Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers,
too.
This week we have John MacArthur with his
message, Abortion and the Campaign for Immorality.
What a privilege and joy it is to
worship the Lord here at this church.
Christian and I miss it when we're not
here, there's no place like this.
Our hearts are full to overflowing to be
back with you and celebrating the greatness of
our God and the glory of Christ with
you.
What a blessing.
While we were gone the last couple of
weeks, we were exposed to the two conventions
that were held, the Republican National Convention and
the Democratic National Convention.
And I know that politics is the topic
among many people today, and I suppose that's
natural since it is such a huge part
of media exposure.
And as you know, I'm not one to
talk about politics as such.
But I was essentially amazed that one of
the historic parties here in the United States
adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their
platform.
This is a new day in our country.
Parties which used to differ on economics now
differ dramatically on issues that invade the realm
of God's law and morality.
And an ideal situation, their platform would mean
that the government passes out condoms so people
can fornicate at will.
For those who happen to get pregnant in
the process, the platform advocates that you kill
the baby at the will of the mother,
up and including the ninth month.
At the same time, it advocates homosexual marriage
which is an oxymoron, an utter impossibility and
a gross violation of the law of God.
And then, to add to that, the murder
of abortion and then a platform originally leaving
God out.
All of that's Romans 1.
Romans 1 says God will judge, God has
judged throughout human history nations that experience sexual
freedom.
Romans chapter 1 lays that out clearly.
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against those who advocate sexual freedom, sexual conduct
outside of marriage.
And that's an indication of the demise of
a nation.
And then Romans 1 also says that God
will judge those nations that advocate homosexual behavior,
men with men, women with women doing what
is unnatural.
They are also haters of God, haters of
God.
Leaving God out, advocating abortion, advocating homosexuality, advocating
free sexual conduct and government-provided condoms so
that everybody can do what they want, that
is literally creating a platform out of what
God hates.
This is not about politics, although there are
things we could talk about.
You're not voting for a pastor.
You're not voting for a spiritual leader.
You're voting for someone who has some sense
of morality.
Since the Bible says that the role of
government is to punish evildoers and protect the
good, you better have somebody in power who
understands what is good and what is evil.
And if you think homosexuality, abortion, sexual freedom,
hating God are not evil, then you better
go back and check your Bible again.
How can people with that kind of agenda
protect those who do good and punish those
who do evil?
That's Romans 13's definition of the role of
government.
We could talk about foreign policy, should we
protect as many defenseless people from evil aggressors
as possible?
We could talk about economics, is it right
to get into irreparable debt?
Is that responsibility?
We could talk about that.
We could talk about the economics of if
you don't work, you don't eat, which is
what the Bible says.
But those things are not what concern me.
I've seen something happen in these conventions that
is just stunning, the adaptation of a Romans
1 platform, sexual freedom, homosexuality on an equal
level with marriage, the murder of infants, and
the elimination of God.
And, by the way, I didn't like it
any better when they put God back in
because that's blasphemy.
To connect God with that agenda is a
horror.
It's a horror.
It's taking His name in vain.
In fact, I don't think God should be
in either agenda.
But when you have an advocacy of support
for the slaughter of infants and homosexuality and
complete sexual freedom, you have a formula for
divine judgment.
If we have any sense of justice, if
we have any sense of righteousness, if we
want to make a little bit of a
voice heard about what is right and about
the role of government being to punish evildoers
and protect the people who do right, then
we better step up.
I'm not sure what God has in the
future, but I do know we can take
His side and give Him honor.
To me it is ironic that those who
pride themselves on defending the rights of the
weak murder them in the womb when they
are the most weak.
What kind of hypocrisy is that?
Self-congratulating pseudo-humanitarians advocate a deadly force
of violence unleashed against infants that makes the
Nazi holocaust look mild by comparison.
In our world, we're slaughtering between 50 and
60 million babies a year.
