Created And Cherished

How wonderful to hear a child reading Scripture that speaks of the wonder of God creating that child! Here’s what we’re going to learn today: God cherishes what He created.

I was struck by three headlines this past week…

• A false alarm warning of a nuclear missile strike in Hawaii sent people running for their lives. The first thing most parents did was to protect their own children. One picture that gripped me shows a dad forcing his little girl into a sewer to save her life.

• A couple from California has been charged with torture and abuse after holding their 13 children captive in their home. These parents didn’t protect their kids. No child should ever be shackled to a bed with chains and padlocks.

• A Georgia firefighter is being hailed as a hero after catching a child dropped from a burning apartment. A video shows him cradling the girl and then carrying her away in a blanket to safety before collapsing to his knees. Another firefighter at the scene was being praised as well after separately catching a child during the rescue. This is what she said in an interview: “That was the only thing running through my mind...‘Lord, let me catch this baby!’”

In the first story we empathize with the agony of a dad seeking safety for his little girl. In the second story we’re horrified and repulsed that parents could treat their children so terribly. And in the third story, we cheer for firefighters who saved a number of young lives.

I want to sound an alarm today and it’s not a false one because another headline will hit Monday as our country marks the 45th Anniversary of legalized abortion. It’s my prayer that some babies will end up being caught as a result of hearing God’s Word today.

Last April I spoke at the Pregnancy Resources banquet and shared some statistics. It’s important for us to start here.

1. There have been over 1.4 billion abortions performed around the world since 1980.

2. The Chinese government recently admitted that over the last four decades the country of China has aborted 336 million children, many of them forcibly. That’s equal to the combined populations of the United States and Australia.

3. John MacArthur said this in a sermon, “99% percent of all murders in the U.S. are abortions.”

4. The number of American babies killed by abortion each year [around one million] is roughly equal to the combined number of U.S. military deaths that have occurred in all of the wars that the United States has been involved with. The greatest war today is taking place in the womb.

5. Every single day a tragedy greater than 9/11 takes place with over 3,000 abortions every 24 hours.

6. There have been nearly 60 million abortions in the U.S. since 1973. That’s the combined population of 26 states.

Another way to understand the atrocity of abortion is to focus on the fact that statistically there is an abortion performed every 20 seconds in the United States. A couple years ago, I had our tech team play a loud “gong sound” every 20 seconds during the entire service – during announcements, prayers, music and the message without telling anyone what was happening. It was quite disconcerting. Towards the end of the message I explained that this jarring sound was a way to honor a life taken by abortion. Incidentally, during our 75-minute service, statistically speaking, 225 babies will lose their lives.

Have you noticed that abortion advocates are getting bolder? This month a local college featured a “#Abortion is Normal” art show which was part of a month-long campaign of events organized through #ShoutYourAbortion in an effort to normalize abortion. In the promo there were pictures of women of various ages wearing t-shirts with this slogan, “Everyone knows I had an abortion.” Interestingly, this event was organized in part because the Quad Cities no longer has any abortion providers since the recent closing of Planned Parenthood in Bettendorf.

There is some good news, however.

1. According to Lifenews.com, there were 49 abortion clinics that closed their doors in 2017. 77% of all abortion clinics open in 1991 have shut down.

2. Thankfully the annual abortion rate is at its lowest since 1973. But, as World Magazine says, “When we mark finally killing less than a million unborn children in a single year, such a victory seems as tragic as it is sobering.”

3. An increasing number of millennials are pro-life. Students for Life America, best known for its work with college students, now has 604 high school chapters. This group trains teens to engage their peers in conversations about the value of human life and the moral imperative to defend the rights of society’s most vulnerable people. BTW, I spoke in chapel at Quad City Christian on Friday on this topic. Afterwards, one student came up to me and I asked him what he learned. This is what he said, “Abortion isn’t cool.” A young teenage girl said, “I didn’t know babies in the womb have their own DNA.”