genesis 1:26-28

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Genesis 1:26-28 and the fact that human life, created by God, is and always will be sacred.

- Sermon Transcript - 

Today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. It's a day for us, I think, as a people to celebrate the great gift of life, to give God thanks for physical life and even more for eternal life, that we should be praising God for the joy of being alive. And it's a chance for us to renew our zeal for life and our thankfulness for children, just giving thanks to God for the gift of children and also to renew our zeal to protect children from the spirit of the age in which we live. You heard what I just prayed? And Jesus said of the devil that he was a murderer from the beginning, John 8:44. But the Bible says that children are a gift from the Lord, as it says in Psalm 127:3, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward." And so we have a great reason for celebration every day, but as we focus on the sanctity of human life, we should do so with a heart of celebration. We also do so with a heart of grief. We're aware, in our country as around the world, the scourge of abortion and we should grieve over that. 

The Sanctity of Human Life Sunday occurs in a January near the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision, January of 1973. So the Roe vs. Wade decision turned 41 this Wednesday. And since 1973, the deaths of more than 54 million children have been reported in the United States alone. Every year, approximately 1.21 million more unborn children are aborted, and that's a hard number to get a hold of this morning. I was reading one website that put it this way, the bloodiest day of battle in the military history of our country was Antietam during the Civil War, 1862. Twenty-three thousand people died altogether at that battle, and I can't even imagine what it was like to be in the various communities when the reports of that battle came back. But that's basically an Antietam every five days in our country. Every five days, 23,000 more, and it's just really a great tragedy, so it's a day of grief for us, a day of sorrow and also of repentance. Always for us to come back and say, Lord, show me my sin and turning again to Christ and receiving grace concerning our sins.

Thirdly, I think for us, it's a day of hope. As we look ahead to the future, I want us to do so with hope. Christians should be filled with hope. There is no sin pattern, there is no evil in this world, in this universe, that's permanent. Amen? Jesus is Lord of all. And so it happens that this day also falls near Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is tomorrow, a day in which we celebrate one of the achievements of one of the great leaders in American history as he stood against injustice and institutional racism and for civil rights. And he, I think, had to be imbued with a special sense of hope, as well, because the odds were so great and it was so difficult, but for us, we have to face what I consider to be an even greater civil rights issue. I consider abortion to be the greatest civil rights issue of our day, the greatest since people were enslaved in our country. And whereas the Jim Crow laws unjustly deprived African Americans of rights and freedoms and access that others had, abortion deprives individuals of life, far worse in that way. And Dr. King, I think, Martin Luther King Jr. is an example of hope for us. We can be and should be, people of hope. We can imagine a day in which not only racism but abortion will be gone.

And I go beyond that, I look forward to the day when there'll be no sin at all, amen? No sin and we will be free at last and that's going to be the day of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. When Christ is openly reigning in the new Heaven and the new Earth will be free from all of those things. So Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, I think, is a day for us to celebrate life, to grieve over abortion and to look ahead with hope and with resolve. In many ways, we are winning this battle and we need to look at that. We are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of people. 

"Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, I think, is a day for us to celebrate life, to grieve over abortion and to look ahead with hope and with resolve. In many ways, we are winning this battle and we need to look at that. We are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of people. "

In the last three years, more pro-life legislation has been passed in our country than in the previous 10 years combined. And so what that's doing is more and more displaying and also effectively helping to change the hearts of people, younger people, people in their twenties and more and more are against abortion. They see it for what it really is. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, who is not pro-life, talked about the changing attitudes toward abortion on the Fox News Channel as "The Story of the Year Culturally". Called it “The Story of the Year Culturally”, and he explained why the nation has become more and more pro-life. He said, "The fact that people are becoming aware of how late-term abortions are so near to infanticide, also how new technology and ultrasounds are giving people awareness of how much an infant has developed in the womb, so the movement has stopped in that direction, actually has reversed, especially among young people." So that's very, very encouraging. We should be encouraged. We are winning the battle on this front.

Now we know the bigger battles, the battle against sin universally, and that's something that will be fought until Jesus returns, we know that. But for us as Christians, the battle must be ultimately a battle concerning truth, especially scriptural truth, and so we wanna look to the Bible and we wanna look to truth and try to understand what God says. So it's just a simple outline. This is not an expositional sermon on Genesis 1, much as I'd love to do that. You know how I love to do that. But what I wanna do is just look at this issue of the sanctity of human life, I wanna ask five questions and seek to answer them biblically. First of all, what does the sanctity of human life mean? Secondly, what is life? And talk about that. Thirdly, when does human life begin? And fourthly, what are the implications of all of that for us as Christians? That's gonna be the application section of the sermon. And then fifth, I just wanna speak a word concerning guilt and overcoming feelings of guilt. I feel like all of us need to hear that word of grace, and so that's how I'm gonna end the message.

I. What Does the Sanctity of Human Life Mean?

So let's begin with this question, what does sanctity of human life mean? And I wanna begin with a painful personal story. Some of you know this story, a number of weeks ago I killed a horse. It's true. I was driving with three of my kids and we were at a four-way stop and it was dark and we accelerated and then suddenly right ahead of me was a horse's head straight on attached to the horse. Straight on, I could see both the eyes of a horse and I don't even think I had time to brake. And soon my windshield was crushed in and my car was destroyed. I've said this, a number of you, that the horse and my car took each other out of this world. So the car was gone and the horse sadly died there in the road and I felt very badly about that, but very grateful for the lives of my children and for myself. I was grateful that we were alive. I feel if we were going 40 or 50 instead of about 20, as we were, I don't know how we would have survived. 

Well, what happened after that was a bit odd. I immediately called my wife and then called 911, and I was just sitting there, well not stunned but a little bit, and just trying to think of what had just happened. My window was down and this car came by on the other side with its window down. It was a woman, and I'm gonna try to get her tone of voice, if I can. "Did you call 911?" I said, "Yes, I just made the call." "Good, because if you don't, I will." And the window rolled up and she drove off. 

By contrast, another person, another woman came a minute later and said, "Is everyone all right?" What a contrast! So that started to actually burn in me a little bit, that whole encounter, so much so that a few days later, as I was there at the men's Bible study. I got up and I just felt the need to do this. I wrote up on the white board, “People greater than animals”. I just feel like we need to say that in our culture today. I think it's a wonderful thing to love our pets, it's a wonderful thing, and I do not feel happy about having killed a horse, but I am so grateful none of my children were killed. So people are greater than animals, is that biblically true? Absolutely, it's biblically true. Jesus said it plainly in many different places. For example, in Matthew 10:31, he said, "Do not be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows." Actually, biblically, that's an understatement. But there it is intrinsically, we are worth more than many sparrows. 

"People are greater than animals – is that biblically true? Absolutely, it's biblically true."

And then he said a few chapters later in Matthew 12:11-12, he said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep?" So this is a clearly a biblical theme. This is the sanctity of human life, that people are special. People are unique. They're sacred. That's what sanctity means, set apart unto God as special. Set apart unto God from creation. We are worth more to God than any other thing in the physical universe. So the word sanctity means sacredness, and this comes from the text you heard Ashok read for us at the beginning here in Genesis 1. Listen to verses 26-27 again, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground. [Verse 27] So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them."

So there is a sacredness to the creation of man, male and female, in the Genesis account. The flow of the narrative seems to make the moment of human creation very special day one, day two, all the way to day six. God is crafting and shaping and preparing the world really for us. And then I think the climax is the seventh day in which God... I picture it, God in effect sitting down in the throne room of the universe, reigning over all things. But clearly the creation of man in his image is the pinnacle of physical creation. We are made with a special task. I find it in the verse that's up over the mission's map there, right outside the door. Habakkuk 2:14, it says, "The Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." That's our job. That's our role. We are to fill the earth and subdue it and roll over it, and then know the glory of God that just it fills, the universe is filled with his glory, and it's our job in our minds, our hearts to know that glory and to praise him for it. And so we are given a special role in creation for that.

