They turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 21. Exodus chapter 21 today been called the sanctity of life Sunday, so I thought it would be good for us to look at the scriptures and to see what the Bible says concerning the value of life and the wickedness of murder. Those will be our two major considerations. This morning, with various sub points beneath each, we'll be looking at a lot of passages because frankly, fuzzy and unclear thinking is not what is needed in the church today.

We need to think Christ's thoughts after him. We need to understand the scriptures and we are to be able to promote the truth of God with reference to every area of faith and practice. I'll just read Exodus 21 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. Amen. Let us pray.

Opening Prayer

Our Father, we pray now that Your Spirit would be at work in our hearts and in our minds. We confess, Lord God, the lack of attention to such things in the Scripture. We pray that Your Church would be well equipped with the knowledge of Your Word, that we would be ready and able to promote the truth of a biblical worldview in this age that we live in. God, we just pray to you, as we just sang in Psalm 82, that you would arouse yourself, that you would indeed bring judgment upon those who would engage in such wickedness as abortion and as euthanasia.

Father, we just pray that you would do a work in your churches, that we would make this a matter of prayer, that we would make it a matter of discussion, that we would not just turn our heads and pretend that we just don't see. But God, give us the grace to manifest a biblical compassion and a righteous indignation and a ready response with the truth of Holy Writ. And we pray now for the forgiveness for all of our sins and for cleansing in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray.

Amen.

Introduction

A former professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia by the name of John Murray said this. Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of life. And I would amend that a hundred times. Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of life.

I believe it's Christ speaking his wisdom in Proverbs 8. He says, but he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death. And it's no exaggeration to say that we live in a culture, to live in a generation, to live in a time that is just enamored with death, that loves death.

To promote the wholesale murder of babies in their mother's wombs, or to promote the murder of the elderly or of the infirm because they're inconvenient. It ought to cause us to hang our heads in shame, to search afresh the Holy Scripture and to find what God would have for us to do in such a time as this. And as I said, our purpose this morning is to set forth two main considerations from the Bible. The first is the value of life and secondly, the wickedness of murder.

The Value of Life

As we take up the value of life, the first observation is that

God Created Man in His Image

God created man in his own image. The sanctity of life is essentially a theological issue. It is because we are image bearers of the living and true God. That is why we possess dignity.

That is why we have value. That is why we have worth. Another professor of theology said that in murder, it is the image of God that is directly assaulted. And so we must think God's thoughts after him with reference to this.

Genesis 1, 26 to 27 will be turning to a lot of scriptures today. And I know sometimes preachers say you don't need to turn there. Well, I'm just the opposite. You do need to turn there.

You need to actively involve yourself in knowing where your Bible contains the answers to life. And in Genesis 1, 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. So we see initially and foundationally in the book of Genesis, God made man unique.

He doesn't say this about the animals. He doesn't say this about the cattle or about the birds or about the fish. He doesn't breathe his spirit into them. He does so with man.

Man is unique in God's creation. Man is the pinnacle of God's creation. This is the thrust of Psalm 8. The psalmist praises God and says how excellent the Lord is.

And then he says, what is man that you are mindful of him? What is man that you have stationed him in such a grand position? Well, God made us in his image. And some have taught, or some have thought, that at the fall, when Adam and Eve plunged into sin, or Adam specifically plunged the race into sin, men have taught that the image of God was lost.

But that's simply not the case. The image of God is retained. It is distorted. It is marred.

It is messed up. But nevertheless, man on this side of the fall still bears the image of God. We learn that from Genesis five. Then we learn it from James three.

When James is highlighting the need for Christians to speak well toward one another, he speaks of the wicked influence of the tongue. And he says, with that tongue, we bless God and with it we curse men who are made in his likeness. So in the fall, we didn't sacrifice the image of God. It was damaged.

It was distorted. It was polluted. But man retains God's image. And this is absolutely crucial for us as we argue against abortion, as we argue against euthanasia, as we argue against drive-by killing, as we argue against drug abuse leading on to death, or men that would give drugs to young people to get them hooked.

These things ought to be opposed by Christ's church. We ought not to just pretend that we live in a world that is unstained or unmarred. We need to take heed to the things around us. And we need to have a cogent, rational, biblical defense of God's truth.

Francis Schaeffer said this with reference to this understanding of the image of God. And I believe this is quite perceptive. He said the flood loss of humanness in our age, including the flow from abortion on demand to infanticide to euthanasia. The only thing that can stem this tide is the certainty of the absolute uniqueness and value of people.

We have to understand this, he says, and the only thing which gives us this or 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 the incarnation of Christ, which we know from the Bible. If people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right.

