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A Pro Life Primer

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

A Catechism for the Cradle

To have a good Christmas, good New Year. Yeah, great, good to see you. Sorry, I missed you last week. Oh wait, we didn’t have church, did we? Because of that ice that never showed up. I want to thank Greg for doing that announcement thingy he just did. Yeah, 30,000 feet, you know. 30,000 feet, you know. I’m not going to say how he gets that high, but you didn’t get the joke. Okay. Stand up and pray with me if you would for blessing on God’s Word. Lord, we thank You for Your Word. And Jesus, as You said, Your Father’s Word was truth. And Lord Jesus, You prayed that we, Your church, would be sanctified, set apart, and made holy by Your Word. So we ask that as we look into the Word today, we would truly be renewed in our mind. We would be inflamed in our heart. We would be conformed in our will. And prospectively, Lord, that we would walk in obedience and love and service to You. We ask it, Lord Jesus, for Your name’s sake and not our own. We pray in Your name. And God’s people said, amen.

Be seated. As you may know, next weekend is January 21st, which is the Sunday in which we recognize the sanctity of life because in 1973 the Roe v. Wade decision came down, I believe, on January 22nd of that year. So every January, many churches, not all unfortunately, remember the unborn on that third Sunday of the month of January. Here at Liberty we like to spend the entire month talking about what we refer to as life issues. And so this morning I’m going to give you what I’m calling a pro-life primer. Do you know what a primer is? Anybody? New parents should know, especially your homeschooling parents. A primer is a little instruction book, usually, that has questions and then answers. Or it could be called a catechism. Simple questions and simple answers. So I’m calling my sermon a pro-life primer, or a catechism for the cradle. And we’re going to cover some basic things regarding life issues. And what’s different than a typical sermon is we’re going to use a question and answer format. You ready? Yes.

Who Created Humankind?

Number one, some of these you will probably know the answer to. Who created humankind? You sure? Was it random energy and matter, billions of years ago? No? It was God. Who created mankind? God did. Now, I’m actually going to show you a Bible verse on this. Can you believe that? Genesis 1. We’re starting at the very beginning. In Genesis chapter 1, here’s what the Word of God says. In verse 26, it said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” So the word man here is generic for men, women. The generic man. Mankind, humankind, humanity, we call it. Now, for those evangelicals who just can’t stomach believing Genesis literally, let’s go to Matthew 19. You didn’t laugh at that. That was supposed to be funny, but I guess it’s not funny because it’s true. Unfortunately, it’s true. Many evangelicals do not believe in the book of Genesis, especially the early chapters. So in Matthew 19, the context here is marriage, but Jesus says this in Matthew 19. He’s answering them about the grounds for divorce. We’re not talking about divorce today, so don’t worry. He says, and He answered and said to them, verse 4, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’?” Literally quoting Genesis, and then regarding marriage, He goes on and quotes another passage. God, Jesus said, God made them male and female. God created mankind, amen? Now, this is a footnote, this isn’t part of the catechism. As a footnote, one of the wonderful things about what is called postmodernity. That’s where we’re at, right? Which is post-sanity. Where we are at is, you know, the old days, you know a generation ago when I was born, even I know you think it’s really old, but you know, back then things were taken for granted even by non-believers. Your typical non-believer would probably say yeah, I’m a Christian thing because he goes to church twice a year. Believe me, there was a God. Yeah, God made things. Yeah, men and women are supposed to get married, not men and men. You know, just normal stuff. And it was all taken for granted. Now you can take nothing for granted. Absolutely nothing. You can walk up to a man and you don’t even know if he’s a man, right? He might self-identify as a woman or we have many genders now, you know. So nothing can be taken for granted. Now, the bad thing about that is you can’t have a society that has no core values. We’re seeing tribalism, right? We’re seeing the left and the right becoming more and more extreme on the fringes, and those fringes are becoming more and more normalized. So society becomes more and more tribal, which is not a good thing. You have to have a core set of values and beliefs in any given society for that society to hold together. We’re in a very dangerous place culturally, but the beauty of it for the church is that it forces us back to first principles. First principles, we can no longer take anything for granted, which means that we just can’t walk around talking to people about the faith as if people will get it, because they’re being catechized in a different system of belief. And so we have to go back to first principles, which really means we have to go back to the Word of God. And so in the old days, non-Christians, liberal Christians, and conservative Christians all had a huge group of values they agreed on. Well today that’s being shattered. And so we have to know what we believe, but we have to ground what we believe in the Word of God. So to go to Genesis 1 is funny, like we don’t know God created. Well, you could do a random survey today, go out and talk to 20 people, and some of them, maybe a majority will not believe that God created. So we have to go back to the Word of God, the fundamentals, and that’s the value of a primer or a catechism, the fundamentals. The first question, who created mankind? The answer, God. Genesis 1, Matthew 19.

