sermon: Hands That Shed Innocent Blood

Abortion
Martin G. Collins
Given 26-Jan-13; Sermon #1140; 75 minutes

Description: (show)

A recent advertisement featured a slick, liberal actor endorsing the concept of pro-choice while making fun of the pro-life concept. During the past 40 years, the American people have murdered 54 million babies—far outdistancing the deaths in Auschwitz, Dachau, and all the other death camps throughout the world. The number of babies slaughtered annually far exceed combined military deaths. Disgusting brain suction abortions are routinely performed in pregnancies that have gone beyond three months. Abortion is a result of an insane mental disposition on the part of the befuddled mother, and encouraged by a callused medical community. Medical publications like the Journal of the American Medical Association have indicated that the mental problems of the post-abortion mothers who experience guilt, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, and even suicide, have mushroomed out of control. Not only do the mental disorders of the mother hopelessly deteriorate, but the mental health of the siblings, the spouse, and the extended family degenerate as well. As modern Israel rejects God and His Law, God has taken a hands-off approach to the sinning populace, leaving them to come to terms with the consequences of their turpitude. Legalized abortion reveals the moral decadency of a nation, people, and culture—a culture which has totally rejected God. Life begins at conception; science cannot alter that reality. Studies have shown that babies begin learning language within 30 hours of being in the womb. The Scriptures reveal that even before conception, God has planned the future course of the future being. This country, for the past 40 years, has not repented of murdering its young; how much longer will God withhold His wrath?




The subject that I have for you today is very troubling. It has given me a great deal of grief over the last few weeks. It is heart-wrenching. It was discouraging at times. I decided not to give it three times and then when I got a sore throat last week and was unable to give it, I started questioning whether God wanted me to give it or not. We do that when we are producing these. Does God really want me to give this? And I had my doubts, but I still was going to give it this week.

And then a commercial came out this week that convinced me that yes, this is something that I need to give and I felt compelled ever since. You may have seen that commercial where it basically made light of the pro-choice abortion movement using a nice looking actor sitting in a chair, a fireside-chat type of thing. He basically made a mockery and a humorous staging of it and that convinced me that this really needed to be said.

Since the US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade on January 22 1973—that was 40 years ago this past Tuesday—a culture of death has driven this nation. This death mentality has resulted in the brutal destruction of more than 54 million unborn! All legally murdered in America, and all this while politically correct leaders refused to legally put to death child molesters, rapists, murderers of innocent people, and vile murderous terrorists who seek to destroy the peace and the rest that we have in this nation. The safety of our lives also affects our parents, our brothers and sisters, our husbands and wives and our children and grandchildren. All are affected by this mentality of death in this nation. We live in a very perverted and twisted society. And God's Kingdom cannot come soon enough for those of us in God's church.

In 1973 the US Supreme Court struck down all laws in every state that in any way had protected the lives of developing unborn children. It legalized abortion in all 50 states for the full 9 months of pregnancy for social and economic reasons. That is not what we have heard on the news, but that is the reality and the legality of the bill. It stated that the law protects only legal persons and “that legal person does not exist prenatally.” It authorized no legalized restrictions on abortions in the first three months. Abortion was allowed until birth if one licensed physician judged it necessary for the mother’s health and the term health includes physical and mental conditions, which left it wide open.

God inspired Moses to reestablish and warn the Israelites about this eternal law.

Deuteronomy 27:25 Cursed is the one who takes a bribe [that is money or payment of any kind] to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen!

The whole abortion movement has been based on one lie after another. The January 2003 issue of Whistleblower magazine in an article titled: “Abortion, The 30-Year War” (that was at its 30th year anniversary), reported that Norma McCorvey, the real life Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, the unmarried pregnant young woman who was the abortion-seeking plaintiff and the focal point of the fight for legalized abortion in America, experienced a profound change of heart. McCorvey tells how the Roe v. Wade case was fraudulent because she fabricated her story about being raped and thus impregnated, and how she was callously used by heartless pro-abortion attorneys, how she never actually had the abortion.

Whistleblower also reported that one of the principle architects and strategists of the abortion movement in the United States, Bernard Nathanson MD, a co-founder of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League said this: “We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls,” he confesses. “We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Noting that repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public.” Nathanson adds: “The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200 to 250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law.”

Wise king Solomon was inspired to write this:

Proverbs 6:16-17 These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood.

We stop at these three. Verse 17 lists the three most evident wickedly characteristics of abortionists: Pride, lying, and murder, and God hates all three of them.

