Exposed - The Darkness of Abortion
We have an uneasy subject to talk about today. Gallup polls indicate that nothing is more of a “hot button” than the issue of abortion. It seems everybody has a strong opinion about it. Many would say that is reason alone not to ever talk about it from the pulpit, I say that is not a reason to neglect it, but rather, it is a reason to search God’s word concerning it, and prayerfully consider if our opinion is in conformity with God’s truth. This morning is a celebration of life and if life is worth celebrating, it is also worth defending, and defend it we must. We must as the writer of Proverbs 24:11 says, “rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.”
My aim, my goal, my purpose this morning is to give to you a call to action against the open murder of innocent unborn children. I will aim to do this by first making a case for a biblical view of life, by second exposing you to some of the deeds of darkness done in the name of abortion, and by third presenting to you a number of ways you can be personally involved to help fight against it. Now is not the time of indifference and apathy, rather, we must “redeem the time, bringing all things into conformity to Christ.”
I do not do any of this with an attitude of triumphalism or superiority, but with a spirit of love, compassion, and concern. If at times I may get quite emotional or excited about what I am saying it is because lives are in the balance. There is much at stake. I do not take kindly to the senseless brutal murder done to the most helpless and powerless persons in the world so you will excuse me if at times I weep or if at times I am angry or if at times I am at a loss for words at such blatant disregard for the awesome worth of human life!
In talking about abortion at church, one may say I am preaching to the choir or that this message is for the unchurched who are having abortions. First, I only wish that were true. In fact, 43% of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 27% identify themselves as Catholic. So 2/3 of America’s abortions are obtained by those with a religious affiliation. 18% of all U.S. abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. That’s nearly a quarter-million abortions each year in Bible-believing churches. As Randy Alcorn says it, “the abortion issue isn’t about the church needing to speak to the world. It’s about the church needing to speak to itself first, and then to the world.” Many have rightly stated that it is foolish to think that abortion can be eliminated from America before abortion is eliminated from the church. They are right. What is the solution? For many in the church, the solution is simply the gospel. They need to be saved for the first time and bring their lives into submission to Christ. For those who are saved but choose abortion anyway, they need a bigger view of God, a smaller view of man, and a greater understanding of what abortion is. These men and women are choosing abortion, which compounds their guilt before the sovereign Judge, so as to conceal their guilt before other people. This is an absurdity. It is not wisdom to fear men more than God. It is not wisdom to fear those who can only kill the body instead of the One who can destroy both body and soul for all eternity (Matthew 10:28).
I need to be careful in how I present this case against abortion also for I do not want to come across this morning as if I am only pleading for morality. My goal, aim, or purpose is not for us to be better moral people because of this message. Morality is not our hope nor is it our intended goal, rather Jesus Christ is. He is our only hope and our only intended goal. I am not preaching or praying for moral people! I am preaching and praying for more people who are impassioned about the glory and supremacy of Christ in all things, especially life itself, (because in Christ alone we have new and eternal life) and who will get off their easy chairs and take up their cross and follow hard after Christ and truly love their neighbor as themselves. Who will stand up and “look after orphans and widows in their distress…” We are made by/created by and serve a big God and a mighty Savior and the more people who come to know this truth and love this truth and are willing to sacrifice themselves for this truth the better.
Ephesians 5:11 – “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”
In verse 11 we are given two commands. One is negative and one is positive. The negative command is straightforward, “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” This is only a natural thing to expect from one who has been rescued by Jesus from the dominion of sin and darkness. You are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, live like it! Be holy! Bear the fruit of the Spirit, do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. As it says in Ephesians 5:8 – “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” Light and darkness are completely incompatible so it is completely inappropriate to live in the light and then to adopt the lifestyle of those who are still in darkness.
So the first command from Paul for believers is to “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” This is half the battle. The second command is the positive counterpart, “but rather expose them.” Not only are we to “have nothing to do with the deeds of darkness” but we are to “expose” such deeds of darkness. It is not enough to simply refrain from deeds of darkness, we must expose deeds of darkness. This implies action. Our lives must expose the deeds of darkness. One such deed of darkness that we must be ever aware of and seek to expose is the dark world of abortion. Don’t deceive yourself. Just because it is done behind sterile clinical doors, it is a messy dark procedure. It is indeed a shameful deed, a gruesome and destructive deed and it must be exposed for the horror it is – the murder of helpless children.
The Bible’s Case for Unborn Children
Make no mistake about it. The unborn child, whether just conceived or 9 weeks old or 9 months old is a person. The child is not just a blob of tissue, the child is not just another extension of the woman like another arm or leg, the child is a precious, unique person formed by the loving hands of God.
