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Lights in the World - PH47-01
Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 2:14-15© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1976)
This is segment number 17 on how a Christian can be a light in a world of darkness. We have been studying this proposition via the Ten Commandments.
The Lord Jesus Christ summed up the entire Jewish way of life in two specific statements, or two commandments. We have these in Matthew 22:35,
where we read, "Then one of them, who was a lawyer (that is, a scribe, or a student of the Mosaic Law), asked Him (Jesus) a question, testing
Him and saying, 'Master, which is the great commandment in the law?' Jesus said unto him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'"
You will notice that verses 37-38 summarize a commandment of complete maximum ultimate devotion to God.
This covers the first 4 moral principles which we have studied in the Ten Commandment code. Now we have been moving to the other side
of the law; that is the second table of the law, so to speak. This is summarized in verse 39 concerning responsibility, duty, and love toward our
neighbors; that is, toward other people. This covers the last six moral principles of the Ten Commandments. All the Mosaic Law; its system of
teaching; and, the teachings of the Old Testament prophets are based upon these two summary commandments. Verse 40 tells us, "On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
So what we are dealing with, when we talk about morality, is a twofold thing. Morality involves a responsibility
on the one side toward God, and morality, on the other hand, includes a responsibility toward people.
You are not a moral person unless both segments of morality are observed and recognized.
Summary of the Fifth Commandment
We have completed our study of the fifth moral principle. There are a few things to add in the way of summary. The fifth moral principle
dealt with honoring our parents. In the fifth moral principle, there are certain factors to be recognized.
Inheritance
First, there is the principle of
inheritance. All of us come into the world naked, but not into an empty world. We all come into a world that already exists, and that
already has something operating in it. We inherit, for example, the wisdom of our parents. All of the experience, judgment, and
knowhow of our parents are at our disposal by the very fact that we are born into their family. We inherit the material accumulation
of our parents' labors. You come into a family, and whatever it has is yours. Whatever food it has becomes part of your sustenance. You
do not come into an empty world. You come in without anything, but you come into a world of considerable provision. You inherit
the cultural heritage of your home: the faith; the ideals; the traditions; the sense of values; the spirit of love; the sense of honor;
the sense of duty; and, the patriotism. All of these factors become your heritage in the family into which you were born.
In a revolutionary age, it has been evident that rebellious
sons and daughters are trying to break with the past. The thing that is characteristic of a rebel is the fact that he wants to pretend
that he has no inheritance. He wants to reject everything that has been his by the sheer fact that he was born into the world and into
a specific family. So they act with animosity and with venom against their parents. This is a dishonor to your parents. If you do not
respect the inheritance that you have, you dishonor your parents. This is principle number one involved in this moral requirement.
New Growth
A second factor is the principle of new growth from the past. A man and a woman come together, and they declare their decision to team
up for life in a sexual relationship. So they enter a marriage and establish a new home based on Genesis 2:24. Each member of
this team brings a cultural inheritance from the two families together, and you then honor your parents by moving forward from that cultural
heritage. If you reach back and keep hanging on to involvement with your parents, then you dishonor your parents in your marriage. You honor
your parents by cutting off and establishing a new growth. This is a growth which is based upon the inheritance that two people bring together.
Married children, in this way, move from a past heritage to a new heritage which they themselves are creating. This is involved in the
principle of honoring your parents.
Life and Obedience
Another factor under this principle is the principle of life and obedience. Long life on earth
is in view. Principally, the concept of happiness is in view. The means to long life is freedom from diseases; freedom from plagues;
ample prosperity; and, a true ground for happiness in a spiritual orientation in your soul. For obedience to the Word of God, there
is happiness. Part of that obedience has to do with your treatment of your parents. So there is a general blessing upon those who live
on biblical principles. Presumably, learn from your parents. You honor your parents by being positive to biblical principles which they've
introduced you to.
Self-Dishonoring
Finally, there is the principle of self-dishonoring. To dishonor yourself is to dishonor your parents.
This is very pointedly declared to us in Leviticus 21:9, where we read, "The daughter of any priest, if she
profane herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burned with fire."
