Program Extras

Series: Walking in the Wilderness with God
Dr. Woodrow Kroll
July 14, 2008

Woodrow Kroll: Hello and welcome to the study room here at Back to the Bible. I’m Woodrow Kroll.

Tami Weissert: And I’m Tami Weissert. And you picked a great day to join us because, Dr. Kroll . . .

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, that’s right, Tami. Today, we’re going to look at some very, very interesting stories, some of my favorite stories: The Israelites’ exodus out of Egypt, their journey through the wilderness, the ten commandments--all good stuff.

Tami Weissert: OK, it’s a new two-week series on Exodus. You know, I love the history. I love the stories, but as I read it sometimes I get frustrated because they did some really dumb things.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, that’s true. Now, let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt, in your own life, abandoned by God?

Tami Weissert: Um, I wouldn’t say totally abandoned, but there was a time where some things happened. My dad got cancer and died. Shortly after that my husband got cancer. Right after that my mom got cancer. There was a time there that, I think, I could have maybe gone there. I didn’t.

Woodrow Kroll: Things are a little dicey.

Tami Weissert: Yeah, a little dicey.

Woodrow Kroll: Well, this is what I want you all to know. God always has a plan for his people. And even if when He seems that He may be abandoning us, He’s always there for us. We’re going to find out why today on Back to the Bible.

Today we begin a brand new series, a discussion of the Book of Exodus. Exodus is one of my favorite books. It’s historical. It tells us about God. And as we’ve already discussed, it helps us understand God when we think He’s abandoned us.

If you have your Bible, join our study group here. We’re looking at Exodus 1. No better place to begin than right in the beginning.

Let’s start at verse 8, because at verse 8 there’s a new pharaoh, and there’s a new day in Egypt.

It says in verse 8, "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us, and escape from the land.’"

Now, this is a real problem for this new pharaoh. The people of Israel have been now some 400 years in Egypt. They’ve been growing and multiplying and the end result of this is that suddenly the pharaoh says, "There are so many Israelites in our midst, we have to do something about these people. First thing you know, they will outnumber the Egyptians, and if there’s a fight, they’ll fight with our enemies, and we’ll be destroyed."

So, this new king has a real issue to deal with. We don’t know who this king is. If you hold to the early date of the Exodus, you would do so if you take a literal reading of 1 Kings 6:1, that says, "It was four hundred and eighty years before Solomon’s fourth year of reign." That’s 1 Kings 6:1.

That means then that this pharaoh is probably a guy by the name of Thutmose III, or Thutmosis III, whoever he is, we do know this about him: He has a real problem. He doesn’t know anything about Joseph. He’s forgotten all about the history of his own country because Joseph, as you remember at the end of the Book of Genesis, was a very key figure in Egypt.

So, he has a new strategy. He has to control these Jews somehow. And what we’re going to see today is that there are all these storms that come into our lives--storms like the death of family members, or storms like financial reversals, or storms like difficulties in marriage. There are storms that came into the life of the people of Israel here in Egypt. But when the storms of our lives come, they’re always the seeds of hope that we can find in the middle of those storms. All we have to do is know how look for them and where to look for them.

So, here’s the storm. The storm of life is there’s a new king, doesn’t know anything about the Israelites, doesn’t know anything about Joseph. And as a result this new king says, "I have to control the people of Israel somehow."

Now, here’s his plan. You see it in the next verse, verse 11. "Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad."

Now this is really interesting. You have the storms of life here in the midst of these poor Israelites living in Egypt, and the king doesn’t know anything about Joseph.

The king says, "I have to control these people somehow. I know how I’ll do it. I’ll make them work harder. I’ll have them as my slaves build my store cities [cities where I store my grain and other things], Pithom and Raamses." And here’s the neat thing about God. Right in the middle of the storms of life, God plants the seeds of hope. That’s true for these people; it’s true for you too.

God plants seeds of hope if you know where to find them. Now, here’s one of the seeds of hope. It says here that they built these cities but the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied.

Now, the whole key to why this oppression takes place is, to reduce the number of Israelites in the middle of Egypt.

Some years ago, I was sitting in the kitchen of Samuel Lamb, a pastor in China. He had a hotplate there and just a little part of the room was used as the kitchen. That’s where his church met, in this little flat in Guangzhou, China.

