Scripture Reading

Well, please turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. I'll begin reading in verse 1. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's. Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off.

Then they said to Moses, you speak with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin. So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.

Amen. Well, let us pray.

Opening Prayer

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to gather together on the Lord's day. We thank you for the house of God and the day of God and for the people of God. And we pray that as we gather together, you would be enthroned upon our praises, that you would be glorified and lifted up in our thoughts and in our hearts. We ask as well for the ministry of the Holy Spirit to guide us as we consider this most delicate subject, this most sensitive in the hearts of many, but one that is necessary to address, the murder of the pre-born.

We know, as our brother said, that this country does bear blood guiltiness. We know the countries in the earth who have who have encouraged this practice, who subsidize it with legal or with tax monies. God, it is a great blight, it is a great shame upon humanity that we live in a day and age where such things are celebrated. We ask that you would help us now to glorify you in the reception of the Word of God May we think your thoughts after you.

May you forgive us and cleanse us from all sin and unrighteousness. And again, Father, we pray that all over the earth today, sinners would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, and by your grace and for your glory, they would come, they would believe on him, and know the joy of being found in him. And we ask in his most blessed name, amen.

Introduction

Well, last week we looked at the Seventh Commandment, as Canada has recently passed Bill C-4. I thought it would be good for us to look at the prohibition against adultery and against sexual sin. Well, many recognize today as Sanctity of Life Sunday, so it's good for us to consider the Sixth Commandment relative to the crime of murder. And with reference to our study last week, I had mentioned that I don't believe that our government is really concerned about science with reference to the sexual ethics that they promote.

And I think that that is also obvious with reference to murder, with reference to abortion, with reference to euthanasia. It's not just the Bible that tells us that the pre-born are children, but science tells us that the pre-born are children as well. And intriguingly, at least in the last generation or so, there has been this attempt to drive a wedge between science and the Bible. In other words, science says, has all but replaced, thus saith the Lord.

There's no wedge between science and the Bible. God, in the language of the psalmist, is the Lord God of truth. The word science simply means knowledge. So anything that we observe, anything that we know, anything that we understand, leads us back to the God of absolute sovereignty and glory and power.

The true pursuit of science should lead us to a reflection upon the majesty and the glory of God Almighty. So as we consider the Bible's take on this, realize that it's not at odds with science. Realize that this isn't just a faith commitment. We just have this blindly.

No, again, data points to and data shows us that what's going on in the womb of a mother is the creation or the formation of a human being that God has planted there. And we ought to realize as well that this is a particular sin that is a blight not only upon Canada and the U.S., but upon the nations of the earth. The theologian John Murray well said, nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of life. Additionally, with reference to the government, in their attempt to eliminate a virus, which they cannot do, and yet endorse abortion, it really compromises the idea that they are following the science.

They're not following the science. They have a commitment against the living and true God, and what we're witnessing is neo-paganism and a rebellion against the Most High. Well, as we look at this particular subject,

The Sixth Commandment: You Shall Not Murder

notice in chapter 20 at verse 13, the commandment is very simple. You shall not murder. So I want to look first at the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, which we find here. Secondly, we'll look at the sanctity of human life in the Bible.

And then thirdly, the specific passage related to abortion. If this sounds familiar, well, it should because it's the material I presented last year. If I had one kick at the can to tell somebody what the Bible says concerning abortion, this would be what I would say.

Murder Defined: Premeditated Malice

Now, in the first place, with reference to the commandment, notice verse 13, you shall not murder. Now, the basis for this commandment is God. God is sovereign. God is created. creator, God is legislator.

In other words, He is the one who spoke all things into being. And therefore, He has the crown rights to be able to tell all things that have come into being how to live, how to function, how they are to operate in this particular world. In terms of the commandment itself, we need to understand what murder means. The Bible teaches that not all homicide is murder.

So what is it to murder someone? Webster's 1828 Dictionary is very good here. It says to kill a human being with premeditated malice. to kill a human being with premeditated malice. Malice aforethought is absolutely crucial in order to maintain the charge of murder.

With reference to the Bible, it makes a distinction between manslaughter, or accidental homicide, and murder. Turn over to Exodus chapter 21. There is this distinction that you find in God's law that does substantiate my claim that not all homicide is murder. Notice in 21.12, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

However, if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee." So in verse 12, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall be surely put to death. We must conclude that malice aforethought was present because in verse 13 it says, however, if he did not lie in wait, if there was no premeditation, if there was no aforethought, but God delivered him into his hand, it was an accidental from our vantage point, then I will appoint you a place where he may flee. Now in other places in the Pentateuch or in the Law of God, the distinction is made this way. The man who is chopping wood with an axe, if the axe head flies off in the midst of his task and it hits his neighbor and his neighbor dies, that's not murder.

That is accidental homicide. And in that eventuality, there is a city of refuge that that man can flee to. But if the man waits behind the bush for his neighbor to come home, and then the man jumps out from the bush and buries his axe in that man's head with malice aforethought, that's murder. And as a result of that, he has violated or transgressed the law of God.

Now, when we look at chapter 20 and verse 13, you shall not murder. When we expand on that or amplify that, we see in Leviticus 19, for instance, that this involves not only the external act, but also the internal disposition. You're not supposed to hate your brother in your heart. That's what God says through Moses in Leviticus chapter 19.

Jesus teaches the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. If you hate your brother, if you have enmity in your heart against him, you're guilty of violating and transgressing the sixth commandment. But of course, it's not just the internal disposition that the prohibition demands, but also the external act. Notice again, you shall not murder.

Walter Kaiser says, while Hebrew possesses seven words for killing, the word used here, which is ratzah, appears only 47 times in the Old Testament. If any one of the seven words could signify murder or factors of premeditation and intentionality are present, This is the verb. So the old King James translation, thou shalt not kill, is at times misleading. Because again,

Three Instances of Lawful Killing

the Bible does authorize three instances of lawful killing. In the first place, the Bible teaches that the civil magistrate does not bear the sword in vain. In other words, capital punishment is taught by God. It is demanded by God.

