This is not an auspicious beginning.
This is the Lifespring One Year Bible, and coming to you from Riverside, California,
podcasting since 2004, I'm Steve Webb, your OG Godcaster.
This is the podcast that comes to you every day, and we're reading through the entire Bible in a year.
I'm so glad you're here. Welcome. The website is LifespringMedia.com.
Today is Good Memory Day. No, it's not about whether or not you can remember things well.
It's about remembering things from your past that make you smile.
Maybe a happy childhood moment
Or you could look through old photos
Maybe call someone you haven't talked to in a while
I'm blessed to have many good memories
I'll share one later in the show
This is The Law Monday
We'll read Exodus 1-4
Then I'll share some comments on Exodus with you
Then we'll talk about what happened in church history
Let's begin
Our Heavenly Father, we love you
And we thank you for your word
We pray God that as we read today
You would open our minds
Help us Lord to see what it is you have for us
this in Jesus' name. Amen. Exodus chapter 1. These are the names of the sons of Israel who
entered Egypt. Each man with his household entered with Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher, all the people who were directly
descended from Jacob, numbered 70. But Joseph was already in Egypt, and in time Joseph and his
and all that generation died. The Israelites, however, were fruitful, increased greatly,
multiplied, and became extremely strong, so that the land was filled with them.
Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power over Egypt. He said to his people,
Look at the Israelite people, more numerous and stronger than we are. Come, let's deal wisely
with them. Otherwise they will continue to multiply, and if a war breaks out they will
ally themselves with our enemies and fight against us and leave the country. So they put foremen over
the Israelites to oppress them with hard labor. As a result, they built Pythom and Ramesses as
store cities for Pharaoh. But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied
and spread. As a result, the Egyptians loathed the Israelites, and they made the Israelites serve
vigorously. They made their lives bitter by hard service with mortar and bricks and by all kinds
service in the fields. Every kind of service the Israelites were required to give was rigorous.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other
Puah, When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe at the delivery. If it is a son,
kill him, but if it is a daughter, she may live. But the midwives feared God and did not do what
the king of Egypt had told them. They let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the
midwives and said to them, Why have you done this and let the boys live? The midwives said to Pharaoh,
Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for the Hebrew women are vigorous. They
give birth before the midwife gets to them. So God treated the midwives well, and the people
multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he made households for them.
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, All sons that are born you must throw into the river.
but all daughters you may let live. Exodus chapter 2. A man from the household of Levi
married a woman who was a descendant of Levi. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son.
When she saw that he was a healthy child, she hid him for three months. But when she was no longer
able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch.
She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile.
His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him.
Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself by the Nile while her attendants were
walking alongside the river, and she saw the basket among the reeds. She sent one of her
attendants, took it, opened it, and saw the child, a boy, crying, and she felt compassion for him,
and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter,
Shall I go and get a nursing woman for you from the Hebrews, so that she may nurse the child for you?
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Yes, do so.
So the young child went and got the child's mother.
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.
So the woman took the child and nursed him.
When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
She named him Moses, saying, Because I drew him from the water.
In those days when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and observed their hard labor,
and he saw an Egyptian man attacking a Hebrew man, one of his own people. He looked this way and that
and saw that no one was there, and then he attacked the Egyptian and concealed the body in the sand.
When he went out the next day, there were two Hebrew men fighting. So he said to the one who
was in the wrong, Why are you attacking your fellow Hebrew? The man replied, Who made you a ruler and
a judge over us. Are you planning to kill me like you killed that Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid,
thinking, Surely what I did has become known. When Pharaoh heard about this event, he sought to kill
Moses. So Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he settled by a certain
well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw water and fill
the troughs in order to water their father's flock. When some shepherds came and drove them away,
Moses came up and defended them, and then watered their flock. So when they came home to their father
rule, he asked, Why have you come home so early today? They said, An Egyptian man rescued us from
the shepherds, and he actually drew water for us and watered the flock. He said to his daughters,
So where is he? Why in the world did you leave the man? Call him so that he may eat a meal with us.
Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.
When she bore a son, Moses named him Gershom, for he said, I have become a resident foreigner
in a foreign land. During that long period of time the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned
because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry because of their slave labor
went up to God. God heard their groaning. God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac,
and with Jacob, God saw the Israelites, and God understood. Exodus chapter 3.
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian,
and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of
God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.
Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought,
I will go over and see this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up.
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from the bush,
Moses, Moses.
And Moses said, Here I am.
Do not come any closer, God said.
Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob.
At this Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering.
So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up
out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home
of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are
oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of
Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites
out of Egypt? And God said, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who
have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.
Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? Then what shall I tell them?
God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you were to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you.
God also said to Moses, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.
This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.
Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, appeared to me and said, I have watched over you and have seen what has
been done to you in Egypt, and I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the
land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk
and honey. The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of
Egypt and say to them, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day
journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God. But I know that the king of
Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and
strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that he will let
you go. And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you
leave, you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her
house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and
daughters, and so you will plunder the Egyptians. Exodus chapter 4. Moses answered, What if they do
not believe me or listen to me and say, The Lord did not appear to you? Then the Lord said to him,
What is that in your hand? A staff, he replied. The Lord said, Throw it on the ground.
Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
Then the Lord said to him, Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.
So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand.
This, said the Lord, is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.
Then the Lord said, Put your hand inside your cloak.
So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous.
It had become as white as snow.
Now put it back into your cloak, he said.
So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored,
like the rest of his flesh.
Then the Lord said, If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign,
they may believe the second.
But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you,
take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground.
The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.
Moses said to the Lord,
Pardon your servant, Lord.
I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.
I am slow of speech and tongue.
The Lord said to him,
Who gave human beings their mouths?
Who makes them deaf or mute?
Who gives them sight or makes them blind?
Is it not I, the Lord?
Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.
But Moses said, Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.
Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses, and he said, What about your brother Aaron the Levite?
I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you.
You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth. I will help both of you speak,
and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were
in your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform
the signs with it. Then Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him,
Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.
Jethro said, Go, and I wish you well. Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian,
Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you were dead. So Moses took his wife and sons,
put them on a donkey, and started back to Egypt, and he took the staff of God in his hand.
The Lord said to Moses, When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the
wonders I have given you the power to do, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let
the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, This is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son, and I
told you, Let my son go so he may worship me. But you refuse to let him go, so I will kill your
At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a
flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it. Surely you are a
bridegroom of blood to me, she said. So the Lord let him alone. At that time she said,
bridegroom of blood, referring to circumcision. The Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness
to meet Moses. So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. Then Moses told Aaron
everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.
Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything
the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed.
And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery,
they bowed down and worshipped.
All right, in chapter 4, verse 24, we read,
At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him.
Did that grab your attention when you heard it?
Why was God going to kill Moses?
Well, we're not specifically told why, but it's always good, as you've heard me say more than once,
it's always good to look at the context.
So let's do that now.
First, notice that in chapter 3, when God told Moses that he was going to send him to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go,
Moses questioned God,
Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
And then Moses said,
Suppose I go to the Israelites, my emphasis,
suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them,
The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me what is his name, then what shall I tell them?
Suppose I go.
Okay. And then in chapter 4, Moses says, What if they don't believe me or listen to me,
and they say, The Lord did not appear to you? Then he said once more, Pardon your servant,
Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.
I am slow of speech and tongue. And then God tells them that he would help Moses speak and
tell him what to say, at which point Moses says, Pardon your servant, Lord, please send somebody
else. Now, we're told that the Lord's anger burned against Moses, and he said, well, what about your
brother Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. So, at every turn, Moses questions God.
This is not an auspicious beginning. Clearly not the image of Moses we think of, the image of a
courageous, strong leader that Charlton Heston delivered in the movie The Ten Commandments.
But here's the most serious issue.
God had been preparing Moses to be the one to lead Israel out of captivity.
Moses was to be the leader of this chosen people.
And in doing so, Moses also would be God's representative to Pharaoh
and to all the nations that would hear of the things that were going to be happening in Egypt
to cause Pharaoh to finally let the Jewish people go.
Therefore, Moses had to have his own house in order.
So it's in verse 24 that we read that God was going to kill Moses.
And then, in verses 25 and 26, we read,
But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it.
Surely you're a bridegroom of blood to me, she said.
So the Lord let him alone.
At that time, she said, bridegroom of blood, referring to circumcision.
So, we know that Moses had not had his son circumcised, and he knew that he should have.
Every Jewish male had to be circumcised, and it was the responsibility of every Jewish parent,
especially Jewish father, to have this carried out. So, Moses was sinning by not obeying this
very fundamental command. Moses had to learn that when God says something, He means it.
Now, immediately after we read of this event, we're told that God told Aaron to go into the wilderness to meet Moses.
And when they met, Moses told Aaron everything that God had told him to say,
and about all the signs he had told him to perform.
And this time, I'm pretty sure that Moses had a new respect for,
and conviction about, the mission that God had assigned him.
What do you think?
Love to hear your thoughts.
Don't be shy.
Tomorrow, we'll be reading in 1 Samuel again, with chapters 16-20.
Our verse of the day today is Exodus 3-5.
Do not come any closer, God said.
Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground.
Exodus 3-5
our associate producer today is life spring family berean brother michael hainer who sent in his
weekly seven dollar and 77 cent donation thank you brother michael and god bless you and minion
boosted 221 sats for yesterday's show thank you minion god bless you as well beloved the life
Spring One Year Bible Rewind isn't meant to be something you just consume.
