Abortion: A Modern Holocaust

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We'll open our Bibles to Romans chapter 1, and we're going to look at verse 32.
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We're actually going to look at a couple of verses today when we get to the reading of Scripture.
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I want to just say a few words of introduction.
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We are affirmed in our statement of faith and by our association with the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals that we are a Reformed Church and that we teach Reformed Theology.
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We have been unashamed in our commitment to the theology of the Protestant Reformation.
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We have also been clear in our teachings of the five solas and of what is commonly known as the doctrines of grace, sometimes referred to as the TULIP, because it spells out T-U-L-I-P, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perseverance of the Saints.
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The reason why I bring that up is because of the T in TULIP.
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Because today, as we think about the sanctity of life, we're actually going to look at the fact that the T is what is being shown throughout our world on a daily basis.
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The T stands for Total Depravity.
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It teaches that man is totally and completely affected by the sin of Adam, that we are dead in our trespasses and sins.
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No one is as bad as he or she could be, but we are bad through and through, sinful throughout.
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That is what the doctrine teaches.
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And if it were not for the grace of God restraining us, we would be utterly depraved because of our nature.
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This doctrine is, among the five, the easiest to prove.
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Not only because it is so clearly explained in Scripture, but because it is also shown every day through simple experience.
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We are constantly confronted with a world that proves to us the depravity of the human soul.
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Let's look at, what was it, two weeks ago.
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Terrorists go in, destroy a multitude of lives.
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Governments enslave, exploit, and execute their own citizens.
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We see on the 24-hour news cycle, there is never a loss of things to say.
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Over and over and over, we see horrors committed against the weakest among us.
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It doesn't take much of an investigation to give solid evidence to the T in TULIP.
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But there is one practice which has risen above all others in my estimation, to prove our radical fallenness.
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This is an act which is not hidden, by the way, but it is proudly displayed, advertised, and even subsidized by our government.
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It is an act not done by terrorists in the deserts of Iran or in the dark caves of Iraq.
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It is not hidden in alleyways or basements.
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It is performed under the complete protection of law in sanitized doctor's offices all across our land and throughout the world.
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It is an act, as I said, which is advertised on billboards and subsidized by tax dollars.
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This heinous and deplorable demonstration of depravity is the modern holocaust, and as you all know, what I'm talking about is the subject of abortion.
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Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday, as I said before, and what we're going to do today is we're going to see what the Bible has to say about this barbaric demonstration of human depravity, and then we're going to ask ourselves, what do we do? What can we do? Do we just sit and preach to ourselves? Are we going to sit here and rally the base and preach to the choir? Or can we do something? And if so, what? So we're going to look at three different texts, all within the same context, and the context is Romans.
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The first three chapters of Romans is all about the sinful nature that we have all inherited from Adam.
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It's about our depravity.
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Romans 1 talks about the depravity of the pagan.
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Romans 2 talks about the depravity of the religious person, the person who thinks that because of his religion, his Judaism, that he is somehow better and less worthy of God's condemnation.
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And then chapter 3, he brings it all to bear and says, look, every one of us is a sinner.
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There's none righteous, no, not one.
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There's none who understands, none who seeks after God.
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So there's this crescendo of depravity that the Apostle Paul is using to explain to us our need for Christ.
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But we're going to look at just three snippets from that grand section.
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Let's stand together and give honor and reverence to God's Word.
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Romans 1, we'll begin at verse 32.
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This is after Paul has given expression to the sinfulness of the pagan world.
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He says in verse 32, Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things, and he had just given us a list of sins, those who practice such things deserve to die.
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They not only do them, they give approval to those who practice them.
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Now move over with me to chapter 3.
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In the midst of Paul's expression about the depraved nature of the soul, in verse 15 he makes this very short statement.
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He says their feet are swift to shed blood.
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And then in verse 18 he says, There is no fear of God before their eyes.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
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I pray that as I seek to preach your Word this morning, that you would give me clarity and strength and focus.
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And that above all things, you would keep me from error.
