Well, royal scandals are everywhere on the pages of history.
For millennia, people have plotted, seduced, bribed, battled, beheaded,
and committed countless atrocities to either seize a throne
or to increase their access or their influence over a throne.
The greatest royal scandal these days is a young couple trying to get as far away as the throne as they possibly can.
But in world history, it doesn't sort of rate as a royal scandal.
I've never heard anywhere in the editorials about bringing back the chopping block
or anything like that to do with a young Harry or Meghan.
There have been many great royal scandals that have displayed the stupidity,
the ineptitude, the selfishness, and the cruelty of leaders.
Even in England, a number of them.
We don't have to go very much far back than Henry VIII,
woman in one hand and a leg of lamb in the other.
But even you go into the history of Egypt,
and again you come up with scandal after scandal of ineptitude,
stupidity amongst the pharaohs.
Pharaoh Pepe II, who oversaw the downfall of the sixth Egyptian dynasty,
he was pretty much a weird one.
He had many, many wives,
all of whom were his sisters.
That was creepy even in their day and their culture.
And apart from loving his sisters,
he is known for having some sort of weird fascination with pygmies
and would search the world for pygmies
and bring them back into the Egyptian empire,
to his cities and his palaces.
And he also loved his food like Henry VIII.
He would work apparently only very briefly in any given day,
but spend most of his days hosting feasts,
one after another after another.
The only thing he particularly hated about his feasts
was the constant need for him to shoo the flies away.
And so one thing that he decided to do,
one of his solution,
was to bring into his dining area a bunch of slaves,
have them doused in honey,
and get them to serve the food
and to stand to one side in order to draw all the insects.
Sort of like a living, breathing fly trap, if you like.
Now, like many before him and after him,
Pepe II oppressed others for his own glory and freedom.
And we see it again as we open up
the first two chapters of Exodus.
Again, jumping into the Egyptian empire,
but a terrifying situation of royalty behaving badly again,
but in this case, terrifyingly so.
This is a story,
Exodus is a story of salvation,
salvation from slavery.
So if you've got the St. Paul's app,
it'd be great if you could open that up.
And I've got three points there.
I want to run through today as we launch into this series.
Three things I want to say in the first two chapters.
The promise of salvation.
First of all, three principles of salvation.
And lastly, the person of salvation.
So firstly, the promise of salvation.
Now, the book of Exodus begins with the word and.
It's missing in virtually every English translation.
But the word and immediately alerts us to the fact that this book is part of a much bigger story.
Exodus flows straight on where Genesis left off.
In fact, the last three verses of Genesis give us a really strong hint
that there is a sequel coming to this movie.
It says,
Weird, because they weren't needing it in that moment.
We'll come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, God will surely come to your aid.
And then you must carry my bones up from this place.
So Joseph died at the age of 110.
And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.
So the unfolding story of Genesis is the background to Exodus.
And more specifically, as highlighted there, is that the promises of God to Abraham are the background to these opening chapters.
In Genesis 12, 15 and 17, God made a promise to Abraham, just an ordinary bloke.
A man that he called out of idolatry to know him, to obey him and to follow him.
It's a promise God sealed with a covenant with Abraham.
A covenant is a binding agreement between two parties.
And there are two elements to this binding agreement to God's promise.
The first was the promise of a people.
Abraham, we are told from God, Abraham is told that he would become a great nation.
Leave your family, go and you will become a great nation.
And the second was the promise of a land.
Abraham's family would inherit the land of Canaan as their home.
And above all, God promised to Abraham that a descendant from Abraham would in fact be the savior.
The one who would defeat evil and rescue his people.
And 400 years before Exodus chapter 1, that promise was under threat.
A famine looked like it would in fact wipe out Abraham's family.
God, however, rescued his people through a descendant of Abraham.
A man named Joseph who rose up from slavery and imprisonment to become sort of like the prime minister of Egypt.
Through Joseph's leadership, all the nations were blessed and saved from starvation.
In those desperate times, Joseph's whole family settled in Egypt.
And so the promise of God was secure for a time.
Four centuries later, at the beginning of Exodus, God promised his promise of establishing a nation for himself is gradually being fulfilled.
The first five verses list the sons of Israel who came to Egypt.
The total number of Joseph's family who settled in Egypt was about 70.
Now, 400 years later, they have become a great nation.
As verse 6 and 7 indicate, they have multiplied greatly and have filled the lands.
In fact, they've become so great, they are now resented and feared.
So once again, the promise of God, his covenant to Abraham is under threat.
As Pharaoh enslaves the Israelites and works them ruthlessly.
