SERMON: “Sanctity of Life in an Age of Technology” (Job 10:8–12)
Sanctity of Life in an Age of Technology
(Job 10:8–12)
Series: Pro-Life Messages #3 Text: Job 10:8–12
By: Shaun Marksbury Date: January
26, 2025
Venue: Living Water Baptist Church Occasion: AM Service
I.
Introduction
Every time I enter a hospital to visit
someone, I’m thankful for the times in which we live. Between modern medications, imaging devices,
and machines to help regulate our bodily functions, we have a greater ability
to help people through disease and catastrophic accidents. We can thank God for using doctors and nurses,
as well as inventors and technicians, for lowering mortality rates, easing
suffering, and extending life. Technology
truly is a blessing from God.
Yet, is there increased potential for evil
in an age of technology?
We’ve considered a couple of different
topics since I started these messages.
The first of these was in 2023, when we considered the broader question
of what we as Christians should think about abortion. What God creates is clearly human, but people
would rather suppress that truth in unrighteousness. The sad reality is that God gives people over
to a debased mind and the iniquity of their hearts so they suppress the truth
about what they do. Yet, we saw that
abortion is murder.
Last year, we considered whether that was a
Christian view by looking at history.
Some allege that Christians have become too political, that Christians
prior to the twentieth century were far more open to abortion allowances than
we are today. Perhaps it was only the
rise of the moral majority in the 1980s that made us think that abortion is
universally wrong. However, we saw that
neither Scripture nor history allows for this theory, and we noted that the
early church universally condemned the practice of abortion.
As they say, though, that was then, and this
is now. We live in a new age, and that
has transformed the abortion question.
Women can have pills mailed to them, for instance, and don’t need even
need to see an abortionist. According to
reported studies, by the end of 2023, approximately 8,000 women a month in
states were receiving abortion pills through the mail from providers, accounting
for about 1 in 10 of all abortions nationally.[1] That number is sure to rise.
Yet, increased availability isn’t the only
factor of our times. For instance, two
topics have become political footballs for the past couple of decades:
embryonic stem-cell research and in vitro fertilization (IVF). Both have been the subject of tremendous
debate, both in news media around election season as well as in theological
circles. Perhaps you even have strong
emotions tied to these issues, having had some medical issues yourself or
knowing someone who has.
God’s Word is our guide, and even the oldest
book of Scripture is God’s revelation for even these modern times. The Book of Job records one of the most
horrendous ordeals that someone can endure as he dealt with the concurrent
losses of his finances, his children, and his health. Of course, our purpose today isn’t to see the
full exposition of this book, but this passage is fitting for our
consideration.
Job’s lament reflects faith in tension with suffering. We always face a similar tension, but now we
do so with medical advancements that seem to offer solutions, yet some
techniques raise ethical concerns. As we
consider how to approach this unique age, like Job, we’ll see that we must: remember
God’s sovereignty over our lives, His care in our development, and His
sustenance in our lives. Let’s consider
the first of those.
II.
Remember God’s Sovereignty Over Our Lives (vv.
8–9)
Your
hands fashioned and made me altogether, and would You destroy me? Remember now, that You have made me as clay
This is one of the hardest messages for us
to receive. As Christians, we often pray
for God’s blessings in our lives, His protection from evil, and His
guidance. Perhaps, though, you have
still defaulted to thinking your life is largely your own, that you live and
die by your own decisions and efforts.
Often, even believers view God’s involvement in our lives as largely
invitation-only, not understanding that He exercises sovereign control.
In fact, that very notion that God is
sovereign over life is hated by many.
They don’t have trouble with thinking about God as a guide or a teacher,
and even a protector. Yet, when it comes
to control, we like to think we share authority with God.
And, we can note that God graciously gives
us a lot of leeway. Sometimes, He allows
us to walk in sin for a while.
Sometimes, He lets us make bad decisions. Yet, we must not take away from that the
thought that He is not sovereign over life and death.
This includes sovereignty over
childbearing. In Genesis 30, we read of
Rachel lamenting because her sister was bearing children, but she wasn’t. In v. 1, she says, “Give me children, or else
I die.” Jacob responded in anger,
saying, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the
womb?” (v. 2). She then offers up her
maid Bilhah almost as a surrogate (v. 3).
Even back then, people were more willing to engage in questionable and
sinful practices rather than seek and submit to the sovereign Lord.
