Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Psalm 139 and Luke 1. The main subject of the sermon is the personhood of the unborn.
Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Psalm 139 and Luke 1. The main subject of the sermon is the personhood of the unborn.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
I. Yesterday’s Supreme Court Verdict Is Today’s Scandalous Embarrassment
We are thinking about the dreadful decision that was made 30 years ago, Wednesday, 30 years ago, January 22nd, 1973 by seven to two decision. The Supreme Court of United States shocked the nation and made abortion a sacred constitutional right all over our country. Reminds me very much as a historian of a verdict given so long ago, which is now a national shame and embarrassment. I’m referring to the Dred Scott decision back in March 6th, 1857, in which again, by a seven to two decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney stated two things… Dred Scott, by the way, was a slave who was suing for his freedom, he said that his master had freed him while he was in a territory.
And the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And two things were said that day by the seven to two decision in 1857. Number one, the Congress had no right to restrict slavery, that slavery was a constitutional right, and there could be no law made by Congress in this matter in the territories. And number two, that slaves were not people and had no right really to even bring a case like this; that they were property, not persons. That’s a source of national shame and embarrassment, isn’t it? The highest court in the land would make a statement like that.
And so it connects to the abortion case as well, because in the same way, abortion was upheld as a constitutional right, and the pre-born was declared to be not a person, not just that it may or may not be a person as the woman could choose, but legally, it was not a person protectable under the 14th Amendment. I’m praying for the day when our nation will be as ashamed and shocked about that decision as it was about the Dred Scott decision in 1857. Will you join me in praying for that? It’s a national shame. A national scandal. And I believe that abortion is the law of the land because of a satanic work in our country. I believe it’s devilish, I believe it’s spiritual in origin, I believe that Satan is telling lies to individuals and to the whole nation.
And it’s time for the church as the pillar and foundation of the truth to stand up and tell the truth. It’s time, because if the church doesn’t do it, it won’t happen. It’s not gonna happen anywhere else. It’s got to be Christians that do it. If the church doesn’t do it, it’s not going to happen. 30 years is enough, and far too much, 40 million people, and that’s what they are, is enough and far too much. Time has come for us to tell the truth.
II. Satan’s Web of Lies
And now I remember back in the ’80s when I was involved in the pro-life movement up in Boston, remained some of the most terrifying days of my life, the days that I got ready early in the morning and drove down to Brookline to an abortion clinic, and our function there was to go and to talk and to discuss, and to persuade and to change hearts and minds.
Operation Rescue was going on at the same time in other places in the city, their goal was physically to blockade clinics so that women could not physically get in. We felt that if we didn’t change hearts and minds, nothing would be accomplished, and so we would go down there and the pro-abortion demonstrators would be there, usually outnumbering us by three to one, and it was still some of the scariest memories that I ever have, of getting out of that van and unloading our signs and being surrounded by pro-abortion demonstrators filled with wrath, with anger.
They’d get right in your face. And I remember ministering there and calling out to women who were being walked into the clinic and usually with a man with his arm around her, and he’s moving her in and she looks scared. She looks like she doesn’t want to be there. And the man would be the one yelling at us to shut up, because he had worked all night to get her to the point where she could go in. I remember that. but more than anything, I remember the feeling I had as I got in my car and drove home at the end of that day. I drove too fast. I confess that to you as a church. I was driving too fast through the city streets because I felt like I was being chased.
And then I would go home and I would sleep for three or four hours because of the spiritual battle involved, the demonic presence around that place was so thick you could feel it, there’s no question about it. And so Satan is cranking out these lives, Satan is lying to us as people, He’s lying to our nation, and it’s time for us to tell the truth, to stand up and tell the truth on this matter of abortion. It says in Revelation 12:4, “That the dragon,” that’s the devil, “Stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that He might devour her child the moment it was born.” Well, now he has the technology to do it before it’s born. That’s the same devil, the same desire.
Jesus said of the devil, “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” What does that mean? It means the lies, all of them stem back to him, he’s the liar and he’s telling us lies, and it’s time for us to tell the truth. Now, I want us to look at some lies that Satan is telling us, and I want us to look at them in three categories. The lies he’s telling our society about abortion, the lies he’s telling the church, and the lies he’s telling guilt-stricken individuals. Three lies that he’s telling society. First of all, that the pre-born is not truly a human person, that’s the cardinal lie, the central lie of all of this.
Secondly, that this child is a burden and not a blessing, a curse actually…and not a blessing from God. And that idea has so wormed its way through our culture, I can’t even trace all of its impact right now, it affects the church too. And thirdly, that abortion is a blessing and benefit to the woman who goes through it. These are the three great lies, and there are more besides, I had to weed it down to three, but these are central, aren’t they? What lies is he telling the church? Number one, abortion is so entrenched and so powerful and so much a part of our country that there is nothing we can do about it. That is a lie, an intimidating lie. It’s a lie so that we do nothing.
And secondly, that if we can just get the right people elected or the right justices in the Supreme Court and get the law overturned, that everything will be solved, that is a lie too. It goes deeper than that. And what lies is he telling guilt-stricken individuals? Your sin in this matter is so great that you can never be forgiven. There’s no grace, there’s no possibility of forgiveness, your life is ruined because of things you’ve done, and that is a lie too.
III. DISPELLING THE LIES WITH PURE TRUTH
Let’s look at the first category, the lies that Satan tells society, and we’re gonna start where we need to, on the personhood of the unborn. Everything else falls into place if you establish that. If you forget everything else I say in the next hour and 30 minutes I’m gonna be talking to you. If you forget anything else I say, remember this, this is a person that we’re dealing with, a human being. It begins to solve some of the hardest ethical issues like abortion in the case of rape and incest and others. If you keep in mind that this is a person, then things get simpler and become clear. Now other things don’t immediately get solved, economic issues and family problems, and the age of the young girl, all of those things are still there.
But this is the central truth, we have to get this one down. Now I could give you ample evidence of the personhood of the pre-born from science alone. There’s been a great deal of research in this, and I could do it, I could talk about the genetic uniqueness of that baby from the moment of conception, I could talk about how that baby basically chemically or hormonally takes over functions from the mother at that point and just starts to call the shots saying, “I’m here, I’m alive, I wanna grow.” And how from 21 days, its kidneys are being formed and its heart, and how brain waves come from eight weeks and how there’s a beating heart, and how there are fingerprints and its own blood type, its own identity as a human being, vocal cords fully formed at 12 weeks, able to cry out.
And they do cry out. So we can do it from science, and that’s okay, because science is part of natural revelation, God speaks to us by what is and we can see it, but I’m not gonna do it from science, I’m gonna do it from scripture, because God is the one who can tell us what a person is, it’s his place to tell us what life is. We have to submit to what he says in this matter, and if we can establish from scripture the personhood of the pre-born, then the matter is settled. Because God has told us and He will hold us accountable for what He has said.
