How should Christians view the issue of abortion? Is it reasonable to expect non-believers to share our views? Is abortion sometimes necessary? Jeff dives into these important questions from biblical, ethical, logical, and medical perspectives to provide some answers.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
And so the reason we are deviating from the Book of Acts is BJ and I were talking and realizing that when there s a subject that comes up in culture and the news and everybody is talking about it, everybody is offering an opinion. We want to speak to those special moments as a church on what God says about it. We want to give a biblical perspective and help all of us collectively as a church to find answers to the question, how should a Christian think about this issue? And so the issue of abortion has been all over the news for the past couple of months due to the Supreme Court in the United States overturning the Roe v. Wade ruling.
The Supreme Court's decision means that it now falls to individual states rather than the federal government to determine the legality of abortion. I've had friends, believers and non-believers alike talk to me about the issue. As I said, it's all over social media and mainstream media. And so we want to take a week to talk about it. And I don't want to just share the bottom line.
I want to talk about how we arrive at our beliefs as Christians because that process can be and should be repeated on any issue that is significant in life. And so we're going to examine the scriptures and use logic and reason in light of observable reality. To state the obvious, this is a heavy subject. It's a heavy subject. There are women in this room who have been through abortions.
There are women in this room or listening to or watching this message who are still working through the spiritual and emotional aftermath of having an abortion. It's not our desire to heap shame or guilt or anxiety on anybody, but it is our desire always to speak the truth. The truth points the way to hope and freedom and peace because the truth always, always, ultimately points to Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. The life that Jesus offers includes grace and forgiveness for anything and everything. But to receive that grace and that forgiveness, we must repent of our sins.
We must first agree with God that what he calls sin is indeed sin. We cannot be forgiven of our sins if we refuse to even agree with God that we need to be forgiven of our sins. And so those of us who have turned to Jesus have been forgiven. And we're not ashamed to admit that we were sinners in desperate need of forgiveness. We make no secret of the truth that we needed and still rely upon the grace and forgiveness of God every day.
That's not a secret for those of us who belong to Jesus and because God's spirit has filled us with love for those who belong to the family of God. If we ever have the chance to warn a brother or sister about the devastating effects of a specific sin in which we were once entangled. We will gladly do so for their good because we love them. And so here's what I know. I know that my sisters in Christ who have had abortions are forgiven.
And I know that even though it's a painful part of their past, they want their church elders to preach the truth about this issue because they don't want to see any of their sisters in Christ make the same mistake. If I preach the truth on this subject, it will be heavy. I have an obligation to preach the truth of God's word. I do not have the authority to edit it. I don't have the authority to play it down or dismiss it or knowingly leave out difficult parts.
And so I ask you to be gracious with me and please forgive me if I don't do everything perfectly or get the tone just right. I'm going to do my best, and I ask that you stay until the end, because what I say at the end is going to be the most important part of this Bible study. When the central issue is human life, it seems only right to start with the question, who is the author of life? Who is the author of life? Who creates human life?
The question is pivotal because the author of life, the creator of human life, can claim the position of greatest authority, covet human life. If I create a painting, I have the right as its creator to keep it, sell it, paint over it, or destroy it if I wish. Whatever. I made it. I created it.
It belongs to me, and I can do with it what I wish. Genesis 127 answers the question. It reads God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God. He created them, male and female.
Genesis 27 describes the moment of Adam's creation like this the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. If you believe in the God of the Bible, then you believe he is the author of human life. And if you believe God is the author of human life, then it logically follows that he has authority over human life. This is your first fill-in. God is the author of human life and therefore has authority over human life.
He's the author, and so he has authority over human life. Now, the nonbeliever obviously does not recognize the God of the Bible, and we'll talk about that a little bit later in this study. What I want us to understand at this point is that it makes no sense on any level to believe in the God of the Bible and yet disagree that he has authority over human life. The only way to hold that position is to be willfully, irrational or knowingly distort the Scriptures. If you are an orthodox Christian.
You believe God's word is inerrant? In other words, it was given to men by God without flaw in its original form. You believe the words of Genesis 127 and 27, which tell us that God is the author of life and therefore has authority over human life. What secular culture says, what the world system says, what Satan says, is that the author of life is not God, but the woman. The kingdom of darkness removes God from the position of author of life and replaces him with the woman, inviting her to embrace the Luciferian spirit.
