The Sanctity of Life jump to sermon below

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The Author:

Dr. Steven Waterhouse has served as Pastor of Westcliff Bible Church, Amarillo, Texas since 1985. He has a Doctor of Ministry from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Master of Theology from Capital Seminary near Washington, D.C., as well as undergraduate degrees in Social Sciences from Spring Arbor College in Michigan and also from Cornerstone College in Grand Rapids. His thesis at Capital Seminary is titled "A Biblical Inquiry into the Value of the Unborn." This study is a detailed treatment from the Hebrew and Greek original languages involving all Scriptures that mention unborn children. Steve and his wife, Marilyn, have three children, Carlton, Nathan and Rachel.

Additional copies of this pamphlet may be obtained for $1.95 plus a shipping and handling fee of $0.75 from Westcliff Bible Church, P. O. Box 1521, Amarillo, Texas, 79105, by phone at (806) 359-6362, by Fax (806)359-6882, or E-mail westcliff@amaonline.com. Discounts are available for quantity orders, churches and institutional ministries.

Copyright, Dr. Steven Waterhouse, 1998
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation, 1975, La Habra, CA.

Preface

Dear Friends,
This booklet is a manuscript of a sermon I delivered on Human Life Sunday, 1997, at our church in Amarillo, Texas. We offer it to you with God's love. Our concern with abortion does not arise from an attitude of our own moral superiority or perfection. Rather, we are concerned that choices made that are against God's Word will only cause further pain, hardship, and destruction of lives. Moses challenged Israel to "choose life" (Deut. 30:19). Please choose life whether this means preserving your own baby or working in efforts to save others. Please choose eternal life by placing your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, who died for our sins and rose again. The Lord Jesus offers hope for problems in life and the promise of eternal life to all who trust Him. If you have further questions, please obtain counselling at your local Crisis Pregnancy Center or write me: Dr. Steven Waterhouse, Westcliff Bible Church, P. O. Box 1521 Amarillo, Texas 79105

THE SANCTITY OF LIFE
(Young and Old)

This sermon is being delivered the Sunday following a presidential inauguration. The nation watched the entire federal government go to the National Cathedral on Monday and sing "Holy, Holy, Holy". It is the same song we sing. They used the same great evangelical Christian words that we sing blessing the Trinity. The Executive, Judicial, House, and Senate all sang praise to God on Monday. Then the rest of the week many of them used their powers to trash the sanctity of life in the annual January observance of Roe Vs. Wade.

We do, from time to time, give the Biblical reasons for the preservation of life. It worries me that we have a whole generation which has grown up under a system where abortion is legal and where euthanasia may soon be legal. We now have adults born after 1973. They may not know the Biblical reasons why evangelicals oppose abortion. I want to start out by giving them to you. For many of you, this will be a review. For some of you, it may be the first time you have heard the case for the right to life using the Bible.

The first thing we're going to see is God is interested and involved in the development of the unborn from their very beginning. Please turn in your Bibles to two passages which support that fact, Job Chapter 10 and Psalm 139. Psalm139:13-16 is the more important passage, but to be inclusive, we will also read a text dealing with the unborn which comes from Job 10, beginning at verse eight. We'll begin with the Job passage and spend more time in the Psalm 139 passage. I will begin reading in Job 10, verse eight, "thy hands fashioned and made me altogether, and wouldst thou destroy me?"

Job is talking about his sickness. He says, "Remember now that thou hast made me as clay; would you turn me into dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, knit me together with bones and sinews? Thou hast granted me life and loving kindness; and thy care has preserved my spirit." The Hebrew word for "fashioned" in this verse is used many times in the Hebrew Bible as the word "pain." It is really odd. Fashioned = pain. Why? Have you ever heard the phrase someone took "great pains" to do something? It means they were very intimately involved in it. They worked very, very hard at something. They were intensely interested in it. It was a top priority. That is why the Hebrew word for pain goes along with the Hebrew word for fashioned here. It means very intense involvement. When we take great pains to do something correctly, it is something we care about. Job is saying when I was unborn, when I was being developed, when the bones and sinews and skin and the organs, when it was all coming together, God took great pains in my development.

That ought to prove the first point of our thesis: God is intimately involved in the development of the unborn.

