TPW 52 The Abortion Holocaust and Christian Duty

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We know more about the pre -born child now than any other people in world history have ever known. We have absolutely no excuse that this continues to happen today.
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The blood of the innocents cries out to God for vengeance. And whether that vengeance is taken, it still cries out to God.
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This is exactly why God puts a sword into the hands of governing authorities. To execute
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His divine vengeance against such things. Welcome to the
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Protestant Witness, this is Pastor Patrick Hines coming to you from beautiful Northeast Tennessee in the thriving metropolis of Kingsport here at Birdwell Heights Presbyterian Church.
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And today I'd like to post a sermon on abortion and the sanctity of unborn life and the necessity that is upon all of us as Christians and upon all
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Christian ministers to denounce the horror and the crime and the atrocity of abortion that has been in our culture and our country since January of 1972.
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I look forward to the day that this will become illegal and I think that there will eventually have to be holocaust museums where there are diagrams of the horrific, satanic, evil things that were done by the priests of the devil in those places with the dismembering, burning, and murder of the most helpless, smallest, and defenseless portion of our culture and society.
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And I'm going to post several sermons. I've preached a lot on this topic over the years and folks have told me that those messages have been very helpful in equipping them to engage this issue with people.
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But children are a blessing and we need to see them that way. We need not to imbibe from our culture, our deaf culture that despises children and hates them.
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And so I hope that you'll find this helpful. I hope you'll have a chance to look at the passages of Scripture and that you'll be moved to speak up in behalf of the unborn and do what you can to see that this is brought to an end and that it's brought into people's consciousness so that we can bring this miserable practice to a conclusion not just in the
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United States, but on this planet. And I hope you find this edifying. Let's go to the
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Lord now and ask His help to understand. Heavenly Father, we would ask in Jesus' name now that You would be our teacher and help us to understand and engage with what
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Your Word has said about such an important topic. May we be firmly convinced by the
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Word of God that You indeed hate the murder of unborn children, that all life is sacred in Your sight, however old it is, whatever size it is, and wherever it is.
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Help us, Father, to see this from Your Word this morning, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. If you'll take your
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Bibles, please, and turn to Psalm 51. We're going to read three passages of Scripture here.
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Psalm 51 is the first one, Psalm 51, 1 -5. Just taking a one -Sunday detour from the
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Our Genesis series to discuss the issue of life. Psalm 51, verses 1 -5.
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Psalm 51, 1 -5, beginning with the superscript there. This is
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God's Word. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
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Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Your tender mercies.
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Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
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Against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight, that You may be found just when
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You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
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Now turn over to Psalm 139. Psalm 139, 13 -16.
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Psalm 139, 13 -16. Psalm 139, 13 -16.
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This is God's Word. For You formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb.
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I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.
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My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
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Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in Your book they were all written.
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The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. And then one last passage.
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Romans 13, 1 -4. Romans 13, 1 -4. Romans chapter 13, verses 1 -4.
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Romans 13, 1 -4. This is God's Word.
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Romans 13, 1 -4. This is His Word. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
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Therefore, whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
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For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority?
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Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good.
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But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is
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God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
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May God have His blessing to the reading of His infallible Word. In the year 2008, a young lady limped up to a podium and addressed the politicians of the state of Victoria in Australia.
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And this young lady stood in front of a packed house and said these words, quote, For a brief moment
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I would like to speak to the men in this room and to do something that is never done. Men, you are made for greatness.
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You are made to stand up and be men. You are made to defend women and children, not to stand by when murder is occurring and do nothing about it.
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You are not made to use women and to leave us alone. You are made to be kind and great and gracious and strong and stand for something.
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Because men, listen to me, I am too tired to do your job. Women, you are not made for abuse.
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You are not made to sit and not know your worth and your value. You are made to be fought for forever.
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So now is your moment. What sort of people are you going to be? I trust in credible. I trust, men, you will rise to the occasion.
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To the politicians listening, particularly to the men, I would say this. You are made for greatness.
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Set your politics aside. You are made to defend what is right and good. And this fiery young girl will stand here and say,
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Now is your moment. What sort of man do you want to be? A man obsessed with your own glory or a man obsessed with the glory of God?
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It is time to take a stand, Victoria. This is your hour. God will assist you. God will be with you.
