“Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 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 get them out of the land.
Therefore, they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them
with their burdens…..But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied
and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel…… and they
made their lives bitter with hard bondage….. (Exodus 1:8-14)
“We fancy that God can only manage His world by
big battalions….when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies….When a
wrong needs righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening,
God sends a baby into the world to do it.”
(F.W. Boreham)
And it was a doomed baby, a beautiful baby,
that was meant to be saved when a great wrong needed righting, a truth needed
preaching, and people needed saving….and his name was Moses (Acts 7:20)
You mothers who have experienced the euphoria
after giving birth, imagine the government of your land had decreed that the
baby you were holding in your arms had to die. It doesn’t bear thinking does
it? Think of Mary, Elizabeth and the mother of Moses…..
Imagine having to place that baby in a basket
and set it on a river hoping someone would find it and look after it because
you cannot bear to see its life extinguished. Then imagine a woman in
pre-mortal life saying: send me to the Egyptian royal court and I will save
that Hebrew baby that would one day float down the river…… this was the
beginning of a man who was to become the greatest prototype of the Messiah.
And here is the full story. A Levite by the
name of Amram, who was afraid for his whole nation and the baby his wife,
Jochebed was carrying, prayed to God one
night begging Him for deliverance from the miseries his people were enduring at
the hands of the Egyptian masters who
had proclaimed a death penalty on all the newborn.
God of Israel heard that prayer and ‘stood by
him in his sleep’ and exhorted him not to despair for the child his wife was
carrying for that very child shall deliver the Hebrew nation from the distress
they were under. What’s more, “he shall be concealed from those who watch to
destroy him….that his memory shall be famous while the world lasts; and this
not only among the Hebrews, but foreigners also….” (Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities” p 97)
And this answers how Moses’ preservation came
about through the involvement of Him who makes all things possible and who
fulfils all His promises. Amram and his wife concealed the baby boy in their
home for three months after which Amram decided to trust the baby’s safety and
care to God rather than to depend on his own uncertain ways of protection: “He
believed that God would in some way procure the safety of the child in order to
secure the truth of His own predictions”. (ibid p 98)
Hence the cradle made out of bulrushes and the infant left to God’s preservation floating down the river. Imagine the faith of that father and the longing of that mother to hold that baby against her breast….imagine the lesson learnt that when you put your trust in God, He comes up with a perfect plan because He did send that willing woman to the Egyptian court to save that baby of promise….. whom the Egyptians themselves raised to break the bands of their inflicted bondage of God’s favoured people.
Oh the irony of the perfect plan of the
perfect God whose work for the salvation of men cannot be frustrated!
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Artist Unknown)
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