Amen. Go ahead and open up to Exodus chapter 1. I'm gonna read starting in verse 1. Now these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt. Every man in his household came with Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Nathalie, Gad, and Asher, and all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were 70 souls. For Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty. And the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. 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. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pythum and Ramses, But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew, and they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shipra and the name of the other Pua, And he said, when you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the stools, if it be a son, then you shall kill him. But if it be a daughter, then you shall live. Father God, Lord, I thank you for this Lord's day to come together and and to hear your word. God, I pray, God, that you'd be with me. Yeah, excuse me. Be with me as I preach, Lord. Be with my tongue, Lord. Be with my lips. And God, help me, Lord, to to give the message, Lord, that you would have me deliver today, God. And God, I just pray that you would help us all, Lord, to be able to glean from your scriptures, God, things that will help us in our lives, God. Lord, we do pray again for our nation, Lord, and the situation that we find ourselves in in these last days, God. We pray for, Lord, a reversal, God, of the things that are going on, that there would be a revival in this land. And God, I thank you for your son, Jesus, who died for our sins, Lord, and for the hope that we have in him. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Excuse me. Let me get a drink here. So, the children of Israel were made mighty in Egypt. Joseph, you all should recall, was sold by his brother, his brothers, My mouth feels like it's full of putty or something. Something in the air. He was sold by his brothers because they were jealous of him. And they ended up in Egypt. He ended up in Egypt as a slave. He was cast into prison when his master's wife falsely accused him of attempting to rape her. But God caused everything that Joseph did to prosper. He was put in charge of the prisoners by the keeper of the prison. He found himself speaking to the king's butler and the baker, and was able to interpret their dreams and told the butler to remember him to Pharaoh when he was restored to his position, though the baker was to lose his head. The butler forgot about Joseph, but when God gave Pharaoh a dream that troubled him, when all his wise men and magicians couldn't tell him the meaning of the dream, the butler remembered what Joseph had done in prison. Genesis 41 verse 14 says, So Pharaoh told Joseph the dream he had, how he had seen seven fat cows come up out of a river, and they were feeding in a meadow. And afterwards, seven sickly-looking, skinny cows came up and ate them. Then he dreamed that seven ears of grain came up on a stalk, and they were full and good. And then seven dried-up, withered ears sprang up and devoured them. And Joseph told Pharaoh, excuse me, that the interpretation was that there would be seven years of plenty in the land of Egypt, followed by seven years of grievous famine, and that he needed to store up food during the seven good years in order to prepare for the seven years of famine. And Pharaoh saw that Joseph was wise and that the spirit of God was in him, and he made Joseph ruler over Egypt to oversee these preparations. And it was through these events that Israel came to be in the land of Egypt in the first place. Jacob, who had long thought Joseph to be dead, sent Joseph's brothers to Egypt to get food. And Joseph revealed himself to his brothers and received them. And Jacob and his whole family moved into Egypt to the land of Goshen. And Genesis 45 says, And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God. And he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. It's amazing how God worked out all these things for good. in order to preserve the children of Jacob. Joseph was sold into slavery for his brother's envy and thrown into prison because of a woman's lust, then was made the head of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh, in order to preserve his family. The people that God had promised Abraham would be multiplied like the stars of heaven and the sand of the seashore. I know God has used circumstances in my own life to accomplish his purposes, but I've never experienced anything like Joseph. You would think that after all these years, I would be excited to see adversities and trials, that I would know that God has plans, but it's easy to lose sight of these things when we're in the middle of it. Jacob and his children were essentially refugees at this point, and they left their homeland to live in a strange place among strange people. They were not an especially large group of people. The Bible says that they were 70 souls that came from the loins of Jacob, plus the wives of the married sons. And they were welcomed by Pharaoh on account of Joseph, and offered jobs. Genesis 47 verse 5 says, And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee. The land of Egypt is before thee, and the best of the land. Make thy father and thy brethren to dwell in the land of Goshen. Let them dwell. And if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. So it sounds like things are going to be pretty good for the Israelites in Egypt. I imagine most of them were probably excited to go. Things weren't going great in Canaan with the famine and all. Egypt had food, and Joseph was in charge of everything there. What's not to be excited about? But maybe they knew what God had said to Abraham in Genesis 15. And he said unto Abraham, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age, but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." So God had a plan for them in Egypt, and sometimes God's plans span generations. Jacob probably knew about this, and because of it, might have had some trepidation about going to Egypt. which is why we see God speaking to him in Genesis 46. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father. Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation. I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again. And Joseph shall put his hands upon thine eyes. So God reassures Jacob that he will not leave his people in Egypt. They are going to be made into a great nation and be brought back to Canaan just like he promised. And Jacob knows that God keeps his promises. So they go into Egypt. And Joseph wants his brethren to be able to live in Goshen apart from the Egyptians. The Egyptians had an aversion to shepherds and by extension the Hebrews. And we see in Genesis 43 that they wouldn't even eat together with them. And they set on for him by himself and for them by themselves and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him by themselves, because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. So he instructs his brothers to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds and deal with cattle. And Joseph said unto his brethren and unto his father's house, I will go up and show Pharaoh and say unto him, My brethren, my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me. And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle. And they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, what is your occupation? That ye shall say, thy servant's trade hath been about cattle from our youth, even until now, both we and also our fathers, that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen. For every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. I'm not entirely sure what is the exact reason for this. Perhaps this is because the Hebrews would sacrifice these animals to God and the Egyptians had attached their own religious significance to the sheep and cattle. And so it was an affront to them. We saw that Pharaoh had his own cattle and offered to Joseph to make his brothers keepers of them. But God used this as a wall between the children of Jacob and the Egyptians to keep them separate. And they were allowed to go into the land of Goshen and dwell there. And that brings us to our text in Exodus. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty. And the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. This new king must have been well removed from the time of Joseph, to not have recognized the good works that he had done in preserving the land of Egypt during this great famine. Instead, he just saw a bunch of strange people in his kingdom that he perceived as a threat. People that worshipped a strange god that he didn't know and were an abomination to him and his people. If the Israelites had moved to Goshen and then adopted the ways of the Egyptians and their gods, there possibly wouldn't have been this animosity towards them. And to some extent, they did. And they brought some of it with them when they left Egypt and got in trouble for it. But they were still separated enough from the Egyptians that they were despised by them. Verse 9 said, And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. 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 Pharaoh saw that the children of Israel were outpacing the Egyptians in reproduction. They were having a lot of children. He said they outnumbered the Egyptians. Maybe he was being hyperbolic, but he saw that if things continued, they could easily help destroy them if they were to join with an invading force. Whether or not they had a reason to fear that the Israelites would do so, I couldn't say, but it's entirely possible that in the many years they had been there, that there were altercations between the Egyptians and the children of Israel. We see this all over the world, anywhere different cultures are living in close proximity to one another, when the values of one culture may not align with the other, even a single issue might be cause for potential conflict. And so this pharaoh decides to deal wisely with them and try to eradicate them from the land of Egypt before they are eradicated themselves. And what is his great wise plan? First he decided to turn them into slaves. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for pharaoh treasure cities Python and Ramses, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew, and they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. So they put them to work, doing the hardest jobs they could find, I guess hoping to work them to death. Perhaps they were splitting them up to keep them from organizing a resistance against them, as the Israelites appeared to just fall in line with this program. But the hard work seems to have just made them stronger, and they multiplied even more, and the Egyptians, it says, were grieved. So this king had another idea. The king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shipra and the name of the other, Pua. And he said, when you 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." I think if Pharaoh was truly wise, he would understand that God had blessed this people, and he would go to them and ask them to tell him how to have the blessings that they have. But instead, he had the idea to murder babies, which seems very familiar to us in these last days. It seems like no matter the issue, someone will always decide that the answer is to kill babies. Not enough housing? Kill babies. Too much crime? Kill babies. Of course, we know who it is that really wants to see all these babies killed. I wonder that they didn't just decide to kill all the children of Israel and be done with them, but probably they had grown accustomed to having their hard labor performed by these slaves and didn't want to give that up. The king thought he could slow down their growth and perhaps breed them out while continuing to enjoy the fruits of their bondage. We know that the midwives didn't go along with this plan, and God blessed them for it. But Pharaoh was undeterred. And I think I'm gonna spend some time preaching through parts of Exodus for a little while, so we can recall how God raised up a deliverer to lead his people out of Egypt and bring them to the promised land. But what am I preaching about today? I guess this topic could be described as the pitfalls of multiculturalism and open borders. The word culture could be defined as the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. This would include religion and language as well. Groups of people with a shared language, shared customs, shared religion, shared values, these are what we call a culture. This could be a nation or multiple nations might share a culture in part, Many countries today were founded by European nations and their cultures were spread across the world for good or ill. And along with this spread, Christianity also made its way around the world in one form or another. Jesus gave us a great commission to go and preach the gospel to every creature. And in many ways, that commission was facilitated by European exploration and conquest, as well as trade. But people have always moved around. From the time of the flood and the Tower of Babel, when God confounded the languages and caused people to be divided into different groups, men have searched the earth for the best lands to settle, for more space for their tribe, for water, for food, for war, for a nice view. People are motivated by many things, but the world is always on the move. Now one of the main reasons people move around is economics. They see an opportunity to make more money somewhere else, so they go there and they bring their culture with them. Often they might move somewhere with a shared culture, like from one state to another, or they might move to an entirely new country with people very different from themselves. Usually this requires getting permission from that country. We saw how Joseph got Pharaoh's permission for his brethren to move into the land of Goshen. This is not unreasonable. A nation should be able to say who can and can't come in and live within its borders. In the United States, a foreigner must either obtain a visa or apply to be a permanent resident in order to stay in the country. They can also apply to become a citizen, and then they have to be able to pass a citizenship test as well as a language test. But the U.S. has always had a flow of undocumented migrants or illegal immigrants coming across our