Good, glad to hear that. Hymn number 228, My Faith Has
Found a Resting Place. My faith has found a resting
place. ? Not in device nor creed ? I
trust the ever living one ? His words for me shall plead ? I
need no other argument ? I need no other plea ? It is enough
that Jesus died It's enough for me that Jesus
saves, this is my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough. Jesus died and
that he died for me. My heart is leaning on the word,
the written word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name. salvation through his blood. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. My great physician heals the
sick, the lost he came to save. For me his precious blood he
shed, for me his life he gave. I need no other. no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. Hymn number 51, Praise the Savior
Ye Who Know Him. Praise the Savior, ye who know
him, who can tell how much we owe him. Gladly let us surrender
to him. All we are and have Jesus is
a name that charms us He for conflict fits and arms us Nothing
moves and nothing harms us While we trust in Him Trust in Him,
ye Saints, forever He is faithful, changing never Neither force
nor God can sever Those He loves from Him Keep us, Lord, oh, keep
us cleaving To thyself and still believing Till the hour of our
receiving Promise joys with thee Then we shall be where we would
be Then we shall be what we should be Things that are not, now nor
could be soon shall be our own. Exodus chapter 1, we'll read
verses 15 through 22. The title of my message tonight
is Depravity and Faith. Verse 15, And the king of Egypt
spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of one was
Shipra, and the other was Pua. And he said, When ye do the office
of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools,
if it be a son, then shall ye kill him, but if it be a daughter,
then shall she live. But the midwives feared God,
and did not, as the king of Egypt commanded, but saved the men
children alive. And the king of Egypt called
for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing,
and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said
unto the Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian
women, for they are lively, and are delivered, ere the midwives
come unto them. Therefore God dealt well with
the midwives, and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
He came to be cast because the midwives feared God, that He
made them houses. And Pharaoh charged all the people,
saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river,
and every daughter ye shall save alive. Let us pray. Our Father,
we come in the name of Jesus Christ, our merciful and great
Savior, who is gracious to poor and wretched sinners, who came
into this world to save sinners of whom Paul said he was chief,
but it is the heart and feeling of every child of God that they
are the chief of sinners. You are thankful for the shed
blood of Christ, that perfect death that he offered to you
and you accepted. It satisfied your law's demand
and your justice, and made it so that you could be just to
justify those who believe on Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father,
for faith, a great gift that you've given your children whereby
they believe and lay hold of eternal life. Believing what
you have said is how it's accomplished and how it's received. We thank
you for your book that is clear and is plain. We don't have to
wonder what it means, it's clearly stated for. Help us Lord to appreciate
it, appreciate the teaching of it. Ground us in the doctrine
of Jesus Christ, keep us there. We pray for those who are sick
and going through trials. We ask, Lord, your help for them.
We pray for the relatives. You bring them back to a good
measure of health. We pray for those who are shut in. We pray
for those who can't be here for whatever reason that you bring
them back safely to us. Help us tonight as we're gathered
here that you might worship you in spirit and in truth. Open
the eyes and hearts of your people to receive the gospel. We pray
in Christ's name. Amen. Now at the same time as you read
this story, it is a story of horror and it is a story of heroism. It's a story of depravity and
a story of faith. The plan that the King of Egypt
ultimately set forth is vile and callous and is a revelation
of the depth to which a depraved heart will venture. His heinous
plot did not come in a publicized edict but a clandestine scheme
he made with or he thought he made with the midwives of the
Hebrews. Two things motivate this wicked
expression of the innate sinfulness of humanity. The means he proposes
is nothing less than hapless homicide. His intent was to murder
the most defenseless among the Hebrews, newborn baby boys. Respect for human life is the
hallmark of any society that wishes to remain among the civilized
of the world. One of the mark of America's
has always been a value of human life. I read many stories of
how the men of other nations that fought against us in various
wars are utterly amazed that a whole squadron of men would
go out to save one man that was by himself. They couldn't understand.
But there's a value for human life. At the heart of this infanticidal
plan was the preservation and perpetuity of the English, or
rather, the Egyptian ideal. The king feared the Hebrews.
