An Attack On God

Leviticus 20 and the Sanctity of Human Life

The Old Testament scripture is Leviticus 1 -5, chapter 21 -5. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, say to the people of Israel, any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who give any of his children to Molech, shall surely be put to death.

The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name.

And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man, when he gives one of his children to Molech and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against the clan, and I will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in the whoring after Molech.

Paul’s Testimony in 1 Timothy 1

New Testament reading, 1 Timothy chapter 1, starting verse 12. I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointed me to his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief.

And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is true and deserving of full acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor, glory, and forever and ever.

Amen. You may be seated.

Prayer for Understanding and Obedience

Now we come to you and ask you to speak to us. This is your voice. We need to listen to your voice. As this word is opened, we now have the mind of God before us. So we ask that you give us hearts that hear, hearts that determine to obey, a change in our understanding where it needs to be changed, and to move us to greater obedience.

Thank you now, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, it's been 47 years since the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States. And the question I'd ask is, well, what have we gained in our opposition to it?

And frankly, we haven't gained very much. Doesn't seem like we're on the winning side. We've been misrepresented by the media. We've been ridiculed by many for our stance. We are held up as objects of scorn in the stories that come to us on television episodes and caricatured as uncaring, hateful people.

And frankly, we may never win the battle if we think in terms of overturning the law. So why even continue? Why even fight the battle? Let me suggest to you the fundamental issue in this whole debate, this whole battle.

It is this.

Abortion is not merely an attack on life. It is an attack on God himself. It is man shaking his fist at God and saying, you don't have the right to tell us how to live. You have no right to give us any direction when it comes to the taking of life.

We are free to make those choices without any reference to you. That's the fundamental issue. And it's that issue that calls us to stand against abortion and for life. So today, I want you to see how the whole issue of abortion is an attack upon God and why we have to oppose it.

The Image of God and the Personhood of the Unborn

Why must we oppose abortion? Here's the first reason. You must oppose abortion because it denies that man is made in the image of God. It's a denial that man is made in the image of God. Turn to Genesis chapter one.

Genesis chapter one, verses 26 and 27. Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Someone may object, abortion doesn't take a human life. It may be a fetus, it may be an embryo, but let's not call it a person.

From a biological standpoint, that is a ridiculous assertion. Everyone agrees that at the moment of conception, a life is formed. Something different happens in the womb of a woman. Something new is formed and that it is alive.

Well, what kind of life is it? Will it be a parrot or a dog or a pig? No, no, it won't. It is human life. I remember a conversation I had with someone who's a pro-abortion or an abortion proponent sitting at the kitchen table and our eight-month-old baby Annie was sleeping upstairs.

And as I talked to him, I said, Annie's sleeping upstairs right now, okay? Now, six months ago, was that Annie?

Yeah.

Eight months ago when she was born, was that Annie?

Yeah.

And you can draw a straight line from that baby sleeping upstairs to Becca's womb. That's Annie, right? There was, that's all that could have come from that, Annie. You can draw that line. It's absurd to say that this is not a human life.

This is not a person. Biblically speaking, we have to recognize the personhood of the unborn. We all know Psalm 51 verse five. Psalm 51 verse five. Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

That blob of protoplasm is called a sinner. That says it's a person. It's persons who are alienated from God by sin. So when someone tries to say that this is not a person, they virtually deny that the child is made in the image of God.

And part of the reason why I believe that abortion is so accepted today is because so many people have accepted the evolutionary hypothesis of life, which is we are nothing more than the product of chance plus time, that we are nothing more than a higher form of animal.

That is, what makes us human? What differentiates us from all the rest of creation? Genesis one makes it clear. We are made in the image of God. The very definition of a human being is image of God. And by accepting the evolutionary hypothesis, many people now see human life as nothing more than the highest form of animal life, if you will.

With that being the case, right? We are not more valuable than animals. And so we can treat people from pre-born to end of life in euthanasia. We do not see them as valuable, but disposable. I think there's a direct correlation between the acceptance of evolution, which then eliminates the idea that we're made in the image of God, and abortion.

So abortion, by denying man as image bearer, is an affront to God. It's an affront to God. The reason why abortion is wrong is because it says something about God, all right? We are image bearers. We are image bearers.

God as the Sovereign Giver of Life

You must oppose abortion because it denies that God is the sovereign giver of life. That is, God sovereignly determines the quality of life. We hear the quality of life argument all the time. Abortion is a statement before God that says, man is the ultimate bestower of life, and he can end life as he sees it.

