Life Begins When?

The word of the LORD came to me, saying,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

before you were born I set you apart;

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

I was eight-years-old when an aged evangelist laid his hand on my head and said, “God has shown me that this young man will be a preacher.” I was certainly a profligate youth with no discernible religious inclination when my grandfather exited this life to meet the reward of a godly life of service to Christ. On his deathbed, he instructed my grandmother to ensure that I received his Bible and sermon notes. “Mike will be a preacher,” he prophesied. These personal items were not conveyed to me until some time after I announced that I was called to a life of service to Christ and His people.

After the fact, it was obvious to me that God had prepared me for that service even before I was conscious of His work. As I developed my theology through study of the Word, I became aware that God calls to life, preparing individuals and preparing for their salvation, from eternity past [2 Timothy 1:8-11; Titus 1:1-3; 1 Peter 1:17-21]. God calls not only to life in the Son, but He calls to service before an individual is formed. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, was informed that before he was formed in the womb God appointed him to his service. There are significant truths in that knowledge.

We have sown the wind and we shall undoubtedly reap the whirlwind. Moral issues which were once non-debatable are today accepted as reasonable and even necessary. Issues of morality are first debated, then tolerated and at last embraced by a population which has forgotten God. Growing up in the middle of the last century, it would have seemed unthinkable that a day would ever arrive when a great nation would accept murder as a necessary act of mercy. America was not only the home of the brave and the land of the free, we were assured that this was America the Good.

Canadians, likewise, shared in no small measure a justifiable pride in the righteous standards which the populace held. Canadians were recognised throughout the world as compassionate and as a peace-loving people. Today, almost three-quarters of Canadians say they approve of doctor-assisted suicide if the “patient” is near death. In cases where the patient is removed from immediate danger of dying, an amazing fifty-four percent of our fellow Canadians consider that the issue of doctor-assisted suicide is both permissible and justifiable. We can only wonder whether self-inflicted suicide would receive a similar overwhelming vote of confidence. Furthermore, it may only be a matter of time until the populace approves of state-sanctioned murder of those who “forgot” to make arrangements for their demise before they began to inconvenience the government with their welfare.

There have always been strident voices crying out against biblical morality, and those voices have in no small measure prevailed in our world today. Robert Latimer will be required to spend a minimum of ten years in jail for the convenience killing of Tracy, his disabled daughter. The high court ruled solely on judicial grounds (as it should have) though virtually pleading to invoke the royal prerogative of mercy by the government.

When the United States Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to slaughter her own child in Roe verses Wade on January 22, 1973, multiplied voices were raised warning of the consequences of such action. Nevertheless, in 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States of America sent a message to society that if a life is inconvenient you can just get rid of it. Twenty-seven years later, it shouldn’t surprise the public when people disrespect life and don’t take it seriously.

You cannot kill the unborn and then expect the lessons of that callousness and that cruelty will not have a corrupting influence on the rest of society. Whenever respect for life is depreciated at one point, it must of necessity depreciate respect for all life. Whenever continuation of a life is contingent upon whether or not another individual wishes to maintain than life, it must of necessity ensure that every life is susceptible to continuation at the sufferance of another. If a child in utero is left unprotected because of the inconvenience that child poses, we should not be surprised when arguments are advanced to dispose of individuals who have become inconvenient such as was the perceived case for both Sue Rodriguez and Tracy Latimer.

At 7:40 o’clock p.m. this morning, January 21, 2001, the United States had sanctioned the murder of an estimated 8,925,187 unborn infants since Mother’s Day 1995. Had a monster, parading under the guise of compassion, murdered almost nine million citizens of any nation within a five year period, there would be an international outcry unprecedented in the history of the world. Since January 23, 1973, an estimated 40,538,400 infants have been slaughtered through abortion. Canada kills its unborn at a similar rate, though it has only one-tenth the population of the United States.

When the Supreme Court of the United States sanctioned the slaughter of the unborn, Christian voices warned that a holocaust would be unleashed upon the land—a holocaust which would not cease until it had despoiled the whole of the nation. Those brave Christian voices warned that if we ceased to respect life in the womb, it would be only a matter of time until we ceased to respect the elderly, the ill, the incapacitated. Tragically, that day of the slippery slope of depreciation of all life is far advanced.

It is mind-boggling that many fail to recognise the deep-seated reasons behind young men visiting neo-Nazi Internet sites, building bombs and dressing in repugnant styles. We are dealing with something far beyond anger management. We’re dealing with serious corruption of the human soul. The question is not why it happened, but why it didn’t occur 30 years ago, since there have always been unhappy teenagers.