And I was sitting there as he was eating his bowl of rice and talking to him about the church in China, especially the underground church. And he said to me when he first started the church, it began to grow pretty rapidly. And the first thing you know, they had 400 people attending services in his little flat.

And then the police heard about them and came and took him away and put him in prison. And he says while I was in prison, my church grew from 400 to 800.

They let him out of prison. Eight hundred was too many for one little flat, so they had rented the flat, the little apartment below them. And they put in close circuit television for the apartment below them. And he said, "While I was there, things were pretty stable. The police came and took me away, and while I was in prison [19 years he was in prison], the church grew from 800 to 1,600. 

Now, he’s eating his rice with his chopsticks. He gets this wry little look on his face and he says to me, "I think I’m going to write a book about church growth." Because everything that happened in his life caused the church in Guangzhou, China to grow more rapidly.

That’s exactly what’s happening here. The more Pharaoh tries to oppress the people of Israel, the more the people of Israel grow. 

So, there are seeds of hope that are planted right in the middle of the storms of the lives of these people. The seeds of hope, you find them there in verses 17 all the way down to verse 21.

Verse 20 says, "So God dealt well with the midwives." See, the pharaoh said to the midwives, "What you’ve got to do is when you find out that an Israeli woman is having a child, if it’s a girl, let the child live. If it’s a boy, I want you to kill that little boy."

But these two midwives would not do that. Their names were found in verse 15, Shiphrah and Puah. Shiphrah and Puah said, "We’re not going to do this." And so they saved the little boys alive. They said, "Look, these women are hardy, these Jewish women. They deliver before we can get to their tent or their house to assist in the delivery process." And as a result, the Israelites continued to grow in the midst of the difficulties of their lives.

The storms of life show us the planting of God’s seeds of hope. And the seeds of hope not only come by the fact that they continue to grow but they come by these two midwives who are willing to stand up to the greatest, strongest man on the face of the earth and do the right thing.

But chapter 1 ends with some more storms in the lives of these people. Notice what it says, the last verse, verse 22, "Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, 'Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.'"

Now, a little baby in the Nile would not stand much of a chance, but the Nile is a particularly dirty river anyway. The intent here is to cause more storms in the lives of these Israelites. But as we’ve already seen, and we’re going to see a little more in just a moment, God always plants the seeds of hope. God never abandons His people. And if you have faith in God, you will find the seeds of hope even in the storms of your life.

Now, I want to come back in just a minute and talk about the birth of Moses because that’s another seed of hope right in the middle of the storms of the lives of these people in Egypt.

We’ll be back in just a minute.

Tami Weissert: This month in our Meet with God study, we’re focusing on growing spiritually even in the midst of hardship. Now, if you didn’t know, Meet with God is our monthly devotional that helps you dig deeper into God’s Word.

Well, this month the goal of Meet with God is to help you use your Bible to discover what to do even if it feels like God’s just not there. Dr. Kroll always says, "The lack of Bible reading isn’t a problem in the church, it’s the problem." And the goal of Meet with God is to help you read your Bible and think about how it applies to you.

Now, as always, Meet with God is absolutely free, all you have to do is ask for your own free copy and we’ll send it to you every month. So, give us a call, ask for Meet with God. Our phone number here at Back to the Bible is 1-800-759-2425, that’s toll free. Or you can go online to backtothebible.org.

Woodrow Kroll: Well, we’re looking today at the Book of Exodus and how in the middle of the storms of our lives, God has this incredible way of planting seeds of hope.

There was a king who arose over the Egyptians who didn’t know anything about Joseph, didn’t know anything that Joseph did for the people of Egypt.

Now, these 400 years later, he doesn’t like the fact that there are so many Israelites living in his midst. So, he tries to control them by increasing their burden. That’s the storms in the lives of these Israelites, but in the middle of the storms come the seeds of hope. God always plants those seeds. And one of the great seeds of hope, for the Israelites, is the birth of a fellow by the name of Moses.

Now, we’re going to see that in chapter 2. Look at chapter 2, verse 1, it says, "Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months."

Let me tell you something. All of my life, I’ve been wondering at that verse. If he was such a fine child, why would you hide him, right? But that’s exactly the point. Today when we have a fine-looking child, we take pictures and show everybody those pictures. But because he was born to a Jewish woman and a Jewish man in the country of Egypt, she knew if she was going to spare the life of this little boy, she had to hide him.

