Choose Life

TEXT: Deuteronomy 30:19-20

TOPIC: Choose Life

Pastor Bobby Earls, First Baptist Church – Icard, 1/13/2002

BIBLE SURVIVOR SERIES, Message 18

SLIDE 1

Please take your bibles and open to Deuteronomy chapter 30. I am reading beginning at verse 19.

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"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the LORD is your life…" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20,NIV)

It’s been several years now since I have felt impressed to preach upon this subject. Very few would question the sanctity of human life. Life is a gift. Life is special. Biblically, life is sacred. Life belongs to God. It is His to give or to take.

Moses, nearly 120 years old, a life that spanned three generations, now stands to deliver his farewell sermon to the children of Israel. In it he calls for heaven and earth to act as witnesses as God gives Israel the choice between life and death. Then he says, “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live”.

In America today, life is a choice, so is death. God still calls all of creation in this world and in the world to come, to stand as witnesses against us. As all of creation looks on, God compels us to choose life.

Just why would the Creator ask such a thing? For one thing, He has the right. “It is He who made us and not we ourselves.” We need to remember that God did, after all, create the very first human souls. God made us. He is the Father of all life.

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I. God Made Us in His Image.

II.

So God created man in His own image;

in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27

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II. God Created Human Life and He Sustains It.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable!

Psalm 139:15-17

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III. God Has a Plan for Each Life.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Ephesians 2:10

He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live to please themselves. Instead, they will live to please Christ, who died and was raised for them.

2 Corinthians 5:15

Again, every human life is precious and a gift from God. Who are we to determine this one should live and this, somehow does not measure up to our standards, or because it is seen as an interruption in our own lives, this one, this life will die.

A college professor presented this challenging situation for his ethics class to consider. "A man has syphilis and his wife has tuberculosis. They have four children. One has died; the other three have terminal illnesses. The mother is pregnant again. What do you recommend?" The class voted to terminate the pregnancy. The professor noted they had just killed Beethoven. (HIS magazine, February 1984)

Ethel Waters, the great gospel singer, was born to a 13-year-old child who had been raped. The world would have been robbed of the wonderful sacred music provided by each of these individuals if life had not been valued even under difficult circumstances.

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When Does Life Begin?

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Life Begins at Conception.

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.”

Jeremiah 1:5-6

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Get the Facts!!!

1.ABORTION IS MURDER, ...Thou shall not commit murder, Exodus 20:13

Now I need to warn you, the next four slides may not be suitable for some. I try to be sensitive to the harshness and discomfort that images of this subject can sometimes present. I assure you I would not put any image up that I regarded as obscene.

Yet we do need to see the obscene reality of what we have allowed in the name of freedom and choice. Partial Birth Abortion is a hideous crime against human life. It is a crime against the most innocent and defenseless of all human beings, the unborn baby.

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Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby's leg with forceps.

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The baby's leg is pulled out into the birth canal.

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The abortionist delivers the baby's entire body, except for the head.

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The abortionist jams scissors into the baby's skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole.

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The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child's brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed .

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2.THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES, …Choose Life…. Deuteronomy 30:20

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I put this slide in here not because I suspect that there might be young women, even teenagers who may have an unexpected or (unwanted) pregnancy, but because I know there could be. Or at the very least, someone here today may know someone who could use this information.

Are you pregnant and think abortion is your only option? Before you make a decision, Call the

National Life Center’s Toll-free Hotline (800) 848 – LOVE. The National Right to Life’s web site address is www.nrlc.org. Also, Focus on the Family has wonderful info on their web center at focusonthefamily.org or 1800AFAMILY.

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3.GOD DOES FORGIVE AND HEAL, …Come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden, Matthew 11:28

Like much of this message, I wrestled with where to use this story. I chose to save it until the end.

Several years ago, a fragile young woman came to my (a doctor's) office, expecting her first baby. One month before she was due, the baby was in a breech position. The death rate of breech babies is high because of the difficulty in delivering the after-coming head and the imperative need of delivering it quickly after the body is born.

During the delivery, I waited as patiently as I could for the natural forces of expulsion to thoroughly dilate the firm maternal structures. At last the time had come, and I gently drew down one little foot. I grasped the other, but it would not come beside the first one. To my consternation, I saw the other little foot would never be beside the first one. The entire thigh from the hip to the knee was missing.

I knew what a dreadful effect this would have upon the unstable nervous system of the mother. The family would almost certainly impoverish itself in taking the child to every famous orthopedist in the world. I saw this little girl sitting sadly by herself, while the other girls danced and ran and played.

I could slow my hand; I could delay those few short moments. No one in this world would ever know. The mother, after the first shock of grief, would be glad she had lost a child so handicapped.

The little pink foot on the good side bobbed out from its protecting towel and pressed firmly against my slowly moving hand into whose keeping the safety of the mother and baby had been entrusted.

I couldn't do it. I delivered the baby with her pitiful little leg. Every foreboding came true. The mother was in the hospital several months-she looked like a wraith of her former self. As the years went on, I blamed myself bitterly for not having had the strength to yield to my temptation.

Our hospital stages an elaborate Christmas party each year for the staff. This past year, three lovely young musicians on the stage played softly in unison with the organ. I was especially fascinated by the young harpist. She played extraordinarily well, as if she loved it. Her slender fingers flicked across the strings, and her face was upturned as if the world that moment were a wonderful and holy place.

When the short program was over, there came running down the aisle a woman I did not know. "Oh, you saw her," she cried. "You must have recognized your baby. That was my daughter who played the harp-the little girl who was born with only one good leg 17 years ago. We tried everything at first, but now she has a whole artificial leg on that side. Best of all, through all those years, she learned to use her hands so wonderfully. She is going to be one of the world's greatest harpists. She is my whole life and now she is so happy . . . And here she is!" The sweet young girl had quietly approached us, her eyes glowing.

Impulsively, I took the child in my arms. Across her warm young shoulder I saw the creeping clock of the delivery room 17 years before. I lived again those awful moments when her life was in my hand. As the last the last strains of "Silent Night" faded, I found comfort I had waited for so long.

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