All over the world there are many lives that simply don't matter: those children working to provide material for cosmetics, the children dying mining cobalt to make batteries for mobile phones, laptops and electric cars. Those who starve, never being noted. Those in unmarked graves. Those born to drug addicted parents, those suffering addictions that nobody cares to dry out. Those who are born, live and die, never being noted by God.
Many of those graffiti-ing, looting, rioting, burning, destroying property and protesting are shouting out 'black lives matter'. Apart from it being derogatory and racist to label a person as 'black' or 'white', in fact the associated deaths have shown that many lives really don't matter. Some lives are political other lives lost are just collateral damage. They call for justice for a death in a country which has a justice system, unlike other nations where people are murdered without any justice. Then also we must consider how few even know of the lives that just didn't matter, lost mining the Cobalt that is essential to power their rechargeable lithium batteries in their Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla products! Some lives simply do not matter - it seems.
Matter to whom?
If you wish to take on the burden of caring for some seven billion lives, you would go mad. To gain some perspective, most would not even know how to prevent evil in their neighbours' lives, let alone the others of their town, another town, let alone another country. Then we might consider caring for those in Tijuana in Mexico, Caracas in Venezuela or St Louis, Baltimore or Chicago, USA. This writer was only aware of a suicide, by hanging, on the next street because they saw the police and asked another neighbour who knew the street. Who does each life matter to? It is totally safe to predict that no matter what is done, unless drugs are removed, many will yet die due to need for policing, and the volume of those dying will increase in ratio to any reduction in police power.
So to whom do lives really matter? Can lives matter to politicians? No, least to them, they send people to war without a blink. Can 'any life' matter to police as a body? No, as they may have no power over the matter. Can we care? What have those protesters done, apart from making a mess? Did they care before? Will they care when they go home? Will they do anything useful to prevent the loss of more life (when many have died, or their life been ruined due to the mess they made)? What can we do in practice, apart from not taking drugs and other anti-social acts? So who can care for those whose life 'matters'?
There is only one answer: God.
Only God can care for all life.
So let us test it again - does all human life matter? Let us ask the Bible:
They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:) That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption. For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. (Psalm 49:6-12)
The great and rich,
if they are are not in held honour with God, are like a dead animal..
The Godless rich, the Bible says – in effect- are like road
kill...even a dead cow is of some value to eat.
Think of the super great and wealthy if they don't love God, they are already while living, in God's eyes, a dead dog… but not all are of so little value.
But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; For when he dies he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish. (Psalm 49:15-20)
There are two types: those who will never see light after they turn to dust and those whose soul will be raised from the grave to be judged. All animals that breathe have souls, their life force. All living things both humans and animals have the chance of a good life, but at the end of life, they all turn to dust. There are a lot of breathing animals with souls on the planet; way, way more than 7 billion, some very small. We see them die and turn to dust and bones, where finally the bones disintegrate in the sun. There are rich, powerful men, who in God eyes have no honour, as they don't understand anything of God.
The Bible actually says some rich men have no honour with God and don't matter to God any more than the care God has for sparrows.
Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? (Luke 12:6)
Can any think that every sparrow that has ever lived matters to God? So the humans who are not honoured by God are like sparrows. Some humans are special. They are of greater value,
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:7)
Right from the beginning of the Bible we are told God has a book of life:
The LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.(Exodus 32:33)
Those that sin against God, he blots out of the book of life. But if people aren't even in the book of life, death is as that of an animal.
I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. (Revelation 20:12)
Let us consider that the great and proud may be as Cain. They may slay their brother. If the one they kill is precious to God, the blood will 'cry' from the ground (Genesis 4:10). God will personally avenge that bloodshed.
For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. (Rev 19:2)
All lives are not equal – some don't matter more than birds, some are to be raised to be rebuked, but some in fact are truly precious…
Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. (Malachi 3:16-17)
Whose lives not only 'matter' but are precious? Those that fear Yahweh Elohim. What shall those that are precious be spared from? The judgement. They shall be spared from weeping.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last. (Luke 13:28-30)
The masses call for justice – but do they know what they are calling for? Solomon wrote of his observation:
Moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 3:16-19)
So there you have it – a great king, who could do as he wished, observed there is no justice, as no matter what is done to fix a justice system, iniquity messes it up. Then what does it matter as all are beasts that die. But that is not the end for those written down in the Book of life for further note. There is more.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)
Perhaps it may be better to be like a sparrow without honour, a person that doesn't matter to God- as some that matter are reserved to be judged, for their evil. Life is short- the young have no idea how short a time before the aches of age come, and none know what the morrow will bring,
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. (James 4:14-15)
The ultimate thing is that our life, our very blood, could matter – really matter, to be precious– in the only place it counts, before the great Power of the Universe that sustains all life of the universe.
For he shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him that has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. (Psalm 72:12-14)
But what if you could matter, not to the great masses of those who can't care, but to the one who can care for you? What if your life matters and you are chosen for great things? All these lives that suddenly matter, can any of them become royals of eternity? The Creator sustains life to refine it, to create people for a future of great glory. This is his name 'He who Will Be Mighty Ones'(Yahweh Elohim). This name says God is seeking those who will absorb His glorious character of truth, grace and mercy and then allow that character to be mighty in the earth. God is seeking to make a precious and separate (holy) nation of people, to be raised up for eternity. He is watching all to find those few people who will, of their own will, chose to show forth His Glory and give thanks. Those people's lives matter, and they are the only lives that matter.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a special purchased people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
For more on the soul.