So she did. She hid the little child three months. Now that’s the seed of hope in the middle of a storm of life. She has, this woman has, a baby boy who is going to turn out to be the great deliverer of the people of Israel out of the country of Egypt.

But no sooner do you see the seeds of hope here than you see more storms of life. Verse 3 talking about storms, "When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with the bitumen [or if you’re from the British Empire, bitumen (different pronunciations)], and pitch, she put the child in it, and placed it among the reeds by the river's bank." That’s a difficult situation because she knows in order to save her little boy; she has to give him up.

She makes this little basket. She puts him in the little basket. She sets him in the bulrushes on the edges of the Nile River, and does a very brilliant thing. Notice in verse 4 it says, "And his sister stood at a distance, to know what would be done to him."

She sends out a little spy, Miriam the older sister of Moses. And Miriam’s job, even though she’s just a child herself, Miriam’s job is to tell the mother and father what becomes of the boy that they put in the basket.

So, the storms of life continue for these people. Even though Moses is born, she has to give him up, put him on the water, send him away, and trust God that God will spare his life. 

That’s a very difficult thing to do in your life and mine. But when the storms of life come, it’s the only recourse we have. We have to find someone we can trust, and the person we trust is the Lord God Himself.

Now, suddenly the seeds of hope change to the storms of life. But if you look at this passage, you have to be impressed by how quickly the storms of life show us more seeds of hope, verse 5--more seeds of hope coming in verse 5.

"Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river." That has surprised me as well. I’ve been on the Nile, I don’t know, dozens, and dozens of times, and I want to tell you, there is one river I would not bathe in, it’s the Nile River. You have to assume that it was a very much cleaner river in those days than it is today.

Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to the river to bathe. And while her young women walked beside the river; she saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant women, and she took it.

Now, of all the women who were bathing in the Nile that day, what are the odds that Pharaoh’s daughter would find the basket? And what are the odds that the deliverer of the people of Israel from Egypt would be the baby in that basket?

Odds are not the issue here. This is God’s controlling sovereign hand to make sure that His plan has worked out in Egypt.

Well, she opens the basket, verse 6, she saw the child, "Behold the baby was crying. She took pity on him, and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrews’ children.’ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, 'Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?' And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Go.’"

So, the girl went and called the child’s mother and Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, "Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him."

God has this incredible sense of humor. This is Moses' mother and Moses’ older sister telling the daughter of Pharaoh--the strongest most prolific man in the world, the man who owns more than anything else in the world, the strong man of the world--these two young women, a mother and a daughter, are telling the daughter of Pharaoh, "We’ll find you a nurse." And when she finds the nurse, it’s the mother of Moses and she gets paid to take care of her own son.

Now, that’s the seeds of hope in the middle of the storms of life. Could you have guessed that this would happen? Absolutely not. But you are never able to out-guess God, like we’re never able to out-plan God.

What we have to do is trust God. And that’s exactly what they’re doing here. Moses would grow to become the dominant figure in the Bible, certainly in the Old Testament of the Bible. In fact, in the Old Testament Moses is mentioned by name 767 times; that’s a lot. In fact, in the New Testament he’s mentioned 79 times by name; that’s a lot for an Old Testament character being mentioned in the New Testament. This little baby represents the seeds of hope for the entire nation of Israel.

Well, this little baby grows and there are more storms in the lives of these Israelites. He becomes a champion. But one day the champion, verse 11 tell us, one day the champion had a problem. "One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens; and he saw the Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."

This is a brand new storm in the life of the people of Israel. Now, they don’t know yet Moses is going to be their champion. God knows, of course. And we know because we have a Bible to read the story.

What we know though is that the person that we’re going to look to, and eventually all of Israel is going to look to, to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage suddenly becomes guilty of manslaughter. He kills a man. He looks this way and that way and he doesn’t see anybody watching him. And he takes the life of this man.

Manslaughter not, probably murder. He intended to take the life of this man. And his intention is seen in the fact that he hid him in the sand so nobody would know what he had done.

But if you read the story here, the next day two Hebrews are struggling and he tries to break up the fight and one of them says, "Well are you going to be a ruler over us? Are you going to treat us the same way you treated that poor Egyptian you killed yesterday?" And Moses, the champion of God, suddenly finds himself in the middle of one of the great storms of his life.

