06.10. God Chose Life
God Chose Life
The test tubes are in place. The petrie dishes are standing by. The doctor is going to combine some lifeless elements and with a little smoke rising, they always have smoke rising in the movies for drama. He combines the ingredients and to the amazement of his assistant and all the others working in the lab life comes forth from the combination.
In the movies, the doctor makes a man from parts. He shocks him to life with electricity maybe from a battery, it must have been a DieHard or perhaps and Everyready.
Now obviously we know that life cannot come from a petrie dish, a test tube with only dead elements. No Doctor can create a creature and then shock him into life. Life cannot come from dead elements.
Recently on Mars a rover was doing what it is suppose to do "rove" all over Mars trying to find water and some how find evidence of life.
We live in a time in America when human life has been devalued and other things have been increased in value. If you did to a dog or cat what has been done to humans they would put you in prison. All things that may be legal are not morally and ethically right.
I wish us to understand that God chose life. We also need to see that we need to choose life. This Sunday is the Sunday closest to the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade that legalized abortion. We often enter into the debate of abortion as a nation. It is a hot button issue with politicians and campaigns. May I say that the issue is not a political one, thought some would relegate it to only that. It is not a social one thought it would be said to be by some. It is not even just a decision between and woman and her doctor, a private one, as it often called. May I simply state it is more than all these. It is a moral issue of fundamental right and wrong. Which side of the issue is God on? I submit that God is pro-life. He in fact time after time has chose life.
I- Chose To Give Life
The Bible tells us that God in the act of creation chose to endow the animals and humans with life. The word life is used 450 times in the KJV of the Bible. Genesis 1:20 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven."
God did not need to create life because He had a need. He created it for His pleasure not for a need. He chose to give life.
II- God Chose Life When He Could Have Chosen Death When Adam Sinned:
After God had created man and placed in a perfect environment He gave him a choice. We see that death passed upon men because of the choice Adam made.
Genesis 5:5 "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died." God chose to allow Adam to live for 930 years. He could have chosen to kill him physically at the same time he died spiritually.
III-- With Noah Again He Chose Life:
The sin of mankind was especially grievous to God. Notice what Genesis 6:5-7 says, "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
God had another decision to make. He could eradicate men from the earth and start over again. Would he do it? Obviously He did not, we are here. Genesis 6:8 "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." Noah found grace and God used him to continue life. Genesis 6:20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
We know that He sent the flood and death happen. Notice with me Genesis 7:22-23 "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. 23And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark."
God chose life again and the lineage of mankind passed through Noah.
IV- God Chose Life In the Law:
There are numerous places in the Law of Moses in which murder of another man is wrong. Numbers 35:1-34 sets forth a multitude of ways that a man is guilty of murder and is to be killed for it. Numbers 35:30 " Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die."
There is another place in the Scriptures that speak loud concerning abortion that we need to look at. Notice Exodus 21:22-23 "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. 23And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life."
If a woman was harmed and the child came early but both the mother and child was alright the husband chose the punishment. If harm came to either the mother or child it was life for life. It was the death penalty. Beloved God has always been against the atrocity that we call abortion.
V- God Chose Life When Some Would Have Chosen Death:
Many times the Bible we are told of men who wished for death or wished they had never been born. Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 wished to die. "But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers."
God chose life for him when he would have chosen death.
Then Job 3:3 says, "Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived." Job wanted the day he was conceived to be destroyed that he would never have been born. God chose life. He chooses life when men would choose death many times.
VI- Chose Life In Christ:
John 1:4 "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." God’s Word plainly tells us that life was in Christ. Jesus told His disciple Thomas in John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
John 11:25 "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
In order for men to live that are dead in their sins they must come to life again in Christ. Life is in Christ and no other.
Jeff Alford, a pastor friend from Tennesse made the statement during a winter Bible study that I had never heard stated quiet the way he said it. He said, "what we are living now, after we are saved, is the part of our eternal life. We do not have to wait till death for eternal life we are living the first part of it now." This brings us another important thing about life.
VII- Chose Life Abundantly:
Is God only concerned with eternal life at the moment of death? I say not. God says that Christ came for life now as well. John 10:10 "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
God wants us to have a richness about life, and enjoyment of life, a fullness of life that can only be had when He is the center of it. God chose to not only give life but to make it an abundant life.
VIII- Chose Life From Death:
There is a principle of life that we must take a look at as we end. The principle is that life comes from death. In the Corinthian letter Paul used an illustration of wheat. 1 Corinthians 15:36 "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." The death of the grain result in life coming out of it. Jesus died on the cross and out of death God chose to give us life. Revelation 1:18 "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."
Paul said it in Galatians 2:20 "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
Colossians 3:1-3 "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Have you chosen life dear friend? If you have not you can today. Christian have you chosen to live you life for Him?