Title:
LIFE
Date:
January 24, 2016
Subject:
Sanctity of human life
Scripture:
Selected
Did you know that we missed it, you and I missed it? It was last week. It wasn’t a sporting event.
Last Sunday was Sanctity of Life Sunday. However, Sanctity of Human Life Week began then and ends today.
I know it’s eight days but it wraps around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade which came into existence on January
22, 1973. Since then 58 million abortions have taken place in America. That’s a sobering number.
Why should we care about human life?
Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7.
James Weldon Johnson wrote God’s Trombones which is a series of poems in the style of sermons in
the style of the old-time African American Baptist preachers of the South in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
He was inspired “I remember hearing in my boyhood sermons that were current, sermons that passed with
only slight modifications from preacher to preacher and from locality to locality.” The poem begins with God
stepping out into space. It progresses through God’s creative activity and ends with the Lord being pictured as
bending over the first man to carefully and tenderly craft him into his image. “Then into it he blew the breath
of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.” I thought of reading the poem but didn’t have time to
fit the whole thing in and it really needs someone with a deep voice. Wintley Phipps version is on youtube. Also
check him doing another Johnson sermon -- “Go Down Death.” Sites are in the resources in notes.
Why should we care about human life? Because God is interested in people. People are the pinnacle
of creation and the only element of creation into which God breathed life so that they could be a living soul.
God is the author and creator of life. (Jesus is referred to as the author of life in Acts 3:15).
Where do we go next in our search to find God’s view? I did a quick google search for verses on the
sanctity of life. One site which is listed under the resources, gave 62 verses. And that’s not a complete list. Go
to the next book of the Bible, Exodus. READ Exodus 21:22-25. The unborn was viewed as having legal rights.
He/she had standing and there were consequences for harming the unborn.
God is extremely interested in what happens in the womb. In fact he makes plans based on it. The
prophet Isaiah was so captivated by the thought that he implored, “Listen to me, you islands, hear this, you
distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name…And
now the Lord says—he who formed me in the womb to be his servant” (Isaiah 49:1, 5). Isaiah wasn’t alone in
his understanding of the Lord’s attention. The next major prophet, Jeremiah, concurs. “The word of the Lord
came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I
appointed you as a prophet to the nations”” (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
Perhaps no voice is more eloquent than King David in his description. “For you created my inmost
being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the
secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the
days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16). Unless
we think this is entirely an Old Testament phenomenon, here’s one from the New Testament. When the apostle
Paul speaks of his call to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to the non-Jewish world, he says that the Lord put
his hand on him before he was born. “But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called
me by his grace” (Galatians 1:15).
Two of the most poignant references are from the Christmas story. READ Luke 1:29-31. Mary was
concerned, as we might suppose. This was an unplanned pregnancy on her part. It was an impossible situation.
The embryo that would be implanted in her by the Holy Spirit would be the divine Son of God, the Messiah.
This was startling news for the young virgin. She immediately went to see her cousin as the angel said
that aged Elizabeth was going to have a baby. READ Luke 1:39-45. John the Baptist was in his mother’s womb
at 6 months stage. He responded to the sound of Mary’s voice. He leaped for joy!
We can supplement the biblical view with lots of scientific facts about the development of the child in
the womb. The heart begins beating on average by day 22. Brain waves can be detected as early as 45 days.
The unborn child has its own unique set of fingerprints by 8 weeks. More of the time line of development can
be found at a variety of resources. I’ve included quite a few at the end to the message and in the message notes.
There are some tremendous resources with not only present the development of a child in the womb, but also
address how to present the biblical view of life.
The most amazing fact to me is that the embryo has its own distinct DNA at the moment of
conception. It doesn’t have the identical DNA of either. It is a combination of two people – the mother and
