"And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
"And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
"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.
"And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; 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." - Exodus 2:1-6 (KJV)
Orders were orders, and they were meant to be followed. The Pharaoh of Egypt was worried that the Hebrews in their land would become too numerous and join with their enemies to overthrow them. Because of this, he ordered that all male babies of the Hebrews be cast into the river to die.
Pastor Bo WagnerAmram and Jochebed had a beautiful baby boy, and they hid him for three months. Then, when he was too big and too noisy to hide, his mother put him in a little basket, sealed up tight enough to float, and she put him in the river, in the river reeds where the basket would not move.
Interestingly, she did what Pharaoh commanded; she cast her baby in the river. Yet she had wisdom enough to do so in a way that he would not die.
Seeing this faith, God ensured that the next person to happen by would be the daughter of the man who commanded that the baby be destroyed to start with, very likely the famous Hatshepsut, daughter of Pharaoh. History tells us that this young lady was as feisty as a wildcat. After Pharaoh died, she kept the rightful heir off the throne for years, taking control herself.
This high-spirited girl saw that little basket, had it brought to her, looked inside it and heard a baby.
Yes, I know she saw him, but Scripture makes it clear that the most important thing that happened was that she heard him. Specifically, she heard that baby cry
That cry of that baby changed the course of history. Had that baby not cried, that girl's heart would not have been moved. Had that baby not cried, that unnamed baby would not have become Moses, the great deliverer of Israel. The cry of that baby moved the heart of the princess daughter of Pharaoh. It so touched her that she hired a Hebrew woman, his mother, to nurse him for her and then bring him to her several months later to be her own son. This was unheard of, miraculous, and it all happened because a woman heard a baby cry.
I fear that in our land we often fail to hear the babies cry.
Election season is upon us again, and people have issues upon which they base their votes. Things like illegal immigration, taxes, national defense, all of these play a role in which candidates people vote for. All of these things are "voices" ringing in our heads as we cast our ballots. But the main voices we should be straining to hear are the voices of the most innocent and vulnerable among us. Not men, not women, not politicians and pundits, but babes in the womb.
A young man in our church is a strapping fellow of 6-foot-5, an expert concrete worker, a guitarist, a devoted husband and a father to three biological children and a child they adopted out of a horrible home situation. I mention this because, when he was a babe in the womb, a doctor told his mother that he was going to be born deformed and she would be better off aborting him.
But somehow in her heart this mother could hear his cry and knew that every child deserves a chance to be born and live, a chance to hope and dream, a chance to dare and do. So she defied the doctor, allowed her child to be born, and the rest is (beautiful) history.
This is what is at stake in every election. The idea that children should be allowed to be put to death in the womb now is as abhorrent as the idea that they should have been put to death in the Nile of ancient Egypt.
I understand full well that not every home situation is ideal. But no child asks to be conceived, and no child that has been conceived deserves to be destroyed.
So as you vote, vote with a heart that is listening for the tiny voices of the most vulnerable among us. Choose women and men for office who will protect the lives of the unborn.
Can you still hear the babies cry?
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, North Carolina, a widely traveled evangelist and the author of several books available on Amazon and at www.wordofhismouth.com. Email him at 2know him@cbc-web.org.