[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected] Good morning.
[00:00:14] I'd like to sing you a song.
[00:00:20] Now, if you've had the misfortune of being next to me during worship, you might not think this is a good idea, so I might just speak it out.
[00:00:31] Do you want me to try and sing it?
[00:00:33] Okay. If you know the words, you can join in. Okay. And I apologise in advance for the assault on your ears.
[00:00:42] Here we go.
[00:00:44] Stamatina miso s veliato Bella chow bella Ciao bella Ciao, ciao, ciao. Stamatina misos vegliato el otrovato linvazo.
[00:01:01] Thank you.
[00:01:04] Now, despite what I've done to that song, does anyone recognize it?
[00:01:08] Oh, yeah. Who recognizes it?
[00:01:11] Very good. Well, especially if you are of Italian heritage. And I know one guy in there, apart from me, is it is the partisan marching song. It was the song sung by freedom fighters as they opposed Benito Mussolini. If you know your European history now, my mother told me a story just in the last few years, that when she was 8 or 9 years old, she grew up in Italy. She went into her class and all the children had to say, viva Mussolini. Okay? Now, Mussolini was a brutal dictator right out of the books of dictators. He was very similar to Hitler.
[00:01:57] If you opposed him, he would persecute you, oppress you, put you in prison. And he even executed political opponents of his. He often dressed in military uniform. He was a tyrant.
[00:02:10] And my mother, along with all the other children, had to go into that class. And every morning they had to say, viva Mussolini.
[00:02:17] And the teacher said, you don't have to say that anymore. He's dead.
[00:02:21] And the kids clapped and cheered and ripped all his posters off of the wall. The freedom fighters had won.
[00:02:29] And again, if you know your European history, he met a particularly grisly end. He was executed by the partisans. We can have an interesting discussion about how that came about. But the freedom fighters had won.
[00:02:43] My mum a couple of weeks ago, turned 90 years old, and that memory is still fresh in her mind.
[00:02:50] What I want to do today is talk about the first freedom fighter that is mentioned in the Bible.
[00:02:57] Moses.
[00:02:58] Now, I know three people called Moses my cousin in Italy, and in our dialect we call him Mose.
[00:03:06] My friend there, Moses, who's a part of our congregation.
[00:03:11] Now, if you don't know Moses personally, he's the guy that doesn't need a microphone. When he's praying, even though he stands around that stuff.
[00:03:21] And also Moses in the Bible. Moses in the Bible. And so we're going to talk about him as the Bible's first freedom fighter. Now, he doesn't just come out of nowhere, okay? He doesn't just appear in the Bible out of thin air. He has a backstory.
[00:03:37] And what we've been trying to do over these last few months in this church is go through the whole of the Bible from Genesis through to the end, trying to show how it all hangs together as one piece.
[00:03:50] Because if someone is unfamiliar with the Bible and they just turn to bits at random, it can seem quite strange. You've got bits of story like we're doing this morning. You've got the psalms, which Ian mentioned, which are like a hymn book. You've got some philosophy, you've got some proverbs. You've got four. Four accounts of the life of Jesus on earth. And then you've got the last book of the Bible, which is just weird.
[00:04:13] And so it can seem completely disjointed. And in fact, there's a theme that might come out which isn't really the real theme.
[00:04:21] As one teenager said, the Old Testament, the old part seemed to be full of fighting and smiting.
[00:04:29] And in the New Testament, things get better when God becomes a Christian.
[00:04:35] And that just would be to completely misunderstand it all. Okay, so what we're trying to do is go through the whole Bible and just show how it tells the truth about God, the truth about humanity, and the fact that we desperately need to be saved, we desperately need to be rescued, and how that all comes about. So what we're going to do is going to go through the life of Moses. Not the life, the first part.
[00:05:00] We're going to look at fear, hope, disappointment and identity. Okay, Fear, hope, disappointment and identity.
[00:05:10] So let's start with Exodus 1.
[00:05:14] My little screen's not working there, so forgive me, I keep turning around.
