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Foundational Principles for Life January 19, 2014

Updated: Nov 9, 2019

INTRODUCTION – In a nation full of bad news, surely one of the few fronts on which we consistently hear good news these days is that of advances in the pro-life movement. Recent polling shows the majority of Americans (58 %) view abortion as morally wrong. The majority of young people (ages 18-29) self identify as pro-life; 83 % of Americans endorse significant restrictions on abortion.


One of the reasons I believe why the tide is turning is because more and more people are learning how God feels about life in the womb. And that is where I want to begin our discussion this morning. Six principles – four about how God sees and feels and is involved with life in the womb; the last two about how He wants to use us to help protect and fight for the life He has created in the womb. I. God Opens and Closes Wombs – He Alone Decides Whether a Woman Can get Pregnant and when. One of the first places we see this is with Jacob’s wives – Leah and Rachel – Gen. 29:31 “Now the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.” Out of bitter jealousy at Leah’s ability to get pregnant, Rachel demanded that her husband “Give me children or else I die.” – Gen. 30:2 “Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from the fruit of the womb?”


In first Samuel ch. 1 we are introduced to a couple , who would become the prophet Samuel’s parents. But before that happened this wife had some issues with Elkanah – her husband’s other wife – – – I Sam. 1:4-6 “When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; but to Hannah he (Elkanah) would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival (Peninah), however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb.”


– Psalm 127:3 “Behold children are a gift of the Lord, ” Thus the ability to get pregnant is an intentional gift or grace from God.


II. God uniquely, personally and intentionally creates every person in the womb. Job – speaking of how wrong it would be to mistreat another human being said, “Did not He who made me in the womb make him, And the same one fashion us in the womb?” Job 31:15 – David – in a prayer to God said, “For you formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:13 – King Solomon said in Eccl. 11:5, “Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.” – God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..” Jeremiah 1:5a


God sees each person before they are even conceived; and He uniquely and individually creates and forms them in the womb.


III. God uniquely calls and gives destiny to each individual before they are conceived and begins to bring about their destiny in the womb:

– The angel of the Lord said to Samson’s mother, “For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” Judges 13:5 (spoken before she got pregnant)


– David in Psalm 139:13-16 “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.”


– Isaiah’s call – “Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named me.” Isaiah 49:1


– God to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you.” Jeremiah 1:5


– Angel to Zechariah – John the Baptist’s father, “ For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.” Luke 1:15


– The apostle Paul, “But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace…” Galatians 1:15


Not only are their little personalities and temperaments, complexions, genders, etc., decided before their conception and formed in the womb by God’s creative loving hand, but so are their destinies and callings.


IV. In God’s view – whether inside or outside the womb – he/she is a baby, not a blob.


– When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the “baby” leaped in her womb (Luke 1:41) (cf. vs.44). Same word as in I Peter 2:2 “like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word.” Brephos


Summary of 1st 4 principles: The Living God has always and will always be intimately involved with the creation and formation of every human on the planet. There are no accidents. And we dare not seek to undo what He has done. He sees babies in the womb as fully human.


V. God gives the responsibility to protect life to His church and to gov’t.

– Prov. 21:3 “To do righteousness and justice is desired by the Lord more than sacrifice.


– Prov. 24;11,12 “Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say, “See, we did not know this,” Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?”


– Prov. 31:8 ,9 “Open your mouth for the mute, For the rights of all the unfortunate (lit. “sons of passing away”). Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.”


– Romans 13:3,4 For rulers are not cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. ….for it is an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”


– Eph. 5:11 “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;”


VI. God gives the church the responsibility to extend mercy and healing to those wounded and scarred by abortion.

– “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.” John 20:23


– “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” II Cor. 5:18,19


CONCLUSION – video clip of a young lady who had an abortion, but who experienced the amazing grace and forgiveness of God


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