Behold Your God - [Psalm 139]

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, ìBut we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour ,î so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isnít for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as weíre called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Seeing Trials Through the Lens of Psalm 139

Hereís our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. You know, we all go through trials in life, and thereís a key to unlock proper perception for every trial that you ever go through. No matter what youíre going through or might go through, thereís one thing that if you understand properly, it will help you.

It will help you rejoice always, and again I say, rejoice. It will help you not to be anxious about anything. The answer, the solution, is not our problems go away, itís seeing them through the lens of a triune God who knows you, dear Christian.

He knows you. And thatís really what all of Psalm 139 is about. It talks about how Heís present everywhere, it talks about His holiness, it talks about how He creates, but Psalm 139 is a very personal, practical, praise psalm that helps David and helps every other follower of Christ and believer in Christ Jesus to think about their trials properly.

So if you have a Bible, please turn to Psalm 139 right in the middle of your Bible, and I think of Jesus saying, ìDonít be anxious about your life .î And how does He help people solve their problems of being anxious or having trials?

He says, ìLook at the birds of the air that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they ?î. And so the Lord Jesus knows, the psalmist David knows that we get in all kinds of troubles and all kinds of trials, and we are to walk by faith, not by sight.

And when I say faith, of course, itís that shorthand for walking by faith in the risen Savior and not by sight. Itís easy to have those lenses on that make us just see our problems and ourselves and not remember who God is, and Psalm 139 reminds us and extols the greatness of God that God knows.

He knows you. There was a little poem and it said this, ìSaid the robin to the sparrow, ìI should really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and worry so .î Said the sparrow to the robin, ìFriend, I think that it must be that they have no heavenly father such as cares for you and me .î So today I want to help you with your trials so that you donít think myopically, so that you donít just think, ìYou know what, Iím so nearsighted.

I only see my problems and I forget to remember who God is .î We go back to that wonderful phrase that we see here often, that when you are gazing upon the Lord Jesus and His promises for His people, and then just glancing at your problems, things seem to go well.

But when youíre gazing upon your problems and only glancing at the Lord, then youíre in a little more trouble. And Psalm 139, it just takes the spotlight and it focuses it on the Lord Jesus. When we were children, we would get little magnifying glasses out, there wasnít much to do in Nebraska, and so we figured out if you got a magnifying glass out, you could start a little fire with the hot summer sun, but you could also roast grasshoppers and other things, right?

Because youíve got the light coming through this magnifying glass and itís got this hot focal point. It starts a fire. Well, this psalm is almost like that. No wonder Pythagoras said, ìI read this psalm every morning and every night, because we are so nearsighted, we need to be reminded who God is .î And youíre sitting there in the hospital waiting for the test, this is a good psalm.

You go to the hospital and youíre waiting for that new baby to be born, this is that psalm. You think, ìHow am I going to pay my bills ?î This is that psalm. And itís not one, two, three, four problems over, itís I have to think rightly and I am not by sight.

I know you know this, dear congregation, before we get into the psalm, but 1 Timothy chapter 6 says, ìGod is blessed .î. Do you know what that means in that context? Heís happy, heís not frustrated, heís not biting his fingernails.

Do you ever meet people that bite their fingernails? People that donít push in their chairs and bite their fingernails. Those are two things we need to teach young people today. God is at peace, God is fulfilled, shalom.

He is on the throne and he sits on his throne, he does whatever he pleases, and yet, though he is transcendent and great and holy and above, he knows us, weíre adopted children. The witness of the spirit cries out, helps us cry out, ìAbba, Father .î.

So today weíre going to look at Psalm 139, the whole psalm. The first section will be a review today, then weíll get into the second section. And as you know, super simple to outline. First year seminary students can outline this in preaching classes.

There are 24 verses and 4 sections, each containing 6 verses. And so the first 6 verses talk about God and how he knows us. How does God know us? The second 6 verses, ìBecause heís everywhere .î. And also, how does God know us?

The next set of verses, ìHe created us .î. And then it should make us respond with a hatred of sin, not only in other people, but in our very own lives. Maybe youíve never asked yourself the question, ìWhat does the word ìpsalmî mean ?î.

And in Greek, it just means a poem sung to musical accompaniment. And in Hebrew, it just means praises. And thatís exactly what this is. This is a praise song that you put to musical accompaniment. And instead of just saying, kind of like in a systematic theology class, ìGod is omnipresent .î ìGod is omniscient .î ìGod is omnipotent .î.

