Exodus chapter 1 verses 8. And
we'll go to verse 22. Lord willing today, the title
of this message is Midwives Feared God. The Midwives Feared God. And we'll see this. It's quite
amazing, really, as you look at it. I want to bring a series
of messages from the Old Testament starting in Exodus and going
forward And I'm hoping to give a more overview, perhaps in one
of the next or near coming sermons. But in this one, I want to focus
on these midwives. They are very curious. And no
small thing in Scripture is unimportant. And it's interesting to see this.
I want to read this with you, beginning at verse 8 in Exodus
chapter 1. Now there arose up a new king
over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said to 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 out of the land. Therefore they did set over them
taskmasters, to afflict them with their burdens. And they,
the Israelites, built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them,
the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because
of the children of Israel. The Egyptians were grieved because
of the children of Israel. The more they squashed them,
the more they expanded. And Egyptians made the children
of Israel to serve with rigor. It means cruelty and bondage
and slavery. 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 Shifra
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 she shall live. But the midwives feared God and
did not, as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the
men children alive. And the king of Egypt called
for the midwives and he said to them, Why have you done this
thing and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives
said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian
women, for they are lively. and are delivered ere the midwives
come in unto them. Therefore God dealt well with
the midwives, and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because
the midwives feared God, that He made them houses. And Pharaoh
charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born you shall
cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive."
The Egyptians feared God's favor on Israel. It was evident that
God favored Israel. They were growing faster than
the Egyptians. They came in only 70 into the
nation of Israel, of Egypt. And yet they were more than the
Egyptians at this point in time, more than the Egyptians. Think
of it just like Jacob with his uncle Laban. He had told Laban,
I'll take the spotted, speckled, and ring-streaked sheep. And
every one that was born that was strong was spotted, speckled,
and ring-streaked. And so the Lord blessed Israel,
and He gave them fruitfulness in their bodies
so that they had children, and they had many children, and those
were strong people. They were stronger than the Egyptians.
And the Egyptians feared this, And they knew that at some point,
the Israelites would actually consume the nation of Egypt. They knew that because God was
blessing Israel, at one point in time, there would be a tipping
point where Israel would just be the Egyptian nation. And they
feared losing their own nation. At least this is what they would
reason in their mind. And so, the Egyptian king, Pharaoh,
ordered that the Israelites be put under severe slavery and
bondage and cruelty. And his cruelty was so great
that he even commanded the women who helped deliver babies to
kill the boys when they were born, to kill all the sons of
Israel. And this is a great lesson that
we're going to endeavor to look at in our sermon today. But then
the midwives, as we just read, When the king told them this,
at least two of the midwives, I don't know how many there were.
There were at least two here that feared God. And instead
of obeying the king, they did what they thought God would be
pleased with. They saved the sons alive. And
this is quite amazing. And God blessed the midwives
and He gave them houses. Apparently, houses were a rare
thing then, especially for midwives. And so blessing them with a house
was a great blessing. Now, if you think of these things
in the setting of God's lessons to us, the first thing that strikes
you is that it had been so long since God seemed to do anything
to bring Israel out of Egypt. They were afflicted for 400 years. Joseph had died and he was known
and he was a leader, a governor in Egypt, and he was well loved
by both the Egyptians and Israel. And Israel continued to love
him, but the king of Egypt hated him, or didn't hate him, but
disregarded him. He may have hated him. I don't
know. It doesn't say that he did. But he disregarded him, had no
respect to everything that he had done. And he noticed that
the Israelites were expanding, as they were in God's good pleasure,
And so he put them under slavery and hard affliction. And it says
in verse 12 that the more they were afflicted, the more that
they were blessed. The more they were afflicted,
the more they were blessed. And that's the way God works. It matters
not how great the evil of the enemy or how great the enemy
is or how evil his intent is, as the Pharaoh was here. It doesn't
matter how Weak the children of Israel were,
or God's promised people are. God's promise of grace will be
fulfilled. 400 years, can you imagine? For
400 years, all they had was the promise of God. They saw the
growth of their nation, but they also saw that they were under
bondage. They would have children, and
yet all those children were under bondage. It's a joy to have a
son or a daughter But then to realize they're going to be slaves
that would take away from that joy. So it was a great sorrow. And it wasn't just making them
serve. It was making them do things
that were too hard for them. It was that kind of a bondage.
