Good evening to the blessed of the Lord! Good evening to men and women and young people who are more than conquerors in every situation.
Pro-Life, Pro-Choice
I want to tell you up front that this is not a message about abortion. It’s a message about how we have come to the place of using terms like pro-life and pro-choice. But I want to set the foundation.
In Genesis 4:1 it says “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.”
When Eve conceived, when she got pregnant, as far as God was concerned she was going to have a son.
Look at Genesis 25:23. “And the Lord said unto her (Rebekah), Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowel; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.”
Rebekah had two human beings struggling inside of her. Both of these children would lead to the establishment of nations. Do you see this?
Turn to Judges 13 and look at verse 5: “For lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazareth unto God form the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines.”
God prophesied Samson and what he would do while he was still in the womb. Do you see this? I ask you ladies and gentlemen: whenever a woman gets pregnant do you not think that God has a plan in mind for that child?
Let me remind you that this is not a message about abortion. I’m just laying the foundation for where we are going tonight.
Go to Psalm 139:13. “For thou hast possessed my reins; thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.” Now let’s read it from the Amplified Bible. “For you did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Who is the “You” in this verse? It’s God. Do you see this ladies and gentlemen?
Isaiah 49:1 – “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from afar; The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.”
“From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” When my mom was pregnant with Barry, the Lord knew Barry. Barry not a fetus. Barry was not just tissue in my mother’s womb. He knew Barry’s name. He knew Sean’s name. He knew Cindy’s name. He knew your name when you were in your mother’s womb.
Do you see where we’re going here? When a mother gets pregnant, God knows His plan for that child from the moment the egg is fertilized. God has a plan for that child.
One more. Jeremiah 1:4, 5 – “The the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”
Every person inside a mother’s womb – God has a calling for that person.
How many of you know that the term “pro-life,” when it was first used, had nothing to do with abortion? It was used by some in the early 1960s counterculture, and we now known as Hippies, to criticize aspects of mainstream culture that they considered cruel.
The first documented appearance of “pro-life” is in the book Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, published in 1960. I’m looking at some of the folks in the room. That was a long, long, long, long time ago. ? It’s about Summerhill, an English boarding school, and was written by its headmaster, A. S. Neil.
Neil wrote: “No pro-life parent or teacher would ever strike a child.”
Ladies and gentlemen, that means that my Mom and Dad were not pro-life! (Laughter) And it also means that your mom and dad were also not pro-life. This means that Doris and I are not pro-life. Just ask Stephen. (Laughter) This means that some of you in this room tonight or watching are not pro-life either.
“No pro-life citizen would tolerate our penal code, our hangings, our punishment of homosexuals, our attitude toward bastardy.” In other words, a person who is pro-life will not have a child out of wedlock.
One of the earliest documented uses of “pro-life” as a synonym for opposition to abortion is found in the September 16, 1971 Chicago Tribune article, “Collegians Who Campaign for the Unborn.”
A student group at the University of Minnesota called Save Our Unwanted Life, or SOUL, was simultaneously opposed to both abortion and the Vietnam War. Members of SOUL used the term “pro-life” to argue that adherents of the antiwar left who supported abortion were being hypocritical. In other words, how can you be against the taking of life in war and support the taking of life by abortion?
In the article, a female member of the group said “Young people are being duped on the issue of abortion. They want to be considered ‘liberal’ and they think the thing to do is to be against war and for abortion.
Now listen to what she says, and this was 48 years ago. But the most liberal cause is protecting other people’s lives.
Did you hear what she said? The most liberal cause is protecting other people’s lives. “To be pro-life,” she said, “you have to be for all life.”
Ladies and gentlemen, being pro-life did not originate with conservatives. Did you hear me? Being pro-life is a wholly liberal concept. Liberals were the first ones who talked about being pro-life.
Do you see how the enemy of the soul operates? At one time in this country both liberals and conservatives were in agreement about the value of human life in the mother’s womb. Isn’t that something?
Just 50 years ago, those who called themselves liberals and those who called themselves conservatives were on the same page when it came to valuing life in a mother’s womb.
Again, let me remind you. This is not a message about abortion. It’s a message about how we came to the place of using pro-life and pro-choice the way we use them today.
Despite the hippie origins of “pro-life,” the term still resonated with more culturally conservative members of the anti-abortion movement.
The word “life” appeared in the names of several anti-abortion organizations of the pre-Roe v. Wade era, including the Right to Life League, which was founded in California in 1967, and the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which was founded in 1968.
By calling themselves “pro-life,” opponents of abortion could claim that they were not against anything but rather for life.
By contrast, the word “pro-choice” was not documented until 1974, a year after the Roe v. Wade decision. Proponents of abortion rights gradually adopted the term “pro-choice” because, now listen to me, they didn’t want to be characterized by their opponents as “pro-death” or “anti-life.” In 1975, a reader wrote to Newsweek magazine “Those of us who support abortion are not ‘anti-life’; we are ‘pro-choice’.”
