The Sanctity of Life
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
— Q&A AFTER SERVICE
Context: Across our globe, many churches take this particular Sunday each year to dedicate to the preaching on the topic of the sanctity of life, specifically as it relates to the topic of abortion. This is a topic that I preach on directly almost annually on this day, but indirectly quite often. Abortion is a topic that we do not shy away from in this Church. And I hope you are grateful that we do not shy away from hard topics because they’re hard, but rather we dig into the word of God and really seek to understand how God’s Word should shape our understanding
Have Had Abortions: But a few words need to be said up front. Whenever I know I’m going to preach on this subject in any way, my heart pastorally aches for those in this flock who have particular pain around this subject. I am speaking about those who have either had an abortion, or have loved ones who have had an abortion. I want you to know that I see you, and my heart genuinely approaches this pulpit this week with great prayers for you all week. My great fear is that somehow I will jumble my words in such a way that you will leave here feeling guilt upon guilt. But if you are a Christian, then my hope is that you will leave here today saying, “My Pastor did not shy away from the truth in the least. And yet he saw me, and he preached grace to my soul.”
We Need You: And I would also add that we need you. If you are someone who has painful memories of abortion, I want you to be healed by the Gospel fully. I want you to know that all of our sins, yours and mine, have been nailed to the cross. But then I pray that you would be activated to love on others who are considering that decision.
To Those Upset: Lastly, a brief word to those who might be visiting this church today and who just cannot stand that a Pastor would speak on such a divisive subject. Well to you, I want to say that at this church we do not shy away from hard conversations. We want to know what every word of God’s Word says, and then we want to apply it properly, no matter how offensive anybody thinks that might be. If you are an outsider today, or came on the arm of a friend. I invite you to listen in, to a really interesting discussion on what the Bible says on this.
Final Setup: So today we are going to study Psalm 106. This is a Psalm of lament, a psalm of repentance. The point of reading a Psalm is that we are to internalize the words. Think of it like a prayer that we don’t just read, but it becomes our own prayer as we filter the words through our own situation. Psalm 106 can be divided into four primary section.
Meaning & Application
Meaning & Application
I FIXING OURSELVES ON IMPORTANT TRUTHS
The Psalms begins by fixing us on important truths. He’s going to spend the majority of the Psalm repenting of sins, but he begins by framing that repentance properly.
Psalm 106:1–5 “Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times! Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you save them, that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory with your inheritance.”
His Steadfast Love: We notice a phrase that is repeated all throughout. “God’s steadfast love endures forever.” God’s love is not temporal, it is eternal. No matter how deep our sin goes, no matter how much we have to confess, the steadfast love of the Lord is an anchor that is not going anywhere. And as New Testament Christians, that steadfast love is ours only in Christ. This is something only the Christian can pray, because only the Christian has had their sins forgiven in full.
Observe Justice / Do Righteousness: Then in verse 3 he says there two major qualities by which will find themselves blessed by God. The idea obviously is, if you do not do these things, you will not be blessed by God. They are to “observe justice” and “do righteousness.” The word observe is an English translation of a Hebrew term, shamar, and it means to “guard preciously.” Some translations of this word in this verse (CSB) translates this verse “uphold justice.” The NET translation translates it “promote justice.” That is really the idea. Someone who desires to be blessed by God will promote Justice. Likewise they will “do righteousness.”
What is Justice: For the psalmist the definition of what is just and what is righteous is not up for debate. God’s law is the fixed standard of justice and righteousness. So, if you want to know what is right and what is wrong, you look to God’s law.
The Gladness of Your Nation: Then he has this plea that God would bless their nation. That he would pour abundance down on their nation. That prosperity would flow their nation. That the nation would be glad. The connotation is obvious. “Oh God may we be a nation that observes biblical justice and does righteousness so that we might be a people who receives the blessing of the Lord!”
II ISRAEL’S CONFESSION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF PROPER JUSTICE
With that the Psalmist moves into the bulk of this Psalm, a lengthy confession of sin. All the ways that Israel had been unfaithful and unjust and unrighteous. The entire next section of this psalm is like a descent from one sin of Israel’s to the next. And each sin gets progressively worse, until the psalm explodes in an agonizing reality of how far that civilization had sunk into wickedness.
1 They Forgot God’s Steadfast Love
Psalm 106:6–12 “Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power. He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and he led them through the deep as through a desert. So he saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy. And the waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. Then they believed his words; they sang his praise.”
The author reminds that God had been incredibly kind to them, bringing them out of slavery in Egypt and establishing them as a people.