The human race is an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe. In this setting, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, including the killing of mentally deranged criminals, the severely handicapped or the elderly who are an economic burden, are completely logical. See what he's saying? If we accept the humanist, if we accept their reasoning and rationale, if man is simply a wart on the smooth face of creation, then all these things logically follow.

What is life? It's not that important. It's disposable. We can indeed murder 100,000 babies a year in Canada.

The United States can murder 1.4 million babies per year. If what he is saying is true, if the humanists are right, we have no place, no foundation, no ground upon which to argue. Unless, of course, we adopt the Bible. He goes on to say without the Bible and without the revelation in Christ, which is only told to us in the Bible, there is nothing to stand between us and our children and the eventual acceptance of the monstrous inhumanities of the age.

There's no protection apart from biblical theology. There's no protection apart from God's holy word. So that is the first sub point under the value of life. God created man in his own image.

God Protects All People

Secondly, God protects all people. You must understand this. The Bible is a document of great liberty. The Bible is a document of great freedom and of great blessing.

God regulates human life in all of its various expressions. His law applies specifically to each and every category of person sitting in here right now, to each and every category of person that inhabits the entirety of the earth. And I just want to work through some of these categories and then we'll end with the unborn of the preborn. But the first thing we need to notice is that

Superiority Over Animals

God's word demonstrates Man's superiority over animals. That's not to say we should abuse animals. It doesn't mean we should kick our dog or kick our cat or engage in any kind of unlawful promotion of evil toward animals. But God has a pecking order and he has given man dominion over the animals.

And that is asserted as we read in Genesis one, twenty six to twenty eight. It is highlighted in the sacrificial system. It is even alluded to in our Lord's teaching when he says that the prodigal returns and the father ordered the slaying of the fatted calf. Jesus would not have been a member of PETA.

Protection of the Elderly

Secondly, God's word protects the elderly. It protects the elderly. We need to take heed to this as young men and young women. The Bible says that when a hoary head man walks into a room, when a gray headed man walks into the room, that doesn't mean a young guy who grays prematurely, by the way, doesn't mean a 30 or 40 year old that's already got gray hair.

It's talking about an older man. What's Leviticus say? You rise. You honor him.

You hold the door open for the elderly. You show them esteem and you show them respect. Paul deals with this when he calls Timothy to deal with men righteously within the church. He says, do not rebuke an older man, but admonish him and encourage him as a brother.

You don't come up and be arrogant to an older brother in the Lord. No, you show esteem and you show respect. Young people today need to learn something of that respect and honor that the Lord God calls you to. They're not your buddy.

They're not your equal. They're not on the same place. You show respect. You esteem.

You say Mr. or Mrs. You hold the door open. You offer your seat. You don't run to the table and knock the older people down while you're trying to get your food.

No, God is concerned about the elderly.

Protection of the Handicapped

Thirdly, his word protects the handicapped, the handicapped. What's God say in Leviticus 1914? Don't put a stumbling block before a blind man. You don't do that.

You don't play games with people who are distressed or have an ailment or have some difficulty or trial. You esteem them and you honor them. They are image bearers of the living God. They have dignity.

They have value. They have worth. I alluded to that reality a couple of weeks ago, when Jesus is passing through Jericho and blind Bartimaeus cries out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. The crowd displays a general idea toward the handicapped.

They say, be quiet. He doesn't want to listen to you. Be quiet. He doesn't have time for you.

You're just a blind beggar. But Bartimaeus cries out again, all the louder. Jesus stops. Jesus walks over to him and Jesus actually says to this blind man, what would you have me to do?

The blind man says, I want to see. So Jesus opens his eyes. God's word protects the handicapped. Fourthly, God's word protects women.

Women. Women are not inferior. Women are not on a lesser level. Women are not beneath men in terms of God's creation.

We were both created in the image of God, male and female. He created them now within the function of the home, within the function of the church. They both have their appropriate roles. They both have their appropriate distinction when it comes to putting their gifts into service for the Lord.

But in terms of creation and in terms of redemption, we're on equal footing. God's word specifies that and highlights that men are not supposed to be chauvinistic pigs. You're not supposed to mistreat your wives or your daughters or treat them as somehow less or inferior. No, God's word protects women.

Protection of Children

Fifthly, God's word protects children. Not talking about in the womb children right now, but out of the womb children. What does God forbid in the book of Leviticus? Do not sacrifice your children to the idols around you.

If the pagans are going to bring their babies or their young people and throw them into the burning arms of Moloch, you are not to follow them in that. God says these are image bearers. You don't mistreat them. You don't murder them.

You don't harm them. You don't destroy their lives. What are fathers told in both Colossians three and Ephesians six? Do not provoke your children.

