Introduction
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision on the case Jane Roe (Norma L. McCorvey), with a 7 to 2 majority voting to strike down Texas abortion laws. The RoeCourt deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution (14th amendment), thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to the standard of strict scrutiny (which means the court believed the right to abortion was clearly protected by the Constitution.)
14th Amendment Section 1 – All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Since the Supreme Court handed down its decision, over 56 million babies have been killed, more than the combined casualties of every war the U.S. has been involved in. In 2008 alone there were 1.2 million abortions performed. In the African-American community over 50% of pregnancies were terminated via abortion.
So, what do we do in time like this? What do we do when even today 3,288 babies will be murdered? What do we do when thousands upon thousands of mothers and fathers, perhaps some even here today, live guilt-ridden lives because they were accomplices in the killing of their babies? We turn to the Lord who is the judge of all the earth and who will do right. And the first thing I want us to understand is that there is forgiveness.
I. There Is Forgiveness
A. Through faith in Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness.
B. If you trust in him, Christ has covered all your sins including this one.
C. I want to read to you a series of passages that speaks of God's forgiveness in Christ Jesus without commenting much.
Ps. 103:10-14 – … he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
1 Jn. 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Rom. 8:1 – There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
II. Second: The Reason Abortion Is Wrong
A. The reason abortion is wrong (sinful) is not because the Constitution of the United States of America says so.
B. Abortion is wrong because God in his Word says so.
C. Genesis 9:1-17 will help us see that.
D. First, I want you to notice the perpetual, covenantal structure of what God is saying in this chapter.
1. Verses 1-7 are sandwiched and are part of God's making this covenant with Noah as the representative of all creation.
2. 8:20-22 introduction of the covenant
3. 9:8-17 repetition of the covenant, especially v. 12.
4. Do we still have seasons? Does the rainbow still appear after rain? Is still turned toward God as a reminder that the keeping of this one is on God?
5. Then, whatever 9:6-7 means continues to be true today and will continue to be true forever.
E. Second, I want to explain to you what is going on in 9:1-7.
1. In a sense God is re-creating the earth after destroying by the flood.
2. Notice how he points Noah back to the creation of the humanity by repeating the creation mandate of being fruitful and multiplying –1, 7. This shows that God is about life not death.
3. He also reaffirms man's dominion over creation though now reflecting on the effect of sin – 2 (the idea of dread or fear is introduced).
4. Then he says that it is ok to eat of any animal – 3-4
a. I don't think it necessarily teaches that humans did not eat meat prior to this time (burnt sacrifices in chpt. 8).
b. It does, however, emphasize the dominion of man over the animals and that animal life is not on par with human life.
c. There is one restriction: do not eat the blood because it is the symbol of life – again God about life not death, 4.
1) Blood pictured as the source of life throughout the Scriptures.
2) Ultimately pointing to the blood of Jesus Christ, which was poured so that we could have life eternal.
Heb. 13:20-21 – Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
5. Though it is good to responsibly manage the animals and eat them, it is not ok to kill people, 5-6.
a. God says that humans are not a type of animal.
b. He says there are animals and there are humans; two different groups.
c. If an animal takes a human life, then its life will be taken from it.
d. If a person kills another person, then his/her life must be given as a payment for the life taken – called Lex Talionis (law of retribution)
1) Before I lose some of you to rabbit trails, let me say that this is a general statement that is qualified by the Scriptures.
2) It obviously does not forbid capital punishment.
3) When we look at what God commanded his people to do later on, we see it does not speak of all war killing.
4) It does not speak of self-defense because the Mosaic Law says that protecting yourself and your family is a duty.
5) So it speaks of what we would call murder: the killing of somebody without any clear, biblical warrant, which is exactly what an abortion is.
6) God is the giver and the taker of life, so only what he says about giving and taking of life matters.
Dt. 32:39 – Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.
1 Sam. 2:6 – The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.
e. Notice the reason for this principle in verse 6 – humanity (general word ADAM) was created in God's imagine
F. Humanity was created in the image of God
1. Do you remember the differences between the creation of everything else and the creation of man?
2. Each day of creation follows the same pattern
a. An announcement – "and God said…"
b. A command – "let there be…"
c. A report – "and it was so"
d. An evaluation – "God said it was good"
e. A temporal reference – "…evening and morning were the nth day"
3. But when it is time to create man, the pattern changes a bit.
a. It is no longer the impersonal "let there be," but the personal "Let us create man."
b. There is a statement of design and purpose: "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 1:26
c. There was a special act: breathed into man the breath of life, 2:7.
d. Now creation wasn't just good, but it was very good, 1:31.
