Ex 1:7, But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them. 
	We began our discussion of the Book of Exodus with the fact that the people of God, the Israelites, were put into Egypt by God. This was for His purpose in giving them a place where they could grow from a family of shepherds into a great nation, ready to go forth and conquer the Promised Land. This was at the core of why they had been delivered from the devastating famine through the placement of Joseph into the position of authority which allowed for his family to come into the most fruitful area of Goshen. In that place, they thrived beyond measure until they became a threat to the new Pharaoh.
	We read this in Ex 1:9-12, And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and in the event of war, they also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us, and depart from the land." So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel. 
	The Psalmist details this growth into a powerful nation in Ps 105:23+24. Israel also came into Egypt; Thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And He caused His people to be very fruitful, And made them stronger than their adversaries. During that time in Egypt, God was very actively guiding and directing how they developed as a people into hardened warriors who could go forth from that captivity into the Promised Land and continue to thrive. 
Sadly, the delivered generation brought not only the treasures of Egypt with them in their release from captivity, but also the heart which saw Egypt as their home. They were constantly murmuring to go back in order to die in Egypt. This heart after the way of life in Egypt was dealt with in those 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before the succeeding generation would enter into the Land of Milk and Honey. 
	In the Book of Deuteronomy, the plan of God in the deliverance of Israel is detailed in Chapter 4, verses 31-35. Please follow along, if you will. Deut 4:31-35, For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. "Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? "Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? "Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? "To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him. 
	God made Himself a nation from the humble origins of one man, Abraham, through all the trials and the persecution and the terrors of their development in Egypt. As they bore up under the yolk of oppression and tribulation, so did they become hardened and honed into a people who could go forth in the name of God in Whom they placed their trust and their deliverance and their assurance and their strength. This was the Only True and Living God Who had, through their persecutions, made them into a people who knew Him and counted on Him to be their everything. 
	We know the sad history of that chosen nation. It would be only a generation later, after the conquest of the Promised Land that they would turn away from God and seek after what all the other nations around them had in their false gods and idols and leaders. Generation after generation would turn away from the One Who had made them into a mighty and feared nation until they once again were put under the yolk of oppression. We see the continual and habitual heart of natural man always turning away from the God of salvation and hope and sustenance to seek after those things that would serve to make them just like every other nation. 
In their self-righteous exaltation, they lost the reality that God Alone is the One Who makes every provision in the every detail of life. Only in Him is found the very purpose and course of why we are on this earth. We live in order that God will be presented in a clear and perfect testimony of love. Because He loved His people, He permitted them to undergo all those things that would remove every earthly prop and support and sustenance, in order to establish the truth that He is Life and Love Everlasting. "To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him. 
Christ so encouraged His disciples as they were being prepared for the life that would be theirs after His crucifixion, resurrection, exaltation, and glorification at the right hand of the Father. John 16:33, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." They were to expect to face the trials and the tribulations and the persecutions such as was true of the Lord. However, they were now equipped, through His very indwelling presence by the Holy Spirit, to face all the assailments of this age’s fury and anger and hatred in the fact that Jesus Christ had overcome every power of this age.
The Apostle Paul holds forth this same encouragement to us as we read in Rom 5:1-5. Please turn to Romans Chapter 5 as we will be reading from several chapters in this wonderful letter. Rom 5:1-5, Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 
In this accounting of what is now true of us in Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our Savior, Our Peace, Our Everything, we are encouraged to see that we should be exulting in our hope of the glory of God. As we face each trial and each tribulation, we do so with the same reality as Christ spoke into the hearts of His disciples. He will see us through every aspect of the hardships of this present sojourn on earth. Through the Omnipotent work of God, all those things which this world sees in terror and fear, the trials and the tribulations and the persecutions serve only to establish us, as it did with the nation of Israel, as the people who count on God. He goes before us and He supplies the every need to see us through the hardships unto perseverance, proven character, and hope in the Love of God.
Again, with the great verification of the Lord in our hearts, we hold onto the reality that is worked into us as recounted in Rom 8:28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. … God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. This is what the tribes of Israel were to learn in their captivity and in their wanderings in the wilderness. This is what each true Christian, born of the Spirit, is to know as the course of our lives on this earth. This is what serves to sustain us through all the hardships and the loss of every earthly prop and stay as God manifests Himself into our lives as our everything. All things are caused by God to accomplish that which is the very best in His heart for you and for me whom He loves to the utmost.
The Apostle Paul further elaborates on the fact that when we are held in the hand of God for His love to flood and to fill our lives with Himself, we are secure and safe for all eternity. Rom 8:35-39, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, "For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
Please note, that in every sense of our earthly lives, we are poured out as sacrifices to the love of God for the sake of His name. We will be persecuted and prosecuted and in distress and famine and peril and considered as but sheep for the slaughter. Many a missionary, from the Apostles on throughout the history of the Church have faced torment and tribulation and persecution and death at the hands of the powers of this realm. However, not one has been lost to God in Jesus Christ! Nothing can separate us from the love of God that He has poured into our hearts in the giving of His Beloved Son! 
With this as our assurance and our encouragement then, we need to proceed forth in this realm as the true witnesses of the reality that we serve the Only Living Lord God Almighty. We need to be that testimony on this earth, as was the nation of Israel when it walked as the witness of the light of God unto the gentile nations. 
Again, referring to the Apostle Paul’s deliberation on the course of how this reality of being in the hands of the living Lord God Almighty should have its effect on our treatment of one another, Rom 12:10-14. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not. This is how we are to deal with those who are so set on our destruction and annihilation. Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not. Not only are we to treat our fellow saints in love and kindness, but even those who are after our life’s blood are to be blessed and not cursed. 
The Writer to the Hebrews follows this up with a tremendous statement of what purpose is in the heart of God for you and for me as He deals with our circumstances on this earth. Please turn to Heb 12:6-11. Heb 12:6-11, For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. 
	When we have the proper perspective of what God is doing in our lives through His loving embrace of each one of us, we can set aside the self-pity and the worry and the anguish and the fear that so easily besets and paralyzes us. We can see that the Lord is at work doing what is necessary in our lives to accomplish His great plan and purpose in Jesus Christ. 
	Please be very clear that we do not go out looking for persecution and for trials and for tribulation. We do not delight in suffering in some sadomasochistic endeavor. Not in any measure! We are, however, neither surprised nor unaware that this is the course that we have chosen in our heart-felt request unto God to use whatever means to accomplish His will in our lives. We rejoice in the fact that God so loves us that He works in us unto His glory on this earth. 
	This, then, correlates with what John relates in the final book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Please turn to Chapter seven as we will read verses 13-17 together. Rev 7:13-17, And one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and from where have they come?" And I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. "For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes." 
All that we face on this earth finds its fulfillment in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Great Shepherd. We are promised that for all of eternity, we will find our every resource and refreshment from this life’s anguish in Him. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes." So be it!
But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Heb 12:1+2. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Amen.