Day 19 - Exodus 1-4

ONE-YEAR JOURNEY OF THE BIBLE

Day 19 - Exodus 1-4 (The First Government-Sponsored Abortion Genocide)

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Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, "When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."  But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. …  Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.  And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.  So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive."  (Exodus 1:15-22)

It had been a very long time since Jacob came with his family to Egypt and now the Israelites have greatly increased in numbers and in strength so that the Egyptians were seriously threatened by them.  So, Pharoah orders the Hebrew midwives to kill all male babies before they are able to come out of the womb.  But, as our text records, the midwives feared God and did not obey the king’s command in what may have been the first civil disobedience recorded in history.  We read that God richly blessed the midwives for their courage and obedience in honoring the sanctity of life and for defending the most defenseless of all people.

This week, pro-life people from all walks of life and beliefs commemorate the sanctity of life in protest of the unjust ruling in the Roe VS Wade case on January 22, 1973  legalizing abortion in the US.  Did you know that close to 60,000,000 babies in the womb have now been murdered in the US since 1973 under the guise of freedom of choice?  

Yesterday at our church, my very good friend Stuart Migdon preached about the sanctity of life in conjunction with Sanctity of Life Sunday observed by many churches in the US.  One important truth I learned in that sermon is that God has endowed every person with the instinct to save lives.  We see that in the Hebrew midwives in our text and we also see that in every culture and society in the world since the beginning of time.

The Ten Commandments were given by God to serve as a mirror for man to see sin as sin and to bring conviction and judgment of sin.  The command “Thou shalt not murder” was given to protect all lives including the unborn.  The Bible clearly teaches that God is the one who forms every life in the womb and that He knows every person before He even created him:

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.  My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.”  (Psalm 139:13-16)

It is not enough to agree that killing babies is wrong and evil; we need to act to protect the lives of the helpless and to be a voice to the voiceless.  I thank God for the opportunity this Thursday for me and my family to join the March for Life in Washington DC.  Also, I thank God for my friend Stuart whom God is using as a voice to the voiceless babies in the womb.  He has just finished producing a movie entitled Voiceless that will come out in theaters all over beginning next year.  The movie seeks to challenge the church to rise up against the evil of abortion.  We who have been given the knowledge about the evil of abortion must not be content to sit back and do nothing.  Get involved in any way that you can and like the Hebrew midwives, God will bless you richly.