Among the changing factors, take note:

· Disintegrating families. Half of the children born in Canada will experience broken homes. Even when both parents are present, they pay too little attention. It is reported that the average child spends six minutes a day talking to their elders.

· A wave of “cultural pollution,” from video games to movies to television. Many radio stations air disgusting music and other material, and even diligent parents are often powerless to shield their children from it.

· Increased birth rates among single mothers.

It’s amazing how far a society can fall in 28 years. This nation has become so wealthy that nearly every family has a microwave oven, cell phone, designer sneakers and a two-car garage. But that which children need to be happy—the love of two, committed, married parents, a stable home and reliable rules of conduct—have been denied them. Reminders appear nearly every day.

For example, 40 percent of the students at Harvard’s business school admitted they would cheat their employer if they knew they wouldn’t get caught. You will no doubt recall a pair of well-publicised cases in which teens gave birth and threw the child in the trash, one before dancing with the child’s father at her high school prom. Where did nice, seemingly normal, ordinary, middle-class American kids get the idea that you can dispose of a child like so much trash? From the Supreme Court, the former president, Planned Parenthood and the entire pro-abortion movement.

When Roe vs. Wade was announced, ethicists, theologians and legal experts warned this was the first step on a slippery slope that would lead to dispensing with all inconvenient lives. Because it ignored those voices, society is reaping a harvest of assisted suicide. We should be appalled that a killer like Jack Kevorkian can paint himself as compassionate. Investigation of his 130 victims showed otherwise. The majority suffered from nothing more severe than depression and/or fatigue.

Assisted suicide is seen as great autonomy of the individual—your life is your property to do with as you please. That’s precisely the argument advanced by those wishing to kill the unborn which says that the foetus is the property of the mother, to do with as she pleases. People who are dying, who are sick, need our compassion and our help. They don’t need a shove toward the grave.

As Christians, we are responsible to serve as the moral conscience for society. We accomplish this task, not through noisy marches or public demonstrations, but through knowing the mind and the will of God, through forming convictions, and through living out those convictions. When Christians again honour God as Creator, obeying Him in all that He has commanded, we will once more make an impact in our nation. Until we obey in first things, we shall continue to be seen as powerless in society. The salt will have lost its savour and the light of godly witness will have been extinguished.

Our nation has lost its moral compass—it no longer knows how to define life. Heeding the most strident and the most demanding voices of society, it staggers ever further into the morass of a moral wasteland. Our society has forgotten that all life is a precious gift from the Creator as it debates whether some individuals are less human than others. Because society has rejected the mind of the Creator, it can no longer tell when life begins. Even up to the hour of delivery, infants have no protection as we now practise partial-birth abortions.

If we will hope to be the moral conscience for our own community, much less for the nation, we must know what life is. We must know when life begins. We must form convictions and we must live as though those convictions direct our lives. We must not permit ourselves to continue to live as does the world, but instead we must become men and women of courage. We must cease debating that which is undebatable, and in compassion extend ourselves to a confused and hurting world. To begin the process of forming convictions, I invite you to consider the call of Jeremiah to Divine service.

God is Sovereign. Jeremiah addressed God as the Sovereign Lord—Ah, Sovereign Lord [h/ihyÒ yn:doa}]! The thought conveyed in this exclamation is that Yahweh is Master of all. Especially does the prophet acknowledge that God is supreme over life and service, issues which I shall shortly address. What is important to first fix in our minds is that God is sovereign. Though the world may be unwilling to acknowledge God as sovereign, Christians should be quick to confess that God is sovereign.

When we say that God is sovereign, what do we mean? Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon, had a dream in which in which God foretold that he would suffer from a form of lycanthropy. In fact, he would be afflicted with boanthropy—he would think he was a cow. As the dream was drawing to a conclusion, the messengers of God stated the reason for this affliction. It was so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men [Daniel 4:17]. Daniel, interpreting the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, says that God was doing as He willed until [the king] acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes [Daniel 4:25].

To acknowledge that God is sovereign is to admit that He is able to act as He wills and that no one can question Him. As the Apostle presents his powerful argument that God has the right to call whom He wills to faith, he presses this perceptive point. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles [Romans 9:14-24]?

