Matters of life and death

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If you’re a visiting health professional you’re most welcome at this medical service and you may not know that around 70 doctors, 60 medical students and a number of dentists, nurses and other health workers regularly attend this church. So, on those rare occasions, when someone faints or falls ill during a service here, at least 5 consultants are quickly in attendance, though, of course, they never claim to be from the right specialty!

And we thank God for the hard work many doctors, dentists, nurses and others in this congregation, put in for those in their care, in the face of growing political correctness and the undermining of Christian ethics. We need to pray for the medics here to have great wisdom, strength and courage as they bear witness to Jesus Christ in their work. Indeed Jesus says to all Christian health professionals here this morning (Matthew 5:13-14):

“You are the salt of the earth…and the light of the world.”


The health service and the health - physical, mental and spiritual - of this nation partly depend on the healthy influence of Christian medical workers. Without it the implication, according to Jesus, is that the health service and the communities it serves will rot, people will suffer, and there will be a lack of taste and healing and much darkness. This is a matter of life and death both physically and spiritually.
Interestingly this sort of view of the future is partly revealed in the current movie: Children of Men which portrays an England 20 years on from now where there is no fertility and no love or care for one’s neighbour. That film is fiction but the truth is that medicine in this country has moved and is preparing to move further away from God’s ways and from its own Hippocratic ideal. Some are calling this ‘The New Medicine’, which essentially means medicine with no Christian principles. Some of it even harks back to Nazism. For example, the biggest abortion provider in the USA, Planned Parenthood, was founded by Margaret Sanger whose driving principles were explicitly racist. In her book, ‘Women and the New Race’ she wrote, "The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it." She said in her book, ‘The Pivot of Civilization’, that the so-called "inferior races" were in fact "human weeds" and a "menace to civilization." She was a part of the Eugenics movement (inspired by Thomas Malthus) that wanted to purge the human race of "defectives, delinquents and dependents" through calculated birth control, including abortion.
The need for Christian salt and light in the health service has never been greater. Now some of you here this morning might be saying, ‘Hold on Jonathan, you’re just a prophet of doom – where’s the evidence? Surely life expectancy has never been higher in England?’ Well we thank God for that but there are some very worrying trends and facts, including the areas of euthanasia and abortion.

The Bible is quite clear on both these issues. Let’s take abortion first. Did you know that the abortion rate in England and Wales is steadily rising year on year? In 2005 the total number of abortions was 186,400, plus 8000 from overseas and an unknown number as a result of taking the morning after pill. 99% of those abortions were carried out for social reasons. The total number of abortions in this country since the Abortion Act came into force in 1968 is 6 million. But look at Jeremiah 1:4:

“The word of the Lord came to me saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

God knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the womb. God formed Jeremiah in the womb. Jeremiah didn’t become a person at 24 weeks or when he was born. God knew him before he was conceived. From conception God formed him in his mother’s womb. Before he was born God set him apart and appointed him to be a prophet to the nations. We too were known by God before we were conceived. Now have a look at the screen. In Psalm 139 King David writes (v13&16):

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful…My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”

Again God knitted David together from conception in his mother’s womb and God’s works are wonderful. We are not to destroy God’s wonderful works. God’s eyes had seen his unformed body and God made him in the secret place – the womb. And we too were known by God before we were born. He created you. God knit you together in your mother’s womb. He created your inmost being. You are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. He knew all about your life even before you were born. Abortion is not just terminating a pregnancy. It’s not just getting rid of some unwanted tissue. It’s killing a person intentionally, an ‘innocent’ person (innocent in inverted commas for we are all sinful from conception – Psalm 51:5) loved and created by God, which is strictly forbidden by the sixth commandment: you shall not murder.

The truths of Jeremiah 1 and Psalm 139 continue to be proved by scientific evidence. On October 3 The Times newspaper reported that images from a four-dimensional ultrasound method are prompting a re-evaluation of abortion law in England. The 4-D technique has produced photographs that show unborn children kicking and bouncing in the womb at 12 weeks of gestation, yawning and sucking their thumbs at 16 weeks and opening their eyes at 18 weeks. Yet some medical specialists have still reacted negatively.

