Midwives - Needed Now

Intro:

In these days after the Covid-19 lock down, business everywhere are desperately needing help. Signs fill windows and line highways as they compete for employees. However, the greater need today is for midwives. Not the sort that aid in natural birth, but those that assist in spiritual births. Those that resist Satanic opposition, believe the promises, and position themselves to usher in the greatest increase and expansion God’s people have ever known. In Exodus chapter one, the midwives were the first to assist in the birth of the Israelite nation. Today God is looking for men and women who will assist in birthing, in this generation, a holy nation of royal priests (Ex 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9).

What the Bible Is All About: Bible Handbook Exodus 1:1–22: Bondage

The story told in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy shows that God did not forget the promise He had made to Abraham—“I will make you into a great nation” (Genesis 12:2).

The book of Exodus like its name, is epic. The word means “departure, going out”.

Exodus records great events and high drama

Moses became God’s man for a transitional epoch in history.

When the divine call came to assume a crucial role in the destiny of men and nations, Moses stepped into the gap.

He may have been reluctant

He may have been frightened

He may have been filled with regret and self-doubt.

But in the end he yielded… and became God’s instrument in his generation.

It is the same in this generation, at this moment, God is still looking for the man or woman who will believe Him, despite weaknesses and doubts, and become a mighty tool in his hand.. an instrument of His purpose.

Baby Moses opened his eyes on a world very different from our own. The birth of this boy launched a series of events that would change the course of nations and shape the destiny of many.

Background:

To Jacob/Israel is born 12 sons. Jealousy leads them to sell Joseph into slavery and he is taken to Egypt. From Potipher’s house to prison and from prison to prime minister his is one of the most amazing stories in it’s own right.

A famine forces Jacob to send his sons to Egypt for food, where they encounter Joseph. He forgives them for their treachery is reunited with his father who had been tricked into believing he was dead. Joseph invites them to move to Egypt during the famine.

Genesis 47:5–6 NKJV

5 Then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. 6 The land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock.”

Genesis 46:31 NKJV

31 Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and say to him, ‘My brothers and those of my father’s house, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.

Genesis 46:33–34 NKJV

33 So it shall be, when Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 that you shall say, ‘Your servants’ occupation has been with livestock from our youth even till now, both we and also our fathers,’ that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”

Genesis 47:3 NKJV

3 Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” And they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers.”

Commentary on the Old Testament Removal of Israel to Goshen in Egypt.—Ch. 46

The dislike of the Egyptians to shepherds arose from the fact, that the more completely the foundations of the Egyptian state rested upon agriculture with its perfect organization, the more did the Egyptians associate the idea of rudeness and barbarism with the very name of a shepherd. This is not only attested in various ways by the monuments, on which shepherds are constantly depicted as lanky, withered, distorted, emaciated, and sometimes almost ghostly figures

In other words, shepherds were low lifes....

Exodus 1:8–11 NKJV

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; 10 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.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.

Exodus 1:12 NKJV

12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.

Exodus 1:13–14 NKJV

13 So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Exodus—Saved for God's Glory The House of Bondage

One of the interesting literary features of Exodus is that significant words often come in groups of seven. One example of this occurred back in verse 7, which used seven different words to describe the miraculous multiplication of the Israelites.

Exodus 1:7 (NKJV)

7 But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

Exodus—Saved for God's Glory The House of Bondage

Umberto Cassuto claims that each word is like another blow from a slave driver’s whip.

Exodus—Saved for God's Glory The House of Bondage

Another example occurs here in verses 13, 14, which use seven words (some of which are repeated) for Israel’s slavery

Exodus 1:13–14 (NKJV)

13 So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.

14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Exodus 2:23 NKJV

23 Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

Exodus 2:24 NKJV

24 So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

He had not been sleeping.

His attention had not drifted.

He well remembered His promise.

Way back, centuries before Exodus ch.1

Genesis 15:13–14 NKJV

13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

With every crack of the whip, Pharoah was striking another blow against the God of Israel, because ultimately this was a spiritual conflict.

Pharoah was really fighting against God.

He resented God’s people.

The Israelites were meant for God’s glory.

Pharoah tried to prevent them from fulfilling their calling.

Pharoah also rejected God’s Promises.

God had promised to make a great nation...

The more numerous they became, the more his promise was fulfilled.

Instead of rejoicing at their growth, he was filled with fear and hatred.

Pharoah also resisted God’s plan.

God had promised them a land to call their own.

A land flowing with milk and honey.

Joseph had instructed them to not leave his bones in Egypt.

Exodus—Saved for God's Glory (The House of Bondage)

However, Pharaoh was hostile to that plan from the very beginning. Notice the reason he gives for oppressing the Israelites: “we must deal shrewdly with them or they will … leave the country” (Exod. 1:10). With those words, Pharaoh set himself up as the obstacle to the exodus. He was utterly opposed to the one thing God was absolutely determined to do (see Exod. 3:8).

In short Pharoah is the very picture of a man in rebellion against God. He:

Resented God’s People

Rejected God’s Promises

Resisted God’s Plan

No wonder the Lord didn’t even mention his name.

Return with me to Exodus 1 for a moment.

Exodus 1:15–21 NKJV

15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; 16 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.” 17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. 18 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?” 19 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.” 20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. 21 And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.

One commentator writes, “They are the first to assist in the birth of the Israelite nation,” (D. O’Donnel Setel). In this way they were midwives not just to individual babies, but to an entire people.

1. HARD TIMES DON’T ERASE GOD’S PROMISES

When times get hard it’s easy to come to the conclusion that God has forgotten his promises.

The book of Exodus shows us that when God says, “I promise you something,” He never forgets it.

I may forget

The whole nation may forget

But God cannot forget!

In this era of moral decadence and moral decay, don’t think for a moment that God has taken a vacation, or misplaced His promises.

He hasn’t fallen asleep at the switch.

He doesn’t need CNN to keep up with the latest developments.

At the proper moment, at the time determined before the foundation of the world, He will come again!

The earth may melt and the stars may fall from heaven, but the living God will not forget what He has promised.

2. HARSH TREATMENT DOESN’T ESCAPE GOD’S NOTICE

Exodus 3:7–8 NKJV

7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Do you ever imagine in your discouragement that God doesn’t know what you are going through?

God is always AWARE!

He cares very deeply!

And He will do whatever it takes....

He may not arrive at the time you expect...

But He will not abandon His own!

Exodus—Saved for God's Glory Prosperity Under Persecution

We must “deal shrewdly” with the Israelites, he said to his advisers. What Pharaoh meant by “deal[ing] shrewdly” was politics as usual: pursue military strength, exploit the poor, attack minorities. But the conventional wisdom proved to be folly, because Pharaoh was dealing with the God who says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate” (1 Cor. 1:19). By keeping the Israelites enslaved, the new Pharaoh actually helped preserve their identity as a close-knit community.

3. HEAVY TEST DON’T ECLIPSE GOD’S CONCERN

Remember how God rewarded those midwives?

He misses nothing!

Perhaps this has been a difficult 6 months or year for you.

In you moments of quiet you wonder, Where is God?

He’s right there at your side!

You may be feeling

unqualified

uneducated

untrained

under-gifted

unworthy

Yet those are excellent qualifications for God to do a mighty work!