LIFE & LIVING
Psalm 139: 13-24
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
A medical doctor wrote some very fine words on this passage in Christianity Today in the seventies where he compared embryonic development to these verses in Psalm 139. According to what we know about conception, this passage is very astute in its observations. By the seventh day after conception, the cells of the new human have multiplied and folded into a flattened hollow ball.
The Hebrew in these verses, which were probably written about 900 years before Christ, give a hint of this phenomenon. In verse sixteen the word for unformed body, or substance as an older version has it, is an obscure Hebrew word used twice in the Old Testament. The word is "golem", here it is used as a noun to describe the fetus. The same word is used in 2 Kings 2:8 as a verb where Elijah "galams" or folds over his mantle. Dr Hinthorn offers this translation for the first phrase of verse sixteen. "Thy eyes beheld my folded embryo." This is the knowledge that our Creator has of each of us just as He formed Adam in his time. This is the knowledge that David felt was so incredible.
The details of this wonderful life growing process unfold in the following verses. And David praises God because he was fearfully and wonderfully made. Who has not marveled at the tiny hands, feet and eyes of a new born baby? My pregnant students regularly bring in the pictures of the tiny little one still many months from birth and marvel at what is going on! Wouldn't it be great if we could just get every mother planning an abortion to look at such a picture of her own child?
David tells us that God has us in mind while our unformed body is being woven together. Even more than that in verse sixteen we are instructed that God has a plan for our life before we are even born. I am reminded of loving parents who sometimes have footballs, flutes, books and furniture all purchased and ready months before the little one arrives. Others even read to the unborn child and play music to stimulate the surrounding environment. But even more than the best planning of parents, God goes even further, He knows "all the days ordained". He knows our future from the past.
David here in this psalm is awe struck at the magnitude of God's loving knowledge of us and His planning for our future. "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!", he exclaims. This is the intimate knowledge should humble us as well as it did David. We should take the continual presence of God in our lives to heart and live lives that honor Him whenever we sit down and rise up. God also knows as David tells us, all of our thoughts and ways. This knowledge David tells us should be very precious to us. We ought always to remember that He is with us always, awake or asleep.
Of course when we are awake, we should knowingly practice His presence, but in this cruel fallen world of ours, it is sometimes difficult. In verse nineteen, David is concerned with the fact that bloodthirsty men are a danger in his time. That we well know today as well. And how many people have wanted to do what David left to God in verse nineteen. Unfortunately, some misguided Christians today have decided that murdering doctors can be attacked instead of being left to the rightful authority of the State.
Yes, I know, the State is not doing is rightful job of protecting the weak and innocent because too much money is being made from the frightful destruction of human life in the nation's abortuaries. But, in the last year some small progress has been made. Congress has debated and hopes to pass a law preventing one particularly gruesome procedure. And I wonder if God hasn't spoken to His people in the legal limitations imposed around the abortuaries?
Huh? How can the unAmerican, unConstitutional limitations of rightful assembly be God speaking? Please be patient with me here. We have to remember that it is not by our work that God's plans are established, and certainly, the clinic crusades have been going on for decades with no apparent success in stopping the procedures. Let me just raise the question that if all of the time and energy spent in standing against abortion were spent in sharing the Good News and in helping poor families to find there way, might not that witness have had a greater impact? We have to remember that we must be in the business of building up God's Kingdom and not in tearing down anyone else's. Even though in the Old Testament administration it was easier to righteously hate the wicked, in Christ's administration we are supposed to make friends out of enemies if at all possible. And what was the greatest news of the year regarding right to life? Roe of the notorious case became a Christian. That is a giant step indicative of what we really ought to be doing.
Even in David's time he could write the wisdom of the Spirit: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Are we using this wisdom today? Will it not prove more productive in the long run to examine ourselves, confess our sin and pray that God may use us to reach those He is calling to Himself. Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Hinthorn. |
"When Does Life Begin?", Christianity Today. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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IBS: The Holy Bible, New International Version (1984) | ||
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Psm 139b |
10 December 91 & 21 January 96 | |