The Christian believer as spiritual midwife

 THE CHRISTIAN BELIEVER AS SPIRITUAL MIDWIFE

Exodus 1:15-21 (NIV)

The Hebrew Midwives

 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” 20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.”

Galatians 4:21 Hagar and Sarah

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 28 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Since times immemorial, it has been Satan’s plan to destroy God’s creation. He has used every means available in this attempt. However, he has always been late, behind God’s sovereign design in the redemptive work of all he had made since the beginning.

In this study, we will concentrate on the theme of midwifery and spiritual new birth and the importance of understanding the patterns established by God in the Old and New Testament in order to obey the command of our Lord Jesus and to follow his instructions on how to bear fruit, much fruit and fruit that will last to the Father’s glory.

We will also examine the parallel between the physical birth and the new spiritual birth as it is brought about by the preaching of the Word of God.

In 1980, as my first boy was on still in the womb, I was living in a beautiful place in Southern California. During about 25 years, I was following New Age teaching practices and was deeply involved in Eastern philosophy, metaphysics, practicing  Hindu Kriya Yoga, meditation, and chanting.   As I was learning to make my contribution to the natural birth of this precious new soul on the planet, I went to Lamaze classes regularly and planned to have a midwife assisted home birth. After all, my parents were born at home, I was born at home and I planned to continue the tradition with my children in spite of the state of California’s law preventing non registered midwives without a nurse’s degree from practicing their profession. At the New age bookstore, I found a Book “Spiritual Midwifery” from which I intended to learn spiritual techniques in order to provide the best spiritual environment thus ensuring a successful spiritual birth.

Satan has always worked and succeeds in his schemes as a stealth and able master counterfeiter. You can be sure that if the Lord God is doing anything good and true, holy and just, Satan will be right behind peddling his imitations unbeknownst to most people. What it takes is the spiritual gift of discernment given by the Holy Spirit and a lot of experience and practice to detect the deception.

 Now for 35 years after the Lord sought me and restored me in his fold, I have been blessed to have the Word as a faithful companion and the Holy Spirit as a wonderful teacher, helper to help me grow in the understanding and the practice expected of his children. I have been privileged to sit and learn under some great pastors/teachers who exemplified a godly life that I wanted to emulate.  

It is unfortunate and very sad that the “Church” at large has embraced the counterfeits and been for so long a willing and ready accomplice in unknowingly or perhaps not propagating lies and doing the work of the enemy.

You would think that the Lord who gave the command to multiply both in the Old and the New Testaments would leave us with some instructions on how to do the job. Well, he has. He has provided the operation’s manual in his Word and left us with the Helper, the Holy Spirit of Truth to help us understand his instructions.

Nowadays, a lot of Christians are willing and eager to follow the latest trend in ministry, the latest techniques from contemplative and meditative exercises both from the East and from the ancient desert father’s and Catholic mystics practices. The latest advices and techniques from the gurus of the secular successful business world can be thrown in the mix for a good measure. But in so doing they have lost the fundamental and essential elements of the creation. ” Like begets like”. His creation must reproduce according to their kind, God said and it was so. He meant it for the physical reproduction and also for the spiritual reproduction.

You might say that I learnt about spiritual birth from the counterfeit, in the reverse order although I had previously experienced the genuine spiritual new birth. Actually God never waste anything. These experiences and learning just happened in the chronological order of my life and have been an invaluable resource both in understanding the present state of the deceived part of Christendom under whatever new and fancy name it chooses to call itself and a great tool for teaching about false religions and the New Age movement and their insidious influence and infiltration of the Church.

I am not advocating learning from the enemy’s by poring over their teaching materials or learning from the techniques themselves to check out if they are true or false, if they work or not, far from it. Believe me, they work. I am just pointing out that we have been so enticed and charmed by the smoke and mirrors of the master illusionist that we have forgotten to look deeply and carefully in the wonderful revelation of God’s purpose through his Word as if it were obsolete and useless for this generation. Are we so foolish to think that we can do a better job than God himself?

A lot of verses could be used to illustrate and support the idea of the importance of the midwife and spiritual birth.  However, I will limit myself to use only the very clear and particular scriptures relevant to this study.

This is only an introduction. More will follow in installments. I prefer to write that way because of time constraints and the limitations of a blog.

Till then, God bless you.

Jean-Louis.