A Person's a Person, No Matter How Small

The Tragedy of Abortion and the National Debate Over Life

If you want to, or if you would, open your Bibles, go ahead and open to the first chapter of Genesis. When we read, we'll be reading verse 26. On December 14, 2012, a young man with a history of mental illness fatally shot 20 school children and 6 adult staff members and wounded 2 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

As is to be expected, as a result of such a tragedy, the nation was stunned and was sent into a state of grief and mourning. The result has been a renewed debate about law and liberty. It has truly stirred the heart of the nation and it was, by everyone's estimation, a horrifying tragedy.

What most people do not consider, however, is that on December 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, whatever day you want to choose, approximately 3 ,300 lives were also destroyed. It goes for the 11th, the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, whatever day in December, November, whatever you want to choose.

Every single day in the United States, there are approximately 3 ,300 living babies whose lives are taken in what is called the pro-choice or pro-abortion movement. That amounts to approximately 23 ,000 per week, approximately 100 ,000 per month, and 1 .2 million every year.

Over 30 years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States of America handed down their infamous decision in the Roe versus Wade case, making abortion on demand a legal reality in this nation and putting into motion the destruction of, since then, over 40 million human babies.

In the past few weeks, I've been listening to a book. The book was entitled Compelling Interests, the History of Roe versus Wade. The audio version of the book, which I enjoyed listening to it because it actually had the actual recordings from the Supreme Court.

You got to hear the justices speak. You got to hear the attorneys speak from their own voices, and you could tell at times from the inflection in their voice the attitude with which they held this particular issue.

And I was amazed at the absolute lack in application of common sense, which has led us to this national tragedy. They argued, the title of the book is Compelling Interests, and they argued that the state has no compelling interest.

No compelling interest in whether or not a woman has an abortion, and that the baby in the womb is simply a subhuman, non-personal growth, which the mother should be at liberty to have removed, similar to an appendix.

If the appendix was causing discomfort, none of us would have a problem with a woman going and having her appendix removed if it were causing discomfort. So too they say about the child. If it is a discomfort, if it is a problem, then it simply needs to be removed and discarded.

When we consider the horrid conditions of the concentration camps under the dictator Adolf Hitler, most of us get understandably upset. And most sensible people see what happened under Hitler and understand it as one of the most appalling events in the history of the German nation.

Approximately six million lives were exterminated under Hitler's rule, which is obviously an extremely high amount. However, since the adoption of Roe versus Wade, America has seen six times as many lives destroyed under the banner of pro-choice.

And when we really sit and consider the sheer numbers that are involved in this issue, it is really staggering. It takes you aback. Most people don't even believe that it's in the thousands every day.

But it is an incontrovertible number. No one disputes. This morning we're going to examine the tragedy of abortion from the perspective of the Bible. And the reason for this is simple. It doesn't matter what my opinion or your opinion is on this subject.

What matters is what God has commanded regarding the sacred nature of human life. It is God who gives life and it is God who gives us the foundation for our ethics. It really doesn't matter our opinion.

We are going to see how this action of abortion is not just an affront to our human sensibilities, but it is also an affront to the very nature and person of God himself. Now, before we read the scripture, I want to make a short note.

I believe that the vast majority of us here today, if not all of us, are opposed to abortion on demand. As a church, we have supported pro-life causes and we continue to do so even to today. I ask you then, however, that you not simply turn off your minds simply because you agree.

Stay engaged, as I have found that many people who believe in the right to life do not always know what the Bible says about this subject. And if we're going to be opposed to abortion on demand, then we ought to have a biblical foundation for our beliefs.

We need to know what the Bible says on the subject. It's not enough to believe it, we need to know why we believe it. Likewise, if you stand on the opposite position this morning, if you have come this morning with an attitude which is in opposition to what is being preached, I pray that your mind and heart would be opened as well as you hear what the Word of God says.

With that, let us stand with our Bibles open to Genesis chapter 1. We will begin by reading only this one verse. Then God said, Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

And I want to read verse 27 as well. So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. Father God, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for its relevance to this important subject that we are studying this morning.

And I pray Your mercy be upon us as we seek to engage what has become a truly difficult cultural problem in our land. I pray that You would keep me from error as I always ask, O Lord, as I preach. And I pray that You would open the hearts of the people to the truth.

And that You would be glorified in all that is said today. In Jesus' name, Amen. The Bible calls debt a curse, and children a blessing. But in our culture, we apply for the curse, and we deny the blessing.