So the book of Exodus is a story of God fulfilling his promise of liberation and salvation.
Israel is rescued from slavery in Egypt.
It's a rescue that points ultimately to a greater rescue.
And we will see this again and again as we journey through Exodus.
The liberation of God's people from slavery to sin.
We are spending this term in Exodus because this story of salvation 3,000 years ago is our story of salvation.
The Old Testament prophets promised a new Exodus.
And the trajectory of Exodus right from the opening verses just points us, takes us to Jesus.
This book is key to understanding the person and the work of Jesus Christ.
It points us to him and inspires us to worship him.
Secondly, Exodus 1 and 2 cover many decades of time.
They give us the background, if you like, and they set up the liberation that will come in the chapters to follow.
They also teach us in these first two chapters, they teach us some key principles of salvation.
The first principle is that salvation is rescue from the misery and the slavery of serving anything in your life as more important than God.
Let me say that again.
Salvation is rescue from the misery and the slavery of serving anything in your life as more important than God.
Have a look at me at verses 13 and 14 in Exodus 1.
The Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and work them ruthlessly.
They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields.
In all their harsh labor, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
Now basically, and I don't like doing this as a general rule, but I think this is helpful in this instance.
Every English translation softens the original language in those verses.
You can see that when I give you a more literal reading of those verses.
Let me read it to you and I'll tell you why.
It makes it obvious why they soften it.
Right?
So here we go.
The same Hebrew verb is used over and over.
It's the word that means to serve.
Serving as if you are serving a master.
Israel is a forced servant of another.
It's a deep and oppressive service.
This is Israel's plight.
Ignorant of her God, she serves another with great pain.
Now one of the themes of the Bible, and it's here in Exodus,
it is in knowing and serving God that we find blessing.
We are freed from other oppressive masters.
As Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters.
And what he means by that is you can only serve one master.
We are truly free when we are serving the right master.
When Moses went to Pharaoh, let me just expand this point a little bit.
When he went to Pharaoh a couple of chapters later than this,
he did not say, let my people go.
Now I know Charlton Heston said that in the movie,
and I know we all want to believe that's what he said.
He did not say, let my people go.
He always said, let my people go that they may serve me,
that they may worship me in the wilderness.
That is, the book of Exodus doesn't end when Israel escapes through the sea
and out of Egypt's clutches.
There is a whole second section to this book,
and most of us get bogged down in the second section of the book.
Halfway through, we get bogged down at this point.
The first half of Exodus is full of special effects.
It's the exciting stuff, the miracles, the action, the power.
It's the stuff we want to read through.
The second half is page after page after page of instructions
on how to build a tabernacle
and what you're supposed to do when you build a tabernacle
and what goes on the doorposts
and what the priests are meant to wear.
It's the sort of stuff that, frankly,
doesn't ever get into a movie about Exodus.
But if you cut the second half of Exodus out,
you don't include it in the movie of Exodus,
you miss the entire teaching of the book.
You miss the whole point.
Exodus starts in slavery and it ends in worship.
It starts in service, the word service,
and it ends with the word service.
which in English translations are translated slavery and worship.
Service and service, the same word is used at the beginning and the end.
You go from serving one to serving another.
God's salvation means freedom,
liberation to serve the only one whose service will never crush us.
That's what liberation is.
Now, when we hear that in the modern context,
we interpret freedom very differently than that.
We interpret freedom as having no masters of constraints whatsoever.
No boundaries, no constraints.
It's freedom to choose to live life any way I want to live.
And Exodus works against that definition for us.
Until we are captivated by the beauty and the presence of the God who made us and love us,
we are never free.
Never free.
Unless we are centered on him and we serve him and we worship him,
then we are always a slave to something else.
Something else has captivated us.
Anything that we center our life on more than God makes us a slave to it.
How does that happen?
Well, every single human being has something that they live for.
Something that makes us think that if we have it,
we have security and we have significance.
It might be, let's just pick on us for a moment,
it might be a religious thing.
Where we feel significant, we feel secure,
we feel hopeful because we are devout and we are good.
Whatever it is, it might be our family,
it might be success, professional status, a good name.
It could be anything that makes us feel significant, happy and secure.
However, you can generally tell what it is because we generally respond with anger
when someone tries to take that thing away from us.
Or we are terribly despondent and troubled when we lose it.
Our sense of identity and worth is wrapped up in our career,
our work that we do, we lose it,
into depression real quick.
Can't focus in life.
But if you must have it, this is the thing,
if you must have that thing in order to feel good about yourself and your life,
then what that means is, is you are actually serving it.
Constantly striving for it, to have it.
You're not free, you're not living free,
you're pursuing that thing.
