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Abortion
SP03-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1982)
Abortion is the killing of unborn children and it is morally defended on the ground that the
unborn are not full persons. It is very important that you should understand that
right up front. The killing is justified on the basis that the unborn are not
full persons. The developing child therefore is described as a mere mass of
protoplasm in a pre-human state. This ignores the fact that the
developing child quickly assumes human form and that it can never become anything
but a human being made in the image of God.
Medical Observations
Here are some medical observations that demonstrate that
point: At conception the sperm and the egg unite into a zygote. God
completes the twenty three pairs of chromosomes from each parent and establishes all
the genes, the DNA and the RNA, or the genetic features at that at this
time. Thus from conception He determines the sex, the size, the shape, the color
of skin, hair, and eyes, and intelligence and temperament of the child.
Secondly, at the end of the first week after conception the zygote implants in the
uterus. No more twining takes place. Third during the second week the first blood veins develop. The unborn child has its own
blood system not mingled with his mother's.
Four: By the third week the unborn’s heart is beating. Five:
In the fourth week the unborn’s heart can be detected on an
electrocardiogram. Six: In the eight week his brainwaves can be detected on an
electroencephalogram. Seven: Also in the eighth week all his organs are
present. Eight: By the end of the eighth week the unborn’s hair and
eyebrows are present. Nine: In the ninth week his eyes have developed but they remain close.
Ten: From there on it is just a matter of growth. At no point does the
unborn child change into a person. He experiences uninterrupted growth from the
beginning. Eleven: The unborn child can react to pain, show personality traits,
exhibit individual variations, and try to make sounds as early as the third month.
Science
So, it has been the custom to appeal the science of support
one’s position on abortion. One writer says, “Surely we can
invoke the holy name of science to arrive at a reasonable public policy on abortion.
And as it happens, science these days probably smiles on the anti-abortionists as
Bernard Nathanson the abortion doctor turned pro-life gallantly argues whenever
he can find an audience. The quaint notion that a fetus constitutes some sort
of non-human matter or the 1973 Supreme Court announcement that a woman
can be a little bit pregnant, these clearly amount to bogus science on the order of spontaneous generation and alchemy.”
Humanity vs. Personhood
So, it's very clear that early on what has been the product
of conception is on its way to being human and quickly demonstrates
that that is exactly what it is. The evil Supreme Court, and it was an evil
Supreme Court—one man jumped on me one time when I said that and he said, “Oh they
weren't evil.” I say, “Yes they were.” The evil Supreme Court which
legislated abortion on demand did so for sociological reasons. They did not do so on the basis
of biblical reasons or on theological reasons. That was not consulted.
They did not deny that the developing fetus was a human being. Please remember
that. They didn't say it wasn't human, so any arguments along that line did not
faze them at all. There are certain feminist type women, whom a certain popular
radio host whom I’ll not name calls “FemiNazis” because
their desire, their main thrust, and that's not all feminists—just this group that is
bound and determined to promote abortions with a vengeance. They are indeed
appropriately called “FemiNazis.” These women wanted legal authority to kill their unwanted unborn children.
So, this liberal Supreme Court took the position that the unborn is not yet a person. They didn't deny that he was human but he
was not a person. Therefore, he had no Fourteenth Amendment Constitutional
protections of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and consequently they found that
that gave a woman privacy to do what she wanted with that unborn child. It did not deny its humanness—only its person.
President Clinton says that he has read all the scriptures
that are presented to prove that abortion is against the moral law of
God but he does not agree that they do so teach. Now that's a very important
observation. Here's the moral leader of the nation, supposedly, and he
says that the Bible does not condemn abortion on demand. The reason for it, he says, is that the word
abortion is not found in the Bible. Now the Bible does not use the word
“trinity” either to describe the Godhead, but it definitely teaches the doctrine
of the Trinity, so that's nonsense. President Clinton as a liberal supports
the slaughter of the unborn as a woman's right to her body.
The Medical Procedure
The medical procedure for an abortion is an act of brutal
mutilation, pain, and death. Pictures of an aborted child are revolting
to observe—an act of butchery. I have pictures, poster sized, that
one time I did put in the foyer under the glass case. A couple ladies saw them and
they were so horrified. They said, “Oh please don't leave them up for
Sunday.” So, I accommodated and pulled him down. But like the Chinese say that one
picture is worth a thousand words, boy were those pictures worth a thousand words.
