Human Life is Sacred

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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5.
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I want to go ahead and add a note to today's message.
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When I sit down and write my messages, sometimes I'm not certain how long one is going to go.
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And I want to just say about today's message that I have decided to make it two parts, because I think if I were to try to get through all of this text in one day, in this church, we try to preach verse by verse.
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And right now we're preaching verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount.
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If I were to try to get through all of the verses today, I think that we would be here past dinner time.
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So I'm going to try to hold this and break it into two sermons just to let everyone know.
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So if you're here today, I expect you back next week to at least hear the second half of today's message.
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There's a famous quote about the Bible.
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Many of you have probably heard it.
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It's been attributed to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Mark Twain.
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And the quote is this.
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It is not the parts of the Bible that I do not understand that worry me.
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It's the parts of the Bible that I do understand, but do not want to obey that worry me.
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It's not the parts that I don't understand.
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It's the parts that I know and understand, but I don't want to do.
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I wanted to begin my message with that quote, because we're about to embark in our study of the Sermon on the Mount on the meat of the message.
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Jesus Christ is teaching His apostles about the law of God.
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He's talking about the fact that it is precious, that not one iota, not one dot is going to pass away from the law until everything is fulfilled.
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The last few weeks, we've been talking about how the law is fulfilled in Christ for the believer, that Christ fulfills all of the ceremonial laws, all of the governmental laws, all of the moral laws.
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All of those are fulfilled completely in the person of Jesus Christ.
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If you are in Christ, there is no longer any condemnation for you.
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As the Word of God says, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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This we know.
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And those who are outside of Christ sit justly under the condemnation of the law, which is why we are always to the world, shouting to the world, saying, come to Christ, come in, come to the shelter, the one, the only one who can save us, come into the ark of Christ.
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Because if we are not in Christ, we will be in the world, which is steadily and hastily moving towards the judgment of God.
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So Christ is talking about the law.
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He's talking about the value of it.
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And He's talking about the misunderstandings of it within the Jewish culture of His day.
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Remember, Jesus is living in a day where there were men called Pharisees.
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There were men called scribes.
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These were learned men.
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These were men who had spent their entire lives studying the text of the Bible.
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They had spent their entire lives writing the text of the Bible.
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That's what a scribe was.
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He would write the text of the Bible.
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They didn't have the printing press.
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They didn't have Xerox copiers.
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They had men whose job it was to write these things down.
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And He's speaking to them and He's telling them that, yes, they knew the law, but they did not understand the law, that they had missed vital sections of the law.
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They had understood the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law.
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And as a result, they had given up the true meaning of the law.
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And throughout this, Jesus said some things that are very hard to hear.
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He said some things that we will see in the weeks to come will cut us right to the quick, will cut us in half and lay us bare before the world.
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He says, you know what? Murder is wrong.
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You get that.
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But so is anger.
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He says, you know what? Adultery is wrong.
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But so is lust.
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Vengeance is wrong.
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Not just outright attitudes of hatred.
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He says these things and all of us look at it and say, He's expanding the law, but He's not expanding anything.
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All He is doing is showing the real meaning of it to us all.
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And they're hard to hear.
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But as I said with the opening quote, it's not hard to hear because it's hard to understand.
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It's hard to hear because we don't want to hear it.
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So this time to come starting today and in the weeks to come, there are going to be some times where we're going to have to be forced to look introspectively.
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We're going to have to be forced to put away our flesh and have a total dependence on the spirit.
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There are going to be times when we may leave this place weeping.
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And on that, I would be encouraged because the word of God should lay us open.
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It should make us bear before ourselves.
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It should make us have to see ourselves with new eyes because that's what the word of God does.
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If all we do is have our ears tickled, if all we do is come in and get some pseudo self-help message about some deity somewhere that loves us so much and we don't understand the true word of God and we don't understand the God who inspired that word, then all of our religion is useless nonsense.
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We have to hear the truth.
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It must be open for us and it must be laid out for us so that we will then be cut to the heart, open and laid bare so that we will see ourselves for what we truly are and truly call out for a savior.