Striving to get that thing.
You are not free, you are chained to it
and anything that can threaten it.
And so therefore you live in fear.
Exodus tells us that our journey out of slavery isn't done
until we come to rest in worship and service and love of God.
He's the only one who deserves the highest allegiance of our life.
The second principle of salvation we see here
is that we are usually prepared for salvation
through difficult and hard times in life.
One of the striking things about the first two chapters of Exodus
is that God is hardly mentioned at all.
Things are going from bad to worse
and God hardly even seems to be around.
First, Pharaoh enslaves the people
and when that doesn't work,
he tries to kill all the male infants,
which is an act of cultural genocide.
And when he can't get the midwives to do it subtly and quietly,
then he orders everyone,
and I'm assuming here,
this is an order for not just the Egyptian population,
but for the Hebrew population as well.
You see a baby boy,
Hebrew boy playing in a playground,
you grab him and you throw him in the Nile.
It's an order for all of the population.
It gets worse and worse
and the one person
in chapters one and two,
the one person
who looks like he might be able to do something
turns out to be no good at all
when in anger he murders an Egyptian man.
In that act,
he alienates both God's people
and gets Pharaoh as an enemy.
He ends up running off into the desert,
gets cut off from the power
and the position
that he could have used
in order to help his people
out of the plight that they're in.
Everything gets worse
to worse to worse
and you've got to ask,
where is God?
Two long chapters
covering decades
and I mean decades
of Israel's history
and God is mentioned
in verse 17
and verse 20
and that's all.
That's all.
But is that not the natural sense
that we have
when things are going bad in life?
God, where are you?
You just don't seem to be there.
God seems absent.
He seems powerless.
He even seems careless.
And yet these chapters
turn that whole idea
on their head
when you dig in a bit closer to them.
Every bad thing here
turns out for good.
It's remarkable.
everything that Pharaoh
tries to do here
doesn't just backfire on him
but it accomplishes
the exact opposite
of what he was hoping to achieve.
He enslaves the Israelites
who didn't know their God
and he tries to get the midwives
to murder the male babies.
Verse 20 however
tells us
the midwives
feared God
they were brave
and
they had children
themselves
and the Israelites
increased in number.
One of the great
ironies of these chapters
is that it is only
because
it is only because
Pharaoh
tried to kill off
all the male infants
that Moses
was brought
into
the Egyptian palace
and received
the training needed
to become a liberator.
It's only because of that.
Only because
of the decree
to kill
all the male infants
is Moses
nursed
by his own mother
for the early years
of his life
probably three to four years
he received
his own
Israelite identity
before going
into the palace
and receiving
the best academic
and military training
in the land
in the world
at the time.
It's only because
of that decree
the ideal liberator
was created
by the decree
designed to destroy
the people
from whom
he came.
Even the stupidity
of Moses
gets turned around
he ends up
out in the desert
and he learns
the humility
over the course
of many years
the very thing
that he would not learn
in the palace
of Egypt.
Numbers 12
verse 3
tells us
Moses was a very
humble man
more humble
than anyone else
on the face
of the earth.
He learned
not just the ability
of leadership
in Egypt
he learned
the character
of leadership
in the wilderness.
That was the missing
ingredient
when he decided
to take on
and kill
the Egyptian.
Now
we can see
this because
of the standpoint
of history
but they couldn't
see that.
They couldn't
see that.
In the same way
we cannot see
when God
what he's doing
and so question
whether
he is in fact
a promise
keeping God
a powerful
God
a caring
God.
We learn
here
that when
God seems
the most
hidden
and the
most absent
he's not.
He is
working for
our good
he is producing
miracle
after miracle
he's working
for justice
and salvation.
The Bible
tells us
he doesn't
want anyone
to suffer
he takes
no delight
in the suffering
of any human
being
and yet
behind all
the suffering
he's working
to bring
about good
and justice.
Everything
that God
was doing
here in
these chapters
with Moses
was to
prepare
Moses
for an
unforgettable
encounter
in chapter
3.
Moses
at this
point
did not
know
his God
but he
does
in chapter
3.
The third
principle
is salvation
comes to the
weak and the
powerless
not the
strong and
the powerful.
