Exodus 1:13 says, And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:  The Egyptians became very harsh in their treatment of the Israelites.  We today in America have never experienced anything like this, but people in some parts of the world have.  Verse fourteen states, And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.  The Israelites were basically tasked with all the hard work.  Since the Egyptians feared the Israelites becoming too powerful, they thought they would work them down.  Verse fifteen declares, And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:  Then verse sixteen adds, And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.  The king devised another way to keep the Israelites, or Hebrews, from becoming too powerful.  He told the Hebrew midwives if the a Hebrew woman was having a son, they were to kill it, but if the child was a daughter, then they were to let her live.  We might ask how these midwives could be expected to do this to their own people, but the king had ordered them to do so.  Sometimes, we may have to choose between following the orders of the government and the orders of God.  Of course today, people kill the unborn child simply because we see that as our right and not for the fear of anything except inconvenience.  Verse seventeen says, But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.  When having to chose between obeying man or obeying God, the midwives chose to obey God.  I am sure they realized what this could cost them, but they stood for what was right with God.  Hopefully, if we have a choice today between doing what man commands and what God commands, we will chose to stand with God.  Verse eighteen declares, And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?  The midwives were called before the king and basically asked why they had disobeyed him.  Verse nineteen states, And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.  The midwives basically lied to Pharaoh and said the Hebrew women gave birth before they could get there.  Not to defend lying, but it may have been the only way for the midwives to stay alive.  Verse twenty declares, Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.   Since God dealt well with the midwives, we can assume that what they did was acceptable to God, and the nation of Israel flourished because of their actions.  I believe that when we stand with God we will flourish, spirituality if not materially.  Verse twenty-one continues, And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.  God blessed the midwives materially because they had been faithful spiritually.  Verse twenty-two declares,  And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.  Since the Pharaoh's first plan didn't work out, he ordered all the Hebrew sons to be drowned, but again he was sparing the daughters, though I don't believe it was because of compassion for them.  We should never be surprised by the inhumanity of some people to others.

Exodus 1:1  says,  Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.  We are once again giving a brief listing of Jacob's sons.  Verse two says, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,  Verse three adds, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,  Then verse four concludes, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.  These were all the sons of Israel to come into Egypt at that time, because Joseph was already there.  Verse five declares, And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.  There were a total of seventy descendants of Israel at that time.  This was still not many to fulfill God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, since it was a continuing promise that did not stop with Abraham.  Salvation through Christ is also a continuing promise that did not stop just with those who physically walked and talked with Christ.  Verse six states, And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.  Joseph and all of his generation died while they were still in Egypt.  Joseph lived most of his life as a slave in a strange land, since Egypt was certainly not the Promised Land.  No matter where we live today, we are strangers in a strange land until Christ returns again, and unless we accept Christ as our Savior and Lord, we are slave to sin.  If we are in a better country than most, it is not because we deserve it more, but because God has blessed us more and I believe expects us to use what He has blessed us with for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom.  Verse seven adds, And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.  God's promise was finally coming to pass.  The number of the Israelites increased abundantly and the land was filled with them.  Still, they were foreigners in the eyes of the Egyptians, just as we as followers of Christ will always be foreigners in this world.  Verse eight declares, Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.  Eventually, there arose a king who did not know, or remember, Joseph.  We today need to pray that there never arises a generation of rulers who do not remember God, but even if there does, we are still to continue to attempt to advance His kingdom by sharing the gospel.  Verse nine adds, And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.  This king decided that the children of Israel outnumbered and were more powerful than the people of Egypt.  The children of Israel were still immigrants in Egypt, and the Egyptians were becoming afraid of them.  We are never told that the Israelites did anything to provoke this fear, but the Egyptians feared them because they were different.  Though as followers of Christ we should never do anything to provoke fear in others, they should realize that we are different than them and because of that they may fear, or hate, us.  Verse ten states, Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.  This king said that the Egyptians needed to deal wisely with the Israelites to prevent them from fighting against them if a war ever occurred.  The king feared that the Israelites might do so to gain their freedom, not realizing that it wasn't the Israelites but their God that he needed to fear.  The world today may fear or despise Christians, but  it is our God that they need to fear.  Verse eleven adds, Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.  The king, or pharaoh, felt that the Egyptians would be acting wisely to set taskmasters over the people if Israel and force them to work to enrich Pharaoh.  We might wonder why God didn't step in immediately to help the Israelites, but we need to once again acknowledge that God's time is not our time.  Verse twelve adds, But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.  The more that the Egyptians afflicted the Israelites, the more they grew.  The question for us then is if the world afflicts us as followers of Christ, do we continue to grow.  Sometimes, we seem to feel that material wealth and power are an indicator of God's blessings, but in actuality, our relationship with Christ is our real blessing.  The Israelites were not a threat to Egypt because of who they were, but because of Who their God was.  He is still the same God today.