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People ask all the time, well, are you saved? Saved from what? If you've never heard about sin, if you've never heard about judgment, then how could you truly be saved because you know not from what you have been saved? We have to hear these things.
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We have to open the word of God and we have to be honest with it.
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So that's what we're going to do in the weeks to come.
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As I said today, we're going to begin with looking at Christ's words about murder.
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And I pray that as we open this and we start looking at the ethic of the kingdom and that's what this is, this is the ethics of the kingdom that we will begin to see better ourselves in need of a savior and what Christ has called all believers to live in as followers of him.
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So I encourage you now to read with me.
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We're going to stand for the reading of the word of God as we do to give it its due honor and reverence.
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We're going to read chapter five and we're going to read all of the verses, even though we're not going to get to them all today.
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I want you to at least get a context of what we're reading so that we'll know in the weeks to come what we're going to be studying.
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Matthew chapter five and verse twenty one says, you have heard it said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
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But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
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Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.
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So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.
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Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you were going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison.
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Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
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Our father and our God, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you for this opportunity to examine it together.
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We pray, oh, Lord, that first and foremost, you would keep me from error as I am certainly a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
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I pray for the congregation.
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I pray for their hearts.
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I pray that you would open the hearts to the truth and that your Holy Spirit would be the instructor today and that he would teach us about your word and your will.
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And as we look at the subject, a subject so heinous is murder.
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Father, help us to understand that there are things in this world that are going on all around us that are heinous.
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And yet, in many ways, the church has kept its eyes closed.
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Help us to open our eyes to see.
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So that we would be willing and able, oh, God, to pray for the repentance of a nation.
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And in Jesus name we pray, amen.
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Is he saying hi to daddy? I can hear it.
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When we look over this section of Jesus' teaching, Jesus breaks down to us three things in a row.
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He first gives us the letter of the law.
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He then gives us the spirit of the law.
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He then provides for us an application of the law.
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And again, that was the original sermon for today.
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I was going to show the letter of the law, the spirit of the law and the application of the law.
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But I've taken a step back and this morning I want to look just at the letter of the law.
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Now, Pastor, why would you do something like that? Well, to be honest with you, I have a great concern that in our day and time we have stopped being concerned even about the letter of the law.
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That before we even engage in regard to the spirit of the law, because Christ expands out to say that not only is the letter important, but the spirit itself is important.
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We have given up even on the letter of the law as a people to our shame.
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And it is our shame.
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So this morning we're going to focus on verse 21.
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Jesus said, you have heard it said you have heard that it is it was said to those of old you shall not murder.
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And whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
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Beloved, of course, you know that that comes out of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.
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It is the sixth commandment, thou shalt not commit murder.
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Many of you have on your walls at home a placard that has engraving.
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My grandmother had one.
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It was brass engraved with the Ten Commandments and the sixth commandment glowing strong for hers said thou shall not kill.
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Beloved, that's a wrong interpretation.
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We're going to talk about that in a little while.
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But still, we all know that the commandment is there.
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We all know that the commandment thou shall not commit murder is part of the Ten Commandments.
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But I want to ask a question and I want to try to force you to think deeply about this this morning.
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Why is it? That murder is so evil.
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Now, some of you may think that's an inane question.
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You may right away be thinking, boy, I didn't realize I got out of bed and got dressed just to come in to learn how murder is evil.
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Wow, that's that's pretty simple answer.
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Murder is evil because it makes it hurts people in the process.
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Murder is evil because people have to go through pain and suffering.
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Murder is evil because it inflicts injury upon the victim and emotional turmoil on the victim's family.
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Murder is evil because people's lives are cut short.
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Murder is evil because of all kinds of things.
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Why would you even ask such an inane question? Why is murder evil? Well, because while I understand that we all would agree, I would hope that murder is evil and it is evil.
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But I think there is sometimes we forget why it is so evil and why few things compare to it.
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The Bible tells us that murder, that the unjust killing of another human being is more than just injury to that person.
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It's more than just the emotional turmoil that's put on the family.
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It's more than just cutting a life short.
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God has told us specifically that murder itself is a heinous sin because of the nature of human life.
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And that's what I want to get across to you today.
