Abortion (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I feel like I'm underwater today. I feel like I'm about 10 fathoms below the ocean waterline, and I have had a sickness and flu lately, but radio must go on.

Abortion as a Biblical Issue, Not a Political Football

The show must go on. No Compromise Radio, always biblical, always provocative, always underwater. So what I want to talk about today is abortion, and I'd like to talk about abortion today from a biblical perspective.

Too often, I believe, Christians let abortion get kicked around like a political football back and forth between Republicans, Democrats. It becomes some kind of visceral issue that's only talked about in the political realm.

And here at No Compromise Radio ministry, I like to know what the Bible says about something, and I come to it from this approach. God, inform me from the Scriptures what you think about life, what you think about conception, what you think about babies in the womb, how should I think about those things, and then help me decide to do what you say, think the way you say things, and then move on.

Of course, from the get-go, I'd like to say that abortion is a forgivable sin. If you commit an abortion and you kill the baby that's in your womb, or you kill the baby that's in your partner's womb, wife's womb, you are forgiven in Christ.

If you're in Christ, those things are forgotten. Jesus Christ can pay at Calvary for the sin of murder, can't he? We know the answer is yes. We want to make sure that we don't somehow ostracize people who have received abortions and they don't get to come to church and they have to sit in the back.

That's not my issue today. My issue is this. We somehow like to say, well, I believe in abortion for incest and rape and other things. I just have a question, and that question is, let's look at what the Bible says, or should we look at what the Bible says?

The answer is yes. Let me give you an introduction with four scenarios where there were abortions possible. There's a preacher's wife and a preacher. They're very poor. They've already had 14 kids and now this lady gets pregnant with number 15.

They're so poor. Would you recommend them getting an abortion? Situation number two, the father is sick. The mother has TB. They have four children. The first is blind. The second is deaf. The third is deaf and the fourth has TB.

Now she finds out she's pregnant again. Based on this extreme scenario, would you recommend that this couple get an abortion? Scenario number three, there's a man who raped a 13-year-old girl and she got pregnant.

If you were that girl's parents, would you say, let's think about an abortion? And finally, situation number four, a teenage girl is pregnant. She's not married. Her fiance is not the father of the baby.

Would you consider recommending abortion? And so we have scenario one, two, three, and four. In the first case, if you would have said, let's get an abortion, you would have killed John Wesley, one of the great evangelists, Methodist horseback rider preachers in the 19th century.

In the second case, you would have killed Beethoven. In the third case, you would have killed Ethel Waters, a great gospel singer. And in the fourth case, yes, you're correct. You would have declared the murder of Jesus Christ himself.

And so these are very big issues. These are issues that weigh heavily, the sanctity of life and the sin of abortion. We want to make sure we think clearly, not necessarily only emotionally, not intellectually only either.

These are serious matters and emotional matters, and we want to be careful that we think Christian-ly. After all, a track published by Episcopalians for Religious Freedom is entitled, A Pro-Choice Bible Study.

Now, can you imagine that? Here is a Christian group, supposedly, they've abandoned their Christianity a long time ago, but that's a different show. Here's a so-called Christian group that has a pro-choice Bible study.

And they said that according to Numbers 5, that a plan, quote, abortion is in the Bible as part of God's law given to Moses. They go on to say, Virginia Ramey Mallincott, quote, nowhere does the Bible prohibit abortion.

And so, you know, the Bible doesn't say thou shalt not give people cyanide either, but we know that one command, that one law, thou shalt not murder, should take care of all that. I think we, as a society, need to look at what the Bible says.

Can you imagine the worldwide number of abortions? The abortions even committed here in Worcester County? You say, well, I don't want to mix politics and religion. I never like to put those two things together.

I don't always quote him favorably, but Desmond Tutu was right when he said, who's to say religion and politics should not mix? Whose Bible are they reading anyway? And so that's a very true statement from Desmond Tutu.

We as Christians are God's spokespeople for human life, especially weak human life and vulnerable human life. We are to stand up for this. And you say, well, this is a woman's body. It's a woman's issue.

Men, you stay out of that. Well, I beg to differ with you because the Bible says that men, godly men, ought to stand up for the rights of those who are weak. And when I say weak, I particularly mean here the baby in the womb.

