Extinguishing All of Satan’s Flaming Arrows

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Ephesians 6:10-18. The main subject of the sermon is how we extinguish Satan’s attempts to destroy God’s image.

– SERMON TRANSCRIPT  –

 So 2 Corinthians:6, I’m preaching from Ephesians 6, but this phrase has been much in my mind this week in reference to the sanctity of human life. Paul talked about, being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Isn’t that a powerful phrase? Just a few words. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Notice that he says, always rejoicing, but he doesn’t say that, in front of sorrowful, so I could add the phrase… Sometimes sorrowful, but always rejoicing. When it comes to abortion, we should be sorrowful. The grief is deep and profound.

The tragedy is deeper and more profound than we can possibly imagine, and so we should be sorrowful, but we should be always rejoicing. And the reason I say that is because I believe with all my heart, the gospel is more powerful than the Spirit of abortion. I believe that grace is more powerful than all of our sins. And when it comes to this particular topic, I think it’s easy to make the case that all of us feel the need for cleansing and forgiveness. We all feel guilty when it comes to this. Sometimes a guilt is deep and profound because you have actually gotten an abortion or you were a man and you pressured a woman to get an abortion, and you don’t know what to do with that guilt. Well, here’s what to do with it. Run to the cross of Jesus Christ, that’s what you should do with it. Because the grace of God is infinitely sufficient for all of our sins, and so my desire is the conviction of that sin would drive you to Christ and to the cross, so be convicted. Grieve over it. Feel the weight of it. Hate it. But flee to Christ.

And then for those of us that personally have never been directly involved in abortion, we still feel guilty because this is a national scandal, really a moral scandal. An ethical scandal. And the church, we’re supposed to be the salt of the Earth. We’re supposed to be a city on a hill. We’re supposed to be a light shining in a dark place. And we have plenty of guilt to go around, frequently the sins of omission, things we feel we should have done. We don’t pray enough, we’re not active enough, we don’t give enough money, we’ve missed out on opportunities to persuade co-workers. People have said things we don’t agree with, but we’ve remained silent out of fear. So again, for all of you, I want to say there’s ample grace at the cross.

So today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, we do this every year, it’s an annual reminder of the sacredness of human life. That’s what sanctity means. That’s why we do it, we remind ourselves that human beings are created uniquely in the image of God. Everyone of us are in the image of God, and that’s sacred. It’s set apart as special, and we need that reminder because Satan is assaulting the image of God all the time. Satan hates God and he will assault the image of God. It’s been a strategy from the very beginning. We also have Sanctity of Human Life Sunday every year, secondly, so that we can remember and have re-established in our hearts the blessing the children are. One of the great tragedies of this scourge of abortion is that there’s been an assault on this basic concept that children are a blessing, that in our lifetime, we’ve had more of a pressure to consider children as a burden or a curse or something that is unwanted, unplanned, all of that kind of language. Planned Parenthood slogan, “every child, a wanted child.” Who are we to want, or not to want? But it really assaults the concept that children are a blessing. In Genesis 1:28, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the world.’”

He did the same thing in Genesis:9, with Noah, after the flood. He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth.” Deuteronomy 7, as they’re about to enter the Promised Land, Moses said, “God will love you and bless you and multiply you.” Deuteronomy 28:4, “the fruit of your womb will be blessed.” Psalm 113:9, “he settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children.” Praise the Lord. Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Consistently, Scripture is portrayed as a blessing, and no one did it better than Jesus. As always, Jesus leads the way. You remember how some people were bringing, some parents were bringing, little children to Jesus for him to pray for them and bless them, but his hands on them and bless them. But the apostles were rebuking those who brought them and trying to move them away. In Mark’s gospel, when Jesus saw this, he became indignant with the twelve, with the apostles, he was upset at them. He was angry at them, and he said to them, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for of such belongs to the Kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, shall not enter it, and then he took the children in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.” So we do this every year so that we can re-establish biblically in our minds and hearts, and every day what an incredible blessing children are. Thirdly, we do it as an annual reminder of the present scourge of abortion. It says 40 years now, on Tuesday, 40 years since the notorious Roe vs. Wade decision. And it’s chosen, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is chosen every year to coincide with that anniversary date.

