JEREMIAH 19:3b-6; EXODUS 1:15-22; JEREMIAH 33:6-9; ROM. 8:1
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO JEREMIAH 19: 3b-6.
As we approach today’s lesson it might be well if each of us think for a moment if we are pro-life or pro-choice and why. I had really thought very little of this, until one day I as strolling through the county fair booths, and my attention was drawn to a video screen showing a fetus. I stopped and watched as the process of abortion was demonstrated. The video was titled “The Silent Scream.” I went home sick and became from that day forward a pro-life advocate.
Later I read in Proverbs 24:11, “Rescue those being led away to death, hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing of this,’ does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?”
Let’s take time to compare two infamous days in the U.S.A. March 6, 1857 and Jan. 22, 1973.
On March 6, 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court finally decided a very vexing question, which had troubled the citizens of the United States for many years. In the landmark Dred Scott Decision the court ruled once and for all that black people were not legal “persons” according to the U.S. Constitution. A slave was the property of the owner and could be bought and sold, used, or even killed by the owner at the owner’s discretion. The ruling was final. It was the highest court in the land.
Those who opposed slavery protested, but were met with the retort: “So you oppose slavery? It is against your moral, religious, and ethical convictions? Well, you don’t have to own a slave, but don’t impose your morality on the slave owner. He has the right to choose to own a slave. The Supreme Court has spoken. Slavery is legal.” But not for long. It took a bloody civil war where 498,332 were killed, (more than any other war in which the U.S.A. has ever been engaged), to stop slavery. It took the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution to legally grant freedom, civil rights, and voting rights to the black people.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court finally decided a very vexing question, which had troubled the citizens of the United States for many years. In a landmark Decision, the court ruled once and for all that unborn humans were not legal “persons” according to the U.S. Constitution. An unborn baby was the property of the owner (mother), and she could have the baby killed at her request because of her health (social distress). This could be done at any time until birth. The ruling was final. It was by the highest court in the land.
Those who opposed abortion protested but were met with a retort that seemed an echo of slavery days. “So you oppose abortion? It is against your moral, religious, and ethical convictions? Well, you don’t have to have an abortion, but don’t impose your morality on the mother (the owner). She has the right to choose to have an abortion. The Supreme Court has spoken. Abortion is legal.
The goal of a Constitutional Amendment or reversal by the Court is still ahead. But the pro-life movement continues to grow. It is now the largest grass roots movement in the history of the U.S.A. In 1857 the discrimination was on the basis of skin color. Now, it is on the basis of age and place of residence (living in the womb).
The overwhelming majority of all abortions (95%) are done as a means of birth control. Only 1% are performed because of rape or incest, 1% because of fetal abnormalities, and 3% due to the mother’s health problems. Today abortion is legal in the USA, at anytime throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy---FOR ANY REASON.
Lamentations 4:3 reads, “Even the jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but My people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert.”
1. PLEASE READ JEREMIAH 19: 3b-6.
Now please turn back to Psalms 106: 35-39. TEACHER READ THIS SCRIPTURE.
DOES GOD CARE? What does God say about abortion? Do the millions of abortions (in excess of 40 million) in this land bother Him? Is a fetus a “real person” in the eyes of God? If so, where does that leave us? If an unborn life is truly just a mere mass of fetal tissue to God, we should want to know.
If He considers the life of the woman more important than her unborn child, we should want to know. And if God does consider the unborn life a “real person”, and just as important as the life of the mother that bears it, we most certainly should want to know. After all, we are all accountable to God not only for our individual lives, but also as a generation and a nation.
Throughout the Bible God has plenty to say about the taking of an innocent life. Most people in our nation, though they may not be familiar with the Ten Commandments, know that “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is listed there somewhere. The word “kill” in this instance specifically refers to “murder”---a premeditated and deliberate act of taking someone’s life. It is different than other forms of taking a life, which could be accidental, or in self-defense. God has different laws regarding different sorts of death. But He continually opposes and speaks against murder; especially murder of the innocent.
God says in Numbers 35:33-34, “Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land and atonement cannot be made for the land on which the blood has been shed, except the blood of the one who shed it. Do not defile the land where you live.
God’s judgment against the killing of innocent life grows out of His love for humankind. The crime of murder is not only an offense against the sanctity of life; it is a pollutant upon the very land we love. God wants to spare us of the variety of ways this pollution is manifested. When the land becomes defiled with sin, people cry out “where is God?” yet they refuse to take responsibility for breaking His laws which were only given to us for our protection and good.
Each sin that we commit is not merely an isolated incident, but will set off a chain reaction of other sins if not dealt with.
Since the legalization of abortion, for instance, child abuse has increased over 1000%. This is the exact opposite of what those who legalized abortion thought it would do since it was assumed only children who were initially unwanted were abused.
Former Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop stated, “We now know when life begins because the test-tube baby proves that life begins with conception. What do you have in the dish? An egg and a sperm; What do you add to it to get a baby? Nothing!” Though it is very small, it is still a real person, just as a crumb of bread is still real bread. No one who has given the gift of life should dare despise the day of small beginning. Have we forgotten so quickly that we were once as small?
