Our Creator God
The people who started college this past fall…
Have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era
They were 11 when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not remember the Cold War
They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up
Their lifetime has always included AIDS
Bottle caps have always been screw-off and plastic
The expression, “you sound like a broken record” means nothing to them
They have always had an answering machine
Most have never seen a TV with only 13 channels, much less a black and white one
There have always been VCRs, but they have no idea what BETA is
They cannot fathom not having a remote control
Food from McDonald’s never came in Styrofoam containers
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave
And, here’s another one: abortion has always been legal and accepted by our culture.
Today, along with thousands of churches in America, we are honoring the sanctity and beauty of God’s greatest creative act people who are made in His image. Last week we focused on “Our Holy God,” where we learned that we are to see Him as majestic so that we can experience His mercy, which will propel us to be actively involved in His mission. This morning we’re focusing on God as our Creator.
Not since the controversial issue of slavery ripped America apart at the seams has one subject so polarized our nation like abortion. The heat is rising and there is every reason to believe that the debate will only increase.
Having said that, there is some good news to report. According to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, the number of abortions performed in the U.S. continues to decline. In 1997, they dropped to their lowest level in 2 decades! The CDC even admitted that one of the contributing factors for the decline is the changing attitudes about the moral implications of abortion! This is good news. Christians are making a difference and churches that have the courage to speak the truth in love are positively affecting our culture.
I have three purposes this morning:
1. To declare a biblical basis for our God as the Creator.
2. To help you gain courage to do what is right.
3. To motivate you to be involved.
Life is Sacred
Before we get to our main text this morning, I want to establish this central truth: Life is Sacred Because God made it. We see this fleshed out in three ways in Scripture:
1. Life is created by God. Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them.”
2. Life is protected by God. Job 10:12: “You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.”
3. Life is valued by God. Isaiah 49:16: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”
The Heart of the Issue
At the heart of the abortion issue rests one single, overarching question: Is abortion a form of murder?
According to abortion proponents, a preborn baby is not considered a living human person. Almost universally, those who favor abortion rights believe that what is aborted is something less than a human. Most advocates do not ground their position on some kind of claim for an inalienable right to murder. Most would agree that murder is wrong. They just don’t think that the destruction and removal of a fetus is murder.
As Chuck Swindoll has said, “…the most dangerous place to be in America is not in the inner city…but in the womb of a mother…” (Sanctity of Life, page 3).
I’m convinced that if somehow it could be proven conclusively that the destruction of preborn babies is in fact the willful murder of human beings, the debate on abortion would be over, and the law of the land would as clearly prohibit abortion as it does all other forms of homicide.
I don’t have the expertise or the time to go into the medical arguments for the existence of life in the womb, but I wanted to show you a 2-minute clip which Dr. Wong let me borrow.
à Show medical video
In an effort to help you think through what the Bible teaches about the sanctity of human life, here’s a brief survey of 8 Scriptural arguments for viewing the fetus as fully human.
Biblical Arguments for Viewing the Fetus as Fully Human
Preborn babies are called “children.” “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb…blessed is the child you will bear…as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped with joy.” (Luke 1:41-44).
The life of the preborn is protected by the same punishment for injury or death as that of an adult. “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely…if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life.” (Exodus 21:22-23).
Christ was fully human from the point of conception. “…Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son…” (Matthew 1:20-21).
Preborn children have a propensity to sin. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5).
Personal pronouns are used to describe preborn children. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” (Jeremiah 1:5).
The preborn are called by God before birth. “Before I was born the Lord called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name.” (Isaiah 49:1).
The preborn are created by God. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13).