The most safest environment of all the world for a baby should be in his or her mother's own womb. Proverbs 31 is quite clear. Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth.

Judge righteously and defend, that is to plead or to strive for the rights of the afflicted or oppressed and needy. So when there are people who have needs and they are oppressed and they're hurting, we ought to be advocates.

We ought to be lawyers, as it were, to say we want to do the right thing. Isaiah chapter 1, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. And so when there's a defenseless person, we are to defend them.

Ultimately, of course, God is their defender, but we are to defend, just like in the Old Testament, both the fatherless and the widow, the people that were singled out for special care, that were vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.

Listen to Job 29 .12, because I delivered the poor who cried for help and the orphan who had no helper. That is exactly what we need to do. If you're a Christian, you need to take a stand for righteousness, whatever that might cost you.

If that costs you your political seat or your friendship in the neighborhood, that's just life. Psalm 82 .4, rescue the weak and needy. And so for the Lord today and for unborn babies, I want to talk about this topic today.

God as Creator and the Psalm 139 Vision of the Womb

What does God say in His sufficient Word? Well, the first thing the Bible clearly states that you need to be reminded of when it comes to the topic of abortion and right to life is that God is the creator and author of all life, including everything that goes down, that goes into the, that is down in the womb.

Here's what happens. We need to be reminded that God is the author of all life. Evolution didn't cause that baby. That baby's not a fetus. Babies in or out of the womb are a gift of love from the Lord.

Contrary to some of the women's right movements, the babies are not a parasite. That's right. They call them a parasite attacking the woman. No, the Bible says that these children are a gift and a blessing from the Lord.

God is the creator and therefore He can determine what He wants to do and we ought to do what God says. All the work, all the activity in the womb is of God's handiwork. So therefore, every life is sacred.

And when you attack the baby in the womb, it is a direct attack on God the creator. Have you ever heard of ad hominem, argumentation attacking the person? Abortion is attacking the person and the work of God Himself.

The real enemy of the pro-choice movement is God. That's who the real enemy is. Standing up for unborn babies is noble. It is righteous. It is good. But how much more is it noble, good, and righteous to stand up for God and His work?

Yes, I want to save babies, but I also want to save the glory and honor of the Lord. Abortion is a sin against God Himself. We're not talking about babies that have no brain waves or heartbeat, some kind of molar pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy.

We're talking about live babies. Abortion does not love God because it stops His work. Psalm 139 is very, very clear. This is Mike Gabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and we want to talk about abortion today, and I'm talking about the sin of abortion.

Maybe I should call it the forgivable sin of abortion. But here we see in Psalm 139, For you, God, did form my inward parts, David said. Emphatic, you. You're the one who's working. You're the one who's knitting.

You're the one who's doing these things. You did form my inward parts. The word form there means ownership. It means to acquire by creation. This is a hands-on work of God. This is not a language of cold, mechanical, sterile assembly line.

No, this is with kit gloves. This is with care. This is specifically, and David said, you formed my inward parts. Literally, you formed my kidneys. The kidneys were the seat of emotional will back in those days.

And he says, you did weave me in my mother's womb. Psalm 139, verse 13. You knit together. You literally embroidered. Think about the work of a baby inside of a mother. God is embroidering that baby. He's knitting that baby together.

And you can almost think of the veins and arteries as the yarn, putting it all together. What language of a figurative nature here about knitting, God's sovereign, providential superintendence. Isn't that really neat?

Knit me together. These children are precious in the sight of the Lord. The different organs needing each other, the languno, the downy hair, the vernix protection for the baby. God is active in the event of conception itself, but he's also personally involved in forming and developing the baby.

This reminds me of Jeremiah 1. Before I formed you in the womb, Jeremiah, I knew you. Before I fashioned you and devised you like earthenware, before I planned you like a potter would, I formed you. This is the word used of God's special creation of Adam.

Same kind of language for David, for Adam, for Jeremiah, for you, for every baby without exception. God is active from the very beginning all the way through. There is no deist God in the womb of any woman.

