We have in our bulletin a list of people who are serving in the military. It’s there for us to remember to pray for them, by name. It’s also there as a reminder that we should be thankful for them and their families. Many of them are deployed and serving in Iraq. We’d all love for them to be home instead, but they’re there, committed to their mission until it’s done. No one wants the loss of life that comes from war. It’s one of the ways that we have measured the magnitude of each conflict involving our nation through the years – how many lives has it cost? Right now, the toll in Iraq is around 4,000. If you could represent every 25,000 military members who died from combat-related deaths in each war, it would look something like this: (show graph - text for this is pasted after this sermon, below)
35 years ago, January, 1973, our Supreme Court legalized abortion through 2 court decisions, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The combined effect of the rulings made abortion:
1) legal for any woman, regardless of her age, and
2) legal for any reason through the first 6 months of pregnancy, and for virtually any reason after that.
So, in 35 years this month, over 47 million babies have had their lives ended before they were ever born. Compared to the loss of American lives in war, it looks like this: (1840 crosses)
More than one in five pregnancies ended in abortion in 2005. 1 in 5. That makes the American womb more than 8X more dangerous a place to be than Iraq.
Abortion isn’t the only issue here. We have at least one state, OR, that has legalized physician-assisted suicides. Technology has sparked debates over embryonic stem-cell research, genetic manipulation, and euthanasia. On top of that are examples of environmental extremism and the erosion of the family – all of them really a human life issue at the heart.
How did we get here?
1. Evolutionary theory as a basis for belief
Throw out the fact of creation, throw out the idea of a Creator Who made all that is from nothing, and you throw out the sanctity of human life.
If we weren’t created, then all life is the same. Animals are just as important as any human. Baby trees are just as important as baby people. Our worth is no greater than any other living thing.
If we weren’t created, then the ones that deserve to survive are the ones most fit to survive. That’s what natural selection is all about, right? It’s what keeps the gene pool cleaner, right? The ones that are weak, that have some deformity, are naturally selected to die.
If we weren’t created, then there is no outside source for what’s right or wrong. Man is his own god, and my opinions about right and wrong are just as valid as anyone else’s.
2. The sexualizing of our society
I’ll be addressing this whole subject in a different message later in this series, but let me make this point: Abortion is mostly an issue of sexuality. When the outcome of sexual relationships is an unwanted pregnancy, the seemingly easiest answer is abortion. Pleasure without cost. Sin without consequences. At least, that’s what they want us to believe about it.
Ill - In Arizona an Iguana is considered an endangered species and there is a $500 fine for destroying an Iguana egg. In Florida, you can go to the beach and be fined $20,000 and be put in prison for a year for taking one Sea Turtle egg from the nest. Both those states consider what’s growing in those eggs to be worthwhile and yet in both states unborn babies in the womb can be legally killed and removed, and the person performing the removal will charge a fee for his work.
That’s the world’s thinking process when it comes to the unborn. It’s all based on convenience. Call him or her an “it” – a mass of tissue, an embryo, a fetus, not a person. If it gets in your way, get rid of it. Sin without consequences.
3. The slippery slope
Ill - Dr. Leo Alexander was a consultant to the Secretary of War in the Nuremberg Trials. He had open access to accused Nazi war criminals in the medical community. He wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1949, about the slippery slope – how the compassionate killing of the terminally ill set the stage for the Holocaust: “these crimes…had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the acceptance of the attitude…That there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted, and finally all non-germans.”
Once we decide to valuate some form of human life, because of age, or potential, or size, or some other feature, we start down a path much like Nazi Germany. If people are of less worth because they’re unborn, then maybe people are of less worth if they have some physical deformity, and if they’re of less worth, maybe people with a terminal disease are of less worth, and if them, maybe people who are just getting old are of less worth, and if them, maybe people with a lower IQ are, and if them, maybe people who just don’t think like I do or who aren’t pretty enough are of less worth too. The Holocaust is proof that an entire nation can fall into some of the most horrible practices imaginable. Our own abortion holocaust is even greater proof.
We don’t have to accept it. Neither can we just sit back and act like it’s not going on. This morning I want to challenge us to uphold a biblical view of human life - that it’s different from all other forms of life, and then I want to suggest some practical ways we can help it happen around us.
Why work to uphold that view of human life?
1. Because humans are created in the image of God
God looked at what He had created and said about all of it that it was “good.” I’ll be the first to point that out. But when it came to making man, it was different. Up to that point, God had simply said, “Let there be…” But now, there was some kind of divine pause. “Let us make man in our image…” Before, God had spoken creation into existence. He formed the beasts and birds from dust. He did that with man too, but this time He did something distinct. He breathed His breath into man.
This image of God isn’t about our physical appearance. It’s about something deeper. Most simply put, it’s what makes us different than the animals. The Psalmist said,
Psalm 8:5
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
God equipped us to take care of the rest of creation – to rule over the animals, to care for the plants, to watch out for the environment. When we act like something more than just animals, we’re showing that we bear the image of God.
2. Because this image is part of who we are regardless of a person’s size, age, ability appearance, nationality, or location
Quote - Charles Colson - “It’s one thing to want a healthy child. But it’s another thing to refuse to let an unhealthy child see the light of day. When we manipulate life in this way and diminish the humanity of the unborn, we become less human ourselves because we end up viewing life—all life, ours included—as a commodity that can be rejected by quality control.”
