Find this on page 845 and continuing on to 846. Page 845, continuing on to page 846. Psalm 139. Hear now the word of God. For the chief musician, a psalm of David. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it all together. You have hedged me behind and before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the night shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you. But the night shines as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike to you. For you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me. when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. O, that you would slay the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men! where they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate you? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. and see if there is any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, this week and then, Lord willing, a couple of weeks from now, we'll be considering the issue of abortion, the issue of abortion. Today, as we look at Psalm 139 as our takeoff place, although we'll be looking at other scriptures. We see that God demonstrates that the newborn child is a human being made in God's image. God demonstrates, the word of God demonstrates, it proves that the unborn child is a human being made in God's image. My friends, perhaps to state the obvious, We live in a greatly irresponsible age. People today are quite selfish and greedy. Folks want to do their own thing without reference to any moral demands or commands. And coupled with this irresponsibility, we live in an age and a lifestyle, ethos, if you will, of death, death surrounds us. We know, of course, that to be apart from God is death, spiritually speaking, Psalm 73. Death is all around us. Suicide, especially among teens, is way up, our way up. Drunk driving abounds. Drug overdoses often lead to death. Murders, we've been considering, of course, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not murder, the sixth commandment. Murders, often associated with drug dealing, have increased as life has become so cheap as to be virtually meaningless or worthless. The death of the family confronts us. Homosexuality and divorce assault this most basic institution, promoted by many politicians, by the way. We have before us the possibility of the death of society itself, including the movement that is abbreviated ZPG. You know what this stands for? Zero Population Growth. There are world leaders who want not only to cap the population, but actually drastically to reduce it. Of course, that involves killing, right? The death of society itself. And of course, we could also think of euthanasia, the so-called good death. Some of us are old enough to remember Jack Kevorkian, who promoted and celebrated the killing of people. Well, in such an anti-life and irresponsible environment, it is important to speak clearly on the relevant topic of the preservation of life. And this discussion has particular relevance to the subject of abortion. Let's be clear. Abortion, of course, is the deliberate destruction of the fetus, which is fetus is simply a reference to the unborn child in the womb. A lot of people use the word fetus to try to get away from the fact that it's a child. Well, it's a child. It just happens to be an unborn child in the womb. And so abortion, then, is the deliberate destruction of the baby, of the child in the womb. Of course, if the fetus is actually a person, a human being made in God's image, then abortion is the deliberate killing of another human being. So there are two critical questions then as we look at this topic. The first one is, when does human life begin? And the second one is, may the life in the womb be destroyed? or may the baby be killed. So today we're going to focus on the first of those questions to lay the groundwork for answering the second one. And let me, as I begin here, express my gratitude and indebtedness to various scholars, including Dr. Ken Gentry and others, who have written on this topic. I have shamelessly borrowed from them in terms of the exegesis of scripture, and so much of what I have to say is not necessarily original. Well, today then, let's first of all, as our first point, look at Psalm 139, which of course was our scripture text just a few moments ago. Psalm 139, you'll notice it begins with the chief musician, a Psalm of David, so it's written by the sweet Psalmist of Israel. This entire Psalm deals with God, God's omnipresence and omniscience confronting man at every point of his existence. So when we say omnipresence, omni means all, presence means presence, right? God is everywhere present. And because he is everywhere present, he is omniscient. He knows science, knowledge. He knows all things. The psalm has been entitled, The Hound of Heaven. In the first stanza, verses one through six, David acknowledges God's exhaustive knowledge. Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou dost know my sitting down and my rising up. Thou dost understand my thought afar off. Thou dost comprehend my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. It's not just that God hears what we speak, but notice what verse four says, for there is not a word in my tongue. But behold, O Lord, thou knowest it all together, even before I speak it. Lord, thou hast knowledge of it. Thou hast hedged me behind, thou hast enclosed me, thou hast hedged me in, and lay thy hand upon me. And the psalmist says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. And so because of that, you see, because of this exhaustive knowledge that confronts David at every point of his existence, what does he do? He tries to run away. He tries to flee that presence. Of course, as you think about it, we see this phenomenon throughout scripture, don't we? When Moses, just reflecting the glory of God, and the people couldn't stand even that reflected glory. In the book of Revelation, when God comes in judgment, what are people gonna do? They're