We are beginning a brand new series this morning on the book of Exodus. The book of Exodus. So I'd invite you to turn there. We're going to cover all of chapter 1 and part of chapter 2 this morning. Does anyone know what the word Exodus means? Anyone know what Exodus means? Not intended to be a trick question. Yes, what? To leave, to depart, yes. A dictionary definition is a mass departure or an immigration. That's the immigration with an E for those of you who care. So it's going out, it's leaving, it's exiting. As a matter of fact, there's a VeggieTales kid version of this story, Moe and the Big Exit. So if that helps you remember it, then good. What I've had in my mind as I've studied this, as I've thought about this, is an image of a doorway. You're in a dark room. You see an open door, there's light on the other side of that, and above, instead of our normal exit sign that we would see, you have the word Exodus. That's kind of the way I picture the beginning of this, because there is very much darkness, and yet God is leading them. into light. As we choose different songs at different times, I get interested, fascinated, amused by some of the ways that songs that we sing in the service fit together with the sermon that weren't necessarily planned that way. And the second stanza of Ancient of Days we sang just a few minutes ago is, though the dread of night overwhelms my soul, he is here with me. I am not alone. "'Oh, His love is sure, and He knows my name, "'for my God is the Ancient of Days.'" That fits into this early part of Exodus so well. Does anyone know, the Exodus title that we have in our Bibles, that comes from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament done in Egypt long ago, but does anyone know what the Hebrew title is for this second book of the Bible? Anybody? I wouldn't have either. It's, and these are the names. Pretty catchy, huh? And these are the names of, it comes from the first verse. That's the way all of the first five books are titled, from what I understand in the Hebrew Bible, the first line. So the first line here is, these are the names of. Why do I point that out? Because God cares about individuals. twice in Exodus 33, I know it's gonna be a long time till we get to Exodus 33, but twice in that chapter, God tells Moses, I know your name. I know you as an individual, I care about you, and I hope that encourages you this morning, that God knows every one of us by name. I'm gonna read our passage, I'm gonna invite you to stand please with me, and I'm going to read Exodus chapter one, starting with verse one. Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt. Each man and his household came with Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin. Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All those who were descendants of Jacob were 70 persons, for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply. And it happened in the event of war that they also join our enemies and fight against us and so go up out of the land. Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew, and they were in 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. Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives. of whom the name of one was Shifra 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 birthstools, 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. It 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 dealt well 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. Pharaoh commanded all his people saying, every son who is born you shall cast into the river and every daughter you shall save alive. And a man of the house of Levi went and took as 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 ark of bulrushes for him, dubbed 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 afar 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's children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. And the maiden went and called the child's mother. Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him, and the child grew. And she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. So she called his name Moses, saying, because I drew him out of the water. Let's pray together, please. Our Father, how wonderful you are. How great is your word. How great are your thoughts toward people. That you would rescue us. That you would consider us. Father, even though this is familiar territory for many of us, I pray that you would show us something fresh this morning, something new of yourself, of your faithfulness, of your dealings with your people. I ask that your Holy Spirit would anoint me to preach your word this morning, that I would be accurate, that I would be clear, that I would say exactly what you want me to say, that we would hear from you, that we would see you high and lifted up in your word, bringing yourself glory. We thank you for the rescue, the salvation that you have provided in Jesus Christ. for that truth that unifies us in the gospel. Lord, give us ears to hear your word today and change us to be more like your son, Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray this, amen. Thank you, you may be seated. I am going to give you some background today, but not an extended background. I'm kind of going to work it in as we go. But I'll start by letting you know that there are some Bible scholars who disagree on who wrote Exodus and when these events happened. And I'm not going to spend time on that this morning. I will tell you that I believe Moses wrote Exodus and I believe these events that we're reading about occurred in the 15th century BC. And if you have questions or want to talk about it, I'm happy to talk with you about it, but I'm not going to take the group time right now to say any more about that. One of my study Bibles at home presented a high-level outline of the book of Exodus, and they organized it by location, and that made