ISRAELS STRENGTH COMES FROM ANTAGONISTIC FORCES

ISRAELS STRENGTH COMES FROM ANTAGONISTIC FORCES 

"The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread abroad" Exod. 1:12

This book of Exodus takes tip the history of the children of Israel, and carries it on from the, point where Genesis left it. Its opening word "Now" is exactly equivalent to "And," thus marking the continuity. It has a character all its own. It is the story of how God rooted the national life of this people in His own REDEEMING LOVE AND POWER. In their days of quiet and prosperity in the land of Goshen, they had never come to NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. They were a SUBJECT RACE. The first pages of this book introduce us to them in circumstances of darkness and difficulty. They were now not SUBJECTS, merely; they were SLAVES; and most unjustly and cruelly oppressed and afflicted. The hopes of Jacob and Joseph concerning a going back into their own land seemed to have no chance of realization. They were absolutely powerless, and if simply left to themselves they were positively threatened with EXTERMINATION. It was to that end that the power of Egypt was working. If there were still any HOPE in their hearts, it was set on GOD. This was HIS HOUR. In the words we emphasize, we have the first evidence of HIS PRESENCE AND HIS BLESSING. On the level of the physical, they could not be destroyed, because God had chosen them for the fulfillment of His purposes. The principle is of perpetual application. Every successive age in the history of men has seen it working. THE MORE THE FORCES ANTAGONISTIC TO THE WILL OF GOD OPERATE AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF GOD THE MORE DO THESE PEOPLE RISE AND GAIN STRENGTH. It is not persecution, but patronage, that they have most to fear.