In the United States, on record, it's 1
.5 million abortions a year.
Every third baby conceived is murdered in the
womb, 4,000 a day, plus 170 an
hour.
Planned Parenthood alone kills one every 95 seconds.
The Physicians Association of Planned Parenthood released this
statement, quote, Abortion is a treatment for unwanted
pregnancy, the second sexually transmitted disease.
Pregnancy is a sexually transmitted disease.
Our nation and others are murdering a whole
generation of humans in mass infanticide that was
legalized in January of 1973 by the Roe
v.
Wade decision made by an unrighteous group of
people on the Supreme Court.
Now 43 percent of all women have an
abortion and 47 percent of abortions are repeats.
It's legal to do to a child what
you might be arrested for doing to a
cat, or a dog, or certainly an eagle.
In fact, Massachusetts made it illegal to award
a goldfish as a prize at a fair.
And the document from the Massachusetts law said
that this is to protect the tendency to
dull humanitarian feelings and corrupt the morals of
those who abuse them.
A law to prevent the abuse of goldfish.
In Asia, the trauma over abortion, just for
an illustration, you could pick any place in
the world, but the trauma in Asia over
the tens of millions of abortions that are
done there, and as you would know, China
is a major leader in abortions.
They're the only nation probably in the world
that has a more liberal approach to that
than America does, has unleashed upon the Asian
women a horror of guilt and suffering from
having abortions.
And so there have been temples erected, built
literally in Asia with the express purpose of
memorializing water babies.
They're Buddhist temples and the person who feels
some need to memorialize the baby that they
aborted can go to these temples and they
can purchase for a large sum of money
a small little Buddha as a memorial for
the aborted child and that Buddha will be
put on display there and there are temples
that have, for example, ten thousand of these
little Buddhas on display on the grounds, becomes
a commercial attraction where people come and take
photographs of them.
It costs many hundreds of dollars to get
the supposed relief that comes from purchasing your
little Buddha.
And then additionally, you can buy a prayer,
the last price as I saw, you can
buy a prayer for about $120 and they
will pray for your water baby.
And then if you have additional abortions, it's
only $40 each additional abortion.
So the Buddhists have figured out a way
to make money even after the abortion on
the guilt and the sadness of people.
Suicide rate among people who have had an
abortion goes up between 400 and 800 percent.
Many studies starting in 1957, there have been
about 30-some studies on the effect of
having had an abortion on breast cancer.
It greatly raises the risk, 27 out of
about 35 studies indicate there's a significant increase
in breast cancer risk for someone who has
an abortion because it's such a terrible interruption
of the normal cycle.
Say nothing of depression, withdrawal, guilt, shame, alcohol
dependency, et cetera, et cetera.
How did we ever get here where we
just massacre infants in the safest place, in
the womb, where we literally go in there
and kill them?
How did we get to this place?
Well, you just have to go back and
understand that Satan is a murderer from the
beginning, right?
This is satanic.
This is a satanic thing.
He is the father of lies and he's
the father of murder.
He is the first murderer.
He would have murdered God if he could
have, deicide in heaven, and he was thrown
out.
And when he came down to earth, he
moved Cain to kill Abel and unleashed on
the world the whole array of murders that
has characterized human existence, goes on relentlessly in
everything from slaughtering little infants in the safest
place in the womb to massacring people the
way we're seeing it around the world and
in the Middle East even now, and everything
in between.
Satan particularly goes after babies.
He did in Moses' day.
He did in Jesus' day.
He wanted to kill all the young children
in Egypt because of the fear that a
deliverer would come.
He wanted to kill all of the two
-year-old and under babies in and around
Jerusalem for fear that the king was coming.
Satan is a murderer.
Remember, all of this is reflective of satanic
hatred of the purposes of God and the
life that God creates.
Any religion, I don't care what it is,
that has as its objective and goal the
killing of anybody is out of hell.
That's satanic.