a lot of sense to me. There are various ways you could outline the entire book, but this is what made the most sense to me, so I'm going to share it with you. Here's an outline of the book of Exodus. Number one, Israel and Egypt. That's going to take us from where we start today up through chapter 12, verse 30. And then number two, Israel in the wilderness. That's from chapter 12, verse 31, and will take us to chapter 18, verse 27. And then, number three, Israel at Mount Sinai. From chapter 19, verse one, till the end of the book, that's the 40th chapter, Israel is camped at Mount Sinai, and Moses receives the Ten Commandments, and the golden calf, and the things that we know, and then the design for the tabernacle. All of that is the second half of this book. For this morning, I have two main ideas for you. Number one, God knows you by name. Every person in here, child, adult, God knows you and he knows you personally by name. Number two, God knows when and how to rescue you. Because he knows us personally, he knows about our situation. and when the time is right, he will rescue us. Let's go back to chapter one, verse one, where it says, now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt. Each man and his household came with Jacob. I don't know whether you noticed, but in that first verse, we have two names for the same person. We have Israel and we have Jacob. Why is that? Well, Jacob's only one of the people in Genesis who go by two names, but if you would, think of Exodus as a sequel. And because I realize that some of you may never have read the original Genesis, or maybe you haven't read it in a while, I'm going to give you a quick overview. It really will be quick. This is chapters 12 to chapter 50, hopefully in two minutes or less. God chose a man named Abram, whom he renamed Abraham to be the father of his special people. And even though Abraham and Sarah were very old, she gave birth to a son just as God had promised. And they named their son Isaac. Isaac grew up, got married to Rebekah, and Rebekah gave birth to twins. The twins were Esau and Jacob. God chose the younger twin, the younger son Jacob, to continue his special family. And Jacob, when he grew up and got married, had 12 sons, and their names are listed here in verses two through four, just like those names up here in Genesis. God also gave Jacob a new name, and that new name is Israel. So his sons and their descendants were called the children of Israel. Unfortunately, Jacob had a favorite son, Joseph, and his other sons hated Joseph and sold him into slavery in Egypt. But what they intended as evil, God intended for good. And before God sent a widespread famine that really covered the entire known world at that time, that famine would last seven years, but before he sent it, he warned Pharaoh in a dream. And remember, Joseph was already there. He happened to have been in prison at the time, but Joseph was able to interpret that dream and offer a plan to store up grain before the famine began. And when he heard the interpretation, when he heard the plan that Joseph offered, Pharaoh elevated, he promoted Joseph to be second in command. After Joseph became governor of the land, his brothers came to buy grain for their father Jacob and their own families. They were starving back in what we think of as Palestine, what became the nation of Israel. They were struggling and so they came to buy grain and they bought it from Joseph. And there are lots of neat elements of that part of the story, but ultimately God used those events to bring Jacob and his sons and their families to Egypt. And that's what's going on. In fact, the children of Israel had been in Egypt for over 300 years. When we turn the page, it's just a page in our Bible from the end of Genesis, that's chapter 50, to Exodus chapter one. 300 years or more have gone by. So with all that in mind, let's reread verse one of Exodus one. Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt. Each man and his household came with Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All those who were descendants of Jacob were 70 persons, and then in parentheses, for Joseph was in Egypt already, and he had two sons. And Joseph died, verse six, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. The verbiage there, those phrases, those words are not accidental. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit is the one writing this book. But the human author, the one writing it down, is Moses, and he uses similar phrases to what he used back in Genesis. Those were commands given at the beginning to be fruitful and multiply, and then they were repeated as commands to Noah and his family after the flood. And then those same phrases were prophesied to Abraham about his descendants. And the verses we just read are the fulfillment of that prophecy. From the phrase, the children of Israel in verse one, to the same phrase in verse seven, there's a progression from a big family to a nation, a people group. Bible scholars estimate that over two million people would leave Egypt as the newly formed nation of Israel. Let's think back to Genesis again. God told Abraham that he would have so many children that he couldn't count them. As many as the stars in the sky, as many as the sand on the seashore. What's remarkable about that is that when God promised Abram that, he and Sarah had no children, zero, none. But God keeps his promises, and that's the fulfillment that we're reading about here in Exodus. But there's one other promise that you should know about that God made to Abraham back in Genesis. This is Genesis 15, verses 13 and 14. Then God said to Abram, know certainly, know for sure, that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. and they will afflict them 400 years. And also the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. Well, that's a great summary. It's a prophecy, but it's a great summary