Why Is Human Life Special?

Second question, why is human life or personhood special? The answer is in Genesis 1, as we just saw, because human beings are created in the image of God. Now some people talk about celebrating human sanctity on a humanistic basis. Do you understand what I’m saying? They say humans are special just because they’re humans and humans are just special. To say, I happen to be one, they like being special. And so it’s a circular argument, and it’s a humanistic argument. We do not say human persons are special because they’re so great. Matter of fact, the Bible says that we as humans are fallen. We’re not so great. No, we are special because we are created in the image and likeness of God.

When Does a Human Person Begin?

Number three, in what is called natural generation, when does a human person begin? Anybody, anybody know? Deception, you said? Oh, conception. Let’s look at the Bible. Psalm, we’ll look at several texts. Look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139. So David is talking about God’s omniscience here, His omnipresence, or what’s called His ubiquity. I love that word, it just rolls off the tongue, ubiquity. God is everywhere, God knows all things. But in addition to that, this all-knowing, omnipresent God loves us. So when He keeps His eye on us, it’s an eye of love. It’s an eye of compassion and I have providential concern and provision for us. So he says in verse 6, the knowledge of this, that no matter where he goes, he can’t forget, “It is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.” Now I’m reading the New King James. And then he says this, he says, verse 13, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” So David is talking about the fact that God is involved in this process that goes on inside the womb. Now go to Luke chapter 1, and Luke 1, one of the well-known texts that we look at around the Christmas season. In Luke 1:34, Mary here has just been told by the angel that she’s going to have a baby without knowing a man, meaning without natural human relations. Then Mary said to the angel in 34, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son.” Notice that, conceived, a son. Not she will bring forth a son, but the son is already in her. Do you understand? The son is already in her because the son has been conceived. At the moment of conception, John the Baptist became John the Baptist. “For with God nothing will be impossible,” et cetera, et cetera. Then verse 39, “Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.” This is a footnote. Is it warming here? No, okay, I’m just on fire, okay. And it happened when Elizabeth—okay, entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. So Mary goes to see Elizabeth and the angel had told her that she’s conceived a son. “And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb.” The babe did. Not the blob, the babe. This word brephos means, can mean a baby. A baby, a human baby. The babe leaps in her womb. So Elizabeth gets filled with the Holy Ghost. She says, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Going to Mary. “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Notice Mary is called a mother before the baby is born. You following this? She’s a mother even though Jesus wasn’t born yet. When does a man become a father and a woman become a mother? At the moment of conception. But this takes the cake. For indeed, verse 44, “For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.” Guess what we’re learning from science, the God of science, that indeed babies can feel emotions. Unborn babies feel emotions. Amazing. Amazing that thousands of years ago the Word of God was right all along. What a coincidence. God understands science. Who would have thunk it?

May We Destroy Innocent Human Life?