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There is an inherent sanctity of human life which is not shared by any other creature in all of the world.
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We are a unique being in the world.
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Humans are unique in this world.
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Turn with me to Genesis and go with me to Genesis chapter one.
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Go to verse 26, Genesis chapter one and verse 26.
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Genesis chapter one gives us the outline of the creation of the world.
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It gives us those seven creation days, six days.
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And on the seventh day, God rested.
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We see this outline of how God has created everything.
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He speaks everything into existence by the word of his mouth, by divine fiat.
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Everything that you've ever seen came into existence by God.
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And then in verse 26, it says this.
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Then God said, let us make man in our image and according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God.
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He created him male and female.
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He created them.
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Beloved, that verse in the Bible is where we get our understanding of the sanctity of human life.
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We believe that all God's creation is special.
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We believe that all that God created testifies to his glory.
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The heavens declare the glory of God in the firmament above his handiwork.
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We believe that everything in creation is created with a purpose to glorify God.
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But yet there is a difference in humankind.
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Men and women, we have been endowed with something that none of the rest of all of creation has been endowed with.
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We have been endowed with a special mark.
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We have been endowed with a special type, a special designation from God that nothing else in all creation has been endowed with.
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We call it the imago Dei, also known as the image of God.
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Mankind is created in the image of God, and that separates us from every other thing in the universe, every other being, every other animal, everything else in the world.
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I've heard people call people say that humans are animals.
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No, we are not animals.
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We're more than just thinking animals.
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We have been specifically designed by God to be his image bearers.
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That is what we are.
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And people say, well, what does it mean to bear the image of God? Let me let me explain this to you, because I think it's a very important thing that people ask.
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What does it mean to be image bearers? Years ago, I heard it explained like this.
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The image of God is endowed to us in three ways, intellect, emotion and will.
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We have intellect, emotion and will.
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And that is the designation of God's image on us.
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Beloved, can I argue against that and say that I don't think that that's enough? Animals have intellect, though it be limited.
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Animals have emotions.
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They talk about how elephants mourn when one of them die.
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They they gather around and have a have a time of mourning.
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Animals have will, though it is bound by their natural instincts.
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I've seen my dog.
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Well, when we used to have Timmy before he passed, I've seen him make choices one to another.
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He had intellect, he had emotion, he had will.
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How can I then say that that is the distinct marking of the image of God on me? Well, let me say the thing that was lost in that description.
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Those who say it's intellect, emotion and will that separates us and gives us that image of God.
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I will I will agree that this I will agree that the human intellect is much greater than that of any animal.
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They get excited when they see a monkey pick up a stick and hit something with it.
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Oh, see, he's a tool using animal.
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Slow down.
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OK, he's not a tool using animal.
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He figured out the sticks are hard.
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And that's what you know.
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That's not a tool using animal.
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A tool using person went to the moon.
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A tool using person creates a symphony.
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There is a massive distinction between the intellect of animal intellect of a person.
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So so we talk about intellect and emotional people's understanding of emotion is much different than animals.
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And the will is much different man to animal.
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So that's that.
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So, yes, there are distinctions in intellect, emotion and will.
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But the one thing that animals do not possess.
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The one thing that separates humankind, the mark of God, the image of God.
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Is that we are the only being we are the only being on this planet that has the ability to consciously worship God.
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We are the only being on this planet that has the ability to consciously worship God.
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You've never seen an ape get down on his knees and clasp his hands.
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You've never seen a bear, a group of bears have a church service.
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Such a thing is silly and we laugh as a result.
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And that's true.
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But that's what separates humankind.
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That is what applies the dignity and the sanctity to human life is that we are endowed with the ability to worship God and understand him and relate to him and to read and understand his word.
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We have a relationship with God that no other animal, no other creature in all of the universe is able to have within the image of God.
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There is relationship.
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That is what is endowed to us is the ability to be in relationship.
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So what does that mean, beloved? OK, life is sacred.
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Well, turn with me now to Genesis chapter nine, because I want to show you just how sacred life is.
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You'll remember Noah had just come off the ark.
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This is after the great deluge.
