The Image of God in the Womb

, this morning, I've been asked to fill the pulpit, and I've been asked to preach on the topic that coordinates with our emphasis month, and my topic is on the subject of abortion. the sermon title that I've given to this topic is the image of God in the womb. Job says in Job 31:15, do not he who made me in the womb make my servants? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers is Job's question in Job 31.

Let me just Make some introductory remarks here, before we get into this topic. First of all, I just want you to realize that there are people in this room sitting around you that have been affected by abortion. No doubt in our church, there are women who have had abortions. There are boyfriends who have lost children.

There are fathers perhaps who have paid for abortions. There are mothers who have driven children to abortions. this is a topic that affects us all, and as we talk about this subject, I just want you to know that while many of the things that we're going to say this morning are very difficult as we look at the word of God together, as we wrap things up, we are going to be reminded of the fact that Christ is the forgiver of all and the savior of all. We are going to have some very difficult things to say this morning.

but please just be sensitive to the people around you that are affected by this particular, have fallen prey to this particular sin. the focus this morning is going to be a little more theological rather than medical. I'm not going to be doing a medical briefing on abortion. We're not necessarily going to cover all the different methods of abortion.

I'm not going to talk about all the different complications of the abortion argument on whether we should make exceptions for certain types of medical conditions that mothers have. There's lots of material that's been written on that subject. You can pick up a book called Why Pro Life which we actually have available in our bookstore. You could read John Piper's articles on Desiringgood.com.

You could look at Abort 73, which I'll mention later, a website that talks all about these issues. We're going to approach it more from a biblical and theological angle and try to answer questions from God's perspective and how abortion affects God, particularly. Before we get in to the meat of the theology though, let's, let's set the stage with some statistics. I'm sure many people have heard.

the statistics I'm gonna give you this morning come from the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. this is a pro-choice medical group. And what they say about the incidence of abortion in the United States, 1.21, 1.21 million pregnancies were terminated in the United States in 2005. 2% of all women aged 15 to 44 had an abortion in 2005, so 2 out of every 100 ladies.

Abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures. Some would say it is the most common surgical procedure in the United States. And even with 1.2 million abortions in the US that only accounts for 3% of the abortions in the world. We make up about 5% of the world's population, but if you multiply 1.21 by about 33, you'll get how many we've got about 35, between 35 and 40 million abortions a year in the world.

This is according to a pro-choice, pro-choice research. The reasons that are given for abortion are many. But the top ones, the most important reasons stated by this pro-choice research group are concern for other individuals or responsibility for other individuals. In other words, a mother has concern about the fact that she already has 3 children to take care of.

A mother's concerned that the husband doesn't want another child, a boyfriend or a girlfriend's concerned that the boyfriend doesn't want the child, things like that. Another stated reason is cannot afford a baby now. A baby would interfere with school, employment. or ability to care for dependents, would be a single parent having relationship problems, has completed childbearing.

They've said, I'm, I'm done with childbearing. I don't need any more children. Those statistically that are having abortions in the United States, over 50% of them are between the age of 20 and 30, which fits the stated reasons for abortion of, we're busy with school, we're busy with careers, we're not, we don't really want a child yet. 20 to 24 age group is the group that is having the most abortions in the United States.

That's that college age range. These folks who perhaps in many cases are not married yet but have become pregnant and have decided that they're not ready to have children and so abortion becomes the elected way to To end the pregnancy. So these are some of the statistics that are that we're reading from pro-choice groups, pro-life groups would agree with these statistics. What I want to do is turn our attention to the word of God and what the Bible says about life.

And so we're going to start. We're going to basically try to cover 7. theological movements or 7 thoughts to help us think about this issue from God's perspective. And the first thought I want to draw your attention to is this and that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God.

This might seem like a strange place to start, but I think it's important for us to set the foundation of the whole human race. And that is that Adam and Eve were actively And personally created. By God. Genesis 1:26, God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

Let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps in the earth. And God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him, male and female. He created them.