They're not a play toy for you. They're not something for you to exploit. They're not there for you to abuse. They're not there for you to use or misuse or mistreat.

They are image bearers of the living God. And as a result, you treat them with dignity. They have sanctity because God is a holy and a righteous God. And then sixthly and finally, appropriate to our particular station in life, where it's just not in North America, brethren, where the numbers are so high.

Nations like India and China, they have numbers that are off the charts in terms of babies that are murdered in their mothers' wombs. This is an epidemic. This is gross and heinous before a thrice holy God. One of the things that we'll remark in a few minutes is that God notices this.

Remember when Cain killed Abel? Cain probably thought he had taken care of everything. He probably thought he had pulled off the perfect crime. He wiped up any spot of DNA.

He wiped up any fingerprints. He had disposed of the body and everything was going to go his way now. Abel was gone. He was out of the picture.

What does God do? He says that your brother's blood cries to me from the ground. So while the church may turn its head and pretend that abortion doesn't exist, or while we may actually think that euthanasia doesn't go on, God observes it. God notices it.

God takes heed and God will indeed judge men for their participation in this sin.

Protection of the Preborn

God's word protects the pre born. Various lines of thought in the scriptures tell us that in Genesis 25, Genesis 25, the children struggled within Rebecca. Not the lumps of flesh, not the mass or the product of conception, not the undefined grouping of cells, but the children struggled in the womb of Rebecca. If all is well, why am I like this?

She said. So she went to inquire of the Lord and the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb. Two people 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. There were twins in there. They were children. They were people.

When David is tracing his native depravity back, he says, in sin, my mother conceived me. It doesn't mean the sexual activity of his father and mother were set. He is saying that as soon as me appeared, as soon as David was in place, he was a sinner. Job speaks of this, of God knitting together in the mother's womb, both the rich and the poor.

Jeremiah says that he was separated from his mother's womb. Paul says the same thing in Galatians 115, it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb. The word that is applied to Jesus in the womb is the word breath loss, which means child. It is the same word used in Luke 18 when children are brought to the Lord, brought to the Lord Jesus to be blessed.

It's not this distinction between a fetus in the womb that isn't really a person yet and a baby that's outside of the womb. No, in the womb there is personhood. This is God's word. This is God's mind.

And I know there's a lot of text. If you don't get them all, talk to me, I'll give you the particulars. But look specifically at Genesis at Exodus 20 to 21. What we read here.

Exodus 21, one of the passages that speaks specifically to this issue of the pre born, and it's very important before we actually look at the passage, what is in view here? What we have are two men who engage in a fight. And while they're engaged in a fight, there's a pregnant woman who's watching, presumably the wife of one of the men. She is looking on while these two men fight.

In the course of the fight, she gets struck. She gets hit. And notice what God through Moses says, verse 22, if men fight and hurt a woman with child, it's plural, actually, to cover the eventuality that there's twins, that there's triplets, that there's quintuplets, whatever it covers, whatever is in her womb. And then notice so that she gives birth prematurely.

The language is literally so that our children come out. Just like we saw in Genesis 25, Rebecca's children came out. Jacob and Esau. Esau was red.

He was called red or Edom. They came out from the womb. Now notice what he says in verse 22. Yet no harm follows to mother or child.

The law is specific. It covers now the mother and the child who was born prematurely. You see, this is very important that you see this because this law specifically applies to the issue of the pre-born notice 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.

So bless God Almighty that in the midst of your fight, when you struck that woman and she went into premature labor and she had that baby or babies and they were safe, you ought to be very thankful because all you're going to get now is a monetary fine. All you're going to get is to be stuck with something that hurts your pocketbook because you were such a knucklehead to fight with a man in front of a pregnant woman. But notice what goes on to say, but if any harm follows now, we remember we're dealing with more than just the mother. She's given birth prematurely.

She has a baby or babies. If harm follows mother or children, the things change a little bit. Things change a lot. You've entered in from the realm of financial remuneration for your foolishness to the realm of the Lex Talionis.

That is the law of retribution. Notice what he says. 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, strike for strike.

Now, a lot of people today balk at this principle. They don't like it. It sounds barbaric to them. Well, we use the same principle, at least in theory.

We don't really use it. But in theory, we define it this way. The punishment must fit the crime, right? That's all that God through Moses is saying.

The punishment must fit the crime. If you capitally murder someone, you will be capitally executed by the state. This is the implication. What's God saying?

The pre-born in the womb has rights. The pre-born in the womb is sanctity. The pre-born in the womb has dignity. The pre-born in the womb is protected by the very law of God, such that if it comes out in the midst of this fight and harm follows to its little life, then the man responsible is held liable to punishment.

