Daily Devotions
Exodus
"The Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates..." Genesis 15:18
Text: Exodus 3 : 8
THE INITIATIVE FROM GOD
The promise God made to Abraham may indeed be described as a suzerainty covenant. It was the Lord who initiated the idea of giving the land of Canaan to Abraham! The basis of the covenant was pure grace. Abraham did nothing to deserve such an awesome treaty! God had not forgotten for one moment what He had promised Abraham! He was now ready to begin fulfilling His covenant promise!
THE POWER TO FULFILL THE COVENANT
It would take nothing less than awesome divine power to fulfill such a great promise. Only God can fulfill all that was said to Abraham. For some four hundred years, the children of Israel lived in Egypt. The earlier years were good and wonderful. Under the protection of Joseph, a high ranking and respected minister in the court of Pharaoh, the children of Israel grew from strength to strength.
Then came the tough years, when the memory of Joseph dimmed with the passing of time. One day a new Pharaoh arose and he refused to acknowledge all that Joseph had done for Egypt in the past. Hard times had befallen the children of Israel. They were enslaved! Their task-masters kept on making life more and more miserable for the Hebrews! Where was the God of their forefathers? When would He begin to fulfill what He had promised Abraham?
God had allowed much time to pass before He was ready for the next step. The children of Israel had now grown sufficiently large to form a small nation. The stage was now set to liberate the Hebrews from their Egyptian task-masters!
“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.”
EXODUS 3:8
1. The Power to deliver Israel from Egypt
It would take nothing less than a miracle to achieve this! Egypt had the power to enslave Israel! It had the power to put 2 million people to work for them! How would God bring about this deliverance? Moses’ imagination must have been stretched greatly, if he had attempted to figure out how the Lord would fulfill His promise!
2. The Power to Settle Israel in a new land
Not only would God have to subdue Egypt, He would also have to exercise great power against all the tribes mentioned and see them conquered! Six powerful groups of people were mentioned and they existed in the land of Canaan! Could God fulfill all that He had declared? It would require a great exercise of faith to believe the Lord!