All right, I'm gonna be reading today from Exodus chapter 2, starting in verse 15. We're gonna be talking about the mighty, modest maidens of Midian. So, starting in verse 15, it says, Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priests of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, how is it that ye are come so soon today? And they said, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and also drew water enough for us and watered the flock. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter, and she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom. For he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. And it came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of their bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. Father God, Lord, I thank you, God, for this day to gather together, Lord, this Lord's Day that has been set aside, Father, to worship you, to hear your word, Lord. I pray you'd be with me as I preach, God, that you would keep me from error, Lord, that you would give me the words to speak to the congregation today, God, and that you would open our ears to your word, Lord, Pay heed to what you have to say to us, God. And Lord, I thank you for your son, Jesus, who died for us. Thank you for the freedoms that we have in this country to preach, to worship in the way that we see fit, God, in the way that you've commanded us to. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen. So Moses, he slew an Egyptian that was smiting one of his Hebrew brethren. And because of this, Pharaoh sought to slay him, and so Moses had to leave Egypt, and he found his way to Midian. Now Midian is a good ways off from Egypt. It's on the other side of the Sinai Peninsula. It appears to be a desert land without the rivers that Egypt relied upon for water. It would be a dry and dusty place. Wells would be very important for water. So it's not surprising that we should find Moses sitting by a well. We don't know how long he's been in Midian at this point, if he has just recently arrived or if he's been there for a number of years. Nor do we know if he has established a dwelling place in Midian or if he is wandering from place to place. Whatever the case may be, we see that on this particular day, Moses has sat down by a well in Midian. And as he is sitting by this well, some events transpire. There's a man that the Bible calls the priest of Midian. who has seven daughters. We don't know much about him. Some speculate that he may be some sort of prince. There's not any reason I see to think that he is especially wealthy or powerful, but he is probably somewhat respected by most of the Midianites as a priest. I say somewhat because it seems that there are some shepherds who don't have much regard for his flock or his daughters. His daughters are tasked with keeping his flock, and as part of their job they must see to it that the sheep are watered. They would bring the flock to this well, where the shepherds probably all bring their flocks. And it seems to be set up for this purpose, with troughs possibly carved in the rocks, that they must fill with water drawn from the well so that the sheep can drink enough water for their needs. And then they probably take them back to graze wherever they can find pasture. This day, Moses happens to be sat at the well when the seven daughters of Reuel arrive and begin to water their sheep. But other shepherds come along soon and begin to drive off their sheep from the trough so that they can water their own sheep. This may be a daily occurrence for these women. Perhaps they protest, or perhaps for their own safety, they just wait patiently for the other shepherds to finish so they can complete their business at the well. But it seems that there is usually some reason that they are not able to quickly get this done. Because after they returned, their father asked them how it was that they got back to him so soon. So they tell him that there was a man at the well, an Egyptian, who delivered them from those other shepherds and drew water for them to water their flock. We know that Moses doesn't care to see people taken advantage of by others who are stronger than them. And it seems that those other shepherds didn't want to quarrel with Moses about it. Moses is obviously not a weak man himself. So Moses took it upon himself to see that those women are able to get the water that they came for. And I'm sure the women were thankful for Moses' help. And then they left. And then verse 20 says, And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. The priests of Midian obviously felt that the man should be shown hospitality for this favor that he has done. So he sent them back out to find them and call him back to their father to share a meal with him and his daughters. Perhaps he had other reasons for wanting to have Moses brought to him. A man with seven daughters might have concerns about finding husbands suitable for them, and it sounds like some of the Midianite men themselves were not of great character, while Moses had shown himself to be kind and willing to help those in need. So they go back and they find Moses and bring him back to their father, and they obviously all get along very well. Verse 21 says, And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. So once again, we see that God is providing for Moses, giving him a new family to dwell with in the desert, and a wife, simply because he was kind to them. And in return, they took him in as a stranger. I don't think that Zipporah was unwilling to be Moses' wife. This giving was not against her wishes. Moses was content to dwell with the man, and I believe that she was content to be his wife. And I think having Moses dwell with them must have been a blessing to them all. because it freed the women from the daily task of dealing with their father's flock, as now Moses took on that responsibility for him, as we see in the next chapter, where it says, now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And then she bare him a son, it says, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. So I'd like to point out some things in regards to the daughters of Jethro. It seems clear that Jethro had no sons to speak of, or I think it would have been his sons that were taking care of these sheep of his. But instead, we see that his daughters had taken