Is the Bible Really Pro-Life?

Behold He Comes

WELCOME

Good morning family. hear the Word of the Lord from Revelation 6:9-11...

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

One of the reasons we look forward to the return of Jesus is the end of injustice in this earth

Whether that’s the martyrdom of brothers and sisters, the murder of the unborn, or the smaller injustices you face week in and week out.

Jesus is coming to make all things new!

In just a moment we’ll hear a Scripture reading from Psalm 139:13-16. Turn there now.

While you’re turning, 4 quick announcements:

1) A word about PBC. We are Missionaries.

We’re going to labor to reach our neighbors and the nations with the Good News about Jesus

One ministry we support that is on the front lines in reaching our neighbors for Christ is CareNet

If you’re not familiar with CareNet, you can learn more in your bulletin or visit cnpeninsula.org

Grab a baby bottle, fill it with whatever the Lord leads you to give, and return it by March 13. Or, if you’d rather give online there’s a QR code in your bulletin

2) Tabletalk Tonight at 5:30 PM

Ryan Holloway, Executive Director of CareNet

3) Kids Core Worship

KidsCore is a new children's music and worship curriculum that equips children to become active and informed worshipers of Jesus Christ.

Kids ages 4-12 will learn some of the songs we sing at PBC and the theology behind them. (His Mercy Is More)

Nursery is available for children ages 0-4.

4) Singing a new song today

Insert in your bulletin with lyrics, for those of you who can read music

Now look in your Bibles at Psalm 139:13-16 as Phyllis Higgins comes to read for us.

Scripture Reading (Psalm 139:13-16)

Prayer of Praise (Phyllis Higgins), God is wrathful

He Will Hold Me Fast

How Great is Our God

Prayer of Confession (Self-Righteousness), Cliff Hall

Great is Thy Faithfulness

PBC CATECHISM #4

What is the origin of the world and everything in it?

We believe God is the sovereign creator and sustainer of all things.

PASTORAL PRAYER (John Rogers?)

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8)

Thank you for creating us.

Thank you for caring for us.

Thank you for crowning us with glory and honor.

Thank you for giving us dominion over the work of Your hands.

Prayer for PBC: Heart for the Unborn

Help us to think rightly about the value of the unborn

Help us to act in a way that is consistent with what we believe

James tells us that it’s pointless to tell a needy person, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving what they need.

The same logic applies to this issue. If we’re able to do something, help us to do something.

At the same time, protect us from a legalistic demand that every Christian must be involved in every social issue to the same degree.

We don’t all have to act in the same way, but we all must care.

Prayer for sister church: By Grace Community Church

Pastor Kevin Hass

Faithfulness, holiness, love

Prayer for US: Against Abortion

On the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade

We lament the early 64 million legal abortions since then

SCOTUS---Dobbs v. Jackson

Give churches and Christian ministries wisdom to know how our ministry must shift if the legal landscape changes

If it doesn’t, protect us from discouragement

Prayer for world: Cote d’Lvoire (kowt-duh-vwaar)

The “jewel of West Africa” where 27 million souls live

Pray against the political unrest, and civil wars that have ravaged the nation in the past twenty years

Pray against the spread of HIV/AIDS which claims around 40,000 lives a year and inflicts nearly half a million people

The Gospel to penetrate the un-evangelized sectors of the predominantly Muslim north

Rich, biblical teaching to spread throughout the churches

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

Last January in Washington D.C., a young man dressed in pink approached a woman named Michele in front of the Supreme Court building during a pro-life event and asked her an abrupt question.

“Are you a Christian?”

Of course the question makes sense. For at least the past forty years Christians in America have been among the strongest defenders for the sanctity of unborn life. And of course, we could go back through the pages of church history and find a clear and consistent opposition to abortion for nearly two thousand years.

Even if she was a bit taken aback by the abruptness of the question, Michele answered "yes."

His reply was even more startling: “Well then, what do you have to say when your God supports abortion?” Then he quoted a passage from the Bible that he had memorized.

Last February in the South Carolina House of Representatives, brave lawmakers in South Carolina were on the brink of passing a law that would protect the life of an unborn baby once a heartbeat had been detected. As you know, bills like this have faced fierce opposition and this time was no different. But what was different was one of the ways this bill was opposed.

Representative Justin T. Bamberg said, “There are those who say … abortion shouldn’t happen because the Bible doesn’t allow them.”

