Halt, Stop, Abort, End, Terminate, Cut Short
All these words have a similar meaning. Some vary slightly, but all describe something that is no longer continuing. Our Pastor’s sermon yesterday was centered on just that, the cessation of life. He delved into the crime of premeditated killing of another human being sharing on the reasons that it is wrong. Humans were created differently from all the other creatures in the animal kingdom. Animals were created to be subjugated by mankind, while humans were created in the image of God, then God breathed life into mankind. He not only created the body of man, but breathed the spirit of life into him and gave him a soul. God didn’t do that with animals, fish, or birds.
Throughout the Old Testament God shares that He knew each human while it was being formed in secret in the woman’s womb. He said in Psalms 139:10-16, “If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. 12Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. 13For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. 14I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 15My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16Thine 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.” God knew us even as an embryo, at the very act of conception, at the fertilization of the woman’s egg by the father’s sperm.
Our Pastor defined the premeditated taking of another human’s life as murder. It is so sad that Americans have lost the shock of a person being murdered. Every day people kill a coworker, a wife, a husband, a child, a neighbor, or a stranger. A statistic listed that in 2015, New York had 320 murders, but even more inexcusable there was the fact that four times as many abortions of 21 gestational weeks children or more during the same time period. People can deny that Abortion is a premeditated taking of a life, but women with their doctor agree to stop the life a human being. The reason for the conception doesn’t alter the God’s truth about the taking of a human’s life.