The preborn are known intimately and personally by God. “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…” (Psalm 139:15-16)
A Womb with a View
This past Wednesday afternoon, during our staff meeting, a church member knocked on our conference room door and asked me if we were going to have AWANA that night because of all the snow. I smiled and said, “Of course we are.” He looked at me rather strangely and asked me again if we were going to cancel AWANA. I said, “Listen, I’m from Wisconsin, and we’re used to snow. We can’t just cancel things because of a few flurries.” He kind of shook his head and walked out of the room. About a half hour later, when our staff meeting was finished, Barb came up to me and said, “Uh, Pastor, you better take a look outside.” When I looked outside, I was stunned by all the snow. It was blowing and there was about 6 inches on the ground.
Rather sheepishly I said, “Oh, oh, I guess I hadn’t looked outside in awhile.” After consulting with a few people who have more wisdom than I do, we decided to cancel AWANA and the RAGE for the night and I made a phone call to my friend to own my anti-blizzard attitude.
My reaction has a simple explanation. First of all, I’m a thick-headed cheesehead. And secondly, because I was in a room with no windows, and hadn’t studied the conditions, my response was based on misinformation.
I suspect that some of us today have a similar response about the topic of abortion. Maybe we’ve been in a room with no windows. It’s been awhile since we’ve taken a look at the conditions and because of that, maybe we’re not in a position to make accurate declarations about the abortion storm swirling around us. Instead of looking outside, I want to urge you this morning to take a deep, penetrating look inside where a heart is beating and lungs are waiting to be filled with air.
By the way, many Caring Pregnancy Centers around the country are now helping people look inside by using ultrasound machines. The sonogram frequently creates a bond that gives a troubled woman new courage to do what is right. An ultrasound is what helped Dr. Bernard Nathanson, after performing 60,000 abortions, to perceive a preborn child’s silent scream. He is now an avid pro-life supporter.
Let me show you what our baby Megan looked like at 18 weeks…
While King David was not able to see what we can see today, with the help of God’s divine ultrasound, we’re going to take a look into the womb, where we’re going to see God’s creative splendor displayed in the life of the preborn. David, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is allowed to take a peek into God’s prenatal care unit, and he sees something so mysterious, and so amazing, that it will forever change the way he looks at life. In this Womb with a View, God is intimately involved in the entire process.
Let’s look closer at Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
The word “for” indicates that this section explains the preceding 12 verses. We’ll study these verses in the next two weeks, but for our purposes this morning, remember this: because God is omniscient (verses 1-6) and omnipresent (verses 7-12), He is also omnificent. Yes, this is a real word. It means, “unlimited in creative power.”
The “you” here in verse 13 is emphatic You created. There is no one else. God is the creator; He is unlimited in His creative power.
God is intimately involved with us because He made us. It’s that simple. His constant interest in us is simply the natural interest that a maker would have in a very special product. Because God is the creator, He is the owner of the preborn they belong to Him.
I want you to notice how David uses personal pronouns in this verse “my inmost being…knit me together in my mother’s womb.” There is no doubt that David believed that he was a real person long before he was born.
When David says that God created his inmost being, he is recognizing God’s creative power and personal involvement in those things that are truly personal. In other words, he acknowledges the fact that God created his spiritual personhood.
In addition to this, David declares that God created his physical personhood. We see this in the phrase, you knit me together. The picture here is that our bones, arteries, muscles, and everything else is all woven together into a beautiful tapestry. This word in Hebrew carries with it the idea of protection, which shows how precious the preborn is to God.
As David thinks about all this, it’s no wonder that he breaks out into praise! Take a look at verse 14: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” I love how intensely personal this language is “I praise you…I am fearfully made…I know that full well.”
Friends, when we recognize God as the Creator of all things, especially of human life, praise is the proper response. When we see Him as our Creator, we can’t help but break out into spontaneous song and protracted praise. David is saying, “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It blows my mind to think about it. Your workmanship is marvelous and how well I know it. I stand apart as something special different from all other forms of life.”