So man and woman were actively, personally formed by God Himself. Adam from the dust, Eve from Adam's rib, and so you have this personal action from God. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? When the Bible says that man is made in the image of God, it means that male and female.

are like God and represent God in all the ways that further revelation, revelation delineates. So every way that we see the Bible, speaking of men and women reflecting the glory of God and mirroring back the character of God, that's what it means to be made in the image of God. We are little mirrors of it, as it were. We're created to reflect God's glory in the creation.

To reflect God's character in the creation, whether that has to do with our our mental abilities or our desire to create things, our desire to organize things. It doesn't matter if you're a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu, it doesn't matter who you are an atheist, you're made in the image of God, and there's this built in something inside of you that wants to reflect God's glory. But then the fall comes, and that glory, that image is marred. And so at the same time, there's these dual things going on inside the human species where we instinctively reflect God's glory and want to do things that reflect God's glory, but at the same time, we want to turn in on ourselves and destroy that glory.

We want to destroy that image. And this is the place that we find ourselves as human beings. We just unwittingly reflect God's glory at some time at times, and other times we want to destroy the very image in which we are made. That's the state of the human species.

Adam and Eve were made personally. Creatively, by God in His image. And the second thought is this Adam and Eve bore children in the image of God. Adam and Eve came together.

Eve conceived and bore a child and another child, and as we find out later, many children. Genesis 5:3. When Adam had lived 130 years, waited a little while to be a father, he became the father of a son in his own likeness according to his image and named him Seth. Likeness and image.

This is, these are not accidental terms. These are terms that are picked right up from the first part of Genesis to remind us that Adam and Eve were created in the image. Now Adam's children are in his image, which points us back to the fact that they are in God's image. The children that come out of Eve are in the image of their father and in the image of God Almighty, their creative Father.

I want you to also realize that in the Bible, the Bible indicates that it's only human beings that are created in the image of God. No angel is ever given the description of being in the image of God. No animal is ever described as being in the image of God. Only men and women.

are said to be in the image of God, and this should affect the way that we think about humankind, the way we think about mankind in respect to animal kind, even in respect to angels. We're the image bearers. Nobody else has given that description in the Bible. Let's move to a third thought.

And that is the fetus is created in the image of God. There's this question and debate in, in abortion circles, pro-choice or pro-life, about when does a baby become a living thing or when does the fetus become a living thing in the Bible, it's pretty clear. The fetus is created in the image of God. David says in 1:19, Psalm 119, your hands made me informed me, give me understanding to learn your commands.

The verse that we read earlier, Job says, if I have desired denied justice to my manservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?

This isn't a section of Job. This isn't one of Job's accusers. some people do bad theology from Job where they go pull verses from Job's accusers and try to make some theology out of it. You ever read a book that does that?

Pull something out of context. here's one of these wacky accusers, and they're trying to make theology out of it. Bad hermeneutics. This is Job speaking underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

He's just trying to answer his accusers, saying that I'm, I'm righteous, that I'm not being punished by God because of my sin. And by the way, my, my, my servants, they're in the image of God, they were birthed in the womb, just like I was birthed in the womb. Both of us were created by God and formed by God in the womb. We're equal before the Lord.

And I have been righteous in my treatment of these equal brothers who happen to be my servants. We turn to Psalm 139 and we see David the prophet underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit saying, For thou didst form my inward parts, literally kidneys, thou form my kidneys, and he's using the word kidneys to really be a metonym for all of the inwards, all of the innards were created by God. Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. That's an amazing image of God in the darkness weaving together.

a baby I will give thanks to thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. thine eyes have seen my unformed substance, which translated in the English as unformed substance is the only place where we have the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word embryo. our word embryo comes from the Greek. And the Greek translation of the Old Testament has this word embryo right here.

You saw my embryo when I was in my mother's tummy. You saw the embryo. You are the one that weaved me together in my mother's stomach. So the fetus is weaved together personally and actively by God, and the fetus is made in the image of God.