When a child does that which is morally dishonorable, you also dishonor your parents. So to honor your parents requires faithfulness
to moral principles. To honor your parents requires doing that which is right. That means doing that which is compatible with these principles
that we have been studying in the Ten Commandments, for example. When you violate these principles of righteousness, you invite death
into your life. You immediately sustain temporal death in separation from the Lord in fellowship. You immediately bring suffering into
your life, and you may ultimately bring physical death itself.
So these principles amply summarize the Fifth Commandment.
The Sixth Commandment
That brings us to moral principle number six. This is one concerning which there is a fantastic amount of disorientation.
That principle we read in Exodus 20:13. It is very short in the Hebrew, Actually, it is simply two words in the Hebrew. In English it says,
"Thou shalt not kill." Now, let's get something straight. We're now going to explain something to you on the authority of the Hebrew language,
which the average church member doesn't know a thing about. You may amuse yourself this week by asking church members, especially people
who have sat around search for a long time, just exactly what this word "kill" means, and how they would apply it. You'll see why our government
leaders are disoriented, because even Christians don't know what the word means, let alone people who have nothing but religion to
carry them into public office and into public influence.
The word "kill" is the Hebrew word "ratsach" The word "ratsach"
means "to murder." It deals with killing in the sense of homicide. It means taking a human life without proper authorization.
There are ten Hebrew words that deal with the concept of killing. You can go home and get your English lexicon out, and
you can go through and you can see every one of those Hebrew words. One of them is "ratsach." Only this one means "unauthorized taking of life."
None of the other words mean exclusively unauthorized taking of life. The other words will cover taking life legitimately; taking
life illegitimately; taking life deliberately; taking life without premeditation; animal sacrifices; and, human sacrifices.
They're all covered by these other words, but the point I am making is that only this word exclusively and very clearly means taking a life
without authorization.
Now, that's not an accident. When God the Holy Spirit led Moses to write this particular moral principle. It was God
the Holy Spirit who saw to it that he used "ratsach," and no other Hebrew word. That is because any other word would have opened the door
to all of its disorientation concerning war; concerning capital punishment; concerning self-defense; concerning the conscientious objector concept;
and, everything else down the line. It was critical that this word and this word alone should be used in order that there would be no
doubt as to what almighty God was laying down in this moral principle. What God is saying is that "Thou shalt not murder."
This kind of murder can be of two kinds. It can be premeditated murder, such as we have this word used in 1 Kings 21:19.
Here it is premeditated murder, and it uses the word "ratsach:" "You shall speak to him saying, 'Thus
says the Lord, have you killed and also taken possession?' And you shall speak unto him saying, 'Thus says the Lord. In the place where dogs
lick the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick the blood, even yours.'"
Here is the prophet Elijah speaking to Ahab, who, with his wife Jezebel, has committed "ratsach" against (murdered) Naboth the Jezreelite.
So verse 19 says, "Thus says the Lord, have you killed?" That is,
"Have you murdered and taken possession of Naboths's property?" This was deliberate (as you know) premeditated murder on the part
of Jezebel, and Ahab went along with it.
However, this word for murder (homicide) is also used in Deuteronomy 19:2-6, where it is used
of murder which was unintentional: "You shall set apart three cities for you in the midst of your land
which the Lord your God has given you to possess." These are known in the Old Testament as cities of refuge. There were three on the east side,
and three on the west side of the Jordan River. They were places that a person who killed another person could flee to and be immune
from the hand of vengeance on the part of somebody else who was exercising justice against the murderer until his case could be heard, and
the situation understood and established to know what punishment should be meted out.
So it says, "You shall prepare a way, and divide the
borders of your land, which the Lord your God gave you to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee there. And this is the case
of the slayer whose shall flee there: That he may live, whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally." The word "kills"
there is "ratsach." He murdered. He committed homicide, but here it was unintentional. "Whom he hated not in time past. As when a man
goes into the forest with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand swings with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from
the helve, and lights upon his neighbor, that he die, he shall flee unto one of those cities and live."