You heard what Emily said, 55 million babies aborted. And as Christians, we grieve over this, and as Ron alluded to, it’s not a problem only here in our country, but it’s a worldwide scourge. There are sex selection abortions in India and in China where girls are selected out and killed because of their gender. It’s the greatest assault on woman hood that there is in the world. I can’t think of a greater one. Because they’re girls, they’re killed. It’s that simple.

And in China, in communist China, because they have the one-child policy, there are in many cases, as a government policy, of forced abortions for women who have already had their allotted one child. And so Ron and I were talking about this as we were in that country recently, and how there are party officials that are just keeping track of the monthly cycles of the women in their district. And there are forced abortions in China world-wide, approximately 42 million abortions every year. One in five pregnancies ends in abortion. So it’s important for us to keep this issue in front of us and to keep praying for an end to this scourge.

Fourthly, it’s an annual reminder of the power of God, the sovereign power of God. It’s so easy to get depressed when you look at this issue, and if you’re feeling that, then just know—and this is gonna be a major theme in my sermon today—that is a weapon of the devil, that discouragement, that depression that comes on you. And so we’re here to fight it. Amen?

Job 42:2, Job said to God, “I know that you can do all things, no plan of yours can be thwarted.” We need to remember that, don’t we? Isaiah 14, “This is the plan determined for the whole world, this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out and who can turn it back?” And then Daniel chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar, after his conversion, his transformation from an animal to a man again, and I think to a believer in God. He said this of the eternal God, “His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the peoples of the Earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the Earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” So this is an annual reminder of the God who sits on the throne of the universe.

We’re gonna see in a few weeks as we continue our study in Isaiah, Isaiah 37, just how unstoppable is the power of this almighty God. And it’s good for us, as we face a seemingly unbeatable foe like legalized abortion, to remind ourselves that God is greater and he is powerful and he is able to make changes.

Fifth: it’s an annual reminder of the truth of God’s Word. We have to stand in the middle of this because Satan is just continually pouring out lies. He is a liar and the father of lies. He is a murderer. He was from the beginning. There’s a combination in Jesus’s statement in John 8:44, combination: lying, murderer. And then that really comes down when it comes to abortion, he’s a lying murderer. And so this morning, I’m going to take some of the lies that the devil tells, some of the things that you hear in this debate, in this discussion, and lay them alongside the truth of God. And to give you, I hope, answers that you can take in that situation. Jesus said in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth.” So we need to remind ourselves of the truth of God here.

Sixthly, it’s an annual reminder of the wickedness of Satan. Satan is in the midst of all of this. I think again and again, some of the wicked religions that have started in the world have had child sacrifice at the heart of it. He just seems to be blood thirsty. It’s even in the Bible in 2 Kings:17, the Israelites even sacrifice their own sons and daughters to Baal, and that’s not the only religion, Baal worship is not the only one, but there’s a regular history of this throughout the world.

Satan seems to be bloodthirsty, I remember when I was involved in the pro-life ministry in Brookline, Massachusetts, and I would go every Saturday morning, and we would go there and just try to talk to women as they would go into the abortion clinic. But facing us, opposing us, were counter-demonstrators and those are some of the scariest days of my life, still. Those are some of the scariest people I ever dealt with.I really sensed a seething rage inside them, where if they could kill me, they would. Very, very tough time. And we were there for five hours every Saturday, and then it was done and we would go home and I would drive like a maniac, like an idiot, out of Brookline. I felt like I was being chased. It was just a satanic place. I’m not overstating. It was an evil, satanic place.

You know how Jesus said in Revelation, “I know where you live,” where Satan has his throne. I think there are just some concentrations to satanic power and influence, and that abortuary, that abortion clinic was one of them, and I used to go home—Christi will tell you this—I used to go home and sleep all Saturday afternoon. I had nothing left.I was just so exhausted and so tired and so sad, and it was just such a satanic assault on me just standing there testifying to the truth. I still think that the boldest, greatest thing I ever did was to unload our ugly green Volkswagen van that we used with our signs, surrounded by 20 or 30 of these counter-demonstrators, and I was the only one there so far. It was like 6:30 in the morning. I was terrified just to open the door and start unloading the signs. We need to know that Satan’s involved in this, and that’s why I brought us to Ephesians 6, ’cause we need to see the greater power of God in all of that. So we need to see both. You have to see it, satanic, Satan’s at work. And God is more powerful. Gotta see both sides.