Now, Adam was created in the image of God, but also all of his descendants, we are also in the image of God. And so it says in Genesis 5, when Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness and in his own image, and he named him Seth. So we are in the image of Adam, Adam in the image of God, all of us in the image of God, and that's made very plain also after the flood. In Genesis 9:6, there God speaks these words, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man.” So it's lasting, it's not just Adam, but the entire human race. And this is also established in the book of James. And there it says in James 3:9, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God's likeness." So our fall into sin did not remove the image of God. It definitely marred it or defaced it, theologians would say, but we are still in the image of God. So that's the essence of the sacredness, the sanctity of human life.

Now, you can say, what does it mean to be in the image of God? One theologian I was reading, Louis Berkhof, said there are five elements to us as human beings, being in the image of God. First the soul. We have a soul, and that has God-like attributes of simplicity and spirituality and invisibility and immortality. So we're like God in our souls. Second, the mind. Our ability to think and to reason and to choose is in the image of God, our minds. Thirdly, our moral nature. The fact that God-like attributes of goodness and righteousness and holiness and love, that's in the image of God. God has those attributes. Then there's the body, our body. Though God doesn't have a body, yet our body is part of us being in the image of God, so that if you were to injure, not kill but injure another person, you're attacking the image of God. And that's where the whole eye for eye and tooth for tooth came from because it is of significance even to remove an eye or take a tooth from another human being. That's a significant thing because we're in the image of God. And then finally, fifthly, man's position in the world is God-like. We rule over the world like God rules over us and over everything. And so those are the elements of the image of God, every one of us.

And we are given a special role toward creation that no other animal has, no animal, no fish has this role, the role of ruling over the earth and subduing it, etc. In Genesis 2:15, it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Or literally, to serve it and protect it. God provides for the needs of every living creature. It says that in Psalm 104. “He opens His hand, satisfies the desires of every living creature.” He feeds all the whales, and that's a big job. Tons of plankton every day, and God feeds them. But we take a bit of that role, too, when we care for domestic animals and feed them and protect them and nurture them, take them in from a storm and all that, and so we're acting God-like to our animals. It says in Proverbs 12:10, "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel." So animal cruelty is not God-like, that's not God's nature.  Psalm 8 does a beautiful job of setting us properly in order. Psalm 8 says, " ." So God's majesty is set high and lifted up in Psalm 8. It ends the same way, "Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth." The alpha and the omega of the Psalm is God's majesty. God is infinitely greater than man. 

And then the Psalmist David goes on to talk about how the cosmos humble us. "When I consider the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have created... " When I look up at the sun and all that. It's important for us to realize the sun, the moon and the stars were not put under us for us to exercise dominion over them. We have no such authority, we have no power, we have no ability to do that. They are above us and they humble us. So David says, "When I consider those things, I think this thought, 'What is man that You're even mindful of them?'" But then we get the statement that God has made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with honor and glory. Why? Because he put everything under our feet, the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, everything put under us. So I love that. Above all things, God's majesty. The cosmos humbles us, too, but we have a measure of glory and honor because we were put in charge of this physical earth. So that's what I think it means when we talk about the sanctity of human life. 

And what that means, especially, is that it makes murder especially heinous. It's an attack on God, really. So the murder of another human being is an attack on God. "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man." And again, if you look at that James verse, it's not enough to just not murder. If you speak harshly against human beings, [James 3:9] "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God's likeness." Not only should you not murder, you shouldn't even curse them, because they are in the image of God. So I think that's very, very significant. So that's the first question. What is the sanctity of human life?

"The murder of another human being is an attack on God."

II. What Is Life?

Then the second question is maybe even more complex. What is life itself? What do we mean by life? We're trying to celebrate life. Well, what is it? How shall we understand it? Well, first, let's just say this, life is amazing. Life is just amazing. One of the most incredible experiences I've had as a homeschooling dad is to teach my kids biology and have the opportunity of going through biology. I didn't like biology in 9th grade. All right, but I love it now. As a pastor, I love it because it just puts God on display. And life is just so complicated and yet so fragile. It really is very, very exquisitely complicated, and yet because there is death, it's fragile, too.

So how complex is life? Well, incredibly complex. Some of you are gonna like the next few minutes of the sermon, some of you won't. Okay? But I love this kind of stuff. I love looking at just the science and the amazement of the world around us, and especially when it comes to biology. The simplest free living organism that God made is a bacterium that lives in the digestive tract of primates, apes, and monkeys, and all that. It's the simplest one they found. It's got 580,000 base pairs of DNA and 482 protein coding genes. Now, a research team headed by a man named Dr. Craig Venter decided they were gonna come up with a computer model for the basic life functions of this bacterium, and so they read over 900 journal articles about this bacterium. I find it amazing there are 900 about this bacterium. But scientists, you get research grants, and off you go. Don't get me started on that one, but there it is. And so they're studying this, and in those 900 scientific papers, this research team, this computer bio-mechanical team, isolated 1900-specific parameters that seemed to govern how that cell operated. And then they broke it into 28 separate modules that governed functions that kept it alive. And then they modeled how they interfaced with each other and got the whole thing down to a 10-hour life cycle. 

That's about how long this thing lives, 10-hour life cycle until it could reproduce and die. And it took a cluster of 128 computers networked together to model this one 10-hour life cycle of the simplest living organism there is. There is no such thing as a simple living organism. Life is immensely complex. Most biology textbooks begin with the paramecium. You remember the little guy, the paramecium? Vastly more complicated than what I've just described. Whereas that one had 482 genes, the paramecium has 39,642 genes. And not just the complexity of an individual single-celled animal or us, multi-, you know, organs and systems and all that. It's how we are in a vastly complex intricate web of life with other living organisms in this whole system. Humans can't really model it. If they try to get this self-contained ecosystem, it usually dies within a short time because it's hard to get everything exactly balanced, but God has balanced everything on this planet in a marvelous web of life. Life is amazing. Life comes from God. God, our God, is alive. He is the I Am. Tell them, God said this to Moses, "Tell them, I Am sent you."

I am the I Am. I always exist. I am the I Am. And so in Deuteronomy 5:26 it says, "What mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived?" Our God is the living God, as opposed to the dead gods of the nations that are really just figments of human imagination impersonated by demons. That's all the gods of the nations are. But our God is alive. And so it says in Psalm 96:5, "All the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens." The clearest statements on life is in John's Gospel. It says in John 5:26, "As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted to the Son to have life in Himself." That's self-existence. And then John 1:1-4, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life." In him... who's the him? In Jesus. All life is in Jesus, whether those living people know him or not. All life is in Jesus, and that life is the light of men.  

So all living things are created by God. Revelation 4:11, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will, they were created and continue to have their existence." So all things exist in God and continue to have their existence, and not only that, but all things exist in Jesus. Colossians 1:16-17, "For by Him [Christ], all things were created, things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him, and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Now, there's a vast difference between nonliving things that God's holding together and living things that God is holding together. So nonliving things like basic elements; the rocks and water, and metals like gold and silver and lead, and things like fire, the sun, the moon and the stars, these are nonliving things. They were created by God for his glory, but they're not alive. Conversely, you have living things like grass and trees and porpoises, and butterflies and eagles and donkeys and human beings. We're alive. Now, life itself is a mystery, it's very, very difficult to define.

