Opening and Scripture Reading

turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 21. Exodus chapter 21, we're considering sanctity of life Sunday. It was in 1968 and 69, the Criminal Law Amendment Act in Canada, 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. Of course, that wasn't enough.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the existing laws were unconstitutional and struck down the 1969 law. The then governing progressive conservatives attempted but failed to pass a new abortion law. And since then, Canada has had no criminal laws governing the subject and abortion is a decision made by a woman with her doctor. Well, the United States passed Roe vs.

Wade 41 years ago in 1973. The numbers of abortions are staggering in North America. When we add to that the worldwide figures, I was just reading this week, Israel's laws have greatly increased in terms of facilitating abortion, places like China, throughout the earth, the bloodshed certainly is prevalent. So it is helpful for us as the Church of Christ to understand what the Bible says concerning this very relevant issue so that we may be able to speak to our particular age.

If you are taking notes, you will see a lot of similarity with the message at this time or from this time. Last year, it is my conviction that if you get these things down, it is most helpful in terms of this particular issue. Now, what I say concerning abortion applies equally to the subject of euthanasia. In fact, when we trace out the sanctity of human life in all its stages, certainly that applies not only to babies in their mother's wombs, but it applies to elderly folks at the end or getting near the end of their lives.

The biblical warrant for a sermon such as this, obviously, is the case law in Exodus chapter 21, and I'll just read verses 22 to 25. 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, and 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. Well, let us pray.

Opening Prayer

Our Father, as we come to consider this most serious topic, it grieves us to consider how wicked man is to kill babies in that most vulnerable state, or to kill elderly folks in a most vulnerable state, or to kill those who are ill in a most vulnerable state. We know the blood of righteous Abel cried out to you. God, we trust that the blood of all these people, all these judicially innocent people, equally cries out to you. God, help us as the people of God, help us as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to know what the scripture says, to pray in light of such things, and to seek to be faithful witnesses in a generation that truly has demonstrated that the hearts of men are filled with madness, with folly, with sin, and rebellion.

We ask now that you would fill each and every one of us with your Holy Spirit. We pray that He would guide us, that He would illumine our minds and our hearts, to cause us to receive with gladness the joy or the truth of Holy Scripture, even if that truth does affect us. We pray as well, God, that you would forgive us for all of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We know that whenever we look into that holy law of the living and true God, we are mindful of our own departure.

We are mindful of our own iniquity and our transgression. So we cry out to you even now for the forgiveness of sins and for cleansing in and through the blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it's in his most blessed name that we pray. Amen.

Well,

Introduction

John Murray, former professor of Westminster Theological Seminary, said this in a book called Principles of Conduct. He said, nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of life. Proverbs 8, the Lord Christ speaking as wisdom says, that he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death." Certainly as we look around at a culture given over to such widespread shedding of blood, it evidences this reality.

Those that despise Christ love death. An early Christian document called the Didache in about the year 120 says this in Chapter 2 verse 2, you shall not abort a child or commit infanticide. Proverbs 30 verses 8 and 9 says, open your mouth for the speechless in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

Again, we cannot do that if we do not understand what the Scripture says. And it's an unfortunate reality that Christians don't always evidence the ability to articulate what Scripture says on these most important subjects. And it is to this end that the sermon is offered this morning. I pray that you'll take notes, pay attention.

If you want the notes, write me, email me, call me. I will send them to you so that you have these texts in your minds and in your hearts. We need to be able to give a legitimate response to the evils of our particular age. We need to know what we believe when it comes to things like voting, when it comes to things like being functional citizens in a body politic.

All of these things bespeak the necessity for God's people to understand God's truth. I want to look at three things this morning.

Sanctity of Human Life

First, the sanctity of human life in all of its stages. Again, this applies to abortion, it applies to euthanasia. Secondly, we'll focus specifically on the personhood of the pre-born. And then thirdly, we'll look at the prohibition against abortion in the Bible.

So first, the sanctity of human life in all of its stages is seen in the fact that

Man as the Image of God

man bears the image of God. No, he doesn't just bear the image of God, he is the image of God according to Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 to 28. You can start turning. It's important that you understand what the scripture says concerning this very important subject.

Genesis 1, 26 to 28. 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. So our confession says, after God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, rendering them fit onto that life to God for which they were created, being made after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. The Psalter, the Scriptures, everywhere affirm this reality that man is the image of the true and living God. Francis Schaeffer realized that it's upon this foundation that the Church effectively speaks against abortion.

He says, in the flood loss of humanness in our age, including the flow from abortion on demand to infanticide and on to euthanasia, The only thing that can stem this tide is the certainty of the absolute uniqueness and value of people. Why is it wrong to kill a baby? Because they bear the image of God. Why is it wrong to commit infanticide?

