It occurred to me while Mike was praying that we might ought to mention to you since we talk about Stephen Mueller and his ministry in Munich quite a bit here. We support him. He's here often and we love him and his dear wife Elizabeth and their two girls. John was concerned down to the tragedy in Munich this weekend that something might have happened to Stephen or those in his church and so we emailed him and Stephen quickly got back to us to let us know that he was fine but he couldn't at that point account for his congregation and so we're still waiting to hear about that. And also there's so much that happens around here each week we seek the city was front and center this week but unbeknownst to you we sent our director of women's ministry Susan Shepard along with Mike Miller's wife Connie down to Columbia South America not South Carolina and they along with other leaders in our women's ministry and our denomination taught a good number of ladies in Columbia the word of God and I was getting updates from Susan over the course of the week and they were very well received and Susan was very encouraged and I hope she's back now I'm not certain of that but my concern was for safety her concern and Connie's concern was that the people that they went to serve would be minister to and edified I believe that was the case. So you know that Mike and Jane are on a much deserved vacation and in Mike's absence it's my privilege this morning to bring you the word of God and so I'd ask you please to open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 2 we'll be looking at verses 1 to 10 and while you're turning there I want to make some opening comments that I hope might stir your hearts to eagerness in our sermon series that we launched last week in Exodus. If you were to read our church's vision statement you'd be reminded that we have four primary infacies in our efforts to make mature disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Simply put we want to make disciples who worship God, who grow in community, who love others and who serve the world and to accomplish that one way we bring attention to each of those elements of a mentoring disciple is to focus our pulpit ministry and other commitments for an entire year on one of those four attributes of Christian maturity. This year as you know is the year of worship and as Mike mentioned last week we just completed a series in the book of Revelation which is a compelling treatment of the worship of God's people in light of Christ's imminent return to conquer and to reign over his and our enemies forever. We learned a great deal about the place and importance of worship that pleases God and that study. And now we're turning to Exodus for a similar reason. We'll see in Exodus the great links that God has gone to in order to redeem a people from their sin and misery, to become what he calls, I love the term of endearment, his precious possession, the apple of his eye. And we'll see again this time from an Old Testament perspective the importance that worship plays in that relationship. And as it was in our study of Revelation we'll once again observe how God accomplishes as the divine warrior all of this in an ongoing warfare with his enemies and our enemies through the lens of redemptive history. I was reminded in a small way this last week of the importance of history and how easy it is to forget what God has done over time through his providence that explains who we are, what we believe and where we're going and why. His pet was sorting through some decades of family pictures, she came across a package of pictures from the early days of Christ covenant that I honestly didn't know we had. And I'm going way back now to the late 70s, early 80s, Pastor Rita was here for a lot of those, he and I are both old. And not only were pet and I here then, but we really were young. We would have been in the young professionals back then and there had been such a thing. We've essentially grown up as members of this church having been part of Christ's covenant since our mid 20s and we carry a lot of Christ's covenant's history with us. And as I looked at those old pictures and individuals and families who persevered in those early days and faith that God was up to something extraordinary, despite our size and the difficulties of being an insignificant little mission work. I was struck with this thought and I said to Pat, when we retire, we'll take a great deal of the history of our church with us that will likely be forgotten. I don't mean in consequential history, but history that explains why we're the size we are today that was birthed in an early vision of our young denomination, the PCA, to see gospel preaching churches planted all over North America. I'm speaking of history that is full of profoundly important ventures that have impacted the entire world in four decades. I'm speaking of our pulpit ministry and I'm speaking of scores of church planners trained and churches planted many college and university campuses brought under the influence of the gospel, both in our nation and abroad, numberless missionaries deployed and supported in their calls to bring the good news to the nation's numberless initiatives of mercy and social justice to the poor and suffering and much, much more. As you might imagine, that history is a great treasure and a privilege that Pat and I've had a front row seat to observe and participate in for decades now. And as a result, we're