4. So what differentiates humans from all creation is that we were created in God's imagine.
5. The key, the reason, the sole foundation for the sanctity of human life is that God made man in his own image.
"No one can be injurious to his brother without wounding God himself." Calvin
6. An attack on humanity is an attack on God.
7. So, what is it?
a. First, I want you to notice that it was something man was created with and continues to possess.
1) Remember that Genesis 9 is on this side of the Fall.
Jam. 3:9 – With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God.
2) So God's image in us was distorted and corrupted by the Fall, but it remains in us.
b. Second, it is in all humanity
1) Male and female created in God's image.
2) All colors – racism is the same kind of sin as abortion.
Acts 17:26 – And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings….
c. Third, let me tell you a few things it is not.
1) It is not the ability to reason – common but dangerous mistake
a) If the image of God is the ability to reason, to think, we would have to say that the absence of the ability to reason marks a being who is not made in God's image.
b) This understanding would make it logically ok to kill severely handicapped children or any one in a vegetative state, or with severe dementia as patients with advanced Alzheimer's disease.
2) It is not a spark of divinity
a) We are not part God and part human.
b) That is why God the Son had to take full humanity upon himself: because those he was going to save were fully human.
3) It is not having a physical body – God is spirit and souls in heaven continue to be humans.
d. Being made in the image of God is being made a spiritual being.
"Man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature, of the breath of God by which the being, formed from the dust of the earth, became a living soul. The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man…" Keil & Delitzsch
1) The ability to relate to God, not just as creature to creator, or servant to master, but as children to a Father.
2) The possession of an eternal soul that will forever be with God or forever rot in hell.
3) The ability to know God and be known by God.
4) I believe our Confession of Faith reflect this understanding.
WCF 10:3(Effectual Calling) – Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.
G. Did God mean it to apply this image business to babies in the womb?
1. The Mosaic Law made provision to the baby in the womb
Ex. 21:22-23 – 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 imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
2. The Scriptures address the baby in the womb as a person from the moment of conception.
Ps. 51:5 – Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Ps. 139:13-14 – For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.
Jer. 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.
H. So the baby in the womb is a human being (not a mass of tissue) made from conception in the image of God, whose life is sacred in God's sight.
III. What Do We Do?
A. The first thing we need to do is repent from our sin of indifference.
1. The Church of Jesus Christ in the United States today does not think this is a big deal.
2. We talk about it.
3. We may cry a little when we hear stories about it.
4. But we really don't thin it is a big spiritual deal.
5. For example, if every Christian in the United State took the time this week to contact that locally elected representative expressing their opinions regarding issues of life, do you think that may have some sort of impact? Only 25% of evangelicals that could vote actually vote.
B. Second we must consider part of our spiritual duty to work against this evil in whatever way we righteously can.
Pro. 24:11-12 – Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, "Behold, we did not know this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
"Deliver… those being taken… by someone or something that has taken possession of them and controls them against their will… to death…." Bruce Waltke in The Book of Proverbs
Pro. 31:8-9 – Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.
1. It is a dangerous thing not to stand up for human life.
a. If the righteous does not stand for the one unjustly threatened by death, God will not stand for him, 12.
b. Ignorance as an excuse for inaction is just that – an excuse that the Lord will not accept.
"In whatever way or in whatever place the lawless pervert justice, the disciple must show his mettle and intervene and not act cowardly, nor ignore or pass by the wrongdoing…." Bruce Waltke in The Book of Proverbs
2. What are things we can do?
a. Praying
b. Volunteering at CareNet
c. Learning how to counsel women
d. Adopting
e. Opening your house to a pregnant woman
f. Giving money and don't give money: United Way, Susan G. Komen Foundation
g. Vote
h. Call your representatives
i. Sign petitions
C. The ultimate solution to this problem is the gospel of Jesus Christ
1. Laws are good, but they don't do much for the heart.
2. If the Church of Jesus Christ is excited about the gospel of Jesus Christ, living and proclaiming it, there is nothing that the Supreme Court can do, or the president.
3. It we, sitting here today, commit ourselves to the discipling of the nations, there will be no Planned Parenthood clinic in Olympia, in Thurston County, in Washington State.
4. And it all begins with Christ having first place in all things.
a. The way we relate to one another
b. The way we raise our children
c. The way we love our spouse
d. All Gospel living will spill out into the defeat of elective abortion at the heart level.
Conclusion
Christ is king and he reigns through his church. May he use us to rescue unborn children, who were made in his image, from the jaws of death. Amen!
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-plea-for-life-gen-91-17.html
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