This is what leads guys like Ronald Allen to write the Bible never speaks of fetal life as mere chemical activity, cellular growth, or vague force. Rather, the fetus in the mother's womb is described by the psalmist in the vivid pictorial language as being shaped, fashioned, molded, and woven together by the personal activity of God. That is as God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, so he's actively involved in the fashioning of the fetus in the womb. If you believe in the Bible, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to get around the fact that the fetus is made in the image of God.

If we jettison the Bible, then there you go. If you're operating according to a non-Christian worldview, it's very simple. If you're operating according to an evolutionary worldview that basically says we all just evolved from the slime and eventually became apes, then abortion makes sense. It fits right in your worldview.

But if you're going to operate according to a Christian worldview, which says that God created Adam and Eve in His image, and Adam and Eve had babies in their image, which reflect the image of God, and God is the one that creates the fetus and weaves it together in His image, then you have babies in the womb being made in the image of God. And that brings us to our next point, and that is this. Is there only one being in the universe that has prerogative over life and death, and that is God.

God holds sovereign prerogative over the destruction or propagation of his image bearers.

He's the one that has created beings in His image, man and woman, children, fetus. God holds the sovereign prerogative over the destruction or propagation of his image after Noah gets off the ark, the first thing that God wants to tell Noah has to do with the image of God. We see it right there in Genesis 1. Noah gets off the ark.

And here God is talking about his image again. Genesis 9:6, whoever sheds man, man's blood, By man, his blood shall be shed. Why? For in the image of God, He made man.

And as for you, Noah, be fruitful and multiply. Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. Noah, you've been given a sovereign command by God. God is the one that determines the propagation of life, and he commands you to go out and propagate life.

God is the sovereign one that can determine whether life should be destroyed. And he says, Noah, you do not have sole prerogative to take any man's life. That is God's prerogative alone. If someone takes someone else's life, then God says, I will give my jurisdiction to men or certain people to take their lives.

God has the prerogative to give and take life. And in his economy and his way of doing things, if someone kills one of his image bearers, then he tells other image bearers to go kill him. That's basically what God is saying to Noah as he gets off the ark. Somebody kills one of his image bearers, man, woman, or child or fetus.

Then God gives this group of people in this pre-Israel institution. I think sets up the concept of a community of people, a state, as it were, to carry out a punishment on that person that would kill and take the prerogative into their own hands to kill God's image. In other words, capital punishment. God is the one that that gives the authority and the jurisdiction over to certain people in society to carry out his deeds.

Let's up to this point we have not really defined abortion, and so I want to define it. First, by looking at Webster Dictionary, really Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Which says this, the termination of a pregnancy after accompanied by resulting in or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. That's the way Merriam-Webster defines abortion, the termination of a pregnancy.

I like what John Piper says about this definition. Defining abortion as the termination of pregnancy is like defining the death of your aged father as the termination of hospice care. Abortion is much more than the termination of a pregnancy, it's the termination of a life. It's the termination of a heartbeat.

Abortion, John Piper says. is in the in the way that we use it today. Is the intentional killing of unborn babies. It happens by inserting instruments in the mother's womb, a mother's womb, pulling the babies into pieces and removing them, or it happens by poisoning babies with salt poisoning, or it happens by vacuum suction.

There are many different ways that it happens, but it all results in the death of a baby, the pulling apart of its pieces, the stopping of a heartbeat. There are special clinics where it happens. These clinics used to be over 2000. Now there are, there's only about 740 clinics in the United States.

These clinics are on the decline. These clinics have killed 46 million babies since abortion was legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973. This is in the United States, not worldwide, obviously. Each year, 1.2 million abortions happen in the US.

By the way, you can watch an actual abortion online at the Center for Bioethical Reform. Just know that this is a very graphic video. One of the fullest and best sites for the education of abortion is abort73.com. I do encourage parents to judiciously educate their kids on abortion, even to the extent of letting them at appropriate ages see pictures.