on that role. Perhaps Jethro was not able to tend to it himself due to his other duties, or perhaps age or health had a part in it. But his daughters were well able to take care of the flock for him, and he had no concern that the job would be too much for them. But it seems that it took the seven of them together where Moses was able to tend the flock by himself. We don't know how old these daughters were. Perhaps some of them were quite young, and they were just along to help in whatever way they could. But it's also likely that they knew that it was dangerous for them to be out in the wild alone, and that it was for safety that they all went together to the well, where they knew that other shepherds would be arriving also to tend to the watering of their own flocks. It's a sad fact that when women are alone, they are vulnerable to be preyed upon by wicked men who they may be unable to stop from doing whatever it is that they have in mind to do. Men in general are stronger than women. They tend to be taller and weigh more than women. They have more upper body strength than women. They tend to have more grip strength. And while the strength of men may be generally on the decline in our modern plastic age, the men who Jethro's daughters were likely to see on a daily basis were probably not below average. These were people used to life in a harsh environment. Hard working conditions, not soft city dwellers. And the Midianites were not really a godly sort of people. It was the Midianites, along with the Moabites, that had gone to Balaam to try to get him to curse Israel and ended up causing Israel to fall into sin with their women. So it would not be prudent for Jethro to allow one of his daughters to go alone and tend to their flock. And we see that when he had found himself in a position to give the matter to Moses, that is what he did. A modern feminist would say that there is no reason why a woman should not be a shepherd, same as a man, that the woman could do anything that a man could do, and that there should be no consideration of gender when it comes to defining roles for people in the world. Women should be allowed to do everything that men do, join the police force, the military, be firefighters, construction workers, and we should make accommodations for them to allow them to do these things. If the physical standards for joining the police force or military are too high, for example, then those standards should be lowered to make it fair. This type of thinking is problematic for several reasons. Not least is because the high physical demands of jobs like these make it necessary for those employed in such fields to be able to meet high standards in order to do the job and do it safely. When the standards for physical aptitude are lowered in order to accommodate people who are not able to meet previously high standards, in order to create some sense of equity, the safety of all those involved is put at increased risk. Stories of female officers being overpowered by male suspects are not uncommon. I saw one from last year where an officer in Australia had tried arresting a man in a vehicle. Her partner had run after another man that fled from the car and she was alone with the man. In the course of arresting him, she ended up using her taser and had the man on the ground, but she was unable to control the man with one hand holding the taser that she was using to incapacitate him. And he was able to grapple her and throw her down and escape. And she's lucky that she was not more seriously injured by the man. A study showed that female police officers feel more threatened by the public and are generally more suspicious of people they encounter. and that this heightened threat takes a toll on them mentally. And yet the idea that this might be an area where men would be preferable in the role is not allowed to be held, at least in public. We are told that we need to have more women in policing, that this is what is good for society in general, and women in particular. Similarly, in the military, women are increasingly being put into combat units and sent into dangerous situations. This doesn't do anything to make these combat units more effective. It only serves to show diversity and equity and inclusion in the military at the expense of the women that are being put into these positions and those around them. A man named David Brown, 10 years ago, wrote an article, The Why Women Soldiers Don't Belong on the Front Lines, is the name of the article. He says, there is an uncomfortable truth about women in combat, and it starts at basic training. In the Army, a couple of times a year, and before attending any formal schools, you take a physical fitness test. There are always two lines, one for men and one for women. If you want to pass the test, and you have to pass the test, an 18-year-old male has to perform 42 push-ups, 53 sit-ups, and run two miles in 15 minutes and 54 seconds. That's to score only the embarrassing minimum on the test. In the other line, a passing 18-year-old female need only to achieve 19 push-ups and cross the two-mile mark at 18 minutes and 54 seconds. In fact, a perfect score for an 18-year-old female is basically equal to the minimum for males. The two standards don't exist simply because the army is chivalrous. Rather, they exist because, except for extreme outliers, a woman at peak physical fitness is neither as strong nor as fast as a man in similar shape. A platoon is only as strong as its weakest member. The truth is that God has made men and women different. They are not the same. The physical and mental differences between men and women are purposeful, and that God made women not to compete with men, but to compliment men. When God created man on the sixth day, we read, and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a help, meet for him. And then God brought forth all the animals and showed them to Adam to see what he would call them. And Adam gave all the animals names, all the cattle and the birds and the beasts of the field. But it says that there wasn't found a help, meat for him and all the rest of creation. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman. and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. God had created a helper for Adam out of his own body. And she was made like Adam, but also different from Adam. Eve was created like Adam in the image of God's likeness, but she was made female, and Adam was male. And God blessed them, if you remember in Genesis 1, so God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. They were made so that together they could fulfill God's design for them, that He had commanded them to do, be fruitful and multiply. We have a large segment in our society today that seeks to undermine God's intended plan for men and women, which is that they marry and have children and raise them to be godly men and women. They want women to seek their fulfillment in other things, in a career outside of the home, not as a stay-at-home mother who has children and raises them up to adulthood. If she has a child, she should drop it off at a daycare as soon as she can and get back to the important work at whatever job she has so that the stock price can go up and make her bosses richer. But it would be better for their bosses if she didn't have any children at all. Maybe she should wait until a more convenient time to start a family, like in 20 years or so, when so many women discover that it's too late to start that family that they put behind their career. That's one way that they can keep people from having children. put a career in the place of a family. But we also have the idea that being a man or woman is just a cosmetic difference, and anyone who wants to now can change their gender just by making some alterations to their outward appearance. Young girls are particularly targeted by these people online when they're in the process of developing into women and they feel awkward about who they are and what is happening to their body. Wicked people on the internet will convince some of them that maybe they were meant to be men. and not women at all. That is why they feel awkward. The truth is that everyone is awkward as a teen. Everyone. And the cure for this awkwardness is time. You wait a while, and you will adjust to those changes. And by and large, the feelings will go away. But they convince these young, impressionable people that the answer is not to just wait and trust that God has made you exactly how you are meant to be. Instead, You should try and change who you are, and that through changing your appearance, you can change your gender. Start with your clothes. You can begin to dress like a boy, or a boy can dress like a girl. And these people will tell them how cute they look, and make them feel like this is good and right. And then they might suggest hormones, some testosterone, for a young girl to make her voice deeper, because she still just looks like a girl in boys' clothes, and she knows it. But if she could make her voice deeper, and get a more muscular jaw, and maybe some facial hair, then people would recognize that she is a man now. Never mind the damage that these hormones are doing to her body, and her reproductive system in particular. She just needs to look more like a man, and then it will be true. God forbid that she keep going down this road and have her body surgically altered. Many do. But sometimes these people realize that they have been lied to, and they decide that they want to go back, roll back those changes to be the way they were before, to be the women that they were supposed to be. They were told that these hormones and drugs were reversible. They could just stop taking them, and it wouldn't do anything permanent. But they were lied to. Most of these girls will be sterilized by this type of health care, and never will be able to have a family of their own. And that is what Satan really wants for them, to never experience the fulfillment of what God had for them, the beauty of becoming a mother and knowing what it means to bring a new life into the world, which no man will ever know. They were lied to, told that these things that God wants for them were undesirable, that they could have everything they wanted if they just put off their womanhood and exchanged it for a bad imitation of a man. And now they will never have the chance to know the truth themselves. And this goes for young men as well, that Satan deceives into believing that they can become women by changing their appearance. They can find themselves permanently unable to father a child if they ever change their mind about this, and there's nothing that they can do. But this gender ideology is not just bad for the people who fall into believing these lies themselves. It's bad for the whole of society, for the women who are having to be subjected to men invading their private spaces under the pretense that they are women now just because they say they are. Women who demanded to be treated equally but still get preferential treatment as women, by which I mean they should have their own bathrooms, their own locker rooms for sports, their own divisions for competition, are now finding that they have nothing to protect them from men who demand to be allowed to enter these spaces on the basis of their supposed womanhood, based on whatever imaginary criteria they decide should make them a woman. In Deuteronomy 22 five, God said, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. This is God's prohibition of cross-dressing. men looking like women and women looking like men. God knew what he was doing when he commanded this. He placed a distinction between men and women that is so fundamental that the devil seeks to erase. It must be guarded and kept sacred because to lose that distinction is to lose who we really are as beings created by God. But it's strange that we have come now to this place and time where once we were told that there was no real difference between men and women and that the garments that men and women were not really important. But now a man can just put on a dress and magically become a woman. If he says he is a woman, then we have to play along with his make-believe and sorcery. He must be allowed to use a woman's restroom, play women's sports. If he has been incarcerated, he can decide that he is a woman and be transferred to a woman's prison. Ultimately, it is women who are being sacrificed in the name of gender equity as men rise to the top in all the spaces women had carved out for themselves as they strove to be considered the same as men. Leah Thomas, who made news in 2021 as a swimmer, read from this article in Newsweek, says, Thomas first made national