That was Doug Phillips who said that. I want to begin again by saying that the opposition of abortion is a subject that has been, and likely will always be, a subject which is close to my own heart. As a parent of two adopted children, and now one child who was born naturally, I am just in awe of the value of family, and how much love can be shared even between people who do not share a natural bloodline.

And I have tried my best, as I always do, to keep my personal feelings and emotional appeals out of this message. As I was writing this opening paragraph, I was confronted with all the stories that I wanted to tell of times when in my ministry and in my personal relationships with friends and family, I've had to deal with this particular issue.

The pleas and cries of my wife and I when we have spoken to women who were planning to have abortions, and begged them not to, and promised them that we would adopt the children, and yet they did go ahead with the abortion anyway.

I mean, this is where we come from. And I could talk about how I worked in the funeral business for years, both in high school and after high school, and there are laws after laws after laws which are designed to protect the integrity of dead bodies.

I was told when I worked in the funeral business, if the funeral home catches fire, it is your responsibility to make sure that all of the bodies are out, because the law protects dead bodies. But the law will not protect the living child in the womb.

Every day, living babies inside their mother's wombs are killed with the full support of the law, and such things do cause me to get quite emotional. However, my experiences and my feelings on this issue, again, do not matter.

What matters is what God's Word says. As I've said before, when it comes to the truth, my opinion doesn't enter into the equation. God's Word is the truth, and it must be the standard for any topic, especially one as ethically divisive as this one.

So this morning, I want to seek to answer the important questions about abortion from God's Word. But before you can even go there, you have to establish a baseline. Well, what are the questions? What is really at stake?

What is it that people are confused about? And what is it that causes people to stand on one side or the other? Well, I think that there are two questions that really frame the whole discussion. The first question is, is human life itself sacred?

Is it sacred? Is it sanctified? Is it valuable? Above and beyond any other type of life, is it special? And the second is, when does life begin? Either one of those questions, if we vacillate on either one, then we could easily fall on the side of those who would support the killing of an unborn child.

Because if life's not special, then it doesn't matter. And if life doesn't begin until after the child leaves the womb, then it's still up for debate. So I believe that those two questions are the most relevant in this issue.

And it boils down to the question of, is abortion the destruction of a living human person? And if so, does that matter? Does that really matter? Now, other issues come up. Other than those two simple questions, other issues do arise, but they rise or fall with the answer to the foundational question.

Because one of the questions that often comes up, and it was foundational in the Roe versus Wade case, and that is, what about the right to privacy? In fact, the right to privacy is what they finally ended up hooking the Roe versus Wade case on.

That what happens between a doctor and his patient is private and should not be, the state has no compelling interest. However, this argument is predicated on the belief that abortion is not the taking of a human life.

If abortion were the taking of a human life, then this argument would not make any sense because it wouldn't matter if it was done in private or public. We do not differentiate between public and private murder.

Neither would this be an issue if all agreed that abortion were the taking of an actual human life. Privacy would not even come into play. Then there's the question of choice. And by the way, that is admittedly a word that was trumped up so that they could replace pro-abortion, which did not go very well as they were taking polls.

Nobody wanted to be pro-abortion. They had to find another, and everybody in America thinks that we should have the right to choose. So they went with pro-choice because that sounded much more American.

They had to find a word that they could sanctify the abortion with. And they said, what about the woman's right to choose? That's often touted as a reason for abortion. Yet, in the same way if abortion is the taking of a human life, then the right to choose really does not come into view.

I cannot choose to end a human life just because that human life inconvenience is my own. I can't. Likewise, people say, well, it's making a choice about their own body. We don't let people legally make every choice they want to about their own body.

You cannot commit suicide legally. And that's a choice that only affects your body, technically. But we don't allow those decisions. In fact, if somebody attempts suicide, it's a criminal offense. So most of the arguments that surround the abortion debate really don't make much sense when they're looked at logically.

Most people don't consider the infant's right to life. If it's a living human person, then shouldn't it have that right? This is why I believe all the issues surrounding the question of abortion are secondary to the question of, is the baby in the womb a living human person, and by extension, is abortion the destruction of an actual human life?

Thus again, I believe the foundational questions are as follows. Is human life sacred, and when does it begin? We're going to seek to answer those questions from Scripture. We'll begin with the first one.

Is human life sacred? Does the Bible give us an answer to that question? Is human life special? Is it sacred? Is it sanctified? Remember the word sanctified means to be set apart, to be different, to be other.

