

        marvellous tenacity of life, the same power of baffling

        oppression and thriving under it, have been with them

        and still is today.

     3. The powers that oppress them fill the world with their noise

        for awhile, and pass away like a dream; they abide. For every

        tree felled, a hundred saplings spring up. What does it mean?

        and how comes it?  Israel strives today even in wars around

        them.

     4. The only answer is that God preserves them for a better

        deliverance from a worse bondage, and as His witnesses in

       their humiliation, as they were His in their prosperity.

THOSE WHO RISK THEIR LIVES FOR GOD SAVE THEIR LIVES

V:20-22. So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is bornb you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."

A. Man may plan your end, bit God plans your prosperity.

   1. Events may seem to change the course of your life,

       but they are controlled by God for your long term good.

   2. King thought that if He killed the male babies, it would

       control the growth of the Hebrew population.

   3. When God is in your life, now weapon formed against you

       will proper.

 B. For four hundred God kept Israel together as a nation until

     they grew to a nation of 2 million plus.

1.    Even though they were in bondage and ill treated,

all their needs were provided.

   2. God works wonderfully to fulfill His promise of increasing    

       His people.

   3. The land of enemies is made by God a nursery for the

       increase of His Church.

    4 God's blessing makes His Israel to fill Egypt, the Church to

       fill the world.

5.  Truth is most powerful when her back is at the wall.

   Times of oppression are times of growth, as a hundred    

    examples from the apostles' days down to the story of   

    the gospel. The world's favour does more harm than its

    enmity. Its kisses are poisonous; its blows do no hurt.

 (from The Biblical Illustrator Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006 Ages Software, Inc. and Biblesoft, Inc.)

Rev. M. Mitchell

Asst Pastor of Greater Macedonia Baptist Church

Houston, Texas 77041

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Revmmitchell.com and goodnewsrevmitc.blogspot.com

    

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