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“If you’re able, please stand.” Reading Ps. 139:1–16. “Thanks be to God.”
This evening we’re talking about the Sanctity of Life. In honor of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade handed down on January 22, 1973. The Dobbs decision in June 2024 over-turned Roe v. Wade, but that simply pushed the issue to the states.
Last Saturday a group of us from Cornerstone attended the NC Right to Life prayer breakfast. Part of the breakfast was giving an update on the state of abortion in North Carolina.
The statistics were from their most recent report—which includes statistics through 2023. The data is always a couple years old.[1]
All of that means the issue is worth revisiting.
To do that tonight, we’ll look at Psalm 139. Written by King David.
The Psalm reminds us that our views on abortion and the unborn are part of a much bigger worldview. It’s not a simply matter of this command or that command. There are specific commands relevant to this issue. But the whole issue of abortion and other related issues to the life of the unborn are part of a larger view of the world.
King David in this Psalm is not just teaching us about the personhood of an embryo or baby in the womb. He’s helping us to build a worldview—helping us to see God and how he relates to the world itself.
A second thing to say as we begin is this: one of the most important roles of God’s people in any generation is to be the conscience of the culture in which they live. We’re not going to win every legislative battle. We’re not going to win every conversation we have with someone who disagrees with us. The number of abortions in the US might increase in our lifetimes.
But at the very least we can make sure that our conscience is as clear as possible where it can be, so that as God’s people we can help the people around us know wrong from right, and up from down, and left from right.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isa 5:20)
God’s Word helps us to keep straight what is “good” and what is “evil,” what is “darkness” and what is “light.” And when God’s people are clear on that, they can have a very powerful effect on a culture—whatever our percentage in a poll is.
Work through the Psalm in its four sections, each is 6 verses:
Prayer: God help us. Bring an end to abortions in the US.
Read Ps. 139:1–6.
The root “know” appears four times in these verse—three times a verb (vv. 1, 2, 4) and once a noun (v. 6). Each time David is clear that it’s God, it’s Yahweh, who has this complete and total knowledge.
“Searched” is used in Judges 18:2 of “the people of Dan” when they wanted to “explore” land for their inheritance. God doesn’t need to “explore” us to know us. It’s a word picture meant to capture his total knowledge—as if he sent an expedition of researchers to follow our every move.
His knowledge isn’t just the knowledge of observation. It’s also a perfect foreknowledge, knowing ahead of time everything we will do.
He mentions specifically “a word...on my tongue” (Ps 139:4). Before we speak it, he knows it.
See that knowledge in Jeremiah 1:5:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer 1:5)
Sometimes we refer to friends as someone who knows everything about us and loves us anyway. But no friend knows everything. God does!
David Dickson, an old commentator on the Psalms, writes,
The Lord knoweth us so well, that the best knowledge which our entire friend can have of us, to whom we communicate our mind, and who knoweth all our design and way to go about it, is but a shadowing similitude of God's knowledge of us.
David Dickson, A Commentary on the Psalms[3]
In each section, he ends with some type of response. Here he basks in the glory of it: Ps. 139:6: “Too wonderful!”
Of course, it’s only “too wonderful” if God is your heavenly Father, and you have experienced the forgiveness he offers through faith in Christ.
But if you’re an enemy of God, this knowledge is frightening indeed. If you’re his enemy, then this detailed knowledge is what he will use to judge you. He knows every word, action, intention, emotion, decision, plot, purpose, and plan in your whole life.
The whole Psalm has this double-edged quality to it. For the people of God, God’s knowledge is “too wonderful.” For God’s enemies, God’s knowledge is terrifying.
For us, it’s a true comfort to be able to say, “God knows. Truly. And fully.”
To illustrate: At home group, one of the ladies was sharing a testimony. She had prayed something very specific. Something very meaningful to her, for a mustard yellow shirt.
Looking through a lot of wracks and piles at a thrift store, she was coming up empty. Finally she saw a big pile of clothes in a discount bin. She thought and prayed, God could make it so that I reach in here and just pull out the shirt I need. So, she reached it and grabbed something. And came out with the exact shirt she needed. It was the shirt she was wearing at home group.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Ps 139:6).
“God’s Wonderful Knowledge of Me...” Second...
Read Ps. 139:7–12.
Now we turn from God’s omniscience (all knowledge) to God’s omnipresence (everywhere present).