Davidís writing in such a way with all the ìIî pronouns and ìmyî pronouns and things like that, this is very intimate. Itís very personal. And thatís why probably we love it so much. Last week, we looked at Godís omniscience and his omnipresence.

And letís just review that now. Now, remember, dear congregation, this psalm is set in a tone of comfort. This is a comforting psalm. Remember verses 20 and following, 19 and following, ìOh, that you would slay the wicked, O God.

O men of blood, depart from me .î They speak against you. David has enemies. And so, what do you need when you have a bunch of enemies? You need to be reminded of who God is. God knows you. Godís with you.

And Godís powerful. And so, for the unbeliever, these arenít very comforting attributes. And if youíre here today and youíre not a believer, God knows everything about you. God is everywhere and you canít hide from Him.

And God is holy. And these should make you think, ìI need a Savior. I need a friend. I need someone to forgive me .î. But for the Christian, here David has these praises for who God is. We saw last time his knowledge.

And his knowledge is just verses 1 through 6. And hereís what I also love about this psalm. The psalmist makes you want to kind of slow down a little bit. Weíre really fast-paced people, right? I kind of go apoplectic in line if they donít help me within 30 seconds or something at the grocery store.

By the way, donít you dare in the aisle that says 15 or less items have 16 items unless youíre me and make a mistake and I have to think, oh, self-righteously. He slows down. He could just say it, ìGodís everywhere.

He knows you .î And itíd be over, two verses, Psalm 117. But He makes you reflect. He wants you to think. The Bible doesnít talk about reading the Bible. The Bible talks about meditating on His Word. Because we so often donít do this.

We need to just kind of hunker down and say, ìYou know what? David is fighting for his soul .î And where does he go? Heís the king. He has no other resources. To whom will he turn? And He knows the one who sought Him and bought Him with His redeeming love.

God knows everything about you, dear Christian, and thatís to give you comfort. What does He say in verse 1? He says, ìO Lord ,î thatís the personal name of God. We know Him on a personal, name-to-name basis because of what the Lord Jesus has done, ìyou have searched Me and youíve known Me .î Youíve kind of dug, thatís the language of someone in an archeological site, ìdigging .î One commentator back in the 70ís said, ìYou know what this psalm means?

It means God digs you .î Iím like, ìNo, He doesnít .î Groovy, man. No, no, He doesnít dig you. Heís dug into all your personal business. He knows all the things that are going on. He knows your anxious thoughts.

He knows your praises. He knows your trials. He knows you. This is the language of Adam knows Eve, personal, intimate, no greater knowing. And then He begins to describe all the different ways. Remember verse 2, ìGod knows when I sit down and when I rise up, and everything in between .î He knows what I do.

He knows what I think. Verse 2 goes on to say, ìYou discern my thoughts from afar .î This is language of intention. This is the language of He knows what my motives are. One writer said, ìGod has never learned from anyone God cannot learn.

Could God at any time or in any manner receive into His mind knowledge that He did not possess? And had not possessed from eternity, He would be imperfect and less than Himself. To think of a God who must sit at the feet of a teacher, even though that teacher be an archangel or a seraph, is to think of someone other than the Most High God, maker of heaven and earth.

That is mind-blowing. I stand in awe .î ìGod knows instantly ,î this man wrote, ìand effortlessly, all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creatures and all creaturehood, every plurality, all law, every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feelings, all desires .î And I canít go on, but he still knows all everything else.

And he knows where you go. Whatís he saying in verse 3? ÌYou search out my path and my lying down, when I am passive, when I am active, when I am at home, when I am at work. You are acquainted with all my ways .î Future is easy for God, because He knows everything.

Verse 4, He even knows what weíll say. He knows what we did say, but He knows what we will say. ÌEven before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together .î. And itís driving to this, Davidís on the run, heís got enemies, he needs protection.

What does a good father do? He provides and he protects. ÌYou hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me .î. This is language of a siege, that the troops are going around the city, trying to find a crack in the fortress.

Where can we put the battering ram? And it says here, does David, ìYou hem me in like a siege, like a city under siege, and Iím thankful, Iím cared for .î. Now it wouldnít take us very long to go to the New Testament and think about the ultimate David, David, the son of David, the Lord Jesus.

When I read Psalm 139, I think of verses like this, ìI am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

He flees because heís a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, Jesus said, I know my own, did you hear that, I know my own, and my own what? Know me. Iíve got the greatest shepherd.