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I pray that this message would go forth to the hearts of your people and be used to draw us all closer to you in a more conforming walk with Christ.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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As I mentioned earlier, the first three chapters of Romans, Paul is explaining to us the doctrine of total depravity.
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And within these passages we see a few expressions of depravity that I've pointed out and we've just read.
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The first thing we see is that depravity is expressed by the willingness to destroy life.
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That's verse 15 of chapter 3.
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When Paul wants to talk about how depraved we are, he says their feet are swift to shed blood.
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What that means is that they're very quick to do that which would harm or kill another.
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They're very quick to act on that.
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So we see depravity is expressed in that way.
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We also see that depravity is expressed in a willingness to approve of evil.
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We saw that in chapter 1 verse 32.
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It says not only do they do these things that are sins, but they also heartily approve them.
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They encourage it.
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They think it's a great thing.
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They advertise it.
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And then we see the reason for it all.
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And I think verse 18 of chapter 3 is not just the ending of this quotations from the Old Testament, but I think it's really a summation of the problem.
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The summation of the problem is this.
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There's no fear of God before their eyes.
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What does the book of Proverbs tell us? It tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
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And the problem in the world is that there's no fear of God.
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And so what do people do? They act on their own estate.
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They act on their own opinion.
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They act on whatever they want to do without any fear of God.
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And the result is simple.
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They have a willingness to destroy life.
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And they have a willingness to approve of evil.
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Why? Because they don't fear God.
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John MacArthur said this.
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He said it is the ultimate evidence of the atheism of our society that we are so willing to kill the life and the womb that God creates.
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Listen to that again.
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He said it is the ultimate evidence of how atheistic we are.
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Why do you say that? Most people aren't atheists.
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No, most people are atheists.
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Practically.
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They may not be atheists by what they say, but they're atheists by how they live.
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They live as if God doesn't exist.
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No matter what we say and no matter what we might think, how we live expresses what we believe.
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And what we do expresses what we believe.
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And most people in the world live as practical atheists.
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The only time they think about God is when someone dies.
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I know this as a practicing funeral minister.
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I must have done over 50 in the last 10 years.
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I've done so many funerals.
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And that's when people get really religious.
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But other times in their life it's as if God doesn't even exist.
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And they are practicing atheists, practical atheists.
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They give God lip service in the same way that they just might give lip service to some political figure or something.
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They tip the hat in His direction.
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But they don't give Him any true or real dedication.
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Now, abortion on demand is, in my estimation, the most absolute expression of the depravity of the human soul.
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If you think about the things that Paul has used to describe, number one, a willingness to kill, a willingness to destroy life.
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Two, it's a willingness to say that is good, which is obviously evil.
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And three, it is a willingness to have no fear of God.
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And what do we see when we see this thing happen, this thing called an abortion? We see a willingness to destroy life, a willingness to approve of that which is evil, and a turning our back on what we know God despises.
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And I know how divisive this subject can be.
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Do you think I just enjoy coming in and preaching on a subject like this? I mean, really? I've seen people.
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I've seen people come into our church on Sanctity of Life Sunday.
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And while I'm preaching on this subject, they will sit with folded arms and scowled brows, or furrowed brows, and they'll sit angrily and then leave never to be seen again.
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Why? Because this subject is so divisive.
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I know how unpopular the biblical position can be.
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It is so unpopular that it is not received by any politician.
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Don't let them fool you.
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Just this last time, I went out to look to who I could vote for, you know, and I was looking at people's websites.
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And I went to this guy's website.
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I wanted to see where he was on the life issue.
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And this is what his website said.
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He said, and I quote loosely, because I don't have a quote in front of me.
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I quote loosely.
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Basically, what he said was this.
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He said, if you believe in the abolition of abortion, you have no one representing you in this race, so you cannot use that as your choice as to who to vote for.
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He said, because no one believes in that.
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No one believes abortion should be abolished.
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So if you believe in the abolishment of abortion on demand, no one represents you, so you cannot use that as your criteria.
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It was plain on the website.
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I wish I had captured the quote.
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I hollered to my wife, you see this? No one represents the biblical position.
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It is that unpopular.
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Because the biblical position is the abolitionist position.