We see this truth also in Psalm 139, beginning at verse 13. I am going to read this text and give a lesson on the significant Hebrew words contained in it, Psalm 139 beginning in verse 13. We are going to have different translations in all of these texts. Again, I have read all of the Hebrew words, and we will be studying from the original Hebrew. Verse 13, "For thou didst form my inward parts, (the margin might say kidneys), Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth." That is poetry, it just means a secret place no one can see. Verse 16: "Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance."

Then the writer talks about the life span that God would have willed: "and in thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet, there was not one of them." Verse 13 says: Thou didst form my inward parts." If you are reading out of the King James Version, it will say, "Thou hast possessed my (inward parts)." This is the correct translation of the Hebrew text. The Hebrew word is kah-nah. If you follow this word in the eighty-four times it is used in the Old Testament, you will find very often it means to acquire, to buy something, to own something. It is used of Ruth, in the book of Ruth, when relatives were going to redeem or purchase a field. Why do I push this? I push it because actually what he is saying is, "God, you possessed me, and you owned me when I was unborn. You fashioned me, but more than that you owned me."

So often in the abortion argument, the mother says I can do whatever I want with this baby, I own it. No, you don't. God owns the children. The unborn belong to Him. That is why I am going back and insisting in this particular case that the King James translation is correct. The Hebrew word means you owned me. Unless you leave it as it stands, with the word "possess" or "own", you miss the application. God owns the unborn.

The text also says, "He formed their inward parts." The Hebrew word for "inward parts" is kidneys. You may have that in your margin. There are twelve times in the Hebrew Old Testament that the word kidney is used of humans. It never means the physical organ when it is used of humans. It does not mean the physical organ that cleanses blood that we generally associate with the kidneys. The Old Testament authors are thinking of kidney here in the same way we use the word "heart." They are thinking of the place where the innermost person resides, the place of thinking, the place of emotions, and the place of the soul. I do not know what the translators do with that. If they translate literally, and say kidney, we are never going to catch the meaning. To a Hebrew, a kidney was what the heart would be to an American. You are talking about a soul. You are talking about the non-material part of man. Verse 13 is saying God, you owned me, and you developed my soul when I was within my mother. You will see the immediate significance of that point. Some part, at least, of man's non-material nature or some part of the soul is present from the beginning. Some part of that which was created in the image of God and is holy is present from the very beginning, and God owns it.

Now, in verse 14, there is one phrase I would like to pick out. It is the third phrase: "Wonderful are Thy works." The unborn child is a work of God. He claims every child. So, when we destroy that work of God or oppose that work, we are opposing what He wants to do. We are opposing God. All these truths should establish the main point. God is interested and involved in the development of the unborn. They have spiritual natures and He owns them; it is His work and His business, and those that oppose that work are opposing God.

Now we will look at the second point in the argument, and it is that God sees the unborn as individuals. He sees their whole future ahead of them. He does not look at them as we would. He sees their whole human potential. A couple of texts that would show this would be Jeremiah 1 and Psalm 51. Please find those chapters. While you are turning there, I will convey my feelings to you.

Whenever I talk about a topic like this, I am concerned there probably are ladies here who have had abortions. That may surprise you, but it does not surprise me a bit. It is hard to talk about a topic which conveys the fact that abortion is a great wickedness, and yet in the same message, convey God's grace. So, I do not want to leave that out. I do want you to know there is cleansing and there is forgiveness. First, faith in the cross settles our relationship before God. Trusting what Christ has done on the cross makes us clean and whole again. I do not want you to lose that.

The goal of today's message is to show that abortion is a great evil. So, it will not all be gracious in tone, but do not leave out the part that there is cleansing and there is forgiveness for all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are looking at how God knows the unborn as individuals with a complete destiny.

Jeremiah 1:5 is a fantastic passage to see that fact. We will read that one next. "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." Obviously, God is involved again. He knew the unborn Jeremiah as an individual, which is our second point. He sees unborn children as individuals with a separate identity and an entire destiny. "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you: I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." When Jeremiah was not yet born, God could view him and look at his whole life span. Understand that God knows the entire future. He knows the entire lost potential if the future should be cut off. He looked at the unborn and knew his name would be Jeremiah. He looked at the unborn Jeremiah and knew he would deliver His message. He knew everything that would ever happen to him. When God looks at an unborn baby today, He sees the same thing. He does not just see tissue, bones, cartilage, and organs. He does not see, as some do, just the physical remains of an infant being aborted. God knows what name that child would have had. Would it have been Mary or Charles? He knows the entire life span: what skills the child would have developed, what difficulties the child would have had, where there would have been successes, where there would have been failures. He knows the infant's whole future. So while some people can put on blinders and rationalize that this unborn baby can go out in the trash with the medical wastes, God does not look at the child as just tissue. God sees the entire human potential and knows everything about each person before he or she was ever born. As Christians God's view should be our view. The unborn baby has life and has a whole potential ahead of him. He or she has great value.

