Final Words: We Are Valued

This morning we’re going to begin a series of messages from the Book of Deuteronomy. But it’ll be a short series — only six messages. The theme of the series is simply Final Words since this book is composed of a series of final sermons that Moses delivered to the Israelites prior to his death. In Deuteronomy 5:6-21 Moses repeats the Ten Commandments. These are the heart of the covenant the Lord had established with His people, and they are the heart of righteous behavior God imputes in Christians when he replaces our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. In the New Testament we call this spiritual heart surgery the New Birth.

As Sovereign Creator, Yahweh has the authority to define how we should behave. Our behavior is defined by one word — holiness. In both Old and New Testaments, God’s people are commanded to be holy because God is holy. No where is that holiness better exemplified then in the command to value life.

As many of you know, today is Sanctity of Life Sunday. On January 21st — two days ago — the 49th March for Life was held in Washington D.C. Those of us who are Pro-life have much to celebrate. The most infamous court decision in American history — Roe vs. Wade — a legal decision that paved the way for 64 million abortions, was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer. Amen, and amen. Sadly, the decision that most of us here this morning celebrate, is a decision that has infuriated those who insist that killing babies in a mother’s womb should not only be legal, but be celebrated. In a mere thirty years, liberal politics in America has degenerated from abortion being “safe, legal and rare” to “shout your abortion.” The Apostle Paul wrote that in the last days it will be as if men’s conscience will have been seared with a hot iron. The allusion here is one of applying a hot iron to the skin. What happens to the skin? It is cauterized and becomes rigid, stiff, and dead to feeling. This is what happens when someone departs from the truth of the gospel. When men no longer believe that, from the moment of conception, that the image of God is stamped upon that emergent soul, than men can treat that life as a commodity to do with as they wish — including disposal of it.

This morning I’d like to do four thing: 1) Read the essential Scriptures, 2) Articulate the Christian Doctrine, 3) Examine the Cultural Challenge, and 4) Outline the Believer’s Response.

I. THE SCRIPTURES

“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. 5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:4–7, ESV)

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13, NIV84)

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15–17, NIV84)

1. these passages, and many more, teach us that God is the Creator and Sustainer of life

a. he breathed into Adam the breath of life and Adam became a living being

b. in Psalm 39 David acknowledges that, you knit me together in my mother’s womb

1) even though a man and a women come together in sexual union, one providing the seed and one providing the egg, it is God who brings the two separate elements together and forms a person within the womb ... no child conceived is conceived “by accident” from God’s viewpoint

2) contrary to what some people think, the verse does not teach that we existed as a soul waiting to be born into a body, but that God’s foreknowledge of events is so certain that He knows us before our conception ever took place

c. the Colossians passage teaches that we are a extraordinary creation of God and not an evolutionary accident of the cosmos

ILLUS. When Carl Sagan wrote, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself,” he was profoundly wrong.

2. from these verses we develop the doctrine of man and through them we come to understand our humanity

II. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

1. the doctrine of man teaches that a Sovereign God created human beings to reflect His image, to enjoy the blessings of marriage and family, to subdue the world and have dominion over it, to accomplish good works, and live in relationship with Him

ILLUS. Some of you have seen the 1980 movie The Elephant Man. It is based on the real life story of Joseph Merrick, an Englishman with severe deformities from neurofibromatosis. He was so deformed that his only way to earn a living was being exhibited as a human freak named the Elephant Man. If you’ve not scene the movie, I recommend it to you. There is a scene in which Merrick is traveling by train to London. When in public he always wore a hood with eye-slits because his appearance was so hideous that children fled and women fainted at seeing him. As he leaves the train platform a group of young teens begin to follow and torment him. All they see is a hooded man walking with a severe limp. Soon the crowd grows and he is chased into a the men’s lavatory where he is cornered. Someone grabs and removes his hood and the crowd gasps and recoils in shock, but then closes in to attack. At that moment, he cries out, “I am not an animal. I am not an animal. I am a human being!”

2. we are not animals — we are the superlative act of God’s creative work

a. but worldviews have consequences

1) the Naturalistic evolutionary worldview maintains that we are merely animals ... a more highly evolved species of animal, but merely an animal

b. ever since Charles Darwin released his book Origin of the Species in 1859 the prevailing theory among the intelligentsia of the world is that there is no clear boundary between Homo sapiens and the lower species from which we supposedly evolved

1) it’s a scientific theory that nullifies the need for a sovereign deity who creates and rules over his creation

2) it’s a worldview that denies life beyond death

ILLUS. Richard Dawkins, is an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, and the most famous atheist in the world. Dawkins says that, “The concept of our surviving beyond our deaths is akin to magical thinking. ... there are many things we don’t understand, but the particular thing of surviving our own death (is) palpable wishful thinking that goes against everything we understand about how the nervous system works…we are apes, we are African apes.”

