The Pharaoh of the Exodus - Life of Moses Part 8

Well, you know, not long ago, USA Today did a poll, and here's the question that they asked people. They asked them, what is it in the world that scares you the most? Now, I don't know what you would have said to that questionnaire, but here are the top four answers. What scares you the most? Number four, rats. Number three, bugs, particularly cockroaches. Number two, heights. And the number one answer, by far, by a wide margin, I don't know what you think it is.

What do you think it is? Snakes. That's exactly right. And that's what I would have voted for. In fact, I'd have voted four times for number one, myself. I despise snakes. Well, you know, I bring this up because if you would have gone back to Egypt 3,500 years ago, and you would have asked the people living in Egypt back in Moses' day, what is it that scares you the most?

The answer they would have given you would not have been rats or bugs or snakes. The answer most of them would have given you would have been Pharaoh himself. Friends, the Pharaoh that ruled Egypt in the days of Moses was the most powerful man on the face of the earth in that day.

At the same level, his word represented an insurmountable obstacle, and yet God smashed this Pharaoh and God pulverized his nation in order to show the Hebrews and us that God is not limited by human obstacles. Now, this is what we want to talk about this morning. We want to talk about the awesome power of our awesome God, and we want to talk about a biblical strategy for bringing God's power to bear on the circumstances of our lives as followers of Christ today for unleashing the power of God into our situations that we face. And so that's our plan. We're going to go back and we're going to see what happened in Moses' day.

And then we're going to bring that forward, and we're going to talk about you and me today. So if you brought a Bible, I'd like you to open it with me to Exodus chapter two. And if you did not bring that forward, I'd like you to bring it back to Exodus chapter two. If you did not bring a Bible, look right under the armrest next to you, and you will find a copy of the Bible. We're going to be on page 41. Page 41 in our copy of the Bible, Exodus chapter two in your copy.

And let me give you some background information as you're turning to the page. In Exodus chapter two, we learned that Moses' mother set him adrift in the Nile River when he was three months old, and by God's grace, he was found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. Moses, we learned, became a military general and a national hero by the age of 40. But at the age of 40, we saw this last week, Moses decided to walk away from all of this and instead to identify with the enslaved Hebrew people. He went out to visit these people and saw an Egyptian foreman beating a Hebrew slave.

He killed that Egyptian. And verse 15 says, When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian. The Sinai Peninsula today, we'll show you a map, went out and lived in the general area of where you see the red circle on this map.

Now that's as far as we've been, so let's pick up the story and go on from there. Verse 15 continues, Moses went out to live in the land of Midian, where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and water their father's flock. And some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock.

Remember, Moses was a trained military man who was very astute in personal combat skills, and I'm sure these shepherds were no match for Moses out there by that well, so he drove them off. Verse 18, And when the girls returned to their father, he asked them, Why have you returned so early today? And they answered and said, An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds.

He even drew water for us and watered the flock. And the father asked his daughters, Well, where is he? The father said. See, that's hysterical. You know, you don't get it, because as we often tell you here, it's Bible humor, but it's hysterical. He turns to his girls and says, Well, where is he?

Because they didn't bring him back with them. Yeah, forget it. All right. It's funny.

It is. All right. Why did you leave him there? The father asked, inviting to have something to eat with us. So Moses agreed to stay with the man whom we learned later. His name was Jethro, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.

Verse 23. Now, near the end of that long period, 40 years, Moses was on the backside of the desert. The king of Egypt died, the one who would run him out of town. And the Israelites groaned in their slavery, and God heard their groaning. So God remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And of course, as we know, this led to God appearing to Moses at the burning bush and sending Moses back to Egypt to deliver the Hebrew people. Now, friends, here in Exodus chapters one through four, God tells us about four members of the Egyptian royal family in the days of Moses.

Let me remind you who they were. Number one, we have the Pharaoh of Exodus chapter one, who began the persecution of the Hebrew people. Number two, we have the daughter of this Pharaoh in Exodus chapter one, who found Moses in the river and adopted him as her own child. Then third, we have the Pharaoh of the beginning of Exodus two, who tried to kill Moses, who ran him out of dodge, and who died almost 40 years later, just before God sends Moses back to Egypt. And finally, we have the Pharaoh of Exodus chapter three and following, who came to the throne just as Moses was returning and who was the one that Moses faced when it came to the issue of letting the Hebrew people go. Now, the question is, who were these four royal people? Because if we can identify who they were and we can learn what Egypt was like in their day, it will help us understand better the spiritual truth that I'm trying to make today.

So, who were these people? Well, the book of Exodus never names these people and so the way that we must identify them is we must first date the Exodus and then take the date of the Exodus and go back and lay that date on top of what we know about Egyptian history to identify these Pharaohs. So, let's date the Exodus. The Bible gives us an exact chronological benchmark for dating the Exodus.

