Let's pray. Father, we have learned this year and the messages you've taught us that you are the giver of life. We do pray this morning that we would understand that in a more vibrant way. Lord, that we would trust you in crisis issues. But, Father, we do thank you that you have called us to yourself and that you've given us this opportunity this morning to be here, to assemble with those who love you, to grow more fervent in our love for you, and, Lord, to learn more about you. Be with us, we pray. Soften our hearts that we might become more like you, that we might love you more. And, Father, we ask that you would be honored by this morning. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Today is the celebration, if you can use that word, of the anniversary of the decision Roe v. Wade, which has legislated that abortion is an option in the United States. Many churches today will be doing exactly what we're doing, studying some text that deals with what the Bible teaches about the sanctity of human life. But abortion is an issue that not only threatens to divide our country, it threatens to divide the evangelical church. It is an issue in which there are many different positions, some who will say that abortion is completely untenable, that abortion is not a biblical alternative, and that you have no right to contemplate it, much less perform it. There are others who will take that stance for themselves, but will not hold that that is true for others, that they have a responsibility to make that decision on their own before God. And sad to say, there are others in the evangelical tradition who hold that abortion is not spoken of in the Bible and is therefore an option. Before I begin and look at Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5, I do want to mention something. And that is that this sermon cannot be understood outside the context of forgiveness. In a church our size, undoubtedly, we either have friends or perhaps even some of us here today have undergone abortions. You need to understand that there is forgiveness. God is a God of compassion. And the law doesn't say that if you commit one sin, you're in trouble. But if that sin is abortion, you cannot be forgiven. Sin is sin. All of it is offensive to God. But God has made provision for that sin in the person of Christ. And so as you listen today, if God is convicting you of your history, You have to realize that he has given you forgiveness. Another point I have to clarify before we begin is that the main point of this text is not speaking of the sanctity of human life. There is no text I know of that comes out and speaks and says abortion is wrong. But there are many questions we have to deal with today that we have to go to text to find out what the good and necessary consequence is. And I believe as we study Jeremiah 1.5, we will realize that clearly the good and necessary consequence of this passage is that human life, pre-born human life, is sacred to God. And so let me read the passage, starting with verse four, because it's important that we notice that this is not the word of Jeremiah. This is the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Why is it important for those of us who do hold that abortion is wrong to know what the Bible teaches? Simply because not everybody agrees. In our church in California, I was ministering in the children's church group And one of the women who was helping me called one day and I was talking to her about the schedule and it turned out that she was just really down about something and she couldn't hide it. She'd been diagnosed as bearing a child who would not live past delivery. Every person she spoke with for that weekend who was a medical person, something she hadn't talked to anybody outside of her husband yet in the church. But every person she'd spoken with counseled her to end that pregnancy. It was only fair. The baby was going to suffer. She would undergo tremendous psychological suffering as a result of carrying a child and bonding with it that she knew she couldn't keep. But something just wasn't right. She was scheduled to go in that Monday. This was a Saturday. She was scheduled to go in that Monday for the abortion. She didn't think she wanted. But nobody had told her that that was wrong. The reason we're studying this today is because we have to be prepared to stand in the gap. When we have friends who, for whatever reason, are hearing counsel from whatever people that the only option to them is abortion, we have to have the counsel that says, no, that's not right. A woman from a book, Aborted Women, Silent No More, written by a man named David Reardon, is quoted as saying, I called a priest who was counseling me and said, I want to get an abortion. I couldn't believe I would ever say such a thing, but he put me in touch with a woman who had had an abortion and she escorted me to a clinic. No one ever counseled me about financial and emotional health. Nothing. If this is pro-choice, where's the choice? I could have been counseled and led to find a joy in living and in procreation. Instead, I was allowed to run from life. There are people who will struggle with this issue, who will need our support. We may