I was reading this week of a a junior high school public school teacher when they were talking about abortion. realized that about half of the class had no idea what she was even talking about. And none of her class had ever seen any pictures, photographs, video of anything. this, this wasn't like a kindergarten class.

This is a, a class of, of kids that are a little older. At the Nuremberg, there was a A court case after, Hitler's Germany fell, where a German The attorney was defending the judges that sentenced thousands, millions of Jews to their death. And up until the point that video and pictures were shown, By all estimations, the German attorney was winning the case through logic, through twistings of the truth, through rationale. People that were sitting there on the jury would have thought that these guys are going to get off.

But he was able to show the video of thousands of Jewish bodies or hundreds of Jewish bodies being bulldozed. Into a hole. And once people saw what had really occurred, and knew that these guys were responsible for sending these people to their deaths, it became very apparent what the verdict was going to be. As long as we continue to keep people in the dark on what is really happening on this issue, it's easy for us to talk politics.

You're a conservative, I'm liberal, you're Republican, I'm Democrat. All that goes away when you see the reality of 1.2 million babies dying in the United States. And yet YouTube will Pull all these videos off. They'll let all kinds of junk go on.

But anybody who tries to post a YouTube video about a real-life abortion, it gets yanked. Right? What's up with that? people don't want these images to get out.

They don't want people to see the truth of what is going on. It's interesting. Even in our, let me, let me just read this other quote from Piper here. It is therefore arbitrary and unwarranted to assume that at some point in the knitting together of this person, its destruction is not an assault on the prerogatives of God the Creator.

Let me say this positively. Piper says the destruction of conceived human life, whether embryonic, fetal, viable, is an assault on the unique person forming work of God, and that's really the issue. is you have God who's created people in His image. Children have been born, and God is the one that is forming people into His image within the womb.

And when we take the prerogative upon ourselves without jurisdiction from God to take life and give it away. We've put ourselves in the place of God. Even our, our legal code is interesting the way it's written. California Penal Code Section 187, murder is the unlawful killing of a human being or a fetus with malice afterthought.

Some people are shocked to see that our penal code actually includes the murder of a fetus as murder, that that's, it's described as murder on the penal code. The penal code goes on with the exceptions. This section shall not apply to any person who commits an act that results in the death of a fetus if any of the following apply, and one of the following that apply is the act was solicited, aided, abetted, or consented to by the mother of the fetus. So it's illegal to kill a fetus unless it's consented to by the mother.

This, this really presents a very interesting Legal personal issues. the fetus is granted personhood if it's wanted by the mother. By the, that's the, the, that's the official policy of the state of California. The fetus can become a non-person at the discretion of the mother.

However, a mother may not choose to kill her born child 2 seconds after it's born. How can the personhood of a human being be decided by another person is the question. And this raises just some very interesting inconsistencies in this book. I would recommend this Why Pro-Life Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers, excellent book by Randy Alcorn.

He has a section in here just called Inconsistencies Everywhere, and I want to read some of this. At the Medical University of South Carolina, if a pregnant woman's urine test indicates cocaine use, she can be arrested for distributing drugs to a minor. Similarly, in Illinois, a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for delivering a controlled substance to a minor. This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights deserving protection even from his mother.

If a mother takes drugs, she can be prosecuted. However, the same woman who's prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is free to abort that same child. In America today, it's illegal to harm your preborn child, but perfectly legal to kill him. Every alcohol serving establishment in Oregon is required to post a sign that basically says pregnancy and alcohol do not mix, and it lists all the, the warnings about mixing alcohol and pregnancy.

If alcohol harms unborn babies, what does abortion do to them? The US Congress voted unanimously to delay capital punishment of a pregnant woman until after her delivery. Every congressman, even if pro-choice, knew that this unborn baby was a separate person innocent of his mother's crime. No stay of execution was requested for the sake of the mother's tonsils, heart, or kidneys.