We see it in Genesis 9, 6. We see it again in Romans chapter 13 and verse 4. So capital offense, capital punishment is a legitimate expression of homicide. Secondly, self-defense in Exodus chapter 22.

In our Wednesday night studies, we'll eventually get there. If you defend your home and yourself when a thief breaks in at night, and in that exchange the thief dies, you do not bear guilt for his bloodshed. The Bible authorizes self-defense. And then thirdly, legitimate war.

So in Deuteronomy chapter 7, we see God command the children of Israel to go into Canaan and engage in holy war. I think that's upheld in Romans 13, wherein the magistrate bears the sword, not only to punish criminals in the body politic, but to defend the citizenry against open invasion from a foreign enemy. So those are three instances of lawful homicide. Those are not instances of murder.

Murder means premeditated malice, a forethought, this hatred in your heart wherein you express it in the extermination of another human being.

Sanctity of Human Life in the Bible

Now ultimately this is all grounded upon the reality that man is created in God's image. And that brings us to our second point. So having looked at the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, let's now look at the sanctity of human life in the Bible.

Man Made in the Image of God

In the first place, you can turn to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. Specifically at verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God made man in his image.

Now, the Creation Week is splendid. It tells us or reveals to us all that the Creator called into being. But the one aspect of the created order that bears the image of God is mankind, both male and female. Not the birds, not the fish, not the giraffe, not the rhinoceros.

As dignified and as majestic as those beasts of the field are, they are not image-bearers of the living and true God. That is true of man. And as a result, the prohibition against murder is theological in nature. Gerhardus Vos says that in life slain, it is the image of God that is assaulted.

And when we trace through the Bible, we see the image of God in all walks of life. It's not just for the old. It's not just for the young. But it also extends to the pre-born, and that's where we'll end this brief survey.

But first, we have the image of God, not only in its original intent at creation, but the image of God continues even after the fall into sin. You see that in Genesis 5 at verse 1, then you see it in James Epistle, chapter 2. He says, with the tongue we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men. who are made in his similitude or in his likeness. Sorry, that is James 3.

So the image of God is consistent in man at the original creation of God, but as well post-fall. Now there are some differences and there are some theological nuances with reference to the image of God in terms of a pre-fall and post-fall situation, but post-fall man does have, does bear, is, in fact, the image of God most high.

Image of God in Children, the Handicapped, and the Elderly

We see that the image of God is true of children. True of children, in Leviticus chapter 18 there was a prohibition given against throwing your children into the fire. In other words, as Israel would go into the land of Canaan, they would be surrounded by pagans, by heathens, that would worship false gods. One of those gods was called Molech.

And Molech basically was a big statue with arms outstretched, and they'd build a fire around Molech. And in order to worship Molech, people would bring their babies and throw them into the arms of Molech. Well, Molech couldn't catch because Molech was fake, and so those babies would bounce off and fall into the fire. That is more alike with what we have in abortion today than any other thing.

But the people of God were prohibited from that. You are to treat your children as image-bearers. The same thing consists in the New Testament. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

They're not objects for your destruction. They're not objects for your ridicule. They're not objects for your sexual perversion, but they are image-bearers of the true and living God. Children are to be tended to as image-bearers.

As well, we see the image of God in the handicapped. So oftentimes in our society, especially with euthanasia, the handicapped are relegated to the margins. They're not that important. Again, Leviticus chapter 19 tells us we're not to put a stumbling block in the path of a blind man. or not to engage in mockery of those who do not have full physical capability.

And then we have that blessed account of Bartimaeus, blind Bartimaeus, who hears that Jesus is passing through Jericho and he cries out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And the crowd shushes him. Why do you think they shush him? because they think he's marginalized and Jesus is too popular, too prestigious, too famous to ever stop and mess with a man who's blind. It is intriguing.

When they tell Bartimaeus to shut up, Bartimaeus simply cries louder, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me. But the glory of the text is that Jesus stops in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a busy Jericho street, in the midst of a busy ministry, in the midst of a popularity that's growing and abounding. He stops and he walks over to blind Bartimaeus and he says, what would you have me to do? Isn't that incredible?

He speaks to this image bearer and the image bearer says, Lord, I want to see. So Jesus healed him. Jesus restored his sight. He wasn't marginalized.

He wasn't somehow second tier. He was rather an image bearer of the living and true God. The same with the sick. The sick are treated with great dignity and respect.

They as well bear the image of God. In James Epistle again, James chapter five, if anyone among you is sick, let him call for the elders so that the elders can come and anoint his head with oil and pray for him. Not just, oh, it's okay because they're marginalized, they're not active contributors to society. A society that marginalizes the weakest among them shows what Murray says.

Moral degeneracy, bankruptcy. We should be about protecting. We should be about helping. We should be about compassion.

We should be about love. It is most intriguing to survey, again, the claims of science in light of what scripture and science teaches concerning humanity. There is so little concern and so little regard given to the status of man today, and Christians need to think God's thoughts after him in this particular issue. Now, of course, it is true of the elderly as well.

Leviticus chapter 19, verse 32, rise in the presence of the hoary head. Why is that? Show them respect, show them esteem, show them love. I think one of the most barbaric practices that we have witnessed in the last two years is the lack of respect, the lack of esteem, and the lack of love and dignity afforded to our elderly.

Our elderly need contact. They need family. They need to hug grandchildren. They need to love their children.

They need to see people. They need to be around that. And that we have disregarded them to the point where they're just far off and utterly removed? And as a pastor, we can't go visit people in the hospital?

I remember texting, or emailing, not texting, I emailed Dr. Bonnie Henry. Early on, I said, if masks work, how come pastors can't go to the hospital, masked up, to visit their people? No answer, no reply.

You just can't do it. You just can't go. Brethren, that is detrimental. It's intriguing that two long years in, we're finally realizing, oh, this has taken a toll on our elders.