You see, God cares about pre-born people. God cares about the fetus. Fetus simply means unborn baby. John Calvin said, 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.

That's powerful. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, don't we agree with that? I mean, we hear about a guy walking to the store and he gets mugged by thugs and he gets killed and we weep or we are compassionate, I hope, or we lament. But that home invasion robbery just causes us some great deal of indignation when somebody would have the wherewithal to knock in someone's door and to enter into their house to commit robbery and murder.

That just creates in us a godly indignation. I hope. And that's what Calvin is 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, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.

And that's going on every single day. If you work out the statistics in America, for instance, that's one point six million per year. That means forty four hundred babies a week. And you know what, when you look at Exodus 21 for a moment, consider this.

God, through Moses, is dealing with two men fighting. Two men that in the midst of their exchange of blows hits a woman who is pregnant. Those two men didn't intend to hurt her or her baby. In fact, just previous in Exodus 21, there is a distinction made between manslaughter and murder.

Manslaughter is accidental or non premeditated death. If I'm chopping wood and I'm swinging my axe and that axe head flies off and hits my neighbor and kills him, God's word to me is to go to the city of refuge. Now, if I hate my neighbor and I know that he's coming home at a certain time and I hide behind his bush and I take that axe and I drive it into his head, I've committed murder. And then the state is to intervene and to execute me.

When we get down here, it is accidental, brethren, isn't it? They're fighting with each other, and in the midst, the blow gets thrown, and the woman gets hurt. It's accidental in that regard. But the law of retribution applies fully.

Now, take this as sort of a generic example, or a general example, how much more state-licensed, tax-funded abortion plans. How much more when the state authorizes such an abuse against God's image? How much more when people are making several million dollars per year on such an atrocity? When I study this out, when I think about this, my thought is, God, have mercy on us.

Please have mercy on us. It's a woman by the name of Carol Everett. In fact, they're making her book into a documentary. It's called Blood Money.

And she was involved in the abortion industry. And she speaks of how much money is made on this, dare I say it, business. The sacrament of humanism is what it is. God abominates it.

God loathes it. God despises it. God despises it. So under the value of life, God created man in his own image.

God protects all people. And

God Sent His Son to Redeem Man

God sent his son to die and rise again for men. We saw this in Hebrews 2. He does not take on angels. He does not take on the nature of angels because there's not redemption for the fallen angels.

But he does take on the seed of Abraham. He comes in the likeness of sinful flesh. He comes and he lives under the law. He's born of a woman born under the law.

He's fulfilling the law. He's dying for sinners and he's rising again. This shows us the dignity and worth. Christ dies to redeem man.

They have value before God. John Murray said it is the sanctity of life that gives meaning to the redemptive process in all of its phases. Life is forfeited by sin and redemption is the redemption of forfeited life. Remember that the devil is the father of murder, right?

You are of your father, the devil. He was a liar from the beginning. He was a murderer from the beginning. When he speaks, the truth is not in him.

Christ is the prince of life. Christ is about redemption. Christ is about grace and mercy and forgiveness and kindness. And dare I cause anybody to think that there is no hope for abortionists or for mothers who have gone through this.

Christ died and rose again to save his people from their sins. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. There is redemption in him, the man who wrote a song about the horrors of abortion. And he says, hey, there, young woman, a doctor's tool will not cure the shame.

The only hope is in Calvary. That's our hope, that's our gospel, that's our message.

The Wickedness of Murder

Well, let's look at the wickedness of murder. Again, I know these aren't happy subjects. You're not coming here today to get a shot in the arm so that you can go out and sing Zippity-Doodle on your way home. But brethren, you need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

And we live in the midst of a grievous time. We live in the midst of a generation where life is so little valued. I saw recently, I think it was in Florida, a man broke into a house and he was going to rob, but he wanted to just see what it was like to kill someone. That's just amazing.

That's where we're at. We want to see what the thrill of murdering someone is like. One man as well said, we don't want to, we want to get rid of abortion, but we want it such that the thought of abortion is unthinkable. That we wouldn't even entertain a society where it is where it is civilly and judicially permissible to murder someone.

We want that to be unthinkable.

God Forbids Murder

The wickedness of murder, the first aspect of the first way we know this is God forbids it. The Sixth Commandment, you shall not murder. When did that stop being in effect? When did that stop applying?

We've had about 200 years of folly in the Christian church where we're debating the whole place of what law are we under and all that sort of thing. Well, this much is sure. God forbids murder. It's not an expression of loving your neighbor.

This is not an expression of kindness. It's not an expression of charity. God forbids murder. God forbids the unlawful taking of another life.