Job was suffering in different
circumstances, but he says here, “Your hands fashioned me and made me
altogether” (v. 8). He exercises
knowledge that we, in our more advanced age, seem to have lost. While he is suffering and wonders why
he was born, he does so with the understanding that God had the say-so over
whether he would come into existence.
So, Job reflects on God as the Creator, not
only of the cosmos, but of him. He acknowledges
God as intimately involved in forming his life, envisioning God as having “hands,”
molding him like a vase. He says, “Remember
now, that You have made me as clay” (v. 9).
This is a concept echoed in Romans 9, where God is again likened to a
potter; Romans 9:20–21 says, “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers
back to God? The thing molded will not
say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the
clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for
common use?” What a question.
We must see that God has made us how He
wants, and we don’t have the right to disparage Him for having a plan. God is sovereign; He is King. As Isaiah 64:8 puts it, “But now, O Lord, You
are our Father, we are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work
of Your hand.” Human life is fragile and
dependent on God, and the metaphor of clay reminds us of our dependence on the
Potter.
Now, to be clear, the Fall of man infects
the process. We live in a broken world,
and we sometimes arrive as what might be described as broken
vessels. That’s because sin mankind
brought into this world corrupts the process.
Sometimes, we may be born with vision trouble, birth defects, and even
infertility. These were not a part of
God’s original, perfect design in the Garden of Eden.
However, God still retains control over what
life is created, and He works sinlessly to achieve His ends in this sinful
world. Scripture says He can open and
close the womb, for instance (Isa. 66:9; Gen. 29:31; Jer. 1:5). Sometimes, He does this for blessing or
judgment, or simply to glorify some yet-unseen purpose (cf. John 9:1–3).
The fallen world is the reason that
infertility and illness are even issues.
Still, we must understand that God has a purpose behind it, just as He
has a plan for each life. He can even change
a condition if He wills, or He may allow it to continue, if He wills to
challenge a person with a different direction. While that’s easier to say than to do, we must
accept His sovereign control as reality.
That means we must honor God even in our
struggles. That doesn’t mean we can’t
utilize medical treatments, as some cults teach. Scripture shows people binding wounds and
applying oil and ointment to injuries, and one of the New Testament’s authors
is Luke the physician. Christian
believers built the hospitals and spearheaded the sciences, and God has blessed
us with knowledge. So, as we pray that
God might miraculously heal, we can also pray that God would work through the
hands of doctors to heal.
Yet, there are also those who don’t honor
God in the sciences. There are doctors
who don’t acknowledge God’s sovereignty who willing to give you poor and sinful
advice. So, as we think about that,
let’s consider what Job says next here:
III.
Remember God’s Care in Our Development (vv.
10–11)
Did
You not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese; clothe me with skin
and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews?
Job gives a poetic and picturesque
description of the procreation process.
Yet, he does so by describing God’s own hand in the process, not the
parents. Theologians debate whether God
personally creates a new creation each time a baby is formed in the womb, or
whether His is more of a superintending role over the natural processes between
the parents. I lean more toward the
latter view, but it’s a bit of a mystery; what we know for certain is that
every life exists by the will of God.
For instance, in v. 10, we’re reading
something that is not entirely unlike what we might learn in a biology
textbook, of the fertilization of the egg, the formation of the zygote, and the
successive rapid cell division — though with more elegiac terminology here. Perhaps this also includes the process of
embryonic development, with cells forming into organs, with the head, eyes,
mouth, and limbs forming. We see that
God is intentional and careful with His design of every individual, from
conception and through the earliest stages of development.
We see that process continue in the next
verse: God clothes “me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and
sinews” (v. 11). This is still early in
the maturation process, what we call the first trimester, when skin, hair, and
even fingernails are develop and begin growing.
Bones begin to be present as early as the seventh week, though it’s not
until the eighth week that doctors stop referring to the new life as an embryo
and begin using the term fetus, a Latin word that simply means offspring. Every aspect of our physical being is
intricately crafted by God, reflecting His care and creativity, and He sets it
all in motion very early.
Job isn’t the only person to use such
language. In Psalm 139:13–16, David
marvels at being “knit together” in the womb.
There, we read,
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me
in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks
to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and
my soul knows it very well. My frame was
not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have
seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that
were ordained for me, when as yet
there was not one of them.
David’s understanding reflects Jobs; it’s a
shame that it differs so much from our own.
Human life, even in its earliest stages, is not merely biological; it’s
sacred.