The passage in Psalm 51:5 will also look at the individual identity of each unborn baby and say something about the soul, the immaterial being. Psalm 51:5: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." At first you would not think this contributes much to the argument for the right to life, but what David is saying is that from the very beginning of conception he had a sin nature. Now, I do not know for certain whether the soul was present in full form from the very beginning or that in a mysterious, unknown way, each soul grows and develops. I do think souls are passed on from parents to children. It could be that they develop right along with the body. That is for another sermon. It is called Traducianism, but we cannot go into that now.

To say that from conception there is part of the sin nature present means that part of the soul has to be present from conception. The sin nature is not a biological part, is not an appendage, nor is it an organ. The sin nature is part of a person's soul. To say that the sin nature begins at conception is to say that the soul, at least in germ form, has to begin at conception. To destroy the unborn child destroys part or all of a human soul. While I would accept a range of conclusions here, the very least you can say is abortion is a great wickedness; or you could conclude that it is murder. At the very least, you are destroying some element of a human soul. This is because the sin nature is present from conception. That is what David is saying in Psalm. 51. We are all conceived in sin. Another verse that helps is Luke 1:44. We will not have time to turn there because I have so much to talk about today. Luke 1:44 is the Christmas passage where John the Baptist is inside of his mother, Elizabeth, and Mary comes to visit her cousin. The unborn John the Baptist leaps for joy in his mother's womb. What is joy if it is not an emotion? What is an emotion if it is not a part of the human soul? John the Baptist, somehow, is an unborn child experiencing the joy of emotion being in the presence of the unborn Messiah. Theologians look at this and say here is a display of emotion in the unborn. This, too, is part of a person's soul. 

Point number one: God is interested and involved in the development of the unborn. Point number two: He views them as individuals with a complete destiny (having souls).

Now, we are going to look at a passage in Exodus to see that God considers abortion a great iniquity. I am going to read it from the New International Version, but if you would like to turn to Exodus 21; I will pause a second for you to find that chapter. The translators do not all agree on the translation. Rather than give you all the technicalities, I hope you will just trust me on this one. I have spent many, many hours studying this in Hebrew and the New International Version is the correct translation here. What it is going to say is that an accidental abortion, according to the Law of Moses, required the death penalty. It says even an accidental abortion was deemed to be a very severe iniquity under the Law of Moses. This is Exodus 21 beginning at verse 22: "If men, who are fighting, hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely; but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the husband demands and the court allows." I will stop right there.

In this first situation, two men are involved in a fight and a pregnant woman tries to intervene, apparently to protect her husband. If she is injured to the point of going into labor, but she survives and the baby survives, the Law of Moses required a financial penalty. The husband wants to be compensated, and if the court agrees, there is a financial fine. The next phrase continues, "But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life." Then it goes on, "eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot", etc. That is a common phrase: "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." If there is serious injury, if either the mother or the unborn baby dies in the scuffle, they are to execute, as capital punishment, the person who caused the miscarriage. Trust me on this one. This is the correct translation. This is a very key passage because other translations translate it differently with different conclusions. The NIV is right. Under the Law of Moses, even if there were an accidental abortion, it was considered a great iniquity and you were to inflict capital punishment because of the death of that baby. A secondary conclusion here is that the baby is equal in value to the mother.

Reason with me on this. If an accidental abortion would be grounds for capital punishment under the Law of Moses, how do you think God views an abortion performed on purpose? If an accidental abortion was so serious because the baby's life was equal to the mother, the Law of Moses clearly would have imposed a death penalty for deliberate abortion. Exodus 21 is not an accidental miscarriage or a natural one. This is a fight, a lady is injured. It would be like a car wreck today. Consider a case where the driver was under the influence, and the unborn baby died accidently. The Law of Moses would demand capital punishment. This is far more severe than we would do today. What must God think of the deliberate destruction of the unborn?

I do not know why God puts up with America. We deserve judgment. Chastisement would probably be good for us. He is very patient with us. He has to be filled with wrath over the destruction of a million and a half children a year, and these are not accidents. Have you ever thought about how many a million and half individuals are? I will give you a weird illustration. A million and a half are about how many cars Ford Motor Company produces a year. Do you see many Fords when you are driving around? They are everywhere, are they not? So are abortions. They are just hidden. Yet, they are everywhere. Now, the biblical evidence alone is sufficient for me to settle the argument over abortion.