When you total up all forms of abortion, including those caused by abortion drug RU486, the grand total comes to much more than 1 million abortions performed in the United States alone every single year. The number of American babies murdered by abortion each year is roughly equal to the number of US military deaths that have occurred in all the wars that the United States has ever been involved in combined.

Despite what the news media reports, here is the reality of the Supreme Court decision. A report issued by a committee of the Judiciary US Senate, on Senate Joint Resolution 3, 98th Congress, 98-149, June 7, 1983, page 6: “Thus, the Committee observes that no significant legal barriers of any kind whatsoever exist in the United States for a woman to obtain an abortion for any reason during any stage of her pregnancy.”

Since 1973 many had denied that late term elective abortions were being performed. This lie was totally exposed during the 1996 debate in the US Congress on partial birth abortions; that is, the method of brain suction. It was conclusively shown that such abortions were done even late in the trimester, which is the last three months. The abortionists are flagrantly lying to the public to this day, and have been for more than 40 years.

Isaiah prophesied that when Israel sinned, separating her from God, the nation becomes known for its lying and its shedding of innocent blood, and God says the reason He does not intervene is because man is on his own by his own choice to sin. Here in Isaiah 59 we are going to read verses 1 to 4 and then verse 7, and the subject matter of this passage is: Separated from God.

Isaiah 59:1-4 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue hath muttered perversity. [Every ounce of their being; every effort was being used to sin or to abort children.] No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.

Isaiah 59:7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

The pro-choice abortion advocates certainly fits that description. So how are the abortionists able to get away with the flagrant lying to the people of this nation, many of which, maybe most are descendants of the ancient Israelites? Primarily, by deceitfully judging that most of these pregnancies are harmful to the pregnant woman’s mental health. That is the argument that they have used the most. This perverse reasoning is pathetic in itself since abortion in itself is an act of insanity. Only an insane mother would murder her own child.

Now let us look at the effects on the mother. There are severe psychological problems that affect the mother of an aborted child. Mostly the abortions are judged and recorded due to mental health, but the evidence that this is not a valid reason goes back to before 1973 when Roe v. Wade was passed. Dr Charles Ford and his associates at UCLA reported the same thing in JAMA (The Journal of American Medical Association), Volume 218, number 8, November 22, 1971 for Roe v. Wade. Under the article: “Abortion: Is it a Therapeutic procedure in Psychiatry?” he states: “The more serious the psychotic diagnosis, the less beneficial was the abortion.”

That is, the worse the woman’s mental condition, the worse the abortion's effects were. They proved that before Roe v. Wade. It is the woman who has had abortions that ends up with even more serious mental problems. A mountain of evidence shows that the woman with mental problems before an abortion is far more likely to experience post-abortion emotional and psychological problems than a “more stable” woman. And I put more stable in quotes, as any woman that is going to have an abortion, or decides to, is not stable.

According to E. Greenglass, in an article in the Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, Volume 21, number 7, November 1976, titled: “Abortion and Psychiatric Disturbance”, “Women with a history of psychiatric disturbances were 3 times as likely to have some psychiatric disturbances after an abortion than others who had no such history.” E. Sandburg stated in the “Psychology of Abortion: A Comprehensive Handbook of Psychiatry” 1980: “The more severely ill the psychiatric patient the worse is her post-abortion psychiatric state.”

These quotes support the original official statement of the World Health Organization in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade. “Serious mental disorders arise more often in women with previous mental problems, thus the very women for whom legal abortion is considered justified on psychiatric grounds are the ones who have the highest risk of post-abortion psychiatric disorders.” World Health Organization. They knew long before Roe v. Wade that mental health was not a valid reason. Yet they used it, and they used it viciously.

I am giving you these quotes to show that mental illness, the number one reason given to justify an abortion, is just an excuse. It is a lie of the greatest magnitude. Today the mainstream media turns its back on a multitude of studies indicating a bona fide link between abortion and breast cancer. This misinformation campaign has persisted as the media has collectively yawned at information revealing a relationship between mental health problems and woman who undergo abortion.

According to Dr and Mrs. J. C. Willke in their book: Why Can't We Love Them Both?, chapter 9, titled: “Health in Women Who Have an Abortion”: “Guilt is ever-present in many guises, along with regret, remorse, shame, lower self esteem, insomnia, dreams, nightmares, flash backs, and anniversary reactions. There often is hostility and even hatred toward men. This can include her husband and she may become sexually dysfunctional. Crying, despair, and depression are usual, even at times with suicide attempts. Recourse to alcohol or drugs to mask the pain is frequent, sometimes leading to sexual promiscuity. There is also a numbing and coldness in place of more normal warmth and maternal tenderness.”