That says I will make myself like the most high. As a result, our society allows an unborn child's value to be entirely determined by the mother's desires. If she doesn't want them, they become useless trash to be discarded. If she does want them, they become the most precious thing in the world. She'll post an ultrasound on social media and everybody will comment, what a little blessing.
Congratulations. Amazing news. What a wonderful little miracle. Now, just take a step back for a minute.
Do we understand how messed up that is? That if the mother wants them, they are a precious and miraculous treasure? If she doesn't want them, they are literal trash.
God have mercy on us.
When it comes to who has authority over life and death, there's only one seat at the table and it is occupied by our maker, God. Nobody else's opinions are of any consequence. For the Christian, the question is singular how do I obey God in this area of my life? I do not mean to sound cold or uncaring. I mean to be clear.
We will get into the practical realities of some heartbreaking situations that can unfold in our fallen world. Still, none of those heartbreaking situations, real or hypothetical, change the central question for the believer how do I obey God in this area of my life? That question is central to following Jesus as a disciple. It's a question we must ask daily in every area of life. To learn the answer, we go to His Word.
We fellowship with brothers and sisters who are in the Word. We come together as the Church to hear the proclamation of His Word. We ask mature believers who know the Word to point us to the truth in the Word. So let me share some of God's Word as it relates to this issue. We read earlier in Genesis 127 that God created man and woman in his image.
Imago day is the Latin term for this piece of doctrine. God created humans to represent Him, to relate to Him, to be temples of His Spirit. This detail is included in Scripture to explain why humans differ from every other creature on Earth. Only humans are made in the image of God. The Bible clarifies that humans are a unique, special and sacred creation of God.
This is why God instituted the death penalty for murder back in Genesis, long before he gave the law to Israel. In Genesis nine six, we read from God whoever sheds human blood by humans, his blood will be shed. Why? For God made humans in his image. God, the author of human life, declares that nobody has the right to murder because he created humans in Mago day.
In his image, therefore, human life is sacred. Would you write this down? Long before the law was given to Israel, god declared murder a capital offense because he created humans in his image, making their lives sacred. Making their lives sacred. Many pagan tribes that occupied the promised land of Canaan when Israel entered it would offer some of their children, typically as babies or infants, as sacrifices to their gods.
As horrific as that sounds, it was extremely prevalent in the land of Canaan at the time Israel entered it. The general belief among the adherents of those pagan cults was that their God would respond to them sacrificing their children by blessing them with prosperity. Their farms would be more productive, their businesses would be more profitable, their careers would flourish. They believed that by sacrificing their children, they would gain personally a richer life. What did God think about that?
I'm going to summarize what the scripture says. Many of these are direct quotes. He told Israel that to do that was to profane his name. It was detestable, and he hated it. God's words, not mine.
God declared that it was so evil that the thought of doing that would never even enter his mind. He called those who engaged in such practices witches, sons, offspring of an adulterer, and a prostitute. When Israel rebels against him and engages in these practices, god tells them, you slaughtered my children. You slaughtered my children. And he says, you shed innocent blood.
The Lord abhors even the idea of sacrificing a child's life in the hopes of benefiting oneself. One's career, one's relational life, one's financial situation. The Lord abhors the idea. And again, please hear me. I do not have the authority to edit or play down what God says in his word.
I don't have that right. When God gives Israel the law, he says that if men are fighting and accidentally injure a pregnant woman, the law, known in Latin as lex talionis, the Law of retaliation was to apply an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life for the mother and the unborn child. In other words, make a note of this god considers a child in utero to have the same value as a child outside the womb. Human life does not become more or less sacred based upon its location.
Scripture tells us God is at work in the miracle of life. In the womb, Job declared, you clothed me with skin and flesh and covet me together with bones and tendons. He referred to God as the One who made me in the womb. God told Jeremiah, I chose you before I formed you in the womb. I set you apart before you were born.
God had Isaiah tell the Israelites that he was the one who had formed them from the womb. And Isaiah wrote of himself, the Lord called me before I was born. He named me while I was in my mother's womb. The Lord formed me from the womb to be his servant. And David famously wrote the words of Psalm 139 that Maureen read at the beginning of our time together it was you who created my inward parts.
