Lesson 101 - February 15 Readings: Exodus 2, God Sends a Deliverer

The Story of the Bible from Creation to the Cross to Eternal Glory

In 72 daily readings, we will examine the overall story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, seeking to get the big picture of God's work through Jesus Christ in this sinful world.

Today's Reading:  Exodus 2

Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. 4 Then his sister stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.

5 Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, 6 opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”

7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who is nursing to nurse the boy for you?”

8 “Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. 9 Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Moses in Midian

11 Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people. 12 Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your neighbor?”

14 “Who made you a commander and judge over us?” the man replied. “Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

Then Moses became afraid and thought, “What I did is certainly known.”

15 When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well.

16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to their father Reuel, he asked, “Why have you come back so quickly today?”

19 They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

20 “So where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.”

21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom, for he said, “I have been a resident alien in a foreign land.”

23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor; and they cried out; and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. 24 And God heard their groaning; and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob; 25 and God saw the Israelites; and God knew.

Through the Bible Reading: Leviticus 8-9, Matthew 27:1–14, Psalm 23, Proverbs6:1-5

If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings. 

Context 

Once again, God comes to the rescue with a baby. This time, it is a baby born to the Israelite slaves, one who is the deliverer of the people - a common figure of Christ.

This baby was different than Christ, though, in that his initial attempt at deliverance failed, and failed miserably. It seems that Moses tried to accomplish his life's work in the power of the flesh and made a mess of it. He ended up fleeing to Midian where he spent the next forty years as a shepherd until he encountered a burning bush.

It was also here that Moses learned a lesson that he later taught to Israel in Numbers 32:23. "Be sure your sin will find you out." He thought he had hidden his sin in the desert sand, but his sin found a way to make itself known and he was forced to flee. When we sin, the consequences are unavoidable.

Devotional: Lesson 101

There are few people more "special" in the Bible than is Moses, the prince of Egypt. Born of a Hebrew peasant woman he was adopted into the Pharaoh's family and he grew up in privilege. God arranged it though so that his mother could also be his caretaker and along the way, one assumes, she told him who he really was. Of course, he knew he didn't look like the Egyptians, but she explained the reasons for that.

And when he understood all that God had done he became filled with a sense that he was destined to do something great. God had put him in the world to accomplish a noble and wonderful task. Why else would he arrange it for a Hebrew boy to grow up as a grandson of Pharaoh? Over the years a sense of pride and destiny grew up and it led him into trouble.

One day he encountered an Egyptian man beating a Hebrew slave and he decided to take matters into his own hand. Surely, he must have thought, it was for a time like this that God had put the details of his life together. He struck the man dead and hid his body, but the deed was discovered and Moses ended up in the desert of Midian as a lowly shepherd - for 40 years.

He needed to learn a lesson that is fundamental to the great works of God. Moses had money, power, influence, but he was useless to God because he hadn't learned the lesson. Forty years later he had nothing left of his youthful advantages, but he had learned the lesson and was now able to do what he couldn't do as the Pharaoh's grandson - he delivered Israel from bondage. One lesson made all the difference.

What is that lesson?

We are totally dependent on God and his power and grace for everything. 

With God's power, you can accomplish great things in the kingdom, making an eternal impact in this world, but without him, you can do nothing of lasting worth or value. When Moses thought he could do great things for God he did nothing but mess everything up. When he thought his useful days were over and he was a no-good shepherd in Midian, then God was ready to use him. To be used by God we must come to realize that we are helpless, hopeless, and useless without him.

As long as we are self-confident and convinced of our own abilities, we are of no value to the kingdom. Our usefulness starts when we learn the lesson that we are 100%, totally, completely, and ultimately dependent on God for everything of spiritual and eternal value.

Father, I thank you for everything. Help me to remember that it is all of you and not of me. I am dependent on you for everything. Break me of any self-confidence and self-reliance  that I might depend fully on you.

Think and Pray:

Do you depend fully on God for all things or do you depend on yourself?