Because God is sovereign, we do not choose to be saved, but rather God calls us. This is why it is so vital that individuals respond when God’s Spirit calls them to life. We do not choose the day we will be saved, but rather God calls and we must respond. We cannot say that we will decide on such and such a day to be saved; rather we are responsible to turn at His call and believe His Good News. Just so, those who reject the grace of God will find that that same mercy rejected hardens them in their resistance to God. An old saying attests that the same sun which softens wax hardens clay. It is the character of the material heated which is revealed by the warmth of the sun.

As Paul concludes his first letter to the pastor of the church in Ephesus, he gives a charge which is based upon appeal to the sovereign character of God. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might forever. Amen [1 Timothy 6:13-16].

It is God who gives life—God who is the only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords! What a rebuke to contemporary thought! We thought that we determined life, and here we discover that it is God who gives life.

God is Sovereign over Life. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. The Word of the Lord speaking to Jeremiah speaks to each of us. God said that He was responsible for Jeremiah’s life. Before ever Jeremiah’s body was formed in the womb, God knew Jeremiah. Consider these two truths from a variety of biblical texts.

We are so sophisticated in this day. We know where babies come from. We know that “the product of conception” is an accident of human reproductive biology. We know everything—and we know nothing. When a man and a woman are physically intimate, it is merely a biological act—where is there room for God in that act?

God gives life, and God gives children. Children are not accidents. Lest you think that I am unaware of human biology, and in particular reproductive biology, I remind you that I spent two years out of my five years in postgraduate studies focusing in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of California at San Francisco.

I stand by my statement that God gives children. We believe the Word of God. In Genesis 29:31, 32 we read the following account. When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” A similar statement concerning God’s participation in conception is provided in Genesis 30:17-24, except it involves God’s goodness to both Leah and Rachel.

God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son…

Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honour, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun.

Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.

Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” She named him Joseph, and said, “May the LORD add to me another son.”

I cannot allude to this subject without reminding you of God’s grace to Boaz and Ruth. Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son [Ruth 4:13]. Most of us will be familiar with the birth of Samuel. Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him” [1 Samuel 1:19, 20].

Not only is God active in conception, but also He is personally involved in the formation and development of the human baby in the mother’s womb. In our text, God said that He formed the prophet. The word formed (rx^y*) is used of God’s special creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7, 8. The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

When used in its secular sense, the Hebrew term rx^y* occurs most frequently in the participial form referring to a potter—one who forms and fashions a piece of clay into a useful vessel. God fashioned Jeremiah in the womb and also set him apart for his prophetic ministry before his birth. God was actively involved in the life of Jeremiah in his prenatal state.

In the third movement of Psalm 139, David joyfully acknowledges that the Lord intricately wove him together in his mother’s womb. Here David speaks of God’s relationship with him while he was growing and developing before birth. The significance of this psalm is highlighted by Ronald Allen:

The Bible never speaks of foetal life as mere chemical activity, cellular growth or vague force. Rather, the foetus in the mother’s womb is described by the psalmist in vivid pictorial language as being shaped, fashioned, moulded and woven together by the personal activity of God. That is, as God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, so He is actively involved in fashioning the foetus in the womb.[1]

Verse 13 reveals that God, the Master Craftsman, fashioned David into a living person while he was still in his mother’s womb. You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb [Psalm 139:13]. The unborn child is not just a piece of tissue, but it is a human being with potential for human experience.

In verse 14, David reflects on the fact that he is the product of God’s creative actions. I give public acknowledgement to you that I am awesomely wonderful; full of wonder are Your works, and my soul knows it very well [Psalm 139:14].[2] David reflects on the fact that while he was in the womb hidden from the eyes of men, he was never hidden from God: My bones were never hidden from you when I was being made in secret, and skilfully wrought (as) in the depths of the earth [verse 15]. The term woven together is used in the participial form in Exodus 26:36 of the one who wove or embroidered the beautifully coloured fabric used to screen the doorway of the tabernacle. As this special fabric was intricately and skilfully woven, so David was exquisitely fashioned by God in the depths of the earth—a metaphorical reference to his mother’s womb.

David refers to God’s watchcare over his unformed body [unformed substance (nasb)], that is, his embryo (<l#G)).[3] Allen translates, My embryo—your eyes saw! And in your Book all (my unformed parts) were written; daily they were being fashioned when as yet the whole was not (complete) [Psalm 139:16].

