Day 288

Day 288

Pray (ACts)

Read - Exodus 1:1-5

Message - Alan Burke 

I have a question for you, would you put your child or someone close to you in the path of danger? Likely you didn’t even give that question a second thought, you knew immediately that you wouldn’t or at least I hope that you didn’t give it a second thought. We want to protect those who we care about, we don’t want to see them placed in harms way, parents can even be guilty of being over protective of their children, wrapping them in cotton wool. That is what Moses’ mother attempted to do, it may not seem like that’s what she was doing but remember how Satan through Pharaoh was at work in opposition to the plans and purposes of God. Pharaoh had forced the people of God into slavery, had ordered infanticide, then resorted to genocide, decreeing that all newborn Hebrew boys should be thrown into the Nile (1:22).

This child’s mother did all that she could to keep him from harm’s way. For three months she hid him, the screaming the crying, the dirty nappies, this wasn’t an easy job, yet she did all that she could to preserve the life of the child in spite of Pharaoh’s edict. Then when she was no longer able to conceal her growing baby son within her home she weaves and waterproofs a basket. After spending hours and hours on, doing all that she can so that this basket would be a place where she believed her son would be safe from the hands of the Egyptians. It may not sound that significant until you know the word that is translated basket isn’t basket but rather the Hebrew word that is used ‘Ark’.

The placing of this child in reeds was effectively placing him harms way, far enough away from earshot so if he had screamed his head of that no one would have heard him. On one level this may seem barbaric but what was the option, let him be found or hide him away, placing his sister there to watch him, keeping an eye him and his mother coming later maybe under the cover of dark to feed him all so that this child could live. This isn’t the lovely little story that we have domesticated to be less barbaric this is an act of desperation by the parents of this child. What a time to live in, what fear these parents must have had that in order to save the life of this three month old baby Moses. This is a plan that has come out of desperation. This helpless three month old, in a papyrus ark, coated with tar and pitch, hidden in the reeds along the bank of the nile, as Miriam his sister watches on.

But just as God in his divine deliverance saved Noah from the waters in the ark, God was going to divinely deliver Moses as part of his redemptive purposes. He is only one Israelite among many but God’s saving purposes are once more at work in the midst of it all. He had brought his people to this Land of Egypt and he was bringing forth a deliverer by his divine deliverance to save his people, to redeem and rescue them. All of that which took place was in accord with the wonderful purposes of God, in his providence he was ordering it all that he would bring salvation to his people, for from beginning to end, salvation belongs to our God. In all of this, God was at work, he has divinely delivered Moses, this didn’t take place by mere chance or luck, this wasn’t blind fate this was the hand of God at work. We will think more about this on Friday and Sunday but for now, remember that truth how God in his providence was at work, just as right here in this day God by his providence is at work (Heb 1:3, Ps 103:19, Matt 10:29-31). We have thought about this before but it’s a truth that we constantly need reminded of, for God by his providence is at work, that means in what you face, in the midst of Covid, in all of it, God is at work.  

Pray (acTS)

Sing

WSC
Q59 Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?
From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath. (Gen. 2:2–3, 1 Cor. 16:1–2, Acts 20:7)
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