If you go back into philosophy, go back
into Greek philosophy, ancient Greek philosophy, Plato and
Aristotle recommended family growth limitation by abortion.
If you go back into ancient Western civilization,
you'll find that abortion was to conceal illicit
sex so that you could be free to
do whatever you wanted to do and nobody
would know you would abort the life.
Rich women, I read, didn't want to have
to give their wealth to lower class children.
They just wanted to have sex with lower
class men.
And so when children were conceived, they would
kill them.
There are some indications that they did it
to preserve their supposed sex appeal.
One writer says not to trouble the womb
with bouncing babies.
These methods are very, very ancient that were
used, sometimes come under the title pessaries, a
technical word, which simply means they had learned
that they could inject into a woman, right
into the womb they could inject something that
killed the child.
By trial and error, they came up with
that through the birth canal.
They also found that there were poisons that
could be taken orally that would kill the
child, mixtures that they had discerned would be
fatal to unborn infants.
I could describe how they worked, but that
wouldn't be purposeful or helpful.
The pagan cultures accepted this.
The Jews rejected it.
And interestingly enough, the Jews rejected it for
two reasons.
They rejected it because every life was created
by God and therefore to take a life
was to strike a blow against God.
And therefore to violate the first commandment, to
love the Lord your God with all your
heart, soul, mind and strength, you don't violate
God.
The second reason they were against abortion was
because of the second law, love your neighbor
as yourself.
And they understood that when life begins, that
then becomes your neighbor.
And no one is more a neighbor than
an infant in a mother's womb.
If that's not that mother's neighbor, then there
is no such thing as a neighbor.
So based upon loving God and honoring God
and loving and caring for your neighbor, they
rejected it.
And, of course, they rejected it because in
Exodus chapter 20 it says, Thou shalt not
murder and that's how they saw it.
The early church followed in that same stand.
Christianity has always been against murder of any
kind, especially against the murder of an unprotected
infant in a womb.
The Didache codification of early Christian writing said,
You shall not murder a child by abortion.
That's how explicit it was.
You shall not murder a child by abortion.
The Didache saw the way of death as
full of cursing, murder, adulteries, murders of children
and abortion...abortion. The church has always said abortion
brings the judgment of God because it is
murder.
The Reformation didn't change that.
Abortion has always been seen as violence, slaughter,
and it brings divine judgment.
The Jews who were against abortion fell into
idolatry, as you know, and began to take
their born children and incinerate them on an
altar to Molech, burning them as human sacrifices.
That was the kind of sin that led
to their destruction, their death, their judgment, and
their captivity, brought their nation to an end.
It isn't new and the church's stance isn't
new and the Word of God is very
clear.
But it's amazing in a so-called Judeo
-Christian environment, which has been the kind of
world view that America has been born in,
that we have reached the point that we
have where one of the two political parties
in this country includes slaughtering innocent infants in
the womb as a part of its platform
which it advocates.
Why?
The reasons they would give you are these.
It's a matter of freedom.
A woman has a right over her own
body.
That's not her body.
That's somebody else's body.
That's not her body.
Oh, women shouldn't be victimized by men.
You're not a victim if you lie down
with a man.
Well the child may have some genetic defect
or some issue.
Look, we all are defective.
It's only a question of degree.
We have to do some eugenic abortions.
Eliminate birth defective children because of cost, trouble.
Women need total reproductive freedom.
One writer says women must have abortion as
a backup to contraceptive failure, murder as a
backup.
And by the way, in a perfect world,
this would all be paid for by you...by
you, your tax money.
And it's good to do this because it
kind of controls population, they say.
Well, you know all those things.
1973, it was January 22 when this horrendous
decision came out of a...out of a court
that certainly should have known better.
Fourteenth Amendment, Constitution says, no person shall be
deprived of life.
No person shall be deprived of life without
due process of law.
What's the due process for an infant in
the womb?
Legalized murder.
