A Powerful Fragrance

When we stand for the Lord, He stands with us.

What is courage?

What motivates someone to have courage?

If you are on Facebook, I suspect you get reels suggested to you.

I’m not really sure how the algorithm works, but I keep getting reels of people doing things in high places.

And it’s weird, because I don’t like up high.

I don’t like standing near the top of a 6 foot ladder.

And this reel comes up of this young dude, they are almost always young people

And he’s standing on this - maybe 24 inch disk at the top of tall, tall tower.

He has a selfie stick and he’s doing a 360 selfie of himself so you can see the surroundings and him and the tower all at the same time.

Does that take courage?

I can think of other words.

What about those folks that parachute using wing suits?

Have you see them?

Sometimes they jump from planes and sometimes from tall mountains

And then they zip through mountain passes

Two guys even flew into the open door of a airplane.

Does that take courage?

And if it is courage, is it courage that matters?

I mean, it’s fun to watch I guess, but in the grand scheme of things?

Look at the guys who use the wing suits.

They get the thrill of zipping through the air and doing things no one else has done before

But ultimately, all they are doing is gathering followers so they can get sponsors so they can sell Red Bull.

And enjoy the thrills, fame and fortune that goes along with that.

I don’t know their names - I’m sure they have names and I suspect some of you may know who they are.

But one day their name will be written in some book somewhere

And someone will be reminiscing with you and you’ll say, “You remember the Red Bull guys?

“Old - what was their names again?”

They have some kind of courage, but do they have enduring courage?

Our story today is a story of enduring courage.

Two nondescript women

One whose name was Dawn and the other whose name was Fragrant

These two were faced with a life and death situation.

Not like the tower climber or Red Bull guys and gals

These two women weren’t looking for thrills, fame and fortune.

They were simply two women doing a job - wanting to be left alone really - but their world changed right out from under them.

And they had to decide what was right and what was wrong and then choose.

Choosing - that’s the hard part.

Open your Bibles to the Book of Exodus 1:15-22.

Children, today you are looking for three words: fear or fearing, courage and Jesus.

Try to listen closely enough to understand what you need to know to be a person of courage.

We want you to grow up to be strong and courageous.

We’re going to talk about the secret to being strong and courageous today.

Hear now the word of the Lord from the Book of Exodus 1:15-22

Exodus 1:15–22 ESV

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.”

This is the word of the Lord.

Praise be to God.

So let’s start by walking through the story.

The last thing we heard Pharoah say was, “Let’s work these Hebrews to death.”

So, question number one, how long does it take to work someone to death?

A day, a week, a month, years?

The correct answer is D, years.

So between verse 14 and verse 15, years have passed.

The people of Israel slowly but surely watched their lives get harder.

Prices went up.

Commodities got scarcer.

People had to work a lot harder to get the basic necessities of life.

The bosses got crazier; upward advancement all but disappeared.

All because the king of Egypt got scared.

“We’d better do something about these people.

“They don’t look like us and if we don’t do something, they are going to take over.”

But the plan didn’t work.

Exodus 1:12 “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 the king of Egypt hatched a new plan.

It was a bit more nefarious and if it was exposed, probably everyone - Egyptian and Hebrew - would have gone nuts.

Nobody likes killing babies - that’s why we hear words like, “reproductive health” - it so sanitary and unoffensive.

So the king started slowing and quietly.

He called two ladies - Shiphrah which translates to Dawn and Puah which translates to Fragrant.

These were very common names - these are simply two ladies who are midwives - ancient OB/Gyns.

Now, let’s answer an obvious question and then let’s talk about midwives - both are very important to our story.

First, is the obvious question.

Why only two midwives?

I read that the infant mortality rate in that era was estimated at 75% - 3 of every 4 babies died before becoming an adult.

So, remember the math I did the other week - that in 300 years the 70 people that came from Israel could be 2 million.

With a mortality rate of 75%, that number would be more like 500,000.

And still only two midwives?

500,000 is a little larger than 3 times the size of Macon.