If you go online and try to get a definition, it's very hard. You can't really put it into words. So they usually talk about functions. Something that does the following six things is alive. It's really, really hard to do it any other way. And if it doesn't do these things, it's not alive, biologically. So made up of cells, able to adapt to environment, things like that. Able to promote its own survival, can reproduce, can grow and develop over time, can obtain energy from its surroundings in unique special ways like by photosynthesis or by consuming.

Now, Genesis 1 speaks of God creating living things of various kinds, plants of various kinds, and sea creatures of various kinds, and birds, and land animals and insects and beasts of the field, and just this amazing intricate array of kinds and types in the genetic code, and they reproduce along the pattern of their kinds. And all of it created by God, by the word of his power. God said, Let there be, and there was. Human life is the highest, most complex physical thing God ever made. The human brain has 100 billion neurons in it, 100 billion, that's the same number as the number of trees in the Amazonian rainforest.

And the interconnections between them equal the same number of leaves on those trees. That's in one brain. Scientific American recently did a study on the memory capacity of the brain, and they say if you use your full mental capacity, you would be able to memorize up to one-quarter of all of the printed material in the Library of Congress, in all the books in the Library of Congress. Most of you haven't reached that level. As a matter of fact, there was a Far Side thing that I came across. Gary Larson and I used to love that. What a weird thing, he had a weird way of thinking. But a kid with an unusually small head raised his hand in class and said, "Teacher, my brain is full. Can I be excused for the rest of the day?" So your brain will never be full. There's always more that you can take in, and more, you can learn. We are the most complex physical thing God ever made. And our physical life is a gift from God. As it says in Acts 17:28, "In Him we live and move and have our being." And we also ought to say, in the book of James, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.

So if it's God's will, you'll keep being alive. It says in Daniel, Daniel chapter 5, God was so greatly dishonored by Belshazzar because he was worshipping the gods of iron and bronze and wood and stone. And Daniel says, “You did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways.” So for us as Christians, we honor the God who holds in our hand, our lives and all of our ways. The highest form of life there is, is eternal life, and that eternal life comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ. It's very clearly asserted throughout the Gospel of John. John's writings, I think, are the clearest on life. It's a big theme with John, he loves to talk about life. And in 1 John 5:11-13, it says that, "This is the testimony, God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have life."

"The highest form of life there is, is eternal life, and that eternal life comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ."

So that life comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Well, what is it? What's the essence of that eternal life? In John 17:3, Jesus said, praying to his Father, "Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Do you know him? Are you alive? Not just biologically, but are you alive to God spiritually? Have you come to faith in Christ? Have you trusted in Him? It is by our sins, we died. Romans 7, the law came, sin sprang to life and I died. The Apostle Paul said that. We are dead in our transgressions and sins, and it is Jesus alone and his blood shed on the cross that can cleanse us from all sins. 

Are you alive? What is that life like? Well, you just go through John's Gospel and you find out. It's like having an abundance of the highest quality wine to celebrate at a wedding. It's John 2. It's like being born again. It's such a new transformed existence, it's like being born again, John 3. It’s like having a well of water inside you springing up again and again and refreshing you, John 4. It’s like being born blind, John 9, and suddenly you can see all the colors of the universe in their radiant, John 9. It's like John 6, having a continual feast through the flesh and blood of Jesus. Because he died, we can feed and get energy and joy from Christ crucified and resurrected. It's like having rivers of living water inside you flowing out, blessing other people. That's what life is. And it will never end. Death will not stop it. Because in John 11, Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" He asked, do you? Because if you do, you'll live forever. So we don't need to fear the ending of biological life. That will come if the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime. You will biologically die, but you will live forever, and someday he's gonna give you a new body, a resurrection body, and in that, you will live forever. So that is the gift of life.

III. When Does Human Life Begin?

Now, let's ask this question. When does human life begin? Thirdly, when does human life begin? Well, at the center of this abortion debate is this issue of personhood, when does human life begin? The personhood of the pre-born is everything in this debate, it's everything. If the pre-born infant is just a conglomeration of cells, then it really is a private decision between a woman and her doctor to have it removed, no different, frankly, than a benign tumor being removed from inside the body. It's elective. It's up to you. It's not threatening you, but you can have this decision and you can make this decision, that's all it is. But if the pre-born infant is truly an identifiable and genetically separate human being, it should be protected by the laws of the land. It's no longer a private decision. It's no longer a woman's right to choose. Some have suggested... and I like this, the toddler test. The toddler test. Treat the child inside the womb like you would a toddler, okay? And whatever you can do or should be able to do in reference to the toddler, then you can do to the child inside the womb.

"If the pre-born infant is truly an identifiable and genetically separate human being, it should be protected by the laws of the land. It's no longer a private decision. It's no longer a woman's right to choose."

Now, let me ask a question, does it really make a difference in reference to the two-year-old, how he or she was conceived? What if that child was conceived by rape? What if that child was conceived by incest? What if that child was an unwanted child, an unwanted pregnancy? Do you see? The toddler test means everything. If that child's a human being, killing it is not an option. Not an option. It's very, very important for us to set that up and be very clear on it. I don't like politically expedient answers. We need to go to the truth, and the truth is that child is human from conception. Now, how do you know that? How can we know that? Well, the Bible goes there first and tells us, and science is now telling us, too. So let's do Bible first because it's far more important. In Job chapter 10:9-12 and also in Psalm 139:13-14, we have clear evidence of God's direct activity in forming the human being inside the mother's womb. He is actively involved. Though from a human perspective, there are many accidental children, from God's perspective, there are none. Can you imagine God saying to the couple, "Look what you made me do. I had to make this human being because you did this."

 It doesn't work that way. God gives that child its form physically and also its eternal soul. God doesn't do that accidentally. It's an activity of God inside the mother's womb. Job 10:9-12, "Remember that you molded me like clay. Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews. You gave me life." Psalm 139:13-14, "You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well." So God's directly involved in crafting every baby inside his or her mother's womb. It's marvelous. But does that mean it's human from conception? Well, again, there's Scriptural indications. Let's talk about the negative side, sinfulness. It says in Psalm 51:5, David said this, "Indeed I was guilty when I was born. I was sinful when my mother conceived me." Very significant. And again, Psalm 58:3, "Even from birth, the wicked go astray. From the womb, they are wayward and speak lies." All right, that's talking about the doctrine, the biblical doctrine of original sin.

It's clearly described for us in Romans, chapter 5, when Adam sinned, the whole human race sinned in him, and we were all condemned as sinners because we are sons and daughters of Adam, we're human. That settles the humanity of conception. From the moment of conception, we're sinful because we're human. And so from that very moment. And then as the baby develops inside the mother's womb, that we have even capacity, biblically, we have this... and when the pregnant Mary, pregnant with Jesus, went to visit the pregnant Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, and the two of them had an incredible time together, a special time. And we know this in Luke 1:44, John the Baptist leaped inside Elizabeth's womb when the greeting of Mary reached Elizabeth's ears. Luke 1:44, "As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped [and here are the keywords] for joy." Joy is a personal trait, it's a human trait, and John was really excited to be near Jesus. Ah, wait a minute. Now, where was Jesus in His fetal development? Very, very soon after conception. And so in the verse before that, Elizabeth says, "Why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come and visit me?" So the Lord is already there in the womb.

She's already a mother, Mary is, and not just a mother of anybody. We’ll see how it turns out, “mother of my Lord.” Friends, I just think biblically that settles it. Amen? I don't think there's anything else to say from conception biblically. But we're seeing this more and more scientifically. Oftentimes scientists think that they have arguments against biblical truth. I don't think they ever do. I love both science and the Bible. I am a scientist who's a Christian. You don't wanna reverse that, trust me. I'm from Boston. You don't wanna be claiming to be a Christian scientist. But I am a scientist who loves Christ. Let's do it that way. So science seems to be against some aspects of the Bible. It never is, but it's especially on our side in this one. Fetal development and all that, it just points to the personhood of the pre-born. Eighteen days after conception, the baby's heart starts to beat.

