Faith Hiding: Moses' Parents

This morning we are going to read the account of the birth of Moses.! The descendants of Jacob numbered 70 in all.

Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous so that the land was filled with them.

Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, or they will become even more numerous, and if war breaks out, we'll join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Ramses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.

So the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and work them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard work and brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields.

In all their hard labor, the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shaphira and Pua, when you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him, but if it is a girl, let her live.

The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. They let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, why have you done this?

Why have you let the boys live? The midwives answered Pharaoh, Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They're vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.

So God was kind to the midwives, and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all the people, every boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.

Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

But when she could hide him no longer, 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, among the bank of the Nile, along the bank of the Nile.

His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him.

This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?

Yes, go, she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.

So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water.

Well, we're in Hebrews chapter 11, and we're making our way through faith's hall of fame. And we've been introduced to some great examples of faith.

We've been through two wings of the building. It's a large complex, this hall of faith. We've been through two wings of the building, the antediluvian wing, where we met the pre-flood men, like Abel and Enoch and Noah.

And then we moved into the patriarch wing and saw the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Today we step into the third wing, even as we move out of Genesis and into Exodus, and we come to the exhibit on Moses.

And we see it's a rather large exhibit, almost as big as Abraham's. And that's because he was one of the most respected men that the Jews had in their religion, the greatest leader of Old Testament Israel, the great lawgiver, the great deliverer of his people, another example of faith in action.

But the first entry in Moses' exhibit is not about his faith, but is actually about the faith of his parents at the time of his birth.

So that's where we are beginning. Amram and Jochebed are in faith's hall of fame because they hid their baby for three months. That's what we're told.

Now that may sound strange to our ears at first. First, what's the big deal about hiding a baby for three months? Why should that be in the hall of faith?

But then when we consider the circumstances of his birth, we see that it was indeed no small faith that it took to hide him for three months.

Now we're seeing all sorts of activities then, aren't we? That are generated by faith in God's word. So far in Hebrews 11, we've seen faith worshiping.

It takes faith to worship. We've seen faith walking. Walking with God. We've seen faith building. Building an ark.

We've seen faith obeying. Faith waiting. Faith reasoning. Faith dying. And today we see faith hiding.

Verse 23 of Hebrews 11 says, By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born. By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born.

So let's look first at the circumstances surrounding this birth. As the book of Exodus opens, we find that it's a sequel to the book of Genesis.

In Genesis, we saw Abraham's faith in God's promise. God promised Abraham a land as his inheritance. God promised Abraham many descendants, as many as the stars of heaven in the sand of the seashore.

And that that's the descendants that would come to him through his barren old wife, Sarah. Well, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph died.

That's where Genesis ends. And still there's no fulfillment of these promises. And as Exodus opens, Abraham's descendants are not even living in the land of promise in tents anymore.

Remember, the famine had sent them down for food into Egypt, and when they got there and found Joseph there, they just settled there. So they're not even in the land of promise as strangers. But now at the beginning of Exodus, something starts happening.

God's promises are ripening, and Abraham's descendants are multiplying. Chapter 1 and verse 6 of Exodus, the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous so that the land was filled with them.

You will not understand Exodus if you haven't read Genesis. God promised a multiple, numerous offspring, and now we're starting to see the promise fulfilled.

The land was teeming with Israelites. Now, during the first 215 years after the promise to Abraham, the family grew from Abraham and Sarah to up to 70.

It took 215 years to get to 70. In the next 215 years, they grew, the family grew into a nation with a standing army of 600,000 men and estimates of as many as 2 to 3 million people.

Indeed, the promise was being fulfilled. The fulfillment of the promise may seem slow in coming, but be sure of this.

It will come in God's perfect timing. And the other promise about them inheriting the land was ripening as well, and the book of Exodus introduces us to the one who will lead them into the promised land, or at least to its threshold, lead them out of Egypt and back toward the promised land.

Indeed, Exodus, the coming out of God's people, out of bondage. So, here's this multiplication of descendants. And Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is nervous about what he sees as the overpopulation in his country with Israelites.

