Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Appreciate Brother Jacob reading our passage. And you know the passage about Moses, and Moses is one of the greatest leaders in scriptures.
It encourages me because Moses made some very big mistakes. And if God can use a guy that murdered somebody. Yeah. Then, you know, maybe he could still use me. I think sometimes you and I give up on people.
Way before God ever does. And I want to encourage you tonight, this is what we're going to share, if nothing else. I ought to let you know that God's not done with you. Behind this great leader is somebody that in this passage is not even named. It's his mother.
Her name is Jacobed. Also, his sister is mentioned in this passage, who is Miriam, but Jacobed's not even, her name's not even given here, but it's almost. Um It almost makes sense because usually mothers do not get the attention that they deserve. They rarely get named. They rarely get thanked.
In fact, their children and many times their husband and their home get so used to what they do that they almost expect it. and you don't realize how much they do till you don't have them. And then all of a sudden you realize what mom has done. and how much mom has given. Jacobed's name means Jehovah is glorious.
And her life proved that. Here's what's interesting. She lived a life of faith. And that's what I want to talk about today. And I'm going to show you how that ended up paying dividends later on down.
The road. Let me give you the setting. Pharaoh had commanded that every Hebrew baby boy, every male child, would be killed. Yet in the middle of that darkness, Um Jacobed teaches us that you can have a faith, even in that kind of darkness. That works miracles.
And in the middle of that, she chose to trust God. And through that, Jacob teaches us that Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do. But when you have enough faith in God, you are willing to turn control over to him. This is not a story just about a baby in a basket. It's a story about faith in action.
And let me just say, sometimes the greatest act of faith is not holding on.
Sometimes the greatest act of faith is Letting go. and letting God have it. I just want to say this morning, I am very thankful that I had a mom like that. You know I don't know, it does my heart good. I wouldn't embarrass Colleen, at all, but here she's taking grand baby out.
I'm gonna tell you, that as a pastor, that we see babies here. That makes me thrilled. That we have a nursery full of children. Hello, can I have an amen right there? Do you know how often I preach in churches they don't see that?
The youngest person might be 50. And listen, we are blessed at this church. And like I've often said, listen, your children don't bother me. But just watching a baby go out, it's like, man, there's just another generation. that's going to hear church, it's going to know who God is, and that excites me.
And I wanted to show you just a couple pictures of my mom. And this. Many of you knew my mom and dad, some of you did not, but this is my dad there in the jacket. Obviously, that's the dad.
Okay. And uh I don't know if you figured that one out, but my mom is the one in the back in the white dress, and they began evangelism really by chance because dad had just stopped back by his alma mater, Tennessee Temple University. And he was walking across the street to the administration building to see one of the faculty members. And another faculty member, Dr. Cliff Robertson at that time, saw my dad and he said, Hey Dan, listen, what are you doing?
Are you in ministry right now? And dad just said, We need somebody to take a singing group out west. For the whole summer, which we really, they did it different, they did it about six months, and so. Dad just took that as God's will, and mom and dad took these young ladies, and they traveled all the way out west, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, all the Wyoming. And while they took that groups out, as dad preached with that group, he booked revival meetings, and as soon as they got back with that group, Dad turned around and began evangelism and was in evangelism for 50 years.
And this is, you can tell their smiles, this is before I arrived, and they were very... Very content. My dad's smiling because there's all those women right there, but you know, that's another story. But I want you to go ahead to this next picture, if you would. This is my mom pregnant with me in their first little trailer that they travel with in evangelism.
And I was almost 11 pounds when I was born. Yeah yeah.
Okay, all right, all right. And I've been a pain ever since. Here's mom at the hospital. I love this picture of her with me. And if you show that next one, too, there she is, kind of holding me.
She looks worn out, bless her heart. Go ahead to that next one if you would. And there's a a good picture of mom. feeding me as they had just begun been in evangelism just a couple years. They had me in that little tiny trailer.
And I used to tell people, I was born in Baltimore, Maryland. My dad was preaching a tent meeting there. Had I been born the week before, I would have been born in Los Angeles, California, because they just kept traveling. until it was time. It would have been much cooler to have say I was from LA.