Now, in the course of this sermon, you will hear me advocate state authorized implementation of the death penalty. And if you think that's inconsistent, I invite you to talk with me afterward, talk to some of the other brothers. It is most consistent to oppose abortion and to authorize the state under God to wield the sword in the infliction of punishment. That is not unlawful.

When a man is convicted, he's gone through the process. A jury of his peers has found him guilty. God hands the state the sword in order to render judgment upon him. That is not murder.

That is lawful killing. In the same manner, in a justly waged war, a man can go with a clear conscience and engage in wartime activity. We are not pacifist. We are not advocating a pro-life to the exclusion of God's authorizing the death of some.

If that sounds harsh again, I invite you. We cannot spend all of the time developing each of these points, but God forbids murder.

God Hates Murder

Secondly, God hates it. I mean, isn't that follow? If we forbid something, it must mean we hate it. One of you men said, I just forbid you to ever make liver and onions.

The implication is probably that you hate it. I'm not picking on liver and onions, by the way. God hates it. Proverbs 6, 16, a passage that I think it'd be well for all of us to memorize.

It's good to know not only what God loves, but what he hates. You'd like to know what your wife or your husband loves, but you also like to know what he hates. And he hates liver and onions. I'm not bringing liver and onions in here.

Proverbs 6, 16. These six things the Lord hates, yea, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift and running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.

Hands that shed innocent blood. You Calvinists talk about total depravity. In fact, you said David, at the moment he became David, was a sinner. How could he be innocent?

Isn't he liable to such justice? This is talking about the judicially innocent. Those who have not done a crime. Those who do not engage in war.

Unless you're prepared to say that baby in the womb is trying to kill the mother or that baby in the womb is a mercenary and going out to war. And I have the right to oppose him and all of his machinations. You can't do that. Hands that shed innocent blood, the judicially innocent, the person that does not deserve it.

And when you read this, it's not as if proud looks just sort of float out there. It's not as if there are lying tongues in the back pew, not picking on the back pew people. It's not as if there are hands that just work at abortion clinics. God is saying he hates these people.

He opposes these people, people who are known by these aspects. Psalm five, another passage that speaks to this particular issue. Psalm five. Verses five and six.

Psalm five, five, the boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

So not only does God forbid it, God hates it. As I said before, and I'll say thirdly now,

God Observes Murder

God observes it. He takes notice of it. This could be the first day of the year or the first day in two years that you've even thought about this issue. Face it out of sight, out of mind.

We don't usually look for this information. It's very depressing. It's very distressing. We like to think happy thoughts.

We like to think about positive things. And while we may be negligent to these truths and realities, all of them are known by God. Again, Genesis 410. And he said, what have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Don't you think the millions and millions and millions of babies who have been slaughtered, their blood cries out? Kylan Dalich commented on this and said, Innocent blood has no voice. It may be that is discernible by human ears.

Kay didn't hear it. Kay didn't think about it. Adam and Eve didn't hear it. Adam and Eve didn't think about it.

Innocent blood has no voice. It may be that is discernible by human ears, but it has one that reaches God as the cry of a wicked deed demanding vengeance. Murder is one of the sins that cry to heaven. God observes this.

God sees it when Paul begins to develop the doctrine of total depravity and the universal condemnation of all men because of sin. In Romans chapter one, as he is giving a category or a list of vices and sins in Romans one twenty nine, he says, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder. Same thing in First Timothy chapter one verses eight to ten, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully and in the particular use he's alluding to here, he says that the law was given to the murderer to call him to cease and to desist and to stop from this activity. God observes it.

We may not care about these things. We may not demonstrate the compassion of Jesus. We may not feel for these people, but God does. That's why I say we need to be like God when we talk about being godly.

Well, when's the last time you prayed in opposition to this horrendous sin of abortion or euthanasia? I mean, this past little while and praise God, people are sympathetic and concerned about the loss of life in Haiti. And I know there's pundits and peoples out there saying, well, this is the judgment of God. Be careful about interpreting Providence.

Be very careful, because the implication can be as well that our nation that is bloody and saturated with blood guiltiness, because God doesn't send an earthquake on us, he approves of us. We're good in his sight. Be very careful of being an interpreter of divine providence. But the nations of the earth are rallying around and showing mercy and compassion upon the Haitian people, and I'm I'm for that.

Brethren, praise God for that. Churches are fired up and they're giving money and they're praying and they're earnest and they're they're wanting to do something. You know, this is out of sight and out of mind. Babies are murdered each and every single day.

Older people in the infirm are murdered each and every day. Where's the church to cry out to God for that? Where's the church to pray for that? Reformation is never just one aspect in church life.