You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. Your eyes saw me when I was formless. All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.
When Mary, the pregnant mother of Jesus, went to visit her relative Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist. Luke's Gospel tells us that John leapt for joy in utero at the presence of Jesus, who was also in utero. Paul wrote to the Galatians that God had set him apart from his mother's womb. Paul told the Ephesians, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do before we were even a fertilized egg, a zygote. God knew everything about us and what every day of our life would look like.
And he prepared good works for us to do, ways for us to use our lives to bring Him glory. There may be accidental parents. I won't ask you to raise your hands, but there are no accidental children. God was at work and is at work in the womb. His plans and purposes are already underway in the womb.
And that leads us to the question of when life begins. For the Christian, I suggest the answer is simple. Because the Bible believing Christian recognizes that the only opinion that matters is God, because he's the only one with the authority and knowledge to answer that question. No other opinions matter. Is it when the heart starts beating?
When does a fetus develop consciousness? Is it when they can feel pain? All such questions are irrelevant. Scripture declares that God's plans for human life are formed even before conception. So would you write this down?
God's involvement in the creation of human life predates even conception. It predates even conception. Therefore, willfully intervening to end the development of human life at any stage is usurping God's authority over human life. It's usurping God's unique and exclusive authority over human life. As we shared earlier, it was back in Genesis nine six, long before God gave Israel the law that he instituted capital punishment, the death penalty, as the punishment for intentionally taking another human life in the act known as murder.
God's law distinguishes between murder and killing killing is when a life is taken, but without malicious desire. From God's perspective, killing is what occurs when a life is taken in battle, when capital punishment is executed, in cases of self defense, when accidents happen, et cetera. From God's perspective and I don't say this to be cruel to anybody again, please hear me. I say this to be clear. From God's perspective, abortion is murder because a sacred human life is taken unnecessarily and with malicious intent.
And I can already hear the question among some. Well, Jeff, aren't abortions sometimes necessary? There are generally two hypothetical scenarios most frequently brought up in our culture in relation to this question pregnancies resulting from rape and pregnancies threatening the mother's health. The first thing I want to share with you is that the most recent data from the United States tells us that cases of rape account for less than 1% of all abortions, and cases where the mother's health is at risk also account for less than 1% of all abortions. Over 98% of abortions in the United States and likely Canada are not related to cases of rape or the health of the mother.
And I don't want to minimize the seriousness of those situations, but I share that to point out that those two scenarios, at a minimum, are not nearly as frequent as the media would have you believe. Rape is a horrific act, and God agrees, by the way, and it's why he assigned the death penalty to rapists in the law. I believe our society would see a dramatic reduction in sexual violence if we would view sex as sacredly as God does and put anyone guilty of rape to death. I would love to see the death penalty for rape classified as preventative health care for women. I find our Canadian justice system disgustingly hypocritical in this area.
Our politicians across the spectrum virtue signaled their way through the MeToo movement, insisting more must be done to protect women from sexual harassment and violence while continuing to uphold the status quo of a justice system that routinely releases convicted rapists after two to three years or less. What an absolute joke. What an absolute joke. We need to protect woman, but also let's let rapists out of prison after 18 months because everyone deserves a second chance. No, they don't.
No, they don't. Not according to the Lord. To be impregnated through rape would be a horrifically intimate violation of one's person. I can't overstate that enough. The trauma would obviously be incredible.
The desire to sever and shed any ties to that violation is entirely understandable. I get it. All of that is true. And all of that being true does not change these truths. Human life is sacred.
The child is made in the image of God as much as any other human being, and that child is innocent blood. Only God has authority over human life. The circumstances of conception do not change any of those truths. And God can give miraculous supernatural grace and strength and peace to endure overwhelming difficulty, he can do it. I don't mean to sound callous, but the adage two wrongs don't make a right is true.
Regarding sin. Rape is a horrific sin, but so is murder. And having an abominable sin committed against you does not justify committing a heinous sin against an innocent third party. It is never right to punish a child for the sins of their father. Would you write this down?
The circumstances of conception do not change the fact that the child's life is sacred because they're made in the image of God. They are innocent blood, and only God has the authority to take their life. The circumstances of conception do not change any of those truths. Regarding pregnancies that pose a risk to the mother's health, let me share a few key points. As I mentioned earlier, less than 1% of all abortions are performed for the reasons of the mother's health.