And I think we can do it, we can do it from Psalm 139, and we can do it from Luke chapter 1. Psalm 139 is a stunning psalm it’s amazing. There are depths to the riches of Psalm 139 we will not touch on this morning, we’re really just looking at the Diamond from one facet, the humanity of the pre-born. But there’s so many other things we could do with Psalm 139. Psalm 139, for example, shows some of the greatest verses on the omniscience and omnipresence of God, that He knows all things. Before a word is on your tongue, he knows it altogether. Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Talks about the Omnipresence of God, and so these are great proof text for these theological truths, but it’s much deeper than that.
I’ve come to realize by a careful study of Psalm 139, that Psalm 139 is all about God, as this omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God in his intense personal relationship with David as a human being, it’s all about relationship, it’s omniscience, and omnipresent brought to bear in a human life. Here, look, look at the text, you’ll see what I mean. Right from the very beginning, he says, “O Lord, You have searched me, and You know me.” Now, God knows everything, he knows all sciences in history and all that, but that’s not what David’s thinking about here, in verse 1, he’s thinking about how much God knows him. “You have searched me, and You know me.” And you can just keep going in that same emphasis.
“Psalm 139 is all about God, as this omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God in his intense personal relationship with David as a human being, it’s all about relationship.”
“You and me, God”, that’s what it’s about. You, the eternal God, and me, created in your image. You and me, God. In relationship, that’s what Psalm 139 is about. Look what I mean. “O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways.” Do you see it? It’s you and it’s me. It’s you and it’s me. It’s relationship, isn’t it? It’s God in relationship to a human being. “Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord, you hem me in behind and before you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” And then he says… you know, it almost feel like it’s a little uncomfortable to be so thoroughly searched by God. Does that make you uncomfortable? At the end of the Psalm, David says, “Search me, O God and know me. I want you to know me.” But he says, “Where could I go from your spirit? There’s nowhere I can go to get away from you. You’re always with me. Even the things I do in the darkness, you see them and know them completely, oh God, and actually, you’ve been doing it since before I was born.” Do you see the context now in these verses? “You have been relating to me even before I was born, when you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
And so the context is so vital for us here, it’s you and me, God, an intense relationship. Now, zero in on verse 13, it says, “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Now, I was preaching once at a King James only church, I love the King James. I have ever-increasing respect for that translation, I just don’t know anybody that talks that kind of English, except Shakespearean actors and actresses. But I love the translation. But when I came to Psalm 139 Verse 13 and read it, I said, What is that? For the King James, it says, “For thou hast possessed my reins.” R-E-I-N-S. If you did a person on the street interview and said, “What does that mean?” What response do you think you’d get? “Thou hast,” I know that’s “you have”. I know that much. “Possessed my reins?” I think of horses and chariots and things. I didn’t know what it was. Alright? But then I realized that the English was connected to the word renal, it has to do with kidneys, and the original Hebrew here is kidneys, and the King James translators connected it to the word for kidneys, where we get the word renal, like renal failure, as a connection.
Okay, so basically he’s saying, “You have possessed my kidneys,” and the exact same word is used in the sacrificial system of the physical organs that’d be taken out of the sacrifice, out of the animal and burned on the altar. Example, Exodus 29:13, “Then take all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver and both kidneys with the fat on them [kidneys] and burn them on the altar.” So it’s organs, physical organs, stuff. From 21 days that little baby has kidneys, okay, and so its physical organs, but the word is deeper and richer than that, just like in English, the word heart is deeper than just a physical organ, there’s more. We say, “What’s on your heart? Share with me what’s on your heart.” What we mean is I don’t wanna know what’s flowing through or gushing through your muscle that’s squeezing blood, I mean, share your mind, your convictions, your thoughts in this matter. Well, the word kidneys is used in the same way. In the same way, for example, Psalm 7: 9, “Oh, righteous God, who searches minds and hearts… “ the word minds in the NIV is kidneys. He searches your kidneys.
But you know it’s not physical there, it’s gotta be metaphorical, for he searches who you are inside you. Or Psalm 16:7, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. In the night, also my heart instructs me.” The word is kidneys. If you went to the King James version, your kidneys are instructing you, that’s what it says, but we know what it means, my inmost being is speaking to me at night, it’s teaching me things. Proverbs 23:16, “My inmost being will rejoice when I speak of your truth.” And so it’s the part of you that can be searched by God and assessed, the part of you that can rejoice in God, that can speak truth, that can receive truth, that can relate to God, it’s the part of you that can relate to God. Do you see that?
And the best verses of all, Job 19:25-27, I squealed with delight when I found this one, I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Wow, this is amazing.” Job 19:25-27, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh will I see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes. I, and not another. Now listen how my heart yearns within me.” That’s right, kidneys. “How that part of me that yearns for Jesus as a savior, yearns within me.” And that’s what’s getting created in verse 13 of Psalm 139.
But more, it says, “Thou hast possessed my reins.” Why possessed? Well, the word usually means bought by redemptive price. “You own my reins. You own me. You acquired me in the womb. That’s when it started. You and me, God, that’s when it began. My relationship with you started then.” Do you know a newborn can recognize the voice of his or her mother the next day? It can recognize it, studies have been done… It makes sense. He or she’s been listening to it all those many weeks and months. Right? It makes complete sense. But something I would say is going on also spiritually in a deeper sense, that child is being prepared for an internal relationship with God. Write this one down, Psalm 22:9. It’s not in your outline but write it down. I couldn’t believe when I came across this. Psalm 22 Verse 9 says, “Yet you brought me out of the womb, you made me trust… ” The NIV says, “in you”, but it’s not there, but it says, “You made me trust even at my mother’s breast.” That’s very interesting, it’s a Hiphil Hebrew, “you caused me to trust”, and I think what’s going on here is that God creates an ability to trust in Him from before the time you’re born, you know what safety and security, and shelter and protection, and warmth and nourishment is about before you’re even born, and you learn it in an ever-increasing way until finally, at some point, you can understand language and the Gospel, and it clicks in, God is like that for you. God is your protective covering, he is your comfort, he’s your nurturer, he is the one who’s been with you all this time.
And your mother will die, but I used her to teach you those things at the right moment, you realize it was me all along. What is David saying then in Psalm 139:13? All that began inside the womb. It all started there. And another thing, this word “possessed” means “it’s mine”, says the Lord. “It’s mine, I own it.” What right do we have to come in and interfere with that? Who are we? Who are we to do that? What right do we have? “I possess it,” says God, “It’s mine. Don’t interfere.” Personhood of the unborn. In verses 14-16, he says, “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,” I love this, “Woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.” The word “woven together” is like the skillful weaving of an embroider, like a beautiful sash, it’s just intricately put together, and it is. If you’ve studied the development inside the womb, you know it is. And it’s God who’s doing that. Psalm 139.