The Bible prods us to consider the origin of human life as God sees it and to worship Him for what He does in the womb. We must respond with holy caution and with unwavering respect for the preborn life. In Genesis 1:26, God declares that we are created in His image. His stamp of approval is upon every human being and He does not make junk. God places a high value on human life because we reflect His character though at times rather vaguely. All of life is sacred and worthy of respect because human life reflects the image of our holy, majestic, and creative God.
In verse 15 and the first part of verse 16, we see that God was there when we were being formed in utter seclusion: “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…” Nothing is hidden from God. He personally creates all the delicate parts of our bodies, weaving them together to form His living masterpiece. The same God, who keeps His eye on the sparrow, also keeps His eyes on every human being as they grow and develop in the womb.
The word “woven” here is the word for “embroider.” God makes us according to a plan. He makes all the parts fit together just right so they support one another. And, because He is the Divine Embroiderer, we are intricate and complex, reflecting His beauty and are therefore special and precious in His sight.
The word for “unformed body” in verse 16 is the Hebrew word for embryo. God is able to watch His creation grow and develop in the womb. David here recounts the fact that God created him with purpose: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” When God creates, He does it with purpose.
God didn’t just ordain our DNA; he ordained our days. It’s as if He has a divine Daytimer, into which He pre-recorded each day of our life before we began to breathe! Since we are created in His image, we are called by God to reflect that image every day of our life.
Knowing that God has ordained our days tells me at least two things:
1. God made us just the way He wants us to be.
2. He has a personalized plan for each of us that reflects who He made us to be.
In other words, our identity is secure and our task is clear. Because of who He has made us to be, we are to be involved in His mission. It reminds me of Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Back to the Issue
Friends, based on both biblical and medical evidence, the conclusion is obvious: human life is sacred and full of dignity. As such, it is wrong to murder an innocent human being. To kill someone created in God’s image is to indirectly attack the God who created life. Abortion must be defined as the destruction of a human life in violation of the 6th Commandment: “You shall not commit murder.”
Most of us have seen pictures of aborted babies. They’re repulsive. We back away from them. What troubles me the most is the realization that the only difference between those babies and our baby Megan is that she was given a chance to live. In the introduction to a video I watched several years ago, the narrator said this: “What you are about to see is very graphic. When something is so horrible that we can’t stand to look at it perhaps we shouldn’t be tolerating it as a country.”
Concluding Thoughts
As we wrap up this service and our focus on God as our Creator, several concluding thoughts come to mind.
1. If we say that we’re pro-life, we must strive for consistency. We need to value all human life the preborn, orphans, widows, the physically and emotionally challenged, the homeless, those with AIDS, those in prison, and older people.
A professor in a well-known medical school once posed this medical situation and ethical problem to his students: “Here’s the family history: The father has syphilis. The mother has TB. They already have had four children. The first is blind. The second is dead. The third is deaf. The fourth has TB. Now the mother is pregnant again. The parents come to you for advice. They are willing to have an abortion, if you decide they should. What do you say?”
The students gave various individual opinions, and then the professor asked them to break into small groups for some consultation. All of the groups came back to report that they would recommend abortion.
To which the professor responded, “Congratulations, you just ordered the murder of Beethoven!” (This originally appeared in an Ann Landers column).
2. We need to watch our attitudes. Satan is the enemy of life, not doctors, the women who are in favor of abortions, or politicians. It’s way too easy for us to become self-righteous and condemning. As I’ve said before, we’re prone to get angry with people who sin differently than we do. We are often more caustic than Christian in our dealings with people.
A couple years ago, a National Public Radio commentator did a satire on Christians and their views on how the world will end. Not only did he ridicule the varieties of millennial views, but those of us who believe in the Rapture received a special spanking. As far as he was concerned, he said, “The evaporation of 4 million who believe in this would leave the world a better place.” NPR has since apologized to the Christian community. The commentator has refused. Do you know why?
It’s because he is more convinced than ever that he is right. Instead of receiving letters filled with grace or the gospel message, he received thousands of pieces of hate mail from Christians. He’s even received death threats. Friends, as far as I’m concerned, the only thing worse than this commentator’s views is the hate-filled response of believers.