even be those people. And so this morning, we need to study Jeremiah 1. And we need to look at it in light of three questions, based upon three phrases. The first phrase, I formed. The question being, who controls the womb? The second, you. The question being, when is the child a child? I set you apart. Who owns the child? In the first question, we're going to find that abortion rights advocates, that's what the ARAs are there, I can't call them pro-choice because I don't believe they're offering a choice. what they are is advocates for the right of abortion. What they will contend is that the person who controls the womb is the woman. The claim is that it's the woman's body and therefore she has a right to decide if the child will continue to develop. She is the landlord. She has control over that space. She has the right to decide how and when her body will be used. But the Bible does not allow that option. If the woman truly controls the womb, then she decides when she gets pregnant. But scripture doesn't point that out. If you look at the case of Sarah, wife of Abram, God had promised them a son. Not just Sarah deciding that she would have a son, God had promised a son. And yet she was 90 years old and without child, beyond years of bearing a child. She had tried in every imaginable way to have a child. And I'm sure she had many tearful, pleading moments with Abram. She didn't control her womb. She could not decide when to give birth. She understands that in Genesis 16 verse 2. She says the Lord has kept me from having children. She understood who was in control. Rachel is a case where someone did not understand. Rachel was married to Jacob. She wanted a child desperately because that was the measure of a woman. You were a true woman if you could bear children and you were not if you couldn't. Her sister had borne children to her husband and she pled with Jacob. And at one point she turns to him and says, give me children or I die. Her husband did understand, however. And in Genesis chapter 30, verse two, he responds to her. He says, am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children? It's not Rachel who controls her womb. Hannah is a third example. She, too, is childless. She, too, is bearing horrible shame. And her co-wife is insulting and trying to hurt her at every opportunity, pointing out the children that she's born. But Hannah has none. But Hannah does understand who controls the womb. And she goes to Shiloh, to the house of God. And there she prays so fervently that the priest, Eli, assumes she's drunk. She asks God for a son and he answers. And Samuel, the prophet, is born. You see, the clear witness of scripture is that God and God alone controls the womb. He can give life and He takes life. It is not our prerogative. to terminate a life which is continuing. The womb is not under the sole control of the woman and she does not have the power to give life, she does not have the power to take life. We need to understand too, in light of who controls the womb, when is this child a child? Because one of the basic arguments that abortion rights advocates will give is that the child pre-born is not fully human. That you are not murdering. You're simply terminating. You're not killing a child. You're terminating an unwanted medical condition. No more serious than taking out tonsils. Abortion rights advocates will argue, and Professor Beverly Wilding Harrison has said, The question is not when biological human life begins, but when does fetal life, again they're separating the distinction between a child and a fetus, when does fetal life become a person, a full member of the class of human beings? They have to have that distinction. The American Friends Service Committee, a group which represents one branch of the Quaker Church, has a policy statement on abortion. They're a member of a group called the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. Their position reads, on religious, moral, and humanitarian grounds. Therefore, we arrived at the view that it is far better to end an unwanted pregnancy than to encourage the evils resulting from a forced pregnancy and childbirth. At the center of our position is a profound respect and reverence for human life. not only for that of the potential human being, who should never have been conceived, but that of the parent and the other children in the human community. Do you hear that? Do you hear that? It's flawed in two major ways. First of all, it assumes that the woman has control of her womb. Who is to say that that child should not have been conceived? Certainly, it may have been conceived in a sinful way. Many would have said the same thing about Jesus, and I grant you there's a complete difference, but Jesus would have been tarred with that same brush of illegitimacy. It's also claiming that the unborn child is only potentially human, that it is not human. But you see, the Bible doesn't give us that freedom to decide that. This passage itself is speaking of Jeremiah. I formed you. He's speaking to Jeremiah as an adult, and he's pointing out that the child in the womb was Jeremiah. I formed you. It's interesting, there are five times where it says I in this passage, and