Oh, this has taken a toll on our children. Oh, this has taken a toll on the mental health of all of the inhabitants in these lands, where we have locked them down, even though the majority of them were healthy. This is not to regard humanity. This is to disregard humanity, and it is a great crime and a sin against God Most High.

And

The Pre-Born Bear the Image of God

in terms of the pre-born, the Bible is clear. Turn to Genesis chapter 25. Genesis chapter 25, establishing the sanctity of life concerning the pre-born in the womb. Genesis chapter 25, specifically at verse 19.

This is the genealogy of Isaac. Abraham's son, Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah as wife, the daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian, of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren.

And the Lord granted his plea. And Rebekah, his wife, conceived. But the children struggled together within her. Not the product of conception.

Not a lump of undefined cells. The children struggled together within her. And he said, If all is well, why am I like this? So she went to inquire of the Lord.

And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb.

And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over, so they called him, his name Esau. Afterward, his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob.

Turn over to Job, Job, specifically at Job 10, just surveying some of the passages that you will no doubt have to offer with reference to argumentation against abortion. Does the Bible address the pre-born and the womb? Does it afford them status? Does it tell us that they are indeed individuals with a unique genetic code?

The Bible doesn't say that, but that's certainly what science tells us. Notice in Job 10, specifically at verse 8, Your hands have made me and fashioned me as intricate unity, yet you would destroy me. Remember, I pray, that you have made me like clay, and will you turn me into dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews?

You have granted me life and favor, and your care has preserved my spirit." Turn over to Job 31. Job's a whole lot smarter than modern scientists today who arrive at the conclusion that what we have in the womb of a mother is not a baby. Notice in Job 31 specifically at verses 13 and 15. What then shall I do when God rises up?

When he punishes, how shall I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one fashion us in the womb? Now think about Israel in terms of redemptive history and the promise of the gospel in Genesis 3.15.

Israel was taught to look for the seed of the woman. Do you think that the remnant, the believing, the righteous in Israel would ever seek to terminate the baby in the womb when they're waiting for their Messiah? Absolutely, positively not. Turn over to Psalm 51.

Psalm 51, David is tracing his native depravity. And when he does so, he traces it back to the womb. And in this statement, he is not denouncing the conjugal relationship between his mother and father. God ordained the conjugal relationship.

It is honorable among all. But with reference to David, when David was David, he was a sinner. In Adam all die. Notice in Psalm 51 at verse 5.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived what? She conceived me. Not a lump of cells, not an undefined mass of tissue, but when my mother conceived, she conceived me, David, the divine weaver, our brother Steve read at the outset in Psalm 139. Again, a passage very appropriate for Sanctity of Life Sunday.

Psalm 139 verse 13, for you formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You see brethren, that is the tact that people are to take. Today it's almost like it's against, people are against having children.

It's like we've come from this place where, you know, being fruitful and multiplying and having children and having family and laughter and joy and feasting together around a table. You know, you tell somebody anymore if you're going to have your third child, you're going to have your fourth child, you're going to have your fifth child, you're going to have your sixth child. I remember going through that when I worked at Northrop Grumman. My wife was pregnant again.

They kind of raised their eyebrows. Again? Again? Again?

What are you talking about? Haven't you done enough? That ought not to be the way we approach this. Children are gifts from Yahweh.

What do we have if we don't have children? What do we have if we don't have that legacy? What do we have if we don't propagate the species? We have the end of the species.

Again, science recognizes this. Homosexuality would never fly in an evolutionary mind, in an evolutionary scheme. The biology of it is that men and women procreate and have children according to God's rule, God's way, God's instruction. Back to Psalm 139, verse 14, I will praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they were all written. The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. You see, he goes back to the womb.

He rehearses the sovereignty and the power and the majesty of God Most High in the putting together of David in the womb of his mother. And then turn over to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 1 is intriguing because Jeremiah rehearses his call to the prophetic ministry. And in Jeremiah chapter 1, specifically at verse 4, notice what we read.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you, I ordained you a prophet to the nations." Now I think the emphasis falls on the absolute and comprehensive sovereignty of God. Before there was a Jeremiah, I knew you. But look at the language, before I formed you in the womb.

So as soon as there was something in the womb of Mrs. Jeremiah, it was Jeremiah. And this isn't confined to the Old Testament. Turn over to the New Testament.

Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1, the prophecy or the statement concerning John the Baptist. Luke chapter 1, specifically at verse 15, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.

Again, John the Baptist in his mother's womb was John the Baptist. And there, John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit while in his mother's womb. Now compare verses 41 to 44. Look at, well, verse 39.

Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste to a city of Judah and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Notice that. And brethren, the Greek word that is used here for babe or infant or that thing which is in the womb is the same Greek word that is used of out of the womb children in Luke chapter 18.

So it's not like there's technical terminology and it doesn't really mean it's a fully formula. No, it's the same language applied in two different states. There's pre-born and there's post-born. There's in the womb and there's outside of the womb.

Back to the text, notice in verse 42, then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, But why is this granted to me? Now notice this next clause, The mother of my Lord. Mary is pregnant with Jesus. And Elizabeth says, why is it that the mother of my Lord, Jesus, should come to me?

So Jesus in the womb was Jesus. Jesus in the womb was the second person of the Trinity who took on our humanity, as the Bible says. Verse 44, for indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.

And then one other passage in the New Testament, Galatians 1. Very similar to what we see in Jeremiah 1, because as the Apostle Paul is defending his apostolic ministry, he goes back to the womb. He goes back to that place wherein Paul was. And notice in Galatians 1.15, but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace.

If you look at this brief survey of passages, you cannot evade the clear teaching of scripture. God made man in his image. God made man in his image, initially at creation, even the fall itself did not obliterate that. It did not eliminate that.