Because that child is the image of God. Why is it wrong to terminate the life of an older person? Because they are the image of God. We need to understand that there is a difference between us and the raccoon.

There's a difference between us and the goat. There's a difference. Within God's created order, it is man that alone bears the image of the living God. He goes on to say, the only thing which gives us that is the knowledge that people are made in the image of God.

We have no other final protection. And the only way we know that people are made in the image of God is through the Bible and in the incarnation of Christ, which we know from the Bible. It is the scriptures to which we must go. Then we see the image of God displayed, as I said, in all of its stages.

Let's run through these pretty quickly. First,

Image of God Across All Stages

the image of God is displayed in the pre-fall state of man. In other words, before the fall into sin, God, of course, makes man in his own image. Some have taught in the history of the church that after the fall, man no longer is the image of God, but that is untrue. After the fall, recorded in Genesis chapter 3, in Genesis chapter 5 in verse 1, we read that man is created in the image of God. in James 3, when that dear brother is condemning our ungodly use of the tongue.

He says, with our tongue, with that self-same tongue, we bless our God and Father, and we curse men who are made in His likeness, or who are made in His similitude. So we are the image of God both pre-fall, pre-lapsarian, if you like the theological term, and post-fall, or post-lapsarian. We see that the image of God is displayed with reference to the womb, with reference to babies in their mother's womb. And we'll spend a little more time on that in just a moment.

The image of God is displayed in children. Leviticus 18, there's a prohibition against offering your children to mullet. You're not to engage in human sacrifice. In Ephesians 6, as fathers, we are told, do not provoke your children to wrath.

Why is that? Because they're image-bearers of God. You cannot abuse them, you cannot molest them, you cannot murder them, because they are God's image-bearers. As Vos says, that when we murder, when we assault man, it is the image of God that is our target.

The image of God is displayed in the handicapped. Leviticus 19.14. Leviticus 19.14. Far from seeing a marginalized view of the handicapped, the vulnerable among us, the Bible says that they have protection and we are to esteem.

In Leviticus chapter 19, verse 14. You shall not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God I am Yahweh. You don't mess with people that are handicapped. You don't make sport of people that don't have all the same faculties.

In the book of Mark, isn't it endearing when our Lord Jesus is passing through the city of Jericho and blind Bartimaeus raises up his voice and says, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me. What's the response of the crowd? They want to marginalize this man. They say something to the effect like, he doesn't want anything to do with you.

He's a busy man. He's the Son of God. He's the Redeemer. He's the Messiah.

He is moving through Jericho. What does Bartimaeus say? He raises his voice louder and he says, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me. The text says that Jesus stops, Jesus walks over to the man, and he says, what would you have me to do?

And Bartimaeus, of course, says, Lord, I want to see. So Jesus heals him, gives him his sight. And that man then lays eyes upon the glorious Lord Jesus himself. The image of God is seen in the sick among us.

James chapter 5. James chapter 5. No brethren, we need to come to grips with passages like these, not only for the abortion debate, which shouldn't even be a debate, or euthanasia, but for churchmanship. Within the context of the local church, there are people that are physically not well.

There are people that are hurting. There are people that are tried. There are people that have difficulties. It simply isn't enough on a Sunday morning for us to mention them in prayer.

Pray for them during the week. Pick up the phone and call them during the week. Get in your car and drive a meal over to them during the week. This is God's heart for image bearers.

In James 5, verse 13, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Now, there's some things in this particular passage that might stretch our minds a little bit, in terms of the anointing with oil. If you're interested, email me. I'll send you some notes on this particular text. But this much is sure, that when there is sick in the church, they're not forgotten about, they're not cast off, they're not marginalized.

But rather, if they were to pick up the phone and say to the elders, can you come over here and pray with me and anoint me with oil, the elders show up. There's dignity in every single human being in whatever stage of life they find themselves in, whether it's the womb or it's the final or eleventh hour, whether they are handicapped, whether they are maimed, whatever the situation and instance is. The image of God is displayed in the elderly. Again, in Leviticus 19, young people, stand up in the presence of your elders.

It's sometimes embarrassing to see the way that society as a whole, and the church in particular, treats people. Stand up! Give honor to those who have hoary heads! They deserve our respect.

They deserve our esteem. They deserve our love. They deserve honor. This is why Paul, when he's writing to Timothy, tells him how to deal with various people groups within the context of the church.

He doesn't tell young, middle-aged Timothy to rise up against the older men and put them in their place. No, he says, do not rebuke an older man, but give honor to him. He may be wrong theologically, he may be wrong ecclesiastically, he may be wrong on this particular instance or detail, but Timothy, do not berate him, or do not belittle him, or do not disparage the image of God in this man by treating him as if he's a little child. You see, every stage of human life reflects and is the image of God Most High.