Seventh, this is an annual reminder, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is an annual reminder of the future world. The future world is bright and good, and I believe that with the power of God, with the changes that I see even in our culture, let’s be honest, abortion’s a very tough sell. And the younger generation isn’t buying, for the most part. The feminists, the pro-abortion feminists, are losing ground. They’re having a harder and harder time recruiting young women to their views. There are more and more pro-life feminists, interestingly enough. And so the old guard, those that were involved in the ‘70s and all that, there’s a bigger generation gap in that movement.

There’s a Time cover article in Time talking about how it’s harder and harder to get an abortion in America. There are more and more local laws, local registration restrictions, funding issues, and they’re just, wonderfully, crisis pregnancy centers like PSS springing up all over, and they’re 50% more of them than there are the abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood’s being propped up by half a billion dollars of federal funding, and they’re just losing, losing, losing.

I read a story about a woman who was involved in the Planned Parenthood PR wing, and her job was to go after crisis pregnancy centers in particular and try to discredit them. She eventually resigned. She said the only way I can do it is to lie about them and I don’t wanna do that anymore, because none of what we say is true about those crisis pregnancy centers. They’re not misleading women. They’re very plain, “We don’t want you to get an abortion. We’ll do everything we can to help you keep your baby.” They’re honest, they’re doing that kind of work, and it’s all life and positive. Christian dollars are flowing in, Christian resources, energy, time and energy and money flowing in to help women keep their babies and to help them, perhaps, give them up to adoption or keep them and raise them. It’s just a beautiful thing. Now, there’s always more that could be done, but this woman resigned. She said, “I can’t say anything more about it. I’m a liar, and I just don’t wanna live that way.” I’m not saying she came to faith in Christ. I’m not saying she changed even her views on abortion. She just couldn’t do that job anymore, because all she could do is lie about them.

So I think the future’s bright, even from here to the second coming of Christ. I hope and pray that someday it’ll be seen, like Ron said, like chattel slavery. I hope at some point it will be seen that way, and that the Roe vs. Wade decision will be seen like the Dred Scott decision before the Civil War. Just a miscarriage of justice. Wickedness. But the future, the ultimate future is, even brighter. Amen? As Christians, we know abortion’s temporary. Don’t we know that? Because death is temporary. Death itself, some day,is gonna wipe every tear from our eyes and there’ll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. And so the future is bright.

And eighth, it’s an annual reminder of the grace of God in Christ. Already talked about that, but I can’t talk about it too much. God’s grace is greater than this sin or these sins? And we need to focus on that.

So let’s look at Ephesians 6 briefly. It’s not an exposition on Ephesians 6, but I wanna just put the firm foundation of God’s Word under our feet, so we can understand it. I wanna talk about the shield of faith, but just briefly, what’s going on in the Book of Ephesians. Ephesians is a short and very efficient display of the grace of God in Christ. The first three chapters focus on the Gospel and on God’s eternal purpose to save people by the blood of Christ. Chapters 4-6 talk about the ethics of the Christian life that flow from that redemption, that salvation that comes in Christ. So Ephesians 1 says that God should be praised and glorified and honored because he has determined to bless us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That’s incredible, the generosity of God, because we are sinners of the darkest stain and yet God desires to give us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

And the centerpiece of that is God’s redemptive work by the blood of Jesus Christ. So it says in Ephesians 1:7-8, “In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” And so the centerpiece of everything is the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross.

So I don’t know if you knew when you were coming here today that it was Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. I don’t know if the abortion issue has touched your life much. This is the most important message that I have to give today: “In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” And maybe that’s why God brought you to church today, that you might understand that there is full forgiveness for all sins. From a painful experience I had early in my ministry in preaching on abortion and forgetting that there might be women listening to me who actually had abortions, I have, since that day, never forgotten to give you this grace. There is no sin you can commit that’s greater than the value of the blood of Christ, and it is the Father’s good pleasure to forgive you and welcome you back by the grace of Christ. So seek that grace in Christ. But even if you haven’t been involved in this at all, you still need forgiveness and there isn’t just forgiveness available, it is infinitely available in Christ. Flee to Christ, trust in him. Plead with him. Say, “I don’t wanna leave this place unforgiven. I don’t wanna face your wrath on Judgment Day. I want that forgiveness.” And in him, in Christ, that forgiveness is available.