We have to be vigilant in guarding our attitudes on this one, folks. Instead of building bridges with those who are lost, our venom can erect long-standing barriers that keep the gospel message isolated from those who need it most.
3. We need to balance our “prophetic” and “priestly” roles as believers. While we need to speak out against moral concerns in our society, we must also offer love and compassion to those who need help. We need to remember that the primary biblical call is to make disciples, not win arguments.
I’ll never forget an experience I had when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute. Every Saturday, several students from Moody would walk to an Abortion Clinic near the school to provide some sidewalk counseling to women who were headed to the clinic. Whenever we would go, there would be other pro-life groups gathered out in front as well. Some would be picketing, some would be shouting, while still others just came to pray.
On one particular Saturday, a Security Guard reminded us that we were not allowed to step on their property. All of us Moody students smiled and backed away. One man, however, who was carrying a bold sign, challenged the guard. The guard told him again to back off. The man refused. Finally the guard said that he would call the police if the man did not leave the property. The man then turned to the guard and said, “Well, you can just go to .”
I couldn’t believe it. Here this man, who was so committed to the sanctity of human life that he tried to keep women from aborting their babies, had no problem sending someone else to hell. I didn’t go back to that clinic for a long time.
4. We must be sensitive and non-judgmental toward those who have had abortions and toward those who have encouraged abortions, like boyfriends or husbands. They are in need of grace and forgiveness, not condemnation. There may be some here this morning who have had abortions. This message was hard for you to hear. You already know the truth about abortion. I want you to know this morning that this church is a safe place for you. It is my deepest prayer that you will experience God’s redeeming grace and cleansing forgiveness. Abortion is not the unpardonable sin.
Beth and I became friends with a woman from one of our previous churches who shared a letter with us. She told us that she had had an abortion 12 years previously.
Dear Danny,
Happy Birthday! What’s it like in heaven? Sometimes if I look hard enough, I can see your 12-year-old frame, just beginning to show its manliness, sitting in the backseat of the car between your brother and sister.
Danny, why won’t they listen? Don’t they understand that abortion kills two people? Can we make them listen?
Danny, I used to wonder why God allowed this to happen. Now I know that by letting you go, I would come to Him. I’m so very sorry. I will love you, forever.
Mom
Chuck Swindoll, in his book entitled, The Sanctity of Life, writes some healing words to those of you who have had abortions. I pass them along to you.
You cannot undo the past don’t try.
You may not be able to cope with the present don’t quit.
You must not waste the future don’t hide.
5. Before God, we must determine what our response will be. I’ve listed a number of possible action steps on the bulletin insert. Follow your conscience and the leading of the Holy Spirit and go easy on those who choose to respond differently than you do.
It may be more comfortable to adopt a passive stance with regard to the abortion issue. It certainly would be the least offensive response. But who, with a clear conscience, can sit back, say little, and do nothing while babies continue to be killed?
Proverbs 24:11-12 in the Living Bible puts it this way: Don’t hesitate to rescue someone who is about to be executed unjustly. You may say that it is none of your business, but God knows your motives. He keeps watch on you; He knows. And He will reward you according to what you do.”
Conclusion
In closing, I want to show you a 6-minute video produced by Focus on the Family called, “Life is Sacred.”
(Show video)
How many of you would like to have this $10 bill? Really, this is no joke. Go ahead and put your hands up. I’m going to give it to one of you, but first, let me do something.
(Take bill and crumple it up). Who still wants it?
Well, what happens if I do this? (Drop on ground and grind it into the floor). Now who still wants it?
Friends, here’s the lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value at all. It was still worth $10, regardless of what had happened to it.
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened, or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God’s eyes. He is our Creator God, and to Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless.
The worth of our lives comes not from what we do or who we are, but from whose we are!
