“And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months” (Exodus 2:2).
TEXT — Exodus 2:1-4
Message
Once, a traveller came to the Mississippi River in those early days and discovered there was no bridge. Fortunately, it was winter and the great river was thickly frozen over with sheets of ice. But the traveller was afraid to trust himself to it, not knowing how thick it was. Finally, with great caution, he crept on his hands and knees and managed to get halfway over. And then he heard singing from behind. Cautiously he turned, and there, out of the dusk, came another traveller, driving a four-horse load of coal over the ice, singing with confidence as he went!
Moses was born at a difficult time in Egypt when Pharaoh planned a systematic ethnic cleansing of the Hebrews. He told the Hebrew midwives to kill every newborn male child at the point of delivery but they refused for fear of God. When Pharaoh saw that the midwives declined his evil order, he issued a new one, that all male children born to the Hebrews should be thrown into the River Nile. It was at this time, Moses was born. Together with her husband, Moses’ mother hid her precious baby for three months, not fearing the decrees of Pharaoh and the wickedness of the Egyptians. Her faith was honoured as her child was saved and raised by the same system that threatened his birth. He grew up to become the deliverer of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage.
God works with men to fulfil His purposes on earth. While the wicked contrive the ruin of the Church, God is preparing for her salvation. Moses’ parents saw he was a good child. The gospel we preach is good news. Like Moses’ parents, we should trust, pray, and jealously cling to the Bible and not allow anything to take it away from us.
Believers who exercise faith amid life-threatening situations will cross their own frozen Mississippi River with singing and rejoicing. We make ourselves irrelevant by staying in our comfort zones of life, and not undertaking any risk. To be effective as Christ’s disciples, we must brace up for all odds, and reach the dying world with the good news of salvation.
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
Mordecai Eshun