gonna cry out to the mountains, and the rocks, cover us! We'd rather be crushed than to see God coming in judgment. Is that not the way it is with us? Indeed. He tries, David tries to flee God's holy presence. And then in the second stanza, verses 7 through 12, David searches in a poetic fashion for all possible avenues of escape, but to no avail. Where can I go from my spirit? Where? Whither can I flee from my presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. The hell here could be simply the place of the dead. Could be a reference to literal hell, because remember, God is present in hell as a judge. If I make my bed in hell, you know, you can't escape God. Thou art there. If I take the wings in the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there, thy hand shall lead me and thy right hand shall hold me If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the night shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from thee, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. There is no place where God is not present. Or children, we could put it this way. can't play hide and seek with God. And then we come to the third stanza, verses 13 through 18. And here we see the idea that man has responsibility as a morally accountable person. That idea of David's accountability is intensified. It's implied already But now this notion of moral responsibility is intensified. In the second stanza the emphasis is upon space. No place can you go. Here the emphasis is upon time. It's upon time. There is no time. There is no point in your existence. No place on that timeline of your existence when you can get away from God. And here David is saying that his moral responsibility goes back even into his mother's womb. Even there he was a moral agent. a person made in God's image and totally known to him. And so let's look then at the stanza. Verse 13, for thou hast formed my inward parts. The word there is related to the word kidneys. We've heard about kidneys today, about a test dealing with kidneys. The word there is related to reins, R-E-I-N-S. So we talk about renal, renal failure, right, in terms of the kidneys. And this biblically refers to the seat of emotion and affection, the region where sinful passion boils and where pain is felt, even in the inward parts, if you will, in the kidneys. You ever had a kidney stone? You know that can be very painful. So it's very intense. It gets to the gut, if you will, of David. But notice verse 13b, thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. Now the pronoun here, when he says thou didst weave me, the pronoun refers to the fact that David is a person, not an it. We have here then the theme of one's life being woven by God, being weaved by God. He is the great weaver, if you will. 7 and verse 6, Job says, my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. Isn't that interesting? Like the shuttle that goes back and forth, back and forth weaving. My days are swifter than that. Isaiah 38 to the same point. Now this poetic weave theme means several things. First of all, Each individual life is a continuum. It's a continuity. Just as a thread, just like a thread is a continuous element in the material which comes from the weaver's loom. So you've got that thread, right? You've got that thread. It has a beginning. It has an ending. The thing is that the entire thread is like a human life. It is all one. Death then is poetically expressed as a cutting off of the thread from the loom. But notice that the continuation of the thread of a person's life, the beginning of that, the continuum, the beginning of that, does not start at birth. It starts in the mother's womb. Thou didst weave me, not at my birth, but in my mother's womb. Now David goes on here in verse 15. He talks about his frame and his bones being skillfully wrought, skillfully crafted. This apparently is a reference to the mystifying system of veins which run throughout the body. Again this is a reference to David in the womb and he says I was a person there and I was responsible to thee in the womb. Verse 16 speaks of God's eye seeing David's substance yet being imperfect. This refers to to that unformed embryonic mass, that unformed embryonic mass, in other words, very early in development. And notice that the reins then were embedded in this very early embryo. Thy eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And then he goes on to say, and in my book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me. So this book theme then, we've had the Weaver theme, and now we have the book theme, which refers to God's pre-established will for man. David was therefore connecting his existence in the womb, his embryonic existence, even before you could see that it was a child. He was connecting his existence with the rest of the days of his life. The first day of his life recorded in God's book was the day not of his birth, but of his conception. And thus there is an unbroken continuity of personhood from embryo to adulthood. and ultimately to death. So Psalm 139. Let's look at another Psalm, Psalm 51. Very familiar words in Psalm 51. Psalm 51, as you know, deals with David's sin with regard to Bathsheba, the adultery that he committed, and then also the the murder of Bathsheba's husband to try to cover up that sin. But notice that this psalm is not dealing with sin in the abstract then, but rather with David's own personal experience of sin. And what does he say as he reflects on his life? What does he say? Verse five, behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin My mother conceived me. David reflected on his whole life, but he didn't begin with birth. He began with the moment of conception, and in reflecting upon it, he saw nothing but sin. That's the point. But sin, my friends, implies responsibility, and responsibility implies personhood. that chair there is not responsible. Now, someone can take that chair and beat someone over the head with it. That person