This is the language of, thereís a thousand shepherds out there, but he is my shepherd. I have the best shepherd who knows me and cares for me. Heís given me everything I need, heís hemmed me in. With this trial, heíll deliver me one day, it might be glory, but he will deliver me, and heís given me everything else, eternal life, the hope of heaven.

I love John the Baptist when he said, ìBehold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world .î Heís taken care of my most pressing need and heíll take care of everything else. Whatís the response?

Verse 6, ìSuch knowledge is too wonderful for me, itís high, I canít attain it .î My children would be upset late at night and they were little, you know children get big pretty fast and you canít hold them like this, but when I could hold them just like this, I would hold them kind of tightly, yes they could still breathe, I said kind of tightly, and I wanted them to feel that I was strong, you know itís kind of like why do children wrestle with their dads, because they want to think their dad can protect them.

So I would hold them really tight, and I would sing a song, and I would sing, ìEverythingís alright in my fatherís house .î I know you, Iíve got you, Iíve protected you, why am I swaying back and forth?

I go to have a dad, like that, how much more? And he just says, ìIím going to praise you, itís too wonderful for me, Iíve got a finite, sin-tainted mind and it blows my mind, I canít figure it out, but Iíll praise you for it.

I donít have to understand everything about you God to say, ìYouíre a great God .î Iím wondering even if we stop here and just think, ìAlright, Iím in a trial, youíre in a trial ,î and you think, ìOkay, God has given you saving faith, Heís caused you to be born again, youíre justified, Heís sanctifying you, Heíll glorify you one day ,î and you just need to stop and think in the middle of that trial, ìGod knows me, He knows, He protects me, why me ?î There are other godly people, more godly people for certain, ìWhy me ?î Because He knows all His children, thatís why, and you think, ìThat is praiseworthy .î Not only that, He goes on in verses 7 through 12 with the next section, Heís talking about omnipresence here, not just omniscience, not just He knows everything, but Heís everywhere, but itís tied together, this psalm is really only about, ìGod knows you .î How does He know you?

Heís infinite and He knows you because Heís everywhere, because maybe there would be a place you would go, He wouldnít know you, so now David says, ìYou know, God is also omnipresent, we saw that last week, Latin, omni, all, present, next to or close, and He asked these questions .î You could be thinking about Immanuel God with us in the middle of all this, ìWhere shall I go from your spirit ,î verse 7, ìor where shall I flee from your presence ?î David is not trying to run from God.

If you read a commentary that says, ìDavidís trying to run from God and get away from His gaze ,î no, no, heís not, heís embracing it, he wants this. He might not get answers, but he knows who God is.

Godís reach is all-encompassing. His face is near, verse 8, ìIf I ascend to heaven, youíre there. If I make my bed in Sheol, youíre there .î Remember this figure of speech, the merism, high or low, and everything in between.

Highest point he could think of is heaven, lowest point is the depths of death. Sheol, youíre there, youíre everywhere. He does the same thing here in verse 9, ìWhether you go to the east or the west, Godís there.

If I take the wings of the morning, eastern horizon, where the sun rises, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, certainly the Mediterranean Sea to the west of Israel, whether itís east or west, youíre there.

God, wherever you are, youíre there, and youíre all there .î Verse 10, ìEven there, your hand shall lead me, and your right hand, that powerful hand, that majestic hand, that hand of strength, will hold me .î Thatís the language of Isaiah 41 .10, ìSurely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand .î Yeah, but what about the dark?

Is there maybe a place? Verse 11, ìIf I say, ìSurely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night ,î maybe nighttime, even the darkness, verse 12, ìis not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you .î.

This is not for theÖ David to say, ìI donít want to sin now, because youíre everywhere .î Although thatís true, the focus here is, ìYouíre there with me .î And we know this can only be good news, because David has a mediator, he has a high priest.

God the Creator, the Womb, and the Sanctity of Life

Now letís move to some new information, verses 13 through 18, ìGod knows you, dear Christian. God is with you, dear Christian. And now Godís power and sovereignty extends to you .î Godís power and sovereignty extends to you.

So, ìOmniscience, omnipresence, power slash sovereignty .î. The tie-in here is, ìOf course He knows me, He made me .î Powerful God, creative God, yes, but personal. All kinds of personal pronouns here.