You get a different true focus on what abortion is all about because you now
look at the product the end result. It is an act of brutal humiliation, pain,
and death. The child may be vacuumed out of the womb. At a later time it is simply
poison with a saline solution in the womb and then removed. Or if it's a larger
baby at a later stage of development, then the doctor must resort to instruments
which crush the baby's skull, break its legs, break its arms, tears it apart,
and then it is extracted piece-by-piece from the mother's womb, with a
nurse standing by very carefully counting the parts, putting them together to
be sure that everything has been extracted. This is not a dignified procedure.
There is nothing pleasant about it. It is an ugly thing and it is something that
only pagan societies do today. It was not done, however, in the worst of the pagan societies in the ancient world.
Now some twenty years later since the Supreme Court
legalized abortion, thirty million innocent infant Americans have been
slaughtered, with a loss to us of their population, their skills, their
abilities, their great things that they would have contributed to our
societies. They have been slaughtered by their mothers, and that with
society's blessings. The horror and the evil of abortion aided and protected by
the government has indeed driven some to strike back with extreme measures
which themselves indeed are wrong and they're illegal. So, abortionists have
been killed and that is not justified, and the abortion movement never justifies that.
Humanity and Human Rights
Let me read an article to you that perhaps can help put this in perspective. It is by Linda Bowles, a syndicated writer, and it's
entitled “Liberals Fail to See That Abortion is a Problem.” January 11th: “Many liberals have a peculiar way of
looking at things, mostly with a view to the exoneration of themselves from the consequences of their own behavior. The latest example of this
projection of blame to others is people's reaction to the murder of two Massachusetts abortion clinic workers. A hundred different media voices
tell us that John Salvi was incited to murder by the inflammatory rhetoric and violent activities of the pro-life game. Apparently it never occurs
to the pro-abortion crowd or their media allies that abortion itself is the problem and not the revulsion of compassionate and caring people
to it.
“The underlining and arrogant assumption of such liberal
thinking is that there is no objective moral reality. Evil has no
existence except in the eye of the beholder. The laws of God and nature are
subject to repeal by popular opinion, judicial edict, or even wishful thinking. To
the extent that John Salvi’s behavior was caused by forces external
to himself, a case may be made that the mental image of healthy living babies being
poisoned and shredded in the womb was more than enough to shatter his
rationality. A case can be made that it is not the rhetoric of those outside these
clinics, but the activities of those inside them that must bear the burden of
guilt for the creation of the unhinged John Salvis of the world. This is not to
justify what he is accused of doing. This is to offer a more reasoned
explanation of why he did it, as a counter to the foolish and self-serving
explanations that fill the airways and the printed pages across America.
“Over one million abortions each year by any standard of a
civilized people is a national crisis. And the crisis is not defined by
problems of access to abortion clinics but by the fact of wholesale
abortions and the pagan celebration of them by large segments of our society.
Rather than focus on the elimination of what is going on outside abortion clinics
as a means of reducing violence, perhaps we should develop a national
strategy for dealing with a licensed horror going on inside those clinics.
“There are two essential questions in the abortion debate. When
does human life begin, and once that is established, what rights does a
human life? I would like to offer the thinking of two extraordinary men on
this subject. They stand separated by more than twenty four centuries of
time, but they stand together on the timeless platform of conscience.
Hippocrates
“The first man was Hippocrates who was acknowledged and
honored as the father of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath was named for
him. The oath sets forth the physicians commitment to mankind and details the
relationships between the doctor and his or her patients. One paragraph
of the original oath applies directly to this discourse” ‘I will
follow that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the
benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and
mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such
counsel. Furthermore I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce
abortion.’ That is what doctors take as the Hippocratic Oath when they enter the practice of medicine.