Then a Baltimore on, but that's the way it goes. I've been a Baltimore on my whole life. Here is one of the first Christmases I remember, and mom came in there to get me up in the Airstream travel trailer for Christmas. And so that next one, and there she is sitting with me. And that was my first dog.
That dog's name was Pogie. And let me tell you how everything comes back around. When I was in the Philippines, everybody would pinch me when I was little and call me Pogie, Pogy, Pogie, which means cute. I used to be cute. And it was good luck to pinch somebody that had white hair.
It was very good luck. And so we named our dog Pogy. And I have a t-shirt now off Amazon because in the Philippines I'm Pogy now.
So anyway, so go ahead, that next one, if you would. And here is my mom and me. Color coordinated in a revival meeting. And I'm going to show you my favorite picture ever. My goal, I found it finally on a slide.
Thank God it didn't burn down with all of my other mom and dad stuff. I want our building burned. But this is me and my mom. There's Diamond Head. We're in Hawaii.
And we both looked around, we're both waving, and that picture has always been precious to me, and I finally got it. I'm going to blow it up somehow and make a canvas out of it. And I just, that is precious to me. But let me tell you about my whole memory of my mom growing up, what is a familiar memory with me just about every week was this. Every revival meeting Every night.
My mom was at the altar dealing with somebody. I could not tell you how many thousands of people she led to the Lord. And behind Um a preacher today. was a mom. Just like Moses.
That Probably I'm here today. because of her.
So I want to talk just briefly about the kind of faith that this Jacobed showed this morning. Number one, and if you're keeping notes, I want you to write this down. Number one, she had a faith that saw potential. She had a faith that saw potential. Look at verse 2.
It says, and the woman conceived, again, she's not named here, and bare a son. And when she saw him that he was a goodly child, She hid him three months.
Now, remember the decree, male children were going to be killed, certain death. You had a baby, you found out, you know, there wasn't ultrasounds, you found out it was a boy. It was almost heartbreaking because somehow he was going to be killed. But notice this: it says when she saw that he was a goodly child.
Now, you would say, well, that just means she just thought he was cute.
Well, it's different than that. I want you to notice first under that, she had a faith that saw beyond the present. In verse 2, it says, she saw him that he was a goodly. This word goodly here in the Hebrew means favored. It means set apart.
According to Acts chapter 7, later in the New Testament Bible, it says Moses was exceeding fair. It's more than physical beauty. It means literally that she could tell God had a special purpose for this young man's life. And so, although there was certain death and a decree and all that, she saw that somehow she served a God that could somehow get him out of that, somehow deliver him from that, somehow keep him safe, somehow get him to the purpose God had set for his life. And I want to challenge you, moms and dads, that your children might go different paths.
And there's a whole lot out there that can grab their mind. And our young people have no clue. How easy their mind is to be fooled. They have no clue about that right now. But you, as a mom and dad, have got to get a hold of a faith.
that God is bigger than your child. And he's bigger than the negative influence on your child. And God has always had a purpose for that child. And you need to see potential. You need to see not what your children have done, but you need to see what God can do.
And you just need to rebirth that faith here today. It might be that it's not looking too good right now, but you have just got to decide that you serve a faithful God who is bigger and stronger and over any force that can come against you or your family. She saw a faith that had potential, which means she saw beyond what was there. I mean, there was a decree, soldiers searching for male children, but she hid him three months. Why?
She said, I'm going to do whatever I can do because I believe God has a plan for this child. She saw what wasn't there. And one of the key aspects of my faith and your faith and our life is that we've got to be able to look beyond what we see. Please, if anything, wake up and hear that today. Your faith has got to get you to the point as a Christian that you can look beyond what is in front of you.
Satan is going to put everything in front of you. And you've got to have enough faith in your God to see past that. Listen, for eyes to see something that is not there. You can do that through faith. Listen, some of you here this morning are stuck on what you see.