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You have the opportunity to glorify and honor God. I'll end with this. Some of you might be slightly annoyed that all
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I keep doing is talking about God and Jesus. But how on earth can I walk about limping through this world and not give all my heart and mind and soul and strength to the
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Christ who gave me life? So if you think I'm a fool, it's just another jewel in my crown.
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My whole intent in living here is to make God smile. I hope some of this made sense.
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It just came from my heart. God bless you and keep you. Those are the words of Gianna Jessen, a 31 -year -old who survived a saline abortion when her mother was seven months pregnant with her because the abortionist wasn't in yet that morning when she was accidentally born alive.
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Because of the effects of the saline abortion on her, she was born with cerebral palsy.
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She also delivered these words to the politicians of Victoria, Australia on the eve of the debate to decriminalize abortion in that state,
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Victoria, Australia. In the first few sentences of her speech to a completely packed governmental building, she said, and I quote again,
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I know that in the age in which we live, it is not at all politically correct to say the name of Jesus Christ in places like this, to bring him into these sorts of meetings because his name can make people so terribly uncomfortable.
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But I did not survive a saline abortion so I could make everyone comfortable. I survived so I could stir things up a bit and I have a great time doing it.
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So I want to walk through three things here for us this morning. They're in your outline, your bulletin.
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I've given you a rather detailed outline for this morning's message. First, the Bible on the status of the unborn.
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We need to know this. What does the Bible teach about unborn children? Very important that we know those things.
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Secondly, the government's basic duty to protect life. And then thirdly, I want to give you just a few things that will help you in terms of defending unborn life.
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I've called it pro -life 101. And so let's go back to Psalm 51 and look at this passage here again.
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If you've got your Bible there, please look at Psalm 51 and we'll just read verse 5 again together. I want to talk about the meaning of this verse.
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Psalm 51 verse 5 reads as follows again.
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
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In lamenting his grave sins of adultery and murder, followed by an elaborate attempt to cover up those things,
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David openly confesses his sins to God here in Psalm 51. David is openly admitting the evil that he saw in his own nature.
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And in the midst of his confession, he makes the remarkable statement there in verse 5 about the sinful nature that he possessed.
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That it extended all the way back not to his birth, but to the moment of his conception.
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And it's very significant the way that he says that in this verse. Look at the last phrase of verse 5.
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And in sin my mother conceived me. Now we know just from looking at Genesis as we have in the last few weeks that it is only human beings who have the capacity to sin.
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Animals are not in sin. They can't sin against God. They are not covenantal creatures the way that we are.
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And yet what we see clearly set forth for us in this passage is that our sin against God extends not to our birth, but to our conception.
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We are said by the Word of God to be in sin from conception forward.
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Therefore, explicitly implying that the conceived child is a human being.
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Because only a human being can be in sin. Only someone who is in the image of God can actually sin against God.
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So the fact that the text identifies us as being in sin from conception, the Word of God is clearly teaching us that as soon as a child is conceived in the womb, it is a full -fledged human being in the sight of God.
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That is the position of the creator of babies in the womb. They're in sin from conception because they are fully human from conception.
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John Frame, the theologian, makes this comment about Psalm 51 .5. He says, quote, Personal continuity extends back in time to the point of conception.
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Psalm 51 .5 clearly and strikingly presses this continuity back to the point of conception.
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In this passage, David is reflecting on the sin in his heart that had recently taken the form of adultery and murder.
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He recognizes that the sin of his heart is not itself a recent phenomenon, but goes back to the point of his conception in the womb of his mother.
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The personal continuity between David's fetal life and his adult life goes back as far as conception and extends even to this ethical relation to God.
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So when does life begin according to Scripture? Obviously, it begins at the point of conception.
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Now, when Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton came up, one of the most amazing parts of that whole debate is that the justices, specifically
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Harry Blackman, the man who wrote the majority opinion in that court case, said, we don't know when life begins.
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Have you ever heard people say that? Nobody knows for sure when life begins. Have you ever heard that before?
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Now, obviously, that's not true. We do know when life begins. It begins at the moment of conception. That's true in Scripture, which is all we should need to know.
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But it's also true scientifically. We know more about the pre -born child now than any other people in world history have ever known.
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We have absolutely no excuse that this continues to happen today. When does life begin?
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Very often you'll hear. I've heard people say it myself. Nobody knows when life begins. I want to remind you of something very important when you hear that.