Here is a man in a forest cutting
wood; the ax head flies off; it hits a man near him; and, kills him. Did he do it deliberately or did he not? The man's relative might come
along and say, "You just murdered one of my family, and I'm going to take vengeance on you." So he could flee to the city of refuge in order
to have protective custody while this case was heard, lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot, and
overtake him, because the way is long, and slay. Whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past."
So the point was that somebody in a moment of rage might want to take vengeance.
Well, this was the setup that God had to preserve law and order in Israel until a case was rightly heard. So this word, "ratsach" simply
means homicide--unauthorized killing. It can be deliberate and premeditated, or it can be accidental. Some people try to include capital
punishment under this word. They try to include war, and they try to include self-defense. None of these things come under this commandment.
Killing in Warfare
Let's get that straight. The sixth moral principles does not mean that you cannot kill an enemy in combat. That's perfectly right to do.
As a matter of fact, God requires a nation to do that. From the principles of warfare that the Bible lays down, peace is established
by invading the territory of your enemy; destroying his capacity to make war by your physical occupation of his land; and, destroying
his soldiers in the field. Therefore, when a soldier goes into combat as a Christian,
he kills the enemy as unto the Lord. This is the most honorable thing a Christian soldier can do--to kill the enemy as onto the Lord,
because it is under the divine principle of the preservation of the national entity against an aggressor.
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is very
clearly outlined in the Word of God. Premeditated murder is to receive the penalty of death. The Bible is very clear that you
cannot circumvent that. The Bible says you must not bribe the judge. You must not pay a ransom. You must not try to evade it. You must not
go to the family and try to make a deal as if you could escape this divine law. It is life for life, soul or soul.
Well, this is a "Qal" stem which means it's a simple statement of fact. It is active. It is a personal act of murder. It is imperfect.
It means any time in the future. Along with it is the other Hebrew word "lo" which is the Hebrew word for "not." It is comparable
to the Greek word "ou" that you have heard us speak of before. "Ou" is the negative word in the Greek. That means, "No, absolutely, no questions,
and no further discussion."
This "ou" in the Greek and this "lo" in the Hebrew mean the same thing. So what God is saying is you will not at
any time, under any condition, exercise your will to take the life of another person unless you have been authorized to take that person's
life: unless you have been authorized as a soldier in the field of battle to take
a person's life; unless you have been authorized under civil authority to perform an act of execution; or, unless you are in a position where
your life is threatened by someone else, and in order to preserve your life, you execute him. You take his life instead.
Those are all justified and authorized executions. They are authorized killings.
Murder is the ultimate threat to human freedom. Once
you murder a person, you have permanently denied him the exercise of his volition. God forbids you to deny anybody the exercise of
his choice. That's the point here. You can never deny anybody the exercise of his choice. John 8:44 tells us that Satan was a murderer
from the beginning. He is the father of murder, and he consequently, constantly seeks to destroy the human race. If Satan, in some way,
could get all humanity to kill itself off, God could not fulfill His plan in the millennium. There would be no living human beings in
their natural state to be able to enter the millennium. Satan is always going about, 1 Peter 5:8 tells us, "As a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour." That is, Satan, as a murderer, is always going about seeking to violate this moral principle, and to kill off
as many people as he can.
Murder
So what does this commandment deal with? Well, it deals with crime. It does not deal with authorized homicide
such as war; capital punishment; and, self-defense. Such homicide is performed under God's orders, and therefore is legitimate. The divine
rule is necessary in order to preserve the human race against Satan and the demonic host during the era of the angelic conflict. The
Bible authorizes, and it demands, the execution of premeditated murderers. If you will note in Numbers 35:30,
this principle is declared to the Jewish people and it is established as a moral code throughout the Word of God:
"Who so kills any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses. But
one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die." You have to have at least 2 witnesses to the murder before you
can execute a person. The testimony of one witness is not sufficient.
"Moreover, you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death.
