Episode 4 Social Justice Gone Wrong

Keys for Kingdom Living Podcast

Episode 4: Social Justice Gone Wrong

 

Welcome to Episode 4 of Keys for Kingdom Living!

Today, we will continue to delve into the book of Exodus to see God’s kingdom plans as they unfolded in history to better understand what his plans mean for our lives today.

Let’s turn to Exodus chapter 2 verses 11 through 22. The title of today’s message is, Social Justice Gone Wrong.

In our last episode, we were comforted to know that God prepares arks to deliver his people from the storms of life. We saw that God’s protection is strong and durable against the attacks of sin and evil in the world. Like the fine wood, tar, and pitch of baby Moses’ basket, God seals us with his security through Christ so we can float above the dangers of deep, dark waters.

We also learned that our children belong to God. We can trust God as he reveals his divine purposes for our children’s lives. We are able to raise our children to revere and love God, and we are able to love them but be ready to give them back to God for his higher kingdom salvation plans.

Today, we will learn more about God’s promise of deliverance to Moses, who had grown up into a proud and angry young man. Let’s read Exodus 2, verse 11a.

Exodus 2:11a

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor.

Moses is about 40 years old at this time. He had been raised by Pharaoh’s daughter in the wealthy, lavish royal courts of what was likely the 18th dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs. He had everything life could offer in riches and had grown up proud of his Egyptian heritage.

But one day, as it happens with many adopted children, Moses wondered about his Hebrew background. He decided to wander outside of the immaculate, spotless walls of the Egyptian courts to go and see how people from his ethnic group were treated.

In modern culture today, he would be like a President Obama going back to the south side of Chicago’s ghetto to see how black American people were living. But unlike President Obama, as we will see later, Moses did not handle his reaction very well to what he saw. So what did Moses see? Let’s read chapter 2, verse 11b.

Exodus 2:11b

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

We read that Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. We can see by the phrase, “one of his own people,” that Moses was having an identity crisis as someone who was both a Hebrew and a royal Egyptian culturally. But in that moment, Moses identified most with the oppressed Hebrews. He saw the burdened Hebrew who was being beaten up as one of his own people.

Looking at his situation at the human level, this must have been a cultural shock for Moses. It was likely the first time he saw the vile and cruel oppression of his people by the Egyptians who had raised him from childhood. When Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he was enraged at the hatred and brutality.

Let’s take a look at what he did next. Let’s read verse 12.

Exodus 2:12

Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

Nothing in Moses’ privileged royal lifestyle, where he told servants when to come and go, and where he could have anything he wanted with the snap of his fingers, prepared him for this moment. Moses could have rationalized that Hebrew slaves were treated well from what he knew of his sheltered palace lifestyle. But now he was confronted with a dark reality.

It is an understatement to say that Moses did not handle the evil he witnessed very well. In his rage, and also out of premeditated intent, he looked all around him first to be sure no one would see him. Then he murdered the Egyptian and buried the evidence in the sand.

Moses took justice into his own hands as someone with power and status. He thought he could hide his crime. He acted on his dark emotions of rage and pride. He repaid evil with evil.

Even after Moses committed this horrible crime, he had not learned a lesson. Let’s read verses 13 through 15.

Exodus 2:13-15

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” 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.

Moses truly could not see his own injustice if he naively thought he could teach his fellow Hebrews to forgive each other. In his own pride, he was spiritually blind to his own even more horrible sin. He accused a Hebrew man of sin, asking him why he hit a fellow Hebrew.

Jesus referred to spiritual blindness as a beam or a plank in your eye. Look at Matthew 7, verses 3-5.

Matthew 7:3-5

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

It is so easy to accuse others when they sin, but so hard to see our own sins. Jesus knew that about the human heart. We are born with a self-centered need to see ourselves as good people. In our desire to preserve a good image, we sometimes sweep our own sins under the carpet and forget about them. It didn’t take long for Moses to become self-righteous. Moses surely had not forgotten that he murdered an Egyptian, but he likely rationalized that it was not so bad since he did it to save his Hebrew brother.

This is how we deal with most sins when we are not truly sorry for what we have done. Over time, a big sin is reasoned away and explained into a smaller sin until it is as though the act never happened. Out of sight, out of mind. Moses had appointed himself as a proud protector of the Hebrew people. The very next day, Moses was rebuking a Hebrew who was hitting another Hebrew, which was far less offensive than his crime of murder.