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That is an argument against abortion. That is an argument against abortion.
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Because if you're saying we don't know when life begins, what you are saying is it might begin at conception.
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Now, I want you to think about this as an illustration. Years ago, they blew up the stadium there in Cincinnati, Ohio, and built a new one.
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And they had all this dynamite strategically placed all the way through there. What would you think if the guy that's standing by the thing ready to push it down to blow up the building, what he thinks is the last worker comes out of the building and comes up to him, and the guy with the button to push asks him,
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So, is everyone out of the stadium? And his response is, I think so, pretty sure.
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What would you think if he went ahead and blew it up? What would a normal person with a functioning conscience say if they said,
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I think so, I'm pretty sure everyone's out of there? He would say, well, you better make sure, because if someone's in there, they're going to get killed.
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You see what I'm saying? Anyone with a functioning conscience should know. If you're saying we don't know if that's a human life, you're saying it might be human life in there.
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And therefore, we better be sure it's not before we destroy it. So, that's an argument against abortion.
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Now, look over at Psalm 139. Turn over there to Psalm 139 .13 again. And notice, as we look at Psalm 139 .13
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-16, notice the constant use of personal pronouns throughout these verses.
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Psalm 139 .13 -16, notice the use of personal pronouns. Verse 13,
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For you formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb.
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What does the scripture assume about a mother and her pre -born child? That they are two different persons.
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That they are two distinct people. There is a personal pronoun designating the unborn child, and a personal pronoun distinguishing the mother.
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So, you covered me in my mother's womb. Very often you'll hear, women have the right to do as they desire with their own bodies.
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In response to the issue of abortion. And we would certainly say, well, actually that's not true. No one has the right to do anything they want with their own body.
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But certainly, yes, we should have control over our body. The point is, that's not your body. That's somebody else in there.
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And the Bible is very clear. The pre -born child is not the mother. The mother is not the pre -born child.
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They are two distinct persons. Two distinct entities. Look at verses 14, 15, and 16.
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I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.
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My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
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Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they were all written.
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Hence, the days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them. Very clearly, these words are being written of a living human person created in the image of God.
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At conception, Scripture treats the unborn as just as much of a sinner as a full -grown human being.
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We are in sin from conception. We're in sin when we're born. We're in sin when we're three, when we're eight, when we're eighty -eight, if we live that long.
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Psalm 139, all the way through formation, the unborn are treated as distinct and separate living human persons from their mothers, and speaks of the unborn using personal pronouns in the exact same manner as one would speak of a 30 -year -old adult using personal pronouns.
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I, me, my. That's the way the Bible addresses this topic of the unborn person.
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If the unborn are living human persons, then they are also image -bearers of God, and this is the key as to why abortion is wrong, why it is evil to take the life of an unborn child.
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The image of God in man, in Genesis 1, 27, God created man in his own image, and remember the creation ordinance from Genesis 9, after the flood, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man.
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Now, it's another illustration of the Bible's position on the unborn. Do you remember when
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Elizabeth met Mary, when she was pregnant with Jesus? Listen to this passage, Luke 1, 35 and 36.
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And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you, therefore also that holy one who is to be born will be called the
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Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.
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And then later on in that passage, we read this in verse 41. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the
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Holy Spirit. Then she spoke with a loud voice and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
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Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
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Now at this particular moment in time, Jesus is probably microscopic in her womb.
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Here, Elizabeth is about six months pregnant, and it's probably definitely showing, but Jesus is teensy tiny. If He could be seen at all, and yet Elizabeth refers to Him as what?
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My Lord. Why? Because He's fully a human being. He's a baby.
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He is a person just like anyone else. The babe leapt in her womb.
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John the Baptist leapt in her womb. That word baby in Greek is the word brephos.
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Brephos, referring to the unborn child. A baby. When Jesus was born, in Luke 2 .12,
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we read this. This will be a sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloth lying in the manger.
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Same word. Brephos. John the Baptist as an unborn child was called a brephos. Jesus as an outside of the womb born child.
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Brephos. Baby. It's the same thing. There is nothing about coming down a birth canal that makes you something you were not before.
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We were a baby in the womb. You're a baby when you're born. There is no difference in the Bible. So often people will say, the
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Bible doesn't even talk about the subject of abortion. I've heard people say, the Bible doesn't even address the topic. We can think whatever we want about it.