We have used the Bible first because it is the primary authority. For those who respect the Bible, that ought to be the end of the debate. It is enough for me. I know the answer on this one. I know what to teach my children, and I know how to pray for the way they will live. The matter of abortion is already settled. This tells me that in addition to whatever else God wants me to do He would want me to care about Crisis Pregnancy Centers. He would want me to teach my children and the youth of our church and anybody I can reach about the value of life. He wants me to pray and give toward that end. The Bible alone is the final authority for me.

Now, I would like to add medical, legal and philosophical arguments, because when we discuss this topic with people, many of them have no interest in what the Bible says on abortion or any other subject.

Let us look first at a little medicine or a little biology. From the moment of conception is a child living or dead? It is living. It is going to grow. Is it a carrot? Is it a raccoon? Is it a daisy? No, the child has forty-six chromosomes. It is not going to be a carrot, a raccoon, or a daisy. It is alive, by the definition of life, and it is not any of these other things. If you want to know the truth, the developing child is different from the mother. The child is part father and part mother so it is distinct. It is alive, it has forty-six chromosomes, it is not raccoon, daisy, blueberry, or anything other than human, and it is distinct from the mother. I am no geneticist, but I am told that if you could take a gene map of the mother's genes, and a gene map of the beginning life and look just at the maps, just the structure, and ask experts which one is the mother and which one is the new conception, they cannot tell a difference. Both have all the human information. Obviously, if you look at the individuals, you can tell a difference between mother and unborn child. But if you look at the map of the information, if you look at the map of the gene codes, you cannot tell a difference. You would have to look at pictures of the unborn baby and pictures of the mother to tell which is which because both have equal genetic information for humanity. The child is alive. It is not dead. It is not a carrot; it has forty-six chromosomes.

Let us look at this from a little different angle. I loved going to the seminary in Washington, D.C. because I was able to observe the congressional committee hearings, listen to the debates, and go down and watch the Congress. I went to hearings on abortion. Senator East from North Carolina was presiding. He was disabled and could not walk. He has passed on since then. He was questioning a medical professor from Harvard, and he was really mad. "You mean you can go to the moon and you can go to the bottom of the ocean and you cannot tell me whether something is alive or dead?" What else is a developing child but alive? Take the common medical definitions for death and reverse them. Choose whichever definition for death you want. Take the definition and reverse it. If we say the absence of a heartbeat is death, then life begins at 18 days, and abortion causes death. If we say the absence of a brain wave is death, brain waves begin at forty-three days. Nearly all abortions take place after that. The statistics I have indicate that all abortions do. I am no expert, so I do not know whether I can say all, but the chart that I have says all abortions take place after forty-three days. So, if the definition of death would be the absence of the brain wave, or the cessation of the heart beat, then abortion causes death. Take definitions of death and reverse them, and the unborn have life whether it is the heartbeat or brain wave. Whether looking at it genetically or looking at it medically, the developing children are alive. They are not going to be carrots. Children are humans. Abortion stops the heartbeat. Abortion stops the brain wave. Abortion causes pain. What else is abortion but the destruction of life?

Let me apply some logic. Philosophy. The first argument was medical, this one is philosophical. I remember one committee hearing in Washington where there were people with signs reading "AAA." I wondered what they were doing here. Travelers? Cars? No, "Atheists Against Abortion." I did not know what this organization was. They were in the committee hearing with big signs. They were able to reason from logic alone that abortion is evil. To examine a philosophical idea, it should be taken to its logical outcome. When we do this, abortion is irrational. Every argument for abortion is the same argument for death for those that are already born. Therefore, something is wrong with pro-abortion logic. Every argument for abortion is an equal argument for killing those already born. Let me show you.

