What Leads to Abortion?

January 22 marked the 49th anniversary of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision that overturned limitations on abortion in almost every state. Since that time, about 60 million unborn children have been aborted in this country.

Three years after that decision, I was a 20-year-old junior at Davidson. I professed Christ, but thought I knew better than Scripture what was right and what was wrong. I had been in a relationship for more than a year with a young woman – let’s call her Susan. We were involved sexually –that was one area where I thought my moral judgment was superior to Scripture. But I thought – if we are involved this way, we should be responsible and make plans for what we would do should she become pregnant. So I told her: Should that happen, we can get an abortion in Charlotte.

Susan said something like: “I don’t want to get pregnant. We’ll be careful so there’s little likelihood that I’ll get pregnant. But should that happen- I want to keep our baby.”

She said: “Our baby.”

I had thought of the possible pregnancy as

  • inconvenient,
  • unsettling,
  • a distraction from our plans,
  • a problem we would have to deal with.

And Susan said: “Our baby.”

She rightly saw that possible pregnancy as the beginning of a life – the life of our child. I, that potential child’s father, had planned to do away with him or her. That is: had planned to kill him or her. If – as Jesus says – a man who lusts after a woman has already committed adultery (Matthew 5:27-28), surely the man who would have advocated abortion, who planned to pay for an abortion, is already guilty of it. I am guilty.

I’m sad to say that that sobering moment in 1976 did not lead to an immediate change in my actions or in my attitude. But her statement did plant a seed that eventually sprouted and grew to a horror over abortion.

I tell that story to make clear: I’m guilty of this evil. If you have had an abortion or if you have advocated for an abortion, I share your guilt. Indeed, the message of this sermon is: All of us are guilty of what leads to abortion. The same factors that influence mothers to abort their children, the same factors that lead fathers to want their children aborted, influence all of us, tempt all of us to assert our autonomy and reject the God of the universe.

We guilty sinners have only one hope. And that one hope is a merciful and gracious God Who sent His Son to die for guilty sinners like us so that we might believe in Him and so be saved. We need to believe this Gospel. And we need the light of God’s Word to shine its truth on us, clarifying our thoughts, laying bare the lies, the falsehoods that lead us down the path to destruction. I pray that God would do that now, even in this sermon.

Three headings today:

  • Abortion Kills a Person
  • What Leads to Abortion?
  • What Does God Say?

Abortion Kills a Person

For many years abortion advocates argued that the fetus (and of course they deliberately use that technical-sounding term Instead of “baby” or “child” or “infant” – words matter) is just a lump of tissue, part of the mother’s body, and thus has no more moral standing than your appendix. Such statements are less prevalent now, in part because of the advances in ultrasound technology – we now can see these little ones only a handful of weeks after conception.

But thousands of years before ultrasounds, God made clear in His revelation: That “fetus” is a person, is a human baby. We’ll note three ways He does that this morning (we could add more).

First: Scripture uses the same word for children before and after birth.

As noted, those who advocate abortion consciously use “fetus” to distinguish that supposed lump of tissue from a baby. The authors of Scripture – and thus God Himself – use the same word in both Hebrew and Greek. Check it out. Genesis 25:22 refers to Jacob and Esau in the womb by the same Hebrew word used for Moses after he is born in Exodus 2:2. In the New Testament, Luke 1:41 refers to John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb by the same word used of Jesus after He is born in the next chapter (Luke 2:12).

Second: John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb.

That’s what the angel Gabriel says (Luke 1:15). Your appendix cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit. A lump of tissue cannot respond to the presence of the incarnate Son of God (also in utero) as the unborn John the Baptist does in Luke 1:41.

Third: David – and all of us – were sinners the moment we were conceived.

David writes, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5 ESV). Or, as the NET renders that verse: “Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.” As the Apostle Paul teaches in Romans 5, sin entered the world through Adam, and all of us inherit that sin, then add to it. An appendix cannot be a sinner.

So, yes: Unborn children are human persons. Scripture makes that clear. Abortion kills a person.

What leads to abortion?

Listen to the following statements. Do they sound familiar?

  • “My body is mine – I can do what I want with it!”
  • “As long as I’m not hurting someone else, who are you to tell me what is right and wrong?”
  • “I know who I am. Only I can know who I am. I know what I need to do to fulfill who I am.”

These are all claims to autonomy, to independence, to self-sovereignty. Though people rarely refer explicitly to God in such statements, implicitly they are saying, “My body is mine, not God’s;” “God can’t tell me what is right and wrong;” “God can’t tell me who I am, what I need to do to fulfill who I am.”

