In the sermon 'The Fearlessness of Faith - The Hebrew Midwives' by Scott Brown, the speaker explores the biblical account of the Hebrew midwives, Shipra and Pua, who defied Pharaoh's command to kill Hebrew male infants due to their fear of God. This fearlessness is presented as a model for the church today, particularly in the context of oppressive governments. The sermon underscores the importance of fearing God above man, which empowers believers to resist unjust commands. Historical and biblical examples, such as Moses' parents hiding him and other acts of civil disobedience in scripture, are discussed to illustrate when it is appropriate to disobey government directives. The sermon encourages the congregation to trust in God as their ultimate protector and to see current societal fears as opportunities to demonstrate faith and courage. It highlights the theme of deliverance and grace in the Book of Exodus and encourages believers to remain steadfast and fearless, drawing parallels to contemporary issues of fear-driven policies and societal pressures.

Please open your Bibles to the inerrant, pure, sufficient Word of God. I'll be reading from Exodus 1 beginning in verse 15 through chapter 2 verse 6 and then Hebrews 11 23 so we'll be in a couple of places here Exodus 1 verse 15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives of whom the name of one was Shepra and the name of the other Pua. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stools, 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 the 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 dwelt well with the midwives, and the people of God multiplied and grew very mighty and so it was because the midwives feared God that he provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded the people, all his people saying, every son who is born you shall cast into the river and every daughter you shall save alive. Chapter 2 verse 1, and The man of the house of Levi went and took as a wife a daughter of Levi So the woman conceived and bore a son and when she saw that he was a beautiful child She hid him three months But when she could no longer hide him, she took an arc of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.

And his sister stood far off to know what would be done to him. Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river and her maidens walked along the riverside and when she saw the ark among the reeds she sent her maid to get it and when she opened it she saw the child and behold the baby wept so she had compassion on him and said This is one of the Hebrew children. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 23. Hebrews 11, 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child.

And they were not afraid of the King's command. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would make us a fearless people like your true people, Lord, that you would come and instruct us today in the ways of the pressures, the fears, the threats, and how to live in the midst of them, finding all of our hope in you, finding all of our standards in yours. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.

Well, I've had great delight considering this passage of Scripture to come to it. It really is a delightful passage of Scripture. There's much to say about it. But today we have our focus on the fear that makes you free, the fear that makes you free, because it's the fear of God that sets you free from all other fears and if you fear God then you can say with all of your heart whom shall I fear what can man do to me This is really a call for a fearless church in the midst of a tyrannical government. A.W.

Tozer said this, a scared church needs, I'm sorry, a scared world needs a fearless church. A scared world really does need a fearless church and God has really called us to that. It's been very invigorating for me over the months. It's been five months since all these shutdowns and wildnesses have happened to us, but it's been a joy for me to see the fearlessness in our congregation. This great upheaval has been met with lots of delight.

I haven't really run into people in our church who are afraid and I'm really really grateful for that. Your joy and your confidence in God has been evident to me. Our gatherings, our personal conversations have been full of confidence and joy in the Lord. And you have no idea how thankful I am for that. But a fearless people are a free people.

And that's what you find in this passage of scripture. A fearless people, as it turns out, are a faith-filled people. You could say this is about the fearlessness of faith, of true faith. But faith and fearlessness go hand in hand. Faith properly placed, for sure.

There's so much fear in society today. It's not, I don't think, an understatement to say that America is the most fearful it's ever been in its history. All you have to do is throw a news report up and there's a fear pandemic that wipes really fear, you know, fear furrows over the brows of the American people. And I think when you think about the presence of the people of God in the world, I think it's important to ask, should the whole engine of business, Should the entire medical industrial complex be held hostage to fear? Should a fearless church be held hostage by the fearful?

These are really important questions, but all over America you have all these signs of fear. In California alone, singing has been banned because of fear. At least they say it's for fear. Maybe it's something else. I don't know.