Ron Halbrooks uses that a lot. Two hearts beating, two people in the room. It's just that simple. All right, that's after 18 days. Most women don't even know they're pregnant. Twenty-one days, the heart pumps its own blood of its own blood type through a separate closed circulatory system. By 28 days, eyes, ears, respiratory systems have begun to form. Forty-two days, brain waves recorded, skeleton complete, reflexes present. Seven weeks in, photos of babies sucking their thumb. Eight weeks in, all bodily systems are present, but still developing. Nine weeks, the baby is able to squint, swallow, move tongue, make fist. Make a fist. That's a little scary, all right? Find out about that later. We're not going into parenting right now. This is just fetal development. Eleven weeks, spontaneous breathing movements, has fingernails, body systems are working, all of them. Twenty-three weeks in, 15% chance of viability, that number is probably better. These are a little bit old, these stats, 23 weeks in. That's always getting better and better. We have some amazing doctors that have even been members of this church that are involved in that. It's amazing to see, and some have benefited from their premature babies being so carefully cared for and able to survive. So science is helping to win the day.

You've seen those incredible ultrasound pictures. We actually have a framed ultrasound picture of... Daphne, is it? Okay. I think it's a little creepy, but others like it, but I think... we have better pictures of Daphne. I'm not saying you're creepy, honey. I'm not saying that. She is not pleased. She's not pleased. Help me later. Go talk to her and tell her, it's all good. So the ultrasounds really do help women to see exactly what's happening and who it is that... and Michael Card put it in a beautiful song, "The face is familiar though I've never seen it." Powerful. Face is familiar though I've never seen it, and sometimes the women they just like, it's very, very hard at that point to even consider abortion.

V. What Are the Implications for Us as Christians?

Fourth, what are the implications for us as Christians? Well, this truth has consequences for us. If human life is sacred and if human life begins at conception, then implication number one, Christians should hate abortion. We should be set against it. It should cause us revulsion. Our study of the Bible on this, our study of biology, on fetal development, all of this settles forever the humanity of the pre-born. We should hate what abortion does to the primary victims of abortion, and that's the babies themselves. 

"If human life is sacred and if human life begins at conception, then implication number one, Christians should hate abortion."

We should hate it, but we should also hate what abortion does to the women who get them. They are scarred in many cases, scarred deeply, emotionally, psychologically. I don't wanna say for life, because I believe the grace of God can heal that, can heal that, but there's this deep scarring that goes on. We should hate what abortion does to every doctor and nurse and technician and secretary and advocate and politician and judge in our country, how it hardens their hearts against a spiritual truth in many profound ways. It sears the conscience and hardens the heart. We should hate abortion all over the world. We should hate abortions done for gender selection in China and India and other places. 

We should hate how abortion twists the minds and hardens the hearts of people. Our country's schizophrenic. I just talked about how premature babies can be rescued and protected, but in the same hospital also aborted. It just doesn't make much sense. In some states, a pregnant woman driving to the abortion clinic, if she gets in an accident and the baby dies, she lives, the driver can be charged with manslaughter in reference to her child. But if that doesn't happen and she continues, she can go ahead and abort the child. It's schizophrenic. It doesn't make sense. It twists, like it says, "A bribe blinds the eyes of the judge and twist the minds of the righteous." That's what abortion does. It twists our nation, makes us strange-thinking. 

Implication number two. Christians should never get an abortion. Christians should never get an abortion. One of the most tragic aspects for me in studying this are the statistics of the number of babies that are aborted to women who claim to be born again or members of evangelical churches, 110,000-125,000 a year. That's a lot of babies. Percentage-wise small but still just a huge number of babies. So I thought about, why does this happen? And it moves in two different directions. I think first, there's greater shame for sexual sin in the Christian community, so there's more of a desire to hide and to go underground, whereas there's not as much out in the world. There should be, but there isn't. And second of all, there's a misuse of grace. Satan misapplies grace and changes it into a license for sin. And he's always doing that, he's always switching the two. So that before you've committed the sin, it's like, "Oh, God will forgive, God will forgive." Then after you commit the sin, "God will never forgive." He does exactly opposite of what grace actually does. Ahead of time, God warns us not to sin, and is gracious in that way. I'll talk more about that in a moment. But afterwards, he cleanses us. 

So we have to be sexually pure. We live in a highly-sexualized culture, and we need to be sexually pure. We need to protect our hearts and minds. Sexual purity among teens and on college campus is stunningly low and it's mocked actually. Virginity is mocked. The church needs to help young people not lead themselves into temptation sexually. Willing to tread on some toes here, but I want to warn you against recreational dating. I wanna warn against recreational dating. What do I mean by that? Dating just to date. Whatever you call dating or courting or whatever, the purpose of a young man and a young women getting together is to answer a question, "Should we be married or not?" If that's not even on the radar screen, don't pair up, because all you're gonna do is lead yourself into temptation. Joshua Harris wrote a good book, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye". And I think parents need to read this book before permitting minors to date. People who have no intention of getting married need to consider this, read the book and just save yourself and protect yourself until it's time to get married. 

Now, I was asked recently, "Well, how do you know?" It's like when the time comes and the young man is able to support a wife, young woman, they're ready to be parents and all that, then you get together, you spend time together. It's dating, courting, whatever you call it. But you're answering that question. Kevin and I have talked a lot about this. We both feel very, very... we're in complete agreement. He sent out something to the youth saying, basically, a young man and young woman shouldn't do anything that they wouldn't do with their sister or brother, right? Sister or brother. I put it with my kids, "Anything that you'd be uncomfortable seeing me do with a woman, don't you do that with one another." So you know, there are hugs and then there are hugs. Okay? 

So, let's be careful. All right, sexually, okay? Grace says no to sin. Titus 2, "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." Grace also covers us when we do sin, more on that in a moment.

Implication number three. Christians should pray daily, actively, for an end to this abortion scourge. God can do it. God's done greater things than this. It's greater to raise Jesus from the dead. Amen? Greater. It's greater to save you from your sins. So let's pray. It says in Matthew 21:22, "If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer." So let's believe and trust Him for that. 

Implication number four. Christians should persuade others concerning abortion. This is where it gets tough, but speak up. Be willing to speak to relatives and coworkers and neighbors and others when the issue comes up. Now, this is not more important than the gospel. The gospel is more important than this, but when it comes up, be willing to speak up. And we've got resources available. Kevin mentioned it and we've got these cards that we put for some websites you can go to. We've got books in the North Tower Resource Center. Stock up your arsenal of your mind and so that you're able to give good arguments and good defenses for pro-life. Be willing to speak up. Be willing to be a fork in someone's road. Be willing to speak up.

Implication number five. Christians should care actively for women in crisis pregnancies. We have the baby bottle blessings and we'll hear about that in a few minutes, but I do have another half hour to go, don't I? I don't? Just kidding. That wasn't my reasons for the time change. I want you to know that, but it says it's only 18 out here. So anyway, I'm finishing, I'm finishing real fast, real fast. So we should get actively involved. There are excellent, not just here in Durham, but in Raleigh as well, crisis pregnancy centers that could use your time, energy and money. Let's give ourselves to that. It is not true that the pro-life cause doesn't care for the women. That's why we're winning. It's because we have shown active care and concern for the women themselves and not just for their babies. 