In these verses we add to our worldview that God is everywhere present.
Christopher Ash:
Just as 139:1–6 is about more than simple omniscience, so 139:7–12 goes beyond God’s omnipresence. The point is not simply that God is everywhere but rather that there is nowhere he will not be with me.
Christopher Ash, The Psalms[4]
He starts with two questions: Ps. 139:7.
“Where shall I flee from your presence?” You can think of Jonah the prophet. He tried to flee across the Mediterranean Sea to avoid preaching to people he hated.
Ultimately he jumped into the Sea in the middle of the storm. He ended up in the belly of a whale. And what did he find?He found the LORD.
“I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice....Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jonah 2:2, 9)
In the last two verses we get the response (Ps 139:11–12). If God is there, there’s no hiding from him. He’s right there in the darkness.
When we’re talking about an issue like an unplanned pregnancy, this is good to know. God is right there! He’s right there in the darkness—but it’s not dark to him. To him it’s “bright as the day.” He can see. He knows the path to take.
God’s Wonderful Knowledge of Me, Inescapable Presence with Me... Third...
Read Ps. 139:13–18.
For good reason, this is one of the most famous passages when it comes to thinking about the unborn. Here is where God pulls back the curtain a bit. Shows us what’s really true about life in the womb.
Not everything from a medical perspective, cellular reproduction and all of that. But he tells us what is true spiritually and theologically. And that needs to inform our worldview also. We learn things here that have massive implications.
He starts by saying, “You formed my inward parts” (Ps 139:13). “My inward parts” = “my kidneys.” Often describing those physical innards, as when the priests are given clear directions about how to process the animal sacrifices (Lev 3:4, 10, 15). What do you do with the kidneys and liver? Leviticus helps you to know!
Ps. 139:14: “Fearfully and wonderfully made”: “Fearfully”? Evokes fear, because it draws us to the reality of a Creator. One to whom we are accountable.
“Wonderfully”? Evokes ‘wonder,’ the sense that with a person you are beholding the most marvelous being in the created universe—remembering that God is not a part of his created universe but ruling over it.
A person is far more “full of wonder” than a landscape or a galaxy, far more eternal, far more divine.
It’s like comparing a painting with its painter. The painting is beautiful, well-designed, possessing artistry that rightly inspires. But the painter? The painter is far more majestic, the painter is like a new painting every hour of every day forever.
Ps. 139:15: “Intricately woven in the depths of the earth.”
“Woven” not used often—9 times in the verb form. But all the other occurrences are in Exodus.[5]
These verses are very clear that God’s involvement in making me me and making you you began long before you were born. In the womb, his handiwork as your Creator was fully engaged.
David’s personal pronouns give it away: “You knitted ME together in my mother’s womb” (Ps 139:13). I wasn’t an “it” in the womb that became a “me” after I was born. I was “me” in the womb.
That means personhood begins in the womb, and there’s really nowhere else to draw the line except at conception. At conception is when God’s Master Weaver project began making you to be the unique you that you are.
That’s why Christians remain vigilant in fighting against abortion. We are pro-life, and because we are pro-life, we are anti-abortion.
But he also says something really interesting I hadn’t seen before.
“Your eyes saw my unformed substance” (Ps 139:16). An older Hebrew lexicon even translates this word, "embryo" (BDB). The phrase speaks to the “me” that was "me" even before my "substance" had form and shape to it. In the womb eventually the baby looks like a baby. But at the earliest stages, there’s something “unformed” about that baby.
Christopher Ash in his commentary on the Psalms writes,
"Your eyes saw my unformed substance,” that is, me when I was an embryo, not yet fully developed, for although an embryo has intricate form on a small scale, it is not yet fully formed.
Christopher Ash, The Psalms[6]
That connects to modern technologies like in vetro fertilization or IVF (“in glass fertilization”). This procedure is used to artificially create an embryo that can be implanted in a woman.
Christians are divided on the issue. Some will reject this kind of outside intervention into the act of reproduction. That’s not the majority position, but there are certainly Christians who hold to that.
For those who believe IVF can be practiced in a Christian manner, I think we have to begin with the fact the embryo is a person. I don’t see how we can read Psalm 139 any other way.
There are other issues with IVF that are harder to sort and demand a lot of thought and wisdom. But I think a lot of things get clearer when you start with the idea that an embryo is a person—a very undeveloped person, but still a person.