Turn over in your Bibles to Luke 1:41-44, this is the moment when two godly women, two mothers to be, pregnant women, meet and interact. And I think that they share things that we men will never really understand. I really do. I think they just know some things that we just don’t, and there was just a bond. Mary just wanted to be with Elizabeth when she found out that she was expecting. She just wanted to be with her. And so she traveled and then the two of them got together, and Mary greeted Elizabeth, and at that moment, the Holy Spirit came on Elizabeth. That made her a prophetess, she spoke under the influence of the Holy Spirit, she spoke. And the word she speaks are like Scripture, and they’re important in this matter. I think that’s why Luke told us that she was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
And then verse 44, “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Case closed, folks. Blobs of tissue don’t leap for joy. Products of conception don’t leap for joy. Fetuses leap for joy if you know that the Latin word for fetus, it just means young one, but it’s come to become depersonalized, the very thing that they want you to do is depersonalize it. Alright, two evidences of the personhood of the pre-born. First of all, pregnant Mary, very early in her pregnancy is already the mother of Elizabeth’s Lord. She’s already the mother of my Lord, that’s evidence number one, and Jesus is very early in his time inside Mary’s womb at that point. And secondly, John the Baptist couldn’t control himself. He just could not control himself, he’s in the presence of Jesus, and so he leaps for joy as soon as Mary’s greeting reached his mother. The Holy Spirit came on him, I think. How else would he have known? And so he leapt for joy, for joy, this is personhood language. We must tell the truth to our society. We must tell the truth at Duke University and at Chapel Hill and at State. We must tell the truth, ’cause there’s a lot of lies over there, folks. This is personhood, it cannot be refuted, and it must be spoken because people are being lied to about this. It must be spoken.
The second lie that I want to dispel is the lie that this child is a burden and not a blessing; a curse, really. And Satan desires for you to hate the child as much as he does. Planned parenthood has a slogan. Have you heard it? “Every child: a wanted child.” That’s a demonic thought. You say, “Oh, but it sounds so beautiful.” That’s what the devil does. He clothes himself like an angel of light, and it seems so good. I wanna ask you a question, what right do we have to want or not want a child? Who are we to want or not want a child? It’s not our place to want it or not want it. Every child that is born should be a wanted child. It is not our place to assess children like that. It’s not for us to do. And yet what’s happened subtly over 30 years of this concept, marinating in our minds, is that we are constantly assessing and weighing children all the time in a way we never did before, and so we don’t see children anymore like the biblical worldview. Children were always a blessing, always seen to be a blessing, and conversely, if you couldn’t have a child as a woman, it was seen to be a reproach. Elizabeth said that her reproach had been taken away now that she was pregnant.
Now, what I’m saying is that they saw children as a blessing. Psalm 127: 3-5, it says, “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies at the gate.” A child’s a blessing, and we just don’t think that way, do we? We think of the child as a curse, as a burden. Do you know how much money it takes to raise a child all the way through college? Well, I’ll tell you by the time my kids get to college, it’ll be a million dollars a year. I have no idea how we’re gonna pay for that, but I don’t care. My children are a blessing to me, I can’t imagine life without them. I love them. I can’t even share all the moments that we have. You can’t weigh it. What has happened to us?
I met a Kenyan man, educated in University of Minnesota, PhD. He said, Americans hate children. Ugh, I said, “No, we don’t.” He said, “You do. You hate them.” It’s hard to refute. It’s a lie, it’s a lie from the devil. The third lie is that abortion is beneficial to the life of the mother, that abortion itself is a blessing. Is it? They hide from you the evidence that abortion destroys women’s bodies physically, it’s a great damage to a woman’s body. I could talk about the 60,000 or 70,000 women that die from abortions every year, most of them, not in this country, but still many, many. Pelvic infection, infertility because of scar tissue that builds up, premature births after that, lots of problems. They don’t tell you these things. 27 out of 33 worldwide medical studies have shown, and it’s generally accepted now in the United States, a link between abortion and breast cancer. It’s a link, it’s New England Medical Journal, Journal of Medicine has said it’s a fact, it’s a medical fact that the two are linked. It can’t be refuted.
But they don’t talk about those things. There’s physical damage that happens to the body. More universally, there’s psychological damage. Everybody accepts the post abortion traumatic syndrome or stress syndrome. Romans 1:18 says that sinners suppress the truth and unrighteous hold it down. But what ends up happening is, a mother has natural instincts for this baby, natural desire to bring it to term, a desire to mother it, it’s natural, God put it inside the heart of a mother. Isaiah 49:15 says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?” Answer: Yes, sadly. But God says, even though she may forget, I will never forget you. But it’s unnatural to do that, to suppress it and not care about your children. And so, post-abortive women are 3.9 times more likely to commit suicide because they can’t shake the feeling of guilt. There is a remedy though in the cross of Christ. I almost can’t go on without saying that. There is a remedy, there is grace, there is forgiveness, there is love, but there is trauma also for those that make this decision to do this, and then not just physically, not just psychologically, but spiritually, where does it leave you with God?
Some doctors and nurses that are involved in this have testified to the seared conscience that happens. Initially, it was horrible, they would throw up, they couldn’t eat, they couldn’t sleep. Little by little, it got easier and easier. Easier and easier. And so in 1 Timothy 4, it speaks of a conscience seared as with a hot iron. Apostle Paul said on the flip side, “I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” A seared conscience is a great damage, and what will we do about the sin? If we don’t know Christ, we’ll have to stand accountable before God and be judged for it. Spiritual damage.
We’ve got to speak the truth to society about the personhood of the pre-born, about the blessing of children, and about the damage, the physical damage that abortion does to women. What truth do we have to speak within the church? I could go on about this for a long time, but I wanna just say very quickly, there’s a feeling of lethargy and depression and despair among the church on this issue, like we can’t win. Satan is telling us a lie that we cannot win this, it’s too hard to change, abortion is too entrenched to overthrow so give up. You know why? Because he knows what will happen if we come out and take the field against him. We will win! Somebody say, “Amen, we will win!” If we take the field against him, we will win, and he knows it. So what does he have to do? Prevent us from taking the field. Intimidation, fear, depression, and discouragement, because he knows better than we do the power of our offensive and defensive weapons.
“We’ve got to speak the truth to society about the personhood of the pre-born, about the blessing of children, and about the damage, the physical damage that abortion does to women.”
Our offensive weapons, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world.” No, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments, and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. It’s a demolishment of the mind and of bad ideas and bad thoughts, and we’re gonna win because we have the truth on our side. He knows the power of our offensive weapon, he’s seen what the Word of God can do, and he also knows the power of our defensive weaponry, our shields and our protection, our spiritual armor, Ephesians 6, with which we can extinguish every flaming arrow of the evil one. They just don’t go away, these Christians. They just don’t fall. They stand firm. He knows. And so all he can do with smoke and mirrors is intimidate us to stay home and not fight. Very much like when the 12 spies brought back the report from the promised land, and 10 of them said, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. They’re too big for us.” And God raised up two witnesses, Joshua and Caleb, to say, We can do it by the power of God. We can take this land.