There are a number of examples where Scripture uses the exact same words to describe babies before birth and babies after birth.
In Genesis 25:22 we read, "The children struggled together within her," speaking of the twins in Rebekah's womb. The word children is the ordinary word used for children (or sons) outside the womb. Luke 1:41 tells us that "when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb". This is the same word for babe (brephos) that is used in Luke 2:12 and 16 for the baby Jesus and in Luke 18:15 for infants. Even more significant than the word usage is the description of what this unborn child did. John the Baptist, still in the womb, leapt for joy in recognition of the presence of Christ, who was also still in the womb. This is an in-utero prophecy of the arrival of Christ, and that is an astounding reality.
There is also testimony in the Bible of biblical authors describing themselves in the womb in very personal terms.
In Psalm 51:5, David refers to himself in the womb as "I" and "me". It was David in the womb of his mother, it wasn't an it or a thing or a blob of tissue. It wasn't a "pre-David". Isaiah speaks the same way in Isaiah 49:1. He says, "The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me." God's call upon Isaiah came before he was born. When the prophet was in the womb of his mother, God called him. Jeremiah 1:5 says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." Before Jeremiah was even formed, God knew him. His consecration came before birth, not after. Luke 1:15 states that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit "while yet in his mother's womb". There is no biblical evidence of "non-persons" being filled with the Holy Spirit, and John the Baptist was, before he was born. Finally in Galatians 1:15, Paul says that God "set [him] apart even from [his] mother's womb". God's calling comes before birth, and that is of no small significance in the abortion debate.
Job graphically described the way God created him before he was born (Job 10:8-12). The person in the womb was not something that might become Job, but someone who was Job, simply a younger smaller version of the same man. To Isaiah God said, "This is what the LORD says: he who made you, who formed you in the womb" (Isaiah 44:2). Isaiah was not just a "potential person" but an actual person while in his mother's womb.
Psalm 139:13-16 paints a graphic picture of the intimate involvement of God with a preborn person. God created David's "inmost being," his soul, not at birth but before birth. David says to his Creator, "You knit me together in my mother's womb." Each person, regardless of his parentage or handicap, has been personally knitted together by God in the womb. All the days of his life have been planned out by God before any have taken place (Psalm 139:16).
Pastor John Piper says it this way in a January, 1997 sermon, "Abortion is evil because what is happening in the womb is the unique person-forming work of God, and therefore abortion is an assault on the Creator-rights of the King of the Universe to bring eternal persons into existence." In a sermon delivered the following year, he goes on to say, "to attack the human being in the womb and kill him or her is to assault God. God is making the child. God is weaving a unique image of his divine glory with the purpose of imaging forth that glory in the world. Killing the child is an attack on God's glory and is treason against the Ruler of the universe."
The unborn are not regarded impersonally in the Bible. They are regarded as people, they are regarded with honor, and any honest reading of the Bible should make it abundantly clear what God's view of abortion is.
Our Lives are of Immense Worth because we are created in the image of an Immense God.
The Bible teaches human beings are made in the image of God, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). No higher honor could have been given to man than the privilege of being an image of the God who made him. Not just Adam and Eve, but each individual since has been personally created by God, “have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us” (Mal. 2:10)? Personhood is never measured by age, stage of development, or mental, physical, or social skills. Personhood is measured by the fact you are created in the image of your father, God Almighty – one’s life has immeasurable value and worth because an immeasurable God has stamped you in his image. Therefore, when one kills a helpless unborn child, not only does he take that person’s life, but he hurts God himself – the God who was reflected in the individual. To touch the image of God is to touch God himself; to kill the image of God is to do violence to God himself.
Exposing Deeds of Darkness
1. To expose the fact that in the US alone, abortion kills nearly 4,000 helpless human beings every single day. Nearly 25,000 a week, 109,000 a month, 1.3 million a year. To put that in perspective, in 2002 1,082 American children died from American assault. 2, 347 American children died from a car accident. 32, 867 American children died from disease. 1, 310, 000 American children died from legal abortion. Or in another way, on September 11, 2001 when the terrorists flew their planes into the world trade center buildings, nearly 3,000 people died and we were in shock and horror. Compare that to the 4,000 a day who are killed every single day mostly unnoticed. Day after day, week after week, year after year, helpless unborn children are quietly destroyed behind sterile clinic doors, and so few seem to care.
2. To expose the fact that since 1973, when Abortion was made legal in the Roe vs. Wade case, over 40million children have lost their lives to abortion leaving untold millions of women to silently suffer the pain and regret of what was supposed to be a simple “choice.”
3. To expose the fact that as surprising as this may be to some people, there is no debate within the medical community as to when life begins. Life begins at conception. Therefore, every “successful” abortion ends the life of a living human being.
