THE VALUE OF LIFE Genesis 1:26-31
Two of the persistent questions we repeatedly ask are: "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" God addresses both of those early in the scriptures. In Genesis 1:26 we read, "Then God said, ’Let Us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule. . . .’" God’s view of His creation on the sixth day is very clear (v. 31): "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good."
The unique characteristic of each human being is the reflection of being created "in His image." Each of us reflects the very image of God. Our peace ("Shalom") is derived from recognizing that we reflect His image and when we allow God to achieve His purpose through our lives, through the Lord Jesus Christ. If we lose sight of the value placed on human life, we are susceptible to the temptation to destroy that life designed by God.
Life is sacred. When life is destroyed, we lose the impact of a life that could have enriched our lives and brought glory to God. The movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, allows a man to see what the world would have missed if he had not been born. A similar experience might help us value our lives and all human life.
A college professor presented this challenging situation for his ethics class to consider. "A man has syphilis and his wife has tuberculosis. They have four children. One has died; the other three have terminal illnesses. The mother is pregnant again. What do you recommend?" The class voted to terminate the pregnancy. The professor noted they had just killed Beethoven. (HIS magazine, February 1984)
Ethel Waters was a great gospel singer in the 50’s and 60’s. She was born to a 13-year-old child who had been raped. The world would have been robbed of the wonderful sacred music provided by each of these individuals if life had not been valued even under difficult circumstances. (from Eldon Fry, Ph.D., Focus on the Family, Pastoral Ministries)
We are created to live. God saved His breath for the creation of human beings. Genesis 2:7 says, "the Lord God…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." We are created in the image of God and endowed with His very breath to live. That is sacred.
Job, even in the midst of his afflictions, notes that God created him to live. (Job 27:3) Paul speaking to the men of Athens, a great Greek city, notes that God is the giver of life. (Acts 17:25)
The Psalmist (139:13-16) notes that God weaves life in the formation of humankind. [READ]
In Isaiah (44:24) God says to the prophet, “Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb.”
When we lose sight of a Creator who has formed us with a purposeful life in mind, we may devalue life and even be willing to destroy it. It has often been noted that abortion and euthanasia are only symptoms of a greater problem: our culture no longer truly recognizes the sacredness of human life.
This is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, the Sunday before January 22.
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that unborn human beings are not legal “persons” according to the constitution. The unborn baby is the “property” of the mother (or owner) and can at her request have the baby aborted up to the time of birth, if her doctor agrees.
Some have compared this ruling to the Dred Scott decision of March 5, 1857 in which the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans were not legal persons according to the Constitution. The slave could be bought and sold, used, or even killed at the owner’s discretion.
The Supreme Court has spoken! A Seven to two majority declared those aren’t human beings, just a little blob of tissue: Potentially human but the property of the mother to do with as she sees fit.
Do you understand the irony of what we’re talking about? If a young women, say 21 weeks along in her pregnancy, suddenly develops a problem with that pregnancy and is rushed into the emergency ward. If the doctors move quickly enough and they bring to bear on that situation all of the medical technology that we now have at our disposal, she’s rushed into a delivery room and they attend her in every way and they bring forth that little preemie baby at 21 weeks. That baby has a very high probability not only of surviving today but also of living a perfectly normal life.
But now another woman, exactly the same distance into her pregnancy, decides she doesn’t want to carry this baby. She goes to the same hospital; but she goes into another part of the hospital. She is not taken to the delivery room, she is taken to an abortion room and that baby is ripped apart and thrown into a garbage pail.
This battle is a symptom of our society which places a premium on comfort. According to a survey of 1900 women by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research division of Planned Parenthood, only 7% of the abortions performed in America are for cases of distress.
Here is the breakdown: the mother’s health (3%); possible health problem in the baby (3%); or the result of rape or incest (1%). Ninety-three percent of the abortions were for birth control or social reasons. Here is the breakdown: concerned about how the child would change their lives (16%); not ready for the responsibility (31%); couldn’t afford the baby (21%); relationship problem (12%); not mature enough (11%); had all the children they wanted (8%); other reasons (4%).
