Found on page 45 of your Pew Bibles.
Last week, Pastor Nick gave us an overview of the entire book of Exodus.
So if you weren't here last Sunday, I encourage you to go to the website and listen to his
sermon.
We're looking at the book of Exodus over the next few months because it really is foundational
to the entire Bible.
It sets up the story, the rest of the Old Testament, and it also prepares us for what Jesus will
come to do in the New Testament.
Above all, Exodus shows us the character of God, the God who intervenes and instructs and
indwells His people.
So I encourage you as we journey through Exodus to read along.
Maybe take one day a week in your private prayer time with the Lord to read and meditate on
the passage that we'll be looking at the following Sunday or the previous Sunday.
There's a sermon card in the pews you can take home with you.
If that helps you, you can put it as a bookmark in your Bible.
Now some of you may want to dig a little deeper in Exodus.
You might have questions about the literary structure or the historical background of the
book, or maybe you're wondering about the themes and interpretation.
Let me recommend this book called How to Read Exodus by Tremper Longman.
There's a couple copies on the bookstall downstairs.
If you want to go a step deeper and delve into some of those more complicated questions, let
me recommend that book.
It's a great book to go along with reading through the book together.
So this morning we're going to read…I'm going to start at chapter 1, verse 7.
We read the first seven verses last week, and then our passage this morning is chapter 1,
verse 8 to chapter 2, verse 10.
So here we go.
Verse 7, but the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly.
They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong so that the land was filled with them.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
And he said to his people, behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply.
And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.
Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.
They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Ramses.
But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread abroad.
And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter
with hard service in mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field.
In all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
when you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool,
if it is a son, you shall kill him.
But if it is a daughter, she shall live.
But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them,
but let the male children live.
So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them,
why have you done this and let the male children live?
The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women,
for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.
So God dealt well with the midwives.
And the people multiplied and grew very strong.
And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people,
every son that is born to the Hebrews, you shall cast into the Nile,
but you shall let every daughter live.
Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.
The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child,
she hid him three months.
When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes
and daubed it with bitumen and pitch.
She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.
And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.
Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river
while her young women walked beside the river.
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.
When she opened it, she saw the child.
And behold, the baby was crying.
She took pity on him and said,
This is one of the Hebrews' children.
Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter,
Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
So the girl went and called the child's mother.
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me,
and I will give you your wages.
So the woman took the child and nursed him.
When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
She named him Moses because, she said, I drew him out of the water.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where everything just seems to be getting worse and worse?
You feel taken advantage of, beaten down, left alone to fend for yourself.
Perhaps you're exhausted by ruthless demands at work.
Your reputation is slandered for no apparent reason.
Your health is threatened.
Your children's safety is threatened.
Maybe you keep waiting and praying and hoping for circumstances to turn around,
but very little seems to change for the better.
Maybe you look around and wonder, Where is God in this chaotic mess?
Now, even if that's not your situation right now,
many of our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world
face this kind of seemingly unrelenting oppression regularly.
About a month ago, I got an email update from Syed and Jenya.
They were part of our church last year.
They live in Central Asia.
Here's some of their update.
Their own church was recently raided on a Sunday morning by the police.
The pastor had to pay a fine because they teach children in the church.
It's illegal to teach any religion to children in their country.
He also had to pay a fine for storing some Christian books that were not permitted
by the government.
There's a very short list of Christian books that are permitted.
Another pastor in their country has been in jail for several months already
and still awaiting trial.
Most of the other leaders and pastors in the country, they said,
are exhausted physically and tired spiritually and always under serious pressure.
Understandably, many of them just want to leave the country.
Some of them have done so when they have had a chance.
And many Christians throughout history, not just today, have felt the same way.
About 180 years ago, on a Sunday morning, an 18-year-old boy named Frederick Douglass
stood on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and he watched the ship sailing unhindered in the distance.
He had never enjoyed such freedom, for he had been born a slave.
He had witnessed and endured bloody beatings, physical and psychological torture,
at the hands of professing Christian masters.
In fact, his most outwardly religious masters had been by far the cruelest.
He had recently found faith in Christ as a teenager.
After reading the book of Job, he actually overheard the godly wife of one of his masters reading the book of Job out loud one evening
and wondered, who is this man who could say, blessed be the name of the Lord after all that happened to him?
And then he found some free black Methodists, and they taught him the way of salvation in Christ.