We saw that last week. He hated the Hebrews, as all
Egyptians did hate the Hebrews. But he hated them without a cause,
and his sinister plan was ultimately designed to eliminate the whole
outfit. That was it. The most efficient way to accomplish
this, the way to accomplish it, was to rid the Hebrews of the
possibility of tribal procreation. If the male children were eliminated
and only the female children remained, then the Hebrew people
would ultimately cease to exist. Also, if there was no Hebrew
men, the women would most likely marry Egyptian men, and the result
would be the same, a marginalized populace that didn't serve God. There would eventually be no
tribal affiliations, and the sons of Israel would be no more.
There's an old adage that says man proposes and God disposes. And this old sorcery applies
here. The king's murderous plan meets with defeat and what he
finally commands actually will be the source of the demise of
this great nation. How we accomplish this evil plot?
He will kill all the boys that are born. You think this is horrible,
indeed it is. You'd think it can't happen like
that today, but I read just a few moments before I came over here
that Maryland is trying to pass a law that they can commit what
they call abortions four weeks after the baby is born. They're trying to put a bill.
I don't know how you'd call that abortion. I think you'd have
to call it murder, but that's happening in our land today.
To any rational human being, to kill a newborn is the height
of depravity. His proposal was to have the
Hebrew midwives kill the male Hebrew babies as soon as they
proceeded from the womb while the mother was still on the birthing
stool. How this was to be performed
is not revealed, but since the plan is sinister, the performance
must have involved some subterfuge whereby the mother would think
her baby was stillborn or the victim of some natal anomaly.
One shudders to think of such a thing. The king was less than
a beast. He was less than a beast. I've
seen dogs and cats lay their ears against the belly of an
expectant mother with feline and caline expressions of anticipation
and later become possessive guards of that new life as it's born
into this world. How corrupt indeed is the creature
man for the avenue of perpetuity, of a political
idea to murder a newborn. The road that man has trod since
Eden has not been an upward climb, but it's been a continual downward
plunge into the depths of unimaginable darkness. But the king's plot
faced some real problems from the outset. He assumed that his
power and authority would cause the midwives to follow his plan. But he was dealing with Hebrew
women who first of all were women. They were women. And Hebrew women
all had one desire that was common to every Hebrew woman. They all
had a desire to bring forth the seed that would bruise the serpent's
head. That was a promise given in Genesis
3.15. This was their dream and it was first uttered by Eve when
Cain was born into the world. She says, I've gotten the man.
That's the way it reads in the original. I've gotten the man. What man? The man that God promised
to the serpent that the seed of woman would bruise his head
and he would bruise his heel. To murder the male child was
anathema to a Hebrew woman. This might be the Messiah. This
might be the seed of woman that was promised. So this was anathema
to them. The midwives were potential mothers,
if not mothers already, and there exists no fiercer creature on
earth than a mother when it comes to protecting a child, and that
goes all the way through nature. All the way through nature. I'll
tell you what, if you see a mother in this congregation sometime,
you want to see the eyes flash for a fire, just say something
bad about their child. That's all it takes. That's all
it takes. I remember one time we were up
on the chimney, up on the chimney's picnic area. The church was taking
a picnic over there many years ago. And a mama bear came through
with three cubs. And we all went over and petted
them cubs, didn't we? We got in our cars and waited
for that bear to leave. Why? Because we know the fierceness
of a mother when it protects these cubs. And it goes from
bears to lions to dogs to pigs to giraffes. You name it. They'll
kill you to protect your child. Our Lord even made this kind
of human thermometer of familial or maternal care. He asked the
rhetorical question in Isaiah, can a woman forget her sucking
child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb? And also, this was murder. that the king was proposing,
the murder of a human being. And according to the Word of
God, that is a CAPITAL offense. It is a capital offense because
a human being is made, according to the Word of God, in the image
of God. In Genesis chapter 9 and verse
6, immediately after the flood, our Lord said, Did whoso shed
of man's blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image
of God made he him." Now I know men are fallen now and it's hard
for us to imagine that he's the image of God, but something about
man bears that image. He was made and created in the
image of God and God says you ain't gonna kill him. You're
not gonna murder him. That's against the law, against
God's law, against God's command. Even in their fallen estate,
men and women bear the image of their maker. I can't begin
to explain that, but it's so because God has said it's so.
Primarily the reason that the king's plan was flawed was that
he knew not that his plan was just a tiny part of a greater
plan, the heavenly plan of sovereign providence. The knowledge of
providence permanated in the minds and historical language
of the Hebrews and was enhanced now by the afflictions that they
were enduring because already they had begun to be put in slavery
You see, faith shines in the pit of tribulation, being the
substance of things looked for and the evidence of things not
seen. It is simply and gloriously stated
by these midwives in verse 17. It says of them, they feared
God. That's why they didn't do it.