First Kings chapter six verse one says, in the 480th year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, King Solomon began to build the temple. Now, we know we can date with precision the fourth year of King Solomon's reign. We date that to 965 B.C. and the Bible says if we take 965 B.C.

and we add 480 years to it, we have the date of the Exodus from Egypt and when we do that, we learn that the Exodus was in 1445 B.C. Now, we take that date and we go back into Egyptian history and we lay that date on top of Egyptian history and suddenly, the four royal personages mentioned here in the book of Exodus become immediately obvious. They were all members of the 18th dynasty in Egypt and let me show you who they were.

We've got a little chart here that will help you to get all of this. There were four people, remember? Person number one, the Pharaoh of Exodus chapter one, who began the persecution of the Hebrews, as you can see, was Pharaoh Thutmose I, who ruled from 1530 to 1517 B.C. His daughter, who adopted Moses, was a young lady named Hatshepsut.

We've already seen that. The third person that we're trying to identify, the Pharaoh who ran Moses out of town, who tried to kill him and who lived almost the whole time that he was on the backside of the desert and who died just before he returned, was Pharaoh Thutmose III. Notice that he, Pharaoh Thutmose III, we know that he was a prolific builder, just like the Bible presents him to be in the book of Exodus. We know that he ruled for 35 years after Moses went into exile and that he died just before Moses returned, exactly like the Bible says. In fact, if you look at the chart, let's go back to the chart, you'll see that Thutmose III actually ruled for 54 years. 54 years he was the Pharaoh.

That's a long time. Unprecedented, in fact, among the Pharaohs of Egypt. And we also know, and most important for our consideration, we know that Pharaoh Thutmose III built the largest empire that the Egyptian nation was ever to know. Let me show you a map of his empire.

It stretched from Ethiopia in the south all the way into modern day Turkey in the north and all the way into Iraq in the east and everything in between. So the bottom line that I want you to see is that when Thutmose III died, just before Moses returned, his son inherited the most powerful nation on the face of the globe. And who was his son?

Well, back to the chart for the last time. His son was a fellow that we call Amenhotep II who came to the throne just before Moses met God at the burning bush and God sent him back to say to Amenhotep II, let my people go. Now, thanks to archaeology, we know exactly what Amenhotep II looked like.

We know that he was bald, he was bow-legged, and he had a very strong resemblance to Yul Brynner. Well, we do know that Amenhotep II came to the throne and when he did, he regarded himself as invincible, he regarded Egypt as invincible, and with some very good human reason, he regarded himself as invincible. And that explains why when Moses came back and said to him, let the my people go, God says to you, it explains why he made this comment, Exodus 5, 2, who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go. That kind of arrogance, that kind of haughtiness, that kind of hubris makes all the sense in the world when we understand who this man was, the kingdom that he inherited, and the power on the human level that he had. He said, I don't know the Lord, I'm the man who runs the world, and I'm not letting these people go.

Now, he's going to make the Lord's acquaintance in the next few chapters, isn't he? Friends, the point I want you to see here is that when the Exodus took place, Egypt was at the zenith of her power. When Almighty God took on Egypt, I want you to see that Egypt was not some minor protectorate. I want you to see when God took on Egypt that Egypt was not some second-rate power.

It was not like the United States invading Granada, if you understand what I'm trying to say to you. Egypt, when God took on Almighty, when God took on Egypt, Egypt was the mightiest nation on the face of the earth, and that excites me because what it tells me is that God took on the greatest opposition this world system could muster and God pulverized it. And that fits with exactly what God says about himself in the Bible. Isaiah chapter 40, he said, Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket for me and as small as dust on the balance. All the nations before God are nothing. Verse 22 continues, God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers.

He brings princes to naught and he reduces julbrenner to nothing. That's sort of what the Bible says here. So awesome is the power of our God. Now that's as far as we want to go in the passage today because we want to stop now and we want to ask the most important question. And you know what that is, so are you ready? Okay, here we go.

One, two, three. So what? There you go. You say, Lon, so what?

You know, tutmosis, schmutmosis. I mean, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Who cares about any of that stuff? What difference does any of that stuff make to me? I mean, I'm living in the 21st century and I'm struggling with life in the 21st century. So what difference does this make? Well, it makes a lot of difference.

I'm going to connect those dots for you. You know, in my 35 years of walking with Jesus Christ, my friends, I have learned that no matter who you are, that no matter how faithfully as a follower of Christ you walk with Jesus, God leads every single follower of Christ through Egypt at certain points in their life. What I mean by that is that God leads every follower of Christ into situations where the obstacles look overwhelming, where the problems look insurmountable. God brings every one of us face to face with Yul Brynner at certain points in our life.