of what we're gonna study in these first chapters of Exodus. The children of Israel were strangers in Egypt for several generations and they were about to be enslaved and afflicted. Verse 8, now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Some of your translations say didn't regard, didn't care about, didn't know anything about Joseph. And he said to his people, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply and it happen in the event of war that they also join our enemies and fight against us and so go up out of the land. Pharaoh saw how well the children of Israel were doing and how many of them there were. And he was afraid. He didn't want them to turn against him if an enemy came against Jesus, and furthermore, came against Egypt, and furthermore, he didn't want them to take over, and he certainly didn't want them to take off. So he implemented a two-part plan. And the first part is toward adults, and the second part has an A and a B, and it's toward kids. This two-part plan, he focused first on the adults, he enslaved them and made their lives miserable, in work camps. In our own nation's history, we had the Emancipation Proclamation, and when that went into law, it freed the slaves, as well it should. This is the reverse of that. Seemingly overnight, Pharaoh issued an executive order, and this people group, the nation of Israel, went from being free, dwelling in the land of Goshen, to slaves, every one of them. Verse 11, therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Ramses. And apparently these weren't just supply cities, these would be military storehouse cities. But the more they afflicted them, The more they multiplied and grew. And they were in 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 and mortar and brick and in all manner of service in the field. And all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. Did you catch some of those repeated words, serve and service? And rigor made their lives miserable, difficult, heavy. But it says the more they afflicted or oppressed them, the more they multiplied and grew. And this is a principle we find multiple places in scripture. When enemies attack God's people, he often causes his people to prosper even more. But even when God doesn't seem to bless or help his people, he still protects them and he still preserves them. Just as the nation of Israel grew through adversity, we grow spiritually through adversity. It's good for us to remind ourselves of verses like James 1, 2-4. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work. that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If I could paraphrase that, trials and testing make you complete. God uses suffering in our lives. As a matter of fact, I want to share a couple sentences from Philip Graham Ryken's commentary. He wrote, we may suffer hatred and persecution, Christians often do, yet suffering produces spiritual growth. Romans 5, 3 and 4, we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. Suffering makes us long for our salvation and reminds us to rejoice in God's grace. Now I'm not saying that any one of us would desire suffering, would desire the oppression, the persecution that we're reading about here. And yet that is so often God's program, his plan. his course load. He teaches us through suffering, he grows us through suffering, and he was doing it at a corporate level, growing this infant nation while they were enduring such hardship. That brings us to the second part of Pharaoh's plan. Plan A was not working. They were working the Israelites to death. And they were still reproducing. They were still growing, having big families. Since killing Israelite adults indirectly by enslaving them and treating them cruelly didn't reduce the population, he decided to kill Israelite children directly. And this is a good time for us to review our first main point, because we're about to get to that verse. God knows you. By name, you say, how does that fit into this story? Let's look, verse 15. Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other, Puah. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, then she shall live. Now, we have two named Hebrew midwives. That does not necessarily mean that there were only two. If there were as many as 500,000 or 600,000 Hebrew women, then two wouldn't be enough. Just do the math, it doesn't work. So these are the representatives, the leaders, perhaps, we could say. of the group, and I wondered a little bit, and people have spent time and studied Bibles and commentaries, are they Hebrews who are midwives, or are they Egyptian midwives to the Hebrews? And as best I can tell, they are Hebrews. They have names that are Hebrew. And it seems that they were the two leaders of the group of Hebrew midwives. Now the name of the one was Shifra and the name of the other was Pua. So if any of you or your family members are thinking of names for a baby, these are good Bible names. They sound much better in English than they do in Hebrew. Shifra means beauty, and pua, which is very fun to say, I think, means splendor. So beauty and splendor. But whether or not you like those names, I'm encouraged that God knows their names, and he records them for us. The Holy Spirit did not lead Moses to record the name of the Pharaoh, but he led Moses to record the name of these two Hebrew midwives. What was the rule? What was the edict? If it is a son, you shall kill him. The term for that is infanticide, killing babies. Specifically, Pharaoh wanted to kill the baby boys, the sons. And that's important to the story. We will come back to that later in the book of Exodus. But why would Pharaoh want to kill all the baby boys? Fear. The word is fear. He was afraid that they would overthrow him. We read that back in verses nine and 10. And in fact, verse 12 tells us that all of the Egyptians were in dread of the Israelites. And if killing babies sounds horrible