Exodus chapter 1, verses 15 through 22. Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shifra and the other Pua, 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. 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, that you shall let every daughter live. Brothers and sisters, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Most merciful God, we come to you this day, thanking you for your word. We thank you that you have presented it before us, that we may read it and hear it. But Father, more so, we pray now that you might, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and our minds, that we might understand these things, that we might understand the depth of knowledge and wisdom that you have for us here in. Father, we pray that you would enlighten us by your Spirit, that we might behold the deep things of Scripture, that we might behold your glorious promises and your truth, that we might behold our Savior, Jesus Christ. For Father, we pray that you might lift him up in our midst this day, that as we behold the Word made flesh, that our a character might be built, that our faith might be strengthened, and that we, your people, might be made more like him, as we are sanctified according to your will. For we ask these things in Christ's precious name. Amen. One of the things Christians of our day and age must understand and come to grips with is that the world, the kingdom of man, which is at enmity with God, Following, as Paul points out in Ephesians 2 verse 2, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, the world following Satan will never, never cease to try and stamp out the word of God and will never stop tormenting the people of God. We may not see it all of the time. We may not see it clearly. But this is the way of the world throughout human history, driven by Satan and mired in sin. Those who are not with us are truly against us. There is no gray area in these matters. There is no middle ground. For as Peter says, our adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And often he uses others, he uses men, he uses nations to promote his agenda of destruction. And while these things are not always obvious to us, it is a clear recurring theme of both the scriptures and of history itself. That the powers of evil rise again and again to fight against God and against his people. And while the antagonism and animosity of those who have not known or been known by our God is not always manifest in straight up murder or genocide, there are times and places when it becomes that very thing. As we turn to our text this morning, we find just such a time, some 35 centuries ago, and just such a place, Egypt. For in spite of the Egyptian persecution of the Israelites, as we saw last time, in spite of the Egyptian persecution of the people of God, blessed by God, they continued to grow in number. In fact, as verse 12 tells us, the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied. As Egypt tried to ruthlessly persecute them into submission, God richly blessed them and caused their birth rate to soar. and they began to spread out not only through the area they had settled in, Goshen, but out from that area into Egypt itself. The Pharaoh and the people witnessing this could not countenance these foreigners, these apiru, as the text states it, Hebrews, as it is rendered. The Pharaoh and the people could not countenance these Hebrews populating the country and threatening their lifestyle, and so As we turn to our text this morning, we find the next solution to the Hebrew problem. This solution certainly being more heinous than the one before it. Instead of working them to death, which clearly did not work, the Egyptians would simply just put them to death, kill them. And so the Pharaoh devised his plan as outlined in verses 15 and 16. Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shifra and the other Pua, 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. Now we don't necessarily assume Shifra and Pua were the only midwives for all of Israel. If they were as. fecund as the scriptures tell us. If they were as prolific in giving birth as the scriptures tell us, there certainly were more than two midwives. But perhaps they were representative of all the rest. Perhaps they were in positions such as we have in our own day as head nurse or head midwife. Perhaps they were overseeing the other midwives. Perhaps they had a great reputation, and so as Pharaoh told them he expected them to pass it down, we're not quite sure. But whatever the case may be, the midwives, we are told in the next verses, feared God rather than men. And though the king had commanded them, they would not resort to murder. Verse 17 tells us, the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. This is one of the few instances in scripture that an order was given in explicit and direct contradiction to the law of God, that to obey the order would be to make oneself guilty of sin, and particularly in this case, the sin of murder. And so as the scriptures teach, when we are commanded to do something that is in direct opposition To the law of God, we are to obey God rather than man. And thus the midwives in faith obeyed God rather than man. Knowing that they would be guilty of murder, they did not obey the Pharaoh, but continued to let all of the children live, including the male ones. And we are told in verse 20 that God rewarded their faithfulness. He rewarded their faithfulness with families of their own. Perhaps they were unable to have children and being a midwife was part of the comfort that they received in that. We're not sure, but God's blessing, God's reward to them for their faithfulness to his word and their faith in him was to give them families of their own. And he continued to add still more to the numbers of the Israelites. And so as Egypt continues to try to oppress the people of God, God continues to bless his people as they continue to grow in number. Until we are told in verse 20, his people multiplied and grew very strong. This development sent Pharaoh into a frenzy. Having been thwarted in his initial scheme, Pharaoh then orders all of the people of the land to kill Hebrew male children. He didn't specify an age limit, just that the sons of the Israelites were to be drowned in the river. And so this moves away from killing them at their birth to killing them wherever. The Nile River, which ran through the middle of Egypt, As historians understand, it was not only the lifeblood of Egypt, as we know even in our own day, but it was worshiped as a deity by the Egyptians. And so this way of killing the children of Israel may have been an offering to the river god. Or perhaps it was a way for Pharaoh to point out his religious devotion to the river that ensured the livelihood of the Egyptians. Whatever the case may be, the Egyptian people began to engage in the wholesale slaughter of the Israelites, not in war, not in battle, but in the murder of their children. The thought of this sort of state-sanctioned murder of children should jar us to the core. Once in a while, the hatred of the world toward our God and his plan of redemption comes to the fore in ways that are truly shocking or should be shocking to the people of God. But shock at the horrific nature of what is being done by wicked men is not surprise. We can wonder at the depth of