We all learned that from Horton Hears a Who!: “A person’s still a person, no matter how small.”
In this Psalm, God’s perfect design doesn’t stop with us in in the womb. He forms us in the womb (v. 13), but then we read that he “forms” all our days: Ps 139:16.
His perfect design extends throughout each day of my life. His sovereignty is not just a sovereignty over the beginnings of things. His sovereignty extends over the whole of things—the beginning, middle, and end.
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom 11:36)
That’s not just a statement about the big, historical events that move our salvation forward. “The days...formed for me” includes all the days—the good days, the bad days, the day we got saved, the day we learned to ride a bike, the day we cheated on a test, the day we met our spouse, the day we tried spinach for the first time.
“In your book written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me” (Ps 139:16).
“Your thoughts....How vast is the sum of them!” (Ps 139:17). Truly!
Read Ps. 139:19–24.
The last stanza of the Psalm goes from passive reflection and meditation to a response. The verses remind us that God’s presence and protection are not to leave us passive and indifferent to the world around us. His presence provokes us to respond to the evil in the world around us.
The response is not simple, though. David’s tone changes dramatically. We go from reveling in God’s care and concern for us, his wonderful providence in our lives, to a cry that God would “slay the wicked!” (Ps 139:19).
But this is exactly right. The closer we are in our relationship to our Holy God, the more our desires will be holy ones. And holiness has to do with a zeal for God himself.
In the Old Testament, God is sometimes called “The Holy One of Israel” (Ps 71:22; Isa 12:6; 30:15; 54:5). When we grow close to him, we will begin to take great offense when people prove to be his enemies and rebel against him.
The Old Testament was a different era, though. God’s people were to preserve a physical separation between them and the nations around them. Killing their enemies was regularly a part of their faithfulness to God.
But the crucifixion changed that. We still have our enemies, because God still has enemies. But our response is different.
As we heard in our Sermon on the Mount series, Jesus command a different response for us:
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt 5:44–45)
And Jesus modelled this even on the cross,
And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
Praise God! Even when we were his enemies, he reached down and saved us. Christ died for us—when we were his enemies.
Being God’s enemy means his wrath is upon us. But repent. Turn away from your sin. Trust in Christ as your Lord. Instead of his wrath, he’ll give you his grace and love. Now and forever.
David Dickson in his commentary on the Psalms refers to what he calls “open enemies” (482). These are not simply people who are not Christians. But they are people openly hostile to Jesus Christ and the gospel. He says these “we may lawfully hate, without breach of the law of love.”
I’m not sure it’s that simple, but I get what he’s after.
I think there’s a difference between OPPOSING someone and HATING them. You can oppose an opinion someone holds. Oppose an action someone takes. Oppose forcefully an illegal act someone does.
But hating someone ultimately has in view a desire to see someone harmed and really judged by God—basically forever.
I don’t see how we can “lawfully hate” someone on one hand and pray for them to be converted on the other. But we can definitely OPPOSE the opinions and actions of a person or people on one hand and then pray for them to be converted and blessed by God on the other.
But along these lines of responding to our opponents, with the cause of abortion there is a place for political activism.
“Skip” Stam at the NCRTL prayer breakfast. Made some recommendations. He talked about the increasing effectiveness of these actions:
The Psalm helps us fill out our worldview—which includes our view of God and ourselves:
But David doesn’t end with a rebuke of the wicked. The weight of these truths lands on him at the end.
He prays out of his humanity and weakness. When we’re trying to oppose the sins of our culture, we can’t stop there. We have to deal with the sin that lives in our own hearts.
Let David’s prayer be our prayer: Psalm 139:23–24.
Prayer and closing song (“Sovereign Over All”)
[1] For these statistics and additional ones see the NCRTL report at https://www.ncrtl.org/copy-of-infanticide.
[2] See https://eppc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/25-04-The-Abortion-Pill-Harms-Women.pdf.
[3] David Dickson (1583–1663), A Commentary on the Psalms, Geneva (1995), 476.
[4] Christopher Ash, The Psalms (Crossway), 4:544.
[5] Exod 26:36; 27:16; 28:39; 35:35; 36:37; 38:18, 23; 39:29.
[6] Christopher Ash, The Psalms, 4:549.
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