God said to the prophet Jeremiah in Jer. 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” In Jer. 1:5 God knew this man before he was born. As he was forming in his mother’s womb God gave him his personality, talents, and temperament. If his mother had gotten an abortion, the “fetal tissue” she aborted would have been a real person named Jeremiah, a mighty prophet of God and the gift of God’s voice to the nations, though she would never have known.
Isaiah wrote in Isa. 49:1, “The Lord hath called me from the womb: from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name.”
Job said in Job 31:15, “Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us within our mothers?
These verses are only a sampling of many Biblical references to life inside the mothers Womb.
God is no respecter of persons. If he knew Jeremiah in the womb, He knew you too. Do you believe that God lovingly fashioned you and loves you dearly? Do you believe that He has had a plan for your life from the beginning of time? A plan that none other can fulfill in quite the same way you can? That you came to this earth ”trailing clouds of glory?”
Or do you believe in
your heart that you were a mere “accident” and that God
has no personal concern for you or your life?
Every 20 seconds
another baby is aborted in this country, yet very few seem to notice.
Our country goes along its way leaving lawmakers in distant buildings
to decide how the carnage should continue. We’ve bought into
the lie that those we dispose of are not real people. It is the same
old lie that was used to keep slaver legal, and to exterminate masses
of peoples in holocausts all over the world. We should be able to see
through it by now, but as usual, most of us let circumstances and
current cultural climate dictate to us what is acceptable or not.
We
wonder how respectable college kids can throw their newborn baby into
a dumpster, yet what are we supposed to think? We’re the ones
who told them it is irresponsible to raise a child at their young age
and that an “unwanted child” (which is a fallacy) is
better off dead. They are not to blame as much as media, the
lawmakers, the abortion counselors, the doctors, and the voters. When
a woman can have an abortion on a nine month old unborn child, and
yet a week later be tried for murder if she disposed of the child
outside the womb (which at that point, would seem to be a much easier
and practical way to dispose of the baby), what are the young
people
of this nation supposed to think? Do we really wonder at the
lack of respect for human life that we see around us?
”Evil
prevails when good men, in the name of freedom, do nothing.” 1
Peter 2:16 says, “Live
as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil.”
Very
few of us would argue that crack cocaine, or rape should be legal
simply because people are going to do it anyway, yet that is the
argument that is applied to abortion. As a nation, our morals and
ethics vacillate between honor and convenience, integrity and greed.
In Genesis 4: 9-11 Then the Lord said, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.”
As a nation, we must repent from the heartlessness we have displayed to the most helpless members of our culture. Though God is merciful, He is also just. He cannot ignore the cries of the blood that have soaked our ground and stained our hands. We are bringing ourselves under a curse, but do not have the eyes to see it. We only see the fruit of that curse and we wonder what went wrong. Like Cain, our ears have become deafened to the cries of those we have murdered. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. “
In the biblical world-view, human life is precious. Every human life is created by God in His image and has inestimable value. All human beings, including unborn children, are to be treated with dignity and respect, and are to be protected.
The focal passage in Exodus deals with the slaughter of the boy babies of the Hebrews by order of Pharaoh. They were killed after they were born, but the same principles also apply in many cases to children before they are born.
Deut. 30: 19-20 says, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him.”
2. PLEASE READ EXODUS 1: 15-22.
Our story actually begins with the entry of Jacob and his extended family coming into Egypt from Canaan about 1875 BC or 430 years before the Exodus. Joseph, in Gen. 45:8 is described as “a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” In vs. 9 he says, “God made me Lord of all Egypt.” The Pharaoh who ruled at that time was Hyksos, a mixed Semitic race and thus favored the Hebrew people who were also Semitic.
When the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt Exodus 1:8 says, “there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” This suggests that the new king brought in a wave of Egyptian nationalism, which included a hatred and suspicion for all Semites, including the Hyksos and the Israelites. This new Pharaoh voiced two reasons for their concern: the alarming increase in the number of the Israelites and the fear of their aligning politically with a foe in time of war.
The words in Ex. 1:10 “let us deal wisely or shrewdly” implied a policy that would check the Israelites increase and exploit their labor potential. So forced labor was established throughout the Delta area with Hebrews being required to build the royal store cities of Pithom and Rameses.
Deut. 4:20 described this slavery in Egypt like being in an “iron-smelting furnace.” In spite of the Egyptians’ ruthless treatment of the Israelites, “God prospered them numerically.” This caused consternation from the Egyptians and an increased workload for the Israelites.
Enslavement was only partially effective so Pharaoh decided to enact a more aggressive policy, namely, infanticide. It must not be thought that the Israelites had only two midwives. Most likely because of the great number of Israelites, these two women, Shiphrah and Puah, were the chief administrators of an organization of midwives. The king’s instructions were explicit; male babies were to be killed and female infants kept alive. This decree evidently was not in force when Aaron was born.