But he shall be surely put to death." You will not come up with a secondary substitute punishment. When somebody takes another person's
life, there is no further discussion as to what happens to that person. He goes to execution. You do not give a ransom. You do not
give a substitute. You do not come up with something else in a way of a punishment. "And you shall take no ransom for him who has fled to
the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land until the death of the priest. So you shall not pollute the land
where you are, for blood defiles the land."
There is the principle. The blood which is shed in murder is viewed in the eyes of God as a defilement upon a country. That country then
comes under the judgment of God because of innocent blood which was shed through murder. "Therefore, the land cannot be cleansed
of the blood that is shed there, but by the blood of him that shed it." God says that a curse of divine judgment comes upon a land where innocent
blood is shed. That curse is removed only by one thing: by the payment of the soul of the person who took the life. "Defile not, therefore,
the land which you shall inhabit, where I dwell, for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel."
So execution under properly
constituted civil authority is enforced against murderers within a nation. But how about execution by the military outside of a nation.
That is also legitimate because the enemies outside of the country, who threaten the freedom of a nation, are to be executed by the military
forces.
Here is what we were facing in Vietnam. Here is the dishonor which burdened the American conscience as never before.
Here is the spectacle that none of us can ever remember. The United States of America told an ally, "We will stand by you. We will protect
you." The United States of America made an agreement with the North Vietnamese, an agreement which was called a peace settlement in
Paris. But we did tell the South Vietnamese, "We will stand by you. We will not let you be overrun. If this accord is broken, you may count
on us."
One of our senators was part of the group in this new liberal Congress which refused to give further military aid
to South Vietnam. This caused the debacle that took place: the bloodbath which was executed upon thousands
of Vietnamese as the communists got their hands on these people that hated communism and had resisted it all those years. This senator
said that he was sick and tired of seeing killing going on with American guns and American bullets. When I read the article,
I kept reading, because I wanted to
see whether he also said, "I was sick and tired of seeing China and Russia supplying North Vietnamese with guns and bullets
that were killing people." But do you know what, folks? He didn't say that.
Here was a United States senator of great influence. He was
telling us to stop aiding an ally who was sympathetic to the free enterprise system; who was a nation
of freedom; who was definitely against communism; and, who had demonstrated its own soldiers' willingness to die in the field of battle as
they had been doing. Our ambassadors regularly pointed out, and our military men pointed out, that the South Vietnamese army were
doing a great job of defending the country as long as we equipped them.
Suddenly, here we had a senator who said he was tired of seeing our guns killing people, as if our guns were not there because the
communist guns were invading the south to begin with. I don't care what other reasons, whatever arguments you may have as to whether
the country should be unified or how all this started. The point is that an agreement was reached. Here we had a senator who thought
that it was wrong to kill people, while the Word of God says that the very thing you do with an aggressor is to execute him. It comes
under the sixth moral principle that the people of North Vietnam, under their leadership, are murderers who have entered a country that
they have no business being in.
It all began back in Korea. It all began, mind you, when the United States of America had
come out of World War II, and we were the strongest nation in the world, in part, because we were the only nation that had the atom
bomb. Suddenly the North Koreans came pouring across the border into South Korea back in 1952. The United States, under the direction of
the United Nations, got into the battle. With MacArthur's brilliant behind-the-lines invasion at Inchon, we came up behind the communists;
shattered the communist forces; before very many weeks passed by, the Americans had walked every inch of North Korea; and, they stood on the
Yellow River looking across into China. At that point, the Chinese communists came in, and President Truman said that we cannot fight the
Chinese communists, though General MacArthur said that we have a new war and a new situation, and it calls for new decisions. Though General
MacArthur wanted to now move to the next step of dealing with the aggressor, President Truman said that we must not do that because we cannot
allow the communists to lose face. If the communists lose face, they will start a war against the United States.
So the communists
learned that Americans were willing to violate the sixth moral principle. Americans were willing to let murderers get away with murder.
Americans were willing to let Americans shed their blood for no gains at all. So we allowed the communists to push us back down to where
they started, and nothing was changed.
They never forgot that. What we saw in the dishonor of our country in Vietnam was directly attributable to the insanity
concerning this moral principle: that it is wrong to "kill."
