Abortion (6-1-12)

Exodus 20:13 - "You shall not murder."

Having seen the basis for this commandment and how God views murder, we're now going to consider some other issues involving the killing of human beings and whether or not God considers these things to be murder. The first issue we're going to consider is the issue of abortion and we're going to see what the Bible has to say about it.

Murder is defined as one human being killing another, so finding out whether or not abortion is murder comes down to discovering whether the unborn baby is an individual human being, or simply a glob of tissue, or a part of the mothers body that she can choose to have removed if she so desires.
The Bible refers to unborn babies by using these words: child, infant, baby and man. These exact words are also used in the Bible when talking about those who have already been born. There is no distinction between the two, both born and unborn are equally human beings according to God. In Psalm 139 David talks about Gods knowledge of him even while he was in his mothers womb. And he doesn't talk about God knowing a fetus, or a glob of tissue, but a person. Psalm 139:13-16 says - "For Thou didst form my inward parts; 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; Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them."
There are several evidences in Scripture that unborn babies are indeed individual human beings at the moment of conception, and we'll look at just a couple of these verses. We read in Genesis 25:21-23 - "Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”" When Jacob and Esau were conceived, the Bible says, "the children struggled together within her." Even in their mothers womb they are referred to as "children". And God even said to her "Two nations are in your womb." A nation cannot begin with something other than a human being. She was carrying within her body the fathers of two nations.
Another great passage we can look at to see the individual human life within the mothers womb is Luke chapter one. This chapter gives us several great proofs that unborn babies are living human beings.
In verse 26 the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary with the message that she would be the one through whom the Messiah was to be born. In Luke 1:36 he says to her - "And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month." When John was conceived, the angel said that he was Elizabeth's son. He didn't say "Behold, even your relative Elizabeth has conceived a fetus, that if it is delivered will be her son." She didn't conceive a fetus, she conceived a son, a living human being.
After receiving this message from Gabriel, Mary went to visit Elizabeth, and we read this in Luke 1:41 - "When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb." and she says in verse 44 - "For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy." Both times the unborn child is referred to as a baby. And in verse 43 Elizabeth says - "And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?" Elizabeth calls Mary "the mother of my Lord." That means that even before Jesus was born in Bethlehem Mary was His mother. A mother is someone who has a child and Mary had no other children at this point. The only child that she had was the one that she was carrying inside her body. So at the moment that a child is conceived the child is a human being and the one in whom it is conceived is it's mother. You don't become a parent when the child is born, you become a parent nine months earlier when the child is conceived.


In Exodus 21, right after the Lord gives the command "You shall not murder." He says this in verses 22-25 - "If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." God says that if any damage is caused to the unborn child vengeance will be taken on the offender. And He even says "life for life" God says that if a child is killed within it's mothers womb, if it's life is ended even before it is born, the murderers life should be taken. God makes the life of a grown man equal to the life of an unborn baby when He says "life for life."

In Exodus chapter 1 Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, commanded that all the Hebrew baby boys be put to death. We read this in Exodus 1:16-18 - "and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live." Exodus 1:20-21 - "So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them." These midwives feared God more than the king and knew that they would be sinning against God by killing these innocent human beings. So God blessed them because they honored Him even though it may have cost them their own lives. At that point Pharaoh took matters into his own hands and began having the Hebrew boys cast into the river Nile. How horrible, all those babies being put to death. We see a similar situation in Matthew 2:16 after the birth of Jesus, we read this - "Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi." We look at these historical events and they make us cringe. All those innocent children being put to death. But as we've seen, God makes no distinction between the lives of the born and the unborn. Millions of little babies are being killed in this country through abortion, and God feels the same way about these murders as He did about the murders that were taking place in Egypt and in Bethlehem.
One of the charges that the Lord brought against the people of Israel in Psalm 106:37-38 is this - "They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with the blood." They shed innocent blood by killing their children, directly violating the Lords command. God said in Exodus 23:7 - "Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty." Innocent is a perfect word to describe unborn children. They have done no wrong and are unable to defend themselves.
God says in Deuteronomy 27:25 - "Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person." This verse accurately describes the people who work in abortion clinics every day, and make their living off of killing innocent children. God says "Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person."

As Christians we cannot stand idly by while innocent people are being murdered in their mothers wombs. Proverbs 31:8-9 say - "Open your mouth for the dumb, For the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy. Abortion is murder, plain and simple. When God says "You shall not murder." included in this commandment is, you shall not have an abortion. The killing of a human life, even an unborn life, is murder. And we need to pray for the ending of abortion in our country, and speak out against it. God was not pleased with the Egyptian government putting innocent children to death. He was not pleased with Herods command to kill all the children in and around Bethlehem. What right do we have to ask God to bless America when our government, like the governments of Egypt and Israel, protects and provides the "right" to kill innocent children? Abortion is murder, and God said - "You shall not murder."