It's meant to be something you participate in.
Value for value means it continues because people choose to participate.
If the time we spend together in Scripture has mattered to you,
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On this date in 1563,
Elector Frederick III signed the preface to a landmark document,
the Heidelberg Catechism.
Now, if that word is new to you,
think of a catechism simply as a Q&A guide for the faith,
a series of questions and answers designed to make the deep biblical truths
easy to understand and remember.
The Catechism is built on three pillars—our misery under sin, our redemption through Christ's grace,
and how we live in thankfulness for that salvation.
It's a roadmap from brokenness to a life of worship.
And while it remains the gold standard for Reformed and Presbyterian churches, its reach is even broader.
Because of its gentle tone, it's been adopted by many Baptist and global congregations who value its focus on personal assurance.
It's best known for its first question, what is your only comfort in life and in death?
The answer is that I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
As promised, in observance of Good Memory Day, I'm going to share an event that makes me smile.
I talked about this specific memory almost 20 years ago on the Lifespring Weekend Music Show,
episode 23 to be specific. So if you heard that one, you probably remember it, so you don't have
to listen anymore. I'm kidding. I don't even remember. I don't even remember that I said it.
I had to look it up to see if I'd mentioned this. So anyway, when I was a little guy,
my parents took me to Las Vegas a few times. Now that I think about it, this was when the Rat Pack,
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., etc., when they were the number one act in Las Vegas.
My mom was a huge Sinatra fan, and my dad liked Dino, so they probably took me there so they could see the Rat Pack.
Duh, that just now occurred to me.
But they also took me to see Jerry Lewis and Red Skelton, two different trips.
Now, the younger LifeSpring family members might not know either one of these guys, Jerry Lewis or Red Skelton.
If I had to guess, there's probably a better chance that you know Jerry Lewis than Red Skelton.
But at the time, both of them were big stars.
Jerry Lewis from Martin and Lewis fame and the movies they did and stuff.
Huge box office successes there.
And Red Skelton had been in movies, but his comedy variety TV show by this time was in its eighth year of a 20-year run.
Both were very funny in their own unique ways, and it was always very clean comedy.
Anyway, I was about five years old when we went to see Jerry Lewis.
This would have been around 1959, I think.
It was a dinner show, so, you know, there was a table in front of us and waiters and everything.
And I don't remember much about the show other than he was funny.
I remember laughing.
But there's a good memory part.
Being only five years old, I had a hard time seeing the stage, sitting in my chair.
We had good seats, but I was too little.
I don't remember this explicitly, but my mom used to tell me that one of the waiters told my parents that I could sit on the table so that I could see the show.
Isn't that cool?
Now here's an even better memory.
The next year, my parents took me to Vegas to see Red Skelton.
I remember enjoying that show very much.
And after the show, my parents took me backstage to his dressing room.
I have no idea how we got to do that.
Maybe my dad slipped the maitre d' some cash.
I don't know.
But regardless, I remember so well Mr. Skelton's warm smile and gentle handshake when he greeted me.
He was so sweet and kind to six-year-old me.
He gave me an autograph on the evening's program and formed a good memory that has never left me.
As a matter of fact, that signed program is framed and hanging on the wall in my studio just a few feet away from me.
I can turn a look at it, and there it is.
I'll scan it and put it on the show notes page for this episode if you'd like to see it.
It hangs right next to the signed picture of Dick Clark from when I met him many years later, also in Las Vegas, when I was working for a couple of radio stations.
And next to that is a signed picture of Dion DiMucci, of the Wanderer and Runaround Sioux fame and so many other hits.
I met him when he came into one of the Christian bookstores I managed,
and he sang a rewritten Christian version of The Wanderer a cappella right there in the middle of the store
when I told him that The Wanderer was one of my all-time favorite songs.
And to this day, whenever I hear a Dion song, I say, hey, there's my buddy.
Good memories. God has blessed me for sure.
I've met so many people in my lifetime, there are many, many more stories I could tell.
Well, how about you?
I would love to hear or read about a good memory of yours.
Send them to comment.lifespringmedia.com or email me at steve at lifespringmedia.com
or text me or leave a voicemail right here.
LifeSpring Family Hotline, 951-732-8511.
Beloved, Moses learned that obedience matters, but he also learned that God wasn't finished with him.
Well, as we read through Judges, take heart.
God keeps working with willing hearts.
Until tomorrow, may God bless you richly.
Thank you so much for being here and including me in your day.
My name is Steve Webb.
Bye.
All the programs in the Lifespring Media family are made possible by your value-for-value support.
Thank you.
The Lifespring One Year Bible Rewind is a Lifespring Media production hosted by Steve Webb, the OG Godcaster since 2004.