c. Karl Marx took evolutionary theory and applied it to human society, suggesting that a man has no inherent significance or value beyond his contribution to the well-being of society

1) in other words, the individual is merely a cog in the machinery of society and when the person’s usefulness to society ends they lose their right to use up valuable commodities that are better allocated to the strong and healthy

d. the result has been an ever-increasing devaluing of human life that considers the very young and the very old, or the very sick and the very disabled as very dispensable

1) Western culture has now become a Culture of Death in which the sanctity of human life is demeaned and those who would defend it, ridiculed

2) when a culture devalues human life and then airbrushes God out of public view it brews a toxic mix

3. a biblical view of the doctrine of man begins with an unapologetic commitment to a sovereign God who formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life making him a living soul

a. the doctrine of man, therefore, encompasses four axioms

A. 1st, WE ARE THE PINNACLE OF GOD'S CREATION

1. the structure of Genesis 1 accentuates that mankind is not an afterthought, but is instead the pinnacle of God's creation

2. the psalmist asked, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4)

a. the question reveals that thoughtful people long ago were puzzling over the human race

b. even the ancients realized that man is fearfully and wonderfully made — that we are different than the rest of creation

1) man is the only creature among all God’s creatures who investigates himself

ILLUS. The salamander does not ponder his origins — how he came to be, what he is, or why he enjoys living under logs and rocks or what lies beyond the twenty square yards of its territory.

2) man is the only creature among all the creatures who feels impelled to ask, “Who am I, and where did I come from? and What makes me different from other creatures?”

ILLUS. Only man asks these questions. The Chickadee does not sit at the bird feeder pondering its "birdness."

3. philosophers, theologians, and scientists have mulled over these questions

a. the effort to explain human life has spawned religions, philosophies, legends, sagas, and scientific theories

b. in college classrooms, science laboratories, pulpits, and endless books humans continue to try to account for themselves

4. our search to answer the question “Who am I?” begins with understanding the main event of God’s creative work

a. we are not accidents, but a special creation

1) the rest of God’s creative work was nothing less then setting the stage in preparation for the main event

b. for five consecutive days God said, “Let there be ... “ and the result is that, at His command, “it was ... and it was good”

c. then, on the sixth day God declares, “ ... Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them ... ” (Genesis 1:26–28, NIV)

1) no other part of creation is made in God's image — only humans

2) no other part of creation is expressly blessed by God — only Adam and Eve

a. we are not a potluck product of the natural processes

B. 2nd, EACH GENDER SHARES GOD’S IMAGE EQUALLY

1. Genesis 1:27 declares that men and women both share equally God’s image

a. Eve is not somehow less than Adam because she was created out of Adam

b. in this way, gender and corresponding sexual ethics are rooted in the image of God in humanity

c. we are created distinctly man and distinctly woman as a part of the goodness of God’s creative work

1) both sexes are equal before God and are called upon to accept and respect the God-given gender assignment

2) not to do so is creaturely rebellion against the Creator

2. the Christian view of gender thus opposes the modern idea that “gender” is “fluid” and a mere “social construction”

C. 3rd, EACH ETHNICITY SHARES GOD’S IMAGE EQUALLY

1. one of the most pernicious ideas that initially came out of Darwin’s theory of evolution was that certain ethnicities of men are inferior to other ethnicities of men

a. sadly, it Darwinism was used as a defense for slavery

2. but the biblical doctrine of man teaches that Every person of every ethnicity is made in the image of God

a. while there are a number of ethic classifications of men there is only one race of men — the human race

b. if this is true, and it is, then there is no room in Christian ethics for the distorted ideas of Critical Race Theory suggesting that one’s skin color or ethnicity makes one better than another

ILLUS. Red and yellow, black or white They're all precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.

3. the final book of the Biblical Canon makes if clear that people from every nation, tribe, people and language will be part of God’s kingdom

D. 4th, WE ARE TO BE RESPONSIBLE STEWARDS OF CREATION

1. the creation of humans in the image of God entails human responsibility as stewards of the earth, including our stewardship of each other

“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28, NIV)

2. the doctrine of man entails three important responsibilities that flow out of our assignment to be stewards over creation

a. 1st to “be fruitful and increase in number”

1) here is a reference to the gift of marriage and human sexuality

2) one of man’s assigned duties is to procreate the species

b. 2nd, we are to “work the ground”

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15, NIV)

1) more literally, we are to make the ground work for us

a) we are to manage it, and use its resources so that mankind might flourish

c. 3rd, because humans alone are made in the image of God, humans alone are tasked with "ruling over" creation

