13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s
womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your
works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden
from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together
in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the
days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
- Psalm 139:13-16, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
A protest ballad from the 1960’s had as its refrain, "The times they are a-changing..."
In the 1980’s, Christian philosophers made the sad pronouncement that America had become post-Christian, meaning the Biblical values and principles that once defined us as a nation were hanging on only by the weight of their inertia...
Today the buzz-word we hear most often to describe our culture is the term "post-modern." Exact definitions vary, but essentially what it means is that there is no longer any right or wrong when it comes to choices, lifestyles, beliefs, etc., but only personal preferences.
Nowhere is this seen more than in issues that deal with life. The Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion took place in 1973, which means an entire generation of young people have grown up with abortion being legal. Certainly it has been hotly debated on moral grounds since day one – but when the dust clears it remains legal. And once something is legal, it also quietly takes on a certain form of legitimacy or acceptance. To the point where certain politicians not only defend, but champion an atrocity like partial-birth abortion in the name of freedom of choice.
More recently the talk has turned to the other end of the discussion, and we hear rhetoric about death with dignity, physician assisted suicide, etc.
So it is important that we, as Christians, think clearly on life issues. It is important that we form our opinions not merely on the law of the land or the supposed feelings of the majority of our fellow citizens. It is important that we look to the Author, Creator and Redeemer of life for His Word and His take on this subject. And what we find is this:
GOD IS PRO-LIFE
1. The Bible is clear on this issue
2. The world is confused on this issue
3. We must respond to this issue
The portion of Scripture we read just a moment ago was written by King David. If you read this Psalm in its entirety, the central thought repeated in different ways throughout is that God knows everything about us.
What our text points out in a beautiful and poetic way is that God is involved in every phase of human life. Let me try to capture its essence in a single statement: From the moment of conception when our "unformed body" is "fearfully and wonderfully made," "knit" and "woven together" in our mother’s womb, to the last breath we draw as "ordained" for us in His "book," – as well as every moment in-between – God oversees it all.
King David was a lot of things – a leader, a soldier, a poet, a musician – but one thing he wasn’t was a doctor. Add to that the fact that he wrote these words roughly three thousand years ago without any knowledge of modern day ultrasound, fetal testing or amniocentesis, and one might wonder with what authority he speaks. The answer is: He speaks and writes with the authority of God the Holy Spirit. "All Scripture is God-breathed," (2 Timothy 3:16) and this Scripture makes it quite clear: From beginning to end, God is the One who sets the parameters of life.
We could cite other portions of Scripture that deal with both beginning of life and end of life issues. We could turn to the portion of Exodus (21:22-25) where Moses, at God’s direction, is laying down civil laws. There we are told if two men get in a fight and one accidently hits a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely and the child dies, the offender is guilty of murder. Obviously God views life in the womb the same way as life outside the womb. Taking either falls under the condemnation of the Fifth Commandment: "You shall not murder."
On the other end of the spectrum, we could turn again to a Psalm of David, chapter 31, where he makes the simple yet eloquent end-of-life statement, "My times are in your hands."
So it doesn’t take much Bible research to learn that God has much to say about the sanctity of human life. Human life is sacred because He is the Author of it. Human life has intrinsic worth, because God is the One who brings it about. God’s Word is clear: God is pro-life.
But not everyone believes it. We live in a world where many disregard God’s Word on life. In fact, we live in a world where many have abandoned God’s Word as having a bearing on any aspect of life. I believe it was the English author and thinker G. K. Chesterton who made the remark that when people stop believing in God, it doesn’t mean they stop believing in anything. Rather it means they start believing in everything. In other words, anything and everything goes. And so we find ourselves in a post-Christian and post-modern society, where anything and everything goes. The result: a Godless confusion rules because there are no guideposts. With God out of the picture, man makes things up as he goes.
If life isn’t sacred and Psalm 139 is meaningless, then life becomes a simple commodity. So the worlds says: If having a baby is inconvenient at this particular time in your life, feel free to get an abortion. You can have one later under better circumstances... If pre-natal testing shows that your child may have some mental or physical disabilities, maybe you want to "end" this pregnancy and try again for that "perfect" baby.