Donald Peebles of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at University College London said, “There’s a temptation to associate these movements – sucking a thumb, gasping as if talking – with adult movements, to think it is sucking its thumb because it is happy. It’s that feeling which I think is extraordinarily dangerous.” Well no one is mistaking the fetus as an adult - but those movements are recognizably and undeniably human, and that is the point. That baby has been human from the moment of conception. As such, the baby deserves full protection and respect.

Yet only last year delegates at the BMA (British Medical Association) annual representative meeting in Manchester rejected by 77% to 23% a motion calling for a lowering of the abortion limit for healthy babies from 24 weeks. How we need Christians involved at the highest level in the BMA to make a difference for Christ. A BMA briefing paper on abortion given to delegates claimed to give ‘accurate factual information’ but in fact quoted statistics about premature baby survival that were ten years out of date. We not only have a culture of death but a culture of lying. Whereas in the Bible we are told that God wants us to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19) and does not lie (Titus 1:2).

Now some of you here this morning will have questions about this – ‘Yes but what about the difficult cases Jonathan, such as to save the life of the mother?’ I haven’t got time to go into those areas in detail now but there is a handout available from the welcome desk or from me that hopefully will help on some of those issues. What I can say is that according to the Bible (and with the support of the latest medical technology) there is no justification for the legalization of abortion. The only exception is that it may be necessary to end a mid-trimester pregnancy in an emergency in order to save the life of the mother, since the baby will die regardless. But they only account for 0.013% of abortions. The hand out also gives reasons why euthanasia should not be legalized. So let’s now briefly look at that issue.

In one of only two instances of voluntary euthanasia in the Bible an Amalekite kills the mortally injured Saul, still alive after a failed attempt at suicide. The Amalekite reported this to David: ‘I happened to be on Mount Gilboa and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and riders almost upon him. When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me and I said, ‘What can I do?’... Then he said to me ‘Stand over me and kill me. I am in the throes of death but I am still alive. So I stood over him and killed him because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive’ (2 Samuel 1:6-9). ‘Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?’ David asks (2 Samuel 1:14), and then apparently before receiving a reply, as if the confession in itself were sufficient grounds for a verdict to be made, orders the Amalekite’s execution. In the mind of David at least, the compassionate killing of Saul constituted a capital offence, despite Saul being in great pain and close to death without the possibility of analgesia, and most significantly of all, despite Saul’s own request to be killed.
The teaching of the Old Testament was that ‘innocent’ blood could not be shed intentionally under any circumstances and is in fact uniformly condemned throughout Scripture (such as Jeremiah 19:4). The New Testament gives us an even higher view of the moral law than the Old and the absolute prohibition against intentional killing of ‘innocent’ human beings remains in place. So in summary, the Bible’s teaching is that the intentional killing of any ‘innocent’ human being is wrong. There is no provision for diminished responsibility on the basis of age or illness and there is no provision for compassionate killing even at the person’s request. Similarly there is no recognition of a ‘right to die’ as human life belongs to God (Ps 24:1) and is not the personal possession of any human being. Only God has the authority to take human life. As the Declaration of Geneva of the World Medical Association declares – doctors are not to play God. Yet at that same BMA meeting last year delegates voted 53% to 47% in favour of adopting a neutral position on euthanasia, reversing a policy of opposition that had stood for 173 years.
That meeting highlighted a quantum shift in views held by doctors’ leaders. The Hippocratic Oath says, ‘I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest such counsel, nor in like manner will I give a woman a pessary to produce abortion.’ In 1947 the BMA Council classified the ‘deliberate killing of infirm or feeble-minded patients and of children in hospitals and asylums’ as a ‘war crime’ and affirmed that, ‘although there have been many changes in medicine, the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath cannot change’. It further stated that ‘co-operation in the destruction of life by murder, suicide and abortion’ was ‘the greatest crime’. How times have changed. We all share the responsibility to do something about it. As Proverbs 24:11-12 says:
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

Secondly, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THESE MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH?