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And by that I mean abortion on demand, the intentional destruction of human life for the purpose of destroying a human life, is unbiblical, ungodly, and satanic.
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So when we talk about abolitionists, the Bible clearly teaches that we have no other choice.
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And we're going to look at this, because if life is a gift from God, and life is sacred because it's made in the image of God, and by life I'm talking here specifically to human life, made in the image of God, the willful and wanted and choice-based destruction of that life is ungodly.
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The Bible is not ambiguous about when life begins, and life does not begin when the baby exits the womb.
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Life begins at conception.
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You say, well, the Bible doesn't address that.
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Well, I believe that it does.
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We've read already Psalm 139, that was our opening passage for the morning, where it talks about God knitting us together, it talks about God knowing us in the womb, it talks about God knowing us when we were made in secret in the deepest parts of the earth, that being a euphemism for the mother's womb, and God having a relationship with us there, not just when we come out, but while we're still in, that there's a relationship that God has formed with us from the womb.
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I like this passage from Psalm 51.
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David is talking about his sin.
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He says, Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
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Why did David address himself as a sinner from conception? Because that's the point at which he came into being.
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And David's point, by the way, and don't miss it, is that we're sinners from birth, we're sinners from conception, because we're sinners in Adam.
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But the point is, he said, I was a sinner all the way back to conception, because that's when I came into being.
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That's when David was made.
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Was in that womb.
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Not when he came out of the womb, but when he was put into that womb, and he was made by God, and a new person was made in that womb.
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New DNA.
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New everything.
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New person.
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Right inside there.
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The Bible shows that even the unintentional death of a child in the womb was a capital crime in Israel.
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If you want to look at it, it's Exodus 21.
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Exodus 21, verse 22 says, When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her child come out, and the word Hebrew in the Hebrew means that she has a premature birth.
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Okay? When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, and the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.
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But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life.
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Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
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So what's the point? You've got a pregnant woman, men fighting together because they're being knuckleheads, and the knucklehead hits the other knucklehead, and he runs into the pregnant woman, and she has a premature labor, because she's been struck.
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She has premature labor, she gives birth, but the child's okay.
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Well, there's still a fine, because that was dangerous.
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You knucklehead, you still get in trouble.
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But what if the child dies, or the mother dies? It's life for life, it's capital crime.
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Did you know that abortion has been going on so long, that even the Didache, which is the earliest extra-biblical writing that we have, that the Didache, one of the earliest extra-biblical writings, dates back to the time of the apostles, that it addresses it by name.
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Let me read something to you.
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From the Didache it says this, Thou shalt do no murder.
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Thou shalt not commit adultery.
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You've heard those before.
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Ten commandments, obviously.
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Thou shalt not commit sodomy.
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Thou shalt not commit fornication.
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Thou shalt not steal.
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Thou shalt not use magic.
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Thou shalt not use philteries.
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Thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide.
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That's a 2,000 year old document, and it's addressing, at the earliest part of the church, here's what you don't do.
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You don't kill each other, and you don't murder a baby in the womb or outside the womb.
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By the way, infanticide is just abortion on the outside.
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And abortion is infanticide on the inside.
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And the earliest extra-biblical document, one of the earliest ones that we have, addresses it by name.
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Why? Because the early church knew that that which is in the womb is a life, it's a human life, and it's worthy of the same protection as the life outside the womb.
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And the thing is, modern science agrees with this.
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Not that we need modern science to agree with Scripture, but it's nice whenever you can correlate the two.
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Modern science and scientific advantages, particularly in the last century, have given a large volume of information that can be used to conclude when life begins.
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All of the genetic information, the genetic code, the entire genetic code that generates the particular characteristics of a human being is established at the very moment of conception.
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From that point, the growing being is not a part of the mother, but is an individual genetic person.
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Within 18 days, there is a discernible heartbeat.
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Within 8 weeks, brain waves and fingerprints are present.
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Within 12 to 13 weeks, the fetus is sucking its thumb, recoiling from pain.
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And by the way, all of those could still be aborted.
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It's amazing.