And maybe you're there right now and maybe you're going through that right as we sit here this morning in your life. I mean, maybe your Yul Brynner is an unbelieving spouse who makes it really difficult for you to walk with Christ in your life and for you to raise your children to walk with Christ. Maybe your Yul Brynner is a financial crisis that seems hopeless in your life right now. Maybe your Yul Brynner is a job situation, a family situation, a childbearing situation, a health-related situation.

Maybe it's a situation at school or a disabled child situation or a can't-sell-your-house situation or a boyfriend situation or a girlfriend situation or a lack of a boyfriend or girlfriend situation. Whatever it is, no matter how invincible it may look, I want you to remember that the God of Moses is the very same God that you and I have today. Hebrews 13.8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And friends, if God could handle Yul Brynner 3500 years ago, then God, the same God, can handle your problem, can handle your situation today, whatever it is. Just listen to what God tells us in the Bible about himself and his power. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20, God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, more than we can think or even imagine, and I can imagine a lot. And God said, I can do more.

1 John 4, chapter 4, verse 4, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. Genesis 18, 14, God said to Sarah, is anything too hard for the Lord? Luke chapter 1, verse 37, the angel Gabriel said to Mary, for nothing is impossible with God. Jeremiah 32, verse 17, God says, I have made the heavens and the earth.

Behold, nothing is too hard for me. And Jesus himself said, Matthew 19, the things that are impossible with men are possible with God. Folks, God loves to show his power off for his people. God loves to smash big barriers for his people. God loves to pulverize big obstacles for his people, but there is a twofold strategy, biblical strategy, that you and I must employ if we are going to unleash God's power onto our circumstances and onto our problems.

And I want to tell you what that is. That strategy number one, part one of it is we must entrust our problems and our obstacles to the Lord by faith. We've got to turn loose of them and give them to him. And then part two is we have to wait on God's perfect timing for dealing with these things. Instead of rushing out in our own fleshly impetuosity, instead of impatiently running ahead of God, we have to wait on God's timing. David tells us about this two part strategy in Psalm 37 when he says in verse five, commit your way to the Lord, trust him and he will do it. That's part one. And then he says in verse seven, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

That's part two. And David says, if you will simply entrust your obstacles and your problems to God by faith and if you will wait for God's perfect timing until God's timing is ripe, until it's mature, God will smash your Egypt. God will pulverize your Yule Brenner. God will lead you through the Red Sea safely, just like he did for Moses and the Israelites. But friends, don't miss the important point.

Remember what I said. When God's time is right and perfect, God will do this for Moses and the Israelites. I want you to remember that the burning bush was not early and the burning bush was not late. The burning bush was right on schedule. In fact, friends, the burning bush is never early. We want it to be early.

We complain that it's not early, but it's never early. And by the same token, the burning bush is never late, even though we often accuse God of being late. The burning bush is always right on schedule, God's schedule that is, and we must wait patiently for God's schedule if we want to see God's greatest blessing, if we want to see God's greatest intervention in the circumstances of our life. Now this is the hardest part of trusting God with our problems. This is the hardest part of trusting God with our obstacles, namely waiting on God's timing to be right. So many of us, we entrust our problems to God, and then when God doesn't work as quickly as we want him to work, we take our problems back and we rush out in our own fleshly wisdom and impetuosity to fix our problems ourselves.

And by doing so, we rob God of the opportunity to do the awesome thing for us that he was going to do if we'd have just left it alone and let him keep it till he was ready to deal with it. My Christian friend, listen, with God, I have learned after 35 years of walking with him, timing is everything. Timing is everything. You say, but Lon, it's so hard to watch things happening. It's so hard to watch things going wrong. It's so hard to watch evil schemes prospering and to stand still and do nothing about it because God's timing hasn't arrived. That's hard.

I know it is. Hey, Moses had to do it. He had to wait 40 years on the backside of the desert. Meanwhile, the Israelites in Egypt were being beat up and were being brutalized and were suffering and were dying. And you know what, friends? I'm sure it was really hard for Moses to wait on God's timing out there on the backside of the desert. I'm sure there was many a day he sat out there and said, God, why aren't you? Well, what is the deal here?

Why are we doing something about this? But you know what? He was wise enough to wait on God's perfect timing. And as a result, he saw God do exceedingly abundantly more than Moses could have asked or even imagined. You say, well, Lon, so then can you explain God's timing to me here with Moses, why he didn't do something sooner?

No, I can't. But that's OK, because as a follower of Christ, God never calls on us, my friends, to explain his timing. God simply calls on us to trust his timing and submit to it. And you say, well, if I decide to do that, Lon, how will I know when God's timing is right? Trust me, my friend, if you're waiting on God, you will know when his timing is right.