And every class of person, every status of person, every stage of man is covered by that idea of the image of God. And as we reflect on this, we have to conclude, you shall not murder extends not only to the outside of the womb, but it extends to the preborn. One man, and I quote this every year, Gordon Clark, makes this observation. He says, one argument abortionists frequently use to defend themselves against the charge of murder is the claim that the baby is not a human being.

You've heard that. Used to be that more prolifically, but now they claim it. Some of them say, yeah, we know it's a human. That's okay.

We'll still kill it. I mean, that's how ghoulish we are descending as a civilization. I mean, there should be really no, you know, scratching of the head. I can't believe we're watching the decline of Western civilization.

Really? We've murdered babies. We've murdered old people. We've celebrated sexual perversion.

We've done everything that God says not to do. We have done it in shaking the fist at Yahweh and against His Christ. But back to Clark. So one of the arguments that abortion is frequently used to defend themselves against the charge of murder is the claim that the baby is not a human being.

He says, but if the baby in the womb is not human, what is it? Is it canine? Is it feline? I think that some babies born 30 or 40 years ago have turned out to be asinine.

And I think he's absolutely positively right on. A denial of this reality shows a rejection of the living and true God. And when we consider the image of God, we ought to consider the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Didn't he dignify that image by taking it on himself? Didn't he dignify that image by assuming our humanity? As Gregory of Nazianzus and many of the early church fathers says, whatever is not assumed is not redeemed. For Christ to redeem us, Christ must become like us.

And Christ dignifies humanity by taking on human nature.

Exodus 21: Case Law Protecting the Pre-Born

Now thirdly, and finally, turn back to the book of Exodus to see a specific passage as it relates to abortion. Exodus chapter 21. Exodus chapter 21. I think I explained last week that you have the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 20.

You have the 10 general principles. For instance, you shall not murder. And then in chapters 21 to 23, you see how that fleshes itself out in society. How do we take that general principle of you shall not murder and how do we do society?

How do we have a body politic? How do we function in a capacity wherein we abide by God's law? Well, 21 to 23 give us concrete application of the principles of the Ten Commandments fleshed out in life, individually, familially, and societally. And when you come to Exodus chapter 21, we already saw verses 12 and 13.

There is a distinction between manslaughter and murder. And with reference to this entire context, it is laws regarding homicide. So it starts off to indicate there is legitimate homicide, or biblically authorized homicide, or accidental homicide, but then there is the act of murder. But there is a passage, if we drop down to verse 22, that speaks specifically to the pre-born in the womb.

Notice in verse 22. If men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him. But he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

So notice what we have here. If men fight and hurt a woman with child, Probably two morons in the city street that get into some sort of a brouhaha and start throwing fists. And one of their wives happens to be standing there, and she's with child. So that is a perfectly consistent situation with what we know of man and sin.

All kinds of things happen in this world. And so this text speaks specifically to that possibility. if men fight and hurt a woman with child. Look at how the translation proceeds. So that she gives birth prematurely.

That's correct. That is the way to translate this passage. If your Bible says so that she has a miscarriage, your Bible is wrong. You need to cross out miscarriage there.

Hebrew has a word for miscarriage that's used in the Old Testament. It's absent from here. The Hebrew has a word for a stillborn and it is not here. What is in view and what is literally told us in terms of this text is that if men fight and hurt a woman with child and her children come out, it is a plural form of child, so children to envisage the possibility that she has twins. or triplets, or quad, whatever it is, from then on.

However many babies are in there. So that she gives birth prematurely. And notice the language in the literal rendering. And her children come out.

You saw that employed in Genesis chapter 25. It's employed across the Old Testament. It is the language of childbearing. So give birth prematurely is right, and it's correct, and it polishes up the language a bit, but it's literally, and her children, come out just the way that Rebecca's children came out.

There is an exit from the womb on the part of the pre-born into the post-womb situation. They come out. Now, notice specifically what is in view in the passage. If men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows.

You've got two persons now. she and her baby or babies that have come out. This and yet no harm follows applies to both parties, not just the woman. See, if we read this as miscarriage, she miscarries, her baby dies, yet no harm follows to her. That's not the way the text is supposed to be read.

The text affords protection for not only the woman that was struck, but for the baby or babies that come out of her as a result of having been struck. We have a specific case law application of the Sixth Commandment that extends to the womb. It extends to the pre-born. It extends to the baby that comes out when these two knuckleheads are fighting and strike a woman.

Now notice as well, go back to chapter 21 at verse 13. Well, let's just read verse 12 again. He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. However, if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee." This God delivered him into your hand.

That's providence. That's the way things go. Again, you swing an axe, the axe head flies off, and it happens to fall into your neighbor's head. It's a horrible thing.

It's a terrible thing. But there was no malice aforethought. There was no premeditation. You didn't intend on doing that.

It was an accidental homicide. But notice that the text specifies there is a place to flee. These are called the cities of refuge in Israel. Now, if you committed an accidental homicide, though it was an accident, you still got penalized.

Why? so that the body politic would learn to make sure their axe heads are appropriately fastened to the handle before they swing it. In other words, exercise caution in your daily lives. You'll see a prohibition later in the law, in Exodus, that you put a fence around your roof. Why is that?

So that if you're entertaining up there, people don't fall off and die and thus bring guilt upon you. So when these cities of refuge are spoken of, it's not saying these are murderers and we ought to condemn them to hell. No. But they engaged in foolishness.

They were not responsible citizens in the body politic. But the point is, in the case of an accidental homicide in 2113, that person could flee to a city of refuge. Now, when we drop down to verse 22, this would be called an accidental homicide. The two guys that are fighting and the blow strikes the woman, he didn't intend, there was no malice of forethought.

He didn't really want to get rid of her and the baby in the womb. So we could legally or logistically call that an accident. But notice there's no city of refuge for this. The prescription is what's called the lex talionis.

That's simply Latin for the law of retaliation, the law of retribution. Now, when we hear this, we get all bent out of shape and we think, oh, that's barbaric. No, everybody who's ever thought sees the legitimacy of the lex talionis. It simply means that the punishment must fit the crime.