there are five times where it says you. There is a closeness going on here, a relationship between God and Jeremiah, and we'll discuss that in a minute. But it was Jeremiah who was in utero, who was in the womb. God didn't draw a distinct line between Jeremiah saying, when you were born, I knew you. He's saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you came forth from the womb, I set you apart. God is clearly stating that Jeremiah was Jeremiah. from before he was born. In the same way, we see John the Baptist spoken of before he was born as leaping and dancing at the presence of his Lord. And think of this for a moment. Mary immediately after having the contact with the angel went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She couldn't have been more than days pregnant. You wouldn't have even been able to know on a pregnancy test that she was pregnant yet. And Jesus was present. Jesus. Potential life. The executive director of the Office of Church and Society for the United Church of Christ is quoted as saying. It is our ability to enter into covenant that makes life holy. Not simply that we have the potential to be born. When do we have the potential to enter covenant? When can we be holy according to her definition? Can a child who is born enter a covenant any more so than a child who is not? Can they stand and affirm anything? No. When are we as adults worthy of entering a covenant? When are we worthy of coming into relationship with God? We're never worthy. There is no one here who can hold their hand up and answer the question, are you perfect and therefore able to choose God? We can never enter covenant in that way. Her definition doesn't hold water. But listen to this. The very language of this verse rules out that argument because the no, I knew you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. That word is used in several places and primarily of a covenantal knowledge. You see, we're told in Jeremiah chapter 10, verse 25, that the heathen did not know God. Does that mean they'd never heard of Yahweh of Israel? Those in Jericho did not know God. They knew of him. They knew of him enough that they were frightened to death that he would destroy their city and bring the Israelites in. to the promised land. They did not know him. The distinction is covenantal knowledge. God says of Moses that he knew him face to face, a covenantal relationship. Same term in Hebrew. Adam knew Eve and she bore a child, a covenantal relationship of marriage with an intimate covenantal knowledge, God says of Jeremiah. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. An intimate covenantal knowledge that precludes the definition they want to offer of a distinction between pre-born and born life. They can't argue that. Not biblically. And these are the religious coalition for abortion rights. God is showing that he was in covenant relationship with Jeremiah before Jeremiah was ever born. The inescapable conclusion, then, is that pre-born Jeremiah and all pre-born children are not potential humans. They are fully humans, therefore are subject to all the protections God has established for life. And at least on the evidence of the Bible, they must be subject to all the protections our Constitution offers for human life. Even according to the liberal definition which is attempting to distinguish between the fetus and the child, the child is fully human. I set you apart. Who owns the child? Does the woman own the child? Does she control his future, her future? The abortion rights advocates and the courts of the United States have ruled over and over again that yes, indeed, the woman owns the child, at least until the point of birth. She owns the child. It is her sole right and territory to decide the fate of that child. Pregnant children can act apart from their parents, can act apart from even the father of the child, to kill the unborn child, to terminate the pregnancy. If the husband of a woman wants to keep a child in several states in the United States, he has no say in preventing that woman from having an abortion. The woman is the sole proprietor. according to the abortion rights activists and according to our own court. Not according to the Bible. You see, God says, I set you apart. I have a plan for your life and I am going to direct you. I'm in control. If you think that that's stretching that phrase, look at verse seven. The last half of verse seven is God's response to Jeremiah's protest, but he can't do what God says. And God says, you must go to everyone I send you and say whatever I command you. God has complete, total, undivided control over the life of Jeremiah. It is God who directs the life. I set you apart. I appointed you. And you see today, I think the evangelical church, which is active in pro-life movements, has become something less than pro-life. We've become anti-abortion. There's movements like Operation Rescue, which are doing tremendous jobs, but they're only addressing a narrow part of the issue. The issue is not making sure that a child comes to delivery and abandoning it. because God does not abandon the children. The sad fact today is that more and more of the homeless are children. More and more of the