Now what would you expect Rep. Bamberg to say next? The Bible isn't the Word of God? It has no place in our society? It shouldn't dictate the personal freedoms of individual citizens?

Bamberg didn't use any of those tactics. Instead, he read a Bible verse that he claimed supported abortion. The same passage, it turns out, that Michele heard outside the Supreme Court a month earlier. [1]

In October a young lady named Amanda posted a TikTok video that received 2.5 million views. Perhaps you've seen it. She began the video by arguing that "in the Bible God quite literally instructs abortion." [2] And then she turned to the same passage referenced in the previous two stories.

Turn in your Bibles to Numbers 5

This is a strange passage that is becoming increasingly popular among defenders of abortion, who twist it to argue that the Bible isn't really pro-life.

This morning let’s once again go into the eye of the storm of another tough text to determine what God’s Word actually means

Book of Numbers begins as God’s people wrap up their time at Mount Sinai

God has been giving the laws by which His rescued people should be governed

Numbers 5 begins with some instructions about what to do when something or someone affects the purity of the camp.

Usually it's something that can be physically seen, like leprosy.

Sometimes the impurity in the camp is verbally confessed by the offender

But what happens when impurity is suspected, but there's no physical evidence? What happens when sin is suspected but there's no verbal confession?

Our text today is about just such a scenario.

When a husband suspected his wife of adultery, but had no evidence to prove it, God commanded a strange ritual.

First, the husband would bring his wife to the priest, along with the ingredients for a grain offering.

Then the priest would fill a clay jar with water, sprinkle a little dust from the tabernacle floor inside the jar, and hand it to the woman

Numbers 5:19-24, 27-28—Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ‘If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband’s authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse.

But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you, then’ (let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman) ‘the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’

“Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain.

27 And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.

Any way you slice it, this is a strange passage. There is much here that is sounds very weird to modern ears. So we need to do our best to understand what's going on here and why.

Before we begin, there's two ways to read a text like this (or any text, for that matter).

Suspicion—God is mean, harsh, cruel, unfair, etc.

Faith—God is just and good. If something doesn't seem good the problem isn't with Him, it's with me.

We are going to approach this passage with the eyes of faith.

Christian, that's how we read our Bibles

Non-Christian, you might feel like we've already stacked the deck in our favor before we even began. Fair enough. But if you pay attention, I hope you'll see that reading this passage with the eyes of faith is reasonable. It's not like insisting the world is flat despite all evidence to the contrary. it actually makes the most sense of what we see.

Four Observations that Reveal What God Cares About...

1. God Cares About the Purity of His People

Before we can begin to unpack the meaning of a passage like this, we need to understand its context.

It is impossible to rightly understand even the simplest sentence without some understanding of its context.

In his book After Virtue,  Alisdair MacIntyre illustrates it this way:

Imagine you're waiting for a bus and a young man next to you says, "The name of the common wild duck is Histrionicus, histrionicus..."

Now you remember your Latin so you know what the man said is true. That's not the problem. The problem is why he's telling you this.

What's the context behind this seemingly random comment from a perfect stranger?

Is the young man crazy?

Has he mistaken you for someone he met at the library yesterday who asked him the Latin name for the common wild duck?

Is he a spy waiting at a prearranged rendezvous point, uttering a code sentence which will identify him to his contact?

In each instance, the comment only makes sense if you can position it in context. [3]

Before God spoke a word of the law to Moses, He said:

Exodus 19:4-6—“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

Israel is supposed to be a holy nation. Therefore, God cares that His people are pure.

They're supposed to be a light to the nations, to reflect what God's character is like!

When you belong to the people of God, your private actions have public consequences

Because God cares about the purity of His people, He creates a way for Old Covenant saints to deal with troubling situations like this when a certain sin is suspected but there is no evidence.

God still cares about the purity of His people today!

Since God's New Covenant people aren't a nation, but are citizens of heaven living within all the nations of the earth we don't have the same kind of authority

But God guards the purity of His people through things like church membership and church discipline

But notice, this isn't a way to deal with any suspected sin. It's a test to deal with one specific type of sin, the sin of adultery.

Which leads us to our second observation...

2. God Cares About the Health of Marriages

No test for a wife to determine if her husband stole some of her french fries when he wasn't looking. No test for parents to determine if their kids are telling the truth or not.

This is the only test like this in all of Scripture, and it's significant that it has direct impact on the health of marriages.

All sins are harmful, but sins that threaten the health and stability of a marriage will eventually threaten the entire society

God doesn't just care about the threat to marriage as an institution, He cares about individual threats to individual marriages. He cares about your marriage!

