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God’s first commandment to man was, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen 1:28 ). In Singapore in the nineteen fifties (some fifty years ago), the people were fruitful and multiplying, as the Creator had commanded, replenishing the population in no uncertain fashion. Only one maternity hospital alone catered to the needs of the whole island community. That was the “Kandang Kerbau” (KK) or “Buffalo Stables” Hospital.
Practically every expectant mother would head for the KK Hospital to have her baby delivered. By the sixties, the number of deliveries had reached record-breaking levels, exceeding 40, 000 per year. The Guinness Book of Records acknowledging this fact, named the KK the “Birthquake Hospital. ”
I entered the portals of the Birthquake Hospital in 1955 as a trainee obstetrician, eventually assuming the headship of the University Department from 1960 to 1969, during which time I was personally responsible for the quality of health care given to expectant women through their nine months of pregnancy, and through their final labour and delivery. In 1969 I decided that my task had been fully discharged and took my leave of that world famous institution.
During the years at the KK Hospital, I gained a wealth of experience in practical obstetrics (midwifery), at one stage having the responsibility for half the hospital turnover of 40, 000. For two of those years, 1960-1962, my family moved into the Hospital quarters, so that I could be on call for emergencies at all times, if needed. It was a taxing time, but the experience proved priceless. (By way of comparison, today’s University Department at the KK Hospital has fifteen specialist obstetricians to care for 2, 000 deliveries per year.)
Some observations as a Christian Obstetrician
1. The making or creation of life is God’s prerogative; nevertheless He has relegated to mankind part of that power, even that of procreation. Every birth is, without exaggeration, a miracle of creation, and a gift of life from God.
2. However, the arrival of every baby is, without exception, heralded by a cry. As it were, the principal player in the drama of life is announcing its arrival on the world stage with a mournful note. Why should a happy event be accompanied by a cry which betokens suffering and pain? Think on this.
3. To the labouring mother, the birth process is attended by pain, more or less, depending on the individual’s pain threshold. Again we raise the question: Why should a happy event cause pain?
4. While birth speaks of life, it is a sad fact that every newborn child, no sooner than it makes its entry into the world, is swept instantly into the restless stream of life, speeding to its inevitable appointment with death – some sooner, some later.
What is the meaning of life? What purpose is served, if life’s journey ends in the grave? Who has the answer to this enigma? We shall leave the answers to a later stage.
When a newborn babe arrives, everyone is thrilled and excited: here is another miracle of life!
What we see and handle is the final product of a mysterious process which had taken the better part of nine months in the shelter and seclusion of mother’s womb. One single cell (the fertilized ovum) has multiplied, and arranged, and organised itself into functioning systems to become a baby of six trillion cells.
The Psalmist David, by Holy Spirit inspiration, wrote 3, 000 years ago (before microscopes unraveled the secrets of embryology) an astonishing account of foetal development:
"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous 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. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:14-17 )
Ponder the miracle of growth and development. After nine months of nurturing (in the mother’s womb), “parasite fashion, ” the child emerges at birth, an incredibly complex organism which houses, besides other amazing things,
a chemical factory,
a generator and electrical network,
a climate control mechanism,
a filtration plant, and
a waste disposal system.
Most amazing of all is the brain, composed of 100, 000 million nerve cells (“neurons”), an amazing organ whose structure and intricacy is without compare. The brain controls the nervous system, co-ordinates all bodily processes and functions, receives and stores messages, impulses, and sends out appropriate responses.
The brain is the organ of memory, learning and intelligence. It is able to innovate, think out new ideas, to learn and comprehend, to sort, store, and recall information better and faster than the world’s most advanced super computer, by processes not fully understood.
Myriad sensory impulses passing through the organs of sense – sight, smell, sound, touch and taste – are received and sorted and stored. The brain is able to assess and apply that information, or to store and recall and reproduce it. It is able to think and reason, to feel and appreciate, and to make appropriate responses. In these, it surpasses all the world’s computers.
It never ceases to amaze me that intelligent and highly educated – and otherwise reasonable – individuals should believe in the theory of evolution. Writing as an obstetrician, let me offer a few observations dating back to my student days, through the past half-a-century of obstetrical practice, in my fast-fading earthly sojourn.
Sixty years ago, in medical school, the textbooks confidently proclaimed the theory of evolution as a sure process which began 500 million years ago, to produce “homo sapiens” – modern man. Recent opinions of evolutionists and evolution-inclined persons have raised the “time frame” to “billions of years, ” lately to 3 billion years. (This figure may yet inflate.) These inflationary time values speak, not of science, but of fantasy thinking. We may, therefore, safely classify Evolutionism basically is a form of speculation, not science.
My second observation is this. Despite the obvious speculative origin of Darwin’s “Origin of Species, ” modern man, in his intellectual myopia, persists to believe in Evolutionism, and to make statements such as, “In the days before our first ancestors shed their furry coats, descended from the trees and dropped their tails... ” in a matter of fact manner.