Genesis Review Concluded

Finally, in the book of Genesis, we see that God provides for His people, even when they may not deserve it.  Joseph's brothers had treated him with nothing but hatred years before, and now they needed his help simply to survive.  All people, at some point in their life, treated God wrong, whether with actual hatred or just by denying Him or ignoring His law, and will need His help to find real life.  We are all sinners, either in need of salvation or having already accepted the salvation of Christ.  These are the only two choices.  Joseph's brothers did not recognize him when they first went to him, because they thought he was either dead or was no longer anywhere that they would ever see him again.  They certainly never expected Joseph to be in a position of authority.  When we are lost sinners, we may never expect to encounter God, because He is either dead to us or we do not acknowledge His authority in life.  Joseph required his brothers to do certain things to prove that their nature had changed, and they were reluctant to do what he required.  God expects two things of us when we come to Him, and that is that we confess our sins and accept Christ as our Savior and Lord.  When Joseph's brothers finally did what he required, they were restored to a loving relationship with him.  They still waited until all other hope of having their needs met were exhausted before they did what he required.  God waits for us to come to Him through faith in Christ to restore a loving relationship with Him, and yet people too often refuse to come to Him, or wait until there is no other hope.  Once his brothers returned to Joseph on his terms, there was a great family reunion.  When we come to God on His terms, we are a part of His family forever, so in effect there is a great spiritual family reunion.  Though I have been alternating between the Old and New Testament, since there are more books in the Old, we will next go to the book of Exodus.

Genesis Review Continued More

Continuing to look at lessons learned from Genesis, next we see that there is no room for jealousy in God's kingdom.  Because of their jealousy, Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery.  As followers of Christ, we can never allow jealousy of others to lead us to sell, or lead, them into the slavery of sin.   Jealousy, which can lead to hatred, should never be a guiding force in our lives.  We are to reach out to the world with God's love, no matter how we may personally feel about a person or even group of people.  We also need to realize that basing choices on what looks most tempting from a worldly view can lead to trouble, just as it did for Lot.  He chose the place that looked the best, even though he was only there because Abram brought him with him.  Sometimes, what looks the best can lead us away from God and destroy our spiritual witness.  As Lot found out, some places are so evil that we can only be saved by removing ourselves from them.  Of course, we may be sent by God into what we feel is an evil place, but we should never just go there because of our own desires.  God had to at that time physically drag Lot out of Sodom, since Lot would not heed God's warning of the coming destruction.  God will not physically drag us away from sin, but He has already given us the warning of the coming destruction and provided a way of escape spiritually, and that is through our faith in Christ.  I also believe that when something is God's judgment that there will be no doubt about it.  God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah could not be viewed as anything else, and occurred exactly where God had said it would.  God even agreed not to destroy the cities if ten righteous men could be found.  I believe that as long as people continue to be reached with the gospel that God will be patient with the coming judgment.