I was gonna talk to you now about William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison, two witnesses, two lampstands that stood up on the issue of slavery. William Wilberforce would not give up; he was a winsome, pleasant, happy, joyful person. The kind of guy you wanted around. His opponent said of him, “You have to watch him because he possesses a sufficient quantity of that enthusiastic spirit, which so far from yielding actually grows stronger with blows. He just enjoys getting hit, he doesn’t go away, he’s like that big block of cork, and we keep pushing him down and he keeps popping up again, he just doesn’t give up.” Forty-seven years he fought, 20 to end the slave trade, 27 more to end slavery itself in the British colonies. Forty-seven years, that was William Wilberforce.
And then there’s William Lloyd Garrison, American abolitionist, journalist. I like Wilberforce’s theology a little bit better than Garrison, but that’s another talk for another day. But I love Garrison’s fire. Through his paper, The Liberator, he poured fire into the consciences of Americans on the issue of slavery and he wouldn’t give up, and this is what he said, “I need to be all on fire for I am surrounded by mountains of ice.” We need to be all on fire on abortion for we’re surrounded by mountains of ice, some of them are in the church. And so you’re going to actually offend some people, if you tell the truth on this. Some people will get upset, some of you may get upset at me for telling the truth today, it’s okay. Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
“We need to be all on fire on abortion for we’re surrounded by mountains of ice, some of them are in the church.”
He was on fire. And this is what he said, “I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.” We need that again, folks. We need that spirit, the joyful persistence of a 47-year marathoner named William Wilberforce, and the fire and conviction of William Lloyd Garrison on slavery. We need it again. And I think God’s gonna do it. I think he’s gonna raise a, I think some of you may be those kind of people. Simply changing the abortion law will not change it, will not do it.
Our minds have been marinating in abortion all this time. Do you realize why women get abortions? Because they’re desperate. They’re desperate. I used to go down to the abortion clinic and I would talk to them and for all of the pro-choice rhetoric, they invariably said, “We have no choice.” And you know why, because abortion is a hopeless act, it’s an act of hopelessness. Well, whose job is it to minister hope in a hopeless situation, if not the church’s? We’re supposed to go and minister hope to people, to show them what God can do even in the most dire circumstances. We have to surround them with love, with economic support, with friendship, with security, with the gospel, that’s what we have to do. It’s not enough just to change the laws.
It brings me to the final lie, and it may be something that Satan is speaking to you even right now. I don’t know what your history, your past is. I don’t know what you’ve done. The lie is, your sin is too great for God to cover it. There can be no forgiveness. That is a lie. It’s a lie. And notice, Satan’s viciousness in this matter. He entices and induces you to sin, and then turns around and convicts you for that very sin he led you to commit. He’s vicious, he’s a killer. And so he pulls on you and pulls on you and pulls on you, and then as soon as you do, he drives you to suicide over it. He’s a killer.
The spirit of abortion is essentially hopeless and anti-grace. It says to the abortionist doctor who’s committed more abortions than he can remember, there’s so much blood in your hands, nothing can remove it, you’re guilty forever, you’ve lost your soul. It says to the pregnant woman with a child conceived out of wedlock, there can be no forgiveness, you might as well abort this baby, because God’s abandoned you, you didn’t do it the right way. It says to a woman who’s already had an abortion, there’s nothing you can do now, you’ve murdered your own baby, and there can be no forgiveness for you. It says to the man who abdicated his responsibility and forced her into it, forced her into it because he didn’t wanna be a man, stand up to his responsibilities, there’s no forgiveness for you, you’re a coward, and you cannot be forgiven. It says to the pastor who’s neglected the issue for a decade or more, out of bad memories and lack of courage and the lack of desire for a hard life, you’ve wasted years and years and may never get it back. There can be no forgiveness for you. It says the same to Christians who don’t care very much about this issue, don’t wanna pray about it or do anything. The spirit of abortion says to the politician who changed his view so he could get elected, there could be no forgiveness for you. It says to the Supreme Court Justice who made decisions and rendered verdicts on partial-birth abortion, that horrible procedure, that there can be no forgiveness for you because of the horror of what you’ve done.
Now, what is the remedy to all of these lies? Is it not the truth? Is it not speaking the truth? I told you in my prayer and I was praying, I said, “God help me do a miracle…”, because in one message, I had to both disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. If you’re comfortable with abortion, I wanted to disturb you today, but if you’re already disturbed, let me tell you something, [Matthew 5:3] “Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. [Psalm 51:17] “A broken and contrite spirit, you will not despise, O God.” Ephesians 1:7, “In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance to the riches of God’s grace.” Not out of his riches, in accordance with the riches, he’s rich. And when he forgives, he forgives A to Z. Isn’t that beautiful? Romans 5:20, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Grace wins. Isn’t that wonderful? In the end, grace wins. Praise God for that. And so we have the invitation, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Sin is a crushing burden, Jesus came to take it off of you, to die under the wrath of God in your place.
IV. APPLICATION
What application do we take? First of all, believe the Bible. Believe that the pre-born is a person, a human person. Get it settled in your mind forever that John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb. Settle it forever. Secondly, reason and persuade. Talk to people. Talk to people. And if you say, I don’t know how to talk. Learn how to talk about this, learn about this and talk to people. Be willing to be counted, to stand up and be counted because you know the laws won’t change until people’s hearts change on this matter, and you all are the messengers, and me too. Cut through the ridiculous political rhetoric that is so illogical, I don’t understand it. Like when Bill Clinton said, “Let’s make abortion safe, legal, funded, and rare.” And rare? What does that mean?
I think there should be just as many plantar warts removed as need to be removed, and if you have a plantar wart, I think you should have it removed. If that’s all it is, it is a mass of cells and it shouldn’t be rare, it should be as often as you need. What is that? It’s a political compromise because he knows some people are uncomfortable with abortion, as well we should be. If it’s truly a person, let’s not have abortion, and if it’s not a person, let’s have as many of them as we need. So cut through that political double-talk. Understand what’s really going on. Tell the truth. Persevere in prayer. Only prayer will change this. Commit yourself to pray for this matter, and action. Be William Wilberforce. Be William Lloyd Garrison. Be on fire. Be patient. Be gentle. Stand firm and don’t give up. Get involved. Radiate hope into a dark situation. Go find somebody who’s got a dark situation.
You will be introduced to women in dark situations. Can you minister to them? Can you bring the hope of Jesus Christ into that dark night? If so, do it. And finally, come to Christ. If you don’t know Jesus, come to Christ. Don’t walk out of this room today without knowing Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you wanna talk to me about this, come and talk to me. If there’s something on your heart, come and talk to me. If you’re already a Christian but you haven’t experienced the forgiveness of God in this area, realize that his grace is sufficient for any sin.
Close with me in prayer. Father, I thank you for the truth of the Word of God, and I thank you for the power of the Word of God. I thank you that you are going to change our country. O God, I pray that you would. I pray for churches across America right now who are finishing their services, people thinking about the messages, thinking about what to do, I pray that the seed will not be snatched up by the devil. I pray rather that we would act in a committed concerted way to see this situation, this law changed, and to see your mercy come alive in every moment of desperation, in every dark night. Father, I pray if there are any here that are feeling guilty and burning right now, God, with a sense of guilt, I pray that your grace would minister now the blood of Jesus Christ. We pray this in your name, Lord. Amen.
Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Psalm 139 and Luke 1. The main subject of the sermon is the personhood of the unborn.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
I. Yesterday’s Supreme Court Verdict Is Today’s Scandalous Embarrassment
We are thinking about the dreadful decision that was made 30 years ago, Wednesday, 30 years ago, January 22nd, 1973 by seven to two decision. The Supreme Court of United States shocked the nation and made abortion a sacred constitutional right all over our country. Reminds me very much as a historian of a verdict given so long ago, which is now a national shame and embarrassment. I’m referring to the Dred Scott decision back in March 6th, 1857, in which again, by a seven to two decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney stated two things… Dred Scott, by the way, was a slave who was suing for his freedom, he said that his master had freed him while he was in a territory.
And the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And two things were said that day by the seven to two decision in 1857. Number one, the Congress had no right to restrict slavery, that slavery was a constitutional right, and there could be no law made by Congress in this matter in the territories. And number two, that slaves were not people and had no right really to even bring a case like this; that they were property, not persons. That’s a source of national shame and embarrassment, isn’t it? The highest court in the land would make a statement like that.
And so it connects to the abortion case as well, because in the same way, abortion was upheld as a constitutional right, and the pre-born was declared to be not a person, not just that it may or may not be a person as the woman could choose, but legally, it was not a person protectable under the 14th Amendment. I’m praying for the day when our nation will be as ashamed and shocked about that decision as it was about the Dred Scott decision in 1857. Will you join me in praying for that? It’s a national shame. A national scandal. And I believe that abortion is the law of the land because of a satanic work in our country. I believe it’s devilish, I believe it’s spiritual in origin, I believe that Satan is telling lies to individuals and to the whole nation.
And it’s time for the church as the pillar and foundation of the truth to stand up and tell the truth. It’s time, because if the church doesn’t do it, it won’t happen. It’s not gonna happen anywhere else. It’s got to be Christians that do it. If the church doesn’t do it, it’s not going to happen. 30 years is enough, and far too much, 40 million people, and that’s what they are, is enough and far too much. Time has come for us to tell the truth.
II. Satan’s Web of Lies
And now I remember back in the ’80s when I was involved in the pro-life movement up in Boston, remained some of the most terrifying days of my life, the days that I got ready early in the morning and drove down to Brookline to an abortion clinic, and our function there was to go and to talk and to discuss, and to persuade and to change hearts and minds.
Operation Rescue was going on at the same time in other places in the city, their goal was physically to blockade clinics so that women could not physically get in. We felt that if we didn’t change hearts and minds, nothing would be accomplished, and so we would go down there and the pro-abortion demonstrators would be there, usually outnumbering us by three to one, and it was still some of the scariest memories that I ever have, of getting out of that van and unloading our signs and being surrounded by pro-abortion demonstrators filled with wrath, with anger.
They’d get right in your face. And I remember ministering there and calling out to women who were being walked into the clinic and usually with a man with his arm around her, and he’s moving her in and she looks scared. She looks like she doesn’t want to be there. And the man would be the one yelling at us to shut up, because he had worked all night to get her to the point where she could go in. I remember that. but more than anything, I remember the feeling I had as I got in my car and drove home at the end of that day. I drove too fast. I confess that to you as a church. I was driving too fast through the city streets because I felt like I was being chased.
And then I would go home and I would sleep for three or four hours because of the spiritual battle involved, the demonic presence around that place was so thick you could feel it, there’s no question about it. And so Satan is cranking out these lives, Satan is lying to us as people, He’s lying to our nation, and it’s time for us to tell the truth, to stand up and tell the truth on this matter of abortion. It says in Revelation 12:4, “That the dragon,” that’s the devil, “Stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that He might devour her child the moment it was born.” Well, now he has the technology to do it before it’s born. That’s the same devil, the same desire.
Jesus said of the devil, “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” What does that mean? It means the lies, all of them stem back to him, he’s the liar and he’s telling us lies, and it’s time for us to tell the truth. Now, I want us to look at some lies that Satan is telling us, and I want us to look at them in three categories. The lies he’s telling our society about abortion, the lies he’s telling the church, and the lies he’s telling guilt-stricken individuals. Three lies that he’s telling society. First of all, that the pre-born is not truly a human person, that’s the cardinal lie, the central lie of all of this.
Secondly, that this child is a burden and not a blessing, a curse actually…and not a blessing from God. And that idea has so wormed its way through our culture, I can’t even trace all of its impact right now, it affects the church too. And thirdly, that abortion is a blessing and benefit to the woman who goes through it. These are the three great lies, and there are more besides, I had to weed it down to three, but these are central, aren’t they? What lies is he telling the church? Number one, abortion is so entrenched and so powerful and so much a part of our country that there is nothing we can do about it. That is a lie, an intimidating lie. It’s a lie so that we do nothing.
And secondly, that if we can just get the right people elected or the right justices in the Supreme Court and get the law overturned, that everything will be solved, that is a lie too. It goes deeper than that. And what lies is he telling guilt-stricken individuals? Your sin in this matter is so great that you can never be forgiven. There’s no grace, there’s no possibility of forgiveness, your life is ruined because of things you’ve done, and that is a lie too.
III. DISPELLING THE LIES WITH PURE TRUTH
Let’s look at the first category, the lies that Satan tells society, and we’re gonna start where we need to, on the personhood of the unborn. Everything else falls into place if you establish that. If you forget everything else I say in the next hour and 30 minutes I’m gonna be talking to you. If you forget anything else I say, remember this, this is a person that we’re dealing with, a human being. It begins to solve some of the hardest ethical issues like abortion in the case of rape and incest and others. If you keep in mind that this is a person, then things get simpler and become clear. Now other things don’t immediately get solved, economic issues and family problems, and the age of the young girl, all of those things are still there.
But this is the central truth, we have to get this one down. Now I could give you ample evidence of the personhood of the pre-born from science alone. There’s been a great deal of research in this, and I could do it, I could talk about the genetic uniqueness of that baby from the moment of conception, I could talk about how that baby basically chemically or hormonally takes over functions from the mother at that point and just starts to call the shots saying, “I’m here, I’m alive, I wanna grow.” And how from 21 days, its kidneys are being formed and its heart, and how brain waves come from eight weeks and how there’s a beating heart, and how there are fingerprints and its own blood type, its own identity as a human being, vocal cords fully formed at 12 weeks, able to cry out.
And they do cry out. So we can do it from science, and that’s okay, because science is part of natural revelation, God speaks to us by what is and we can see it, but I’m not gonna do it from science, I’m gonna do it from scripture, because God is the one who can tell us what a person is, it’s his place to tell us what life is. We have to submit to what he says in this matter, and if we can establish from scripture the personhood of the pre-born, then the matter is settled. Because God has told us and He will hold us accountable for what He has said.