This kind of thinking was very much impressed upon my wife and me after the birth of our fifth child. Our son Christopher was born three months premature and had a number of serious medical conditions that needed immediate attention. Christopher also has Trisomy 21 or Down Syndrome, and along with that package comes some degree of developmental disability (or what used to be called "mental retardation").
After it was determined that Christopher had Down Syndrome, the hospital, as a mandatory procedure, arranged for us to speak with a "genetic counselor." Should we have more children, he told us, the odds of having another special needs child were slightly higher than normal. Because of this, he said, you may want to get tested early in your pregnancy to see if this would indeed be the case...
I asked him why we might want to do this. The wording of his answer is what I remember: In the event you wish to choose "elective termination."
God talks about the sanctity of human life. The world talks about the quality of human life. If it doesn’t meet certain standards, either at the beginning of life or the end of life, then it becomes dispensable.
Do you know how far this has gone? One Ivy League professor by the name of Peter Singer has gone on record with the statement that a baby shouldn’t even be officially declared a human being until three days after birth, during which time the parents can decide whether they want to keep it or not. That’s extreme, we say. That’s way off the wall. And it is. For now. But what about 20 years from now? Today’s godless extremists become tomorrow’s main-streamists. This is the culture we are a part of.
Which leads us to our final consideration. God is pro-life. The Bible is clear on this issue, while the world is confused on this issue. What about us? As Bible believing Christians who are in but not of the world, what is our role? Our role is to respond to this issue.
And the first way to respond is take care of ourselves spiritually. In a book entitled Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, the author, John Stott, talks about the complexity of ethical issues that surround us and the corresponding importance for Christians to develop "a Christian mind, namely a mind which has firmly grasped the basic presuppositions of Scripture and is thoroughly informed with Biblical truth." He goes on to say, "it is only such a mind that can think with Christian integrity about the problems of a contemporary world." In other words, for us to be able think straight and respond we must always be immersing ourselves in God’s holy, inerrant and inspired Word.
A second way to respond is to do something. Maybe it’s dedicated prayer. Maybe it’s spending some of our volunteer time or discretionary dollars helping out our local chapter of WELS Lutherans for Life (I believe there a couple of announcement in this week’s News and Notes). Maybe it’s a willingness to gently but firmly speak our Christian minds rather than retreat into the safety of silence when these subjects come up at work. Maybe it’s something else.
But above all, maybe it’s time to stop declaring war on the culture and do what we can in our own small way to change the culture...
And that leads us to where we are in the church year. Today is the minor festival of the Church Year known as "The Annunciation of our Lord." It is on this day, exactly nine months from Christmas, that we remember how the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her she was going to be the mother of Jesus.
That life, which she was privilege to carry, changed everything. The Evangelist John put it this way in the first chapter of his Gospel: "In him was life, and that life was the light of men." In a world of darkness where sin and confusion reigns, the only solution is to lift high the cross of Jesus Christ. Legislation can change laws, but only Jesus Christ can change hearts.
So we must continue to pray for the spread of the Gospel in the hearts of people who have bought into a culture which they think frees them from God but which in reality enslaves them to Satan.
We must be ready to witness, when we have the opportunity, to the better way people are looking for, but can only be found through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So many people have the wrong idea about Christianity and think that true happiness is found apart from Jesus Christ, when we know that true contentment and peace can only be found in Jesus Christ.
And since so many people have already bought into this idea and found that dispensable life through abortion has not left them free and fulfilled, but empty and regretful, we must be ready to embrace those who are spiritually wounded by their past with the message of forgiveness and hope in Jesus Christ. We must be ready to let people know that though our sins be like scarlet, in the eyes of God we are white as snow through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, and that there is no sin so big that His blood does not cover it.
When it comes to life issues, God’s Word is clear. The world is confused. And we must respond as we have opportunity with a Christ-centered witness.
Therefore on this Life Sunday let us be encouraged to go forward into whatever personal mission field the Lord has placed us in immersed in the truth, armed with the gospel, and fervent in prayer. May God, who has led us to the truth on the subject of both physical and eternal life in His Word, now use us to lead others to Him. Amen.