So, he tries to slow them down by making slaves of them and oppressing them with forced labor. It's all a deceitful scheme. He thinks that by overworking them, they'll be too tired to reproduce.

But his method of population control backfired. It failed miserably. For the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. Frustrated, he tries something else.

He orders the Hebrew midwives. I don't believe it was just these two. No, we're talking about many, many, many, many Israelite women giving birth. So, I believe these were the head, the head of all the midwives.

But, at least these two, he calls in and he gives them an order that if the baby is a boy, that as they're helping the Israelite women, they're to kill it. And if it's a girl, they're to let it live.

And in this way, you see, he'll slow the growth rate right down. But they feared God and they disobeyed the king. So, the population explosion continued all the more.

You see, the king of Egypt was fighting against the promise and plan of the king of kings. And that's a fight no one will win.

In desperation, he finally gives the order to all his people, not just to the midwives, but now to all his people concerning the Israelites. Every boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.

So, all of his citizens are now pressed into service to carry out his selected infanticide, killing every baby boy that would end in the very extermination, eventually, right, of a nation if there's no boys left.

Now, pregnancy in Israel was a coveted and happy thing for wives. They understood that the creation mandate of their God was to fill the earth with those that bore his image.

But even more than that, they saw birth, giving birth to children as a fulfillment of the covenant promise to their father Abraham. He's to have a seed as numerous as the stars and every pregnancy you see was a part of the fulfillment of that.

And even the anticipation and the joy that one of these babies is going to be the Messiah who will bring blessing to all the nations. So every pregnancy was met with expectation, joy, and celebration in Israel.

Think how that must have changed now under the king's edict. How their gladness must have been replaced with fear. So Mrs. Israelite realizes she's pregnant.

Oh, how she must have been praying for a girl. that she might live. And so, many Israelite boys were forced to be thrown into the Nile River at birth as Stephen rehearses the history in Acts chapter 7 and verse 20.

Now this is the setting then. This is the historical setting then for Moses' birth. This is what was going on when Jacobed, married to her husband Amram, finds herself pregnant.

The persecution was at its highest, at its pitch. All the other forms of birth control and population control failed. Now, all out slaughter of the Hebrew boys at birth.

and after nine months she has not a girl but a boy and a boy who is not allowed to live according to the king's edict.

But our text in Hebrews 11, 23, as we're in coming into this new exhibit on Moses and faith, we see and these words that by faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born.

Now, how do you hide a baby? How do you keep a newborn baby hidden? Not for three nights but for three months. It was an all-out effort to keep him quiet.

They must have kept him well-fed and burped and diapered, trying to anticipate every need and every discomfort that might lead him to crying using the combined wisdom of Israelite mothers on what to do and how to hold him just to keep him quiet.

If you know how to keep a baby quiet, Billy Berry could use you in the nursery and you ought to be sharing that with the younger mothers as they are wrestling with crying babies.

This was no small feat. And if he did cry, did they start singing loudly suddenly to try to cover it up? Did they do something to the dog to make him bark so that he couldn't be heard and the little voice would be drowned out?

Hiding a baby can be difficult. Which is harder, building an ark or hiding a newborn baby for three months, 90 days and nights.

How'd they do it? You know, we're not told all their outward strategies, but we are told the most important thing, and that is that they did it by faith.

By faith, Moses' parents hid him. That means they must have been praying day and night, trusting God to help them keep the baby quiet or to make others deaf.

By faith, they hid him for three months. But then after successfully hiding him in their house for those three months, as we read in Acts 7, Exodus says she could hide him no more.

She could hide him no longer. What does that mean? Did he get a case of colic? Was his crying getting louder?

Did the soldiers make the rounds more often? We don't know, but she could no longer keep him hidden. He was about to be exposed. Plan A had come to an end, but not her faith.

Her faith was exhibited as much, if not more, in Plan B, wasn't it, as she coated a papyrus basket with tar and pitch to make it waterproof like a little ark.

And then into that little ark she placed her baby boy, three months old, and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile, entrusting him to God.

Amidst the crocodiles and the baby-killing Egyptians, not sure which was more dangerous, it was still by faith that she trusted God to preserve their son, believing that he would be as safe floating in the Nile as when held in her arms at home, safe in the arms of Jesus.