Two threats to the marriage:

The threat of unconfessed sin

Unconfessed sin will eat up the love and joy of any marriage.

It's like carbon monoxide, it secretly sucks the life out of your marriage even when you can't see it

God doesn't want that for His people, so He creates this test to help expose unconfessed sin

Numbers 32:23—“...be sure your sin will find you out.”

A wife who has committed adultery may be brought before the priest to undergo this test and her sin will be found it. She won't be able to hide it from the eyes of an all-seeing God.

The threat of uncontrolled jealousy

I say uncontrolled jealousy, because a certain amount of controlled jealousy can be good.

God is a jealous God

A good husband should be jealous for his wife's exclusive affections. He shouldn't want her to give herself to another man.

But uncontrolled jealousy is different. It's not rooted in the truth, it's rooted in suspicion and fear. And it to can eat up the love and joy out of a marriage

Holly and I had friends in college who always fought because one of them was jealous of the other

v. 14 makes it clear that sometimes this test may be administered when the wife is innocent. She hasn't been unfaithful, but for whatever reason her husband doesn't believer her.

God doesn't want that for His people either, so He creates this test to help expose uncontrolled jealousy.

If the wife is found innocent, the husband's uncontrolled jealousy will be exposed and his wife's purity will be vindicated.

Proverbs 17:15—“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.”

In this test, God Himself ensures that the wicked will be condemned and the righteous will be vindicated. He's a good, just God.

God still cares about the health of marriages today!

But He doesn't protect them in the same way

Now we have the completed Scriptures, the indwelling Spirit, and the gathered church!

But perhaps you're still feeling that this test isn't entire fair. Perhaps it seems a bit one-sided.

Which leads to our third observation...

3.God Cares About the Protection of the Vulnerable

What about the man involved in adultery? It's a two-way street, isn't it?

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Passages like this make the Bible seem so patriarchal and oppressive!”

On the one hand, this test is just another effect of the curse...

Genesis 3:16—“To the woman [God] said, “… Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

Women are continually oppressed by men

"Well that doesn't make it right!"

True, but it's a sad reality in a fallen world!

Virtually every culture has at one point or another subjugated vulnerable people, including women

"Not every culture does that! Liberalism and modernism have created a culture where women are no longer oppressed by men."

Are you sure about that?

Transgenderism and women's sports

"But this is the Bible! This is God's law! If He wanted to create a law that made things better for women in the world, He could have!!!"

He DID!

This test is similar to what historians call a "trial by ordeal"

A "Trial by Ordeal" was an ancient judicial practice where someone's guilt or innocence was determined by being subjected to some sort of ordeal, usually involving fire or water.

In some cultures if a woman was accused of adultery without any evidence she would be told to submerge her hand in a bowl of boiling water. And if her hand was not scalded when she removed it she was declared innocent.

Others were told to walk over hot coals. If your feet weren't burned, you were innocent.

Some were forced to hold onto hot irons. Their ability to do so without being burned proved their innocence.

Some were thrown into rivers and lakes. If they sunk, they were innocent, but if they floated they were considered guilty.

These sorts of trials were common in the Ancient Near East, and they have persisted for centuries throughout human history. But most of them have three things in common:

First, they assumed the guilt of the accused

Second, they were cruel (fire, water, etc.)

Third, surviving them usually required a miracle

This test in Numbers 5 is different on all three counts:

It assumed innocence rather than guilt. That's why the woman was brought before a priest. The husband couldn't just take matters into his own hands if he was suspicious. A third party had to be involved.

It wasn't cruel. The potion the woman had to drink wasn't harmful. It was water and a bit of dust and ink

In that day, the miracle in a trial by ordeal was if you survived. In this law, the miracle in this trial was if the woman was harmed

She was innocent until proven guilty, and only a miracle could prove her guilty

One commentator notes that this law “was not so much designed to punish unfaithful wives although it did, it was primarily to protect innocent women from possessive abusive husbands who were consumed by irrational fits of jealousy... creating a format for channeling the man’s rage and deflecting it from his wife.” [4]

God cares about the protection of the vulnerable!

Now perhaps you've been listening carefully, and you're wondering what any of this has to do with abortion. What is it about this text that has led some pro-choice advocates to argue that the Bible isn't pro-life?

This leads to our final observation...