God is involved in every little detail. You could call him in a gracious, benevolent, wonderful sense, micromanager of the womb. And here in Psalm 139, David knows that. He doesn't talk about the fetal life, some kind of chemical activity, some kind of cellular reproduction, some kind of baby that looks like it's evolving.

No, pictorial language that shows God's active handiwork. He is, in fact, the master craftsman of the womb. Job 10 verse 11,. And knit me together with bones and sinews. That is who we serve. How about Job chapter 31 verse 15,.

Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And the same one fashion us in the womb? John Piper said of that verse,. Verse 15 gives the reason why Job would be guilty if he treated his servant as less than a human equal.

The issue isn't really that one may have been born free and the other born in slavery. The issue goes back before birth. When Job and his servants were being fashioned in the womb, the key person at work was God.

That's the premise of Job's argument. This poetic, wonderful song says in verse 15, Psalm 139,. My frame was not hidden from thee when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

This is not evolution talk. This is not Darwinian talk. My frame, David said, my skeleton, my bones, they were just made by you, God, and they were made in a wonderful way, a skillfully wrought way. And so even there you see this active nature of God.

And God, unlike any other artist, except maybe a blind artist, this artist, God, works in complete darkness. There's no light in the womb. There's no anything there to shed light on what's going on. God, in secret, in a dark room, puts together this baby and knits this baby perfectly.

Have you ever put a 10 ,000-piece puzzle together in the dark? Here we have God with intricacy, with great care. We get the word curious from the Latin translation of this Hebrew word where we use skillfully wrought something, would render something.

Just how skillfully? Did you know at three months in the womb, the unborn baby, according to one man, has a liver, primitive kidneys, a digestive tract, and a simple umbilical cord. This developing body has a head and developing face with primitive ears, mouth, eyes, nervous system, blood type, unique fingerprints, lines in hands.

It feels pain, swallows, squints, swims, grasps, moves their tongue. The salivary glands, taste buds, and stomach digestive glands develop as evidenced by the baby swallowing and utilization of the amniotic fluid.

The baby begins also to urinate depending on the unborn sex, primitive sperm or eggs form. God is working, and God is working, the psalmist says in verse 16. So much so, listen to this, thine eyes have seen my unformed substance and in thy book they were all written.

The days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them. David talks in this poetic language about the embryo, my rolled up substance, literally. And that is the key basically to the abortion controversy.

This little embryo, people want to say it's not a baby yet, it's a fetus, it's this, that, or the other. And David said God is actively involved in that. We shouldn't really try to say to ourselves, when does personhood exist?

We should say when do we want to start stopping what God is doing? And that would take care of the controversy. But you see, the fool has said in his heart there's no God according to Psalm 14 and Romans 3.

The fool knows these things. This is not a dunce cap fool. This is a fool that wants to live a life of sexual immorality that says I want to have my sexual liberation so much. I want to make sure I let my libido go and make sure I culminate all the things that I'd like to do so much so that I will even kill a baby.

That's what happens. And that's why it's such a horrendous thing. People want to have their rights for sexual promiscuity even at the risk of killing a brand new little baby. And David says here, God has mapped out my life.

He knows all about me. He's involved. He knows what's happened before, during, and after. David does not say he's the master of his own ship. He does not say that at all. One man said life is chaos. It's told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

That would not be the right way to read this Psalm. Here's the point. From the embryo to death, God is involved. God is in charge. God is the king. God is the sovereign one. And do you notice in this Psalm the impersonal language?

No, you don't. I and my, a personal relationship. God with the baby. God has that personal relationship as he superintends all the limbs and faculties and forms and shape of the little baby. And so what's the response to such a great work of God?

Termination? Abortion? Killing the baby by jamming scissors in the baby's skull with forceps extracting the brain of the baby? No, here's the response. If you see a baby being developed and then being born, what is your response?

We've had a couple babies born in our church. Well, not in the church building, but from church people in the last week. And here's the response. I know both the families that just have been given these new babies.

Psalm 139. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are they works and my soul knows it very well. David says timeout. 20 second timeout. I've got to stop. I'm such in awe of this great God. I have to praise him.