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When a child dies in the womb, it is always a living person dying.
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We mourn over a miscarriage.
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Why? Why do we mourn a miscarriage? Because we know it's a person that has died.
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We know it's a life that has passed on.
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And so we rightfully mourn.
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We've mourned in this church with women who have suffered.
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And we mourn and we cry and we hurt with them.
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Why? Because it's a life.
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We convict people.
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Even in America, we convict people who injure pregnant women and charge them double because of the pregnancy.
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How ironic and how terrible is the irony that we can't see our own hypocrisy, that we would punish a man who injures a pregnant woman for the injury to the pregnancy child, but we won't see the same thing when it's done under the sanitized light of the doctor's office.
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Only a complete and utterly depraved soul cannot see the hypocrisy.
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Well, what's the difference between this child and that child? Well, this one's wanted, so you have to punish the criminal.
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This one's not wanted, so there's no criminal.
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How sick is that? How mentally depraved is that? The difference between the baby in the womb and outside the womb is what? Location.
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If you were to kill a baby outside the womb, you're a murderer.
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Kill a baby inside the womb, you're protected by law.
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But being in the womb doesn't make a baby any less of a person.
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A few years ago, I did a sermon, a person's a person no matter how small.
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Yes, Dr.
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Seuss had it right.
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Even though abortion on demand is clearly murder, people don't like to call it that, but that's what it is, and thus it is forbidden in Scripture.
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Many people want to still argue for it.
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Even people calling themselves Christians, and there are those, you look it up online, there are Christians in support of abortion, and I think it's such a foolish thing to say such a thing, but there are.
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They're always looking for a scenario wherein someone might try to find a way out to keep it legal.
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Many argue that abortion on demand is necessary for the promotion of health and wellness.
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Let me just go ahead and tell you that's a myth.
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The idea that abortion is necessary for the promotion of health and wellness is a myth.
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Seven states have reported data on women who receive abortion as to their reasons.
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These figures are self-reported by women who have obtained abortions.
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However, they are independent data and involve a large sample.
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Based on the information, and this survey goes from 1998 to 2006, having surveyed, I believe, over 600,000 people, this is what it breaks down to.
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Those who had one as a result of physical condition, 0.52%.
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Mental condition, 0.12%.
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Abnormality in the fetus, 0.57%.
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Other factors unknown, 0.5%.
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Personal choice, that's what they listed, a personal choice, meaning they did it because of whatever the factor, convenience, need, felt need, whatever, 98.29%.
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The reasons why we keep hearing the arguments that abortion needs to be left legal and left the way that it is are a smoke screen.
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But it's a smoke screen that's so influential that it puts abolition off the table.
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But let me talk to you about something.
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You keep hearing me say this word abolition, why am I so caught up on that word? Here's why, it's very simple.
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Back when America held slaves and we engaged in the slave trade and we marketed and used slaves, how did we justify the use of slaves? We said they weren't persons.
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They're not people, so they don't get afforded the same rights as people.
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Black people are not people, so they don't need the same rights.
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And what did we do? We flourished in the slave trade until somebody came along and said, no wait, they are people, this is wrong and it must stop.
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How did Nazism make its way into Germany? Jews are not people.
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The Jewish people, they're not people.
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Hitler convinced an entire generation that the Jews were not people and six million of them died as a result.
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Along with people who had mental retardation, along with people who were black and different colored skin, along with people who were of different religious and historically different background groups, everything else.
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Hitler said if they ain't white, they ain't right.
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He didn't say it like that, but that's basically it.
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And he chose to exterminate eleven million people in total.
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And why did the world turn it? Well, they're not people.
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Did slavery need to be abolished? Absolutely.
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Did Nazism need to be abolished? Absolutely.
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Then why would we say anything less about abortion? To those who are not abolitionists, and I know there are people who will hear this, hopefully, along with you.
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But to those who are not abolitionists, I ask you this.
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Finish this sentence.
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It is okay to murder a child in the womb when? Finish that sentence.
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It is okay to murder a child in the womb when? Go.
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Thank you.
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And I know the objections.
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I know what people say.
