"The Women Behind the Exodus" with Pastor Chad Stuart - May 9, 2026

You might be familiar with the prophet Moses and the Old Testament narrative of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. But there's a story behind the narrative that is probably less familiar. On Mother's Day weekend, we're looking at the women of the Bible who directly impacted—and helped bring about—one of Scripture's most pivotal events. Why? Listen in as Pastor Chad Stuart shares a #MothersDay message from Saturday, May 9, titled "The Women Behind the Exodus."

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Transcript

Chad Stuart 0:00

Do you remember who was the first American to orbit the Earth? We have some history buffs in here, just shout it out. John Glenn. John Glenn was a name that I knew. I don't ever remember a time when I didn't know the name of John Glenn. John Glenn from the good old state of Ohio. Now let me ask you this, and young people, you might actually know this better than some of the older folk do, but do you know the lady that they said was largely responsible for calculating the launch and the landing trajectories of the Mercury projects, including John Glenn's launch and landing? I said kids don't answer. You guys just broke it. I knew you guys would know it. They've all seen the movie. Hidden Figures, 2016. I consider myself kind of a history person and a history buff, a history hobbyist, you would say. And I grew up reading all about things and learning various history, and I and I I loved history class. I loved reading my history books, and they're in the history books and written in the history books for Till Jesus comes will be the name of John Glenn as the first American to orbit the earth. But I never remember until that movie came out in 2016. I never remember hearing the name of Catherine Johnson. John Glenn was kind of the hero that orbited in space, but there were so many other people that made that event possible, including the brilliant Catherine Johnson. We focus in our society a lot of times on the hero, on that main name, and put their name above all the other names, not recognizing though that there are few events, there are a few moments in his history where there weren't not just the hero, but all of these other people that played a role in making that hero who they were. There are a few historical moments in the history of God's people that are more significant than the event that we refer to as the Exodus. The Exodus is when God, through Moses, as we've been taught, led the Israelites out of Egypt through the wanderings into the desert and from there into the promised land. The Exodus is the most frequently mentioned story from the Old Testament in all of Scripture. More than the creation story, more than the flood story, the story of the Exodus is mentioned over a hundred and twenty times throughout Scripture, referenced as a key story in all the Bible. Specifically, the book of Revelation. Adventists, we like to say we, Daniel and Revelation, those sister books, are books that have helped lead and guide us. The book of Revelation, there are a multitude of allusions to the book of Exodus. Even getting more, even more granular. Dr. William Shea, writing in the journal for Adventist Theological Society, wrote that that final message that we are to take to the world, the message of the three angels found there in Revelation 14, he says, is full of allusions and references to the book of Exodus and the story of Exodus. And when we think of the story of X of Exodus, which person do we most often think of? Moses. Maybe once in a while we'll secondarily think of Aaron, but we almost always think of Moses. This is the way even in society we've been conditioned. A lot of the older folk, we know who John Glenn is because of the history. By the way, Heidi Wetmore, she told me after first service, she was there and watched the ship launch into space that had John Glenn on it. She was actually there in person and watch the thing. She says, sitting in their uh in their station wagon. How many remember those good old station wagons? With those bench seats, never had to wear seat belts, you could sleep in the back window sometimes. I mean, that was the greatest ever. Now you guys off all these safety rules. It's not any fun anymore. But but you're alive, that's good. We like that. But but she was saying they watched that happen. But you know, there was there were movies made about John Glenn, and there was documentaries made about John Glenn. Uh, a movie that I saw when I was a kid called The Right Stuff. Any of you remember that movie with John Glenn talking about John Glenn and all the NASA and the space aviators? Well, same thing with Moses. I mean, the feature, the focus person of the movies about the Exodus are Moses, Charlton Heston. You know, did you guys see the Ten Commandments? Raise your hand if you've seen the Ten Commandments. Raise your hand if you saw in theater. I'm just kidding, don't do that. I know back then you might have got on trouble for it. Thank you, William. No. Listen, there's always these heroes, and we think about that, but there are people sometimes behind them as well. And that's what we want to focus on today. That God used many people