It means that the punishment must fit the crime. In fact, one person, a man who's written recently a book on politics, he says, far from promoting unbridled vengeance, the lex talionis prohibited excessive retaliation. It constrained, it confined, you could only do such as was right in terms of the crime that had been committed. So now let's look back at our text.

Verse 22, if men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows to either mother or child, He shall surely be punished as the woman's husband imposes on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. You caused unnecessary pain and suffering. You caused baby to be born before we had the nursery set up. You have to pay.

There's some sort of recompense. There's some sort of thing that you need to understand that you can't just willy-nilly swing fists around when there are pregnant women happen to be standing there. Now notice verse 23, but if any harm follows. To who?

To the mother and the child, to the mother and the children, to the persons affected by this man that was reckless and irresponsible and let his fist fly in the direction of a pregnant woman. If any harm does follow, notice, no city of refuge, lex talionis. Then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. So we have an Old Testament case law that flows out of the sixth commandment that speaks specifically to the situation of a pregnant woman.

And this Old Testament case law affords protection for not only the woman, but for the baby or babies that are in her womb. up to and including the death penalty if that baby is killed in the midst of this particular exchange. You have increased protection, as it were. When we compare verse 13 to what we find in this particular situation, increased protection for the baby in the womb. Again, a nation that is looking for the seed, the Messiah.

They would have resonated with this. They would have understood this. This wouldn't have been a challenge to them. But as time goes on, and as sin goes on, and as men go more degenerate, we end up in the place where we regard it as something to shout, that persons shout their abortion and trace their success in the movie industry because they got rid of an inconvenient thing when they were younger.

This is vile. It is reprehensible. It is an abomination before God Most High. And brethren, this is something that is out of sight and out of mind.

For the most part, we don't pay attention to what's happening. For the most part, we don't see that yesterday, for instance, or the day before, the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people were marching for life. Do you think that gets covered on mainstream media?

Oh, look at those people out there marching for the lives of others. No, they don't care about it. We live in a generation where mankind is disposable, where mankind is objectified, where mankind is relegated from the status of image-bearer of the living and true God. When we sacrifice that reality, then everything follows.

When we get rid of what Scripture says concerning our dignity and sanctity, then everything follows. If we are just a product of evolution, if we are just a collection of cells and tissue, if we are just a collection of random atoms, then what difference does it make about anything that we do? Brethren, without the doctrine of who God is, without the doctrine of creation, without the doctrine afforded to us in the Word of God, we will devolve to the level of the beasts of the field. We will be like the animals.

We, in many ways, have already exceeded the animals because they don't bear the image of God, and what they do, they do instinctually the way God created them. We sin, we reject, we revile, we transgress, we lack conformity. God says, hold this in high regard, and we destroy it and we terminate it for convenience. We don't want to be bothered with a child.

We don't want to be bothered with this issue in our life. So we'll just go to the doctor and have it taken care of. that we have doctors who have sworn fundamentally to uphold life and they'll actually enter into the womb of a woman with sterilized instruments and murder the baby in there is reprehensible. And again, brethren, when we look at this particular passage, if God protects an accidental abortion with reference to two fools fighting in the city street, what do we make of a government that subsidizes it? What do we make of a prime minister who demands that everybody in his party must vote pro-choice.

What do we make of a prime minister who's okay with sex-selective abortion? Oh, you don't want a woman or you don't want a baby girl? Go ahead, do that, get rid of her. What do we make with a government that has no laws whatsoever that restrains the practice of abortion?

Brethren, our country is just among a handful, a very small handful, that I think includes China and I think includes North Korea, of governments or countries that have no laws restricting the practice of abortion. That is horrifying. Or consider our Prime Minister when he says that decisions like these, aborting babies, committing the act of murder, are best left between a woman and her physician. Why can't that be the case in terms of vaccination?

Why can a woman, with a doctor's consultation, decide to murder her baby, and you and I, with our doctor's consultation, can decide not to get a vaccine? I don't want to hear they're committed to science. I don't want to hear they're committed to the facts. I don't want to hear that they're committed to the data.

They have an axe to grind against the living and true God. They have an axe to grind against Yahweh and against His Christ. They are the mutinous peoples of Psalm 2. We will not have this one to reign over us.

They're the mutinous ones at the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. When Pontius Pilate offers them Barabbas or Jesus, what do they say? Give us Barabbas. You want to talk about a domestic terrorist?

That was Barabbas. We think about those three men on the cross and we think of them as thieves. Yes, thief fits, but that word also is translated insurrectionist, revolutionary. You didn't get capitally punished in the Roman Empire for thievery.

You got capitally punished in the Roman Empire for trying to overthrow the empire or engaged in murder. So when we find them clamoring for Barabbas, and then when Pilate says, but what about Jesus? They say, away with him, away with him, crucify him. So while they're trying to hide behind science and facts and data, we ought not to buy it, brethren.

This attempt to eliminate a virus all the while endorsing abortion? I'm old enough to remember early on in the pandemic, seems so long ago, when they said non-essential businesses, non-essential entities had to close down. Guess what? Never closed down during the pandemic.

Guess who always got tended to if they needed to? Guess who most likely could go, even unvaccinated, to an abortion clinic and get that child murdered? It is horrifying. It is absolutely wretched.

It is rebellion against the living and true God. And it's in times like these that the church does well to imitate the prophet Habakkuk who said, in wrath remember mercy. Because God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We need to take heed. with reference to the murder of babies, Didache.

It's an early Christian manual that was a teaching manual. Didache simply means teaching. It's dated around 180, 100, 110. You shall not abort a child or commit infanticide.

Why do you think they spoke to that? Because it was rampant in the empire. See, when you lived in the Roman Empire in the first century, you may not have gone to a doctor with his surgical instruments, but you could have gone to a doctor for his sorcery, his pharmacy. The Greek word pharmacy is sorcery in the New Testament.