But we also see in Ephesians, in the power of the Holy Spirit of God, to take that blood of Christ and apply it sovereignly to people who need it. The Spirit moves out and applies the redemption that Jesus won that day. And so in verses 13-14 of Ephesians 1, it says, “You also were included in Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession to the praise of his glory.” And so the Holy Spirit has moved out. And if you’re a Christian today, the Spirit made you so. It was the Holy Spirit of God that changed you. It was the Holy Spirit of God that transformed you, that took out that heart of stone and gave you the heart of flesh. It’s the Spirit that saved you by the blood of Jesus. And also, we see in Ephesians 1, God’s overarching power to bring all things, all this fragmented, broken apart universe together under one head, even Christ. “And God put all things under Christ and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” So Ephesians 1, glorious chapter of God’s purposes and redemption in Christ.

In Ephesians 2, he talks about how God has worked on us individually, not only did God raise Christ physically up from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, he has raised us up spiritually from the dead. “We were dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live when we followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” That’s Satan. Satan’s at work in our world and he’s making people disobey. And we were just like that. We were no different. We were dead while we lived. It was a living death. And God, by his Spirit, has redeemed us, has ransomed us, has raised us to life. We’re born again by his blood and by the Word of the gospel. God has that kind of power to do that.

Now, in Ephesians 4-6, he says, “Okay, now that you’ve been redeemed, you’re born again, you’re alive, now you must live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” And I’ll talk in depth about this next week, the “highway of holiness” from Isaiah 35. But Ephesians 4:1 says you need to live a whole different kind of life, and the centerpiece of that life is be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Don’t get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery, but be being filled with the Holy Spirit, and it’s at least a whole new kind of life, a whole new kind of life in marriage, a new kind of life in a parent-child relationship, in a master-slave relationship, he talks about there. Everything changed, but then at the end, in Ephesians 6, he talks about a whole different kind of life as we stand firm against the devil and become spiritual warriors.

It’s not gonna be a peaceful, comfortable journey on this highway of holiness. I need to be careful because I’m gonna go right over in Isaiah 35, and then what’ll I do next week? But it’s a fighting march to heaven, it’s not easy. And so we have to be filled with the Spirit, and we have a responsibility.

Ephesians 6:10-11, to “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, and to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes.” So the word ‘scheme’ is an evil plan, an evil plot, and the devil has schemes and we are not unaware of his schemes, Paul says in another place. We know what he’s doing, and we have to stand our ground. And our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world. You have to see with the eyes of faith. Those people that surrounded our ugly mini-van, they weren’t my enemy. They were, I think, to some degree, breathing out murderous threats against me, but they weren’t my enemy. The enemy was unseen, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms against the powers and principalities, against the divisions of the satanic kingdom.

We have to be strong and we have to “put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, we may be able to stand our ground, and after we’ve done everything, to stand.” And so Paul goes on from there to describe the Christian soldier, fully equipped. Verse 14-17, “Stand firm then,” he says, “with the belt of truth buckled around the waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

So we’ve got all this powerful defensive weaponry, the shielding that we have, this armor of God. We need to be aware that we’re in a war. We need to take our stand, stand our ground. It’s kind of static. We’re gonna stand here. This is where I’m gonna stand and fight. This is truth under our feet here, and we’re gonna, like it says in James 4, resist the devil and he’ll flee from us. We’re gonna stand our ground.

The elements I could describe briefly, and if you know anything about the Puritan movement, know there was a man named William Gurnall, and he wrote a 1200-page book on these elements, 1200 pages, and it’s small print too. I stopped being able to read it without glasses a few years ago; now, I’m not even sure I can read it with the glasses, 1200 pages of that. The Puritans didn’t spare any words, friends. But I can’t go in that great detail. If you wanna get the full armor of God, Gurnall’s treatment on that, go ahead and read it and I think it would benefit you. But just briefly, the belt of truth represents our commitment to the Word of God and to Christ. Both are portrayed in John’s Gospel as truth. The breastplate of righteousness, fundamentally, the imputed righteousness we have in Christ so that nothing can kill us. Satan can’t kill us because we are righteous in the sight of God, and nothing can penetrate that.

And the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace. Next week, I’m gonna talk about the two infinite journeys, we are traveling, we are moving and we need good traction, and when you stand and fight, you’ve gotta have good traction. And so the readiness of the gospel of peace, it’s not an easy expression, but I think what it means is the gospel that has made us be at peace with God gives us a firm footing under our feet where we can fight, and we know God is at peace with us and we’re reconciled to God, and we have a message, a story to tell the nations, and so that we’re ready to tell that, and so that’s the footing under us.