I don't know if it's a conspiracy but I do agree with Isaiah when Sennacherib was going to invade the land of the children of Israel. God told Isaiah to say, stop saying it's a conspiracy. Stop saying conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy. And God saying, it's me. It's not a conspiracy.

I am the grand conspirator. And this should cause tremendous confidence in all of us. But it's true that all of this fear has driven the banning of singing, the untouchableness of a communion tray, of this insane inhuman social distancing that nobody really can actually do or accept and never have been able to. In Colorado this last week, in one city says that they're slapping a one-year penalty in jail for not wearing a mask. You know, in Hawaii there's a $5, 000 fine for not wearing a mask and of course it's certainly justified.

18 people have died in Hawaii so far. What is this? Well it's fear or it's something. But in the Hebrew midwives and in Moses' parents we see a picture of fearless faith. And I think in a time like this the opportunities before us are enormous and Really enormously encouraging for the fearless people of God, you know I had I was speaking with actually two of our deacons this week and you know what it really struck me I was so invigorated by them they they were brimming with hope about the opportunities and they were saying to me Scott look at the opportunities that we have right now I praise God for men like that you know It's easy to feel very overburdened by that, but I'm not sensing it, at least in our deacons for sure.

And what they were saying, hey, this is a time for us to fortify our faith and to reach out as much as we can, because people really are fearful. And you can minister to people on the level of their fear This is a tremendous opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ Because it's a time when some people really are struggling with with the fear that has been bred by their isolation. And if they're watching CNN every day, they're gonna be afraid of every shadow. And the isolation, the uncertainty that people are feeling, Their fear about the economy, the stock market, you know selling short, selling long, whatever it is, losing everything. Here's what we know.

Jesus said I will never leave you or forsake you. In some ways It doesn't matter what happens to you, as long as Jesus Christ is by your side. So there's just so much to talk about here. In this series here, we just began a new series, and I've given two messages on really trying to answer this question, when is disobedience to the government appropriate? You know, is it appropriate under certain conditions?

And we walked through Romans chapter 13 last week and began to address that whole matter. Today we're in the Hebrew midwives we're gonna speak about Moses parents hiding his hiding him. At some point we'll be talking about Rahab and the spies David's evasion of the king the prophet Obed hiding 100 prophets, Elijah evading the king, Ahab, Daniel refusing to defile himself, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who would not bow down before the idol. Esther who violated the no trespassing order of the king. Joseph who fled to Egypt, Joseph the mother of Jesus.

Paul escaping prison. There's so many illustrations in the Bible. Well, we're gonna go to some of these illustrations and here we've landed on the Hebrew midwives. Ahead of us is an exposition of 1 Peter 2, 12 through 17, which urges us to honor the civil government and at the same time to function as bond slaves of God. This can be a challenge as I think we've all seen.

What does it mean to do good in the midst of orders that are not good? So these are difficult questions. Now we've illustrated this point in Romans 13 that God desires a humble and obedient people to exist under the civil government. Christian people should be absolutely the most exemplary, the best, the most humble, the most obedient citizens in the realm. That's what Romans 13 teaches, and you actually see this in the illustrations that we'll be engaging during this series.

But you know, what's very clear though is that when the government tells you to do something that's unlawful then you must do what is lawful before God because God is higher than the king. He is the King of Kings and he is the Lord of Lords. Now since we've established that principle we're going to illustrate it by these two illustrations, these most beautiful and encouraging illustrations in the midst of some of the most heartbreaking orders that can be delivered by a king. So these two illustrations are in the context of the suffering of the people of God in Egypt. Their cruel task masters have brought about tremendous suffering and commands to these midwives were so heartbreaking and then Moses' parents as well.