Ladies and gentlemen, it took Satan roughly 15 years to change the conversation from “life” to “choice.” Do you hear me? Fifteen years to get people focused on “choice” rather than “life.” And in the context of abortion, choice, more often than not, means being “pro-death” for the unborn child.
Do you hear me? Choice usually means “pro-death” for the unborn child.
Now I already know I’ve made some folks upset. But the Bible is clear about how God views life in the mother’s womb. The Bible is clear.
Let’s continue.
Framing the abortion debate as a contest between “life” and “choice” without the “pro” prefix dates back to a December 1972 memo by Jimmye Kimmey, executive director of the Association for the Study of Abortion.
Ms. Kimmey writes “The alternatives seem to be Freedom of Conscience and Right to Choose. I hope someone can clearly think of a better one but, in the meantime, let me say why I think the latter preferable. There are two reasons – the first is superficial, the second, less so:
? First, “Right to Life” is short, catchy, and is composed of monosyllable words (an important consideration in English). We need something comparable – “Right to Choose” would seem to do the job.
? Second, more important, though, is the fact that conscience is an internal matter while choice has to do with action – and it is action we are concerned with.
She says “A woman’s conscience may well tell her abortion is wrong”
If a woman’s conscience is telling her abortion is wrong, that woman is born again. She has the life and nature of God on the inside.
“A woman’s conscience may well tell her abortion is wrong, but she may choose (and must have the right to choose) to have one anyway for compelling practical reasons.”
“A woman’s conscience may tell her that abortion is right”
This woman is not saved, ladies and gentlemen. But Bro. Barry, how do you know? You don’t know what’s in her heart. But I do know what the Bible says. Remember what I said about the woman who has a conscious?
Turn to Romans 2. We’re going to read verses 13 through 15.
(13) (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
(14) For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
When you have the nature of God on the inside of you, you don’t need someone to tell you that stealing is wrong. You don’t need someone to tell you that sleeping with someone else’s wife is wrong. You already know.
(15) Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or excusing one another;)
Your new nature, that life that is just like the life that God has, will either tell you something is okay or not okay – not at the action stage but at the thought stage! You will be convicted while you are thinking about it.
Now look at 1 Corinthians 2:14 – “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: (Stop. Why? The natural man is not born again. The natural man will say that it’s okay for me to do this when the Bible says you can’t.) for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
Back to the article.
“A woman’s conscience may tell her that abortion is right, but she may choose to run the risk of having a defective baby anyway.” Notice how Kimmey frames the decision to have an abortion. It’s because the baby is defective. I have a question: Who is qualified to determine whether or not a baby defective?
Is a baby with Down’s syndrome defective? Now listen to me: the answer depends on who is making the decision. If we allow God to make the decision, then the answer is a resounding “No!”
Here’s my point: when Kimmey says this, she opens the door for any kind of justification when it comes to making a decision about abortion.
Now, finishing up.
“What we are concerned with is, to repeat, the woman’s right to choose – not with her right (or anyone else’s right) to make a judgment about whether that choice is morally licit (morally lawful).”
Do you hear what she is saying? We’re going to take the morality question out of the equation.
When Kimmey wrote this article, abortion was illegal in the U.S. But she was not referring to the laws of the land. No, she is clearly addressing the morality of abortion. She says no one, not even God Himself, has a right to tell a woman that having an abortion is morally wrong.
And ladies and gentlemen, this is where we are 47 years later. Abortion is not seen as a moral issue but a choice issue.
So, here we are 47 years later, when it comes to the topic of abortion, the conversation is skewed toward the woman’s right to choose. Whether or not abortion is moral, is not a consideration for most of society.
Ladies and gentlemen, the enemy of the soul, Satan, has accomplished one of the biggest deceptions the world has ever seen. When we take morality out of the decisions we make, when we take what the Bible says out of the decisions we make, then we will make decisions that have the most benefit for us.
And what is really sad about all of this is that for many Christians, the woman’s choice is the first consideration. They have bought into Satan’s lie just like the world. They have allowed the world to determine how they view the abortion debate.
(Kimmey’s article is part of Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel’s collection, Before Roe v Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling.)
So, why did I read this? I wanted you to see that over the years, Satan, like an expert craftsman, has been successful in framing the conversation about issues like this for the Church.
Instead of talking about pro-life and pro-choice, I also could have talked about how society’s belief that same-sex unions are no different than God-ordained marriage is starting to filter into the Church. Again, society is determining how the Church thinks rather than the Church determining how society should think.
And do you know what’s so terribly sad? When this topic comes up, many in the Church are silent. Why are they silent? They are silent because they want to maintain their relationships or they simply refuse to accept what the Bible says.
In the very first book of the Bible and the very first chapter of the first book in the Bible, we read the following in verse 27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Now look at verse 28. “And God blessed them.” God blessed who? The male and the female.
“And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply.” Who did God tell to be fruitful and multiply? The male and the female.
What does that tell you ladies and gentlemen? Male and male, female and female – they cannot be fruitful and they cannot multiply unless they pull out their calculators and key in 4 times 4 equals 16. That’s how they can multiply.
