Sermon Tone Analysis

*Tom** Myers*

*Faith for the Future*

*Exodus 1-2:1**-10*

 

          The name Exodus is taken from two Greek words which mean "the way out."

The book of Exodus is a book that tells us that God has a way for us to get out of our present difficulty.

The only question that is, do we have faith for the future.

Can we really trust that God will deliver us.

Just open up the first chapter of Exodus and you encounter a problem.

The question is will the Jews have faith that sometime in the future God will deliver them.

Look at Exodus 1:8-16 and notice the oppression the Jews received.

*Exodus 1:8-16** *

*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."

*

*11 **So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor,  *

 

*                (*the Hebrew word for "oppress" means to humble.

It has the idea of humiliating someone with a debasing job.

In the military they humbled trouble makers by having them clean toilets with a tooth brush.)

*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.

* The Hebrew word for *"ruthlessly" *means harshness, severity, or cruelty.

*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.

15 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."

(NIV)*

* *

            Now that's oppression.

Now you and I can be oppressed.

Now you can be oppressed at home, at work, at school.

The question is, as you are oppressed,  will you have faith that God is going to deliver you?  Let’s take a tour of the book of Exodus and see how through faith God delivers.

Chapter

EXODUS 2:1-10 - By faith God can protect your children from the pharaohs who want to destroy them.

2:15-3:7 - By faith God can use you in spite of your past failures.

3:1-4:18 - By faith can completely obey the perfect will of God.

           

4:1-5 - By faith God can use your weakest talents, and your  leastest abilities in a great way for God.

 

7-10 - By faith you can have complete confidence that the God of the Bible is absolutely powerful.

12- By faith you can have complete assurance that your all sins completely forgiven.

13-14  - By faith God can deliver you from your deserts, detours and deadlines.

15 - By faith God can turn your bitterness into blessings.

18 - By faith you can be delivered from being over worked.

20 - By faith you can obey God and still enjoy life.

25-30 - By faith you can see God's great blueprint for your life.

33 - By faith you can know the ways of God.

The book of Exodus is an exciting book.

Don't think that it is just a history book.

The Bible says in

*Romans 15:4** *

*4** **For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

(NIV)*

* *

            I want us to look at the mother of Moses.

She is an incredible example of one who lived by faith.

Do you know her name?

You have to go  to Exodus 6:20 to find her name.

Her name is Jochebed (God is glory).

She is the mother who defied the Pharaoh of Egypt.

Pharaoh wanted all males who were born to be thrown into the Nile River.

In her greatness, this mother develops a bold plan to hide her son.

When she could hide him no longer, she built a little ark of bulrushes.

Then she set her baby in the ark, and laid him in the river where Pharaoh's daughter would be taking a bath.

Talk about boldness!

If Pharaoh's daughter choose too, she could pick up baby Moses and throw him into the Nile.

The mother of Moses, Jochebed, displays for us the characteristics of trusting God.

 

*FIRST -- THE HOME OF MOSES' MOTHER.**

EXODUS 1:8-22*      

 

            To get a picture of Jochebed's home imagine living as a Jew in Nazi, Germany.

You see; Moses was born in a land that hated Jews.

Pharaoh was the Hitler of his day.

The Jew's were the object of a whip.

They were hated, misused and abused.

*Exodus 1:11** & 13*

*11 **So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh...13 and worked them ruthlessly.

(NIV)*

 

            Do you see the word "*ruthlessly (KJV) “hard laror (NASV)*" in verse 13?

The Hebrew word has the idea of  harshness, severity, or cruelty.

Those of you who constantly suffer migraines, or have given birth can identify with the Hebrew word for "*ruthlessly*."

I can not imagine living daily with pain, but that life of Jochebed's family.

I don’t know if we have anything in our country that comes closest to that.

Where murder is a daily event.

That's the environment of the mother of Moses.

Her whole family is hated.

Her whole family is mistreated.

What amazes me is the incredible character of Jochebed.

From her life we learn the advantages of living by faith.

*SECOND - THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS GREAT MOTHER.**

*

 

*A.

SHE WAS A WOMEN WHO LIVED BY FAITH.

** *

* *

* EXODUS 2:1-3A*

*1 **Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket** **for him and coated it with tar and pitch.

Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

(NIV)*

 

            Jochebed gives birth to Moses.

You can imagine the excitement at birth.

There is their new born baby boy.

Mom is holding her son.

I can remember when Shara, our first born.

Immediately, after she was born, for one minute they let Velva hold her.

Then the nurses took Shara to another room.

They invited me to go with them.

There, they weighed her, measured her and did all the other things they're supposed to do.

Do you know what I was doing while the nurses were working?

I was counting her fingers and toes.