Image Dignified by the Redeemer

The image is not only displayed, but dignified by the Redeemer. The Lord Jesus Christ as second Adam is the image of God as true humanity. Now, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ as God the man is the image of God in His deity as well. But He does not take on angels.

He does not take on the nature of angels according to Hebrews chapter 2. But rather He takes on the nature of Abraham. He dignifies our nature. He shows that it's good.

And He shows that in His redeeming work that man has value. man has significance, and the Lord Christ has come to save his people from their sin. So that's a brief outline of the sanctity of human life in all of its stages. Now

Personhood of the Preborn

secondly, the personhood of the pre-born. Just to give you a couple of quotes, what others have said concerning this issue. Associate Justice Harry Blackman One of the authors of Roe versus Wade said this, we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. then-candidate, President Barack Hussein Obama. in 2008 said, this is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on.

I think it's very hard to know what that means when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don't presume to know the answer to that question.

What I know, as I've said before, is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we're having these debates. Obviously these fools have never heard the maxim, it's better to err on the side of caution. Imagine a hunter going out to the woods, seeing something rustle behind a tree and just shoot. Well, he got a doe instead of a buck.

Horror of horrors, doesn't he know? It's not the season for does. He didn't verify his target. Imagine that self-same hunter seeing the stirring behind the trees, taking his .30-06 and shooting a child.

Horror of horrors, didn't that man take the time to investigate rightly the target that he was shooting at? He would be vilified. He would be public enemy number one. You can hear the liberal media now.

He would have wanted posters out for him. How dare this hunter, this pro-gun nut, actually shoot somebody without verifying the target. And yet we have an Associate Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court say, we don't need to verify the target. We can kill it!

Does anybody see the disconnect that we're dealing with? Does anybody enter into the reality of how foolish man is? And how set they are upon murder. Proverbs 8.

Those who hate me It really is the case. I like what Gordon Clark says, Christian philosopher. One argument abortionists frequently use to defend themselves against the charge of murder is the claim that the baby is not a human being. But if the baby in the womb is not a 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. He's right.

Do you hear what the Chief Associate Justice of the highest court in the United States of America, and this is not to let Canada off the stage, there's no law concerning abortion in Canada. Do you realize that the peer nations to Canada and the United States are places like North Korea and China? It's not those dirty, despicable heathen over there. An Associate Chief Justice with the backing of the Supreme Court behind him, and 57 million babies dead as a result of it, has said, we don't need to verify the target.

We can go in and cut, we can go in and suction, we can go in and put saline solution in there. It doesn't matter what it is. That's amazing that we've come to this place. You know, that news concerning Israel and their very, very liberal policy on abortion.

Just in my research this week, Josephus, writing to Appian, says, we are forbidden from such a thing. It was unheard of to a Jew to go into the womb and kill the seed. Why? Because they're looking for the seed.

They're looking for the Messiah. There's a promise in the Garden in Genesis 3.15. You don't mess with the seed. It could be the one whom God sends to save His people.

Boy, that's changed, hasn't it?

Biblical Witness to Preborn Personhood

The personhood of the pre-born is seen in Genesis 25, 19 to 23. Jacob and Esau are called children. They are called nations. Job 10, let's just rehearse these particular passages again so that you see them with your own eyes and you hear them with your own ears and you receive them with your own hearts. so that you can go to your own prayer closet, and you can go into the voting booth, and you can go with some information, and act and conduct yourself consistently with the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments.

Job 10, your hands have made me and fashioned me, and intricate unity, verse 8, 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 curl 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." Job 31, when he's rehearsing his righteousness in the sense that he has not oppressed, he has not been ill-willed toward others, he has not been evil.

Job 31.13, if I have despised the cause of my male or female servant when they complained against me, 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?

He's talking about people. He's talking about him, Job. When he was in the womb was Job. It's the same idea in Psalm 51, when David is tracing back his native depravity.

He goes to the womb. He says, in sin did my mother conceive me. That doesn't mean the conjugal relationship was sin. It means that as soon as David was, he's a sinner.

But it was David. It wasn't a lump of cells. It wasn't a product of conception. It was David.

Psalm 139. Who can forget that whole psalm dealing with the omniscience and the omnipresence and the omnipotence of God Most High. And the psalmist is marveling. The psalmist is amazed at the reality that God has knit him together in his mother's womb.

Again, it's not a lump of undefined cells. It isn't some cosmic trash that we can dispose of. It's a human being that bears the image of the true and the living God, and we need to take these things seriously. When Jeremiah traces his call to the prophetic ministry, he says that God separated me from where?