The court ignored the reality of life beginning
at conception, which is when life begins.
And at that point, you have a person.
Criminals in our history have been prosecuted successfully
for killing unborn children in an attack on
a pregnant woman.
A person can be prosecuted even today for
killing an unborn infant in the womb of
a mother, but a mother can't be prosecuted
for killing that infant.
There is an interesting statement that sort of
sums up what I want you to understand,
Jerome Lejeune, Professor of Fundamental Genetics in Paris,
because I think it's important for you to
have this information.
Let me quote him, and he's not writing
as a Christian, he's writing as a scientist
in the area of genetics.
He says, life has a very long history,
but each individual has a very neat beginning,
the moment of its conception.
The material link is the molecular thread of
DNA.
In each reproductive cell, this ribbon roughly one
meter long is cut into pieces, 23 or
chromosomes.
As soon as the 23 paternally derived chromosomes
are united through fertilization to the 23 maternal
ones, the full genetic meeting necessary to express
all the inborn qualities of the new individual
is gathered and personal constitution takes place.
At two months of age, the human being
is less than one thumb length from the
head to the rump.
He would fit at ease in a nutshell,
but everything is there, hands, feet, head, organs,
brain.
In the fourth week, there is consciousness.
All are in place.
His heart has been beating for a month.
By the second month, his fingerprints can be
detected.
His heart is beating 150 to 170 beats
a minute.
To accept the fact, he writes, that after
fertilization has taken place, a new human being
has come into being, is no longer a
matter of taste or opinion, end quote.
It's a person.
So there's the scene.
It's a person.
So the bottom line is, you have persons
being murdered.
And now that's something you can vote for
because you want to be a part of
that.
What does the Bible say about this?
I want to just give you a handful
of things to think about, just some principles
in the little time we have.
Number one, conception is an act of God.
Conception is an act of God.
God creates personally every life.
Psalm 127.3, Behold, children are a gift
from the Lord.
Children are a gift from the Lord.
From the Lord.
How more simply could it be said?
Children are a gift from the Lord.
To look at that negatively and some passages
along that line, Genesis 20, the Lord had
completely closed all the wombs of the house
of Abimelech.
The Lord can close a womb so none
can be born.
But we find the same kind of thing
in Genesis 16.2, Sarah said to Abraham,
the Lord has restrained me from bearing.
Or 1 Samuel 1 with regard to Hannah,
the Lord had shut up her womb, and
it says it two times in that chapter.
So on the negative side, the Lord closes
the womb and children aren't conceived.
On the positive side, Genesis 17 says in
verse 16, God said to Abraham, I will
bless her, I will give you a son
also from her, and she shall be the
mother of nations.
The Lord who closed Sarah's womb in His
time opened it.
Genesis 21.2, Sarah conceived and bore Abraham
a son in his old age at the
set time of which the Lord had spoken
to him.
The Lord made the promise, set the time,
opened the womb.
Genesis 25.21, Isaac entreated the Lord for
his wife because she was barren, and the
Lord was entreated by him and Rebekah, his
wife, conceived.
She conceived because the Lord allowed her to
conceive.
The Lord created life in her.
First Samuel 1 goes back to the story
of Hannah and Samuel.
The Lord remembered her, therefore it came to
pass after she had conceived that she bore
a son and called his name Samuel, saying,
Because I have asked him of the Lord.
She asked the Lord and the Lord answered
and gave her a child.
In Ruth chapter 4 verse 13, Boaz took
Ruth, she was his wife, and when he
went in unto her, the Lord gave her
conception and she bore a son.
The Lord gave her conception.
I mean, the Bible speaks about every conception
as a work of the Lord.
Back to Psalm 127.3, children are a
gift from the Lord.
Conception is an act of God.
Let me...let me take you a little further
than the Old Testament, go to the seventeenth
chapter of Acts and let's take a look
at a very powerful set of statements by
the Apostle Paul to the philosophers in Athens.