How many OB/Gyn’s and midwives and whatever other title delivers babies now are there to serve 150,000?

Why only two?

The general consensus is that they were the most senior of the midwives and they were in charge of the midwives - there are little hints here and there in the text that lead to this.

The king would have either sent a royal decree to Dawn and Fragrant or he might have addressed them himself.

But look at how nefarious his plot is.

If 75% of all babies born before adulthood die, if that number slowing increased to 85% or 90% - who would really notice?

The king was pretty slick - let their “healthcare” thin the ranks out.

And real quickly, the other thing that is important to this little snippet is the job of midwife.

Midwives delivered babies.

But it’s commonly agreed that ancient midwives were women who had no babies of their own.

With no kids, they had time on their hands to help others.

So Dawn and Fragrant were older women who had wanted babies, but could never have babies.

Tuck that away.

So the king tells them to kill all of the Hebrew boys that are born.

Kill the boys - they grow up to be warriors - don’t want that.

Women can grow up and continue to be slaves - and - having no Hebrew men around

They would start choosing Egyptian men for husbands and slowly but surely the Hebrew race would disappear.

It’s very sly genocide.

History teaches us that governments can be that way.

Unfortunately for the king, there was one minor complication.

Exodus 1:17 “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.”

Let’s talk about fearing God.

In the first five books of the Bible, the term fear God “tends to mean ‘to be honest, faithful, trustworthy, upright, and…religious.”

They understood “that right and wrong are not human inventions, but a part of a divinely created order.”

C.S. Lewis said:

A moral law presumes a moral lawgiver. This law giver is God. He is the source and foundation of right and wrong. His own character determines moral absolutes. Since God is a perfect being, his moral perfections are what lie behind all true morality.

Dawn and Fragrant were not schooled in the scriptures, because there weren’t any.

They didn’t attend Sunday School and Church because there weren’t any.

What they had was a verbal promise, passed down from daddies and mothers to sons and daughters.

And the imprint of God - the image of God - etched into their being.

Solomon said, “He has put eternity into man’s heart...”

God did that.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of studying to know right from wrong.

So knowing that, at that basic level, what are our choices?

Live morally among one another and please God.

Live immorally among one another and displease God.

Fearing God doesn’t mean I am terrified of God, it means I am very concerned about what will happen to me if I go against God.

We’ve lost this.

We really don’t think twice about God before we do anything.

But Jesus did say Luke 9:23

Luke 9:23 ESV

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Following Jesus means we mean the lyrics of this song.

“Jesus, to You we life our eyes

“Jesus, our glory and our prize

“We adore You, behold You, our Savior ever true

“Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to You.”

We love that - our hearts yearn to follow Jesus more every day and we don’t want anything to mess that up.

And not wanting anything to mess that up has a name - it’s called fear.

It is absolutely true that if we ignore and disregard the Lord, He isn’t going to bless what we are doing.

Imagine if Dawn and Fragrant did what the king said, how would their lives have been different?

Let me ask you this - what was God’s will for Dawn and Fragrant’s life?

That’s not a hard question - the answer is obvious.

Exodus 1:20–21 “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.”

God’s will for Dawn and Fragrant was for them to be courageous and follow the Lord instead of a tyrannical, ungodly government.

And because they did that, because they followed the Lord, the Lord blessed those two old ladies with children.

Something that would not have happened naturally, but did supernaturally.

Because when we stand for the Lord, He stands with us.

Now let’s deal with another question I asked and I hope some of you asked.

Did the Lord bless Dawn and Fragrant for lying?

Look back at verse 18 and 19 - years have passed between verses 17 and 18.

It would have taken years for the king to notice that there were just as many boys now as there were before his decree.

So he calls the two ladies and asked them essentially, why have you disobeyed me?

And they replied, Exodus 1:19 “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.””

Pharaoh didn’t dispute that so it must have been true.

All of the women he knew would have been pampered - they lived lives of power and prestige.

The Hebrew women had rough hands and strong bodies.

Their childbirth would have been different.

Did they lie?

We have no idea what happened so we don’t know..