behind Moses to make that event possible, to get to that moment. And since it is Mother's Day tomorrow, and since we are uh recognizing the blessing of all the ladies in our church, I want us to take a few moments and a few minutes this Sabbath morning to consider the women behind the Exodus. There are six women, but we're going to look at three vignettes about those six women to learn some lessons that we can apply to our lives. And here's why I think these lessons are important for all of us, not just the ladies of the church, but for all of us. Because the truth is, is that most of us, in fact, probably almost all of us, are never going to be a John Glenn or a Moses. But every single one of us have a role to play in God's work here on this earth. And no one may ever make a movie about us, no one may ever remember our name. We we might just be a footnote in history, we might not even be a footnote in history, we might just be forgotten. And yet God will see the work that we have done. And so these lessons for us just for ladies, but for all of us who are in the background there of the great story that is the story of Jesus and his work in this world. So three vignettes. Open your Bibles to the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter one, and I'll begin in verse eight. Exodus chapter one, I'll begin in verse eight. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and he said to his people, 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. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithum and Ramses. But the more they oppressed, the more they multiplied, and more and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. Now jumping down to verse 15. So here the people of God's people are being oppressed, they're putting being put into slavery, they're being put into bondage, and yet they're increasing in number. They're increasing in number. And then verse 15. Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiprah, and the other Pua, 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. But the midwives fear God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them. But let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, Why have you done this and let the male children live? The midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them. Y'all, with the actions of the midwives, Shipra and Pua, without the action of the midwives, Shipra and Pua, no Hebrew males would have lived, including Moses. It was their courage. Allowed him to continue his journey. Vignette number two from Exodus chapter two, beginning in verse one. Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. So the girl went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. And when the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. So she named him Moses, because she said, I drew him out of the water. Y'all, without the actions of Moses' mother, without the actions of Moses' sister, without the actions of Pharaoh's daughter, there would be no Moses. And then the last clip for Moses' life, and to give you context for this last clip, this is 80 years after those previous stories. Moses is now an 80-year-old man. He's married, he has his own children. God's come to him, and Moses, he's come to Moses, and he said, Moses, you are going to deliver my people out of Egypt. And Moses argues back and forth. If you know the story, if you don't, you can go back and read it. It's in Exodus chapter 3 and 4. Moses argues back and forth with God about going and delivering the people. And Moses finally submits and he says, Okay, I will go. I will go and deliver the people from Exodus. And then in chapter 4 and verse 20, it says, So Moses took his wife and his son and had them ride on a donkey and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. And then you jump down just a few verses, and one of the weirdest stories in the Bible happens. At a lodging place on the way, verse 24, the Lord met him, met Moses, and sought to put him to death. This was the guy that God was just saying, You're going to deliver the people. You're going to, and Moses was like, No, no, no. And now Moses is on his way, and God comes along and says, You gotta stop. And it says that he was going to put him to death. Then Sepporah, Moses' wife, took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. So he let Moses alone. It was then that she said, A bridegroom of blood, because of the circumcision. There's all kinds of things we could analyze about this story, and we won't get into all of it, but simply to say this: without Zipporah taking that flint knife and circumcised circumcising her son, there is no Moses. Now, let's understand something, of course. God wasn't dependent on Moses to get out the Exodus, get the people out of Egypt. God chose to use Moses. And God wasn't necessarily dependent upon these women, but but God would have never used Moses. Moses would have never even made it to this place if God had not led and these ladies had not responded to God's leading in their life. This is not one of those things behind every great man there is a what is it, a better woman. Is that how the saying goes? This is a story that behind every great moment and every great movement in history and every act of