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This is after God has wiped out almost every man and woman on the planet as a result of the fact that the Bible says the only intention of their heart was evil continually.
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God wiped them out.
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He has now taken Noah and his wife and their sons and their wives off of the ark.
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And he is now addressing Noah with a new command, the command of civil government, which begins with one command.
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And Genesis chapter nine and verse six, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.
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Now, before you read on, just think about what that is.
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Some people say that this is the this is saying simply that whoever lives by the sword dies by the sword.
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No, no, no.
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In the Hebrew, this is in the imperative.
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This is that this is what is to be done.
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Not that this will be the result of that.
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But this is what needs to happen as a result of that.
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That if a man unjustly kills another man, that if a man goes out and commits murder, that he forfeits his life as a result, that his life is paid as a as a punishment for the life of that person.
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This is the institution of the death penalty.
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Interestingly enough, this is the first time in Scripture we see it.
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And the institution is very clear.
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And why is it for God made man in his own image? Why is life so sacred? Why is it that the unjust murder of another human being forfeits the life of the person who committed that? Because they have not only offended that person, they have not only injured that person, they have not only hurt emotionally the family.
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They have not only caused a stir of dramatic emotions within a community.
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They have offended the God who created that individual.
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By killing that individual, they are in turn offending God.
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They are striking out against their Creator.
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Why is human life so valuable? Because mankind is made in the image of God.
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We bear the imago Dei.
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And as a result, to indiscriminately kill a human being is to demonstrate a lack of reverence for our Creator, is to demonstrate a lack of reverence for the one who created that individual, which in the weeks ahead we'll see.
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That's also why we aren't supposed to get angry and lash out at others, because even though it's not murder, it's still a type of lashing out at our Creator.
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In recent times, I have been not surprised by, but at times a little taken aback by just how powerful the movement towards dehumanizing men and women has become.
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Because this is what's happened, and I'm just using this as an example, but I want you to put in your mind, and I want to say, I want to preface this by saying, I am definitely not opposed to animals being treated properly.
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And we're going to talk about the fact that the Bible actually tells us that whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, that we understand that.
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But there has been a movement in our culture and cultures around the world to try to elevate animals to the status of humans.
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In fact, in recent times, people from the animal rights movement have tried to just totally equate the two.
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There was a professor from Princeton who said that he dismisses any distinctions between humans and animals as simply speciesism.
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Speciesism.
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He says that it's prejudice if we favor the interest of our species above the interest of the species of another animal.
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That's speciesism.
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I mean, they can find an ism for anything.
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You know, we're bigots, we're homophobic, we're racist.
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Now we're speciesists.
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Got to find some reason to label something.
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But here's the point.
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There are people out there that are suing zoos because these animals are being kept as slaves and they're saying the 13th Amendment gives up slavery.
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We should allow, the zoos shouldn't be allowed.
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Switzerland and Germany have both had it come before their leadership that animals should be given rights in their country equal to human beings.
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And you say, well, that's overseas.
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It's happening here.
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There is legislation before our very government, before the Supreme Court to give pigs laws or to give pigs right under the Constitution.
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Because of the mistreatment of pigs in farming houses.
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And here's the problem.
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You may say, well, what does all this have to do? Beloved, what's happening is not that we're raising up the valuation of animals, because that's what everybody thinks.
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We're raising up the value of animals.
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We're raising them up to a new level of dignity.
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That's not what's happening.
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What's happening is that we're devaluating human life.
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The teeter-totter does not simply go like an elevator up one side and the other side stays.
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What happens is one raises, the other comes down.
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And as I said, I'm not saying that we should be mistreating animals.
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I don't think that the mistreatment of animals is right.
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It's a sin.
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Obviously, it's a sin.
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But the point of the matter is there's something different about human life.
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And the more and more we go out and we try to devalue human life, the more and more people are going to start acting like animals.
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Let me say that again.
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The more we devalue human life, the more people are going to act like animals.
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And I'm telling you this is true.
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I worked in schools.
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I still work in schools.
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I substitute teach with Tony.
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Tony's a middle school teacher.
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We both work together at Uly Middle.