Beware of the preacher. Beware of the ministry. Beware of the people that said we just get this one thing done, then everything will be great. No, we need to reform in all areas.

And we need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ with reference to these issues. You say, well, what's your warrant? The Lord's prayer. Jesus taught us to pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I am happy and rejoicing that when I enter into Emmanuel's land, there's not an abortion clinic up there. There aren't murderous doctors up there. There aren't people that are selling kits for people to kill themselves with. That's not going to happen.

So Jesus prayed that God's will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Will it ever be fully fleshed out? Will it ever be a utopia? No, I don't believe so.

But the people of God must take heed. We must pray. We must seek by the grace of God to involve ourselves in a proper way. The church's primary response is not a political focus, and it's not pietism.

The church's primary focus is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the way the church storms the gates of hell itself. Now, you as a private individual, you want to get active in certain things. Praise God.

But the church must preach the doctrine of the atonement, justification by faith. Just thinking about this recently, when we finish Colossians, I'd like to get into Galatians. Some might say Galatians is a very heady, very justification oriented document. We just need to learn how to love Jesus.

The most blessed time this side of the apostles was the Protestant Reformation. You know what they preached? Not 15 ways to be a better you. They preach justification by faith alone.

That's what God used as a stone in David's sling to knock down the Goliath of Rome and to affect Western civilization. Seems to me the church needs to get back to that. We need to know the scriptures and we need to preach the whole counsel of God most high. God observes it.

God Punishes Murder

Fourthly, we know God hates murder or God. The wickedness of murder is seen in God's punishment. God's punishment of murder. Genesis nine, six.

Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood will be shed. What's the reason? Because we want a better society? No.

For in the image of God, he made man. Again, I mentioned, or I alluded to, Vos, Gerhardus Vos. He said, In life slain, it is the image of God, i.e., the divine majesty, that is assaulted. Luther, commenting on Genesis 9, 6, said, This was the first command having reference to the temporal sword.

By these words, temporal government was established and the sword placed in its hand by God. And I hear the objections, brethren, do not think I haven't. That's the Old Testament. Well, Romans 13, one to four is New Testament.

And God most high has given the sword to the magistrate for the punishment, not a thought crime, but of evil doers. Those who practice wickedness, those who are a threat to the governing, to the to the social society, they are to be removed. Watson said to kill an offender is not murder, but justice. A private person sins if he draws the sword.

A public person sins if he puts up the sword. A magistrate ought not to let the sword of justice rust in the scabbard, as he should not let the sword be too sharply or too sharp by severity. So neither should the edge of the sword be blunted by too much levity. God in history punishes murder.

Now, most people that accept the biblical doctrine of the death penalty, there's a bit of debate as to what crimes are capital offenses. But to a man, they all agree that murder is certainly a capital offense. So God not only punishes it temporally through the civil magistrate, but he will punish it eternally in hell. In hell.

That means if mothers and abortionists and legislators don't repent, they will find themselves in the lake of fire, according to Revelation 21 and verse 8. The apostle, under inspiration, describes for us who's in the lake of fire. 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.

Application

In conclusion, we need first to understand biblical doctrine. We must understand the Scriptures and their application to all matters of faith and practice. The day that this church stops preaching the whole counsel of God, I heartily encourage you to find somewhere else. The day that we put our emphasis on focus groups and encounter sessions and whatever it is that goes on under the banner of evangelicalism today, leave.

You need doctrine. You need truth. You need theology. You need the scriptures of both the Old and the New Testaments.

You need good confessional data like we have in our 1689 London Baptist Confession. You need the historic reformed theology that speaks to these issues. A whole orb approach to God's word. where all of it is expounded, all of it is applied, all of it is subscribed to. Reverend, the necessity today is to understand the scripture.

We must have a thorough understanding of the biblical doctrine in order to counter the prevailing attitudes in our society. That reformation wouldn't have taken place if Joel Osteen was leading. That reformation wouldn't have taken place if Benny Hinn was at the helm. That reformation wouldn't have taken place if the prevailing mindset of evangelical and, dare I say, reformed theology was at the helm.

It was an emphasis upon the scriptures of both the Old and the New Testaments. There was a return, there was a historic return. The Renaissance, if it did anything, called men to go back to the original sources. And that's what Luther and Calvin did.

They took the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament and they searched the scriptures and then they preached, they taught and they wrote. In fact, Luther has a quote that's amazing. He said, it wasn't me. All I did was preach, talk, wrote and drank beer and God did the rest.

That was Martin Luther. He didn't say, oh, I'm the great Martin Luther. No, I just taught theology. Preach the word.

God bless that. Do you think there's that lacking in our churches today? We say we believe the Bible. We say we believe the truth.