And I think we can do it, we can do it from Psalm 139, and we can do it from Luke chapter 1. Psalm 139 is a stunning psalm it’s amazing. There are depths to the riches of Psalm 139 we will not touch on this morning, we’re really just looking at the Diamond from one facet, the humanity of the pre-born. But there’s so many other things we could do with Psalm 139. Psalm 139, for example, shows some of the greatest verses on the omniscience and omnipresence of God, that He knows all things. Before a word is on your tongue, he knows it altogether. Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Talks about the Omnipresence of God, and so these are great proof text for these theological truths, but it’s much deeper than that.
I’ve come to realize by a careful study of Psalm 139, that Psalm 139 is all about God, as this omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God in his intense personal relationship with David as a human being, it’s all about relationship, it’s omniscience, and omnipresent brought to bear in a human life. Here, look, look at the text, you’ll see what I mean. Right from the very beginning, he says, “O Lord, You have searched me, and You know me.” Now, God knows everything, he knows all sciences in history and all that, but that’s not what David’s thinking about here, in verse 1, he’s thinking about how much God knows him. “You have searched me, and You know me.” And you can just keep going in that same emphasis.
“Psalm 139 is all about God, as this omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God in his intense personal relationship with David as a human being, it’s all about relationship.”
“You and me, God”, that’s what it’s about. You, the eternal God, and me, created in your image. You and me, God. In relationship, that’s what Psalm 139 is about. Look what I mean. “O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways.” Do you see it? It’s you and it’s me. It’s you and it’s me. It’s relationship, isn’t it? It’s God in relationship to a human being. “Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord, you hem me in behind and before you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” And then he says… you know, it almost feel like it’s a little uncomfortable to be so thoroughly searched by God. Does that make you uncomfortable? At the end of the Psalm, David says, “Search me, O God and know me. I want you to know me.” But he says, “Where could I go from your spirit? There’s nowhere I can go to get away from you. You’re always with me. Even the things I do in the darkness, you see them and know them completely, oh God, and actually, you’ve been doing it since before I was born.” Do you see the context now in these verses? “You have been relating to me even before I was born, when you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
And so the context is so vital for us here, it’s you and me, God, an intense relationship. Now, zero in on verse 13, it says, “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Now, I was preaching once at a King James only church, I love the King James. I have ever-increasing respect for that translation, I just don’t know anybody that talks that kind of English, except Shakespearean actors and actresses. But I love the translation. But when I came to Psalm 139 Verse 13 and read it, I said, What is that? For the King James, it says, “For thou hast possessed my reins.” R-E-I-N-S. If you did a person on the street interview and said, “What does that mean?” What response do you think you’d get? “Thou hast,” I know that’s “you have”. I know that much. “Possessed my reins?” I think of horses and chariots and things. I didn’t know what it was. Alright? But then I realized that the English was connected to the word renal, it has to do with kidneys, and the original Hebrew here is kidneys, and the King James translators connected it to the word for kidneys, where we get the word renal, like renal failure, as a connection.
Okay, so basically he’s saying, “You have possessed my kidneys,” and the exact same word is used in the sacrificial system of the physical organs that’d be taken out of the sacrifice, out of the animal and burned on the altar. Example, Exodus 29:13, “Then take all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver and both kidneys with the fat on them [kidneys] and burn them on the altar.” So it’s organs, physical organs, stuff. From 21 days that little baby has kidneys, okay, and so its physical organs, but the word is deeper and richer than that, just like in English, the word heart is deeper than just a physical organ, there’s more. We say, “What’s on your heart? Share with me what’s on your heart.” What we mean is I don’t wanna know what’s flowing through or gushing through your muscle that’s squeezing blood, I mean, share your mind, your convictions, your thoughts in this matter. Well, the word kidneys is used in the same way. In the same way, for example, Psalm 7: 9, “Oh, righteous God, who searches minds and hearts… “ the word minds in the NIV is kidneys. He searches your kidneys.
But you know it’s not physical there, it’s gotta be metaphorical, for he searches who you are inside you. Or Psalm 16:7, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. In the night, also my heart instructs me.” The word is kidneys. If you went to the King James version, your kidneys are instructing you, that’s what it says, but we know what it means, my inmost being is speaking to me at night, it’s teaching me things. Proverbs 23:16, “My inmost being will rejoice when I speak of your truth.” And so it’s the part of you that can be searched by God and assessed, the part of you that can rejoice in God, that can speak truth, that can receive truth, that can relate to God, it’s the part of you that can relate to God. Do you see that?
And the best verses of all, Job 19:25-27, I squealed with delight when I found this one, I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Wow, this is amazing.” Job 19:25-27, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh will I see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes. I, and not another. Now listen how my heart yearns within me.” That’s right, kidneys. “How that part of me that yearns for Jesus as a savior, yearns within me.” And that’s what’s getting created in verse 13 of Psalm 139.
But more, it says, “Thou hast possessed my reins.” Why possessed? Well, the word usually means bought by redemptive price. “You own my reins. You own me. You acquired me in the womb. That’s when it started. You and me, God, that’s when it began. My relationship with you started then.” Do you know a newborn can recognize the voice of his or her mother the next day? It can recognize it, studies have been done… It makes sense. He or she’s been listening to it all those many weeks and months. Right? It makes complete sense. But something I would say is going on also spiritually in a deeper sense, that child is being prepared for an internal relationship with God. Write this one down, Psalm 22:9. It’s not in your outline but write it down. I couldn’t believe when I came across this. Psalm 22 Verse 9 says, “Yet you brought me out of the womb, you made me trust… ” The NIV says, “in you”, but it’s not there, but it says, “You made me trust even at my mother’s breast.” That’s very interesting, it’s a Hiphil Hebrew, “you caused me to trust”, and I think what’s going on here is that God creates an ability to trust in Him from before the time you’re born, you know what safety and security, and shelter and protection, and warmth and nourishment is about before you’re even born, and you learn it in an ever-increasing way until finally, at some point, you can understand language and the Gospel, and it clicks in, God is like that for you. God is your protective covering, he is your comfort, he’s your nurturer, he is the one who’s been with you all this time.
And your mother will die, but I used her to teach you those things at the right moment, you realize it was me all along. What is David saying then in Psalm 139:13? All that began inside the womb. It all started there. And another thing, this word “possessed” means “it’s mine”, says the Lord. “It’s mine, I own it.” What right do we have to come in and interfere with that? Who are we? Who are we to do that? What right do we have? “I possess it,” says God, “It’s mine. Don’t interfere.” Personhood of the unborn. In verses 14-16, he says, “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,” I love this, “Woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.” The word “woven together” is like the skillful weaving of an embroider, like a beautiful sash, it’s just intricately put together, and it is. If you’ve studied the development inside the womb, you know it is. And it’s God who’s doing that. Psalm 139.