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The reason it's not addressed directly in the Bible is there's no need to. The consistent testimony all the way through is that the pre -born child and the born child are the same thing.
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We are humans before we're born. We're humans after we're born. I read an article recently, and I posted a long
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YouTube video in response to it by a liberal writer for salon .com.
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Her name is Mary Elizabeth Williams, and she wrote an astounding article called, So What If Abortion Ends Life?
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Where she uses the very arguments I am now giving you. She says there's nothing about going down a birth canal that makes it into a human life.
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The point is the mom's life is more important than that baby's life. If it's in her way, it's a life worth sacrificing, she says.
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Those are her words. Amazing stuff. There really is no way of denying it.
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What's in the womb of a woman when she's pregnant is a baby. In fact, years ago,
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I listened to a lecture by a woman who was a sonographer across the street from an abortion clinic in Ithaca, New York.
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And in this lecture she was giving, she was talking about how to encourage women to keep their babies when they're abortion -minded.
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And she said she had been doing sonograms for years and years and years, and just hundreds and hundreds of them. And she said almost every single sonogram she had ever done, when they see the picture on the screen, when a woman who is pregnant is sitting there, and she's got the thing, and it's got it on there, and you see the arms and the legs and the head and everything, they all say the same thing.
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Wow, it's a baby. And she said, I always look back at it and say the same thing.
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Yes, it's a baby. That's what it means to be pregnant. It's a baby.
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What did you think was in there? It's a baby. A human being. Okay, second point, number two.
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The government's basic duty to protect life. Turn over to Romans 13 there in your Bible, if you would please, and let's look at this passage here together.
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Romans 13, 1 -4. Romans 13, 1 -4.
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Very important passage of Scripture in terms of understanding the basic role of government. What is the government supposed to be doing?
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Verse one. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
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Verse two. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
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For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority?
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Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same, for he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is
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God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
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Okay, there's a lot packed in there. The most basic form of evil is the taking of innocent human life.
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That's as basic as it gets. Remember Genesis 4, 8 -10? Remember the narrative about Cain and Abel?
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Listen to that narrative real quick here, and notice the last phrase of verse 10. Now, Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
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Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said,
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What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
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You can stop right there. Cries out for what? Vengeance. The blood of the innocents cries out to God for vengeance.
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And whether that vengeance is taken, it still cries out to God. This is exactly why
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God puts a sword into the hands of governing authorities to execute His divine vengeance against such things.
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For when innocent blood is spilled on the earth, that blood cries out to God. Whether we know about it or not, when innocent blood is shed, that blood is crying out to God for revenge.
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And that's the purpose, the primary purpose of government, is to exact God's vengeance against those who commit crimes against the innocent who take innocent life.
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The great R .C. Sproul wrote these words in his book on abortion, quote, The scope or sphere of government involvement in enterprise is a matter of perennial debate.
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Should the government subsidize private businesses? Should the government deliver mail? There is one non -negotiable issue, though, regarding government involvement.
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Governments must be involved in protecting people from murder. Protecting human life is at the heart of proper government concern.
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You hear what Dr. Sproul is saying? I mean, we could argue all day long. Should the government deliver our mail? Should the government be doing this and that?
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Well, most of what it's doing, it shouldn't be doing. But as basic as it gets is protecting people from being killed, innocent people from being killed, that's as basic as it gets.
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That's the number one concern of government. The reason that God gives the sword to magistrates is to protect people from one another, to protect them from needlessly losing their lives, to protect the innocent from being killed.
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In his lengthy majority opinion in the Roe versus Wade decision, Justice Harry Blackmun, who is now dead, makes this amazing statement, quote,
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We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer, end quote.
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And his conclusion was, therefore, it doesn't matter if you take their lives. Therefore, it doesn't matter, abortion, we don't even know when life begins.
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Remember what I said to you? What does a person with a functioning conscience do if life might be taken by something they do?
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They say, well, I'm not going to do that. It might kill somebody, right? Would you blow up a building if you were pretty sure everyone was out of it?
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Everyone in this room would say no. And yet, this Chief Justice said, it doesn't matter. Does that not amaze you?
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This is a legal scholar? A person who's supposed to uphold what is right? Amazing.
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The majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, the text of the whole thing is available online. I'd encourage you to go out there and read it if you can stand it long enough.
