19 – Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
20 – you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
When Leith Anderson was a little boy growing up in New York City, like many other little boys he idolized THE BROOKLYN DODGERS. In fact he says that he never quite forgave them for moving West. In his mind the Dodgers’ archenemy were the New York Yankees. But, Anderson had never actually seen a major league ball game until one day his father surprised him by taking him to see the Yankees play his beloved Dodgers in the World Series. Listen to his account of the experience:
“I’ll tell you, it was one of the great thrills of my childhood. I remember sitting there, smelling the hot dogs and hearing the cheers of the crowd and the feel of it all. I knew those Dodgers were going to shellac those Yankees once and for all. Unfortunately, the Dodgers never got on base, so my thrill was shattered. I tucked it away somewhere in my unconscious until, as an adult, I was in a conversation with one of these fellows who was a walking sports almanac. I mentioned to him when I went to my first major league game. I said, ‘It was such a disappointment. I was a Dodger fan and the Dodgers never got on base.’ He said, ‘You were there? You were at the game when Don Larson pitched the only perfect game in all of World Series history?” I said, ‘Yeah, but, uh, we lost.’ I had been so caught up in my team’s defeat that I missed out on the fact that I was a witness to a far greater page of history.”
Perspective is a powerful thing. Just as Anderson discovered — it can warp our vision and blind us to things that are obvious to other people. Our perspective on life is powerful because it greatly influences our thinking, our morals, and even our actions. And the most powerful influence on our perspective is SIN. It clouds our minds and dulls our senses to the truth. Paul described the effect SIN has on people’s thinking in Ephesians 4:18 when he said,
“….they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them…due to the hardening of their hearts…they have lost all sensitivity…”
So sin CAN provide us with a powerful set of blinders….keeping us from understanding vital truth. But as Christians we have another perspective at our disposal. God has forgiven our sin.
And, when we let Him, He removes sin’s blinders from our eyes and gives us the ability to look at all of life through the special perspective that He gives. You see we should allow our faith, our relationship with God, to affect our perspective on everything. All disciples of Jesus should pray with the psalmist, “open my eyes God, that I may see-or understand — wonderful things….”
For, without God’s perspective we rely on our own faulty emotions and thinking. We learn the hard way that as it says in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that SEEMS right to man but in the end it leads to destruction.”
Today is the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday and in past years we have used the Word of God to help us understand several of the issues that are directly related to this subject: issues such as: abortion, world hunger, race relations, homelessness, etc. But this morning I want us to focus our eyes on another aspect of this issue: the subject of euthanasia whose most outspoken proponent is of course Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Dr. Kevorkian is a former pathologist who has been stripped of his medical licenses. In fact the California Attorney General’s office has said, that he is fundamentally unfit to practice medicine. Kevorkian has presided over the deaths of over 130 suicides in the past 10 years and recently provided CBS’ 60 Minutes with a video tape of himself administering a lethal injection to 52 year old Thomas Youk who reportedly suffered from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
People who share Kevorkian’s perspective on euthanasia tend to think that death in this way is actually good for the individual….that it IS a gain….a benefit. But most Christians would disagree. They would see this issue differently — believing that intentionally ending any human life is NOT gain.
Well, this morning I want us to ask our Heavenly Father to help us look at this issue together so that we can begin to understand His eternal perspective. And….we should note at the onset that euthanasia is an issue that is relatively new-because humans die differently than they used to. Less than a century ago death was spread fairly evenly across most age groups. Since we could not control bacteria very well and accidents were more common — a 10-year-old was not much more likely to survive to age 20 than a 40-year-old was to reach age 50. But, today all that has changed. Thanks to advances in medicine we all live longer. Those of us who survive infancy and the accident-prone late teens and early twenties are likely to live well into our eighties. There are five times as many elderly people in our country today than there were in 1950. When we DO die, we will likely do so after a protracted illness that is expensive to treat and requires extended, specialized medical care.
So, many of us have been — or very soon are going to be — facing life-and-death questions involving our grandparents, our parents, our spouse, or even ourselves.
We will struggle with questions like: When is it okay to “pull the plug?” Why not let someone die if their quality of life has diminished? Why not offer the relief of death to those who are in pain?
When are we sustaining life and when are we merely postponing the inevitability of death?
These are important questions and how we answer them is going to depend on our particular perspective on this issue. And we must note at the outset how very different Kevorkian’s perspective is than that of most Christians. He begins with the premise that there is no God…that there is no afterlife…to him death is the end. Kevorkian sees people as merely biological organisms just like any other life form.
So in his opinion, ending a human life as not much different than putting an old pet to sleep. And, he promotes all kinds of unorthodox ideas….one is that we should auction off transplant organs to the highest bidder. He has even gone so far as to say that we should offer physician assisted suicide to people who are physically healthy but suffer from depression.