that uses that chair would be irresponsible, would be responsible for his actions. But there's no morality associated with the chair, is there? It's in it. It's a thing. But the fact that David could sense that he was responsible in his entire life, that from the very beginning of his existence, he was responsible before God for his sinful nature, his having been affected by original sin, shows that indeed he was a person made in God's image from the moment of conception, not from the moment of birth. Now look with me at Job chapter 3, which we had read earlier in our service, Job chapter 3. In Job chapter 3, of course you know Job, he was so overwhelmed with all the things that were afflicting him, And so in Job 3 and verse 3, he utters a twofold curse. May the day perish on which I was born and the night in which it was said a male child is conceived. He is cursing both the day of his birth, verses 4 and 5, and the night of his conception, verses 6 through 10. It's interesting that verse three uses the word man or male child, man, to refer to that which was conceived from the very point of conception it was a person. The knight itself is personified in verse three, and it is said to know the sex of the child at the point of conception. Verses 11 through 12, 11 and 12 and following are also important. Why did I not die from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me? Why did the knees receive me or why the breast that I should suck? Again, what do we see here? There is a continuum of existence. There is a continuity from the womb onward in terms of his life. There's also progression in his thought. Job here wished for death, whether in the womb or during the delivery process or neonatal or early in infancy. But the point is that he was a person from the point of conception. Verse 13 indicates that if death had occurred at any point of his existence from conception onward, he would have entered Sheol. Sheol, then, is not the place of non-being, but the place of the dead, the place of departed spirits. And therefore, in the womb, Job had to have a soul, and thus he had to be in the womb, a person made in the image of God. Now let's look just briefly at the New Testament. Let's look first of all at Luke chapter 1. In Luke chapter 1, in Luke chapter 1, verses 41 and following, Luke 1, verses 41 and following, you remember the story about John the Baptist and Elizabeth? Elizabeth, his mother, giving birth well beyond when she should have been able to do so. Verse 41, and it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary. So Mary was related to Elizabeth and Mary came then. Mary was at this point, very early stages of pregnancy with Jesus. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Verse 44, for indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Isn't that interesting? The baby, John the Baptist, leaped for joy in the womb of his mother did so through the power of the Holy Spirit, but it shows that he was a person in the womb. And he did so, this is also the point, he did so in recognition that that which was conceived in Mary was from the Holy Spirit. When did Jesus enter humanity? Not when he was born, when he was conceived. in the womb of the Virgin Mary. We see this also in Matthew 1 in verses 18 and following. We won't turn there, but familiar passage in which we remember that Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Again, that which was conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit. The final point before I get to the application is this, conception is a gracious gift and work of God. Conception, it's not just the birth. It's the conception, which is a gracious gift and work of God. Now next time, I'm gonna have two points of application. Let me just mention that next time, we're gonna consider The question, is it okay to kill a baby? In other words, is it okay to rip him or her to pieces? Is it okay? Is it okay to slice and dice that baby? That's what abortion is. Let's be clear about it. That's what politicians in the society promote. Is it okay? Well, next time we'll have this in a couple of weeks or we will consider that question. But today, let me just have two points of application. Number one, be amazed at the wonder of human life from conception to birth. Be amazed at it. Be amazed at it, even as the psalmist in Psalm 139 was amazed in terms of how skillfully wrought he was. But be amazed also, secondly, at the wonder of the incarnation. For Jesus, when being held in Mary's arms, When Jesus was being held in his mother's arms, Jesus himself was holding the world in his hand. Isn't that amazing? And Jesus, while in the womb, even as an embryo, was the ruler of the world. Be amazed at the wonder of the incarnation. This same Jesus who is sovereign entered the world in order to die. And it is through faith in his truly innocent life and in his death, it's through faith in him that we have salvation. Amen. Will you please stand for prayer? Father, we do pray that thou wouldst indeed have mercy upon us, have mercy upon our land, have mercy upon our people, O God, who tolerate and support abortion. Have mercy upon us, O God. May we not simply blame the politicians. O God, we are a sinful, wicked people. that would rip babies to pieces. God have mercy, God have mercy upon us, we pray. God have mercy, oh Lord. Remove the blindness and the pagan ideas, the wickedness, the wicked worship, the child sacrifice, oh God, oh God. Oh God, where can we go from thy presence? Where can we go? So Father, we do pray that thou wouldst be pleased to send revival, genuine heaven-sent revival to enable us to understand the wonder of life and the wonder of the incarnation and the wonder of redemption. Give us that grace, O God, we pray. In Jesus's name, amen. Amen. Please turn with me, if you will, to the last part of Psalm 139 in your Psalters. 139, Selection C. This is the same tune that we used for 139A. But 139, Selection C. 139. Selection C, nine thoughts, O God,