Sanctity of Life #1

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This past Sunday was sanctity of life Sunday in America, and this coming Sunday is sanctity of life Sunday on South Africa. With this in mind I thought I would write a bit about what the sanctity of life is. The principle is human life is sacred- Sacred in a different way than everything else. This principle is found in Genesis 9v5b which says, “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.” Now somebody is going to say to me, “What? If animals kill a human being God is going hold those animals accountable? How does that work?” and the answer is I have no idea, but the point is clear: If God is angry at animals doing instinctive things, for killing human beings, how much more accountable are human beings for one another’s lives. What God is getting across here is that of all of his creation there is something special about human beings- human life is scared. Anyone who violates it I will be held accountable.

What does ‘Sacred’ mean?

What does that word sacred mean. What does it tell us? And I would suggest that right here in the text you have basically three grounds for saying that God says human life is sacred.

Human life is sacred because if you look carefully its priceless. Why is it priceless? If you see a diamond ring and you ask the man who owns it, “I would like to buy that diamond ring”, what if the man says, “No, that was my wife’s, that’s the ring I gave her when we were engaged. She died tragically some years ago, its priceless to me” now what does he mean. There is no exchange for it. God is saying (here is one of t...

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...ou are not accountable you can do whatever you want with it. But if it’s not yours, but it’s in your hands, you are accountable. That’s what we have here, It says, “for your life blood I will demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting for the life of your fellow man” Now this is a frightening thing.

We are saying, human life is sacred in this sense, every human life that comes into your life whether it’s the guy serving you behind a McDonalds window, or a taxi driver, no matter what life comes into your world, you are accountable for it. Every human life is a sacred deposit, how you treat other people God says, “I will hold you accountable for how you treat”. Because human beings are not yours! No human being, not your children, not your parents, not your friends, not your family, no human being is yours to cut up, stack, use and discard as if it is yours.

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