The Bible could have, for example, used the word "katal." All
the students of Hebrew know that word. That's the word they used to learn all the different stems and forms. "Katal" simply
means "kill." Then you could have a justification for saying, "Oh, war is wrong. Capital punishment is wrong. We must not kill." A person would
have an argument.
But because God made it so clear that it's the word for "murder," and the word for murder alone, then there is a legitimate killing.
It is not just a general "katal," kill. It is a specific kind of killing that the Bible forbids. Military action to deal with aggression
and to protect the life of a nation is in the plan of God.
If you want to pursue this further, get the studies on the doctrine of warfare,
and you will see how very clearly God spelled out to the Jewish people how they were to secure peace, and how they were to deal in
military actions. There is never any justification in the Word of God for the idea of a conscientious objector. That's human viewpoint
to the hilt. But I will admit, as I heard parents say many times, like a man said to me, "I don't know if I had a son and he
was faced with being drafted into that Vietnam situation; a war that our government was determined not to win; and, a war in which our government
would not allow the South Vietnamese to invade the north and to take over so that the war could have been stopped, I don't know whether
I'd want my son to go." And I could grant you that all of us would have second thoughts. We have seen some of our friends who once
used to move through life with us. They gave their lives in Vietnam. Then all of Vietnam became communist under an aggressor. Soon, other
countries in Indochina would follow.
I wonder whether we as parents are now seeing something that we little realize what this is going to mean to our sons, as eventually
the United States is brought to the impossible position of being surrounded by communist enemies who, like raging wolves, then move in
on us, and then we must fight, but on ground where it will be difficult for us to win, and perhaps impossible, and on ground that we cannot
choose, but which is chosen for us. Why? Because today the disorientation in the American governmental leadership is so monumental that it
thinks that it is terrible to kill a communist enemy with American ammunition. The American people are so disillusioned that they send
people to Congress like that.
Governments which are not under the control of citizens, I recognize, can also be murderers.
This is obviously regularly true in communist countries which murder their citizens without restraint. The sixth moral principle is
essential because people have old sin natures, and the only way people can live with each other without destroying each other is under
this basic rule. This is basic to all human freedom. It's the basis of stability in any society.
So what actions are involved in the
Sixth Commandment? They are these: One, overt murder begins with an attitude of hatred in the mind. The mental attitude of hatred is
equated in the Bible with murder (1 John 3:15, Matthew 15:19). Both of these verses make it very clear that hatred is murder in the sight of
God. So immediately, most people who have been willing to compliment themselves that they are not murderers are immediately brought under
condemnation by this act alone. Many times a Christian commits murder by his hatred. Some of you may be sitting there now with a spirit
of hatred toward somebody else. You are guilty of violating this moral principle, and you are out
of fellowship because of it. Hatred in the sight of God is murder. Murder begins with hatred.
A second action condemned by the Sixth Commandment
is deliberate abuse of one's body which leads to your death, such as superstitious fasting. This is fasting as a religious act that eventually
leads to one's death. Or it could be the neglect of your health--the great devotion to some cause so that you neglect your health and you die.
Or you might punish your body. You make marks on it. You cut your body. You do things to yourself physically in order to punish your body
for supposed spiritual reasons, and which lead to your physical death. The deliberate abuse of your body is a violation of this commandment.
Suicide, by any means, is a violation of this commandment. You're overriding the prerogative of God who gives life to also take life.
Intemperate conduct is included in this: drunkenness; gluttony; dissipation of various kinds;
or, disorderly conduct such as rioting which may lead to your death. This was what was violated by many of the student riots where people
died. They were violating this moral principle.
This also includes the use of drugs, or the careless use of things which can be lethal weapons,
such as guns and such as cars. Or maybe when you're out on a recreational spree and you do something that is foolhardy and dangerous, that is
a violation of this commandment when it may take your life. It may be a violent outburst of your temper, so that in a moment of passion, you may
snuff out somebody's life because you turn around and you strike at another human being.
