The Issues (Abortion, The Environment)

The Issues (Abortion, The Environment)

Last week, we began a new message series where we are going through some of the issues that we will have a huge impact on how we vote in next month’s presidential election.  Again, I’m not here to tell you which candidates to vote for, which party to vote for, or with any political agenda. 

This church solely exists for the purpose of pointing people to Jesus and growing in their faith in Him as their savior and not to encourage anyone to put their hope in any politician ever.  I’m simply sharing the topical issues facing our nation and what God’s word has to say about them to take into consideration as we vote.

So far, we’ve covered the topics of Israel, the border, immigration, the economy, and social services.  We begin this morning with the hot topic of abortion.  It is just too large of a topic to try and squeeze in last week…

Abortion

As I warned a few times last week, don’t bail on me part way through this issue if you become offended because there are several points that I’ll be making on the topic!

The Bible does not teach us that life begins at conception.  You may be very surprised to hear that this morning, but it is the truth as we’ll soon see.  An individual’s life does not begin at conception, but actually far beforehand.

Psalms 139:16 (NCV)

All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old.

Psalm 139:16

all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalms 139:16 (NLT)

Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Long before we were conceived, long before God formed our bodies within our mother’s womb, our lives were on God’s heart and mind.  He wrote a book about our personal lives; His plans and purposes and vision for who we were intended to be.  None of us are accidents, we are all intentionally and purposefully created.  What an awesome and humbling reality to consider!

The Bible teaches us that God personally creates us within a mother’s womb, which explains the miracle of how one single cell can multiply to become a full body composed of countless unique cells and parts of the body all inter-dependent on one another in a relatively short period of time.

Psalm 139:13-16

13 For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

An individual life is exactly that regardless of which side of the womb it exists on and how old or developed it is.  A life’s value and identity doesn’t change based on these factors.

I’m not Steve inside of these four walls and Bob as soon as I step outside of them.  I’m not a worthless blob of cells over in that chair and a valuable human being up here on this stage.  I’m only a worthless blob of cells when my wife gets mad at me and tells me that’s what I am!  🙂

A great example of this reality is found in Luke 1 when Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, was visited by Mary, pregnant with Jesus.  John was filled with the Holy Spirit before he was even born (verse 15).  Also, when Elizabeth heard Mary, John leaped within her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and started prophesying about Mary’s child before she even knew that she was pregnant.

God named these individuals, defined their life’s calling and purpose, and even filled John with the Holy Spirit all before they were born.

Life is precious and valuable and God-given regardless of the form that it exists as; especially human life.  Humans were created in the image of God, Himself (Genesis 1:27).  Human life gives glory to God no matter the disability or deformity that they may have been born with (John 9) or their ability to contribute to society.

Downplaying the value of human a life may begin with abortion, but it ultimately leads to practices such as euthanasia as well; ending a life that is suffering or no longer valuable to society.

Now pregnancy is complex and complicated.  Each pregnancy is very unique.  I know in our experiences, our children’s personalities were revealed even while still in the womb and all the way throughout Becky’s pregnancy and their births.

The circumstances through which conception takes place is unique as well.  Not every abortion is the result of someone just being irresponsible while out there having a “good time” from the world’s standards and then not wanting to deal with the consequences from that choice.

Two examples often provided as reason to permit abortion even by pro-life candidates are in the instances of pregnancy resulting from rape and incest. 

God values all life and His heart breaks any time that people sin.  These two examples of being sinned against by another person are horrific and traumatic.  Any women treated in these ways are further examples of not valuing life.  Instead of valuing their lives, they are viewed and treated as if though they are objects to be used and abused. 

It is argued that for a woman to go through this horrific degree of trauma and then to carry out a resulting pregnancy is to cause even further trauma.  However, choosing to end that life brings about further trauma as well.

She had no choice in becoming pregnant, but she does have a choice in how to proceed from there.  Only Jesus can bring healing from such sin!  Neither ending the life of the abuser nor the life of the child will bring any degree of healing to the wrong that has been done to her…

When it comes to the topic, we usually focus on the life of the unborn child.  However, we cannot neglect the life of the woman and how valued she is by God as well.  All life matters to God.

Even if she chooses to abort her child, whether doing so is legal or illegal, whether for understandable reasons or not, whether done by a doctor or not; she needs Jesus and even more so at that point!  She needs people to pour out God’s love into her life and to support her through that healing process and coping with the guilt or shame or whatever else she is dealing with after such a decision is made.

Yes, it is entirely possible to still pour out God’s love and support into someone’s life without agreeing with their decisions and lifestyles!  We can still call sin as sin and unconditionally love the person who sins.  After all, that’s how God treats each and every one of us!

What I also rarely hear discussed is the father.  There are some circumstances where the father wants to choose life and is willing to do everything that he can to provide for the mother throughout her pregnancy and to entirely care for the child to raise and support them.  However, the voice of the father is often silenced and only the voice of the mother heard.  I can’t imagine being a father of a child and having that child’s life aborted at the choosing of the mother alone.  What pain and anger and grief and torment that must be for him in that situation!

We also quote the scriptures and boast about how God can bring life from death, beauty from ashes, praise from despair, joy from mourning, and so on (Isaiah 61:3)…  However, when dreams are crushed, when plans are burnt, when tragedy strikes, when sin destroys, it is difficult to trust God and to allow Him to do a work to bring good from wrongdoing. 