In the 1980s, when he was Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. C. Everett Coop stated publicly that in his 38 years as a pediatric surgeon, he had never encountered or even heard of a situation in which a freeborn child's life had to be taken in order to save the life of the mother. He said this argument is used to justify abortion in general, and it's a quote, smokescreen, pregnancy and childbirth risks to mothers have obviously decreased significantly since 1967. And yet, all the way back in, Dr.
Alan Gutmacher of Planned Parenthood acknowledged, and I quote today in 1967, 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 be unlikely to prolong, much less save life. In 2012, a thousand OB, GYNs and maternal health care experts sinned a statement, saying in part, quote as experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynecology, we affirm that direct abortion, the purposeful destruction of the unborn child, is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. In extremely, extremely rare and tragic situations, only the life of the mother or the child can be saved. In such situations, being biblically prolife demands the life that can be saved be saved.
But it bears repeating once again that such situations are extremely rare, and in 2019, more than 30,000 doctors stated that late term abortion is never necessary to save a mother's life because of the ability to perform a Csection or a similar procedure. I think it's really important to distinguish the difference between life threatening and health risks. As I've just shared, when only one life can be saved, it should be. However, health risks are not a reason to take another human life. A woman with toxemia will have adverse health reactions and considerable inconvenience, including probably needing to lie down for most of her pregnancy.
This is a difficulty, but not normally a threat to her life. Hence, an abortion for the sake of health would not be life saving, but it would be life taking because a life was not in jeopardy. There are other situations where an expectant mother has a serious or even terminal medical condition. Her pregnancy may cause complications, but will not cause her death. If she is receiving radiation therapy, she may be told that the child could have handicaps as a result.
It may be possible to postpone or reduce such treatment. But if it is essential to continue the treatment to save the mother's life, this is preferable to allowing her death or ending the life of the child. Fear and the prospect of ending difficulty, struggle, pain, discomfort, inconvenience, depression, embarrassment, financial difficulty, etc. Are not valid reasons to usurp God's authority. As the author of human Life and commit murder, you may have heard a lot of talk in the media recently regarding ectopic pregnancies.
These occur when a fertilized egg implants outside of the uterus. Such a pregnancy is not viable, and sadly, the inevitable biological result is the death of the embryo or the fetus. When this happens, the body expels the undeveloped fetus, resulting in a miscarriage or the tissue is absorbed by the mother's body. If the life of the fetus has ended, it's morally permissible to do whatever is needed medically. In extremely rare cases, extremely rare surgical intervention may be required to remove an embryo to save the life of a mother, but it's highly debated whether such scenarios actually ever come to fruition.
So what should we expect of nonbelievers? If people don't recognize God's authority over human life, is it right to expect them to adhere to our belief system? Well, firstly, I would argue that universal moral laws, sometimes called objective moral laws, exist. There are things that human beings inherently know on a soul level are right and wrong, good and evil. Never in history has there been a culture anywhere in the world where it was considered a good thing for a man to murder his neighbor and steal his wife, because we all just know that's wrong.
The existence of moral laws is one of the great evidence for the existence of God, because you have to account for the source of these objective moral laws, especially in light of the fact that many of them contradict Darwinian evolutionary theory. We know where universal laws come from. We know God has placed them in the souls of men and women. They are a revelation of God's character and an invitation to pursue the greatest good, which is God himself. Our brother Paul wrote about this in Romans chapter two.
I believe it's on your outlines. This is huge for understanding life and the world and morality. In Romans chapter two, Paul observed when gentiles who do not by nature have the law instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the code of conduct required by the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences affirm this.
Their competing thoughts either accuse or excuse them. It is unquestionably a universal moral law that it is wrong to shed innocent blood unquestionably. We know this. The nonbeliever knows this. Intuitively, instinctively.
