Life Articles
Christ Loves the Unborn
In the U.S., most mainline Christian denominations support the choice of abortion. Many denominations and sections of others have even formed the Religious Coalition for Reproduction Choice. Should unborn human fetuses having their own heartbeats, brainwaves, and unique genetic code be slaughtered through the process of shredding tissue, crushing bone, and dismemberment? How can church hierarchies support this choice? What does God think of such behavior and of such churches? What do you think of such cruel slaughter?
We live in a society where many search for how to have a miscarriage on the internet. Type how to have one into Google and the sources are apparent for those who want to know how to have a miscarriage. Any society murdering their children is certainly morally corrupt and selfish. The nation of the Amorites and all the Canaanites lived in great immorality. These are the people that the Israelites were to destroy removing them from the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. Jeremiah 7:31 speaks of the sins of the Canaanites sacrificing their son and daughters. Israel also joined in this sin.
They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. (Psalm 106:36-38).
When we truly respect Jesus Christ, we listen to Him.
Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.(Matthew 19:13-14)
Within Luke 1, the Spirit of Jesus Christ stands for life. In Luke 1, the unborn fetus is a separate life in the womb (Luke 1:36-38), a human child (Luke 1:39-41), who has a mother (Luke 1:42-45). In Luke 1:36-38, the angel said to Mary,
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.
Do the Scriptures say that she conceived a mass of tissue? Is the child just a zygote, embryo, or fetus? Is the son conceived in the womb living?
What is the definition of life? One dictionary says that life is the period from birth to death. Are we alive before before birth? This is certainly a secular definition of life. What would Noah Webster think about this definition? Noah Websters Dictionary 1828 says that life is, In animals, animation; vitality; and in man, that state of being in which the soul and body are united. Notice the separation of animal and man. Also, where did Webster get his definition? He got it from the Bible. James 2:26a says, For as the body apart from the spirit is dead.
When does life begin? By the Holy Spirit, Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes 11:5, As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the self in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. Life begins in the womb. Science agrees. From conception, the child in the womb is a living and genetically different from the mother and human. At 4-5 weeks, the child in the womb has a bloodstream with a beating heart and functioning brain over 40 brain waves. The Law of Moses says in Exodus 21:22-25, When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the womans husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.(Amos 1:13)
The unborn life is a child! (Luke 1:39-41) According to Luke 1:39-41,
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Clearly, this is human life, a baby, in Elizabeths womb. God created life. Is the human fetus a plant, an animal, or a person? Some evolutionists have said that the human fetus is in the process of evolving from fish to amphibian to man while in the womb. Whats wrong with killing an animal?
Again, are babies in the womb children? What does the Bible call children in the womb? In the case of Jacob and Esau, Genesis 25:22, The children struggled together within her. Then in Romans 9:11 it says, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad. King Hezekiah in description of Jerusalems distress said, children have come to the point of birth in 2 Kings 19:3. In Ruth 1:11, Naomi said to her daughter-in-laws, Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Jesus prophesied of Himself before being born in Isaiah 49:1, Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.It is human life that is designed in the womb!
Psalm 139:13-16 describes, For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my motherfs womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.
The unborn child has a mother (Luke 1:42-43)! In other words, there is a child and the child already has a mother, who should be caring for her child. Listen to Elizabeth her words in Luke 1:42-43, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Mary was already a mother. The unborn life in the mothers womb is a human individual from conception. How should we treat this unborn life? May we deliberately kill him or her? How should we treat a child? Does a mother have to right to choose to have her child dismembered?
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of onefs youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127:3-5)
How did the Lord treat children?
And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me. (Mark 9:36-37, Luke 9:47-48)
Now, how should a mother treat her child? Titus 2:4 states, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, Do mothers love their children who abort their children?
Paul by the Spirit wrote, Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)
It is usually between 4-8 weeks that the mother knows that she is pregnant. More than 90% of all reported abortions in the United States are between the 6-12 weeks of pregnancy. About 75% of abortions are done by a cruel procedure called suction aspiration, and the other children, who are aborted, are dismembered by another form of curettage, dilation and evacuation. Every abortion procedure is cruel and violent. Murderers today might die via the gas chamber or lethal injection, and rapists may get life. Yet, children in the womb get dismembered.
According to the Bible, abortion is murder. The Law of Moses says, Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked (Exodus 23:7). By the Spirit, Solomon wrote Proverb 6:16 stating, There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him, and verse 17 says that one is hands that shed innocent blood. Why is murder so wrong? God said to Noah, Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image (Genesis 9:6). Jesus taught that those who murder are corrupt of heart (Matt. 15:19-20). Those who murder are eternally condemned.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death (Revelation 21:8).
What about those who operate abortion clinics? The Law of Moses says in Deuteronomy 27:25, Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood. What about those who do not believe the Bible? Skeptics, agnostics, and atheists have consciences too, and they should know that murder is wrong.
In all of this, we must not forget forgiveness. Keep in mind the Apostle Paul, who was a murderer and he was forgiven. What should someone do if she or he has aborted a baby and now realizes he or she did wrong? Must that person spend the rest of her life or his life with the burden of unforgiven guilt? For forgiveness, the words of Christ teach that a person must obey the Gospel and have the forgiveness that Christ offers. If this person is already a Christian, then he or she must repent and pray for forgiveness of such sins (1 John 1:7, 9).
Take joy in the life of the unborn (Luke 1:44-45)! In Luke 1:44-45, Elizabeth said to Mary,
For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
The baby leaped for joy. We can also have joy in saving lives.
Abortion statistics give us sobering facts about the moral status of this country. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) keeps abortion statistics. This is a pro-abortion institute. Here are some facts:
Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and 4 in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.
Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.
In 2005, 1.21 million [1,210,000] abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million [1,310,000] in 2000.
From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions have occurred.
Each year, about two percent of women aged 15-44 have an abortion; 47% of them have had at least one previous abortion.
Fifty percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and teenagers obtain 17%.
Forty-three percent of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 27% as Catholic. [Seventy percent of abortions are obtained by women claiming to be followers of Jesus.]
Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.
Although, the CDC says 82% are not married.
About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.
The reasons women give for having an abortion are:
3/4 of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals
3/4 say they cannot afford a child
3/4 say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents
1/2 say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.
The number of U.S. abortion providers declined by 2% between 2000 and 2005 (from 1,819 to 1,787) [or 32 less clinics from 1,819].
Eighty-seven percent of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion provider in 2005; 35% of women live in those counties.
In 2005, the cost of a non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia at ranged from $90 to $1,800; the average amount paid was $413.
In 1999, 6 of 10 senators of the Illinois including now President Obama of the Senate Judiciary Committee Senators voted NO on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, BAIPA. This act protected children, who were born, from being set aside to die by exposure. Until 2002, the U.S. Federal government passed the act. Yet, all along our Declaration of Independence gives rights to everyone.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
We are talking about the Civil Rights of unborn children. Abortion is an even greater than the issue of slavery. Take joy in the life of the unborn child!
Is there anything that we can do? Many say No. We can certainly pray. We can vote. We can write our representatives, senators, State and Federal. We can elect representatives, who are not corrupt. I find that the easiest way to tell if a politician is corrupt is if that person approves of abortion. We can publicly protest and be sure to teach others the facts.
May God bless that we may put an end to the open practice of murdering unborn children.
By: Pastor Scott Shifferd Jr.
Evangelist and Minister of Dean Road Church of Christ in Jacksonville, FL. Husband and a father of three.
