Last Monday, I did an episode of The Royal Family Podcast on the new royal baby. The topic was mostly about abortion, looking at different passages from Jeremiah about babies being babies even in the womb (I won’t rehash it all since you can listen to it, or I can send you a transcript). But it’s funny how studies always seem to run together, isn’t it?
Yesterday, as I was reading through the book of Judges, I noticed a familiar story with a beginning that wasn’t so familiar.
We talk about Samson a lot. We talk about his strength. We talk about his Nazarite vow. We talk about the jawbone and the lion and the riddle and Delilah and those pillars. It seems we hit the highlights. But I think we leave out a very crucial piece of the story when we forget to mention his birth and his parents, Manoah and his wife (who some say is Hazelelponi as mentioned in 1 Chron. 4:3, though she is unnamed in Judges).
Samson’s mom was barren, but the Angel of the Lord came down to her (which we’ll talk about some other time because it’s fascinating!) and told her she would have a son, and that son was to be a Nazarite. Furthermore, his mom was to remain pure herself and was given some specific guidelines while she was pregnant.
Now what does any of this have to do with abortion?
If you continue on through Samson’s story, you’ll come to the famous chapter 16, where Delilah nags Samson to the point that he finally tells her the secret of his strength. Here’s what he says in Judges 16:17,
that he told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”
Notice that Samson was a Nazarite all of his life….and that life began in the womb. He wasn’t a Nazarite from birth. Samson was Samson from the womb. Samson was a Nazarite from the womb. All he was and would be God knew right then and there, before Samson could breathe on his own and survive outside of his mother’s womb. From the moment of conception, Samson was God’s, and should that mother have had an abortion (read: killed her son), surely she would have answered to the Almighty!
It’s no different today. Humans are God’s. God created us, He breathed life into us. To take the life of an innocent child of God’s will surely bring judgment upon you! Upon anyone so calloused as to think it’s ok! We know that God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Prov. 6:16-17). How innocent are the lives snuffed out before they even get a chance to fulfill their purpose? How innocent are the lives who have never been touched by temptation or sin? I praise our God that these children are able to be in paradise and live forever with Him, instead of suffering through what would likely be a sin-filled life. But I hate that anyone in this country (or in the world) could ever think of these lives as anything but tiny human lives.
What a mighty man of valor our Old Testament’s would have lost had Samson’s mother chosen abortion? And how lost we would all be had Jesus’ mother chosen that route! I am thankful for Christian women who choose life. For Christian women who suffer through horrific circumstances but still don’t murder those precious babies. I am so thankful that there are good people out there, but the numbers are shrinking. May we ever be prayerful that eyes will be opened to just how ungodly abortion truly is. And may we quit sugar coating it and calling it pro-choice or even abortion. It is murder. It is torture. And it must stop.