They would use drugs to induce abortion. Or perhaps you couldn't afford that so you just take the newly born baby and throw it on the trash heap. Typically this would be the case for girls. And what would happen is that the dogs in the city would come along and eat the baby girls.

Or others would come along and abduct the baby girls and guess what? Raise them in godly families. No, they would rear them up to a life of slavery and prostitution. So the Didache, understanding Christians in the empire, spoke specifically concerning this issue.

You shall not abort a child or commit infanticide. Listen to John Calvin's musing on the reality involved. He says, with reference to the Exodus prohibition, If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light. Fetus, for all of their blathering, is the Latin for unborn baby.

Well, it's a fetus. Yeah, it sure is, genius. That's the point, and you're not supposed to murder it. You're not supposed to kill it.

You're not supposed to disregard it. You're not supposed to destroy it. Consider God's statement concerning judgment relative to those who engage in such practices. These six things Yahweh hates.

Yes, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. Hands that shed innocent blood. Well, you're Calvinist, you're Reform, you're always talking about total depravity and how it starts in the womb.

Judicially innocent. These babies in the womb didn't do anything wrong. They shouldn't be punished. They shouldn't be committed to a sewage pit for the crime of having been born or having been conceived.

God abominates the practice of those who shed blood, those hands that shed innocent blood. Consider Revelation 21 and verse 8, but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. See, that's God's statement concerning the judgment that befalls those who engage in this practice, who engage in this act. It's not just the doctor.

It's also the parents. It's not just the doctor and the parents, but it's the legislators. It's the men that sign the documentation. It's the Planned Parenthoods of the world.

It's those who have betrayed their Hippocratic oath in upholding and defending life who actually go to the opposite extreme and engage in extinguishing life. More often for cash and convenience. That's the purposes behind this. Molech worship.

Christians today hear about that and they say, oh how terrible, I cannot believe that somebody would throw their babies under the arm of the idol and he would bounce out and fall into the fire. It's happening all around us. It's happening every day. It's happening to the tune of 100,000 babies a year in Canada.

It's happening to the tune of a million babies a year in America. What's happening throughout the nations of the earth? There is a site online. It's abortioncounter.com.

You click on there and you just watch the numbers do this, constantly, all day, every day, going on. It is absolutely incomprehensible that we have degenerated into such a state that this is somehow controversial to actually declaim against it. Witness the US. Several of the states are trying to overturn or trying to see that federal law of Roe versus Wade get overturned.

People lose their minds over this. What are you outraged for? What are you upset about? Because they can't kill babies?

This is what we've become? This is where we've fallen? This is the place where we're going to plant our flag? We're going to shout our abortion?

We're going to engage in this kind of criminality against the living and true God? We're going to engage in this kind of criminality against our own fellows? We're going to take the most weak and the most vulnerable among us and we're going to treat it as if it was nothing but trash? We are in a bad place, brethren, in Canada.

We're in a bad place in North America. Western civilization, the entirety of the earth. We ought to, again with the prophet, cry out to God, in wrath, remember mercy.

Application

Well, in conclusion, the origin of abortion, it's the devil. It is the devil. John 8, 44. Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, you are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it. That's the origin of this. That's the origin of murder.

Murder at every pace, every place in the human life, whether it's the pre-born, whether it's the handicapped, whether it's the healthy adult male. Whoever is taken out unlawfully is condemned by God Most High and has truck with the devil. The manifestation of abortion, we don't see the devil actually in the clinic. I think Paul speaks to this in Ephesians 6.12, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

He acknowledges the spiritual warfare involved in this, but he does not minimize the reality that there are actually persons doing the bidding of the devil and actually engaged in the act of abortion. This is its manifestation, Planned Parenthood, every God-hating rebellious organization in Canada that resists God's demand concerning the preservation and the propagation of life. And the anti-Christian nature specifically of abortion I think is revealed by Jesus in Proverbs 8. He says, he who sins against me wrongs his own soul.

All those who hate me love death. All those who hate me love death. I think that's obvious. We see this hatred of Christ and this manifestation and one expression of this evil in abortion, in euthanasia, in the various ways of exterminating innocent people according to our own whim, according to our own desire, according to whatever we think or what we feel.

The State and Abortion

Secondly, we need to understand the state and its relation to abortion. I mentioned briefly, just do it again, the history of abortion in Canada. The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1968-69, introduced by Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government, legalized abortion as long as a committee of doctors signed off that it was necessary for the physical or mental well-being of the mother. You remember this during the Clinton campaign in the 90s.

Oh yeah, we don't want abortion, but we want it to be safe and we want it to be few. We've gone a long way now. Shout your abortion. Praise your abortion?

Celebrate your abortion? It's ghoulish. You see those prophets of Baal cutting themselves and dancing around their altar in 1 Corinthians chapter 18 and we say, oh, that's just terrible. It's happening today.

What do you call a frenzied mob of men and women celebrating abortion? Of all the things in the world that persons could appropriately celebrate, abortion? Murder? Ghoulishness?

Destruction? Now in 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R.V. Mordenthaler that the existing laws were unconstitutional and struck down the 1969 law. The then-governing progressive conservatives attempted but failed.

That's a constant refrain, isn't it? Conservatives tried, but they failed. Well, they don't even try anymore. We have a Conservative Party that won't even mention abortion.

We have a Conservative Party that won't go there. What do you mean you won't go there? You're going to go everywhere else to the point of covering slides during COVID so children can't slide down them? You know what I saw yesterday?

There is a federal Canadian government agency that exists to make sure that Canned, diced potatoes are all the same size. Canned, diced potatoes. Forbid that you open a can of potatoes and get, you know, a few that are a little bit bigger, a little bit smaller than the others. There's a government agency to regulate that.

Brethren, I'm sure that wretched story could be multiplied a billion fold. They want to regulate the size of diced, canned potatoes, all the while sanctioning the murder of babies? And conservatives don't want to bring it up? That's terrible.