By faith, they hid their baby. And again, we're seeing the power of faith, aren't we?

It's a living thing, it's an active thing, it's a powerful thing that moves people to do things that they otherwise would not do, to obey difficult commands, to do difficult duties, to endure great trials and to receive great blessings from the Lord.

That's the lesson in all these examples of faith, and it's no different here. It was faith that caused Moses' parents to do what they did, and if they had not had faith, they would not have done what they did.

But we say faith in what? Faith is always grounded. If you see a tree of faith, you must know this, it's always grounded. It's rooted in something.

And the something is always the word of God, some revelation from God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God.

Now God may speak directly as he did in the Old Testament to his people, and now he speaks through his written word. But faith, if you ever see it, you must know that it has its roots in something God has said.

By faith in God's word, they hid their babies, their baby. Now that's the thing that we see right through all these examples. They had a word from God.

Noah was told, build an ark, flood's coming. Abraham's told, leave your home. God's speaking to them, telling them. We don't have the account always of what God said to them.

For instance, with Abel. But we know that God had revealed the way that he wanted to be worshipped to Abel. God had made a revelation of how he's to be worshipped.

We don't read of what was the word that came to Enoch. But God had revealed how Enoch was to walk with him. There's always a word from God, a revelation, wherever there is faith.

So it was faith that caused the parents of Moses to hide their baby for three months. Think about that. It was faith in God's word that caused them to hide their baby.

The next question then follows, doesn't it? What word from God? What revelation, what word from God was it that they trusted in so that they would hide their baby?

Well, we're not told, but there are several possibilities. It could be God's word given to Noah about the sacredness of human life. God had spoken to his creatures and after the flood had told Noah that man's life is in the image of God and so it's not to be taken.

It's not to be taken in murder but preserved and so it could have been faith in that word of God that their little baby was human life from conception and it must be preserved and protected not taken.

That's God's prerogative not ours. And so by faith in that word of God they hid their baby rather than throwing him into the river trusting that God would help them discharge their duty and that he would preserve life even if this meant great danger to themselves.

Well some of you children enjoy playing at Jane's Park on the east side of Bremen from time to time. Jane was a Christian mom who while pregnant was found to be with a serious cancer and she needed chemotherapy but the chemotherapy to save her life would have endangered the life of her baby and because she believed that all human life is sacred and should not be taken but preserved in order to preserve her baby she did not take the chemo until the baby was born.

In the end she lost her life. It could be that that was the same word from God about the sacredness of human life that moved Amram and Jacobed to hide their baby rather than throw him into the river.

Or perhaps their faith was looking to the covenant promises to their father Abraham. God had promised father Abraham a numerous offspring.

This whole slaughtering business isn't going to survive because God said that we're going to be like the stars of the heaven and it could have been putting their faith in that promise to Abraham that caused them to say this is one of Abraham's offspring.

We're going to protect him because of the promise and believe that he will be spared. Or his promised presence.

He had promised Abraham that he would be with Abraham and his descendants to protect them and to bless them. That those who cursed them he would curse.

And so maybe it was in that promise to Abraham and his seed that they preserved the child believing God will deal with this Pharaoh.

Maybe it was the word that Abraham had received in Genesis 15. You know these promises to Abraham were for Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and were passed down from generation to generation.

It was word of mouth. The word of God was precious and this is what they taught their children. And so I wonder if it was faith in the promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis 15 when he said to Abraham, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years.

But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves and afterward they will come out with great possessions. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here to Canaan, the promised land.

have they done the math? We're in the fourth generation. There's a promise of God ripening.

We're leaving this place of slavery. We're going to the promised land. Was it faith in that promise that caused them to say we're going to keep our baby preserved to come out with us and to go back to Canaan?

Perhaps. Or perhaps their faith was in a more specific revelation to Moses' parents about their child that we have no record of. Again as I said there were revelations of God to men that are not recorded in scripture.

As I said about the worship of Abel and the walking of Esau or of Enoch. Did God reveal to Moses' parents during the pregnancy that their child was to be the one who would deliver the Israelites in the fourth generation from Egypt?

