Life Begins
At Conception
_ 1/22/2012
Today is January 22, 2012. Today is the thirty-ninth year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled abortion as legal in our United States.
Please open your Bible with me to the Book of Psalms and to the 139th Psalm and to verse thirteen.
Psalm 139:13 “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. (14) I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
(15) My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
(16) 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.”
I’ve titled today’s sermon “Life Begins At Conception.” Shall we pray?
How many babies have been aborted in the United States since January 22, 1973?
a) 50,000,000 [50 million]
b) 21,000,000
c) 441,000
d) 5,004,100
e) 3,500 per day [3 thousand, 5 hundred per day]
f) Population of Canada plus one/half the population of Canada [Canada’s population as of Oct. 2011 is 34.6 million.
Here’s the question “Does life begin at conception”?
For today’s sermon I’d like to take a two-pronged approach. I want to show you exactly what the Bible says about when life begins in the womb. Then I’d like to show you what the medical textbooks say about when life begins in the womb supported by what biologists and geneticists and molecular scientists say about when life begins in the womb.
Here’s what our U.S. Supreme Court said in 1973 when it made its famous Roe V. Wade decision.
“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 – 1973) [Found on www.azrtl.org].
So who knows when life begins in the womb?
First, the Bible.
Now let’s see what the LORD says. Here’s Psalm 139:13.
(13) “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.”
This word possessed means this. v. 13 – “possessed” = originated cf. Gen. 14:19, 22 [read Scriptures]
This next word is “reins.” Your “reins” = “the most sensitive and vital parts; the seat of emotions and affection; the kidneys.”
The NT uses the word on the lips of Jesus. Revelation 2:23 “…and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: …” The term refers to the innermost part of the person. Ps. 139 “For thou hast possessed [originated] my reins, my innermost parts.
Is there any wonder if the Bible teaches when life begins in the womb? Here’s a clear word on it. God originated it. He originated the innermost part of the person.
v. 13 – “covered” = “knit”
The Medical University of South Carolina said this in 2005. "The embryo is a new human life which is genetically distinct and which has energy and a direction of its own from the moment of conception." [Show slides of babies in the womb].
At 42 days. The central nervous system has been knit together. The baby’s heart has already been beating for three weeks. The blood is now circulating. The brain and the spinal cord have been knit together. His eyes are forming. Almost all of his organs have been knit together and he’s about an inch and a half long. All of this by the hand of an omnipotent, intelligent, genius called God. There’s no doubt that life has been at work inside this little creature since the day of his conception.
The Bible clearly teaches here that God originates the child in the womb and that He knits him or her together in the womb.
Here’s Psalm 139:14.
(14) “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”
v. 14 – “made” = created cf. Gen. 2:4; Ps. 100:3; 119:73; Job 31:15; same word used of God as “Maker”
Here’s verse fifteen.
(15) My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
v. 15 – “substance” = bones, frame, might cf. Deut. 8:17; Job 30:21; Nahum 3:9; Is. 11:15
v. 15 – “made in secret” = under cover, under a shelter cf. Ps. 91:1; 32:7; 119:114. Everyone was made in the secrecy and shelter of his mother’s womb. Psalm 91:1 says “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
v. 15 – “curiously wrought” = skillfully woven; embroidered cr. Ex. 38:23
v. 15 – “the lowest parts of the earth” = “the depths and the darkest parts known to man”
v. 16 – “substance, yet being unperfect” = embryo, fetus, something rolled together, anything not yet developed [Hebrew golem גֹּלֶם].
Here we have a simple and clear statement in the Bible that God watches over the embryo inside a mother’s womb.
v. 16 – “members” = members of my body cf. Job 17:7
v. 16 – “fashioned” = formed cf. Gen. 2:7-8; Is. 44:2, 24; Jer. 1:5
What does the Bible teach about origin of life? Life begins at conception. Here’s one more passage. It’s reference from the Book of Ruth. Here’s Ruth 4:13. “So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.”
“Conception” = “pregnancy.”
The Scriptures clearly teach that the LORD is the One who puts life into the womb. And is it even possible for the LORD to give pregnancy anytime after conception? No, it isn’t. He obviously gave a pregnancy to Ruth at the time of the conception of Obed, the grandfather of King David.
And, at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of
January 22, 1973, the entire world already had scientific evidence to the contrary. Yet, they decided not to accept it.
