Becoming Your Own Worst Enemy

Today, we start our sermon series called Escape for Your Life, following the first few chapters of Exodus. Through it, we will be exploring how we put our life on the line and how God seeks to save our life. 

Exodus begins with a pretty simple but disturbing premise. The family of Israel had moved into the outskirts of Egypt and for at least a generation or two they had multiplied. A new Egyptian king came into power and began to fear them. He feared that Israel had become so strong and numerous and that one day they would turn against him and the rest of Egypt.

So out of fear what does the Pharoah do? He starts by putting all of Israel under slave labor and he works them ruthlessly. But somehow this has the opposite effect of what the Pharoah wants. God makes Israel even more fruitful and multiplies them. Next Pharoah decides to just kill off the next generation of male Israelites. First, he sends midwives to kill every male child and then when that doesn’t work he tells everyone to kill the Israelite male children. Every Israelite boy should be thrown in the Nile. 

In our time, we know the killing of innocent babies is horrendous. We know the sanctity of life, especially for children and newborns - though we might not be as different in our modern time, we still do struggle with the sanctity of life because we don’t recognize the sanctity of life for unborn children or for those that are born into bad situations. We could talk a lot more about those two blinders, but the point is that leaders, or really people in general, will do a great deal of horrendous things in the name of self-preservation or ultimately fear. Oftentimes, we don’t even realize how much fear controls us, debilitates us, or makes us destructive. 

There is a lot of fear out there in the world today. Our news is full of it, our workplaces, our relationships, our government and so much more. We can either let that fear control us, making room for it and acting in it, or we can be those who fear the Lord first and act in courage. The midwives feared God, so they didn’t let their fear of Pharoah’s power or Egypt control them. And don’t get me wrong, they had plenty to be afraid of, we know what Egypt was capable of and what they would do to Israel. By acting in fear, wonder, awe, and love for God above whatever else sought to control them, they were not only free from destructive fear but they themselves became fruitful and multiplied. They participated in God’s salvation and so they participated in God’s bountiful work. 

This should tell us a lot about our fear. Do we let the very real fear of this world, its powers, the numbers, the possible future, and danger control us, or do we seek God above all other things and so find freedom and courage to work his salvation and fruitfulness? These choices are miles apart in how they affect us and the world around us. I would urge you to be diligent when you look at any decision you need to make or even anything you say. Ask yourself, “Am I doing this out of fear, or am I doing this out of love for God?” There would be plenty of those who would follow fear and Pharoah, but we know that at least in these two midwives, God’s courage reigned and so Israel became even more fruitful.

The disturbing thing about fear isn’t just that it controls us or leads us to do awful things, but it also ends up destroying us too. In this particular story, you might not have realized it, but Pharoah is setting up his own fall. The thing he is most afraid of is that Israel, this great and numerous nation, will rise up against them, with some foreign attackers, and leave. What is the result? Because of what Pharoah does, God hears Israel’s cries for help and he comes to help them. Egypt is attacked and Israel leaves. Pharoah acting in fear causes his fear. 

It might not always be this obvious, but the same thing happens to us too. When we act out of fear we often cause it to happen, or we make it even worse than what we were afraid of. 

Again, that is what Pharoah and all Egypt with him end up doing, because it isn’t just another nation that joins Israel and becomes their enemy, it is God. The creator and sustainer of the world, the defender of the weak and in need. It is to him that Israel’s prayers and blood cries out and he is a far worse enemy than anything else the Pharoah could have been afraid of. Pharoah should have been like the midwives and been afraid of God first. 

Pharoah’s fear goes even further though because it even creates the means for his destruction. It was not the multitude of Israelites that would destroy him, it was his actions. A very obvious consequence of his actions is what we will read on Sunday. Pharoah’s command to drown every boy leads to a mother putting her son in a little basket ark, where he is found and lifted up by Pharoah’s daughter. This Son, Moses would become the leader that would, through God’s help, oppose and help Israel escape from Egypt. 

At the end of this passage, we hear that Pharoah gets everyone, probably all Egyptians, to throw every male Israelite child in the Nile. Does this remind you of the plagues that happen to Israel? The drowning of Israelite boys should remind you of the first and the last plague especially because it was this act that helped to cause them. As the children were thrown into the Nile it would have been filled with their blood. The Nile being turned to blood that started a sort of domino effect of curses was just God allowing the actual effect and consequences of Egypt's actions to be seen. Many scholars have shown that the next few plagues, like flies, gnats, frogs, and disease are just the consequence of so much blood. When God punishes us, so often it is God just releasing the fury of our natural consequences. Then the death of every firstborn in Egypt animals and humans was Egypt's actions rebounding back at them. What they did to Israel, they were now experiencing. In fact, the Red Sea closing on Pharoah’s army can be seen as a way in which the waters swallow up their blood for justice. 

The difficult thing to perceive is that this is even God’s mercy. If Pharoah intended to kill every male child and cover the land in their blood. God limits the retribution to just the firstborn and to a few days of blood. We will get to that later, but as horrendous and scary as God’s retributive justice can feel we must see his mercy and trust that he upholds and cares for any innocent even after death. 

This story of the Exodus begins with the need for both Egypt and Israel to escape for their lives. Egypt and Pharoah need to escape from their own fear, the consequences of their actions, and the destruction that they themselves cause. For Israel, right now we know they need to escape from the power of the world. To some extent, we have already seen that. Where forced labour was intended to weaken and shrink them, through God it became increase and strength. Where infanticide was meant to debilitate and shrink them, it lead to courage, faith, strength, and even more fruitfulness. Somehow in this passage, it would seem as if Israel has already escaped, even while they were still in slavery and persecution. God has even more plans and freedom meant for them, but that will come. Instead, today we can see through Pharoah how we ourselves become our worst enemy, how we create enemies of others, and ultimately how we create an enemy of God through acting in fear and self-preservation. We can be like Pharoah, or we can be like the Israelite midwives who act in courage and become fruitful in their faithfulness. We can be like the Israelites who faithfully work and worship God under their hard labour and they themselves see strength and fruitfulness. This Lent lets do the hard work of courageously committing and persevering with God, so that with him we might see the life that results.