enriched and we're grateful and profoundly aware of all the God can do through one frail, local church full of sinners saved by grace. What troubles me, frankly, is that most of you don't have the story, you don't know the story of Christ covenant, you don't have this history and at some point I wonder, I fear for lack of it, you'll cease to love this church or to carry on her great legacy of faithfulness in stewarding the gospel consistent with the vision of its forefathers. And the prospect of that makes me sad is my retirement in several years draws near. And what is true on a micro level? What is true of one local church can also be true on a much grander scale. Have you seen water's world? You can see it on Fox News if you watch that network, Jesse Waters as a young guy who goes all over the nation, interviewing all kinds of people to test their knowledge of our nation's rich history. And while not always, he's typically interviewing university students and millennials and he's asking them simple questions that I always have the answers to about our great nation to see what they know. And while the ignorance reflected in their answers to simple questions is rather funny. That's why it's on television. It is staggeringly sad and frightening to see how little Americans know about our nation's history and leaders. My concern is that this ignorance is not limited to our nation's history but also to biblical history. With those humors on some level, ignorance of history, forgetting what God has done in the past is both a great efficiency and a very dangerous one for both individuals in a culture and the church, forgetting rather than remembering God's great redemptive acts in history is no virtue. Unfortunately, for you and me, for the believer in Jesus Christ, to help us remember and not forget, the Lord has left us a detailed and sufficient record of His work of redemption in history that began right after the fall of Adam and Eve. That history is found in the Bible and it is a remarkable collection of stories of rescue and grace that we must know and remain familiar with if we are to avoid shipwreck of our souls and of the stewardship of the gospel in our own time. Here's how Psalm 78, a long reflection on God's amazing deeds to redeem Israel puts it. I urge you to read it this afternoon because a lot of it is a reflection of Exodus. The Psalmist writes, give ear to my people, to my teaching and climb your ears. The words of my mouth, I'll open my mouth and a parable, I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known that our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from their children but tell to the coming generations the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed the law in Israel which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children and that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn and arise and tell them to their children so that they should set their hope and God and not forget the works of God, the keepers' commandments, and that they should not be like their fathers, the stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast who spirit was not faithful to God. Am I telling you this? Because Exodus is an important record of God's great redemptive acts on behalf of his church. We see in Exodus how jealous God is for his glory and for his people. We learn a great deal about his character and his attributes as well as his and our enemies and how committed he is to defeat them. We learn his strategies and his tactics. We learn his moral will for our lives. We learn that he desires to be worshiped in honorable and appropriate ways and he has left us this biblical record through Moses so we don't have to wonder about all this so we don't forget and in our forgetting fall away. We may not long remember the history of Christ covenant, that's okay. But we dare not forget God's recorded work of redemption found in the Bible. There is too much at stake in our lifetimes to forget. And so last week we started a journey to get acquainted or re-acquainted with the book of Exodus not so we can boast what we know but so that we can become familiar with his person and his ways and his commandments and his love for true worshipers and in so doing we learn how to please him and serve him in our own time. And so look with me please at Exodus chapter 2 verses 1 to 10. I want to remind you again that this is God's eternal and errant word which Moses declared was not an idle word but our very life. Beginning in verse 1. You know a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levi woman. The woman conceived and bore son and when she saw that he was a fine child she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she took for him a basket made of bull rushes and dobed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank and his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river and while her young women walked beside the river she saw the basket among the reeds and center servant woman and she took it. When she opened it she saw the child and behold the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said this is one of the Hebrews children. When his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you and Pharaoh's daughter said to her go so the girl went and called the child's mother and Pharaoh's daughter said to her take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages so the woman took the child and nursed him when