Could very well have made this revelation to them about their baby. And perhaps that was the reason they hid him for three months at his birth. Indeed Josephus the Jewish historian says during the first century this was the common belief of Jews that God had revealed this to Moses' parents about their child being the deliverer.

father. We do read in holy scriptures that when Moses grew up he visited his own people and he thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them but they did not.

Acts 7.25. How did Moses know that he was to rescue Israel? Perhaps his mother had been told by God and passed it on to her son.

Some revelation from God to them. This is possible and would explain what our text in Hebrews 11.23 says when it means when it says that by faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child.

Or as we read in Exodus they hid him because he saw they saw he was a fine child, a beautiful child. What Acts 7 says that he was fair, beautiful in the sight of God.

Now what is that? They hid him because he was a beautiful child. It's more than just that he was a cute baby. Don't all mothers think their babies are cute?

It is more than just well if he'd have been ugly he'd have been tossed into the river but because he's beautiful he's a keeper and we'll hang on to him. No. It may read like that.

It does sound like that. That they hid him because they saw he was a beautiful child. He was no ordinary child. But here's where I believe that if they did receive a previous revelation from God that your child is going to be the deliverer who would lead his people out in the fourth generation as Abraham had been promised.

Well then when he's born and he's got some unusual, uncommon beauty about him. It's like God's assurance that I told you that this child of no ordinary beauty, I told you that he would have no ordinary destiny, no ordinary job to have in his life.

That would make sense then why this idea of the beauty of the child, the unordinary beauty of the child was a trigger to them, help to them to hide the boy for three months.

And again, they're resting on the revelation from God. What it was we do not know. Maybe it was a little of all the above, but we know this, wherever there's faith there's a word of God it rested on.

And it was no different for Moses' parents receiving some revelation of God. They put their faith in it and because of it they did what they otherwise never would have done.

They hid their son for three months. Faith is always a determining factor in the behavior of those that have it.

It's never an inert thing. It's never just, it's there but it never shows itself. James says that's not saving faith. If you've got real faith, it will control your behavior.

It controlled the behavior of Moses' parents. parents. So let's come then to this principle of faith in God's word. Faith in God's word was the reason they hid their baby for three months.

But it was also the reason that they were not afraid of the king's edict. I don't know if you've turned to Hebrews 11 23 yet. That's our text today, just one verse. But that's what it says, that they hid their baby for three months by faith when they saw that he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

It was because of faith in God that they were not afraid of the king's edict. Now, we don't know what the penalty was for disobeying the king's order. It was probably the life of the parents.

Pharaoh was not shy about shedding blood. How's he going to keep parents who have a natural love for their offspring from sparing it?

It's got to be some punishment strong enough to cause them to throw it into the river. To force them to do so is what Acts 7 says.

So how about if any parents are found hiding their boy child, your life will be taken instead of his?

It was something severe. It was dangerous to protect the boy babies. And this great danger and threatened loss of life reveals the power of faith in his parents.

If they hadn't believed God's word, they would not have hid their baby at the risk of their own lives. Faith enables you to be faithful to God whatever the cost.

Whatever the cost. Whatever is being threatened. Because faith sets the living God before your mind. And compared to him, the greatest of men are as nothing.

If God before us, what Pharaoh can be against us? What man can be against us? So armed with faith in God, they were not afraid of the king's edict. They ignored the king's edict.

They ignored his threat. And they hid their baby anyway. Faith will do that, you know. Faith is that strong. Only faith has that power.

And God answered and rewarded their faith in ways they could not have dreamed. Pharaoh's own daughter pays Moses' mother to nurse him. Is that irony?

Humor? Or what? That the very one that wants to exterminate all the boys of the Israelites is the very one whose treasury is financing a nursing mother to raise him for the first years of his life and then finances him in the finest of education.

Who is he paying for? For the one that will deliver Israel from his hands. You see how God rewarded the faith of Moses' parents?

By faith. They took God at his word. And God did amazing things. You know, God has ways and means to keep his promises that have never entered into our minds.

You have a promise? It doesn't seem like there's any chance of that one being fulfilled. Just leave the details to him. He may surprise you in the way that he surprised Moses' parents.