[00:05:18] So we're going to go through the first three chapters of Exodus. We're going to look at particular parts. I've paraphrased a lot of the readings, so if you're following the Bible, you might see it slightly different. And I'm jumping around, but here we're going to go. Okay, now when I get to verse 8, I'd like you to try and count the amount of men and women that appear in this story. Okay, we're going to go through quite a few readings. Like I say, we're going to look at fear, hope, Disappointment and identity. And as we go through, I want you to try and count how many men appear, how many women appear, and how they behave, okay? From verse 8 onwards. And you'll understand that in a moment.
[00:06:07] So here's the backstory.
[00:06:10] God had chosen someone, for no particular reason that we can understand, called Abraham and said to him, your descendants are going to be in the millions, and your descendants are going to bless the whole earth.
[00:06:23] And through your descendants, mankind is going to be rescued. So the Bible teaches the truth about God, the truth about humanity, and how we're going to be rescued.
[00:06:32] Abraham has a son, Isaac.
[00:06:35] Isaac has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob, through a series of adventures, becomes Israel. Israel has 12 sons.
[00:06:45] One of the sons is Joseph and his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat. He ends up in Egypt. He helps Egypt deal with famine. And that's the backstory. Okay, so Moses is born into this context. He doesn't just come out of thin air. He knows a little bit. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, about his forebears. So let's read from five onwards.
[00:07:09] The descendants of Jacob numbered 70 in all.
[00:07:12] Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died out.
[00:07:19] But the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful. They multiplied greatly, increased in numbers, and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Okay, now I put that bit in yellow, because God's promise to Abraham is starting to come true.
[00:07:37] Your descendants, he said, will be in the millions. It's starting to come true also. It's a callback to the end of the Garden of Eden story, where God says to man, adam and Eve, go and fill the earth. So God's purposes are being worked out.
[00:07:52] Verse 8. Then a new Pharaoh, to whom Joseph meant nothing.
[00:07:57] Joseph had helped the Egyptians navigate a famine. A new Pharaoh, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.
[00:08:05] Look, he said, the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.
[00:08:11] We must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous. And if war breaks out, we'll join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.
[00:08:22] So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor. And they built Pithum and Ramesses as store cities for Pharaoh. Put that in yellow, because the whole idea of store cities comes from.
[00:08:36] Comes from Joseph. So there's an irony here.
[00:08:39] But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread.
[00:08:44] So the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and work them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar. And with all kinds of work in the fields, the people of Israel, Abraham's descendants, are going to become slaves. And it all because of the fear of Pharaoh.
[00:09:07] Look at verse 10. We must deal shrewdly with them or they'll become even more numerous. And if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.
[00:09:18] He is full of fear. Now, those particular words I'm going to return to right at the end of my talk, because there's a particular challenge I think they have with us today. But we'll do that at the end.
[00:09:28] Now he is acting out of fear.
[00:09:32] Empires, godless empires, are built on fear because they are scared of what they're going to lose.
[00:09:40] Power only ever wants more power, just in case.
[00:09:45] Now imagine that I'm going to declare this my sovereign kingdom.
[00:09:50] It's going to be the nation of Bald Mandia.
[00:09:55] And I'm quite happy here.
[00:09:57] But then I look at these rows here and I think you might invade.
[00:10:01] You do look a dodgy lot, let's be honest.
[00:10:04] So what I'm going to do because I'm fearful is I'm going to invade these rows, push it all back, call it my buffer zone. Now I'm secure again.
[00:10:14] But I don't look at you lot sitting up in the tiered seating. So I'm a bit scared of you.
[00:10:18] And so I go on and I go on and I go on. That's what godless power is like.
[00:10:25] There was a man in 1987 called Gerard Diamond. I'm pretty sure no one's ever heard of him. Gerard Diamond. He was a geographer and historian, and he identified what he believed was the worst mistake in human history. Any ideas? Okay, what is the worst mistake in human history, according to Jared Diamond?
[00:10:47] There's a geographer there, I'm looking at him, he said the worst mistake was farming.
[00:10:53] Bit weird, he said, because when you start farming to feed your population, you need land.
[00:11:00] And if you need land, you need to defend that land in case someone comes and invades your land.
[00:11:05] And the other thing is you can then have a surplus. Not everybody has to work the land. And then once you've got a surplus, you can afford elites, you can afford an aristocracy. You can afford people to have power and they will take power because they will monopolize violence.
[00:11:25] And then you'll have the elites and you'll have the poor. And those elites need to maintain their power, and that's because of fear.
