Numbers are rather strange things when one stops to think about them. Often times what man cannot express in mere words he can express in terms of numbers. For example, when one desires to emphasize the fact that something is very large, very heavy or very tall, he will express those facts in terms of miles of width, tons of weight or hundreds of feet high. We deal with numbers every day, and many of the points of our own identification are expressed in terms of numbers. If we are describing a person, we will say that he/she is so tall, weighs so much or wears a certain size in clothing. We also express things in special numbers that we call statistics. These are used to set forth the ideas of how likely it is for some event to take place in your life.

For example, we are told that the chances that you or I will eventually die in an automobile crash are very good. They are one in one hundred twenty-five. That means that out of every 125 times one goes out in his car there is at least the possibility that he could die in a crash. Doctors tell us that the likelihood that we can develop a brain tumor runs at about the rate of 1 in 25,000. So, there is a real possibility that one person reading this article will have to be treated for some sort of tumor of the brain before he/she leaves this earth by the door of death. The chances that we will die in a fire this year are very slim, about 1 in 4,000,000. And on the basis of that, we all insure everything we have against destruction by fire. It is also true that a person's chances of winning any state lottery jackpot this year are about 1 in 4,000,000. Do you suppose one should buy "lottery insurance?" Though the chances are that slim that any one person can win any state lottery jackpot this year, millions of people will spend hundreds of millions of dollars desperately trying to do that. Children will be deprived of the necessities of life; wives will be denied the necessities of life; and even husbands will go without the food that they need because someone in the family is addicted to the vice of gambling, and in the desperate hope of winning several hundred thousand or several millions of dollars for just a few dollars, the people will deprive themselves and those whom they love in order to take that chance! Strange isn't it, how a get-rich-quick scheme can reduce people to an almost inhuman level. We read recently that the State of West Virginia, in the year 1998 took in more money from the lottery than from all other forms of income. That is amazing, and that in one of the poorest states of the union.

The chances that you will be killed by terrorists overseas this year are about 1 in 650,000. That would make it seem fairly safe to travel abroad, but the chances that you could be killed by an American in the city of Baltimore, Maryland is about 1 in 4,000. So, the moral of this seems to be, if you must travel, go to Russia and not to Baltimore! But, does this not tell us something important about violence among our own people? Does this not tell us something about safety right here in the land of the free and the home of brave? But let us add another number. Every day about 4,000 babies are aborted from their mother's wombs right here in the USA. That means that if you are a baby and that you are still in the first trimester of your life within the body of your mother, the likelihood that you will be aborted is about 1 in 3.3! That dear people is frightening! Already in this country, we have aborted more people than it takes to make a whole generation in our country. We are also told that the number of abortions in the US is beginning to decline. But, is that because there are fewer women who are willing to make the decision to kill that life that they have growing within their bodies? No. There are fewer abortions because there are actually fewer women conceiving each year.

One of the terrible sins for which God punished the ancient nations of Israel and Judah was their shedding of innocent blood. We do not know whether that involved abortion or not, but the shedding of innocent blood is a heinous crime in the eyes of God. Yet, in this nation we shed innocent blood in the killing fields of our cities, and in the abortion clinics of our land. We do not know whether God will punish this nation for shedding innocent blood as he punished Israel and Judah in ancient times, but we do know that those people who claim to be Christians and endorse the shedding of innocent blood any time and under any circumstances will certainly answer to the Creator of all life. Why is it that we are so shocked by the events that took place in Littleton, Colorado, but are absolutely unmoved by the carnage in the abortion clinics of our nation? Are we not somehow mixed up on the value of human life, leaving the impression that once a person is born and grows, he has some kind of value, but before he is born, he has none?

What about the murder of doctors and other practitioners in the abortion clinics of the land? Is it right for the private citizen to exact an eye for an eye and a life for a life? Certainly not! If the abortionists are murderers, and they are, why is not one killing an abortionist a murderer also? The plain fact of the matter is, he is! God has ordained civil government to control such. In this democracy, if the government is a part of the problem, then let us legally change the government. Yes, numbers are interesting.