the child grew older she brought into Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. He named him Moses because she said I drew him out of the water. I hope it's obvious to you that what we've just read is no ordinary story. It's extraordinary and one of a series of extraordinary stories that the Holy Spirit has included in Exodus that captures the imagination and the awe of our children when they hear it in which ought to capture and retain ours as well. For it is one of the long series of events the demonstrates that God is a divine warrior who is slowly but surely redeeming his world. In order to understand these verses we need the context of chapter 1, Pastor Ross covered last week, Israel had come to Egypt some 400 years earlier to survive a great famine in the time of Joseph. They arrived with only 70 and by the time of Exodus we read in verse 7 of chapter 1 that their numbers had increased greatly. They had multiplied and grown exceedingly strong and the land was filled with them. And to compound the problem we read in verse 8 that a new king who did not know Joseph came to power. This Pharaoh was greatly threatened by the growing Hebrew population and out of fear that they might unite with Egypt's enemies he set about to shrewdly and wickedly bring them under his dominion. Pharaoh resorted to three strategies. The first is found in verses 11 to 14 and that was to enslave the Hebrews, putting them into force labor to build Egyptian cities but that didn't work. For they were more, the more they were oppressed we read, the more they multiplied in spread, Pharaoh's fear of Israel grew proportionally and so he increased the ruthlessness of their oppression and slays, it still didn't work. And so Pharaoh resorted to a second strategy in verses 15 to 21, the extermination, the genocide of the male babies through the Hebrew midwives. But that didn't work either for these women feared God more than that. And so we read in verse 22 that Pharaoh extended the demand to kill the Hebrew male babies at the hands of the midwives to everyone. Whoever came in contact with the Hebrew baby boy was to drown him in the night. Has it already occurred to you? Pharaoh's strategy to deal with the Jews next time was the same one used by King Herod in Matthew chapter 2 as the visiting magi told him of another king that had been born in Bethlehem. His plot to kill the baby Jesus was foiled by the magi much as the midwives foiled Pharaoh's plan and so as a last resort Herod had all the baby boys. To and under in Bethlehem slaughtered hoping to eliminate Jesus as his competitor. That event's been called the killing of the innocence. Tragic as it was, it also failed as Joseph took Mary and Jesus to of all places each. For time until the coast was clear for his return to Judah. And need I remind you that this sort of thing is still happening in our enlightened 21st century. China's one child policy the results enforced abortions for those who violated the embrace of abortion at any time in the womb. The selling of baby parts for profit, euthanasia of the weak and aged that's becoming an acceptable solution for cultures even our own that don't want to be inconvenienced. The Holocaust of World War II of course, the slaughters of innocent men, women and children, Christian and Muslim, the Middle East and Africa. There are genocides and atrocities of all sorts even especially in our own time. On it goes to choose you seem to notice or care. And so it's no surprise to find that Pharaoh comfortable with killing young Hebrew boys in a real sad sense nothing has changed. And what is obvious is that as despicable as this is, it is marked life in the fallen world right up to this very moment in which we live. Modern think far too highly of themselves. And so we need to be reminded of some things that Exodus will make perfectly clear even as our study of Revelation did. First, there's always been conflict and war between Satan and his seed and God's seed, God's people. We read in Genesis 3.15, I put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and your offspring. He's your bruiser head. You should bruise his heel. God's speaking these words to Satan in the garden. As part of the curse he placed upon him in Adam and Eve, history and our experience testify to its fulfillment, doesn't it? Second, it might be said that the history of redemption we find in the scriptures is primarily a recounting of the warfare between the Lord and Satan. It is ferocious. It is brutal. It is destructive. It's perpetual. And despite appearances, the war originates and is being waged primarily in the heavenlies, the earth being an important battlefield of this war. And that's the context the Apostle Paul gives us in Ephesians 6 where he says, finally, be strong in the Lord in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. And that is why last week Pastor Ross was quick to tell you that God is a warrior. This divine warrior motif is seen not just in Exodus, but throughout the scriptures. Old and New Testaments, but God is a warrior for a reason and a great cause, the ultimate triumph over his enemies. We saw the inner study of Revelation. It is what is anticipated in all the New Testament epistles. Here's just one example from 1 Corinthians 15. Their Paul says, for as one by one man came death, by man has come also the resurrection of the dead, for as an atom all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ, the first fruits, then it is coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for God has put all things in subjection under his feet. The divine warrior ultimately triumphs. And so I want to help you see from our text this morning how God accomplishes his purposes as the divine warrior, to preserve a people for himself, for it's important. It has present day implications for us. First, we should see that God typically wars against and conquers his and our enemies through his divine and sovereign providence. Now unfortunately God's providence as a doctrine has fallen on hard times. It is forgotten but essential doctrine of scripture. We too easily explain things as happening by chance or luck or fate, but that's not the Bible's explanation. The Westminster Confession of Faith contains the theological standards of our tradition. It's a thorough presentation of what the Bible teaches on most matters. And it healthfully explains the meaning and importance of this doctrine of providence in accomplishing God's sovereign purposes. I want to read just three questions from the shorter catechism to help you see this. Question 7 asks, what are the decrees of God? And it answers the decrees of God are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will whereby for his own glory he has foreordained what so ever comes to pass. Question 8 asks, how does God execute his decrees? And the answer God executes his decrees is divine purpose through the works of creation and providence. And question 11 asks this question. Word of God's works of providence. I want you to listen to this definition of God's providence from the confession. God's work of providence we read are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving, and governing all of his creatures and all of their actions. God's providence we read powerfully preserves and governs God's creation and all of their actions. There really are only two choices. God is either controlling the affairs of his world or he isn't. The Bible unapologetically proclaims he is. But what if the Bible's wrong? What if that's not true? I'll just say this, someone said once that if there's a single random atom in the universe we should fear and I couldn't agree more. And our text this morning as much of Exodus and the rest of scripture does illustrates the God's sovereign hand directing the events to ensure that his eternal purpose to bring forth a redeemer for his suffering and weary people is not foiled. What are some attributes of God's providence? Well, here's a short list these aren't categorical but they often denote as God's redemptive work in the scripture and in our own lives as well. God's providence can be ironic as it is in our story this morning. It's always timely, not always obvious in the moment. God's providence is designed to preserve and to promote his glory in the welfare of his church whilst doing his enemies. It's often carried out through people along with timely events and occasions. Sometimes God's providence includes what theologians call a divine reversal is in our story this morning. That is God's enemies appear to have the high ground, the upper hand for a moment until God makes his move. And God's providence is typically easier to see in hindsight, especially in our times that's true for me. Good question for you to ask, prayerfully, when things appear to be bleak or confused, something the psalmist might ask, what are you up to? What are you doing? Help me to see it through your eyes and to be a part of it. How is God's providence at work in our text this morning? Well, it'd be easy to write off this account of Moses' birth and preservation as good luck, or to dismiss it out of hand as untrue because he and Kenny timing of events. But if we follow the story carefully, God's providence could not be more apparent. Moses, the author of Exodus, is boasting about the Lord. Specifically, we see God's providence in the timing and the location of Moses' birth, as well as his preservation from death. First, the timing of Moses' birth to his Levite parents is remarkable. As a Levite, he'll become the Redeemer of Israel. He's a type of Christ. As at the timing of Christ's birth, we read in Galatians 4, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so they might receive adoption as sons, perfect timing for Christ's birth. As it was for Christ, so it is here for Moses. In the fullness of time, God brings forth a special young baby boy. Verse 1 tells us that his parents recognized that he was a fine child. In Acts 7, Stephen, as he's recounting this story to those who were about to stone him, speaks of the timing and uniqueness of this child named Moses. There we read in verse 17, Stephen speaking, but as the time of the promise drew near, which God had promised and granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until they arose over each of another king. You do not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with their race, forced their fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive. At this time, Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight. In God's perfect timing and place, Moses is born. As for timing, they were desperate days for Israel. As for place, Egypt was, by this time, no friend of Israel. And so an increasingly hostile times of genocide and oppressive slavery, Moses is born. This is no mere coincidence. For God had planned it all along, it will become perfectly clear as we proceed in our study of Exodus. But not only was