So it is supposed to help women if they have mental problems? The medical profession is up to their neck in guilt on this. The authors mention that religious guilt feelings are perhaps a factor in some women, but most women reported on in the earlier studies were unchurched at the time. They had no conscience at the time, or pretty close to it.

According to an article in the British Medical Journal, December 6, 1996 by M. Gissler titled, “Abortion Suicide Link”: “The suicide rate immediately after an abortion was 3 times the general suicide rate and 6 times that associated with birth. The rate for women following a live birth was 5.9 per 100,000. Following miscarriages it was 18.1 per 100,000, following abortion 34.7 per 100,000. They noted that woman frequently get short-term post natal blues after having a baby, but this rarely translates into suicide and that the initial stress of having a child is transitional, the overall effect having a positive effect on woman's health.”

Now mothers are not the only participants in abortions that end up with mental problems. There are effects on the siblings as well. We do not hear about that as an argument either. There are psychological problems that affect siblings of an aborted child. In some cases a definite survivor syndrome had been demonstrated. Children usually know that their mother is pregnant. They also know when she gets un-pregnant. This may cause what psychiatrist call survivor syndrome, similar to the Jews that had survived the Holocaust. It is an irrational but real guilt feeling of: “Why was I saved and why were they killed?”

Dr Edward Sheridan of Georgetown University has also observed fear and mistrust of the mother. He says:”Originally, a small child sensing a sibling’s arrival does not welcome it. When the baby suddenly disappears the frightened child may get a warped sense of his own power to will people away. Or if he knows that his mother was an active agent in the doing away of his sibling he begins to fear her.” Basically studies have found that the effect on other children in the family of the aborted child is detrimental in the long term. It messes them up. They have mental problems for the rest of their lives. It so severely warps their minds that they live in fear of their own destruction by their parents, and it causes them to have a lack of respect for life in general, especially to other human beings.

Every once in a while at least we have to take a break and go to God's Word and get away from the statistics. Abortions not only impact the whole family but the whole nation as well. Any nation that approves of killing the innocent is also responsible for what happens to its children, psychologically as well as physically. We are going to Hosea 4. This section is about God's charge against Israel, God's indictment.

Hosea 4:1-2 Hear the word of the LORD, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: there is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed upon bloodshed.

Is that not happening in this nation? We have had 40 years of killing the unborn—murdering the unborn—and we have now a President, an administration, and a government that is lawless.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge [or truth]. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for me; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

How terrifying! We in God's church have children who are sanctified because we are members of God's church. What a blessing that is, something that we should very much cherish. This confirms what we have read earlier in Isaiah 59:2. God has a hands-off policy on the children of parents who reject Him. And so we see that because the Israelites had forgotten the welfare of the children and have in a sense sacrificed their children to Baal, the god of fertility and sex, and because there is lying and violence in the land, because the people rejected the law of God and continue to reject it, God could not show His benevolence to their children because their actions tell God to leave their families alone and by their examples they have taught their children to be wicked like them. The destruction is total, from the top of the nation all the way to the smallest member of the family.

Now, what effects does it have on the father? There are deep psychological problems that affect the father of an aborted child. Studies and experience show that fear keeps men from opposing their mate’s decision to abort and society has certainly done the same thing. It has made men fearful to even stand up for what is right. Many relationships end following an abortion and even those that survive are scarred forever. When a couple has a dead baby between the two of them they are always going to be blaming each other for what they did. Men who fail to stand up for their unborn offspring reap guilt, shame, and anger.

Often after an abortion, the male who was involved simply disappears. Sometimes this is by his own choice, sometimes he is deliberately ignored because this society does not want to face any more hard truths about abortions. It certainly does not want to add one more to the list of victims. First, the innocent child, then the mother, now the father, and I can also add to that, as mentioned before, the siblings.

For those who regret having an abortion, experts says that both men and woman need to confess, forgive one another, and sometimes hold services to commemorate their dead children. They have to grieve the death of this child who was never named, who was never allowed to be born. One anonymous man summed up his loss this way: “I have to live with this for rest of my life now. Do you realize whether I have one child or thirty more, I will always know that my first child was aborted?”

Perhaps the most consistent and evident symptom in men due to the loss of a child from abortion is anger. And we do have a very angry nation. A counselor who personally experienced the abortion decision indicated that every man he has counseled has a higher level of anger than before the abortion. In addition each has acted on that anger in some way that was harmful to himself or someone else. Another counselor likened this anger to that of a ticking time-bomb just waiting to go off.

A man’s anger and frustration at not being able to protect and provide for his unborn baby because of abortion manifests in several ways. He often turns to alcohol and drugs to dull the pain of the feeling that he participated in or was too weak to prevent the death of his unborn baby. Many become workaholics to avoid contact with other people or in a desperate effort to succeed in a crucial aspect of their lives. They feel like failures because they allowed one of their children to be aborted so they try to find success in other areas by becoming workaholics.

