Valuing Every Life - Psalm 139:1-24

You say, “I will start tomorrow.” When you make this statement you have just committed your life’s most valuable asset [time] to the most devastating word in the English language, tomorrow. Tomorrow may never come. If you have finished eating your breakfast and have not prayed or read your daily Bible lesson [should have done both] that is procrastination and procrastination is the second most dangerous word. Now, here is a sincere request, and it is very important. Open your Bible now and read the 139th Psalm. It is imperative that you always read for yourself what the Bible says about any subject in consideration. Each person must learn to rightly divide the word [that is to know what it says and means] in order to show him/herself approved in the sight of God.

Men of all ages have wondered and asked questions like: “Who is man that God should be concerned about him? The question this lesson will attempt to answer is: “Why has God always placed the highest of value on every life? Part of the answer is found in Psalm 139; therefore it impossible for you to fully understand how and why God values every life as it is discussed here unless you read Psalm 139.

As your teacher, I will always tell you what I believe and it will be the truth in so far as I am able to ascertain the truth. I am subject to make an honest mistake; therefore you need to study your Bible along with any written commentary. I humbly submit that I am a finite [extremely limited] human being and am studying and trying to tell others a few minor details about an infinite perfect God. [God has absolutely NO LIMITATIONS.] Richard Sibbes asked how man can comprehend God; then answered his rhetorical question by saying, “We shall apprehend Him, but not comprehend Him” The first and most important expression of his unlimited love for you and me is found in John 3:16. For God loved the world so much, that he gave his only son as a blood sacrifice for each and every person on earth. The creator is bigger than anything he is able to create. By faith, I believe that God created everything that is—and that includes the ‘stuff’ that everything is made of. For example, Genesis says that God created man from the dust of the earth. So, where did dust come from? The answer is that it came from the earth—so where did the earth come from? The answer is that God created it. So, what is the stuff he used to make the earth? IT WAS. Why. Because of the great I AM. In order to be a Christian, one absolutely must have faith. You must believe that the Bible is the true word of God.

Where did God come from? He had no parents and he had no former place of abode; therefore, He did not come. He was, is and will always be God. If there ever was a point or place when time began…God was there. When Moses told God that the Pharaoh in Egypt would want to know where he got his authority…then he asks God what he should tell Pharaoh. God’s answer was; “Just tell him that I AM sent you. So, what are God’s limitations? He has none. How big is God? No one knows…but he is bigger than his creation. Things may be larger than scientist think they are—but they have given us some numbers that are mind-boggling.

Scientist say that the universe is so big that if you could find a rocket that travels at the speed of light, it would take you 500 billion years to fly around the outside perimeter—you would be traveling 186,000 miles each second. The diameter of the sun is 864, miles while the earth’s diameter is only 25,000 miles and that means that the sun would hold 1,000,000 planets the size of the earth. One of the stars has a diameter 100 million miles larger than the orbit of the earth around the sun.

Sun light requires eight and a half minutes to reach the earth…however it requires more than four years to reach the nearest star which is 24 trillion miles from earth. Our galaxy called the Milky Way contains billions of stars—many of them are larger than the sun. Astronomers believe that there could be millions of galaxies. It is difficult just to think about this; it is impossible to understand. It easy to believe [trust] that God is bigger than all of the above. [The numbers in last two paragraphs were taken from Holman’s Old Testament Commentary on Psalm, 139—2006.]

Now, I want you for just one moment try to trace ever process that takes place from inception to death in the physical body of each being. God created each and every person even before he/she was conceived. He knew their names, what they would do, where they would live, even every hair on each head was counted. All of this and I will ask only one question. How could “I AM” be GOD if he did not Value Every Life? David is the only person in the Bible referred to as a man after God’s own heart. I think this is true because David had great faith, but his greatest attribute was his study of God’s creation and he talked and sang to God constantly for years out under the stars with his sheep. We were created to love, worship, praise and work for God. In the 139rh Psalm, David lets us know how big he thinks God really is—and the truth is that he is bigger, better, more powerful, more knowledgeable, stronger, etc. than the human mind can comprehend.

Why do men love darkness? It is because light is revealing. Some of us want to keep others in the dark about some of the things we do or say. We want friends. But we don’t want friends that really know us. Have you ever done anything that you didn’t want anyone else to know about? According to David, that is impossible. He said God searched him and knows him and everything about him…when he is sitting and when he gets up. God knows when he is outside and inside, when he is lying down, asleep or awake. He says God knows his thoughts before they occur to him and knows what he is going to say before his lips ever move. God made us and he knows us and he loves us and places great value on each one of us.