It is fair and reasonable to expect nonbelievers to recognize that murder is wrong because God has written that knowledge on their souls. However, Paul writes in Romans One that when a non believer chooses over and over again to ignore their conscience and instead chooses to suppress the truth that God has placed in their soul because they want to do what is unrighteous, if they do that long enough, god will eventually visit upon them a terrible judgment. He will allow them to believe that what they once knew were lies are actually truths. Instead of being in the place where they know the truth because their conscience tells them, instead of being in the place where they know the truth and reject it, and they know they're rejecting the truth just to do what they want, god says he will give the nonbeliever a mind that will actually begin to believe the lies are true. This is a terrible judgment, because to lose your grip on the truth is to lose your grip on reality.
It's to lose your grip on reality. And what happens when you lose your grip on reality? Let me be very blunt. It's happening right now in our culture. Children in kindergarten grade one and grade two.
I am 100% not making this up. I know people where this is happening. In their children's classrooms. Children are going to school and identifying as an animal. I'm a cat.
And the teacher must address them and interact with them as though they are a cat. What in the world is going on? Paul tells us in Romans two and Romans one, things that we once knew were lies. We've embraced so much as a culture that God says. Okay.
I'm going to let you actually begin to believe that makes sense and is true. And that is playing out all over our culture. Paul says. And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God. Because they didn't think it was worth acknowledging what God had put in their conscience.
God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. We're not forcing our beliefs on society when we advocate for the recognition of universal moral laws. We are advocating for foundational ethics and morality in our culture. We're not even advocating for biblical morality, just foundational ethics known and revealed by the conscience of every man and woman. We should never apologize for publicly saying, I am against murdering babies.
We should never apologize for that. None of us would ever say, listen, I'm against rape, but I know some people aren't. So I try not to push my beliefs on everyone. I try to respect the right of every person to determine for themselves whether rape is right or wrong or I think the residential school system was morally reprehensible, but I know some people have mixed feelings on the subject, so I try not to push my beliefs on anyone. I've seen some Christians responding to Roe v.
Wade being overturned by saying things like, let's not celebrate. This is a nuanced issue. It's a complicated and sensitive topic, and a lot of people are hurting right now. Please hear me on this. Please hear me on this.
If people are hurting and upset because a blow has been struck against a great evil, heaven does not grieve with them. Do you hear me on that? If people are hurting or upset because a blow has been struck against a great evil, heaven is not grieving with them. Heaven is rejoicing. Can you imagine this scenario?
Slavery has just been abolished. We're celebrating because we believe in the Bible that because human life is sacred, the abolition of slavery is a wonderful thing. It's a blow against a great evil. And then someone comes up to us who says they're a Christian, and they say, I just think, guys, we should tone this down a little bit. Brothers and sisters, there's a lot of people hurting right now, a lot of tobacco and cotton farmers who are scared because they're wondering how they're going to make up for all the lost income from losing their slaves right now.
So we need to be sensitive in this moment and not be too excited about this. Praise God for those rare moments of grace when a great societal evil is dealt to blow. Praise God. I wish it would happen more. Praise God for thousands of babies who will live instead of being murdered.
The Godly man or woman should have no shame in rejoicing over righteousness. None.
The nonbeliever will often claim, well, abortions not murder because it's not a person. And this raises the issue of how one defines personhood. As I shared earlier, the Christian recognizes that only God's opinion on when life begins matters, and only God's opinion matters when it comes to defining personhood. We know that God is intimately involved in every life, even before the moment of conception. So for the Christian, life absolutely begins at the moment of conception.
And I say that because it's simpler than telling your nonbelieving friends that you believe life actually starts before the moment of conception. So we'll just say the Christian believes that life starts at the moment of conception. The non believer will typically attempt to argue for non personhood on these bases. While it's not physically or mentally developed enough to count as a person, or it's too dependent to count as a person, it can't even take care of itself. Regarding physical development, we know that biologically speaking, human life begins at conception.
Let me say that again. We know that biologically. Speaking, human life begins at conception because we know that when the father's sperm and the mother's egg come together, they combine to create a new string of DNA that is personalized and completely unique. DNA is coded information. It's the blueprint for the new human being's growth and development.
The color of their hair, the color of their eyes, their height, all of it is determined the moment the zygote is created. All of the genetic information is present. No more genetic material need be added. The zygote in the womb is as human as the mother in whose womb it dwells. The differences between a fetus or even a zygote and us are differences of age, location, and level of dependence.