Implication number six. Christians should seek to change abortion laws. And I make it plural, not the big, necessarily the big one, but just chop, chop, chop, chop, little by little, abortion gets harder and harder to get access to. There's more and more regulations on it, etc., and then just... they know what's happening. The pro-aborts know that that's what's going on. This is a good strategy, and it's reflective of the change of minds and hearts of the American people. So we should keep praying for that, and more and more restrictive laws, more and more laws like the one passed in Minnesota this past year, requiring women seeking abortion to look at an ultrasound of their baby. And it's funny. In medical areas, you always want more relevant information, as much relevant information as possible, and on this one, they don't want it. I know why. Okay?

VI. How Do I Overcome My Guilt?

All right, finally, how should I overcome my guilt? How do I overcome my guilt? There's plenty of guilt in this, plenty of guilt. There are sins of commission, things that people have actually done in this area, women that have actually gotten abortions, men that have urged women to get abortions, and so it has happened. Medical personnel who have been involved in the abortion industry. Lawmakers, politicians, judges, others have actually done things in this area and they feel guilty. And then there are sins of omission. Failing to get involved, failing to speak up, failing to give financially, failing to sacrifice your time to help in certain ways, just not doing things God would have you do. There's plenty of sin to go around, and so for me, this is just whenever there's those feelings of conviction and guilt, they should lead straight to the cross. It's not good to say, "I'm not guilty, I'm just feeling guilty." No, we're guilty because we violated God's laws. What we need to do is go to the cross and realize God sent his Son to die on the cross for all manners of sin and blasphemy, all manners of sin that can be forgiven by the blood of Jesus.

So let's run to the cross. Let's find forgiveness there. Christ redeemed us. Have you heard this? From the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Praise God. In Him, Ephesians 1:7, "We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." What about my regrets? Bring them to Christ. Regrets are helpful now. Memories are helpful now. But you'll have no shame and no regrets after Judgment Day. When you go to Heaven, there'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Nothing will cause you any misery, no psychological pain, no emotional pain. We'll be free at last. In this life, we need those pains, we need those painful reminders, so we don't sin again. But in Heaven, you don't need any pain. We'll be free from it forever.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the Gospel of Grace, and we're able to stand and look at the spirit of the age, the enemy that's against life and against the gospel and against human beings. And we are not afraid. We thank you, oh Lord, for the joy of the gospel. We pray that these words would take root in our hearts and transform our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Genesis 1:26-28. The main subject of the sermon is how people being made in God's image is the reason human life is sacred.

- SERMON TRANSCRIPT  -

So this is this morning Sanctity of Human Life, Sunday, it's another opportunity for us to celebrate with great joy the gift of life given us by God himself to celebrate that and to find our significance there, and in the cross of Christ, as I've already mentioned, we are significant because we are human, we are significant because Jesus shed His blood for us, and we've come to trust in Him, and we're born again through faith in Christ. People are searching for esteem, self-esteem. They're searching for significance, that's where we'll find it, not in anywhere else, so it's a time for us to celebrate those things, but it is also a time for us with sadness to look at the attacks on the sanctity of human life that are going on around us, through abortion and euthanasia. It is right for us to face that as well, because we have a responsibility concerning these things. And it's so easy for us to start listening to Satan and get confused about what's right and what's true and who we are or what God's calling on us to do. As though the ground were quicksand under our feet...well, it isn't.

We have the unshakable Word of God under us, it will never change, and it makes great promises concerning our future in Christ, but it also lays before us great responsibilities, doesn't it? And in order to be faithful to those responsibilities, we have to have that rock of the Word under us, and that's what I wanna do today. Sanctity Of Human Life Sunday. I say a strong view of the sanctity, the sacredness of human life has been behind some of the most heroic moments in our history. I think it was the mentality of the founding fathers of this nation and the Declaration of Independence, as they looked at the value and worth of common people, all men are created equal, they came up with that concept and then they had to battle over racism and slavery and I think it was a sense of the sanctity, the sacredness of human life that led Abraham Lincoln to sign the emancipation proclamation, somewhat converting the Civil War into a war to end slavery, which it did. As I read the history of soldiers that have won the Congressional Medal of Honor, so many of those incidents were motivated by a desire to save life. Like there would be buddies that were out in the field and people would go out and rescue them with no concern whatsoever for their own lives.

I was reading about one soldier in the battle of Guam during World War II who rescued...he doesn't know...somewhere between 50 and 100 fellow soldiers during that savage battle. The congressional medal of honor citation said it right in the middle. He thought humbly it was 50, others said definitely was at least 100, so they set it at 75. He rescued 75 at least soldiers under withering fire, received many injuries to himself, and he lowered these men over a cliff with ropes on a pallet again and again, one by one, one after another, till finally he was overcome by his own wounds. And that's a story we see again and again in those accounts of those who win that highest military award. But it's also motivated rescue teams to risk life and limb and their own security to rescue victims of natural disasters. You see the accounts of rescue workers combing over wreckage, calling for people to see if they're still alive and they'll do anything and everything they can to un-bury them and get them out and rescue them. Or during that earthquake in the Kashmir province of Pakistan back in 2005, there was a blizzard, it was up in high mountainous area after that earthquake, they had a great deal of difficulty bringing rescue supplies for those folks, they never gave up, they kept pressing through because of a sense built into ourselves of the sanctity of human life.

I read an account of some coast guard helicopter crew that went during Hurricane Katrina when the winds were gusting got well over 100 miles an hour, and they got in a helicopter and rescued just three sailors out 10 miles from the eye of the hurricane. Went right into the teeth of it to rescue these folks and get them out. It was the sense of the sacredness, the value of human life, they weren't going after the boat, they were going after the people on the boat, to rescue them and bring them back. Sanctity of Human Life has moved our emotions deeply, both positively and negatively, like when we hear about a baby that's wedged in a drainpipe and finally, they're able to extract it safely and bring it out, we feel a sense elation. Conversely, when you hear in the inner city of a toddler killed by a stray bullet in a gang-related violence, it just crushes me when I hear that, it bothers me because of the sacredness of human life.

As a matter of fact, my first brush with human death, with seeing a human being die, was on a mission trip in Pakistan in 1987, when I saw a little 20-day-old infant who had had diarrhea and the parents cut off the child's fluid intake, the exact wrong thing to do, and it immediately suffered from kidney failure and had double pneumonia by the time we got it, and there was really nothing we could do, and yet this eye surgeon from England labored just with CPR for four hours to just keep this infant alive, even though he knew and we knew we were not solving any of its mortal problems. And eventually he just stopped, and it died within 10 minutes, and we all cried. And there's a sense there of the value and the worth of a human life. Emergency room doctors and nurses will labor and go to extraordinary efforts to save victims from a car wreck in an ice storm. Or in a Neonatal Unit, if the baby has been born prematurely, it's amazing what they can and will do to keep that baby alive and allow it to survive and thrive, and I think a strong view of the sacredness of human life is behind all of these heroic moments. Conversely, the opposite view of human life is behind some of the blackest moments in our history. I will not soon forget my trip to the Holocaust Museum, and I saw one particular display of baby shoes piled up, and I just stood there and I just cried, I couldn't believe it. Here are these shoes no longer needed at that time by the infants, the babies that had worn them into the death camps.

And it is the attack on the value of human life there that is so insulting to us as human beings. Robert Burns in 1785 wrote a poem. The name of the poem is A Dirge, For Man Was Made To Mourn, and he coined a very famous phrase that you hear frequently in the media, and that is. "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. Now, that phrase, man's inhumanity to man, I meditated on this week, I started thinking about it, what I got out of it is we become somewhat sub-human when we deny humanity to another human being. It makes us somewhat less than human, beastly really. We lose a little of our God-given humanity whenever we deny full humanity to other human beings. The Nazis became like beasts when they denied humanity to those that they were slaughtering in the death camps. And so does I think any nation or government or people who denies humanity to any other human being. It's even worse when a systematic denial of humanity gets established or enacted into law by the prevailing government, that's a serious moment in the history of that people.