[00:11:34] Now, there's better educated people in this room to maybe discuss whether that's A good analysis, but it's very interesting because that's what's going on here with Pharaoh. He is scared of losing.
[00:11:47] You know, it's very interesting. Just before Jesus was crucified, it was Pilate who said to him, I have the power to crucify you. And Jesus said, well, you wouldn't have this power unless it came from me.
[00:12:01] Now, Pilate didn't normally live in Jerusalem. He lived somewhere else. He lived in Caesarea.
[00:12:07] But at the time of the Passover, he would come with all his troops into Jerusalem. Now, Passover is the freedom festival that Moses is going to gain for the people of God through God's grace.
[00:12:24] And they celebrated Passover all the way down to Jesus time. And of course, Jewish people celebrate it now as well. Now during Passover, because it was a celebration of freedom. The Romans were scared there was going to be a riot or rebellion or revolution.
[00:12:44] And so Pilate would leave Caesarea and march into Jerusalem with all his troops, the horses, the spears, the swords, the drums. And he was displaying his power.
[00:12:59] And he basically said to anybody there, if you're thinking about a revolution, we will crucify you. I mean, literally crucify you. And line the roads as they did with their crucified victims.
[00:13:13] How did Jesus get into Jerusalem on a donkey, where the people just welcomed him. Hosanna to the king of kings. It's almost comical, isn't it?
[00:13:24] Godly power is completely different to godless power. It's a completely different way of being.
[00:13:31] And Jesus said, those of us who have influence or leadership, we mustn't lord it over other people. We mustn't be fearful of losing it. We need to use it in the service of others.
[00:13:43] So he starts in fear.
[00:13:46] Let's go on to the next bit.
[00:13:51] Okay, now you need to be counting the men and the women. And because I've left the detail out here, I can tell you there's two midwives.
[00:14:00] Pharaoh said to the Hebrew midwives, when you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him.
[00:14:10] But if it is a girl, let her live.
[00:14:13] The midwives, however, feared God.
[00:14:17] Pharaoh fears loss of power. The midwives feared God and did not do what Pharaoh had told them to do. They let the boys live.
[00:14:26] Then Pharaoh summoned the midwives and asked them, why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?
[00:14:32] This is funny. Midwives answered Pharaoh. Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.
[00:14:42] So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
[00:14:48] Then Pharaoh gave this order to all the people.
[00:14:52] Every Hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile. But let every girl live.
[00:14:58] His fear has moved on from oppression and slavery and now move into infanticide.
[00:15:06] And get this.
[00:15:08] Hundreds of years later, there's going to be another king scared for his own position.
[00:15:13] Who's going to order some baby boys to be killed? Herod. Okay, it's prophetic, it's looking forward, and it's the same cycle of power play. Now, how are we doing with counting the men and the women? We've got Pharaoh and two midwives.
[00:15:29] Let's move on then. That's fear into hope.
[00:15:34] Okay?
[00:15:36] Hope.
[00:15:38] A Levite man married a Levite woman, and she gave birth to a son.
[00:15:44] When she saw that he was a fine child. And I'll put that bit in yellow, because that's really important.
[00:15:50] When she saw he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.
[00:15:54] But when she could hide him no longer, she got a basket for him, coated it with tar and pitch.
[00:16:00] Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
[00:16:05] His sister, who later on we're going to discover is called Miriam. Miriam stood at a distance to see what would happen.
[00:16:13] Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank.
[00:16:19] She saw the basket among the reeds and said to her female servant, go and get it.
[00:16:26] She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him.
[00:16:32] This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said.
[00:16:35] Then Miriam asked Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?
[00:16:42] Yes, go, she answered.
[00:16:45] So Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you. And that again is in yellow, because the Hebrews are slaves at this point.
[00:16:56] But Pharaoh's daughter is going to pay Moses mother to nurse him.
[00:17:02] So the women took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water.
[00:17:16] Now, the reason I put fine in yellow is because Moses was not lucky, right? This wasn't that. There was a flotilla of Moses baskets coming down the Nile, and they just happened to pick this one out.
[00:17:29] It says there was something in him.
[00:17:33] It's not just a mother protecting her child. There's something in him that he needed to be protected. He was a fine child. It actually appears as well in the New Testament, twice in Acts and in Hebrews it says that the parents saw he was a fine child.