2 They Began to Satisfy Their Godless Cravings
Psalm 106:13–15 “But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel. But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert; he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.”
This actually is recounting a moment in Israel’s history when they became dissatisfied with God’s provision of the manna, that bread that God rained down on them from heaven, and they grumbled and complained and asked for meat. God had called them to contentedness in his provision, but they wanted more and more.
3 They Grew Jealous of Those in Leadership
Psalm 106:16–18 “When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the holy one of the Lord, the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. Fire also broke out in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.”
God had ordained certain structures for the people of God. He had raised up Moses and Aaron to lead them. But they were discontent. They wanted things done their own way.
4 They Began to Worship Idols
Psalm 106:19–23 “They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.”
Now things are spiraling. This is more than just cravings, and jealousy. They started worshiping gods who were not gods. They bowed down and served someone other than the one true God.
5 They Stopped Trusting in God’s Promises
Psalm 106:24–27 “Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise. They murmured in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the Lord. Therefore he raised his hand and swore to them that he would make them fall in the wilderness, and would make their offspring fall among the nations, scattering them among the lands.”
Now we’ve really got sickness in the heart. They no longer had faith in the promises of God. They grumbled about their conditions, and stopped believing that God was really who said he was, and that he would really do all that he said he would do.
6 They Joined in the Debauchery of the Pagan Nations Around Them
Psalm 106:28–31 “Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed. And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.”
Now they are getting wreckless in how they utilize their time. Their descending into debauchery. They like the parties of the worshipers of Baal (Satan) throw. And so they go there and have a good time.
7 They Preferred Their Life Before God Intervened
Psalm 106:32–33 “They angered him at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account, for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with his lips.”
These two little verses might seem at first glance, like its not a further descent form the previous verses. But it is. This is the story where they complained about not having water and said that it would have been better to be back in Egypt than to have been led by God at all.
8 They Intermarried and Adopted the Lifestyle of the Pagan Nations Around Them
Psalm 106:34–36 “They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them.”
At this point, they really have stopped worshiping God altogether. They have married groups that God forbid them to marry, and as a result they got lifestyles wrapped up in all kinds of idolatry and unrighteousness, because those pagan nations didn’t know God.
9 They Sacrificed Their Living Children to Demons: Ninth and finally. The final step of their descent into wickedness. The last straw before the final judgment of God of pronounced.
Psalm 106:37–39 “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds.”
As we read these words, the Psalmist is begging us to real in shock. “They sacrificed their sons and daughters to the demons” is supposed cause us to grow wheezy in shock. We are supposed to cry out, “They did what!” They descended how far? This is shocking. In those days there were handful of well known gods of the nations that demanded live child sacrifice. One of them was named Molech.
God’s Response: And from here the Psalmist then turns and expresses God’s wrath against such wicked behavior.
Psalm 106:40–43 “Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power. Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.”
As we read those words, we are supposed to say, “Yes, that is the right response of a loving God towards a nation that would systematically murder their children by sacrificing them to demons.” Oh God, bring justice. Expunge that sin from their midst!
III ABORTION [PUSHING INTO THE HARD SPACE OF THIS PSALM]
If we are to internalize this Psalm, we must learn to weep and agonize over the intentional sacrifice of living children. This psalm does not permit us to speak about that kind of action flippantly, or casually. It demands that we acknowledge that the sacrifice of children is the lowest of lows on the descent of a civilization’s depravity.
Children in the Womb: The Bible unashamedly, clearly, and repeatedly teaches that the life of a child begins at the point of conception. This is not something that Christians who hold to the literal reading of Scripture debate or need to wonder about. The Bible, and all of science, teach us that children are children from conception. Let me provide you with three verses to simply make my case, but know there are dozens of other verses.
1 My Unformed Substance: After stating that beautiful t
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Verse 16 says you saw my “unformed substance” The Hebrew term for “unformed substance” is “golem.” It means “embryo.” It’s referring to a child that is between 0 and 8 weeks old, when it is still an embryo and doesn’t quite have the final form of a human being with all the limbs. What verse 16 is saying is that before conception, “when as yet there were none of them” God had already written all the days of his life, including the days of the embryo. The author is glorying in the God that knew Him intimately as a person even in the embryonic stage of life.
2 Old Testament Law: In the Old Testament law of God, to kill a person was to punished by death: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. In Exodus we read as follows.
“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life,
This indicates that God considered the life of the child in the womb to be of exactly the same value as the life of a human outside fo the womb. The same punishment that is given for taking the life of outside of the womb, is to be applied for the life inside the womb.