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Read the reasoning that went into this. Dr. John MacArthur said about this issue, One of the professors at the
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Masters College, Dr. John Pilkey, a very astute, teaches in our English Lit Department, wrote me a little memo.
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Listen to what it says. Quote, The phrase pro -choice, which is what the pro -abortionists use, the phrase pro -choice strikes me as one of the most depraved, apocalyptically wicked rhetorical facts in the history of Western civilization in the
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Christian era. The phrase means pro -sin, or free to choose sin.
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The phrase would actually be less dreadful if it were pro -abortion, because that would confine it to the sphere of a particular moral problem.
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But by turning it to what seems a euphemism, the pro -choice people have rung the final rhetorical death knell to the entire democratic experiment.
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The phrase pro -choice means without conscience, or without inhibition, or without restraint.
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And it parades itself under the Jeffersonian banner of liberty of conscience and separation of church and state.
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As a rhetorical gesture, perfectly designed to function as a political banner, this phrase constitutes the last word, the official formulation of official apostate defiance against the
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God of Christianity. Then he said, I'm confident that God will answer it apocalyptically, end quote.
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Thirdly, Pro -Life 101. Let's look at this now. I want to give you some very useful tools that I think you will find very easy to use if you get into discussions at lunch or after work, or you get into discussions with neighbors about this issue, you will be able to be persuasive.
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You can really be persuasive if you just know a few basic things that are really important. First, I want to just read to you without you turning there.
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The issue of the Good Samaritan. The issue of the Good Samaritan from Luke chapter 10. Just listen to this.
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I want to make a couple comments about this. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying,
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Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?
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So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
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And he said to him, You have answered rightly. Do this and you will live. But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
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Now, why did he ask that question to Jesus? Why did this lawyer ask him, Who is my neighbor?
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Was it because he was eager to expand the definition of neighbor to as many as possible?
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No, he wants to know who he can exclude. He wants to know who is not meant by neighbor.
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Who is my neighbor so I can make sure that I take care of them? For example, this guy obviously has a problem with Samaritans.
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Jesus' response is to give this lawyer a literal one -two punch in this parable he tells him.
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Not only do the despised, half -breed Samaritans count as your neighbor, but here's a parable in which they are better neighbors than the supposed best people you know of.
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Here's what Jesus said to him. Jesus answered and said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.
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Now, by chance, a certain priest came down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
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Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side.
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But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion.
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So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him.
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On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, Take care of him and whatever more you spend when
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I come again, I will repay you. So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among thieves?
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And he said, he who showed mercy on him. Notice, he can't even get the word Samaritan out of his mouth.
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He despises themselves. The one that showed mercy. Yeah, that was the Samaritan, wasn't it?
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And Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise. Any attempt to exclude anyone from the category of neighbor, from the category of human beings, from being part of the human race, is to make yourself the lawyer in this narrative.
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Any attempt to minimize or to cut someone off for some reason from the category of neighbor to whom we are obligated to show love is to make yourself into the hypocritical lawyer in this passage.
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You see, our culture has basically taken unborn children and said, Sorry, you're too small to count.
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You're not developed enough to count. You're in the wrong location to count. You're too dependent to count.
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And it is our task, if we do love them, to tell the world, No, they do count as people and they must be protected in the same way that we protect a fully grown human person.
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And I want to give you four words, which if you can remember them, you will be persuasive in every discussion you ever have on this issue of abortion.
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Those four words are, What is the unborn? What is the unborn?
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If you can memorize that question, you will make progress. I don't care who the person is. In fact, let me tell you a little anecdote.
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When we were working with that clinic that set up shop less than two miles from our church and we were down there doing sidewalk counseling and trying to encourage women to get a free sonogram and to turn away from that place.
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One of our sidewalk educators made friends with the abortion clinic security guard and asked him if he'd be willing to do lunch with yours truly.
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And he eventually agreed to it. And so I met him at Dunkin' Donuts and we sat down and discussed.
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And this guy came in with guns a -blazing, wanting to talk about women's rights and it's a woman's right to choose and women should never be denied their rights.
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And he just went on and on and on and on and on about that. And I just sat and listened and listened and listened. And I had just been reading through some of this material that I had learned from Greg Cockel and other great,
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Scott Klusendorf and other pro -life defenders. And when he got done, I said, you know, I agree completely.