The relationship almost always fails after the decision to abort. In addition, future relationships with woman are often difficult or impossible. A woman has total control over the decision to abort their baby, leaving the father no legal recourse. This lack of control regarding a critical life-impacting decision often generates considerable resentment and mistrust toward women. As a result of the previous experience they do not want to be put in another situation where another pregnancy may occur and they have no control over the outcome of what happens to their unborn child.

Some men experiment with homosexuality because it allows them to have a “successful” sexual relationship with no commitment and no worry of pregnancy. Men may suffer from other forms of sexual dysfunction such as impotency and addiction to pornography. Other symptoms of a man struggling with the loss from abortion may be that he suffers from sleeplessness, panic attacks, poor coping skills, flashbacks, nightmares, or self imposed isolation. He may be unable to hold a job due to his inability to handle decision making or he may be an excessive risk taker in work and social environments, setting himself up for failure. This may come from the feeling that he deserves what he is getting for being a loser and failing when it counted most to protect his own unborn child. More than 1 million unborn children are murdered each year. How many people in addition to that does it affect in such a derogatory way?

One very shocking study found that 86% of all abortions are done for the sake of convenience. The abortion issue today does not center on such tragic cases as incest or rape as the news media and abortion advocates would have us believe. The honest reason for today’s high abortion rate—an overwhelming 97% of cases in the United States, for example, are simply one of convenience. Preserving the life of the mother, the expectation of a defective child, rape and incest account for only 3% of all abortions in the United States. Today abortion is not a life saving operation; it is a major form of birth control.

Sorry if I am wearing you out, depressing you, keeping you low with this. It really needs to be said and we will look at God’s Word a little bit later. Dr. C. Everett Koop, US Surgeon General in the 1980s, wrote in his book, The Right to Live and the Right to Die: “The fact of the matter is that abortion as a necessity to save the life of the mother is so rare as to be nonexistent.”

In September 2012 the Dublin Declaration of Maternal Health was announced. The Symposium on Maternal Health held in Dublin, Ireland just last September concluded that abortion in no way assists in the health of the mother. In the words of the declaration:

As experienced practitioners and researchers in Obstetrics and Gynecology, we affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child. We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect in any way the availability of optimal care to the pregnant woman.

So we are seeing some small progress in some areas of the world, even in this nation, towards the banning of abortion. But the momentum is so great and Satan is so fiercely behind it because he wants to destroy everyone on this earth. And what better way than to start it before the baby can even take a breath?

Many world governments state that abortion is legal, that it is not a crime. They define crime as a violation of a man-made law. Sin is the transgression of God's law. God's law defines right as opposed to wrong and humanly-legislated law does not always do that. Some things can be a sin but not a crime in man-made laws, but man-made laws have even made obedience to the higher laws of God a crime often punishable by death. A department of Homeland Security report that was released in January 2012 says that if you are anti-abortion you are a potential terrorist. We are all potential terrorists according to their definition. If you are a terrorist then you are legally a criminal. Sadly there have been other government reports that have also identified anti-abortion protesters as potential threats.

Governments throughout man’s history have passed laws to forbid the keeping of the Sabbath, in many cases punishable by death, as the Roman government council of Laodicea did in AD 363. Sabbathkeeping was interpreted by the government as a crime and yet the law of God commands, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” But man’s laws obviously and rarely, until recently when this nation established its laws, coincide with God's laws or even want God's laws involved.

But in the final judgment every individual will be judged and sentenced according to the law of God and not the law of man. Regardless of what has received general human acceptance or what has been made into human law.

Legalized abortion reveals the moral decadency and spiritual bankruptcy of a nation. This point was made by the Canadian philosopher George Grant in his response to the striking down of an anti-abortion law in Canada. In his 1988 essay: “The Triumph of the Will”, Grant compared the philosophical basis for the pro-abortion movement to the same element that drove the Nazis. He wrote:

National socialist ideology was impregnated at its heart in Darwinian biology. In terms of such an account of life, why should we care about the life of a fetus when it conflicts with the will of a fully developed woman?

But then of course we are led inexorably to the next stage. Why should we care about the lives of human beings outside the womb if they are only an accidental conglomeration of cells and if they stand in our way? Those who see life simply as a product of necessity and chance, are inevitably more open to feticide because they do not see the destiny to which humans being are called. This is the prodigious predicament that the intellectual triumph of modern science has cast upon human beings.