Professor Jerome Lejeune
“The second man is a world renowned geneticist Professor Jerome Lejeune of Paris. France. Dr. Lejeune’s honors and awards
fully listed would fill the rest of this column. He is a professor of Fundamental
Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine of Paris and was awarded the Kennedy prize
for the discovery of the first disease due to a chromosomal mistake, Down
syndrome. On August 10th, 1989, Lejeune testified before a Tennessee
circuit court in the case of Brown vs. Brown. The case revolved around a
custody dispute over several frozen human embryos. With respect to the question
as to when human life begins, Lejeune testified there was no longer any doubt
that the life codes for each special unique individual are resident at
conception and animate the new person very soon after fertilization occurs. What
common sense has always said and what science now confirms is this: Human life begins with conception.
Lejeune’s position is that you may argue about what rights this human life may
have, but the argument is over about when life begins and what it is.
“He answered a question about the legal rights of an embryo
as compared with an older being. He said that at any age both are
members of the human species, and this status is not a function of the amount of
kilograms. In their efforts to justify themselves, the pro-abortion forces in
America has succeeded not only in the corruption of the Constitution of the United
States but in the corruption of the Hippocratic Oath.
The most innocent and defenseless among us have been betrayed by those institutions whose primary mission is their
protection—the government, the system of justice, the medical community, and alas much
of the Protestant church. Those who should lead the fight against this conspiracy of
death have become parties to it by their silence and their cowardice.”
So, there is a great deal of hypocrisy out in the pro-abortion forces which are misrepresenting the fact that there are
some extremists driven beyond what they can control over this terrible brutal thing,
and the liberal press is running around saying that we have to stop the killings outside of abortion clinics. What in the world is going on
inside those clinics except that very thing? But there is one thing that you can always count on of a liberal mind:
It is out of touch with reality.
The Bible on Abortion
So, the ultimate question is whether by the Word of God in
Scripture abortion is an act of the murder of an innocent child. Is a
developing unborn child a human being whose life is thus sacred to God?
Does a woman's right to the treatment of her own body extend to her treatment
of her child's body? So, first of all, where does life begin? Genesis 2:7 says,
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his
nostrils the breaths of life and man became a living being.” Originally,
this verse tells us, that God formed man's physical body from the ground like a
potter shaping a vessel from clay. This produced a lifeless shell without
capacity for anything. There are several names in the Bible for this shell. 2
Corinthians 5:1, 4 refer to it as a tent. 2 Corinthians 5:6 refers to this shell as a
home. 1 Thessalonians 4:4 refer to the human body as a vessel. Then this first
tells us that God Himself breathes into this earth body that he has formed, into
this shell, and he breathed into it the breath of lives. And notice that the Hebrew
is plural. It is unfortunately not always so translated. There should be
an “s” at the end of “the breath of life.” It is the breath of lives
that were breathed into him because there were two kinds of lives that were breathed into
man. First of all there was soul life that was breathed into man which constitutes
his mentality, his emotions, and his will for relating to people. There was
also breathed into man a spirit life which gave him a human spirit and capacity for fellowship with God.
The earth shell then at that moment became a living being, and it had full capacity for fellowship with God. Now since the sin of
Adam in Eden, all are born spiritually dead, and they must be made alive
spiritually to God by the inbreathing of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation
when faith is placed in Christ as Savior. So, again, for our spiritual contact with God, as for Adam’s, there had to
be an inbreathing of God. For us there has to be an inbreathing of the Holy Spirit for us to come alive spiritually.
Does God create a new life then with each baby? The answer is, “Yes.” A few Scriptures: First of all, Job 33:4
says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Job said, “I came into life. I came into being a living being as a result of an act
of God which gave me that life.” Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “Then the
dust will return to the earth as it was and the Spirit will return to the God who gave
it.” When did God give that spirit? At the point when this child was born. At the
point when this child was conceived he was given that spirit. Isaiah 42:5
says, “Thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who
spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it. Zechariah 12:1 says, “The burden
of the Word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the LORD who stretches out
the heavens, lays the foundations of the earth, and forms the spirit of man
within him. One more in the New Testament, Hebrews 12:9 says, “Furthermore we had
earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not
much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?”
What these verses all say is one
thing: that God creates human life. But it does not say when in the birth process he does that. It may be at conception. It
may be at viability when the child can prematurely live outside of the
mother's body. Or it may be at birth when he takes his first breath. Adam's creation
of course was different and cannot apply here because his situation was a
creation as a mature person, and it differs from the situation of his posterity. What
happens when the baby takes his first breath is merely the manifestation of the
soul and spirit life that he already possesses in the womb as a human being.