Turn over in your Bibles to Luke 1:41-44, this is the moment when two godly women, two mothers to be, pregnant women, meet and interact. And I think that they share things that we men will never really understand. I really do. I think they just know some things that we just don’t, and there was just a bond. Mary just wanted to be with Elizabeth when she found out that she was expecting. She just wanted to be with her. And so she traveled and then the two of them got together, and Mary greeted Elizabeth, and at that moment, the Holy Spirit came on Elizabeth. That made her a prophetess, she spoke under the influence of the Holy Spirit, she spoke. And the word she speaks are like Scripture, and they’re important in this matter. I think that’s why Luke told us that she was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
And then verse 44, “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Case closed, folks. Blobs of tissue don’t leap for joy. Products of conception don’t leap for joy. Fetuses leap for joy if you know that the Latin word for fetus, it just means young one, but it’s come to become depersonalized, the very thing that they want you to do is depersonalize it. Alright, two evidences of the personhood of the pre-born. First of all, pregnant Mary, very early in her pregnancy is already the mother of Elizabeth’s Lord. She’s already the mother of my Lord, that’s evidence number one, and Jesus is very early in his time inside Mary’s womb at that point. And secondly, John the Baptist couldn’t control himself. He just could not control himself, he’s in the presence of Jesus, and so he leaps for joy as soon as Mary’s greeting reached his mother. The Holy Spirit came on him, I think. How else would he have known? And so he leapt for joy, for joy, this is personhood language. We must tell the truth to our society. We must tell the truth at Duke University and at Chapel Hill and at State. We must tell the truth, ’cause there’s a lot of lies over there, folks. This is personhood, it cannot be refuted, and it must be spoken because people are being lied to about this. It must be spoken.
The second lie that I want to dispel is the lie that this child is a burden and not a blessing; a curse, really. And Satan desires for you to hate the child as much as he does. Planned parenthood has a slogan. Have you heard it? “Every child: a wanted child.” That’s a demonic thought. You say, “Oh, but it sounds so beautiful.” That’s what the devil does. He clothes himself like an angel of light, and it seems so good. I wanna ask you a question, what right do we have to want or not want a child? Who are we to want or not want a child? It’s not our place to want it or not want it. Every child that is born should be a wanted child. It is not our place to assess children like that. It’s not for us to do. And yet what’s happened subtly over 30 years of this concept, marinating in our minds, is that we are constantly assessing and weighing children all the time in a way we never did before, and so we don’t see children anymore like the biblical worldview. Children were always a blessing, always seen to be a blessing, and conversely, if you couldn’t have a child as a woman, it was seen to be a reproach. Elizabeth said that her reproach had been taken away now that she was pregnant.
Now, what I’m saying is that they saw children as a blessing. Psalm 127: 3-5, it says, “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies at the gate.” A child’s a blessing, and we just don’t think that way, do we? We think of the child as a curse, as a burden. Do you know how much money it takes to raise a child all the way through college? Well, I’ll tell you by the time my kids get to college, it’ll be a million dollars a year. I have no idea how we’re gonna pay for that, but I don’t care. My children are a blessing to me, I can’t imagine life without them. I love them. I can’t even share all the moments that we have. You can’t weigh it. What has happened to us?
I met a Kenyan man, educated in University of Minnesota, PhD. He said, Americans hate children. Ugh, I said, “No, we don’t.” He said, “You do. You hate them.” It’s hard to refute. It’s a lie, it’s a lie from the devil. The third lie is that abortion is beneficial to the life of the mother, that abortion itself is a blessing. Is it? They hide from you the evidence that abortion destroys women’s bodies physically, it’s a great damage to a woman’s body. I could talk about the 60,000 or 70,000 women that die from abortions every year, most of them, not in this country, but still many, many. Pelvic infection, infertility because of scar tissue that builds up, premature births after that, lots of problems. They don’t tell you these things. 27 out of 33 worldwide medical studies have shown, and it’s generally accepted now in the United States, a link between abortion and breast cancer. It’s a link, it’s New England Medical Journal, Journal of Medicine has said it’s a fact, it’s a medical fact that the two are linked. It can’t be refuted.
But they don’t talk about those things. There’s physical damage that happens to the body. More universally, there’s psychological damage. Everybody accepts the post abortion traumatic syndrome or stress syndrome. Romans 1:18 says that sinners suppress the truth and unrighteous hold it down. But what ends up happening is, a mother has natural instincts for this baby, natural desire to bring it to term, a desire to mother it, it’s natural, God put it inside the heart of a mother. Isaiah 49:15 says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?” Answer: Yes, sadly. But God says, even though she may forget, I will never forget you. But it’s unnatural to do that, to suppress it and not care about your children. And so, post-abortive women are 3.9 times more likely to commit suicide because they can’t shake the feeling of guilt. There is a remedy though in the cross of Christ. I almost can’t go on without saying that. There is a remedy, there is grace, there is forgiveness, there is love, but there is trauma also for those that make this decision to do this, and then not just physically, not just psychologically, but spiritually, where does it leave you with God?
Some doctors and nurses that are involved in this have testified to the seared conscience that happens. Initially, it was horrible, they would throw up, they couldn’t eat, they couldn’t sleep. Little by little, it got easier and easier. Easier and easier. And so in 1 Timothy 4, it speaks of a conscience seared as with a hot iron. Apostle Paul said on the flip side, “I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” A seared conscience is a great damage, and what will we do about the sin? If we don’t know Christ, we’ll have to stand accountable before God and be judged for it. Spiritual damage.
We’ve got to speak the truth to society about the personhood of the pre-born, about the blessing of children, and about the damage, the physical damage that abortion does to women. What truth do we have to speak within the church? I could go on about this for a long time, but I wanna just say very quickly, there’s a feeling of lethargy and depression and despair among the church on this issue, like we can’t win. Satan is telling us a lie that we cannot win this, it’s too hard to change, abortion is too entrenched to overthrow so give up. You know why? Because he knows what will happen if we come out and take the field against him. We will win! Somebody say, “Amen, we will win!” If we take the field against him, we will win, and he knows it. So what does he have to do? Prevent us from taking the field. Intimidation, fear, depression, and discouragement, because he knows better than we do the power of our offensive and defensive weapons.
“We’ve got to speak the truth to society about the personhood of the pre-born, about the blessing of children, and about the damage, the physical damage that abortion does to women.”
Our offensive weapons, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world.” No, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments, and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. It’s a demolishment of the mind and of bad ideas and bad thoughts, and we’re gonna win because we have the truth on our side. He knows the power of our offensive weapon, he’s seen what the Word of God can do, and he also knows the power of our defensive weaponry, our shields and our protection, our spiritual armor, Ephesians 6, with which we can extinguish every flaming arrow of the evil one. They just don’t go away, these Christians. They just don’t fall. They stand firm. He knows. And so all he can do with smoke and mirrors is intimidate us to stay home and not fight. Very much like when the 12 spies brought back the report from the promised land, and 10 of them said, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. They’re too big for us.” And God raised up two witnesses, Joshua and Caleb, to say, We can do it by the power of God. We can take this land.
I was gonna talk to you now about William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison, two witnesses, two lampstands that stood up on the issue of slavery. William Wilberforce would not give up; he was a winsome, pleasant, happy, joyful person. The kind of guy you wanted around. His opponent said of him, “You have to watch him because he possesses a sufficient quantity of that enthusiastic spirit, which so far from yielding actually grows stronger with blows. He just enjoys getting hit, he doesn’t go away, he’s like that big block of cork, and we keep pushing him down and he keeps popping up again, he just doesn’t give up.” Forty-seven years he fought, 20 to end the slave trade, 27 more to end slavery itself in the British colonies. Forty-seven years, that was William Wilberforce.