Praise, praise, praise. That's a lot different than suctioning out, burning with saline, drugs to induce early labor, D &Cs, partial birth abortion. No, here we have David who says, I praise you, God.

I praise you. When my kids were born, I love to say in front of all the labor and delivery staff, ain't evolution grand? And what I meant by that was sarcastically that it isn't evolution. You can't watch that happen and say, huh, it was evolution.

Here you have God's creative power shown before your very eyes. And the Hebrew says, I praise thee for I'm awesomely wonderful. Not patting himself on the back, but David said, you made me. You are wonderful.

And I've been in operating rooms before by the hundreds. And I've been in, I've seen autopsies before. And when you look at how God has put together human beings, it is amazing. You just stand and look at one of those skeletons and you'll say, who could look at that without wonder and awe?

Who could come up with one of those anatomy books? You know, the plastic things that you keep putting layers on. Here are the layer of the veins, here are the layers of the arteries, here are the layers of the kidneys and all that stuff.

You just think that is amazing. And David said, time out. I want to publicly acknowledge that you are awesome, that you are wonderful. He says, my soul knows it very well. There's no denying it. And so the response to this great knitting of a person in a womb is not abortion.

Psalm 139, verse 17, how precious also are thy thoughts to me, O God, how vast is the sum of them. These are heavy, valuable, esteemed thoughts. David said, if I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

When I awake, I am still with thee. David said, call in the accountants, get the people with the HP calculators, call the folks in who have the counting beans and try to count how great God is as we just look at this one wonderful thing, and that is a baby being knit together in the womb.

Isaac Newton said this, quote, in the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. That is exactly right. It's a lot different kind of language than U .S. Supreme Court in 1973 who said, quote, we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.

Well, we need not either because we don't have to worry about that. We don't even, shouldn't even say, when does life begin? When does God begin to work and knit and put these things together in the womb?

Then we better say that's off limits. That's no trespassing zone. God is the nurturer and the fashioner and the creator, and we ought to stay away from what he is doing. We cannot make a person, only God can do that.

And we're not even talking of just physical things yet. Can you imagine the baby having a soul, the baby having a spirit? The key to the pro-choice movement, well, there's many keys, but they want to make the baby something less than human life.

They want to call it a blob. They want to call it a tissue. They want to call it cell reproductions. They want to call it a parasite. All these things are trying to dehumanize the unborn baby. And like it or not, my next statement, I think it's true.

The Nazis under Hitler did the exact same things when it came to the Jews. It's hard to kill another human being unless you think they're the scourge of the universe. And so that's exactly what happens here.

We do not follow Nobel Prize-winning biologist Francis Crick, who ludicrously and in an ungodly way said we should wait for the baby to be two days old to see if he or she is healthy. And then if the baby's healthy, consider that baby a person.

We should not follow Joseph Fletcher, who says that a human is not a person unless they have an IQ of 40 or above. Can't you see the similarities here? Potential persons, time to achieve complete humanity, all these kind of developmental models.

No, that's not what we're going to do. This is Mike Abendroth at No Compromise Radio, and we're talking today about abortion. Certainly, if you've committed an abortion and you cry out to God for salvation, for that sin and the rest, he who calls upon the name of the Lord will not be disappointed.

Jesus Christ's death was so fantastic, so wonderful, so marvelous, so excellent, that this great Savior can save even people who have committed abortions. The husbands, the wives, the men, the women. God can forgive you of that.

And we ought to treat people who have received abortions as not pariahs, as not lepers, as sinners saved by grace, as sinners believing in this great risen Savior. But what's going to go on is we're not going to fall into this, we can't talk about the abortion controversy because we don't get into politics.

No, we want to talk about these things because it's only right, and God begins a work and does the work in the womb, and when God begins a work, we ought to say to ourselves, we need to stay out of God's way.

God opens the womb. Ruth 4, the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son. Everything in the Bible talks about babies as persons, not its, not, you know, generic words, but you. God formed you, Isaiah 44.

Did he not make me in the womb, Job 31. This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry, and I may have a cold, but I do not want to compromise when it comes to abortion, and I don't want you to compromise either.

I want you to pray that God would shut down the abortion clinics all over America, starting with Worcester, and you can pray for that end too. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.