WHEN LIFE IS EXPENDABLE (How Old was Moses when...)

Life is a gift from God we are to protect and preserve.

Exodus1:16-17, 22-2:9

More than 3000 unborn babies are killed by abortion in our national every single day.  Since Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973, over 60 million babies have died. Our popular culture may not value human life, but God does.  

In Egypt, after the time of Joseph, a new Pharaoh came to power who was concerned that the Israelite population was growing.  He feared they would outnumber the Egyptians and be a threat.

He first ordered "The midwives" to kill every baby boy as it was delivered.  Israelite midwives refused, and so Pharaoh ordered all of Egypt to "throw every boy born to the Hebrews into the Nile."

Moses' mother DID just that.  She put Moses into the Nile, but she took some precautions for his safety first and God ensured Moses' safety, life, and his use as an instrument for his purposes.
How old was Moses during the various events of his life? 

• Well, as we read in this lesson, he was born and lived in the household of the Pharaoh for 40 years when he struck down an abusive Egyptian overseer (Acts 7:23-24).  

• He spent the next 40 years as a shepherd  in Midian and was 80 years old when he observed the burning bush and was sent as an envoy to Pharaoh (Acts 7:30 and Exodus 7:3).  

• He wandered with the Israelites in the wilderness for another 40 years (Numbers 32: 13) and 

• He died at the age of 120.  

Look at the lifetime of service that was spared because a couple of midwives, a mother, a sister, and a royal daughter each did one simple action to preserve a life rather than destroy it as the government had called for.

Humans have devalued life for thousands of years or more.  The Greeks considered infanticide barbaric, but instead of outright killing their babies, they practiced exposure –  just leaving the child out of doors.  It was not considered murder because a passerby or a God could take pity on the child and save it.  

German tribes also practiced a similar exposure to unwanted children, and child sacrifice was common among the Gauls, Celts, and Irish.  But soon abandoning children on the doorsteps of churches and abbeys became more common than exposure. This gave birth to the world's first orphanages.

Marco Polo wrote about seeing many babies exposed in China. Many Chinese tribes practiced infanticide by putting the baby into a bucket of cold water.  Female Infanticide was common in India. Parents often threw their children into the Ganges River as a sacrificial offering.

In Islams' Qur’an infanticide is forbidden. But before Islam, infanticide was practiced as “post partum birth control."  

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Infanticide was practiced either out of destitution, as sacrifices to gods, as “disappointment and fear of social disgrace felt by a father upon the birth of a daughter”, or, as in the case of Pharaoh and Herod, a means to eliminate a supposed enemy.  

In each instance, the focus is upon the "self's" perceived problem and not upon the potential or actual life, and not upon God and the teachings of a just and upright life, and not upon preserving, enhancing, and improving the quality of life through trust in God.

When life is expendable – of little significance when compared to an overall purpose, and therefore able to be abandoned – everyone suffers.

When life is worth less, life is worthless to those involved.  Perhaps that is one reason why our world is in the state it is it today.

Life is what God wants.  
Death is what someone other than God wants.
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Life:  animated corporeal existence; spiritual existence imparted by God; vital energy, and more.

Animated: alive; mentally excited; full of activity.

Corporeal:  of material or physical nature, not mental or spiritual; of the nature of the body; body, form; appearance.