In the first decade of. the 1800s people were focusing their attention on the military fetes of Napoleon, one of the most celebrated personages in all of Europe. People waited impatiently for the latest news of his warfaring conquests. All the time, babies were being born – infants whose lives would ultimately affect society far more than any of Napoleon’s martial combats. But most people’s minds were on battles, not babies! Yet in a single year during Napoleon’s wars (in 1809), scores of influential persons made entrance into this world:
- William Gladstone, the British statesman who later became Prime Minister;
- Felix Mendelssohn, the German composer, pianist and conductor;
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, the English poet laureate;
- Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States;
- Oliver Wendel Holmes, the American physician and author.
All of these persons left indelible marks on the world, and the point is that they made their entrance as babies! Ever since the genesis of humankind, God has sent babies to accomplish His purposes. Among them:
- Moses, the baby who was doomed to be killed, but who was miraculously spared and became the great deliverer of the Jewish nation from Egyptian bondage;
- Samuel, the long-awaited babe of a barren Hannah, who later became a great prophet and judge in Israel;
- Solomon, the infant son of David and Bathsheba, who as a man, God endowed with a supreme gift of wisdom;
- John the Baptist, the product of Zacharias and Elisabeth’s old age, who later became the great preacher of repentance;
- Jesus Christ, who entered this world as the Babe of Bethlehem, and who vicariously laid down His life for the sins of the world.
When a baby enters this world through birth, who can tell the potential of that little “lump of clay”? Although taken out of context, the words of 1 Corinthians 4:5 are thought-provoking in this regard: “Judge nothing before the time!”
May/June 1983