He defines what is good quality life and what is not. Man is the standard and no longer accountable to the transcendent law of a transcendent God. Let me explain what that means. What do I mean when I say the word transcendent?

Transcendent means above, beyond, okay? God is a transcendent being. What does that mean? It means that God is above us. God is transcendent, not just in the sense of he's bigger and stronger and knows more than us.

He is a different being altogether. He is not created being. He is self-sufficient. He doesn't need anything outside of himself for his existence. In everything that makes him God, he is transcendent.

He is above us, all right? And God gives his law, and we have a transcendent law. That is, we have a law that stands above us. And when we say that murder is wrong, how do I know it's wrong? Because this transcendent God who's above us has given us a law that governs us.

It's above us as well. It says murder is wrong. To transgress that transcendent law then is to commit murder. Why is it wrong to steal? Because the transcendent law of God says stealing is wrong. It's above us.

It speaks to us. Now, what happens when you get rid of God? You get rid of that transcendent law. Well, then how do we know what's right and what's wrong? We determine what's right and what's wrong. We have nothing above us.

Now it's up to us to determine what's right and what's wrong. That is where our culture is today, folks. There is no transcendent law. Therefore, we are the standard. Man determines what is right and wrong.

We live in that atmosphere all the time today. So therefore, man determines who will live and who will die based on the standards that man has established. You follow me? If there's nothing transcendent, then we make the decision.

We determine what are the checkpoints of a good life. We don't have someone above us telling us that. We come to it on our own. And so we hear such statements as these. But if we bring this deformed baby into the world, his quality of life will not be what it should be.

Well, what do you mean what it should be? Well, we've determined what's a good quality of life and what's not, right? And we all know deformity, that's not a good quality of life, right? We don't have anything above us telling us that we have chosen it ourselves.

But listen to what God says. Turn to the next book of the Bible, Exodus. Exodus chapter four, verse 11. Here is the story of Moses arguing with God. Moses is trying to get out of God's call of going to Pharaoh and telling him, let my people go.

And Moses says, you know, I'm just not really good at speaking. And God replies to him in verse 11 with this, which has implications that move out to us in what we're talking about. Then the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth?

Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Well, what is God saying? He determines the quality of life. He determines the quality of life. Quality of life is no accident. It is determined by God.

Quality of life is not something we determine. It is given by God. It is God who has determined who is deaf, who is dumb, who is blind. It is God who has determined who has Down syndrome. It is God who has determined who has that genetic effect.

And since the quality of life is a divine given, then human life, however it's manifested, blind, lame, handicapped, has value. God determines what that life is gonna be like and however it is manifested.

However it's manifested, it has value. Listen, Hitler's final solution, right? The Holocaust that he brought about. The killing of six million Jews came about because it rested on the belief that it was not enough simply to be human.

If you lacked certain characteristics, if you lacked Aryan heritage, you lacked certain characteristics, you didn't deserve to live. It wasn't enough to be human. One had to have certain other qualities as well.

Abortion is an attack on God because it denies that he determines the quality of life, that he is the sovereign in that area. You must oppose abortion and I think this is key for us because it rejects God's view of children.

Children as a Gift, Heritage, and Reward

You wanna know what God thinks of children? Turn to Psalm 127. Psalm 127. Here's what it says. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Now note, behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.

The arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gates. Abortion says children can be a nuisance.

They get in the way. If I carry this pregnancy to term, I won't be able to finish my college education and thus pursue the career I want. This baby is a nuisance, is an obstacle that must be eliminated.

Children do not possess as much value as an adult, is what abortion says. Children are valuable only if they contribute to my life in some way.

That's what it is.

That's how children are viewed. But God says, children are a gift from me. Children are a source of blessing. Children are a well of blessing, right? They're a heritage, a gift, a reward, right? Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.

They're good defenders. Kind of an application of this, I'm beginning to understand that, right? The children of my youth have grown up to be my defenders. Right now, they're trying to keep me safe from myself.

No, dad, you're not gonna clean the gutters. You climb on that ladder and you fall down,.

You're a dead man.

So we'll do that, right? They defend you, right? When you have a mess of children, you don't need to defend yourself, assuming they love you. But they're a source of blessing, they're a gift. Have you ever had a hard time trying to figure out what kind of gift to give somebody?

What would be the perfect gift?

You know what God says? Man, I love you, I'm gonna give you a gift.

I'm gonna give you children.