In 1981, a US Senate judiciary subcommittee received the following testimony from a collection of medical experts:
Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, states, "I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life." Speaking of the early stages of a child's development in the womb, Professor Bongioanni says, "I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty is not a human being. This is human life at every stage."
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes in Paris, states, "after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being." He says this "is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth of Harvard University Medical School argues, "It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception."
Every indication is that the moment of each person's creation is the moment of his conception. Before that moment the individual (with his unique DNA) did not exist, and from that moment he does.
It’s an indisputable fact that each and every surgical abortion in America stops a beating heart and stops already measurable brain waves. What do we call it when a person has a heartbeat or brain waves? Death. What do we call it when there is a heartbeat and there are brain waves? Life. Every abortion ends a human life.
4. To expose that fact • In 2005, 40,600 women obtained abortions in Michigan, producing a rate of 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Some of these women were from other states, and some Michigan residents had abortions in other states, so this rate may not reflect the abortion rate of state residents. The rate declined 10% since 2000, when it was 21.6 abortions per 1,000 women 15-44. Abortions in Michigan represent 3.4 of all abortions in the United States. • In Michigan, 197,900 of the 2,094,231 women of reproductive age became pregnant in 2005. 65% of these pregnancies resulted in live births and 21% in induced abortions.
5. To expose the fact that the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), the research arm of Planned Parenthood, estimates that there were 1.31 million abortions performed in the U.S. in the year 2000. Of the 1.31 million annual abortions, approximately 90% (1.18 million) are performed during the first trimester. The other 10% (131,000) are performed during the second and third trimester. The National Coalition of Abortion Providers tells us that the average 1st trimester abortion costs between $350-$650. The Women's Medical Center estimates that a 2nd trimester abortion costs up to $3000 (with the price increasing the further along the pregnancy goes). If we take a $500 average for 1st trimester abortions and use a $3000 average for 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions, here's what we get: $590 million are spent each year on first trimester abortions and $393 million are spent on late term abortions. That means that each year in the U.S., the abortion industry brings in approximately $983 million through their abortion services alone. If you add in the $273 million that Planned Parenthood (America's largest abortion provider) receives annually in government grants and contracts, the annual dollar amount moves well past 1 billion.
Those who defend abortion, arguing that it is good and necessary for a healthy society, are defending an institution which is making them very wealthy. On the flip side, those who defend unborn life, arguing that abortion is an act of violence against an innocent human being, do so at great financial cost. There is no pay-off on the pro-life side. All the efforts to educate people about the reality of abortion consume large amounts of money, and there is no billion dollar product to refill the coffer. Think about it. Those who support abortion the most are growing rich off its continued availability while those who oppose abortion the most are losing money for their efforts. Who, then, is more likely to be honest and forthright about the issue at hand? Who is more likely to be motivated by principle and who is more likely to be motivated by profit?
These are significant considerations.
6. To expose the fact of Inconsistencies Everywhere – Randy Alcorn makes these observations.
At the medical University of South Carolina, if a pregnant woman’s urine test indicates Cocaine usage, she can be arrested for distributing drugs to a minor. Similarly, in Illinois, a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for “delivering a controlled substance to a minor.” This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights, deserving protection even from his mother. However, that same woman who’s prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is free to abort that same child. In America today, it’s illegal to harm your preborn child, but it’s perfectly legal to kill him.
Many states have passed fetal homicide laws, declaring it murder for anyone but the mother to deliberately take the life of a preborn child. These laws are explicit affirmations that the child is a human being. IN 2004 congress passed the unborn victims of violence act, which states that someone who intentionally kills or attempts to kill the unborn child…be punished…for intentionally or attempting to kill a human being. Consider the bizarre implications of this double standard. If a woman is scheduled to get an abortion, but on her way to the abortion clinic her baby is killed in-utero, the baby’s killer will be prosecuted for murder. But if this murder doesn’t occur, an hour later the doctor will be paid to perform a legal procedure killing exactly the same child in a way that is more gruesome. To the child, what’s the difference who kills her?
What can you do?
Here begins the responsibility of knowledge.
First, resist the notion that “I’m just one person, we’re just one small church, we can’t make a difference.” You can’t eliminate need, but you can be used of God to meet needs in exciting ways. How do you help millions of needy people? One at a time.