Now, as I mentioned last week, these things all point to the
gospel. Egypt in Scripture It teaches
us many things about the gospel, but one thing it stands out is
that the nation of Egypt represents the world and the world's system
of salvation, which is nothing but salvation by works. This
is what Egypt characterizes, and this is brought out in Revelation
11.8, where God compares the killing of Christ by the Jews
in Jerusalem to the nation of Egypt. He says spiritually, Jerusalem
was called Sodom and Egypt for their wickedness and for their
spiritual system where they believed salvation was by works. So think
of Egypt as equaling Salvation by works or salvation by what
man does. What is salvation by works? Salvation
by works is salvation by something no matter how small that I do. Salvation by some condition that
I have to meet or a part of a condition. I'll do this and God will do
that. And together I'll be saved. I'll be saved if. Those are the
things that, and that if is fulfilled by something that I have to provide.
That's salvation by works. And it can be anything. It can
be small. Something we imagine or something other people tell
us. Decide for Jesus and He'll save you. Come to the front. Raise your hand. Ask Jesus into
your heart. All these things are conditions
in modern religion today that we must meet in order to be saved.
God never brings salvation by works. Salvation by works gives
glory to men. And all glory must go to God,
and there will be no salvation without all glory going to God.
If Egypt represents salvation by works, then what does this
teach us when the king of Egypt afflicts God's people? It teaches
us that those who believe They're saved by what they do, and their
king hates those who are saved by grace alone. And take a look
at this, just as a couple of instances of this. Look at Matthew
chapter 23, because this is the attitude of all unbelieving people
who hold to a God that they can approach When they've met the
conditions instead of a God who saves them in spite of their
sin and saves them by Christ. And look at this in Matthew 23
in verse 13, he says. But woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, when we believe in salvation by works,
you know what it is? Hypocrites. The only way you
can not be a hypocrite is by owning your sin and owning that
God only is good to me in Christ. That's all that you can say.
A hypocrite is someone who doesn't tell the truth about themselves.
Someone who God saves tells the truth about themselves and about
God. Here we go. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,
and you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are
entering to go in. What does it mean to shut up?
It means to prevent. others from being saved. Isn't
that what killing has to do with spiritually? To try to silence
the gospel or to change the gospel or to pervert the gospel, as
was done in Galatians, to say that men have to do something
in addition to what Christ has done is to kill. It is to prevent
people from entering the kingdom of heaven. And that's what they
did. And so look at 1 Thessalonians, another place that sums this
up. This is the New Testament, which
fulfills what happened in the Old Testament. When we look at
Pharaoh and Egypt and the way Pharaoh treated God's people
and what God did, it's all fulfilled in the New Testament. He says
in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2 and verse 14. He says, For you, brethren,
became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in
Christ Jesus. For you also have suffered like
things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews.
So the Thessalonians suffered at the hands of their own countrymen,
because works religion shows up not only in Jerusalem, it
shows up even in the Gentiles. He says, You also have suffered
like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews.
And this is what they did, who both killed the Lord Jesus and
their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and they please
not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak
to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins
always, for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. Those
who teach and preach a salvation that depends on what we do are
shutting up the kingdom of heaven, have the same doctrine and truth,
and believe the same thing and promote the same things as those
who killed the Lord Jesus Christ. their own prophets and persecuted
the apostles and then forbid them to speak to the Gentiles
that the Gentiles might be saved. Isn't that murder? Isn't that
what the serpent did? It says that he is a murderer,
a liar and a murderer because he murdered, he sought to kill
God's people. That's what he did. And that's
what the king of Egypt did. He seeks to murder the people
of God and so he Not only afflicts them with burdens and bondage,
but he seeks to take away their lives also by telling the midwives
to kill the sons. But what is this bondage that
works religion creates? Well, bondage means that you're
put under a system where you have to do something in order
to pay a debt that you owe. And they used to have debtors
prisons. I use this example frequently because when I was a A young
teenager, when I first heard the gospel for the first time,
I heard this illustration and it's stuck with me ever since.