God, there are people that we think about who are the heroes, maybe, or who get the most attention and the most credit, but there are also many more that faithfully acted for God, who we rarely or never see, but are just as important to the movement of God. Ellen White writing in the book Testimonies, Volume 5, she talks about individuals like this who are who are unseen and yet serve an important role. She said this in that in the daytime we look toward heaven, but do not see the stars, but they are there. She's saying that's like the people who are working and serving and doing things for the Lord, and we may not ever see them, we may not ever know their names, we may not ever give them credit. They might just be uh a little side note to someone else's story, but the God of heaven sees them as the stars that are still there, even if we do not recognize them. That is what this story is about. And we can learn lessons from each of these ladies, and so I want to give us some of those lessons and takeaways for today, and then we'll do our one prayer, one word, and one act, and then we'll finish today's message and we'll get to hear these young people again. So let's start with the midwives, Shipra and Pua. The lesson that I get from Shipra and Pua that I would encourage you to consider is this fear of God is the only fear that frees you from every other fear in life. Fear of God is the only fear that frees you from every other fear in life. These women feared God more than Pharaoh, and that settled the question on how they were going to handle this situation. This it settled the question. They were not going to submit to Pharaoh. Some like to use this story as a testimony of in all circumstances we should practice civil disobedience. I don't know that that is the question. The lesson to me is this that when you know who's holds ultimate authority, lesser authorities lose their power to terrorize you. There are people in our world that are that are so worried about the various powers in our world. And I'm not saying that there aren't things that we should be mindful of and keeping watch on and and and and and speaking up for and out against. But but the thing is, is some of us, even Christians, are are terrorized by these people and fearful of these people. And I love this lesson from Shipra and Pu'ah. That when you know who holds ultimate authority, lesser authorities lose their power to terrorize you. That's the lesson from Shibra and Pua. And their step with God. The lesson that I get from her is that faith isn't passive. It is courageous and it includes action. There are times that sometimes we as Christians can get like, well, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just gonna, I mean, God's gonna take care of it. I'm just gonna throw up my hands and kind of I have faith and God's gonna. The faith wasn't just that they believed that God could take care of things and that God could could work things out. It was their action accompanied with their faith that is a testimony throughout history. Their action along with it, they didn't just sit back and say, well, we hope nothing happens to our kid. No, they took intentional action to accompany their faith. God has given each of us a mind to reason with, He's given us a book to guide us, He's given the Holy Spirit to speak to us. And God is always communicating with us. And when we come into these seasons and these phases of life and we're coming against challenges, God doesn't say, Oh, well, just throw up your hands and say, Well, uh, nothing I can do about it. God no, God calls us to reason with Him and to have action in that. And then another thing that's amazing to me about this Jacobed moment is that she has the action of protecting her child in the home, that faith. But to me, the greater action of faith is that when she puts that baby into the river. Parents, you some of you understand this even now as your children are preparing to leave home or have already left home. When you're a young parent, you have kids in your house, you know, it takes faith. You're you're worried, am I making the right decisions? Am I doing the right things for these kids? But let me ask you, parents, what takes more faith when they're in your home and under your control? Or that moment that you send them out and have to say, okay, I'm sending you into the river, I'm sending you off. That takes that moment of faith. My oldest son, Dayton, is has been driving for a little bit, but I have never thought about someone driving more than him since he got his license. I mean, he the other night, just last night, they went to this social thing, whatever, this uh this worship social last night, and he wasn't home yet. And I and I texted him, and I really hope it's his brother who texted me back because I think they were driving. It was his brother, I'm just kidding. I already asked. But he texted me back, hey, we ran another kid home. But I I I was anxious. I never thought about anybody in their driving before, except my own. But these things, this releasing them into the world takes an action of faith, but we have to do it. We have to be willing to let our kids go and trust them into the Lord's hands. The lesson, the third individual, the third lady, or