So what I'd like to do this morning is turn to Psalm 139, verses 13 through 18, 13 through 18. On the back of the book, and you'll see a bit of an outline, and title it, The Wonder in the Womb. And the reason for focusing on this is because this past week, maybe you don't hear it on the news, but there were many, many rallies, pro-life rallies all across Canada. Also in Ottawa, thousands of people, especially young people came together to defend life, to defend the life of the unborn. And so I thought this is a good occasion to also focus on this passage just as a reminder of the importance of seeing who this unborn child is in the mother and who made this unborn child. So that's our focus this morning is Psalm 139, verses 13 to 18. Very interesting that in this psalm, In verses one through six, you hear that the Lord knows me. And seven through 12, he lives with me. And then 13 through 18, because he made me. He knows me, he lives with me, he's with me, because he made me. And in the last six verses, therefore, I will live for him. That's my gratitude towards him. So he knows me, he's with me because he made me. He knows me really, really well because he was right there in the womb making me and forming me. So Psalm 139 verses 13 through 18. And our focus will be that first part of verse 14. That'll be our text as well. Let's hear God's word, 139 verses 13 to 18. For you formed, this is almost speaking to the Lord here, very personal. 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 day's fashion 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'm awake, I am still with you. So this is really a confession of a believer as he lives out his relationship with the Lord and he's just stunned by the wonder and awe of God in the womb of a mother, right? So, but our focus is the first part of verse 14. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And you'll see the two points, right? He made us and he is, therefore we will praise him. Welcome. Welcome to this cruel sanctuary. We just read Psalm 139 verses 13 through 18. It's this really nice passage about the baby in the womb. So yeah, so anyway. You know, you can talk about all the wonders of God in creation, and you could probably list many of them, the wonders on the Niagara Falls and going to certain sites, the wonders of God's creation. You think of the wonders of the heavens, right? And I think of the Psalm 8, where we read, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, right? God's fingers, right? The moon and the stars, which he set in his place. But you know a more stunning wonder? What about the wonder in the womb? I don't think we necessarily give a lot of thought to that. especially in our society today where the womb is not respected, fearfully and wonderfully made. And yet you know, maybe you know, but what's happened is since 1988, since 1988, Canada has no abortion law. Okay, Canada has no law protecting human life of the unborn. And that's from the time of conception all the way to nine months. A mother and a father are free to abort their baby at any stage from conception to nine months, to full term that is. And according to statistics, how many babies do you think are aborted each year in Canada? These are actual statistics from Canada. 100,000. 100,000. 100,000 babies. So think of 30 years, that wipes out the entire city of Toronto. That population. Staggering. And I think in our society, And even in the church, I think abortion has become so widely accepted that many people don't think about whether it's really right or wrong. Twice in one day this past week, I heard the news call abortion what? A procedure. It's just a medical procedure, like getting rid of a gallbladder. It's not just a procedure. It's murder. It's killing an image of God. It's that hard hitting, isn't it? In our society, you hear that today? It's murder. We're going to see why this is so. Why is it considered murder? I know that many people just, it's a way to get rid of the baby conveniently, maybe because of a sense of shame, or maybe because They say we can't afford it, or maybe because a mother has been forced to by the man. But we're gonna see why it is murder. And then second of all, we're also going to see the tremendous love and grace of God in offering forgiveness and renewal to all those who cry out to him in repentance and faith. God is right there as well. So there's two sides to it here. And you see, God is the creator. He's the creator of the baby in every detail, in every step of the baby's development, from where? From conception, so from the first day, from the little C, onward. And so from Psalm 39, 139, 13 to 18, see with us, or see with me, the wonder in the womb. I think that's the easy way to remember, the wonder in the womb. And we're gonna see, first of all, he made me. And second of all, therefore I will praise him. First of all, look at he made me. We see that in verses 13, 15, 16. There's a children's catechism. The very first question in the children's catechism is, who made you? And sometimes I hear the children answer, my parents, my mom and dad. Yeah, that's true. But who's behind it all? Who made you? You know Jeremiah? God, yeah. God made me. And that's a stunning truth. The Bible says that God made man in his image. In his image. What does that mean? It means that God created him male and female, not just boys. but also girls, right? God made them male and female in his image. You know the idea of sex-selective abortion, killing a girl so that I can have a boy? No, both are equally made in God's image, male and female. If you look at verse 13, here the psalmist talking to the Lord about himself. about himself when he was in his mother's womb. He doesn't remember it. Do you remember when you were in your mother's womb? I don't think anybody does. Welcome, Sashi. Okay, I