“Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation…Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” (Exodus 1:6, 8)

After years of blessing and fruitfulness under Joseph’s leadership, who was guided by the fear and wisdom of God, another generation rose up who did not remember nor regard his ways. The new king’s leadership was driven by fear of their enemies rather than the fear of the Lord. Unfortunately, I feel this is much like our America today, where a new era of leadership has taken power not knowing the Joseph generation. We have forsaken the fear of God, the wisdom of God and consequently the favor of God, and because of wrongly placed fear, our society has fought diligently to snuff out anything thing that would threaten its increasingly popular Godless ideals.

“‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.” (Exodus 1:9-11)

Speaking from a spiritual and biblical perspective, Satan is the real enemy behind it all. As the Church has multiplied here in America, he has set taskmasters over us to afflict and weigh us down. A taskmaster is anything or anyone that puts significant pressure on our lives to obey the demands of society. In our day, these can be things like our debt, career, entertainment, reputation and more which all require large investments of our time, effort and money.  Taskmasters such as these have burdened the Church of Jesus Christ here in America in order to keep us from multiplying because we are a threat to the kingdom of darkness. From the beginning, it has been our calling and purpose to be fruitful and multiply; thus, Satan’s aim is to fulfill his purposes by destroying our purpose. The good news is that in the midst of a time when all hope for revival, deliverance and restoration seems lost, the Lord is raising up midwives so the church can continue to grow even stronger, multiply and spread abroad.

“But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.” (Exodus 1:12)

“Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.'” (Exodus 1:15-16)

If they enemy can’t weigh down this generation enough, his next objective has been to assault the womb of the next generation. This governmental sanctioned decree of death against the babies came again a little over 1500 years later when Herod heard that the birth of the Christ was soon coming. He called for all the male children two years and younger to be killed (Matt. 2:16-18). But just as Moses was delivered from this decree in Egypt, Jesus was also delivered and brought to Egypt, that He might be the deliverer for all who would come to Him. The common denominator from each of these generations is that each time the governmental decree to murder the babies went forth, it came just before God was about to transition into the next phase of His redemptive plan. First, it was to bring His people out of Egyptian slavery through Moses and establish them as their own nation under the old covenant. Then, it was to bring all who would believe out of the slavery of sin through Jesus and establish His Church under the new covenant. I don’t believe it is any coincidence that abortion has been legalized in America just over forty years ago (sometimes used to measure a biblical generation), and what that implies about Satan’s agenda and God’s plan for America. Think about what this means for our generation and the next.

I believe that Satan specifically went for the male children because it was their seed that made him afraid. A man cannot be impregnated, but a woman can. Therefore, the females would be kept alive so that they could be taken as wives within their kingdom, and they could then bring forth generations of mixed seed until the pure seed was no more.

Remember the Lord’s curse on the serpent,

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Gen. 3:15)

He fears the Seed of the Church and the potential we have to overcome him. (See Revelation 12)

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” (Rom. 16:20)

But the Lord has always had a plan. In the events we read about in Exodus 1, there were still “midwives [who] feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live” (Exodus 1:17). Risking their own lives by defying the king’s decree, the midwives helped deliver countless babies from the Hebrew women from whom Moses would eventually come.  A midwife’s role was to provide special care for the mother during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum to ensure the well being of the mom and new baby.  Similarly, I believe God is raising up “midwives” in our day who would help care for His Church and ensure the safety of the new disciples coming forth. These everyday midwives will be nameless and faceless, men and women, young and old, helping to bring up a generation of deliverers from the Church during the darkest hour of human history.

A problem we see in today’s churches is that too many of them don’t really want newborns. Babies are inconvenient and require a lot of resources; therefore, because of the taskmasters of our day, they have tried to control or avoid new births from happening altogether. We are in a midwife crisis, but I have strong hope that this will soon change.

“So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.” (Exodus 1:20-21)

I know the Spirit of the Lord is stirring men and women even now, to step into this role. We need midwives who will diligently evangelize, disciple and intercede for this next generation of newborn Christians. The womb of the Church needs to be the safest place for new life to flourish, so that disciples of Jesus Christ can go into the world fully equipped to face the spiritual war zones ahead. The two midwives mentioned in Exodus 1 were named “Shiphrah,” which means beautiful, and “Puah,”which means splendid. I believe this represents how God esteems those who are willing to lay down their lives as a midwife for His Church. Just as he rewarded the midwives in Egypt, so He will reward the midwives of our day both now and in eternity. So I say, midwives, come forth!