But on that Sunday morning, he cried out to the god whom he had come to trust and believe in,
Oh, why was I born a man of whom to make a brute?
The glad ship is gone.
She hides in the dim distance.
I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery.
Oh, God, save me.
God, deliver me.
Let me be free.
Is there any god?
Why am I a slave?
That's a question you might be asking when you read this section of Exodus.
Is there a god, and if so, where is he?
Because the first thing we see in this passage is Pharaoh's designs for evil.
We see three successive and increasingly vicious attacks against the people of God.
First, verse 8 to 14, Pharaoh appoints taskmasters to afflict them with heavy burdens.
He enslaves them and works them ruthlessly.
Then, in verses 15 to 21, Pharaoh launches a secret campaign,
quietly instructing the Hebrew midwives to terminate the life of every Hebrew son.
Third, in verse 22, Pharaoh openly commands all his people to throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile River.
We go from ruthless enslavement to secret infanticide to public genocide.
It's terrible, and it only seems to get worse.
Now, let's look in more detail at Pharaoh's designs for evil, his three evil designs.
First, verse 8,
Now, there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
Now, the story of Joseph, for those if you're not familiar with it,
it's found at the end of the book of Genesis in chapters 37 to 50 of Genesis.
Joseph was one of Jacob's 12 sons.
Once, he became a high official in the Egyptian government,
and he brought his whole family down to Egypt in a time of famine.
With the Pharaoh's permission, Joseph settled his family in the land of Goshen.
They were given property of their own in that district.
So, for many years, the children of Israel were protected by the agreement that Pharaoh had made with Joseph.
They made their living as farmers and keepers of livestock.
But this new Pharaoh had forgotten, intentionally or not, that agreement.
See, the promises of Pharaoh, unlike the promises of God, were subject to change from one generation to the next.
And so, this Pharaoh had no loyalty to Joseph and the children of Israel.
On the contrary, he perceived and portrayed them as a threat.
But, verses 9 to 10, this is sort of a speech to his cabinet.
And Pharaoh says,
These are outsiders.
They are prone to ally with our enemies and either run away,
or possibly that word escape could be translated take over our land.
Now, some of you might be wondering,
who was this new king of Egypt?
Scholars have spent a lot of time researching and debating this question
because Exodus doesn't name any of the pharaohs it describes.
Some scholars think this pharaoh was a man named Thutmose III in the 15th century BC.
Others think this pharaoh was Ramses II in the 13th century BC.
One of the cities in verse 11 is named after him.
Those are sort of the two main theories out there.
I don't have time to go into all the details, but I'm happy to discuss that.
Tremper Longin's book goes into some detail about that historical background.
But some skeptical scholars have said instead,
Exodus doesn't name the pharaoh because it's just a fairy tale.
It's a nice story, but it probably never happened.
After all, we don't have any evidence outside of the Bible
for the Israelites and their exodus from Egypt.
But there's actually a very good reason
why the pharaohs are never named in the book of Exodus.
Not because they never existed, but because in the ancient Near East,
referring to someone by name, especially in a written document,
was a way of honoring them and preserving their memory in high regard.
In the first five chapters of Exodus,
there are three groups of people who are mentioned by name.
Jacob and his family,
at the beginning of chapter 1.
Moses and his family, throughout chapters 2 to 4.
And the Hebrew midwives in verse 15 of this chapter.
We'll get to them in a bit.
And then most prominently, the Lord reveals his name in chapter 3.
That's sort of the biggest deal of all.
Exodus doesn't name the pharaoh,
not because he never really existed,
but because Exodus isn't written to give honor to the pharaoh.
There's also a very good reason
why we don't have any other historical records
that tell the story of the Exodus.
For one thing,
even today, 90% of the population of Egypt
lives very close to the Nile River.
It's a wet region.
We have very few ancient documents from that area
because they don't preserve well.
And furthermore,
ancient Egyptian historians,
like most other ancient historians,
were notorious for recording
the high points and the victories
and the glories of their nation.
They tended to ignore and overlook
and never write about
the defeats and embarrassing moments.
Why would they write about this people
who grew up within their land
and then successfully left?
And Pharaoh tried to pursue them
and a bunch of Pharaoh's army
was drowned in the Red Sea.
That's about the most embarrassing story
you can come up with.
You see, among ancient literature,
the Bible's unusual
because it tells the story of a people,
but it doesn't hide their flaws.
It doesn't overlook their failures.