But if we don't see something immediately, we want to give up. We're going to see something of this in Zechariah chapter four tonight. I got to tell you, some of that lampstand and the oil flow and all of the things going on in there are a bit difficult. But I think there's two lessons that are brought home by God through the Prophet Zechariah.

The first is anything that happens is by the spirit of God. And secondly, don't despise the day of small things. You be faithful. You do what you're supposed to do.

You persevere. You go forward. You may not be the David that drops the Goliath, but maybe you'll be one that supports the David that drops the Goliath. We need to take heed to biblical doctrine.

Secondly, we need a biblical response. A biblical response to this issue, what can we do? I don't think I can answer that fully, but I know at least three things demonstrated by the psalmist in Psalm 119. When he looked around and he saw wickedness all about him, he responded with anger.

I don't think that means he strapped C4 to his body and walked to the nearest abortion clinic and said, see, on the other side, that wasn't the anger in view. He saw these things and it bothered him as image bearers of God. If God is angry with the wicked every day, it is legitimate for us to be angry. But don't go sinning.

Don't get angry and justify whatever you do because you had a righteous anger. The brethren, I mean, when you think about this, it cannot but provoke in you something of a response. I remember when I worked at Northrop Grumman, I worked graveyard shift. This guy was coming to work one night and he had a T-shirt on and the T-shirt had a picture of a garbage can.

And he said, America, this is no place for babies. That's what's going on. George Grant, who's a prolific author and a reformed thinker, says that the thing that got him interested or involved in the whole pro-life movement was that I don't know where he was or how he was, but he came to a dumpster behind an abortion clinic and it was filled with babies. So once I saw that, I couldn't stop.

I couldn't go back. I couldn't pretend that it just didn't exist. Anger is legitimate, but the Bible calls us to be angry and do not sin. It's tough, but it can be done.

But you know, when that Psalmist in Psalm 119 looked around at the wicked, he not only got angry, not only had indignation, but he had compassion. Psalm 139 or 119 verse 136, he says, rivers of waters run down from my eyes because men do not keep your law. I take from that a bit of compassion, something what we see in the Apostle Paul, remember when he walked into Athens, he's waiting for his companions. He looks around at a city given to over over to idols.

And what does it say? His spirit was grieved within him. Well, we might go to visit today and say, wow, look at the architecture, look at the beauty, look at how advanced they were. When Paul stood amongst those idols, the second commandment was real and alive in his own heart.

And he was grieved. He was provoked in his spirit because he looked at a city given over to idols. Yes, be angry, but be compassionate and never think for a moment that this murderous activity is beyond the blood of Jesus Christ. We must preach not only the heinousness of sin, but the glory of the gospel, the beauty of Christ, the majesty and the excellency of the atonement that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

How does Paul describe himself prior to his conversion? It was a blasphemer. It was an insolent man. I persecuted the church even unto death.

There's that instance in Acts 7 and 8 when the godly man, Stephen, is being stoned to death and all the people take their garments off. I think it's so they'd have increased mobility to throw rocks at Stephen, probably also to reduce the amount of body heat so they could keep to their task. Well, they take these garments and they lay them down at the feet of a young man named Saul. And it says there that Saul consented.

He agreed. He was with them while they were throwing stones at this godly man, Stephen. Matthew Henry, in his commentary, said we have reason to suspect that Paul told Luke to include this. Paul and Luke were buddies.

They were friends. They were companions. When Luke sets out to write the book of Acts, Henry's contention is, is that Paul said, make sure you include that. Why?

To show the depravity of man and the freeness of grace. You go out there and preach about the heinousness of abortion, you out there and preach about the glory of gospel. the glory and the power of the cross, for which of us, which of us deserve anything better for our sins? I'm all for it. Here's what the law of God says, but here's what the gospel of free grace says.

Yeah, thunder down Sinai upon this abomination. Shine the light on Calvary. We have a gracious Savior who came not to seek and to save the beautiful people, not to seek and to save the accomplished people, not to seek and to save the people that had never engaged in murder. He came to seek and to save that which was lost, that which was undone, that which was depraved, that which was ruined, that which had blood all over their hands.

Remember that picture we saw last week in Zechariah three, the high priest is standing before God and he's filthy. Remember, he's not only standing there for his own sins, he's standing there on behalf of Israel as a covenant community. Remember that one of the sins that the covenant community themselves had engaged in was taking their babies and throwing them into the fire to sacrifice to Moloch. What's God say?

Take those filthy clothes off of him and put on clean clothes, put on festal robes, put on garments of righteousness. So thunder forth, Sinai, my brethren, but thunder forth Calvary, because there is salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Compassion, anger, prayer, all these things are exemplified in the life and the ministry of Jesus. What does Jesus do with the religious hypocrites of his day?