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What if the mother's life is in danger? I want to read to you a couple of things.
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I spent some time with an OBGYN this week.
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One of the reasons is my wife's pregnant, so I had to endure.
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I didn't just show up at his office.
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That would have been scary.
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No, my wife's pregnant.
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Thank God.
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Fourth child.
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We're so excited.
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But we have this great pro-life OB.
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He's a great guy.
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And I went and I asked him, I said, look, Doc, I know you were pro-life.
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I know you would not do an abortion.
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He has told me.
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He would not perform an abortion.
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And he stands against it.
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He supports the Life Solutions group that we support.
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He's a great person in that regard.
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And I read him this quote.
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This is from the Association of Pro-Life Physicians.
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I said, Doctor, I'm going to read a quote to my congregation.
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Will you tell me if this is correct? Because you're a doctor.
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I am not.
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Well, not that kind of doctor.
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I said, I'm not the same doctor you are.
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Will you tell me if this is right? This is what the Association of Pro-Life Physicians, based on their work, this is what the determination is.
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The abortion procedure is not ever necessary to save the life of a mother.
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There are, however, maternal health risks that require a treatment that can cause the unfortunate, indirect, and unintentional death of an unborn child.
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For instance, in life-threatening ectopic pregnancies that require the removal of a fallopian tube, the pregnancy, including the unborn child, will be removed along with the fallopian tube.
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The intention in this procedure is, first and foremost, to save the life of the mother.
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And in doing so, a physician must perform a procedure that indirectly causes the death of an unborn child.
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This is not an abortion.
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Furthermore, a true abortion, in which the direct intention is to end the life of a human being, is not a treatment for any type of maternal health risk.
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End quote.
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So people say, no, this is a necessary medical procedure.
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No, it's not.
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They go on to say this.
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Unlike organizations such as Planned Parenthood, who have proven time and again that maternal health is not their priority, the pro-life community puts maternal health first by condoning any procedure that would save her life.
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The bottom line, however, is simply this.
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Abortion is not and never will be one of those procedures.
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End quote.
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Abortion is not health care.
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Dr.
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Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood.
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I'm going to quote somebody from Planned Parenthood.
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Listen to what he says.
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He says, Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would unlikely prolong or save her life.
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This is the guy.
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He's with the group.
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He's one of them.
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And he said it.
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It's a myth.
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And yet, what do we do? We cower when somebody says, Oh, well, we got to live.
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We won't stand up against the myth.
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Somebody says this, Well, what if the child has a defect? Now, you look at me.
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You answer that.
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You tell me.
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If I brought a child with Down syndrome up here and I sat him down in this chair and I killed him, what would you say? You'd say I was a murderer.
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You'd say I was disgusting.
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I would say, but he had a defect.
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You kind of bring me that nonsense.
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That's all that is, is nonsense.
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All of us are defective.
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It's just a matter of degree.
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Somebody says, Well, what if the person is raped? I'll stand like this.
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I'll stand where the Bible stands.
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The rapist deserves to be killed because the rapist is the one who committed the crime, not the baby.
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Deuteronomy 22, 25.
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If a man rapes a woman, he has forfeited his life.
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We don't do that anymore.
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You know what we do to rapists? Slap them on the wrist and we kill the baby.
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It just shows you we have given up evil for good and good for evil.
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People say that's a pie-in-the-sky answer.
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Let me tell you it's not a pie-in-the-sky answer because I have two daughters.
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Possibly another one.
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We don't know yet.
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Everybody keeps telling us it's a boy.
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We don't know.
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But I know I've got two daughters.
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Let me tell you this.
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I value their lives.
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I teach them about the value of life.
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I've talked to them about the...
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Well, at least my oldest who is old enough to understand.
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I've talked to her about the reality of rape.
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I've sought to help her have the best abilities to keep herself from predators.
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We have tried to equip her mentally and physically to protect herself.
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If God forbid she was ever forced with someone who wanted to do her harm, we hope and pray and plead that God would never let that happen.
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But let me tell you this.
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And I stand with this and my daughter and I have talked about this.