the father. It is its own life.
Elisabeth Cornwell is the executive director of the foundation created by the noted atheist Richard
Dawkins Foundation. She says, “There’s a war on the womb. As a secular pro-lifer, I believe my case is
scientifically and philosophically sound. Science concedes that human life begins at fertilization and it follows
that abortion is ageism and discrimination against a member of our own species.”
The Chip Ingram study on understanding abortion in the material the adult Sunday School class studied
was absolutely fascinating. I found the transcript of it from his website. In his presentation Chip cites the
Harvard Medical School. According to their research, “the four criteria to determine if a person was dead are,
one: no response to external stimuli. In other words they don’t respond to pain. Two: no spontaneous
movements or respiratory efforts. Three: no deep reflexes. And four: no brain activity by a flat
electroencephalogram. If you would say to someone, based on that criteria and did not tell them the age of a
pre-born baby at eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve weeks, they would say, “It’s alive. This is a human being.” Fully
human just not fully developed.”
It brings up the question: why do women have abortions? The Guttmacher Institute which is closely
tied with Planned Parenthood gave the following reason: women don’t want their lifestyle to change, it would
interfere with their plans, there would be financial strain, they don’t want people to know that had been engaged
in sexual activity, it would cause relationship problems. Very few have anything to do with health issues. Only
1% listed rape as a possible reason.
It is often heard that abortion is necessary when the life of the mother is at risk and the choice had to
be made between mother and the unborn. C. Everett Coop was the United States Surgeon General during the
Reagan administration and in pediatric practice for thirty-five years. His testimony is that in all of his time, with
the technology we have today there has never been a time where the life of the mother and the child had to be
chosen between.
As for the case of rape, the percent of rape cases that end in pregnancy isn’t the claimed 1% but .06 of
1%. That comes to about 750 per year.
The pro-choice position will say that there aren’t lingering effects from abortion. Ashley E. McGuire
reported on a story she had seen in a recent issue of Rolling Stone where singer Nicki Minaj reveals she had an
abortion as a teen. She quotes Minaj from the article, "It'd be contradictory if I said I wasn't pro-choice. I wasn't
ready. I didn't have anything to offer a child…I thought I was going to die. It was the hardest thing I have ever
gone through … it has haunted me all my life."
Minaj joins a list of other celebrity women who have recently opened up about their painful experience
with abortion. In her memoir, Unbreak My Heart, Toni Braxton, also revealed that her abortion filled her with
guilt and remorse. She writes that she felt like God was punishing her for her abortion when her subsequent
son was diagnosed with autism [Ashley E. McGuire, "Nicki Minaj's Eye-Opening Abortion Reveal,"
Acculturated blog (1-8-15)].
People do change their minds and come over to a prolife position. We had the Ray Comfort 180movie
in Sunday School. He was able to gently and lovingly engage people in conversation so that people within 45
seconds saw that abortion was killing a person and that they would as a result change to voting pro-life.
Karen Swallow Prior tells the story of Professor Chris Gabbard. He used to believe that some human
beings should be allowed or even encouraged to die. In his own words, Gabbard "grew up prizing intellectual
aptitude … and detesting 'poor mental functioning.'" This led Gabbard to adopt the ethics of the contemporary
philosopher Peter Singer, who argues that society has a right to exclude people who are not "persons." Singer
and Gabbard believed that severely disabled people should either be killed or allowed to die.
But the birth of Gabbard's son radically changed his viewpoint. During childbirth, his son experienced
permanent brain damage, and today he is a blind quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. Gabbard writes movingly
about the first time he saw his newborn son in the intensive-care unit: “After his birth…I was deeply
ambivalent, having been persuaded by [Peter Singer's] advocacy of…infanticide. But there was my son, asleep
or unconscious, on a ventilator, motionless under a heat lamp, tubes and wires everywhere, monitors alongside
his steel and transparent-plastic crib. What most stirred me was the way he resembled me. Nothing had prepared
me for this shock of recognition, for he was the boy in my own baby pictures, the image of me when I was an
infant.”
Prior says that today Gabbard is an advocate for the inherent dignity of severely disabled human beings.
After pointing to a 2010 Gallup poll that says that nearly half of Americans (46 percent) support assisted