The question is often asked, "What if the mother’s life is in danger? Shouldn’t she have an abortion then?" Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States says that during his more than 35 years of medical practice in obstetrics, "Never once did a case come across my practice where abortion was necessary to save a mother’s life."
And at the other end of life, when, loved ones have illnesses diagnosed as terminal and are perhaps in great pain, Christian physicians who view God as the giver and taker of life can become very skilled in pain management to alleviate that suffering. Even though the circumstances may not make sense from our perspectives, we are never "authorized" to "play God," to usurp the position that is rightfully His (Psalm 23:4, Corinthians 12:9).
A year or 2 ago, Denmark passed terrifying legislation that gave the state, not the patient or the family of the patient, the legal right to decide whether an illness should be treated, or the patient left to die.
Many of you here this morning have been denied medical treatment/medicines you needed because someone in the basement of an insurance company thinks it’s too expensive to make sure you’re healthy.
There are many that fear the time will come when the state will decide who is worth saving, and who is a drain on society!
You don’t believe me?
In 1984, Vice Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro made this statement concerning abortion on the floor of the House of Representatives: “The cost of putting an unwanted child through the welfare system far outweighs the cost of abortion procedures.”
Later, during a house debate on government funding of abortions, Ferraro said, “It’s a simple matter of economics. Unwanted children often end up in the criminal justice systems…it’s very expensive to take care of them.”
Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”
The battle is for the preservation of life. Christians have always asserted that it begins at conception. One of the early Church Fathers wrote in the early 200’s: "You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay a child by abortion." - Epistle of Barnabas 19:5
In the Roe v. Wade decision the Supreme Court said it did not know when life began.
In Psalm 139:13-15 - “You formed me in my mother’s womb”; and organ systems being "woven together," the "frame," obviously referring to the skeleton, bones, skull which will determine height, build, size.
“Before you were born, I set you apart” (Jer. 1:5) that the one in the womb is not just a life but a person.
Luke 1:35 - the baby Mary is carrying is called the "holy offspring," not a "blob of tissue" or a "potential" being.
Luke 1:41 - Elizabeth’s baby leaps in her womb upon hearing Mary’s news, not an action performed by "fetal tissue."
It is validated by medical science:
Clearly shown by us of ultrasound technology; a baby’s heart is beating from 18-21 days; brain waves from 40 days. The pictures of perfectly formed hands and feet at only weeks old are amazing.
Bernard Nathansen, who once directed the largest abortion center in the world in New York City and personally presided over something like 60,000 abortions, has changed his opinion about abortion. He now says, “There is no serious doubt in my mind whatsoever that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy.”
Dr. Hymie Gordon, Professor of Medical Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, said in Testimony in US Senate Hearing: "But now we can say unequivocally that the question of when human life begins is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or the purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception."
There are fewer and fewer supporters of abortion who argue any more as to when life begins.
But are you aware of the legal definitions of life and death? Legally, life doesn’t begin until a baby breathes, irregardless of its brain activity.
But legally, death does not occur when we stop breathing…death can only occur when there are no brain waves. Do you see the paradox in our legal system?
Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”
So what do we do?
2 Cor. 10:1-6 reminds us that the weapons with which we fight are spiritual. [READ]
The Word: We have the powerful weapon of the Word which is not only a source book for right and wrong but it can also shape one’s thinking and improve our reason. Our arguments, if informed by Scripture, are superior and are able to break down strongholds. We must not practice cynicism or sarcasm or whine that we are the persecuted lot.
Engaging in hyperbolic, sarcastic, and cynical speech only confirms the caricature that pro-abortionists paint of us. When people refer to the local abortion clinic as “Reproductive Death Services” and print “Wanted” posters for abortion doctors, they only confirm the impression that one major newspaper had of us that we are “poor, uneducated, and easily manipulated.”
In an article by Cal Thomas, he challenges Christians to this:
For too long, traditional Christians have been comfortable in their own cultural catacombs. They have their own radio and television stations, their own publishing companies, their own magazines and bookstores, their own jargon. They need to come back into the mainstream and win back the culture and the nation by the superior power of their ideas. They should be demonstrating with their lives, as well as their voices, why their ideas are better than those now holding sway.