to you and sounds satanic to you, that would be because it is. Why would Satan want Pharaoh to kill the baby boys? Fear, and perhaps we could call it revenge. Satan knows that God keeps his promises. So throughout history, he has often tried to hinder or even reverse God's promise about a rescuer, a redeemer, the Messiah. That promise was first given at the beginning of Genesis, way back in Genesis 3.15. There God is speaking to the serpent, that would be Satan. after he successfully tempted Adam and Eve to sin. This is Genesis 3.15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman. I will put distance. I will make you enemies. And between, check this out, your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. If I can call it this, this is a death sentence on Satan. Hasn't happened yet fully. but there was a promised Redeemer. We know that it was Jesus Christ. The seed of the woman, in this verse, would be the enemy of Satan and his demons. And God promised Abraham that the Rescuer would come through his descendants, through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. That's the promise he made to Abraham. And Satan doesn't know everything, but he may have heard or heard of that promise. I don't believe Satan fully understood God's plan, but he was determined to destroy as best he could the descendants of God's people. Every chance he got so that the Messiah could not come. Pharaoh issued the order, but the midwives disobeyed. And that leads us to our second main point. God knows when and how to rescue you. Verse 17 says, but the midwives feared God. If you mark in your Bible, that might be a good thing to underline. The midwives feared God. We'll see that statement again in a moment. And did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. When it says they feared God, they reverenced him. They stood in awe of him. This statement that's repeated in verse 21 tells us why they disobeyed Pharaoh. And the answer is because he was ordering them to do something contrary to what God said was right. Now I realize that these women did not yet have the Ten Commandments. They had not been given. That comes later in Exodus. But God told Noah way back in Genesis 9.6 that murder is wrong. And why is murder wrong? Really basic question. Why is it bad to go kill someone? Because people are made in the image of God. That would be children, adults, infants, children in the womb are made in the image of God and it is wrong to kill them. Genesis 9.6 says, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God he made man. Now let's make this more personal. What would you do if a government official or your boss at work or your teacher at school told you to do something that you knew was wrong? Would you do it? Why or why not? The truth is that we must obey God rather than men. when a human authority commands us to do something that is against what God has said is right, that is the time that we would disobey that human authority in order to obey God. But we need to make those decisions in our hearts now, rather than in the heat of the moment. We don't face persecution in this country at the moment, but there are plenty of brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are facing persecution today. And if that ever comes here, we need to decide in advance. Like Daniel, he knew what the law was, but he had purposed in his heart to do what was right, and so when the law came down, you can't pray to any other God for 30 days, he continued what he'd been doing. Three times a day, he prayed to the Lord God. And that's what we must do. It's what we must settle in our hearts now that we will do. If we fear God the way these women did, we won't fear anything else or anyone else. But if we don't fear God, We will fear everyone else, and we will fear everything else. We need that kind of reverent fear, that kind of awe of God in our lives, that we would respect him above and beyond anything or anyone else. Now, before we move on, I'd like to share one other observation that I think is cool. Exodus is a story of rescue and deliverance. You're gonna hear those words a lot. Rescue, deliverance, redemption. And here, at the beginning, the first people God used to bring about his rescue and deliverance of his people are two midwives that most of you have never heard of. Before we started today, if I had asked you, what are the names of the Hebrew midwives? Probably not many of you could have told me. I think a few of you could. and we may never have heard of them, but God knows and he cares and he recorded their names for us. Pharaoh eventually confronted the midwives for their disobedience to his order. 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? 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. When Pharaoh questioned the midwives, some people think they lied to him. The truth is we don't know for sure. It sounds a little far-fetched. It sounds like they were exaggerating or they may have been lying, but we don't know. Truly, the Hebrew women were probably very fit because they were out working in the field or building buildings and making bricks on a regular basis. And it's also possible that the midwives were intentionally slow in making their house calls. They were taking the roundabout way to get to those Hebrew women, because there's a 50-50 chance here that this is gonna be a boy, and they did not want to and would not kill a baby boy. So for the benefit of the children and adults in the room, I am not saying that lying is okay. Just lie when you feel like it. That's not what I'm saying here. But if they did lie, and it's possible that they did, if they did lie, they were lying to a murderous tyrant who wanted them to kill babies. Probably not the situation most of us are going to face this week when we're deciding, am I gonna tell the truth or am I gonna tell a lie? They were lying to protect innocent