[00:17:47] There's something about him. God is preparing his freedom fighter. God is preparing his plan and he needs to be protected.
[00:17:55] Now there's so much symbolism in what we're going to go through today that I won't go into all the symbolism. If we did, the children will have eaten all the biscuits by the time we go for coffee. Okay, so look, I'm just going to do this one bit.
[00:18:08] The Moses basket is counted, is coated in pitch and tar.
[00:18:13] Noah's ark coated in pitch and tar. To stop it sinking, Moses is going to go on to receive the ten Commandments and he puts them in the, the Ark of the Covenant. Okay, so you've got this ark idea coming through. The Ark of the Covenant is designed in a certain way. It looks like it's got a seat in the middle and an angel either side. And that middle bit is called the mercy seat. It's the symbol of forgiveness and mercy.
[00:18:39] When Jesus rises from the dead, they go into the tomb.
[00:18:43] The clothes that he was in, the grave, clothes that were in, are flattened and there's an angel either side. It's like the mercy seat. There's forgiveness and there's mercy. This is all being prophesied, looked forward to, spoken about hundreds and hundreds of years before it starts. And it's absolutely fascinating.
[00:19:03] Jesus would know these stories as he grew up as an earthly man. And it's way in advance.
[00:19:11] Okay, so how are we doing now with counting our men and our women?
[00:19:17] We've got one man, Pharaoh. He's violent, aggressive, fearful.
[00:19:24] We've got two midwives. They are God fearing and through their actions, life giving.
[00:19:30] We've got Moses. Mother saved his life. Miriam's sister saved his life.
[00:19:38] Pharaoh's daughter's attendant saved his life. Pharaoh. Pharaoh's daughter herself saved his life.
[00:19:44] Six women who acted in a completely different way to Pharaoh. And without these six women, there's no Moses. Without these six women, there's no freedom fighter.
[00:19:57] Now this isn't put into the Bible in this way to say that all men are aggressive and violent and toxic. Okay, that's not what the Bible says. Neither is it saying all women are, are perfect and always do the right thing.
[00:20:11] It's because in the culture of the time, the women were never the heroes. The men were always the heroes. And it was always to do some sort of battle.
[00:20:20] So this is being used to show there are Two ways. There are two ways. There's fear that leads to violence and aggression, and in this case, infanticide.
[00:20:30] And then there's God's way, fearing God, that leads to life.
[00:20:35] And again, just to say it, Pharaoh's daughter pays Moses mother, she's not going to be a slave.
[00:20:44] So we have hope. We have fear, and we have hope. God's freedom fighter is born. Hooray. And he's almost going to be, like, genetically engineered to do the job. He's going to be a Hebrew, and he's also going to be an Egyptian, and he's going to know his way around Pharaoh's house. I mean, what better person to be the freedom fighter?
[00:21:06] However, we know it doesn't all work out. So let's go to disappointment. Exodus 2, or maybe Exodus 3.
[00:21:15] One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. Right? His own people. He knows who they are.
[00:21:24] He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. One of his own people.
[00:21:28] Looking this way and that way and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
[00:21:36] The next day he went out and he saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as well? Like you killed Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known.
[00:21:55] So even Moses is caught up in this violence.
[00:22:01] He kills someone, and then the two Hebrews that he's sort of trying to protect, they're saying, who are you?
[00:22:08] Who are you? They're reacting to him negatively and with an element of violence. It's not the way that God's plan is going to be resolved.
[00:22:26] When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses. Back to Pharaoh loves killing people. So he fled and he went to live in Midian. There he sat down by a well.
[00:22:35] Now, Jethro had seven daughters, and they came to draw water. Some shepherds came along and drove them away. But Moses came to their rescue. There is something in Moses here, isn't there? Even though he killed that Egyptian slave driver and now he's scaring away these shepherds. There's something in him about justice.
[00:22:53] When the girls returned to their father, he asked them, why have you returned so early? They answered, an Egyptian rescued us. Which is quite a strange thing to say when we think about his identity. An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.
[00:23:10] Moses agreed to stay with the man who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage, Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, I've become a foreigner in a foreign land.
[00:23:24] It's not only disappointment for Moses, it's actually almost now despair.
[00:23:30] He has lost all of his identities.