A millennia after Moses’ time, God sent his Son Jesus, who taught that when we accuse others of their sins without looking at our own sins, we become hypocrites. Without God’s truth, holy justice, and compassion shining into our dark hearts, even our good deeds are like filth before God who is holy. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

There’s only one man who kept all the laws of God the Father perfectly. That man was Jesus Christ. He never sinned, though he was scorned and mocked and hated. He laid down His perfect life obediently as an atonement for the sin of all people, so that whoever believes in Him can be forgiven. His holy life was given in exchange for our imperfect lives to save us from the judgment our sins store up before the holiness of God.

That is the divine justice of God’s kingdom, that when we repent our sins and give our lives to Jesus Christ, God forgives us, and we grow more able to follow Christ and the rules of his kingdom. His divine justice exceeds any well-intended but flawed social justice we try to uphold and keep others accountable for.

So, Moses had become a proud hypocrite and murderer. But the Hebrew man ripped the blinders off his eyes by letting him know how they truly saw him. Let’s read verse 14 again.

Exodus 2:14

The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”

The Hebrew man that Moses tried to rebuke confronted Moses’ false sense of righteousness and pride by asking him, “Who made you a ruler and judge?” And, “Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Now the truth was in plain sight. Moses’ sin was exposed. And we read that Moses became afraid and thought about everyone knowing about his crime. His worst fears came true. Let’s read verse 15.

Exodus 2:15

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.

In one moment of darkness, Moses went from a man who had all the world could offer to being a murderer, a hypocrite, and a fugitive on the run from the king. All his hopes were dashed by his inability to control his anger. His lack of true sorrow for his sins had caught up with him. His life was in ruins, just like the Egyptians’ life he had taken and buried in the sand. Surely Moses’ mother did not have this kind of life in mind for her son, when she trusted God to deliver him from the Nile River as a baby and when she kept the agreement to give him away to the Pharaoh’s daughter.

Now Moses was in trouble. But this time, the evil was not from outside, but from within his own heart. The enemy of sin. Once again, only God could deliver him.

You know, it’s really painful when we are made aware of our own sin, when we think we are doing what is right and trying to save others. But the truth is, we all need to be saved, and no one can truly save anyone except God alone. God sees our heart intentions, the good, the bad, and the ugly of our motives.

It’s a comfort to know God wants to save each one of us, and he must show us our sins first so we can get healing and cleansing that only he can provide through the righteousness of our Savior and Deliverer, Jesus Christ. God had to show Moses his dark heart and sin because he was spiritually blind. He had to humble Moses so that he would leave his life of sin and see that he needed to be saved. Look at verses 16 through 20.

Exodus 2:16-20

Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”

Moses wandered in the wilderness until he grew weary one day and sat down by a well. At that well, he observed seven young women herding their sheep to get water when some other male shepherds came. They tried to drive the women and their sheep away to claim the well for themselves.

Once again, Moses was confronted with injustice, but this time he was not so heavy-handed. We learn that the young women were daughters of the priests of Midian and that Moses rescued them and even watered their sheep. This time, Moses asserted himself only enough to drive the men away. He also showed compassion for the young women by watering their flocks. God was giving Moses a humble shepherd heart and a new beginning in a new land.

The young woman’s father, Reuel, had his daughters invite Moses to their home for a meal. Days turned into months, and Moses lived with this godly family and took up a life of calm, patient sheep herding in a desert. It was not the lofty life of royalty that the world could offer him, but it was a place where God showed him mercy and the love and kindness of a God-fearing family. Let’s look at verses 21 and 22.

Exodus 2:21-22

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

Moses was grateful for the new life he was given and for a precious wife and children. But Moses still felt the unease of being a stranger in the foreign land of Midian. He was no longer a citizen of Egypt. Also, he had not yet taken hold of the hope his Israelite brothers had in God’s promise to give them the land of Canaan.

Let’s look at when God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites. Let’s read Genesis chapter 12, verses 4 to 7.

Genesis 12:4-7

So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land. ” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

In Genesis 12, we see that God’s promise to Abraham, also called the Abrahamic Covenant, would not only include increasing his descendants numerously, but also it included giving his chosen people Israel a promised land.