You can see how such attitudes lead to abortion:

  • “My uterus is part of my body – I can do what I want with it.”
  • “This fetus is part of my body – I know it’s right to get rid of it.”
  • “I know that having a baby now would not fulfill my identity, so I will do away with it”

Some who make statements like these then proceed with abortions, apparently with no qualms. Some are even proud of their abortions. Others go into abortion with many qualms and misgivings, thinking, “I’m trapped – all options are terrible, all seem bad – but abortion seems the least bad.” Or, someone with a church background who in the past has thought abortion to be wrong might think, “I can’t follow what God says because it’s too hard, too painful, too disruptive.” While even others are more like my 20-year-old self, not pondering the issue at all, just assuming abortion to be the responsible, right action.

But, you see, both those with qualms and those who are unthinking are, like those with no qualms, rejecting God’s sovereignty and asserting their autonomy. They are acting as if there is no God ruling over them, as if they are not created, contingent beings.

This attitude leads to abortion. This attitude leads to almost every sin. It’s often unstated. It’s often not even conscious. But when we reject what God says and choose our own path, we say by our actions, “You do not rule me, God. I rule myself.”

What Does God Say?

We could look at many specific statements from Scripture to combat this attitude. In a bit, we will look at a few. But the primary, most powerful argument against this attitude, comes from the overarching story of the Bible. Here’s a summary:

God created mankind for a purpose: To glorify Him by trusting Him, depending on Him, and enjoying Him forever. But the first man and the first woman rejected that purpose by asserting their autonomy. They acted as if they knew better than God what was in their own interest. So believing Satan’s lie, they rebelled against God. All of us since then, throughout history, are infected with that rebellion.

God would have been just, He would have been righteous to destroy all humanity after that initial rebellion. Instead, He instituted a plan – a plan to create a new, redeemed, perfected humanity that would fulfill His purpose.

He promised that a descendant of the first woman would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15). Later He chose one man, Abram, out of this rebellious world, and promised that through his descendant God would bless all the families of the nations (Genesis 12:1-3). Although his descendants, the Hebrews, are rebellious themselves century after century, od continues to carry out His plan faithfully. He shows them that sin and rebellion necessitate a death if justice is to be done. Eventually from His people He raises up a king, David, and promises that this man’s descendant will rule over an eternal kingdom of righteousness and peace (2 Samuel 7:12-16, Isaiah 9:6-7). Indeed, He promises that a suffering servant will take on himself the just punishment for the people’s rebellion (Isaiah 53:4-6).

The people clearly show that they cannot fix themselves. God’s plan, God’s action alone can fulfill His purpose for humanity. They are dependent. He is sovereign.

So, at exactly the right time, God sent His Son Jesus into the world. He alone of all those born to women was not infected with sin from conception. He alone of all humanity loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength every minute of every day. He alone of all humanity loved every person He encountered as He loved Himself. Thus He alone of all humanity did not deserve to die for His own sins.

Fulfilling God’s plan, rebellious humans then killed Him, nailing Him to the cross. Through that act, God fulfilled the promise of a suffering servant dying for the sins of His people. God then raised Him from the dead, exalting Him to His right hand, where He reigns until He returns to crush Satan’s head and to conquer all rebels, establishing His promised eternal kingdom. God then sent His Holy Spirit to open the eyes of rebels, to bring us to faith in Jesus, and to empower us to go to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to speak this Gospel. God thereby is fulfilling His promise to Abram that some from every people group will believe. We see that great fulfillment in Revelation 7:9-12.

That’s the story of the Bible.

It’s not the existentialist story of courageous men and women looking inside themselves, deciding who they are, and boldly striking out on their own to fulfill their purpose.

It’s a story:

  • of man’s inability and God’s ability,
  • of man’s evil and God’s goodness,
  • of our moral darkness, and God’s moral light,
  • of man’s repeated failures, and God’s continual faithfulness,
  • of man’s dependence on God for anything good and God’s grace in showering us with undeserved goodness.

That overarching story shows clearly that the lies that lead to abortion and other sins are indeed lies. Only God can tell us what is right and wrong. Only God can tell us how to fulfill our purpose. We do not belong to ourselves. We belong to Him by right of creation – He made us for Himself – and by right of redemption – He gives us life when our rebellion deserves death.

Although we can draw those conclusions from the overarching story of the Bible, as promised, now let’s look at some specific texts that counter the three primary lies mentioned above. Having seen the big story, the specific statements become that much more powerful.

First Lie: “My body is my own.”

The Word: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,  for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Your body is not your own. Your body belongs to God.

Second Lie: “Only I can decide what is right and wrong for me.”