So Kevorkian and his followers have a perspective on this issue that is very different from that of most Christians.
Well when it comes to the issue of euthanasia what exactly is our perspective? How does God see this issue? What light does scripture shed on this subject? We begin to answer these questions by understanding that there are two kinds of euthanasia: ….passive and active.
PASSIVE EUTHANASIA is simply letting death happen. It involves discontinuing or desisting from the use of “extraordinary” life-sustaining measures or “heroic” efforts to prolong life — in cases judged hopeless….it is letting someone die naturally. But, ACTIVE EUTHANASIA is an act of commission instead of omission. It is intentionally ending an individual’s life. It’s proponents see it as a positive merciful act taken deliberately to end futile suffering or a meaningless existence. It could involve lethal drugs or even the withholding of nourishment.
Most Christian ethicists have drawn a moral distinction between killing a patient and letting a patient die. When a doctor helps a person commit suicide, the doctor is the cause of death; when we lovingly let a person die, then the disease is the cause of death. Do you see the difference?
The Bible says that intentionally killing a person is wrong. But, on the other hand, we should be willing to let someone die when it’s clear, as the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:2, that the time for death has come. When death is imminent — when a person is beyond reasonable hope of recovery — then they do have a right NOT to have their death postponed. Under certain circumstances, life-sustaining treatment can be withheld or it can be withdrawn, if the individual has indicated this desire at a prior time. One ethicist said, “Insisting against the patient’s wishes that death be postponed by every means available is contrary to law and practice. It would also be cruel and inhumane.”
So, there does come a time when continued attempts to cure are not compassionate.
They’re not wise. They’re not medically sound. That’s where a loving hospice, including in-home hospice care can be of such help. That’s when all efforts should be placed on making the patient’s remaining time comfortable.
Now, sometimes in the midst of these situations all kind of ambiguities arise. At times it’s hard to find where the line ought to be drawn….when to let someone die and when to try and intervene. Lee Strobel, suggests five steps to insure that we’re doing the right thing.
First, pray for God’s guidance. Second, consider the wishes of the patient. Third, seek input from godly and mature individuals who can go to Scripture and help you sort through it. Fourth, make sure we’re clear of selfish interests. And, Fifth, give the patient every opportunity to receive the eternal life that Jesus Christ offers if they haven’t already done so. But what about those times when there is no maybe….when death is not inevitable….what about ACTIVE EUTHANASIA? When we ask God to open our eyes to His truth about this issue what do we see?
1. Well the first thing we see is that…death is the enemy of God’s plan.
I Corinthians 15:26 says, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Think about it. Why is death the enemy of God? Well, it is the enemy because it destroys life, in contrast to God, the Creator and Author of life. The Bible tells us that neither sin nor pain, disease nor death were part of God’s original plan for man. Death was not God’s idea. Death entered the world because of sin…and since then death has been Satan’s cause, not God’s In John 8:44, Satan, the adversary of God, is described as a murderer…a killer…opposed to God’s purposes. The Bible teaches that sin and death have afflicted the whole of God’s creation, including the natural world, and only when Christ comes in His glory at the end of the present era will sin be eradicated and creation be restored to God’s original plan.
So God values life not death. And Human life is especially valuable because scripture teaches that human beings are not just another organism. We alone are made in the image of God. Therefore all people are uniquely valuable whether they are healthy or sick….young or old.
From the biblical perspective, we know that death is inevitable, but not to be hastened. We have seen that God can and may intervene to restore someone who was considered a terminal patient.
In Deuteronomy 32:39 God says, “I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver from my hand.” But this is up to God. Job 14:5 says, “Man’s days are determined; You Oh Lord have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” God-the Author of life — determines the length of our lives…not the other way around. There are many instances in scripture where an individual wanted to end his life and in each of these instances God said, “NO.” MOSES-that Prince of Egypt — was not ill, but he was grieved about the burden the Lord had given him. He looked at his people grumbling about their food and their living conditions, complaining until Moses must have reached his limit. He’d had it. In Numbers 11:14, he said to God, “If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now.” But the Lord was not finished with Moses yet! He went on to lead his people through the wilderness and to the boundaries of the promised land.
ELIJAH had killed the prophets of Baal, yet when the evil Queen Jezebel swore she was going to get even, the fearless Elijah ran into the wilderness, sat down under a juniper tree, and cried out,
“I have had enough, Lord take my life; I am no better than my ancestors. (I Kings 19:4 )”
But the Lord sent an angel to supply him with food and water…essential ingredients to life. The Lord was not finished with Elijah yet.