“The gospel that has made us be at peace with God gives us a firm footing under our feet where we can fight”

And the helmet of salvation, I think again, focuses on the mind, the thoughts. So much of this battle is a battle for the mind. Ephesians 4 says, “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They’re darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that’s in them due to the hardening of their hearts. That’s all mental, mental, mental. It’s a battle for the mind. So we put on the helmet of salvation. We think differently now. We just have a different way of thinking now. We’re “transformed by the renewing of our mind.” 2 Corinthians 10, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.”

And we have the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, how powerful the sharp, double-edged sword in our hands. We can see how Jesus wielded it in the desert against the temptations of the devil, and with that we can both block his false attacks and we can do damage to his kingdom with the sword of the Spirit.

I’m gonna focus for a moment on the shield of faith, verse 16. Do you see the cover photo? Tom picked that one out. It’s pretty scary. If you really look at it, it’s pretty scary. There’s an archer with a flaming arrow, taking aim at you, that’s scary. You are in Satan’s crosshairs. He wants you, he wants to kill you, he wants to attack you. In Ephesians 6:16 says, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” The shield was given to the soldier to protect him and to save his life both from sword thrusts, but also especially from arrows. If you were in the middle of a field and a volley of arrows was coming down to you, the sword would do you no good. If you didn’t have a shield, you’d die. I mean, those archers, they could fire from 3-400 yards away, and if the velocity was high, and when it’s coming down at an angle of 30-degree, 45-degree angle, whatever, it will penetrate and kill you.

And so we have this shield of faith, and faith means we see in the invisible realm and we understand the truth, we know that the devil’s coming after us, but he’s a defeated foe. We see the invisible realm around us, we know that “if God is for us, and who can be against us?” And we’ve got this confidence, this assurance. We’re filled with hope as we fight because of the Word of God, and so we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. It’s interesting how Paul comments only on this one article here, its effectiveness. He didn’t talk about the effectiveness of any of the others, he talks about the effectiveness of the shield of faith. It is effective to the extinguishing of every flaming arrow the devil fires. Isn’t that marvelous? How encouraging! 100% effective.

And what are these arrows, these flaming arrows? Well, false doctrines. 1 Timothy 4:1 speaks of the doctrines of demons. False teachings are flaming arrows coming after your vital organs, spiritually. Temptations to sin are flaming arrows, and with the shield of faith, you can see through them, you know what they are. We know behind the abortion question is the question of sexual sin, isn’t it? And it’s by the shield of faith, you can stand firm in the day of temptation and not give in sexually, so that it’s not even an issue for you. You don’t even need to wonder about it. You just know you’re going to be sexually pure, and you’re not going to sin in that area.

And so you’re able to stand in the day of testing and the shield of faith is effective to see through the moment and see the consequence, to see what’s coming, and see God, the Holy One, who sees everything we do. And you’re able to put out that flaming arrow of temptation. And then on the flip side, the flaming arrow of accusations of sin, he does both. How evil is our enemy! He’s the very one who tempts us into sin, and then after we sin, he turns around and gets all righteous on us and accuses us of the very sin he lured us into. As it says in Zechariah 3:1, “Then I saw Joshua, the high priest, standing at the right hand of God, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. That’s what the word Satan means in Hebrew, he’s the accuser, and he’s there accusing Joshua the high priest of his wickedness and his sin. He’s the accuser of the brethren, it says, and that’s a flaming arrow.

You know, I think that what a church, a healthy church, a good pastor, I think what the Bible does is, before the temptation, it gets all tough with you and urges you, pleads with you not to sin. But then after the sin, it’s tender and gentle and affirming and gracious to welcome you back and tell you there is forgiveness with Christ. And we need both, don’t we, in the Christian life? Before the sin happens, you need to be strong and not sin because sin is poison, but afterward you need to know how forgiving and gracious God is. You know what Satan does? He switches them so that in the time of temptation, he tells you God will be forgiving, he’ll be gracious and all that, and afterward then he tells you God’s a monster and ogre, and he’s gonna send you to hell, and he’ll never forgive you.