God is holy. He is other. Well, human life itself also is sanctified. It's set apart by God. Now, some may see this as somewhat of an inane question. Is human life sacred? Most people would agree, at least conceptually, that human life itself is sacred.

We see this in events that happen in our world. When a group of miners is caught in a mining shaft, and they're caught in an accident, we wait with bated breath, hoping for their survival. Six miners in a hole.

We pray for them. We hope for them that they're going to get out. Why? Because life is sacred. When we see pictures on television of people overseas who live in absolute squalor, and they have not clean drinking water, and they don't have food to eat, and we see these children whose ribs are showing, and their little tummies are protruding, not because they're full of food, but because that's the way the body reacts to starvation.

And we see these children starving. What is our natural reaction? Well, we feel sadness. We feel horror for their plight. Why? Because they're human beings, and their suffering in life is sacred. But why?

Why is human life sacred? Well, the answer is right here in Genesis chapter 1, our opening text for this morning. It says, Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. And then in verse 27, So God created man in his own image.

Right there, in this initial introduction to the creation of humankind, we see a particular stamp that has been placed upon the condition of man that is not placed on the condition of any other creation in all of creation.

It is the stamp which is referred to sometimes as the Imago Dei, or the image of God. This does not mean that human beings are little gods or micro-deities. What it means is that we, above all other creatures, have been endowed with certain characteristics of our Creator.

We have the ability for intellect, for emotion, for wisdom, for creativity, that is not only above other creatures in the created order, but it is a different class entirely. It's not that we're just smarter than dogs and cats.

It's not that we're just smarter than zebras and horses. We actually are in a different category of creation. We're the only ones that have been stamped with the Imago Dei, the image of God. I laughingly say, because people say, Well, look at that monkey.

That's proof of creation because he's using a stick as a tool, and that proves that he's now in his tool-making phase of the evolutionary process. Hogwash. It's absolute hogwash. It's an attempt to make you see something that's not there.

When the reality is, human beings are able to create entire symphonies. You show me a group of orangutans doing what our band did this morning. I will be then impressed. I'm serious. You look at the absolute.

It's not a one or two step difference. It's an absolute different class of being. It's a being that has the capacity for intellect to get to the moon. It's the being who has the capacity for intellect to create the most powerful machines in the world.

It doesn't follow. When people say, man is just the most advanced animal. Hogwash. Man is the only created being that has been stamped with the image of God. That's what makes us special. That's what makes us different.

And it's what is inherently different and special about the nature of mankind. We have been created in the image of God, and just because mankind has tarnished the image of God through falling into sin, that does not mean the image has been removed.

Oh, no, no. Don't think that just because we fell into sin that the image of God was removed. Well, brother, how do you know that? Genesis chapter 9. When Noah comes off the ark. Genesis 9 and verse 6.

When Noah comes off the ark, he is given a command from God. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image. By the way, that's the institution of capital punishment for capital crimes.

Crimes that if a person takes the life of an individual, and some people say, well, all that means is he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. No, that is not what that means. That is in the imperative.

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. It's the statement of the imperative. This is what is to be done to him. He who is the murderer is himself forfeiting the life. Why? Because he has taken the life of one who is an image bearer of God.

It's very simple. If a person willfully and unjustly takes the life of another, the only rightful fitting punishment is that his life be forfeited as a result. It's teaching us about the sanctity of human life.

Because that's why the penalty is so high. And that's something we've gotten away from in this nation. We don't believe the penalty for murder should be high anymore. We don't even put the death penalty up anymore.

Because we don't value human life. We value the life of the criminal more than the life of the victim. The reality is very simple. Human life is sacred. And that very fact alone, that we are image bearers of God, is enough to prove to us that human life is of great value, that it is sacred.

However, as I said earlier, that's not the only question at hand. Some might even argue that that's irrelevant, as most would agree that human life is sacred to some degree. But I would argue that it's extremely relevant.

It's relevant because when we talk about abortion, we're talking about destroying something. Don't ever let that leave your mind. Any conversation you have about abortion with anyone, no matter what their political or ethical position on the issue, there is no question that when an abortion happens, something is destroyed.

Something dies. That's not debatable. And if we are destroying a living human person, then we are talking about destroying that which God has created in His own image. And you see, we've decided to throw caution to the wind and err on the side of destruction, rather on the side of saving life.

The level of value that God places on human life, the level of value makes this subject even more important for us to consider. It's bad enough to be wrong about secondary issues. It's bad enough to be wrong about non-essential issues.

And we all have non-essential theological issues, which we are probably wrong about. Questions about one thing about the Bible or something else. But it is terrible to be wrong about those things which are of great importance.