Debtor's prison. They put you in prison because
you can't pay your debts. Ironically, when you're in prison,
you can earn nothing. So even though you have to pay
your debts to get out of prison, you can't earn. So you never
pay your debts, you never get out of prison. That's what bondage
is. to take someone who has a crime,
a criminal debt against God and tell them they can pay that debt
by something they do or please God by something they do and
yet they can never do enough to take away their sins or to
bring to God a satisfaction for them or to provide an obedience
that he will accept, that's bondage. Always working and striving and
never clearing your debt is total bondage. And there's nothing
that creates a darker sense in your conscience of the terror
and the wrath of God against you, and yet not being able to
face it like Adam, behind the trees, than the bondage of works
religion. And so the king of Egypt personifies
this when he says, and it says in verse 12, the more they afflicted
them, the more they multiplied and grew. Because no matter how
evil the intent Satan has to silence the gospel, to pervert
it, to turn it into lies so that God's people won't believe it
and receive the salvation and comfort from it, God's people
will be saved. And that's what we're going to
see here as we look at these two midwives. And so you see
in verse 15, The king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives,
of which the name of the one was Shifra and the name of the
other, Pua. Now, I don't know if I'm pronouncing
those correctly, but I looked those names up and Shifra means
to garnish. And if you look at Job, Job chapter
26, just to quickly look at this, it's the only other place that
the root word from her name is Job 26. It says that You don't
have to look at it, but I'll read it to you. Job 26 and verse
13, he says, By his spirit, God's spirit, he has garnished the
heavens. His hands formed the crooked
serpent. In other words, God decorated. He lit up the skies with the
stars. And so her name, Shephra, means
to garnish. to do like what he says, and
I'll read to you a couple of more verses that are like this.
In Daniel, and you can just listen to them, Daniel chapter 12, verse
3, he says, They that be wise shall shine as the brightness
of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as
the stars forever and ever. God sees them as women who garnish
and the other woman's name Pua means glitter or glittering. So these two names together are
very similar and mean the same thing. God sees what they did
and their role in His purpose as decorating, as when He put
the stars in heaven. So those that turn many to righteousness
are like the stars of heaven. And then in Isaiah 61, I'll read
another verse to you that helps me understand their role in God's
purpose of grace. He says in verse 10, I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He
has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom,
decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels." God saw these women as very beautiful to Him. And in fact, in Revelation, listen
to these words to see how these all help us understand the role
of these women. in the gospel message. He says
in Revelation 1.20, The mystery of the seven stars which thou
sawest in my right hand and the seven golden candlesticks, the
seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven
candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. So the
seven stars and the candlesticks point to God's people and their
role as ministering the gospel and as shining forth the praises
of him who called them unto his grace. And that's what Shiphrah
and Puah represent here. Now, the king of Egypt, who was
the one who represents the head of those who believe and teach
works-based salvation, the king of Egypt would be like the devil,
the serpent who tried to kill Christ. What does he do? He tells
the midwives, I want you to kill all the sons born to Israel.
Israel was the nation who are the promised people of God. And
so he's really telling him, I want you to kill the promised seed.
I want you to squash it out. I want you to squash out all
possibility that salvation will come to God's people. How would
salvation come? It would come through Christ.
If they killed the sons, Christ couldn't come into the world.
God couldn't save His people if the Lord Jesus Christ couldn't
come, because it was by Him God would save. And also, He would
try to kill all the message that these two women would bring in
their ministry. Because what was their ministry?