Prayer: Our most powerful weapon is prayer, because when we pray we acknowledge that God alone must act. Specifically, we must pray for revival.
Dr. A. T. Pierson says that there has never been a revival in any country or locality that did not begin with united prayer. I have already described the First Great Awakening and how God responded to prayer. Let me now give you some more examples. By the middle of the 19th Century the country was corrupt again. It was divided over slavery and it had forgotten God because it had become so wealthy. Jeremiah Lampheer began a small prayer meeting in Manhattan. The next week there were 14, then 23. By February of 1858 every church and every public building were occupied by noon prayer meetings. One reporter could only get to twelve meetings and counted 6100 men. Ten thousand per week were being converted in New York. One million were converted in a year.
By the turn of the century the country was again in need of revival. This time the prayer efforts were worldwide - Chicago, Melbourne, India and Korea. But it began in Wales. One hundred thousand were converted. The first year of the revival, there were no cases for the judges to try; police were out of work; taverns went bankrupt; illegitimacy dropped 44%; and production slowed in the mines because the mules could not understand the cleaned up speech of the workers. That revival of 1904 spread to England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States.
When it reached America the pastors in Atlantic City said that of a population of 50,000 only 50 remained unconverted. And in Portland, Oregon 240 department stores closed their doors daily from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. to pray. (from a sermon “Where Do We Go From Here? A Biblical Perspective on the Abortion Battle” by George Robertson)
If we want to see our country turned around, we must engage in regular, sustained, united prayer. Are you serious enough about desiring revival in this country that you will take one hour out of your schedule during the week to unite with fellow Christians in prayer?
The Strategy: The strategy is not like the world’s either. It is spelled out by Paul in these verses.
Gentle Boldness (v. 1): We are called to be firm in our defense of life but with gentleness and meekness. The strategy is not to appear stupid or frail, but to demonstrate that we believe God’s power is manifested in weakness. He must win the battle, not we.
Cal Thomas challenges Christians to practice what they believe:
If Christians will begin living what they claim to believe - loving their enemies, praying for those who persecute them, becoming a friend to “sinners” (even pro-choicers and hated liberals) - a new kind of power would be unleashed on the land. It would be a power that no one could stop.
We must be involved in politics but not in the kind of politics which is manipulative and dishonest. Neither must we disobey the Word of God and engage in disrespectful speech against our public leaders.
One great tragedy is that we’re told that only one out of three (some say one out of four) people who claim to believe the Bible and who claim to be evangelical born-again Christians actually vote. This is a moral tragedy!
Persistence (v. 6): Paul is confident because he believes in God’s success. We must be encouraged with the Bible’s definition of success: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal. 6:9) or “Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:56).
You see, Scripture reveals to us that God is biased toward life. Death is never a solution to anything. In fact, Scripture calls death our enemy, not a solution. Death is the antithesis of God’s good gift of created life. Death is a henchman of sin and evil, not of God. And if we’re serious about Scripture, then what is set before us in Scripture is a pro-life ethic where you and I are called to work for the preservation and protection and welfare and respect of all human life.
This does not mean with a callousness or condemnatory attitude toward those people who find themselves, for whatever reasons, in heart-breaking situations where they are having to choose abortion or make other anti-life decisions in the midst of that gray medical/ethical wasteland that our increasing technology is developing at a faster rate than we can keep up with morally. No.
Instead, to be pro-life means that we agonize with those people, that we love them, that we weep with them, that we point them to the truth of Jesus Christ, but then whether they accept that truth or not, we still love them.
A pro-life person is one who stands in the breach for the lives of the unborn, the poor, the infirm, the abused, the dying; stands with passion and with compassion even toward those who militantly disagree with us.
To be pro-life is to love our enemies.
Many of you know now of the story of Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the infamous Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion in this country. In her book published in 1998, Won by Love, she writes of one the Christians who combined love with warning until she who is in many ways responsible for the deaths of 35 million, turned to God.