These are differences of degree, not differences of type. When a mother aborts the process of fetal development, she is destroying a unique human life. This is also something we intrinsically know. The moral conscience God has given us testifies I really believe this. It testifies that we are destroying human life when we end life in the womb.
I never thought in a million years I would be referencing the person I'm about to reference in church. If you don't know who this is, I'll explain. Bill Burr is a foulmouthed, yet often very insightful comedian. He's not prolife. He's not a believer.
He doesn't get any of his ideas from the Bible. But great comedians great comedians observe society and point out the awkward truths that most of us are blind to. They say the quiet part out loud. Bill Burr did this on a comedy special that just came out on Netflix, and it's gone viral because he addresses the topic of abortion. Let me share a few things Bill Burr said with some substituted cuss words.
He said pro choice always made sense to me because I don't like people telling me what to do. And I was just like, It's your body. Who the heck am I to tell you what to do with your body? So that always made sense. However, I still think you're killing a baby.
Well, it's not a baby yet. That's what they say. Which may or may not be true. I don't know. I'm not a doctor.
But I tell you, my gut tells me that doesn't make sense. It's not a baby yet. That would be like if I was making a cake and I poured some butter in a pan and some batter in a pan, and I put it in the oven, and then five minutes later, you came by and grabbed the pan and you threw it across the floor. And I went, what the heck? You just ruined my birthday cake.
And then you were like, well, it wasn't a cake yet. It's like, well, it would have been if you didn't just do what you just did. There would have been a cake in, like, 50 minutes. Something happened to that cake, you cake murdering son of a blank in this one little area because comedians are comfortable asking questions that run against the flow of society. Bill Burr articulated what the conscience placed inside of him by God testified to his own spirit about the issue of abortion and when life begins.
It's remarkable. Biology says life begins at conception, and our internal moral conscience, whether you're a believer or not, testifies that life in the womb is human life worthy of being valued as such. Regarding the claim that an unborn child does not possess personhood because they're not physically or mentally developed enough or are too dependent, let me share a few thoughts. When there's a car crash and people die, does society view it as more or less tragic if the victims are children? More or less tragic if a baby is killed?
Why really think about that? Why? Why doesn't anybody say, oh, man, at least it was only a baby and some kids, they were dependents, and they weren't adding very much to society. So no real loss. It's because God has coded into our moral conscience that children are to be treasured, nurtured and protected.
We have a moral obligation to show greater care, not less, to the vulnerable and weak among us. This is what drives me crazy. That hypocrisy and just reason and logic. Our culture was shouting this exact moral obligation from the rooftops when it came to covet for the past two years. We must protect the vulnerable among us.
What about the sick? What about the elderly? I didn't hear a single abortion advocate responding with but they're a drain on society anyway. They're old. They're no longer contributing to the greater good.
They're too dependent. They're basically not even people anymore. Why should we care? Let's clean up the gene pool. Nobody said that there's a school of thought that the weakest among us should be exterminated.
All those with terminal diseases, handicaps, down syndrome, et cetera. That school of thought is called eugenics, and it's what Hitler was trying to accomplish through the Holocaust and the development of his Aryan race. So it's an approach not generally viewed favorably. When the discussion comes up of how do we solve Vancouver's homeless problem, or how do we care for those who have special needs? Or how do we solve the problem of care homes for the elderly?
Everybody knows that. Your answer shouldn't start with the words, well, Hitler had some interesting ideas about this. Everybody knows this. Why? Because our inherent moral conscience testifies that we have an obligation, a moral obligation, to take special care of the sick, the handicapped, the widow, the orphan, the elderly, and indeed the child.
Our conscience testifies that the more vulnerable they are, the greater the care we should afford them. Abortion rejects that moral obligation and murders children when they are most vulnerable in the place where they should be least vulnerable their mother's womb. Would you write this down?
Universal moral law demands we show greater care not less, toward those who are vulnerable and weak. Those who favor abortion must reject the belief that human life is sacred. They must instead embrace woman in the role of God with the power to assign either negative or infinite value to human life. And they must reject the testimony of their Godgiven moral conscience. It is not unreasonable to expect a nonbeliever to recognize that abortion is murder.
They know. They know. They simply reject the truth because they want to. And I should mention that proponents of abortion, just so you know, generally no longer debate the question, is a fetus a person? This is true.
