Small Hinges and Fear
Exodus 1:15-2:15 We are examining the Life & Leadership of Moses this year. I want to begin by making 2 Key observations in these opening chapters:
Small Hinges: Great doors of history turn on small, unseen hinges. The Bible loves this pattern…and small hinges show up in the pages of our own life.
Cuban Missile Crisis: Vasili Arkhipov
The Man who stopped WWIII (or) The Man who saved the World!
One man – strategically placed on a submarine, a man of calm courage….might have saved millions of lives – perhaps your own. Yet, most of us never hear of him! He was a small, yet very important hinge in human history. Imagine how the doors of history might have opened in different direction if it weren’t for him….yet – you have probably never heard his name!
One important thing to see in Exodus 1-2 is that the Great Doors of the History of the Exodus are opened by the small, almost unseen hinges of 5 women.
I. 5 Hinges: (Women)
- Shiphrah and Puah. (1:15-21) Two midwives, Pharoah ordered them to kill Hebrew boys on the birthing stool. (vs 17) “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them.”
That’s the first recorded act of civil disobedience in the Bible — What a moment of courage: Two women – (whose names you probably are not familiar with…God uses to save Moses. - Jochebed, Moses’ mother. (2:1-4 & Heb. 11:23) Moses’ mother hides baby Moses for 3 months, when she can hide him no longer –refusing to give in she takes a terribly courageous step to put him in the Nile, with his 10 year old sister keeping watch!
- Miriam. A big sister plays an important role: Likely around age 10 – Even at a young age Miriam was old enough to display courage – when the princess lifts the crying baby from the water, she steps forward with the arrangement of the ages: “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women?” – Brave Faith at any age can play a role in God’s rescue plan.
- Pharaoh’s daughter. Psalm 2 says: “Kings of the earth set themselves up against the Lord….and God, who sits in the heavens – LAUGHS! God had to be laughing here: Pharaoh’s own daughter draws the deliverer out of the very river her father weaponized to kill him. Pharaoh’s own house will shelter him, educate him, fund him. And the crowning touch: Moses’ mother: Jochebed gets paid out of Pharaoh’s treasury — to nurse her own son. Pharaoh underwrites his own undoing.
Small Hinges make a big difference.
Most of us will never stand in a throne room before a Pharaoh. But you will stand at a hospital bedside, a kitchen table, an office cubicle…you will have your own riverbank moment where doing the right thing feels small and unseen. Hear me: those are the hinges. Two midwives at a birthing stool. A mother with a basket. A sister walking alongside a riverbank. Nobody in Egypt was watching them — but heaven was, and history turned.
Rob Jackson, a guy I got to know through some phone calls about a counseling situation, came to CCC nearly 10 years ago to lead a weekend to do a conference. I drove him to the airport and (although I don’t remember) I asked him: “What do you want to do in the next 5 years” – that was 10 years ago: Two weeks ago emailed me:
How many times have I thought about you, and how your question empowered me to renew my thoughts? You asked, “What do you want to do in the next five years,” and that got me to thinking and moving in a totally different direction. I got a job at Focus on the Family, wrote a book and will be on a broadcast next month. I’m confident God used you in my life at a critical time, and I am richly blessed.” – Thank you, Paul!
One question on the way to the airport – small hinge.
I got a message on Facebook not long ago from a guy named Chad. Chad came on a week long trip to Young Life with me years ago. This was his message:
Whether you know or not, you help lead me to the Lord when I was 15 on our Young Life summer camp to Windy Gap While I lived in a very dark and rebellious period for twelve years after my salvation experience, I rededicated my life to the Lord about 9 years ago and have remained truly committed since. Even though it has been close to 20 years since we saw each other last, Your words and actions when I was a teenager have followed me my entire life. Thank you!
One week: I was a small hinge that helped open a new life.
II. Fear – Everyone’s Operating System (OS)
We are intended to notice the emotional engine driving these people forward is FEAR!
- Opens with Pharoah: The most powerful man on earth, and what’s driving him? Fear. (1:12) “The Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel” – Pharaoh was in dread of losing his Power, of things spiraling out of his control = All the genocide, all the cruelty — is a direct result of a fearful person losing control. Behind almost every cruel action or word…is FEAR.
- The Mid-wives: Exodus 1:17: “The midwives feared God.”
- Moses’ Parents: Hebrews 11:23: Moses’ parents “were not afraid of the king’s edict.” (I think we can assume, like the mid-wives, they feared God as well.)
- It closes with Moses. He strikes down the Egyptian — when he realizes he’s been seen, the text says: “Then Moses was afraid” (2:14). Moses runs away in fear. – Moses acting in his own strength produced Fear & Failure. It will take 40 years in the desert and a conversation with a burning bush to teach him what the Midwives and his Parents already knew….the only healthy fear is the fear of the Lord
Three things about Fear:
- First: Fear is not optional — it’s directional. Nobody in this room is fearless. Everybody fears something: losing your health, losing your job, losing your kids, losing your reputation, being found out, being left alone. You operate under some kind of Fear: Fear of God, Fear of Man. The only question is what sits on the throne of your fears.
The midwives weren’t fearless women. They had simply found a bigger fear that swallowed the smaller ones. When you fear God the most, the fear of man fades. - Second, the fear of God is not Anxiety — it’s gravity. The Fear of God is a reverent awe that reorders everything else. Think about the way the gravity of the sun holds the planets in their places. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). The Fear of the Lord…provides the wisdom to live life in the right orbit.
- Third, the fear of God produces Courage, not Cowering. This is on display with these women: They feared God and stood their ground before the king of Egypt. Proverbs 29:25 says: “The fear of man lays a snare (a trap that tightens the more you struggle – Chinese Finger Trap) But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” The Gravity of God, the pressing in toward him – is what made these women feel safe and therefore BRAVE. Once they had the fear of the Lord as the Gravitational Pull in their lives – they had nothing left to really fear…he most freeing fear in the world: fear God.
Apostle Paul: Philippians 2 – “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Paul has a healthy fear of the Lord. It’s the gravitational pull in his life.
Fear: Everybody in this room fears something. The only question is what. Fear man, and you’ll spend your life either lashing out in anger and blaming everyone else for your problem like Pharaoh or running away and hiding like Moses. OR Fear God, and you can stand like the Midwives & Moses Mother….
Questions:
- Small Hinges: Can you name a person who played the role of a “small hinge” in your own life. Not a parent or spouse, but someone who came along at just the right time and said or did something that had an over-sized impact on your life?
How does seeing the “small hinges” in Moses life cause you to consider how you might be a small hinge in the life of others
- Fear: What fear or fears serve as the Gravitational Pull in your life? Who or What has the power to pull you away from God? – The opinion of people whose approval you crave? Losing your reputation or promotion – Losing your health, losing your job, losing your kids, being left alone. Whatever it is — that’s the snare.
How do you overcome the “Fear of Man?”