Not from my playpen, not from my nursery school, not from kindergarten, not from middle school, but from my mother's womb. The Apostle Paul says the same thing in Galatians chapter 1. It pleased God who separated me or called me from my mother's womb. You see, if they practiced abortion in those particular days, we'd have no prophet Jeremiah.

I speak as a man. We'd have no Apostle Paul. We'd have no Edomites. We'd have no Israel.

Isn't Jacob the father of the nation? I know Abraham specifically, but Jacob takes the very moniker Israel. If the abortion rights advocates were there at the time, if the haters of Christ were there at the time, practicing their sacrament of vicious cruelty, there'd be no nation. Luke chapter 1, we see that John the Baptist will be filled with the Holy Spirit when he's in his mother's womb.

How do you explain that? In Luke 1, 41 to 44, the word brephos is used and applied to a baby in the womb. The same Greek word is used in Luke 18 when they bring the little children, the brephae, to Jesus in order to bless them. The word is used synonymously with paideia.

We've heard that word, paedobaptism, infant baptism. Hydea Grephos refers to the same thing. Human beings that bear the image of the true and the living God. If the abortion rights advocates had their way, there would be the extermination of the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of his mother.

And it's very intriguing in considering this whole affair. When Elizabeth comes to visit with Mary, what does Elizabeth say? She's shocked. She's blown away.

She says, how is it that the mother of my Lord has come to see me? Jesus is Lord in the womb. Not a product of conception, not a mass of cells, not something that for convenience we can suck out and dispose of.

Prohibition Against Abortion

Thirdly, the prohibition against abortion in the Bible. Exodus 21. Exodus 21. Just to give you a brief synopsis of the context.

Exodus 20, as I'm sure you'll all remember, is the giving of the 10 words, the giving of the 10 commandments, also known as the Decalogue. That simply means 10 words. Sinai, God spoke. Sinai, God says.

Sinai, God prohibits. In the sixth word, murder. He says, you shall not murder. You shall not take the life of another human being. without cause.

The rest of the Bible makes clear. There are three instances of lawful killing. Self-defense is legitimate, Exodus 22. Legitimate war or just and necessary war, Deuteronomy 7, 1-5.

And capital punishment, Genesis 9. and Romans 13. Those are the three instances of lawful killing. It's not murder. Murder involves malice.

It involves a forethought. It involves particular motive. And so the sixth word prohibits murder. Now notice specifically in chapters 21 to 23 of Exodus, we find those laws, those general principles, words 1 to 10, fleshed out for society.

In other words, we take the general statements and principles given at Sinai in Exodus 20 and 21 to 23 explains how those principles are to be fleshed out in society. In fact, Kaiser makes this comment, while these judgments deal mainly with temporal matters, they nevertheless are based on one or another express commandment in the Decalogue. It is most appropriate, therefore, that these judicial and political regulations given by God to Moses when Moses approached the thick darkness where God was should be set alongside the Decalogue. The two belong together in time as well as in interpretation.

Look at Exodus 21, 1. Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them. Again, the law has been given generally, the principles enumerated in the Decalogue in chapter 20, and now they're fleshed out. How then do we live in society with reference to this binding moral law that God Most High has given to the body politic?

And that's where we find 21, 22 to 25. Now, the context, beginning in verse 12 of 21, going to verse 32, deals with murder, manslaughter, and bodily injury. God speaks to these issues. If you've not read Exodus, you've not read Deuteronomy, please do so.

What does God say concerning rape? Deuteronomy 22. What does God say concerning abortion? Exodus 21.

Now notice, specifically, 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. And 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.

Three specific observations.

The Correct Translation of Exodus 21

First, the correct translation. The New King James is correct. The ESV is correct. If you have in your lap a Bible that says when this woman is struck and she miscarries, your Bible is wrong.

Your translation is wrong. Listen to what the argument is. Pay attention because it's huge. There are variant readings in New Testament manuscripts.

Just going to give you one. If you hear me read from the New King James, you'll see Bethesda referred to. In some of the other translations, it's Bethsaida. Guess what?

If you believe Bethsaida is the correct name, and I believe Bethesda is the correct name, No harm, no foul. But if you mess up on Exodus 21, 22, and you envision a text that speaks to miscarriage, and then no harm follows, you missed the point. Look at it. If men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows.

You see what happens? You've got two geniuses in Israel. Two brilliant men that want to fight with each other. I'm being sarcastic and facetious here.

Two knuckleheads that want to fight with each other. And there's a pregnant woman that happens to be standing there, probably the wife of one of them. In the midst of their scuffle, she gets smacked. As a result of the trauma that she suffers, she gives birth prematurely.

Literally, her children come out. That's the language applied to Jacob and Esau. The hairy one came out, didn't he? It's the language used throughout Old Testament Scripture to speak of childbirth.