William Perkins, the English Puritan commenting on this passage of scripture regarding the Hebrew midwives, he said it like this, we learn how far forth we must obey superiors and magistrates. How far forth, In other words, how far do you go in obeying? He continues, we must obey them not simply but quote in the Lord, Ephesians 6 one, that is and all their lawful commands But when they command things evil and unlawful, then we must stay ourselves, last obeying them, lest obeying them, we rebel against God." So I think that principle is born out here. Now, I'd like to begin just describing the context. If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see the flow of thought that I'm operating with here this morning.

I'd like to just speak about the context. It's really important. You don't want to just read a verse and run on. You need to find out why it's there and verse 7 kind of gives us a sense of it you know 70 people went into Egypt and they they multiplied verse 7 and the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty and the land was filled with them. So that's what happened and it was terrifying to this new ruler who did not know Joseph, who did not believe in God, the God of the Hebrews.

So in verse 9 we We engage the problem that has been created by all this multiplication You know God did say to his people be fruitful and multiply. That's what you should do in a pagan land Don't say oh no things are so bad. I'm not gonna have babies. No say things are so bad I'm gonna have as many babies as I can and fill the land with them. That's what Christians do.

Fearful thinking is really different than Christian thinking. So verse 9, And he said, this is Pharaoh, Pharaoh says to the people, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Some kettle of fish. Verse 10, come, let us deal shrewdly with them. A lot to say about shrewdness in a government.

Lest they multiply and it happen in the event of war that they also join our enemies and fight against us and so going up out of the land. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were dread of the children of Israel so the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor 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.

It just got harder and harder and the people of God got stronger and stronger. Now this passage of Scripture by the way makes it really clear that the harder it might get the more prosperous the church might get And God uses the faithfulness of the church to advance his kingdom. It was unstoppable. But it was because of fearless faith. Now, it's very interesting when you think about Egypt.

This is a huge discussion that maybe we'll engage at some other point. But the laws of Egypt were very different compared to the laws that we exist under in America. In Egypt, there was no, well, for example, state constitution that actually begins with a call to faithfulness to God. Our state constitution does that. The Hebrews didn't exist under anything like a United States Constitution that has a First Amendment or a Second Amendment or anything like that.

And we have been given, or at least given the freedom to exercise what the Constitution calls unalienable rights. In other words, rights that you can't be made, you can't be alienated from. But these are all rights that have been given by God. It acknowledges that. The rights that our government has given us have been given by God.

Our government actually acknowledges that they're not the king of the hill. That God is the king of the hill and he has given us unalienable rights. There are jurisdictional rights for the family, there are jurisdictional rights for the church as well because these are also governments that God has given. And my, you know, my view is as long as we have those jurisdictional rights, we, well, we're not probably obligated to claim them. We can claim them and speak about them.

You know, if your government tells you to take a certain kind of pill or implement a certain exercise regimen or take a certain drink or wear a protective mask, In America, you probably have to ask whether these have to do with unalienable rights or not. Now, there's nothing against the law of God by putting on a mask, but there may be other rights that we have as well that we have to consider. Now the theme of Exodus I think needs to be identified here. The theme of Exodus is deliverance and it's all around the subject of deliverance and grace. The theme of Exodus is not the law.

We've been studying Exodus 20. The theme of Exodus is not the law. It is rather the greatest picture of deliverance from bondage of Pharaoh who is the picture of the devil in the Bible. It is the most quoted scene of redemption in the Bible and so it's it's iconic and you know what's very interesting here is that when God, you learn a lot about how God changes the course of a nation and a people and that is that when God wants to change history, he doesn't usually start with a battle. He starts with a baby.

You know I'm so delighted with the pregnancies that are in process here in this church right now. But the book of Exodus begins with the people in bondage and the birth of a baby. And Matthew chapter two, verse 14 speaks of it, out of Egypt I have called my son. This is about the calling of a holy people out of bondage, saving them by grace. A very imperfect people.