I thought I was lost one night in Big Gum Pond, in Raft Creek Bottoms. During the afternoon the water had risen until the creek was too deep to wade. It got black dark, there was a slow drizzle falling, and there was one flash light for four people—the battery died. We were in total darkness, in thick timber with some underbrush and could not move. You know we got home ok, because I am writing this, when I thought I was lost—I was not! God was with me all the time. Read verses eight and nine. God went duck-hunting with me that day and knew exactly where I was.

God values life so much that he stays with each and every person on earth all the time 24/7/52. David asks God: “Where can I go from your spirit?” David said that if he could go to heaven—God would be there; and if to hell—God would be there, so the answer is you and I can not hide from God. And you have never thought one thought—or did one thing—good or bad—that God does not know about…in fact he knew it before you did.

David lived and wrote this Psalm at a time when there were no books, papers, television, college professors, research labs, or powerful telescopes and, to me, there is no doubt about his belief in the creation fact…no, not theory…fact. Please read again verses 13 through 16. Genesis says that God made man in his own image; therefore, he inserts his character into every person. You can not be a true, Bible believing Christian and still have low esteem for yourself if you read and believe the Bible. Oh yes, we sometimes feel that we are worthless, when things do not work out like we expect them to be—maybe in extreme cases one may think that he hates himself because of his failures. If this happens to you, please remember that the Hol0y Spirit is always present and ready to work with you. We should respect ourselves as much as our Maker does. God did not make any junk!
We were made in his image; with his own hands he molded our physical bodies from the dust of the earth and then he gave each one of us life by breathing air into our lungs and his Spirit into our soul. Have you ever seen his Spirit? No. Have you ever seen a soul? No. Do you believe that you have a soul filled with God’s Spirit? How or why do you believe these things exist when you have never seen either one? By faith—we believe!

David is talking directly to God and he said; “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…My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place…your eyes saw my body before it was formed…and all of my days ordained for me were written in your book before I was born.

What would have been David’s fate and the fate of the Jewish people if his parents agreed and his mother arranged for and consented to an abortion? How can anyone read Psalm 139, and still feel that they have a lawful right to take the life of a baby. As far as I am concerned, there is absolutely no argument about the time [age] that an unborn embryo becomes a part of God’s creation. Look again at the print in black in the last paragraph. God knit us together and the first stitch was when the sperm and egg united. God even saw us before we had any form. People, I believe that God created me on the sixth day of creation and placed me in his space to show up on earth the 22nd day of July, 1924. He knew everything about me before I got here, and he knows my destiny for all the time that is in the future.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL! There will be pay day someday for each murder that is committed. Growing up in the early part of the last century I do not remember having any fear for my life. There seemed to always be a sensible reason for any murder that I ever heard about. But, oh, how times have changed. There were somewhere near sixty murders in Little Rock during 2006, and I do not recall even one that seemed to have any justification that even sinful man would excuse. There are many who do not place any value on life today.

Having spent thirty-four years in public education, five years as teacher; two as principal; and the last twenty-seven as Superintendent in schools that ranged from 400 to 7000 students in size it is possible that what I said or did could have affected the lives of 163,000 students. About ten percent of these students had problems in school that ranged from a poor attitude to absolutely incorrigible; and from a minor handicap to wheel-chair cases. A higher percentage of the children came from a one parent home to a home completely unacceptable even to some that had been physically and sexually abused.

For some unacceptable reason our American educational system has not advanced to the state where the life of each child is considered to have the same worth. No two children in school are alike, yet they are expected to succeed or fail under a common curriculum, and it will never be. Children are different [God did not make them all alike] in fact no two are the same. Therefore they can not all be treated the same. Each educational setting should be designed with children who have similar needs and abilities. No teacher should be expected to be successful in dealing with a wide range of problems that may be physical or mental rather than educational.

Some neighbors are rude, arrogant and hard to get along with to the point that others wish they would move out of their neighborhood—but God made him and placed a value on him. Some families have a member with Alzheimer’s disease. The disease robs both the patient and his/her caretaker of their normal life. God made the one with the disease, and values his/her life and as in every case we are obliged to value every life.

Verses 19 to 22 indicates a hatred in David’s heart—but if you will examine these verses closely you will see that he loves God and his ways, and he loves his fellow man…but he hates the way some men act and live. David hates sin and not God and he even despises the decisions some make to ignore God and his plan for their life. David must have had some foreknowledge about what Jesus would teach…and that was that we should love our enemies and pray for those that spitefully use us…and turn the other cheek—but he also taught us to avoid sin, to work against the Devil and go into all the world, preaching and teaching Christ, and to baptize the believers.