But we know that we should not execute a mother and her baby for the crimes that the mother committed. We know that, everybody knows that, except for Al Gore, when he was asked about this question, to say, I'm not really sure about that. Inconsistencies everywhere. This leads us to our 5th thought.

Being in or out of the womb has no bearing on one's image bearing personhood. Biblically speaking, people debate this, aside from Scripture. But if Scripture enters in, and we want to make Our thoughts revolve around a Christian worldview, then being in or out of the womb has no bearing on one's image bearing personhood. Case closed.

Genesis 25:21. And Isaac prayed to the Lord, on behalf of his wife because she was barren and the Lord answered him and Rebecca, his wife conceived, but the children, the Hebrew word Ben, like Benjamin, that's the word, just general word for children, it's used for all children, whether they're in the, in the womb or out of the womb, but the children struggled together within her. And she said, If it is so, why then am I this way? So she inquired of the Lord, and you guys know the story about two nations, being inside of her, and then she brings forth.

these children. The Old Testament and New Testament are very comfortable with using the exact same words that we use for children out of the womb as for children in the womb. And I would remind you that these words are inspired by the Holy Spirit. Genesis 4:1.

Now the man had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, I have begotten a man-child with the help of the Lord. This is very consistent terminology in the Bible. You hear if you look at this in your Bible program, you'll see this phrase a lot. She conceived and gave birth.

She conceived and gave birth, and then they normally don't say conceived and gave birth. They don't say normally she conceived a son and then gave birth. Normally it's she conceived and then gave birth to a son. Because from a human perspective before sonograms and whatnot, you didn't know if it was a son or daughter until birth, right?

So she conceived and gave birth to a son or daughter. What's interesting is from an angel's perspective, an angel already knows, right? If an angel showed up, if one of our mothers in here got pregnant, we might not know, but if an angel appeared to you, an angel could say there's a boy in your tummy, right? You could say that.

And that's exactly what an angel did say. about Elizabeth. Luke 1:36 and behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age. That totally violates the typical pattern that we see from a human perspective conceived, and then gave birth to a son.

The angel already knows that there's a son, there's a person in Elizabeth's womb. the angel doesn't say there, that she conceived and there's a massive tissue. She conceived and there's a blob. She conceived a son in the womb.

Luke 1:41, and it came about that when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby Greek word rehos leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the spirit, for behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby Brehos leaped my womb. So this is a baby in the womb, use the word rehos, that is leaping with joy. There's we're showing, actual personality terms of personality.

And but at the very least, the Greek term of a personal baby, not just an embryo, not just a massive tissue, is being used of John here in Elizabeth's tummy. And in the same book, the Dr. Luke who wrote this book. uses the exact same term for Christ out of the womb, Luke 2:16, and they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby Brehos as he lay in the manger.

So you see these terms being used interchangeably in or out of the womb. It doesn't really matter. You see terms of personality like joy being used of babies in the womb. You see angels who know that the sex of the child, and so in the Bible there's, it's very clear.

In or out of the womb, you have an image bearing person. There's, there's really no debate about that if we're going to approach it from a biblical perspective. 6. Christ the man.

An image of God was knit together in the womb of an unwed teenage mother. Christ the man and image of God was knit together in the womb of an unwed teenage mother. This is so ironic to think of this thought in today's culture. Luke 1:31, and behold, the angel says to Mary, you will conceive in your room and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.

And Mary said, the angel, how can this be since I'm a virgin, the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God. And so you have, we don't know the exact age of Mary, but most scholars would say between 12 and 17. Probably a little younger, more like around 14 or 15 would be a good guess of Mary's age when she was pregnant and when she had the baby.