Well, what applications can we draw? Can you see how including Moses' parents in this hall of faith would have encouraged the first century Hebrew Christians to whom this letter was written?

And also then us. But those first century Hebrew Christians, they were living in a time when remaining true to Christ and his word was costing them dearly.

They were imprisoned. And then their homes and property was being confiscated while they were in prison. And they were being cast out of their families, disowned by the whole Jewish community that affected their jobs and finances.

And it was threatening to cost them even more just to be true to Jesus and his word. There was much to alarm their fears. Fears that if we remain true to the Lord and his word, oh, what's it going to cost us?

What are we going to lose for it? Buy it? You know, stirring up fears is one of the ways that the enemy moves, tries to move us away from Christ and his word.

If you obey that commandment, you're going to be the loser. Perhaps some of you are afraid that if you follow God's will, you're going to come out on the short end of the stick.

You're going to miss out on life. It'll just pass you by. That is the ultimate challenge of faith in the gospel. That you must be willing to lose your life.

Life as you want it. If you are to find it. You've got to let go of it in order to receive it. And if you try to hang on to it, if you try to hold on to your life and I want this and I want that and it's got to be my way.

You know what Jesus says? It's like holding on to sand. You ever tried that, kids? Try to hold on to a handful of sand, dry sand. It just runs right through your fingers. You open. There's nothing there anymore.

You took a big handful and it's gone. If you try to hang on to your life, you're going to lose it, Jesus says. But if you will lose your life, if you will trust your life into his hands, you'll find it.

And the life that you'll find in Christ, oh, well, it's eternal life here and now. It started. Knowing him. Walking with him. But you see, it's fear.

If I give myself lock, stock and barrel, everything I am and have and hope to be to Jesus, I'm afraid. I'm afraid. You see, it's fear.

What might happen that keeps us from Christ and from obeying his commands? Are there things that are that you're afraid you'll miss out on if you remain true to Christ?

What are they? Young people, maybe if I remain true to God, if I remain pure, sexually pure, and keep my standards where the word of God has them, and not settle for a mate unless they reach the biblical standard?

Well, I might never get married. That's scary. Is that one of the instruments of the enemy? To keep you from God's command?

To turn you away because you're afraid of what obeying might mean? Maybe somebody here's afraid that if you stood up for what's right, it would cost you your friends. You'd lose your friends.

Maybe it'd cost you your job or a promotion at work. There's fears that the devil stirs up to keep us from faithfulness to Christ.

Do you know what the Bible's constant answer to fear is? Faith. Faith. That's what we see here in our text. The most often repeated command from God.

The thing he says to men in a way of a commandment more than anything else is do not fear. And it's usually surrounded or at least followed with reasons not to fear. Promises.

Truths about God. For faith to lay hold of. His unfailing love. His unfailing commitment to do us good. His truthfulness to his promise. Do you think that God is going to let someone who trusts in him turn out the loser for doing so?

In the end? Not on your life. Those who honor me, I will honor. Those who lose their lives for me will find it. Believe his promise. By faith, you see.

By faith. It's faith that drives out fears. By faith, they were not afraid of the king's edict. Children, do you know what a teeter-totter is?

I haven't seen a lot of them in the playgrounds anymore today. A teeter-totter was just a piece of wood with a couple handles on each end and it was on some fulcrum, some point to hold it up.

And then the kid got on here and the kid got on there and the one over here pushed down with his feet and the board went up and his friend went down. And then he pushed up and he went up and the other one went down.

It was up and down. Up and down. Doesn't that seem like fun, kids? Up and down. Your parents did it by the hours.

Maybe that's why there's no longer any teeter-totters. They were too boring. But I want you to learn one lesson about a teeter-totter. And that's when one is up, the other is down.

And when that one's up, the other one's down. When faith is up, fears are down. By faith, they were not afraid of the king's edict.

But when your fears are up, your faith is down. Faith and fear. When one is up, the other is down.

We need to learn to fight our fears with faith. That's what Moses' parents did. Faith drives it out because it sets the Lord before our minds.