suicides, Gabbard writes, "Many such well-meaning people would like to end my son's suffering, but they do
not stop to consider whether he is actually suffering. At times he is uncomfortable, yes, but the only real pain
here seems to be the pain of those who cannot bear the thought that people like [my son] exist" [Karen Swallow
Prior, "A Peter Singer Sympathizer Changes His Mind," Her.meneutics (12-7-10)].
It’s not only life in the womb that’s of interest to the Lord. You may have heard the expression, “From
the cradle to the grave.” Doesn’t quite go far enough. A better way would be, “From the womb to the tomb.”
Incidents of Lord’s concern for the entirety life. One of the first is in the book of Genesis where the
Lord gives the warning “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image
of God has God made mankind” (Genesis 9:6). Jesus encouraged his followers by reminding them of their
worth. “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very
hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6, 7).
He said that we aren’t to hate our brother. James warned about the way that shouldn’t use our tongues to
praise God and curse those who are made in the image of God, namely people, human life (James 3:9). We can
go to one of the more familiar passages of the Bible, Psalm 23. It traces God’s interaction with people and
ends with “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).
What do we do to align ourselves with God’s view of life?
Our primary concern needs to be that people will be found in the Book of Life (Revelation 20:12-15,
21:27). Tell them the Good News of Jesus. Their hearts and souls can be changed and with that comes a change
of how they view life.
I heard a message on Friday by Peter Briscoe on his radio program Telling the Truth that stressed that
point. He talked from Acts 16 about the various areas of life into which Paul inserted Christ. Lydia was a seller
of purple cloth which meant she was well off financially. Though she was a God-fearing woman, she couldn’t
become a full-fledged Jew because she was a woman – prejudice against women. Paul was followed by a girl
with the spirit of divination who made lots of money for her owners – slave trafficking. The people who hauled
Paul and Silas before the authorities and screamed “They’re Jews” with the implied “We’re not” -- racism. The
government leaders ordered Paul and Silas to be beaten -- government corruption. Paul and Silas were beaten
– police brutality. The jailer thought that Paul and all the prisoners had escaped the prison and thought the
only way out was to end his life – suicide. When the city officials wanted to privately release them instead of
publicly like they had been arrested -- stand up for your rights. That can be extended to standing up for the
rights of others.
The second thing is that there is forgiveness for those who have gone through an abortion, hated their
brother, mistreated those who are elderly, etc. Look at the sins he forgave in the life of Paul – hatred, false
teaching, conspiring to murder and murder as he voted for the death of Christians. The Lord forgives and seeks
to remove the burden of sin and guilt.
The Back Page – elaborate. Six areas – unplanned pregnancy, orphan, special needs, human trafficking,
poverty, and elderly.
We could summarize those ideas with five words -- pray, donate, vote, volunteer, adopt. Be involved
privately and publicly. Chip Ingram, “I don’t know what you need to do but there’s probably nothing more
important that you’ll do than stand for the cause of life.”
END: video “Dignity of Human Life” by BeAVoice.net.
Prayer: Forgive us for not standing up for the unborn. Forgive us for lack of concern for the helpless and can’t
defend themselves. Forgive us for not caring about others, for our callous treatment of those who are created
in your image, for the lack of respect that we give them, for the hurtful things we say about and to them.
RESOURCES:

Wintley Phipps, narration of The Creation -- youtube.com/watch?v=C-h4_VPXdoY

Wintley Phipps, narration of Go Down, Death --youtube.com/watch?v=DswouLmGjEY.

www.nationalsanctityoflifesunday.com/news/babys-mouth-on-her-mothers-face

answersingenesis.org/sanctity-of-life/

Be a Voice from Focus on the Family – (BeAVoice.net)

62 verses about the sanctity of life from: bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Sanctity-Of-Life

Wisconsin Family Action -- wifamilyaction.org

National Right to Life Committee -- nrlc.org

Liveaction.org

Counter Culture by David Platt

Ray Comfort – 180movie.com

Scott Klusendorf, Prolifetraining.com from Life Training Institute (5 Bad Ways to Argue, S L E D
illustration)

Chip Ingram, Culture Shock, Part 4: Understanding Abortion – A Thoughtful Analysis of an
Emotionally Explosive Issue, CD transcript, pages 56-75. (livingontheedge.org/docs/defaultdocument-library/culture-shock-series-transcripts---chip-ingram.pdf?sfvrsn=0)