Question number four, is it ever permitted to destroy or kill an innocent human person? Answer, no. All human life is protected by the commandment of God. Exodus 20:13, which is the sixth commandment, says thou shalt not murder. Some of these versions may say, the older version said thou shalt not kill, but the word kill, there is the word for murder. There are different words in the Bible for kill, and it’s the word for murder. Thou shalt not murder. Now if the unborn is a babe, is a brephos, is a person because it’s really a baby, then to kill that baby would be murder, right? So human life is protected by the commandment of God. Exodus 20:13, let’s look at this, which is, to see it with your own eyes in the Word of God. Exodus 20:13, the sixth commandment in verse 13 it says, “You shall not murder.” Now in Exodus 21 verse 12, “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.” Leviticus 19. That’s right after Exodus, Leviticus 19. Verse 17, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” If we go to, well let’s go there, let’s go to Matthew chapter 5. Jesus, our Lord Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 5. Verse 21, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” So, in other words, He’s endorsing the Old Testament, but He’s clarifying that not only the act of murder, but the intent, the spirit, the anger behind it is also sinful. So He’s endorsing what we read in the Old Testament regarding the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill.

The Role of Civil Government

Question number five, what is the role of civil government pertaining to life issues? Answer, the civil government is ordained by God to protect law-abiding persons by punishing evil and rewarding good. Punishing evil and rewarding good. Romans 13, if you’d like to turn there. Paul says this, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s deacon”—that’s the little translation, deacon—“he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister,” or deacon, “an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” So the civil magistrate is ordained by God to protect the good, reward the good, and to punish the evil. Clearly, murder is evil. Amen? So the civil role has legitimate government in life issues.

Roe v. Wade

Question number six. Why then, in light of all that we’ve learned, is abortion legal in the United States? And the answer is because of the Supreme Court ruling known as Roe v. Wade, which was passed in 1973. Question number seven. How did Roe v. Wade legalize abortion? By declaring, contrary to biblical and scientific evidence, number one, that we do not know when human life begins, and number two, that the Constitution guarantees a right to abortion via the right to privacy. Question number eight, what is wrong with Roe v. Wade? Number one, it is contrary to both biblical and scientific evidence regarding the beginning of life. Now for those who do not accept the teaching of Scripture, it doesn’t matter if Scripture teaches life begins at conception, it’s irrelevant to them. But the reality is science is unequivocal on this matter. Unequivocal. And if you read the Roe v. Wade decision, which I would encourage you to read, it’s not that long, you can download it. It’s amazing the mental gymnastics necessary to not admit the obvious. We know from elementary biology books that when the egg and the sperm meet, there is a new entity with its own unique DNA. We know this. It’s incontrovertible. And so what Roe v. Wade tried to do is screw around that by talking about, yeah, well, it’s human life, but is it a human person? This is like saying, okay, I have an apple tree and it’s producing apples, but maybe if I wait long enough or under different circumstances, it might produce something else. An apple tree will never produce an orange. And if you have an apple seed and you put it in the ground with the right conditions, what will that apple seed produce? Another apple tree and another bunch of apples and more apple seeds. It will never produce an orange. Two human male and female adults that have relations will always produce a human being. Never produced anything else. It’s never happened and it never will happen. It’s a human person. It’s not a human thing. It’s not just a human life. It is a human person. You can’t speak of human life apart from personhood in this context. It’s not possible. There is no such thing. What do you have inside you? I have human life. It’s not a person but it’s a human life. Human life is an abstraction. A human person is the reality that embodies that life. Amen. So, Roe went way out of its way to avoid the obvious and I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of cited quotes from textbooks, but I could. It’s incontrovertible. The second problem with Roe is there is no right in the Constitution. There is no right anywhere in the universe to kill innocent persons. It does not exist. It’s certainly not in the Constitution. But theoretically, it doesn’t exist because God has commanded that it never be. And so if a civil government claims that something is right, but it’s contrary to the Word of God, is it right? Yeah, it’s not, because civil government doesn’t define right and wrong. It applies right and wrong as revealed in the Word of God. And so the fact that a court, nine people, declared that there is a right to kill doesn’t make it right. We will never have that right because as we saw all persons are created in the image of God and His Word says thou shalt not murder.