Well, you know, you guys should just get a little better. You guys should really try a bit harder. You guys should really adjust yourselves to the... No, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. How many times does he do this? He does it eight times. And then what does he do?

He cries. So Jesus did. I had a guy tell me once, I just don't cry, you know, like Jesus. Now, I believe with Watson, sometimes we got the tears, but the cistern hasn't quite broken, so it doesn't actually flow out.

It's a different story. Jesus condemns, Jesus pronounces woes upon scribes and Pharisees. And prior to telling how God's going to deal with them in Matthew 24, he laments over the city and he says, how many times I wanted to gather you to myself, but you were not willing. So you see, these are consistent positions.

Paul the Apostle in Pisidian Antioch, when the Jews refused him, when the Jews rejected him, what does he do? He sounds like Ezekiel. He says, because you've judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we're going to the Gentiles. You think, wow, that's callous, that's harsh, that's brutal.

What's he say in Romans nine? I tell you the truth, I'm not lying. I have continual grief in my heart. I'm agonized over what's going on in Israel.

I am agonized in the fact that I go to these synagogues and I preach the Messiah and they reject and they refuse. So the same man who said you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we're going to the we're going to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, as I have continual grief in my heart over that. So you see, it can be done.

It can be done. And then as well, we need to be committed to justice for all peoples. We need to understand all those categories that are addressed in Holy Scripture. God provides protection and affords protection to them.

And then, you know what? Real practically, especially the young people here, very practically. You need to embrace the biblical doctrine of marriage. Sex and marriage.

Don't want to get too far, don't want to go too high, but I do want to exhort you to get this down and probably the best one volume on abortion you can pick up by Randy Alcorn. It's called pro-life answers to pro-choice questions, something to that effect. He highlights. That the church.

Professing Christians. Evangelicals probably reform the numbers within the church in terms of abortion are quite high. What does that lead us to believe there is an unbiblical appreciation for the doctrine of sex and marriage? Very often, young people, they don't even have to be young, older people are promiscuous.

They engage in something that God has not lawfully authorized. God then gives them a pregnancy. And the way they think to deal with it is not through the blood of Jesus, not through confession and forsaking and finding mercy, but in the abortion clinic. So, young people and children, get this doctrine down.

God is not anti-sexual relations. He has defined sexual relations within the covenant of marriage, within the context that he has authorized it. Do not engage in this folly. And as I've already said, brethren, there is forgiveness with Jesus that he may be feared.

I know I sound like I'm raving madman at times. I know that sometimes I raise my voice, but I've met considerable amount of people who have engaged in this particular sin before the Lord God Almighty and who are worshiping and praising God through Jesus Christ today. The psalmist was absolutely right. If you've ever had any cause to doubt him, then I invite you today to believe the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

The psalmist said to God, if thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? He says, but there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. There's forgiveness for Bartimaeus. There's forgiveness for Zacchaeus.

There's forgiveness for Paul. There's forgiveness for David. You know, we talk about David as a hero in Israel, and he is. But he engaged in thuggery.

He engaged in wickedness. And yet he knew the mercy of a crucified and a risen Savior. If you have sinned, come to Christ. He will forgive all those who come to him.

Well, let us pray.

Closing Prayer

Father, we give you thanks for the Holy Scriptures, we thank you for their clarity on these issues, and we just pray that you give the church clarity in our thinking and help us, God, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Help us, God, to to pray and to have compassion and to have a biblical and a righteous anger to express it in a godly way. Help us to be like our Lord Jesus and to be like the Apostle Paul and to be like the psalmist. And Father, we pray against these prevailing sins in our own generation.

We know that life is held to be at a very low value. It is disposable in the minds of many. We know that's simply not the case with an open Bible. We know that men bear your image at all stages and all facets of life.

And we just pray that you would help us, God, in our praying, in our living and all that we do to demonstrate the scripture stance on such things. We ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Scripture References

• Genesis 1:26-27; 4:10; 5; 9:6; 25:22-24
• Exodus 21:22-25
• Leviticus 19:14
• Job 10:8-12
• Psalms 5:5-6; 8; 51:5; 82; 119:136; 130:3-4
• Proverbs 6:16; 8:36
• Jeremiah 1:5
• Matthew 24
• Luke 18:15-16
• Acts 7:58-8:1
• Romans 1:29; 9:2; 13:1-4
• Galatians 1:15
• Colossians 3:21
• Ephesians 6:4
• 1 Timothy 1:8-10
• Hebrews 2
• James 3
• Revelation 21:8