I'm not misrepresenting this in any way. Proponents of abortion pretty much openly admit that abortion is killing a baby. They simply believe that the mother has the right to do that.
I'll hear some Christians say things like, well, some of these moms have no choice. It's understandable when you realize the future they're facing. Sure, abortion is wrong, but Christians have no business saying that unless they're offering help and support to women who would otherwise get abortions. Now, in order to think clearly, we have to learn how to think critically. There's a reason they don't teach this in school or university.
One of the ways that you can practice critical thinking is by breaking down arguments into their underlying premises. When we do this, we can reasonably evaluate the merit or logic of an argument. You see, most arguments that you hear are just stated as conclusions, emphatic facts. Abortion is fine, abortion is wrong. But critical thinking says, okay, what are the premises upon which that conclusion is based?
Like, what are you presenting as evidence to justify that statement? Because if you examine the premises, each of the premises must be logically sound, reasonably sound, in order for the conclusion to hold. If the premises are logically unsound, the conclusion doesn't logically follow. It doesn't stand. So let's use this kind of argument and let's examine the premises behind them.
So the first premise behind these kinds of statements is that sin is justified if it helps a person avoid pain, difficulty, or suffering. That's the premise behind that statement. First of all, is that premise true? Absolutely not. We aren't allowed to steal because we're poor.
You're not allowed to kidnap a spouse if you're tired of being single. And we're not allowed to murder simply because the alternative would be very difficult. That premise doesn't hold water. The second premise is that Morrison is justified if Christians don't step in and alleviate the natural consequences of a person's previous sins. That's the premise.
They're saying, well, listen, if Christians don't step in and solve all the natural consequences for these women, then they're justified in having an abortion. They're justified in sinning. Is that true? Absolutely not. Imagine you're a person who's fallen deeply into debt.
Then you find out they're planning on robbing a bank to solve their money problems. You say, you can't do that. It's not right. Would their argument be reasonable if they said, you've got no business telling me robbing a bank is wrong unless you're personally going to offer me financial relief? Is that a reasonable argument?
Of course not. Or let's apply the slave logic to the issue of slavery. Can you imagine someone who owns slaves saying, listen, unless you're going to provide a solution to all the free labor that I will lose if I set my slaves free, you've got no business judging me. You got no business calling out slavery. It's still sin.
It's still wrong. You don't get to hold someone else hostage and threaten to sin more unless they provide relief from the sin that you've already committed. Now, that being said, the child is always, always innocent blood. And so Christians do step in and have for centuries with a heart to help the child. Christians do adopt and volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers.
Christians do establish and run orphanages and adoption agencies and those pregnancy centers. Christians also move heaven and earth to help any woman who repents and turns to Jesus. We would too, in a heartbeat. And as always, we listen to the Holy Spirit in all things. And sometimes the Holy Spirit will say, I want you to step in here, even when they're not yet repentant.
But please understand this whether something is evil or not is not determined by anything somebody else does or doesn't do. Evil is evil because God judges it to be evil. We don't call abortion evil on the basis of our authority or our experiences. We call abortion evil on the basis of God's authority and on the basis of the universal moral law he's written on every human heart. I don't need to be a woman to call abortion evil.
You don't have to be a slave or a former slave to call slavery evil. You don't have to have had a loved one murdered to call murder evil. You don't have to be First Nations to call indigenous schools morally reprehensible. Evil is evil because God judges it as evil.
God's word clearly defines his design for sex, marriage, and children. His plan is one man being married to one woman and sex taking place only within that marriage, partly because he designed sex to lead to children, and he sinned children to be in a family with a mother and a father. That's God's plan. Nobody has reproductive rights outside of God's design for sex and marriage and family. Nobody.
When we go outside of God's design and plan, we sin. And there are always, always natural consequences for sin. About 98% then, of the time. Abortion is simply demanding that we be allowed to sin more to try and escape the natural consequences of our sexual sin. Our society talks about freedom of choice when it comes to abortion, but our society doesn't want to deal with the fact that having sex outside of marriage is a choice.
It's a choice. Our culture is so wicked that defying and rejecting God's design for sex, marriage and family is now considered a basic human right. Well, you have a choice. If you don't want to get pregnant, why don't you just not have sex outside of marriage? We need real solutions.