They were midwives. What does a midwife do? A midwife
cares for the unborn child during the birth process and immediately
after that, and the mother, right? The midwife cares for the mother
and the unborn infant. And so, in caring for them, The
midwives who were glitter and garnished like the stars of heaven,
like the jewels that God gives to His people in salvation, they
were ministering to God's people to bring forth His sons. So you can see here the gospel.
God's sovereign grace, His almighty Spirit, will bring forth His
people even though the enemy doesn't want them to be born.
The enemy would like to kill the promised seed. The enemy
would like to kill the Lord Jesus Christ himself. That's what works
religion does. And the enemy would like to kill
all messages of salvation by grace alone. And that's what
the enemy seeks to do in doing this. And so he tells them, when
you do the office of the midwife to the Hebrew woman and you see
them, kill it if it's a son, save it if it's a daughter. But
it says in verse 17, but the midwives feared God and did not,
as the king of Egypt commanded, but saved the men children alive.
I think this is one of the most amazing things. When Israel was
in the wilderness and Moses went up to the mountain, even up there
for 40 days, Israel forgot. They forgot all of God's goodness
and they began to they made an idol and they began to worship
the idol. This had been more than 40 days. It had been 400
years that they were under the affliction. Think about it. Joseph
had died. He was embalmed. He's in a coffin
in Egypt. There are slaves every day. Their burdens are laid on them.
They can't carry. They can't do the work. It's
too much. And the king continually... demands
more of them than they can do. And there's no apparent hope.
There's no way to get out of this. And then, the king commands
these two women to kill the sons. And yet, in the midst of this
long period of apparent forgottenness by God, these two women hear
the voice of the king. They hear the commandment of
the king. And rather than obeying him, they fear God and do the
right thing. What is the fear of God? What
is the fear of God? That's one of those things that's
difficult to understand unless you look at Scripture and look
at all these things. But really, the fear of God is
a great respect for God. It's an attitude. It's a disposition
of respect for God because of who He is, what He's done. And especially it's something
that we cannot have unless it's given to us by God. And it comes
about when God teaches us by His Spirit. Look at a few verses
with me. Look at Psalm 34. And I'll read these. You can
just listen carefully. In Psalm 34, 11. I like this. This is David. David speaking.
But when David writes, he's writing by the Spirit of God. So understand
this verse carefully. Psalm 34, 11, "...Come, ye children,
hearken unto Me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord." This
is David. David represents Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ must teach
us. But the Spirit of God is writing
it, so Christ, by His Spirit, must teach us the fear of the
Lord. And He speaks to us tenderly,
"...Come, ye children, hearken unto Me, I will teach you the
fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord, according
to Proverbs 1.7, is the very start, the beginning of wisdom. You can't have wisdom unless
you have first the fear of the Lord. But in Romans 3.18 it says,
There's none that feareth God. None. The natural man, that's
each one of us by nature, does not fear God. If you are a believer,
There was a time when you were an unbeliever. If you believe
that God has saved you by His grace alone, because of Christ
alone, there was a time when you believed God saved you because
of your works and not by Christ alone. There was a point in time
when God's grace caused you to have a change of mind, that you
changed from not fearing Him to truly fearing Him. And these
are the things. If God saved you, if God has
saved me, it's because He has given us to believe. Look at
Jeremiah 32 and verse 39 and 40. He says this. In his covenant,
God promises, I will give them one heart and one way that they
may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children
after them. You see how this is a gift of
God? If no man fears God and God says, I will give it to them,
To fear me, and he goes on in verse 40, I will make an everlasting
covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do
them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts that they
shall not depart from me. We just read it in Psalm 34,
11. Come ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the
fear of the Lord. If you don't naturally fear God,
as Romans 3.18 says, there's none that feareth God, and God
must teach us, and God says by His Spirit, come unto me, hearken
unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord, then what should
we do? We should say, Lord, as it says in Psalm 86.11, Lord,
unite my heart to fear thy name. But what is it to fear the Lord?