Here is a report on the question of when life begins in the womb was presented before the U.S. Senate in 1981, just eight years later, by seven renowned physicians. Here’s what they presented. “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.” (Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7.) [Found on www.azrtl.org]. Also found on www.abort73.com “Medical Testimony. A new human being comes into existence during the process of fertilization”].
Here’s the word of a man who knows what he’s talking about for sure. His name is Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris, France. He’s called the “Father of Modern Genetics.” He’s the man who discovered the Down Syndrome chromosome. "After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." [Found on www.abortion-not.org]. Also found on [Found on http://prolifephysicians.org/lifebegins.htm].
D. Lejeune’s work had been around since the mid-1950’s. Beginning in 1970, Dr. Lejeune began his quest to teach the world, especially the Americans, that life began in the womb.
Here’s Professor Michelle Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School. "It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." [Found on www.abortion-not.org].
Here’s a word from a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon (1926-1995), Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic.
Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard, Princeton, and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the prolife cause. “The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.” [From Ashley Montague, Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977), vi. – Found on www.naapc.org/why-life-begins-at-conception] [Also found on http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/science_boxes_in_barbara_boxer.html#ixzz1jpQTf6nV]
Dr. Landrum Shettles was for twenty-seven years attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Shettles was a pioneer in In vitro fertilization, biology, fertility, and sterility. Dr. Shettles states, “I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest—that human life commences at the time of conception—and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian.” [Found on www.naapc.org/why-life-begins-at-conception].
And here’s what school and college textbooks say about the origin of life.
"[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being." (Found in Keith L. Moore’s, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.).
"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote." [Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3].
"Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoa development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." (From Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.) [Found on www.abort73.com “Medical Testimony. A new human being comes into existence during the process of fertilization”].
"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote." [Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1].
"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are... respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development." [Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17].
"Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary
circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.” (O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss,1996, pp. 8). [Found on www.azrtl.org].
It’s not difficult for anyone, Believer or Non-Believer in Jesus Christ to see when life begins. As well, here’s what one pro-abortion leader says about it. Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the world, Planned Parenthood, said this. “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.” [Found on www.abort73.com “Medical Testimony. A new human being comes into existence during the process of fertilization”]. [See also Faye Wattleton, “Speaking Frankly,” Ms., May / June 1997, Volume VII, Number 6, 67.].
Today is January 22, 2012. Today is the thirty-ninth year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled abortion as legal in our United States.
Please open your Bible with me to the Book of Psalms and to the 139th Psalm and to verse thirteen.
Psalm 139:13 “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. (14) I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
(15) My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
(16) 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.”
I’ve titled today’s sermon “Life Begins At Conception.” Shall we pray?
How many babies have been aborted in the United States since January 22, 1973?
a) 50,000,000 [50 million]
b) 21,000,000
c) 441,000
d) 5,004,100
e) 3,500 per day [3 thousand, 5 hundred per day]
f) Population of Canada plus one/half the population of Canada [Canada’s population as of Oct. 2011 is 34.6 million.
Here’s the question “Does life begin at conception”?
For today’s sermon I’d like to take a two-pronged approach. I want to show you exactly what the Bible says about when life begins in the womb. Then I’d like to show you what the medical textbooks say about when life begins in the womb supported by what biologists and geneticists and molecular scientists say about when life begins in the womb.
Here’s what our U.S. Supreme Court said in 1973 when it made its famous Roe V. Wade decision.
“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 – 1973) [Found on www.azrtl.org].
So who knows when life begins in the womb?
First, the Bible.
Now let’s see what the LORD says. Here’s Psalm 139:13.
(13) “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.”
This word possessed means this. v. 13 – “possessed” = originated cf. Gen. 14:19, 22 [read Scriptures]
This next word is “reins.” Your “reins” = “the most sensitive and vital parts; the seat of emotions and affection; the kidneys.”
The NT uses the word on the lips of Jesus. Revelation 2:23 “…and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: …” The term refers to the innermost part of the person. Ps. 139 “For thou hast possessed [originated] my reins, my innermost parts.
Is there any wonder if the Bible teaches when life begins in the womb? Here’s a clear word on it. God originated it. He originated the innermost part of the person.
v. 13 – “covered” = “knit”
The Medical University of South Carolina said this in 2005. "The embryo is a new human life which is genetically distinct and which has energy and a direction of its own from the moment of conception." [Show slides of babies in the womb].