As he's on the Areopagus on Mars Hill,
talking to the philosophers there, he identifies the
fact that they have this sort of idol
there to the unknown God, just to cover
all their bases in case there's any God
left out, they don't want Him to be
angry, so they give Him a space even
though they don't know His name.
So Paul uses that and says, let me
tell you about the God you don't know
who just happens to be the only God.
And then he begins to describe God, starting
in verse 24, and this is how he
describes Him, the God who made the world
and all things in it.
Stop there.
The God who made the world and all
things in it, He is the Creator God.
That comes from Psalm 146, 5 and 6,
God who made heaven and the earth, the
sea and all that is in them.
Zechariah 12, 1, God who forms the spirit
of man within Him.
Everything that is, God made.
John 1, everything was made by Him and
without Him was not anything made that was
made.
God is the Creator and God continues to
be the Creator.
He is seen as the Creator and the
ruler.
He is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't
dwell in temples made with hands.
He's not like your idols.
And then this, He's not served by human
hands as though He needed anything since He
Himself gives to all life and breath.
To all who live, God has given life.
That's the statement.
He is the source of life to everyone
who lives.
He is the Creator of everything, nothing is
in existence that He didn't create and everything
that is in existence is in existence because
He made it.
We live because He gave us life.
In Psalm 104, verse 30, you send forth
your spirit, they are created.
You send forth your spirit, they are created.
And by the way, in Psalm 104, that
includes everything that has life, plants, animals, humans,
all the creation of God.
Romans 11 in that great doxology, everything is
by Him and for Him.
So we see then that He gives life
to all, life and breath.
Verse 26, He made from one, that is
from Adam, He started with Adam and took
Eve out of Adam and everything came from
there.
He made from one every nation of mankind
to live on all the face of the
earth, having determined their appointed times and the
boundaries of their inhabitation.
Now in verse 25, He made every individual
thing that lives.
In verse 26, He governs the collection of
all that He has made.
Verse 28, in Him we live and move
and exist.
And even some of your own poets, namely
Epimenides and Eratus, said of God, He is
our Father, we are also His children, being
then the children of God.
Every individual is talking to Greek philosophers, unbelievers,
you're children of God in the sense that
God created you, God made you.
Now this is not a distant activity on
God's part.
And I'll show you that by taking you
back to Psalm 139 which I read earlier.
Go with me back to 139 quickly for
the sake of time.
And I want you to understand some very
clear statements here.
In the opening six verses, as we read,
the psalmist talks about the omniscience of God,
He knows everything.
This is a level of knowledge that the
psalmist can't understand, neither can we.
And then in verses 7 to 12, he
talks about the omnipresence of God, He made
everything, He knows everything, He is everywhere all
the time.
You can't be out of His presence ever.
And then in verse 13, he moves to
where that all really began in a personal
sense.
Verse 13 says, "'For You formed my inward
parts, You wove me in my mother's womb.'"
Just take that first statement, You formed my
inward parts.
Literally in Hebrew, my kidneys.
You formed my kidneys, which was a term
that was used to refer to the complex
of organs that made up the human anatomy,
or inside the human body.
Literally, You, God, formed my inward parts.
You wove me in my mother's womb.
The DNA strips that are woven together, You
wove them together.
You wove together the complex genetic plan that
produced me.
You were the weaver.
Verse 14, "'I will give thanks to You,
for I am fearfully.'" That literally means awesomely,
nareoth , a Hebrew word, meaning a high
level of reverential awe.
It's a staggering thing to think of what
You have done in fearfully and wonderfully making
me.
Wonderful are Your works, my soul knows it
very well, I know that You made me.
And then he gets even more technical, "'My
frame was not hidden from You when I
was made in secret.
You were making me and You framed me.'"
What's that?
That's bones, muscles, sinews, ligaments, tendons, structure.
You were aware of all of it when
I was made in secret and skillfully wrought
in the depths of the earth.