What the Historic Church Has Said

Number nine, couple more, okay. What has the historic church said on the issue of abortion? Answer. Until the 20th century, the historic church has universally and unanimously condemned abortion. I will give you some quotes on that. Here’s a quote from the Didache, which is the earliest document we have that’s uninspired. And after the apostolic writings, this is the earliest document, the earliest writing, Christian writing that we have. And it says this, the way of life is this, thou shalt love first the Lord thy Creator, and secondly thy neighbor as thyself, thou shalt do nothing to any man that thou wouldst not wish to be done to thyself. Here it acknowledges God as the Creator of creation, right, and what we call the Golden Rule. Then it goes on to say this, the second commandment in the teaching means commit no murder, adultery, sodomy, fornication, or theft. Practice no magic, sorcery, abortion, or infanticide. [audio unclear] put together, [audio unclear] I [audio unclear] I mean, it’s astounding the bloodshed of the 20th century. There’s nothing to compare. More people have died in the 20th century than all previous history. And it was in the 20th century that the church abandoned the Word of God and secularism became ascendant. And these crimes against humanity were often done in the name of humanity. Which is why the Word of God says in Proverbs, the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The tender mercies are cruel. In the name of doing good, they end up doing evil. In the name of humanity, they destroy actual human beings. The church has always stood against bloodshed, whether of the born or the unborn, until the 20th century. And that’s because what happened then was the church gave in regarding the authority of the Bible. You’ve heard me say this over and over and over because we are seeing a phenomenal apostasy. You cannot assume anymore that if a church says Christian, or if it says evangelical, that it will be a Bible-believing church. I remember talking to someone who, years ago, came to this church, and when they moved to the community, they were looking at different churches, and there was one that they liked, and they got on the website, and they read their statement of faith, and said, the Bible is God’s Word. So then they had set up an appointment with the pastor to talk about the church. And in the conversation, what became apparent was that in fact, although the statement of faith said, the Bible is the Word of God, that when you begin to talk to the pastor, he did not believe the Bible was the Word of God. Or it was the Word of God, but not totally. Or it was the Word of God, but there were some mistakes in it. Do you know what I’m saying? So it’s the Word of God, but. Well, that but is where all forms of heresy move in. When you begin to make exceptions to the authority and an answer to the Word of God, then all sorts of evil creeps in the church and also therefore, into our society. And as I said in my opening, because we’re living in a time which has abandoned, not only revelation, but has abandoned reason, we are forced back to first principles, which means we have to go to God. And everyone is going to be challenged at some time in our life, do I really believe that this is the Word of God? Do I really believe it to be true in its entirety? And will I, will I count the cost of what’s involved in that belief? Will I count the cost?

Does the Bible Refer to Abortion?