And when we are dealing with the subject of human life, we are dealing with a subject of vast importance. So the question then has to be, since we all agree, at least in part, that human life is sacred, the next question is the more important of the two.

When Life Begins in the Womb

When does life begin? Because the truth is, if we're not dealing with human life, if the baby in the womb is no different than an appendage or a gallbladder, then what does it matter? If it's like a tumor growing inside that should just be cut out and discarded, what does it matter?

So we have to ask the question, when does life begin? And I want to answer this question by admitting, first, that the Bible never explicitly says that life begins at conception. However, even though something is not said explicitly, it can be said implicitly, inferred by examining the Scripture on the subject.

So we're going to look at some texts of Scripture that give us the inference that what is within the mother's womb from conception is an actual human life. The most famous we've already read this morning, but I'll invite you to turn back there, Psalm 139 speaks of God's relationship with the baby in the womb.

Psalm 139, 13 -16 says, For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, referencing their God, seeing the child as it's being formed, knitted together.

In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me when yet there was none of them. I had no days yet, but yet you already had written them in your book. Now, this verse does not say exactly when life begins.

However, it does speak poetically of God's intricate care in forming the baby in the womb of the mother. Furthermore, it speaks of God's having a relationship with the fetus while still in the womb. God's seeing the unformed substance as a life.

You see, God sees us as personal beings before we were ever born. This is why he could say to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1 -5, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.

I appointed you a prophet to the nations. In this sense, we see the personal nature of the baby in the womb as God speaks of it as a life. Someone may say, well, Pastor, we know that the baby in the womb is alive, but we don't know if it's actual human life or if it is potential human life.

And that has become somewhat of a buzzword. It might not be actual life, it's just potential life, sort of like an egg. Well, that's potential life. However, God's law does not relegate the baby in the womb to simply potential life.

The baby in the womb is given the right of personal protection under God's law. A right that is never given to potential life. Turn in your Bible to Exodus 21. Exodus 21 and verse 22. When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out, but there is no harm.

This is essentially saying if they strike a woman and it causes an early labor, but that the child comes out without any harm. The one who hit her shall surely be fined as the woman's husband shall impose on him and he shall pay as the judge has determined.

But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life. That which is in the womb is life. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

That baby is given personal, individual, protective rights. You don't give that to potential life. You give that to actual life. And the great irony, by the way, is that there is a version of this law in the United States.

If a woman is attacked while pregnant, then the child, if the child is lost because of the attack, the man can be charged with the loss of the life of that child. What is the difference between a man who attacks a woman and causes her to miscarry a child and a man who, on purpose, uses a medical tool to terribly and horribly end the life of a child?

Desire. One woman wants her child and thus it's worth keeping. One woman doesn't and so it's not. You know, what we've done in this nation is we've started treating children like real estate. The only thing that matters in real estate is location and desirability.

So too with children. Location, inside the womb, okay to kill. Outside the womb, not okay to kill. Desirability. If you want it, then if you kill it, it's a crime. If you don't want it, there's no crime and you can kill it.

It's a national tragedy. It's absolutely terrible. So the Bible makes it clear that the baby inside the womb is a life worth protecting at least, which means it's an actual life, not just a potential life.

Because if you kill a man, you can't say, well, he could have potentially had 20 children, so you can't charge him for the potential life of those 20 children. But the Bible says if a man strikes a woman while she's pregnant, then he can be charged with that life of that child.

So that's actual, not potential. I believe the actual life of the child in the womb is also illustrated very well in the story of John the Baptist. Remember when John the Baptist was in his mother's womb?

And Mary went to see her cousin Elizabeth. And the text says to us what? That the baby in the womb left her joy. I've never seen an appendix leap for joy. Impersonal matter does not leap for joy. Impersonal beings are incapable of the emotion of joy.

But the Bible tells us that while in the womb, John the Baptist expressed joy. By the way, linguistic point to be made. In the Greek language, as well as in the Hebrew language, a baby, whether it is prenatal or postnatal, the same word for baby is used.

It doesn't have that word, that whole idea of fetus, embryo, zygote, which is a joke anyway. It's a zygote and then it's a fetus. It's a zygote that's an embryo, then it's a fetus. All that is simply different stages of human development.

The same way I say newborn, infant, toddler, child, adolescent, teenager, adult, senior adult. It's just different stages of human development. So when you hear somebody call it a fetus, it is a human being.