Abortion
Certainly we must include the question of
abortion under this commandment and under this principle. Exodus 21:22-25 give us some insight on the question of
abortion, and how this commandment covers it. Exodus 21:22 gives a specific case example. It says, "If men strive, and hurt
a woman with child so that her fruit departs from her (that is, her unborn child departs from her), and yet no mischief follows (that
is, the child does not die, though born prematurely, and the mother does not die), he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband
will lay upon him. He shall pay as the judges determine."
If two men are fighting and a woman comes between them, and they keep on fighting,
and this pregnant woman is caused to have a miscarriage, the child born then prematurely, if the child lives and the mother lives, then
the extent of damages here is a fine which is demanded by the husband and confirmed by the judges. The Hebrew word here is the word "yeled"
which means a youngster--a child, like an infant. It is not a fetus in terms of a piece of protoplasm in unshaped form.
This is actually a youngster which has been born fully operational and fully capable of life. That Hebrew word only applies to little
human beings.
Verse 23 says, "And if any mischief follows, then you shall give life for life," and the Hebrew word here is "soul."
Then you shall give soul for soul.
I think that is significant. What we are saying here is that if the miscarriage causes the child to be born prematurely, and the
child dies, at whatever stage of development, if it cannot sustain life outside of its mother's body and it dies, it dies as a what?
As a soul. Therefore, it says that this man's soul is to be given in exchange for the soul of the child, or in case the mother dies,
for the soul of the mother. It is soul for soul.
The principle is further carried out here: "eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth; hand for hand; foot for foot; burning for burning; wound
for wound; and, stripe for stripe." This means that the punishment should fit the crime. This is not to be taken literally, that if you
take out somebody's eye, that they will take out one of your eyes. By the context here, it is indicating that the punishment
should fit the crime. And the punishment for taking a life,
the Bible spells out very clearly. The way you take somebody's soul is by destroying the soul's tent (the
body). When you destroy the body so that his soul can no longer function in the body, then you must pay for it with your own soul.
So this is a very significant statement. It is using the Hebrew word "nephesh" which is comparable to the Greek "psuche"
for the word for "soul." This is an indication, I believe, that the fetus here is a genuine human being.
The legalization
of abortion on demand has led to fantastic problems for those who have been involved in it. One such problem is summarized in a little
short article that I'd like to read to you here. It was written in Human Events before abortion was legalized.
The title of it is "Just Because They're
Legal, Are Abortions Morally Justified?" The reason the article is of interest is because it is a summary of an article written by a doctor
who was in favor of legalizing abortion in New York City. As a matter of fact, he regrettably looks back and tells how he got his three-year-old
little son to go marching in front of a hospital in New York City which would not perform abortions under any conditions
for any reason whatsoever. How proud he was to see his three-year-old son marching with this sign calling for
the legalizing of abortion. Then this doctor, some 60,000-infants-slaughtered later had some second thoughts. The article refers to this
doctor:
"But it's just a mass of gook. Don't you see? What's wrong with cutting out a mass of gook?
I mean, it's a woman's right to control her body."
This is a question in itself as to who's right it is to control what when it comes to God's moral principles.
Just try to carry that out to no end. As a matter of fact, next week we're going to carry that out with some of you who are not completely
well; some of you that we have caught wearing glasses; some of you that we have a sneaking suspicion have false teeth;
and, some of you that we have noticed a few things wrong about you, and you are becoming a burden on society. I've got some real cookies
for you next week as to what we have in store for you people. But I want you to know that it all starts here with the abortion principle.
Proponents of abortion says that we have a right to determine who lives and who dies.
Continuing: "That (tidied up some) was about the extent of my own thought
on abortion until a few years ago when my wise friend Douglas Cropper put into my hands, with orders to go and read, Harvard Professor
John Noonan's remarkable collection of essays, The Morality of Abortion. Reading it occasioned my own road to Damascus, a special moment
at which, as they say, 'I saw the light.' But the trend is in the other direction. The Supreme Court opened the gates to legalized abortions,
after which the rush was on. Every morning on the way to breakfast, I pass a fancy little abortion mill down the block from my door.