Ultimately, God’s kingdom promises continue to be fulfilled in Christ, whose finished work through the cross has brought those who believe in him into the kingdom of heaven in the spirit. The heavenly kingdom is the ultimate promised land, and one day we will meet him body and soul there too. The promise of eternal life in heaven helps us to have a great hope as we face troubles in the world presently.

In today’s passage, we find a 40-year-old Moses who was homeless both spiritually and devoid of a sense of belonging to a people and a land. But God knew that Moses would need to give up placing his confidence and attachment to Egypt with its dazzling wealth so he could inherit God’s ever-expanding covenant promises.

Chapter 2 winds down with a wistful Moses who is longing for something better, something he could not yet grasp, whether it is a people, a place, or God himself, or all three. Let’s look at Moses’ lament in verse 22.

Exodus 2:22

Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

Moses named his son Gershom, meaning, “I have become a foreigner in a strange land.” A stranger in a strange land. Hmm. Isn’t that how we all felt before we knew Jesus as our personal Savior and Lord? Ever since our foreparents, Adam and Eve, fell into sin and Satan’s schemes, they passed on a legacy of inherited sin.

All of us enter into this world separated from God. We begin life as foreigners, estranged from God due to our sin. Our home in this world may seem to offer us all we need in material prosperity and security, but our hearts correctly sense that we were made for something more.

God wants so much more for us. He wants us to know him as our Heavenly Father who created us in his image and has a purpose for our lives. He even made a way for us to cross the chasm of separation our sins bring through his Son. It is not until we sense our spiritual depravity and homelessness that we can hear God’s call of rescue and deliverance.

Moses had declined from a prince of Egypt to a simple sheep herder who tended filthy animals. He served and protected cute but wandering sheep without receiving the reward of praises. Sheep do not talk. But his time alone with mute animals in the desert caused him to long for purpose and belonging.

In our next episode, we will see what happens as God turns up the volume and calls Moses out of his quiet sheep herding life through a bush that is on fire but is not being consumed.

Is God trying to get your attention through a distressing or tough situation in your life or in your relationships? Is there someone or some sin that you are not trusting to bring before God for forgiveness?

Perhaps you’re worried for a prodigal loved one who is suffering but not turning to God. Let’s take our petitions to our compassionate, loving Father God, who sees and hears us and receives the cries of his children.

Let’s pray.

Holy Heavenly Father, you are a loving, compassionate God who is slow to anger, merciful, and gracious. We worship you because only you alone are good, holy, and worthy of all praise and honor.

Thank you for our Savior, Jesus Christ, who when we were still your enemies and running away from you, spiritually dead in our sins, he reconciled us to you through taking the punishment that we deserved. Thank you for Jesus, who overcame sin, death, and the grave, and who is seated in your heavenly kingdom at your mighty right hand, interceding in prayer for us now, even as we pray.

Lord, hear our prayers. Bring to mind any sin that grieves you and help us confess it and turn away from it. Help us to carry that sin, whatever it is, to Jesus, and ask for mercy and forgiveness. Whether we’ve sinned and caused hurt, or someone hurt us, and we need to be free from anger and bitterness, we ask for grace from Christ, our High Priest of Heaven, to give us healing and purify our hearts, and to help us do what pleases you, Lord.

If we need to forgive someone, make the stone in our hearts dissolve so we have tender hearts to forgive and trust you to restore us. If we have harmed someone, help us to ask for forgiveness and to make every effort to do what is needed to make amends and restore that relationship.

Lord, we also lift up to you today our loved ones who may or may not see their need for you. Lord, will you open their spiritual eyes, turn up the volume of your voice that they would hear you and hear you speak and they would listen to your voice.

Thank you that you are God who saves us from our sins and you do not want anyone to perish. You are the Lord who sets prisoners free, who gives sight to the blind, and lift up those who are bowed down. You watch over the foreigner and take care of the fatherless and the widow. We place our children and loved ones in your hands because they are yours and you are mighty to save them.

Your kingdom come in our prayers and your will be done in our hearts on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Thank you for listening today. I hope you were encouraged by our lesson today from Exodus chapter 2, verses 11 to 22.

Join us next time when we will read from Exodus chapter 2, verses 23 to Exodus chapter 3, verse 10, where God appears to Moses in a burning bush that is unconsumed by fire.

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Blessings in the Lord and see you next time! Bye!