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00:00Whose word will win?
00:03God keeps His promises and God's promises always come under threat.
00:08At first sight verses 1, 7 say nothing that is not already in Israel's arrival in Egypt,
00:14the tribes identified, and God's reassurances to Jacob on facing such a risky move.
00:20But just comparing verse 7 with Genesis 46 verse 3 will do here for our purposes.
00:26When God makes a promise, He keeps it.
00:29Did Israel and Egypt notice that this promise was being kept?
00:34Maybe not.
00:35Were they too preoccupied with the harshness of life to take into account what Pharaoh
00:39had noticed in the huge multiplication of the immigrant community?
00:43If so, they deprived themselves of the consolation of seeing the faithfulness of their God.
00:49A promise had been made and that promise was being magnificently kept.
00:54This truth that God always keeps His promises is actually a fair summary of the whole book
00:59of Exodus, but it is strikingly seen in the first chapter.
01:04But hot on the heels of this great truth comes its biblical counterpart.
01:08There is no such thing as an unchallenged word of God.
01:12When the word comes, counterattack is immediate and tribulation looms.
01:17Egypt is a case in point.
01:20Pharaoh saw increasing numbers, sensed increasing danger, and mounted a considered response.
01:26First we read of burdens, affliction and taskmasters who ruthlessly make them work.
01:31As the developing story indicates, this continues even when it is seen not to work.
01:36Secondly, there comes the secret attempt to conscript the midwives.
01:40Their motive for non-cooperation is spiritual, but we can see that God was standing by His
01:45word.
01:46Finally, Pharaoh resorts to a public policy of genocide and the chapter ends with this
01:51question hanging in the air.
01:53Will the enemy succeed at long last?
01:56No, the enemy will not succeed.
01:58But simply staying with Exodus 1, we see first that the purposes of God cannot be halted,
02:04and secondly, as Isaiah 59 verse 19 puts it, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the
02:10spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
02:14Reflection
02:15Trials are not strange, they are God's intended way of spiritual progress, and they accompany
02:20the outpouring of God's love.