The perverseness of this society is seen in the irony that it does not give the benefit of the doubt, or even reasonable doubt, to unborn children as it does to common criminals in court. We do not bury those who are doubtfully dead. The very idea is absurd. We work frantically to help rescue even two miners, a child lost in the mountains or down a well, or a person under a collapsed building. A moral hunter will not shoot until he knows that it is a deer and not a man. If someone has had any doubt when human life begins, he should give the unborn the benefit of the doubt. As former US President Ronald Reagan wrote: “If you do not know if a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.”

Notice what God says through Moses regarding those in authority as judges.

Exodus 23:7 Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous: for I will not justify the wicked.

Israelite judges were to be very cautious about inflicting capital punishment on one whose guilt was not clearly proved. A doubtful case was rather to be left to God Himself, who would not justify the wicked or suffer him to go unpunished though he might be acquitted by an earthly tribunal.

Colossians 1:16 All things were created by Jesus Christ, in Him all things consists.

God the Father and Jesus Christ are the law.

Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation [speaking of Christ]. For by Him all things were created that are in the heaven and that are on the earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Man has no right whatsoever to determine the person’s death unless it agrees with God's inspired written Word. Although the word abortion is not used in the Bible, the principles against it are certainly there. That the New Testament never directly addresses abortion does not mean that the first century churches were ignorant of its processes or practice, or that they believed it to be a matter of individual conscience. On the contrary, the silence simply tells us that abortion was not an issue in need of resolution because it was unthinkable.

When viewed by God's revelation with the profound Israelitish respect for the unborn, and newborn human life as the gift of God and inspired by Jesus’ welcoming the children, the earliest Christians were not tempted to end or endanger the life of children before or after birth. If the abortion temptation, or at least questions, arose explicitly, the church answered it with an unequivocal “no.” It was totally out of the question, and it was most likely that no one dared bring it up because it was such a heinous crime and sin. And that is the way it used to be in this nation, years, decades ago, a half century or more ago. If there was an abortion it was kept quiet; it was because they knew it was wrong. It was unspeakable.

Let us quickly look at biblical legal principles that are quite obvious. God's Word makes it clear that abortion is murder. The unjustifiable taking of an innocent human life and murder is prohibited forcefully in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17: “You shall not murder.” Turn with me to Genesis 9. Here God is speaking to Noah about His covenant with creation.

Genesis 9:5-7 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God He made man. As for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.

That is the positive of life. Be fruitful and multiply. Bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it. In the first story in Matthew the story is told of Joseph’s reaction to the news of his fiancé’s premarital pregnancy. The solution that comes to Josephs mind is divorce, not abortion. Divorce for unfaithfulness was acceptable, abortion unthinkable.

Turn over a few pages to Exodus 21. The Bible is a book of thorough ongoing realism. Look at God's law concerning violence. What we are doing here is picking up some basic principles.

Exodus 21:22-25 If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband shall imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, [that is the death sentence for feticide] eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

If God required capital punishment when a fatal miscarriage was caused, surely His judgment for abortion, which is premeditated murder, can be no less severe towards those who are involved with such murder. This is God's judgment and He will carry it out eventually unless there is genuine repentance. All life is under God's law and God—not the state, not the individual, not the parent nor the doctor—is the Lord of life. God's will governs. Man and nations may deny that fact, but neither man nor nation can escape it. Neither can they escape the consequences for violating it. As our Creator, God is the law of the universe regarding abortion as well as anything else.

Psalm 100:3 Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Now scientifically when does biological human life begin? Biological human life is defined by the secular world by examining the scientific facts of human development and this is a field where there is no controversy and no disagreement other than by people who are insane themselves. There is only one set of scientific facts. Maybe I should say there is only one set of true scientific facts.

As the years of this present age have passed, scientific knowledge of fetal development has increased tremendously and science continues to confirm that the beginning of any one human individual’s life, biologically speaking, begins at the completion of the union of the father’s sperm and his mother’s ovum—a process called conception or fertilization. This is so because this being that came as the result of fertilization is alive, it is human, sexed, complete, and growing. This is not just a religious belief. It is not subject to philosophical theory nor is it debatable. It is indisputable scientific fact. It cannot be questioned. It is a universally accepted fact.

Science defines human life by asking three simple questions. Is this being alive? Is this being human? Is this being complete? The being has the characteristic of biological life; that is, he can reproduce his own cells and develop them in a specific pattern of maturity and function, or more simply, he is not dead. This is a unique being distinguishable totally from any other living organism, completely human in all of his or her characteristics, including the 46 human chromosomes and can develop only into a fully mature human.

