What About Abortion? Series

WHAT ABOUT ABORTION?

Bald Eagles are an endangered species in the United States. Destroying a single egg from an eagle nest is a fine of $5000 and one year in jail. In Florida, if you go to the beach and take a Sea Turtle egg from a nest you can be fined $20,000 and put in prison for a year. In Arizona even the Iguana is considered an endangered species and there is a $500 fine for destroying an Iguana egg. Why? Because what is growing within those eggs is protected and is considered to be valuable and therefore worth saving. So why is that unborn babies in the womb do not deserve the same protection?

The United States have been in many costly wars. There were 25,000 people who died in the Revolutionary war. Another 600,000 died in the American Civil War. About 50,000 died in the First World War and about 400,000 died in the Second World War. There were about 50,000 who died in the Korean War and 55,000 who died in the War with Vietnam. If you add all these as well as the many other conflicts it comes to about 1.3 Million people in all wars, from 1775 to present. That may seem like a lot of people. To put this into perspective, since January 22, 1973 when the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand there have been over 60 million abortions in America. More unborn lives have been snuffed out than 45 times the number of all Americans lost in all wars.

Let me start by saying today that there are very few messages that I have ever preached that have burdened me more than this one. I started writing this message back in June, and it has been eating away at me ever since. I recognize that this is the first sermon I have ever preached on abortion. I have mentioned it in passing in past messages, but never really addressed the topic in detail. I apologize for that.

I think that one of the reasons that people do not preach about abortion today is that it has become such a political issue. I will talk about that in a minute, but I want to first examine what the bible has to say about it.

1. What the Scriptures Say

A major league baseball player hit the ball far out in left field. Bases were loaded. The one who was on 2nd base made it all the way to home plate and he collided with the catcher. Immediately, the one team yelled, "He's safe, he's safe, he's safe." The other team yelled, "He's out, he's out, he's out". Upon looking at both teams the umpire calmly announced, "He ain't nothing until I call him!" The issue is not how you or I feel about the sanctity of life, but about how God feels. It's not how you and I call it, but it's how God calls it. So what does God say about abortion?

The bible is clear that all of us are created in the image of God and therefore have value and worth. The big question that most people ask is whether life begins at conception or whether life begins at birth. When a baby is still in the womb, is it just a blob of tissue or is it a person? The overwhelming support of scripture is that unborn babies are people. That life begins at conception. You became the person that you are today not when you were born, but when you were conceived.

Psalms 139:13-16 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.

This passage is clear, God created us and ordained a life for us before we were even born. Notice the language. It says my frame, I was made, I was woven together, my body. Not some blob of tissue. You became the person you are today before you were born. You existed as a person prior to birth.

It is interesting that this scripture says that God KNIT ME TOGETHER in my mothers womb. I read about Dr. David Menton who served at Mayo Clinic and then as a professor of anatomy at Washington School of Medicine. He was explaining Histology (the microscopic study tissue). When you look at tissue under a microscope, you can see that it is woven. Our skin is made up of collagen fibers that are very tough. They are stronger than steel for the same cross-sectional diameter but less elastic than steel. So how come they are stretchy? It is because of the way they are woven together. You weave one way, it is firm. You weave another way, and it is elastic. It is amazing the complexity at the microscopic level.