You can't get past what's in front of you. I want you to know you've got a God that is bigger than your problem. And you just right now you can't see your God because All you can see is your problem, and all you can see is your burden, and all you can see is your failure. But you need to understand: faith is seeing beyond the present. Notice, secondly, it means she had a faith that believed before Moses became.
It means this, that she saw Moses doing something for God before Moses ever did it.
Now, as I read my Bible, the Bible says that Pharaoh would have seen Moses as just another dead male child. The Bible says Moses saw himself as a fugitive. Moses saw himself as a failure. The Bible says that literally the Egyptians saw Moses as a murderer. The Bible says that Israel many times accused Moses of being inept, a horrible leader, a failure, and yet in the middle of what everybody else and Moses saw in himself, his mother saw him as God's man.
She saw what he was before he became that. And let me just say, she believed in him before he ever believed in himself. A lot of times, please hear this. I was very proud of this. I wrote it.
You say, is that self-serving? Absolutely, it is self-serving. I wrote this down. A lot of times, young people live with a motivation to prove their dads wrong. and to prove somehow their mom's right.
A lot of times, a dad will tell you what you can't do, but a mom always believes. what you could do. And maybe today you're living with a motivation that somehow you got to prove your dad wrong. But maybe some of you here know your mom saw something in you before. You've seen it in yourself and maybe You need to live with the motivation that you can prove your mom right.
You're looking at an individual that Had a mom that saw me as a preacher before I ever became a preacher. I surrendered to preach. At a young age, but man, I got to college, I had no interest whatsoever. I had seen hypocrisy. Christianity.
I mean, I know none of you have ever seen that, but I had seen it. I've lived it. Guess what? I've partaken in it. Guess what you have too?
All of us are hypocrites at some point. But my mom saw something. That took me a lot of years to see. But by faith She saw it. She believed before Moses became Faith is not seeing the probability.
Faith is seeing God's ability. Once you notice thirdly, it meant she had a God working behind the scenes. She had a faith that saw potential, which means what?
Well, she saw beyond the present. It means that she believed before he became, but it means that she had a God that was working behind the scenes the whole time. At this exact moment, Pharaoh was trying to destroy Israel, and while Pharaoh was doing that, God gave birth to the deliverer of his people. He didn't do it before Pharaoh made a decree. Listen, God didn't do it after Pharaoh made a decree.
Right when Pharaoh said, I'm going to kill all male children, that's when God brought Moses along. What does that mean? It means God is always working behind the scenes. Literally, God was going to deliver the deliverer. When the enemy is working against you, God is already working ahead of you.
That's what faith believes. By the way, Moses. was going to be a type of Christ in the Bible. Our Wednesday night series, we've been in a Moses a good long time. Listen to me.
God would begin one day. Here we are. He delivers the deliverer. Jesus comes for our guess what God did: He delivered the deliverer. At the third day, He rose from the tomb.
And God is still able to deliver. Which means this: with all the things working against us in 2026, and in all the ways Satan is fighting you and in me, and in some cases, Satan's even won some temporary battles. We need to be reminded that we serve a God who is working behind the scenes, who is always one step ahead, who always had a plan before our problem, who always gave us a savior before our sin, and who always has a solution to our chaos. Faith is not rooted in us. It is rooted in our God.
Faith is simply believing God to be who He is. Faith believes that God is working whether you see it or not. Faith believes God is doing something whether you feel it or not. Faith is trusting in God whether you understand it or not. She had a faith.
That's all potential. I want you to notice, secondly, she had a faith that surrendered control.
Now this is where faith becomes a little difficult. Verse 3, it says, And when she could not longer hide him. She took for him an ark of bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags. by the river's brink.
Now, this is where faith gets real. It's one thing to believe God, it's another thing. to release what you love to God. Once you notice first, she did what she could. The Bible says in verse 2 that the woman conceived, noticed this, she hid him three months.
That means this, that she hid him. from all the surrounding danger. Always searching for male, she hid him. And listen, Pharaoh's army was searching down every male child they could. Faith is not careless, faith is responsible.