borders. It's the job of the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to protect the country from border crime and illegal crossing. Laying aside the fact that the act of entering the country illegally makes them de facto criminals, it's probably true that many of them are just looking for a better life in the United States, where there are better jobs and economic opportunities. But there are also a great many career criminals making their way across the border. Gang members from Mexico, Venezuela, and other Central American countries are starting to appear all over the United States. We just saw what appears to be an apartment complex in Colorado had been taken over by Venezuelan gang members. These people do not share the values that the United States was founded upon and have no respect for the laws of our nation. These things are an abomination to them like the shepherds were to Egypt. We also hear stories on a regular basis of young girls being assaulted and often killed by illegal immigrants who often had been apprehended and then released to await some far-off court date These stories are heartbreaking and should cause anyone to understand why the border is so important to the security of our people, but there seems to be a disconnect between the people running our government and making border policy and those who are affected by it the most. It should be obvious that allowing unchecked immigration by anyone who can make their way to our southern border would lead to crime and conflict, and a responsible ruler would do whatever was necessary to make sure the people coming across the border were doing it legally. But the people at the top, presumably Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, seem intent on leaving our border open and unprotected as long as possible. Do they really believe that this policy is in the best interest of our nation? I find that hard to swallow. Rather, I'm pretty sure that they don't really care about what is best for our nation. I don't think they particularly like our nation, at least not the way it was founded. Our nation was founded to allow a moral culture to flourish and prosper. But these people hate morality. They despise accountability and seek only after power. John Adams wrote in 1798, because we have no government armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion, avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. I think these people running our country today want the immoral, the areligious, to justify the concentration of power at the federal level to control everyone and everything. Our nation has been taken over from within by Marxists, using our own laws against us and making new laws for their benefit. And they are going to deal wisely with anyone who would attempt to stand in their way. I fear what might become of our nation if Kamala Harris ends up in power after this next election. The left constantly cries that Donald Trump is trying to end democracy, while they are the ones who are using lawfare and a weaponized justice system to try to bankrupt and imprison their primary political opponent and his supporters. And similar things seem to be playing out around Europe and in other nations, where the mass immigration of people with no regard for the existing culture has caused the people of these nations to cry out to their governments only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears. I think the world is going to look very different soon, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. And Matthew 24 says, and ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. We shouldn't be surprised that these nations might just walk right across an open border into another nation and begin conquering it from within. And we know that this is just the beginning of things that are to come in the tribulation. There's dark times ahead for this country and for the whole world. It says, for then shall be great tribulation, such as what is not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." Sometimes people say that it's always darkest just before the dawn. I'm not sure that this is literally true, but in this case it will be. As Matthew 24, verse 29 says, immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven. the powers of the heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other." Oh praise God. I pray that Donald Trump gets elected but our hope is not in Donald Trump. Donald Trump might just buy us a little more time to get ready for Jesus, to get some more people saved and ready to leave this culture behind for good and immigrate into the kingdom of God. He has called us all to follow him regardless of our race, our nationality, our family tree. But if we want to enter into that kingdom, we have to do it by the book. Jesus is going to set up his government from the New Jerusalem and reign over the whole earth. And he's going to have strict immigration and customs enforcement but it won't be called ice, it's gonna be fire. Matthew 13 says, the son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And there won't be an open border, you're gonna have to enter through a gate. And Luke 13 says, strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able. when once the master of the house is risen up, and is shut to the door, and you began to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us. And he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence you are." And there is going to be a citizenship test to get into that kingdom. And we're all taking it right now. Matthew 7, 21 says, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. The secret to passing the test is to be a friend of Jesus. In John 15, he says, ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. So I'm looking forward to the day when Jesus is reigning on this earth, and he's running his government the way a government should be run. We don't have a godly government in power right now, and I don't know that we ever will. But praise God, we do have a hope of a coming kingdom. We have opportunities to serve Jesus right now where we are, and we need to take advantage of that while we can. Amen? Let's go to God. Father God, Lord, we thank you so much, God, all the blessings that you give us, God. We do thank you for the freedoms that we do still have in this country, Lord. I know that there's people that despise the freedoms that we have, God, that despise what we choose to do with the freedoms that we have, Lord, that hate our God, hate our religion, hate our families, hate our children, God. Lord, I pray, God, you would just break their hearts, God, that they would repent, Lord. I pray that everyone would come to know you and the love that you've offered freely when your son Jesus died to save them, to save us all, God, and that anyone could be saved just by believing on that, God. Lord, we thank you for just blessing us. Thank you for this day that we can come together the first day of the week to fellowship and hear your word, God. And Lord, I pray that you would be with the rest of our day today, be with our fellowship, and God, that you would just work in our hearts, Lord, to love you more, to seek your kingdom first, God, as you commanded. I ask this in Jesus' name, amen.