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Women should never be denied their rights for any reason. And I believe women should have the right to do as they please with their own bodies and women should never be denied anything that they have in the eyes of the law.
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The problem is that it has absolutely nothing to do with abortion at all. What is the unborn? And it was like 30 seconds of dead silence.
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You know why? Because the liberal social engineers and the pro -abortion media has for so long given us the idea that this issue is really about women and their rights.
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It's not. It's about the pre -born child. And if you can get people to face that one question, what is the unborn?
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What is the unborn? And I asked the security guard, what is the unborn? And he sat there stymied, silent.
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And then I followed it up with, look, if the unborn are not human beings, then I could care less what you do with them.
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I would no more care about abortion than I would care about you clipping your fingernails. But if they are human beings, what does that make abortion?
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You see, that's the key issue. It's not about women's rights or any of this other stuff. It's about what is it?
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What is it? And I also use this illustration I learned from Scott Klusendorf. It's a great illustration. If I was standing in my backyard working on something and I was unable to turn around and one of my sons came up behind me and says, hey, dad, can
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I kill this? What is my next question going to be? What is it?
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Right? Now, if I'm able to turn around and he's holding a mosquito, I'm going to say, sure. If I'm turning, if I turn around and he's got his younger brother in a headlock, then my answer is going to be different.
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What is the key question? What is it that you want to kill? Dad, can I kill this? It depends on what this is, son.
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That's what abortion is about. What is in the womb of a woman when she's pregnant? Everybody knows the answer to that question.
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Don't let the liberal social engineers and the pro -abortion media make you think it's really about women and their rights.
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It's not about women and their rights. It's about the unborn child and what abortion does to that unborn child.
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And I told him, that's why we're down there, sir. That's why we're trying to speak for them. Because they're human beings.
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You were an unborn child once too. Just like I was. Just like the abortion providers themselves once were.
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You and I were once as big as a single cell. That's why we have to speak up in favor of the unborn.
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That guy had never heard. No one had ever forced him to actually deal with the real issue. No one had ever done that.
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And you know what? We did lunch two more times. And the second and third lunch, the whole demeanor was different.
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Then it was, well, I'm not the one that really does it. I'm just the security guard. I'm not the one that does the abortions.
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And then, you know, when I think about it, it really is a blankety -blank blank thing to do. You see, it got through.
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No one had ever forced him to face the real issue. And so if you hear people talking about women's rights and everyone's bantering back and forth and you're sitting around the lunch table, all you got to do is drop that nuclear bomb on the table.
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What is the unborn? And watch everybody go silent. Because that is the key question. What's in there?
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If it's not human, you don't even need to justify it. You don't even need an argument for abortion. If it's not a human being, who cares?
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If it is a human being, what does that make abortion? Murder. That's the key question.
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Force that question. What is the unborn? What is the unborn? What is the unborn? Once you can get people to face that, they may go the direction of trying to depersonalize the unborn child.
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And I wanted to give you another technique. I think it's there in your outline. Trot out your toddler.
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Trot out the toddler. Trot out your toddler. Remember that one too. Here are the five most common arguments people use for abortion.
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And for each one of these, you can defeat it by trotting out your toddler. The first one is, abortion is a matter between a woman and her
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God. Recently saw that one on a Facebook war I was involved in.
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It's a matter between a woman and her God. And you can respond with, is killing a toddler between a woman and her
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God? But that's a different issue. A toddler is a real person to which we would respond, which takes us back to the real question.
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What is the unborn? That is the key question. Second argument. Many poor women can't afford another child.
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Response. Can we kill one of our toddlers if we can't afford them? And they'll say, that's a different issue.
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A toddler is a real person. Right. Which takes us back to the key question. What is the unborn? Another one.
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If abortion is restricted, women will die in back alley abortions, in dangerous back alley abortions.
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Response. Should women be able to kill toddlers safely in abortion clinics because it's unsafe to kill them in back alleys?
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Just trot out your toddler. No matter what the argument, apply it to a toddler. No matter what the argument, apply it to a toddler or to a full grown child.
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Women should not be forced to bear their unwanted children. Response.
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The homeless are largely unwanted. Should we kill them? But the homeless are real people. Exactly. Which takes us back to the key question.
