There's an old saying that goes, better, no, that's what we just sang. There's an old saying that goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And it's an old saying because it's a true saying that's repeated in multiple ways all the time. When people are in a desperate place, They are willing to do things they would not ordinarily do. They're willing to ask for help in ways in which they're normally reticent to ask for help. Some people, when they're desperate, are willing to commit crimes, even though they may have never committed a crime before. Some people, when they are in a desperate situation, have, do, feats of strength that they've never done before because they're trying to save a life or get themselves or someone else out of a bad situation. When someone is in an extremely bad situation, they are usually and often willing to try an extreme solution. And that's the kind of situation we find here in Exodus chapter 1 and chapter 2. as we began the series last time, or a couple times ago, but as we looked at chapter one last time, we saw that God's people, Israel, had been living in Egypt for hundreds of years. They originally went there really in an act of desperation, in a sense, because the land that God had promised to them, the land that we now know as Israel, that area was experiencing a tremendous drought which produced an incredible famine. And although Egypt also was subject to drought and famine at the same time, God had sent Joseph, one of Israel's children, to Egypt ahead of them. And in his working, God allowed Joseph not only to know that the famine was coming, but to be in a position of authority where he could prepare for the famine for the people of Egypt and ultimately for the people of Israel as well. And so hundreds of years before that, God's people had come to Egypt for refuge from the famine. And God had provided for them and protected them. But over time, as Joseph and his brothers died, and as the Pharaoh who knew Joseph died. The people of Israel got larger and larger and more powerful, and the Egyptian Pharaoh became terrified of what might happen if they decided to join forces with another country and attack Egypt for their freedom. And so as we saw last time, Pharaoh, in his fear, was willing to do some pretty desperate things, some very desperate things, to try to control the population growth of Israel. The first thing he did was, after enslaving the people, is he gave them so much work to do that he thought they won't have time to do anything else. But that was an abject failure. God's people continued to reproduce and grow larger and larger and larger in numbers. And so trying to oppress them with work was a failure. Then Pharaoh found the midwives who helped Hebrew women give birth and told them, kill all the boys and let the girls live. And we saw last time that his plan was to assimilate Israel into Egypt. by keeping Israel's men from reproducing. If all the boys are killed when they are little, that means all the girls will look for husbands. among the Egyptians. And in this way, they'll eventually be assimilated into Egyptian society and Israel will be extinct. But the midwives, the Bible tells us in Exodus chapter one, the midwives feared God. They feared God more than they feared Pharaoh, and so they would not put the Hebrew boys to death. Now Pharaoh is really desperate in the beginning of our passage this morning. Everything he has tried to control the population growth of Israel has utterly failed. And so he resorts to a new kind of desperation. He is willing to do something even more desperate than asking the midwives or telling the midwives to put the boys to death. And that's where we pick up the story in Exodus chapter 1 verse 22. Now no one else in human history has encountered these exact types of circumstances. This is a unique situation that God's people found themselves in. But it's not unique for governments, for people with power to feel fearful and to use oppressive means to try to contain their fears and keep them from happening. And it's also not unusual for people who are fearful and desperate to put others in desperate situations. And so while the particulars of this story are unique in human history, the principles transcend and occur in all kinds of human situations. And all that is to say this, people encounter desperate situations. It's unlikely that any of us will ever face something as dire as either what Pharaoh faced or what God's people faced in this situation. Yet most of us, if not all of us, at some point in our life will feel desperate about a situation that seems to be spiraling out of control. And we will feel what Pharaoh felt, where all the things we tried didn't work to keep the situation from getting worse. And so the passage begins with Pharaoh showing his desperation. He was desperate to control the growth of Israel. And even though overworking them didn't work, And trying to get the midwives to put the boys to death didn't work. Pharaoh was not going to give up. He was going to keep trying to keep this situation under control. And now in verse 22 of chapter one, we see that what was done covertly to try to control Israel's population now pops out into the open. Pharaoh is no longer willing to try to do things in a hidden way to control the population growth of Israel. Instead, he is willing to resort to open aggression to contain his fears and keep Israel from growing. Look with me at verse 22 of chapter one, where scripture says, then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people. The previous order, which is going to be the same order, more or less, but the previous order was given to the midwives. They were Hebrew women. And these midwives feared God, Bible says, more than they feared Pharaoh. And because they feared God, they wouldn't listen to his unrighteous and barbaric edicts. So now Pharaoh takes the same command and gives it to all of his people. He deputizes the entire nation of Egypt. to do what he wants done. Notice verse 22 says, then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people, so these are Egyptians, every Hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live. Now, how