Why Life Is Sacred
Gen 1:26-2:22
Today is “Sanctity of Human Life Day “. This is the day set aside to remind us of the sacredness of life ! I believe that all of us would agree that our nation needs to be reminded of this.
It has been said that nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a society more than a disregard for the sanctity of life. Perhaps this explains the gross moral decline in our society today !
Every 23 Seconds, A Baby Dies From Abortion
That’s over 1.3 million babies each year,1 3,753 each day. 45 million babies have been killed by surgical abortion since its legalization in 1973.
More deaths through abortions than deaths in all of our wars combined !
Every day Planned Parenthood (PP) kills 540 babies, totaling 197,100 in 2000, but referred for only 2,495 adoptions. For every one adoption referral, they aborted 79 babies. According to their 2000 annual report, they took in a record $69 million by performing abortions.
During 1999, gifts from corporations, foundations and others added up to $160 million. In the past 15 years, PP has raked in nearly $2.2 billion tax dollars. Even though they enjoy a non-profit tax status, they posted a profit of over $125 million in 1999. PP’s president receives a salary of $324,217 a year (that’s averaging $6,235 per week!)
There are other issues that point to the devaluing of human life other than abortion.....euthanasia, assisted suicides, cloning, increased violence, child abuse....and the fact that America is the #1 producer of Smut in the world !
How in the world did we ever get to this point ?
Joke: One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orangutan was reading two books-- the Bible and Darwin’s Origin of Species. In surprise, he asked the ape, “Why are you reading both those books”? “Well,” said the orangutan, “I just wanted to know if I was my brother’s keeper, or my keeper’s brother.”
A philosopher sat on a park bench in the early hours of the morning. A policeman approached him and asked, “Who are you and why are you here?” The philosopher said, “Sir, if only I knew, if only I knew!”
Therein lies the problem........we have forgotten our origin. We have forgotten why we’re here....and many have never even heard the truth concerning creation. Where did humanity come from? Who are we, really, and what is the purpose of our existence in this world? Scientists have been trying to answer these questions for millennia, but their efforts have been little more than groping in the darkness, and coming up with lies, and calling it science. Evolution has become so obsolete that many scientists no longer believe in Darwinism.
The story is told that Robert Ingersol, the noted agnostic, visited one day with Henry Ward Beecher, a devout Christian. Ingersol saw a beautiful globe and said, “This is just what I’m looking for. Who made it?” With
simulated astonishment Beecher replied, “Why Colonel,nobody made it, it just happened.”
Where is the answer then. The answer is found....still found in the word of God This precious book answers the questions of how, why, and what ! This book has always held the answers...it has not changed, but we have ! It is time that we get back to the word of God !!!
Paul Achtemeier wrote, “Man, as created by God, is a glorious creature, beautiful in his form, lordly in his dominion over the earth, favored in his relationship to his creator. Far from being an insignificant speck lost in a vast universe, man is the exalted and glorious high point of all God’s good creation.”
There are four things I want us to see together concerning “Why Life Is Sacred”
I. Life Is Sacred Because It Was Determined By God.
Notice Gen 1:26 And God said........
Joke: One day a group of Darwinian scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one Darwinian to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The Darwinian walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the Darwinian was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the Darwinian happily agreed.
God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The Darwinian said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!!!!”
We are no accident !
We are not the product of mindless happenstance or the result of a coincidental intermingling of ingredients in a primoridial ooze. Scientists know what the chemicals are that are contained in our bodies. Scientists can assemble all the ingredients, but can’t make a man from them. If scientists can’t do it on purpose, how likely is it that all these ingredients came together by accident to produce life?
God looked at everything else that he had made, and liked what he saw. He saw that it was good ! And then God said..........
We were determined in the mind of God ! We are here on purpose, and for a purpose !
II. Life Is Sacred Because It Was Designed Like God !
It is indeed sad when you live in a society where animals have more rights than unborn children !
What separates us from other living things ?
1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Listen....the gap between man and the highest order of animal life is virtually infinite. Even evolutionists admit that the gap between man and the most intelligent ape is at least as great as the gap between an ape and an amoeba. This truth is portrayed in the creation story itself when Adam
named the animals but found none among them to which he could relate on his level.
The animals were created after their kind...yet humanity is different. V 26 ...."Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness:...."
The animals were created according to their species, but man was created according to the image of God !
Ever question the worth of your life or life in general......
According to the Institute of Creation Research......Even though there are over four billion people alive today, each body is exorbitantly expensive (and about 50 billion humans have been born since Adam). If its chemical elements were bought on the open market, a medium-sized human body would cost at least six million dollars.