don't think anybody remembers it. But notice what he says here. He knows one thing. He says, you formed me. You formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. Okay, that's his first confession. God was at work forming him from the time that he was conceived in his mother's womb. The day after pill is an abortion, right? From the conception on, God was intimately, intricately involved. Notice what he says, okay? You form my inward parts. Inward parts, that refers to the inner self. the inner self, the personality, the center of our being, that's the soul. God created a man, body and soul. In this case, he mentions soul first, body. He created my inward parts, he formed it. He knows me intimately from that very first day on. He knows me intimately, it's all there, already in the seed. He knows me intimately, he knows me thoroughly because he formed my inward parts. He created me, ah, yeah, this is almost, this is his confession. He created me to live in a relationship with him. The believer sees that. And then he goes on to say, you covered me. You covered me in my mother's womb. In my mother's womb. That is, what's that mean? Covered me here literally means knit. Anybody ever knit? Everybody knows what knitting is, I think, right? Does God knit or he weave together? That's artistry, right? There's a lot of work, it's complex. That's what it literally means. He weaved me together. The picture is God forming the body like the one who weaves a beautiful tapestry. That's the word covered there, okay? So that's talking about the body and all its cells. One cell, right, is like a factory. zillions of cells inside a person. Job says it this way, your hands have made me and fashioned me in intricate unity. Certainly God uses the natural reproductive processes, but he is intimately involved in every stage, in every detail in forming the boy or the girl. This is a work so astonishing that before the psalmist describes it any further, he says, I will praise you. Why? For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. He's already stunned, but he's gonna go a little further and say more about the stunning wonder of God. Abortion destroys God's handiwork. It destroys God's handiwork. It destroys life. a separate life, an individual life in the womb. Sometimes you hear a husband and wife say, oh, the pregnancy was an accident. Oh, the pregnancy was a mistake, that wasn't supposed to be. Is that true? No, because God intended it. Sometimes it may be in a sinful situation, but even in a sinful situation, if it happens, God intended it for good, always for good. The child is there by his plan and by his design, always, always, always, always. He'll take care of it. That's where trust comes in. There's more. If you look at verses 15 to 16, man, a greater description of this, this archistry of God at work in the womb. You notice that God oversees the baby's development in the womb. That's what verses 15 and 16 brings out. He oversees every detail, every step. See God at work in the womb, bringing out the wonder of every detail. Look at verse 15. It's even more detailed yet. My frame, what's my frame? Bones, right? It's your structure. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Hidden from who? Hidden from mom, hidden from dad, hidden from everyone else. No one else can see the baby inside, not even mom. Oh, except for an ultrasound. Yeah, but that's just for a split second. But who's there in the womb? Just God and the baby. Just God and the baby. He was the one forming the baby in the womb. The womb, a very dark place, it's dark inside, very distant, but those are not barriers for God. He was there, he was present. There I was being made in secret. What's secret? inside, nobody else sees, nobody knows exactly what's going on. And then he goes on to say, the lowest parts of the earth. What's the lowest parts of the earth? That refers to the womb, not the highest heavens, but it's really deep inside, the lowest parts of the earth. Of course, today by use of ultrasounds, we catch glimpses of the baby, but who can capture and see the skill of the baby's creator? Every detail, every cell, skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Literally means multicolored embroidery. Okay, that's the design of the Lord, that work in the womb. I love what Calvin says, John Calvin, and he said this 500 years ago. He says, other artists, they have their work set before their eyes before they can begin their work. What do you need? You need light before you can begin your work. with your drawings or with your paintings. But the Lord, he fashioned me, not outside in the mother's womb, but in the darkness of the mother's womb. Calvin says, should an artist do his work in some dark cave where there's no light to help him, how would he even begin with his hand? It would be full of mistakes. There'd be paint blobs everywhere. What kind of work would it be? Where's the embroiderer who could carry out one hundredth of the intricately woven baby in the darkness of the womb? By the way, week seven, that's less than two months. The baby's head is developing. The baby's face and brain are growing. There's no nose yet, but there's an impression, or depression there, for the nose already that God is forming. By the way, there's buds. There's buds for the legs. The legs aren't there yet, but the buds are there, ready to form into legs. And there's already more than just buds for the arms. The arms look like paddles at this point. 