It doesn't deny their embarrassing moments.
In fact, we'll see one of those failures
of Moses himself next week,
later in chapter 2.
So there's no need to be intimidated
when skeptical scholars claim
that Exodus has no historical basis.
It's entirely reasonable to affirm,
as traditional Jews and Christians always have,
that Exodus describes real events
that happened in history.
Now, that's a bit of an aside.
Getting back to the story,
the people of Israel find themselves
in a bad situation.
Instead of being under Pharaoh's protection,
as they were during the time of Joseph,
they are now under his suspicion.
Instead of making a living independently
as keepers of livestock,
they are now slave laborers
building Pharaoh's military empire.
That word store cities in verse 11
could also mean fortified military settlements.
Some of these cities had large temples
and palaces and government buildings,
and these are the ones that they were building.
And Pharaoh's strategy here
is not only to use the Israelites
to move forward his building projects,
but oppress them as a means
of population control.
All right, practically how might this work?
Well, you take the men away from their families,
send them away to build these store cities.
That at least hinders the reproductive abilities.
The farming and livestock back home
might suffer because fewer people would be around.
There'd be a lot of work
and fewer people around to take care of the animals
and cultivate the land.
Then you work the men ruthlessly,
and they'll eventually get weak and sick
and gradually die off.
That's what Pharaoh's up to.
Verse 13 and 14, the word work
is repeated five times.
One commentator said,
each word in verse 13 and 14
is like another blow from a slave driver's whip.
They ruthlessly made the people work.
They made their lives bitter with hard work.
In all kinds of work.
In all their work.
They ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
And these verses are not an exaggeration.
We do have an ancient Egyptian document
that describes the cruelty of Pharaoh's officials
when they came to inspect
those who were seen as Pharaoh's slaves.
Here's an excerpt from it.
The scribe, that is the Pharaoh's official,
surveys the harvest.
He's coming to inspect a farmer
who owes him some grain.
Attendants are behind him with staffs,
Nubians with clubs.
Give grain.
There is none.
The farmer is beaten savagely.
He is bound, thrown in the well,
submerged head down.
His wife is bound in his presence.
His children are in fetters.
This is the kind of ruthless cruelty,
senseless discrimination
that the Israelites were experiencing.
And that was only the beginning.
Verse 15, it gets worse.
Pharaoh summons the Hebrew midwives.
Most likely these weren't the only midwives,
but rather the head ones.
He says to them,
when you serve as midwife
to the Hebrew children,
to the Hebrew women,
see the child being born.
If it's a son, kill him.
If it's a daughter, let her live.
Now notice,
this was not a public campaign.
It was a private directive.
Pharaoh says,
nobody else needs to know about this.
You could probably just strangle
the baby boy as he comes out of the womb.
The mother might not even know the difference.
Besides,
perhaps he phrases it this way,
what hope did a Hebrew boy have
for a good life?
He would just grow up to be a slave
and be worked to death.
Perhaps it would be merciful
not to bring such a child into the world.
Of course, if Pharaoh lived in the modern world,
he could have done it all
even before the babies were born.
require a blood test
toward the end of the first trimester
and based on the results,
counsel the mother to abort.
In Iceland and Denmark,
98% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome
never see the light of day.
The United States is probably closer
to 70 or 75%.
Evil comes in many forms,
whether it's racism and slavery
or hostility toward immigrants
and separating them from their families
or killing off the weakest
and least noticed ones
through abortion
or physician-assisted suicide.
Most of us here would readily recognize
slavery, infanticide,
and ethnic cleansing as evils.
But evil always presents itself deceptively
as something good,
rational,
acceptable,
perhaps necessary.
Verse 22,
Pharaoh makes a public proclamation.
Every son born to the Hebrews
throw into the Nile.
We hear that,
and that sounds,
rightly,
horrendously evil.
But in Egypt,
the Nile River
was worshipped as a god.
The giver and taker of life
it was recognized as.
And so Pharaoh's decree
might well have been presented
with a religious justification.
The Nile is summoning Hebrew boys.
If she does not receive them,
our whole nation
will be under her wrath.
Might have sounded a lot more plausible
than it would to us.
What makes evil seem good
or acceptable,
then or now?
It's the idols that we worship
and cherish.
In the ancient world,
the nation and the tribe
were the prevalent idols.
That's what Pharaoh appealed to
in verses 9 and 10.
Those idols haven't gone away.
