Bibles today to Psalm chapter 139. Psalm chapter 139. As we continue in our thought concerning this second question of our biblical worldview, what is my purpose? What is my purpose? What is my identity in God? We looked last week at the reality of us being the image bearers of God. So today we're going to look at some implications that are the results of us bearing that image of God. What then does that work in us and in our in our culture even today that is seemingly against these things that we're going to be looking at. What is it that the Scripture describes to us? What are the implications that are given to us in this reality that we bear the image of God? Well, notice with me in Psalm 139. We're going to begin reading in verse 14, and we'll read down through verse number 18 of this particular text. And David writes here in this passage, I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thy eyes did see My substance, yet being unperfect, and in My book all My members were written, which in continuance were fashioned in, as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me! O God, how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Fearfully and wonderfully made. How precious, how precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them. We are made special. We are made special. Specially to display the image of God. He's made us for that purpose, that we would be those image bearers of His image, that we would display Him. And we are all indeed fearfully and wonderfully made, every last one of us, to be Those image bearers of God, He has made us for this, prepared us for this work. And so because of that image that we are bearing, there are some implications. And we've looked the last couple of weeks at that image, bearing the image of God. We talked first about the the reality of Adam and that we've all come from him and he had received that special creation that's told us there in Genesis chapter number 1 and Genesis chapter number 2 is describing his creation there. And it is because of that creation that we and how He was made and what the purpose of that making was that you and I in our day bear that image of God. We are His image bearers. The image of God in us, first of all, confirms human dignity or dignity for life. Evolution and the secular worldview that we've looked at a little bit in this study, it reduces man to simply a chance happening. And in the chance that man has developed and evolved from all of the processes of time and through the primordial slime that man would eventually come forth out of through the evolution of these particular animals, man comes out a higher animal. perhaps, that has survived against the onslaught of nature that's come against him and he's come out on top. And he remains on top right now until something else comes along and takes that top from him. And that's kind of that evolutionary standing point. Man is just, he's just a higher animal that's come along, that's survived. And that's about the extent of what we are with that mindset. That's the reason that politics and science today take a very dim view of human life. It can be sacrificed from their standpoint. It can be done away from their standpoint in order to save the planet. or in order to keep down pollution or to stop climate change. We can wipe out half of our population in order to save the earth. That's where the dignity of humanity is in the mindset of our world today. But the Scriptures describe and declare man as something very different. It's not just chance survival, but He is instead fearfully and wonderfully made. Fearfully and wonderfully made to bear the image of the Creator. To show forth that example, to show forth that image of Him. Made by God. And yet, as He describes in our text there in Psalm 139, He knows all of our imperfections. He knows all of our failures. He knows all those things that are not right about us. And yet, His thoughts are above number toward us. He created man special. Here in Genesis 1 and verse 26 and 27, this has kind of been our text the last few weeks as we read concerning here this creation. concerning man and what God did here in this creation. It says God said, let us make man in our image. We see there the Trinity of the Godhead being spoken to. God's not asking the angels, let's make them in our image. He's speaking to Himself, Father, Son, and Spirit, declaring we're going to make man in our image. And after our likeness, And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, and the image of God created He, Him, male and female created He, them. Then he says in chapter 2 and verse number 7, that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. He created man special. He created us special. And he declares That specialness, Matthew chapter number 6 and verse number 26. Matthew chapter 6 and verse number 26. It makes the point, the Lord describing God's watch care over us. He describes this in this point here in verse 26. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather in the barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. And listen to what he says about man here. Are ye not much better than they? Are you not much better than the rest of creation?" is what he's declaring there. And so the Lord declares here in this passage, He declares the specialness of man over the rest of God's creation. God declares the value of man's soul by sending His Son to redeem man's soul. Nothing can change. Nothing can change the reality of God's image in us. Whether man has physical abnormalities, whether he's got physical problems, parts missing off of him, whether deformities, cognitive conditions, nothing, no matter what state man finds himself in, nothing can take away from him that image of God that he bears. Sin alone, sin alone changes or diminishes. the image of God in us. But even in sin, it does not remove wholly the image of God that we bear. Romans chapter 1. Look with me what he says here beginning in verse 21. Romans chapter 1 verse number 21 down through verse 25. He