So they attempted but failed to pass a new abortion law, and since then Canada has no criminal laws governing the subject of abortion. And abortion is a decision made by a woman with her doctor. Current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, quote-unquote, I've made it clear that future candidates need to be completely understanding that they will be expected to vote pro-choice on any bills, unquote. Trudeau, a self-proclaimed feminist, refused to take a position on sex-selective abortion, which again means murdering a girl baby. saying only that he would, quote, unquote, leave discussions like that between a woman and the health professionals that she encounters.

So again, brethren, forgive me that when the science today is declaiming that I just have to take the vaccine, whether I want it or not, I cry foul. If a woman has the freedom of choice with her doctor to decide to terminate a baby, And I'd like to think we'd all have that same privilege when it comes to other medical decisions, but I don't want to make this a COVID thing. The fact that we are even in this place, the fact that we are even having to have this Sunday every January, the fact that abortion isn't getting less and more safe. What is a safe abortion?

You're murdering a human. That's not safe. That's bad. Whenever you murder a human, that's not a safe thing.

We are at a place where God Most High is revealing His wrath against us. Now, there are those who say, well, you know, the state says it's okay, but they don't make anybody have abortions. Not yet. China does.

But think about that. The state doesn't make anybody have that. But the state allows people to have them. The state allows and permits and subsidizes the very act of murder itself.

So to say, well, the state isn't making us do that. The state is saying it's OK that you can do that. Do you not see the problem behind that? Do you not see the problem that is parallel in, well, the state isn't commanding anybody to engage in pedophilia.

But if they allow pedophilia, that's horrible, that's bad, that's wrong. And their purpose is to protect the body politic. That's it. Not figure out how big a diced canned potato should be.

They're to bear the sword in terms of criminal activity within the body politic, and they're to bear the sword in terms of the protection of the body politic against foreign invasion. that they want to rule us from cradle to grave has never been given to them by God Most High. Most of the stuff the federal government engages in. I follow Justin Trudeau on Twitter. I would just love for once to see him say, we're going to be tough on crime and we're going to defend ourselves from foreign invaders.

No, it's climate change, it's COVID, it's diversity, it's gender this, it's all this stuff. That isn't their job. It just isn't. And with reference to the state, I use state to speak of civil government, they do a lot that they were never intended to be.

They try to be a nanny. They try to cover us from, that's another thing. I see that often in the tweets of our prime minister. We've got your backs.

Can you not have my back any longer? I'd like, Jordan Peterson last night said, I'd like someone else to have my back for a while. Whenever you have my back, it costs me a lot of money, and it costs me liberty. So how about you just let my back alone, and we'll go do our own thing.

That's it. That's all. That's what we desire here at this point. Listen to J.

Gresham Machen, who was a solid theologian in the 20th century, a sound theologian, that faced many liberty issues. He was a man that was a theologian, so at times he'd be called upon by U.S. Congress to be an expert witness. He would testify at things, he would speak the biblical worldview to various things that he would encounter in terms of education. and the extents and the limitations of the civil state, what they could and couldn't do.

He has a book called Education, Christianity, and the State, and he has an article in there, an essay in there, and he makes this observation concerning the state. He says, it exists for the repression of evildoers and the protection of individual liberty. Period. Not can-diced potatoes. not keeping children off of a slide.

Parents have that call, brethren, not Justin, not Bonnie. The state exists for the repression of evildoers and the protection of individual liberty. I fear that at times we're where we're at because the church itself forgot this. The church itself has had their hand out for the nanny state to give them stuff, to give them money, to comp them, to make sure that because of the COVID pandemic they didn't hurt or get suffered.

Brethren, that's not their job and it's certainly not our job to take it. We have forgotten, we've accepted this maxim or this idea, it's a false one to be sure, that it's the nanny from the cradle to the grave. No, it's not. Listen to Machen.

And I'm not saying Machen, it's right because Machen says so. I'm saying it's right because this is what the Bible says. The state exists for the repression of evildoers and the protection of individual liberty. He also said this, the civil government is, quote, not intended to produce blessedness or happiness.

Think about that. How often are they trying to do good to us? No, I don't want your love. I don't want your compassion.

I just want you to leave me alone. I have a wife that loves me. I have people that I think love me. I have children that love me.

I have that. I don't need that element from my government. He said, the civil government is not intended to produce blessedness or happiness, but, listen to this, intended to prevent blessedness or happiness from being interfered with by wicked men. You're not to promote happiness and blessedness, you're just to provide the sort of social structure wherein I can pursue blessedness and happiness.

It's not the civil state that confers rights upon the individual. It's God that does that. The civil state either provides a context for the exercise of those rights, or they restrain it, or they restrict it, or they get between God and the individual. One final quote from Machen.

He says, it is true. The attack upon liberty is nothing new. Always there have been tyrants in the world. Almost always tyranny has begun by being superficially beneficent, and always it has ended by being both superficially and radically cruel.

Superficially benevolent, we've got your back, and then it devolves into superficially and radically cruel. Brethren, we need to understand the limitations, the extent of the civil state.

The Church, the Law, and the Gospel

And then finally, with reference to the church and abortion, the church cannot turn a blind eye to the reality that it's happening within the church. It's happening among the professing people of God. It is the case that God tells Israel, don't throw your children into the arms of Molech. And of course, Israel goes down the road of time and throws their children into the arms of Molech.

The people of God, at times, lack knowledge relative to this particular subject. The people of God, professing people of God, engage in surgical abortion. There are instances, there are times. Randy Elkhorn, in his book, says there are a multitude of cases among born-again professing people where there are abortions occurring.

The people of God in the voting booth. Imagine going to vote and saying, you know, I know he's a pedophile, but he's the best of the best, so I'm going to go ahead and vote for him. We would never do that. He's a rapist, but, you know, he's the best of the best.

He's a murderer, but, you know, he's the best of the best. Can a man who endorses abortion, a woman who endorses abortion, be trusted? I say no. I say not.

