"Fear and Faith"
Scripture- Exodus 1 verses 8 through 21 and 1st John 4 verses 18 and 19 from the Common English Bible.
8 Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn't know Joseph.
9 He said to his people, "The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are.
10 Come on, let's be smart and deal with them. Otherwise, they will only grow in number. And if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land."
11 As a result, the Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work. They had to build storage cities named Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh.
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, so much so that the Egyptians started to look at the Israelites with disgust and dread.
13 So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites.
14 They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.
15 The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah:
16 "When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it's a boy, kill him. But if it's a girl, you can let her live."
17 Now the two midwives respected God so they didn't obey the Egyptian king's order. Instead, they let the baby boys live.
18 So the king of Egypt called the two midwives and said to them, "Why are you doing this? Why are you letting the baby boys live?"
19 The two midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because Hebrew women aren't like Egyptian women. They're much stronger and give birth before any midwives can get to them."
20 So God treated the midwives well, and the people kept on multiplying and became very strong.
21 And because the midwives respected God, God gave them households of their own.
1st John 4: 18 & 19
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.
19 We love because God first loved us.