says, because that when they knew God, They glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, wherefore God Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness to the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who was blessed forever. Amen. In chapter 3, he says in verse 9, down through verse number 18, describing the wholeness of that sin in us. He says, What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, though not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, though not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asp is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. In the way of peace have they not known? There is no fear of God before their eyes. Chapter 5 and verse number 12. Chapter 5 and verse 12. Paul says, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men. For that all have sin. For that all have sin. That sin is what diminishes, that's what mars the image of God in us. That wickedness that we are born with and then that which we do ourselves in our own sin, that is what mars the image of God in us. But it does not, it does not lessen the dignity of human life that God has put in us. For we are bearing His image. Our sin can only damage the image. It cannot remove it. It cannot remove it. Matthew chapter number 4. Matthew chapter 4 verse 23 and 24 says, went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria. And they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken, diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and He healed them. and all of the wickedness of man and all the destruction that sin would cause, all of these folks, those that were sick, those that were possessed by demons, those that were lunatic, he uses that term there, and all of these and all of the struggles and all of the the problems and all of those things that weighed upon men there, the Lord welcomed them all into His presence and He healed them. That dignity, He had compassion on them because of that image of God that was born in them. He still had that compassion. He still healed. not even the most sickly, the most damaged of society were beyond the dignity and compassion of the Lord. He put that image in us and His image confirms the dignity of human life. And so it also confirms or establishes the sanctity of human life. Our culture is growing more and more atheistic as time goes on. For many centuries, man has allowed little sanctity for human life. to those especially that they saw in their way or those that they saw as different from themselves. And they offered little sanctity for their lives. We see this in our society especially erupt in the late 1800s, early 1900s with the eugenics movement. The eugenics movement was a movement born out of evolutionary thought and theory and the wickedness of man. And it had this particular philosophy that was pushed, especially in the early 1900s, it was pushed by people like President Woodrow Wilson was one that was really pushing this movement. in the early 1900s. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, this lady who Hillary Clinton says is her hero, she was pushing this movement and what the eugenics movement basically declares is if you have an undesirable lot in your society. If you have these folks that have come into your society and you've just determined them to be bad genes in your society, then you've got to have a way to get rid of them. And as society develops and as society grows, it's part of that survival of the fittest to remove those less desirables from the society that the society could get better. And Margaret Sanger, she made the statement on more than one occasion that she hated black folks and she said black folks were the weeds of society, that we needed to weed them out. We need to weed them out of our society. And their chief means to accomplish that was abortion. And the abortion movement that is in the United States and around the world was born from this eugenics movement developed here in the United States, especially in the early 1900s. was being pushed in those early 1900s. Millions upon millions have died as a result of this philosophy. When Hitler's minions were tried at the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II, They were questioned, how could you do that? How could you be so cruel to the Jews just simply because you did not like the Jews? How could you do such wicked things to them? And they laughed in the faces of those American prosecutors that were bringing these charges against them and said, we got it from you all. We got it from you, from the eugenics movement. This is where we learned about this stuff. And this kind of philosophy, the lack of sanctity for human life, this philosophy is used as excuses by men of power and by dictators throughout the 20th century to kill indiscriminately as many people as they want in order to accomplish their particular goals in the end. You have Pol Pot killing millions of his own people. Mao killing millions of his own people. Stalin killing millions of his own people. Hitler, I mean, compared to Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao, Hitler was a kindergartner. Because they killed millions more. Millions and millions more. all based off of this wicked movement that tries to rob man of the image of God that's in him. And babies are still being killed on the altar of this wicked god of eugenics even today in our society. Such devaluing of life has become simply political policy in our world. There's not a true outrage. There's not a true outrage by the powerful about what that means. The sanctity of life, however, is something much different in the Scriptures. We again are fearfully and wonderfully made by God, knowing our imperfections. knowing that we would fail Him, knowing the realities of sin, yet we are fearfully and wonderfully made by Him. What does he say in Genesis chapter number 9? And verse number 5, we've read this verse a few times in our studies so far in regards to this reality of us bearing His image. He says here