4.God Cares About the Punishment of the Wicked

I began the sermon with three examples of how this text has been used by some to argue that the Bible isn't pro-life. What's their argument? Why this text?

The answer is found in one translation of the punishment prescribed for a woman who was found guilty...

Numbers 5:27(NIV)—If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.

Compare that to the ESV which says “her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away"

Notice the word "miscarry" is present in the NIV, but not in the ESV

Out of 39 English translations, the NIV is one of only two that use the word miscarry [5]

The only other English translation that uses the term "miscarry" is the Common English Bible. All five denominations responsible for the CEB promote abortion. [6]

Both translations are only ten years old

The NIV had earlier editions in 1978 and 1984, but neither version used that term!

Here's the question: Is the NIV right? Does this passage promote forced abortions? Does it undermine the Christian's claim that the Bible is pro-life?

The text doesn't say anything about the woman being pregnant

Numbers 5:13 indicates she isn't pregnant since her alleged adultery has gone undetected!

Wayne Grudem—“there are two Hebrew words for miscarriage, and neither of them is used here” [7]

The phrase "her thigh shall fall away" is a literal rendering of the Hebrew, and likely refers to to future infertility, which would've been a devastating curse for a woman living in that time

Just read the passage in context and it's quite clear...

Numbers 5:28—“But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.”

The innocent woman will be able to conceive children. The guilty woman won't.

Even IF the NIV is right (and I don't think it is), this text does still NOT justify abortion

First of all, our theology on the sanctity of human life does not rise or fall on one single Bible verse. The Scriptures are FILLED with passages that indicate that all human life is precious because all human life is made in the image of God.

This is not about a woman exercising her right to choose, it is God exercising His right to judge [7]

The priest is not giving this woman an abortive drug to kill her baby. Dirty water doesn't cause abortions. And remember, the curse only falls on the guilty woman, not on every woman.

If the text is referring to a miscarriage, it's not that different from God taking the life of Bathsheba's baby after she and David sinned.

Our sin looks so appealing, but in the end its a bitter cup with bitter consequences. And usually those consequences hurt the most vulnerable

Now the people of Israel were still at Mount Sinai when Moses gave them this law. And as you’re listening to this law about a bitter cup, you’d be forced to remember something that happened at that same spot, no more than a year earlier.

While Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments on the mountain, the people of God were being unfaithful. They turned their hearts away from the God who rescued them and began to worship a golden calf. Do you remember what God told Moses to do when he came down the mountain? Melt the golden calf, grind it into powder, and make the Israelites drink it.

That sin, which seemed so pleasant at the time must now be ingested. The people would bear within themselves the effects of their sin. It would, in a very real sense, become a part of them. they couldn't escape it. They were doomed.

So too for the guilty woman in Numbers 5.

And so too for all of us who have worshiped anything smaller than Jesus. Because of our sin, all of us deserve to drink that bitter cup.

You might think you can hide your sin. That you can outrun it or tame you. But in the end you won't be able to escape. You'll consume that bitter cup and your sin will consume you.

But the Bible tells us Another story about someone drinking a cup.

Matthew 26:39—“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.””

Like every woman in Numbers 5, Jesus would be accused.

But unlike some of the women who were guilty, Jesus was falsely accused.

And yet, He would willingly drink a bitter cup.

Unlike the cup in Numbers 5, the cup Jesus drank wasn't designed to determine His guilt. The cup Jesus drank was a cup reserved for the guilty.

And the cup Jesus drank was much more terrifying than this cup in Numbers 5, for the cup Jesus drank was the cup of God's wrath for the sins of His people.

As Jesus drank that cup, He was pouring into Himself the filth of your sin, and mine. He would then absorb the full and final wrath of God in our place by dying on the cross.

But even though Jesus willingly made Himself unclean, His uncleanness was different from the unclean people in Numbers 5.

If you touched an unclean person in Israel, you would become unclean even if you were clean.

But when Jesus touches your uncleanness, He doesn't become unclean. You become clean.

Friend--that's what the Bible (including Numbers 5) is all about. It's about a God who sent His own Son to die so you could be cleansed.

Christian--your unbelieving friend needs to know that story. Sure, they may need to hear the truth about this bitter cup in Numbers 5. But more importantly, they need to hear about the bitter cup of Christ.

And so do you, because you constantly are tempted to think you can clean yourself up. Or that you're too dirty to ever be clean again. Neither is true.

2 Corinthians 5:21—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

O Christ, What Burdens Bow’s Thy Head

BENEDICTION, Revelation 1:7