Last question. Does the Bible directly refer to abortion? And I read a long article a while back where this Christian, you know those kinds of Christians, you know, I remember that, was arguing for the pro-abortion position. And as you know that there are abortionists now who proudly claim that they are Christians and they are aborting children in the name of Jesus and in the name of compassion. They’re clearly reading a different Bible than I have. In any case, the point is that the argument in the article is that, you know, why are Christians making such a big deal about abortion when the Bible never refers to it? And we’ve heard the same argument regarding gay marriage. They’ll say, well, if you throw out the Old Testament because that’s old, and you just look at the New, only a couple Bible verses, and we can work with those and we can massage them and come out where it’s not really saying what the church has for 2,000 years always believed. Now here’s the rub, and this is really important when you read your Bible, okay? The Bible speaks by what it says, and the Bible speaks by what it does not say. Think, how does it do that? Because you have to read the Bible in its context, okay, and when you’re reading a particular passage you have to read, especially in the Old Testament, but even often in the New, there’s all kinds of cultural assumptions and things going on that surround the statement, okay. So especially when you read Proverbs, there’s the blessing, the blessing of the man with all these children and this and that. There’s all kinds of assumptions that are going on that you have to keep in, or otherwise things will not make sense oftentimes, okay? So Jesus was not in the habit of addressing things that weren’t important to the people He was talking to, okay? He dealt with the sins that were directly in front of Him, do you get what I’m saying? Which is part of why He got crucified. People didn’t like the fact that when He spoke, He spoke truth to them. And it’s easy to get in a pulpit and denounce the sins of those people out there, right? And everybody applauds. But what do you do when you talk about the sins sitting in the pew in front of you? You don’t get applause. You get silence. Or stones. You know Tony Evans, the preacher on the radio. I don’t know if I’ll tell you this, if you ever turn him on when you’re in the car, he’s a black preacher and he’s got a predominantly African American congregation and they know how to worship and preach, right? And so when he, you know, he preaches fire and then he’s like, amen brother, preach it brother, testify brother, you know, always. I mean, you hear on the radio, I mean, it’s coming through all the time. So one time I turned him on in the car and he’s commenting on the text in Ephesians where it says, wives submit to your husbands. Dead silence. Dead silence. Well, and this is not a dig on African-Americans, okay, I am not racist. But anybody who knows the American culture, the black community, matriarchy is a problem. Everybody knows this, and he addressed the sin in front of him, and they weren’t saying preach it. Jesus, that’s what Jesus did. He didn’t preach about the sin down the street, He preached about the people in front of Him. So Jesus wasn’t specifically addressing abortion. Why? Notice the Lord is saying, why? Because this was not a problem in the Jewish community. When you read the Scripture, the regard for children, the love for children in the Jewish community, in the Jewish Scripture is astounding. To be a father or to be a mother, to have many children, this was a profound blessing from God. This was the ethos of the culture. They were not like the Romans who were killing their children. So Jesus wasn’t addressing that. However, in principle, Jesus did address it. And this is another thing about the Bible. The Bible doesn’t have to address everything specifically to deal with it in principle. Do you understand? If it addressed everything specifically, your Bible would be about ten times thicker, right? But it deals with things in principle and we, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, should have the common sense to be able to apply the principle. So Jesus endorsed the Old Testament which says thou shalt not murder. Well once we have the knowledge that the unborn is a child, a person, then you apply the principle, right? It’s not complicated. So He doesn’t have to address everything specifically, although He addresses everything in principle.

The other thing is this, and this might blow your mind. I believe that Scripture does address abortion in a couple texts, which have often been overlooked. For example, let’s go to Galatians. We’ll do this real quick and we have to close. Y’all in Galatians yet? How did you get there so fast? I’m not even there yet. Galatians 5 verse 16, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are:” my version says adultery, although probably missing from some of your translations, “fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like.” Man, that’s a bad list. Sounds like a frat party, doesn’t it? For real. In verse 20, the second word, the word after idolatry in my version, sorcery, right? Your version may be a little different. It’s the word pharmakeia. This is where we get the word pharmacy. Now the reason translators have often translated sorcery is because pharmakeia in this culture was often associated with magic or sorcery, right? But it was also associated with false worship, so drugs were taken to enhance one’s religious experience. Right? People are doing that now, they’re smoking pot and going to Bible study and saying it helps them in their relation with God. But the word pharma- [audio unclear] And it’s not just magic, it’s poison potions. It’s illicit drugs that were used both for false worship, but they were also used to induce abortions. Now look at this passage. This will really blow your mind. Acts 15. Now, Acts 15 is the first church council. This is where the church came together to decide how we’re going to deal with the conflict, the Jew-Gentile conflict going on in the church. Because there were believing Pharisees and believing Jews who wanted the Gentiles to adopt the entire Mosaic law. Whereas in this time, the law doesn’t save them, only Jesus saved them, amen. But if you want to observe it, you can observe it. Just understand, it’s not meritorious, it doesn’t save you. But what about the Gentiles? They didn’t have the law, they don’t have any of this. They have to do it now that they’re believing in the Jewish Messiah. And the church’s answer is this. Verse 28, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” Now, there’s been a lot of ink spilled by commentators and theologians about blood, in my version it says blood and from things strangled. Yours may read differently, I think the ESV says the same thing. That phrase from things strangled actually is a word which means smothered, a word that was used for smothering a newborn child to kill the child. Now you say, well that technically isn’t an abortion because it happened after the birth. But in ancient times, the perils of an internal abortion were so great, many women died when they took these potions, these poisons, that basically it’s the same thing. As soon as the child’s born, the child was drowned or smothered. So I’m convinced after my study, if this is not talking about things strangled, meaning animals strangled, I think it means the killing of children. But even if there was no direct reference, you have to remember, as I said before, the principle is what applies. And the Scripture tells us thou shalt not kill. And we know from the Word, and even from modern science, that the unborn are truly persons.