to Noah after Noah has come off the ark, and this is kind of to establish His role again in the world after He comes off of the ark. And He says here in verse 5 and verse number 6 of chapter 9, And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast, will I require it. At the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. You take another person's life, Intentionally, your purpose is to murder that one, to remove from them their life. God declares you have forfeited your own. You have forfeited your own. Why? Because you diminished. You thought so little of the image of God that that one bore before you. And so here God institutes capital punishment. He demands that when one kills another by murder because that he diminished that image of God in him, that is a slap in the face of God Himself. And he demands capital punishment to be carried out. Whoso shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. So if one commits murder, the murderer has forfeited his life. God here institutes this capital punishment. God holds the murderer accountable. God created man's life sacred. Sacred. To think so little of the destruction of human life invites the divine judgment of God. Many of these nations, we've been studying through the book of Numbers and looking at Israel's entrance into the promised land as they're getting ready to enter in. Many of those nations that were in the land of Canaan, the reason God gives for bringing such destruction on them and giving that land over to Israel is because of the shedding of innocent blood. Many of those kingdoms that were already there in the land of Canaan when Israel enters in were human sacrificers. And many of them sacrificed their own children to their gods. And God declares them the shedders of innocent blood. And for that reason, He forfeited those kingdoms. And He brought His judgment on them to wipe them out of Canaan. God takes this very seriously. He has given life, and because He has given it, He has given a sacredness to it. There is sanctity of human life that comes because of the image that is born. The image of God that is born in it. Thirdly, because of God's image in us, God establishes the need for redemption. Without God's image, redemption would not exist. At least that's what we're given as an example. He doesn't redeem anything else. He doesn't redeem the whales. He doesn't redeem the monkeys. He doesn't redeem the birds. He doesn't redeem anything else. He redeems man. His special creation. And so without God's image, redemption does not exist. This does not mean every person deserves redemption or every person is entitled to redemption. For there is not a single one of us that is entitled to be redeemed. There's not a single one of us that deserves God's grace. It is holy, holy in His hands. It is holy by His mercy and grace. because of His love for us that any salvation is extended to any person. It is holy by His work. Redemption requires that sinners have been made. in the image of God. We read a couple of these verses. Lastly, go over to Ephesians chapter number 4. We read there in verse number 24. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse number 24. He describes here in this passage the image of God in us. Ephesians chapter number 4 and verse number 24. He says, "...and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Then Colossians 3. Colossians 3 verse number 10. Colossians 3 verse number 10. He describes the new man there in Ephesians 4 that we are to put on, and then he tells us here concerning it in verse 10, "...and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." After the image that created him. So this image of God is corrected It is made right again in us by salvation. Now still not perfect because we're still in this sinful flesh, but inwardly, in that new man, it's made perfect. in Christ Jesus and salvation is brought to us. And so part of the reason for redemption is that renewal of God's image in mankind through the Gospel of Christ. Romans 8 and verse number 29 tells us that this is the reason for, one of the reasons for our salvation is because we are made to be like His Son. He says, verse 29, for whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. We are to be made to be made more and more like our Savior. So the Gospel, once salvation has taken place, renews that image that was marred by Adam's fall and our own sin. That image is renewed in the new man and is in the process of being renewed in these bodies. as we go through sanctification. Because He brings us more and more like Christ Jesus our Lord. That the child of God. Go look here with me in 1 Corinthians 15. That the child of God may bear the image of the heavenly. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse number 49. 1 Corinthians 15 verse number 49, and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Bear the image of the heavenly. Created in His image, by His grace, He restores that image in us. Human beings are the image of our Creator in this world. We all have dignity and value no matter our abilities, no matter our status. Our lives are sacred to God and they should be to us. That image of God marred by us in our sin, we need a Savior. And the only way that image is restored is in Him. And God has given us His own dear Son. Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Lord and Savior. who is the perfect and complete image of the Most Holy God. And it is He that restores that image in us. What does the image of God look like in you? Listen, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Fearfully and wonderfully made. But we can really do a lot of damage. We can do a lot of damage to that image that's shown forth in us by our own sin. What does that image of God look like in you? Do you have Christ? Do you have Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior? Has He given you that new nature in Himself? Has He redeemed you? Repent. to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's all stand and have Brother Gordon bring us a song.