In the modern world,
we have another idol.
It's called personal autonomy.
The freedom to do
whatever I want
with my own body.
And that idol,
like every other idol,
distorts our perspective.
And it makes us think
that all kinds of dehumanizing
and destructive behaviors
are not that bad after all.
Or even pretty good.
You know, education alone
doesn't rescue us
from this danger.
Adolf Hitler came to power
in one of the best educated
and most technologically advanced
and culturally sophisticated
nations of his time.
And he followed the same
general pattern
as this Pharaoh.
From anti-Semitic rhetoric
to increasingly restrictive policies
around work
to secret plots
to open violence.
Pharaoh's evil designs
have been repeated
over and over
in the course of history
on small and large scales.
Because they're not just
Pharaoh's designs.
Behind Pharaoh's designs
were the designs
of Satan himself.
Whom the Bible calls
the father of lies.
The enemy who seeks to steal
and kill and destroy.
You might say,
where do I get that idea
that Satan's behind this?
Revelation chapter 12.
Revelation gives us a glimpse
into some of the heavenly
and spiritual realities
behind earthly events.
And in Revelation 12,
there's a vision of a dragon
who is identified as Satan,
who is seeking to devour
the male offspring
of a pregnant woman.
The woman represents
the people of God.
The point is,
behind Pharaoh and Herod,
Hitler and Stalin,
all of the tyrants
who dehumanize
and persecute God's people
and all of the people
with a lot less power,
but who still try
to do the same things,
is Satan himself.
The Apostle Paul says,
we are not unaware
of Satan's designs.
We should not be unaware
of them.
That's the first thing
we see this morning,
and it's quite sobering.
Pharaoh's and Satan's
designs for evil.
But we also see
a second thing
in this passage.
We see God's intervention
for good.
Now, God's intervention
for good is not evident
at first glance.
You read through
this whole passage,
there are no words
spoken by God,
no prophetic encouragements,
no wise explanations
for why things are happening
the way they are.
Now, if you go back
to Genesis,
in Genesis 15,
God spoke to Abraham
and said his descendants
would be enslaved
and mistreated
in a country not their own,
but then he would
be faithful to them
and bring them up
out of it.
And in Genesis 46,
God had spoken to Jacob
and said,
don't be afraid
to go down to Egypt,
for there I will make you
into a great nation.
I myself will go down
with you there,
and I will also
bring you up again.
But that was hundreds
of years ago.
Most likely,
at least some of the
children of Israel
had passed down
these promises
from one generation
to another,
but for so very long,
God was apparently silent.
And it might have seemed
that he was nearly absent.
There's only one action
explicitly ascribed to God
in this narrative
in verse 20 and 21.
God dealt well
with the midwives.
Verse 21,
and because the midwives
feared God,
God gave them families.
God allowed two midwives,
presumably older
and previously infertile,
to have children
of their own.
You might say,
well, that's nice for them,
but it doesn't do much good
when a people are enslaved
and on the brink
of being slaughtered.
But here's what I want to say.
Even though it doesn't
seem like it at first glance,
when God is present
and active
and working out
His plans for good
in every part of this story.
When we take a closer look,
we see that God
is intervening for good
and undermining
each of Pharaoh's evil designs.
So let me show you
how God is intervening for good
in each of these three situations.
First, in the midst
of oppression and slavery,
God causes supernatural growth.
Verse 12,
the more they were oppressed,
the more they multiplied,
and the more they spread abroad.
Now that sentence
is not what you would expect
in the rest of this paragraph.
What you would expect
this sentence to say
is the more they multiplied,
the more they were oppressed.
That would be very natural.
It's happened over and over
in all kinds of places in history.
An immigrant population
grows more rapidly
than the majority culture.
Majority culture
feels afraid and threatened.
Those people are trying
to take over our country.
They're moving
into our neighborhood.
Verse 12,
the Egyptians were in dread
in fear of the Israelites.
That is all totally natural
in a fallen world
where human pride
and fear rule the day.
But the first half
of verse 12
is not natural.
It's describing
a supernatural
intervention of God.
God, the Creator
and Redeemer,
is blessing His people
with overflowing
and abundant life
even in the most humanly
unlikely circumstances.
And you know,
this pattern
has often been repeated
in the history
of the church.
Through periods
of affliction
and persecution
and opposition,
Jesus in supernatural
and unexplainable ways
grows His church.
You can see it
in the New Testament.