As we will see, the evidences for that soul life being there have been
demonstrated in a variety of ways, and we will look at some of those. But the whole
point is that at whatever point God puts in that spirit and soul life, He does it
with that child that has been conceived and is in the form of being developed.
And when that baby takes that first breath and becomes a full operational human
being outside of the mother's body, that's soul and spirit life that he
possesses is simply a manifestation of what he already had inside the womb. He was
never anything but a bonafide human being. Life for Adams began when God breathed into him, but life for his posterity
then begins at conception in the womb before there's any physical development, before there's any birth.
Now the next question is, once we’ve established that we're dealing with a human being in the womb, a person who has not yet been
born, what kind of legal rights does that unborn child have? Now we're zeroing in on the real issue here.
One of the places we can get some guidance is how God treated the unborn in the
theocracy of Judaism in the Old Testament system. What were the legal rights of the unborn?
Exodus 21:22
Move over to Exodus 21:22. Here is a series of guidelines for social relationships. We have here the
key passage that establishes whether an unborn child is a human being, and if
you take its life, it’s an act of murder. Whatever President Clinton has read
about what the Bible teaches on abortion, he must not have read this passage or
he was incompetently instructed in it. Exodus 21:22 says, “And if men struggle with
each other…” Two men get into a fracas and they get into a fight with one another.
“… and strike a woman with child…” This is probably the wife of one of the men
who gets into the battle, trying to help her husband. She is pregnant, and incidentally
this Hebrew word “child” is the same word which is applied to an
unborn child or a born child. The Hebrew has no word such as “fetus” or any
word that would distinguish between the child in the womb and the child who is outside
of the womb. In the process, one of the men, probably the one that's attacking her
husband, loses his temper toward her, and he reaches over and belts her.
“… and he strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage…”
The result is that she has a miscarriage. “… yet there is no further injury,
he shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as
the judges decide.” The key word there, of course, is “miscarriage.” We have to know what that word means.
The word “miscarriage” in the Hebrew bible looks like this: It’s the word “yatsa.” This word means “to
come out,” and it is the word for miscarriage that is applied only to live
birth. That's the key. This word is never applied to a miscarriage where the
child is stillborn. It never applies to a baby that is born dead. It is
applied to a premature live birth. So, the translation here would be much better
if they said “premature,” which some versions of the Bible do. It
should have said that this man hits this woman and the result is that she has a premature
delivery, but the child here is born alive. There is no question about it. “Yatsa” clarifies that for us.
There are other places in the Old Testament where this Hebrew is used that give us a little more insight. Genesis 25:26 in the
birth of Jacob and Esau: “Now the first came forth red all over like a hairy garment and they named him Esau, and
afterwards his brother came forth (“yatsa,” or to be born) with his
hand holding onto Esau's feet so his name was called Jacob, and Isaac was 60 years old
when she gave birth to them. Obviously this word “yatsa” here is
referring to a live birth. Both of these boys were born, and they were born alive.
Genesis 38:28-30 has this word used again: “Moreover it took place while she was giving
birth (“yatsa”). One put out the hand and the midwife took and tied a scarlet
thread on his hand saying, ‘This one came out first.’ But it came about as he
drew back his hand that behold his brother came out (“yatsa,” or “came out”). Then
she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself.” So, he was named Perez. And
afterward his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand and his
name was Zerah. There you have again two children born, both of them born live,
and this Hebrew word is used which can only be used for live birth.
Let’s move over to Job 3:11: “Why did I not die at birth? Come forth (“yatsa”) from the womb and expire? Job is
berating his condition which is that he had died when he came out of the womb. How did he come out?
Dead? No, he came out alive because this word in itself tells us that that was
his condition. Then Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you, God says, in the
womb I knew you, and before you were born I concentrated you. I have appointed
you a prophet to the nation (speaking of Jeremiah) before you were born (‘yatsa’).”
So, again we have this demonstration of these are these are live births. Now
coming back with that information to Exodus 21:22, that gives us an absolute
clue as to what verse 22 is saying. These men struggle with each other. One of
them strikes a woman with child so that she has a “yatsa.” What she has is a
premature delivery, and yet there is no further injury. That refers to both of
them—no further injuries to the mother or to the child. She’s alright and the baby is viable and able to live outside of the womb.