The Word: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The Hebrews word translated “heart” refers not only to desires, but to the entire inner self, including the mind. This verse tells us that we cannot think straight. Our moral sense fails, again and again and again. We rationalize and justify all sorts of evil. The story of the Bible brings this out hundreds of times. Thus Proverbs 28:26: “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered [by God].” (The word translated “mind” in this verse is the same word translated “heart” in Jeremiah 17:9). Similarly Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Think of walking along a trail and coming to a fork. The trail to the right looks easy, while the trail to the left looks exceptionally challenging. The trail to the right seems better – but God tells you what you can’t know on your own: There is great danger around the corner of the supposedly easier trail. Will you believe Him?

Third Lie: “Only I can forge my identity. God’s way would hinder me from becoming who I really am.”

The Word: Isaiah 48:17: “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go” (emphasis added). He has to teach us to profit, to teach us what will be to our good. Indeed, that’s why He gives us commandments: Deuteronomy 10:13 (NET):  “Keep the Lord’s commandments and statutes that I am giving you today for your own good” (emphasis added). His commandments are not arbitrary. Nor are they simply His preferences, for His good. His way, His road, is the road to life – as Isaiah 55:1-3 tells us:

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live (emphasis added).

Far from hindering you from becoming who you really are, God’s way is the way to true life, to true joy, to true fulfillment.

So we’ve seen both from the overarching story of the Bible and from specific texts that the attitudes that lead to abortion and other sins are all lies. They are falsehoods. They lead in the end to sorrow, to failure, to death, to destruction.

Instead of such arrogant, rebellious attitudes, Scripture tells us:

  • Come to God as little children;
  • Submit to His wisdom, His strength;
  • Delight in your dependence on Him.

As Jesus says in Matthew 18:3: “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” So the Psalmist writes:

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore (Psalm 131).

When we become like children, we come to God acknowledging that we don’t know what is best for us. My three-year-old grandson Simon apart from his parents’ intervention would eat nothing but fruit. Similarly my 7-month-old grandson Shepherd would gobble up watermelon, even though it gives him hives. They need loving guidance; they need restrictions; so do we all. God graciously gives us such guidance in His Word – through its overall story and through specific texts.

Conclusion

As you know, the Supreme Court is considering a case that could overturn Roe v Wade. I pray that that happens. But while that would reduce dramatically the number of abortions in many states, abortions would continue – and would probably increase – in other states. And all the other sins that flow out of the attitudes that lead to abortion would continue as before.

Our hope is not in a Supreme Court decision. Our hope is in God – in His mercy, in His grace, in the power of the Gospel through the Holy Spirit. So I ask you:

  • Have you had an abortion?
  • Have you advised someone else to have an abortion?
  • Would you – like me – have argued for abortion or had an abortion in case of an unplanned pregnancy?

Confess that to God – and to a strong Christian. Jesus died to take on Himself the punishment for that sin – if you throw yourself on God’s mercy. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). You can be clean before a holy and righteous God. Confess. Trust Him. A broken and contrite heart He will not despise (Psalm 51:17).

And I ask you:

  • How has this cultural obsession with autonomy affected you?
  • How have these same attitudes led you into sins other than abortion?

The exhortation to you is the same: Confess. Repent. Throw yourself on God’s mercy. Identify those wrong attitudes – those wrong attitudes that bombard us every day in this culture. Turn from them. Become like a child before God, basking in His love, crying out to Him in your pain, submitting to His wise counsel. Come to the Father through the sacrifice of the Son by the power of the Spirit. God redeems rebels:

  • Rebels who acknowledge they are children before God
  • Rebels who acknowledge they are dependent on God
  • Rebels who know that true life is found only in Jesus.

I’m a sinner. From the moment I was conceived I have been a rebel. So please join this rebel. Come to God. And know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Bruised and broken by the fall;
If you tarry ’til you’re better,
You will never come at all.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him. (Joseph Hart, 1759)

[This sermon was preached January 23, 2022. The audio is available here.]

Where is Your Confidence?

[As we contemplate this Sunday whether or not God needs us, consider this devotion on Jeremiah 17, edited from the original version written in 2011.]

Where is your confidence? Where do you find hope? Where do you find security?

Consider Israel in Jeremiah’s day. The prophet has said time and again that judgment is coming upon the nation. No one, however, pays attention to his warnings. The political and religious leaders do not want to believe in a God who would exercise judgment on His chosen people, and they look to military strength and their foreign allies for protection. So, echoing Psalm 1, Jeremiah writes:

Jeremiah 17:5-9: Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD.  6 He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.  7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.  8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”  9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Who can understand a heart that voluntarily turns away from the only source of true security, from the only source of true sustenance? What tree would send its roots away from a nearby water source instead of towards it? Yet that is what the people of Israel were doing.