do the Egyptian people know that there's been a new Hebrew boy born? How could they know? What business is it of the Egyptian people to be looking into the windows and doors of the Israelites' households whenever they hear a baby cry. So what exactly is Pharaoh commanding here? It seems pretty clear that what he's commanding here is a couple of things. On one level, whenever a Hebrew woman was seen out and about holding a baby of any kind, Pharaoh expected the Egyptians to go over and take a look at the sex of that child. This is an open act of aggression. Imagine if you're carrying your child through a park or through a store and someone comes along and grabs the baby and unwraps the little swaddle that you have to see whether it's a boy or a girl. That would be an open act of aggression. I don't know which law would apply to this, but I hope there is some kind of law that would make that illegal. But this is what Pharaoh wanted. He wanted his people, whenever they saw the Hebrews out with a baby, to look at that baby. And if they found that baby to be a boy, notice what the instruction is. Every Hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile. This is a tremendous act of barbarism. And if his people were to find a baby, if they were to grab a child from its mother's arms and find that it's a boy, That Egyptian, according to Pharaoh's command at least, was to run to the Nile River and toss that baby into it. Now why is this done? What was the purpose of this command? What was the intent that Pharaoh had here? There are a couple reasons probably why Pharaoh said, throw the baby into the Nile rather than wring its neck or suffocate it or do some other act of terrible barbarism to the child. The Nile was really important to the growth and prosperity of Egypt. It kept Egypt from being a barren desert, like many of the areas around it. And because of that, it was worshiped by the Egyptian people. Now the Egyptians had many gods, but the Nile River itself was one of their gods that they worshiped. And so to take a baby like this and throw it into the Nile, was in a very undeveloped and primitive culture, a barbarous act for humans to do, but one that would fit with the kind of thing like a human sacrifice. So one of the reasons, perhaps, for telling the Egyptians to take these Hebrew babies and throw them into the Nile is as an act of human sacrifice. to reap some kind of prosperity from the Nile, which they thought was God. But there's a practical reason as well. By throwing the baby into the Nile, the swift currents would take the baby away and make it virtually impossible for the pursuing parents to save that baby from drowning. And so it was a quick and effective way to do what Pharaoh wanted the midwives to do, to control the population growth of Israel. And so that's where we begin at the end of chapter one in verse 22. He says, every Hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live. And once again, this is an act of a desperate man doing desperate things to try to keep a situation under control. Now here's the thing about what desperate people do. They often don't plan on countermeasures. They come up with plans that seem like they will work, but they maybe don't anticipate that people aren't just gonna roll over and allow the plan to go unopposed. And the truth is, when people do desperate things, and when they use power to oppress others, the others who are oppressed often respond. And that's what we see in this passage. The spotlight moves in chapter one from Egypt as a nation, from Pharaoh as an individual, and Israel as a nation. It goes from these generalized groups of people. The spotlight focuses in on one Hebrew family. One Hebrew family who uses countermeasures like everyone in Israel did, maybe not in exactly the same way. But all of God's people looked and tried to find a way to counteract the desperate moves of Pharaoh. And so we see next that Israel responded to Pharaoh's desperate measures. Beginning in verse one, we see in one Hebrew family one way in which God's people responded to these desperate measures. Chapter two, verse one says, now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Can you imagine the mixed emotions that they felt? The joy of having a son, the joy of having a healthy baby, but the fear that some Egyptian would come and take their baby away. In addition to the thing I mentioned about looking for Hebrews strolling about with their babies, it seems clear that Pharaoh's minions, the people who worked for him, would probably do daytime patrols through Israel, listening for babies crying and bursting into their homes to try to see if they can find these baby boys. And so here's a family overjoyed to welcome a new son into their home, but terrified that someday an Egyptian is gonna burst through the door and take their baby boy. And so we see that Moses' mother, has some countermeasures to try to counteract the awful commands of Pharaoh. And at the end of verse two it says, when she saw that he was a fine child, this is just indicating that he was healthy, she hid him for three months. Now I'm told that many newborns sleep from 15 to 19 hours a day. I'm told that, but that really wasn't my experience much as a parent. And so your mileage may vary. But it is true that newborns sleep more than they do once they get a little bit older. And from about three to six months old, little babies start to learn the difference between day and night. And when that happens, they start sleeping less during the day, and to the thankfulness of every parent, they start sleeping more at night. And so when scripture tells us here in verse two, that she hid Moses. We don't know he's named Moses yet, but we know later that he is. She hides him for three months. It was probably much easier to do at that time, because as a baby he was sleeping quite a bit. But then in verse three, we see more that's what's done. It says, but when she could hide him no longer, when he got this day and night organization and was awake more during the day, it was harder to stifle his cries or his happy sounds. And of course, as you know, as the baby grows, his