Exodus Chapter 1

Exodus 1:1 Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4 Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
5 And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.
6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.
8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

Several generations have passed since Joseph whom everyone loved. Its so easy to forget after a while. Notice though what prompts the Pharaoh to act against the children of Israel. It was motivated by fear. The bible says in the New Testament that perfect love casts out all fear. We see that fear is the cause of much persecution and hardship toward innocent people. It is the attitude that one must kill or be killed, enslave or be enslaved. This is an attitude of fear. However, it later works out for good for if they had not have been in bondage the children of Israel would have desired to remain in Egypt and not go to back to the land of Canaan which was God's original plan for them. Some theologians claim that the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph was the beginning of the Assyrian take over of Egypt and the new Pharaoh was Assyrian.

As bad as the holocaust was and it was bad. The people who did those things to the Jews will face God in judgment for every deed that was never repented of. Yet as bad as it was, without it the world would not have allowed the state of Israel to form once again. I believe God would have found another way to establish Israel again so I'm not excusing the holocaust in any way but it did lead to the establishing of Israel as a nation.

When evil people mean to kill, steal and destroy, God turns around for the good of those that trust in Him but the people that do the evil will not get away with it. If they continue in that state without repenting and turning to Christ to be cleansed of sin and forgiven, they will face God and be judged for each and ever deed done while they were alive on the earth. We do not get away with anything.

Exodus 1:9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

So we see fear was the cause of this action against Israel. Today we can look back and see how stupid this fear was. If the king would have continued being kind to the Israelites, they would have fought with them against any invading enemy. Israel has always been mighty in battle when the Lord was with them. To have been friends with them would only mean good, not evil.

Germany was a great nation with the greatest educational institutions of higher learning before they cast out the Jewish people. Jewish doctors, scientists etc are brilliant. Giving into fear never accomplishes anything good. Messianic Jews today have become some of the greatest bible teachers I've encountered.

Exodus 1:11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Rameses.

They built great treasure cities for these Pharaohs showing how brilliant they really were. However, to be their friend would have made the nation much greater. We only have to read history to discover that every nation that persecutes and thrusts out their Jewish population ends up either disappearing or losing the great nation status. We never get by with harming them so why do so many keep trying?

Exodus 1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

No matter how hard we try, we cannot stop what God blesses. There is a message to Christians in here also. The promise to Abraham about blessing the nation of Israel has not been cancelled neither has it been transferred to Christians. We are only part of that blessing if we are adopted into Israel by our faith in Jesus Christ. The moment we persecute or harm one of the children of Israel, we show clearly that we do not know the Father nor the Son, Jesus Christ.

Here is what Jesus Himself says about them and I believe this includes true born again Christians:

John 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
3 And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

If we persecute or put to death a Jew or a born again believer in Jesus Christ it will only prove that we do not know God and we do not know Jesus Christ. In fact if we put to death or persecute anyone for that matter that is innocent of a capital type of crime, we do not know Jesus Christ and we do not know God the Father. Jesus said it, I didn't. Getting rid of people in the name of any religion is not the gospel and is not the teaching of Jesus Christ. Jesus never gave the Christian Church any authority to kill those that oppose them.

The only authority ever given to any nation to kill was to Israel and that was only certain times and it was before the coming of Jesus Christ. Now none of us have that authority except the government and then only in cases where there is a capital offense like when someone commits murder. Then the government has a right to put them to death to keep them from killing someone else. After the coming of Jesus, there is never to be any death penalty for reasons of conscience or religion. We have the commandment to preach the gospel now and that should be our priority. Never are we granted any power to use force. Forcing a belief on someone does not make them a born again believer in Jesus Christ. That can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Exodus 1:13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor:
14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor.
15 And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:

Instead of family doctors, midwives were the ones to deliver the babies.

Exodus 1:16 And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.

They figured a lack of sons would cause the daughters to marry Egyptians and thereby Israel would disappear by mingling with Egyptians.

Exodus 1:17 But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.

There are times when we must make a choice between obeying God and obeying the laws of our land. Christians should always obey the law and be in subjection to governmental authorities except where it is clear that the law goes against the higher laws of God. No person who truly loves God will ever cause the death of a child either by abortion or killing them after they are born.

Murder is one of the ten commandments and even though this was before the actual law given through Moses, we do see a law in their hearts.

Today we have abortion running rampant. It is similar to this time in history except that it takes place before the child is born instead of after. The only reason they do not do it after the fact is that there would be no way for a civilized country to justify it. They justify abortion by changing the name from baby to fetus making it less than human. Pharaoh here makes the Israelites less human in the minds of the Egyptians so that they can justify killing innocent babies.

Update: Since writing the paragraph above on the subject of abortion before the time of birth, I stated that they don't do it after the child is born because there is no way to justify it in a civilized country. Sadly since that writing, things have changed in some states. New York passed a law where a baby born alive that was not wanted by its parents can be allowed to die without doing anything to save it. I saw the whole group of people standing by the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, actually cheering when he signed the bill into law. Unbelievable. I couldn't understand that at all and it is so grievous that society has gone that far into the lack of respect for life. It shows also that once they started legalizing abortion back in 1973 it slowly and subtly grew into the big industry and organ harvesting that it has become. Our moral conscience took a back seat. Is it any surprise that the awful corona virus started in the United States from the state of New York just a year after signing that bill into law?

When I read the history of pagan religions that threw live babies into the burning fire of an idol's belly, I couldn't understand how anyone can do such a thing to a live baby. Now we know and are not far from that mind set again. We are very close to that again and need a great awakening and a return to the God our country kicked out in 1962 and 63.

However, we see that the midwives chose to fear God rather than man.

Exodus 1:18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
19 And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.

God awards those that choose Him instead of obeying evil rulers.

Exodus 1:21 And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.
22 And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

There are probably many Egyptians who did not obey this law just like we see today, not all agree with abortion. Not all agree with unjust laws. In Germany, there were always isolated heroes who helped Jewish people. The "Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom tells of a family living in Holland who risked their own lives and were later sent to prison for helping Jewish people. Why did they help? They knew what the bible said and they knew that Adolph Hitler was totally wrong. It wasn't easy for them to stand up against the tide of opposition that surrounded them.

Yet we must stand against anti-Semitism, anti-black, anti-anything and give ourselves to presenting the pure gospel of salvation that is for all who believe, not just a certain group of elite select people.

Hate from so-called Christians hurts the gospel more than anything else. Opposition from the world does not harm the gospel. It is those within the ranks of Christianity that claim Jesus Christ but act in hate and prejudice toward those that are different than themselves that harm the gospel.

Does that mean that we agree with everyone and stop preaching the gospel? Absolutely not. How can we say we love our neighbor as ourselves and hide the gospel from them? If we fail to preach the gospel that causes us to repent of sin and believe in Jesus to save us from sin, then all of us will remain in our sins at the point of natural death thereby being lost forever in eternity separated from God.

Love is to tell the truth but tell the truth in love. When our message is rejected, we must love them anyway. This is where we fail. In the past history we have preached the gospel but we had trouble accepting rejection and allowed roots of bitterness to spoil our testimony. Of course we are going to be rejected. Jesus said that we would be. But if we only save one soul from hell by the message of the gospel, everything is worth it for just one.

Exodus 2
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