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And I worked doing security at First Coast High School when I was in seminary.
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And I can tell you this.
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The kids are being taught that they're nothing but very advanced animals.
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And then everybody's surprised when they act like it.
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You're being taught that you're nothing but an ape.
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And then everybody's surprised when they act like a herd of apes.
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Beloved, we have to understand the natural, inherent value of human life, the sanctity of human life.
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We have to understand the imago Dei if we are to take a stand against those who are continually and purposely devaluing human life.
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We are a life giving institution.
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That's what we are supposed to be.
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We are supposed to give people the gift of eternal life through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We are supposed to promote life.
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But we have begun to have to do so in a culture that is promoting death in every single sector.
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We become infatuated with death.
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We abort children.
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We euthanize the old.
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We get rid of anyone who is sick, anyone who is a problem.
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We have to get rid of them all because we've become a factory of death.
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So again, somebody says to me, Pastor, I know murder is wrong.
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Why have you spent so much time expressing this to me? Because I don't think that as a society that we understand it anymore.
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I don't think that we understand the letter of the law anymore.
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So before we even get to the spirit of the law, I think we need a lesson on the letter of the law.
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We see an entire generation being brought up all around us without any inherent value of life.
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They're young people who make it their mission to go out and to ball their fists and to strike people in the head for no reason at all.
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And they call it a game.
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What kind of a society breeds such behavior that a person could easily take the life of another and not care? Only a society that has so devalued human life, that such a thing would be accepted and encouraged.
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And that's where we are.
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We are seeing a generation raised up that has no understanding of the sanctity of human life.
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And beloved, you know it was coming, so I'm going to go ahead and say it.
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I couldn't get past today's message talking about sanctity of life without mentioning the fact that this past week on Wednesday was 41 years from the day that Roe versus Wade was brought into law.
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It was the celebration for those who support the death of the unborn.
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But for me, it was a day of mourning because murder is against the law of God.
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And yet murder is being practiced every day by the thousands.
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Millions of babies have been murdered in the womb, the vast majority of which for the sake of convenience.
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And as a result, we have seen the judgment of God on our land.
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You read Romans 1.
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You read Romans 1 all the way to the end.
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And you tell me that that does not read like an outline of the past 40 years in America where people have turned away from worshiping God to worshiping idols, where people have turned away from their natural affections and sexual relationships to the most unbridled sexual perversions you've ever seen.
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Within the last 10 years, we've seen things happen around our nation that we couldn't even imagine 100 years ago.
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Three thousand children every day are aborted.
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Three thousand children a day.
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That is that is an average of two children per minute.
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How long have I been preaching? There was an abortion clinic up north that had a free abortion day.
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They just had it was a special and they couldn't even they couldn't they had to have people directing traffic because they couldn't they couldn't keep the lot managed.
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Some people say, Pastor, this is politics.
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You shouldn't address politics from the pulpit.
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Shame on you if you think this is political because it's not.
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It's not political.
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Abortion is the most horrendous act of ungodliness and moral failure that our nation has ever allowed to go on.
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And if God's people are afraid to speak up about this issue, then who will? Do we expect the politicians to do it? Do we expect those who can't be trusted in the little things to be trusted with the great things, even those of you who support the right? When was the last time they did anything right or left? Nobody's trying to really stop it.
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They simply say it's necessary.
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It's necessary.
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The murder of unborn children is necessary.
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Somebody said, Pastor, if you oppose abortion, why don't you oppose the death penalty? Isn't that murder? In fact, Larry King said that.
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He said, until the Christian community speaks out against capital punishment, I'm not going to take seriously their protests against abortion.
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Let me tell you this, Larry.
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I know you're not here, but I'll tell you this.
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It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard because the Bible makes a distinction between murder and the just killing of someone who has broken the law.
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The Bible makes an absolute distinction.
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In Genesis chapter nine, verse six, we've already read it.
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What's the penalty for the unjust taking of a life? It's the taking of that life.
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You've given it up.
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You forfeited it.
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The Bible does not say thou shalt not kill.