3 John the Baptist: In Luke 1 we read of Mary’s pregnancy with Christ. And that she went and visited her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant with John the Baptist. And soon as Mary came within sight of Elizabeth, the child in Elizabeth leapt inside of her. And Elizabeth says to Mary.
For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
John the Baptist experienced joy in the womb! Joy is a human quality. It is an emotion. Again, this affirms the life of the child in the womb.
Illustration: Atlantic Article: Emma Green, writing for the Atlantic wrote about this not that long ago in an article titled Science Is Giving the Pro-life Movement a Boost.
“The pro-life message has been, for the last 40-something years, that the fetus … is a life, and it is a human life worthy of all the rights the rest of us have,” she said. “That’s been more of an abstract concept until the last decade or so.” But, she added, “when you’re seeing a baby sucking its thumb at 18 weeks, smiling, clapping,” it becomes “harder to square the idea that that 20-week-old, that unborn baby or fetus, is discardable… New science is “instilling a sense of awe that we never really had before at any point in human history,” McGuire said. “We didn’t know any of this.”
As Christians, we are grateful that there are thousands upon thousands of peer reviewed journals within the scientific community overwhelmingly demonstrates the life in the womb. But our case does not rests upon the science. Our case rests upon the Word of God. Here we stand!
Abortion is Child Sacrifice: Abortion is the willful ending of a human life in the womb. What this means is that when a child is aborted, they are sacrificed [that person’s life is ended for some other purpose -> a sacrifice]. In the passage today, the Israelites were sacrificing live children for the worship of some false god that demanded that sacrifice. My case, that I would argue, is that when children are aborted today, they are being sacrificed to some new god (in the form of a purpose) that is demanding sacrifice. That God might not look like a statue of Molech, but at the end of the day a living child is terminated for some reason.
What are those Reasons: What are those reasons? There are many studies done on the reasons why people get abortions today. BMC, a conglomerate of peer reviewed scientific literature, did a study a few years ago on this question. Now I want you to remember as we go through this, that adoption is an option 100% of the time. I am an adoptive parent, and I understand very well how adoption works in this country. There is a waitlist a mile long of willing adoptive parents of newborn infants. And when you put a child up for adoption, in most cases every penny of expense, down to the uber rides to the hospital, is covered by the adoptive family.
Financial Success: 40% of folks who had an abortion checked that at least one of the reasons was that they were “not financially prepared.” In the year of this study, there were 664,000 abortions done. So 40% is 265,600 children. In this year, 265,600 children were sacrificed while alive, not to Molech, but the god of financial stability. And that demon said, you want to worship me, here is the price, the life of that child.
Convenience: 36% (239,000) marked “Not the right time for a baby.” The top sub-categories for this were that the baby was “unplanned” or that they were “too busy.” I would mark this “invonvenience.” And so for 239,000 precious souls, their lives were sacrificed at the altar of “convenience.” That demon named convenience demands worship, and his price is the life of a child.
Promiscuity: 31% (205,000) marked “Relationship Issues.” The top categories included that their relationship was bad or too new to bring a child into. You know what God this is? The god of promiscuity. Free sex with every partner want, whether that person will be a good spouse or not. You can worship at that demon’s altar as often as you want. The price? The life of a child.
Achievement: 20% (128,000) marked “Interferes with future opportunities.” The top sub categories were educational plans and vocational plans. And so for these 128,000 living children that year, made in the image of God, the god of “achievement” said come and worship at my altar. You can become anything you want to become in this life. The price? The life of a child.
Make no mistake, the same demon that was behind Molech, is the same demon that whispers these lies into every person’s life that pursues abortion.
Slavery: There is no way around this. It is the uncomfortable truth. Every year when I preach on this subject, I get two things. More and more folks understanding and joining forces in order to push back the darkness. And then there is a vocal minority, that just wishes their pastor wouldn’t speak on controversial things like this. But let me ask you this. Go back to the year 1785, when American slavery was alive and well and practiced throughout the world, but in our context in the South. And we all looked at it, and saw it, and said, “Yeah, the Bible is overwhelmingly clear. That is not good. And God is going to bring judgment on this nation. Because those are precious lives that are being killed and mistreated.” Would you want your pastor to speak up for those lives? Wouldn’t you hope your church was the kind of place that promoted justice.
Illustration: William Wilberforce: Does God still judge nations for national sins like he did in this psalm? Yes! The great British politician William Wilberforce, who was the leading voice to help abolish slavery in England wrote these words about his reason for wanting to abolish slavery.