[00:23:33] Maybe he was confused. Was he a slave? Was he a Hebrew, Was he a prince? Was he a freedom fighter?
[00:23:40] All of those identities have now gone. He's actually become a shepherd. And there's nothing wrong with being a shepherd, but it's not the identity that he was called to.
[00:23:51] And so he goes into disappointment and maybe despair. He just leaves it all behind. Everything that God was calling him to, he leaves it all behind.
[00:24:03] Now, we all know about disappointments, and we all know about the big brother of disappointment despair. And we all know it's very, very dangerous to stay in that place.
[00:24:14] The next few comments I'm going to make are going to sound a bit harsh and uncaring, but they're not meant to be.
[00:24:20] Many Christian writers over the ages have talked about despair and how it can actually be a really dangerous place to be in because it takes us away from, from God.
[00:24:33] If we choose to stay in it and think that God doesn't care about us, we will cut ourselves off from the resources of mercy and grace and healing that could come.
[00:24:44] And so some Christian writers, because of that, they've said some pretty tough things. Okay, so Augustine said this despair is a turning away from trust in God's mercy. It's actually pride, bit harsh because it believes that one sin or suffering is greater than God's grace.
[00:25:06] Thomas Merton, a more modern writer, said, this is really tough. Despair is a development of pride so great that it chooses your own certainty rather than to admit that God is more creative than we are to fix the situation.
[00:25:24] Now, if any of us right now are in that place of disappointment or even despair, this isn't being said to make us feel worse.
[00:25:33] The challenge of these sayings is to bring us back to God because that's where the resources are and not to stay in that dangerous place. And like I say, I hope that doesn't sound too harsh. But it's what Christian writers have said. Peter Gregg, who many of you will know, writes a lot on prayer and is sort of an authority on prayer. He thinks there's two reasons that people find prayer difficult in all of his research.
[00:25:59] Number one, we don't think God likes us.
[00:26:02] We know he loves us. It's in the job description. But he doesn't like us. And so it's hard to go to God.
[00:26:09] And the second reason, he says, is because everybody's a little bit disappointed.
[00:26:14] Everybody has some little element of heartbreak, maybe that's keeping them away from God.
[00:26:20] And if you don't have a big disappointment, you're probably very young.
[00:26:25] We cannot be in the place of despair. It is ultimately destructive.
[00:26:33] So we now come to identity.
[00:26:37] Now, Moses was tending the flock of his father in law, and he led it to the far side of the wilderness.
[00:26:43] There, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.
[00:26:49] Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up.
[00:26:59] When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses. And Moses said, here I am.
[00:27:09] Do not come any closer. God said, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
[00:27:15] Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
[00:27:28] Moses is being called back into his identity.
[00:27:32] God is saying to him, I'm the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He's now beginning to rebuild his identity. Now, this is really interesting. Normally when God appears to the Old Testament characteristics, he says, I am the God of your fathers.
[00:27:49] But to Moses, he said, I'm the God of your father.
[00:27:52] Which I know can seem a little bit geeky, but it's super important.
[00:27:57] Moses, the name means drawn up out of the water, but also has an Egyptian son of.
[00:28:04] So Rameses. Pharaoh. Rameses is like Ramosis. It means son of Ra, son of the sun God. But Moses is just son of.
[00:28:17] So there's a sense that when God is saying to him, I am the God of your father, he's calling him back into identity. He's reminding him of who he is, one of the people of God, Abraham, God of Isaac, the God of Jacob and so on. He's trying to restore his identity.
[00:28:34] And then God says to him, later on, we'll come to that. God gives him another name, but he's bringing him back in. So now he's not calling himself a foreigner in a foreign land, which is what he calls his son.
[00:28:48] So he's completely lost. I call myself a foreigner in a foreign land. I don't have any of these other identities. I used to have before. God is now calling him into his identity, who he is in God, who he is with his father Abraham and so on. God rescues him by restoring his identity.
[00:29:10] But the despair was very, very deep.
[00:29:15] God says to him, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh and you're going to be the freedom fighter.
[00:29:20] But Moses said to God, who am I? That I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites and out of Egypt?
[00:29:28] Well, he is the guy, isn't he? He's the one that God has appointed to do this job. But he's so beyond it, he's so disappointed, he's so much in despair that he says, who am I to go? And then he says, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me. And they ask me, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them?