Flaming arrows of discouragement and despair, I feel that in this issue. I actually asked the guys, elders, should I preach a Sanctity of Human Life Sunday sermon? Forgive me for asking that. It’s like John the Baptist saying, “Are you the one who is to come? Or shall we expect someone else?” Of course, I should preach this sermon. Abortion’s still legal. People are still dying. God’s truths haven’t changed. But you get discouraged like, Is anything ever gonna change? It’s changing. False arguments, all of these things are flaming arrows.

All right, so what are the specific flaming arrows that Satan launches our way? Well, first of all, I wanna encourage you to look at this book, this book, Randy Alcorn’s “Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” the best single resource I found in dealing with the mental aspect, the defense of the faith aspect in the pro-life cause. And I had our folks get 15 copies of this. It’s in the North Tower Resource Center. I don’t know if somebody may have already grabbed some. I have this one but I’m gonna put it back. So somebody come and grab this one and just take the folder out and pay the price, put it in there, but you can have it. And a lot of the sermon from here on out, other than the Biblical part that I put in, will be from Randy Alcorn’s defenses and arguments.

I think we need to know 2 Corinthians 10 how to “demolish strongholds and extinguish flaming arrows.” I think we need to know how to argue in this. I don’t mean have an argument, I mean make an argument, you know the difference. So we’re not being ugly, we’re not being negative, we are telling the truth when it comes to the pro-life issue.

So, I’m gonna zero in on two aspects briefly in the time we have left: arguments concerning the life and the humanity and the personhood of the pre-born, of the baby. And secondly, I’m going to zero in on questions of rights and fairness and the freedom of a woman to choose, and those things. I’m gonna focus on those. There are other main topics that Randy Alcorn addresses, but those are the ones I’m gonna zero in on.

The fundamental biblical truth in this issue is that life begins at conception. That’s the most important biblical truth there is. Human life begins at conception. The Bible settles that forever. Probably the best text on that, in my opinion, is Luke Chapter 1, when the pregnant Mary goes to visit the pregnant Elizabeth and they have an encounter together in Luke:1. So Elizabeth is further along in her pregnancy with John the Baptist, than Mary who has just received news from Gabriel that the power of the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and so Jesus is just then conceived. It’s very significant because first of all, concerning Elizabeth’s baby, she says in Luke 1:44 to Mary, “As soon as your greeting,” the sound of your greeting, “reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” The keywords for me are, for joy. Joy is an emotion. It can only be done by a person. John the Baptist was a person, he just wasn’t born yet, and so he could feel joy, and so he jumped up and got all excited about Jesus, which he would be doing his whole life. But perhaps even more significant is the statement made just before that in Luke 1:43, Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, said, “Why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” So Mary is just now pregnant, first few weeks, I would guess, and she’s already a mother, and the one inside her is already Elizabeth’s Lord. To me, that’s very significant.

So also is it significant God’s direct activity in the assembling together of the human body in the womb. This is taught in two places; in Job:10 and in Psalm 139. In Job 10:9-12, it says, “Remember that you molded me like clay, will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence, you watched over my Spirit.” A very significant statement. Psalm 139:13-16, “You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the Earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Now, the question has to come in here, what makes us think we have the right to interfere with that process? God’s actively putting the baby together, and we step in and stop that. Where did that power come from? Where does that right come from to interfere with that process? Now, in the Roe vs. Wade decision, Justice Harry Blackman, who wrote the decision, the majority of the decision, he said these famous words: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” That’s what he said. Barack Obama and the campaign trail and all that, when he was asked on abortion, etcetera, it was an interview back and forth, and he said, “That question is above my pay grade.” That was his answer. Well, the Bible answers differently, the Bible answers it.

Alcorn goes beyond biblical arguments to just talk about scientific and medical arguments for the humanity of the pre-born. So a pro-abortion argument would run like this: “It’s uncertain when human life begins, that’s a religious question that can’t be answered by science.” Well, first, Alcorn says, if there’s uncertainty, to what side of the benefit of the doubt go? What side should it go? If there’s uncertainty, I would think you would protect it, not kill it. Alcorn said if you’re driving down the road and there’s a shadow, kind of a moving shadow on the road, do you assume it’s a person or an animal? I think as a driver, you’re going to assume and do you can to miss it because it might be a person. Alcorn also said if you see a person by the side of the road and their eyes are closed and they seem like they’re in very serious trouble, if not dead, do you assume they’re dead or do you assume they’re alive? You assume they might be alive and try to save them.