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What is the unborn? What is inside of a woman's womb? Fifthly, you shouldn't force your morality on women.
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And we can respond to that. Women shouldn't force their morality upon their unborn children. When you hear the objections, trot out your toddler, apply whatever they say to a toddler, and it will quickly bring the real question into focus, which is not women and their rights, it's what is the unborn?
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What is it that's inside of the womb of a pregnant woman? And always remember, if the unborn are not human, no justification for abortion is necessary.
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If the unborn are human, no justification for abortion is possible. And until pro -abortion people can demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the unborn are not human beings, they have no case at all for their position.
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None. And as I said, Mary Elizabeth Williams, this liberal writer, is saying, yeah, that's a life.
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So what? It's a life worth sacrificing. It's not as valuable as mine. People are ruthless in this day and age.
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Once they've discovered that this is indeed the key issue, the pro -abortion person may try to depersonalize the unborn.
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You see that on your outline there, the acronym SLED, S -L -E -D, please remember that.
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We, as outside the womb, fully born human beings, we differ from unborn human beings in only four ways.
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Size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. Size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency.
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That is the only way we differ from the unborn. As you will see, none of those things are relevant at all to what we are.
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None. First one, size. Size. We're bigger. We are bigger than the unborn.
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But our size has no impact on what we are, does it? Nor does our size impact our value in the eyes of the law.
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Think about it. If that's actually a valid argument, well, we're bigger. I mean, the unborn are just teensy -tiny, microscopic little,
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I mean, especially when they're first conceived in those first few weeks, I mean, you can hardly even see them with a microscope. But if someone is convicted of murder, would the length of their prison term in any way be impacted by how big the person was they killed?
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Of course not. Our size has no bearing on our standing in the eyes of the law.
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If our size is relevant to the issue of abortion, we'd have to say, yes, bigger people are more valuable than smaller people.
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In which case, that would mean, in general, men are more valuable than women because we're bigger than women. It would also mean
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Shaquille O 'Neal is one of the most valuable people in the world. I've heard the argument from pro -abortion people, well, an acorn isn't a tree.
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I've heard that one before. An acorn isn't a tree. And the response is, actually, yes, it is. Every oak tree you've ever seen was at once...
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It didn't come from an acorn. It was an acorn. You and I did not come from that cell. We didn't come from an embryo.
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We were that cell. We were that embryo. That was us in the womb. Remember Psalm 51 .5,
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin. My mother conceived me. We are humans from the point of conception.
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Our size is irrelevant. Second one, level of development. A newborn is more developed than the unborn.
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Of course, a toddler is more developed than a newborn. An eight -year -old is more developed than a toddler and so on and so forth. But our level of development is not relevant to what we are at all.
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We are still humans no matter how developed we are, right? Thirdly, environment. Now, this is,
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I think, the weakest one, and yet this is the one that so often that the Supreme Court and that the lawmakers key in on, is location.
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Your environment, where you are. That's why you have the whole idea is as horrendous as it is to think about, if an abortion attempt fails and a baby is born alive, they have to treat it.
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You can kill it as long as it's in the womb, but if it's born alive, then you can't touch it. You can't hurt it. Isn't that weird?
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As if where we are has any impact on what we are? The unborn are in the mother's womb and thus they aren't human and shouldn't have rights.
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You might think this sounds ridiculous because it is, but this is really the key argument that many focus on.
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Now, I moved from my bed to the kitchen this morning to make coffee.
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Was I still the same person when I got there? Yes, I think. There's nothing about going down a birth canal that makes someone human, and yet, in the eyes of the law, it does.
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That's the key issue. Isn't that bizarre? It makes people have no respect for our laws when they're that ridiculous.
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Fourth, degree of dependency. This is another important one. This is the issue that the
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Supreme Court, another one they keyed in on, was the issue of viability. The ability to survive on its own outside the womb.
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As long as babies are completely dependent on their mothers, they don't count as human beings with the right to live.
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Now, think about what that would get you if that was true. It's not true, but let's just say it was true for the sake of argument. This would mean that people who are dependent upon insulin shots, kidney dialysis machines, pacemakers, or drug therapy don't count as people, and they don't have the right to live either.
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Our degree of dependency on something or someone is not relevant to what we are, is it?
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I'm still a human being, whether I'm dependent on someone or upon a machine or something else. I'm still a human being, regardless.