Science has found that in the rare cases that a human being has 47 chromosomes he is deformed or abnormal in some significant way. Nothing biologically new will be added from the time of union of the sperm and egg until death of the old man or woman, except growth and development of what is already there at the beginning. All he or she needs is time to develop and mature. Of course we know that we credit all human life to God, He is the one that sustains it. I am talking about strictly the biological life of a human.

Turn with me please to Psalm 139. Biblically, how early in its human development is biological life acknowledged? The Bible has always given the answer, and the more science learns through study and research, the more science affirms the Scriptures. Life begins at the moment of conception when a zygote; that is a genesis cell, is formed by the fusion of the sperm and the egg. Life commences.

Psalm 139:13-16 For You [that is God] formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts to the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. [So God is involved very early on, even before conception and it may be that it is at conception that it happens, but it is very early in that area of time.] And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

In Matthew Henry's commentary on this he says:

Each individual of God’s work according to His divine model, His eternal wisdom formed the plan and mold as a great mercy. All our members in continuence was fashioned as they were written in the book of God's wise council when as yet there was none of them. Thus who dares to destroy His handiwork and purpose and at what stage of lifespan shall it be destroyed? 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months, or 60 years?

The answer is obvious.

On January 2 2013 Red Orbit produced the article: “Babies Begin Learning Language While Still in the Womb”. The website Creation Revolution summarized it this way:

One of the leading arguments used by abortionists is that a baby is not human until it has been born. Before that time they claim that it is a fetus, not a human, and therefore nothing but a mass of tissue that can be removed and discarded. However, if the unborn child is just a lump of tissue, then how can it respond to stimuli such as pain or loud sounds? If that is not enough to convince some people that a fetus is really a human being in the first stages of life, then perhaps a new study will help.

A team of researchers at the Institute of Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington and from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington have studied the ability of unborn to learn languages. They studied babies that were less than 30 hours old in both the US and in Sweden. The group of babies was divided evenly between male and female.

The researchers played different vowel sounds in the parent’s native language and in foreign languages. They used the pacifier sucking response of the babies to determine whether or not they were familiar with the sounds they heard. When the newborns heard their parent’s native language, their sucking on the pacifier was shorter. When they heard vowel sounds from a foreign language, the sucking on the pacifier was longer indicating that they were not familiar with the foreign language.

The test results indicated that the babies were learning their parent’s language while still in the womb. (Remember, this was at less than 30 hours old.) Normally, the mechanical and cognitive structures used in hearing develop around 30 weeks (5 months) stage of prenatal development. The test indicates that the babies are using their newly-developed hearing to familiarize themselves with the sounds of their parents, including their language patterns.

Certainly one has to admit that a useless lump of tissue is incapable of learning language skills. Yes, tissue can respond to pain, but it cannot learn an abstract thing like language. Therefore, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the unborn child is a human baby, already learning about the world outside the womb, and is worth protecting and preserving.

Turn with me please to Luke 1. Knowing this, listen to how Luke records how John the Baptist as an unborn child leaped for joy when he came into close proximity with the unborn Jesus Christ. They were about 6 months apart in age at this time, but still in the womb.

Luke 1:41-44 And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. But why is it granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded into my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

In Jeremiah 1:5 Jeremiah was inspired to record God’s word.

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

Did God sanctify a glob of protoplasm? He sanctified His work, a living human being of great potential and inestimable worth. Turn over with me to Ephesians 3. The apostle Paul was inspired to write that God has His will so carefully planned that He has had us chosen before the beginning of human civilization.

Ephesians 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.

Isaiah testified to the beginning of life.

Isaiah 44:24 So says the Lord, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb; I am the Lord who makes all things.

Now, if you turn with me all the way back to Genesis 25 please. This subject is one that one could spend innumerable sermons on. It has been hard getting it all under one, but I tried to hit the high points, the important things, and no doubt I have missed some of it, but hopefully this will do this subject some justice. The Bible tells us what medical doctors finally found out. Pre-born babies do feel, they do experience, they do learn, and they do react.

Genesis 25: 21-23 And Isaac pleaded to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his plea, and Rebecca his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall separate from your body; and one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older [Esau] shall serve the younger [Jacob].

That God considers an unborn child a human being is beyond dispute. Therefore, we can conclude that every aborted child will be resurrected. I do not know how God will work it out, but I have no doubt about His love for them. God says in Psalms 68:5: “He is the Father of the fatherless,” which include the aborted unborn children.

What is God's purpose in creating human life? Most of the controversy about abortion has revolved around the question: when does human life start? Where did human life first begin? It began when God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

Genesis 2:7 Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.