Illust. If we could take all the power plants, all the generator’s, all the electrical wiring, all the recepticles, then take all the telephone equipment, and all the computer’s and equipment.....and put it all together....wonder how much it would weigh......how much space would we need to hold it all ? Let me tell you what God did.....he took the most complex yet amazing energy plant, the most amazing computer, and the most amazing communication’s system.....and put it all together and it weighs on a average of 3lbs......it is our brain and spinal column. Our body is controlled by 16 billion neurons, and 120 trillion connection boxes.....these are interconnected by billions of wires.........communications or impulses travel through our body at speeds of up to 300 miles per hr.
This allows the body with 206 bones and 639 musles to move with split-second timing. This three pound power plant, communications network, and computer called the brain process on the average of 10,000 thoughts per day........(now if that’s the case you can know that your husband is lying when you ask him.....what are you thinking about...and he replies......duh......nothing !)
The ear is so amazingly sensitive that if it would only slightly more sensitive.....it could hear molecules colliding in the air.
The average person swallows 2,000 times in a 24 period......
Heart beats over 100,000 times daily to move blood about 168 million miles around our body........we take about 23,800 breaths per day bringing 438 cubic feet of air into our lungs.......
In the Miami Herald, Jim Bishop wrote: “A kidney will filter poison from the blood, and leave good things alone. How does it know one from the other? Who gave the human tongue flexibility to form words, and a brain to
understand them, but denied it to all animals? Who showed a womb how to take the love of two persons and keep splitting a tiny ovum until, in time, a baby would have the proper number of fingers, eyes and ears and hair in the right places, and come into the world when it is strong enough to
sustain life?” Then he asks facetiously, “There is no God?” Yes! Yes! Yes! There is God, and it is He Who determined and designed the creation of humanity.
There are only two reasons why anyone would ever choose to believe in a mindless, accidental, coincidental beginning for man. He is either an ignoramus or an infidel. He is either ignorant of God, or he chooses to ignore God. The primary focus of mindless spontaneous beginnings and
evolution has never been about proving origins. It has always been about disproving the existence and sovereignty of God. What is presented as fact is a fanciful theory without one shred of proof - not one!
St. Augustine said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."
We will never find rest until we find it in the creator !
O think about it folks.....God made the animals after their kind.......but he created us for him !! We are created in his image. We are triune in nature ! We are of value, and worth because we were created in the image of God
Darwin said that man is the end product of evolution from the animal world;
Joke: Once I was a tadpole beginning to begin, then I was a frog with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey in a banana tree, now I’m a professor with a PHD.
The claims of evolution are to me both senseless, and worthless ! Life did not begin via some explosion millions of miles out in outer space......it is not the result of freak accident of nature.......we are not the end product nor by-product of evolution ! We are of worth, and value because man was created, and bears the image of God !
The simple truth is that God made man that He
might see in humanity the reflection of His own nature. This is what God wants in your life and mine, to see in us the reflection of His nature. And this is the very work the Holy Spirit is about in our lives when we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord. Sin marred the image of God in man, but
Jesus, who is the perfect image of God, comes into our hearts to restore in us, to be in us, the image of God that was marred by sin.
III. Life Is Sacred Because Of It’s Delegation By God.
Back to V 26 ......."let them have dominion"
Turn to Psa 8:3-8 "What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beast of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
Story from Jack Hyles....
We did not come from animals nor or we like animals. Our existence was determined by God, it was designed like God, and we have been delegated dominion over the works of his hands !
B. H. Carroll said that all of creation until man, was a preparation for and a prophecy of the coming of man. He writes of the animal world, “What use have they for lignite, stone, coal, peat, iron, copper, oil, gas, gold, silver, pearls and diamonds? They have no capacity to enjoy the beauty of the landscape, the glorious colorings of sea and sky. They cannot measure the distance to the stars nor read the signs of the sky. They cannot perceive the wisdom nor adore the goodness of the Creator. The earth as constituted and stored prophesied man, demanded man, and God said, `Let us make man.’”
IV. Life Is Sacred Because Of The Debt Paid By God !
Do you want to know the value that God places upon us ? Then look at the debt he paid.
God created mankind. He provided him with a beautiful place to live. He gave him dominion over that place ! He gave him much freedom, and choice ! He instructed him not to eat of the tree which had the fruit of the knowledge of good, and evil. Someone has said....”that when God gave man a forest, he wanted a tree”. He warned him of the consequences of disobedience ! Yet, man disobeyed God, and did the one thing that God had told him not to do ! And man fell.......what would God do ? He could have just wiped Adam and Eve out, and started over. But God so loved those that he created, and considered them of such worth, that he did not give up on them. Instead, he came seeking for them in the garden, and calling them by name ! He promised immediately after the fall that there would be a way in which fallen man could be redeemed by God.
Jesus Christ, God’s only son was that way ! Consider this morning the love of God, and the value of human life, and the soul of mankind !
See the Lord Jesus suffering for the sins of humanity so that we might be redeemed unto him that made us !
Closing illustration: The little boy and his boat !
Twice mind....I made you, and now I have bought you back !