So premature birth is legit. It is what's in view. The plural form of child is used to envision the possibility of twins or triplets. or quintuplets or whatever the uplets are. However many children that are in there, if she gets smacked and as a result of the trauma she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows to her and the children.

That's how the text is supposed to be read. If you have the older version of the New American Standard or you have the Wretched Message Bible, It says that when she gets smacked, she miscarries, yet no harm follows. What's the implication to the woman? That's not what the law is saying.

The law is speaking not only about the woman and the protection afforded to her, but it's the protection afforded to those babies that come out It's not a miscarriage. There are Hebrew words for miscarriage that are absent in this passage. There's a Hebrew word for one untimely born that's not in this passage. It is the language of coming out, a child being born.

It comes out prematurely, and if no harm follows to the woman or to the child or children, then the man shall pay. You see, your actions have consequences, don't they? If you go out on the street and you have a fight, and you happen to strike somebody, you may get into a felony situation. You take one too many drinks, or you smoke one too many things, or you snort one too many things, and you get in a car and you go out and commit a felony?

It's crazy foolish. So you see what's in view here. Two men fight, a woman that's pregnant gets hit, and then the baby or the babies come out. If no harm follows, then the man is fine.

He has to pay a recompense. He's caused trauma, he's caused difficulty, he's caused issues, and he needs to pay money in order to deal with that eventuality. But notice,

Lex Talionis and Capital Sanction

if harm follows, This is where most of the people that oppose abortion in the Christian Church jump ship. We don't like the penal sanction attached. We like the fact that abortion is prohibited, but we don't like that the punishment must fit the crime. That's what eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth, burn-for-burn, and stripe-for-stripe actually means.

It's the Lex Talionis, the law of retribution, and it means that the punishment must fit the crime. So if these two men are fighting, and they cause trauma to the woman and death to her or her child, then they must recompense by their own life. Notice back in chapter 21 at verse 12. There's a distinction here between murder and manslaughter.

Verse 12, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. That's murder. 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. You see that?

That's manslaughter. That's accidental homicide. The rest of the Pentateuch illustrates for us. If I take an axe and I'm mad at my neighbor, and I hate him in my heart, and I cut him, and I bury that axe in his head, I've committed murder.

But if I go out and I'm swinging my axe and the axe head flies off because of my irresponsibility and it falls on that man's head and kills him, that's accidental homicide. God appoints a city of refuge for me to flee to. But even in that, he has to stay in that city of refuge until such time that the high priest dies, which indicates that even your accidental situations have consequences. That means that when you're an Israelite and you went out to chop wood in the morning, you better take notice of your ax head and make sure it's not going to fly off.

You see, personal responsibility is built into the law of God. Not this, I didn't know, I'm the victim, everybody's mean to me and that's why I do what I do. I run people over with my car because someone was unkind to me back. That's just not legit. personal responsibility and self-government.

It's what the Bible, the biblical law is dealing with. But notice here for a moment, accidentally this man kills his neighbor. He can run to the city of refuge. When we get to this situation in verse 22, and these two men are fighting, and they accidentally hit a woman who is pregnant, and she gives birth, and harm follows to her child, he is worthy of execution.

There's increased protection for this particular situation. It's unavoidable, or unavoidable, or inescapable. Calvin says this concerning this particular place in God's law, with reference to a baby in its mother's womb. He says, 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.

This is the language at times championed by the pro-abortion cause. Fetus. Let's depersonalize it. Let's dehumanize it.

Let's reduce it to something abstract that doesn't have hands, it doesn't have feet, it doesn't have eyes, it doesn't have sexual organs, it doesn't have a nose. Is that what Calvin means by fetus? This is how foolish the pro-abortion movement is. Fetus is Latin for unborn baby.

And yet it's been effective, hasn't it? There's something we can disassociate with when it's a fetus. Let me read Calvin again. Listen, feel it, understand what he's saying.

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. You're walking around Coltus Lake, and robbers prevail upon you and in the midst of the scuffle they kill you. That's bad. Nobody's suggesting otherwise.

But there's something specifically nasty and wretched about a home invasion robbery, isn't there? When some poor guy hears a knock on the door and he goes over to the door and thugs come in and they destroy him. In his house It's crazy, isn't it? Men want to actually debate the perversity of man, the sinfulness of man?

If this seems more horrible, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light. The commentary on the Decalogue throughout the rest of the Old Testament affirms this privileged position concerning babies. What does God hate, according to Proverbs 6? These six things Yahweh hates, yea, seven are an abomination to Him.

If I was an abortionist, or I was a legislator, or I was a father or a mother who had the inkling to go out and destroy my child, I would hope somebody would say, you know what, God abominates hands that shed innocent blood. He loathes it. He hates it. He despises it.