I say that is horrific to consider. The people have gotten sexual immorality. Now, usually in sermons like these where people hear it, And they say, well, you're not a scientist. You're not a doctor.

You're not a biologist. Yea and amen. None of those things. But I am biologist enough to know this simple fact, that if you do not have sexual relations, there will be no pregnancy.

If you do not have sexual relations, there will be no pregnancy. It's that simple. A moron like me figured that out a long time ago. It is that simple.

Children and young people, listen to the sermon last week, when you're older, and think in terms of Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. This is the will of God for you, that you abstain from sexual immorality. If you do not put yourself in this compromised position, you will not have that temptation to end it in abortion. And then the final thing I'll say, and again, this rouses feathers, it happens in the church, but there are abortifacient means in terms of birth control.

You need to be wise. Not every birth control method is contraceptive in nature. There is abortifacient types of birth control. wherein the implanted fetus in the womb is murdered, or not murdered, the lining of the uterine wall is thinned and shriveled up to make it an inhospitable environment for a fertilized egg to attach and then to thrive and grow. That's not contraception.

That's an abortifacient. And the people of God need to understand these things. And the people of God need to act consistently with it. And then we need to preach the law.

I said last week that ministers of the gospel need to preach the law of God. And some today will probably listen, and we might even get nasty comments on sermon audio. He got political. Brethren, I want to tell our government that to kill babies is wrong.

One of the functions our brother Steve read, 1 Timothy chapter 1, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. What's a lawful use of the law of God? Pedagogue. Tell sinners their sin, such that they'll see their need for redemptive grace.

This is why John the Baptist told Herod, it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. It's not lawful for you to break the law of God. We need to press this. We need to affirm this.

We need to say that the law of God speaks to these matters. It speaks to these issues. And guilty, vile, helpless sinners can find refuge in our Lord Jesus Christ. Carl F.

H. Henry, he says, even where there is no saving faith, the law serves to restrain sin and to preserve the order of creation by proclaiming the will of God. By its judgments and its threats of condemnation and punishment, The written law, along with the law of conscience, hinders sin among the unregenerate. It has the role of a magistrate who is a terror to evildoers.

It fulfills a political function, therefore, by its constraining influence in the unregenerate world. See, today we're told, you can't do that. You can't ever talk about politics. You can't ever say that somebody in civil government is doing something wrong.

What do we do with John the Baptist? How would we house him in our church if we knew he had just come from a session, standing before Herod, pointing his finger at him and saying, it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. Would we say, John Baptist, you're not welcome here. John Baptist, we're not going to let you in here.

John the Baptist, that's too political. Or Elijah challenging King Ahab. Or the prophets of God challenging the royalty of their age. Brethren, Jesus Christ himself was a political hot button.

He was a hot potato. Wandering around the streets of Israel or Jerusalem and Judah and Galilee, he incensed the religious and the political class every step of the way. And then finally the church needs to herald the gospel. The church needs to preach the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, that cleanses us from all sin.

See, at times when we gather together and persons find themselves in a situation like this, they may reflect on the past. They may reflect upon bad decisions that they made in their youth. They may reflect upon previous horrors that they committed. But understand this, the psalmist said, if thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. There is hope in the blood of Jesus. There is redemption in the blood of Jesus. There is forgiveness in the person of our Lord Jesus.

If you have sinned this sin, if you have participated in this sin, if you have sinned in other sins, if you have hated people in your hearts without any warrant, you have not done what God has said relative to the sixth commandment. There is hope in our blessed Savior. Scripture says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Brethren, I think where the law is preached, the gospel comes on its heels to bring the balm of Gilead to those needy sinners that have been bruised, broken, and battered by that law to understand that there is hope to be had in the person and in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And everyone, the Bible is clear, everyone who comes to me, Jesus says, I will in no wise cast out. He says, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That last great day of the feast in John's gospel, he says, if any man thirsts, let him come and drink. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, he is preaching to Jerusalem sinners.

He tells them their number one sin, him you crucified by lawless hands. And yet he's able to say to them, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. So when we bring that law to bear upon sinners concerning this revolting practice of abortion, let us be there with the gospel of free and sovereign grace to tell sinners there is hope, there is life, there is salvation to be had in Jesus Christ our Lord. Well, let us pray.

Closing Prayer

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its clarity with which it speaks to these particular issues. And we know that this isn't a political issue. It is theological to the core.

These babies are made in the image of God Most High. And we pray to you that you would turn the hearts of wicked legislators around. We pray that you would turn the heart of our Prime Minister around, that this would not be seen as an incorrigible, as a good thing in society, but may they see it for what it is, an act of murder and an act of transgression against the living and true God. We pray for mothers and fathers that are going through hardships right now.

We know that there are so many of these people that are challenged with difficult decisions. May they choose life. May they choose that which is pleasing in your sight. May they give these babies up for adoption to loving families that will take them in and rear them up.

And God, may you be glorified in the church and help us to think your thoughts after you. Help us not just to be apologists and defenders of the truth, but to be lovers filled with compassion for the hurting among us.

Scripture References

• Genesis 1:26-28; 3:15; 5:1; 9:6; 25:19-26
• Exodus 20:1-26; 20:13; 21:12-13; 21:22-23; 22:2
• Leviticus 18:21; 19:14; 19:17; 19:32
• Deuteronomy 7:1
• 1 Kings 18:28
• Job 10:8-12; 31:13-15
• Psalms 2:2-3; 51:5; 130:3; 139:13-16
• Proverbs 8:36
• Jeremiah 1:4-5
• Matthew 11:28
• Luke 1:15; 1:39; 1:41-44; 18:15
• John 7:37; 8:44
• Acts 2:38
• Romans 13:4
• Galatians 1:15
• Ephesians 6:12
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3
• 1 Timothy 1:8
• James 3:9; 5:14
• 1 John 1:9
• Revelation 21:8