The abortionist says, "well, these are going to be born into poverty. They ought not to live. Poverty is terrible." However, would this not be the same argument for killing the majority in Africa, South America and Asia? Again, we are told they are poor. If poor people should not live, then why not rid ourselves of all poor people? Every argument for abortion is an equal argument for murder, for infanticide, and for even killing adults. So something is wrong with such reasoning. Look how much poverty there is all over the world. Abortion logic could be the same argument for killing those already born. Another assertion is that the unborn might not have high intelligence. First of all, who defines intelligence? This really worries me about how some define intelligence. I am reading a book. I will not go into what it is, but I will quote from it. Daniel Danette compares religious believers to wild animals who may have to be caged. He says that parents should be prevented from informing their children about the flaws of evolution. That book is published by Simon and Schuster, 1995. Apparently, I am ignorant because I am a conservative. Who is going to define intelligence anyway? We say this unborn baby might not be intelligent. That is an equal argument for killing all kinds of people pro-abortionists do not think possess intelligence. Something is wrong with such logic. Take it to its conclusion. It ends in irrationality. Every argument for abortion is an argument for death of people that are already born, from infants to older people.

What about logic and the concept of viability? Viability is where the child is able to live on its own. The child is far enough along in its development that it could live on its own and would not need to be within the mother for any more nurture or development. The period of viability keeps getting shorter and shorter. Doctors keep saving smaller and smaller babies. I saved an article about a baby which doctors saved weighing only ten ounces at birth. I do not know whether the record has been lowered since then or not. They saved a baby that weighed ten ounces! Presumably, he or she is with us in the world today, alive and doing well. They saved a ten-ounce baby who went home from the hospital. How much smaller viability can go I do not know, but it is very poor logic to say that babies need not to be able to live unless there is viability. Viability keeps getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. By such logic human life keeps being redefined. Also, you have this madness (talk about twisted logic) where babies who are smaller, and more premature, weighing less than one pound are being saved in one end of the hospital and babies weighing several times more are being aborted at the other end of the hospital. I am not using the Bible here. I am just talking about logic. This is madness. They are saving the little preemies who are smaller and aborting the infants more developed. I have pictures in my office. You ought to see them. You ought to see an aborted child at nineteen weeks. I will let you look right in their eyes. This is a saline abortion so they are not all carved up. Look at this picture. This is a child. No one could argue with it. If any of you would like to see an aborted child, I have pictures in my office. So, how logical are the reasonings of pro-abortion advocates? When you are saving children who are smaller than the ones you are killing, what sense is that?

So far, we have considered the Bible, which, to you and me, is the most important authority. We have talked about medicine and about logic. Next I would like to talk about law.

Once I went to a lecture at the Supreme Court. Harry Blackmun came out in his robes, and the clerk of the court cried, "all rise." Everyone stood up. I was in the front row. I was sitting very close to Harry Blackmun. He wrote the Roe vs. Wade decision. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General, has summarized Blackmun's view this way: "We need not resolve the question of when life begins." Why not? Because a court says so? We need not decide when life begins? We do not have to think about it? If one feels the unborn cannot be absolutely proven to be human, then it is acceptable to destroy them. Okay, for the sake of argument, let me agree for a few minutes. Let us just say we do not know whether the unborn are living or dead. I do not agree with that, but let us go along with such reasonings. We do not know for certain whether they are human, so we can legally destroy them. I would like to evaluate that statement for its logic. They might be alive, or they might be dead. They might be human, they might not be human. We do not know, and we do not have to think about it. We do not have to think about whether the child is alive or dead.

Let us apply that to other areas of life. Let us say I am hunting. I am deer hunting. I see movement over there in the woods. Am I not responsible for knowing whether it is human before I shoot? And if it even might be human, do you not think I ought to give the benefit of the doubt and refrain from shooting? Even if I do not know for certain, even if there is a slight possibility (and they will all concede it is a possibility that the unborn are human), I should not shoot. Even if it is only possible that a human is over there in the woods, then I better not kill it. I should give the benefit of the doubt to the preservation of life simply because the target MIGHT be human. There were a couple of teachers in my high school. They were deer hunting, and one of them killed the other. One saw movement in the bushes, and he was not sure if it was human or not, but it was moving so he shot. He killed the other teacher. You and I would be responsible for knowing for certain that a target for death is positively not human. It is not enough to say, well, I do not know whether it is or it is not. I will kill it anyway. Suppose that an ambulance comes up to an accident scene and asks the question: "Are the people in this car alive or dead?" "We do not know", the bystanders say. Based on that reply, should the ambulance leave without knowing with certainty the condition of the injured? The very possibility that they may be alive means we must protect and help them. The false argument easily goes from "maybe they are alive, maybe they are not" to "we do not know and we do not care." If the unborn might be human, then we have to take action on the side of life.