Now we have this further reinforced by the fact that there
are Hebrew words (and here is where the language helps us again) which
mean being born dead, stillbirth, so that there is an exact word that could
have been used if this woman had a miscarriage and had a dead baby. That's
what it means “no further injury.” The child was born prematurely.
He was not born dead. One of those Hebrew words is “shakol,” and this word
used in several places. Let's look at a couple so that you will get some idea of the
difference. Genesis 31:38 says, “These twenty years I've been
with you, Jacob says to his father-in-law, your ewes and your female goats have not
miscarried nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks.” When he says that they
haven’t miscarried, what he is saying is that they have not been born dead.
Exodus 23:26 says, “There shall be no miscarrying or barren in your
land. I will fulfill the number of your days.” Here is the promise to Israel
in the land. There shall be no one miscarrying, and because it uses the word
“shakol” there, we know that what this is saying is that there's no one who is going to be
giving birth to dead babies. There will be no stillborn condition.
This is also found in the Job 21:10. Job who is distressed over
his obvious terrible trial that he is undergoing. Job 21:10 says,
“His ox mates without fail. His cows calve and does
not abort.” Here the animals are not born dead. Then one more in
Hosea 9:14: “Give them Oh Lord. What wilt thou give
them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” Here judgment is being called upon Israel's
enemies. And what did they say? Give them a condition where the children are born dead
(“shakol” children), and therefore the breasts are dry because there's no one to feed.
There's another word as well, as if that one wasn't enough. There is another one that the Holy Spirit could have used. If this
woman's child would have been born dead as a result of the fight. It's the
Hebrew word “nephal.” This word also carries the same condition, the
same idea, of being born dead. You'll find this in Job 3:16 and in Psalm 50:8.
So, what happened to this woman in the fight here in Exodus 21:22
is that she had a premature delivery? She delivered a preemie. It was
not that the child was killed in the process. Then it says if there's no other
injury, the guilty man is going to have to pay an appropriate fine to the husband
as determined by him and the judges. The reason for this is that the woman
has suffered mental and emotional stress and therefore she is to be recompense for that by the fine.
Now let's go down to verse 23. Supposing the worst thing happened. The baby is killed as a result of the result of this
deliberate striking of the woman. But if there is injury (and the words “any further” you
see are in italics—that’s not in the Hebrew, forget them because it confuses
the picture here. And if there is injury. What kind of injury? The next phrase
gives us a clue. “Then you shall appoint (and forget “as a penalty” again—those
are in italics), you shall appoint life for life.” So, the further injury is
very clearly the death of the unborn child. And if it says there will be life
or life, it is telling us that this man who deliberately struck this woman,
caused her to have a premature delivery, and delivered a dead baby, he has been
responsible for bringing about an abortion of death, and he will pay for it
with his life. Does the Bible teach against abortion? You bet it does. It was a
capital crime in Israel and the language here in the Hebrew makes it very clear
what we're dealing with here.
The injury here is furthermore a word that refers to something physical. It can be a bruise or can be death. The injury
contemplated here again applies either to the mother or to the unborn child. And
here the offender is to be penalized as per the injury he caused—life for
or life. That refers to capital punishment for the death of either the mother or the child by his deliberate attack.
Now what was brought about by someone as an unintentional death was not to be punished with execution. Under those conditions a person
was to flee to one of the cities of refuge. Deuteronomy 19:4-13 describe that. So, if
it was inadvertent unintentional taking of a life, that's manslaughter, and
therefore it was not dealt with as a capital crime. But here this man
deliberately did it. And verse 24 then goes on to say, “Eye for
eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound,
bruise for bruise.” What is the purpose of all that? It’s telling us
that the punishment must fit the crime—punishment commensurate with the crime, and
the worst punishment is taking this life for murder. If he does something less,
then he is dealt with accordingly in terms of what he actually did.
So, Exodus 21:24 indicates punishment for a deliberate attack. So, Scripture, guiding the Old Testament theocracy to establish
the righteousness of God, gave full legal protect to the unborn child. That was the
question we proposed? Does that child have legal protection? Our wise
Supreme Court said, “No the child does not. He is not a person until he takes his first breath.