12 weeks, that's three months. The baby is fully formed. Already three months, fully formed. Ears, toes, no toes, fingers, complete with fingernails. See God at work? Week 14, the baby starts tucking his thumb. Week 14, that's three and a half, three and a half months. Already starts tucking his thumb. Maybe nine, 10 centimeters long, about this long. At week 20, hey, eyebrows begin to appear. Everything in its order, everything exactly the way God designs it. At 24 weeks, organs, the liver, the kidneys are fully formed and the baby begins to hear and respond to noise. When the baby begins to hear and respond to noise, what does it begin to do? It begins to kick. It's alive. You know that it's alive. It begins to kick in the mother's womb. By 28 weeks, there's hair on the head. At 30 weeks, the toenails appear on the toes. and the fingernails have reached to the end of the finger. They've grown, so they've reached to the end of the finger, and the baby's eyes open. They're actually open in the womb. It's amazing. And who's doing all of this? God. He did that with you, Jeremiah, and with your sister, and I mean all of us, all of us. Skillfully wrought, right? Beautiful term. In the lowest parts of the earth, there's more, the Lord oversees our development in the womb according to the life plan he has just for you. When you were born, God didn't say, okay, how should I plan his life? No, no, it's already intricate in the very details, the way he's already forming you. That plan is already being, carried out, and he's already got your days counted as he is forming and developing you. Notice verse 16, your eyes saw my substance, yet unformed, it wasn't a baby yet, as we would see it today, it's a baby, yeah, but not fully developed. In your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. Wow. You know, as a believer, we know that this is such a comfort to know that all of this is already in God's plan, that even that you come to know Jesus, that was already built into his plan as he was forming and creating you in the womb. You are yet unformed, but who saw it? God saw a baby. God saw his covenant partner. He saw a living person. That's what he saw. And yes, God knows, he makes the details. He not only knows the details, he makes the details of our lives already in the womb and the plans with great care and love. Your genetics, your pluses, your minuses, your IQ, whether it's really, really high or maybe a little bit less, he has it all in plan. He's had it all worked out. Your disabilities, your abilities, your strengths, your weaknesses, Yeah, whether you're gonna receive Christ or not, it's all there. Long before my life began, you and your book decreed a spin, as a song would say. His book, what does God's book refer to? Does God need a book to write things down about you so that he can remember? No, right? His book is his all-knowingness. That's what his book is. We need to write something down to remember. Right? Okay, when my baby was born, he was 23 inches long and weighed 8.9 pounds. Otherwise we forget. But with God, his book is his mind, his memory. He never forgets a single detail about any plan or about your life and how it unfolds. This is our God. The wonder in the womb. What should be our response? I will praise him. Look at verse 14. I will praise him. Why? I will praise him, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, says verse 14, and my soul knows that really well. Okay, it's almost like you're speaking as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. When someone makes something nice for you, you say, ah, I don't like it. No, when someone makes something very nice for you, you thank the person, you show your great appreciation. You know what? Maybe we're not always satisfied with how God made us, right? We should be, we should be. As a matter of fact, more than we should be, God wants our praise. He wants our praise. In spite of all our foibles, right? He wants our praise because he designed us the way, exactly the way. There's no two people alike, are there? Not two people alike. You are a male, you are a female in God's plan. One or the other gender. You're brown, black, or white. There's no exact copy of you in the world. No fingerprint that's alike to another person. No eye that's alike to another person. And all this is evidence, all this is a witness from God to draw mankind to him and to give him praise, to worship him, to give him thanks. You know what? Aborted babies never have the opportunity to give praise to God for the wonder of his handiwork. Instead, what do we see today? Babies are offered on the altar of convenience, disposed of as tissue, discarded, with no thought of God's handiwork. And you know, it's not just the mother. Too often people point to the mother. It's just as much the father or the man as with the woman at the time. The abortion industry, maybe we're not aware of this, but the abortion industry has become a big business. People are making money off of torture and terrorism in the womb. Babies are torn apart, limb by limb, and they're used for experimentation. They're used for cloning. They're used for makeup. Did you know that? Not all makeup. but they're also used for makeup. They're used for harvesting. They harvest baby parts for stem cell research or they may kill them for any reason at all. Abortion is terrorism of the worst kind. People talk about terrorism in our world today. One thing they forget is the terrorism in the womb. The child has no place to flee, no place to hide, no place to run. Whereas the womb God intended to be the safest place in the world. You know, the sin of child sacrifice, that's nothing new. In the Old Testament, it's mentioned as one of the major reasons why God judged the nation. why God judged his people and sent them into exile. If you read 2 Kings 17, it says they mutilated their sons and daughters. They mutilated them. They tore them apart. How? By fire. They sacrificed them on the altars of fire till the Lord, in great anger against Israel, put them out of his sight. This brings us back again to the wonder of the womb. a secret place where God is at work, forming, think of all