headlines in 2021 after defeating rival college swimmers by large margins. It wasn't even close. Did you see those videos? Like, a lap and a half, this man was so much faster than these women. It ignited a debate about whether transgender swimmers, as in Thomas' case, should be allowed to compete against cisgender rivals of the female gender. Cisgender means that they're real women instead of fake women. World Aquatics voted in June 2022 to prohibit transgender women who had been through male puberty from competing in women's elite races. The organization introduced an open category in its 50 meter and 100 meter races across all strokes, which would allow for the inclusion of those whose gender identity differs from their birth sex. So they couldn't just say, these people aren't women. They had to say, well, yeah, they're women, but they have an unfair advantage because they went through male puberty. will create a new category that they can compete in. The CAS decision is deeply disappointing. This is a statement from Leah Thomas, the man that claims to be a woman. The statement read, blanket bans preventing trans women from competing are discriminatory and deprive us of valuable athletic opportunities that are central to our identities. If they identify as elite female athletes, they should be allowed to compete against other females. The CAS decision should be seen as a call to action to all trans women athletes to continue to fight for our dignity and human rights. In contrast to this present day that we live in, we see that in Moses' day that the distinction between men and women was very much observed. The daughters of Jethro, while taking on the task of shepherding their father's flock, were not rejecting the traditional role of women in their culture, or the natural distinctions between men and women, and they certainly were not identifying as men. Moses recognized the need to protect them from the rough treatment of those other shepherds who might not have behaved themselves in a godly manner, if given the opportunity, and interceded for them, as a godly man should when he sees a woman in need of assistance. And he did not make himself to be a nuisance toward them, as a single man might sometimes do when he finds himself in the company of ladies. He didn't ask to be taken to their father. Instead, he let them go on their way when they were finished, and the women did not behave unseemly or in any way immodestly toward Moses. They didn't ask this strange man, however helpful he was, to come home with them. Instead, they went home to their father, and when he heard what had happened, then he sent them to invite Moses to their home. The fact that the man had seven daughters and no son-in-law to speak of demonstrates to me that the general character of the men of Midian was probably not thought very highly of by Jethro. The Midianites were descended from Abraham through his wife, Keturah, that he took after Sarah died, so they and the Israelites were somewhat distant cousins. They probably knew of the Lord God, but they also had their own gods, like all the tribes in those days. Jethro might have been glad to find a man of Moses' character in the land of Midian, and more than willing to give him his daughter, Zipporah. But again, I don't believe this could have been against her will. I don't think Moses would have married a woman that did not want to be his wife. That would be out of character for the man that was being raised up as a deliverer of the people of Israel from the bondage of slavery, and who protected weaker people, men and women alike. Zipporah agreed to be Moses' wife, and Moses was content to dwell with her and her family there in Midian, and take on the duties of a son toward his father-in-law, to keep the flock there in the desert instead of his daughters. And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. Moses once again finds himself out of place, a stranger in a strange land. But he is being provided for by God, a place to live, and now he has found a wife, Proverbs 18, 22 says, So God used this place, the land of Midian, to be a place of rest for Moses when he was forced to flee Egypt because of the wrath of Pharaoh. God, of course, still had a task for him to accomplish, but the time for that was yet to come. And then we read, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." When the Bible tells us that God remembered His covenant, it should not be understood that God had forgotten His covenant. at least not in the sense that we use the word forget. It didn't slip his mind that he had made a covenant with these people. Though sometimes in waiting on God in our impatience, we might say that God has forgotten us. Psalm 13, David writes, how long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me." David knew that God had not forgotten him. doesn't forget like the chief butler forgot Joseph. After he got out of jail, God always remembers, even though he sometimes doesn't act on our behalf right away. When God remembers the covenant, he begins to act to the end of fulfilling that covenant that he made. And it says that God looked upon the children of Israel and had respect unto them. God had respect unto them because they were the rightful seed of Abraham that God had established this covenant with. God could not allow them to be destroyed because of his promise that he made, and God is not a man that he should lie. So God is preparing now to move mightily and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, and they are going to behold the awesome power of God. Father God, Lord, I thank you so much, God, again for this day, Lord, and this opportunity to speak your word, God, to preach, Lord. I pray, God, that anything I said that was wrong, Lord, God, that you would just correct it, Father, Lord, help us, God, to learn from your word the things that you would have us to learn, God. I thank you for godly men and women, Lord, in this day, God, who still seek after you and seek to do your will, God. I pray you protect our young men and women in this church, God, from the ideas that Satan has out in the world, God. that are just insane, Lord. And Lord, I just pray, God, that you would bless the rest of our day, Father. Thank you for your son, Jesus, who died for us, God, and I pray you'd bless our fellowship in his name, in Jesus' name, amen.