So, a premeditated abortion under the theocracy of God was clearly murder of a human being. The penalty for premeditated abortion
is a death of the responsible parties. Today it would be the mother and the doctors and
the (abortion clinics). There is no permission given for abortion in the Bible whatsoever, and there is
clearly a condemnation of it. The U.S. Supreme Court, with its decision in favor
of abortion, has drenched our land with the blood of millions of innocent
children who have been murdered by abortion (and that's the word), and judgment is coming upon this nation for that.
Regarding the Old Testament law, some might argue and do: So
why didn't the Old Testament give a specific prohibition against
abortion? It gives many prohibitions. Why didn’t it, when it said, “Thou
shalt not murder, include some explanation some caution concerning that. Well there are several
good reasons. First of all, childlessness was viewed as a curse among the
Jews. So, it would be unthinkable to bring a curse upon yourself by killing your
own child. You'll find that in Deuteronomy 25:6, Ruth 4:5, and Jeremiah 1:19. It was a curse to be childless, so people
wouldn't bring that upon themselves.
Secondly, children were viewed as a gift from God, which one
would be spurning a gift from God by abortion (Genesis 33:5, Psalm
113:9, 127:3). Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God grants conception, and the one
who fears God does not terminate a work of God such as a pregnancy, and all
pregnancies are the work of God (Genesis 29:33, 30:22, 1 Samuel
1:19-20). Also abortion was not practiced in Old
Testament times. So, there really wasn't any need for a prohibition
against it. Even the ancient pagan civilizations recoiled from the concept of
abortion. They didn't recoil from burning their born children alive in offerings
to Baal, but they recoiled from the idea of aborting an unborn child. The Old
Testament is silent on abortion per se, but that does not justify the practice we’ve seen from the sex in this passage.
Psalm 139
We have, furthermore, is one more point, and that's in Psalm
139. Psalm 139 stresses the work of God in the womb. Psalm 139:1-16
deal with the life of King David and the stages of his life. The first stage is
in verse 1, and I want you to notice the personal pronoun “me.”
“The Lord oh Lord has searched me and known me.” The second stage of his life is verses
2-6 where he repeatedly uses the word “I” as he reviews his present
condition with God. His past stage of life is in verses 7-12 where again he repeatedly uses the
word “I” in reference to himself in dealing with God. Then when we come to
verses 13-16, he goes back into the fetal stage of his life. He goes back into his
life in the womb. We're going to zero in on that. Verse 13 says, “For
thou didst form my inward parts.” David is reviewing his condition from the womb
to adulthood, and he uses these personal pronouns to show that he is the same person
inside the womb as outside, and there was a continuity. Verse 13 says,
“For thou didst form my inward parts. Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb.”
These words “form” and “weave” describe the work of God in this pregnancy. The
formation of a living person in the womb is a creative work of God.
Job 10:8 speaks about being fashioned by God hand. Ecclesiastes 11:5 refers to the creative work of God in developing a
child in the womb. So, there is a clear declaration here that what is formed in
the world as the result of conception is not a mere chemical biological activity,
but it is the creative work of God. It is not some automatic system that has no
mind and direction behind it. Then in verse 14 he says, “I will give
thanks to thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are thy works, and all
my soul knows it very well.” “Wonderfully made” is a praise
to God for His infinite ability. Psalm 8:3-5 indicate that man is the crown jewel of all the creative
work of God. And David thanks God for the fact that he has been wonderfully made.
Anybody who knows anything about the functioning of the human body, the fact
the capacity the human body has for taking care of itself, when its immune
system is functioning, and to repair itself, is amazing. Only such nonsense of
evolution would suggest that that could have come without a thoughtful guidance by the power of God.
Then notice verse 15, “My frame was not hidden from thee…”
The frame refers to the skeletal structure of the little body in the
world. “… when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the
earth.” “Skillfully wrought” indicates that the work that God is
doing is a work of embroidery. The child is God's handcraft, and “the depths of the
earth” is a poetic reference to the fact that he was hidden in his mother's womb.
This is a Hebrew expression for “deepest concealment.” What God does
in the womb was not known until modern times with the onset and the availability of
radiology to be able to look inside the womb and see what was going on. But David knew
and he said that God was skillfully putting together all the pieces,
embroidering, as it were. God knows always because he fashions one child at a time.