Now, look all the way down to verse 16. In verse 16, Moses goes out to Midian, which is in the middle of nowhere. "The priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. The shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock. When they came home to their father, he said, ‘How is it that you have come home so soon today?’ They said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us out of the hands of the shepherds, and even drew water for us and watered the flock.’ He said to his daughters, "Then where is he? Why have you left this man? Call him, that he may eat bread?"

Now, you know what is happening in this part of the story? Suddenly we have an Egyptian-looking man who really is a Hebrew, but he looks Egyptian because this is 40 years later. He has been raised in the household of Pharaoh for 40 years.

He has to go to Midian. And when he goes to Midian he meets two Midian girls and their father takes him in. And in the middle of his difficulty in running from Pharaoh, he runs into Jethro.

And in the process of doing that, the seeds of hope are sewn in the life of Moses to preserve him for 40 years so that when the storms of life come again, he’s there and he’s ready.

In fact, you see the storms down in verse 23, "During those many days [don’t forget that, that’s important, those many days] the king of Egypt died. And the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery, and cried out for help; their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God."

Now, you think the God of Israel abandoned the people of Israel? Not on your life. God has a plan. He’s working out that plan. And the man who He’s going to use to work out that plan just happens to be in Midian right now. He doesn’t even know he’s part of God’s plan.

Thutmose III, the man I mentioned as likely the Pharaoh "who knew not Joseph," fits very well with this expression. Tuthmose reigned for a long time. And it says, "During all those days, those many days, after those many days he finally died." And now God is putting things in motion that you and I could never have guessed would happen.

So, if you’re facing some storms in your life today, it’s easy to focus on the storms and forget the seeds of hope that God is planting. But if you’ve already learned something about the good character of God, you know that no matter how difficult your day is today, God has some seeds there for the growing. And He’s going to show His hand in your life in such a way that the seeds of hope will blossom tomorrow. That’s the story of young Moses in the Book of Exodus.

Well, I’ll be back in just minute to wrap up our discussion for today.

Tami Weissert: Hi, Tami here. You know, I love the Book of Exodus.

Now I used to be a little baffled by it too. I mean, how can God put up with people who were so out of control?

Well, if you’ve ever wondered the same thing, let me tell you about our brand new study, it’s called God’s People, God’s Plan: A Study of Exodus. It looks at those out of control situations, so that when our lives get crazy, we’re prepared. Also the study shows us how to trust God’s plan even if we can’t see it.

Now, the study of Exodus features 15 lessons. A great fit for a group Bible study with everything you need from the included Scripture passages to a devotional thought, as well as, plenty of great questions. There is even a section that guides your prayer time with insight from the study.

Look, there is more than enough material to structure your study around and really keep the discussion going. But all this said, you don’t have to have a group. I love doing it by myself, for my own private study time too.

So, place your order today. You can do that by calling us at 1-800-759-2425 and ask for God’s People, God’s Plan: A Study of Exodus. You’ll learn so much about trusting God for His provision, His protection, and His power.

Now, we are standing by to take your order. So, call us today or you can order online at backtothebible.org.

Well, Dr. Kroll, as I look back over my life, I can think of a handful of situations I would never want to go through again. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. But I learned some things that I could have never learned unless I had gone through that. So, what that tells me is there have to be ups and there have to be downs, I think, in our Christian life and in our learning.

So, how do we learn to kind of roll with that and just deal with it?

Woodrow Kroll: You know most of us try to explain way too much, you know. We think we have to know answers for why things happen to us.

First question we ask God is always, "Why?" God doesn’t give us answers to questions like that. Life has to be a little bit like your toy boat in a stream. There will be ups and downs in that stream. But you have to flow with the stream. And God will make sure that when you're in a down, the swell will come and you’ll be back up. What you have to do is trust your life to someone stronger, larger, than yourself. And the only person worthy of doing that is trusting our lives to God.

Tami Weissert: Well today we kind of saw how God is preparing Moses for leadership. But tomorrow we’re going to see what happens when Moses balks.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, Moses really wasn’t all that much into being the leader of the people of Israel. In fact, we’re going to look at all the excuses Moses has.

Tomorrow we’re going to see all the excuses Moses has for not doing the will of God. Sometimes you and I serve God for all the wrong reasons. We want to find out what those reasons are. What is it in your life that keeps you from saying, "Yes" to God? That’s our discussion tomorrow here on Back to the Bible.

Thanks to all of you for being a part of our study group today, and for you at home for joining us. God bless you. I’m Woodrow Kroll. Have a good and godly day.