You won't miss it. You know, I want to show you a picture of a house. This is the house that my family and I lived in for 15 years. I raised my three boys in this house over in Fairfax, Virginia. And when my little girl Jill came along with all of her disabilities, including drop seizures and just dropping to the ground when she when a seizure would hit her and and she had to spend a lot of time in the house. And it was a small house and there wasn't much room for her to wander around.

There was furniture everywhere. My wife, who was home with her all the time, started saying to me, Lon, we need to move and get a different house for Jill. This house is not working. And I said, no way.

There is no way. I said, I have worked hard to pay off the mortgage on this house, which we had done. And I said, and I'm not moving to another house and taking on another mortgage.

It's not happening. Well, just call me your brother. Well, you know what? My wife is a wonderfully wise woman. She didn't argue with me. She employed the twofold strategy we've just talked about.

She gave it to God and she waited on God's perfect timing to change my heart. Well, one weekend she was out of town and I had Jill for the weekend and I was in the house all weekend with Jill. And, you know, I suddenly understood what my wife was talking about when Jill cooped up in this house.

She and I all weekend together. And to make matters worse, she had a seizure dropped to the ground, knocked out one of her teeth. And when my wife came home, it was a baby tooth. Thank the Lord. When my wife came home, the first thing I said to her is we have got to get a different house.

She just smiled. But I said, Brenda, we got another big obstacle. And the obstacle is if we decide we sell this house in 90 days, we have to be out. Where are we going with Jill?

We can't move in an apartment with her. Where are we going? So I called a few real estate agents and I tried to work on this a little bit and I couldn't figure it out and I couldn't make it work anyway. And so finally I came back to the Lord and I said, Lord, I really believe you want us to move, but I don't know how to fix this problem. So I'm just going to entrust it to you and I'm going to let you fix it and we're just going to wait. We're just going to wait, God, and at some point you're going to move. And so we waited and we prayed.

We waited and we prayed for months and months. And one day I got a phone call from a real estate agent friend of mine who said, hey, she said, would you have any interest in possibly selling your house? And I said, well, it's interesting that you should ask that.

I said, why do you ask me that? And she said, well, I have a client who wants to buy your house. She doesn't want to buy any other house. She wants your house. And I said, well, yes, actually we would be interested in selling, but the problem is we have no place to go with Jill. She said, well, I know about Jill and so I told my client that and she said, if you would agree to sell her your house, she will let you rent it back as long as you need while you look for another place to live with Jill. I said, oh, what time can you and she be here today?

I'm really. And they came over and this lady bought our house and we rented back for two years from her while we looked for the right place to move with my daughter, Jill. Unbelievable.

How often does that happen in the world? But, you know, friends, years ago, let me tell you what I would have done. I would have charged out in my own fleshly impatience. I would have charged out in my own fleshly impetuosity. I would have tried to work this whole situation out.

And if I couldn't have worked it out, I made it work out anyway, if I would have done my best. And in my younger years as a follower of Christ, I did this far too often. But thankfully, God had taught me that that doesn't work, that the best way to see God's blessing in your life is to use this strategy and wait on God's timing. And as a result, we were given the privilege, Brenda and me, of seeing God bear his mighty arm and do something for us that I have never heard of him doing very often for anybody. The burning bush for us was not early and it was not late.

It was right on schedule. We just had to wait for it. And I'm here to tell you in closing today that God is dying to bear his mighty arm for you in your situation. But the problem is when we fail to transfer our situations to God, and number two, when we transfer them but we fail to be still and wait on him, we take them right back and try to fix them ourselves. We short circuit many of the great things that God is anxious to do for us. So friend, I want to say if you've got a big obstacle in your life today, get on your knees, give that obstacle to God and then be spiritually mature enough to keep your hands off of it and let God have it and let him do his work. Be spiritually mature enough to wait on his timing, not your timing. And God promises you that your burning bush will not be early and I promise you it will not be late.

It will be right on schedule. And God will do for you exceedingly, abundantly above everything you could ask or even imagine if you'll just keep your hands off of it and let him do it his way in his time. That's what Moses had to do on the backside of the desert and you see what happened and friend, God will do it for you if you'll follow the same strategy.

I hope you will. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for reminding us today that you are an awesome God, that your power is utterly unlimited. But to bring that power down and to see it unleashed in our circumstances, we have to be willing not just to entrust things to you, but Lord, we have to be willing to leave them with you for your perfect timing. And Lord, you know our hearts. It's hard as human beings for us to do that. We're impatient by nature. And so God, help us to attain the spiritual maturity, help people who are struggling with things sitting right here today to have the spiritual maturity to give things to you and to leave them with you in the utter confidence that the burning bush will not be early and it will not be late.

It will be right on schedule for them if they'll just trust you. Change the way we deal with our problems, Lord. Change the way we deal with our circumstances because we were here today and we learn from the Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said. .