Exodus 1:8

Exodus 1:8

INTRODUCTION: Exodus for many brings up images of Charlton Hesston parting the Red Sea, and not pictures of refugees streaming out of a country like Libya. Some skeptics claim that to move a million people across a desert would be impossible. yet we have seen larger numbers of refugees move out of countries due to oppression, war, famine and natural disaster. The more we discover in the middle east the more we find that supports the facts of Genesis and Exodus. Exodus is not a story or a movie, it is history.

Two problems keep us from understanding Exodus. The first is that Egypt historians some events took place and can vary by several hundred years. The second is that some of the places the people stop at on the Exodus journey have been lost to wars and sand.

Here are some things we do know. Around 1800BC the Hyksos take control of Egypt from the Egyptians. Joseph takes control of Egypt some 50 years later and by the end of the 7 years of famine the Hyksos that Joseph works for now own most of the land of Egypt. (Gen 47:20-21) The Hyksos will rule Egypt for about 300 to 400 years and then the Egyptians take control of the country back. Exodus 1:8 tells us a new king who did not know of Joseph came to power. This Egyptian ruler oppressed the Hebrew people and 430 years after Jacob took his family to Egypt, they leave. Exodus 12:40 We know that Jacob was buried in Hebron by Joseph Genesis 50:12, and Joseph was taken with the people and buried in Shechem. Joshua 24:32 Both tombs have been found though Muslim terrorist destroyed one of them.

Lets now look at the start of life of Moses for it has something for today in it.

Read Exodus 2:1-10

Moses' mother places him adrift in a basket, his fate seemingly left to current of the Nile. This is a river with crocodiles and dangerous water. Baby Moses life seems precarious at best

Today we look around us and we may feel adrift. Budget battles, pinksliped teachers, threatened layoffs, protest, jobs lost, our own household budgets strapped. The world in turmoil if not tribulation. We can feel out of control, adrift like Baby Moses floating in the current of the Nile. But in the midst of all that chaos God had a plan. Moses was not adrift but guided into the house of Pharaoh. Today I remind us that though we feel adrift and even helpless, the currents that carry us are being guided by God to a place where we cannot see or comprehend right now. Today, in our basket adrift in the current of life we are still guided by God.