Abortions then is also the gross of interrupting a creative work of God which is in progress by sinful human beings for social convenience.
Finally verse 13 says, “Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance. This refers to David when he was an embryo, beginning his
life, beginning as a new person. Before the embryo takes human shape, God is already at work on it actively putting it together and structuring it.
“And in thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there
was not one of them.” “Furthermore, David said, “I have a mission.” Every
conception is a human being with a divine mission. “And God has recorded my
mission, and He has recorded my appropriate life span to execute that mission.
Please remember that. If you are still here, it’s because you haven't completed
your mission. When your particular mission is completed as per the plan of God, you will die. Nothing will
prevent that. Nothing will be able to circumvent that. All of that is in the
Book of God and it was decided when that sperm and egg cell came together and
conception was begun. God's work and God's decisions were at that point.
So, the fetus is not a mere growth in the mother's womb which
can be removed like a bad appendix or infected tonsils. The fetus is
not a potential human being. It is a human being which is maturing to
adulthood. At no point after conception does a fetus become a human beings. Got it? The
Bible is clear that it is a human being in the image of God, and that's why the
deliberate killing of that child in the fight with the woman and her
husband with this man was an act of murder on the part of that man, because he
killed a bonafide human being. If he would have killed a bonafide human being he would have paid with his life for it.
A Summary of Life in the Womb
So, let's summarize life in the womb. God plans the existence of the unborn from eternity past (Jeremiah 1:5). God has a mission for
the unborn (Isaiah 49:5). All of these are very important verses that we can’t take
the time to review right now. Sometimes, however, we must point out, it is not God's purpose for the pre-born to survive. They are born
dead—stillborn (Job 3:16, Jeremiah 20:17). It is the will of God for some children not to see the light
of day. God gives conception to some and he prevents conception in others (Genesis 29:31). David said, “All of my sons come
from God” (1 Chronicles 28:5). Sarah’s dead womb was activated by God (Romans 4:19, Hebrews 11:11).
So, God is the author of all life. Barrenness in some is the wisdom of God. While it may be distressing or unpleasant, God has a
different plan. Perhaps for such a person the plan would be the adoption of
children and the care of someone in that way. But the point is that it is always an
act of God. I don't care what the condition is. It is a sovereign act of God
or no conception takes place. God fashions, we have seen, every child in the
womb (Job 10:8-11). Is this true of the four babies. Yes. God fashions in the
womb even the deformed babies (John 9:1-3, Exodus 4:11).
What about Physical Abnormalities?
It is wrong to advocate abortion because there is some
imagined real or potential physiological abnormality. I've had people
call me. I had one occasion where a lady called and said, “The doctor just
told me that my baby, well on the way in development, does not have a head, and they
are suggesting an abortion. Now that's a tough call to make it and a tough
situation for me to find myself in. What should I advise this person? I
cannot humanly give any advice on this. It has to be that even a deformity is
an act of God, and what God done must run its course. He gives life and only
He can take life. Euthanasia is wrong. You can't kill yourself. It is
violating the rule and the power of God to make that decision. Regarding where this
trial would go, even children who are born that we know have a genetic
problem, they're going to die. It is not our place to bring about that death. In
the case of this particular lady, our information was that you must go very
carefully and slowly with that kind of an idea, to accept the idea of
an abortion, that is a very dangerous concept and it is condemned by the
Word of God. You must now ride this through wherever it leads. This is what she
did. Shortly thereafter she called and said that another doctor looked at
the pictures, and he was horrified by what the other doctor had said. He
said, “What do you mean this baby doesn't have a head? You're looking at it wrong.
Look at the position. And when that baby was born, what a bouncing boy he was.
He’s a splendid kid. And here the advice was to destroy this child. Do you
realize what would have happened? Do you realize what this mother would have
felt like, although I don't think they would have told her that we found he had a
beautiful head or anything. This is one of the things that doctors always can
do—they can always cover up their mistakes, with the morticians. But this was a
horrible piece of advice, and the medical profession should not have entered
into that moral issue. From the Bible’s point of view she did the right thing and discovered that got hit on her.
