Please follow along with me in your Bibles.

The abortion issue is of great significance to all people, but especially to the Christian.  Is abortion right or wrong?  The Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is a woman's legal right.  But the Supreme Court is not the highest authority for the Christian.

The ultimate test for what is right or wrong is God, and what He says in the scriptures.

• Acts 5:29 - Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

Notice it was not just Peter, but the other apostles also.

Those who believe in legalized abortion believe that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body.  Such is not in harmony with the Bible.

The prostitute, the heroin user, and the one contemplating suicide could all say the same thing.  "I have a right to do what I want with my body."  Yet is the person who thinks this way really only affecting himself?

We as human beings always have an effect on those around us.  Much of the crime in this country can be traced directly to the use of drugs such as heroin and crack-cocaine.  Drug users can say "It's my life and my body.  I'm hurting no one but myself."  But when that addicted body forces a person to rob or even kill to get money to support that drug habit, it gives a lie to that selfish statement..  Now we see that those who do such things force the rest of us to pay in higher taxes for more police, more prisons, more rehab, more sorrow, more pain, and more anguish!

But you say "Wait preacher!  Abortion is not the same thing as drug use!  People who have abortions don't cost us anything, they pay for it themselves!"  Look at Planned Parenthood--one of the leading promoters of abortion--who got 272 million dollars of our tax money in 2005 alone!  It DOES affect us!

But some will say, "Wait preacher!  What about the war?  Look at the money and life wasted there!"  They do that to get us off the subject at hand.  We are not talking about war.  We are talking about abortion.  One wrong does NOT make anything else more wrong or less wrong.

Besides that, I'm convinced that if we can at least do away with abortion, which sheds innocent blood, maybe God will have mercy on us and deliver us from our other troubles.

• Deuteronomy 19:10 - That innocent blood not be shed in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee.
• Deuteronomy 19:13 - Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.
• Psalm 106:38 - And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.
• Proverbs 6:17 - A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.

What was the sin of Judas?  Let's look at it from his own mouth:

• Matthew 27:4 - Saying, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood."  And they said, "What is that to us?  See thou to that."

Until we learn that what each of us does truly affects all of us in some way, we will continue to pay a terrible price in lives lost.  I wonder which of those precious lives might have grown up and found a cure for cancer, or heart disease, or stroke, or might even have preached the gospel so that many souls might have been saved!

• Romans14:7 - For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.

The Christian knows this better than more.  The Christian belongs to God.

• I Corinthians 6:19-20 - What?  Know ye not that your own body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Many people think abortion in OK because "the fetus is not a human being."  Yet the Bible teaches otherwise!

• Luke 1:39-44 - And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.  And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out loud with a loud voice, and said, Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Let us look at a few things from this passage:

1. Joy is an expression of great happiness, pleasure and delight. 
2. Before John the baptist was born, while still in his mother's womb, he expressed joy!
3. This could not be attributed to a blob of biological material.

The Bible also teaches that the "fetus" has a soul. When Job was in deep despair, he cursed the day of his birth.

• Job 3:1-3 - After this opened Job his mouth and cursed his day.  And Job spake and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

What was conceived?  A fetus or a child?  As Job is in anguish, he says:

• Job 3:11 - Why died I not from the womb?  Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

He says that if he had died at birth, he would have been with kings and counselors, and included in the list of those he would have been with were:

• Job 3:16 - Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

It is obvious that Job considered stillborn infants as having souls, since he classed them with all the others in death.  I addition, James tells us the human body is dependant on the spirit for life.

James 2:26 - For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

It cannot be successfully denied that the unborn child is alive.  To be alive, the spirit must be present.  So by inspiration, we can see that both soul and spirit are in the unborn child.

Some say that a fetus isn't a human until it takes its first breath, referring to

• Genesis 2:7 - And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

They forget that everything that God created was then propagated by seed after its kind.  The Bible does not say that God breathed the breath of life into every child from Cain onward.  We are on dangerous ground when we wrest the scripture.

• II Peter 3:16 - As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

One of the most common words used in the New Testament for a baby is the Greek word brephos. It is used in:

• Luke 1:41 - And it came to pass that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe [brephos] leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
• Luke 1:44 - For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe [brephos] leaped up in my womb for joy.
• Luke 2:12 - And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe [brephos] wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
• Luke 2:16 - And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe [brephos] lying in a manger.
• I Peter 2:2 - As newborn babes [brephos], desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.

We can clearly see that the scripture makes no distinction, no change of word, whether the baby be in the womb or out of it.

Man makes mistakes from time to time.  I have heard unexpected pregnancies referred to as "our little oops" "Our little surprise" and so on.  Man might make a mistake, but God does not.

• Psalm 139:13-16 - For thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.  I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.  My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth [Note: This is a Hebrew expression to describe the dark interior of the mother's womb].  Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

The conclusion here is clear. If the unborn child is not a life, but rather part of the woman's body, then why did David acknowledge his existing as a being in the womb of his mother?

Some have used Exodus 21:22-24 as a proof text that abortion was permitted in the Old Testament.

• Exodus 21:22-24 - If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.  And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Their reasoning goes like this:

1. Leviticus 24:7 - "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."  Yet Exodus 21:22-24 does not impose the death penalty, so the unborn child can't be considered a soul.  The words "depart from her" are interpreted to mean 'miscarriage' by these people. Yet, the common meaning of the word yatza (to go out, to go forth, to come forth) in this context means "and her children come out."
2. We can see that this does not refer to a miscarriage, but to a premature birth.
3. This word is also often used to refer to the ordinary birth of children either coming forth from the loins of their father (Gen 15:4, 46:26; I Kings 8:19; Isaiah 39:7) or as coming from the womb of the mother (Genesis 25:25, 38:28-29; Job 1:21, 3:11; Ecclesiastes 5:15; Jeremiah 1:5, 20:18).
4. In no case is the word yatza used to indicate a miscarriage.
5. In Numbers 12:12, it is used to indicate a stillborn child, but a stillbirth is not a miscarriage.
6. Another reason that yatza refers to a premature birth and not a miscarriage is that there is a Hebrew word, shachol, that specifically refers to the event of a miscarriage.  So Exodus 21:22-24 cannot be used to prove abortion acceptable in the Old Testament.

So, what do we have now?

1. We ought to obey God rather than men.
2. We are all adversely affected by abortion.
3. We do not have the right to do anything we want with our own bodies.
4. Abortion sheds innocent blood.
5. Abortion is as the sin of Judas (betrayal of innocent blood).
6. The Bible teaches that the unborn child is a human being.
7. The Bible teaches that both soul and spirit are in the unborn child.
8. The Bible uses the same word [brephos] to describe a child whether in the womb or out of it.

• Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

If God formed Jeremiah, He also forms every other child.  We can know this is true because God is no respecter of persons.

• Acts 10:34 - Then Peter opened his mouth and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.

It is my considered opinion that the greatest sin of our nation is abortion.  And if we don't turn from it, in repentance, God will deal with us as he has with all the other nations which sinned against Him.  If we do turn from it and turn back to God, He will bless us and deliver us from our enemies.

[Webmaster's note: We should also take this to heart when selecting our public servants.  For if someone supports this great evil and we give them our support then we become partakers in their evil deeds (2 John 11)}