1) humanity is not an imposition on the planet, because the planet was created for human habitation

2) Genesis paints a picture of the Earth as actually waiting for humanity to arrive so that the world can thrive

"This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, ... “

3) God created the Garden, not for the plants, but for the human creature that he would put in the Garden and tend it

4) the world is not simply man’s environment but his dominion

ILLUS. This highlights one of the major worldview conflicts of our era. There are those who think the wilderness ought to reign and others who think that the garden ought to reign. There are radical environmentalists (like Al Gore), who clearly believe that man in the world is the problem and that we need to leave the world as it is. Nature should be left unto its own. Nature should reign undisturbed. That what the world really needs is a few billion people less. But the Bible tells us that God’s goal for the earth is not “wilderness”, but “garden.” We shouldn’t apologize for that.

d. while we should not interpret "rule" as a synonym for "exploit," the doctrine of the image of God in humanity does in fact mean that humans are more important than animals and birds and fish and vegetation and are to rule over these things

3. in conclusion, the Doctrine of Man teaches that God bestows upon humanity a dignity and providential purpose which all other views of man’s origins fail to comprehend

“You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet:” (Psalm 8:5–6, NIV)

a. God created man a living person with a self-awareness, and God-awareness

1) we’re not a body with a soul, but more accurately, a body-soul

2) we are, therefore, neither just a physical being nor a spiritual one — but both at the same time

4. the worldview implication is that human beings have an innate dignity and should not be wantonly or unjustly destroyed

III. THE CULTURAL CHALLENGE

Our primary challenge is that we live in a post-Genesis-3 world, meaning we live in a fallen world where the world, the flesh, and the devil are the dominant influences on a man’s worldview. The result is a serious distortion of the Doctrine of Man. The consequence is that we have devalued, debased, and destroyed human life. Consider the slave-labor camps in today’s China; the child soldiers in Myanmar; the Islamic suicide bombers and their victims in Afghanistan and Iraq; the endless wars in Colombia, Burma, Kashmir, and Somalia; the sex trade in Thailand; man-made famine in North Korea; euthanasia in Canada; the ghastly toll of abortion in America. The culture of death is real and it is pervasive.

A culture that diminishes or denies God’s image in man is a culture that will tolerate incredible evil. In our own society the “culture of death” has become as “American as apple pie.” Abortion is one of America’s most common surgical procedures. With the demise of Roe v. Wade the battle over abortion has now shifted to the states. Some, like Missouri (praise God) have ended abortion on demand altogether. Others, like Michigan, Illinois, New York, and California have enshrined it in their constitutions and are even advertizing themselves as "abortion tourism" destunations ... come kill your baby and see Disneyland all in the same trip. In some minority communities, the number of abortions out paces the number of live births. The tragedy of abortion has left 64 million babies tossed into surgical scrap buckets. Proponents of abortion insist that abortion is the ultimate act of “empowering women,” and that a women posses “autonomy over her body,” giving them the right to terminate a pregnancy. Merle Hoffman, a major voice in the abortion rights movement, has declared that women need to understand abortion is no more significant an act than having “a bikini wax.” Really? Really? Killing a child in the womb is as benign as hair removal???

In our society human life continues to be cheapened as embryotic human beings are considered mere “biological material” to be experimented on through embryonic stem cell research. The only difference between a human zygote, newly implanted on a woman’s uterine wall, and a 2-year-old toddler is size, time and environment. Everything that child is at two he or she already is at the moment of conception. I’ve never understood this debate of “when does the fetus become a human being?” If dogs have puppies that grow up to be dogs, and sheep have lambs that grow up to be sheep, and if Wilderbeasts have calves that grow up to be Wilderbeasts, and if we all know this to be true, it takes some real chutzpah to think that a fetus is something other than a human being. If everything God created reproduces after its own kind, then maybe we ought to give the fetus the benefit of the doubt as to its humanity.

In Canada the culture of death is most clearly witnessed in the growing acceptance of euthanasia or what they euphemistically call “death with dignity.” Euthanasia is now a leading cause of death in Canada. Right now, any adult with a quality of life-limiting disability or a mental health reason (including depression) can seek doctor-assisted suicide. In 2021, more than 10,000 Canadians were euthanised making it the sixth leading cause of death in the country. Technically, euthanasia is illegal in the United States, but Physician Aid in Dying (PAD), is legal in California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Movements to extend the practice exist in every other state. Proponents of euthanasia say that death is to be embraced, and those whose lives are unworthy, should die and get out of our way. Active euthanasia is no longer a “slippery slope” but a “greased incline” that America is eagerly embracing.