This is the God who knows you, who knows David, whoís with David, and who made David. Verse 13, ìI know you know the passage, and you can see all the language here of God creating a little one in the womb .î And here Heís thinking about Himself, David.

And it doesnít take you very long to think about the ultimate David with the Spirit of God, virgin conception, and how the Spirit of God superintends the Lord Jesus in His miraculous conception and birth.

ÌFor you formed my inward parts .î In the Hebrew, ìyouî is emphatic. You, you alone, you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my motherís womb. Literally, you embroidered me. I know some of the ladies here and you knit and sew and embroider.

Thatís that special care, right? Itís hard to embroider if you have a blindfold on, is it not? I donít know, maybe mine would look better if I did that. This is hands-on language. This is protection, how God takes care of those in the womb.

All kinds of inward parts, even the Hebrew, His kidneys there. What does that make David do? Praise again. ÌI will praise you .î See, even though, mark this, even though heís in a trial, theyíre out to kill him, even though youíve got that trial with your spouse or your friends or your issues or your doctors and all these things, he still praises.

He still says, ìYou know, but God, youíre great. I am a louse. I am sinful. Iíve fallen short. I canít do these things. Other people have hurt me .î They listen. They go on and on and on. ÌIíve got all these trials, but Iím going to praise you because I know what youíve done for me.

And I know what I deserve. Remember, hereís what I deserved and hereís what I get. Heaven .î And the difference is praise. The difference is joy. Versus what does the world say? ÌYou deserve it all and it delivers this .î And the difference is sadness and depression.

This is that kind of psalm where you think, ìOkay. Lord, whereís my help going to come? I better look up to the hills .î In Psalm 139. And he praises, ìI praise you for Iím fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well .î He canít stop himself. He just bursts out into praise. You see Paul do the same thing. He starts talking about one thing and another thing about doctrine and he interrupts himself and just starts praising.

I didnít think about it when Haley and Luke were born. They were born in Burbank, California. But I remembered when my other two children were born in Worcester, Massachusetts. That when the babies came out and they would say for both Maddie and Gracie, ìItís a girl .î I said to the nurses and the doctors, ìYou want to know what I said?

Eight evolution grand .î And they looked at me and said, ìYou want to cut the cord ?î This is not an anti-evolution per se psalm. But itís anti-evolution because God makes, God does, God does all this thing.

ÌIím fearfully and wonderfully made .î What does he go on to say? ÌWonderful are your works .î Not time, not evolution. And by the way, if there was evolution thereís nobody to praise. Itís like a secular Thanksgiving.

Weíre thankful to be thankful in this country where we have thanks. Thereís no object of thanks. I just come out of blob and everybodyís there and so Iím a better blob than you. Thankfully we got karma going on.

No, no, this is hands-on language. Can you see it? You back up and go, ìGod, you know me. How do you know me ?î Well, you never learn anything thatís true. And youíre everywhere thatís true. But you made me, you knit me, you sewed me together.

Heís in the middle of all this and he stops and speaks well of God. Dear Christian, itís good for my soul to do and good for you, good for your souls. Why donít you just stop in the middle of your trials and your issues and just say, ìTo God be the glory, great things Heís done.

Count your blessings and name them what? One by one .î And everything turns from this self-focus and me, myself and I, that unholy trinity to, ìOh, look at what God has done. Itís convicting because Heís doing something that we have a hard time doing .î Augustine said, ìMen go abroad to wonder at the heights of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers and the vast compass of the ocean, and they pass by themselves without wondering just how great this body is .î God made our bodies and you think, ìIf our blood was a little thicker, weíd coagulate and weíd die.

If it was a little thinner, weíd get cut and weíd bleed out .î You just think, ìThis is amazing .î Thereís a scientist that wrote this about how amazing the body was. Every second, thereís more than 100 ,000 chemical reactions that take place in your brain.

The brain has 10 billion nerve cells to record what you see and hear. This information comes to your brain through the miracle of the eye, which has 10 million receptor cells, rods and cones, in each eye.

Your retina has four other layers of nerve cells. Altogether, the system makes the equivalent of 10 billion calculations a second before an image even gets to the optic nerve. Once it reaches your brain, the cerebral cortex has more than a dozen separate vision centers in which to process it.

Your tear ducts supply a bacteria-fighting fluid to protect your eyes from infection. The tears that fight irritants differ from the tears of sadness, which contain 24 more proteins. And the list goes on and on and on.