Moses' birth clearly super-intended by God's providence, so was his preservation. Most of the account here is intended to demonstrate God's sovereign protection of Moses from Pharaoh's death sentence. And so we see that his parents hid him for three months until it was no longer possible. We see how his mom fashioned a basket from papyrus and covering it with tar and pitch so that it was water-worthy. She put Moses into the basket, hoping the Lord would spare his life, commentators liken this to Noah's ark that God used to preserve Noah through the flood and his family. And then Pharaoh's daughter just happens to come to the Nile to bathe as Moses is launched in the basket to spare his life. What impeccable timing or as we might say, what luck? Moses discovered by Pharaoh's daughter and rescued from the water by her maid's servant. He immediately finds favor with her, though she knows he's a Hebrew boy and her father's edict that he should be drowned. And yet she rescues him rather than drown him. What are the chances of that? Moses' sister finds the courage to ask Pharaoh's daughter if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse Moses, which is welcomed. And so Moses' mother is brought into nursing. Commentators think that Moses' mom probably had from two to 12 years with Moses, which is perhaps time to impart to him the knowledge of the God that he would come to know and to love and to serve. And is this the privilege of receiving her son back to nursing race where time wasn't enough? Moses' mother's compensated by Pharaoh's household for doing so. Can you see the divine irony in humor in that? The very ones who should be drowning Moses in the Nile are preserving his life and compensating his parents for doing so. And finally, upon taking him to Pharaoh's daughter, she names him Moses, which unbeknownst to her as divine irony as well. For the name Moses had a dual meaning. As Mike mentioned last week, the Egyptians, that name would connote a son of Pharaoh. But to the Hebrew advent drawn out, reminding Israel that Pharaoh's plan to destroy Israel had been obstructed by his own daughter's rescue. From the very beginning, it was God's plan as the divine warrior to undermine Pharaoh's dominance over the people of God. How would this story read apart from God's providence, his powerful preserving and governing all the actions and people in events in this account? I don't know, but he did. And because he did, as I was thinking about this passage, and I hope you are, I was compelled to worship the Lord and rejoice in His great deeds to ensure His people are ultimately delivered from their enemies. And we'll see more of this in our study of Exodus. God's enemies, our enemies appear to have the high ground for a time, but just for a little while. Finally, I want you to see that in his divine providence, God uses ordinary people who walk by faith to accomplish the great things of the kingdom. I ought to qualify the word ordinary. In 1974, Francis Schaefer published a book of 16 sermons he titled, No Little People. For it was Schaefer's conviction that in God's providence, there are no insignificant ordinary people or places. Every believer, united to Christ and dwelt with his spirit, has gifts and talents and has an important contribution to make to the kingdom of God wherever they live. We certainly see that in our passage this morning. Who are the ordinary people of faith and our story whom God uses here? First, there are Moses' parents. Though they're unnamed here, which reinforces their ordinairiness, we learn their names in the genealogy found in Exodus 6. Their names are Amram and Jocobet. All we know is that they are Levites from our text, just ordinary Hebrew people we conclude, but by virtue of their actions, we see that in fact they are heroic. For despite the fairest decree, we see that they hid Moses for three months, risking their own lives in Moses' life, and perhaps the lives of his sister Miriam and his older brother Aaron. Listen to how the New Testament assesses these two ordinary obscure people in Exodus 2. In Hebrews 11, 23, we read by faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the kings' eat it. Moses' parents knew there was something special about Moses and despite the kings' eat it, they hid him for three long months and when they could hide him no longer, they prepared a vessel by faith to put him afloat in the Nile rather than to drown him in that same water, believing that God would rescue him and they were not disappointed. For this, they are remembered perpetually as heroes in Hebrews 11 for their faith in a God who stays ordinary people, performing extraordinary and courageous deeds by faith in a great God. But Moses' families full of heroes for his sister also plays an heroic part in the story of God's saving providence. Like her parents, she remains unnamed here, reinforcing her ordinaryness. Only later in Exodus do we learn that her name is Miriam, Moses' older sister and at this time, Miriam was a young girl, probably no older than 12. What kind of faith and courage must Miriam have muster to approach Pharaoh's own daughter to seek Moses' rescue, knowing that Pharaoh's eat it, that Hebrew boys were to be destroyed by throwing them into the Nile. Perhaps such courage was formed in her by her parents, through her upbringing, perhaps their high-risk example in seeking to spare Moses' life was so compelling she was caught up in it and so took this great