When government exploits and crushes the weak, government becomes sub-human. Daniel 7 pictured a series of human governments as beasts coming up out of a troubled sea, the fourth was the most devastating. Daniel 7:7 it said, "After that in my vision at night, I looked and there before me was a fourth beast, terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth, it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot, whatever was left." This terrifying vision of human government as beastly or somewhat of a sub-human beast has its roots in the concept of man's inhumanity to man. We become beast-like when we enact laws that strip humanity, strip others of their humanity. And so we come to Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Legalized abortion has been a law of the land for 12,444 days in our country, and as I've said, it is not a small thing when a government declares something immoral as being legal. And therefore I say to you, I cannot know. I do not know the full impact of that decision on the psyche and morality and ethics of our nation, we cannot know. It's too complicated. It's all woven together, what effect it's had on families, what effect it's had on marriages, what effect it's had on parenting, what effect it's had on our economy, on the environment, I don't know, only God knows, but I do know that these things are significant.

They're all woven together. And today, I think it is enough for us to declare again the biblical truth that all human beings are created in the image of God, and that we're committed to that. That human life is sacred, there's a sanctity to human life. To declare again how committed we are to that Biblical truth. To declare again that we are against the demonic spirit that attacks that concept, that truth, we're against that demonic spirit. And to rejoice in the truth that I preached some time ago in Romans 16:20, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Oh, how I yearn for that day. And I look forward to the day when the spirit of the age, which includes the spirit of abortion will be crushed forever. And I look forward to that, and so I'm preaching in hope today. I'm not ultimately defeatist, I think ultimately, abortion will be obsolete along with all the rest of the sins. Hallelujah to that! But in the meantime, we have work to do. In the meantime, we have to stand firmly, even as it seems that the ground is cut out from under our feet. Now when we come to sanctity of human life, we need to ask the question, what do we mean by sanctity? What does that mean? Well, I think it means sacredness or holiness. A sense of something set apart unto God as special to him.

"All human beings are created in the image of God, and that we're committed to that. That human life is sacred, there's a sanctity to human life."

Now, frequently we use the word holiness or sanctity to refer to separation from sin, holiness from sin, I think it's that, but I think there are times that we get indications from scripture, it also just means set apart unto God as special to him. For example, when Moses was at that burning bush, looking at the flames of the burning bush, and he was told, "Take off your sandals for the place where you're standing is holy ground." It is ground that is set apart as special unto God. Or we see, for example, the high priest would wear a plate on his turban that said, "Holy to the Lord." Or it says in Exodus chapter 30, that the blood of the atoning sacrifice was “Holy to the Lord”. Or that the recipe for the anointing oil or for the incense was not to be used for common things, because it was holy to the Lord. And then the people themselves, Israel, were declared to be holy to the Lord out of all the nations on the Earth, He made them to be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests. Deuteronomy 7:6. And so therefore, I say that human life is separated and holy to God, it is sacred to God, that's what we mean by sanctity of human life.

Now, there are many attacks in this world on that sacredness, all of them come from Satan. He is attacking it because he hates us, and so he's attacking non-Christian religions. When my daughter, Jenny and I were in India, we had a chance to look at Hinduism full in the face. And to try to understand Hinduism, we did some study on it before we went. And I see in Hinduism, a consistent attack on the basic idea of the sanctity of human life. For example, the cycles of reincarnation blurs the distinction between us and animal life. You can be reincarnated as something less than human. And so they think it elevates the sacredness of all life. But it flies right in the face of the Genesis 1 teaching that human beings are intrinsically different, created in the image of God. And along with it in that system comes the idea of untouchability, the low castes who are not even part of God. They're not even part of His feet, they're not related to him in any way. And so therefore, when a Dalit (an untouchable) from that caste walks down the sidewalk, they're supposed to sweep behind them so that higher caste people will not be defiled by their foot falls. That's an attack on the sacredness of all human life.

We see it again and again. Those polytheistic animal sacrifice systems that we read about in the Bible, they degraded humanity as the blood thirsty gods demanded that children be sacrificed and burned, and God said something that I did not command and neither did it even enter into my mind. It's an attack on the sacredness of human life. So also philosophies. There are philosophies that attack the sanctity of human life. I was reading about a fascinating man named Peter Singer, who is an ethicist of some sort at Princeton, and he's advocating animal liberation. He's got a book out called Animal Liberation. What he's saying is that there are some animals that are just at this high level of function that we should recognize them legally as persons.

Oh, there should be more laughter there. I mean that we should recognize them legally as persons. He's starting the great ape movement. And so there are certain great apes that should be legally recognized as persons. Peter Singer. But there's a dark side too. Because he would deny personhood to those who, through various reasons, have lost the capacity to think and reason as human beings. Whether Alzheimer's or birth defects, or whatever, they should not be legally recognized as persons. And you know what comes right on the heels of that is euthanasia. It's a dark philosophy, so also other philosophies. Materialism, the idea that all we are is matter. Just stuff. And I don't just mean materialism and that we wanna get as rich as we can, I mean just the basic idea that all we are is matter. Or pragmatism, that just looks at things in terms of their usefulness.

And so the less usefulness you have, the less value you have. These are attacks on the sanctity of human life with dark consequences. Scientific, medical and technological advances have attacked the sanctity of human life. Stem cell research, the fear there is that human embryos will be grown and harvested for their stem cells, thus degrading humanity like we're a crop or something. Now, I know that there are other kinds of stem cells and distinctions could be made, etcetera, but I think there is that concern there that degrades the human being. Secular governments, communism, the value and worth of the individual, just submerged into a concern for the kind of iron clad, monolithic state.  George Orwell wrote a book in 1984, talking about how bleak and dark that human existence is. Or, Nazism as we already talked. Foundational to that is racism, the idea of Aryan superiority, in which one race is better than another, and therefore the lower races can simply be killed. Now, there's a decaying world view in the West, we have less and less a grasp on the sacredness, the sanctity of human life. We're loosening our grasp under all of these attacks, these different kinds of attacks, we're loosening our sense of it. The clearest indication of that is in the country of the Netherlands, which has had legalized euthanasia laws for a while, but in March of 2006, extended that to infants. Stop and think about that. If the infant has an incurable disease that puts it in a high level of pain, it is legal to kill, for the parents, together with the doctor to agree to kill that infant in the Netherlands.

Where does it stop? Some day, society may decide that we are obsolete. I mean, you've got to stand somewhere, there's gotta be a point in which you say enough is enough. This isn't biblical. This is wrong. Yes, it is tragic when people suffer, it is tragic when they're in pain, but do we have the right to come and deprive life from someone else like that? It's a terrible thing. And abortion, there's a special problem with that, because it's been the law of the land in this country for a full generation and more, and there's mentalities and ethics and culture all around it, politics, and it makes it very hard for us to be. We're very intimidated as people to wade into this again and to talk about it and say, "But it isn't right. It's just wrong." And so therefore, God give us courage, God give us boldness to be salt and light here. Our country needs it. It needs the Christians, the churches, the pulpits, the pastors to stand up and tell the truth again, because all of us are together in this. We're all degraded. We're made inhuman by denying personality to those that God gave it to.

"Where does it stop? Some day, society may decide that we are obsolete. I mean, you've got to stand somewhere, there's gotta be a point in which you say enough is enough. This isn't biblical. This is wrong."