God’s purpose is to reproduce Himself through man who is formed of matter, or substance. God creates a system of duality and man was made first of material dirt. The second stage of man’s creation calls for making him into a holy, righteous spirit being as a child of God. John 4:24 says God is a Spirit and He made man out of the soil of the earth. God is Spirit and man is physical, but man has the potential for being in God's family.

God is not only formed and composed of Spirit, but God is perfect. Having righteous spiritual character, His spiritual creation involves a development of His own character within and with the acceptance of the human being. To reproduce Himself, God purposed that man should reproduce himself physically, even as God is reproducing Himself spiritually. The one is the type of the other.

Human life first began with the creation of the first man Adam by a process of reproduction. The human life has continued from the original life and has been transmitted from generation to generation. In Genesis 1:28 God said to the first man, Adam: “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” Man was to reproduce himself physically from generation to generation but the man alone was unable to do that. No man has ever been able to reproduce himself, all by himself.

Cloning a human being is impossible because any tissue and bone produced by this horrific scientific method or technology will not have the God-given human spirit, the spirit in man which distinguishes man from beast. In every human there is a human spirit and the physical human brain as scientists have learned in researching the brain, differs little from the animal brain. Yet we learn from many scriptures in the Bible that in every human brain resides a human spirit.

Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty that gives him understanding.

The word breath is interesting. The Hebrew word translated “breath” in many Bible versions is also translated “inspiration” in other versions. It means inspiration or intellect. So this breath of the Almighty does not necessary mean it was the breath of life when it comes out of the womb. It could be very well be the inspiration or the spirit of man or the intellect of man given to him at conception. That is my own speculation. But that word there in the original Hebrew that is translated breath has multiple meanings.

I just find that very interesting. God gives the spirit in man to every human being at conception. The spirit in man is what distinguishes a human from an animal and we know that human life starts at conception; therefore the spirit in man must be given at that time. This spirit empowers the physical human brain and intellect which makes the vast difference between human ability to think, reason, to acquire knowledge, to learn language, to have a sense of spiritual values which animals do not have.

Turn with me please to I Corinthians 2. In God's inspired written Word, the Bible, the Creator God, who knows the rationalization and reasoning of the natural mind that is cut off from Him, explains through the apostle Paul that the unbelieving skeptics such as scientists, evolutionists, and atheists cannot understand.

I Corinthians 2:13-14 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

In the beginning God performed an operation. He put Adam into a deep sleep, which today we would call putting him under anesthesia. He operated, removing one of Adam’s ribs out of which he made a woman. The woman was not made directly from the dust of the ground, the woman was made from man and the two became one—they became one human family. A family is composed of two or more and they reproduced. They had children and the family increased. That original family has increased for about 6000 years.

The human life that is in every human being started from that human life God created in Adam. Even Eve’s life came from Adam. Every human life since is the continuation of that same kind of human life, continually reproducing after its kind. This human reproduction started with the first man, the man Adam. Divine reproduction has started with the second Adam, Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul answers the question: “How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come?”

I Corinthians 15:41-47 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Jesus was born as a human being just as all humans have been. I do not mean to detract from His origins. You know what I mean, when God impregnated Mary. Except that God was His Father and therefore one of His names is Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus Christ was human, born of the human virgin, Mary, but He was also God-sired by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God actually fertilized and imparted life to an ovum in the womb of the virgin, Mary. According to Matthew 1:20 an angel of the Lord said:

Matthew 1:20 Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

God the Father Himself created human life at conception when He impregnated Mary. He would not have put His Spirit into a non-human being, and this shows that God considers the unborn as human. From the instant of conception a human life is in existence. To deliberately kill or destroy that human life, that Creator of human life, the great lawgiver, the Supreme Judge says it is murder, punishable by eternal and final death. The Almighty God exacts the punishment, not us. But as I said earlier, people have the opportunity for genuine repentance.

Now let us shift gears here for a moment. The US has been a country of nightmares rather than rest for 40 years because of its violence against unborn children. The number 40 in Scripture is an important one. The period of 40 days, or years, is most often associated with hardship, affliction, and punishment.

The flood of judgment in Noah’s days lasted 40 days, the generation in the wilderness wondered for 40 years because of hardheartedness and nothing shows hardheartedness like abortion, the murdering of innocent children.

Psalm 95:8-10 Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as on the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said: "It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not known My ways." So I swore in My wrath, "They shall not enter My rest."

“They shall not enter My rest.” The United States is not at rest right now. In contrast, Jesus’ teaching against anxiety in Matthew 6 urges people to cease from their anxious striving, as they trust in God to supply their needs. Rest is a form of letting go of human control. Abortion is what total human control produces. Ancient Israel was in the hands of the Philistines for 40 years up until the birth of Samson.