One example,
1 Corinthians 16, 9,
the Apostle Paul wrote,
I'm staying here
in Ephesus
because a wide open door
for effective work
has opened to me
and there are many adversaries.
In the early church,
Tertullian,
I think it was Tertullian,
said,
the blood of the martyrs
is the seed
of the church.
The Roman emperors
put Christians to death,
but the church
kept on multiplying
and spreading.
We can see it
in the modern world too.
Just one example,
China became a communist nation
in 1949
and all the Western missionaries
were expelled.
At that time,
there were about
four million Chinese Christians.
But despite intense persecution
at times
and ongoing legal restrictions,
there are by some estimates
50 to 100 million
Chinese Christians today.
The church has grown
and flourished
in the midst of oppression
and persecution.
Let me say to you,
if you are experiencing
spiritual attack
and oppression,
it usually means
one of two things.
One possibility
is that you are engaged
in a pattern of sin
that is giving the devil
a foothold,
an ongoing foothold
in your life,
and you're not repenting of it.
And if that's you,
you need to repent now,
today.
Don't delay.
But the second possibility
is that you're experiencing
spiritual attack
because you're doing
something right.
You're seeking first
the kingdom of God
and the devil
is not happy with that.
And in that case,
you need to know
that in the midst
of affliction,
God causes supernatural growth
in ways that
you will not even
be able to explain.
In the kingdom of God,
suffering and joy,
oppression and growth
are not opposites.
They often come
as a package deal.
One of the reasons
God brings affliction
into our lives
is so we don't get
too comfortable
here in this world.
It makes us look up
and call out
for our Savior.
And when we call out
to Him
in the midst
of being oppressed
or opposed
or attacked,
His grace
is sufficient.
Christians throughout history
can testify to it.
People here in this room
can testify to it.
His grace
is sufficient
for you
in your weakness
when you feel
attacked
and opposed
and oppressed.
Don't be afraid
and don't be discouraged.
God brings
supernatural growth
even in the most
unlikely
and hard
circumstances.
That's the first way
we see God intervening.
The second way
we see God intervening
for good
is through courageous
women
who fear God
more than man.
Now notice
throughout this passage
the primary focus
of Pharaoh's attacks
is on
the Hebrew men
and on the boys
who would one day
grow up to become
men.
Satan seems to try
different tactics
in this regard.
In the Garden of Eden
he focused his attack
on Eve
and successfully
undermined Adam
and their marriage
in the process.
But here Satan
takes aim
at the men.
Practically speaking
Pharaoh knew
that if he could get
the men of Israel
out of the picture
then the women
and children
would be more vulnerable.
And spiritually speaking
Satan knows
that if he can get
the men of God
spiritually off track
that the church
as a whole
will be more vulnerable.
And Satan
has often been successful
in his attempts
to spiritually
enslave
and oppress
Christian men.
Men
just as Pharaoh
enslaved
the Israelites
physically
Satan wants
to enslave
you spiritually.
He wants
to make you
a slave
to lust
and pornography
and self-gratification.
He wants
to make you
a slave
to your ambition
and your work
so that you have
no time
or energy
for the worship
of God.
He wants
to make you
a captive
to anger
and rage.
He wants
to isolate
you from
intimate friendship
with your wife
and from
genuine fellowship
with your brothers
in Christ.
He wants
to keep you
perpetually immature
and noncommittal.
A boy
who can shave
and drive
but who can't
make and keep
promises.
Men
we are
under attack.
Let us
not be
unaware
of Satan's
schemes.
If
Satan
can disable
us
spiritually
the women
and children
in the church
will suffer
and bear
the burden.
But there's
good news
because we
have something
that the men
of Israel
didn't
yet.
The men
of Israel
could not
protect
or save
themselves
from Pharaoh's
oppression.
They could
only wait
for God
to raise
up a
Savior
which he
would.
But our
Savior
has come.
Our elder
brother
Jesus Christ
has conquered
sin and
death for
us.
We do
not need
to be
enslaved
and oppressed
by Satan
anymore.
So brothers
live in the
freedom
for which
Christ has
set you
free.
Resist
the devil
and stand
firm in
your faith.
faith.
But what
we see
in this
section
is that
when the
men of
God are
oppressed
and when
the boys
are threatened
God
raises up
women
of courage
and faith
who fear
God
and don't
give in
to the
pressures
of the
world.
Verse
17
the midwives
feared
God.
