"Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.  When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.  But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch.  Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.  His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.  Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank.  She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it.  She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him.  "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.  Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"  "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother.  Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you."  So the woman took the baby and nursed him.  When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son.  She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water." (Exodus 2:1-10) (NIV)

There is a poster that states: "Due to the recent budget cutbacks the light at the end of the tunnel will be shut off between the hours of 6 and 12 in the morning."

As funny as that may sound, for some people here today it is a strong reality: the light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off - or maybe it has just dimmed.  The hope you had for the future is not what it once was, the possibilities for relief from your present difficulty seem more remote today than they did yesterday.  The heaviness of your heart is great and you feel that nothing will be able to lift it.  The light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off.  If you feel that way today, this message is for you.

We come to a situation in the Word of God that seems hopeless.  What started off very positive and full of hope has turned to darkness and despair.  In the opening chapters of Exodus, we see the people of God become slaves in the land of Egypt.  We read in Chapter 1 that the Israelites' contribution to the preservation of Egypt through Joseph has been forgotten (verse 8) and they are now looked upon as a threat.  They are brutally enslaved, oppressed and (in verse 14) their lives made bitter.  The light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off.

If all of that isn't bad enough, the King of Egypt hatches two plans to limit the growing population of God's people - he orders a mass execution.  The first plan is foiled by the midwives.  And the second, well, the second looks to succeed.  He orders his people in verse 22 "that every boy born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."  It is a mass genocide.  And the light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off.

We read in Exodus 2:1 that in the midst of this despair and death, a man and woman, both from the Israelite tribe of Levi. get married.  We aren't told their names in this text - we have to read all the way to chapter 6:20 to discover that their names are Amram and Jochebed.  We read that Jochebed plays a major role in the following story and if she were here today I think she would tell us about how desperate the people of God were, how they called out to God for deliverance, but He did not seem to answer.  And how the situation that they faced got more bleak, and more desperate as their children were being slaughtered.

But I also think that if she were here today she would also say, "Do you know that in the midst of that difficulty, in the midst of that hardship, when our lives were so dark and life so cruel, I learned some important truths about God."  And we would say, "Really?  In those harsh times, in those times that you felt that light was out at the end of the tunnel you learned some truths about God?"

"Yes."

"What did you learn?"

"I learned first that God is always at work, despite appearances."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, here we were God's people, crying out to Him for deliverance from our bondage, praying with all that it is with in us for freedom, and feeling all the while that God had abandoned us.  And then I gave birth to a son.  There was something different about him, he was so beautiful." "

"Jochebed, of course you thought he was beautiful, you were his mother."

"True, but this was something more than a mother's love for her child.  There was something about him that made me feel that this child was special."

"An answer to prayer?"

"Yes, definitely.  And as I look back during that dark time in our history I can see that God was at work to bring about His plan.  He was raising up one who would deliver us.  Despite all appearances God was present and at work in ways that we could not see at the time.

"You know the story of how I placed my boy in a basket and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.  I sometimes think of all the angels in heaven leaning over and watching this with God and all the angels are biting their nails in fear for my boy.  But God nudges them and says, 'Watch this.' And of all the things that could have happened to my boy, who should draw him out of the water, but Pharaoh's daughter.

"And again the angels are worried and say, 'Oh, the daughter of the king who ordered all the Hebrew boys killed has got him,' and God up in heaven nudges them again and says, 'Watch this,' and a single tear runs down my boy's cheek and melts her heart and she takes pity on him.

"Think of it, only God could do this.  The boy is placed in the very river that was the cause of death for so many Hebrew children.  The very instrument of death was turned into an instrument of life.  The symbol of our darkness, that which we dreaded, was turned into a river of live.  He was drawn up out of it.

"Then a representative of the power that decreed his death held him in her arms and took him as her own.  That which was supposed to bring death brought life.

"As I read Scriptures I see that is how God works - He is constantly transforming darkness to light and death to life.  Here is Joseph, sold by his brothers to Egyptian traders, after a time believed to be dead by his enslavement.  But all the while, God was working out His plan so that in the midst of a severe famine Joseph could bring life to our people.

"The times in which I lived seemed very, very dark.  But God was at work in ways that we couldn't possibly imagine.  He actually heard the prayers of His people and was bringing about His plans."

"Has that changed the way you live life? "

"Yes, I have begun to look for God at work in every aspect of my life, and I've asked Him to open my eyes of faith that I may trust that He is actually at work to transform the darkness for His purposes and His glory."

"Jochebed, you are mention faith, and Hebrews 11:23 teaches us that you were a woman of faith, we read that by faith you and your husband hid your child for three months after his birth, because you saw that the child was beautiful; and you were not afraid of the king's edict."

"Ah, that's the second thing I learned."

"What was that?"

"I learned that not only is God at work despite appearances.  But I learned also that our small acts of faith can make a big difference.  Have you ever seen an old set of scales with two pans on each side of a fulcrum?  Well, you know that if you put 10 measures on the right pan and 8 measures on the left pan you will have an unbalanced scale.  But if you put 10 measures on this side and 10 measures on the other the scale is perfectly balanced.  What do you think it would take to cause the scale to become unbalanced?  Why, just the slightest bit of weight, would cause that scale to be off kilter.

"And so it is with God's people - sometimes just the smallest acts of faith done for the glory of God can change the whole world for good, for God.  We sometimes think that it is only the big things that make a difference.  But in reality it is those seemingly small things - like bringing a neighbour's child to Sunday School every week, or visiting the sick in the hospital, or sending a card of encouragement to someone you know is discouraged.

"God uses those small acts of faith.  And our faith needs to rest on the person of God.  This is important - here is a truth that revolutionized my life - here is the truth - God cannot lie.  It is outside His nature to lie.  He cannot lie, just as a coconut cannot fall up, so God cannot lie.  When I realized that fact I realized that - I realized that all His promises to be true.  God has never made a false promise.

"Do you know that in Genesis 15:13 God tells His people that they will be enslaved and mistreated in a country not their own for four hundred years?  And at the end of those four hundred years the people of Abraham would come back to the promised land.  The Word of God is that plain.  Now, as I did the math I realized that we were almos