And the lesson holds for us. If we abandon the source of all good, no matter how wealthy or powerful or successful we become, we have no security. We have no true accomplishment, for we will never become what we were created to be or do what we could have done by His power. Indeed, we can only expect loss. But the one whose heart is changed so that God alone IS his confidence will be fruitful always (there is wordplay in the Hebrew text of verse 7 to emphasize this point – we might capture that partially through this translation: “Blessed is the man who is confident in The One Who is; the One Who Is is his confidence”). For to know the source of all being is to be certain of becoming what you are intended to be.

Jeremiah continues a few verses later:

Jeremiah 17:13-14  O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.  14 Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.

There is only one way to quench our deepest thirst, and that is through the water fountain that is the Lord. There is only one source of healing, only one source of rescue, only one sources of strength: and that is God Himself – so if we turn away from Him, if we praise and depend on anything else, we will lose everything we think we are gaining, and thus will be put to shame. But if we instead come to Him for healing – if we cry out to Him for salvation, looking only to His offer of Christ for our confidence and joy – then we shall be truly healed. Then we shall be truly saved. Then we shall fulfill His great purposes for us, His people.

Father, it only makes sense to have confidence in you, the source and the generator of all life, of all goodness. Wean us from what leads us astray, all these false sources of joy and fulfillment and strength, so that you indeed might be our confidence, our sustenance, our power, and our joy.

The Joyful, Obedient Family of God

In Mark 3, Jesus has become the center of public attention. Thousands are coming to Him, following Him wherever He goes, even to the point that He could find no opportunity to eat (Mark 3:31). Mary and Jesus’ brothers hear of this, and are concerned: Is Jesus out of His mind? How can He not even be taking care of Himself? (Mark 3:32). They go to Him in order to intervene.

When they arrive, they send a message to Jesus while He is teaching the crowd. When word reaches Him, the crowd expects Him to go see His family. But He responds:

“Who are my mother and my brothers?”  And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:33-35)

That is: “Those who are closest to Me are not My blood relatives. Those who are closest to Me are those who follow God, those who obey Him with joy, trusting the heavenly Father to guide them in His good and perfect ways. Such people are my intimate family.”

Yet in our natural state we rebel against the good and loving commands of our God. As Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” So we rightly sing, “Prone to wander – Lord I feel it! – prone to leave the God I love.” Thus God put reminders of His commands into the everyday life of the people of Israel. For example: After the people rebel at the edge of the Promised Land, refusing to enter in for fear of giants (Numbers 14), God tells them to wear tassels on each corner of their garments so that they will remember His commandments “to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after” (Numbers 15:39). And why is obedience important? Because He is their God; He brought them out of Egypt to be their God; they are to be holy, set apart for their God (Numbers 15:40-41).

Just so with us today. God brings us out of rebellion, out of slavery to sin, out of our own Egypts. He rescues us – not so that we, freed from slavery to sin, can be free to follow after our own heart and our own eyes. No. To follow after our own heart is to be enslaved once again to sin. Our desperately sick and deceitful heart makes us believe we are freely pursuing our own good, but that way that seems right to us leads only to death and destruction (Proverbs 14:12).

God plans something much better for those whom He rescues from slavery. He brings us to Himself. He adopts us into His family. He calls us to be set apart for Him. And He tells us what that means in this world by giving us commandments for our good (Deuteronomy 10:13).

So obedience is characteristic of those in God’s family. Loved by Him, chosen by Him, empowered by Him to obey, we respond with loving, joyful obedience to His commands that are for our good.

Yet what happens when we fail? What happens when we disobey? What happens when that desperately sick, deceitful heart leads us again in a wrong direction? If we don’t obey God’s commands, are we kicked out of the family?

Jesus Himself provides the solution. As in good human families, God the Father never leaves or forsakes the children who are His. As the Apostle John writes, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin” (1 John 2:1). That is, we’re part of the family. We are to be obedient to our loving Father. To sin is to deny Who He is and what He has done for us. “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.  He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2). In His family, the penalty for sin is paid. Jesus took the just punishment on Himself for the sins of those in the family. Yet this is not an excuse to sin: “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

So Jesus invites us – He invites you! – to be part of the joyful, obedient family of God. To do this, we must recognize our sinful, deceitful hearts, and acknowledge that apart from God’s loving guidance we will go astray, we will rebel, we will wander, to our own harm.  But in the family of God, we are loved; we are cherished; we are forgiven by the blood of Christ. So, set apart for Him, we live lives worthy of our calling, knowing that through us(!) “all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Numbers 14:21).