But the Exodus is the premier symbol of redemption in the Old Testament in the same way that the cross is the symbol of deliverance in the New Testament. And in Exodus you find just a beautiful presentation of the gospel and the law. And I think you can characterize exodus in this way that there are two sections there's deliverance from bondage and then there the instructions from Sinai now the deliverance from bondage speaks of redemption in the gospel the instructions from Sinai are are the the revelation of God about how mankind ought to live. But we need to be very careful to recognize that the gospel comes first, the deliverance comes first, and the law always comes second. It's an outgrowth, it's a manifestation of the gospel.

It's not just something you do. You also find here the power of God, the power of faith in God working in a family and it really is astounding. These are pictures of true faith and a true family that believes in God. Now Moses is the greatest figure in the Old Testament, but don't forget his parents. In this passage his parents had towering faith.

He had something going on when he was a kid. And he obviously learned from his parents. And what's amazing about this whole passage of scripture is what it took to stop the genocidal forces of the greatest king in the ancient Near East. What was it that stopped him? That stopped him.

Midwives and mamas. How about that? God always confounds the wisdom of the wise through the weak. He uses the weak things of this world to confound the wisdom of the wise. And I think it's so touching and striking and beautiful that these mamas defied the greatest power in the ancient Near East, but it was their faith that conquered him.

You know Satan's agenda was also foiled by midwives and mamas in Egypt, And what they did worked. Got that? What the mamas did worked. It's such a beautiful thing to see faith, true faith, existing in the heart of a mama. Womanhood in all of its power and glory is one of the most beautiful, confident, free things you'll ever see in the world.

It's like Sarah, she wasn't frightened by any fear. Sarah wasn't afraid of anything. She wasn't afraid of nothing. She wasn't afraid of her husband. She wasn't afraid of anything.

Praise God for that. And she had to face some difficult things. But you find a mother's courage here, defying the greatest power in the land. It also maybe helps us to understand where you look for deliverance. Where are you going to look?

Look for faith and look for a family. Look for a faith, a true faith in a real family that's governed by God and by God alone. Look to holy parents and a proper understanding of man made in the image of God and the importance of being fruitful and multiplying and the goodness of a baby being born in the world. These things are despised in our world today. Don't you, the church, dare not do such a thing to despise babies and say, oh no, I have such greater designs on my gifts.

I'm not going to give them to a baby. I'm going to go give them to a corporation. Now also I want us to recognize here, just in terms of the introduction to this or the roadmap the context of this passage the solution was not a rapture it was a remaining I hope you're not waiting for a I hope you're not just sir you just waiting to get rid of all your fears from a rapture. There's all the help you need right now. God will take you when he designs to take you.

He has your days numbered, every one of them. It's interesting, you know, that you have all these opportunities for fear in Egypt, but if you remember back in Genesis chapter 46 that God promised Jacob this. He said, do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation. God already told them, you know, you don't need to fear. Hey, when there's a command, do not fear.

You know what that means? You're gonna get reasons to fear. Okay Like if the Bible says forgive your brother guess what you know what that means You're gonna have some opportunities to forgive Right it's Faith actually works. It does something in the world. And faith is such a wonderful delivering thing from fears.

Hebrews 11, 1 defines that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That's what the midwives did. They had that kind of faith. They had faith in God and they just kept on mission. Fearlessly.

May it be so with us. So as we move into the text that I wanna primarily focus on here, in verse 15, where we encounter the command of Pharaoh to the midwives, verses 15 and 16. And you know, it's obvious, you know, Pharaoh's afraid. Click on this. If you're afraid, recognize that the other guy's probably afraid too.

So it'd be better if you just get delivered from your own fears. Not much good happens out of fear. But so he's fearful of a rising army. Pharaoh has a profound distrust of the people of Israel. So he says, let's deal shrewdly, shrewdly.

And what that shrewdly meant was incremental oppression. That's shrewdly. Have you ever seen that before? Incremental oppression. Now, you can imagine the difficulties that people were having when Pharaoh issued his very first command because they kind of came in waves.