Being “independent” isn’t how you measure a person’s worth. We shun the idea of “being a burden” as we age or are disabled. Babies are “a burden,” but that doesn’t make them of less worth. The elderly aren’t “a burden,” because they must receive help, any more than a 5 year old who needs you to feed him! Nowhere do the Scriptures indicate that some humans aren’t made in the image of God and others are.
3. Because it’s eternal in nature
The Bible tells us that this world and everything in it is going to be destroyed with a powerful heat – even the atmosphere is going to be removed, and what will replace it is the new heavens and new earth that will last forever. That means everything in this world is going to cease to be. But there’s something that’s here right now that will last forever: the soul of every human being. Human souls are the only part of creation that is eternal in nature.
Psalm 139:13-16
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 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, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
No matter how much we throw into it and take care of it, what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. It just makes sense to put our greatest effort into things that last, doesn’t it?
4. Because disregard for human life will come back on all of us at some point
Ill – Remember Ebenezer Scrooge? Before his life-changing experience, he had told the people seeking a donation that the poor and less-fortunate “should go ahead and die and decrease the surpluss population!” That was fine to say, until he had to apply it to someone he cared about.
All you have to do is mention Jonesboro, Paducah, Littleton, Virginia Tech, and soon the images you remember from the news remind us of the outcome of letting go of a high regard for human life.
Quote - Martin Niemoeller, a German preacher who was eventually arrested for opposing the Nazis – “First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Why care about the value of human life? Every human life? No matter how small, helpless, different, far away, or how much of a non-contributor that human life is?
Let me share a story about a human life that wasn’t of much worth by human standards, but that was treated like it was, with godly standards, and see what a difference that makes.
(play the short movie “99 Balloons” – 6 minutes)
I don’t know much at all about the Mooney family. I basically know what you just saw. And I can observe this at least: they set out to value every day of life of a little boy who didn’t have much promise in this world. They obviously made a decision to make the most of the time they had with Eliot, and I’m grateful this morning for the example that puts in front of us. I hope it helps answer the question I want to address before we leave this morning:
What can we do to make a difference?
1. Begin with your own heart.
We need to struggle against the subtle ways we fail to acknowledge the intrinsic worth of every person. It wasn’t too many years ago that our own nation was still trying to figure out that a person’s skin color has nothing to do with his value as a person. Have you figured that out in your own heart? That’s a matter of the value of human life.
I know, I probably don’t need to encourage everyone here to be sure not to murder someone today. Jesus said,
Matthew 5:21-22
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ’Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ’Raca, ’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ’You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
What’s the big deal? Just like murdering someone is denying the value of that person’s life, so is insulting and degrading a person. We’re not the first generation to struggle with this. Neither was the problem of playing favorites something that was just invented this century! James wrote to the Church of his day:
James 2:3-4
If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here’s a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
You’re an older person. What’s your attitude toward kids? I know you don’t understand teenagers. They don’t understand you either. Does that make them less important? I know toddlers are work, but that’s work well invested. If we believe in their worth, there’s no reason in the world we should be begging people to take a Sunday or two in the toddler nursery.
If you’re a young person, what’s your attitude toward older folks? Yes, they move more slowly than you do. That’s why your age group still has the most car wrecks. I know you don’t understand why older people are like they are. So, are they less important? Not only were they once your age, but you’ll be their age one day. Think about it.
Have you bought into the lie that, because someone else’s problem isn’t affecting you directly, you don’t need to care about it?
Have you bought into the lie that since some people live far away, or speak a different language we really shouldn’t concern ourselves with them?
See, you can’t get out of bed in the morning without facing some decisions about your attitude to the value of human life. Start with your own heart on this before attacking someone else.
2. Teach the next generation a respect for all human life
Quote - George Washington Carver - “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”
It’s not going to come from college. It’s not going to come from the media. It’s not going to come from movies or video games. It’s not going to come from the internet. The only way the next generation is going to get a biblical view of the value of human life is going to be from hearing it from and seeing it in their parents and grandparents.
Don’t just slough off the news that someone died overseas today. Make an effort to treat some of the weaker ones with special care in a way that your kids see it. Help them understand why current news issues about human life are important.
3. Support public policy that protects human life and oppose legislation that threatens it
Yeah, this is about your politics, and yeah, it should affect the way you choose who will be leading our city, state, and nation down the road.
I’m talking about making sure that policies and people that get through are those which show a right regard for human life. We have been given a voice in this and we have to use it!
Conclusion:
Now, where is Jesus in this sermon? Simple – Jesus reached out to the people who were of less worth in the eyes of society.
Little children were being brought to Him. The disciples tried to send them away, and Jesus rebuked them. He took the children in His arms and blessed them.
Lepers were some of the most outcast. Jesus reached out His hand and touched the leper who came to Him for healing.
Jewish society hated tax collectors. Jesus not only went to have lunch with one, He even made a tax collector one of His 12 closest followers.
While the self-righteous people of His day hated them, Jesus was a friend to sinful people who were lost and needed someone to point them the right way.
Jesus regarded all humans as valuable. That includes you this morning. You’re valuable enough that Jesus gave His life for you so that you could live forever in heaven. That’s where Jesus is, right in the middle of this whole value of human life discussion.
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American War Casualties
Each cross represents 25,000 people killed. The war casualties represent all American combat-related deaths.
Revolutionary War: 25,324 +
Civil War: 498,332 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
World War I: 116,708 + + + + +
World War II: 407,316 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Korean War: 54,246 + +
Vietnam War: 58,655 + +
Gulf War: 293
War in Iraq: 3,935
(as of 1/18/08)
War on the Unborn: 46,000,000 ...since abortion was legalized in 1973
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
(1840 crosses)