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, eternal death in hell. (Romans 6:23a) So these are serious matters now and for the future. All of which brings us back to Jeremiah where Israel is under judgment for rejecting God and his ways and also to Acts 4. In Jeremiah 1 God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet to the nations (v5). He is to tell God’s people that they have forsaken their God, who is the spring of living water, for worthless idols (2:11-13) and to repent (3:12). Now you are not Jeremiah but God has called you to serve him in a nation and in a health care system which has largely turned its back on God and his ways. He’s called all of us to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth in the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). In other words in our local surgeries and wards, in our national roles in medicine and dentistry and, if God calls us, overseas, whatever the cost.

How? Well we see some of how in Acts 4. So do look at that chapter. Peter and John have a Christ like love and compassion for those in need and they are concerned for the whole person. So they care for the sick and preach the good news of Jesus Christ, in spite of the authorities. Look back at Acts 3:6-10. They heal a crippled beggar in the name of Jesus Christ who has power over sickness and death and the beggar walks and jumps, praising God. In Acts 4:9 they call this an act of kindness in the name of Jesus Christ. Acts of kindness done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ have a powerful effect. They witness to the people directly affected and to those who know them as we see from v10 of Acts 3. Your care and concern for your patients in the name of the Lord Jesus will be a witness to them and their families and friends. As Jesus himself said in Matthew 5:16:

“Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

In Acts 3 Peter then took the opportunity to then preach the gospel to the onlookers in v12 onwards and calls them to repent and turn to God (v19). We too are to make the most of every opportunity as Peter later put it in his first letter to share the hope we have in Christ. And the opportunity for this has even been granted by the GMC (the General Medical Council)! You see there is now a growing recognition in medical literature of the important link between spirituality and health and the GMC has ruled that sharing faith in Christ with patients is fine as long as it is done in an appropriate and sensitive way. So you have a unique opportunity to improve both the physical and spiritual health of your patients. As Peter states in Acts 4:12:

“Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved”

Only Christ can bring true spiritual healing for our problem of sin and give us eternal life. Only because of his death on the cross in our place and his resurrection from the dead can we have forgiveness and peace with God through faith in him. Romans 6:23:

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Who needs to hear that message this morning? Perhaps you’ve been involved in what we’ve been talking about – abortion and euthanasia. There is forgiveness for those who come to Christ in repentance and faith. Why not come to him this morning and find freedom from guilt and new life. There is no sin too big that he can’t take away.

And something called the Saline Solution course has been developed to help doctors and dentists bring Christ into the consultation without being pushy, forced or offensive. Details are on the CMF website: www.cmf.org.uk
Thirdly, BE WILLING TO OBEY GOD
Finally we also learn from Acts 4 that we must be willing to obey God rather than men when the human authorities say you must do what God forbids or not do what God commands. This will involve standing up for God’s laws. It will mean saying no to abortion and euthanasia. It will also mean taking positive action. For example, one member of the congregation, Dr Chris Richards, is establishing Foundation For Life. This proposed service will offer women, along with counseling, an opportunity to visualize their fetus, through ultrasound, which can be seen as early as 6 weeks gestation. Such an opportunity has had a dramatic effect on the numbers of abortion-minded women attending centres in the USA who then decide to keep their baby. Focus on the Family estimate that over 80% of such women decide against abortion after seeing these images (compared to 15% who do not have the same opportunity). The vision is for there to be a mobile service making it easier to access.
So let’s prayerfully consider how we can show Christ’s compassion and be salt and light wherever we serve him. As Peter and John discovered this may be costly – they were jailed and had to appear before the authorities for healing in Jesus name and preaching his name. But let’s not forget that as we go in Jesus’ name he promises to be with us to the end of the age (Mt 28:20).


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