life. Furthermore, nowhere in scripture are they commended for lying. but they are commended for and even rewarded for what? Fearing God. Verse 20, therefore God dealt with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was because, here it is again, the midwives feared God that he provided households, or your translation might say families, for them. In that culture, midwives often adopted that profession because they were unable to bear children. But God blessed these two with children because of their obedience to him. Now Pharaoh was not going to let two midwives thwart his plan. So he expanded his orders and deputized all his people, any Egyptian. And this time he specified how they should kill the Hebrew baby boys. Throw them in the river, verse 22. So Pharaoh commanded all his people saying, every son who is born you shall cast into the river, literally the Nile, one of their gods. And every daughter you shall save alive. And that brings us to chapter two. Here we have some more seemingly unimportant people. who are nevertheless part of God's rescue plan. We have the parents of Moses, we have his sister, and we have the person who's going to become his adopted mother. Even though their names aren't recorded in this chapter, God knew them too. And we continue to see that God knows when and how to rescue people, in this case, specifically, Moses. God knows when and how to rescue you. Chapter two, verse one. And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. A man, unnamed. But he was a descendant of Levi. And the woman was literally a daughter of Levi. So we could say that both were from the priestly tribe of Levi, and we'll come back to that idea later as we get into the book of Exodus. According to chapter six, we know that the man's name was Amram, And the woman's name was Jochebed. And if you check out the parallel account in Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith, you're gonna see that both of them were involved. He's not mentioned here, but he had some role to play because we read that Moses' parents defied the king's order. They were courageous and did what God intended. Let's review. What was Pharaoh's command? Every son who is born, you shall do what? cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive." As I read this, it doesn't seem like Pharaoh cared very much about the girls. He wasn't bothered by them. He just wasn't even thinking about them. He didn't think that they were going to rise up and overthrow him. They weren't going to launch a military campaign against him, and that much was right. But I love the irony here. Because God is about to use a group of women, he's already used the Hebrew midwives, to thwart and overthrow the intentions of Pharaoh. Verse two, 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 ark 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 afar off to know what would be done to him. My translation has that he was a beautiful child. What does that mean? I don't know exactly what that means. It's translated good at the beginning of the book of Genesis several times. But Jochebed looked at this baby and something she saw in him was good. Perhaps it was simply that he was a healthy baby. I can't let him be killed. This, we know from other places in Exodus, this was her third child, not her first, not even her first son. She's had a girl, a boy, and this is the third child, a boy, But she can't let him be thrown into the river. She can't allow him to be killed. But she also knew that she couldn't hide him forever either. Again, I ask you, what was Pharaoh's command? Every son who is born, you shall what? Cast into the river. And God led Moses' parents to obey the letter of the law by putting their son in the river. Just, they did that. in a different way. They put him in a basket. They put him in a little ark. Instead of throwing him in the river, they placed him in the river. It says she took an ark of bulrushes for him. And your translation may say wicker basket or something like that. And that's good. That helps us understand what it looked like. Because the word that's used, the Hebrew word is the same one we have for ark, Noah's ark. It certainly wasn't anything on that scale, but it was that idea. That was the vessel God used to save Noah and his family. And the story of Noah and the flood had been passed down verbally. They didn't have Genesis to read yet, but it had been passed down verbally. This is what God did. So when Amram and Jacob had wanted to save their son, maybe that's where their minds went. Somehow God directed them that this is the way, this is what I want you to do. How much did they know about where Pharaoh's daughter came to bathe or the river in general? I don't know. God is orchestrating it. And how much of it was planning on their part and how much of it was seeming coincidence, I don't know. But God directed them and this is what they did. What about you? When you're confused, when you're worried, when you don't know what to do next, how do you figure out what to do? I'm gonna share some really familiar verses. Some of you have these memorized. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Look in the book. You don't know what to do. I'm not saying, if you're choosing between two job opportunities, I'm not saying, oh, read chapter three, verse two, and it'll tell you which one to do. But he will instruct you, and he, through what was handed down verbally at that point, instructed Amram and Jacobed how to rescue their son, because God had something special planned for Moses. I'm sure that Amram and Jacob had little if any idea what that plan was, but God had a plan. And he was directing them to follow his plan. You can trust, you can acknowledge God in all your ways by praying, by reading the Bible. If you're in a quandary of what to do in a family relationship, or a workplace relationship, or an important life decision, what should you do? You should read your Bible, see what God has to say to you, and pray and ask him to direct your steps, and he will. Let's not leave his sister out of this. Moses didn't record his sister's name here, but Exodus 15 tells us that it was Miriam. I like this too, because I have an older sister. Some of you have an older sister. Who better in the world could come watch and then report back anything she saw? Some of you who have big sisters, you understand what I'm talking about. What better spy and tattletale to give you the negative connotation there? But she's there. She is the second daughter that Pharaoh hadn't anticipated. She was brave enough to speak to Pharaoh's daughter and suggest that her mother, Jochebed, nurse Moses. Before we finish today, we're gonna study one more person involved in the early part of God's rescue plan. Ironically, it is another daughter. In this case, Pharaoh's daughter herself. Pharaoh had ordered his people, which would include his daughter, to kill all the Hebrew sons and spare their daughters. But his own daughter spared one of their sons, the one who would eventually rescue God's people, lead them to deliverance. And how did Pharaoh command his people to kill the Hebrew baby boys? By throwing them into the river. Where did Jochebed place her son in a basket? In the river. Where did Pharaoh's daughter find the basket containing the baby? In the river. Verse five, 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 Hebrews' children. She had compassion on him. Someone put it this way. The moment she peeked into the basket, the young woman's curiosity turned into compassion. She had compassion on that baby. He can't be killed. No one should kill a baby. She had compassion on him. Verse seven, then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. So the maiden went and called the child's mother. Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and better yet, I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew. and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. So she called his name Moses, saying, because I drew him out of the water. It says he became her son. Pharaoh's daughter adopted him, and he became part of the royal household. And what did she name him? She gave him a name that works in Hebrew and Egyptian. We don't know what Amram and Jacob had named their son. But for the rest of the book of Exodus and throughout history, he's been known as Moses. His name in Hebrew means one who draws out. In Egyptian, it means son. And this Moses is the son God will use to draw out his people in this story of rescue and deliverance. Did you catch that? God took a slave and made him a son. Does that sound familiar? Can you think of any other places in scripture where a slave is made a son? We could look at any of a handful, but I'm gonna choose one. Galatians 4, three through seven. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. He's talking about us before we came to Christ, when we were lost. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba or daddy, father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Moses was spared from being murdered by the midwives, or being thrown into the river by one of the Egyptians. And now, at three months old, the princess adopted him. Better still, he was returned to his own household, and his mom is now being paid to nurse him. And this is out of character for us, generally speaking, but back then, they didn't wean children until two or three or even older. So she's getting him in his infancy, in his toddlerhood, to instill in him a fear of the Lord, a knowledge of the true God. I don't think stories start any better than that. From the beginning, this story is about rescue and deliverance. This rescue occurred ultimately because of God's providence, yes, but also because of several people, most of whom were women, most of whom are unnamed in this chapter. We have the Hebrew midwives, we know their names, Shifra and Puah, Moses' mother, Moses' sister, and Pharaoh's daughter. But God knew their names because he cares about individuals. And, as 2 Peter 2.9 tells us, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly, meaning his people, from trials. So two simple ideas today. God knows you personally. He knows you by name. And God knows when and how to rescue you. God knows your name, do you know his name? Do you know him? He knows you personally, do you know him personally? There could be somebody who's joined us online this morning, there could be somebody, child or adult, in this room that you don't have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But he can and will rescue you if you call on him. Believe on the rescuer that he sent, that Messiah we've been referring to, Jesus, who is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Those of you who've done that, believers in the room, believers online, God knows your name. Are you trusting in his name? God cares about you individually. He knows when and how to rescue you from trials. and he has much to teach you, to complete you while you're in those trials. Are you trusting him? Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Father, do what only you can do. Rescue. Redeem. Grow. Thank you for your word, thank you for the encouraging promises, the encouraging truths, the encouraging reminders that you are in control. Whatever we may be facing today, you've got this, you're in control. You are bringing things about for our good, even when it doesn't seem that way to us, even when we can't see it in that moment. and you have provided a Redeemer, a way for us to be released from the slavery of sin and to become adopted sons and daughters of the one true King. Thank you, Lord. Remind us of these truths. Encourage us to do right, even when standing against authorities who demand that we do wrong. Work your will in us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.