Whether you look at abortion through the Bible, medicine, philosophy or law, abortion is crazy. It does not matter which angle you come from. And you know what? We don't hear these arguments every day. They somehow get set aside because those who believe them are labeled right-wing nuts. The truth is set aside. It's a very hard thing to know how to respond when you have the government singing Holy, Holy, Holy, and then spending the rest of the week allowing the destruction of millions of children.

If you will permit me a few more minutes, I'd like to say a word or two about euthanasia. I think we're going to have it. I don't know that for certain, but I think it is going to come to America. Turn with me, in your Bible, to Genesis 9 and Exodus 20. You'll forgive me, I have to do this quickly. We can study this more thoroughly some other time. However, I don't want to leave this parallel subject of the sanctity of life entirely out of this message. Genesis 9:6 is the first prohibition against murder in the Bible with the idea of capital punishment. Noah's family was coming off the Ark, and in Genesis 9:6 God tells Noah, "Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed." In other words, God commanded capital punishment. "For in the image of God, He made man." Exodus 20 verse 13 is the place in the Bible where you find the commandment which we all know,"thou shalt not kill," or "thou shalt not murder." To be very brief, I understand that given a perfect world, with perfect families, perfect doctors, perfect government, and perfect diagnosis of illnesses, we might know when a person is going to die. I do not think that euthanasia would have to be as morally wicked as homicide, but it is in the same category. If it is not to the same degree as wrong, it is the same direction. It is like saying I can steal anything because I am poor and in need. Therefore, I can break the commandment against stealing because I have special needs that other people don't have. Breaking God's clear moral law would be a disaster on a societal level.

Here are some brief thoughts on the dangers of euthanasia. Number one. Doctors make mistakes. No doctor is infallible. Marilyn Waterhouse's uncle was diagnosed as terminally ill in 1982. He's still alive decades later. It will be interesting to see how long Uncle John lives. "So, old man, you're done. It's over with." Then he lives decades longer! God is God. Physicians aren't. If euthanasia is practiced, many premature deaths will occur.

The second thing I'd like to say is "The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). God help us when it becomes profitable to put people out of the way because it will save the government money, it will save the hospital money, it will save the insurance company money, and it will save the family money. God help us.

Thirdly, who decides? We can't trust any of the options. Who decides? Dr. Kevorkian says that doctors ought to decide, not the government. In Holland, where euthanasia is permitted, families can go to the emergency room and find their loved one is already put under. The doctors don't always feel obligated to ask the family. Shall we trust the government to decide cases in which it is financially beneficial for it to cause death? By the way, do you trust all the red tape coming out of the government to be correct? Even if there is integrity, much bungling takes place. People would die from administrative errors. We can't trust the government to make the right decision on life or death. Next, we could let family members decide life or death for an ill relative. Every relative in the nation would choose with wisdom or morality, right? We all know many families would dispatch a relative to cut costs or to obtain an inheritance. Perhaps the patient alone ought to decide.

Maybe the patient is the right one. That seems to be the best of the alternatives, but decisions are not made very well when we're in the pit of depression or pain or fear. Decisions are not made well when we're going through the proverbial knothole. All kinds of people, if they have two weeks of excruciating pain, would love to end it all; but if they were to recover after two weeks, they'd have the rest of their lives. Now, if we give them the option of death in the middle of suffering, many will choose to die needlessly. I'm arguing philosophically here, but in truth no one can be trusted with the decision to end life. At the most, we could withdraw medical treatment and allow death, but actively causing death will cause many avoidable deaths. I still think the Bible alone answers the debate. We are going to have a terrible time if the Supreme Court rules the wrong way on euthanasia. We are going to have moral madness.

We have to decide whether we are going to trust God with our lives or whether we're going to be autonomous. Authority over life is the underlying issue. In the case of abortion, will I run my sexuality my own way? Or will I submit my life to God? In the case of euthanasia, will I decide how I will end my life, or will I trust God when I am severely sick? It comes down to an issue of authority whether the master is the individual or God. God is very clear in what He says about the sanctity of life whether in youth or old age.

Let us pray together, please. Father, we are saddened by our nation. We feel powerless to reverse it. Lord, make us content with what we can do. Make us committed to do what we are able to do in terms of governing our own lives, in terms of influencing families and neighbors, co-workers, and people within the church. We pray for Your mercy in the tough situations, and we pray that all of us will decide to trust Your authority and in Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior from sin. Bless us as we go our separate ways and may we all feel that we have served You and not have any guilt about being negligent. Thank you, in Jesus' name, Amen.