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If heaven forbid, if God forbid she were ever attacked, I would not punish her again by having her undergo an unsafe and possibly deadly procedure.
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Did you know that women die from abortions, even safe ones? Go look up the Blackman wall.
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It's a place online where safe abortions have killed women.
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They put their name out just to show.
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An unnecessary and unhealthy medical procedure is not the answer to something that has happened that's a crime.
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President Clinton said he wanted abortions to be safe and rare.
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Well, he was wrong in both cases.
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Because they're not safe and they sure ain't rare.
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Did you know that it is legal to do to a baby in the womb what it would be illegal to do to a cat, a dog, or a bald eagle? Think about that.
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It is legal to do in a baby in the womb what you could not do to a cat or a dog.
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Did you know that in New York State they won't give fish out on the midway anymore? You know what I'm talking about? When you throw a ping pong ball and you land it in a little jar and they give you fish? They won't give fish away anymore.
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Because somebody complained about the death of the fish.
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And they had enough people complain about the death of a fish that they were willing to give up.
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No more fish.
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No more fish.
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The federal law says that if you take a bald eagle egg from a nest you will be convicted with a maximum fine of a quarter of a million dollars and two years imprisonment.
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Yet we subsidized Planned Parenthood 327,653 babies last year alone in that one organization.
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And we stand under the first president in history who ever spoke at Planned Parenthood.
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And this is what he said.
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When he spoke to Planned Parenthood, our current president said this.
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He said, as long as we've got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, which is a lie, and I'll stop the quote for a minute.
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He's lying.
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And as long as we've got to fight to protect a woman's right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you've got a president who's going to be right there with you fighting every step of the way to thunderous applause.
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And then he said the most heinous thing.
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Thank you, God bless you, Planned Parenthood.
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It's satanic, folks.
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Satan is a murderer.
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He inspires murder.
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And he loves the murder of children.
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Look what he did in the days of Moses.
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Why did Moses get put in that little basket and sent that? Because he was murdering the babies.
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Why did Jesus have to make the flight to Egypt with his parents? Because murdering the babies.
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Satan loves the destruction of children.
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The Old Testament, we see the god Moloch, which is a false god.
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How did the people celebrate Moloch? How did they appease Moloch? They took their firstborn and they burned it in honor of the fact that the rest of their children would receive a blessing from Moloch.
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So their first child was killed so the rest could be blessed.
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Satan promotes abortion.
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Satan makes excuses for abortion.
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Satan is the father of abortion.
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And we need not take his side.
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We have to fight against it, stand against it.
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No compromise, no apologize.
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We simply stand.
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Now, that was all introduction.
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I'm getting close to the end, I promise.
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In your worship folder, I have a three-part outline.
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I just want to give you the fill-ins for this.
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Because other than preaching to one another, rallying the base, what do we do? You've heard what I've had to say.
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You've heard all of this.
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What do we do? Other than sit here and rah-rah for one another.
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How do you give this sermon legs? Number one, we need to stand with those who stand for life.
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We need to stand with those who stand for life.
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Now, groups like Life Solutions, we need to support them financially.
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That's why we had our fundraiser today.
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We need to support them physically.
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If they have a need, they have needs.
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They have people, they have needs for counselors.
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And some of you would be wonderful to do that.
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They have needs for people to help teach classes to young women who don't know how to take care of their babies, but desperately want to because they've been willing to choose life and not murder.
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And so they've chosen life and they need your help.
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We need to support them in intentional, focused prayer on a regular basis.
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And we need to support also groups like Rob and Ruthie's that stand and seek.
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They're on the front lines.
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You know, I went yesterday for the first time, and I'm not saying that to brag on myself.
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I'm embarrassed it was the first time I've ever been there.
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But I went there because I wanted to see what this ministry was like.
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We had a lady come.
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She drove her little car up there.
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She had what looked like her daughter in the car, and she screamed out the window.
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And I can't tell you what she screamed because it was such an ugly language.
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But basically, we know we're killing this child.
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She said it in a much different way.
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But get out of our way, we're going to kill.
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Thankfully, she didn't.
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She left.