Oh, by the way, who wrote that? The atheist astronomer Carl Sagan, page 23 in his book The Dragons of Eden. He even knows. David praises God for how great he is with poetry. Verse 15, ìMy frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret .î Thereís that language of hands-on making again, intricately woven.

Whoís the weaver? The Lord God is the weaver in the depths of the earth. ÌMy frame ,î itís like heís talking about my skeletons, my bones, theyíre made in secret. Who works in the dark like that? Wrought with care, wrought with skill, intricately made.

Verse 16, ìYour eyes saw my unformed substance .î Heís not only a creator, but do you see how sovereign God is? ÌAnd your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them .î The handiwork of God.

He not only knows you, and Heís not only everywhere, but He created you and He knows the day youíre going to die. Heís sovereign over all that. This is all meant to be comforting. This is all meant to say, ìYou know, the day Iím supposed to die, Iím supposed to die, and I can just trust in Godís hand .î Heís wise, He knows the best.

ÌEvery one of my cells, He knows about. My days are numbered, and so are yours. Your days mapped out, so are yours .î In advance, to know God so powerful and sovereign, whatís the response? Verse 17 and 18.

Shouldnít surprise us. Itís the same as the first section. It ends in a doxology. ÌHow precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I could count them, they are more than the sand.

I awake, I go to bed thinking about you. I awake, and Iím still with you .î Listen to what Christopher Ash said, and you can say it about you, dear Christian, if youíre trusting in the Lord Jesus. ÌI too am Christís personal loving handiwork.

I too have been created by God in Christ Jesus, so that I may do precisely the good works God has prepared in advance for me to do .î Ephesians 2 .10. ÌI am not to regret that I am not someone else, that I didnít have different parents, or a changed upbringing.

For however flawed it seemed to me, and however painful, I may trust that God in Christ has shaped me just as He has purposed for me to be .î. Isnít that good? Donít have to do all the whatevers and regrets and what ifs, and only if my dad was this or my mom was that.

Now you know me, I go to verse 18 and say, ìIf I could count them, theyíre more than the sand .î What do you think I did this week? Not all week, but just for a portion of this week. Has anybody calculated how many grains of sand there are in the world?

They have. Did you know in a centimeter cube of sand grains youíve got 8 ,000? One centimeter cube, thereís 8 ,000 grains in it. In a meter cube, thereís 8 billion grains. Then the scientists in NASA and other places said, ìAll right, if youíre going to go grains of sand in the world, youíve got beaches and youíve got deserts.

And some beaches donít have any sand, and some deserts are full of snow, and so we have to calculate it all out and add it all up .î And I can tell by the way youíre looking at me, Iím not going to give you any more data, except to say that the grains of sand on earth, they think, are 4 .6 times 10 to the 23rd power of sand grains.

Probably a little bit more than how many stars are in the universe. David goes to sleep counting Godís precious thoughts. God doesnít sleep, and so when David wakes up, he still has the Lord. Isnít it good?

Why stay up and worrying all night? Let God worry and you go to sleep. Oh, sorry, God doesnít worry. You ever do that in life? Youíre talking to someone, you have to kind of theologically auto-correct, because you know you just said something not quite right.

Now in addition, Iíd like to say a few things about this passage in light of abortion. Because if you look at this passage here, in verses 13 and following, you simply canít just look at this passage and say, ìDo you know what?

Abortion is good .î Now may I say early on that for the men that take the ladies, and the ladies that are there, and then they murder the baby, is there forgiveness found? Can forgiveness be found for someone that would murder a baby?

Whatís the answer? Is the Lordís death so great to overcome all kinds of deaths, all kinds of sin rather? And the answer is yes. Thatís not the point. My point is to make sure when you hear the world shouting things like, ìWe need to make abortion safe, and we need to just cut down on some of the abortions, and we need to make sure weíre taking care of the ladies too ,î and all these things, I just want you to remember these verses.

Abortion is never safe for the baby, right? Itís murder. And itís rarely safe for the mother, because besides guilt and depression and nightmares, there are hormonal issues, sometimes they have to have hysterectomies, sometimes theyíre left sterile, and about 10 ,000 people a year, women, according to an older New York Times article, says that they have to be hospitalized for abortion.

It is untenable for you to think as a Christian that abortion is good. You are delusional and you need to repent if you think this is something to stand up for. Itís nothing new in the Christian church, we have always taught that abortion is murder.