Judges 13:1 Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years

Their punishment was to be the victims of violence and misery for 40 years. 40 days is the length of time Ezekiel lay on his side to bear Judah’s iniquity which symbolized the punishment of Judah for her rebelliousness and violence. Jonah prophesied that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, a prophecy which proved to be contingent because the 40 days became a period of repentance. It nullified the prediction. Sadly this nation has not repented in the last 40 years of murdering the innocent and it certainly does not look like it is going to any time soon.

In Matthew 4:2 Jesus’ experience of 40 days and 40 nights was anticipated by Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness. Like Israel, He was tempted by hunger, tempted to put God to the test, and tempted with idolatry. Also in His answers to Satan, Jesus quotes from chapter 6 and 8 of Deuteronomy, writings about Israel’s wilderness experience. However Jesus did what Israel was unable to do, resist temptation by fearing and loving God.

This nation has had 40 years to rethink and repent of its death mentality against their children. It is already suffering dreadfully for murdering its children. How much longer will God withhold His direct wrath? More than 54 million children have been ripped apart, poisoned, burned, and who knows what other methods of murder that were used and that they were subject to in this nation. The day of God's wrath will come on this nation. When? I do not know. But this nation is definitely on borrowed time.

Let us begin to wrap this up. The history of the human race and our own experience tell us seemingly not-so-bad people sometimes do very bad things. One act and one phase of our life, no matter how evil, does not mean that our entire life must continue in that direction. Forgiveness is still possible. If a person doubts this, he can read the parable of the forgiving father in Luke 15:11-32. Jesus told this story so that we would understand that no matter how terrible our sin, our heavenly Father’s love is even greater, unless we commit the unpardonable sin, but all other sins are pardonable. And an unpardonable sin is just this: a decision that when we know who God is and we absolutely refuse to submit to Him or to repent about anything.

Jesus told this story so we would understand that no matter how terrible our sin, our heavenly Father’s love is even greater and He responds positively when we genuinely repent and change our thinking and our ways. The person, who acknowledges his own sin and repents, can look to God and His Son and learn what true forgiveness is all about. The Son of God died so that our sins could be forgiven, so that a new start could be made.

Psalm 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.

Human family relationships are one of the supreme blessings God has given mankind. What a tragedy that rebellious mankind has spurned, forsaken, and deprived itself of the wonderful blessings and happiness a loving God has made possible.

Turn with me please to Deuteronomy 30:15. We are very familiar with this scripture. It was mentioned last week during services and it was mentioned in the sermonette today and it is so essential for our lives and essential to this argument here against abortion that I want to read it again. It is the Lord God, not the politically correct planners and social engineers, who sets the length and width and extent of this life for each of His creations. We are instruments of His power and providence through His gift of procreation, evidence of His incredible love. God has given us the free will to choose for ourselves how we live our lives and that does affect others, especially our children.

Deuteronomy 30:15-19 See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; [notice that: That you may live and multiply] and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, [in the cases of abortion they are serving the god of fertility and sex] I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and to possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life.

Satan gives us pro-choice which means pro-death, but God gives us the choice to choose pro-life. Oh that this nation would choose life for its unborn children!

Abortion has done and continues to do its devastating work resulting is an epidemic of cursed and miserable men and woman. Thankfully forgiveness and healing are still possible. The realization and repentance of profound failure and great sin can be a turning point to a new life. King David, tax collectors Zacchaeus and Matthew, Peter, who denied Christ three times, and Paul who ferociously killed the early Christians—all of these men discovered what it looks like to be at a dead end and that it can be a beginning for God.

Now turn with me for a final scripture to Isaiah 49. The overwhelming image of children in the Bible is that they are cherished by their parents, by their nation and by God. Parents dote on their children with devotion unparalleled in other physical relationships.

Isaiah 49:15 Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, [abortion is certainly an example of that and notice the next phrase] yet I [that is God] will not forget.

Even though maternal love and tenderness is the strongest and most enduring of instincts, a mother may neglect her child but God will never forget His children. He cherishes them. Biblical images of children add warmth and depth to God's promises. He looks on us as a father looks on his children; each of us is a child of God. As children of God we yearn for the trust and contentment that comes naturally to children.

We can be thankful and joyous that God deals with us as a father deals with his own children, Jesus said anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter into it. Their innocence is something to cherish and protect, not to be destroyed.

What a blessing it is that we have God's truth and are saved from this horrific thing that is going on in this nation. But we have God, God’s way of life to encourage us, and we know that we can raise our children up to be healthy, intelligent human beings with God’s help.

MGC/pa/drm

Back to the top











 

 
 
Close
E-mail It