Well, to get it, let's look at a couple more verses. Look at
Psalm 130. I always use this as my as an
anchor point in this and my understanding of these things. Psalm 130 in
verse three. If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with
thee. that thou mayest be feared." Do you see that? The fear of
God teaches us that God is absolutely sovereign. But the fear of God
teaches us something else, and that sovereignty carries with
it everything that God is. His omniscience, He knows everything
about us. His omnipresence, He's never Absent, he always knows and is
able to do all of his will and his power, his holiness. If God
is all knowing and all powerful and all just, you can bet he's
going to carry out his will in all cases. And that should cause
us to tremble. But the fear of God comes by
knowing that I've been forgiven for Christ's sake. The fear of
God teaches me this. I fear, above all things, not
coming to God, and in my coming, coming apart from Christ. That's
what the fear of God really teaches us. The fear of God causes me
to fear attempting to be saved in any other way than by God's
free grace alone in Christ. Look at Ephesians chapter 2.
How does God save by His grace? And it's not strange to us because
we've heard it many times, but we must be reminded because this
is what the Bible does over and over again. Ephesians chapter
2. He tells us first what we are in ourselves spiritually.
Verse 1. You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sins. Doesn't that give you pause?
If I was dead, I couldn't do anything. I had no life. All
I could do was rot. in my sins, to put forth an offensive
odor in my sins. But there I was with no power,
no will to come, no ability, no life towards God in my sins,
wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this
world. There it is. Egypt is like the world. According
to the prince of the power of the air, that would be like Pharaoh.
the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in time past, in
the lust of our flesh." You see how if we're saved, there was
a time when we were not saved. And the times passed in the lust
of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
mind. We didn't just think it, we did it. And we were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich
in mercy." There's grace in those two little words. "...but God,
who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. For by grace you are saved."
You see that? Grace doesn't attempt. Grace
actually does save us. And He has raised us up together
from the dead. to glory, made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ, that in the ages to come He might
show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward
us through Christ. All of our life, all of history
will be unfolded and explained to show how God has used every
circumstance, even the the evil intent of the wicked king of
Egypt to the evil intent of Satan himself and all those who believe
that salvation is anything apart from Christ. He's going to show
he's going to use all that and everything he did for us in order
to save us by Christ. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. You see, salvation is all of
grace, but the king of Egypt hated this. He hated to hear
it. He hated to think that the deliverer of Israel would come
and take away these people from them, or that they would rise
up and overthrow their nation. And so he decided to do to them
what every false religion does, is to put men under bondage and
ultimately try to kill them from hiding from them the truth of
Christ. But the midwives feared God. They heard the threat of the
king, but they heard the word of God. They considered the power
of the king, but they considered God to be almighty. And it was
God who taught them that. God is sovereign. And he's sovereign
over the king. He's sovereign over every throne
and dominion and everything that is named because he not only
created and upholds it, but he controls it to bring about everything
to his glory. And so the midwives, Shiphrah
and Pewah, they adorned the gospel of God. They were like the stars
of heaven preaching the gospel in their action. They were saving
these sons who were being born because through these sons, Christ
would come. Through these sons, the Redeemer
would come. Through these sons, Israel would be redeemed. And
so they saw this. They saw that God would fulfill
His promise even after the long duration. Do you ever think that
sometimes you see people live and die and another generation
come and live and die and live and die and live and die and
you wonder, Is God's promise ever going to be fulfilled? Will
He really bring His people to glory? Will He really redeem
them? Will He show His power over the prince of darkness of
this world and all those who follow and love Him, who don't
love the truth of Christ and His gospel? Will He really do
that? The answer is absolutely. God
will redeem his people, even though the time is long. God
will use everything in their lives to redeem them and to show
his power over the enemy. And so even these lowly midwives,
you would think a midwife, what could a midwife really do? Not
much, really. Helping a woman deliver a baby.
