“40 Years in the Wilderness” (Exodus 2:15-25)

“40 Years in the Wilderness” (Exodus 2:15–25)

Pastor Cameron Jungels

Eastside Baptist Church

Sunday PM, March 26, 2017

 

Exodus 2:15–25 (NIV)

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. ¹⁶ Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰ “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”

²¹ Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom,  saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

²³ During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

 

1. In God’s school of preparation: learning how to act for justice in the right way.

 

2. In God’s school of preparation: learning how to live as a stranger in a foreign land.

 

3. In God’s school of preparation: learning how to lead people by first being tested for 40 years in the ability to lead sheep.

 

4. In God’s school of preparation: learning that God never forgets his covenant promises, and will always act in keeping with those promises.