They did
not do
as the
king of
Egypt
commanded
them
but let
the male
children
live.
Now the
midwives
had every
reason to
be afraid
of Pharaoh.
He had
absolute
power over
them.
They had
no legal
protections,
no court
of appeal,
but they
recognized that
there was a
higher authority
than Pharaoh.
They feared
God
more than
they feared
the king.
They were
like the
apostles in
the book
of Acts
who said
we must
obey God
rather than
men and
God blessed
the obedience
of these
faithful women.
Pharaoh
summoned
them,
verse 19,
to ask
why aren't
you following
through with
my decree
and they
had a
ready answer.
Now people
have debated
were they
telling a
lie?
If so,
was that
okay because
Pharaoh was
because innocent
lies were at
stake or
did God do
good to them
in spite of
their lie or
was there
some truth
to what
they said
even if
it wasn't
the whole
story.
Maybe the
Hebrew women
really were
more active
and involved
in their
labor while
most Egyptian
women just
laid back
and waited
for the
midwife to
tell them
what to
do.
Who knows?
We don't
really know.
Perhaps the
midwives
conveniently
arrived late
after having
given prior
instructions to
the expectant
mother and
another woman
nearby beforehand.
Right?
Perhaps it's
a clever answer
but not
necessarily
false.
We may
not know
with
certainty
how to
interpret
their
answer
but
Pharaoh
seems
stymied
by it.
He doesn't
punish them
and verse
20 seems
to indicate
that God
was pleased
with their
answer too.
So God
dealt well
with the
midwives
and because
they feared
God
he gave
them families
of their
own.
At the
macro level
that may
seem like
an insignificant
thing
but God
is not
just concerned
about macroeconomic
trends.
He's
also concerned
about the
small people.
He's
concerned about
your individual
life.
If you've
been trusting
God through
infertility or
unwanted
singleness
it's no
small thing
if God
provides you
with a
spouse
or with a
family
through childbirth
or through
adoption.
God is
faithful and
merciful to
women like the
midwives who
find themselves
hard pressed
with no one
to protect
them and
they stand
firm and
fear God
more than
they fear
men.
God honors
these midwives
obedience not
only by giving
them a family
of their own
but he bestows
upon them the
honor of being
named and
having their
names preserved
in God's
very own
word.
Shiphrah
and Puah
verse 15
we know
their names.
We don't know
the pharaoh's
name.
Scholars will
debate that
forever but
we know their
names and
we know that
God named
them because
God is
honoring their
faithful obedience.
Like Mary who
poured ointment
on Jesus'
feet and
Jesus said
wherever the
gospel is
preached what
she has
done her
sacrifice will
be recognized.
Her story will
be told in
memory of
her.
So women
stand firm
in Christ
even if you
have nobody
else beside
you.
You have
Jesus and
he will make
you strong.
So in the
midst of
oppression God
brings supernatural
growth.
When the men
and boys are
threatened God
raises up women
of faith.
And third,
the third way we
see God
intervening for
good is
delivering the
baby who
would one day
deliver his
people.
Chapter two,
the focus of the
story narrows.
We've gone from
all the people of
Israel to the
midwives of the
Hebrews to a
three-month-old
baby.
His parents had
hidden him as
long as they
could.
His cries had
become too loud
most likely.
If he was
found in their
house, that
would be it.
And so his
mom made a
covered basket.
The word basket
is actually the
same word
translated ark
in Genesis
chapter six in
the story of
Noah.
She placed the
ark by the
reeds on the
side of the
river.
She wasn't
abandoning him.
She wasn't
turning her back
on him.
The basket was
in the reeds.
It's not going
to float away.
And Moses'
sister was
stationed there
to watch
carefully.
It's probably
a common
place where
women came to
wash their
clothing and
bathe in the
river.
Some people
have even
compared it to
leaving a baby
on the doorsteps
of a hospital.
Somebody will
likely take care
of it if you
are unable to.
Perhaps she
planned when the
coast was clear
to come back
and nurse him.
We have no
idea.
Furthermore,
she had
technically
complied with
the king's
edict.
The letter
but not the
spirit.
Now,
nobody knew
it then,
but God's
redemptive plans,
not just for
the people of
Israel but for
the entire world,
were hanging on
a helpless baby
in a homemade
ark.
God's plan of
redemption starts
in unexpected
places.
A baby lying
in an ark.
A baby lying
in a manger.