Forgiveness and Hope in Christ

Let’s stand and pray together. As we, before we pray, I just want to say this, there was no application in my sermon today. The application will be coming forth over the next couple of weeks as we continue to talk about life issues. And I want to say this as we close. Many pulpits are silent on this issue. Unfortunately, still, even though it’s been 43 years that abortion has been legal, many pulpits are still silent. And there’s two reasons for it. One is many pastors don’t want to offend people. And my response to that is, if you don’t want to offend people, get out of the ministry. You should not be behind a pulpit. Not because you should be offensive, but because the Word of God, Jesus said, is a rock. And you either fall upon it and you are broken or it falls on you and you are crushed. So which will it be? It’s inevitable that the Word will offend us at times because it is a hammer and it is a fire. But there’s another reason, that is because many pulpits are concerned that there are women in their congregations that have had abortions. And if the statistics are true, they probably are. Because at least half the women that come into abortion clinics acknowledge or profess to be Christians. One stat I read was as high as 68%. I mean, professing Christians are aborting their children as much as or more than the unbelieving world. And therefore, the odds are in any given congregation, there will be women in the congregation that have had an abortion. And the congregations will feel more hurt, it will hit more guilt and cause more damage to them to preach on this than to just ignore it. My answer to that is, your silence consigns them to guilt. Because by not talking about the issue, you’re not offering them the hope and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. To say this sin is so great that I cannot even utter it in the pulpit. To say that to a woman who’s had an abortion, what does that communicate to her? You have done the unspeakable, literally. But that’s not what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that any sin and every sin can be forgiven and cleansed by the Son of God Himself, Jesus. And as grievous as sexual immorality is, as grievous as abortion may be, Jesus Christ forgives and cleanses those who repent and believe. And I have seen women entrapped in the guilt and shame of their abortion. And I’ve seen those same women, when they’ve come out of the shadow, I have seen them freed and transformed. But they were transformed because I was willing to address it and they were willing to address it. So today was not about shaming women, or men, or anyone. Today is about honoring the personhood of all. And the best way you can honor the child that you perhaps aborted is for you to come to Jesus Christ. And you may be a Christian, and this is something that happened many years ago in your life, you became a believer but you never dealt with it. I don’t know your story. But I know Jesus Christ is there for you to heal you and to free you no matter what is in your past, no matter what. Jesus loves the little children. I could give a whole sermon on that, and maybe I will. He loves the little children. He loves the unborn. He loves you. No matter what you’ve done, if you repent and believe, if you repent, ask Christ to forgive you and cleanse you. He will do so. He will do so. Jesus Christ ultimately is the answer to all the damage that has been done by abortion. Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank You for Your death on the cross. And I thank You, Lord, that You were willing to come as an embryo, that You went through all the human stages that we all go through, conception to maturity, life and death, so that You might be the perfect High Priest, the perfect Savior. And I pray, Lord, that we would, we as Your people, the professing Christian community, would embrace Your teaching, embrace Your Word, embrace the dignity of human life because all are created in Your image. I do pray for any those here directly or even indirectly affected by an abortion. Jesus, I ask that they might turn their hearts to You for forgiveness and healing. I pray, Lord, that they would not stay in the shadows, they would not hide in their grief, that they would not be bound by their silent shame, but rather, Lord Jesus, they would come to You knowing that You are a merciful and gracious High Priest, that You will forgive, but better yet You will cleanse. We just thank You, Jesus, that there is always hope in You. We pray all these things in Your holy name, as God’s people said, amen.