That the Almighty Creator of the Universe governs the world which he has made; that the sufferings of nations are to be regarded as the punishment of national crimes, and their decline and fall, as the execution of his sentence; are truths which I trust are still generally believed among us. Indeed to deny them, would be directly to contradict the express and repeated declarations of the Holy Scriptures.
I wonder what judgment God has stored up, and frankly is already brining on this nation because of our refusal to repent of this national crime.
IV THE GOSPEL RESPONSE
The remainder of this Psalm is a response. The psalmist has laid out his case and helped us see the depravity of it all, and then he turns and gives hope.
Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love. He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive.
Here is the wonderful promise. God is a relenting God. He is a God that remembers his covenant, and delights in pouring out his faithful love. Even when God’s people had sunk, both individually and collectively to the lowest points of moral failure, he still pursued them. Yes there were consequences but God did not forget his promises.
The Gospel: Perhaps you are in this room today and you are feeling the conviction of the Lord, and thinking I have participated in this? Or I have supported this? Or I championed this depravity. In other words, you failed to uphold justice and do righteouesness.
All Guilty: The truth is, every person in this room is guilty. Whether it was this sin, or any other sin against God. In Christianity the guilt is never aimed at one person out there, but is always first and foremost aimed at ourselves.
Wages of Sin: The wages of that sin is death itself. But Jesus Christ paid those wages in full on your behalf. Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, incarnated into the womb of Mary. His life began in the womb! And throughout his life Jesus did what you and I all failed to do in one degree or another. He perfectly upheld justice, and perfectly did righteousness. His heart, his mind, his actions, were always in accordance with God’s law.
At the Cross: At the cross, our covenant keeping God upheld the just punishment of the law, by dying a susbstitute for us. And so all who repent of their sin, and pledge allegiance to Christ and his kingdom, will receive a pardon in full. The debt of death has been paid by a righteous subsitute. This is why I can begin a sermon on a topic as heavy as this, and say in Christ there is no shame upon shame or guilt upon guilt, but grace upon grace. For Christ’s death has fully paid the penalty for our sins.
V HOW WE CAN EXPERIENCE AND APPLY THIS PSALM
Our Response: Our repsonse to this should echo the Psalmist who sings
Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord!
How can we be a people who do that. Let me close us with three applications.
Lament & Repent: We cannot say like the Psalmist, “Amen, Praise the Lord” and then at the same time support or play neutral on the topic of abortion. Those two things are incompatible. To praise Yahweh is to love Yahweh’s law, to promote Yahweh’s justice. And so the first application we can practice togethe, si to truly lament and repent, just as this psalm has taught us to do. To agonize in our souls before a holy God over the reality of abortion. My prayer is that one day we will look back on abortion the same way we look back on something as wicked as human chattel slavery. That we will wonder how we could ever have let it because normalized.
Uphold Justice & Do Righteousness: Secondly, we can ask ourselves “How do we uphold justice in the midst of our context?” How do Christians go about being salt and light to a world, who actually is so broken that the world thinks we are evil for promoting the sanctity of life? That’s very hard. It’s going to look different for everybody.
Illustration: Two Women: Many of you know that there are some of us who go to the abortion clinic somewhat regularly. About a month ago, two women from park joined me. I was teaching them how to pray with women who were heading into the clinic for an abortion. How to speak to them to warn them of what their about to do. I was trying to not overwhelm them. But within 15 minutes of getting there, they got into a thirty minute conversation with this young mama, about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they offered to take her to get an ultrasound, they offered to help her along the journey. They exchanged phone numbers. Now, not everybody in this church is called to that exact ministry. That is one way of “promoting justice and doing righteousness”. But those two women on that day were bold in their love. And we are all called to be bold in our love.
Adoption Fund: Lastly, whenever we speak on abortion, I always make sure to prioritize the other side of that equation, which is adoption. At this Church, we love adoption! This Wednesday some of us all sat together on a zoom call with the Chicago Courts as another little child was adopted by a mother at this church. We have celebrated many children getting adopted over the years at this church. We even established an adoption fund, where we give up to $20,000 to willing adoptive families. Because we don’t want finances to become a barrier in any way for willing Christian adoptive families in this Chruch. Many families over the years have used that fund. My wife helps to administrate it. Many others have become foster parents. And still many more have served with a ministry called Safe Families, that provides short term homes for children in need.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Church, how will you respond? Let this Psalm impact you the way it was intended to by its author. Let it form in you a holy anger at the reality of the injustice of abortion. Let it form in you a holy love for Christ’s work on the cross, forgiving like us. And let it form in you a holy ambition to promote justice, and to do righteousness, in the name of Christ!