Back home, after eight weeks away and looking forward to regularly posting on this blog again. Though that may have to wait a bit longer as at present I am finding it hard to think, having come down with Covid – no doubt as a result of spending 14 hours on the last leg travelling home on a flying petri dish full of various ones coughing and spluttering.

But we are so thankful that God kept us in good health for the whole time we were away as something like this, especially in our 70s, would have been horrible while travelling away from home, but is quite bearable here. As I say, we are so thankful.

Nonetheless a few things come to mind.
Before we left England the Parliament there voted to allow women in England and Wales to kill their unborn babies without sanction at any stage of pregnancy, right up to the moment of birth. It is hard to see what the difference is between killing a baby a minute before birth and a minute after – in which case what is allowed by the law in England is no different from what was mandatory under Pharaoh’s edict in Exodus ch 1. The agent of death may not have been the same, but the result for the baby is.

Here in Australia only the ACT permits abortion up to the moment of birth, while other states allow abortion up to between 16 and 24 weeks, though beyond this under “special circumstances”, eg. if two doctors agree that an abortion is “appropriate in the circumstances” (?). As a result some 88,000 unborn children (or one every six minutes) lose their lives to abortion every year in Australia; some babies are even born alive and left without care.

There are already cases here in Australia where doctors and nurses who refuse to perform abortions have been under investigation and threatened with deregistration. Even if cleared in the end, the process itself is the punishment. For example, Doctor Jereth Kok was suspended for five years before it came to trial while he was being investigated simply for publicly expressing his views against abortion: the five year suspension ended his career.

Okay, I said I wasn’t going to post this week. But, as at the time the new law in England was passed we were there, and at the same time I was reading through Exodus in my morning devotions, I wanted to share the following excerpt from a sermon I came across by Ligon Duncan on Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus ch 1:

The Midwives, Who Feared God

– by Dr Ligon Duncan

Notice some of the interesting details, ight here in verses 15 and 16.

First of all, we see this irony. The king of Egypt having a conversation, an interview, a court session with two midwives. Now my friends I recognize we live in a liberated time, and I mean no offense whatsoever to the females of our congregation, but for the king of Egypt in his day and age to be sharing a courtroom exchange with midwives, surely that’s beneath the majesty of the mightiest monarch in the near East. And Moses tells us that with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

Look how far the god of Egypt has to go to further his desires. He is dependent upon midwives to carry out his plan. Notice also that the midwives are named, Shiphrah and Puah… Isn’t it interesting that no reigning monarch of Egypt is ever named anywhere in the entire narrative of the exodus, but the midwives are named. The great and powerful of this world, who do not serve the one true God, their names will be forgotten, but the names of the righteous will live forever.

Who are the people that I want to see when I am in glory? Shiphrah and Puah, because without those faithful women, the Messiah would not have come. Their refusal to bow to the genocidal plans of this tyrant was an integral component in bringing about the line of promise, succession, even in the bondage of Egypt so that the Messiah of God would eventuate in this world born of Israel. In the biblical scale of values these lowly champions of morality assume a far greater historic importance than do the all-powerful tyrants who rule Egypt.

The four-fold aspect of Pharaoh’s plan

Look at the command of Pharaoh. This is cruelty at its best. Look at the four-fold aspect of this plan which shows just how cruel and contemptuous is the heart of Pharaoh.

First of all children are to be killed, infant children are to be killed. You cannot conceive of a more wicked deed. You know of all the human beings that dwell on this planet that are most innocent, it is those defenceless children in the first moments of their birth. I do not deny that they are possessed of original sin like all of us, I do not deny that every human brought into this world is deserving of punishment because we have fallen in Adam and thus have contracted his guilt and his deserved punishment. Nevertheless, of all those who are least guilty of actual sin, little infants. And they are the objects of Pharaoh’s rage.

Secondly, he calls on women to carry out the murder of these little children. Now my friends, you don’t need to know anything about anything to recognize the unnaturalness of that. Women who are the carriers and givers of life called upon to be the destroyers of it.

But that’s not all, he not only calls on women to do this, he calls on midwives to do this. Now you need to understand that in the Bible, and historically, there is no gynecological profession other than that of midwifery. Did you realize that midwifery was the way that babies were delivered until about the sixteenth century universally? It was not considered appropriate for a man to be anywhere near the birth of a child. It was indiscreet, it was immodest. And so midwives were the way that children were delivered. And he is calling upon those who were the assisters of the life-giving process of birth to slaughter those that they are bringing into this world. It is wickedness of the deepest dye.