Sometimes God's
redemptive plans
seem to hang on
a very thin and
fragile thread,
but the hand that
holds that thread
is a strong and
steady hand,
and if you have
turned in faith
to Jesus Christ,
if you have cast
yourself and your
future on him
in your weakness
and your fragility,
the same hand
that was holding
on to Moses
is holding
on to you,
and he won't
let you go.
How does God
deliver Moses
from the water
again?
In an unexpected
way,
by the hand
of Pharaoh's
own daughter.
She wasn't
a fellow Hebrew.
She couldn't
personally sympathize
with their
precarious
social situation.
She had little
to gain and
everything to lose,
but she had
compassion.
She didn't
abandon the baby
but adopted him
as her own.
She even
paid his
mother to
nurse him.
You see,
she doesn't
treat the
Hebrews as
slaves.
She paid
for child
care out
of her own
pocket.
She put
herself at
risk to
raise this
child.
Now,
you might
ask,
wouldn't
Pharaoh have
gotten word
of this?
Well,
one Pharaoh
was reported
to have 200
children,
including 111
sons,
and 59
daughters
whose names
are recorded.
So,
the vast
majority of
Pharaoh's
children probably
would not
have seen him
very often,
but still,
it was a
risk.
What we see
in Pharaoh's
daughter is
this.
God's salvation
is for people
from every
nation of the
world.
No ethnic
group is
excluded.
Maybe you,
like Pharaoh's
daughter,
come from a
family that is
completely opposed,
most,
as Pharaoh
was,
to Christianity,
to God's
people.
But there's a
place in God's
kingdom in His
family for you,
as there was for
Pharaoh's daughter.
She named the
child Moses.
Moses was a
common Egyptian
name.
It simply means
son.
But verse 10
points out that
Moshe also sounds
like the Hebrew
mashah,
to draw out.
The one who
was drawn out,
delivered from
the waters of
the Nile,
would one day
grow up to
deliver God's
people through
the waters of
the Red Sea.
One commentator
put it this way,
this child,
once doomed to
death by
Pharaoh's decree,
would become
the very instrument
of Pharaoh's
destruction and
the means through
which all Israel
would escape,
not only Pharaoh's
decree, but Egypt
itself.
Do you see?
Every evil
design of
Pharaoh,
God intervened
for good.
When the people
were oppressed
and enslaved,
God supernaturally
grew them.
When the men
and boys were
under attack,
God raised up
women of faith.
And when the
Pharaoh summoned
every Egyptian
to throw every
Hebrew son into
the Nile,
God in his
providence
delivered the
one who would
one day deliver
his people by
the hand of
Pharaoh's own
daughter.
Everything that
Pharaoh intended
for evil,
God turned for
good.
That's the
message of
this passage.
We see it
right here,
and we see it
in the life
of Jesus even
more.
As a baby,
he was threatened
by King Herod
who wanted to
kill him.
In the desert,
the devil tempted
him.
In the garden,
he was betrayed
by one of his
friends,
and on the
darkest day of
all,
he was nailed
to a tree,
and he hung
on that tree,
and he cried
out,
and there was
no answer.
But every one
of Satan's
designs for
evil,
God turned
for good.
Jesus was
delivered from
the wrath of
Herod.
He resisted
the devil's
temptation,
and therefore
overcame him.
He remained
loyal to his
followers,
even when his
followers weren't
loyal to him,
and on the
cross,
he took our
sins away,
as far as the
east is from
the west.
And on the
third day,
he triumphed
over sin and
death in his
resurrection.
Brothers and
sisters,
that's why we
can be confident
that God is
present and active
in our lives,
and in this
world,
even when it
doesn't seem
like it,
even when he
seems to be
silent for a
really long
time and only
active in the
smallest ways,
we serve a God
who takes what
was intended for
evil and turns
it to accomplish
his good and
glorious and
saving purposes
in the world.
We're about to
come to the
Lord's table,
where we remember
the death of
Christ on our
behalf.
And we can
remember that
there, what
God, what
Satan intended
for evil, God
intended for
good.
And as we take
the bread and
the cup, we
take them in
faith.
We offer to
him our lives,
that he might
use them for his
good purposes.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank
you that what
Satan intends
for evil, that
you turn for
good.
We pray that
you would give
us faith, hope,
and love.
Pray that you'd
nourish us as we
receive the Lord's
Supper this
morning.
In Jesus' name,
amen.