So the benefit of the doubt should go on that side, but he doesn’t stop there. He says, “There’s clear medical, scientific, biological evidence for the humanity of the pre-born.” It’s not a little, it’s a lot. And so he gives just one quote after another from experts in this area. Professor Mathews-Roth of Harvard University Medical School, many of these people have no agenda in the abortion issue, they may not even agree with us, but they’re saying on the question of when human life begins, that’s been settled. Starts at conception. He said it’s incorrect, this professor said, it is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception. And quote after quote, I’ve got them here, we don’t have time. Probably the most famous change of mind on this is Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who founded NARAL, which is the National Abortion Rights Action League, one of the truly evil players in all of this. He founded it, he was the leading OB/GYN, leading doctor of the most prolific abortion clinic in the western hemisphere, personally involved in over 60,000 abortions. Until the clinic started using ultrasound, and he looked at the actual people that he was killing, and his mind was totally changed forever on abortion. He came to realize he had been personally involved in killing 60,000 people. There’s no doubt in his mind, and this was not a religious transformation. He was an atheist when he changed. He did not die an atheist, but at that point, it was just a medical decision, and he is the one that did the film “The Silent Scream”, which used that same technology to depict the recoiling and the effort a fetus, a baby was making to stay alive and the pain that the baby could feel.

“On the question of when human life begins, that’s been settled. Starts at conception.”

A second kind of argument along this line says the fetus is just part of a pregnant woman’s body, like her tonsils or appendix. “You can’t seriously believe that a frozen embryo is an actual person,” so they say. It’s like an arm or a leg or a tonsil or something like that. But the problem is that it’s individual personhood is defined genetically, there’s a definite genetic code to that baby that’s different from the mother’s. And it’s there at conception, every cell in the mother’s body or tonsils or appendix, all that clearly belong to the mother genetically, that’s how DNA evidence can be used in crimes and all that, ’cause we know it’s connected with that one human being and it’s unique, it’s like a fingerprint. And so also it is that the pre-born is a distinct, unique person from conception.

I don’t know if you know this, but in July of 2000, the United States House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill making it illegal to execute a pregnant woman. Okay, I’m gonna pause for effect, now just think about that. What is the ethical foundation of such a law? You’re dealing with two persons, one of them guilty under the law and the other one not, and as a result of that, the law was passed unanimously including pro-abortion advocates voted it. Alcorn says, do they not realize how incredibly inconsistent they’re being in voting for that legislation? To us it makes perfect sense. By the way, this is interesting. There’s only one nation on Earth in which it’s legal to execute a pregnant woman, and that’s Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean. I think someone might wanna go down there, say, I want you to know, you’re the only ones. Even the Muslim nations, other nations, are aware to not do this. Hopefully that legislation will get changed, but the foundation of it is the personhood of the unborn, is it not?

Or this one, perhaps you’ve heard this kind of argument: “The unborn is an embryo or a fetus, or a product of conception, abortion is terminating a pregnancy. Not killing a child.” This is just rhetoric. Do you not see the tricks? They’re using a word embryo rather than a baby, they’re using the word fetus rather than baby, they’re using the even more depersonalized word, product of conception, POC, rather than baby. Why are they doing that? Well, you know why? And Alcorn said, semantics can change perceptions, semantics can solve consciences, but they can’t change reality.

Concerning the development of the child, prior to the earliest abortions, the unborn already has every part he or she will ever have. At 18 days after conception, the heart is forming. Eyes are starting to develop. By 21 days, the heart is not only beating but pumping blood throughout the body. By 28 days, the unborn has budding arms and legs. By 30 days, the baby has multiplied in size 10,000 times. The baby now has a brain and blood is flowing through the baby’s veins. By 35 days, mouth and ears, and nose are already taking shape. At 40 days, the baby’s brain waves can be measured. The child’s heartbeat, which started three weeks previously, can now be heard by an ultrasonic stethoscope. By 42 days, the skeleton is formed and the brain is controlling the movements of muscles and organs. By eight weeks, the hands and feet are almost perfectly formed, fingerprints are developing, by nine weeks, a child will bend fingers around an object placed in the palm. Interestingly, Alcorn cites the case of a politically liberal professor in the Northeast, and his wife, she was a little bit older, when they had their first child. They were uncertain about the baby’s future health and in life, so they decided to do an amniocentesis. They used ultrasound to do it while they were watching the baby grabbed the needle, and they did not go through with the abortion and changed their views on abortion from that point forward. All of this happens before the time that most abortions occur. All of this development.