While medical advancements like IVF might
appear to help with the unpleasant reality of infertility, we must wrestle with
the fact that it treats human embryos as expendable. To ensure successful impregnation, doctors create
multiple embryos, some of which may be discarded, frozen indefinitely, or which
simply not survive the implantation process.
This is a financially costly process which does not guarantee success;
but even if successful, we must contend with whether this honors our Lord.
Similarly, embryonic stem cell research also
destroys human embryos. Of course, this
is in search for potential cures. Yet, vaccines
and medications that use cell lines from aborted fetuses, which is to say,
murdered babies, violate the sanctity of life.
Christians should call for ethical alternatives. We can advocate for life-honoring research,
such as using adult stem cells or umbilical cord blood, which do not require
the destruction of embryos. We can
utilize technology that God has blessed us with in a God-honoring way, seeking
to better align with God’s design and not destroy the image of God.
Some people are still worried. I remember how, when the embryonic stem cell
debate raged in the early 2000s, there were famous people such as Christopher
Reeves stating that it was wrong for us to have an ethical debate over
something that might help people. Even
some Christians feel this way, hoping that the ends somehow justify the means.
However, we must remember that this is God’s
world. He has blessed us with people who
can provide such advancements because of His goodness and grace, and He can
also take them from us. Let’s trust in
His ongoing provision, bringing us to the final point:
IV.
Remember God’s Sustenance in Our Lives (v. 12)
You
have granted me life and lovingkindness; and Your care has preserved my spirit.
Remember that Job is speaking from pain and
loss. Yet, he still acknowledges that
God not only created him but continues to sustain his life through His
lovingkindness (chesed). In fact,
he says that God has sustained his very spirit.
Job’s strength comes as the result of God’s constant care.
The fallen world presents us with many challenges,
like infertility and incurable diseases.
Yet, we must trust God’s provision rather than compromise ethical
principles. God would have us look past
our struggles and consider all the implications of His Word, and He will even
grant us the strength in the midst of our sorrow to do just that.
If you are facing issues like these, I hope
you will lean on God’s sovereignty and will. If you know believers struggling through these
issues, I hope you’ll encourage them in the Lord, as well. While technology can grant us hope of
correcting the previously uncorrectable, we also must ensure that we don’t
violate God’s clear commands such as “You shall not murder.” It’s better to look forward to the ultimate care
God extends in eternity (Rev. 21:4) than to comprise in our short time here.
So, how can we remember God’s sovereign
care? First, understand that there are
always other options out there that God might providentially guide us
toward. If you are struggling with
infertility, it is okay that you feel the pain of this fallen world. It is also okay to seek God in prayer and
consider solutions that honor life, such as adoption or ethically guided
fertility treatments. God’s sovereignty
doesn’t mean we don’t have human suffering, but it does invite us to trust Him
in the midst of it.
We should also educate ourselves. We want to advocate for life-honoring
practices, which means that we, as the church, need to consider them. Encourage others to support research that
upholds the sanctity of human life. All
the while, engage with compassion, recognizing the difficult decisions many
face.
Finally, remember that God’s purposes in
creation extend beyond what we can see. Though
Job questioned God’s ways, he ultimately trusted God’s wisdom (Job 42:2–3). Rest in God’s lovingkindness and the hope of
redemption in Christ, who entered into our broken world to bring restoration.
On that note, before we close, remember also
the gospel that God sovereignly brough about in Jesus Christ. Just as God carefully formed us, Jesus Christ
came to redeem the sinful humanity. He
suffered the ultimate pain of the cross so that we could be reconciled to God. If you have violated God’s ways, taking
ethical shortcuts, His grace toward you has granted you time to repent and turn
toward Him. There is forgiveness for
your sins before God at the cross of Christ.
V.
Conclusion
I hope that we will all remember that life
remains sacred, even in a technological age.
God’s hands formed us, His care sustains us, and His wisdom guides us. As we face the challenges of a fallen world,
we can do so in Him.
So, He will give you lovingkindness and
preserve your spirit. Whether facing
infertility, illness, or ethical dilemmas, trust in the God who made you and
sustains you. Seek to honor Him in all your
decisions, knowing that He’s both sovereign and good. The hope we have in Christ enables us to face
the challenges of life with faith and trust in God’s purposes.
[1] Laura Ungar and Geoff Mulvihill, “8,000 women a month
got abortion pills despite their states’ bans or restrictions, survey finds,”
May 14, 2024, PBS News, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/8000-women-a-month-got-abortion-pills-despite-their-states-bans-or-restrictions-survey-finds.