We are not told how the midwives were expected to kill the babies but any method would be violent. As Paul Fowler pointed out concerning our contemporary methods, “The methods of abortion are physically violent.”
A woman, who works in a fetus-parts-for-sale lab, said if the doctor found the child still alive after being aborted, he would break its neck, hit it on the head, or drown it so she could get on with her work.
However, the Hebrew midwives, fearing God more than the laws of an earthling, did not obey the command. So they, Shipharah and Puah, were called to answer for their misconduct. These midwives answered, that the Hebrew wives delivered so quickly, that before the midwives could arrive, the babies were already delivered. Apparently, this implies that their parents hid the baby boys, so that it was impossible for Shipharah and Puah to kill them. Actually, the midwives may have simply responded slowly to house calls. Evidently, Pharaoh did not punish them for their inability to carry out his policy.
From their actions we may surmise that the midwives believed human life is precious because humans beings are made in God’s image. Thus they knew that it was a sin to take human life. They also believed that people who follow the Lord must act for good in obedience to His will. They took great risks because they feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. Thus, we read in vs. 21 that because the midwives feared God….He made them houses. Made them houses, means that God established “households” for them. Putting it in a clearer way, God “gave them families of their own.”
Both the O.T. and the N.T. make clear that God’s people are not only not to exploit the weak and helpless but that they also are to help them, including defending them against those who threaten them. No group is so helpless as unborn babies. Those who defend them are acting according to this basis biblical principle.
God blessed the Israelites in general with fertility and bestowed mercy on Shiphrah and Puah in particular. Pharaoh then enacted an open, more aggressive policy to stem the Israelites’ numerical increase. Failing to limit the growth of the people secretly through Hebrew midwives, Pharaoh commanded his own people to police the decree. So the oppression against the Israelites deepened, but as God’s people were suffering under the subjugation, God prepared a deliverer.
Pharaoh evidently had given up on the midwives. He will use his own Egyptian people to carry out his orders. Each Hebrew boy was to be cast into the river. This was a less messy way of killing the babies, but theoretically just as effective---assuming that his people obeyed his order. We have no record of how many Egyptians did what their king ordered. We know that his own daughter defied him.
In light of the three attempts of Pharaoh to destroy the Hebrews, what does this indicate about his world-view? We know from Egyptian history that the Pharaoh was considered to be a god. If one thinks he is a god, then he can do as he pleases. Pharaoh practiced a form of genocide against an entire ethnic group in his land. He considered them a threat. Very likely he considered them as of far less value than human. Pharaoh had no respect for human life---at least for the Hebrews. He was willing to do anything to achieve his will and to destroy them.
His world-view was similar to the Nazi attitude toward the Jews. Most attempts at genocide use names designed to hide the hideous nature of what they are doing. The Nazi name for the systematic elimination of the Jews was called “the final solution.” More recently some Serbs used the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe their practice of genocide.
The word euthanasia means literally “good death.” Abortion terms often cloak what it really is. Proponents of abortion refer to the “termination of pregnancy” or “removal of fetal tissue.” The practice of killing some of the fetuses in a multiple pregnancy is known as “selective reduction.” In Canada the late-term abortion of fetuses with genetic abnormalities, including “Down’s Syndrome, is called “genetic termination.”
James Dobson wrote, “The Bible does not address itself directly to the practice of abortions. However, I was amazed to observe how many references are made in both the O.T. and N.T. to God’s personal acquaintance with children prior to birth. Not only is He aware of their gestation, but He is specifically knowledgeable of them as unique individuals and personalities.”
3. PLEASE READ JEREMIAH 33: 6-9.
Having promised in Jeremiah 19: 6 that the place TOPHETH (TOPfeth) which means “place of burning” where children were sacrificed would no longer be called TOPHETH and the Valley of Hinnom, but the name would be changed to “THE VALLEY OF SLAUGHTER.” The reason for the new name was that God would cause a vast number of the inhabitants of Judah to die there at the hands of their enemies.
God foretold in Jeremiah 19: 7-8 a day when those who had filled TOPHETH with innocent blood would themselves be slaughtered--- though they certainly could not protest their own innocence. Payday was coming someday to Jerusalem and Judah because of the people’s idolatry and callous disregard for human life.
After the judgment had been administered God promised to restore the fortunes of Judah and Israel as in former times, to purify them and forgive all the wrongs they have committed. In Jeremiah 33:8 God indicated all their evil deeds had actually been committed against Him.
Romans 8:1 concludes our lesson with the statement that no matter how grievous our offenses against God’s standard of holiness and righteousness may have been, once we experience justification through faith in Jesus Christ, we are declared righteous on the basis of Jesus’ work on the cross.
We are in Christ and according to Philippians 3:9 we receive the righteousness “that is through faith in Christ---the righteousness from God based on faith.” So for those who chose abortion there is available forgiveness and cleansing in Jesus. This is the glorious good news of salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM LUKE 10:25-37 WE LEARN “HOW WE SHOULD TREAT THOSE WHO ARE ETHNICALLY DIFFERENT FROM US.” <altav@swbell.net>