I said in the beginning I was going to just say what the Bible said on the subject. And I've stayed true to that, but I want to make this point. Science does not disagree with what the Bible says. Science agrees with what the Bible says.

And we do at times need to listen to science, not because it is the authority, but because it can re-encourage us as to what the Bible is saying is how we see things in the natural world. What we know without any doubt scientifically is this.

All of the genetic information, the entire genetic code that generates the particular characteristics of a human being is established at the very moment of conception. From that point the growing being is not just a part of the mother, but is an individual genetic person.

The baby has his own DNA and even his own blood type, which is often different and sometimes even incompatible with the mother's. Within 18 to 25 days there is a discernible heartbeat. Within 8 weeks brain waves and fingerprints are present.

Within 12 to 13 weeks the baby in the womb sucks his thumb and he recoils from pain. One pro-abortion person, it's not pro-choice, it's a ridiculous term. One pro-abortion advocate said that a fetus is no more than an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm.

Another described an aborted baby as just so much domestic sewage. Well, first of all, those statements had no intellectual aid to the discussion and I have never seen sewage with a heartbeat. It's lies and we have been lied to and as a nation we have been coerced and confused by the lies.

There is a film, the film is entitled The Silent Scream. I don't recommend that you watch it, I watched it as research and it is a sonogram image of a child being aborted and you see the child recoil in pain.

You cannot hear anything because that's why the movie is called The Silent Scream. The abortionists will not let that film be shown because it destroys their argument that this is nothing but a mass of protoplasm.

They call it propaganda because they don't want people to see what actually happens. Some people say it's not a baby, it's a fetus. That's a lie. It's just another designation of human life. In the final analysis, the evidence is very clear that the baby within the womb is a living human person.

The Bible and science evidence both support the truth that the baby in the womb is a living human person and because of this we have no reason to deny that abortion is tantamount to murder and as such we are responsible as a nation for 4 ,000, or 3 ,300 rather, abortions happening every day in our land and it is a genuine holocaust.

And I realize that many people have arguments against what I've said today. I realize there will be people who say, well wait a minute now, what if the woman is going to die as a result of her pregnancy?

I want to read to you from C. Everett Koop, former U .S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. I am not a doctor, however he obviously was a doctor. This is what he said. Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smokescreen.

In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arrive that threaten the mother's health, the doctor will either induce labor or perform a cesarean section.

His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby's life is never willfully destroyed because the mother's life is in danger. I didn't make that up. This man, 36 years as a pediatric physician and former U .S. Surgeon General.

The biggest problem is not that we don't know the facts. Our biggest problem is that we have accepted a culture of death rather than a culture of life. And we have begun to see children as burdens rather than as blessings.

The Bible tells us that children are a blessing. It encourages us to have our quiver full. Doesn't it, Roy? And it's just so disheartening to hear the sitting president of the United States stand up and say that he needs to keep abortion legal because, and I quote, if my daughters ever make a mistake, I don't want them to be punished with a baby.

End quote. This is where we have come. And as a result, the goal of the preservation of life has taken a backseat to the goal of personal pleasure. We live in an epicurean society where pleasure is paramount.

And inconvenience must be destroyed. I pray God have mercy on our nation. Not because we deserve his mercy, but because without it we stand precariously close to the precipice of his wrath. The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Assyria and Babylon, and even in Nazi Germany, pale in comparison to the massive loss of life that is going on in our country every day under the guise of pro-choice.

And only if God's Spirit moves and brings revival will we see this horrible atrocity stop. Without a moving of the Spirit of God, there is no hope. For only God's Spirit can change the hearts of men and women.

And I would encourage us all to not stop praying. God can bring revival if his men will stand and preach the truth. If his men will stand and proclaim his Word. And not be moved by the winds of politics, but be moved by the Spirit of God.

Change will not come from the halls of Congress. Change will come from the pulpits. So let's pray. Our Father and our God, we are saddened at the state of this nation that we live in. We are discouraged by decisions which have been made by our leaders.

We are discouraged by so many in our land who choose to support this atrocity, this Holocaust. And Lord, we don't judge them. For we know only you can judge them. And your Word tells us, Lord, that those who do not live in faith, this is a natural thing.

That they would have a desire for darkness and not for light. But we do pray, Lord, that light would begin to shine in our world again. That light would shine in our nation. That it would uncover these atrocities.

And Lord God, that we would see your Gospel remind us again just how precious life is. Remind us every day, O Lord, of the sanctity of life. In Jesus' name we pray. Stand with us now as we sing. And if you have a need for prayer, please come.