All of these examples beg a series of questions: Who decides who shall live and who shall die? When is enough, enough? Will economic concerns become the primary means of judging who is worthy of life? Who gains by the death? What does this say about how we value life? Does humanity have such authority?

IV. THE BELIEVER’S RESPONSE

1. as God’s people, we are called to be more than simply “not part of the problem”

a. we are called to be part of the solution, to offer the remedy to mankind’s brokenness

2. God has always been deeply concerned about the culture surrounding His people

a. He called Abraham to be set apart from those around him

b. in Exodus, He implored His people, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong”

c. in Leviticus, He commanded His people, “Do not follow any of the detestable customs” of neighboring nations

d. and in the Gospels, He called on His followers to be salt and light for the world

1) but what happens if the salt loses its saltiness?

2) what happens if the light is hidden, if it doesn’t point the way out of darkness?

3. if we don’t try to make the culture better, then what good are we?

A. WE ARE TO BE CULTURAL INFLUENCERS

ILLUS. The internet has spawned a unique industry for people called “Influencers.” An influencer is someone who has the power to affect another’s decisions because of the influencer’s perceived authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience. These are people who are telling us what to wear, what to eat, where to go, how to live, and who we should be seen or not seen with. The most successful of these people have millions of social media followers. There are teenagers today wanting to grow up to be “Influencers.”

1. the Church must be social influencers, contending for human dignity at every level — in the womb, in the nursing home, in the hospital ward, on the streets and in the schools

a. even as we have become the moral minority, the church must be engaged and not disengaged

1) we can influence our culture by not doing certain things —

not going to the latest slasher movie

not shrugging our shoulders when children play violent video games and certainly not buying them for them

not merely clucking our tongues and tisk-tisking those who shout their abortion

2) we can also influence our culture by doing certain things —

we can support pro-life ministries like our own Missouri Baptist Children’s home in it’s ministry to unwed mothers

we can vote for pro-life legislators

we can support pro-life legislation by writing our Senators and Representatives

we can encourage our children to remain sexually pure so they don’t have to worry about what to do in case of an unplanned pregnancy, and in the case of an unplanned pregnancy we can encourage them to deliver the child regardless of the embarrassment it may cause the family or the church

we can encourage our loved ones faced with debilitating illnesses or unbearable pain, that even in the midst of their suffering God has a plan

2. God’s people must develop a conviction that is unashamedly pro-life

a. if the unborn really is a human being, created in the image of God, then killing him or her is a serious moral wrong, and a sin against the Creator

ILLUS. In a chilling admission, pro-abortion advocate, Mary Williams writing for Salon.com conceded what the pro-life movement has contended all along — that from the moment of conception the unborn child is undeniably a human life. And yet Williams argues that this unborn human must be terminated if the mother so desires. That a woman’s autonomy over her own body trumps the rights of the child growing in her womb. Williams coldly maintains that “[The mother’s] life and what is right for her circumstances ... automatically trumps the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.” The unborn baby, which she fully believes is human, is a “life worth sacrificing.”

1) does that send a chill up your spine?

ILLUS. This is what the Nazis believed about Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and the mentally disabled.

b. when the champions of death threaten vulnerable lives, champions of life must arise to protect them

1) I’m encouraging you to be a champion of life

3. we can and we must take on the Culture of Death by doing all we can to promote a culture of life

a. we win by shining the light of truth upon an ideology that depends on darkness and secrecy for its very survival

B. IT’S OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO INTERCEDE FOR OUR LAND AND TO CALL UPON GOD TO HELP US

ILLUS. Oswald Chambers wrote a century ago, “The real business of your life as a saved soul, is intercessory prayer.”

1. God promises, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

The heart of our problem is that our culture is full of men and women who have a heart of stone, that needs to be replaced with a heart of flesh.

Jesus of Nazareth was the perfect, living example of the divine nature. The Bible describes Him as the perfect reflection of God the Father made visible to the world. The first chapter of the Book of Hebrews tells us: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son ... He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being"

The Bible describes the ultimate purpose of your life as entering God's Kingdom. This requires receiving the heart of flesh. We call that being born again. Once you’ve been born again, you’re to become the salt and light of the culture you live in.

Prayer:

"Oh God our Creator and Sustainer of life, have mercy upon our nation. We are a people who have chosen to walk the paths of destruction when righteousness is before our eyes. We confess we have chosen death and not life by allowing the killing of the innocent life in the womb. By this we have also devalued life that is beyond the womb. We have made poor choices and are now suffering the judgment of them. But I pray now that You O God would give each of us the courage to be Your voice in the wilderness to speak of Your righteousness. Help us to cast off lips of silence. Have mercy and forgive us. On this day we are observe and choose life."

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