the fourth lady actually, Miriam, the sister, the lesson from her that I see is stay ready because you never know when God's gonna need you in the moment. The people God uses aren't always the loudest or the most powerful. Sometimes they're just the ones who are there paying attention, who stay close enough, long enough, ready enough, that when God opens the door, they are already standing there next to it, ready to serve in some way. I love how quick Miriam is to act. Maybe she had rehearses with her mother, I don't know. What we do know is that it took a lot of courage for a young girl to approach Pharaoh's daughter and to give her a suggestion on how she should handle the situation. I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty intense. But she was ready there in the moment with a solution, ready to act when God presented her an opportunity. She was ready to act. Are you, in every aspect of your life, are you ready to act when God presents you an opportunity? Are you ready to respond? Are you ready, ready to give a reason for the hope that you have in Christ Jesus? Are you ready immediately? Then there was Pharaoh's daughter. The lesson from Pharaoh's daughter to me is simply this do the right thing, do the human thing. She didn't have a theology that we would agree with. She wasn't one of the chosen people of God. She had a crying baby and a choice in front of her. And Pharaoh's daughter does what her father explicitly ordered against. She sees the child, she knows he is Hebrew, and she chooses compassion over compliance. She does the human thing. We could use some of that in our world right now. Doing the human thing. She adopts Moses. This pays his own mother to nurse him and gives him a name. Here's the thing: this single act of just doing the right thing, that singular thing in front of you, changed the course of history for so many people. She never knew what she set in motion. She went home that day thinking that she adopted a Hebrew child. She had no idea that she had just saved the deliverer of God's people. You don't have to see the whole story, folks, to play your part in God's story. Just do the right thing right in front of you. Do the human thing right in front of you. Sometimes the most important thing you will do won't feel important at all. But it will be the human thing. And that simple act could change the course of many things. Do that thing. I want to go back to a lesson for Jacobed, and this is more specifically to parents, particularly moms. I didn't lose my place, but I'm coming back to Jacobed because the baby goes back. Moses goes back to Jacobed. And this lesson is for all of those of you that still have children in your home. I would just say this to you. You only have them for a little while. Make it count. Make it count. Ellen White beautifully writes about Jacobed. Jacobed was a woman and a slave. This was the banner over her life. Her lot in life was humble, her burden heavy. But then listen to these words. They're so beautiful. But through no other woman save Mary of Nazareth has the world received a greater blessing. She continues, knowing that her child must soon pass beyond her care to the guardianship of those who knew not God, she the more earnestly endeavored to link his soul with heaven. She sought to implant in his heart love and loyalty to God, and faithfully was the work accomplished. Those principles of truth that were the burden of his mother's teaching and the lesson of her life, no after influence could induce Moses to renounce. Moms, teachers, grandmas, aunts, and yes, us dads too. You only have them for a little while. Make it count. What does Ellen White say? She said she knew that she only had them for a while, and then she was going to be sending them into a world in which none of the things that they believed were being encouraged or taught. Folks, that's your kids in your home right now. Don't waste a moment. The things of this world, the world is going to try to teach your kids the exact opposite of this book. You only have this time. Make it count. At the end of the day, they're gonna have to make their choices. You all are gonna have to make your own choices. But we want to put them in the best position to say yes to Jesus for themselves. Make it count. And then Zipporah, the wife, the lesson from her. Sometimes you have to stand in the gap for others. This passage is one of the strangest to me in all of scripture. They're on the way to Egypt. God's just really impressed upon Moses again and again that he was the chosen one. He's commissioned to go. The story begins with Moses getting his staff and getting his family, and it sounds like it's good. And God's telling Moses, now when you go to Egypt, say this to Pharaoh, reminding him again. And then all of a sudden, the Bible takes this total kind of seemingly tangent. Some of you have teased me about the tangents that I take in my sermons. It's biblical, the Bible takes tangents too. The Bible takes this tangent all of a sudden, and it goes from, hey, I'm taking my staff, I'm going with my family, okay, talk to them about this, and then boom, now I'm gonna kill you. I mean, it's just this random tangent, and then it comes back to the story just as quickly with very little