Choose Life! Series

Choose Life! - Psalm 139:13-16

Series: Faith on the Frontlines #1

Friends, as we begin this morning, let me ask you a couple of questions: What would you make of a nation who offered no rights and no protection to a certain segment of their population? What would you think of a nation that had executed tens of thousands of its own people each year for the last 20 years? Most of us would be incensed – and rightly so. We would be appalled that such things were permitted to continue unchecked in this day and age, and we would cry out for justice and judgment on the world stage. Maybe even as I’ve spoken these words names of various countries around the world have come to mind. In years past nations like communist Russia, or North Korea, or Cambodia under the Kymer Rouge might have seemed to fit the bill. More recently you might be tempted to think of places like Rwanda or Bosnia or Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria. But I need to let you know that I’m not speaking of any of those places this morning. Instead the country in question is our very own country of Canada, and for some of you, what I’m going to share today, will be a terrible eye opener - but we need to consider what is happening in our own country none-the-less.

My plan today had been to continue where we had left off at the start of the summer with our series on marriage – and we are going to return to that soon – but it turns out that soon just won’t be this morning after all. Instead I’m going to show a clip of a powerful video and that is going to launch us into our message in just a few moments. But first I need to set the stage for what you are about to see, and to hear, and I need to warn you that emotions are likely going to run high.

What you are about to witness is a series of candid, man on the street type interviews, between Ray Comfort – that’s a name that some of you will be familiar with from his Way of the Master materials – and a cross section of ordinary people on the street.

The video begins – and this is the part that we won’t show this morning – but it begins with Ray talking about Adolph Hitler, Nazi Germany, and the holocaust that followed Hitler’s rise to power. As he interviews people on the streets Ray asks them what they would have done if they had been there while Hitler was having the Jews murdered. Would they have tried to stop it? Would they have participated in it? If they had been given the keys to a bulldozer and told to cover the still breathing bodies of the Jews with piles of dirt, would they do it? If the gun was placed in their own hands and they were told to pull the trigger and kill an innocent, man, woman, or child, just because they were Jewish, would they do it to save their own life?

Most of those he speaks with are appalled at the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Many of those he interviews claim to value human life deeply and profess that they would refuse to pull the trigger if they ever found themselves in that position. To their way of thinking, human life is too precious to be squandered so uselessly. From there Ray steers the conversation to an atrocity happening in our own time and he begins to ask them about their thoughts on abortion. That’s where we are going to pick up the video this morning. So let’s take a look at how this all plays out in the real world …

Show video clip [13:49-23:17]

Let me ask you a question this morning: When does an embryo, a fetus, an unborn child, become a human being? And you might think that that is a silly question to ask, but the truth is it’s an important question to wrestle with, and to answer, in our world, because a human being is entitled to human rights, whereas a non-human being is not. Hitler declared the Jews to be non-humans and therefore it did not matter to him what was done to them – basic human rights did not apply in his eyes. It’s the same with an unborn child – do they have rights because they are human beings – or are they “non-humans” therefore having no rights?

Well let’s see if God’s word has anything to tell us about these things this morning. Turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Psalms. Psalm 139 and we’ll begin reading in verse 13 and I want you to listen closely to what the psalmist writes. Verse 13, the psalmist cries out to God with these words …