So the disciples are on the stormy sea and they're petrified with fear. They're thinking they're going down. And they wake up the sleeping Jesus and ask, don't you care that we are perishing right now?

We're in the process of drowning. And he speaks to the wind and waves, quiet, be still. And everything was still.

Then he speaks to his disciples. And he says, where was your faith? Where was your faith? Whereas another gospel records it.

Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Faith was, fear was up. And Jesus says, where's the faith? Fear was up.

Faith was down. David says, when I am afraid, I will trust in you. You see, faith puts fears to rest.

Faith deals with our fears. When I'm afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise. In God, I trust I will not be afraid.

What can mortal man do to me? Faith is up. Fear is down. Surely God is my salvation, Isaiah 12, 2. I will trust and not be afraid.

So what are you afraid of? What are your fears? You know, we all have them, don't we? We're all afraid of things. We're all worried and anxious about the things you're afraid of can be identified by when the very thought of them might even make you break out in a sweat.

Might cause your blood pressure to rise. Might keep you awake at night. Might cause you to just be going over and over in your mind paralyzed by that thing. Those are your fears.

We have them about our family. We have them about our church. We have them about our nation. We have them about our health, our finance. We have all kinds of fears in life, don't we?

What are you afraid of? There's a lot of fears represented here in this building this morning.

Do you know that God has said things in this book to deal with every single fear that exists here this morning? Exceeding great and precious promises meant to strengthen your faith, meant to bring faith up and to send your fears down.

Truths about God. Truths about who He is, what He's promised. Have you memorized any promises of His lately? I want to challenge you this morning to find a promise of God that fits your fear, that answers your fear, and then memorize it.

Meditate on it. Carry it around with you throughout your day. Recite it. Pray it. Talk to God about your fears and His own promise.

And then talk to yourself about your fears and His promise. Young and old, we all have fears. Maybe you're afraid of the dark, young person. There are promises in God's Word for you.

Maybe you're afraid of hell and eternal loss. There are promises in the book for you. Find them. Memorize.

Meditate. Pray them. Talk them. Faith is God's answer to our fears. When fear would move us out of the way of duty, scare us off of loyalty to Christ and His Word, we must trust God.

Look well to your faith if you want to persevere in the end. Persevere to the end through all your trials. You know, there are many health problems that can be traced to a deficiency of the diet.

Maybe you're not getting enough calcium, the doctor says, or not enough of this vitamin or that vitamin of iron, some mineral. Some Christians suffer from faith-deficient diets.

They're not getting enough nutrients for faith. They're not getting enough promises of God. They're not feeding their soul on the words of God.

That's always the ground out of which faith grows. And that's what sends fears down. Is God calling you to suffer painful trials, to do some difficult duty, as He did Moses' parents?

Are there things threatening your life, threatening your joy, your peace? If you're true to Jesus, it might cost you something. It's a well-fed faith that will enable you to do and to suffer the will of God.

Because there is both a will of God to do and a will of God to suffer. And faith will equip you to do either. what more can He say?

How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent word. What more can He say than to you He hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

My friend, have you fled to Jesus for refuge? in the storms of life? Do you know what it is to run into Jesus' arms and sit upon His lap of promise and to know the peace of God that passes all understanding?

You might be somehow making it through the storms of life, but what will you do in the storm of God's eternal wrath when He comes to judge the living and the dead?

Have you taken refuge in Christ? The one safe place to be when God's wrath breaks out in judgment? None but Jesus, none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good.

Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, your oft-repeated command to fear not tells us that you know our fears, and that we need such a command and we need such reasons not to be afraid.

We thank you that for every fear represented here this morning, there is a promise in your book to build our faith that we might not run from duty, not run from affliction, not run from threats, but stand and believe you.

Thank you for the story of Moses' parents. Thank you for the faith you gave them not to run in danger's hour. Thank you that Jesus Christ is the same today that He was then for them, that you yourself still live to intercede for us and to help us.

blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, teach us on thine arm to lean. So whatever the need this morning, draw us near and strengthen our faith in your promise.

May it be that there are dozens of moms and dads, parents, children alike, that this week will be memorizing and reviewing and trusting in your promises to your own praise and to the peace and joy that comes from believing.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.