REASONS FOR STAYING

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

REASONS FOR STAYING           

Exodus 2:23-25 NKJV

²³ Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

²⁴ So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

²⁵ And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.

Exodus 3:7-10

⁷ And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

⁸ So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

⁹ Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

¹⁰ Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 

The reluctance of the Hebrews to leave Egypt is both evident and a question that can be answered.  At least four times in chapters two and three the misery of this poor people is graphically cited as, “groaning”.  This was more than a desire for relief.  It was an expression of the extreme affliction they were experiencing. 

The reasons the Hebrews remained stuck fast in Egypt were at least five.  They are as follows:

1.  Israel’s stay in Egypt was 400 years.  But it was never longer than God intended.  Genesis 15:13-14.
2. Their naturalization and accommodation to the land was no more than could be expected.  Exodus 1:7.  Note – your own citizenship is this land has far less history and think about the ties to this country – how hard it would be to leave.
3. There was revelation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob assuring them of inheritance in Canaan, but it does not seem so clear that this was known 400 years later by these Hebrews.  At least it did not seem clear enough to demand an Exodus.  Exodus 2:23
4. They lacked information of any nation outside of Egypt.  The fact that they had no military either in human readiness or armaments was conclusively against an invasion of any country with military preparation.
5.  Egypt by this time, though they distrusted them, needed their contribution of labor.  Exodus 1:9-11  They would make every effort to keep them from leaving.

Conclusion:  Without God forcing them to leave and delivering them from Egypt there would have been no Exodus.  The Exodus is a pure act of Divine deliverance from beginning to end.  Israel had neither the will nor means to leave.

Application: 

1.  Redemption is a forceable extraction whether it be Israel or a sinner from his sin.
2. The greatness of the power required for deliverance belongs to God alone.
3. The greatness of the depth of a sinner’s fall is never a reason for despair.  It will never be greater than God’s power which is equaled by His grace.