What we do know is this

These two women feared the Lord enough - feared what their life would be like if they violated the Lord’s morality enough

They feared transgressing the Lord - they so hated what their life would be like without the Lord - that they had courage in the face of death.

Pharoah could have had them killed.

Instead, they not only lived.

They had babies of their own by the power of God Himself.

Have you picked up on the fact as we’ve studied everything we’ve studied that the Lord’s will for this earth is powered by common people doing Godly things.

We make much of King David and the Apostle Paul.

But they were both murderers.

David was an adulterer.

Paul appears to have had a bit of a temper at time.

But what did they do?

They followed the Lord to the best of their ability, trusting in the Lord’s forgiveness when they failed

But always expecting the best of themselves for the Lord

Because they knew - and they feared the consequences.

When you live apart from the Lord, you are utterly alone.

Life is going to happen, you can’t stop it.

But life apart from the Lord - it’s not going to end well.

It’s not going to end well at all.

Don’t you reckon those ladies were scared to death at first?

Pharaoh may have promised them wealth and protection if they did what he said - we don’t know.

But we know for a fact, His implication was - do this or die.

I’d be scared.

Listen, I’ve been scared on conference calls back in the day.

People hear that I’m Christian, I’ll be looking for a job.

My family depends on me - we’ll starve.

I’ll be a failure.

I think this story begs the question, what makes us the biggest failure?

Not bowing the knee to a world gone mad

Or not bowing our knee to Jesus?

Three big takeaways

In your hard times, give the Lord time to work.

It may take years - you can’t hurry it.

It might seem like an eternity, but there again, our Lord is an eternal God.

Second, you keep following Jesus as hard as you can.

It may get real scary, but keep your courage.

Cultivate your desire for Him - keep reminding yourself of what He has already done for you.

And if you can’t identify anything, you need to talk to someone to fix that.

Third, you keep looking for the Lord.

I promise - I promise - He will let you see Him.

I want to invite us to make a pact to be courageous together.

Our church covenant says, “I will grow spiritually through regular involvement in groups and classes at The First Baptist Church of Gray in addition to regular personal devotional times. I understand the purpose of these groups and classes is building community with other believers and holding each other accountable.”

Accountability isn’t a draw for most folks - I don’t want to answer to anyone.

But what if accountability worked like this.

You confess in class, “I’m being asked to affirm some ungodly stuff at work and I’m afraid I’m going to lose my job.”

And someone else in the class puts their arms around your shoulders and says, “Me too. Let’s pray about it.”

Let’s make a pact today, right now, to help each other to be courageous.

Dawn and Fragrant were courageous together.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

You or me might fail.

But you, me and Jesus - that’s going to be hard to beat.

If you’ve never asked Jesus to save you and you’ve never commited your life to following Jesus

I’m inviting you to do that right now.

You can be the world’s biggest rebel ever by following Jesus.

You see, what Shiphrah and Puah did was the first act of civil disobedience in recorded history.

They stood for the Lord

Many of us here have been saved.

We invite you to be saved and join us.

Let’s be strong and courageous together.

Let us pray

Brief invitation

Communion

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 ESV

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Essentially Jesus made a pact with the disciples that night.

Use this ritual to remember me.

Every time you do it together, you are reminding each other and the world

That Jesus died and rose from the dead, to save you.

As we eat the bread and drink the juice

Let’s remember who we are following

Let’s purpose in our hearts to follow Him as closely as we possibly can

Let’s renew our pact with each other to help each other follow Jesus - and be strong and courageous.

Because one day He will come again.

And every last minute of following Jesus will be worth it.

Let us pray:

(Bless the Lord for making a way for us to remember… and have hope)

Please exit your pew to the left and come to the station closest to you.

When you are served, you may eat the bread then or you may take it back to your pew and mediate for a moment.

The gluten free wafers are located at the center station.

If there is someone who needs us to come to them to serve them, please let us know who when you come forward.

After we’ve all been served, we’ll sing and then we’ll leave.

Won’t you join us now in renewing our pact to Jesus and one another by sharing in the Lord’s table.