ability to make sounds gets greater, gets louder. And so the older that Moses got and the bigger he got as he grew, the more difficult it became to keep him hidden to keep people from knowing that they had a baby boy. So verse three says, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. You talk about a desperate plan. This is a desperate plan. Most parents don't want to leave their baby alone for much time at all. Maybe you put him in, of course you put him in the crib for naps and at night. But a lot of parents are checking on the baby. Maybe you've been there where the baby doesn't make noise for a while and so you peek in to make sure that he or she hasn't stopped breathing. Naturally, parents are very protective of their newborns. And so to put a newborn child like this in a situation where yes, she made a little boat for him that would protect him from drowning. It would allow him to float among the reeds. And by putting him among the reeds, he would be protected from floating away. The reeds would hold him from going into the current of the Nile. And there were very shallow areas there, but this is risky. but to her it seemed more appropriate, it seemed safer, it seemed less risky to kind of put him where she could watch over him and she could hear him, but maybe no one else would. And the other advantage to this situation, the first advantage being he's sort of out of sight and unseen, but another advantage to doing it this way is, that the sound of the Russian current and maybe the top of the basket would suppress Moses' cries. This isn't a permanent solution, but it might help get Moses through those early infant days. And as he got older, maybe it would be easier to protect him in the future. So this is what Moses' mother does. She makes this little boat, puts him among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. And then verse four tells us, she doesn't leave him completely unattended, but verse four tells us, his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. So she was there in case that little boat started to float away. She was there in case something came along like an alligator. I don't know if they have those in Egypt or not, but something that might be a threat to his physical existence. And so that's where we are in verses three and four. This is just an opportunity to try to protect Moses' life until she could come up with a better solution. And this is what happens in desperate times. Desperate times, desperate situations are encountered by people throughout their lives. And throughout your life, I'm sure you can look back at situations where you were about to run out of money and didn't know what to do. Or your job was on the line and you weren't sure how to respond. or some of your relationships reached a crisis point and you felt desperate to do something. Desperate times are what happen to people. People encounter desperate situations. But as we go forward here, we start to see the beginning of God's work among his people. Here in chapter two, we start to see evidence, we start to see the fingerprints of God in this desperate situation. And although God's people were taking some risks here, although they felt desperate and wondered maybe where God was, the truth of the matter is this, that God is working. Often unseen, but God is working even in desperate situation. Now the Bible tells us that God works in two ways in this world. One is miracles, and two is what we call providence. Miracles are very rare all throughout human history. A miracle is when God intervenes and does something that is visible that suspends the normal laws of human life. Something like, which will happen later in the book of Exodus, watching the Nile blow apart and create a pathway for God's people. That's a miracle. And that's one way in which God works in the world. But that's not the usual way that God works in the world. The other way God works is what we call providence. And in providence, what is going on is the normal laws of nature, the normal laws of human life are not suspended. Just things happen that lead to an outcome. And God uses the normal decisions of people. the normal processes of nature and of weather, and the normal things that people do in carrying out their lives, somehow the Bible says these are orchestrated by a sovereign God. So that while we don't see a miracle happen, something awesome happens as an outcome. That's what happens when God works through providence. And that's what we see here in this passage. God is working even in desperate situations, and God works through strange twists of providence. Now, most of God's working, as I said, is through providence. And providence is not something you usually see immediately in your life. As you have to live, we all have to live life going forward. We live in the present, and pretty soon the future becomes the present. and things happen, and we don't necessarily see any significance to them. But looking backward, especially if you're a Christian, especially through the eyes of faith, you can look at the sequence of things that happened that just seemed random, that seemed unplanned, that seemed natural, that seemed like no big deal. You can look back at your life and see how God was orchestrating, how God was working. Random acts of providence are not random. They are coordinated by a sovereign God. Like I said, often in the moment you can't see them happen, but in the rear view mirror you can see how God was working through the normal things of life to bring out an outcome in someone else's life or in your own life. And that's where we begin. We see the strange twist of providence here in Exodus chapter two. In chapter, in verse three of chapter two, Moses is out there in his little boat. He's floating there, his sister's keeping an eye on him, but not getting too close, lest someone come along and say, hey little girl, what are you doing here? Staring off into space. But verse five says, then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe. Did she do this every day? Did she go to this particular part of the Nile every time? Was this her usual pattern, or was this an unusual circumstance? We're