Courageous Women

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, welcome to coffee and devotions is where every day you and I we get together we have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together in this year 2023 Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus. And this morning, we make our step into the next book, we are officially at Exodus chapter one. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray and we'll get into God's Word.
Let's pray. Father, you are an incredibly gracious God, merciful in long suffering, abounding in loving kindness. You are good to your people. And you always remember your promises. God, we pray now that as we read your word, you would bless us. Please care for us. God, we pray. Teach us in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, let me grab my spectacles here. And we are at Exodus chapter one, Exodus chapter one. Here we go.
Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt. Each man and his household came with Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All those who were descendants of Jacob were seventy persons, for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and 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, Look! The people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land. Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.
So the Egyptian made Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with vigor. Sorry, serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage in brick and mortar and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. Now. the king of Israel.
Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Sifra and the name of the other was Pua. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God and did not do as a king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, Why have you done this thing and saved the male children alive? And the midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them. Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was because the midwives feared God that he provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, Every son who is born, you shall cast into the river and every daughter you shall save alive.
Whew. Well, What a turn in the story. We need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? We just left off the book of Genesis where everything seemed great. Joseph was doing well. Things were going wonderful. And now not so much. Now a new king arises and he doesn't know. Joseph, he doesn't remember him. He doesn't care about him. All he sees is there's these people in Goshen.
They're not Egyptians and they're multiplying like rabbits, right? And they're a problem. They're, they're getting strong. They're getting mighty and they could overthrow us. And so we got to deal with them. Now it's interesting here in verse 10, he says, come, let us deal shrewdly with them. The word here is the word chokhmah, which is the word for wisdom. He thinks this is the wise way to go. Here's the wise policy. Here's the plan we're going to enact, right?
We're going to, we're going to make them serve with rigor. We're going to make them, we're going to make them work and work and work. We're going to make them so doggedly tired that they don't even have time for their families, right? We're going to deal with them harshly.
And yet, What happens is the exact opposite. The more they oppress them, the more they're multiplying. The more they do this, the more the Israelites are blessed. The more they're continuing in their multiplication. And so they realize, even though they're building entire cities out of these bricks that they're making, this huge public works project, this isn't the end of it.
And so he says, he makes a public declaration. He says, okay, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna kill them. All their male children, we're gonna kill them. Why the boys? Well, boys are able to multiply more regularly, right? There was polygamy in the ancient Near East. It's not just with Israel, it's also in Egypt. It's all over the ancient Near East. And so one man could have multiple wives. We just think about Jacob. Jacob's one guy and he ends up having 12 sons. There's all sorts of of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and all this problems in their mind came from one guy to kill all the males. But there's something to notice here. He can't do this. One is against the law of God, but notice the Pharaoh's name is never mentioned. We actually can speculate, but we don't know for certain what Pharaoh this was.
But we do know the name of these two midwives. We do know that God takes so much pleasure in these midwives saving the lives of these children that he actually names them. He inscribes them in history forever. Sephira and Pua. Beautiful and flowering. And God blesses them, right? These women who will defy even Pharaoh are remembered.
They fear God. And even though Pharaoh is, I don't think he knows it. I'm not sure if he's even cognizant of the promises of God, but he's playing the role of the adversary of Satan. And he's he's trying to stop God's redemptive work, but nothing's going to stop it. Time and time again, he raises up heroes and heroines of the faith.
In here, the first two heroines we meet are Saphira and Pua. These two women who fear God more than they do the king. And God remembers them and blesses them and God continues to multiply the Egyptians. And I need to also just point out just as a note for this. God's blessing them for caring for children. God cares about unborn and newborn children. They have a place in his kingdom. They have a place in what's going on. And so it would be likewise of us if we fear the Lord to also be on the side of children and see that infanticide is. Abhorrent. In every moral way.
Well, what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I have verse seven double underlined, but the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, mighty, and the land was filled with them. And then I have verse 12, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And then I have verse 21. And so it was because the midwives feared God that he provided households for them. And I think those three verses kind of get at the heart of this.
So what are we called to do? Right. This is a great story, but how does it impact our lives? God is still building a nation and a kingdom for himself. He's still doing it amongst the Jewish people who believe in Yeshua, and he's doing it by adoption for each and every one of us. You. If you believe in his one and only son, Jesus Christ, and he has poured out your spirit into your heart, if you are one of his redeemed children, it is by a spirit of adoption. By which we cry out, Abba, Father. He is still multiplying.
He is still growing his kingdom, a kingdom of priests, a nation, a nation of redeemed people for himself. This is the story of how he is going to redeem his people. It's been four centuries since Joseph, but God hasn't forgotten his promises and he's still building his kingdom today. It's been 2000 years since Christ told us he would return again. He's going to do it just the right time. He's going to return. And so we can trust him. He's still building his kingdom. He's still caring for his redeemed people. And he's going to bring about the completion of his promises.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your promises and we thank you for the amazing ways in which you care for us. Lord, we pray that we would take to heart the faithfulness which you display. We thank you that you have given us stories, historical, true stories. that show us that you are real, your redemption is true, and our hope has a firm foundation. In Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you rest in Jesus Christ and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.