He abhors it. This is something marked out peculiarly by God, most I, in terms of the things that are on his top seven list of things he hates. Hands that shed innocent blood. What does Jesus do with the Decalogue?

Does Jesus invalidate it? Does Jesus abrogate it? Does Jesus say the sixth word that is no longer binding upon the church today? We just love everybody?

Yes, we love everybody according to the law of God. Do not think, he says in Matthew 5.17, do not even let it begin to rise in your mind that I have come to abolish the law. I did not come to abolish, I did not come to abrogate, I did not come to tear it down, but rather to fulfill it. When he gets to the exposition of that general principle in 5.17-20, in 5.21-22 he deals with murder.

He says specifically that if we hate our brother in our hearts, we are guilty of violating the command. Well, I've got to say, if we hate each other in our hearts and we're guilty of breaking the sixth commandment, how much more doctors with surgical instruments going into that utterly safe and secure place called the womb and destroying image bearers? It's terrible. Absolutely terrible.

The way that we treat the image of God.

Application

In terms of some concluding thoughts, the Bible and murder tells it like it is. There's an interesting progression early on, after the fall of man, after Genesis 3, what happens? Everybody lived happily ever after with their newfound liberty? No.

Cain murders Abel, doesn't he? Even without guns, Cain murdered Abel. You see, they want to say, get rid of all the instruments. It's the heart that's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

If we don't have a gun, we'll use a knife. If we don't have a knife, we'll use a rock. If we don't have a rock, we'll use our bare hands. If we don't have bare hands, we'll use our feet.

Because our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it? But it's an amazing progression. When Cain is called to answer, what does he do?

He tries to hide it. He tries to cover it up. He tries to say, no, I don't know where he's at. God says, the blood of your brother cries out to me.

It doesn't take long for devolution. Genesis 6, 11 and 12. I'm sorry, Genesis 4, 23 and 24, Cain's great-great-grandson Lamech glories in bloodshed. He glories in the body count that he has gotten.

By the time we get to Genesis chapter 6, the earth is filled with violence, and after the flood, God arms the magistrate with the sword and the responsibility to execute murderers. You see, the Bible tells us a lot about murder. Secondly, when we look to the state, what should we think concerning the Bible about abortion in the state, or the civil government, whatever you want to call it? the powers that be. I've already quoted, and I will quote again, the criminal law amendment 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.

In 1989, it was overruled. And not to delimit, not to take away, but to make wide open the access to abortion. As I said, in the United States, 41 years ago Roe versus Wade was passed. 57 million babies in the US alone since that time. That's staggering, isn't it?

And I've often thought, personally, that somebody that's killing babies for money isn't probably the most honest in reporting those facts. So a lady by the name of Carol Everett, that served or worked as a nurse in an abortion clinic, got out of it. wrote a story, started educating people, started teaching people about the money that's involved. Sacks and sacks of money. You think they're all honest and accurate reporters?

I would imagine the numbers are a lot bigger, personally. When you look at the population, 300 million in the United States, about 100 million, I'm sorry, about 1 million per year abortions, more than that. You got Canada, about 30,000, 35,000, 35 million people, and you have about 100,000 abortions per year. I checked with Josh last year, the percentages are the same.

So before you Canadians say, those bloodthirsty, wretched Americans, yeah, it's because they love guns, it's because they hate God, Canada is doing the same thing. Jonathan Van Maren, in a very helpful blog post, once indicated to me how non-pro-life and how non-supportive of the pro-life cause Prime Minister Stephen Harper is. President Barack Obama, as a senator, voted three or four times against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. That there's six million professing Christians in the United States that voted for him is staggering to me.

Could you imagine casting your vote for a political figure that says, I support rape? Could you imagine casting your vote for someone who says, I support pedophilia? I support theft. I support lawlessness.

We'd say never! And yet six million people claiming the name of Jesus Christ in the United States of America voted for Barack Hussein Obama. Christians in Canada think he's hunky-dory. In case you don't know what the Born Alive Infant Protection Act is, it's that.

The law was written to specify that if a baby survives an abortion, the doctors must do everything in their power to take care of it, to help it, to make it live. What manner of ghoul opposes such a piece of legislation? Consider currently in the United States of America, research is showing something we already knew, but scientific data is showing that a baby in the womb at 13 to 14 weeks feels pain. So several states in the United States are challenging They are saying we must forbid and prohibit abortion past 20 weeks.

Again, I'm not happy with any of that. It should be criminalized flat out. But the Supreme Court continuously upholds a woman's constitutional right to kill her baby. With a SCOTUS and a POTUS like that, babies do not stand a chance.