The depths of the earth is a euphemism
for the womb, the hidden place, the secret
place.
Verse 16, "'Your eyes have seen my unformed
substance.'" My unformed substance, what is that?
That's a Hebrew word that means something rolled
together, something balled up before it unfolded.
When it was just a genetic mass and
it was just that embryo, it was just
that ball before it began to unfold, You
framed it, You saw it, and You wrote
in Your book everything that was going to
take place for my days before any of
them ever took place.
This is God personally, intimately involved in the
very first stages of life, life yet unfolded.
God is intimately involved.
Can I tell you, God is not looking
at us like a map with red dots
wherever there's a person.
God sees deep into us and has known
us intimately from conception, from conception.
And that's why He says in verse 17,
"'How precious are such thoughts to Me.'" He
says, "'You know so much about Me that
I can't even count all your thoughts about
Me.
They would outnumber the sand of the sea.'"
An amazing statement.
God knows intimately everything about you from the
time of your conception because He made you
and He made every person ever conceived.
You're not an animal.
You're not a biological accident.
You're not tissue at some point and then
you become a person.
You're a creation of God by God who
weaves together the genetic code, who intimately sees
the unformed fetus and who guides the entire
process.
You're not immortal.
No life is mortal.
May I say this quickly?
Every life conceived is immortal.
Every single child conceived lives forever, forever.
Manoah is the father of Samson.
His wife in Judges 13.3 had a
visit from an angel and the angel said
to her, you're barren and you can't have
a child, but you will conceive and bear
a son.
And that son was Samson.
People have children because God creates them in
their womb.
It doesn't matter if you're married, if you're
having sex with somebody you're not married to,
if you were raped, if it was incest,
it doesn't change the creation of God.
Still life is created by God.
Job understood this.
You go back into the most primitive time
in history, that's the time of Job who
lives at the time of the patriarchs, and
he says in chapter 10, verse 8, your
hands fashioned and made me altogether.
He says, you made me like clay.
You clothed me with skin and flesh.
Verse 11, you knit me with bones and
sinews.
You granted me life.
Your care preserved my spirit.
You kept me alive in the womb.
You put me all together.
He says it again in chapter 31, verse
15.
He says it again in chapter 33, verse
4.
You can read such testimonies in Ecclesiastes and
Isaiah, and you do remember the words of
Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 5, I formed you
in the womb, but before I formed you
in the womb, I knew you.
Wow, God says, I formed you in the
womb.
In the New Testament, in the gospel of
Matthew, in the gospel of Luke, we learn
that the Holy Spirit created Christ in the
womb of Mary without a human father.
When did Christ come into the world?
Did He come into the world in His
birth?
Did Jesus come into the world in Bethlehem?
No, Jesus came into the world in His
conception...in His conception.
You say, well, what about a deformed baby?
Are they a gift from the Lord?
Yeah, well, as I said earlier, we're all
deformed, it's only a question of degree.
But in...listen to Exodus 4, 11, the Lord
said to him, to Moses, who made man's
mouth?
Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing
or blind?
Is it not I, the Lord?
John chapter 9, Jesus actually said this man
was born blind for the glory of God.
People say, well, we can kill them if
it was a rape, or we can kill
them if it was incest, or we can
kill them if they're defective.
Really?
It doesn't change the fact that every creation
is a creation of God.
Abortion is an anti-God act.
No wonder they didn't want God in their
platform.
Second thing I want to mention to you,
every creation is an act of God.
And secondly, every person created is in the
image of God, in the image of God.
James 3, 9 would be sufficient.
Genesis 1, He made man in His own
image.
But in James 3, 9, there's this statement
I think that gets maybe overlooked that essentially
seals this issue.
We bless the Lord and Father and we
curse men who have been made in the
likeness of God.
Wow.
Better be careful how you treat men, people,
because they're made in the likeness of God.
What does that mean?