They feared God and did not, as the king had commanded. Why
did they fear God? They feared God because God had
given them faith. That's how it's recorded over
in the Hebrews in that great chapter that is about faith. In Hebrews chapter 11, speaking
of Moses' parents, it says in verse 23, by faith, Moses, when
he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw
he was a proper child. and they were not afraid of the
king's commandment. They were not afraid. It says
of the midwives, they feared God. It says of Moses Parrish,
they weren't afraid of the king. I think that's the way it works.
They didn't fear the king because they feared God. They feared
God. The record is that these midwives
saved the men children alive. Saved all of them. And when the
king heard that the male Hebrews had been saved and his plans
had suffered utter failure he questioned the midwives as to
why they had done this thing in verse 18 he says and the king
called for the midwives and said why have you done this thing
and have saved the men children alive after all he was the king
he was the authority he was the ruler he was the one that was
the sovereign over that nation he thought how come you haven't
obeyed me and done this thing Well, they've got to come up
with an answer, don't you know? The midwives kind of played fast
and loose with the truth. They didn't kill these babies
because they were Hebrew women. They didn't kill these babies
because they thought, they knew that the seed of woman was going
to be the Messiah. They didn't kill these babies
because they feared God. But they said, well, these Hebrew
women, they're very lively women. They're very lively women. They
deliver babies so fast that the midwives don't have time to get
to the place where they're delivering the babies. They're not like
the Egyptian women who groan and carry on and moan and cry
and have a fit. No, they squat and it's all over
with pretty much. That's what they do, these Hebrew
women. They're fast. That's what they said. In verse
19, the midwife said to the Pharaoh, Behold, because the Hebrew women
are not as the Egyptian, They are lively and are delivered
ere or before the midwives come in unto them. We can't even get
there on time. Somebody said, Sarah's having
a baby. By the time we get there, she's
already holding the baby in her arms. It's too late. We can't
kill that baby. See, the way to kill that baby, it had to
be done while he was just coming out of the birth canal. Maybe
they'd do it. pinched the throat and choke
it to death. Maybe they'd break its neck. I didn't know how they'd
do it, but it had to be done while the mother was still on
the stool having the baby. But they didn't do it. And they
were saying, well, by the time we got there, she had already
had the baby in her arms. I don't know whether he believed
it or not, but what's he going to say? What the king did not
know and could not acknowledge. And as the case was all humanity,
you don't know God. What he could not know and could
not acknowledge was that God was behind all this. He was behind
all this. What God had purposed, he will
make come to pass. He had made some promises to
an old saint, a patriarch of this great nation, a man named
Abraham. He said, I'm gonna make a great
nation out of you. A number of your children are
going to surpass the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea,
and you'll hold your enemies at bay. There won't be no problem
for you. Now it says he rewarded the midwives
with houses to live in, and their names. They were named Shifra
and Pua, and their names mean fair and splendid. Fair and splendid. and they've lived up to their
names. They dealt with the Egyptian king both fairly and splendidly. The king's murderous plot is
thwarted. The seat of woman is still in play. The king will no longer try to
act covertly though. The covert act didn't work. He
overtly calls upon the entire population of Egypt to seek out
and kill every son born of the Hebrew women and the means that's
to do it he's gonna throw them in the river and drown them when
they are born that's what he says and Pharaoh charged all
his people saying every son is born ye shall cast into the river
and every daughter ye shall save a wicked man little does he know
that plan will fail also. With one exception, there will
be a child cast into the river. The lad that's cast into the
river, a male Hebrew child, will be encased in an ark made of
bulrushes and that child will float into the arm of the king's
daughter and become a son in his own house. His name will
be drawn out because he was lifted out of that river and he will
be as Joseph was, a savior of the people and a nemesis of this
Pharaoh. He will be the main character
of this book and the following three books of the Bible. That
child drawn from the river is named Moses. His name is Moses,
the man with whom God spoke face to face, a man who will not long
hence when he reaches probably around 30 years old will stand
before the king of Egypt, Pharaoh and say, let my people go. The best laid plans of mice and
men often go astray, says the old saying. This man, this king
proposed to do away with Israel and the last edict that he sent
forth was the means by which Israel would be delivered. Father, bless us through our
understanding. We pray in Christ's name.