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And she came back out, and she did ask, what do you offer to help us? Praise God.
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But she went in there within the heart of a murderer.
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And I saw what the group can do.
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I know what it can do.
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Standing with those who stand for life, that's what we can do.
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That's one thing that we can do.
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The second thing is we need to be ready to offer grace and forgiveness to those who need it.
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There are thousands of women.
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Statistics show that one in three women have had abortions.
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One in three.
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And there are thousands of women who have had abortions only to later come to horribly regret that decision.
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And they need to know that that sin is not unforgivable.
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They need to know that there is grace at the foot of the cross.
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We cannot just sit here and talk about the heinousness of the sin without talking about the loveliness of the Savior.
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And we need to bring them to that place of forgiveness.
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We need to encourage them to accept the responsibility of their sin and receive the forgiveness that Christ offers.
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Just one verse, if you want to write this down.
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1 John 1, 8-10.
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Verse 8 says, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
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So a person who says, I'm not a sinner.
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No, you are.
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We are sinners.
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A person who has committed abortion usually knows it.
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They recognize it.
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They're guilty over it.
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Okay, you recognize it.
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Now what? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
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And if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and the Word is not in us.
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We have to admit our sin.
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We have to recognize our sin.
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But we have to also recognize the lavishness of love that God has given in the cross and be willing to lavish that on someone else.
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And the same thing goes for women who are unwed but have kept their babies.
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Because here's what often happens.
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A person is unwed.
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They have a life situation where they have a baby.
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Yeah, is it a sin? Yeah.
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But they have this baby and what if the church turns their back on them? We can't do that either.
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We have to be willing to love the person who recognizes, yes, I am a sinner, I have done wrong, but now I have a responsibility.
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And I love this child and we should love the child as well and love the mother.
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We cannot stand as pompous gasbags on our seats of high authority and look down on them and say you're unworthy of forgiveness because they're not.
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So we've got to give grace and forgiveness to any who seek it.
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And not hold back at all.
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All right? Number three and we'll finish.
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We need to seek that God would give us a heart for adoption.
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Byron and I talked about this a few years ago.
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I don't even know if he remembers.
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But he might.
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We were talking about my sermon on the same subject two or three years ago.
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And the thing we both talked about was the fact that, you know what, the hardest part in all this is we want these babies saved, but we know that some of these mothers won't be able to take care of them.
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What can we do? And we need to support adoptions, support people who want to adopt.
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And open our hearts to this.
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Has God gifted you with the ability to adopt a child? Let me just remind you of the verse that Brother Rob mentioned when he prayed earlier.
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James 1.27.
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Pure and undefiled religion is this before God, that we visit the orphans and the widows in their affliction.
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The orphan.
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Have we opened our hearts to the orphan? You might say well I can't do that.
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Are you supporting families who can? Are you helping those who can? Are you reaching out? Adoption is what God has done to us.
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Have we thought about that in the lives of others? I know many of you are adopted parents.
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And I see some of you are shaking your head.
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You know what it's like.
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Ms.
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Sybil, I know you guys adopted and it's a beautiful thing.
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Do we have a heart for these kids? Or are we just saying life, life, life? As James tells us, why do we tell a person be well, be filled, but we don't do anything for them? So many of us have so much that we could give and we don't give anything at all.
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We have responsibilities.
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We are the church.
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We are God's people in the world.
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We are supposed to be different.
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We are supposed to recognize the sanctity of life.
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We're supposed to recognize our responsibility to all life.
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The responsibility to love.
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The responsibility to stand for truth.
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The responsibility to give grace and forgiveness.
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And the responsibility to take on ourselves responsibilities that we may not have been burdened with from birth, but we certainly take those burdens on ourselves when we see others in need.
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It's not an easy thing.
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But I didn't just come here today to rally the base.
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I came here to challenge us all.
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What can we do in the stand for life? Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I pray that what I have said today has been in accord with the truth.
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I pray, Lord, that you are glorified, Father, in our efforts to reach those who are in need and to love those who are hurting.
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I pray that you would use this message to help us all see what we can do better as we stand for life together.
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In Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.