Well there are incommunicable attributes that we don't
have, like eternality, we haven't always existed, like
omniscience, we don't know everything, omnipresence, we can't
be everywhere, omnipotence, we don't have all power,
immutability, we're not changeless.
So there are incommunicable attributes, things that are
true about the nature of God that we
don't possess, but there are a whole realm
of communicable attributes that have to do with
personhood, relationship.
God is a trinity and the image of
God means we relate, we have the capability
of relationships and, of course, that's what makes
life life.
We can love and we can hate and
we can understand and we can feel and
we can think and we can choose and
we can act.
All of those things that are given to
us are part of the image of God.
Why capital punishment, Genesis 9.6?
Why does the Bible advocate capital punishment?
Because it says in Genesis 9.6, for
He is made in the image of God.
When you kill someone made in the image
of God, Genesis 9.6 says, you lose
your life.
Capital punishment for murder.
Jesus upheld that, by the way.
In the New Testament when the Romans came
to arrest Jesus, Peter grabbed his sword and
he started to fight and Jesus said, put
your sword away.
If you live by the sword, you die
by the sword.
In other words, He affirmed capital punishment.
If you take somebody's life, Peter, they have
a right to take yours.
Why?
Because of the sacredness of life, you're killing
a person in the image of God.
You can look at that on the negative
side if you look at Psalm 51.5
where David says, In sin did my mother
conceive me.
What he means by that, it's not that
he was illegitimate, but what he means by
that is from the conception I was a
sinner.
And by the way, only a person can
be a sinner.
Only a person can be a sinner.
That's personhood.
No baby is a mistake.
No baby is a sexual accident or a
biological accident.
No baby is a pile of tissue.
And no baby is part of the mother's
body.
It is a person created by God.
So every life is created by God and
created in His image, to bear His image.
Thirdly, every creation is the special object of
God's loving care.
Every creation is the special object of God's
loving care.
Why do you think that they're in there
for nine months?
Why do you think that they're in that
protected place, the most, the safest, it should
be the safest place on the planet, right?
The womb of the mother.
Imagine...imagine criminals invading the womb of the mother
at the will of the mother to kill
the creation of God.
God doesn't even want you to mock the
poor.
God doesn't even want you to be indifferent
toward the weak and the helpless.
Well there are the weakest and the most
helpless.
And Jesus Himself said, "...Permit the little ones
to come to Me and forbid them not,
for theirs is the kingdom of God."
And He gathered them into His arms, it
says, and He blessed them.
You know, back in Exodus chapter 21, there's
a scenario there where you attack a woman
and she's pregnant, it doesn't result in any
harm to her or the child in the
womb.
No punishment.
But, if harm comes to her or the
infant, Exodus 21 says, it's the law of
lextalionis , like for like, an eye for
an eye, tooth for a tooth, a life
for a life.
So according to the law of Exodus, the
killing of an infant was a murder, Exodus
21, 22 to 25.
That's the protected place and they're the special
care of God.
Why is it these people that are pro
-abortion are so worried about what happens to
the birds and the bugs and the animals?
What a twisted compensation.
So what the Scripture teaches us then is
that conception is an act of God, each
person is in the image of God, each
person is the special care of God.
Obviously, on the basis of all of this,
we should treat them with compassion, great care.
A fourth point, God condemns murderers.
God condemns murderers.
Condemnation of murderers is the will of God.
Shall not murder, Genesis 9, 6, whoever sheds
man's blood, by man shall his blood be
shed for in the image of God made
he man.
You know, when Reuben and his brother sold
Joseph into slavery in Genesis 42, as soon
as he was gone, Reuben says this, now
comes the reckoning for his blood.
Remember when Cain killed Abel and the blood
of Abel in the ground cried out to
God for vengeance?
You go through the Old Testament, you'll find
Leviticus, Joshua, Samuel, Kings, Ezekiel, all kinds of
comment about blood guiltiness, that the blood of
those slaughtered cries out for vengeance from God.