They came in waves. They started small, moved, and then they ended. They moved to greater and greater proportions of oppression. But you can imagine the people of God saying, are God's promises null and void now? We're not going to be fruitful and multiply?

We're not going to be able to survive this? Is it all over for us? I mean after all, you know, Pharaoh's commanding a destruction to the next generation. So you can imagine the fear that people would have reacted, had reacting in their in their souls. But there was something at work, this inner force at work in the hearts of midwives and mamas.

And they stood up for life by faith. And you see, you get a sense of this inner life that was driving the outward actions of the midwives in verse 17. Here it is, this is the central matter that I want us to recognize. You know whenever you're preaching on something you might say what's the heart of this text? Here we go verse 17, but the midwives feared God.

There's the heart of it right there, but the midwives feared God and, uh-oh, they disobeyed the king and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them. In other words, There is an appropriate exercise of faith that causes you not to do what the king tells you to do. But saved the male children alive. They took action, their faith wasn't a dead intellectual faith, it was a faith that did something and they saved the male children alive. Faith is not theoretical.

If it's theoretical it's not biblical faith. It's not Christian. It's an intellectual thing. And so fear and faith are the central matters to consider when ungodly governments prohibit godliness and they feared God and there was much that happened. J.

Gresham Machin, a theologian living in a time of tremendous tumult in the history of the church, the turn of the century, last century. Here's what he said, God has always saved the church not by theological pacifists but sturdy contenders for the truth. This is not the time for theological pacifism. You know, Luther said, in times of emergency, passion is required. So, You know, what does it mean to fear God?

The fear of God is the central matter of this entire narrative. And the fear of God actually is a pleasing fear. It's actually the freedom knowing that God is your protector. You want to obey him. The fear of God is actually a desire to prioritize his ways over anyone else's that's what it means to fear God now there's much to say about this I have many messages about this on the internet about the fear of God.

Did a large conference on the fear of God a few years ago. But here's what I want to say. What was at the center of their conscience? It was the fear of God. They feared God.

They did not fear man and it was faith that made them that way. Just a moment. You know I've been thinking about these midwives a lot and you know Shipra and Pua. Most people don't name their children Shipra and Pua today but Shipra means beautiful and Pua means splendid And it was it was their faith that I think brought about this beautiful and splendid legacy. Midwives and mamas who obey God get a beautiful and a splendid legacy.

And then Pharaoh confronts the midwives, okay the word got around, you're being watched, verse 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? Saved the male children alive. Well, as it turns out they were being monitored. Word travels fast.

Word will travel fast. Does anyone think that in the current technological environment that Word could travel fairly fast in our days about what's going on? Do you have any thought that what you're doing might be seen? In some cities, there are thousands of cameras all over the city with facial recognition software. Thousands of cameras in major cities that you've been to.

Principle, really important principle. You don't need to fear being monitored. You're going to be monitored. This whole idea of being monitored is not a new idea. This is this is not an idea of the internet age with cameras everywhere.

This is just the way it works. God ordained it. It has always been that way and so don't fear. Now we'll understand more about this. You know when we get to Rahab we'll find that Rahab was also being watched.

You know interestingly enough many of you know we were the elders were writing letters to our governor, identifying his infractions of the Constitution. And actually, he ended up actually responding favorably the way we wanted him to. But in one of the letters, it was really clear he knew what we were doing. He'd gone to our website. He was checking us out, for sure.

So if you might say today, I hope we're not being watched. Hey, look, we've been watched for a long time. Don't worry about it. I'm not worried about it at all. So it's not really such a problem to be watched.

Let's don't be a fearful people about that. We're not, you know, paranoia is not a Christian virtue. Now, there's something, We're gonna get to a little bit of a nuance to this because we find wisdom that some might call paranoia, but we find wisdom later on. Anyway, the midwives respond. The midwives in verse 19 answer the question.