depravity, but But we should not be surprised at such things, for this is the pattern of the age." Not just the age, but of the ages. Beginning with Abel, murdered at the hand of his own brother, and throughout redemptive history, the people of God have been murdered, they have been tortured, they have been beaten, they have been enslaved, and in many other ways, tormented. Hebrews makes this point at the end of chapter 11, where we are told some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. This is the history of God's people at the hands of a wicked world. In our own day, we have seen the wholesale slaughter of our own brothers and sisters. It's happening now in Nigeria and in the Middle East. We have seen many of their executions broadcast for the world to witness as they are shot point blank or beheaded. And how many countless others have died in prisons throughout Asia and Africa and other parts of the world without us hearing their story or knowing of them? How many children have been murdered in our own land? A bloody sacrifice to the idols of convenience and expedience. Make no mistake, Satan is alive and well and actively seeking the destruction of God's people. As God cursed the serpent in the garden in Genesis 3.15, he said, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. And so that enmity is seen as Pharaoh in his role, acted in a sense as an agent of Satan for in the destruction of the children, in the murder of God's people, not only was he devouring them like the lion that we are told he is, but the chance of the rest of that prophecy in Genesis coming true was being put to the test. For Satan knew that as God prophesied, there would be enmity between him and the seed of the woman and between his offspring and her offspring. He also knew the rest of that prophecy that ultimately it was a seed of the woman that would crush him. And so in murdering all of the children, the Israelite children in Egypt, the chance of a leader arising to rally the people to cast off their yoke would be eliminated as well. Perhaps this was the seed that would crush Satan. Beyond all of that, if all the male children of the Israelites were truly slain, then the seed who had crushed the serpent's head would not even be born. Many scholars and commentators agree that this was the ultimate goal of the serpent, working through Pharaoh to prevent the channel, as Arthur Pink calls it, of the true Redeemer and Savior of God's people. To recognize the truth of this, we need only look to Matthew. For as we know, that very same type of destruction happened under a different king in a different place at a different time, but history repeated itself centuries later in a little town called Bethlehem. For there, as we find in Matthew chapter 2, Herod, when he saw he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem. And in all that region, who were two years old or under, according to the time, that he had ascertained from the wise men. And so we see history repeat itself. And as Revelation 12 indicates to us, it is the serpent, it is the dragon who ultimately sought to devour the seed, but he failed there. in Bethlehem just as he did in Egypt. For the scripture tells us that it is God who protects his people and it is God who provides for their salvation even in the face of genocide. It is God who brings to pass his prophetic word to guard and guide his people to the promised land and nothing Satan or the world can do or will do can thwart the eternal purposes of God Almighty. For as we see, in a providential twist, God used the terror of Herod to fulfill his will. As Matthew recorded, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill What the Lord had spoken by the prophet, Hosea, for those who are wondering, but the word spoken by that prophet out of Egypt, I have called my son. What divine irony that God would call his son out of the very land that first tried to destroy God's people through the very same type of murderous scheme. And as God used the terror of Herod to fulfill his will in bringing forth his son, so we will see as we move through Exodus that God will use the terror of Pharaoh to fulfill his will in bringing forth a deliverer for the people of God in Egypt. And this is where we must find our comfort. For as we noted last time, even when God's people are undergoing severe trial or tribulation, God is working in their midst. And just as Pharaoh and the Egyptians are persecuting and killing God's people, God is setting the stage for a miraculous deliverance. And he is setting the stage for a deliverer who will lead his people out of suffering, out of bondage, to freedom, and ultimately to the shores of the promised land. A people who will be secured by the covenant promises of God himself. God who made covenant with their father, Abraham, and God who will make covenant with them again at Sinai. And just as Herod was killing the children of Israel in Bethlehem, God was setting the stage for a miraculous deliverance, even more miraculous than the one we find in Exodus. And just as he set the stage for the deliverer to come out of Egypt. So in Bethlehem he set the stage for the deliverer of deliverers to come out of Egypt and to lead all of his people out of bondage to sin and away from the suffering under the hand of the evil one, away from the curse of death itself. into perfect freedom, freedom from sin, freedom from death, and ultimately to the glorious heavenly promised land, that which is secured by the blood of the new covenant as Jesus Christ died and rose again to bring about the full and utter salvation of God's people. For those who look to God in faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what we undergo, no matter how vicious the world driven by the prince of the power of the air treats us, no matter if, as Paul says in Romans 8, quoting the psalmist, no matter if, for God's sake, we are being killed all the day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered, no matter any of these things, if our faith and hope are found, in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, he who rose from the grave and ascended into heaven, there to intercede for us even now, if our faith and hope are in him, in his person, in his work, then we can know without a doubt we will be brought into eternal glory by the will of a loving and merciful father. This is why the prophet Isaiah can say, In Isaiah 54, 17, no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication from me, declares the Lord. This is why Jesus can teach in Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This is why Satan is recorded in Revelation, will find his final end as he is cast into the lake of fire to suffer, not for a time as he might make the people of God suffer, but for eternity. Never to touch the people of God again. Beloved, as Paul asks in Romans, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Satan himself? The world? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Though Satan and the world try to, Jesus Christ is the one who died more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword? Shall nations that vent their anger against God's people and slaughter and murder? Shall Satan himself who tries to devour the people of God? No! No, the scriptures say emphatically in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.