the verbs there, forming, knitting, skillfully making, and the wonder of the psalmist comes out in verses 17 and 18, how precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God, that God and his love will put that much care, that much thought, into my life in all its details. Amazing, wonderful. The believer sees that and confesses it, as the psalmist says here, how precious. It's like precious here has to do with a jewel that's very rare. A jewel that's very rare is very, very precious in the sight of God. To me, it's very precious, Lord. Your intentions for me, your plan for me, how you made me. You belong, we give you all the praise. How great is the sum of them, the psalmist says about God's thoughts. If I should count them, there'd be more in number than the sand. When I'm awake, I'm still with you. Trusting him, I want to live my relationship, my life in a relationship with him. That's why the psalmist ends, you look at verse 23 and 24. Just seeing who God is and God, how he created us to live in a relationship with him, to enjoy him, to live with him. Notice how the psalmist ends. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties and see if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Now, just two applications I'd like to bring out from this Psalm 139, we'll close. The first is God in his grace, and this we need to be very, very clear here. God in his grace reaches out to those who have aborted, or to those who have encouraged abortion, or even to the abortionist itself. I was reading a testimony of one Christian woman One Christian woman in an interview shared how she had two abortions. She tried to live her life as if the abortion never really happened. It was hard for her. She tried to ignore it, she tried to get rid of the idea, but it would always come back to her, and she was afraid. She was afraid to tell others about what she had done. It was her deep secret. And what about her husband or the man, right? It's both. Years later, she shares how God did not leave her alone. God loved her. What did God do? God pursued her in his love and his mercy and his grace. He kept on working in her, the one that worked her in the womb of her mother, kept on working in her so that she was able to say, Lord, I did this, I confess, this is what I've done. Deeply regretting the choices she made. These things happen, they do happen in the church with great regret, but there is a way out, there is a way. And this lady said after a long time hiding it, only then when she confessed it, she came to know the relief, the freedom, the joy, of the forgiveness of her sins. She put it this way. She says, grace frees you to not be identified by your past. She says, I am not my past. That's how it is when God truly forgives. Grace, Grace frees you to be not identified by your past. If you're in Christ, you're identified only as God identifies us, holy, righteous, redeemed children of God. And yeah, truly speaking, God offers His grace, His forgiveness and healing to all who cry out to Him in repentance and faith. But we still have to acknowledge it for what it is. It's murder, it's murder. Second thing, God in his grace here reaches out to all of us. That's to all of us, every one of us. See with what care, see with what God has made us, images of him. We're broken, images. We're corrupted by our sin for the time we are conceived, right? Born, conceived and born with the sin of Adam. And yet you see God so meticulously and graciously at work. David says in Psalm 51 5, the one who wrote this, he says, in sin my mother conceived me. That he's saying is in my conception, I was already a sinner, born a sinner in Adam. How much more is his love and grace toward us in Christ who trusts in him alone for our salvation? Yeah, we need to be reborn. Reborn by his spirit and reformed Reborn by his spirit and reformed. Talking about God forming, God reforms us in Christ. Remember Christ himself? Did he come as a man into the world? He came as a baby. As a matter of fact, he came in the womb. He was conceived. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Why did he have to be conceived? to cover my sin, my sin even from my conception on. And notice that the one who did this for us also took the judgment upon himself on the cross for our sin, rose again from the dead. And what is he doing today? For all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, he's renewing, he's reforming our sin-broken images, and he's doing that day by day, detail by detail. Think of what he does in the womb, and now think what he does in the life of the Christian, doing the same thing, but by the working of his spirit so that we conform more and more to Christ. You know, did God form the ear? Yeah. Did he form the eye? Yeah. Did he form the heart? He certainly did. And now the Lord himself sees, he hears, and he knows everything. And the beautiful thing is by faith in Christ, he also gives us new ears to hear and new eyes to see, to see Christ. No longer deaf, no longer blind to the realities that are in Christ for us, Even my death won't be taken away. Even my death won't take him away from me. When I awake, see the last line of verse 18? When I awake, see here a glimpse of being raised from the dead. Even then, even then, I will see him. I will be with him. He will be with me. God will never abort his own children whom he adopts in Christ. Will he ever get rid of anybody whom he adopts in Christ? Not a single person. He will complete his work in every detail to its full, till we're fully formed in him. And so it's verse 17 and 18 take on new meaning. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How great is the sum of them. If I should count them, there would be more in number than the sand. And when I awake, not just in the morning, but at the resurrection, I am still.