Pharaoh says, what's up? I know what you're doing. You're saving those babies. I told you to kill those babies. Verse 19.

And the midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they're lively and they give birth before the midwives come to them. Did they lie? Well, some of my favorite commentators say, they lied. It was despicable that they lied, but God blessed them anyway. Calvin, a lot of others like that say that.

The Bible is really clear. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. So Christians do not bear false witness. That's in the Ten Commandments for sure. Now these women didn't have the Ten Commandments, this was before the Ten Commandments, but that doesn't matter.

I think the law of God was written on their hearts. They knew it was wrong to lie for sure. Now, my perspective is we can dialogue this as much as anybody wants to. My perspective is that the text doesn't conclusively demonstrate that they lied, not necessarily. Now, they may have, but the text doesn't actually demand it.

They may have lied, but the language in 119 is pretty clear. At minimum they were withholding information. I would say they were wisely withholding information. Who knows, maybe they had a deal with the mamas. Midwives making deals with mamas, that happens.

So the deal could have been, you go have that baby, you know, I'll be 100 yards away if you need me, but you have that baby. I'm not killing that baby. Who knows what was really happening? They may have just been withholding information. One of the commentators that I read, it was Philip Reichen, he said that His view is that the midwives were mocking Pharaoh and telling them how awesome the Hebrew women were compared to the weak Egyptian women.

Now I don't think the text necessarily demands that either but did they lie? Whatever it was they did it by faith. Whatever they did, they did it by faith. The midwives valued the love of God more than the edict of Pharaoh and Pharaoh discovered that. I hope, I hope the civil government and the whole community discovers that we as a church value the word of God higher than any other word.

Any other word. Pierre Viret, writing on this matter. I'm getting ready to publish a book with this citation in it by Pierre Vire on the civil magistrate. Here's what Vire says about whether it was a lie or whatever it was. They should not be rightly condemned for rebellion and disobedience against their king and their ruler.

To the contrary, Moses does them honor by saying that they did not execute the command given them by the king because they feared God. 1.17 By this he clearly shows that they obeyed the true king and ruler, not only of Egypt but also the entire earth by disobeying Pharaoh, the cruelest of tyrants. And by the same means he teaches us that instead of the true servants of God being required to obey the edicts and commands which tyrants make against the word of God to the contrary they receive great praise from the spirit of God when they do not obey them at all also They cannot be rightly regarded as true servants of God if they do not obey them. For they cannot be true servants of God unless they fear God more than men. And then God's treatment of the midwives, verses 20 through 21.

Therefore God dwelt 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 he blessed them. He didn't just bless the nation, but he blessed them. He gave something, families, homes. The King James Bible says houses, the Geneva Bible says houses, the ESV says families, but God gave them families.

They were going house to house and God gave them a house. They were assisting mothers and they became mothers. I think that's the idea. You know, Satan wanted to kill the babies and defile the midwives, but God wanted to reward the midwives with life and motherhood and children and families and he wanted to reward the nation with a massive expansion over the next 80 years of the population of the Hebrews. So the Pharaoh who wanted to be a tool of Satan to destroy, God used as a tool to build.

How do we know that? Well you know the story of Moses. He spends 40 years in the household of Pharaoh. Interestingly enough, the one that Pharaoh wanted to kill, Pharaoh is going to feed for 40 years. How ironic is that?

Okay, so he's 40 years in Pharaoh's house, then he's in Midian for another 40 years. So 80 years later when Moses comes back there are 600, 000 males alive. It worked, God's plan, through the faithfulness, through the faith, through the fearlessness of the midwives, through midwives and mamas, you had really an unwieldy population of people who believed God. So then Pharaoh escalates the persecution in verse 22. So Pharaoh commanded all his people saying every son who is born you shall cast in the river and every daughter you shall save alive.