And when we in the church don't know what the Bible says, when we in the church don't pray, when we in the church don't offer compassion and kindness and those things that Jesus says are consistent with the second great commandment? Machen said it this way. He said the civil government is not intended to produce blessedness or happiness. They're not.

You don't want your government helping you to be blessed or happy. That's God's job, isn't it? You see, the state, with its total planning and control, wants to usurp the predestinating decree of God and come and be your mother. We don't want that.

Maitreyan was right. The civil government is not intended to produce blessedness or happiness, but intended to prevent blessedness or happiness from being interfered with by wicked men. They're not supposed to bring us blessedness, they're not supposed to bring us happiness, but they are supposed to stop those thugs that are trying to break down our doors to take blessedness and happiness away from us. They are supposed to stop those thugs that with sterilized medical instruments are going into that most sacred place called the womb and killing image bearers of the living and true God.

You see, not all sin is crime. Covetousness should not be punished by the state. Not all crime is sin. If you were in a Muslim nation and they told you you could not preach Jesus, you must obey God rather than men.

But you see, abortion is both sin and crime. It is something that we need to consider. It is something that ought to affect us. It is something we need to consider the way God does.

The Church and Abortion

What about the church and abortion? The first thing I would say is there is a prevalence of it. A prevalence of it. That means a lot of it in these various ways.

First, the professing people of God lack understanding about the subject. Do you know how one group is celebrating Sanctity of Life Sunday today? They're having a fundraiser for abortion. It's a group of comedians, led by comedienne Sarah Silverman.

It's called the Night of a Thousand Female Lady Parts. But it's not female lady parts. It's the word that rhymes with the capital of Saskatchewan. Look at the ingenuity!

If we advertised a night of a thousand butchered babies, a night of a thousand severed heads, a night of a thousand severed arms, are people going to come out in mass and support? But we tell a few jokes, we make it about reproductive rights, we make it about the women. People will go, yuck, yuck, yuck, listening to their comedy, and then cough up money to support abortion. And yet you can meet Christians sometimes that couldn't flip to one of the texts I mentioned to you earlier to save their lives.

I think the Bible says abortion's wrong. We've got to get past that. We have got to move beyond the ignorance that has become acceptable among the people of God. What does God say through the prophet?

I believe it's Hosea. My people perish for what? A lack of knowledge. A second evidence of the prevalence of abortion within the church is surgical abortion.

Randy Alcorn in his very helpful book, Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Objections or Questions, says that within evangelicalism, within the reformed community, within that camp of people professing to be born again, girls and women come for abortions. It's interesting in the prophet Jeremiah when God deals with the covenant people, He says, I never commanded you to offer your children to Molech. I never commanded you to sacrifice your children. He's not talking to the Hivites.

He's not talking to the Hittites. He's not speaking to the Canaanites. He's speaking to the covenant people of God who took the babies of their bosom and threw it into the arms of Molech and watched them die. It's happening in the church.

Thirdly, the professing people of God and the voting booth. We've already touched on this, but let me just ask you again. Would you vote for the candidate that openly espoused rape? Would you vote for the candidate that openly espoused pedophilia?

Would you say, well, his policies and his fiscal responsibility is so stellar here, You really want somebody that advocates for pedophilia to be your president, or your prime minister, or your fearless leader? Do you want somebody that doesn't respect the image of God in their mother's womb? Fourthly, the professing people of God and chemical abortion. I understand whenever I come to this Sunday, it's one of the most difficult.

This is not a fun subject. This is not a happy topic. Chemical. Birth control pills.

Not going to get into the whole issue of birth control. Birth control pills. We all know about RU486, the morning after pill. But birth control pills work the same way.

It's just a lesser dose. There are three mechanisms within a birth control pill to try and stop a woman from having a child. The first is actually contraceptive. It inhibits ovulation.

Again, I'm not a scientist or a biologist, but I know this. If she doesn't ovulate, she can't get pregnant. That is contraceptive in nature. Secondly, to thicken the cervical mucus and making it more difficult for the sperm to reach the egg.

Again, it's a contraceptive measure. If those two fail, the third is abortifacient. This means that if the sperm fertilizes the egg and implantation occurs, the third mechanism is designed, like the IUD, to irritate the uterine wall so that it cannot host this fertilized egg. That's abortion.

It is. It's just like that hunter looking through a scope at the rustling in the trees. Before you say, Pastor Butler, this is what we've chosen for family planning, see what's behind the tree. Check it out.

Investigate. the prevalence of abortion within the church, and I'm really going to probably bother you now, the potential precursor to abortion in the church. The potential precursor to abortion in the church. Again, Jonathan Van Maren wrote a very helpful blog post called, When Porn Goes to Church. And he talked about the effects of pornography on the minds and the hearts, primarily of men, but it happens to women as well.