But that’s not all. He calls upon those who are called Hebrew midwives to do this deed…
You understand the irony that Moses is building for you here is that Pharaoh wants to use these women, these female midwives of God’s own people to destroy His people. Moses is painting you a picture of how black the heart of Pharaoh is. He’s showing you how dastardly is this deed…

Now you can imagine all manner of other implications from this passage. I think that it cries out this passage does to remind us of the Church’s universal constant and historic support for the sanctity of life. Do you realize that until this century, no quadrant of the Christian church, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant of any sort until this century no branch of the Christian church recognized the validity of abortion and infanticide. The Romans practiced both. All Christians held the Romans in contempt for it.

Let’s don’t forget that today. U.S. abortion in history has been aided and abetted by the quietness of Christians unwilling to speak out against the gross immorality of the practice and now in the very week in which we are speaking we have instituted a way in which you can kill a human being by taking a pill like aspirin. Do you not see the wickedness of that? A convenient way of murder. Do you not see the wickedness of that? Let’s make murder as convenient as possible. My heavens, let’s not put the murderer to too much trouble. Why, a pill will do.

And it also reminds us here, doesn’t it, of the ridiculousness of asking those whose job is to preserve life to do murder. Physician-assisted, nurse-assisted abortion and euthanasia is a contradiction of the very profession. It makes killers out of healers. It makes no sense. No wonder we live in a culture of violence when we ask our healers to become murders.

God thwarts Pharaoh’s evil plan

But back to the main point.
Make no mistake about it. This butchery in this passage is an attempt to annihilate Israel as the people of God from the face of the earth. In verses 17 through 19 we see a second thing.
Here is the brave faithfulness of the midwives in resisting evil tyranny and their subsequent interview with Pharaoh is recorded.
And here God shows his sovereignty by using these women to flail the plans of the god of Egypt. The midwives, we are told, fear God. They fear Him as the life giver, and thus they honour the sanctity of life at the risk of their own. And these women foil the plan of the sovereign tyrant of Egypt.

You catch the irony. Two midwives… Only two? Perhaps they were the leaders of the guild of the midwives. Maybe they were the only names that had been preserved. I don’t know, but doesn’t it strike you that the very mention of only two of these midwives successfully resisting the plans of the sovereign of Egypt, doesn’t that emphasize his impotence before the sovereignty of God.
“Let’s see,” God says from heaven as he laughs with scorn at Pharaoh. “I’ll thwart your plans with two midwives. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll use the very instruments of your plan as the instrument of my plan to thwart your plan. I am sovereign, you are not…”

By the way, verse 17 is the first time that the name of God is mentioned in the book of Exodus. Oh, His sovereign hand has been evident, every verse, every step of the way hasn’t it? But isn’t it interesting that Moses holds His name until this phrase is to be used: “the fear of God.”
Why? Because one of the great themes of the exodus is: Whom will you serve? God or Pharaoh. Whom will you fear? God or Pharaoh. Who is sovereign? God or Pharaoh. And “the fear of God” is the phrase in which first God’s name is mentioned.
The believer is certainly called upon in the Bible to respect legitimate government authority, but never, never is the believer called upon to obey a command that directly violates the law of God. And when put into that predicament the believer has no choice but to fear God, rather than man. That is precisely what these brave, godly, courageous, faithful women do, and God uses their faithfulness to confound the plans of the serpent.

And I wonder friends, when in this culture, when you are asked to do that which God commands you not to do, whether your faithfulness will be used to further the cause of God and His glory.
Do you think of that? When either by enticement or by order this culture commands you to do that which is against God’s word, do you think about the fact that you, too, are part of a greater struggle?
And perhaps in God’s providence, He has chosen that your faithfulness will be used to preserve His people.

Oh, my friends, we must never ever trifle with the sin that is dangled in front of us by the culture, nor justify in our own hearts acquiescing to it.

Footnote:
I haven’t gone into the question of the lies the midwives told. It is possible that “the midwives’ answer shows not falsehood but concealment through the means of part truth” (John Murray “Principles of Conduct” p.141) – after all, Hebrew women hardly had the luxury of their Egyptian counterparts who could take their time in comfortable birthing suites. But even if what they said was less than truthful, Ralph Davis’s comment on Rahab is pertinent: “It is tragic when people snag their pants on the nail of Rahab’s lie, quibble endlessly about the matter, and never get around to hearing Rahab’s truth (vv. 8-13)” (Commentary on Joshua p.26). The truth the writer focusses on here is that “the midwives feared God.”