She had no father. and yet we know from Scripture, that this baby Christ, 100% man, 100% God, was knit together by the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, and she began to go through the normal gestation period that you expect of any human being. Because Christ was 100% man. If Mary were to be alive today and be a 14 year old, if, if this were the day that Christ were to come to visit his people for the first time in history, if this were the day of the incarnation, And if, if Christ had decided to come to the United States, and God had determined that there would be someone in California or perhaps even in Riverside, a 14 year old would be impregnated miraculously by the Holy Spirit, what would be the counsel that she would receive from her school?

What would be the counsel she would receive from her parents and her friends? will be the counsel that she would receive from her doctor. The average counsel, I, I think most people would agree would be that you need to get rid of that baby. You're too young, you don't have a husband, there's no way you're gonna be able to support them.

And yet, we know from, we would know by revelation that this, this is, this has got in the flesh. This is Jesus Christ. Yet who of us know that? I wonder how, how many, how many young teens have, have born children at a young age who are going to do amazing feats for society or for Christ or God.

How many, how many politicians we're going to make a difference? We're almost aborted? How many doctors, How many pilots, how many, how many just good husbands and good, good wives? How many have been aborted?

We know, God's sovereign over all things, but we know humans are responsible. How many people have been aborted? Experts today estimate that 25% of the African American population has been aborted. 1 in 4, you walk around and, and look at one of your African-American friends on the street, 1 in 4 of them are dead from abortion, which leads many pro-lifers to ask the question, is racism not part of this question?

As it definitely was with the founder of Planned Parenthood. who was a Nazi. But you won't hear that in the public school system. Lastly, I want to come to this point, and that is this, that Christ, the man in the image of God, who was born of a virgin, who was born to a teenage mother who eventually did get wed, whose father probably died early on.

became the sin bearer of the world. He died on the cross. Jesus Christ came, he was not aborted. He came to full term.

and lived a perfect life and died on the cross for sinners. And he died on the cross for all the sins of the world. There are people, no doubt, in this room. There are people in the first service who suffer under the guilt of sinful choices that they have made, sometimes not in total knowledge.

Some people have made these sinful choices to kill a baby and didn't realize the full impact of it till afterwards. There are culprits. There are, there are people who, there are women. Who have suffered from abortion themselves.

There are boyfriends who have pushed their girlfriends to get abortions. There are dads who paid for abortions. There are mothers who drove their daughters to get an abortion. There are grandparents who pressured to get an abortion.

There are people who didn't want it to happen, but it happened and they didn't speak up. There are people in this room who know that abortion is wrong, know that it's a terrible thing, but we sit in lethargy and do nothing. These are the sins that Christ came and died for. And if you're suffering this morning underneath the guilt of one such sin, the Bible says, thou shalt not murder.

First thing we need to realize is that it is a sin. If we're going to understand the grace of Christ, we need to understand, first of all, the judgment of God and the wrath of God that to kill someone made in the image of God is a sin worthy of judgment, worthy of hell, worthy of punishment. And it is right and proper for us to feel guilty about doing evil things. But what happens is Christ comes and enters into our sin and our guilt, and he says, I died for that.

You should have died on the cross. But I died for you in your place. And if we would simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can be rescued from the judgment that is sure to come upon this planet, and is sure to come upon all the evildoers. But if we would get underneath the umbrella of Christ's protection, then we will be protected from the wrath to come, and we will actually be invited into the family of God.

And those of you that have lost children, you will get children in the family of God. Those of you that have that are suffering from these types of, of sins and tragedies, you will find forgiveness and you will find family in the Church of God. Christ died on the cross. He was raised from the dead, to give us power to say no to sin, give us power to speak up against crimes, to speak up and speak for the innocent.

Not only that, but Christ ascended to heaven. And he sits at the right hand of the Father, where every time a child dies there Christ is ready to receive him into his presence. And Christ will come again as Savior to save all of those that have called out to him for forgiveness, but he also will come as judge to punish all of his enemies and those that have not believed the gospel. We stand and say with the psalmist, Lord, how long, how long will you wait?