That seems good and significant. I've never had a baby and I never
will have a midwife. But I know that they did good,
but what they didn't do is obey the king's command. They obeyed
God instead. And that's what the fear of God
does. The fear of God causes us to stand in a disposition
and an attitude of humility before God. It causes us to put down
our arms and stand and listen to what God has to say. Because
God knows us and holds our life in His hands. And He always does
right. And He's good. And the fear of
God teaches us to reverence and love Him for His forgiveness
in Christ and to come by Him in no other way. And that's what
these Hebrew women had. They had the fear of God. They
had the gift of God. And they did that. Philippians
3.3. One other reference here in the New Testament to teach
us this. It's all over, really. Philippians
3, I like this verse. It always helps anchor me in
the gospel. In verse 3, we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. Now, that's what a true worshiper
of God does. The Israelites were circumcised. Abraham had been circumcised
and all his sons and they were circumcised. And here the Hebrew
women, these midwives, are bringing into the world these sons, and
they're teaching them the gospel because they're saving them alive,
and God saved us alive by His Spirit. He gave to us this new
life, this regeneration. You see, grace saves us all the
way. Grace saves us in every part.
God chose us. That's election. Christ redeemed
us. That's our justification. The
Spirit regenerates us. That's our life to God. Christ
keeps us and preserves us and brings us to glory. That's our
total salvation. God does everything in grace.
And so you see that that's what he's saying in Philippians 3.
I have no confidence in the flesh. But our but our confidence is
in Christ and we worship him by the spirit. So the Hebrew
midwives did this. And by doing that, they feared
God. Now, in the New Testament, also,
there's something else that we see that that I think the midwives
represent. And look at this in and in James
chapter one, James one eighteen, he says. Think about the midwives. Defying the command of the Egyptian
king and obeying the command of God The will of God really
they held God's will in their mind and believed God would bring
about his salvation of his people and in their bringing the sons
into the world they were picturing the saving grace of God which
births every son into his kingdom and look at James 1 18 he says
of his own will and God begat us with the Word of Truth. You see that? How did God birth
His people? Through the Gospel, the Word
of Truth. And so the midwives in delivering and helping deliver
these children into the world, they're teaching them. not by
bringing them into the world, but in tight as a representation
of what the gospel would do. How are we born? Through the
word of God. How are the sons of Egypt born? I mean, sons of
Israel born? Through the midwives. And so
here you see the overlay. The gospel has to be preached
and the gospel is being preached here. God brings his children
to himself through his truth. Look at first Peter, which is
the book after James. First Peter, chapter one, he
says, Verse 23, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the Word of God, which lives and abides
forever. And then I'll go ahead and read
the next two verses. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of man as a flower of grass. The grass withereth,
the flower thereof falleth away, but the Word of the Lord endures
forever, and this is the Word which by the gospel is preached
to you. I don't know about you, but if
you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you believe because you
heard the gospel. You had to hear the gospel. God
doesn't save unless he gives us faith. And faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the word of God. We have to hear from
God in our souls that what Christ did is enough. to bring us to
glory. It's enough to put away my sins.
It's enough to provide full righteousness for me. It's enough for God to
adopt me as His own Son and to give me all things because of
Christ. All because of what Christ has done. The Gospel tells me
that God has received me for what He thinks of His Son. The
Gospel says Christ is everything and even though I'm nothing and
deserving of God's wrath, He has had mercy upon me. That's
the Gospel. He saves in spite of the deadness
of my heart, in spite of my total lack of the fear of God, and
lack of faith, and lack of repentance, and lack of obedience, and all
these things. He finds what He needs in Christ His Son, and
He gives it to me freely of His own free grace. That's the gospel. And the gospel tells me I have
no power. I can't work up a feeling that God will accept or find
in myself a sincerity that God will accept. He has to give to
me everything. It's not a decision on my part.