Genesis Review Continued Still

The next thing that Genesis teaches us is that people think that they can become like God.  The people decided that they would build a tower to reach God so that they could be like God.  There are stull many people today who deny the existence of God because they believe that they are too smart to believe in His existence.  Some people do not really want to become like God, but they feel that they are even greater than God.  As we see in Genesis, this is nothing new.  God proved them wrong then, and He will prove them wrong now.  Of course, there is little danger in the people of the world being united in one purpose today.  Then, when the world became too evil, God destroyed nearly all of mankind, except for Noah and his family.  We may live in an evil world, but it isn't the first time the world has been evil.  Of course, the next time God destroys the world it will be time for His everlasting judgement.  As followers of Christ, we have a command to reach the lost with God's message of salvation, and we may be the only ones standing between mankind and God's judgment.  If the time comes when no one responds to God's gift of salvation, then there will be no reason to delay the coming judgment.  I believe that instead of looking for the signs of the coming judgment, we need to be reaching out to the lost world.  There is never a time that we as followers of Christ should ever live simply waiting for Christ's return so that the evil people of the world will get what they deserve, because without forgiveness through our faith in Christ we deserve the same punishment that any lost sinner deserves..  Our commission is to reach them with God's love and message of salvation.

Genesis Review Continued

The next thing that we will look at in Genesis is God's promise to Abraham, because this promise applies to all of us. God was to make a great nation of Abraham's descendants, and though physically this applied to  the nation of Israel, spiritually it applies to everyone who follows Christ, Who was the descendant of Abraham through Whom the promise was ultimately fulfilled.  We do not have to be concerned with who our biological family is to be a aprt of God's kingdom.  We simply have to accept Christ as our Savior and Lord.  We also learned that God may call us away from our home in order to follow His purpose, just as Abram, later called Abraham, was called away from his home.  I believe that we should also realize that we should not attempt to change what God calls us to do.  I believe in Abram's case, lot should have been left behind, and because he wasn't, he caused Abram a lot of problems.  We cannot partially do God's will and hope for success.  We also learned that we must wait on God's promise.  Abram and Sarai first doubted God's promise and then attempted to force it to come to pass by their own plans.  we today must simply rely on God's promises.  We cannot cause them to come to pass by our own plans.  For example, we know that Christ will one day return to earth, but it will happen when God says the time is right, and we can never change the time that it will occur.  We, like Paul, should simply remain faithful to God, whether we live or die.  For those who are followers of Christ, the second coming of Christ will be a day of victory, but for all others it will be a day of everlasting defeat, and if we are a follower of Christ, we should never be in a hurry for this to happen.  Sometimes we seem to have the attitude that we look forward to that day because sinners will get what they deserve, forgetting that we are all sinners simply saved by the grace of God.

Genesis Review

We will now review some of the lessons from Genesis.  Since Genesis means beginnings, the first thing that we realize is that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  Creation is not some giant cosmic accident.  I really cannot understand how we can look at the order of the universe and believe that all the order came out of anything other than an intelligent design, brought about by Someone with enough power to carry out that design.  As Genesis tells us, this is God, then it is up to us whether we believe Him or not.  Next, after the universe, God created life on earth, after giving it iits form.  The pinnacle of creation was man and woman.  We did not evolve to the top, but we were created at the top of all life on earth.  God created a man and a woman to complete one another, and that completeness cannot be found in any other pairing of people.  God then placed the man and woman in a perfect environment, and yet they were not satisfied.  So, if we come down to the question of nature versus nurture, though nature may be worse for some than others, sin is a result of our nature, since sin is rebellion against God's will.  Adam and Eve really had only one command to follow, and they chose not to.  Sin prevented Adam and Eve from walking freely and daily with God, and sin will still do the same thing for us today.  Adam and Eve attempted to blame their sins on the each other and even on God, but they were each responsible for their own sin, just as we are today.  They fell into sin because they were beguiled by the serpent, or Satan, and we fall into sin because we are beguiled by Satan and the things of this world.  They ceased to put God first, and so do we when we sin.  Once sin entered the world, things only got worse.  The environment was no longer perfect, and mankind had to labor for a living.  Then, too soon the first murder occurred because of the jealousy of one brother about another.  Sin will never lead us to become better people.