The key person in the battle for Norma McCorvey’s soul was a seven-year-old girl named Emily Mackey. The little girl showed her loved and invited her to church so often, Norma eventually gave in. The rest is history.
To be pro-life involves something far larger than any one issue, than our stance on abortion, or any one of the other critical life and death issues that hang over our heads.
Above all it means that one’s attitude is shaped primarily by the Word of God, not by what seems to be most humanitarian or expedient, or economically or emotionally least painful. It’s trusting that this God who gives us this Word is much more loving and humanitarian and compassionate and understanding and forgiving than any of us could ever hope to be.
Pro-life ethic for today begins with the belief that every person has been created in God’s image and is of immeasurable worth. That all stages of life, from womb to tomb, are a part of God’s good gift of life. And that Jesus came to bring life, abundant life, and to be the death of death. And you and I, as followers of Jesus, must stand and work for justice to assure people not only of the right to life but also of those other rights and necessities that they need to attempt to make life joyful and loving and responsible and faithful. In a word, livable.
And wherever we stand, wherever we come out on these issues, Jesus makes clear to us, that there is no room in our lives ever for arrogance or self-righteousness.
You see, we all stand guilty of breaking and being broken upon the sixth commandment, “Do not Murder”, of how we have viewed other people’s lives and how we have treated them. It’s interesting that Jesus closes the passage in Matthew 6 on the commandment “Do not kill”, by talking about the fact that before we really, truly worship him, we need to make reconciliation of any brokenness in our lives. Whether we have broken someone else’s life or they have violated ours, nevertheless, He points out the initiative is upon us to go and make reconciliation before we can truly worship.
You know, the wonderful thing about Jesus is that he never asks you and me to do anything that he doesn’t do Himself. You see, Jesus is the violated person, the wronged person, and yet, He came to us and brought us back to God, made the atonement. To be pro-life means that you and I are reconcilers.
In all of God’s commands, there is always an element of law and then an element of grace and we need to hear both. We need to hear the law, "Do not kill," "Do not commit murder." And then all of us who have looked at someone and devalued their life, who have made racial jokes, who have found ourselves delighting in the deaths of Iraqis or Al-quaida members, or delighting in the execution of prisoners on death row; all of us who stand guilty of saying "Raca" at sometime in our lives, need to hear God’s word of grace or we begin to wonder, "Is there any hope for us?"
Becky Pippert used to be the evangelism specialist for InterVarsity. One time she told a story that helped us really understand God’s grace in the light of the Sixth Commandment. She led a girl to Christ. After this girl became a Christian, she began to agonize, feel tremendous guilt about the fact that she had had an abortion a number of years previous.
She went to Becky and laid that out to her and said, "I really don’t think God could love me. I realize that I have done wrong. I have broken God’s command. I don’t believe He could possibly forgive me for taking the life of my child."
Becky said the Lord gave her a word for that girl that ultimately enabled God’s grace to break into that girl’s heart. She said, "Sally," (not her real name), "you may think of yourself as a murderer, and you think of yourself rightly. But you were a murderer long before you ever had that abortion, and so am I. You see, both of us nailed Jesus Christ to the cross and killed him. Do you think, Sally, that God has forgiven you for that?"
And Sally said, "Well, yes, I believe God has forgiven me for that, but I just can’t believe he’s forgiven me for the abortion."
Becky then said, "Sally, God has forgiven you and me for killing His own very son. How much more can we find His forgiveness in something like an abortion?" (-The Rev. Dr. Ronald W. Scates, senior pastor at Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland)
So all of us stand condemned here. In one way or another, we’re all in the same boat. But God offers you and He offers me, in whatever way we have broken that command, He offers us his complete forgiveness.
On this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, I would challenge all of us to take a stand for life, to go against the grain of our culture, and to work for the protection and the preservation and the welfare of all human life on this planet. Anything else is less than faithful.
Life is sacred. Our lives are a trust from God and therefore should be dedicated and lived to achieve His divine purpose. The music of our lives should be offered as an act of worship to our God the Creator. Life is a sacred trust, and of infinite value. Amen.