Even if a child is conceived in the worst of circumstances, God still ultimately began that life within the mother’s womb.  He began knitting that child together.  This isn’t evidence that He condones whatever sin was done against anyone that brought this pregnancy about.  It is evidence that God can still bring goodness from tragedy.  It isn’t Him desiring to torment the mother with a reminder of what happened to her.  It is God turning ashes into something beautiful.

There are plenty of people who survived abortion attempts doing amazing things in this world with their lives.  People who worn born as a result of rape and incest whom their mothers testify that they can’t imagine living without.  Those children were a blessing to those mothers though conceived through one of the greatest curses that a woman could ever experience.

There are also plenty of children who were born into horrible circumstances too difficult to even mention when a woman chooses life and decides not to abort their child.  Addiction or economic hardships or abusive relationships or countless other issues can provide an extremely unhealthy home life for a child.

Adoption is always an option!  Some children are placed into foster care either voluntarily or involuntarily by their mothers and often find themselves placed into amazing and loving families and even adopted by them.  Please consider being such a family and being a voice into our political system so that adoption becomes a more affordable and accessible option instead of abortion.

There are also circumstances during pregnancy and birth where a tragic choice must be made between the life of the mother and the life of the child.  There are circumstances where, for whatever reason, a pregnancy tragically ends in a miscarriage. 

Although the mother has no choice and the child’s life has already ended with certainty, the child and other tissues formed during the pregnancy must be physically removed for the health of the mother.

There is also the breakthroughs of in vitro fertilization (IVF).  If conception takes place outside of the body, is that a life that God has begun?  Is destroying that fertilized egg aborting a life?  Is that fertilized egg a life that was written in God’s book with a plan and a purpose and a destiny long before the lab tech enabled that fertilization to take place?

I have to be completely honest that the Bible doesn’t cover every individual and unique circumstance.  I won’t even begin to claim to know and understand every situation and how God feels about it. 

Instead, I’ll stand on the truth and the principle that God’s word makes absolutely clear that life is His idea and that it is good.  He values each individual life enough to lay down His own life to save them.  Every individual life was God’s idea written in His book long, long before conception ever took place.

Vote for leaders who value all life that God has created.

This leads us to the next issue:

The Environment

Human life is not the only life here on planet Earth.  For the environment, we’ll go back all the way to the beginning of creation:

Genesis 1:26-28

26 God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Genesis 2:8;15

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

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

God spoke and created everything and said that it was good.  He then handed it over to humans to manage and steward and rule over.  To this day, it is still our responsibility.  As we’ve learned the hard way, we’re not always the best at this job.

We don’t have to go very far back in history nor very far geographically to find a good example of this.  Travelling through Pittsburgh today looks much different than travelling through Pittsburgh in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

With booming coal and iron and steel industries along with the coal-powered railways and river boats for transporting the goods produced and mined there, the environmental impact wasn’t much of a consideration initially.  Everyone was just happy to have good jobs and great pay despite the working and living conditions.

Smoke filled the airways so much that it would often be dark even mid-day.  It was given many nicknames, but “Smoky City” seems to be one of the most popular.  Sewage and chemicals getting dumped into the same rivers as the drinking water was sourced caused all sorts of sicknesses and diseases.

We don’t always consider the impact on not only the human life, but also the plant and animal life affected by our actions.  We have since added governmental oversight the ensure that the full environmental impact is considered and monitored.  This is another way of valuing and protecting life.

God warned the prophet Jeremiah about such things occurring in the promised land:

Jeremiah 12:10-11

10 Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard

    and trample down my field;

they will turn my pleasant field

    into a desolate wasteland.

11 It will be made a wasteland,

    parched and desolate before me;

the whole land will be laid waste

    because there is no one who cares.

How could such a rich and valuable land become a vast desolate wasteland?  “Because there is no one who cares.”  As Dr. Suess wrote in his book, “The Lorax”:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

Now to be clear, there is a healthy balance to strike up here.  Although it is important to care for the natural resources and all life entrusted to us by God to steward, we also cannot cripple and stop all industry to save the life of a single tadpole.  We can’t flip a switch and instantly operate the entire nation’s infrastructure on a different energy source to bring down the earth’s temperature by a fraction of a degree. 

We can’t tax farmers because their cows fart.  I kid you not!  In 5 years, Denmark will begin charging their farmers a tax on their cows, pigs, and sheep since they burp and fart greenhouse gases. 

Think about it..  Some of us would be in big trouble if the US starts taxing us per fart!  Watch how you vote next month!

God created our environment to be far more stable and resilient and balanced than most give Him credit for.  Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen.  Balanced.  Healthy.  Resilient.

We can strip a piece of land completely bare and construct a whole city with massive buildings and roads and sidewalks.  If we walk away from that city, it does not take very long at all for nature to take that land back over.  Anyone who has used even some of the nastiest and harshest herbicides to kill all plant life on their property can testify that life finds a way.  The earth is not quite as fragile as some politicians and scientists claim.

The earth will certainly be destroyed, but it will be by God and not by us.  This doesn’t mean that we should treat it poorly because between now and then, we have to live in it together.  However, that doesn’t mean that we have to be so cautious and careful that we stop living and using natural resources in a false sense of duty and responsibility to preserve them for eternity.

2 Peter 3:10-14

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be burned up.

11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

God’s creation is amazing and resilient!  One day be destroyed, until then, God has entrusted us to steward this planet and the life on it well.

Vote for leaders who will use wisdom in implementing balanced and healthy environmental monitoring and restrictions.