God works
for and
with the
poor
the
marginalized
the excluded
the oppressed
he works
through weakness
not power
for the
outsider
he works
through
the outsider
God works
with the
second son
not the
first son
in cultures
where the
first son
had all
the rights
and the
privileges
you see
that
read through
Genesis
it's
Abel
not Cain
it's
Isaac
not Ishmael
it's
Jacob
not Esau
he also
works
through
the older
women
the barren
women
the unloved
women
it's
Sarah
not Hagar
it's
Leah
not Rachel
in
Exodus
1 and
2
all the
heroes
of salvation
are
females
all of
them
are
females
there are
only two
males
in
chapters
1 and
2
one's
wicked
and
one's
stupid
in
Exodus
1
the
two
heroes
are
the
two
midwives
verse 15
we are told
their names
Shipra
and Pua
what we
know
about
midwives
at the
time
is that
midwives
were mostly
women
who did
not have
children
of their
own
in
fact
in
verse
20
God
rewards
their
faith
by
giving
them
children
which
means
they
didn't
have
them
and
in
their
culture
these
women
without
children
were
considered
useless
or
even
cursed
by the
gods
family
was
everything
heritage
was
everything
and so
they were
given
a low
social
status
God
saves
his
people
through
those
with
low
ranking
women
who
courageously
obey
God
and not
the most
powerful
man
in the
world
and then
you move
to Exodus
chapter 2
and we
have
Moses
mother
she
like
the
rest
was
commanded
to throw
her baby
son
into
the
river
and so
she
does
just
not
quite
the
way
that
Pharaoh
had
in
mind
put
him
in
his
own
little
boat
instead
and then
there's
Pharaoh's
daughter
she's
a
Gentile
she's
a racial
and a
religious
outsider
and surprisingly
she is
compassionate
and she
takes a
huge
risk
to
defy
her
father
God
uses
a
Gentile
to
save
his
people
when
you
look
at
chapters
1
and
2
what
is
remarkable
and
it
is
no
accident
that
Pharaoh
is
not
named
the
most
powerful
person
in the
world
at the
time
we
don't
know
exactly
who
he
is
it's
speculation
to
this
day
but
we
know
who
Shipra
and
Pua
are
3,000
years
later
God
works
with
the
nobodies
of
this
world
and
he
gives
them
a
name
and
he
can
give
you
a
name
a
name
that
will
never
perish
spoil
or
fade
disappear
into
oblivion
his
salvation
makes
you
a
somebody
forever
of
course
when
you
have
experienced
God's
salvation
and
you
become
a
somebody
in
him
you
have
been
set
free
and
elevated
the
power
of
that
transformation
in
your
life
means
that
you
work
for
the
marginalized
and
the
disadvantaged
and
the
powerless
and
the
poor
in
this
world
they're
not
nobodies
so
those
are
the
three
principles
of
salvation
that
we
see
here
serving
anything
but
God
is
slavery
God
is
always
at
work
in
the
hard
times
preparing
you
for
salvation
and
his
salvation
comes
through
the
outsider
for
the
outsider
now
there's
one more
thing
that we
need to
see
though
because
if I
left it
there
and
time wise
I could
probably
leave it
there
I
leave you
with a
terrible
burden
if we
just
cut it
off
there
you
would
now
be
left
with
a
terrible
burden
terrible
burden
of
religion
and
striving
and
stoicism
and
guilt
principles
of
salvation
do
not
save
we
need
a
person
of
salvation
we
need
the
person
to
whom
Moses
points
and
as
we
read
through
those
first
two
chapters
I
wonder
did
those
first
two
chapters
sound
familiar
to
you
at
all
did
it
remind
you
of
anything
at
all
the
king
decreed
that
all
the
male
infants
should
be
killed
and
yet
a
child
is
born
and
escapes
death
at
the
hands
of
the
king
a
child
who
rose
up
and
liberated
his
people
he
is
rejected
by
his
own
people
and
goes
into
the
wilderness
and
is
anointed
with
the
spirit
of
God
in
order
to
lead
his
people
to
freedom
he
is
under
the
sentence
of
death
and
condemnation
but
because
and
through
that
sentence
of
death
he
is
raised
up
and
becomes
the
prince
of
peace
and
the
liberator
of
God's
people
sound
familiar
to
you
at
all
you
know
like
let's
see
if
it
doesn't
think
Christmas
Matthew
chapter
2
1
2
3
4
5
Jesus
ascends
the
mountain
gather
his
disciples
around
him
and
teaches
them
the
word
of
God
Exodus
20
Moses
ascends
the
mountain
receives
the
word
of
God
and
teaches
the
people
there
is
so
many
direct
parallels
between