The word embryo is a key term in the abortion controversy. In man, it refers to the prefoetal product of conception up to the beginning of the third month of pregnancy.[4] David acknowledges that his embryo from the moment of conception—is under the personal watchcare of God. Concerning the significance of Psalm 139, Ryrie comments, “Even if life in the womb is not the same as it is after birth, it is human life in a certain form. And it is life which God is intimately concerned about.”[5] Psalm 139:13–16 is a strong biblical polemic against abortion, for it clearly demonstrates God’s personal involvement in the creation, formation, and development of the human baby.

What uniquely distinguishes man from animals is man’s creation in the image and likeness of God [Genesis 1:26, 27; 5:1; 9:6]. Bearing the image of God is the essence of humanness. And though God’s image in man was marred at the Fall, it was not erased [cf. 1 Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9]. If the Bible reveals that the unborn baby is made in the image of God, then it must be concluded that the unborn child is fully human in God’s sight. The Reformers regarded the “image of God’ in man as referring to man’s immaterial nature as fashioned for rational, moral and spiritual fellowship with God.

David pointedly traces the origin of his sin with Bathsheba to his own conception: Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me [Psalm 51:5]. The sin referred to here is David’s.[6] David is relating his sinfulness to the very inception of his life—before birth. This indicates that the moral law of God was already present and operative in David in his prenatal state. Since Scripture attributes moral guilt to David as an unborn child, a strong likelihood exists that he was human before birth.

Luke 1:41 and 44 also point to the humanness of the unborn child. John the Baptist is said to have leaped in Elizabeth’s womb for joy when Mary’s greeting was heard. John’s prenatal recognition of the presence of Mary, the mother of the divine Messiah, points to his spiritual and rational capacity in the unborn state. Appropriately, the term used to describe John in his prenatal state is brevfo" (baby), the Greek term used for a child before and after birth [cf. Luke 2:12, 16; 18:15; 2 Timothy 3:15]. Psalm 51:5 and Luke 1:41, 44 reflect the scriptural view that unborn children are spiritual, rational, moral beings. A baby, then, is in the image of God in the unborn state. Frame remarks, “There is nothing in Scripture that even remotely suggests that the unborn child is anything less than a human person from the moment of conception.”[7]

One great difference between the days in which the Bible was written and our own day is that then children were recognised as a gift or heritage from the Lord. There is a high view of children found throughout the Word of God which has been replaced with disdain in this day. Children then were considered a blessing; now they are more often thought to be a burden. When Jacob introduced his children to Esau, his statement that they are the children God has graciously given is more than mere hyperbole [Genesis 33:5].

The promise of Psalm 113:9 is more often received as a curse in this enlightened day. If that promise chills the heart of contemporary women and men, how much more chilling is the view of Psalm 127:3-5?

Sons are a heritage from the LORD,

children a reward from him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior

are sons born in one’s youth.

Blessed is the man

whose quiver is full of them.

They will not be put to shame

when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

God was seen to be the One who opens the womb and allows conception. Who, having read the account of Jacob and his wives, can forget the joy of Leah when she understood that God had given her a child [Genesis 29:33]? Likewise, who can forget the sorrow of Rachel as she cries out to her husband, Give me children, or I’ll die [Genesis 30:2]! Of course, God did at last remember Rachel. The text says, He listened to her and opened her womb [Genesis 30:22]. Similarly, God enabled Hannah to conceive and bear Samuel [1 Samuel 1:19, 20]. Later, by the Lord’s blessing, Hannah conceived and gave birth to three more sons and two daughters [1 Samuel 2:21].

Childlessness was thought to be a curse, for the husband’s family name could not be carried on [Deuteronomy 25:6; Ruth 4:5]. Barrenness meant the extinction of the family name [cf. Jeremiah 11:19].

Either Scripture is true, or we are compelled to explain it away. Either God is intimately involved in the creation of life—the formation of each body, or we must somehow explain away this vestige of hoary religious belief. I question how anyone can profess the Faith of Christ the Lord and doubt that God is the giver and sustainer of all life. In our text, God says that He both formed Jeremiah and He also knew the prophet—that is, He chose Him for the task the prophet would perform.

If God is the giver of life, then we must accept that He also is the One who determines that life may cease.

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,

or the golden bowl is broken;

before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,

or the wheel broken at the well,

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,

and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

[Ecclesiastes 12:6, 7]

God is Sovereign over Service. To the Prophet Jeremiah the Living God affirms His call. Before you were born I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. It is easy to believe that a life such as that lived out by Billy Graham has great purpose. It is even easy to believe that God may well have prepared him for the service he has performed throughout his long and illustrious life. We could even agree that God likely called him before his birth to the ministry of evangelism. What about the life of a little child who is dead at birth? What shall we think of the child who lives but an hour? A day? A week? A month? One year? Is God sovereign then? Is there value in one short life?