risk. Whatever the cause, Miriam will be forever remembered as well for her willingness to risk her life in a spectacular way to preserve her little brother's life. She was no bit player and God's providential commitment to spare Moses' life. And I wouldn't want to pass over this without mentioning that in God's common grace, sometimes he creates participants if not heroes in his redemptive provenance as well. For Pharaoh's daughter was moved by God to favor Moses and risk the consequences of violating her father's eat it. And we see that her willingness to spare Moses by extended to adopting him and raising him in all the ways of Egypt, as his adoptive mother unbeknownst to her to prepare him to lead God's people out of Egypt. In her attendance, her also importantness, drama since they witnessed their princess disobey her father's eat it and they chose not to disclose it. You see this cast of characters all playing their part in the providence of God. And so how are we to think of this simple but important story and how might we apply it to her own lives? Well first the risk of being redundant. I want to reinforce the importance of reading the scripture through the lens of God's providence. God accomplishes his purposes through his works of creation and providence. In his providence, he powerfully preserves and governs all of his creatures and all of their actions to accomplish his eternal purpose, the salvation of his people. Because of God's providence, Joseph was able to say to his fearful brothers in Genesis 50. After all of the wicked plots of schemes that they and others had imposed upon him, what they had meant for evil against him, he said, God intended for good to accomplish the saving of many lives. How kind of God? So with this in mind, let me suggest several applications for your encouragement. First, think highly of the history of redemption, read it, believe it, apply it. It will help you remember in good times and in difficult times that our God has a definite plan to redeem his creation that cannot be thwarted by his enemies, nor circumstances, despite the appearance of things in a given moment. This is the thrust of Romans 828, a familiar verse that can sound rather trite and tell us put into the context of God's providence. You know it, don't you? God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love him, for those who are called according to his purpose. Second, be impressed that God uses ordinary people for extraordinary ends. You are much like Moses, parents, and sister. They lived as ordinary people of faith and extraordinarily difficult times, and through their courage, fueled by faith in a great God, made very important contributions in God's plan of redemption. Like them, you live as an ordinary saint, an extraordinary and perilous times. What will be your part in God's divine providence to redeem his world? What will it be? Third, in the midst of trials and difficulties, be reminded that you are not a victim of faith. The affairs of this world are not random. They are a part of a larger story in which the Lord is carrying out His decrees, His purposes, and as His people, we're at war with the enemy of our souls. It's always been that way. Why would you expect it to change in our generation? And at times, our experiences are job-like. I've been with many of you in those moments, and I understand that, but God is the divine warrior. We'll ultimately have the last word, even if that awaits Christ's return. Finally, this isn't a side, but it's an application. I want to urge you to interpret your difficult experiences in this life with the context of eternity and mind, because that is how the Bible presents life. Even Job with all of his suffering and misery, it appears, was able to think this way. For we read in Job 19, I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh, I will seek God. I myself was seen with my own eyes, and not another, how my heart yearns within me.
Without bringing the eternal perspective to bear in our presence, suffering, and trials, life makes little sense, and you risk beginning to think like the agnostic or worst, worst still the atheist. If you read Hebrews 11, that is precisely how the heroes of the faith persevered in their own generations of persecution and suffering. They were anticipating the enduring city, the city of God. Brothers and sisters, I don't want to be unduly negative, but though the times and places differ, our present season has more in common with the storyline of Exodus than you may think. And we have ample warnings in the New Testament to expect this, but I want you to be encouraged, because God, the divine warrior, continues to fight for us, just to see so powerfully did for his people of Egypt. Would you pray with me?
Father, we, a frequent plea in the Psalms of Lament, is for you to rise up as the divine warrior to meet out justice and mercy, where it appears to be absent in our distressed and fallen world. We thank you for the countless stories and scripture like this one in Exodus that demonstrate that you are committed to bring about our salvation, despite every effort by the world and our flesh and the devil to usurp your purposes. And we ask that you would grant us ordinary people who have much in common with Moses, mom, and dad and sister, the faith, the perseverance, and the Holy courage, to participate with you in your grand intentions to redeem your creation in our own generation, but we ask in Jesus' name our man.