And Jesus says, not long. And Jesus will come. And those that have had a part and have played a role in the destruction of millions upon millions of innocent souls will have their part in the wrath of God. Those who are under Christ will escape the wrath of God, not because they're worthy, but because they've come to Christ.

Those who stay outside of Christ will be punished. And Christ will be just. As we consider the millions upon millions that have innocently suffered and died, Christ will be just, to pour out his wrath upon them all. Christ has done much to save the very woman whose name bears.

The decision Roe versus Wade. She was given a pseudonym to protect her anonymity. Jane Roe later came to the Lord Jesus Christ. Her name is Norma Mc McCorvey, and today is a pro-life activist.

Her baby was never aborted because Roe versus Wade wasn't passed until her baby was born. And later, she was working at a, an abortion clinic and right across the way, there was a pro-life clinic that was trying to minister to mothers and babies, and she, she struck up a relationship with these people and a pastor over there in particular, and began to realize the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and she committed her life to the Lord. And I want to read you a statement. that she made.

I long for the day that justice will be done and the burden from all these deaths will be removed from my shoulders. I want to do everything in my power to help women and their children. The issue is justice for women, justice for the unborn, and justice for what is right. She actually brought a case.

to court to overturn Roe versus Wade, and she argued with her lawyers in that case that she was basically duped by her lawyers for political reasons when she was, she was brought as an example in the Roe versus Wade case and that she actually lied about some of the, the details of the case and now regrets it and wanted to have that case overturned. But a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court dismissed the motion from Norma McCarvey. To have, to have this landmark case overturned on September 14, 2004, they rejected her appeal and sent her lawyers away.

And so we are still in the situation that we're in today.

There are many difficult issues that I would encourage you to research. You can read a book like this. You can read John Piper. There are other people, difficult questions that are not as easy to answer.

We've tried to approach this from a theological perspective this morning. I haven't tried to answer every and all questions, but I do want to end with this final thought. And that is, there is a, a woman in our church, who became pregnant when she was 15 years old. And she was encouraged by those around her to have an abortion.

And she actually went to the abortion clinic and while there, was, was, came into contact with some, some pro-life people that were there just to talk to women. About what the decision they were about ready to make. And they came and spoke with her and asked her how old her baby was, and she said how old the baby was, and they showed her a picture of what that baby looked like at that age in her stomach, in her tummy. And once she saw that picture, she knew, I can't do this.

She walked away. And the Lord used the birth of that child as part of the pathway to her maturity and eventually her salvation, as she came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Several years later, And that Many of that the Many of that that girl is my sister. Melissa Kaufman.

Excuse me, and, and her son born February 28th, 1988, is Matthew Kaufman. And what the average person today would say should never have happened. was God's plan. Who are we to say that we have the prerogative to take away from God what is his alone?

He has the prerogative alone. To determine life and death. Let's bow in prayer and have our ushers come forward. Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank You, Lord, that You have created us in your image to reflect your glory. And it's not just those of us in this room or outside of this room that know Christ, but all are created in your image. And we pray, Lord, that You would Use us, Lord, to protect the innocent. Use us to speak up for those who have no voice.

Use us, Lord, to minister mercy to those that have been vilified by the tragedy of abortion. We pray, Father, that Lord, while you will one day come and throw out judgment on your enemies, you command us at this time to love our enemies. Help us to love our enemies with the gospel. Help us to speak truth to them.

Help us to be bold. Help us to be compassionate, recognizing our own sins. We pray, Lord, for any in our congregation that are affected by the, the sin of murder. We pray, Father, that, that they would understand the forgiveness in Christ.

We pray, Father, that they would receive that forgiveness that they'd be ministered to by your Spirit, Lord, that we would minister to one another. We pray, Father, if there is anyone in our church that silently struggles with guilt and, and, and the difficulty of the consequences. Of this, we pray, Father, that there would be opportunity for them to speak and to open up and share and for people to minister. Receive our offerings now, we pray, Lord, that you use it for your glory in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.