And think about JOB. He had boils all over his body. His flesh was eaten by worms. His skin was oozing and decaying like rotten turnips. He was so shriveled and thin that his bones were sticking out and he had gnawing pains and frightening dreams. Under such circumstances, most of us would cry out, as Job did,
“Oh that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose His hand and cut me off! (Job 6:9 )”
But the Lord was not finished with Job yet, either. I wonder if we had been with Job in his pain-wracked, miserable situation, would we have taken away his food and water, and allowed him to starve, dehydrate, and die? To do so would be opposed to God’s purposes for He restored Job’s health and gave him many more years of productive life. The Bible’s negative attitude toward death and assisted suicide can also be seen in the Old Testament case of King Saul of Israel who was wounded in battle and asked a soldier to put him out of his misery. Later, King David condemned the soldier’s action. Billy Graham once wrote, “While all must sympathize with human suffering, practicing ‘active euthanasia,’ either through the use of lethal drugs or denial of food and water, violates the Judeo-Christian code of moral conduct.” Scripture clearly teaches that God is pro-life. Death is the enemy from His perspective. And then, I think that God also helps us to see that…
2. often Euthanasia is not so much COMPASSION for those who are ill as it is CONVENIENCE for everyone else.
Dr, Edmund Pelingrino, professor of medicine and medical ethics at the Georgetown University Medical Center writes, “Pleas for assistance in suicide are in reality desperate pleas for help, including emotional and spiritual support. They should therefore be met with comprehensive, intensive, palliative care, not the accelerated demise of the person suffering.” Kevorkian’s solution to end suffering is to kill the sufferer. Christianity’s is to compassionately help the sufferer. And helping takes a lot more time and trouble and money than does euthanasia. You see, many times euthanasia ends up being a shortcut that attempts to address legitimate concerns in illegitimate ways. It is often more compassionate for the frustrated physician or hurting family than it is for the patient. People are lonely or depressed or hurting and the easiest thing to do is just let them end it all. In these cases assisted suicide is really a non-compassionate form of moral abandonment. The compassionate response is to love the person, spend time with them, go to the trouble and expense to help them find the right medication to manage their pain, show them that their lives still count. Christians need to be involved with the elderly…helping them to live not just exist. It is inconvenient…it is costly…but it is the only genuinely compassionate thing to do!
And then a third thing that I think God would want Christians to understand is that…
3. our lives actually belong to Him to use as He sees fit.
As we read in today’s text… “We are not our own; we were bought at a price.”
So, we are not the Lord of our lives. God is. Our lives are a gift from God that we are to carefully steward from the womb to the tomb.
So we should honor God with every moment of our lives. He died for us. We live for Him. We should allow God to use every minute of our lives for His glory….even those minutes and days that may be filled with pain and suffering.
Now, dying does have benefits for the Christian. As we said last week….when we die we are with Christ instantly…free of all earth’s hassles and limitations, pain and frustrations. We immediately experience uninterrupted peace and joy of unending pleasure in the most perfect of all places. But there are also liabilities. We are no longer here to be used by God to help touch others with His love. Paul put it this way in Philippians 1:23, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith.” Paul knew that his absence would of course prevent him from being there for those who needed him, which would seriously affect their spiritual growth. He would no longer be a witness to the Roman guards assigned to watch him or to be an encouragement to those who came to visit him. In addition, his missionary outreach to those who had not heard of Christ would instantly cease. Furthermore, all those whose cause he championed would be without a voice of authority and affirmation.
So, as relieving as death may have seemed to him, it was not without its liabilities for others.
I’m sure you will agree that Abraham Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. He stood in the gap as a source of strength for our nation during the crisis of the Civil War. We can only imagine the pressures that were on him during these months and years. Comparing the photographs taken of Lincoln before the war with those taken during the conflict show that he became a battle-weary warrior who must have longed for relief.
Well, as you know a shot fired in Ford’s Theater one night ended his suffering. Our 16th President finally knew peace as he had never known it before.
Were there benefits? Yes! For him they were immediate and eternal. But the liabilities cannot be ignored: political chaos and rivalry among those in authority, heartbreaking sorrow added to an already grieving nation, and the voice of the African-American’s most eloquent and powerful advocate forever silenced.
Death is the easy way out for Christians but not for others God calls us to love and serve. Everyday God gives us tasks to complete that have eternal significance.
So our moments and days and years — even the last ones are His….not ours.