not told. But we do know this, this is what people did. People used the Nile River, among other things, to bathe. And so verse five says, Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. The purpose there, of course, is to guarantee her privacy, to keep anyone who might be lurking about from getting a look. and invading her privacy. So they're patrolling the area. Verse five goes on and says, she, that is Pharaoh's daughter, saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. Now we're not told if she heard anything that would also draw her attention to that area, or if she just saw this strange thing and wondered what the deal was with it. But one way or another, it comes to her attention. Scripture says she saw it. And so as she's doing her bathing, she says to one of her patrolling agents, hey, bring that thing over to me and let me get a closer look at it. So verse six says this, she opened it and saw the baby. He was crying and she felt sorry for him. And so on this random-seeming day, during her random-seeming trip to the Nile to bathe herself, something unusual happens. She discovers this baby. As the baby is crying, her natural human, even maternal instincts, kick in. She feels compassion for this child, this child who has seemingly been abandoned by his parents. And notice it says in verse 6, she says, this is one of the Hebrew babies. Now how did she know that? Probably because he was circumcised. And so by looking at Moses, she could tell immediately that he was not one of the Egyptians like she was, but rather that he belonged to the people of God. And maybe then it made sense why he was in the Nile. that his mother was trying to obey Pharaoh's edicts, but not all the way. She was also trying to protect him. We don't know what all the things that went through her mind, but we know this. She recognized that Moses was a Hebrew. She knew what her father's command was for Hebrew baby boys. And yet in the providence of God, her response was not to put Moses to death, not to cause him to drown. but rather she had compassion on him. This looks like a random thing, an unusual circumstance to be sure, but nothing miraculous about it. Moses wasn't floating above the water in some miraculous way. And so there seems to be nothing special about the situation. It is an act of providence. Then verse 7 says this, then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? This is also a strange twist of providence. Not that your sister wouldn't look after you when you were a baby, hopefully she would. I'm sure she cared about Moses' outcome and wanted to protect him, but she's a fast thinker here. What she came up with on the fly was truly incredible. She sees Pharaoh's daughter discover Moses, and her heart must have sank, wondering what would happen next. And when she sees that Pharaoh's daughter cares about Moses, That she is not going to fling him into the Nile to drown, but that she is worried about this little baby and what might happen to him. Her mind kicks into gear and she comes up with a really good idea. Hey, it looks like you're going to keep this one. Perhaps I can help you with this. And let me just stop here and talk about Pharaoh's daughter. Certainly she was a woman of privilege. There's no doubt about it. We don't know what age she was. We don't know if she had other children already or if she was still a younger girl, still single. We don't know the answer to any of these questions. But she was surely a woman of privilege to some degree. However, she was putting her neck on the line too to save Moses' life. If her father was Ramses II, which seems possible from what we know historically, if her father was Ramses II, he had 100 children. 60 of them were girls. And so while she was a princess, she probably wasn't his special princess. She probably didn't have Pharaoh wrapped around her finger. She probably was exposing herself to some risk here as well. But Miriam's Moses's sister comes up with an idea. And her idea, as we see there in verse seven, is this. Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? An infant at this age still needs to be nursed. We're assuming that Pharaoh's daughter, if she had any children at all, didn't have any that were in the stage of being nursed. And so someone to care for the baby is necessary. Moses' sister comes up with the idea, and Pharaoh's daughter likes it. In verse 8, she says, yes, go. So the girl went and got the baby's mother. And the passage goes on to say this, Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this baby and nurse him for me and I will pay you. Notice that. She not only gets to raise her child, but she gets paid to do so. Not a bad situation to be in. Not only is her baby now going to be protected, no longer needing to be hidden from the Egyptians who might want to take his life, but he is going to be well cared for, well provided for in the house of Pharaoh. And his own mother is going to get the opportunity, not just to watch him live, but to see him grow and develop, to be part of his life on a daily basis, and to be removed from the fear that she had about what might happen to him, what would happen to him, if Pharaoh's edict were done. God is working even in this situation, but we don't see explicitly, we don't read in the passage that this is God's direct act. We see instead things that look like normal, everyday, unusual, yes, but everyday situations. And yet God is behind the scenes as he does providentially orchestrating the events that are going on. God does this through strange twists of providence. He also does it through unlikely people. And I've already mentioned how Pharaoh's daughter was an unlikely person to find Moses. And how his sister, in an unlikely way, came up with a plan to save his life and provide for him. Moses' parents also were unlikely people. His parents were unexceptional in the sense that they were not anything special in terms of their lineage. We saw way back in verse one that they were both Levites. Remember it says, the man of a tribe of Levite married a Levite woman. Levi is one of the 12 tribes of Israel for sure. But we're not told yet, later on in Exodus we are, we're