At 42 days. The central nervous system has been knit together. The baby’s heart has already been beating for three weeks. The blood is now circulating. The brain and the spinal cord have been knit together. His eyes are forming. Almost all of his organs have been knit together and he’s about an inch and a half long. All of this by the hand of an omnipotent, intelligent, genius called God. There’s no doubt that life has been at work inside this little creature since the day of his conception.
The Bible clearly teaches here that God originates the child in the womb and that He knits him or her together in the womb.
Here’s Psalm 139:14.
(14) “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”
v. 14 – “made” = created cf. Gen. 2:4; Ps. 100:3; 119:73; Job 31:15; same word used of God as “Maker”
Here’s verse fifteen.
(15) My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
v. 15 – “substance” = bones, frame, might cf. Deut. 8:17; Job 30:21; Nahum 3:9; Is. 11:15
v. 15 – “made in secret” = under cover, under a shelter cf. Ps. 91:1; 32:7; 119:114. Everyone was made in the secrecy and shelter of his mother’s womb. Psalm 91:1 says “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
v. 15 – “curiously wrought” = skillfully woven; embroidered cr. Ex. 38:23
v. 15 – “the lowest parts of the earth” = “the depths and the darkest parts known to man”
v. 16 – “substance, yet being unperfect” = embryo, fetus, something rolled together, anything not yet developed [Hebrew golem גֹּלֶם].
Here we have a simple and clear statement in the Bible that God watches over the embryo inside a mother’s womb.
v. 16 – “members” = members of my body cf. Job 17:7
v. 16 – “fashioned” = formed cf. Gen. 2:7-8; Is. 44:2, 24; Jer. 1:5
What does the Bible teach about origin of life? Life begins at conception. Here’s one more passage. It’s reference from the Book of Ruth. Here’s Ruth 4:13. “So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.”
“Conception” = “pregnancy.”
The Scriptures clearly teach that the LORD is the One who puts life into the womb. And is it even possible for the LORD to give pregnancy anytime after conception? No, it isn’t. He obviously gave a pregnancy to Ruth at the time of the conception of Obed, the grandfather of King David.
And, at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of
January 22, 1973, the entire world already had scientific evidence to the contrary. Yet, they decided not to accept it.
Here is a report on the question of when life begins in the womb was presented before the U.S. Senate in 1981, just eight years later, by seven renowned physicians. Here’s what they presented. “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.” (Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7.) [Found on www.azrtl.org]. Also found on www.abort73.com “Medical Testimony. A new human being comes into existence during the process of fertilization”].
Here’s the word of a man who knows what he’s talking about for sure. His name is Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris, France. He’s called the “Father of Modern Genetics.” He’s the man who discovered the Down Syndrome chromosome. "After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." [Found on www.abortion-not.org]. Also found on [Found on http://prolifephysicians.org/lifebegins.htm].
D. Lejeune’s work had been around since the mid-1950’s. Beginning in 1970, Dr. Lejeune began his quest to teach the world, especially the Americans, that life began in the womb.
Here’s Professor Michelle Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School. "It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." [Found on www.abortion-not.org].
Here’s a word from a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon (1926-1995), Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic.
Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard, Princeton, and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the prolife cause. “The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.” [From Ashley Montague, Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977), vi. – Found on www.naapc.org/why-life-begins-at-conception] [Also found on http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/science_boxes_in_barbara_boxer.html#ixzz1jpQTf6nV]
Dr. Landrum Shettles was for twenty-seven years attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Shettles was a pioneer in In vitro fertilization, biology, fertility, and sterility. Dr. Shettles states, “I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest—that human life commences at the time of conception—and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian.” [Found on www.naapc.org/why-life-begins-at-conception].
And here’s what school and college textbooks say about the origin of life.
"[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being." (Found in Keith L. Moore’s, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.).
"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote." [Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3].
"Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoa development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." (From Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.) [Found on www.abort73.com “Medical Testimony. A new human being comes into existence during the process of fertilization”].
"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote." [Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1].
"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are... respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development." [Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17].
"Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary
circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.” (O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss,1996, pp. 8). [Found on www.azrtl.org].
It’s not difficult for anyone, Believer or Non-Believer in Jesus Christ to see when life begins. As well, here’s what one pro-abortion leader says about it. Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the world, Planned Parenthood, said this. “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.” [Found on www.abort73.com “Medical Testimony. A new human being comes into existence during the process of fertilization”]. [See also Faye Wattleton, “Speaking Frankly,” Ms., May / June 1997, Volume VII, Number 6, 67.].