It's a decision on God's part. Not me accepting Jesus, Him accepting
me for Christ's sake. Not what I can do for Him, but
what He's done for me. It's not what I bring to Him,
but what He gives me in order to bring me to Himself. That's
the gospel. And that's what the midwives
here represent. They were teaching the gospel
by their actions. They were bringing sons into
the world. The gospel brings God's sons into the world. The
gospel teaches us salvation is by grace because of Christ alone. And God gives us that faith to
believe Him. even though the time is long,
even though evidences outwardly would say that the gospel is
not true, that God's promise is failing, yet He saves His
people for Christ's sake. Don't you love the gospel? Don't
you love to think that God knows you and is almighty and just
and does all His will, and yet He has found in His Son everything
He requires of you. Don't you just stand in awe and
reverence of Him that He would so love us, so love us freely
for nothing in us, and provide everything for us in Christ?
That's what the fear of God teaches us. When God puts His fear in
our heart, it's circumcising our heart. When God circumcises
our heart, He washes us with His fear. He gives us His...
Look at Titus chapter 3. It's the same thing. Giving us
fear in our heart is the new birth. He says in Titus chapter
3 verse 3, We ourselves also were sometimes foolish. Disobedient,
deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice
and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after, there's
no part of us in here, after that the kindness and the love
of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. How? By the washing of regeneration
and renewing. He gave life. He spoke life to
us. The gospel came. Persuaded us. This is the truth.
This is the Lord. This is Christ. And He caused
us to believe on Him. That's the washing. He cleanses
us of our sin. And He shows us Christ. Gives
us faith in Him. And that's the receiving of the
cleansing of what Christ did for us on the cross. And he says
in verse six, which is shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ,
our Savior, that being justified by his grace, we should be made
heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Don't you see the
Egyptians here? I mean, the Israelites and their
Egyptian bondage here were justified by his grace. They were redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. They were made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. They they received Canaan. God
says, this is the land, you don't work for it, God's going to drive
out the enemy. When you get there, everything
is provided, a land of plenty, overflowing with milk and honey.
In Christ, we have everything from God, because God has given
us eternal life through Him. That's what the midwives here
represent in this. And so he says here, back in
Exodus, in verse 19, Well, in verse 18, the king called for
the midwives. He said to them, why have you saved the children
alive, the men children alive? And the midwives said to Pharaoh,
because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for
they are lively and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto
them. Why were the Hebrew women lively? I don't know. Were the midwives telling the
truth here? I can't say. Sometimes people say things in
Scripture and God uses it To testify to the truth, even though
what they say they intended it for a different way. I think
that spiritually God is saying his people cannot not be born. His people must come to the birth. They must be born. God has never
lost a son. He's never lost a sheep. He's
never lost a soldier. He wins every battle in Christ.
He's not going to fail. They're very lively because the
Spirit of God will not fail to deliver His people to the preaching
of the gospel. Grace is irresistible. When God gives it to us, you
cannot resist it. You welcome it. You want it.
You seek for it all your life. You're amazed at it. This is
what God does. God gives it to us. He puts it
in our hearts and in our minds. He writes it there. So that we
know the Lord, what do we know? We know he's our God. We know
he saved us and has has forgotten our sins and put them out of
remembrance for Christ's sake. But look then at verse 20. I'm
sorry. Yeah, verse 20, Exodus 120. Therefore, God dealt well with
the midwives and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. The gospel
goes forth. with power. We're more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. He always causes us to triumph
in Christ. There's no failure on God's part.
We never lose as Christians, as believers in Christ. We never
lose a battle. Sin will lose. Death has already
lost. The grave will be conquered.
God's people will be redeemed. They will receive. Satan will
be put under their feet. There's no doubt. And the midwives
were confident of this. And so what did God do? God says,
because they feared God, He made them houses. Now, we know that
God doesn't give us the reward because of what He finds in us. He doesn't come to a dead sinner
and find something there that He can reward. But He gives us
His Spirit. And having given us these gifts
of faith and the fear of God and those kinds of things, He
says that He rewards us as if it were ours. That's grace, isn't
it? God giving us a gift of grace
and then rewarding us for the gift that He's given to us. What
can you say about that? Well, what are these houses?