That's God's view of children. And we, of all people, ought to rejoice in God's gift of children. You know what's missing in the world today? People who love children. That's what's missing in the world today.

Before a watching world, we ought to be the kind of people that rejoice in our kids. We enjoy them, not endure them. That's a rare thing to see today, isn't it?

You go to the store,.

You see how people treat their children. It's sad. And we often fail at this point before an unbelieving world. Sadly, we too often take up the chorus that they have. We complain about our children instead of rejoicing about them.

You know, sometimes the only difference between some Christians and pro-abortion people is at least we don't kill them, but we still think of them in the same way as other people. We ought to think differently.

We ought to rejoice in our kids.

No.

I always loved it when we would go shopping, right? There was a time when we would do these once a month stock up things. And I can't remember the name of the store that was in Delaware.

We would go to,.

No, I remember. We would go to Meyers like on a Saturday. It was fun. Do you remember when Meyers used to have free coffee, free coffee samples? You don't? There was a time when you'd go to Meyers and they had these things of, you know, the pump things with the coffee and they'd have the coffee there and they'd have little cups about that big so you could get free samples.

So what we would do with our kids when we would go shopping at Meyers, we would all buy everybody a donut, which in those days was really big stuff.

That was a big treat.

We would get everybody a donut and Beck and I would get our free coffee and we'd just sit there and watch everybody and have a blast with our kids. It was fun. But I always remember when you'd go to the checkout, people would say, the cashier would lean over and say,.

Are these all yours?

And I always wanted to say, now we left the four oldest ones at home. You know, I just, but what was sad is they would say things like,.

Are these all yours?

He goes, yeah. And they would say, man, I got two and I can hardly stand it. That always was so sad to me, right? But here's the point I'm trying to make. The world ought to see us have God's view of children.

I wonder how much of an effect that would have.

On abortion.

The world's seeing people enjoying their kids. You see, abortion is an affront to God because it rejects his view of children.

It rejects his view of children.

Influencing Government Without Putting Hope in Politics

Now, we can't just talk about why we're opposed to it. We have to ask the question, what do we do about it? What do we do about it? Well, here's the first thing. Make our views known to our government.

Influence our government. When you look at Romans chapter 13, again, there are certain passages in the Bible that talk about a Christian's relationship to the governing authorities. This is one. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant. The government is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.

For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Now, speaking of the government, it says that the government is God's agent to restrain evildoers. Now, what's different between the government that the Apostle Paul was talking about and our government, he was talking about, at that time, an empire, that is to say, an emperor ruled.

That is to say, someone who conquered a bunch of other nations, now ruling over many nations, not just his own, an emperor, he was the one who ruled. All right? The difference between that government and our government is we do, unlike the Apostle Paul, have an opportunity to influence our government.

We have an opportunity to influence our government in understanding what's right and what's wrong, what's evil and what's righteous, and we have the opportunity of influencing the government to do something about the wrong.

So we have a different government in which we have a voice. Apostle Paul didn't have a voice. We do, and God, in his gracious providence, gave us that. So we ought to use it as best we can. And notice that God says that government is his agent to restrain evildoers, evildoers.

So we need to be involved at least at some level. But having said that, let me give you a caution. The most government can do, the absolute most it can do is restrain evil. It will never change a human heart.

Even if abortion became illegal, there would still be people who would terminate pregnancies because of what they see as children, what the problem they see with children. The government will never, ever change one human heart.

So don't put your hope, listen to me, and this is where I think Christians in this country have failed miserably. Don't put your hope in legislative victories. Don't put your hope in Supreme Court decisions.

Don't put your hope in educational policies. Don't put your hope in those things. Yeah, we may get conservatives on the Supreme Court that someday may overturn Roe v. Wade. It may overturn that decision.

But don't put your hope in that. Don't put your hope in that. By the way, by the way, now you may not know this, but if the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion, it would not make abortion illegal.

What it would do is to say every state now determines whether it's legal or not. It will not eliminate abortion to begin with. It'll only say it's kicked down to the states now. Each state now will determine whether it's legal or not.

You see? Don't put your hope in all that. Don't put your hope in a president who'll appoint the right people. I mean, okay, so we make our voice known. We have an influence. But do not put your hope there.

Where would you put your hope? This, in the gospel, in the gospel. Government can only restrain wrongdoers. It can never change a man's heart. But the gospel will change people's hearts. And so we must proclaim.

