Rev.
Matthew Versemann
Waverly,
Iowa
Life
Sunday
January
23rd, 2011
“God’s
Heroes”
God’s
PEACE is ALWAYS YOURS in Jesus.
Hear
the Word of God from Exodus 1:
“The
more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. So the
Egyptians came to dread the Israelites….the King of Egypt said to the Hebrew
midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ‘When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth, and
observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a
girl let her live.’ The midwives, however, feared God, and did not do what the
King of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
So God
was kind to the midwives, and the people increased, and became even more
numerous. And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their
own!
Then
Pharoah gave this order to all his people, ‘Every boy
that is born (to the Hebrews), you must throw into the nile, but let every girl
live.’
DEAR FRIENDS
IN CHRIST,
I want
you to travel with me, back in time, to
Page 1
Exodus
1 says, “A new (Pharoah), who did not know about Joseph, came to power in
Yet,
Exodus 1:12 says, “The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.”
Now the Pharoah was extremely bothered.
The
Pharoah determined that the best way to deal with something he deemed ‘unwanted’, was to eliminate it! As a result, the Pharoah of
Egypt introduced one of history’s first recorded programs of infanticide –
abortion outside the womb. Exodus 1:15 tells us, “The king of
Pharoah
is alive and well today! We too act like
Pharoah when we make anything more important than another person’s right to
live. Dr. D. James Kennedy, the late Presbyterian minister, once said, “Once
must never devalue life – making some life more important than other life –
claiming that some are not worthy of living, as you are worthy of living; for
if you do so, you endanger both their lives and yours.
For if
you do not eliminate everyone that you deem unworthy of life, then the day may
come when who have survived your killing, may use your idea, and claim that
your life is not worth living.” This is exactly what we see
happening in our culture. As our culture has bought into the lie that we may
deem some as ‘not worth living’ at the beginning of life; those who have
survived that lie, are beginning to vote that they can now deem that others are
not worth living at the end of life; two states have already legalized
physician-assisted suicide.
Page
2
Fortunately,
there was a ‘snag’ in Pharoah’s plans; and the snag was: God-fearing, heroic,
women, who took a stand for life! Exodus 1, “But the Hebrews midwives
feared God; and did not do what the King of Egypt told them to do. They let the
boys live!” And they did so at great risk!
As you
can probably guess, the Pharoah became aware that his scheme had hit a snag. He
called in those midwives and demanded answers. The midwives said to
Pharoah,
“Oh
Pharoah, these Hebrew women have babies too easily. When they go into labor,
and they send for us, by the time we get there, they have already had their
babies, and so we are unable to cooperate with your plan.” We know
from history, that such a deliberate act of disobedience, could have resulted
in death for those midwives! Thank God for those brave women, those heroes of
life, who stood in the gap to save those little babies. And for those times in
our lives, when we think, “It’s not worth
getting involved,” check out what God did for those OT pro-lifers. Exodus
1, “So
God was kind to, and prospered those midwives…and gave them families of their
own.” Their reward for protecting life, was to give them more life:
He protected their lives. He gave them families. And He gave them eternity.
Contrast
what God did in that case, with what God did hundreds of years later, when
God’s people were living under and following their own wicked rulers.
II
Kings 17 says, “They did not trust in the Lord their God. They forsook His commands
and His covenant of love. They worshiped other ‘gods’. And they sacrificed
their sons and daughters in the fire. So God removed them from His presence!”
So now
the Pharoah was “hung on the horns” of a dilemma. Unable to get the so-called
medical profession to go along with his
plan, he tries to enlist the assistance of the whole nation. He comes up with “Infanticide Plan #2”! The
Pharoah issued an edict to all of the Egyptian people. It was sort of like a 16th
Century BC “Roe vs Wade” decision: that every newborn, Hebrew, boy was to be
thrown into the Nile River! I assume
that Pharoah signed the document in the rose garden, near his palace, and then
went off to bed to sleep peacefully.
Page 3
But
it’s at this point, that we reach our third hero – a courageous champion for
life – named Jochebed. Jochebed and her husband recently had a baby boy, named
Moses.
They
risked their lives to protect his life. For three months they hid the baby; but
it got to the point that Jochebed was unable to conceal Moses any longer. So
Jochebed took action to protect the child’s life. And although Pharoah may have
deemed Moses’ life “unwanted”. God deemed Moses’ life “wanted” “planned” and
“purposeful”. God already had great plans for Moses: to have him take a stand
against the Pharoah, and lead God’s people to freedom and life.