 I. Sacred Because Specially Made by God

And so the best thing we can do is to go back to scripture, to Genesis. And Genesis Chapter 1, I think is the best foundation for a strong view on the sanctity of human life. I'm gonna look briefly at five reasons that the text says that we are sacred. First, we are sacred because we are specially created by God. Genesis 1:26, "Then God said let us make man". We are created and not evolved. Evolution is another one of those attacks on the sanctity of human life. Created and not evolved. Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And again and again, in Genesis 1, God speaks in this way, let there be, and there is. You get that again and again. Let there be light, and there's light. Let there be an expanse, a firmament, in the KJV, in the midst of the waters. Let the waters be gathered to one place under the Heavens. Let the Earth sprout vegetation you see. God said, "Let the waters swarm with living creatures." God said, "Let the Earth bring forth vegetation." God uses that kind of language. Not in any way that he's not directly involved in all those things, but to create a special way of speaking when he came to the human being.

Instead of let there be, let there be, let there be, he says, let us make. Do you see the difference? And so he's speaking very personally. He's involved in a fascinating way. "Let us make man." There's a special involvement. Now, that plural has been interesting to people. Let us make man. When I was a kid, I read a book called “Chariots of the Gods” by Erich von Däniken. He said that basically, beings from outer space came to the earth thousands of years ago, and they made the first people, and there's indications of space travelers and all that, fascinating but utter hogwash. But one of the things he said is, all you have to do is just look at Genesis 1:26, and there's proof that there was a multiplicity of the "Let us make". You know, there was a bunch of them making people. Others, as they come to let us make, they say that God is deliberating among the heavenly counsel with angels that are observing what he's doing and applauding. The stars of the Heavens are applauding the creation of God, and I think that that's true, that the angels watch, but they're not involved in creation. And it says, "Let us make." So the "us" that's doing the us-ing is doing the making. Do you see what I'm saying? That's not good grammar but you understand theologically what I'm saying. The one that God is deliberate... He is the one who makes. Let us make man in our image. Christians don't have any problems with this. I believe this is a trinitarian statement. Father, Son and Spirit equally and passionately involved in making the human race in the image of God. That's wonderful. Same kind of plural we get in John 14:23, when Jesus says this, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." Do you have problems with that plural? I don't, I just understand it, it's the best we can do to understand the Trinity. And so we use that kind of language, but here we are, we are sacred because we are specially created by God in a unique way.

II. Sacred Because Created in God’s Image

Secondly, we are sacred because we are created in the image of God. It wasn't just that God specially created us but he specifically created us in his image and in his likeness. Now, what do we mean by image and likeness? Well, the word image was frequently used in the Old Testament to refer to little idols and figurines that were made by polytheists to worship. They would make those idols, those images and then worship them. The very thing that we were forbidden to do in the Ten Commandments. And the Jews entering the promised land, were commanded that they should destroy all of the images of the nations they were dispossessing. And that it was not within our power to make with our hands any accurate representation of God. We can't do it. But here's the fascinating thing, what we are forbidden to do, God in some mysterious way did by making us in his image and after his likeness. The human race in its entirety are created in the image of God, and the perfection of this was in Christ. Colossians 1:15, "He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation." And so in some mysterious way, humanity displays the Glory of God more than anything else that God has ever made. And also this word likeness, I think creates a similarity, but difference.

We are similar to God, but different too. And so there's somewhat of a unity and a closeness, but still a separation there that's very appropriate. And I get that out of Ezekiel Chapter 1. Ezekiel has an incredible, almost indescribable vision of the glory of God, and this is what it says at the end, in Ezekiel 1, "Above the expanse over their heads, there was the likeness of a throne in appearance like sapphire and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God." He's putting words between us and the actual glory of God. He's just saying, I can't really describe it. And so we are in the likeness of God, we are like God. And that's a beautiful thing. Now, what does this mean? Well, I think it means our inner being, our internal selves are created with certain capacities that are God-like. The ability to think and reason, to feel emotion, to build relationships, to converse, to plan for the future, to remember the past, to observe other creatures and understand them to take existing raw materials and shape them into something according to an internal plan and design, to choose and reject, to love and to hate, these things are aspects of the image of God.

But be careful now, let's not follow Peter Singer. Let's not follow utilitarianism, that if you should lose some of those capacities, you become somehow less human or less in the image of God, don't make that mistake 'cause it isn't true. But I think these capabilities are part of what it means to be in the image of God. I think also our bodies fit in there as well. You know, God uses what we call anthropomorphic language. He speaks as though he has a body. Have you ever noticed that? The eyes of the Lord roam to and fro over the surface of the Earth, looking for anyone who will be truly devoted to him. Or it says that God brought Israel out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Do you imagine that God has a hand and an arm? Or the ear of the Lord is not too dull to hear, but your sins have separated you from God, it says in Isaiah. He's not hard of hearing. In another place, he said, he who made the ear, does he not hear? And he who made the eye, does he not see? He just doesn't need the organ of the ear and the eye in order to do what those things do for us. But we are somehow, in the image of God in all of that, created in the image of God. And the scripture clearly testifies that both genders, male and female, equally share in the image of God.

And so God created man in his image, male and female, he created them in the image of God, he created them. And so, God specifically communicates the value of both genders, male and female, and frankly, and we need to say that these days, of sexuality itself. There is a value to it. There is a worth to it. It matters to be male and to be female. And it matters in a good way because it's all part of Genesis 1 where it says, "And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." And so it is a good thing to be a male if you're a male, and it's a good thing to be a female, if that's what God chose for you at the moment of conception. That's when he made the choice, actually, before the foundation of the world, I believe. But physically, you were that from that very moment of conception. And it's a good thing we embrace it, but there is an attack on gender in our culture today, and I think it's part of an attack on the sanctity of human life. And despite our wickedness, despite all of our sin, despite the pollution and corruption that came into the human race after Genesis 3, which we acknowledge and recognize, we are still in the image of God, even still.

And so it says in James 3, speaking of the tongue, the problem of the tongue, with the tongue, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the image of God. "Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers, this ought not to be." And salvation in Christ perfectly restores that image. Isn't that magnificent? We are in our new creation self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Oh, how beautiful is that? If you have come here today and you've never made a commitment to Christ, hear me now. The Lord Jesus Christ has the power to transform you and make you into a new person, to cleanse all of your sins by his blood shed on the cross and to make you to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Isn't that magnificent? Simply trusting in Christ does all of that for you. Through repentance and faith in Christ. But I say to you a corollary of this, the dark side is that attacks on human beings therefore are attacks on God, because we are in the image of God, and that is precisely what Satan wants to do.

The reason he attacks humanity so much, the reason he hates us so much, he wants to murder us so much is that any attack on a human being is an assault on the image of God. So all the false religions that debase humanity, all of the humanistic philosophies that degrade humanity, all of them are bubbling up out of the dark mind of Satan because he hates God, that's what he's doing. And thus, abortion itself, I think is a filthy attack on the image of God. The effort to call the pre-born, a fetus or even worse, a product of conception, there's a mentality behind that to separate it from personhood. It's not a baby anymore when you talk like that, even though the word fetus in Latin just means young one. I tell you what, instead of doing the fetus thing, let's call it what the Latin means, young one, would they like that? I don't think so, because they want to deny personhood, that's why they use the word. God does not deny it. He gave it and he will not deny it, and we must not either.

III. Sacred Because Pre-Eminent Over All Other Earthly Beings

Thirdly, human beings are sacred because we are preeminent over all other Earthly beings. This should be obvious, it's not obvious to Peter Singer. You know, the great ape movement and all that? He wants to make laws to protect animals not from cruelty and all that, which seems reasonable, but to elevate them. I don't know if he's gonna give them voting rights, I don't know what... You can imagine politicians going after the ape vote, you know?