The following is adapted from an article published by Baptist Press this past year. It summarises in poignant form the message of God’s call.

Jalen Beth lived only one hour. Jay and Lisa discovered that Jalen Beth had severe problems when she was a four-month-old foetus. A first ultrasound in February revealed the problems. Two days later they learned from a perinatalogist that their baby had lethal dwarfism, which meant her head was a little large and the rest of her body was a little small. The lethal part was in her chest, which was so small there was no room for the lungs to develop.

The couple was told Jalen Beth would probably do very well inside Lisa, but when it came time for her to breathe on her own, she would not be able to breathe.

The couple was in shock following the ultrasound as they drove to Lisa’s parents’ home to pick up their 2-year-old son, Jericho. As they drove, Jay listened mindlessly to a sports broadcast on the car radio. As the sports news ended, he switched to a local station and heard Christian broadcaster Chuck Swindoll preaching on the name of Jesus.

In the middle of his sermon, he had a commercial just for the grieving couple. He said, “For those of you who have children with disabilities, John 9:1-3 needs to get all over you.” At that point, Lisa began waking up, and Jay started paying attention.

Swindoll was referring to Jesus being asked about the man born blind and responding that the blindness is not about sin in the parents’ lives or sin in the man’s life, but that the works of God might be manifested in his life. That became the couple’s prayer—that God’s work might be manifested in their little girl’s life.

The perinatalogist told them there was only a 5 to 10 percent chance the baby would be normal, and there was nothing medical science could do but terminate the pregnancy. Jay and Lisa agreed they wanted to carry the baby to full term, if possible. Two days after discovering the baby had problems, Jay and Lisa named their little girl.

“We felt naming her before she was born was important,” Lisa said. “That way we could pray for her by name.”

The pregnancy was not an easy one for Lisa. Because the baby could not process the amniotic fluid well, Lisa looked and felt nine months pregnant at seven months. On May 20, following vomiting and a side-ache from the pressure of the amniotic fluid, Lisa’s doctor drained a litre of fluid from her. Again on June 1, the doctor drained more than a litre of fluid. Following the May 20 procedure, Lisa dilated to one centimetre and after the June 1 procedure, she dilated to three centimetres. Contractions set in after both procedures. The doctor sat down with the couple on June 3 and mapped out a delivery plan. Contractions began on June 8 and Jalen Beth, all 5 pounds, 5½ oz. and 15¾ inches, was delivered by Caesarean section at 6:05 p.m.

“Jalen looked the doctor straight in the eyes,” Jay said. Jalen Beth drew a breath. She moved her arms and legs. Her mom, dad, grandparents, uncles and aunts each got to hold her. Her brother got to see her. She had blue eyes, dark hair, Jay’s receding hairline, and there is some debate on whose nose she had.

“We would have always wondered about Jalen Beth,” Jay reflected. “We would have wondered what she looked like, if the doctors were wrong, if God might have worked a miracle. We never would have gotten to hold our little girl. We have a birth certificate and a death certificate.”

“Seeing her was worth the wait, struggle and hardship,” Lisa said. “We held Jalen until Jesus came to carry her home to be with him in heaven.”

Jay said back in February, his mother, Reva, had a dream that the grandparents were pacing outside the delivery room when they saw a nurse holding a baby, then another nurse in tears moving frantically about the room.

“She said it looked like the baby was in trouble,” Jay recounted. “Then she saw my dad, who has been in heaven four years, come and say, ‘I’ll take care of this, and the baby was gone. We believe Jalen Beth is home with Jesus, and her granddad has her by the hand.”

I have endeavoured to teach in a brief time what should require a lifetime of instruction. Our world desperately needs men and women of conscience and men and women of conviction to halt the world in its mad plunge toward self-destruction.

If I have spoken to a woman who has aborted a child, please believe me that I do not mean to judge you. You no doubt hurt enough as you struggle to come to terms with the pressure which drove you to that action, the confusion mirroring a society which is unprepared to live with the consequences of its choices, and you own misgivings about actions in the past. I offer to you the forgiveness of our gracious Lord and the promise of His peace. That little child is even now rejoicing in the presence of the Lord God of Heaven and earth, and you, also, can rejoice in His forgiveness.