Another argument like this is “it’s not really a person until it breathes on its own.” I mean, are we gonna get to that level? You’re gonna say that a baby the day before it’s born after nine months and one week, it’s not a person ’cause it’s not breathing air in its lungs? Have you ever heard of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? I’m talking of like people, 18, 28 years old, their lungs are filled with water, their hearts are beating. It’s not a person? I’ll tell you what every person that’s ever given someone like that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, did it ’cause they thought that was a person, and they wanted to save their life. No, it’s not the breathing of air that makes you a person, that’s not true. It’s dangerous when one category of a society starts denying personhood to another category. That’s really dangerous. That’s what the Nazis did. That’s what, you know, the Dred Scott and all that, saying that slaves were three-fifths of a person. I don’t know, what does that mean? Three-fifths of a person. That’s politics, that’s not reality. You’re a person or you’re not, and they are persons.

All right, secondly, let’s zero in on arguments concerning rights and fairness and with this we’ll be done. They say, even if the unborn are human beings, they have fewer rights than the woman. No one should be expected to donate her body as a life support system for someone else. Well, listen, once you concede that that pre-born is a human person, that settles the matter of whether they should die, so then you’re basically comparing a quality-of-life argument and the difficulties of pregnancy and delivery, which are significant, and then of caring for a child, which is significant, against life itself, and that’s how you make those ethical choices.

Every person has the right to choose, we’re told. It’d be unfair to restrict a woman’s choice, her right to choose, by prohibiting abortion. Well, the problem with that, ethically, is we need to know freedom to choose what? Suppose you just went up to somebody and said, “I have the right to choose.” I’d want more information. Choose what? All laws are based on that. We don’t have the right to discharge a firearm if there’s someone in the line of fire. We don’t just have that freedom to do that. Interestingly, the pro-abortion movement, and that’s what it should be called, ’cause that’s what it is, the pro-abortion movement does not say anything, as far as I know about forced abortions in China, I’m not aware of any movement to try to get that to stop, it’s difficult for them to make that case. They don’t like talking about it, but there’s no choice over there for those women, so is it really freedom of choice they’re looking for or is it just pro-abortion.

Randy Alcorn, and I think you ought to remember this one, you may be able to use it in the future. He always says the same thing when he talks to people that say, “I’m not pro-abortion, I’m pro-choice.” He was on a talk show with a woman and he identified or referred to her as pro-abortion. She said, “Wait a minute, wait, wait, I’m not pro-abortion. I’m pro-choice.” He always says the same thing, “Why would you say that? Is there something wrong with abortion?” Try that one. “Why would you say that? Is there something wrong with abortion?” And she candidly answered, “I think if we’re honest, we would have to say, ‘As women, we’re very uncomfortable killing our babies.’” That discussion is over. It really is, the only reasons to be against abortion personally come from the arguments I’ve already made the personality of the pre-born, and so it makes no sense to say “I’m personally against abortion, but I’m also pro-choice.” It doesn’t make any sense. Ethically, you need to think it through.

Friends, ultimately what I want is, I want our church, I want Christians in America to be messengers of hope. We are to give people hope in hopeless situations. The most hopeless situation has nothing to do with abortion and all of that, it has to do with sin and judgment before a holy God. And there is a remedy for that, and thatis the blood of Christ, and we are, 1 Peter 3:15, “always to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us to give a reason for the hope that we have.” We should be filled with hope. Abortion’s temporary. It’s a loser thing. It’s a hard sell, even for the pro-abort feminist, it’s hard to sell. It’s ugly and evil. And people know it. We’re going to win this one friends, but even bigger than that, Jesus is going to win the souls of all who trust in him, so let’s in the midst of someone’s darkest night they’ve ever had, when they have an unplanned pregnancy, or what’s called sometimes a crisis pregnancy, Christians need to be there to speak hope into that situation, and say, “Do you realize how good God is and how much he’s going to bless you if you’ll just stand firm and trust him?” We need to be messengers of hope.

Let’s close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time we’ve had to look at this today to consider it, and I pray that You would bless and strengthen each one of us in the midst of this very, very difficult battle. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.