As a
result, Jochebed put Moses in a basket, waterproofed it with Pitch and Tar, and
put it in the Nile River, among the bulrushes. Now the plan probably wouldn’t
have worked, if it hadn’t been for God’s plan to have Pharoah’s daughter there
taking a bath, as the baby-filled basket floated by. Enter our 4th
hero of life. The Pharoah’s own daughter, at great risk, chose the life of baby
Moses over her own father’s will.
Exodus
2 says, “Pharoah’s daughter saw the basket, and sent her slave girl to get
it! When she opened it, she saw the baby. He was crying, and she took pity on
the child. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said.” Notice
several things. The Hebrew word for ‘baby’ (Yeled) used here for baby Moses
after he’s born, is the same Hebrew word used for Jacob and Esau while they’re
still in the womb. Also, notice that Pharoah’s daughter was both pro-life, and
unprejudiced. The word used here for “pity” (in the Greek OT) was also used by
Jesus, when the crowds came to Him; whose sins, like ours, should have
terminated our lives. But we’re told that Jesus, “took pity on the people,
because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
The
plan worked out just as God intended. A fifth hero of life – Moses’ older
sister, Miriam – steps onto the scene. Miriam – who loved the Lord and loved
life – just happened to ‘step onto the scene’ when Pharoah’s daughter pulled
baby Moses out of the Nile. Miriam asked the Pharoah’s daughter if she could go
and find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child! Pharoah’s daughter agrees, and
guess who Miriam goes and gets? Jochebed, baby Moses’ real mommy, to nurse and
care for the baby. And we believe it was in those baby years that Moses learned
the true faith, and became a believer in God, in the arms of his own mother.
Page 4
Five
Pro-lifers, five heroes of life, living in a land of death! And yet, God did
great things through them! He used Moses to call forth a people, from which the
Savior of the world would be born, through Whom the whole world would be
rescued from our Pharoah, Satan. And so it was, 1500 years later, that another
baby – like Moses, but greater in every way – was born in Bethlehem to save the
world from death! In Jesus’ day the wicked king Herod issued another “Roe vs
Wade” edict – to kill all the baby boys of Bethlehem. And now we meet two more
‘heroes’. When God sent an angel to warn Mary and Joseph in a dream of what was
about to happen, they took God at His Word and obeyed Him and took baby Jesus
to, of all places, Egypt.
Why
Egypt? Because Jesus had come to be our New Moses, Who came to deliver us from
our Pharoah – the devil.
We have
a Savior who contradicts our world’s “death mentality”. Jesus came to die for
those whose “quality of life” was not what it was supposed to be, because of
our own sin. The Lord deemed that it was better for His only-begotten Son to
die, than for the whole world to die. That’s how “wanted” we are!
Jesus
is our new and greater Moses, Who redeems us in a much greater way than the
first Moses ever could. Like Moses, Jesus’ life was spared in infancy, from a
murderous ruler. Even as Moses left the Pharoah’s palace to lead his people out
of slavery in Egypt; Jesus left the Royal Courts of heaven to lead all people
out of our Egyptian slavery of sin, death and hell.
And
because of what Jesus has done for us, God is calling you to be a hero of life;
whether
that means defending life in your conversations with others; whether that means
honoring and doing everything we can for those who are nearing the end of life;
whether that means getting on our knees and praying that God will raise up
heroes of life, who will deliver us from the scourge of death in our land;
whether that means encouraging a young lady to keep her baby; whether that
means; speaking forgiveness and life back to someone who has made a mistake,
whether that means changing who we vote for; God is calling you to be a hero of
life!
Page 5
It’s
time for more heroic women and more heroic men, who have ourselves been given
life, and then rescued from our Pharoah’s hand, to stand up for all of life.
Luther
said,
“A
Christian loves his neighbor as his brother. He makes no distinctions between
persons. He gives no thought to whether his brother is ready to serve or not,
whether he is wise or not….for Christ loved all mankind without making
distinctions, even his enemies. Therefore, we too should love as brothers, even
those who, in some peoples’ minds, are not worthy of love, for God’s creating,
and Christ’s cross have given all life “worth beyond measure.”
Why be
“Heroes of Life”? Because into our world of death – entered our greatest Hero –
Jesus Christ. By His selfless, Heroic
act, on Calvary’s cross; at great expense to Himself, over against the powers
of His day; He took a stand for life;
and has
swallowed up our death forever. Amen!
And now
may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep our hearts and
minds in the one true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.