not told exactly how they had descended. And while the Levites would later carry a special role in the worship of God, that hadn't happened yet. These are unexceptional people as far as we can tell. There was nothing about their upbringing, about their lineage, about their abilities that we know of that made them exceptional. And let me just throw this in. In Exodus 6, verses 18 through 20, we find out more about these two people, these parents of Moses. We find out that his father's name is Amram, and that he is Levi's grandson. But we also find out that his mother's name is Jochebed, and that she is Levi's daughter. Did you get this? Amram is Levi's grandson. Jochebed is Levi's daughter. The guy married his aunt, which was not that unusual in their time and place. And so, here we're talking about unlikely people. Moses has an immense future ahead of him, but it was unknown at this time. He's just another baby boy, born to the people of God, to a very average family, and yet we see that the fingerprints of God are all over this. Although it was a desperate time for Israel, a very tense time, a fearful time for the people of God, yet we start to see the working of God in the everyday events of life. And so what's the message for us as we see the beginnings of God's working in this desperate situation? The answer is this. While Moses' parents were unexceptional in the normal human ways we think of exceptionality, if that's even a word, while they were unexceptional as far as we can tell, they had exceptional faith. And this is the lesson we should take from this early chapter in the book of Exodus. Often in life, we will face desperate situations. We need to trust that God is working in those desperate situations. In fact, that's the message. Trust God, even in desperate situations. Now, how do I know that they trusted God? Because Scripture tells us so. Not here in Exodus chapter 2, but much later in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, verse 23, Scripture says this, By faith, by faith, Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict. On some level, of course, I'm sure they were afraid of the king's edict, but they weren't so afraid of the king's edict. They weren't so afraid of the consequences of keeping Moses alive. that they threw him in the Nile. In other words, just like the midwives that we saw in chapter one, Moses' parents feared God more than they feared the consequences of obeying God. They feared God more than they feared what seemed like the almighty power of Pharaoh. They knew that God was greater than the potential threat of the Egyptians and the Egyptian king. And this is the message for all of God's people, for us in this day and age. The message is to understand that when we find ourselves in desperate situations, the best thing to do, really the only thing to do, is put your faith in God. Now, putting your faith in God in this situation means something really specific. It means doing the will of God, even though there may be a price, even though there may be a cost for it. It's putting your neck on the line, because see, if Pharaoh had found, if he'd been the one bathing and found the Hebrew child, it would have meant the death of Moses, possibly the death of Miriam, and almost certainly the death of Moses' family. By being disobedient to the lawless and unrighteous commands of Pharaoh, Moses' parents were putting their necks on the line. But they did it because they had faith in God. And when you and I encounter desperate times, we may be tempted to sin. We may look and see sin as a way out of the desperate times that face us. But the lesson here, and the lesson really in all of Scripture, is in those desperate times, When we are tempted to do someone else's will over the will of God, we need to put our faith in God and do what God says is right. That's what Moses' parents did. And this is how God delivered them. It's an unusual way out to be sure, but it was a way out because of the providence of God. Now we need to understand that this is about God's individual protection of Israel. This is about God's individual protection of Israel. But God has also promised to protect his people, the church. Here in Matthew chapter 18, verse 18, scripture says, and I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not overcome it. In Matthew 16, 18, God promises that he will preserve and protect his church despite the onslaught of Satan himself. and Satan's followers, demons, and Satan's followers in the world that are antagonistic to God and His will. God has promised that He will preserve His people, maybe not every individual one of us, because it may be God's will for us to suffer. And it certainly is God's will, as we've seen down through the ages in church history, that sometimes God's servants are put to death for their faith. But just as God preserved Israel through these desperate times, He will protect His church. When Jesus returns, there will be a harvest of people who've lived by faith in His promises, in His commands, because of His atonement for us. And those people because they lived by faith, because they trusted God in the desperate situations of life, will receive the blessing that God has promised. Now, I don't know what desperate situations you may face today, hopefully none, but human life being what it is, you're going to encounter times in your life where there may be a price to be paid for doing the will of God. And you may be tempted to go along with the flow, to do what is expected in our culture, or expected in the culture of your family, or expected in the culture of your workplace, or whatever. You may be tempted to go along, to get along. But if our faith is in God, and if we believe his promises, That faith should lead us not to fear the consequences of not fitting in or the consequences of desperate evil people who want to persecute God's church. Instead, we must fear God more than we fear men. We must believe the promise of God that Christ is building his church and he will not allow the forces of Satan to overcome it. So the message for us is very simply trust God, even in desperate situations. This is the unusual way out.