These personal pronouns that we have seen uses in reference to the unborn indicate personhood (Job 3:3-16). The same words are used
in the Bible for those who are born and those who are unborn (Luke 1:44, 2:12,
16). The unborn child has the qualities of personhood. The unborn child struggles (Genesis
25:22). The unborn child has emotion, in Luke 1:41, 44 when Elizabeth,
the mother of John the Baptist, came into the presence of Mary who was
bearing Jesus, and in the womb of Elizabeth John the Baptist leaped with joy.
Some preacher said that was a muscular twitch. The Bible makes it very clear
that Elizabeth said, “The child leaped in me with joy as he came into
the presence of our Lord whom you are bearing.” This
this was not of muscular twitch, so what happened? John the Baptist was
showing emotion. What must a creature have to show emotion? He has to have a
soul. Emotion is part of the soul. The mind, the emotions, and the will are
what constitute personality. That’s what constitutes the soul.
Furthermore, Luke 1:15 speaks about this child being filled with the spirit from conception, before he was born. Lifeless cells
cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit. David observes in Psalm 51:5 that he has the old
sin nature. There is no old sin nature in protoplasm cells that have no meaning and no purpose.
So, will a woman be better off mentally, socially, and financially if she has an abortion and not the child? That is often the
sociological reason given today. Feminists and liberals say, “Yes,” but one
would have to have omniscience in order to say that that would be better. The
woman would never know that her situation was going to be worse. In
fact it may be much better when the child is born. I can assure you that those who
have had an abortion find very serious problems subsequently—some
physical, some emotional, some mental, and some spiritual There are no omniscient women to assume
the right to abort a life. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom to do
moral evil. Freedom of choice does not give us the right to steal, the right to
adultery, the right to lying, the right to murder, or the right to idolatry. So
freedom of choice and privacy does not include the right to do what God
condemns as a moral evil. I hope you have seen now from the Scriptures we’ve shown you that abortion, killing of pre-born baby is murder.
There are various short and long range consequences when
women abort their child, and they’re all bad. Premeditated abortion is murder on the part of all
who are involved. Christians do have the privilege to help unwed mothers to care, and
sometimes through adoption, for those who find themselves in that situation.
Where do the aborted children go? All children who have
aborted will be in heaven, while many of their mothers and their
associated doctors will be in the lake of fire. Do not be deceived by the
euphemisms that liberals use to describe this brutal godless act, to make it seem
benign. The Nazis, when they were determined to exterminate all the Jews under
their conquered territories, used to refer to the Jewish problem, which meant
we’ve got Jews and we've got to get rid of them so that they're no longer
living, and then they referred to the “final solution.” And everybody
in the government and in the Nazi hierarchy knew was meant when they said the “final
solution.” The “final solution” meant Auschwitz and the other death camps in the
crematoriums. The Nazis tried to hide what they were doing by using nice words.
So, clinical language is used to disguise the heinous and the
morally reprehensible act of abortion. A baby is called a fetus, not a
child. It is aborting, not murder. It is terminating a pregnancy. It is extracting the product of conception.
We have to be courageous as Christians to stand against this
thing even if the president of the United States tells us that it's
alright to do. I leave you with Proverbs 24:11-12: “Deliver those who are
being taken away to death…” These are people who are innocently being taken
to their deaths. “… and those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say,
‘See, we did not know this,’ (pretending that you did not know what was
going on) “Does he not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does he not know it who
keeps your soul? And will he not render to man according to his work?”
Yes, people should not take the law into their own hands,
but neither should the government to tell Christians who want to stand
outside of an abortion clinic and try to appeal to women to change their mind,
to tell them that that's illegal, and to bring them into court, and to punish
them for that kind of action which is a biblical action, and put them under the
RICO Act a law, which was used to stop gangsters and criminals, and to say that
these people who are protesting abortions are interfering with our income and
our livelihood, and therefore they are acting as gangsters taking money
which belongs to us. We Christians are clearly told we must act according to
what you know, and whatever you have known and thought about abortion before,
the two main passages of scripture in Exodus 21 and Psalm 139 that we have dealt
here cannot leave you with any further doubt.
Father we want to thank thee for the Word of God, its
clarity, and its purpose to enlighten us. Bless us we pray in our
confidence and our determination to know that we Christians are indeed the extreme
right—we're extremely right, because the Word of God is perfect.
Dr. John E. Danish
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