I don't know what they're promising, and if the apes can listen and stroke their bearded chins and say, "I'll get back to you, I'm considering, I'm gonna listen to the other... " It's ridiculous, but there it is. We have a clear... Is it not clear? A clear superiority to every other created being that we see around us. Over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the livestock, the creeping things, everything. Every four years, we have the Olympics. I like to watch the Olympics because that's the best that the human race can do in some certain measurable tangible ways. And the Olympic motto is, "Faster, Higher, Stronger". So I started thinking about the Olympics, if we had kind of a planet-wide Olympics and invited the animals to participate too. Okay? How would we do? Let's take faster, for example, imagine lining up next to a Cheetah, okay?

I don't care who you are, I don't care what university you went to, or if you set the world record or whatever, you are going to lose. If the Cheetah goes off when the gun goes, the Cheetah may go after the guy who shot the gun. But if he could be trained to stay in his lane and go, man, he's gonna hit 70 miles an hour. You have no chance, or in the swimming, a sailfish can go 68 miles an hour, we have no chance, but the turn might be tough for the sailfish. He might wanna go 1000 meters straight and he'll win for sure. But we will lose on the faster one. What about the higher one? Think about the high jump. The human record for the high jump is 8 feet 5 inches. A Puma can do 15 feet. 15 feet. We lose. Okay? We just lose. Well, forget that. Why don't we just go with a bird, how high is the bird gonna go? Okay? Or what's the pole vault record or the long jump record? You know, the human record for the long jump is 29 feet four and a quarter inches. But I learned this, a bar-tailed godwit travels 6300 miles without landing, from Alaska to New Zealand. Try beating that.

6300 miles is an awfully long, long jump. Again, we lose. What about stronger, weight lifting? The Iranian Hercules, a guy in 2004 won the gold medal, Hossein Rezazadeh. And he set the clean and jerk record, all-time record, 580.9 pounds. That's a lot of weight to pull up, and then, you know, this guy is amazingly strong. But in comes the elephant, he's got his trunk, he can do a ton without even sweating. I don't know if elephants sweat, they probably do. But just straight up, again, we lose, but if the rules change a bit and we're allowed to use not just our regular rather mediocre bodies, but everything that we can invent and create and bring that to these events, there is no comparison at all. There's no bird ever that will fly to the moon, literally. But we've been there. That's higher than anything that there has ever been of these created things that started here on Earth. Alright? There's no bird or any animal that can fly faster or go faster than the spy plane, the SR-71, which went three and a half times the speed of sound. After all of it's engineering problems were solved, three and a half times, it's still a record. In terms of deadlift, I found a crane in some shipbuilding yard in Mississippi that can dead-lift 600 tons. 600 tons. It can just pick right up. Like a whole ship and just pick it up. Okay? An elephant can't do that. This is clear evidence of the superiority of the human race over anything else that's made. We were made better, and we have a higher value, "Of how much greater worth are you than a sheep?" Jesus said. There's just a higher value.

IV. Sacred Because Given Dominion by God Over The Earth

Fourthly, we are sacred because with that capacity, we were given that position of dominion on the earth. It wasn't just we're capable for it, it was given to us. We were put in charge. Look what it says, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over the livestock, over all the earth and all the creatures that move along the ground." Verse 28, "God said, Fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Notice how he talks about realms or spheres, the sea, the air, the ground, we're in charge of all of it. The sea, fish naturally swim in the sea and feel comfortable there, far more than we ever will. But it was given to us to rule the sea, the waves. The air, birds naturally soar through the heavens, and they feel comfortable there, but it was given to us to rule the air, to be in charge.

The earth, animals roam the earth, they live a lot closer to the soil than we do, some actually live in the soil and burrow through it. But we rule it, we're in charge over it, because God put us in that position. This is the right to rule coupled with the capacity for it. It was clearly established, and therefore there is a link between us and this planet. We saw it at the curse when Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground because of him. So there's a link, there's a cursing of the ground because of our sin. We see it again in the flood, when everything that breathes the breath of life is destroyed except those animals that are with the man, Noah, on the Ark. There's a link between us. We're in charge. And therefore, we are to use our power and our influence to bless and serve and nurture, not to destroy or crush, just like Jesus did for the church. And so that's the position we're put in, to be that kind of leader. But what did we do? We gave it to Satan at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We gave it over, and so Satan has the temerity to say to Jesus, "I'm in charge of all these kingdoms of the Earth, and I can give it to anyone I want, because it's been given to me."

Who gave it to him? Well, Adam did. Handed it right to him. And you know what Jesus did? He's bought it back through the blood of Christ, he shed his blood to get it back for us. It says in Revelation 5, "They sang a new song to Jesus, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God. Listen, and they will reign on the Earth." He bought it back, he paid a high price and bought it back. Therefore, human life is sacred because we are to rule over the Earth and everything in it. Fifth, we are sacred because we are blessed by God in procreation. "God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply." Do you see how those two have been ruptured by the abortion mentality? "Blessed and told, Be fruitful and multiply." We don't look at children is a blessing anymore. I spent a whole Sunday on this last Sanctity of Human Life Sunday a year ago.

We have to work on this. Children are a blessing from God. Let's not talk about how costly they are, how difficult or any of those things, or every child, a wanted child, like Planned Parenthood tells us, that's ridiculous. Children are a blessing from God, we were blessed so that we could have children to fill the Earth and subdue it. It says in Psalm 1:27, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with him with them, that he shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate."

VI. Summary & Application

Five reasons in Genesis 1:26-28, the human life is sacred. Sacred because we are specially created by God. Sacred because we are created in the image and likeness of God. Sacred because we are, in ourselves, pre-eminent over every other created being, Earthly beings. Sacred because given dominion by God over the Earth and sacred because we're blessed by God in procreation. What application do we take to this? First of all, can I urge you, please, to honor this sacredness in other people?

I mean, out with racism. It makes no sense at all, get rid of it. C S Lewis in his great sermon, Weight of Glory, he stated that every single human being you meet will spend eternity either in Heaven or Hell. And if you could see them now as they will ultimately be, you would see them either so glorious, you would be tempted to worship them, or so hideous you would run away screaming from them. And every significant encounter you have with another human being, hastens them in one direction or the other. That's pretty weighty, isn't it? There are no insignificant people. There are no insignificant encounters with other people. And therefore, one of our applications is respect and honor the significance of humanity by preaching the Gospel to them. Share the Gospel, that's why Jesus came, because of our value, he shed his blood for human beings. And therefore, seek and save the lost. Seek them and save them. Share the Gospel with them this week. We've begun to pray for the cards you gave us last week, we're excited about that, we're already praying, we're waiting for the stories to come back in of how God used you to lead those folks to Christ. But honor the fact that they're created in the image of God and can be recreated by the blood of Christ. Be faithful in that. And on the abortion issue, learn how to make a defense for the truth that you believe.

I have this book here, Randy Alcorn's book, Pro-life Answers to Pro-choice Arguments. Get a book like this. Study some of these things. Work with the mind so that you're not ashamed but know how to give a defense for what you believe. Start with the Scripture foundationally. Look at the five points I've made today, establish what may have been a little murky in your mind under the rock-solid foundation of the Word of God, and be active. You have some bulletin inserts. There's a beautiful one there from Focus On the Family, look at the pictures of the development of these babies in their mother's wombs. It's beautiful. Praise God for it. You have another insert there from Pregnancy Support Services, you may wanna volunteer your time or give financially to support them. There's a pro-life ministry also in Raleigh, if that's closer to your home. You can get involved. Pray, pray for an end to abortion and euthanasia and be willing to be faithful like the widow, persistent widow and praying until it finally goes. Let's not give up.

"Pray, pray for an end to abortion and euthanasia and be willing to be faithful like the widow, persistent widow and praying until it finally goes. Let's not give up."

Let's not get discouraged or think this is it... We're gonna win. Abortion is not gonna be in the new Heavens and the new Earth, that means we're gonna win. So therefore, anything we do toward that end will be successful. Please close with me in prayer.