Moses
the
great
liberator
in the
Old
Testament
and
Jesus
Christ
the
liberator
of all
people
in
Luke
9
we
are
told
that
Jesus
was
transfigured
on the
mountain
and the
disciples
saw him
filled
with the
glory
of God
and we
are told
this
in Luke
chapter
9
verses
30
and 31
two
men
Moses
and
Elijah
appeared
in
glorious
splendor
talking
with
Jesus
and they
spoke
to
Jesus
about
his
departure
which
he
was
about
to
bring
to
fulfillment
at
Jerusalem
the
word
departure
there
in
Luke
9
is
weird
it's
a
weird
word
it's
a
little
difficult
for
English
translators
it
literally
reads
that
Moses
and
Elijah
were
talking
with
Jesus
about
his
exodus
they
were
talking
about
his
exodus
his
crucifixion
the
thing
that
was
about
his
exodus
at
Jerusalem
the
crucifixion
as
his
exodus
was
great
but
it
was
limited
it
was
social
and
it
was
a
physical
liberation
for
one
people
group
at
one
particular
time
in
history
Jesus
is
about
to
perform
the
ultimate
liberation
Jesus
exodus
will
be
a
liberation
from
sin
and
death
for
all
people
for
all
of
eternity
Moses
liberated
the
risk
of
his
own
life
but
Jesus
liberated
the
cost
of
his
own
life
on
the
cross
Philippians
2
which
John
read
out
to
us
at
the
beginning
of
today's
service
tells
us
that
Jesus
left
the
throne
room
of
God
as
God
himself
the
eternal
palace
so to
speak
and
stepped
into
our
shoes
of
slavery
to
sin
Philippians
2
specifically
says
God
became
a
slave
he
became
a
servant
in
order
to
liberate
those
of
us
all
of
us
who
are
slaves
servants
to
sin
it is
the
liberating
work
of
Jesus
that
liberates
us
we
must
trust
in
his
ultimate
service
for
us
without
Jesus
as
the
liberator
without
him
as
the
savior
the
rescuer
then
serving
God
burden
that
I
must
fulfill
which
is
the
perfect
definition
of
what
religion
is
Christianity
take
Jesus
take
the
savior
out
take
the
person
of
salvation
out
Christianity
will boil
down to
my
effort
and
we'll
either
feel
guilty
for
not
performing
or
feel
proud
because
we're
doing
a whole
lot
better
than
everyone
else
and
when
we
do
that
we
become
our
own
liberator
we
become
our
own
rescuer
our
own
savior
because
we
trust
in
our
own
commitment
and
therefore
ultimately
we
will
be
crushed
by
our
own
service
it
will
never
ever
be
enough
without
Jesus
as the
liberator
the
savior
the
rescuer
then
our
suffering
will
either
break
us
or
it
will
turn
us
into
a
stoic
person
stoicism
can I
say
is
not
maturity
it
is
a
weakness
we
need
to
see
Jesus
who
suffered
for
us
suffered
because
of
us
he
has
been
there
and
knows
it
and
he
feels
it
he
is
not
distant
he
is
not
cruel
he
is
not
cold
without
Jesus
as the
liberator
the
savior
the
rescuer
then
working
for
social
justice
will
wear
us
out
or
make
us
angry
and
manipulative
will
either
be
tired
or
will
be
angry
Jesus
shows
me
that
God
loves
the
powerless
our
salvation
was
accomplished
because
Jesus
letting
go
of
power
and
dying
on
the
cross
his
salvation
is
brought
into
our
life
when
we
acknowledge
that
we
are
weak
that
we
are
poor
that
we
are
marginalized
that
we
are
broken
and
we
need
his
grace
when
we
realize
that
we
are
loved
and
we
are
accepted
though
we
are
unlovable
and
we
are
unworthy
until
we
fully
grasp
that
can
we
move
out
to
help
the
vulnerable
from
a
genuine
place
of
identifying
with
them
rather
than
elevating
ourselves
over
them
it
means
therefore
that
you
will
treat
them
well
only
when
we
see
the
person
to
whom
Moses
salvation
points
are
we
genuinely
set
free
and
that
is
Jesus
promise
to
you
to
me
to
all
of
humanity
to
you
watching
on
the
screen
that
is
Jesus
promise
to
you
Jesus
the
king
of
kings
the
prince
of
peace
calls
all
of
us
to
come
and
to
find
salvation
to
find
rest
in
him
liberation
in
him
freedom
in
him
in
Matthew
11
his
call
to
you
is
come
to
me
all
who
are
weary
and
burdened
and
I
will
give
you
rest
take
my
yoke
upon
you
and
learn
from
me
for
I
am
gentle
and
humble
in
heart
and
you
will
find
rest
for
your
souls
for
my
yoke
is
easy
and
my
burden
is
light
right
your
School
Think
do
stuff
鳍
about
ASMR
For
one
take
for
listen
to
uh
can
tap
刘
the
dreaming
can
Christ
even
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