And then there’s William Lloyd Garrison, American abolitionist, journalist. I like Wilberforce’s theology a little bit better than Garrison, but that’s another talk for another day. But I love Garrison’s fire. Through his paper, The Liberator, he poured fire into the consciences of Americans on the issue of slavery and he wouldn’t give up, and this is what he said, “I need to be all on fire for I am surrounded by mountains of ice.” We need to be all on fire on abortion for we’re surrounded by mountains of ice, some of them are in the church. And so you’re going to actually offend some people, if you tell the truth on this. Some people will get upset, some of you may get upset at me for telling the truth today, it’s okay. Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
“We need to be all on fire on abortion for we’re surrounded by mountains of ice, some of them are in the church.”
He was on fire. And this is what he said, “I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.” We need that again, folks. We need that spirit, the joyful persistence of a 47-year marathoner named William Wilberforce, and the fire and conviction of William Lloyd Garrison on slavery. We need it again. And I think God’s gonna do it. I think he’s gonna raise a, I think some of you may be those kind of people. Simply changing the abortion law will not change it, will not do it.
Our minds have been marinating in abortion all this time. Do you realize why women get abortions? Because they’re desperate. They’re desperate. I used to go down to the abortion clinic and I would talk to them and for all of the pro-choice rhetoric, they invariably said, “We have no choice.” And you know why, because abortion is a hopeless act, it’s an act of hopelessness. Well, whose job is it to minister hope in a hopeless situation, if not the church’s? We’re supposed to go and minister hope to people, to show them what God can do even in the most dire circumstances. We have to surround them with love, with economic support, with friendship, with security, with the gospel, that’s what we have to do. It’s not enough just to change the laws.
It brings me to the final lie, and it may be something that Satan is speaking to you even right now. I don’t know what your history, your past is. I don’t know what you’ve done. The lie is, your sin is too great for God to cover it. There can be no forgiveness. That is a lie. It’s a lie. And notice, Satan’s viciousness in this matter. He entices and induces you to sin, and then turns around and convicts you for that very sin he led you to commit. He’s vicious, he’s a killer. And so he pulls on you and pulls on you and pulls on you, and then as soon as you do, he drives you to suicide over it. He’s a killer.
The spirit of abortion is essentially hopeless and anti-grace. It says to the abortionist doctor who’s committed more abortions than he can remember, there’s so much blood in your hands, nothing can remove it, you’re guilty forever, you’ve lost your soul. It says to the pregnant woman with a child conceived out of wedlock, there can be no forgiveness, you might as well abort this baby, because God’s abandoned you, you didn’t do it the right way. It says to a woman who’s already had an abortion, there’s nothing you can do now, you’ve murdered your own baby, and there can be no forgiveness for you. It says to the man who abdicated his responsibility and forced her into it, forced her into it because he didn’t wanna be a man, stand up to his responsibilities, there’s no forgiveness for you, you’re a coward, and you cannot be forgiven. It says to the pastor who’s neglected the issue for a decade or more, out of bad memories and lack of courage and the lack of desire for a hard life, you’ve wasted years and years and may never get it back. There can be no forgiveness for you. It says the same to Christians who don’t care very much about this issue, don’t wanna pray about it or do anything. The spirit of abortion says to the politician who changed his view so he could get elected, there could be no forgiveness for you. It says to the Supreme Court Justice who made decisions and rendered verdicts on partial-birth abortion, that horrible procedure, that there can be no forgiveness for you because of the horror of what you’ve done.
Now, what is the remedy to all of these lies? Is it not the truth? Is it not speaking the truth? I told you in my prayer and I was praying, I said, “God help me do a miracle…”, because in one message, I had to both disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. If you’re comfortable with abortion, I wanted to disturb you today, but if you’re already disturbed, let me tell you something, [Matthew 5:3] “Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. [Psalm 51:17] “A broken and contrite spirit, you will not despise, O God.” Ephesians 1:7, “In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance to the riches of God’s grace.” Not out of his riches, in accordance with the riches, he’s rich. And when he forgives, he forgives A to Z. Isn’t that beautiful? Romans 5:20, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Grace wins. Isn’t that wonderful? In the end, grace wins. Praise God for that. And so we have the invitation, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Sin is a crushing burden, Jesus came to take it off of you, to die under the wrath of God in your place.
IV. APPLICATION
What application do we take? First of all, believe the Bible. Believe that the pre-born is a person, a human person. Get it settled in your mind forever that John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb. Settle it forever. Secondly, reason and persuade. Talk to people. Talk to people. And if you say, I don’t know how to talk. Learn how to talk about this, learn about this and talk to people. Be willing to be counted, to stand up and be counted because you know the laws won’t change until people’s hearts change on this matter, and you all are the messengers, and me too. Cut through the ridiculous political rhetoric that is so illogical, I don’t understand it. Like when Bill Clinton said, “Let’s make abortion safe, legal, funded, and rare.” And rare? What does that mean?
I think there should be just as many plantar warts removed as need to be removed, and if you have a plantar wart, I think you should have it removed. If that’s all it is, it is a mass of cells and it shouldn’t be rare, it should be as often as you need. What is that? It’s a political compromise because he knows some people are uncomfortable with abortion, as well we should be. If it’s truly a person, let’s not have abortion, and if it’s not a person, let’s have as many of them as we need. So cut through that political double-talk. Understand what’s really going on. Tell the truth. Persevere in prayer. Only prayer will change this. Commit yourself to pray for this matter, and action. Be William Wilberforce. Be William Lloyd Garrison. Be on fire. Be patient. Be gentle. Stand firm and don’t give up. Get involved. Radiate hope into a dark situation. Go find somebody who’s got a dark situation.
You will be introduced to women in dark situations. Can you minister to them? Can you bring the hope of Jesus Christ into that dark night? If so, do it. And finally, come to Christ. If you don’t know Jesus, come to Christ. Don’t walk out of this room today without knowing Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you wanna talk to me about this, come and talk to me. If there’s something on your heart, come and talk to me. If you’re already a Christian but you haven’t experienced the forgiveness of God in this area, realize that his grace is sufficient for any sin.
Close with me in prayer. Father, I thank you for the truth of the Word of God, and I thank you for the power of the Word of God. I thank you that you are going to change our country. O God, I pray that you would. I pray for churches across America right now who are finishing their services, people thinking about the messages, thinking about what to do, I pray that the seed will not be snatched up by the devil. I pray rather that we would act in a committed concerted way to see this situation, this law changed, and to see your mercy come alive in every moment of desperation, in every dark night. Father, I pray if there are any here that are feeling guilty and burning right now, God, with a sense of guilt, I pray that your grace would minister now the blood of Jesus Christ. We pray this in your name, Lord. Amen.