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So those are the ways, the only ways, that we differ from the unborn. Every attempt to depersonalize the unborn fails upon examination.
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They all fail. There is no way to get around this. Abortion takes the life of an innocent, defenseless human being, and as such, it is murder.
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It is a great evil. It is something that the Christian church needs to speak out about regularly. It is something we should engage people about.
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We should not allow the fact that abortion providers hide behind sanitized buildings in white coats that are not adequately marked.
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Usually, it's usually Women's Health Center or Women's Medical Center or Aware Woman or something like that.
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Never do you see the sign that says abortion. We do abortions or anything like that. We shouldn't allow that to cause us to not speak to this issue.
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We have to speak to this issue. The Word of God commands us to. In Proverbs 31, verse 8,
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Open your mouth for the speechless and the cause of all who are appointed to die. Now, before we close this morning,
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I wanted to walk through with you what happens in that little baby's life in the first 12 weeks in the womb.
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It's amazing. What happens in those first 12 weeks because 68 % of the 1 .21
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million abortions that will happen this year are done on children that are about 12 weeks old in the womb.
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68 % of the 1 .21 million are done on unborn children that are about 12 weeks gestation. So, I wanted, in closing, to walk through this with you.
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Just listen carefully to this. Day one, fertilization. All human chromosomes are present and a distinct human life now exists.
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Day six, the embryo implants itself into the uterine wall. Day 22, one day after three weeks, the heart begins to beat with the child's own blood, often a different blood type from its mother.
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Week three, the child's backbone, spinal column, and nervous system are forming. The liver, kidneys, and intestines begin to take shape.
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Week four, the child is now 10 ,000 times larger than the fertilized egg.
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In four weeks, it's 10 ,000 times larger than the fertilized egg. If we continued growing at that same rate that we do in the first four weeks, we would all weigh an average of 28 ,000 pounds when we were born.
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Week five, eyes, legs, and hands begin to develop. Week five. Week six, brain waves are now detectable.
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Mouth and lips are present. Fingernails are forming. Week seven, eyelids and toes form.
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The nose is now distinct. The baby is kicking and swimming. Week eight, every organ is now in place.
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The bone begins to replace cartilage and fingerprints begin to form. By the end of week eight, the baby can hear.
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Week nine and 10, teeth begin to form. Fingernails develop. The baby can now turn her head and frown.
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The baby can now hiccup. Week 10 and 11, the baby can now breathe the amniotic fluid in the womb in and out of its own lungs.
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Week 11, the baby can grasp objects placed in its hands. All organs are now functioning.
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The baby has a skeletal structure, nerves, and circulation. Week 12, the baby has all the parts necessary to experience pain, including nerves, spinal cord, and thalamus.
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Vocal cords are now complete, and the baby can suck its thumb.
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Twelve weeks. 68 % of the 1 .21 million abortions that will happen in this nation are done on children like that.
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Is that wrong? I want to say in closing, the Bible tells us, open your mouth for the speechless in the cause of all who are appointed to die.
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Whatever our reaction to this tragedy, this tragic loss of life, whatever our response to it might be, we dare not be silent.
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Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we are moved with sadness over the loss of life over the fact that a third of the people that we would have known and been friends with and maybe even had as members here in our church are gone.
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A third of the people who would have been writing music and writing poetry and writing books are gone.
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All those unique people, every one of them unique, never before or since has there been anyone like them.
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Lives spilled out like water, like they meant nothing. Father, our hearts are grieved at that loss and we do pray for repentance in this nation.
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Help us to be warm and loving and persuasive as we seek to speak about this terrible tragedy in our country that we might live in a place again that not only upholds the sanctity of life, but upholds the sanctity of marriage and family where life is to be seen as a blessing from God.
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Children are seen as a gift from God to be sought for, prayed for and loved and accepted into this world.
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Father, we pray for repentance at every level in the church, in the world, in the state and we do pray that you would help us to stand courageously, to speak boldly in the cause of the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die.
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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This is
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Pastor Patrick Hines of Brittle Heights Presbyterian Church located at 108 Brittle Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee and you've been listening to the
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Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any Sunday morning at 11 a .m. sharp where we open the
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Word of God together, sing His praises and rejoice in the Gospel of our risen Lord. You can find us on the web at www .brittleheightspca
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.org and may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the
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Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.