The day some of their underling night wielders stood picketing (some labor dispute), it was all I could do to keep from telling them I not only
hoped they would lose their vile jobs, but that I prayed for a nice fire to incinerate their death factory. It's down to that level.
"The pro-abortionist mentality sees feticide as some sort of God-given right, assuming they are into God, and a fetus as something,
anything whatever, but not human. The anti-abortionist mentality sees feticide as murder, sanctioned now by nine old men in black,
but murder nonetheless. We go round and round on this--we TV folk. We find ourselves on the college lecture circuit debating some
avatar of the next consciousness, and we invariably come up against the major sticking point.
There are others, but this is the biggie:
"Is a fetus a human life or is a fetus not a human life? No one contends that a human being's
fetus is a kiddie or a puppy. I sometimes think that were it proved that a human fetus is in fact a kitten, there would be much more
concern over its fate than there is now. But let that go. Those who are championing the practice of fetus-killing say that a fetus is not
really, uh, like a human, don't you see? The remarkable power of Noonan's anthology is first the brilliance of its argumentation from
the standpoint of ethics; and, second, the wealth of scientific evidence showing in no uncertain terms that a fetus is recognizably demonstrably
absolutely a human, with all sorts of obviously human functions and attributes, and these are abundantly clear from the very first day of the
fetus's temporary residence in its mother's womb.
"I'd never been able to shake the evidence out of mind, and every new bit of scientific stuff
at least reinforces it. Sometimes it even nails it down more firmly. But the zeitgeist has maintained itself, and it says, "Kill them." Or does
it? The other day, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Chief of Obstetrics at New York's St.
Luke's Hospital, an early and militant abortion advocate, recanted: 'I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had,
in fact, presided over 60,000 deaths. The decision for abortion is fraught with moral and ethical questions, not only for the
woman and her physician, but for society at large.' Precisely, and amen.
"The squalidness of the pro-abortion argument is twofold: It is denial
that the fetus is a human being, despite the evidence, and its attempt to hush up those who aren't women, but who presume to talk about
the societal effects of abortion, like the tendency to regard human life cheaply, leading to the call for euthanasia of the deformed,
the old, and the uh, inconvenient. Dr. Nathanson too easily accedes to the legalization situation, forgetting that wretched Supreme Court rulings
have in the past been reversed, and when not reversed, have been nullified by constitutional amendments. He gives away too easily, but
he says, 'We must work together to create a moral climate rich enough to provide for abortions, but sensitive enough to life to accommodate
a profound sense of loss.' Abortion must be seen as the interruption of a process that would otherwise have produced a citizen of the
world.
"Denial of this reality is the crassest kind of moral evasiveness--half-true? If legalized fetus killing is, as Nathanson suggests,
a moral outrage, then how on earth can opponents of it stop fighting its legalization? Good solid citizens in Hitler's Germany accepted
the legality of genocide, of which, let us hope, history will never entirely absolve them.
Must Americans countenance an estimated million abortions each year because they are legal?"
So even those in the medical profession
who have been great proponents of abortion are having second thoughts upon it. I won't turn your stomach in describing
to you what actually takes place in an abortion. It is something that is loathsome to observe. It is something that is horrifying to
even contemplate. This is particularly so when you put it against the frame of reference that whatever your arguments are as to when that
conception turns into an actual bonafide human being, it always was destined to be a human being. This is just as the conception in the body of
Mary, from the moment it began, was always destined to be the human being, the God man Jesus Christ. No place along the line could it have been
legitimately aborted because it wasn't a human being. It was destined to be that, at whatever point it genuinely becomes that. There is no ground
for dismissing the concept that a fetus is a genuine human being with a soul. There is considerable grounds for suggesting from Scripture
that indeed it is.
Abortion is also condemned by the sixth moral principle, but so is euthanasia. Euthanasia is something that most of
you don't think is a problem for you. It is so-called deliberate mercy killing. We're going to go into that next time, because I don't believe
you are aware of the legislation which is now in the mills of this country in order to take the next step from abortion to euthanasia.
We'll look at that next time.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1973
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