As I was running through this particular list of things, I couldn't help but avoid an inevitability with reference to abortion. I am not suggesting to you, young men or young women, that every time you click on that internet browser, or every time you sneak a peek on your phone, that you're going to necessarily commit abortion. However, do you know what the foolproof way is to avoid abortion? Guess what?

For a woman to exercise her choice not to have intercourse. Pornography breaks down inhibition. Pornography has you start to think that your feelings and your desires and your needs are everything. It reduces inhibition to the point where oftentimes the person who traffics in pornography ends up engaging in sexual intercourse.

Now again, Jonathan Van Maren didn't indicate this one, but Solomon did! Proverbs says, he who covers his sin will not prosper. When David found out that Uriah was pregnant, what did he do? I'm sorry, when he found out Bathsheba was pregnant, he didn't send her to the abortion clinic.

He called for Uriah to set it up in such a way that his sin would be covered. Again, do not leave here and say, Pastor Butler said every time we look at something like that, that we're going to commit abortion. I didn't say that. Some of you young people, some of you older people are dealing with things that are going to kill your soul.

Do you love how Peter says it in 2 Peter? He says, abstain, or 1 Peter, abstain from fleshly lusts, which do what? War against the soul. You see, sinners will always seek to cover.

Stay away from it. Resist it. Flee from it. If you've got habits, if you've got patterns, do what Jesus says and cut your hand off.

Gouge your eye out. Because it's much better to enter into life maimed than to enter into hell full. If the number one way to avoid abortion is self-control, pornography certainly is not a means to gain self-control. I think we should stop there.

I think we should be prayerful about this situation. I think we should be mindful of the reality. I remember a song that a man wrote many, many years ago. He says, hey there, young mother, a doctor's tool will not cure the shame.

The only help is Calvary. For those who've had abortions, for those who haven't given two thoughts about abortion, realize there is a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. This is what conspirators to murder need to hear. The doctors, the mothers, the fathers, the parents, the family, the friends that are urging people to go out and perpetrate murder against an image-bearer in the womb need to hear us say, stop!

Stop! Do not compound sin with sin! Flee to the Savior because He alone cleanses. Flee to the Lord Christ because He alone saves.

Flee to the One alone who brings pardon for sin and the imputation of righteousness. Luther said, Jesus Christ is not a sham Savior for sham sinners, but He is a real Savior who offers real atonement for real sin, the gross crimes, for shameless offenses, for transgressions of every sort and every size. Just start in Genesis and work your way through the Bible. Don't we see that Jesus is not a sham Savior for sham sinners?

King David of Israel, redeemed. Paul the Apostle, redeemed. Peter, denied as Lord, forgiven. If you've committed this particular sin this morning, go to the fountain that is open for sin and uncleanness.

If you are in a pattern of pornography, stop. Go to the fountain that is open for sin and uncleanness. Start to transform your mind. Start to think about women as image bearers of God and not objects for your satisfaction.

What we are told in Romans is not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. That starts at the cross. It continues in God's Word. Be faithful in these things.

Do not give any vent whatsoever, because the devil is not generally content with just a little bit of sin on your part or mine. You need to go to the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness. And you need to be assured that there is a fountain open for sin and for uncleanness.

Closing Prayer

Well, let us pray. Father, we come to a very difficult subject to consider this morning, and yet we see how clearly your word speaks to it. I pray that we would think your thoughts after you concerning this particular matter. I pray that in our closets, in our churches, we would cry aloud, that we would go to you, go to the throne of grace, that we would sigh and cry over the abominations done in our land, and that these things would affect the way that we live, the way that we pray, the way that we vote, the way that we think concerning ethics in the civil realm.

We ask God in heaven that you would intervene, that you would stop this murder, stop this rage of man against babies and against elderly folks and against those, God, who are vulnerable. It ought not to be the case that we murder them. It ought to be the case that we protect them. Help me, Father, to have more thoughts concerning these things.

Help all of us, God, to know what the Scripture says in these matters. And we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Scripture References

• Genesis 1:26-28; 3; 3:15; 4:23-24; 5:1; 6:11-12; 9; 25:19-23
• Exodus 20; 21; 21:1; 21:12-32; 21:22-25; 22
• Leviticus 18; 19:14; 19:32
• Deuteronomy 7:1-5; 22
• Job 10:8-12; 31:13-15
• Psalms 51:5; 139
• Proverbs 6:16-17; 8; 8:36; 28:13; 31:8-9
• Hosea 4:6
• Matthew 5:17-22
• Luke 1; 1:41-44; 18:15-17
• Romans 12:2; 13
• Galatians 1:15
• Ephesians 6
• Hebrews 2
• James 3; 5:13-15
• 1 Peter 2:11