Be serious. Be serious. The solution to abortion is God's design for sex, marriage and family. And one day when Jesus reigns over the earth as King, that will be made clear. David wrote the truth when he observed, sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord offspring, a reward.
God loves people. He just loves people. He died for every single person. He established the incalculable value of every human life with his own blood. And God has a special affection for the meek and the lowly, the weak and the vulnerable, the widow and the orphan, and the helpless baby, be they a zygote, an infant, a toddler, or a young child.
When Jesus was on the Earth, Mark and Luke's Gospels record this interaction. It says people were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, let the little children come to me. Don't stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it.
There's something in little kids, especially little kids raised by Godly parents, that just blesses me. And it blessed Jesus too. You see, the world hasn't had much time yet to wear down their joy or fill their head with messed up ideas. And so, their faith is just simple, it's just pure. There's nothing better than a child singing, "Yes, Jesus loves me."
And they just believe it with no doubt, absolute faith. He loves me, he's with me. My God will take care of me. From Jesus' perspective, the simplicity of children was not a detriment. It was an example of how all believers should approach and interact with their heavenly Father.
The Lord loves children. Man, he loves children.
I'm going to wrap up with this.
If you have any questions or you want to talk about anything related to this message, please come and chat with me after the service, or feel free to write a question or comment on your Connect card or feel free to email me. Jeff T at gospelcity CA this is what I want you to hear more than anything. More than anything, whoever you are, when it comes to the issue of abortion, jesus is the answer. Jesus is the answer. If you're not married, follow God's design for sex and marriage and family.
It is the best thing for you. And there are sisters in Christ in this room who would tell you the exact same thing from personal experience. If you ever find yourself pregnant and contemplating abortion for any reason, please know. Please know following up one devastating sin with another devastating sin will only result in greater devastation. I promise you that.
Instead, repent. If you don't know what to do, come to me. Come to BJ, come to Jess, come to Charlene, come to the church. Literally, we will move heaven and earth to help you follow and obey Jesus in that situation, I promise. Romans 828 tells us that only God can do something good in every situation, no matter how dark, difficult, or seemingly hopeless.
We don't have the power to do that. An abortion certainly doesn't have the power to do that. If you've had an abortion, please know that while God hates abortion, he loves you, man does he love you. He loves you so much, he died for you. He died for your sins.
And if you've made the decision to follow Him as Savior and Lord, then your sins were sinned to Jesus on the cross. Your hope is not that God is not going to judge you. Your hope is that your sins have already been judged upon Jesus on the cross. And when your heavenly Father looks at you, he doesn't see your sins, he sees the righteousness of Jesus truly. But not only does Jesus save you from your sins, but he desires to heal you, to bring wholeness to your life, to your spirit, to your mind, to your soul.
He desires to go to work on those scars and those wounds and that trauma, and he can do it. He can heal, he can restore. And so, I'm going to pray in a moment for that exact thing, for healing. But if you need help in that area, you need someone to talk with, someone to pray with you. You just need help again, come talk to me, BJ, Jess, Charlene... we'll get you connected with someone who can help, with resources that can help you in your journey. And so, with that, I'm going to ask the worship team to come up. Would you buy your head and close your eyes? Let's pray together. Lord, thank you for the truth of your word.
And thank you that you don't address sin and speak plainly about sin to make anyone feel bad. But you do it because you love us, and you desire us to experience life. And the sure path to experiencing life is to walk in Your ways in every area of life. And so, Jesus, I pray you would help us to do that in every single area. May you be honored.
Father, I pray for anyone who needs to repent, who's not currently walking in Your ways. Lord, I pray that Your Spirit would convict them, that they would turn to you and repent, that they might begin to experience that life that we talk about that's only found in you. Father, I pray for anyone who is still hurting from abortion will adopt. I pray, Jesus, that if they haven't turned to you, they will. That they'll know they can.
Lord, I pray for everyone who has turned for you that there would be healing and wholeness miraculously in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank you that you do not remember even our transgressions, that you have washed us white as snow with the blood of Your son, Jesus. And, Lord, I just pray that that would be real for anyone who doesn't feel that right now, that by your spirit it would sink into the deepest parts of them, bringing healing to every area of their lives. Jesus, Lord, we love you. May you be honored and glorified in every part of our lives.
In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.