And that's the plight that this country's in.
We're just another country like all the rest
that have gone down this same path.
This is blatant paganism at its most rank
level, at its most base level, headed for
judgment and a sea of blood for the
murder of babies, along with all the other
perversions that go with it.
And I don't think that anything shows more
clearly the moral collapse of a society than
the mass murder of little ones in the
wombs of mothers.
It's so horrific, it's hard to even comprehend.
A nation of murderers in the ground cries
out to God.
Well, by the way, the religious coalition for
abortion is made up of the Church of
the Brotherhood and Christian churches, Episcopal churches, Presbyterian
churches, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church,
United Presbyterian Church and the YWCA, etc.
And the judgment of God awaits.
I have two final comments and you need
to hear them.
This is my last point, number five, and
then another comment, number five, overruling grace redeems
murdered infants.
Did you hear that?
Please, come back if you've been somewhere else
mentally.
Overruling grace redeems murdered infants.
That doesn't make it right any more than
Judas would be honored for betraying Christ, even
though Christ won our redemption through His death.
Even though the Romans brought Him to a
cross that redeemed us, and the Jews sent
Him to a cross that saved us, they're
not to be commended.
It's overruling grace that overrules sin.
Overruling grace redeems murdered infants.
I want to show you that, and I
have a book called Safe in the Arms
of God.
If you have questions about this issue, get
the little book, Safe in the Arms of
God.
It's all there.
But I just want you to listen to
this, Psalm 22, the psalmist, "'Yet You are
He who brought me forth from the womb.
You made me trust when upon my mother's
breasts, upon You I was cast from birth.
You have been my God from my mother's
womb.'" What a statement.
The psalmist knows that he belonged to God
when he was in the womb.
You have been my God from my mother's
womb.
That's why when David's baby died in 2
Samuel 12, he said, "'He can't come to
me, but I will go to Him.'" Overruling
grace redeems the little ones, takes them to
glory.
And God in grace redeems those who have
been slaughtered, but holds the killers responsible for
the crime.
Final word, there is forgiveness for that sin.
Like any sin.
You say, but it's so severe, it's murder.
Jesus said this in the Sermon on the
Mount, if you hate somebody, you're as bad
as a murderer.
Just so you don't feel self-righteous because
you haven't killed any babies or anybody else.
If you've hated anyone, you're a murderer in
your heart.
Can murder be forgiven?
Ask the Apostle Paul.
He was a murderer and a blasphemer and
he found grace.
There's forgiveness and restoration completely available in Christ.
Our Father, we thank You that You have
drawn us into this place today to worship
You and to exalt You and glorify Your
name.
That's what we've endeavored to do even in
this very difficult subject.
We know that we can't sweep away the
tsunami with our little broom.
We know that the tsunami is coming and
it's coming with divine power of destruction.
But we can stand up for what is
right.
We can be a salt and light, a
righteous testimony in an unrighteous world.
Help us to do that and help us
to look at these people who advocate all
of this the way Jeremiah looked at his
sinful people, with sadness, not with hatred.
We hate the evil.
We hate the wicked and what they do.
And yet we, like Jeremiah, wish that our
heads were fountains so that we would have
no end to the repository of tears that
we could weep for those who will fall
under judgment.
And we pray, Lord, that You will lift
up Jesus Christ in this nation and all
the false professors, the false people who claim
to know You and Your Son would be
exposed in their own hearts, first of all,
for their own eternal safety.
And that we might know what the true
gospel is and true love for Christ.
We might know what truth is, what righteousness
is.
We don't have any right to ask for
anything for this country, for we have no
promises from You for that.
But we do ask that there might be,
even in this dark, dark hour, a great
moving of the truth and the gospel to
save sinners before the judgment is final.
And make us shining lights in the midst
of the darkness and exalt Your Son, we
pray in His name.