Second, take a baby bottle today and fill it with all the money you can muster to help support Baptist’s For Life Pregnancy Care Centers. They have PCC’s in Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania , Wisconsin, and Columbia, Ecuador, India, Romania, Peru and Uganda. These PCC”s serve the entire community, regardless of race, creed, nationality, age or marital status. All services are confidential. Whenever possible, an attempt is made to reach the fathers and the families involved. All PCC services are free, including pregnancy testing, education on pregnancy, abortion and abortion alternatives; referrals for medical care, social services, legal aid, professional counseling, adoption, foster care, temporary housing with Christian families; clothing and furnishings for mothers and baby; classes in childbirth and parenting; post-abortion counseling; and on-going friendship. Additionally, every attempt is made at these centers to present the gospel with care and sensitivity.
Third, open your home. Help a pregnant girl or welcome an “unwanted” child for foster care or adoption.
Fourth, be an initiator. If there’s not a pro-life ministry nearby, consider starting one. Build a coalition. Develop a beautiful memorial to the unborn, perhaps in the form of a rose garden on our church property or in our community.
Fifth, know the facts!
Sixth, pray daily for pro-life ministries, churches, church leaders, mothers, and babies. If the darkness of child-killing is to be overcome with the light of truth and compassion, it will require spiritual warfare, fought with humble and persistent prayer.
Seventh, if you know someone who has suffered the trauma of abortion, share with them the blessed truth that no one understands suffering like Jesus Christ, who is full of grace and truth. What people need is not hate or distance or indifference, they need compassion, love, and understanding.
Ask yourself, five minutes after I die, what will I wish I would have given on behalf of the helpless while I still had the chance? Why not spend the rest of your life closing the gap between what we’ll wish we would have given and what we are giving!
54 Babies
Standing for Life by George F. Will
CHINO HILLS, Calif.: Where Route 71 crosses over Payton Drive, at the bottom of the steeply sloping embankment, two boys, who were playing nearby, found the boxes. The boys bicycled home and said they had found boxes of "babies."
Do not be impatient with the imprecision of their language. They have not read the opposite Supreme Court opinions. So when they stumbled on the boxes stuffed with 54 fetuses, which looked a lot like babies, they jumped to conclusions. Besides, young boys are apt to believe their eyes rather than the Supreme Court.
The first count came to a lot less than 54. Forgive the counters' imprecision. Many fetuses had been dismembered-hands, arms, legs, heads jumbled together-by the abortionist's vigor. An accurate count required a lot of sorting out.
The fetuses had been dumped here, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, on March 14, 1997, by a trucker who may not have known what the Los Angeles abortion clinic had hired him to dispose of. He later served 71 days in jail for the improper disposal of medical waste. Society must be strict about its important standards.
What local authorities dealt with as a problem of solid waste disposal struck a few local residents as rather more troubling than that. They started talking to each other, and one thing led to another, and to the formation of Cradles of Love, which had the modest purpose of providing a burial for the 54 babies.
The members of Cradles of Love-just a few normal walking-around middle-class Americans-called them babies, and still do. These people are opposed to abortion, in spite of the Supreme Court's assurance in 1973 that abortions end only "potential life." (Twenty-five years later the Supreme Court has not yet explained how a life that is merely "potential" can be ended.)
Some will say the members of Cradles of Love, who are churchgoers, have been unduly influenced by theology. Or perhaps the real culprit is biology. It teaches that after the DNA of the sperm fuse with those of the ovum a new and unique DNA complex is formed that directs the growth of the organism. It soon is called a fetus, which takes in nourishment and converts it to energy through its own distinct, unique organic functioning, and very soon it looks a lot like a baby.
Anyway, theology or biology or maybe their eyes told the members of Cradles of Love that there were some babies in need of burials. So they asked the coroner to give them the fetuses. Then the American Civil Liberties Union was heard from.
It professed itself scandalized by this threat to . . . what? The ACLU frequently works itself into lathers of anxiety about threats to the separation of church and state. It is difficult, however, to identify any person whose civil liberties were going to be menaced if the fetuses were (these are the ACLU's words) "released to the church groups for the express purpose of holding religious services." The ACLU said it opposed "facilitation" of services by a public official.
The ACLU's attack on the constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion failed to intimidate, and in October the babies were buried in a plot provided at no charge by a cemetery in nearby Riverside.
Each baby was given a name by a participating church group. Each name was engraved on a brass plate that was affixed to each of the 54 small, white, wooden caskets made, at no charge, by a volunteer who took three days off from work to do it. Fifty clergy and four persons active in the right-to-life movement carried the caskets. Each baby's name is inscribed on a large headstone, also provided at no charge. Fifty-four doves, provided at no charge by the cemetery, were released at the services.
Brothers and Sister in Christ, this is my urgent plea to you, don’t just avoid the works of darkness, expose them. This is not avoidance. This is action. This is not indifference. This is costly. Refuse passivity and withdrawal. Knowledge is responsibility. Get up and do something about it! Live lives of compassion, grace, and truth.