The Gospel as the Real Hope for Changing Hearts

Here's the second thing we have to do. First, influence our government as best we can. But second, proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

Jim read that wonderful passage. I love that passage from 1 Timothy 1, where the apostle Paul says, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst, right?

Why?

To show his patience, to show his mercy, to show his grace, to show how great a God he is, right? There's real hope in the gospel. And listen, the gospel will change human hearts. It will change people.

When the gospel comes and regeneration occurs and someone is changed and God now becomes precious to them, they'll begin to love children like they ought to, right? And so people's hearts are changed.

But listen, first, if you want to look, turn to 2 Corinthians 5. We must never, ever forget this. And again, here is where I think we have failed again. We have forgotten our primary calling. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

And here is what we must always do. We must always be ambassadors, especially, especially to women who have had abortions. We must give them the good news that they can be forgiven and that they can go on in life, not burdened with the guilt of what they did, right?

Too often, what we do is we preach the law of God. That is wrong. You must stop. God sees that as horribly wicked and we stop there and we don't give hope, the hope of forgiveness to people who need hope.

And we need to be reaching out to women who've had abortions and say to them, you no longer have to be burdened by the guilt of that. You can be free. Now that, you know, some of us, some of us who are very pro-life, that almost sounds, that can't be true.

Grace is so radical. We can say to people, yes, that was a horrible sin, but you can be forgiven and you can go on with life and never look back. Never carry that burden anymore because the grace of God is so marvelous that he forgives all your sins.

They need to hear that. They need to hear that. This is where the battle is going to be won, I believe, in the gospel. Legislative victories will at best restrain evil, but the gospel can forgive and change people.

The whole battle for life is in reality a battle for men's hearts.

Love, Mercy, and Long-Haul Pro-Life Care

Here's the third thing.

We must model acts of love and mercy. We must model acts of love and mercy. You know what we need to do? We need to love our enemies. I don't know if many of you are here remember Richard Gans. Richard was here several years ago.

He was our Bible conference speaker. He was kind of a odd duck. Richard Gans has always been kind of an odd duck, but he's a pastor in Canada. I know him, I've got to know him through the biblical counseling movement.

He was one of the early guys, one of the early disciples of Jay in biblical counseling. He's written a few books in that, but he's also a madman for evangelism. So when Canada was debating these things, the legalization of abortion and stuff, he was with the pro-life group, and there was this, the pro-abortion and the pro-life groups, and they were like in each other's faces.

Well, Richard disappeared, and all the folks on the pro-life side are going,.

Where did he go?

What happened? He was gone for a long time. He came back, he showed up, and they said, where were you? He said, I was over there. And he said, what is wrong with you? You're over there with those folks?

He goes, yeah.

What were you doing?

He says, well, I got to talking to a few of them and sat down and I got to know them. You know, found out about their lives and started talking to them, and they shared the gospel with them, right? Now, how many folks do we know if a pro-abortion, let's say AOC came to LaRue.

That'd be interesting. I wonder if she'd make it out alive, but nevertheless, suppose she came. Would you invite her to your house and just befriend her and just talk to her, find out about her life, right?

Share the gospel with her. You know, we see so many of those folks as our enemies, and they are, but what does God tell us to do with our enemies?

Love them.

One of my favorite stories, of course, and I've told it before, but I love this story, is when early on, I don't know if many of you remember Mark Blocker. He was the executive director of Baptist for Life many, many decades ago.

And Mark tells the story of the fact that they had opened a new crisis pregnancy center up in Michigan, and the pro-abortion people had come to protest it, and they were all outside with their picket signs, and it was a very cold day.

You know what the people in the CDC did? They said, hey, look, here, give us your signs. We'll take care of them. Come on in. It's cold outside. Come on in. And they gave them hot chocolate and all that kind of stuff.

Would you do that?

That's the way to do it. We ought to love our enemies. Not only that, but we ought to love our communities. We ought to love our communities. A friend of mine, Steve Vires, I've known Steve for many years.

We served together in ACBC, but I knew Steve when he was just a seminary student. But Steve is the pastor of Faith Church in Lafayette, Purdue town, right? Steve just recently published a book called Loving Your Community, and I know the story of Faith Church in Lafayette.

They have just, they have done stuff. They built a community center with a gym and everything. They invited their community in. They had a skateboard, whatever those things are. You know, those things, they built one of those.

And then they just, a couple years ago, built a North End campus for their church in which they shared it with a number of the social agencies in the town there. Agree or disagree, they're trying to love their community.