First century catechism, ìKillers of the child who abort .î Who taught against abortion? Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, Clement, Aquinas, Calvin. One of the earliest writings we have thatís not in the New Testament, but was written by some Christians, ìDo not murder, do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.

They are called corruptors elsewhere of Godís creatures .î The point is not what does everybody say, the point is not politics. And by the way, for those that say, ìMike, you canít touch this, itís political .î Really?

This is political? No, we need to be guarded in our minds to make sure, not what I think, not so what I feel to be true, but what does the Bible say. Can you not see Godís handiwork in the womb? I hope so.

Thereís all kinds of reasons to say no to abortion, but one is this. If you say, ìWell, when does the baby become viable? When does the baby become a baby? When is it life and then when is it a person and all these other things ?î Just ask the question about the Lord Jesus and the Incarnation.

When did Jesus become truly human in the womb? That and that alone should make you think, ìI ought never to say to myself, ìYou know what, Iíll follow the world and everyone does whatís right in his own eyes .î.

Friends, this is a modern catastrophe. Do you know there are such things as pro-choice Bible studies? Do you know people will say things like this, ìNowhere does the Bible prohibit abortion .î. Do you know a Christian school principal wrote, ìCompassion as Jesus taught it considers both the fetus and the mother.

Children will be born with grave physical or mental defects. This option again of aborting such a child affirms our responsibility in considering or being concerned with life after birth as well as life before birth .î.

A friend of mine recently had to sacrifice a Down Syndrome child in the hope of having a normal healthy child. God is the creator and author of all life in the womb. And that womb is holy. God is the creator and heís to be praised for it.

Babies in and out of the womb are a loved gift from God. Theyíre not tissue, theyíre not blobs, theyíre not parasites. Theyíre gifts from the Lord. Letís go back and look at this passage. Can you see the personal pronouns here in Psalm 139?

I mean formed my inward parts. Hereís God for me. ÌYou formed my inward partsî verse 13. ÌYou knitted me together. I praise you for Iím fearfully and wonderfully made by you. Wonderful are your works .î.

Talking about what goes on in the womb and my soul knows it very well. James Boyce said, ìThe problem with trying to determine the point before which a developing child is fully human is that there isnít one.

There is an uninterrupted development of the child from the very moment in which the sperm of the father joins the ovum of the mother and the cells begin to divide. The fatherís seed cannot multiply by itself nor can the motherís egg.

But as soon as the two sets of chromosomes combine not only does the development of child continue steadily unless interrupted, either accidentally or deliberately, but the life that is developing is a unique life.

Thereís no other combination of chromosomes exactly like these two new ones. The fetus is already uniquely determined individual. Did you know, dear Christian, that unborn babies shown in the Bible can move?

Jacob and Esau struggled in the womb. Did you know unborn babies in the womb the Bible teaches can leap for joy? Remember Luke 1 .44, ìAnd behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy .î.

Do you know the words for ìin the womb, babyî and ìout of the womb, babyî are the exact same? The word for ìbabyî in this ìbaby leaped in my womb for joyî is the same word for ìJesus wrapped in swaddling clothes .î.

Do you know that the Bible teaches that babies in the womb can be consecrated? Jeremiah 1 .5, ìBefore I formed you, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you .î. Did you know in the womb Samson was called to be a Nazirite in the womb?

Did you know Paul was set apart to gospel ministry in the womb? ÌEven from my motherís womb ,î Paul said in Galatians 1 .5, ìHe called me through His grace .î. Do you know those in the womb can be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Luke 1, ìFor he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor .î. About John the Baptist, ìAnd he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, yet in his motherís womb .î. And I said it before, but Iíll say it again.

Do you know the unborn in the Bible are denoted by personal pronouns? Thereís all this nasty talk about whatís your pronoun. Whatís the babyís personal pronoun? ÌI, me, mine .î. Before weíre even born, life begins at conception.

Did you know the Bible never differentiates between a child in the womb and out of the womb? Prenatal and postnatal, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. The word ìYeledî in Hebrew, both postnatal and prenatal.

Did you know, dear Christian, that only people can be depraved? Only people can be depraved, not globs, not masses. Psalm 51, ìBehold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me .î.

The act of conception wasnít sin, but the sin of Adam has tainted all of us. You canít be a blob affected by depravity. And what we do if weíre not careful, dear Christian, is we donít go by what the Bible says.