4. And then finally, a Christian world view also sheds light on several negative consequences of euthanasia.
First of all, Legally assisted suicide would seriously damage the relationship between doctors and patients. As one doctor said, “If killing you is an option, how can I expect you to trust me to do all I can to heal you?” In Holland, where assisted suicide is permitted by the government, many disabled people and people in nursing homes are afraid to go to their own doctors because the lines have been blurred, and they’re not sure any more. They wonder, “Is my doctor a healer or an executioner?” Secondly, active euthanasia tends to infer that certain people aren’t worth keeping alive. When people are feeble and incapable of making a contribution to society many would argue that it is not good sense to expend the funds necessary to keep them healthy and alive. Already we are seeing this principle in the courts where the mentally disabled have been denied transplant organs so that “healthier” people could receive them. Thirdly, Assisted suicide would cause people with selfish motives to pressure the sick to end their lives. Maybe you saw the edition of 60 Minutes where a former doctor in California developed the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and over a period of time, his wife began to plant the idea that suicide would be the best route. She called the insurance company to make sure they would still pay out if he killed himself. Then she got on the phone and contacted Jack Kevorkian. Fortunately, before anything happened, her son noticed she was suggesting suicide to this vulnerable person, and he rescued his dad. A Michigan judge actually granted the son custody of his father to protect him from being subtly coerced into giving up his life. If assisted suicide became legalized, multiply that scenario by thousands. Fourthly, legalizing suicide would inevitably open the door for euthanizing anyone, regardless of illness. At first, the Dutch allowed doctors to kill only those who were terminally ill and wanted to die. But over time it began to expand. Assisted suicide was gradually offered to those who had chronic but not fatal illnesses, including handicapped children. Then doctors were allowed to kill people who were physically fine but depressed. A 27-year-old ballet dancer who developed arthritis in her toes went to her doctor and said, “My life is not worth living any more because I can’t dance. I want to kill myself.” He obliged her. The killing has not stopped there.
Now Dutch doctors are actually killing patients without even bothering to get their consent. In it’s Remmelink report, the Dutch government documented that more than 1,000 persons were killed without they or their families giving consent in what was supposed to be a ‘voluntary” program. That’s three people every day being put to death without their permission in a very small country. In addition to that, nearly 5,000 others died after doctors intentionally gave them medication to speed up their deaths.
Again, without their consent, without their families’ knowledge. In fact, these days more patients are killed by doctors in Holland without their permission than are killed with their permission. If this kind of killing occurred at the same rate in a country our size, it would mean that every six months we would kill as many Americans without their consent as died in the entire Vietnam War. It’s no wonder that some people in Holland now carry a card in their wallet, just in case they get admitted to a hospital unconscious. The card says, “Do not put me to death if I’m unconscious.” What went wrong in Holland? Well a kind of desensitization set in on the doctors involved. When asked how he felt about euthanasia ond physician from the Netherlands replied, “It’s hard the first time.” One commentator put it this way: “The absolute ethical norm that doctors must not kill was removed in the name of compassion, and the inevitable happened. Good, ordinary doctors in their zeal to be ever more compassionate began killing people who didn’t even ask for it. Once given the power heretofore reserved to God, some doctors acted like God.” Finally, Legally assisted suicides would result in irreversible mistakes. When actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in that terrible accident a while ago he had such optimism afterwards. “I’m going to walk someday,” he said. I remember hoping that would prove to be true, but thinking he was really being unrealistic. Yet in recent months, doctors have announced major breakthroughs in spinal cord research. Reeves may very well walk again. What if suicide had been offered to him as a viable option shortly after his paralysis began?
Lee Strobel tells of a woman’s father who was on the verge of death. He couldn’t talk due to all the tubes down his throat. And in the midst of his extreme pain and discomfort he picked up a piece of paper and wrote the words, “Kill me.” gave the paper to his son. The woman told Strobel “What if assisted suicide had been a viable option at that time? What if we had fulfilled his request?” But you know what happened? Her father recovered and lived 7 years longer and during those 7 years is when he received Christ. She said, “When he wrote that down I even asked him if he meant it and he said, no, it was just the fear of the moment. I am so glad no one took me up on it!”
So, I think God’s perspective on this issue shows us several things. With His help we see that human life is a unique and precious thing. We see that death is the enemy of God’s plan..and that often euthanasia is not so much compassionate as it is convenient…We see that our lives belong to God to use to minister to others around us. They are not ours to take. We also can see several potentially negative consequences to active euthanasia. Another thing I see in all this is the importance of Christians living lives that are GOD-CENTERED. We must learn to orient all of our lives around God so that we see every issue in this world from His perspective. Part of that is committing to look at others who disagree with us on these issues through the perspective of God’s grace.
No matter how much we disagree on these issues people must know we love them and God loves them….they must know that we respect and cherish the sanctity of their lives as well. Perhaps today you need to make a commitment to center your life around God’s will…saying, “God, my life is yours…help me live all of it for You.” If you are here today and are not a Christian then I hope you know that Jesus IS life. He is the source of eternal, abundant life….a meaningful life that begins the moment you accept Him as Savior and Lord. In fact Billy Graham once put it this way. He said, “To die without Christ is to take your own life.” Without Christ we are dead….dead in our trespasses and sins. But Ephesians 2 says, “God, Who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” This morning we invite you to give your life to Christ for in so doing you will come to experience a new life that makes your old life seem like death.