If I speak to someone who grieves at the loss of a child, may God comfort you with the knowledge that He gives life and He appoints to service. Though that service seems brief, let us dare believe that the service is nevertheless effective for God’s sake.

Perhaps I have spoken to someone who has yet to resolve in your own mind this issue of a woman’s choice and the apparent conflict with the life of the unborn. I have presented to you ancient truth, which though unpopular in this day far removed from the foundations of our civilisation, is nevertheless truth. I ask only that you honestly confront the issue and realise that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Among the most perfect of His gifts is the gift of life—both life eternal and life temporal. I ask that you submit to Him and receive His life that you may know the truth.

Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free [John 8:31, 32]. What a gracious offer. It is akin to that which says, whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God [John 3:21]. The Son of God calls all now to walk in the light, to enjoy His peace as they walk in the truth.

Listen to this last invitation, an invitation which is for you. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light [Matthew 11:28-30]. That rest for your soul is found as you believe that this Son of God came to die for you sin and that He raised for your justification. As you believe this Good News and submit to His mastery over your life, the eternal life which is found only in Him becomes reality in you.

Some today need to submit to Jesus. Come, confessing Him as Master of your life. Come take the pastor’s hand and confess that Jesus is your Saviour. Some today need to follow Him in the baptism which He taught and to which He submitted. Come, taking the pastor’s hand and requesting that you also may be baptised. Some today have need to unite with a church which stands with conviction for truth. Come, tell us of your desire that together we may rejoice as you unite with us.

There are, no doubt, some who grieve at the loss of so many millions of innocent lives. We invite you to kneel at the altar to pray for God’s mercy on our nation. Some perhaps have private sorrow and need again to give thanks to God that He has shown mercy. Others may know that they need to ask His mercy for their own private sin. Come, and kneeling at an old-fashioned altar, may God give you mercy and reveal to you His grace. Amen.

At 7:40 o’clock p.m. this morning, January 21, 2001, the United States had sanctioned the murder of an estimated 8,925,187 unborn infants since Mother’s Day 1995. Had a monster, parading under the guise of compassion, murdered almost nine million citizens of any nation within a five year period, there would be an international outcry unprecedented in the history of the world. Since January 23, 1973, an estimated 40,538,400 infants have been slaughtered through abortion. Canada kills its unborn at a similar rate, though it has only one-tenth the population of the United States.

The Bible never speaks of foetal life as mere chemical activity, cellular growth or vague force. Rather, the foetus in the mother’s womb is described by the psalmist in vivid pictorial language as being shaped, fashioned, moulded and woven together by the personal activity of God. That is, as God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, so He is actively involved in fashioning the foetus in the womb.[8]

In verse 14, David reflects on the fact that he is the product of God’s creative actions. I give public acknowledgement to you that I am awesomely wonderful; full of wonder are Your works, and my soul knows it very well [Psalm 139:14].[9] David reflects on the fact that while he was in the womb hidden from the eyes of men, he was never hidden from God: My bones were never hidden from you when I was being made in secret, and skilfully wrought (as) in the depths of the earth [verse 15]. The term woven together is used in the participial form in Exodus 26:36 of the one who wove or embroidered the beautifully coloured fabric used to screen the doorway of the tabernacle. As this special fabric was intricately and skilfully woven, so David was exquisitely fashioned by God in the depths of the earth—a metaphorical reference to his mother’s womb.

David then refers to God’s watchcare over his unformed body [unformed substance (nasb)], that is, his embryo (<l#G)).[10] Allen translates, My embryo—your eyes saw! And in your Book all (my unformed parts) were written; daily they were being fashioned when as yet the whole was not (complete) [Psalm 139:16].

The word embryo is a key term in the abortion controversy. In man, it refers to the prefoetal product of conception up to the beginning of the third month of pregnancy.[11] David acknowledges that his embryo from the moment of conception—is under the personal watchcare of God. Concerning the significance of Psalm 139, Ryrie comments, “Even if life in the womb is not the same as it is after birth, it is human life in a certain form. And it is life which God is intimately concerned about.”[12] Psalm 139:13–16 is a strong biblical polemic against abortion, for it clearly demonstrates God’s personal involvement in the creation, formation, and development of the human baby.

Frame remarks, “There is nothing in Scripture that even remotely suggests that the unborn child is anything less than a human person from the moment of conception.”[13]