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It says thou shalt not murder, which is a very important truth, especially for those of us who have served in the military and had to have been forced to take a life or those of us who have served in police or served in certain areas where that's a necessary part of the job.
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There are roles and responsibilities where the necessary taking of a life is part of what is done.
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That is not murder.
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The Bible makes a very distinct expression of what murder is.
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It is to kill someone unjustly.
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And there is nothing more unjust than to go into the womb of a woman, the place that is supposed to be the safest place in the universe for a child and to rip them apart and take them out and throw them in a trash can.
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There's nothing more heinous or unjust.
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So don't compare it to capital punishment, please.
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To do so is again to devaluate human life.
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This issue is very close to my heart.
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And those of you who are here Wednesday night had an opportunity to hear me give a testimony.
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And I want to I want to finish today by sharing this again.
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If you if you heard it on Wednesday night, I apologize for having to reiterate this.
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But I know many of you weren't.
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Abortion is the termination of human life.
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It is it is murder.
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And people say, why do you get so passionate about this? Beloved, my wife and I, we have three children.
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Two of our children came to us by way of adoption, and we love them as much as we could ever love a natural born child.
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You all know how we feel about our children.
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There's no division in our love for them.
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But last year.
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After 15 years of marriage, 14 years of marriage, we had the first positive pregnancy test.
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14 years, first time we'd ever seen two blue lines.
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And it was an amazing moment.
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And we were scared the whole time because there was reasons why my wife was unable to conceive and why we were unable to have children up until that time.
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So, of course, the whole time was a tenuous experience.
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And when hope was finally born, you know, we looked at each other and we just cried.
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We had a moment.
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And I just I just remember thinking how precious and how special and how important this new life was to us as much as many of you had children, have experienced that same thing.
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You look at one another and your life changes in a moment and everything is different.
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And I thought, you know, about that.
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And I got to thinking in the 15 years, 14 years or however long it was between the time we got married.
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See, she knows I'm talking about her in the 14 years it took us to to conceive.
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We knew a young lady and this young lady had twice.
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Been pregnant and had twice aborted her child, and we had begged her.
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And pleaded with her on bended knee, please don't kill your baby, give her give him or her to us, we'll we'll take care of it.
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We'll do it.
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She'll never know.
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He'll never know.
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We'll never tell.
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And what is her response was this? What kind of a person would I be to just give it away? What kind of a worldview says that it is better to kill than to give it away? Only a worldview that has has desperately lost the understanding of the sanctity of life.
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Beloved, Jesus said that it has been said of old, you shall not murder.
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And that is the letter of the law.
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And it is a sad reality that 2000 years later, we still have to preach the letter of the law before we even reach the spirit of the law, because we have so abandoned even the most simple foundation of what makes our society, society tolerable.
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And that is the understanding of the sanctity of life.
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So I want to I want to take this time now.
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I want to pray.
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I want to pray for our church.
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I want to pray for our community.
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I want to pray for the Women's Resource Center who do ministry for women who are who are hurting and need help.
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And I want us to pray for our land.
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I want us to pray for repentance.
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Because apart from repentance, God will not bless us.
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Let us pray.
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Our father and our God, we come to you in Jesus name.
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We thank you for this opportunity to have heard your word and to have examined it and to see that special thing that you have given to every human being, the image of God.
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And though that image has been tarnished by sin, that image has not been removed.
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Your scripture tells us that that even though we are sinners, we had that image.
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And God, it allows us to worship you.
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But yet, God, we repel against that.
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We we reject that until you open our hearts to come to you.
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So I pray today.
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I pray if there's anyone here who's never heard the gospel, they never heard about sin, if they've never heard the truth that they need a savior and that that savior is Christ.
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I pray that they have heard it today.
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I pray if they've never heard how special they are as creations of you, image bearers of you, that they've heard that today and understood just how precious they are in your sight.
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And I pray, God, for our nation.
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I pray that we would fall on our faces and repent.
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I pray that we would stop devaluating human life and start again, propelling to the masses the truth of the sanctity of life.
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We thank you, Father, for your mercy and ask that you extend it to us now.
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As we call upon you in prayer, in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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Please stand with us as we sing.
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If you have a need for prayer, please come.