We are not minded to debate with these learned individuals who claim kinship with orangutans, but simply to point out that there exists a wide and deep gulf, separating man from animal – whether ape or bird – which no amount of scientific fantasizing can bridge.
Man is man, separate and superior. He stands apart, different, God-like.
I have delivered, and observed, babies for these past fifty years, and watched them grow into adulthood and maturity. Every one of these have learned to speak, read, and write. Recently I visited the zoo and saw its prize exhibit, ‘Ah Meng, ’ drinking and entertaining visitors at tea.
Chimpanzees can sit down, drink tea, and be sociable. They may learn to perform certain tricks and keep spectators entertained. That is as far as chimps go, man’s alleged “distant cousins. ” But names and claims do not turn an ape into a man.
No, no matter what evolutionists and their fellow travellers say, man is man, and apes are still apes. Why? This is a fundamental divide which traces back to the beginning of creation.
The Creator God made them different, and that explains the difference! We turn to the Bible record which alone sheds light on the matter.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, 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, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Gen 1:26,27 )
Furthermore:
"And 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." (Gen 2:17 )
No animal, whether chimp or bird, was made in the image of God, or after His likeness; nor did God breathe into any animal the breath of life. Only man.
My observations, from an obstetrician’s viewpoint, and yours, from whatever other viewpoint, cannot be true to fact and complete if it ignores this basic and fundamental divide, fixed at the time of creation.
Being created in God’s image and after His likeness, man is God-like. For this reason, man thinks, speaks, sings, writes, and composes. No ape does this. He organises and plans, creates and constructs cities and mind boggling enterprises. No ape does so. Finally, man worships. He is God-conscious simply because he has in him God’s breath. No animal has God’s breath; no orangutan worships.
Watching the miracle of birth enacted at the Birthquake Hospital over one hundred times per day, one received a clear message by each loud and lusty cry: “Another new player has arrived to swell the stream of human woe. ” I hear the cry as a call for help, and a reminder: he who has ears, let him hear! Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, fresh and lively, but soon to be cut down and fly away.
Why did God make man?
In this section, we shall attempt to answer the questions raised earlier.
Why is there pain in childbirth?
Why does a baby cry at birth?
Why must man die?
These matters caused me to pause and ponder, as I watched my “baby factory, ” the Birthquake Hospital, “deliver the goods” day in day out, night in night out, without a day of rest.
Science can count cells, study systems and investigate physiological processes, but these deeper issues elude the scientist’s investigation. For answers to these questions one must turn to the one Book of Life given by the Creator, the Bible.
In this divine Book, it is clearly revealed: the entire train of human suffering, sorrow and death, traces to one historic event – the fall of the first man, Adam.
When Adam decided that he knew better, and rebelled against God’s commandment, he fell into sin. With him plunged the entire human race into the curse which the Creator decreed as the price for disobedience. Paul the apostle said, "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 sinned" (Rom 5:12 ).
With Adam, all mankind fell under God’s curse "Unto the woman (God) said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children..." (Gen 3:16 ). Ever since that fateful day, childbirth has not been the pleasurable process originally intended, but is attended by sorrow and pain.
For the same reason, all the members of the human race fell under the curse of thorns and thistles, of sweat and hard labour, with the ultimate sentence of death:"... unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen 3:18,19 ).
Now we understand the pain of childbirth and the cry of anguish: both had their origin from man’s rebellion. Since that day, the whole creation came under the bondage of corruption (Lk 8:21 ), under the shadow of death.
Job, in his wretched condition, having lost ten children all in one day, lamented with these words: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not" (Job 14:1,2 ). Job was lamenting the fact that “man born of woman” is under curse.
But God gave Job also to see the coming of the Lord Jesus to take away the curse of death. "For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:25,26 ). In the Redeemer of promise, there is hope of life after death.
By His birth, Jesus, took our part, became a partaker of human flesh and blood,"... for the suffering of death... that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb 2:9 , 14 ).
The birth of Jesus was different from all births. Jesus came according to prophecy, God’s own Son to be born of a virgin, to be our Emmanuel – God in the flesh – to save mankind from the curse of sin and death. He came that we might have hope and “life more abundantly” (Jn 10:10 ). This is gospel.
In 1938 the Lord had called me to be a messenger of the gospel, to turn men and women from death to life, from the curse to God’s blessing. In 1968, my labours at the Birthquake Hospital were accomplished. Labouring women, entering its portals, were assured that the birth of their babies would be under the best obstetric care, with all due attention given to mother and child.
The Hospital had been put on a sound foundation. Its fame had travelled far and wide. Graduate scholars, professors and specialists from all parts of the world were coming to Singapore to teach, to study and learn, at the Birthquake Hospital.
In 1969 the time came for me to bid goodbye, and leave the ongoing work of the Department to a team of seven specialists which I had trained, so that I could devote myself more fully to the greater task of promoting the second birth, of calling men and women out of death to receive new life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For this cause I left the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology to be a preacher of the gospel.
Thirty-six years have flown by. The need for the message of the new birth to go forth grows more urgent by the day, as the Lord’s coming draws near. Reader, will you also join in this glorious life saving work?