people who are not cared for are young. And abortion rights advocates are making a heyday of that. And they accuse us of having a concern to protect the life of the fetus but not the life of the child. There is some value to some of the things that they say because we are focused perhaps too narrowly. Ceausescu in Romania was ravidly anti-abortion. If you had an abortion in Romania, you ended in jail. You lost your job, you were social outcast, and you may as well die. But Ceausescu, while being anti-abortion, was also unfortunately anti-life. And although he commanded the child be born, he also commanded that the child not have food or a house or the basic necessities of life. And we have no right to allow ourselves to come anywhere near that position. We cannot have compassion for the pre-born only to forget them when they're born. And I'm not saying the church is doing that. There are tremendous programs available, but I think that we need to balance our focus. Because you see, God is not anti-abortion. God is pro-life. It is the sanctity of human life in all stages. David C. Reardon, again in the same book, Aborted Women, Silent No More, has a quote at the end where he's discussing the future of abortion in America. And he says, the effort to stop abortion is not an attempt to deny women an option. It's not an attempt to deny women an option. It is a promise. It's a promise to provide them with better options. It is a promise to alleviate their despair, to prevent their exploitation. You see, God is not simply anti-abortion. He's pro-life. And we have to be consciously working at that because it takes sacrifice. It's not an easy position to take. It involves sacrificing in a lot of ways. But that is where God's heart is. And if we are to be conformed his image, that needs to be where our heart is. So what can you do? What can we do? First thing is remember that God is a God of forgiveness. If you have been callous to the issue in the past, God forgives you when you confess. If you have been involved in the issue, On the wrong side in the past, God forgives him. God is a God who loves us and has called us and loves Jeremiah and calls him. He is a God who has set us apart to receive his love. And if you doubt that, if you struggle with that, look at the cross. There is no more clear expression of God's love than the death of his son. And that purpose is to bring us to him. But what can we do now? There are immediate needs in crisis pregnancy centers. Laurel Crisis Pregnancy Center is in a serious need of people to counsel. They're going to be running a training class. One of the serious needs they have is for people to befriend those in crisis pregnancies, to give that counsel that no one else might give. You know your friends. Perhaps they need that counsel. Speak to your children. Teach them chastity. If you're not married, deal with chastity yourself. Something anybody here can do. Pray that the courts will make righteous decisions. Fervently. And one thing that's come up this week is that Dick Hake, One of the elders down at Covenant in Burdensville, our sister church, actually our mother church, is trying to get 500 people who'd be willing to be part of a phone calling ministry during the 90 days that the assembly is in action in Annapolis. They have at least one abortion rights bill and several bills dealing with pornography, especially child pornography. The Family Protection Lobby is trying to register opinions of those who are believing in the biblical standards. If you're interested in that, there will be a sign-up sheet passed at the beginning of the congregational meeting where you can sign up to be either a phone caller or to be a coordinator so that you can call 10 people who will then call the appropriate people. And it's being made so simple for you that all you have to do is make a phone call because you'll be told the phone number, you'll be told the person you're to leave the message with, and you'll be told what the issue is so that you can register your own opinion on that issue and how they should vote, how you would appreciate their vote to be on that issue. But again, we have to come back to the fact that God is God of forgiveness. God will forgive us. But the issues are clear. Life is sacred. Life begins before birth. Jesus was days old in the womb when John responded to him. Let's pray. Father, we know that you are a God of love and of light, a God of mercy and compassion, a God of tremendous joy. But we know, Lord, that there are times when we must seriously face issues which hurt. And I pray that we would search ourselves, that we would ask you to search us, and Lord, that we would act as you would have us to act on this issue. Give us confidence in what your counsel is, Free us Lord to be bold to approach those who need to hear that counsel. And father we do pray that you would end the terrible tragedy of abortion. Not like it was in Romania. But as it will be in heaven. Father we do ask that you would work in powerful ways to meet the needs of those who are in crisis. Especially in crisis pregnancies. Father we do praise you. and pray that you will work in our lives to bring yourself glory. In Jesus name, Amen.