You see this, do you see the progressive steps of tyranny? He starts by trying to use these women using their business. He's using a business to destroy people's lives. I don't know if that sounds familiar to you at all, But he's using a business to do something. He's issuing an order to the business of the midwives to tell them to do something ungodly.

And now, that didn't work out so good. So now everybody in the nation is supposed to do that. He escalates it from midwives to everyone. And this is how tyrannical rulers always work. They work one step at a time.

One step leads to the next step. That's what they do. You see this in, you saw this in Nazi Germany, there was a progressive process. Hey, the Jews didn't just walk into the gas chambers. There were steps toward it.

There were legal measures that were taken. They were marked as outcasts. They wore a sign. Then they were deprived of work permits. And then they were pushed into ghettos and then they had to get a tattoo To mark them and then they went into the gas chamber So, you know, there's this progression in Nazi Germany where you had isolation and segregation and impoverishment and incarceration and incineration.

I'm just quoting from a book about the Holocaust. Maybe you've heard of the Nuremberg Laws. They were progressive. Well, that's what Pharaoh was doing here. They were first enslaved in 1, 1 through 12.

Then there were escalated constraints, increased rigor. The rigor continued to escalate. Tightening requirements, that's verses 13 and 14 in Exodus 1. And then the midwives are instructed to kill the babies, that's one verse 15 and 16. And then the entire nation is instructed to kill all the Hebrew babies, that's in verse 22.

Now, thankfully it didn't work, but that was the process that was engaged. I was reading one theologian, one pastor, who speaks of this progressive work of the Egyptian government in terms of the infanticide. Here's how he describes it. First, there was the subtle infanticide, preceded by open infanticide. In other words, make it look like a stillbirth.

A little bit like partial birth abortion. Secondly, the subtle infanticide was selective. That's the second step. It was directed to males only. And then Thirdly, subtle infanticide was ethnically specific to the Jews only.

So you had this escalating scale. And, you know, what Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger launched in the favored races movement and the eugenics and sterilization movement of black people in America is part of that whole thing. Which is why somebody running for president said last week that planned parenthood and the whole abortion industry is the plan of white supremacists. But it's been an escalating thing, for sure. But God protected them.

God protected them. Someday you're going to meet Shipporon Pua and you're going to meet some of them mamas, and it's going to be a great time. It's going to be a great reunion. But here's what I want to say. What Pharaoh wanted to use to weaken the people of God, God used that very thing to strengthen the people of God.

This is why they say the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. So don't be afraid of tyranny. God always uses tyranny this way to strengthen his people. He might be cutting off branches as one of the commentaries said, but he uses it to strengthen his people. So then Moses is born.

Now let's flip over to chapter 2. You can turn the page. So when Pharaoh tried to weaken the people of God, God made them stronger and then Moses was born. We're going to pick up this text in the afternoon session in chapter 2 verse 1 and we'll modify the schedule that I had announced a little bit and push this out just a little bit. Okay, this is all about fearless faith.

And I pray God's building that now. What anyone might use to try to weaken the church. It doesn't always work out that way, and it doesn't seem like it's working out that way here in this church either, so I'm really thankful. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Word of God.

If your faith is flagging, hear the Word of God. Fill your mind with the word of God the words of Jesus Christ Fill your heart with songs of deliverance. That's what David said He said God you always fill my heart with songs of deliverance whenever I'm afraid Fill your heart with the songs of deliverance of Jesus Christ. What David said, oh fear the Lord you his saints there is no want of those who fear him. Psalm 34 9.

David said in Psalm 50 verse 15 call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and You shall glorify me He cried out what we ought to continually cry out Unite my heart to fear your name. What a blessing it is to be fearless in the midst of a fearful people. But don't let the fearful harm your faith. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for these remarkable things that you've given to us, these stones of remembrance, these Pillars of truth to help us to know how to navigate the things that are upon us now So Lord, I pray that you would come and you would increase our faith As faith comes by hearing that you would unite our hearts to fear your name.

Amen.