Faith, the Bible says, without works, is dead. Faith means you do everything you can. Faith is not an excuse for you and I to be lazy. Can I have an amen right there? Listen, you know, here I've spent two and a half weeks with missionaries, and he said, Listen, faith is not saying, Well, I believe God can meet my needs, so I'm just going to sit back and make everybody give to me.
No, no, faith is getting out and working. but believing God can meet the need. Notice this, she did everything she could. Faith does not mean we're lazy, that we lay back and expect God and everybody else to do everything. Faith means we keep working, but faith means we let God have control.
Faith becomes the reason we work, not the reason we stop working. She did what she could. She hid him three months. But I want you to notice secondly, she trusted God with what she could not do. She did what she could for three months, but she could very clearly see.
That Moses was in more danger Under her control. then he would be under God's control. Look at me moms and dads. Look at me mothers today, Mother's Day. We love you.
I want you to know sometimes God can do a better job than you.
Sometimes it's time. To just let God have it. It's good. And when she could not. Longer hide him.
She could hire him three months and she did. But when she could not. longer Hide him. She took Yeah, I think it's a very good thing. of bull rushes.
You know that word ark is the same word as Noah's ark. Here is scripture repeating itself for emphasis. Notice the Bible says here in these verses that she covered it with pitch. That means it was sealed and protected, just like Noah covered it in pitch. The Bible says that it was floating in dangerous waters, just like the first ark.
The Bible says there was safety inside this basket, but there was death outside that little basket, just like there was safety inside God's ark, but there was death outside of the ark. It was notice this: that this little basket was completely under God's control. And when Noah shut the door to the ark, there was no rudder, there was no steering wheel. God controlled the ark. The Bible says here that she had no idea where this ark would end up, and Noah had no idea where that ark would end up.
And what we find here is the safest place to be is where God is in control. And the safest place for your children is where God is in control. My wife and I determined a long time ago when it came to school, when it came to whatever, just because we don't like something, we don't agree with something, we go to God. God, if you want him here, it doesn't matter what we don't like, and it doesn't matter what we wish was different. If God wants him there, we're going to leave them there because they are safer where God wants them than where we want to put them.
Listen to me. God used this ark, the first one, Noah, to deliver mankind. God uses this ark to deliver his people through Moses eventually. And Jesus Christ is the picture of the ark. He is our ark.
We are safe in Christ. And He's the ark that didn't just deliver a people, didn't just deliver a person, He delivered us from sin. Amen. It's all a picture of Jesus Christ. She did what she could, but she trusted God with what she could not do.
May I say something today?
Some of us here today have got to Trust God with what we can't do. You've tried. We've tried. Kudos to us. But it's become clear.
From now on, it's going to have to be a God thing. I want you to notice number three, she released him by faith. I love this. Look at verse 3. She took for him an ark of bulrushes and put the child there in.
Notice this, and she laid it. And the flags. We call them cattails, marsh, whatever you want to call it. She put Moses in that ark, which means I'm giving full control. Yeah.
And she laid him at the brink of the river. You know, the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 23, it says, By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents. Because they saw he was a proper child. And they were not afraid. of the king's commandment.
You see, sometimes God has a bigger plan than the king. And sometimes God has a bigger plan than you. She placed her baby in the very place of death. She placed her baby in the place of danger. A three-month-old child floating.
In a river.
Now you mothers, that doesn't compute, does it? That means this, that somehow this woman had a faith that most of us don't have. God turned that place of danger, that place of death, into a place of deliverance. Listen to me. Had she held on to Moses and tried to control it, he would have been killed.
Sometimes you keep trying to hold on, you keep trying to control, you're going to kill something. You see, Moses was safer. In God's River. Then he was in his mother's arms. Letting go is hard.
But it's faith. She did what she could. And then she laid him. in the river. She laid him.
on the altar. She gave him To God. She relinquished control. She relinquished decision making. She left it all.
Uh to God. She had a faith that saw potential. She had a faith that gave God control. I want you to notice number three, she had a God who was always in control. She finally got to the point that she released, but she served a God that was already in control the whole time.