Now look at verses 24 and 25 of chapter 2. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they (Adam and Eve) were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.”
From the very beginning, God did not make a single man and a single woman. From the very beginning, God made a husband and a wife.
I’ve also given you some addition scriptures: Genesis 6:19, 7:2, 3, 9, and 16. These are references to the instruction the Lord gave Noah about the animals to bring into the ark. The Lord tells him to bring in male and female and in a couple of verses – the male and his female.
Instead of focusing on how Satan has influenced our thinking about pro-life, pro-choice and same sex unions, I also could have talked about what I believe is one of the most disheartening things happening in our country today. Gender dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria occurs when there is conflict, in the person’s mind, with his or her assigned gender and the gender in which he or she identifies.
This has led to an assault on common sense.
? When you have a male who identify as a female and wants to use the female restroom, that’s a problem.
? When you have a male who identifies as a female competing against other females in a sport, that’s a problem.
Now what I’m about to say may not be popular with some women. When a man competes against a woman in the same athletic event, 9 times out of 10 he is going to smoke her. He is going to beat her.
That’s not anything derogatory toward women. It’s simply how our bodies are designed, how they are built. And here you have men who say I’m a girl and I should compete with the girls. That’s not competition ladies and gentlemen.
Instead of focusing on pro-life and pro-choice, same sex unions and gender dysphoria, I also could have talked about the absolute absurdity that’s taking place in some schools in our country.
? You have schools that have introduced policies that allow them to disciple and even fire teachers who don’t call transgender students by their preferred name or pronoun.
I am not kidding you, ladies and gentlemen. They are firing people for using common sense. Did we not read earlier where the Bible says God made man male and female? Either the Bible is true or it’s a lie!
Instead of focusing on pro-life and pro-choice, same sex unions, and gender dysphoria, I also could have talked about the socialist concept of “Universal Basic Income.”
? Stockton, CA – and I am not getting in to politics but it’s a city whose mayor is a Democrat – is giving 100 residents $500 per month for 18 months, no strings attached. You don’t have to work for it.
? Oakland, CA, which also has Democrat leadership, is giving residents “monthly stipends” with no strings attached. Again, the recipients don’t have to do anything to receive it.
? Detroit, another Democrat run city, is also considering it.
? Universal Basic Income proponents say everyone is entitled to a minimum income and that the government should provide it.
? Now see, for all us who grew up working, earning money to pay our rent, our utility bills, and to buy groceries – such an idea should be repulsive to us.
I don’t have to tell yo what the Bible says about this ladies and gentlemen. If you don’t work you don’t eat. That’s one. Proverbs 6:1-11. Just read a it. Go the ant you sluggard and learn from him.
And many in the Body of Christ have bought into this non-Biblical thinking. And it shouldn’t be that way.
? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat congresswoman from New York, has introduced in Congress the “Green New Deal.” The proposal guarantees universal health care and guarantees economic security for all who are unable to work – and this is what got my attention ladies and gentlemen – It also guarantees income for people who are unwilling to work.
She is saying that even if you don’t want to work, the government is going to make sure that you have some money in your pocket. Ask my son Stephen if that worked in our home when he was growing up? Ask him if he got an allowance without doing his chores. (My son says loud enough for people to hear “Nope.”)
Did it work in your home with you Mom and Dad? No. Can you imagine the people, who are dead now, and had to live through the Great Depression hearing such nonsense? That’s unheard of. You work for a living . You earned your keep. You don’t have your keep given to you. Oh my God!
Okay, Bro. Barry, what should be our response when we read or hear about these things?
Turn to John 14 and we’re going to read verses 1 and 27.
(1) Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
(27) Peace I leave with you, my peace give I unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Remember this world is not our home. We are passing through it but what we want to do as much as we possibly can is reach those who are in the world with what the gospel.
Turn to Ephesians 4 and this one is very important ladies and gentlemen. If you think long and hard about what you hear and see, you can become angry and that’s why verse 32 says “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
The standard – you forgive the way God forgave you. That’s the standard.
Let’s continue with verse one of chapter 5. “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.”
Philippians 4:6-8 – a passage you’re very familiar with.
(6) Be careful for nothing: but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
(7) And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
(8) Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
You don’t let all of the stuff going on in the world. You think on these things. You think what the Bible says you are to think.
Finally, Colossians 3:14-15.
(14) And above all these things put on charity (put on love which rises up out of your new nature), which is the bond of perfectness.
(15) And let (and let, and let, and let) the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which ye are also called in one body; and be ye thankful.
(16) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
This is how we respond ladies and gentlemen. We respond by loving those who are doing these things. And we respond by taking care of our relationship with Jesus. And we keep our minds sharp by thinking the way the Bible says we are to think.
The purpose of the message was to show how we, the body of Christ, have allowed the world to oftentimes dictate how we think about things. The Bible says we are to be established on the foundations of scripture. We are to weigh everything against the standard of scripture. The Bible is right and it doesn’t matter what anyone says
Everyone please stand.
