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EXODUS: FUNCTIONING WELL IN A HOPELESS GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Part I: God's Deliverance Of Israel Amid Humanly Helpless Trials
S. God's Richly Keeping His Word In Humanly Helpless Trials
(Exodus 12:35-42; 13:17-22)
  1. Introduction
    1. God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt was a huge achievement, one that God Himself repeatedly wanted His people to recall throughout their long history, cf. passages like 1 Samuel 12:6 and Jeremiah 2:6.
    2. One of the most striking elements of that tremendous deliverance is the rich way God fulfilled His Word to Israel in the event, a fact that is worth pondering for our own edification today (as follows):
  2. God's Richly Keeping His Word In Humanly Helpless Trials, Exodus 12:35-42; 13:17-22.
    1. Around four hundred years before the Exodus, God had promised Abram, the father of the nation Israel, that this deliverance would occur with the following details, cf. Genesis 15:13-21:
      1. The descendants of Abram would serve a Gentile nation in that Gentile nation's land, Gen. 15:13a,b.
      2. These descendants would serve [around] 400 years before God would judge the Gentile overlords and deliver Abram's seed from them, Genesis 15:13c-14a. (Ryrie St. Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Gen. 15:40.
      3. When Abram's descendants would leave that land, they would take great wealth from their former Gentile overlords, and go into the land of Canaan that God had promised Abram, Genesis 15:14b-21.
    2. Believing that promise to great grandfather, Abram, Joseph had later told the sons of his father, Jacob to mummify his body and take it with them when they left Egypt for Canaan for its final burial to act as an encouragement for them to trust God's promise in their generation, Genesis 50:24-26.
    3. Accordingly, when Israel left Egypt, God's 400-year-old Genesis 15:13-21 promise to Abram and Joseph's charge regarding his mummified body were marvelously used of God to show He richly kept His promise to Abram and his descendants even when Israel had faced humanly helpless trials (as follows):
      1. When God had begun to deliver Israel from Egypt, from the human viewpoint, all seemed hopeless:
        1. The man, Moses who was the most qualified to be used of God to deliver Israel from Egypt (much as God had used Joseph to deliver Jacob's sons from death by famine, cf. Gen. 45:4-8) had been rejected by the people of Israel, and now kept sheep on the back side of the desert, cf. Ex. 2:1-22.
        2. The people of Israel could only cry out unto God for help from their Egyptian taskmasters, Ex. 2:23.
      2. Accordingly, as we have found in our studies of Exodus so far in this lesson series, God began to fulfill His Genesis 15:13-21 promise to Abram, and called and led Moses to perform miraculous plagues to convince Pharaoh to let His people leave the land of Egypt, cf. Exodus 3:1-12:36.
      3. Well, when the people of Israel actually left Egypt, various details involved in their departure give evidence of the RICHNESS with which God fulfilled His Word (as follows):
        1. God powerfully kept His Word: though Israel was but a group of slaves that had long and helplessly been subject to the Egyptians, they left 2 million strong with all their herds and with such speed that their bread dough did not have time to rise, 12:37-39; Ibid., Ryr. St. Bib., ftn. to 12:37!
        2. God precisely kept His Word: Israel left 430 years to the day from when her forefathers had entered Egypt, Ex. 12:40-41, 42! Thus, the years of national suffering had been carefully metered by God!
        3. God profusely kept His Word: Israel took all she wanted from the Egyptians, and God also gave them favor in the view of the Egyptian people so that Israel was able to spoil Egypt in bountiful fulfillment of God's ancient promise to Abram in Genesis 15:14b, cf. Exodus 12:35-36.
        4. God protectively kept His Word: He first led Israel away from war as He knew the peoples' faith was too weak for it, and He gave them a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide and to protect them (from their enemies, Ex. 14:19-20) in their journey, Exodus 13:17-18, 20-22.
        5. God promotively kept His Word: He allowed Joseph's mummy to go with Israel out of Egypt as a tangible piece of evidence that God would continue to take Israel toward the land of Canaan where Joseph's body would have its final resting place, Ex. 13:19 with Genesis 15:15-16; Joshua 24:32!
Lesson: God powerfully, precisely, profusely, protectively and promotively kept His promise to Abram and his descendants in taking Israel out of Egypt toward the Promised Land of Canaan!

Application: God can be trusted just as RICHLY to fulfill His Word to US, so may WE keep heeding it!