[00:29:49] God said to Moses, I am who I am.
[00:29:53] This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you.
[00:29:58] Not only is his identity being restored, but God is revealing a new identity.
[00:30:06] Now get this. When the two Hebrews were fighting each other and Moses tried to split them up, they said, who are you to judge us?
[00:30:19] And so when Moses says to God, who shall I say has sent me, sent you, sent me, he's almost saying a disrespectful thing. Who are you? God?
[00:30:31] Because he's so disappointed. And God reveals himself, a new name in the Bible up until this point, hasn't appeared. I am God is not identifying himself by Abraham or Jacob or the clouds or the creation. He's identifying himself by. By himself.
[00:30:49] It's a singular, precious name of God that then comes down from here and he's creating that identity between the two of them.
[00:31:01] And in a few weeks we will get to the next part of the story. We know that God's plan is back on track, but we also know that everything that Pharaoh was trying to do was actually making things worse. Yeah, you see, every time he did one of his things, they grew more and more.
[00:31:22] I want to come back then, right at the end to Pharaoh's words in verse 10. If I can make this magic thing work.
[00:31:42] This is going to get uncomfortable.
[00:31:46] Vera said, 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.
[00:31:57] These are really chilling, dark words because they're not just said in a fit of anger.
[00:32:06] They lead to justifying oppression, slavery and killing children.
[00:32:13] It's really dark because things like this were said then and have been said many times since. We must deal shrewdly with these people or they will become more numerous and they will fight against us.
[00:32:27] To put it another way, he's saying, there's people in our nation who are out breeding us.
[00:32:33] They're not really part of us and they cannot be trusted. They must be dealt with.
[00:32:38] Anti Semitism starts here.
[00:32:42] Racism starts here.
[00:32:45] And no, it's not his advisor saying to Pharaoh, hey, Pharaoh, we've done some demographic analysis and if we don't deal with this, we're going to be in problem. It just pops out of his head.
[00:32:55] It just pops out of his head.
[00:32:57] Let me say it again. He's saying, there are people in our nation who are outbreeding us. They're not really part of us. They cannot be trusted and they must be dealt with. Human societies often pick on another group and to dehumanise them.
[00:33:15] Do we hear things like that said today?
[00:33:20] This is where it can get challenging.
[00:33:22] Do some of us have a hint of Pharaoh's fear in us?
[00:33:29] How do we think about people who passionately follow another religion?
[00:33:36] Are we tempted to be negative and dehumanising?
[00:33:40] How do we think about people who have a completely different approach to sexuality, Even more uncomfortable?
[00:33:52] How do we think about migrants?
[00:33:55] We are a church of migrants. I am the son of migrants.
[00:33:59] Do we think negatively and dehumanizingly about another culture?
[00:34:06] I'm now going to step right over the edge and get into the controversial zone. How do we think about refugees and asylum seekers?
[00:34:16] All of these things are hard to navigate and hard to think about.
[00:34:21] But when we come to thinking about them, we can't start where Pharaoh starts fear.
[00:34:28] There's these people.
[00:34:30] They're nothing like us. They're outbreeding us. They need to be dealt with.
[00:34:35] Which then goes on to lay the foundation for terrible things.
[00:34:44] Our starting point must be Christ.
[00:34:47] He loves everyone, not just groups like us.
[00:34:52] So every time one of us now encounter a new or unfamiliar group, the question we've got to ask ourselves is, are we encountering and thinking with wisdom and justice and compassion in the way that Jesus would want us to do that, or is there a hint of Pharaoh in us because it's really a difficult place to be?
[00:35:14] So often we think in this church that we are just assailed by culture and culture is going to come and get us. And we forget we can influence the culture.
[00:35:26] And where there is so much hatred of different groups, we can influence the culture by starting in the right place. Starting with. With Jesus. We don't dehumanize. We don't think in a negative way. We understand that God loves everybody, even if they're not like us. Is that right?
[00:35:48] Okay. As I said, in a few weeks, Colin will take us on to the next part of the story where the freedom fighter will actually carry out the plan.
[00:35:57] But I want to thank you for your attention this morning.
[00:35:59] Any attention you show any preacher is a sign of faith. And God rewards faith. Thank you.