I want you to look at verse 4. And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done.
So Miriam watched her mom put Moses in this little basket, laid him there at the river. And Miriam, the Bible says, kind of stayed along the riverbank, just kind of watched to see what was going to happen.
Okay, look at verse 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.
Then said his sister, Miriam, that was walking along the riverbank, she saw this happen. She saw Pharaoh's daughter pick Moses up, pick that ark up. When she opened it up, all of a sudden Moses starts crying. She hears the cry. She's moved with compassion.
And all of a sudden, now Miriam shows back up. Look at verse 5. I love this. Verse 7, I'm sorry, verse 7. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse?
Of the Hebrew women means a woman that Has a baby that can nurse. This child Obviously, he wasn't her child. She hadn't had a child. She couldn't nurse. Notice this that she may nurse the child for thee.
Now watch how God moves. Two things I just want you to see. We're almost done. I want you to see God's control and God's provision.
Now first notice God's control. Notice number one, God controlled the basket. Verse 5 says that here comes Pharaoh's daughter. She comes down. And here's Moses' mom leaves the basket.
That basket could have gone anywhere. The water could have taken it anywhere. It could have drifted out in the water. It could have moved down the river. All kinds of things could have happened.
I mean, the possibilities are endless. But what we see first, God had the basket exactly where he wanted it. Notice, secondly, God controlled the water. Water could have taken it anywhere, but God had the water put it right in a certain spot. Are you with me so far?
Say amen. Number three, God controlled the whole timing. God had the basket where it needed to be. God had the water get the basket where it needed to be. God had Pharaoh's daughter exactly where she needed to be, all at the same time.
God's directing her, God's directing the water, God's directing the basket, God's directing this whole thing. God had the weather under control. If it had been raining, if it had been lightning, Pharaoh's daughter wouldn't have been out there. None of this would have gone on. God controlled things behind the scenes that it's not written in here, but it is happening.
And God's doing things in your life that you can't see, you haven't noticed, but God is busy at work. Just trust Him. Not only that, God controlled Pharaoh's daughter. She came, the Bible says that she saw it in verse 5. She could have missed it.
She could have not seen it. She could have been distracted by something else. And listen, she didn't notice it because the baby cried. The Bible says she noticed the basket, picked it up, opened it, and then Moses cried. It means that God controlled her eyes.
God controlled her. He controlled the basket, the water, the weather, everything. Notice God controlled Miriam. Paul, she's watched, she watches this whole thing.
Now, all of a sudden, Pharaoh has a child, and even Miriam at that age knew she likes that baby, she has compassion on that baby, but she can't nurse that baby. But she sure knew somebody who could. Yeah. Moses is mom. The one who just let him go.
The one who just gave him to God. Hey, don't you all wish that we had prayers answered this fast? Notice this, listen to me, please get this. God even controlled the cry of Moses. On queue.
She opens that basket, God reaches down and pinches Moses. Ah And the Bible says that when she heard him cry, She was moved with compassion. Which means what? Oh, God controlled the water, God controlled the basket, God controlled the weather. God controlled the movement of everything there.
God controlled Miriam. God controlled Pharaoh's daughter. He controlled Pharaoh's daughter's eyes. He controlled her ears. She heard, but when the cry, God controlled her heart, she was moved with compassion.
God even controlled a cry of a baby. God did everything at once. He did it all perfect. He didn't miss one detail. God's control, but I want you to notice through this, secondly, God's provision.
Verse 7 says that when Miriam saw this, She went to Pharaoh's daughter. Shall I go get thee a nurse of the Hebrew? Leave verse 8. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go, yep, like yes. And the maid went and called the child's mother.
Her mom. Moses's? mother and Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away. Why did she do that? Because she knew that her.
Dad. was trying to kill all the male children.
So the woman that just put him in a basket and gave him to God now has Pharaoh's daughter hand Moses right back to her. And says, you take the child. and nurse it for me. And I will give thee wages. Thank you for listening today.
We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192. or via the web. at Kerwin Baptist Church.com.
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