Day 74: Exodus 1:21

"Because the nurses feared God, He gave them families of their own." ~Exodus 1:21, NCV

Here at the beginning of Exodus, Israel has been in Egypt for a couple hundred years. Nobody really remembers what Joseph did to save Egypt, and the Israelites have become the Egyptian's slaves. Two Israelite nurses (aka "midwives") were helping Israelite women give birth.

Now the Egyptian Pharaoh was afraid of the Israelites, because there were so many of them. (Hence they were made slaves.) In order to curb the rise of the Israeli population, the Pharaoh told those midwives to watch when babies were being born, and to kill baby boys. The baby girls would get off fine, but Pharaoh didn't want any more strong men, because then a revolt would surely be successful. But because the two nurses feared God, they disobeyed the Pharaoh and let the boys live too.

Now wait a minute, I thought that it says in the Bible that people are to honor their rulers? Disobedience =/= honoring authority! But whether or not the authority is not honoring God, we must. We must read the Bible and seek for God's will in every situation to know what we are to do.

Back to the story, because it gets better. Pharaoh apparently hears about these two midwives letting the boys live, because he calls them in and asks them, "Why are you disobeying me and letting baby boys live!?" V19, The nurses said to him, “The Hebrew women are much stronger than the Egyptian women. They give birth to their babies before we can get there.” Wow! They sure were adamant about following God's will!

And now we come to the above verse: because the two nurses obeyed God's will and honored Him over the Pharaoh, He gave them families of their own. And since it doesn't say in the Bible, it makes me wonder if any of them were boys. What can we take from this? First and foremost, obey God! When we die, it ain't the Police or the President who's going to be judging us at Heaven's gate, it's God. And it ain't your friends or your teachers or your parents who died for you, it was Jesus.

Now I'm not advocating outright rebellion - I'm telling you to use the lovely brain that God gave you, talk with the Holy Spirit, and determine God's will for yourself. If the authorities of the world are telling you to do something against the Bible, don't do it! But how can you know what the Bible says? You gotta read it, memorize it, and keep it on your heart. That's one way that we can know God's will; through what He says in the Bible. Since it says, "Thou shalt not steal," then you'd best not pocket that iPod from the store, despite what your friends say. Since it says, "Thou shalt not cheat," then even if your teacher can't catch you, you'd best not peek over at the test next to you.

God will bless you for obeying Him first, and He's not going to let the world get the best of you for it. Don't be afraid to stand up for what's right!

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