explanation. What's going on here? The thing was that there was an area of Moses' life that he was not being faithful to God to, the covenant of circumcision that had been given to Abraham. And Moses was not just going to lead the people out of Egypt as in the country, but God was calling Moses to also lead the people out of the culture and out of the false teachings that they had learned. And so Moses had to be standing on that truth. But but he's now sick, he's now physically unable maybe to do what needs to be done. And the Bible says, so Zipporah takes control of things. She stands between her husband and death. And whatever the full theological weight of this text, what is clear is that Moses would not have reached Egypt without her. These are the lessons from these six ladies. We need to fear God and God alone above all others. We need to be faithful, to be ready, to do the right thing, to do the human thing in this world. We need to take the moments that we have, whether it's with our kids or with others, and make those moments count. We need to stand in the gap for someone and help them take that next step. Maybe, maybe help them get to the right thing when they're unable to do it for themselves. Which of these lessons is yours? Which of these lessons from these women apply to your life? Here's an overarching lesson I would say for all of us. God does not wait and does not work with just the powerful leader. He works through the faithfulness of every single moment of your life. Wherever you're at. When Shipra and Pua made a decision, they did not know that it would lead to a Moses. When Jacobed and Miriam made their decision, they did not understand that their son, that their brother, was going to be their deliverer as well. When Pharaoh's daughter just did the right thing before her, she just did the human thing. Even though it went against her father's rules, even though it went against the laws of the land, she just did the human thing. She did not know that she was saving God's people. She had no idea. And when Zipporah acted on behalf of Moses, she didn't know. It was because he needed the integrity to be the leader that God had called him to be. God's been working throughout history with a multitude of people to achieve his goals and his mission in this world. He was doing it in Bible history, and he's doing it still to this day. And you as a person, as an individual, may never be recognized, may never be acknowledged, may never be even affirmed for the star that you are. And even though it may be like daytime to us and we can't see all the stars, the God of heaven sees, and the God of heaven is using you. So one prayer, one word, and one act, and then we'll be done. One prayer. Lord, make me faithful in the moment I'm in. Make me faithful in the situations of my life right now. Whether anyone sees it or not, whether anyone cares or not, make me faithful in those moments. You don't know how they'll play out in history, folks. You have no idea. One word. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Choose to be faithful, not just kind of as a concept, but choose to be faithful in every second and every moment of your day. Ask God to give you a heart of faithfulness, that you're ready to respond in any situation, whether someone's looking over your shoulder and seeing what you're doing, or no one's around, but you're faithful because that moment may be life-changing for you or for someone else. And then the one act. I want to encourage you all to take some time, men and women, to spend some time in this Exodus story for yourselves and reading about some of these other characters of the Exodus story and saying, God, what lesson applies to me? Maybe it could be something here, but the most important thing is that you study the Bible for yourself and you understand the Bible for yourself. The Bible says all scripture is God breathing, is useful for us to instruct us, to guide us, to teach us. And these stories that we hear, like today, the Exodus story, they're so familiar to us. And sometimes we read them to our kids out of children's books, and we just become so familiar that we just kind of pass over them. But in each of those stories, there are lessons for us. So I want to encourage you this week, maybe go back to these stories and look at these secondary characters, we may say, these secondary individuals that we don't often think about and say, what is the lesson for me that I can take with me? That I can play a small role in some way in the great movement that is God. And when we do that, folks, at the end of the day, John Glenn isn't the hero, Moses isn't the hero, Catherine Johnson isn't the hero, the six ladies aren't the hero, you're not the hero, I'm not the hero. When we live faithfully like that each day, and find those lessons, those snuggets in scripture each day, say, I will live by that, the hero becomes Jesus, who is able to change all lives and transform the hearts of you and me, and transform the hearts of all those you know and love. So let us be faithful right now. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your grace, for your mercy. We thank you for the lessons of Scripture that teach us so many things about Jesus. In your name I pray. Amen.