And they're doing all these things. And here's what Steve wrote. Well, let me tell you the context of this. Turn to Titus chapter three. Titus chapter three. Notice what verse one says. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, and note, to be ready for every good work.

Drop down to verse nine, or verse eight. The saying is trustworthy, that is that Jesus came that we might be justified and have eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

He says the same thing up in chapter two, that Jesus redeemed us, verse 14, from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. So Steve, as he's led his church in Lafayette, they've just stepped out to love their community.

And here's what he wrote in his book, Loving Your Community, in light of Titus 3 .1. This is one of the reasons faith church spends practically no time talking about politics. Too many churches and Christian groups have become little more than angry, political action committees who position themselves in their communities as the self-appointed critics of their secular leaders.

Often, such individuals have little interest in loving their neighbors and meeting needs in their communities because they're so busy pointing out all of society's faults. Now, I can tell you that faith church has had a tremendous influence in that university town.

You know why?

Because they're known as people who are helping. And so when they speak, people listen. Now, that's not why they do it. I think Steve is saying, simply, God calls us to love our neighbors. He didn't call us to political action.

Not that that's wrong, but primarily, what do we have to do? We have the ministry of the gospel, and we're to love our neighbors and love our enemies, so let's really throw ourselves into that, and let's love our communities.

We need to model acts of love and mercy. We have to help those, okay? So I've gotten there, now let's get to this. We ought to help those with crisis pregnancies then, right? That just flows out of what I've been talking about.

We need to counsel these women who are facing crisis pregnancies. I think one of the best things from the, not this year, but last year, the gala that New Path put on was hearing the way women who are faced with crisis pregnancies think.

They are afraid, right?

They're afraid.

They're desperate, right?

It's not a conspiracy to kill babies. It is the fact that they're desperate, and there's illegal ways that they think, legal ways of getting out of their desperation and their fear, and that's where we come in, to show them a God who can love them and walk with them, and as they are united to Christ, they gain a father who will walk with them and through all of these difficulties, we need to have resources to help them, even our homes if necessary, right?

So what I love about New Path is because they don't just talk about, here's what I love, it's not just about, we gotta save a baby, it's about, we have to shepherd and care for people, and then what's good, that means that we have to be pro-life over the long haul.

You know what one of the greatest criticism against the pro-life movement is? Oh yeah, you're all about saving babies, but what happens when that unwanted baby comes in the world? Where are you then?

I think that's a legitimate criticism. We need to be pro-life in the long haul, and again, and you know, we support New Life, many of us do, many of you involved in that ministry, again, that's what I love about that organization.

They stay with those women, they stay in contact, they try to help them in the long haul. So love and mercy means we're pro-life for the long haul. Here's the last thing we can do, and the hardest thing.

You ready?

Here's the hardest thing.

We have to pray.

That is the hardest thing.

Now maybe I'm confessing something that none of you struggle with. This is where I struggle the most. I need to pray more. I need to pray more. So all of us need to be praying. We need to be praying for our enemies.

We need to be praying for these women.

Who have had abortions.

We need to be praying for women who are facing crisis pregnancies. We need to be praying for the ones in government. Yes, indeed, we must be praying for a new president, and I'm not saying praying down God's curses now, okay?

We need to be praying for them. We need to pray. And so the fundamental issue in the battle then is.

What does God say?

And if you're opposed to life, you're opposed to God. And our primary responsibility is not necessarily to win. We may not win this battle if by winning you mean reverse everything and we start going in the opposite direction.

God may in his mercy do that, but we may not win, but that's not the point. We're not in this battle to win. We're in this battle to be faithful, to be faithful to God. Someday, when we stand before Jesus, it's not gonna be whether we won anything.

It's about whether you were faithful. That's the bottom line. And if we're gonna be faithful, we need to stand on God's side of the issue. We need to be his voice in our culture. His voice of not just law, but gospel.

We need to be faithful to God. We need to be willing to do that. Father, we are so thankful for your mercies to us. And yet, Father, sometimes we can turn those mercies into shouting belligerent people rather than being people of mercy and love.

Father, we know that being people of grace and mercy and love does not mean that we condone evil. It means we speak against what is wicked, but it means more than that. It means we offer the good news that Jesus came to save sinners and that he can change hearts.

Would you please help us to be gospel people, especially in this battle? Help us to remain faithful to you, faithful to stand for what is right, faithful to stand for grace. Help us so that someday we will hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant.

We ask this in Jesus' name.