Well, listen to Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3. He says,
in chapter 3, he says, But Christ as a Son over His own house,
whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing
of the hope firm unto the end. We are Christ's household. He's
the Son over His whole household. And we are His house, He lives
in us. But also look at chapter 14,
or just listen to that as well. Jesus said, you can probably
even quote it to me, it's so often referred to. He says, let
not your heart be troubled. You believe in God? Believe also
in Me. In My Father's house are many
mansions, many dwelling places, many houses. And I go, if it
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place
for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where
I am, there you may be also. He's preparing for us a dwelling
in God. How does he prepare? He goes
to the cross. He washes us of our sins. He satisfies God. He gives us
perfect righteousness. He adorns us in His own righteousness.
He brings us to God. He gives us a dwelling place
in God, an inheritance. God is ours and we are His. And
then He brings us to Himself and He dwells with us. That's
the house. It's an eternal home. It's a
house God lives in and a house in which we commune with God.
We're with Him. We're one with Him. We rest in
His bosom. All of these words are meant
to show us the intimacy and the favor and the blessing that we
have in Christ. This is what the midwives were
given. First, the fear of God. No man fears God. God promises
in His covenant to give us this fear. This fear teaches us to
fear coming, to fear not coming to God. and to fear coming to
Him in any other way than by Christ alone. And this fear causes
us to adore and honor and reverence God as our Father. God says,
you reverence your earthly Father, should you not much rather reverence
your Father in heaven? And you honor men and fear the
King, should you not much more honor and fear God? One more
verse and we'll close. Look at Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews
chapter 12. The book of Hebrews is to teach
the believers not to leave Christ. The book of Hebrews is to teach
the believers they will not leave Christ because Christ has promised
He will not depart from them. It's to teach us that the Lord
Jesus Christ is everything, that He reigns, He's conquered sin,
He's destroyed the devil, and He's fulfilled all of God's will.
prophesied and portrayed in the Old Testament. And when he gets
to the end of the book, he says this in Hebrews chapter 12. He says in verse 22, But we are
come to Mount Zion, not to Mount Sinai, Zion, and unto the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. This is what we're
come to, to an innumerable company of angels. And to the general
assembly and church of the firstborn. All of God's people are firstborn.
They're His. That's what that means. They're
bought by the blood of the Lamb. Which are written in heaven.
And to God the judge of all. And to the spirit of just men
made perfect. That's what Christ does for His
people. He makes them perfect. He makes them just before God.
And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. And to the
blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escape
not who refused him to speak on earth, much more shall not
we escape if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven,
whose voice then shook the earth. But now hath he promised, saying,
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word, yet once more, signifies the removing of those
things that are shaken as of things that are made, that those
things which cannot be shaken may remain. We, receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." The conclusion
of Hebrews is that we should serve God with godly fear, with
reverence. Why? Because through Christ He
saved us from our sins, and He has brought us to glory. All
these things, we stand before the judge of all the earth, clothed
in Christ's righteousness, perfect just before Him, and hearing
that we have a mediator and that He's fulfilled the new covenant
for us, the blood of sprinkling. We have all these things. We
have an inheritance, a kingdom no enemy can touch. Perfect peace
with God in our conscience. Full favor and love of God showed
to us, he says, Now, serve God. Worship Him in reverence and
godly fear. That's what the fear of God teaches
us. It taught these women to do so. May God so teach us. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that You would put it in our
heart to fear You, to love the Lord Jesus Christ, to honor You
for what You've done in saving us from our sins. You are worthy of all worship.
Your greatness is incomprehensible. You've revealed Yourself to us
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall not fear Thee? Lord,
we pray, we know we ought to fear You, and yet we don't fear
You as we ought. We pray that You would convert
our hearts, change us from the inside, cause us to look to Christ
alone, to never trust ourselves, anything we've done, but to rejoice
in what He has done, how great He is, and find all of our confidence
of Your mercy and grace towards us in the goodness that You found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us for Christ's sake. Save
us for His name's sake. Bring us to glory because of
His work. Teach us by Your Spirit. that
Christ is everything. And help us to fear You in this
way. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.